Gender, Development, and Empowerment in Qinghai Province

A report on the initiatives of Shem, a Qinghai-based Tibetan women＇s group dedicated to empowering Tibetan women and their communities through grassroots development.     

The Palestinian Uprising,Bread Riots and Arab Democratisation

In most theoretical treatments civil strife and domestic political conflict are interpreted as deconstructive and negative, as exemplified by Gurr 1980, p. 239 . Yet no messengers from Christ to Muhammad , no leaders from Bolivar to Gandhi , and no revolutionaries from Lenin to Mao to Mandela ushered in new orders and ideas without conflict. Whether viewed diachronically or synchronically, humankind's history is the history of conflict. However, domestic conflict is neither always negative, as Dixon and Moon 1989 have shown, nor does it always have only short-term effects, as Bienen and Gersovitz 1986 have assumed. There is ample historical evidence for this in the aforementioned cases. Against the backdrop of domestic conflict these historical figures effected positive and lasting changes. Hence the chief postulate of this essay: domestic political conflict, despite the 'inherent plausibility' of its harmfulness, presents opportunities for positive change with long-term effects. This position is tested using examples of Arab bread riots and the spill-over effect of the Palestinian intifadah uprising . Support for this position is found in the context of the recent wave of Arab democratisations. Although generally guided and controlled, Arab political liberalisations especially that of Sudan, Algeria and Jordan have their roots in pressure from below. Elsewhere as in Tunisia and Egypt , similar pressure helped consolidate, or, at least, place political reform on the agenda of delegitimised ruling elites. When compared with other regions, the Arab Middle East AME can readily be shown to have advanced on the road to democracy, even if such a democracy is yet to presage polyarchal rule. Democracy and democratisation in the AME have almost invariably meant a trend towards 'parliamentariasation' and 'electoralisation'. Between 1985 and 1996 the AME has experienced no less than seventeen multi-party elections, twice more than the entire preceding period since the early 1960s when many Arab countries won independence from colonial rule. While renderings of Arab democracy tend to be either 'exceptionalist' projecting pessimistic scenarios or euphoric equating democracy with the number of polls , they fail to consider the role of domestic political violence in the rise of Arab electoral activities, a vacuum area taken up by this essay.     

Representing Crisis: The Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation and the Project of Development in Post-Rana Nepal

Erik Eckholm is attributed with having popularized a theory of environmental crisis in the Nepal Himalaya. In his treatise Losing Ground (1976), he links population growth to contemporary upland deforestation and soil erosion, which are presumed to cause downstream flooding and silting. Since the 1980s, this theory has come under intense criticism on empirical, theoretical and ideological grounds, although it remains a sacred cow in the popular press. A historiography of the theory reveals that representations of and discourses on the nature and extent of environmental degradation have been an important dimension of three distinct aid regimes that shaped the post-World War II development project in Nepal. As such, within specific historical and institutional constellations, some conclusions have seemed more tenable than others, and certain interventions have become more legitimate. Moreover, the production of environmental interventions is intimately connected to the production of environmental knowledge, both of which are intrinsically bound up with power relations. Therefore, the facts about environmental deterioration have become subordinate to the broader debates on the politics of resource use and sustainable development.     

The Memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

In memory of Alina Margolis-Edelman     

The Tragedy of the Highway: Empowerment,Disempowerment and the Politics of Sustainability Discourses and Practices

It is argued in this paper that the orthodox sustainable transport vision leads to the further empowerment of technocratic and elitist groups in society while simultaneously contributing to the further disempowerment of those marginalized social groups who were already bearing the burden of the environmental problems resulting from a troubled transport system. Scalar redefinitions of the transport problem play a prominent role in the twin processes of empowerment and disempowerment. Furthermore, the contributions of spatial planning and neo-classical transport economics to the sustainable transport discourses will be critically investigated. The issues of transport inequality and transport poverty should be re-inserted into the dominant transport policy debates and practices.     

