评《新编剑桥中世纪史》

《剑桥中世纪史》(以下简称《老版》)第一至八卷在1 91 1年至1 936年间出版。此后虽有略加修改的多次重印本,但无论从思想观点还是从行文版式看,都与时代要求相距甚远。因此早在80年代后期,西方史学界就酝酿重编事宜,90年代组织作者队伍着手撰写。1 995年,书名为《新编剑桥中世     

简评阿兰·贝克的《地理学与历史学——架起跨越鸿沟的桥》

历史地理学诞生在西方,西方学者对其理论的探讨也早于我国学者。在20世纪上半叶,学者曾多次讨论历史地理学的性质问题。英国著名历史地理学家达比(H.C.Darby)先生也数次撰文阐述,其思想深刻影响了我国学界,他所认为的历史地理学属于地理学的思想至今在我国还占主流地位。与我国学界关于历史地理学理论的热烈探讨一样①,论述历史地理学理论的文章在西方更是多不胜数,著作也有不少,理论层出不穷。但敢于以“地理学与历史学”作为著作题目进行宏观阐述的学者却非常少。1901年,乔治(H.B.George)先生以一个历史学家的视角出版《地理学与历史学…     

The Symbolic Making of a Common Property Resource: History,Ecology and Locality in a Tank-irrigated Landscape in South India

Today there is a pervasive policy consensus in favour of ‘community management’ approaches to common property resources such as forests and water. This is endorsed and legitimized by theories of collective action which, this article argues, produce distinctively ahistorical and apolitical constructions of ‘locality’, and impose a narrow definition of resources and economic interest. Through an historical and ethnographic exploration of indigenous tank irrigation systems in Tamil Nadu, the article challenges the economic-institutional modelling of common property systems in terms of sets of rules and co-operative equilibrium outcomes internally sustained by a structure of incentives. The article argues for a more historically and politically grounded understanding of resources, rights and entitlements and, using Bourdieu's notion of ‘symbolic capital’, argues for a reconception of common property which recognizes symbolic as well as material interests and resources. Tamil tank systems are viewed not only as sources of irrigation water, but as forming part of a village ‘public domain’ through which social relations are articulated, reproduced and challenged. But the symbolic ‘production of locality’ to which water systems contribute is also shaped by local ecology. The paper examines the historical and cultural production of two distinctive ‘cultural ecologies’. This serves to illustrate the fusion of ecology and social identity, place and person, in local conceptions, and to challenge a currently influential thesis on the ecological-economic determinants of collective action. In short, development discourse and local actors are seen to have very different methods and purposes in the ‘production of locality’. Finally, the article points to some practical implications of this for strategies of ‘local institutional development’ in irrigation.