Two places and three times: fragments retrieved of India and Australia in the 1950s, 1960s and 1980s.

This article uses memory and specifically my memories to build up a sense of how Australians perceived India in the second half of the 20th century. I focus first on the late 1950s to consider Australian perceptions of India as seen through my eyes as a university student. I then present my observations as a student studying in India in the first half of the 1960s to track the limited awareness of Australia in India. The final section, based mainly on newspaper clippings of the late 1980s, assesses how India featured in Australian perceptions some two decades on and in the very different world of the day – one that was much more knowledgeable but not necessarily significantly more involved.     

20世纪80年代的四川考古

二十世纪80年代前后被称为＂中国考古的黄金时代＂,四川考古跟上时代步伐,进行了一批目的性较强的工作,围绕人类起源、文明起源、区系类型、文化序列等课题,取得不少成果,初步构建了四川考古文化的主要阶段,为探讨以巴蜀文化为中心的古文化发展进程和具体形态打下了基础。     

Exploring the Political Potential of the Local State: Building a Dialogue with Sheffield in the 1980s

This article explores the political potential of the local state through an engagement with the case of Sheffield City Council in the 1980s. The new municipalism movement has generated renewed interest in the “local” and “urban” as transformative projects. The local state holds a pivotal if problematic role in these debates, often seen as the decisive force facilitating or impeding transformation. In building a dialogue with 1980s Sheffield, we provide a less certain account of the local state's potential. Sheffield occupies an ambiguous position within and beyond traditional municipal labourism and therefore provides a potent example to explore tensions within municipalism between state and autonomist visions of politics. In Sheffield, radical intent turned into a more cautious governmental programme in the city, notwithstanding glimpses of political alternatives. The experience of those years provides insights on the contingencies of bringing movements and state politics together in what was then called “local socialism”.     

From Demographic Transition to Fertility Boom and Bust: Iran in the 1980s and 1990s

Although it is widely recognized that demographic transition is not an uninterrupted process, demographers and population economists have treated short‐term swings in fertility with a measure of curiosity. Iran's experience of population growth after the Revolution in 1979 points to a double paradox of a steep and unprecedented surge in population growth in the 1980s followed by a swift restoration of fertility decline in the 1990s. Both periods have been characterized by extensive socio‐economic and institutional changes combined with radical and far‐reaching sways in Iran's post‐revolutionary population policy. This article applies standardized decomposition analysis to separate out and quantify the proximate components of change in the crude birth rate during these two fertility ‘boom’ and ‘bust’ phases. The aim is to ascertain to what extent structural/demographic or behavioural factors can explain the dynamics of change in fertility and population growth in Iran since the late 1970s. Our findings point to a hitherto neglected role of population momentum in initiating the ‘Islamic baby boom’ as well as a more limited role for population policy in explaining the genesis(rather than the momentum) of both boom and bust phases.     

Framing the new midwifery: media narratives in Ontario and Quebec during the 1980s and 1990s

After long periods of activism and policy debate, Ontario and Quebec were the first two provinces to integrate midwifery into their health-care services. Despite its success and growing popularity in the post-legislative era, midwifery was a highly contentious policy issue, with debates emerging at every level of policy development. In this essay, the authors explore how these debates played out in media. Specifically, the authors suggest that the frames produced by newspapers during this period served to align midwifery with broader provincial socio-political discourses, which in turn legitimized state intervention in the area of reproductive health. At the same time, however, the authors demonstrate that where Ontario media representations muted differences between midwives and physicians, representations in Quebec emphasized them. Thus, the authors show that in very different ways, media representations of midwifery in Ontario and Quebec both established a discursive context in which the state had to "act on" midwifery and midwives, and also challenged the potential of midwifery to transform women's birth experiences.     

