THE EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE

In his thought‐provoking book, Alex Mesoudi argues for an evolutionary, unifying framework for the social sciences, which is based on the principles of Darwinian theory. Mesoudi maintains that cultural change can be illuminated by using the genotype‐phenotype distinction, and that it is sufficiently similar to biological change to warrant a theory of culture‐change based on evolutionary models. He describes examples of cultural microevolution, within‐population changes, and the biologically inspired population genetics models used to study them. He also shows that some aspects of large‐scale (macro‐evolutionary) cultural transformation can be studied by using ecological models and phylogenetic comparative techniques. We argue that although Mesoudi's evolution‐based perspective offers many useful insights, his ambition—the unification of the social sciences within a Darwinian framework through the use of the methods and models he describes—suffers from a major theoretical limitation. His reductive approach leads to overlooking culture as a system with emergent processes and features. Mesoudi therefore does not engage with any of the central past and present theories in sociology and anthropology for which the systems view of culture is central, and he does not analyze the emergent, high‐level properties of human cultural‐social systems. We suggest that a systems perspective, using some analogies and metaphors from developmental biology, can complement the evolutionary approach and is more in tune with a systems view of society. Such an approach, which stresses feedback and self‐sustaining interactions within social networks, and engages with the insights of sociological and anthropological theories, can contribute to the understanding of cultural systems by highlighting the evolution of processes of social cohesion, and by making use of the mathematical approaches of complexity theory.     

城市文化街区功能演化研究

文章根据已有的研究成果,认为城市文化街区主要包括历史文化街区、城市中心商务文化街区、主题文化街区、特色文化街区。从文化发展的角度论述文化街区的主要功能,认为城市文化街区功能演化实质是一个不断传承文化、创新文化的动态螺旋式发展过程;探讨了城市文化街区的功能演化机制,认为社会经济发展、城市旅游发展、文化发展是城市文化街区功能演化的三大外部影响因素。认为将旅游产业和文化产业导入文化街区,是引导街区发展的一种有效途径。     

Blood Sports in Victorian Cumbria: Policing Cultural Change

This article interrogates the concept of the ‘civilizing process’ by examining cultural change through a micro-study of the policing of cock-fighting and prize-fighting, two phenomena of popular culture, which moved from being tolerated to being prohibited in the nineteenth century. It uses as its empirical base the criminal justice system of Cumbria to examine how this cultural change was negotiated, and shows how ordinary policemen were key to the process. Cock-fighting and prize-fighting were contests that attracted crowds of men who bet heavily on the outcome. However, in Cumbria there were important differences of attitude towards these two activities and their management by the police and courts varied. Prize-fighting was dealt with swiftly and effectively, whereas opinions were divided on cock-fighting and the practice continued well into the twentieth century. Local cultures rather than middle-class opinion at the county or national level, determined whether these activities would survive, for regional traditions and practices shaped the effectiveness of the response to prohibited blood sports. It was at the local level where the elimination or toleration of plebeian sports was negotiated, and in this the police and courts were crucial as agents of social change.     

THIS IS NOT AMERICA: EMBEDDING THE COGNITIVE‐CULTURAL URBAN ECONOMY

The aim of this article is to broaden the epistemological basis for investigating the current shift to cognitive‐cultural economies and the resurgence of cities and its socio‐spatial articulation. The point of departure here is that the drivers of the structural changes are indeed more or less ubiquitous, but are played out in different national institutional and urban contexts resulting in potentially diverging cognitive‐cultural economies. Four main drivers of change after 1980 are distinguished. The first is the rise of a new technological paradigm based on digital technology. The second is the thrust towards deregulation and privatization as planks of the neo‐liberal political programme. The third is the intensification of all kinds of linkages between regions across the globe. The fourth driver constitutes the processes of individualization and increasing reflexivity that have fragmented consumer markets. By identifying distinct filters which might shape and mould the impact of these more general drivers on concrete urban areas, a comprehensive framework is presented that can be used to analyse and compare the trajectories of cities while linking them to a larger narrative of societal change. A central line of reasoning is that agglomeration economies – pivotal in Allen Scott's analysis of the emergence of a cognitive‐cultural economy – are themselves embedded in concrete social and institutional contexts which impact on how they are played out. To make this point, we build upon Richard Whitley's business systems. Given this institutional diversity, we expect that various institutional contexts will generate different cognitive‐cultural economies.     

