Against a fatal confusion: Spinoza,climate crisis and the weave of the world

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I take up the theme of Spinoza's ars vivendi in relation to its temporality; duration as the very rhythm of life. In the face of an intensifying climate crisis, our experience of the rhythm of life in the everyday and its implications for the deep time of climate futures seem increasingly out of joint. Building on Morfino's argument of the necessary relationship between ontology and history, I explore the connections between the rhythm of life and our (Western) comprehension of the climate crisis. This framing provides insights into a fatal confusion. This confusion is fueled by the chrono-topography of the modern capitalist city, its intensification of a perceived separation of daily life from bioenergetic processes; and it is amplified in object-oriented ontology, which, in its treatment of climate as a hyperobject, both accepts and reifies a split between ontology and history. I argue, in contrast, that to think of the world as multi-relational and multi-temporal provides us with tools to assess the politics of the multitude in relation to the climate crisis, to better comprehend the complexity of the conjuncture and the schematization of divergent climate futures, and to fashion a responsive and response-able ars vivendi.     

Financial order and world politics: crisis, change and continuity

Many insist that the world economy today is in the grip of the most severe financial crisis since 1931. Although the origins of this crisis are in dispute, the extent and scale of the changes prompted by it are becoming clear. Among these changes are a recalibration of the relationship between public and private authority, a reconfiguration of the regulatory responsibilities and capacities of the state with respect to the financial system, and a rebalancing of relations of power among states. While the financial crisis has generated points of stress along all of these axes of change, we should be wary of expecting an entirely new global financial order to emerge from the carnage. The complex links between financial order and world politics suggest that this financial crisis will result in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary transformation in the world's financial order.     

去墨西哥国家人类学博物馆解析2012玛雅预言

<正>对于美洲大陆古印第安人所曾经拥有的辉煌国度和璀璨文明历史一直非常向往,尤其是神乎其神的玛雅文明以及传说已久的2012年预言。如今有机会在"世界毁灭"之前来到墨西哥旅游,并有机会在墨西哥城的国家人类学博物馆泡上一天,     

Assembling an Anthropological Actor: Anthropological Assemblage and Colonial Government in Papua

This paper traces the networks through which particular practices of collecting cultures became imbricated in new relations governing colonial populations. It investigates the socio-technical arrangements associated with “practical anthropology” as they were enrolled in the Australian administered territory of Papua. The paper follows the assemblage of a new kind of anthropological actor: one which is framed in relation to new articulations of the administrative, academic and museum networks associated with a programme of “scientific administration” and the doctrine of “humanitarian colonialism”. In particular, it focuses on the office of the Government Anthropologist and the ways in which “native culture” emerged as an administrative surface.     

Planning education in a globalized world

Five aspects of planning education at the turn of the century are discussed in this comment on Leonie Sandercock's well argued paper. The dominance of English as lingua franca and the advance of the Anglo‐American approach to planning education in a globalizing world are seen as facts which give long standing regional traditions in other cultures little chance to transfer their experience and knowledge to the English speaking planning world. Despite global convergence in planning and planning education the adaptation to regional characteristics is still essential to move from knowledge to action in urban and regional development. Training students to develop creative competence is considered as a crucial and indispensable component in planning education. However, returning to physical planning and urban design as taught in many European schools, is considered to be deadly for the future of planning schools in Europe. This danger and the never‐ending departmental disputes among planners coming from different academic backgrounds about planning education makes planning educators the most dangerous enemies of forward looking planning education. This brief comment to Leonie Sandercock's inspiring paper is written with an optimistic outlook. The optimism is based on a scenario of two quite different concepts of planning education: a global, more theoretical concept aiming at advancing knowledge in the field, and a regional, more professional one which strives for better local and regional life spaces in a globalizing world, dominated by global markets and a global value system.     

Towards a Political Theology of Vulnerability Anthropological and Theological Propositions

Abstract

Recent experiences of terror, violence, and catastrophe, such as the terror attacks in Norway in 2011 or the Peshawar School Massacre leaving 132 children and nine staff dead on December 16, 2014, strengthen the sense of the fundamental vulnerability in human existence. In this article, it is argued that political theology, in responding to such experiences, should aim at perceiving and protecting vulnerability as a value. For this purpose, basic propositions for a theological anthropology of vulnerability are put forward. Likewise, propositions for interpreting God as vulnerable are presented, criticizing the traditional theistic concept of God as immutable and hence unable to suffer. The relevance of these propositions for political theology is finally addressed.     

Anthropological Hermeneutics and Indian Religion

Burghart, Richard, and Audrey Cantlie, eds. Indian Religion. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. xi + 258 pp. including chapter references. $27.50 cloth.

Marglin, Frédérique Apffel. Wives of the God‐King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985. xv + 388 pp. including plates, bibliography, glossary, and index. $29.95 cloth.     