The compactness of federal electoral districts in Canada in the 1980s and 1990s: an exploratory analysis

Considerations of the compactness and aesthetics of electoral districts have loomed large in the litigation surrounding the last round of US redistricting. For a variety of reasons, we expect that there will be increasing pressure on Canadian electoral cartographers to provide opportunities for protected minorities to be represented in the country's federal legislature. As a result, we expect that future electoral maps may well embody a tradeoff between compactness and other representational and cartographic desiderata. We look for evidence of this in an exploratory analysis of the last two federal electoral maps (adopted in 1987 and 1996) and in so doing we offer the first country-wide assessment of the compactness of Canadian federal electoral districts (FEDs). The results demonstrate the importance of natural boundaries in the achievement of district compactness. Strong evidence of a decline in the compactness of FEDs between the two maps is not forthcoming, however. Thus there is relatively little sign that Canadian electoral districts will be open to the kind of aesthetically-based legal challenges that American Congressional Districts faced in the 1990s. However, the analyses we report establish an important baseline against which the next electoral map, to be produced following the 2001 census, can be compared.     

金手铲:80年代考古学的寓言(下)

这篇寓言小说叙述了“我”的一次坐飞机旅行的不寻常的经历,以考古学家最常用的发掘工具－一把金色的手铲为线索,以文学性的语言刻画了上世纪80年代三个美国考古学家的生动形象。新生哲学家是一个理论家,自诩为“理论的创造者”,而将他人贬为“理论的消费者”。70年代为骄子以编辑他人的见解为生,擅长将他人的观点变成自己的观点。以上二位从不参加田野发掘,但是却位居要津,声名显赫。老前辈是个传统而又守旧的考古学家,常年奔波在野外考古工地,但由于跟不上形势的发展而被迫提前退了休。他们争论的话题包括：考古学理论、基建考古学、课题考古学、考古学家的道德等等。小说发表后,由于其语言生动风趣,切中了考古学界的种种弊端,立即在学术界引起了轰动,堪考古学史上的一篇旷世奇文。     

20世纪七八十年代国史研究学术建制的发展历程

"文革"结束后至当代中国研究所成立前,是国史研究学术建制的探索完成时期.这个时期,国史研究学术建制的发展历程大致分三个阶段:第一阶段,自"文革"结束至中共十一届三中全会开始前,胡乔木提出"赶快着手研究"中华人民共和国史,中国社科院成立现代史研究室;第二阶段,中共十一届三中全会结束后至1982年底,编写《当代中国》丛书启动,中国社科院拟成立现代史研究所的建议未被采纳;第三阶段,自1983年至1990年底,以当代中国研究所成立为标志,国史研究学术建制取得实质性进展.学界在探索完成国史研究学术建制的十余年时间里,始终贯穿着明确的学术自觉意识.这是完成国史研究学术建制的重要思想保证.     

20世纪七八十年代引滦工程决策历程

水资源短缺一直制约着京津唐地区经济和社会的发展。20世纪70年代,因缺水引发的经济、社会问题逐渐凸显,促使中央和地方政府开始考虑实施跨流域调水工程。引滦工程作为北方最大的跨流域调水工程,其决策经历了曲折的过程。1958年,北京和唐山曾分别提出引滦河水的设想,唐山还实施了引滦入还和引还入陡工程。1972年,海河流域大旱促使中央做出加快实施引滦工程的决定,但由于地质情况复杂等原因,引滦工程设计方案被反复修改。1981年,天津提出了单独引滦济津路线并得到了中央的支持。引滦工程对缓解京津唐用水紧张发挥了重要作用,天津是引滦工程受益最大的地区。     

20世纪80年代中国农村的社会习俗变迁

农村作为新时期经济改革的突破口 ,在中国经济发展中占有重要的位置 ,农村经济的快速发展也引发了社会习俗的相应变化。首先是在消费习俗方面的变化 ,即在服饰、饮食、居住和出行四个方面反映出的物质层面的变化 ;其次是礼仪习俗和民间信仰的变化 ,反映出在意识观念层面的变化。 2 0世纪 80年代中国农村社会习俗的变化 ,除了体现出社会习俗的基本特征 (即具体内容的传承性和变异性并存 )外 ,还有着自己独到的特点 ,如具有一定的稳固性和不可逆性 ,在呈现多元化的同时也表现出一定的不可控倾向。