论文化生态学的理论发展与新构架

本文本着批判地吸收不同学科领域有关文化生态的理论和方法,在系统论与生态观的指导下,积极发挥地理学研究文化生态学的优势,对文化生态学从基本概念到核心理论进行了重构,阐发了以文化生态系统为其研究对象、现代文化生态学的宏观、中观、微观研究领域观点。试图籍此完善文化生态学的理论体系并进一步增强其实践性。     

本真视角的少数民族旅游文化符号舞台化研究

本文以Cohen主客二维动态真实性与舞台化关系模型为基础,在符号的表达和内容层面对少数民族旅游文化符号进行剖析,以旅游文化符号的能指与所指作为符号维度,以旅游文化的真实性与舞台化作为本真维度,建构出旅游文化符号化的四种关系类型,即意指性旅游文化符号(signification)、象征性旅游文化符号(symbol)、隐喻性旅游文化符号(metaphor)及指示性旅游文化符号(instructions),深入分析少数民族旅游目的地文化符号的结构分层状况,从跨学科的角度了解人文地理本真性景观与舞台化景观的建构互动过程,推动本真性理论的进一步发展。     

The Rural Estate through the Eyes of the Land Agent: A Community in Microcosm c1812 – 1844

This article explores how the Castleman/Anglesey archive forms a micro-study of an estate and its associated rural community at work. It will survey the type of data which can be found within the land agent’s estate vouchers and diurnal correspondence and why they are important. It will begin by examining the concepts and ideology of the rural community and seek to explain why it is so hard to define. The article will then investigate how a micro-study can assist in understanding the ways in which estates reacted to periods of economic difficulties. This will include: why landowners left rent arrears to accrue, the types of petition which the local populace presented, the reasoning behind improving landscapes and the ways an estate contributed to the relief of the labouring poor. The Castleman archive reveals the multi-layered, complex nature of the rural community and the diverse role of the land agent in balancing the relationships which existed within it. In effect it acts as an historical prism.     

'WHY THEY CAME'; THE COLONIZATION OF THE COAST OF WESTERN SWEDEN AND ITS ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT AT THE END OF THE LAST GLACIATION

Summary.   In this paper we will bring into view new aspects of Late Palaeolithic and early Mesolithic research on the west coast of Sweden. In doing so, we make use of oceanography and tidal modelling, in conjunction with basic research in the fields of archaeology and palynology. The focus of research concerns the Hensbacka culture group in central Bohuslän, a group of hunter-gatherers which visited the area between c.10,300–9300 bp (10,200/10,000–8500 cal BC). Recent investigations indicate that the frequency of Hensbacka sites in the archipelago of central Bohuslän, which at that time had a total land area of c.500 sq km, might well represent the highest site density area in northern Europe during a c.1000-year period of time at the close of the Late Glacial and beginning of the early Post Glacial. In the pages that follow, we will discuss how, and why, this 'seasonal colonization' was possible.     

Before Removal: An Archaeological Perspective on the Southern Lake Michigan Basin

Abstract

More than 12,000 years of cultural adaptation and change in the southwestern Great Lakes preceded the period of Removal that is the focus of this volume. Strategies for economic risk management, patterns of group interaction, and dynamics of group identity in play during the Removal period were developed over the long expanse of prehistory and early history. In this paper we provide an overview of these cultural developments, and offer a deep-time perspective of traditional cultural patterns leading to the specific Removal period case studies presented.     

