The magdalenian in Western Central Europe: Settlement pattern and regionality

Magdalenian material from northern Switzerland, southwestern and southeastern Germany, the middle Rhine, and central Germany is examined for differences among these geographical areas. Several regional features, including a broad range of archaeological data, can be identified and indicate two regional groupings, a southwestern and a northeastern. The first includes sites from central Germany and the middle Rhine, while the second includes northern Switzerland and southwestern Germany. The southeastern German sites cannot be firmly placed within this pattern because of the insecure data base. The main differences are in prey species, hunting and settlement patterns, and some characteristics of the mobile art. The comparison does not allow a finer separation, although the two regional groups could probably be subdivided into smaller geographical units. Alternative explanations are discussed and further avenues of research are proposed.     

Applying a Systematic Review to Land Use Land Cover Change in Northern Upland Vietnam: The Missing Case of the Borderlands

As Vietnam embraces the market economy, and a number of state policies promote reforestation and rural market integration, land use and land cover (LULC) changes are occurring in the country's northern uplands in increasingly complex and fragmented ways. Yet understandings of the degree and consequences of LULC changes in this diverse agro‐ecological region are incomplete. We conduct a systematic literature review of research reported in academic articles tracing and analysing LULC change in Vietnam's northern regions. We find that these studies have tended to take place away from the most mountainous, northern borderlands. The studies nonetheless highlight a diversity of land use land cover changes caused by numerous causes, making the distinction of overall trends difficult. To complement and extend this body of research, we introduce recent LULC change research we have completed in the mountainous border districts of Lào Cai province, on the Sino‐Vietnamese border. The heterogeneity of causes of LULC change in both the review articles and our case study points to the importance of adapting land use policies to local agro‐ecological and socio‐economic conditions and ethnic diversity, taking into account state–farmer relations, household livelihood decision‐making, and policy implementation at the commune and district levels.     

Transformation in East Central Europe: 1918 and 1989. A Comparative Approach

The authors of the introduction to this special issue argue for a historicization of the concept of transformation by broadening our understanding of it to decrease its teleological spin. This allows us to discard the “zero hour” narrative and to rather consider phenomena that exist long before a “turn” or “revolution” accelerates the transformation process. The closely related terms of “continuity” and “discontinuity” can be relieved of their mandatory dialectical logic by introducing the concept of “adaptation” as an analytical instrument in order to explain what happens after a certain turning point. Consequently, a historicization of the concept of transformation, as the briefly presented case studies show, entails detachment from apodictic periodization and the narration of quasi-mechanized progress in order to specify every single field of accelerated change. However, this does not necessarily limit the usefulness of the concept, as examining individual cases using specific criteria and comparing and bundling them will contribute to a better understanding of societies in transformation as a whole.     

西欧与中国社会转型比较初论

一、西欧与中国社会转型起始年代及内容 从传统农业世界转向现代工业世界,大概是人类社会迄今所经历的最重要的一次社会转型。这一大转变的起点始于何时,历史学家各有不同的说法,其中以15～16世纪作为大转变起点的说法较为普遍。眼下,以某次革命或重大政治事件作为标志的观点依然存在,     

Violent Inaction: The Necropolitical Experience of Refugees in Europe

A significant outcome of the global crisis for refugees has been the abandonment of forced migrants to live in makeshift camps inside the EU. This paper details how state authorities have prevented refugees from surviving with formal provision, leading directly to thousands having to live in hazardous spaces such as the informal camp in Calais, the site of this study. We then explore the violent consequences of this abandonment. By bringing together thus far poorly integrated literatures on bio/necropolitics (Michel Foucault; Achille Mbembe) and structural violence (Johan Galtung), we retheorize the connections between deliberate political indifference towards refugees and the physiological violence they suffer. In framing the management of refugees as a series of violent inactions, we demonstrate how the biopolitics of migrant control has given way to necropolitical brutality. Advancing geographies of violence and migration, the paper argues that political inaction, as well as action, can be used as a means of control.     

Western leveraged pedagogy of Central and Eastern Europe: discourses of homophobia,tolerance, and nationhood

This article focuses on the relations between the two geo-temporal categories – Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and West/Europe – in discussions about sexual politics, homophobia, tolerance, and nationhood. It contributes to the existing literature about homonationalism and sexual nationalisms by introducing CEE to the debate's geographical loci, so far mostly invested in West/Europe and its relations to Islam. It argues that it is important to consider CEE in sexual nationalism debates because of its framing as the European (homophobic) Other in the emerging discourses of ‘homoinclusive Europe’. This article introduces the concept of leveragedpedagogy, which captures the specificity of the West/Europe – CEE discourses of sexual liberation, advancement, and backwardness. Leveraged pedagogy is a hegemonic didactical relation where the CEE figures as an object of the West/European ‘pedagogy’, and is framed as permanently ‘post-communist’, ‘in transition’ (i.e. not liberal, not yet, not enough), and homophobic. Such ‘taking care of’ CEE, it is argued, is a form of cultural hegemony of the Western EUropean liberal model of rights as the universal.     

