"Between Belonging": Habitus and the migration experience

This paper explores the impacts of migration both on the small island community of Grand Manan, New Brunswick, and on the group of Newfoundland families who have moved there from their homes 1500 km away. Based upon personal interviews with individuals and families, impacts and meanings are examined in terms of social networks, community cleavages, and intergenerational differences. The complexity of patterns and the ambiguities experienced by both groups are related to Bourdieu's concept of ‘habitus’, and its relevance for changing meanings of ‘place’ and ‘community’. In exploring the changing patterns of social relationships and meanings of community, this paper highlights issues of social cohesion and tensions associated with forging new identities, and examines the particular impacts upon youth whose sense of belonging is explicitly between homes. The experience of migration for those who decide to stay permanently is shown to be different than for the majority who come as seasonal migrants. In the decision to stay through the winter or not, crucial factors are both the sense of belonging back in Newfoundland and whether or not families have children, whose abilities to forge new relationships are the everyday concerns for parents. While the importance of jobs provides the main incentive to migrate, the difficulties associated with integrating into new social groups, negotiating new identities, and adjusting to different educational requirements pose almost insurmountable challenges for many families. It is in the details of family lives, values and perceptions, told through their narratives of experience, that we begin to discern the ambiguities and fluidity of evolving habitus for both groups. Cet article analyse les effets de la migration à la fois sur la petite communauté insulaire de Grand Manan au Nouveau‐Brunswick et sur les families qui s'y sont déplacées, depuis Terre‐Neuve, à plus de 1500 km de distance. Basé sur des entrevues auprès d'individus et de families, il examine le sens et l'effet de la migration en accordant une attention particulière aux réseaux sociaux, aux disparités communautaires et au fossé intergénérationnel. On y fait appel au concept d'habitus de Bourdieu pour rendre compte de la complexité des pratiques propres à chacun des deux groupes et de l'ambiguité du sens qu'ils confèrent à leur expérience. L'analyse contextualisée de la dynamique des relations sociales et du sens de la communauté met en lumière des questions liées à la cohésion sociale et aux inévitables tensions liées à ces dynamiques. Plus particulièrement, l'article examine les effets de la migration sur les jeunes dont le sentiment d'appartenance se définit précisément entre deux ‘chez soi’. L'éxpérience de la migration chez ceux qui ont décidé de s'établir de façon permanente est bien différente de celle vécue par la majorité qui se déplace de façon saisonnière. Le sentiment d'appartenance à Terre‐Neuve et le fait d'avoir ou non des enfants (leur capacité de tisser de nouvelles relations sociales étant un souci permanent pour les parents) sont des facteurs fondamentaux dans la décision de ‘passer l'hiver’ ou non. Bien que les emplois soient la principale motivation pour migrer, les difficultés d'intégration au sein de nouveaux groupes sociaux, le développement de nouvelles identités, l'adaptation à un nouveau régime scolaire sont très difficiles à surmonter pour de nombreuses families. Par l'entremise du récit de leur expérience, qui révèle les détails de la vie de famille, des valeurs et des perceptions individuelles et collectives, il est possible de cerner les ambiguïtés et la fluidité de l'habitus changeant des deux groupes.     

Unsocial analyses: Habitus,Hegemony, and self

Bourdieu, Pierre. The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. 330 pp. including appendix, references, and index. $39.50 cloth, $14.95 paper.

Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. xx + 414 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $60.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.

Crapanzano, Vincent. Hermes’ Dilemma and Hamlet's Desire: On the Epistemology of Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. ix + 386 pp. including notes, references, and index. $45.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.     

An English chronicle entry on Robin Hood

This short article introduces a previously unknown pre-Reformation chronicle entry about Robin Hood. Until now, no English chronicle entry has been discovered, and only Scottish authors are thought to have set Robin in a chronological context. The new find places Robin Hood in Edward I's reign, thus supporting the belief that his legend is of thirteenth-century origin. It contains a uniquely negative assessment of the outlaw, and provides rare evidence for monastic attitudes towards him (topical, in light of the outlaw's anti-monastic behaviour). By mentioning Sherwood it buttresses the evidence for a medieval connection between Robin and the Nottinghamshire forest with which he has become so closely associated. It also constitutes more evidence for the strength of West Country Robin Hood traditions in the late middle ages.     

An English chronicle entry on Robin Hood

This short article introduces a previously unknown pre-Reformation chronicle entry about Robin Hood. Until now, no English chronicle entry has been discovered, and only Scottish authors are thought to have set Robin in a chronological context. The new find places Robin Hood in Edward I's reign, thus supporting the belief that his legend is of thirteenth-century origin. It contains a uniquely negative assessment of the outlaw, and provides rare evidence for monastic attitudes towards him (topical, in light of the outlaw's anti-monastic behaviour). By mentioning Sherwood it buttresses the evidence for a medieval connection between Robin and the Nottinghamshire forest with which he has become so closely associated. It also constitutes more evidence for the strength of West Country Robin Hood traditions in the late middle ages.     