Belief System Continuity and Change in Policy Advocacy Coalitions: Using Cultural Theory to Specify Belief Systems,Coalitions, and Sources of Change

This paper evaluates the prospects for application of the “grid/group” cultural theory (CT), as advanced by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, to the Advocacy Coalition Theory (ACF). CT would seem to be relevant to several key aspects of the ACF: the content of the core beliefs that provide the “glue” that binds coalitions; the resilience of core beliefs and associated implications for belief change and learning; and the structure of coalitions and the mechanisms for coordination and control within them. The paper considers the compatibility of the ACF's account of deep core beliefs and coalition structure with that of CT; surveys an array of empirical studies based on variations of CT; and extends accounts of change in cultural identities from CT to the ACF. In addition, we highlight some of the ways in which the ACF may offer important theoretical insights for scholars of CT, potentially clarifying hypotheses concerning the relationships among basic worldviews, more specific beliefs, and behaviors.     

ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE NETHERLANDS: PRODUCTIVITY,UTILITY, AND SORTING*

ABSTRACT This paper identifies the impact of cultural diversity on local economies, by explaining spatial disparities in wages and housing prices across Dutch cities using unique individual panel data of homeowners during the period 1999 and 2008. We distinguish between the effects of spatial sorting based on individual heterogeneity, interactions‐based productivity effects, and consumer amenities while controlling for interactions between the labor and housing market. In line with previous literature, we find a positive effect of cultural diversity on average housing prices. After controlling for spatial sorting, the effect of cultural diversity on housing prices is negative. The negative impact of cultural diversity on local housing markets is likely driven by a causal effect between the presence of immigrants and neighborhood quality that outweighs a positive effect of immigrant‐induced diversity in consumption goods.     

Selling is Poverty,Buying a Shame: Representations of Work,Effective Leadership and Market Failures on Wallis

This paper seeks to answer the question why there is no central market on the Polynesian island Wallis, and relates the answer to indigenous representations of work and to cultural constraints on leadership. The title of this paper ‐ Selling is Poverty, Buying a Shame ‐ contains the answer in a nutshell, requires contextualisation in relation to the main cultural, socioeconomic and political features of the society on this island. More specifically, it raises the following questions: What do we mean when we speak about a market? Have there been markets in the past? Are there (other) market‐like structures today? And what do we mean by representations of work?     

BRINGING IN THE DEAD: BURIALS AND THE LOCAL PERSPECTIVE ON KYTHERA IN THE SECOND PALACE PERIOD

Summary.   This article analyses the mortuary data of the 'Second Palace' period (c. 1700–1450 BC) on the Aegean island of Kythera. It proposes that the chamber tombs which were first introduced to the island in this period can offer potential insights into aspects of local-level social relations, especially at the central site of Kastri. This approach complements the broader cultural perspective that has usually been taken regarding these tombs, which have been viewed as indicators of Cretan cultural influence and, indeed, colonization. It is proposed that a strong horizontal in-group solidarity was being expressed by the tomb-using group at Kastri through spatial and diachronic uniformity in burial practices, and that this uniformity should be viewed at least partially as a response to local-level social agendas. The hypothesis is then explored that status identities were also being asserted in the burial sphere by at least some members of this group, through tomb location, the resources devoted to mortuary rituals and, perhaps, emphasis on lineage.     

民族旅游村寨居民文化依恋的时空变迁及其机理——以贵州西江千户苗寨村落群为例

地方是人文地理学的重要研究内容。基于地方理论,以贵州西江千户苗寨村落群为例,运用结构方程模型方法分析了旅游影响下民族村寨居民文化依恋在不同时空范围的影响路径及其作用机理。研究结果表明：①旅游利益感知和旅游成本感知对文化依恋、文化依恋对文化保护态度及行为在不同时空范围具有不同的影响路径关系;②旅游影响下的地方时空分离及其脱域机制是引起民族村寨居民文化依恋时空变迁的主要动力。对引起文化依恋时空变迁的前因影响关系和与之引起的后果效应进行整合分析,探讨文化依恋在不同时空范围的影响关系机理,希冀对民族村寨的可持续发展提供借鉴。s     

