学科、学会与学术:中国现代学术共同体之建构

中国近代新式学会的基本功能,是增进本学科或相关学科学者之间的学术交流。学会、期刊与年会,构成了"三位一体"的学术体制:有学会必有会刊,有会刊必有年会。学术社团之建立及其活动,学术研讨会之举办,为中国现代学者提供了学术交流的平台,促进了中国现代学术的发展。近代学科是新式学会创立和发展的基础,新式学会是伴随着西方近代诸多新学科在中国的引入而逐渐建立并发展的;同时,新式学会又反过来促进了本学科及相关学科的发展。新式学会不仅成为中国现代学术体制之重要组成部分,而且有力地推进了中国现代学科的确立及学术发展。学术团体数量之增多,是学术发展的重要衡量指标;学术团体活动的频繁,是学术活跃之重要标志。故学科、学会与近代学术发展呈现出互动多赢的格局。     

Identity,uncertainty and responsibility: privileging place in a risk society

That young people today reside within social worlds of unprecedented ‘risk’ is a persuasive position. While such discourses have become increasingly pervasive, there has been little interest in exploring contemporary shifts within specific socio-geographic contexts: place has been largely invisible. This paper considers Ulrich Beck's ‘risk society’ theses as a framework for exploring the experiences of 85 young residents of a regional Australian centre. These young people's stories revealed complex and often contradictory, tensions in relation to identity, uncertainty and responsibility. Socio-geographic location was found to be a significant feature in the negotiation and repercussion of these young people's lives.     

Inequalities,responsibility and rational capacities: A defence of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism

This article aims to defend responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism by arguing for the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility as a plausible conception of an agent's responsibility for inequalities caused by his or her choice in responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism. I show that the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility is not only philosophically defensible as a conception of genuine choice, but also promising enough to ward off two common worries which cast doubt on responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism (qua luck egalitarianism): first, the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility allows the assignment of differential degrees of responsibility to rational agents in proportional terms, which may make it echo the adverse effects of their childhood environments. Second, its proportional construal essentially allows that nobody possesses a full degree of rational capacities. This enables responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism to refute the harshness objection.     

Cosmos,chaos: finance,power and conflict

The article explores parallels between the fragility of globalization on the eve of the First World War, in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 1907, and today's crisis of globalization following the post‐2007 recession. The fragility and interconnectedness of the international economy in both cases could provide a basis for an economic–military strategy. The temptation of using economic connectedness as a substitute for conventional and costly military strategy makes this course particularly attractive to a hegemon—the UK then, the US now—that is facing powerful competition from rising powers (Germany and the US then, China now). The challengers are likely to find their own alternative strategy, and the result breeds uncertainty. In consequence, rule‐based international orders are generally strained by transitions of power, even though all the parties see the desirability and need for a common system of rules.     

Imperial power, gentry power and clan power: Western and Chinese cultural traditions in a comparative perspective

The differences between China and Western countries in human and physical environment has brought about two distinctive models of state. In the Chinese-style state of quasi-consanguinity, in which family and state have a similar structure, imperial power, gentry power, and clan power are the product of common ownership of consanguineous groups. The similarity in the structures of these three kinds of power derives from the fact that they are all restricted by the power of lineage generated from the self-sufficient small farmer economy, and must obey the conventions of ancestors which hold the benefits of the group as supreme. The relationship between these three kinds of power, is definitely not the one that is based on the division of power that is founded on individual private ownership in Western countries, where ‘public power’ and ‘individual private ownership’ are antithetic, but are three aspects of the patriarchal dictatorship that complement each other. Therefore, village rule in China and autonomy in the West are two totally different concepts, and gentry power is also not the ‘authorized power’ from the state. __________ Translated from the Journal of Tianjin Normal University, 2004: 1     

The face of the other: Zapatismo,responsibility and the ethics of deconstruction

Recent work has highlighted the importance of moral and ethical issues for geographical inquiries of space and place. Much of this work has been couched in a modernist framework, drawing on universalist conceptions of subjectivity and legal rights in an attempt to ground the normative foundations for ethical conduct. In this paper, I draw upon post‐structuralist theory to elaborate an alternative approach to spatial ethics. Drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, I outline a theory of subjectivity that would view our relationship to distant others as a form of unconditional responsibility. Our ability to meet this responsibility, I suggest, is dependent upon a deconstructionist ethics which, in recognizing the impossibility of grounding ethical conduct, expands the horizon of political engagement. In the second half of the paper, I interpret the Zapatista movement in Mexico as an example of such an ethics. Through an examination of the writings of Subcomandante Marcos, I argue that the Zapatistas have articulated a new form of ethical and political engagement, one that transcends the boundaries of space and identity, and invokes an unconditional responsibility.     

Keeping cool: practicing domestic refrigeration and environmental responsibility

Domestic refrigerators have become symbols of climate change in energy efficiency campaigns; they are equipment that both permits and prohibits the performance of environmental citizenship. However, little is known about how subjectivities and practices interact, particularly with regard to questions about refrigeration and domestic energy. What might those of us interested in household sustainability learn from the relationships among refrigerators, energy, subjectivities, and practices, and from what these may reveal about environmental responsibility? We draw on data from mixed‐method qualitative research conducted with 28 households in Wollongong, Australia, and frame the analysis in terms of social practice theory, with additional attention to subjectivity. This framing helps us develop thinking about how refrigeration is done and consider whether and how things become waste by paying closer attention to the spatial imperatives underpinning these practices. It also assists us in considering how the ongoing relationships of social and material aspects of refrigeration co‐constitute a range of subjectivities. Further, our analysis advances discussions on how household practices and identities relate to public campaigns about environmental responsibility, particularly as the latter is constructed in terms of ‘energy efficiency’.     

Academic boycotts, activism and the academy

Recent media controversy surrounding the acceptance and publication of an article from Israeli-based academics in Political Geography raises serious questions concerning academic boycotts and ideas of academic freedom. This short article provides some brief background at efforts to boycott Israeli academic institutions and outlines some of the issues surrounding the appropriateness of such boycotts in general and of Israel in particular. More specifically it examines the issues of academic freedom, and the equity, effectiveness and flexibility of academic boycotts.