Development Reconsidered; New Directions in Development Thinking

This paper offers broad and critical perspectives on current development thinking. A brief summary of different meanings of development and a thumbnail sketch of broad trends over the past twenty to thirty years in relation to major development indicators is followed by a discussion of reasons for the emergence of fundamental critiques of conventional development and developmentalism from perspectives known variously as post-structuralist, post-development and anti-development. Connections are made between these and the literatures on post-modernism, postcolonialism and post-traditionalism. Finally, the implications of these rapid paradigm shifts and changing realities for future research, teaching and action across the South/North divide are considered.     

后殖民主义与历史研究

殖民主义是始于1500年前后的一种政治、经济现象,二战后非殖民化运动的迅猛发展,使之日趋衰落,但其影响却延续至今。20世纪70年代兴起的后殖民主义,是对殖民主义种种影响及后果的批判性反思,是探讨殖民主义之后全球政治、文化状况的一种理论话语,带有鲜明的政治性和文化批判色彩。当前,后殖民主义更多地关注于第三世界与第一世界的文化/权力关系,要求消解以西方为中心的文化政治格局,重新界定第三世界的文化身份及其民族文化的前景。作为后殖民主义在历史学领域内的具体表现,后殖民性的历史学反对西方的历史主义传统和第三世界的民族主义历史叙述模式,希望以一种反本质主义的策略来重新书写第三世界自我的历史,展现第三世界历史与文化的差异性和多样性,寻求西方支配话语表述之外的另一种可能。     

German Postcolonialism in Four Dimensions: A Historical Perspective

In 1919, the German overseas empire came to an end, a direct consequence of defeat in the First World War. Germany has thus been post-colonial, in the sense of being without colonies, longer than most other European nations. This article argues that German postcolonialism can best be understood as a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon, one that envelops memories of colonialism in white German and diasporic communities, as well as developments in the nation's more recent past. Its most salient aspects include the cultural memory of the colonial period itself, the resonances between colonialism, National Socialism and the Holocaust, the recovery of histories of Afro-Germans, and discussions of race, migration and integration which draw a very broad arc from the colonial past into the multicultural present. The multidimensional nature of German postcolonialism can be both an advantage as well as a disadvantage when it comes to meaningful engagement with Germany's colonial past. This article ultimately seeks a way of re-inserting the ‘colonial’ into German postcolonialism, without flattening the concept.     

Women's Interests and Empowerment: Gender Planning Reconsidered

This article looks at the empowerment approach in relation to issues of women and development. After explaining why this is currently the most fruitful perspective in the field of gender planning, it then goes on to explore two central problems of the empowerment approach. The first problem is the conceptualization of women's gender interests. The distinction between women's practical and strategic gender interests was introduced by Molyneux and popularized by Moser. It is argued here that this distinction is theoretically unfounded and empirically untenable. Secondly, gender planners tend towards a preference for simplified tools and quantifiable targets. Here it is argued that women's realities should not be bent into this planning framework but that instead planners, working from an empowerment perspective, should demonstrate flexibility and theoretical grounding, and be aware of the political dimensions of their work.     

Spatial Pricing Policies Reconsidered: Monopoly Performance and Location

This paper reexamines the welfare implications of three pricing regimes (mill, uniform, and discriminatory) for a monopoly. Assuming linear demand and constant marginal costs, I show that with the introduction of endogenous location choice, uniform delivered pricing may provide the highest social welfare when demands in different markets are sufficiently heterogeneous; whereas discriminatory pricing always dominates uniform pricing when demands in different markets are similar.     

Memories and Miscreants: Teenage Tales of Terror

With this paper, we address the culture of fear around youth violence in the US, and the way it is manifest in news media. We elaborate on the sexist, classist and racist biases in reporting and the ways violence is unequally commemorated and dismissed. We argue that place and, in particular, the myth of Middle America is a large player in selective memory.     

中国计划经济的重新审视与评价

中国经济体制在20世纪的后50年里,就经济运行来说,经历了一个由计划与市场并存向计划经济转变、再由计划经济向市场经济转变的螺旋式发展过程。中国在50年代之所以选择计划经济体制,除主观认识因素外,当时的工业化压力、资源短缺和政府动员能力强也是重要因素。计划经济体制形成后的20年里,尽管它在集中资源加快独立工业体系的建立方面发挥了重要作用,并基本保持了高积累下的社会稳定,但是它最大的缺陷是不能长久实现社会主义所追求的高效率,而这正是计划经济被社会主义市场经济所取代的真正原因。     

Names and Tales: On Folklore and Place Names

Abstract

Names, like stories, are linguistic performances; so the twin disciplines of folkloristics and place-name studies can learn from each other’s methods. Some names offer straightforward evidence for traditional culture, but others are rhetorical, not literal. Allusions to goblins, giants, and the Devil derive from playful storytelling rather than supernatural belief, while names of landmarks are used as pegs on which to hang local legends. The rules for coining names have varied through time and often use special linguistic markers to highlight moral or imaginative content. As we move into a more semiotically aware onomastics, we find ourselves interpreting names from a realm of popular idiom and allusion which is already familiar from folklore.