书法景观在景区旅游意象构建中的作用研究——以西安碑林为例

书法景观作为重要的文化景观,为游客提供多重信息,对游客感知和行为产生重要影响。纵观书法景观和旅游意象研究,尚不存在书法景观应用性价值研究及景观元素对目的地旅游意象构建作用的实证研究。本文以西安碑林为例,通过对书法景观功能维度进行划分,构建结构方程模型,探讨书法景观在景区旅游意象构建中的作用,为未来旅游规划和发展提供建设性指导。研究表明书法景观在旅游意象构建中发挥了积极作用,且不同的书法景观功能维度(审美体验功能、地方认同功能、行为导向功能)对景区旅游意象构建中的作用方式及强度不同。     

Too little,too much: Cultural feminist geographies

This paper traces some of the contours of recent critiques of cultural geography and reflects upon the implications they have for the continuing vitality of a feminist geography concerned with the cultural. The paper seeks to work away from this current disenchantment suggesting that in the field of feminist geography there are explicit intellectual and political imperatives that keep central the field of concerns associated with cultural geographical perspectives. Along the way we examine emergent scholarship on the governance of gender through culture concepts, the idea of gender as a form of foundational ordering grammar, the implications of non-representational claims for feminist scholarship, and the nature of performativity. We conclude by encouraging feminist cultural geography to chart the emergent geographies of relational natures and material cultures that reveal gender as both embodied and discursive, given and enacted.     

东北地区文化旅游资源系统开发研究

文化是旅游开发的灵魂,进行文化旅游资源开发则是提高区域旅游业持久生命力与吸引力的关键。本文在对文化旅游与文化旅游资源认识的基础上,通过对东北地区文化旅游资源的地理文脉分析,将东北地区文化旅游资源划分为十大类,针对这十类文化旅游资源提出了产品开发构想,并根据文化旅游资源分布组合情况构建了东北地区文化旅游资源总体空间结构,提出了"三个核心、十五个经典区域、五条主线路"的空间开发构想。     

Meeting places: drivers of change in Australian Aboriginal cultural institutions

Since the 1970s, there has been a fraught yet hopeful Aboriginal cultural resurgence in Australia. An element of this movement has been the establishment of Aboriginal art centres and cultural centres across Australia. Using a comparative approach to Aboriginal art centres, this paper analyses the appearance and characteristics of the more recent Aboriginal cultural centres. The methods used are a review of the literature on Aboriginal art centres, and for the less-researched Aboriginal cultural centres, a case study. This paper posits that cultural centre characteristics are shaped through the formation of alliances made possible by the advent of land rights, an Aboriginal cultural turn amongst Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, and changing approaches to regional development. While not themselves a movement that will lead to socio-economic change, these types of arts and heritage projects are aligned to such movements. With a larger scale and more central locations, Aboriginal cultural centres open up opportunities for larger and more diverse alliances, and therefore new opportunities for Aboriginal people’s participation, activism and expression.     

Language,history and the nation: an historical approach to evaluating language and cultural claims

ABSTRACT. In contrast to the abstract commitment to individual rights found in liberal critics of Bill 101 and the equally ahistorical approach of multicultural theorists like Bhikhu Parekh, this paper proposes that the particular historical circumstances surrounding the current minority status of different groups is crucial in evaluating the legitimacy of one cultural group to promote its cultural needs over another group within existing states. When the culture of a group residing within a particular state is secure in a neighbouring jurisdiction, the issue at stake is not necessarily the survival of a unique culture but the cultural needs of particular individuals. It does not follow that they have no legitimate claims against the state. However, in examining the language policies in Quebec and the newly independent Baltic states, it is argued that they are different in kind to the rights due to long‐standing communities struggling for linguistic survival.