The chronology of Neolithic dispersal in Central and Eastern Europe

We analyze statistically representative samples of radiocarbon dates from key Early Neolithic sites in Central Europe belonging to the Linear Pottery Ceramic Culture (LBK), and of pottery-bearing cultures on East European Plain (Yelshanian, Rakushechnyi Yar, Buh-Dniestrian, Serteya and boreal East European Plain). The dates from the LBK sites form a statistically homogeneous set with the probability distribution similar to a single-date Gaussian curve. This implies that the duration of the spread of the LBK is shorter than the available temporal resolution of the radiocarbon dating; therefore, the rate of spread must be larger than 4 km/yr, in agreement with earlier estimates. The East European sites exhibit a broad probability distribution of dates. We identify in these data a spatio-temporal sequence from south-east to north-west, which implies the rate of spread of the initial pottery-making of the order of 1.6 km/yr, comparable to the average rate of spread of the Neolithic in Western and Central Europe. We argue that this spatio-temporal sequence is consistent with an idea that the tradition of the initial pottery-making on East European Plain developed under an early impulse from the Eastern Steppe.     

浅析西欧中世纪工业组织的变化

9—15世纪的中世纪期间,以工匠劳动为核心的西欧工业组织经历了三次重要变化:9—12世纪领地工业阶段的工业组织即庄园工场,12世纪以来劳动者个体生产阶段的工业组织即城乡工匠家庭作坊,以及13—15世纪产生的商人控制产销过程的工业组织即城乡外包工工场。本文特别注重将中世纪工业组织的纵向与横向变化结合起来进行考察,对中世纪各个阶段工业组织的形态特征、城乡工业的地理转移、城乡工业组织的走向及其变化原因等问题都分别进行了深入论述。     

Household Incomes in Central Asia: The Case of Post-Soviet Kazakhstan

Two European geographers present the findings of a sizeable survey (n = 7,515) providing a detailed geographical analysis of household incomes and reliance on personal subsidiary garden plots across Kazakhstan. The authors focus on assessing the extent to which Kazakhstan's rising GDP during the post-Soviet period has coincided with an increase in the general population's personal income and ability to secure adequate food supplies for personal consumption. The fine geographical scale of analysis of the survey data (significantly less coarse than oblast-level data) enabled them to identify regions characterized by "trickle-down" income, largely centered on the country's two main urban centers and areas of resource exploitation. The patterns revealed in the paper have relevance to the debate concerning the uneven distribution of benefits from resource exploitation (notably oil and gas) to Kazakhstan's population. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D100, D310, I300, Q120, R290. 2 figures, 6 tables, 51 references.     

The Ethnic Dimension to Bureaucratic Encounters in Postcommunist Europe: Perceptions and Experience

Abstract. In a survey of public opinion about the behaviour of officials in four postcommunist countries ‐Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – we found pervasive suspicions of ethnic bias. Although ethnic minorities themselves were particularly suspicious of officials, there was a consensus across both ethnic majorities and minorities that officials favoured their own ethnic group and discriminated against others. Suspicion may distort reality, however. Citizens' own reports of dealing with officials generally revealed much less ethnic discrimination in their personal experience than in their suspicions, presumptions and perceptions. Either suspicion exaggerated reality or general perceptions of bias focused on the most badly treated, rather than the most numerous, minorities. Ethnic minorities themselves behaved in different ways towards officials. Amongst the ethnic minorities covered in this study, only Gypsies displayed the characteristics of hopelessness and ‘exclusion’. Some minorities behaved much like the titular nationality. But most compensated for their minority status by engaging more than the titular nationality in a wide range of strategies to influence officials ‐including the use of contacts, presents and bribes. Conversely, in areas where an ethnic minority was concentrated locally, members of the titular nationality displayed a measurably defensive reaction and a somewhat heightened degree of vigilance. The paper is based on a total of 6,050 interviews made in the winter of 1997–8, including representative country‐wide samples and special additional samples in areas where ethnic minorities were concentrated. It compares the four titular nationalities with eight ethnic minorities. This research was funded by the ODADFID (formerly Overseas Development Administration, now Department for International Development) under grant R6445 to Miller and Koshechkina, and by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) under grant R222474 to Miller and Grødeland. Translation and fieldwork was carried out by OPW (Opinion Window) of Prague and MVK of Bratislava both under the direction of Ladislav Koppl, CSD (Centre for the Study of Democracy) of Sofia under the direction of Alexander Stoyanov, and GfK‐USM (Ukrainian Surveys and Market Research) of Kyiv under the direction of Tatyana Koshechkina.     

A Comparative Analysis of Twenty-Eight Transition Economies in Europe and Asia

Two senior World Bank economists provide a broad comparative overview of transition economies, covering the former Soviet Union, East Central Europe, China, and Vietnam. In the process, they assess the experience of each of the 20 European and 8 Asian countries up to 1996, focusing on the wide variation in exposure to economic and political liberalization and distinguishing growing and recovering economies from the lagging. Based on recent measures of key macroeconomic indicators, the authors' classification and analysis embrace the impact of specific factors (e.g., different duration and intensity of reforms; exposure to regional tensions) on economic growth and inflation. Also included in the study is a comparison of inter-industry linkages and macroeconomic feedback in Russia and China. 9 figures, 8 tables, 25 references. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P21, P41, P51, P52.