Narratives of Community and Change in a Contemporary Rural Setting: The Case of Duaringa,Queensland

Contemporary rural communities are being affected by a range of changes and processes in Australia, including major changes in demographic patterns; the organisation and performance of primary industries; levels of government support for economic and social infrastructure; and wider developments in technology and changing socio‐cultural values. The impact of these processes has been felt unequally and small communities which have had a traditionally close relationship with agricultural industries are particularly challenged. The current paper reports on one such community and provides the opportunity to analyse both the the substance and cultural understandings of such forms of rural change/uncoupling. The paper presents local narratives of community and change in Duaringa, Central Queensland and responds to recent international literature suggesting that the meanings and politics of rural change are as significant as the economic trends that are occurring. The Duaringa narratives demonstrate both the substance and dynamics of expressions of community (and loss). And the paper concludes that these meanings are also influenced by wider processes including consumption‐oriented lifestyles and national interests in South East Asian relations.     

The Memory of Slavery at Saint Louis University

This essay examines both the history and memory of slavery at Saint Louis University (SLU). The essay argues that, despite the fact that slavery and slaves featured prominently in the university's early history, later members of the SLU and St. Louis community have forgotten or misremembered the role of human bondage in the school's past. This process of forgetting is particularly notable given the fact that SLU is a Jesuit University that plays a prominent role in the cultural, educational, and economic life of the city of St. Louis. The essay will analyze the process by which the role of slavery at SLU has been forgotten before concluding with suggestions for how the topic might be treated in the future.     

Economic Change in the Prehistoric Hexi Corridor (4800–2200 bp), North‐West China

It is widely known that the Hexi Corridor in North‐West China lies at a hub of trans‐Eurasian cultural exchange. Its role became increasingly important during the late prehistoric period, particularly as the ancient Silk Road began to be used. While the profound transformation of local cultural characteristics in the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age is well documented, the detailed economic dynamics of cultural evolution have not yet been clearly illustrated. In this paper, we report on significant new zooarchaeological and faunal isotopic data from the Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in the Hexi Corridor. The primary objective is to systematically reconstruct the prehistoric economic context of this area by combining these new data with previous archaeological studies and radiocarbon dates. We argue that the primary economic activities of local inhabitants changed dramatically in the prehistoric Hexi Corridor. This was marked by agricultural production at c.4800–4000 bp , agro‐pastoral production at c.4000–3000 bp and animal husbandry at c.3000–2200 bp , respectively. The major subsistence strategies of these three periods show considerable variation. It is very likely that these transformations of economic patterns in the prehistoric Hexi Corridor were primarily triggered by transcontinental cultural exchange and, to a lesser extent, by climate change.     

区域经济增长的文化产业驱动效应研究——基于省级面板数据的分析

本文采用中国31个省份1996-2013年的面板数据,对中国文化产业与经济发展的内在驱动效应展开研究。研究发现:第一,文化产业投入和产出规模扩张对地区GDP和人均GDP增长具有显著作用,两者间的交互效应会加大其对经济发展的推动力;第二,文化产业有助于带动旅游业和整个第三产业发展,促进地区经济增长;第三,中国文化产业对经济发展的带动效应存在显著的地区差异,西部地区文化产业对经济发展的提升作用最大,中部和东部地区效应相对不足。因此,进一步加大对文化产业发展的政策支持,实现文化产业的合理布局,不仅能够促进整体经济增长,而且可以实现区域平衡发展。     

Before Removal: An Archaeological Perspective on the Southern Lake Michigan Basin

Abstract

More than 12,000 years of cultural adaptation and change in the southwestern Great Lakes preceded the period of Removal that is the focus of this volume. Strategies for economic risk management, patterns of group interaction, and dynamics of group identity in play during the Removal period were developed over the long expanse of prehistory and early history. In this paper we provide an overview of these cultural developments, and offer a deep-time perspective of traditional cultural patterns leading to the specific Removal period case studies presented.     

保障公民的文化权益是维护社会公平的重要保证

公民文化权利与公民政治权利、经济权利一样,属于公民的基本权利。保障公民文化权益,不断满足人民群众日益增长的精神文化需求,对全面建设小康社会和构建和谐社会具有重大的意义。文化差距而产生的文化矛盾、公共文化服务资源短缺等是制约当前公民文化权益健康发展的主要因素。因此,我们必须从现阶段经济社会发展水平出发,以实现和保障公民基本文化权益、满足广大人民群众基本文化需求为目标,坚持公共服务普遍均等原则,兼顾城乡之间、地区之间的协调发展,最大限度地满足人民群众日益增长的精神文化需求。     

The Second Interagency Conference on Population Geography

A theory that areal variations in economic development in the USSR (analyzed at the oblast level for most republics) depend on regional economic structure, economic policy, cultural factors, and the center-periphery dichotomy is tested via simple regression analysis, using retail sales per capita as the indicator of economic level. The independent variables are: share of urban population (for economic structure), investments (for economic policy), percentage of Moslem population (for the cultural factor), and distance from Moscow (for the periphery effect). All of these variables except distance were significant in explaining the real variation in retail sales per capita.     