Environmentalists,Rubber Tappers and Empowerment: The Politics and Economics of Extractive Reserves

Extractive reserves are important initiatives in tropical forest zones which seek to integrate conservation of natural resources with development and human welfare objectives. Increasingly in such initiatives empowerment of local communities is seen as both a means of achieving this integration and as an end in itself. This article presents a theoretically informed analysis of the interactions between rubber tappers and environmental organizations in the establishment and implementation of extractive reserves in Rond? nia, Brazil. It distinguishes two dimensions of empowerment — political and economic — and examines how the alliances between organizations have impacted differentially on the two dimensions. The analysis suggests that these alliances have so far been more successful in enabling political rather than economic empowerment. Advances in political empowerment are shown, in the short‐term at least, not to have resulted in improvements in livelihood conditions of poor forest dwellers.     

Preserving Law and Order: Britain, the United States, and the East German Uprising of 1953

Feverishly the strikers watched for signs of intervention bythe American and British occupation forces. It was beyond theircomprehension . . . that the nations of the free world withwhom they felt themselves allied, should stand idly by whilethe Soviet Union crushed the rising with its war machine. Insome places rumour had it that American tanks had crossed thezonal border, that American aircraft were to drop weapons.¹     

Finnish municipalities and planning in transition: Empowerment,impulses and strategies

In a complex and turbulent environment, planning should have a different form from planning in a time of stable development. The modes of action of planning are changing with the environment. The main features of changes concerning planning in the Finnish local government crystallize in a shift from government to governance. The focus of this article is on: (a) an evolution of Finnish municipalities; (b) a possible new form of planning according to principles of governance (including empowerment, impulse planning and strategies); and (c) a quest for a new solution for the future in three Finnish municipalities.     

唐代桂州戍卒起兵的性质

懿宗咸通九年（８６８）,爆发了庞勋为首的桂州戍卒起兵事件。这次起兵历时一年九个月,攻取宿州、徐州、濠州、滁州、和州、寿州、庐州、沂州、海州、沐阳、下蔡、乌江、巢县等地,控制了唐江淮地区,切断了江南财赋通道,队伍发展到一二十万人,其影响是深远的。《新唐书·南蛮传》赞曰：“唐亡于黄巢,而祸基于桂林。”可以说,唐末轰轰烈烈的农民大起义是由桂州戍卒起兵揭开序幕的。历来学术界多认为,这次起兵虽以兵变形式出现,实质上仍是农民起义性质。笔者提出质疑,并作分析如下： 唐代徐州一带“土风雄劲,甲士精强”。懿宗成通…     

Resources,Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment

This paper begins from the understanding that women's empowerment is about the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such an ability. A wide gap separates this processual understanding of empowerment from the more instrumentalist forms of advocacy which have required the measurement and quantification of empowerment. The ability to exercise choice incorporates three inter-related dimensions: resources (defined broadly to include not only access, but also future claims, to both material and human and social resources); agency (including processes of decision making, as well as less measurable manifestations of agency such as negotiation, deception and manipulation); and achievements (well-being outcomes). A number of studies of women's empowerment are analysed to make some important methodological points about the measurement of empowerment. The paper argues that these three dimensions of choice are indivisible in determining the meaning of an indicator and hence its validity as a measure of empowerment. The notion of choice is further qualified by referring to the conditions of choice, its content and consequences. These qualifications represent an attempt to incorporate the structural parameters of individual choice in the analysis of women's empowerment.     

张相文与辛亥滦州起义

张相(1867-1933),字蔚西,晚号沌谷居士,江苏泗阳人。我国近代名地理学家,坚定的民主革命家。近期,笔从其后人留下的资料中发现,张相在担任中国地学会会长期间,还以一名老同盟会员的身份带领地学会早期几名重要职员积极参与策划了辛亥滦州起义,直接促成了滦州起义的举行。     

清代鄂温克族狩猎生产的发展变化

清代鄂温克族狩猎生产的发展变化,主要表现在狩猎生产工具的改进、猎产品的商品化以及因之引起的生产关系的变革。生产效益的提高,商品交换关系的催化作用,推动和促进了鄂温克族狩猎生产的变化过程。