花厅墓地的人类学考察

把花厅墓地随葬的陶器划分为大汶口式、良渚式、薛家岗式和大汶口-良渚式、大汶口-薛家岗式,把玉器划分为良渚式、花厅式和融合式。根据随葬品的文化属性推测该花厅居民有大汶口人、良渚人和薛家岗人,大汶口人接受了良渚人的玉文化,良渚人和薛家岗人接受了大汶口的重要丧葬习俗。随着良渚人进入花厅,花厅由原来的富人和平民两个阶层分裂为贵族、富人和平民三个阶层,并使花厅由简单社会向复杂社会变化。三个不同考古学文化的先民在花厅共生共存,创造了面貌较为复杂和多样的考古学文化。     

Teaching Indigenous geography in a neo-colonial world

Australian universities are increasingly embedding Indigenous content and perspectives within curriculum to promote Indigenous cultural competency. We present teaching challenges in an Indigenous geography course designed to present an engaged, intercultural learning experience. We critically reflect on student evaluations, informal discussions and observations to complement scholarly debates. Course design and delivery was seen as stimulating and illuminating in terms of course content. While diversity of student cohorts, backgrounds and learning styles remain challenging, the romanticism of some students can override critical engagement with the geographical context of the course material and their positionality. There remains a tendency in both student constructions and the geographical literature to create an Indigenous/non-Indigenous binary that not only essentializes both, but can be culturally unsafe for Indigenous students. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students may share a sense of pessimism in confronting apparently unstoppable development and environmental destruction. We argue for scholarship around the fundamentally intercultural nature of coexistence to contextualize the spatial diversity of Indigenous lives in landscapes, currently obscured by dominant constructions of Indigeneity. Critical reflection on settler educators’ and learners’ positionalities with respect to neocolonial structures will help to transcend both essentialism and pessimism.     

Women following fish in a more-than-human world

Drawing on ethnographic and interview research conducted in Scotland, South Australia and New South Wales, Australia, I attempt to frame the cultural, social and geographical networks created by the people who follow fish (primarily commercial fishers). My account is constructed through a ‘self-conscious storying’ (Whatmore 2008) deployed by geographers working in a more-than-human perspective. Although I find much to inspire from this approach, throughout this article the question that nags at me is how to account for women within a materialist more-than-human framework, and how to articulate a feminist politics within this epistemological and methodological space. I try to avoid admonitions about what should be done and to advance or to model an embodied glimpse of what such a politics might be.     

Embodied bicycle commuters in a car world

As an initiative to increase cycling, bike to work (BTW) events emphasize a pragmatic approach in which people learn through sensory experience. Pragmatism contends that the lived experience of the commuter within fluid geographies of social and physical conditions informs commuting knowledge and behavior. I researched how bicyclists participate in the 2012 BTW event in Lake Tahoe (USA) and how these experiences facilitate the process of becoming bicycle commuters. My study included participant observations, interviews, video observations, and route mapping. I analyzed this data with thematic and narrative analyses. I find that the BTW event illuminates bicycling, a normally invisible practice in a car world, and creates temporary bicycle-friendly spaces that provide the embodied experience and knowledge of bicycle commuting within context. Through this lived experience, participants can break free from unconscious car-based patterns and become embodied bicycle commuters who engage in active renegotiations of their commuting practices.     

Local consumption cultures in a globalizing world

Focusing on the resilience of distinctive local consumption cultures, this paper challenges some of the more sweeping claims that have been advanced in the name of 'globalization'. Thinking about a 'globalizing' rather than a fully 'globalized' world encourages us to examine the deeply contested nature of the concept and to explore the geographically uneven nature of recent economic, political and cultural transformations. This paper approaches globalization as a site of struggle rather than as an established fact, emphasizing the need for empirically grounded studies of the impact of 'globalization' on consumer cultures in different geographical contexts. The paper examines the way that producers have 'customized' their products for different markets (drawing on evidence from China and South Africa). It then reviews case study evidence from three contrasting consumption cultures: consumption and 'public culture' in India, 'consumer nationalism' in China, and 'artful consumption' in Russia. The paper concludes by identifying some current debates and outlining some directions for future research, including a re-emphasis on consumption and material culture; an exploration of consumption as social practice; the delineation of commodity-specific consumption cultures; and some reflections on the political, ethical and methodological issues that are being raised in contemporary consumption research.     

The G20 as an improvised crisis committee and/or a contested ‘steering committee’ for the world

Arguably the most important catalytic effect of the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008–2009 has been the creation of the G20 at the leaders’ level. As a form of improvised diplomacy the G20 merits extensive scrutiny, revealing as it does the degree of adaptation possible in the international system. The G20 links a significant ideational component, a new dynamic between established and emerging powers, and a complex set of issues. The innovative quality of the G20, however, rests on two very distinct strands of activity and tests of accomplishments. The G20 can be viewed as a ‘recession‐buster’ with a vital but momentary purpose. Alternatively, the G20 can be taken to be an embedded ‘steering committee’ for the world. Both of these interpretations have validity. The crisis committee scenario highlights a technical regulatory‐driven agenda. The steering committee scenario by way of contrast showcases the connection between the G20 and a new type of global settlement. Passing the test as a crisis committee hinges on very specific deliverables. Passing the test as a steering committee is even more demanding as any move toward a new state‐specific ‘concert’ is highly contested. This article examines these debates, locating the G20 in a historical/comparative perspective and in terms of the wider context of shifting power structure at the beginning of the twenty‐first century.