Shattering the silence of violence against women

The UN Development Fund for Women has selected 23 projects in 18 developing countries to be beneficiaries of a $1.2 million trust fund dedicated to the elimination of violence against women. While the projects offer a variety of approaches to preventing and eliminating the domestic violence suffered by a third of the women in developing countries, all involve awareness-raising and advocacy, capacity-building, literacy, training, action research, and prevention/deterrence activities. A project in the Philippines will train women migrant workers who have been victimized by abuse to produce videos about their experience in order to raise consciousness about the rights of women and of workers. A South African project, which will address sexual assaults of high school students that occur in dating relationships, will involve a prevalence survey, a pilot project, an expansion of the project and curriculum development, a play on date rape, crisis intervention counseling, production of a video and manual, a national conference, and publication of essays produced by students who participated in the program. The Trust Fund was proposed by Japan in response to the urgent call for action issued by the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women and is funded by donations from governments and private sources.     

Making and Breaking the Aboriginal Remote: Realities,Languages, Tomorrows (A Commentary)

The concept of ‘remote’ has intensified a fundamental misunderstanding of widespread rural Aboriginal situations. More, it has served to mask the causality for current problems, which will remain intractable until causality is effectively addressed. This commentary re‐examines how ‘remote’ is produced, both by and within the dominant state and society and, by means of a reconsideration of demand sharing and long‐distance travel, from and within Aboriginal communities. On that basis new kinds of confrontational engagements with the production of remote are suggested.     

Current Realities,Idealised Pasts: Archaeology,Values and Indigenous Heritage Management in Central Australia

This paper addresses the inter‐cultural meanings and assumptions which have arisen in the interpretation of heritage and its conservation in central Australia. Conflicting views of heritage conservation are grounded in particular constructions of the past which are adapted and redefined in relation to the present. In central Australia, Indigenous notions of time and property have stressed the symbolic value of objects in terms of the Dreaming and their active role in exchange. The definition of objects as personal effects and their enhancement of social values through exchange have been at odds with archaeological understandings of the same objects as artefacts and attempts to conserve them as items of heritage significance. Specific examples discussed include the use of artefacts in economic exchanges, interpretation of archaeological sequences, and the application of concepts of significance through land rights and heritage legislation.     

Wandering Spirits: Chen Shiyuan's Encyclopedia of Dreams

Savage Childhood: A Study of Kafir Children. By DUDLEY KIDD. London: A. and C. Black. 1906. By R. R. Marett.

Religion in Evolution. By F. B. Jevons, Littd. London: Methuen &; Co. 1906. By E. Sidney Hartland.

The Religious Songs of Connacht. By Douglas Hyde. London: T. Fisher Unwin. Dublin: W. H. Gill &; Son. IOS. By Eleanor Hull.

Folk-Lore of Women, as Illustrated by Legendary and Traditionary Tales, Folk-rhymes, Proverbial Sayings, Superstitions, etc. By T. F. Thiselton-Dyer, M.A. By W. Crooke.

Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race. By the Late T. W. Shore. London : Elliot Stock, 1906.

Ancient Law. By Sir Henry Sumner Maine, with Introduction and Notes by Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. London: John Murray, 1906.

The Tribal System in Wales. By Frederic Seebohm. London: Longmans, 1904. By F. M. Stenton.     

Dreams of the old country: A room of one's own

This article reports the findings of a study concerning the politicization of abortion in Finland in the first half of the 20th century. The focus is on discussions and debates in the legal and medical professions, 1900?1950, showing the historical transformation of abortion from a criminal act to a medical issue, legalized by the 1950 abortion law. The argument throughout is that the strongest motivation for legalization of abortion in Finland was the perceived negative effect of criminal abortions on the population growth. The article also shows that the abortion debate was linked to the formation of a maternity care system and the development of the medical promotion of birth control. Thus the context for the line of argumentation is the formation of the Finnish welfare state and the medicalization of maternity.     

Fouffeen Mountain Summits:the Dreams and Glory of Chinese Mountaineers

As the first mountaineering team to challenge the fourteen world‘s highest mountain summits,these Chinese mountaineers have finally realized their dream.They are all ethnic Tibetans and have gone through hardship and dangers over the years;some of them have even contributed their lives to the realization of the project.Finally,three of them have accomplished it and set a marvelous record in world mountaineering that is unprecedented.     

Dreams and Conversions: A Comparative Analysis of Catholic and Buddhist Dreams in Ming and Qing China: Part I

Since the Church fathers, oneirology and dream revelations were regarded with considerable suspicion among theologians and ecclesiastical authorities, though dreams remained a powerful and pervasive feature of religious expression at a popular level. Among converts in Ming-Qing China, where lay initiatives were necessarily important given the paucity of European priests, holy dreams were crucial in the formation and consolidation of a powerful religious subculture. The following is a version of the keynote address delivered at the Fourth Biennial Meeting of the Religious History Society, in July 2004 in Newcastle, Australia.     

Fouffeen Mountain Summits:the Dreams and Glory of Chinese Mountaineers

As the first mountaineering team to challenge the fourteen world's highest mountain summits,these Chinese mountaineers have finally realized their dream.They are all ethnic Tibetans and have gone through hardship and dangers over the years;some of them have even contributed their lives to the realization of the project.Finally,three of them have accomplished it and set a marvelous record in world mountaineering that is unprecedented.