Vehicle Writings in an Iranian Context: The Interplay of Habitus and Field

The main objective of this paper is to problematize writings on vehicles in an Iranian context. Previous studies have indicated that vehicle stickers can be employed to express emotions and social status, political views, ideology and identity, and religious beliefs. However, very little has been done on this discursive practice in Iran. This study is the result of the content analysis of 122 vehicle writings collected from April 2011 to March 2012. This paper will draw on six of the most frequent themes: religion, humor, playing pessimism, didactic expressions, ethnic-geographic identification, and love. Employing Bourdieu's conceptual frameworks of “habitus,” “field,” and “doxa,” and Heath and Street's social practice perspective on literacy, it will be argued that vehicle writings in this study can be regarded as situated literacy practices reflecting the dominant undisputed discourses in the context, but at the same time displaying the dynamic interplay of power relations, the relationship of cultural structures and individual customized versions of those structures in vehicle writings.     

Women's International Thought in the Twentieth-Century Anglo-American Academy: Autobiographical Reflection,Oral History and Scholarly Habitus

Methodologies of textual and linguistic analysis have long held sway in Anglo-American practices of intellectual history. Such approaches tend to decouple the ideas being traced from the human subject, or scholar, producing the thought. Taking the lead from the rich theorising work done in feminist, gender, race and cultural histories, this article asks what changes in our understanding of intellectual histories of international thought when we connect the lived and bodily realities of the human subjects producing the ideas to the ideas themselves. In so doing, the article makes a case for the importance of fleshing out what the author calls ‘scholarly habitus’ and suggests the potential utility of oral history as a methodology for reconstructing ‘scholarly habitus’. The article will draw upon an oral history archive comprised of twenty interviews conducted with senior women International Relations scholars from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom to flesh out this argument. The article argues that oral history, as a medium for autobiographical practice, can reveal aspects of how gender, race and class shaped the scholarly practice and career trajectories of these women, as well as shed light on the historical dynamics of the discipline of International Relations as a whole.     

Cultural Barriers to Activist Networking: Habitus (In)action in Three European Transnational Encounters

Transnational coordination is a key aspiration of activists seeking to mobilize globally, yet the literature pays insufficient attention to the impact of cultural differences on transnational networking. In this article I draw on ethnographic data from three European autonomous social movement encounters in the Global Justice Movement (2002–2004) to demonstrate the impact of culture clashes between activists on transnational networking. I use the concept of habitus to explore how routinized, taken for granted, symbolic systems of meaning that individuals from shared locations have in common shape their interactions in transnational encounters. This conception of culture is underutilized in social movement analysis yet offers important insights into internal movement dynamics. I argue that despite the autonomous commitment to radical openness and plurality, a lack of attention to the empirical reality of place‐based activist subcultures and habitus actually works against the “cosmopolitanism” that many activists and scholars aspire to.     

祥和吉庆 如意康宁——浙江翰越堂藏古代艺术品精粹展览侧记

2013年1月18日,“吉祥如意——浙江翰越堂藏古代艺术品精粹”展览在西子湖畔的浙江省博物馆孤山馆区开幕。这是浙江省博物馆近年举办的浙江私人收藏精品系列展览之一,主办方选取了王永良翰越堂3万余件文物艺术品中含有较明确吉祥寓意的精减143件,以为贺岁特展。     

巩固党在农民群众中的执政基础

我们党要扩大社会基础,不仅要关注新的枉会阶层,更要重视农民阶级。在现代化进程中,执政党如果没有农民的支持,其执政地位就不可能巩固。改革开放以来,我国的农民阶级内部出现分化,面临着一系列新的问题,特别农民的生存状况和农村自办组织的发展,对党的执政基础提出了挑战。因此,党要在农村巩固自身的执政基础,就必须采取有效措施减轻农民负担,加强农村党支部建设,吸收优秀农民入党,并引导农村自办组织健康发展。     

明末清初青花花觚鉴定

觚,新石器时代马家浜化遗址即有陶制品出土,其用途为酒器。夏商较流行,西周后逐渐减少。部分器型仿青铜礼器,多用作陪葬冥器。     

浅论敦煌出土的唐代围棋子——兼谈围棋的发展历史

围棋活动是供人们养身,陶冶情操,开发智力,培养综合、分析和逻辑思维能力的一项文体活动。本文对敦煌唐墓出土的围棋子及其发展历史进行了探究。     

从资本家阶级在辛亥革命中的实际表现谈辛亥革命的实质

文章从资本家阶级在辛亥革命中的实际表现这个角度来探讨这次革命的实质.作者认为资本家阶级事实上是君主立宪派而不是革命派的阶级基础.但在辛亥革命高潮中资本家阶级没有游离于革命斗争之外,不但如此,资本家阶级还利用革命党人在国内根基甚浅的现实使革命后来的发展远离了革命纲领.辛亥革命象一场暴风雨冲跨了早已腐烂的老房子--清王朝,但它却没能建立起真正的资产阶级共和国.革命之后中国有的仅仅是“民国“的招牌.因而辛亥革命实质上是一场推翻了满清的暴动,就其结果来说还谈不上是资产阶级的民主革命,尽管其三民主义的革命纲领充分体现了资产阶级的民主革命性.     

On the Causes of the Extinction of Some Animals at the end of the Pleistocene

A mathematical theory is developed to demonstrate the disputed hypothesis that hunting tribes of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe did play a decisive role in bringing about the extinction of the mammoth and other large herbivorous animals at the end of the Pleistocene. Formulas for the periods of time during which hunting did not greatly affect animal numbers and during which the numbers declined to zero are used to show that mammoth numbers remained relatively stable during most of the Upper Paleolithic (a period of 10,000 to 25,000 years) and then dropped rapidly within a few centuries to complete extinction. The theory is used to explain why only the largest animals became extinct and why elephants continued to survive in tropical areas while the mammoth vanished in the north.