Modelling the cultural industries

Alternative definitions of the cultural industries lead to the construction of different models of the cultural production sector of the economy and hence to a different array of specific industries which are contained within the sector. In turn this implies not just differing estimates of the contribution of the cultural industries to output and employment in the economy but also significant differences in the way economic analysis can be applied to the cultural sector as a whole. This paper begins by discussing the way in which an economic approach to interpreting the scope of the creative and cultural industries can lead to a reasonable basis for defining them. It then goes on to examine the content of six distinct models of these industries, asking the question: is it possible to find a common core group of industries on which all of the models agree? The paper then considers the implications of the models for economic analysis of the cultural sector, and finishes with some conclusions for cultural policy.     

Ready, willing, and able to divorce: an economic and cultural history of divorce in twentieth-century Sweden

This study outlines a long history of divorce in Sweden, recognizing the importance of considering both economic and cultural factors in the analysis of marital dissolution. Following Ansley Coale, the authors examine how a framework of multiple theoretical constructs, in interaction, can be applied to the development toward mass divorce. Applying a long historical perspective, the authors argue that an analysis of gendered aspects of the interaction between culture and economics is crucial for the understanding of the rise of mass divorce. The empirical analysis finds support for a marked decrease in legal and cultural obstacles to divorce already during the first decades of the twentieth century. However, economic structures remained a severe obstacle that prohibited significant increases in divorce rate prior to World War II. It was only during the 1940s and 1960s, when cultural change was complemented by marked decreases in economic interdependence between spouses, that the divorce rate exhibited significant increases. The authors find that there are advantages to looking at the development of divorce as a history in which multiple empirical factors are examined in conjunction, recognizing that these factors played different roles during different time periods.     

中国境外经贸合作区的文化适应性研究——以中埃·泰达苏伊士经贸合作区为例

不同国家在政治体制、经济发展水平、社会文化习俗等方面存在巨大差异,使得中国境外经贸合作区嵌入东道国时产生了制度和文化方面的冲突,出现“水土不服”的窘境,因此境外经贸合作区如何克服文化差异以更好地融入东道国成为研究的科学问题。本文以中埃·泰达苏伊士经贸合作区为例,基于文化尊重、融合和创新等原则,从物质文化、行为文化、制度文化和精神文化四方面探讨合作区的文化适应性。研究发现：①合作区的文化适应性不能一概而论,需要先识别文化类型,再明确各类文化的属性与特征,最后选择恰当的文化适应路径。合作区在物质文化、行为文化、制度文化和精神文化方面的有效适应,可以凝聚成推动其嵌入东道国“土壤”的文化合力,为合作区可持续、高质量发展提供动力。②中埃·泰达苏伊士经贸合作区遵循求同尊异、创新融合的理念,在文化适应性方面取得良好的效果,但也存在属地化管理困难、制度文化有待优化等问题。     

Rural–urban divide and identity conflicts of migrant Muslim students in Northwest China

Abstract

A huge flow of internal migrants in China is an indicator of the significant changes in the geographical and cultural patterns brought by China’s recent economic growth. The Hui (10.6 million), as one of the largest ethnic minority groups in China, and the Dongxiang, with almost 100% of them holding the Islamic belief, are migrating from rural areas to urban centers in Northwest China. Analyzing the qualitative data from narrative stories, thematic photos, group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and field observations, this study interprets the cultural experience of rural Muslim migrant students in Chinese public schools and examines their complex and fluid rural–urban identities. This study further discusses the possibilities of including and integrating rural migrant students in cities.     

Understanding ethnic differences in perceptions,attitudes, and behaviours: a study of domestic water use in Sydney

There is growing realisation among environmental and social studies researchers that people's decision‐making about water use conforms to their internal norms and beliefs, which are developed in social and cultural contexts. Little research, however, has addressed the possible impacts that ethnic and cultural diversity may have on domestic water use and management. This paper presents the results of a study conducted in Sydney, with specific reference to questionnaire findings. Among respondents from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, significant differences were observed in terms of perceptions, specific knowledge, attitudes, and self‐reported behaviours in relation to water use and conservation. The disparities identified were not masking socio‐demographic and economic characteristics but were the result of a series of constructs closely tied to ethnicity, including cultural value, environmental experience, language preference, and information access. As a factor explaining variation in the engagement of pro‐conservation behaviour, ethnic status was found to be more useful than some socio‐economic factors. The study highlights the importance of including ethnicity and cultural sensitivity issues in the decision‐making process of environmental management.     

Warriors and blacksmiths: Mediating ethnicity in East African spears

Ethnoarchaeology offers some ability to transform contemporary forms of social constitution into a method for interpreting prehistoric social patterns and for understanding the coevolution of symbolic and utilitarian technologies. In north-central Kenya, one social caste of Lokop pastoralist actors (warriors) interacts with another (blacksmiths) to build a technology for socially constituting gender and social age. Three aspects of this process can help to direct analogous archaeological research in prehistoric contexts. First, this case reiterates that symbols for and symbolic acts of gender and social age continually help actors to constitute or negotiate their places within varied social fields. It is clear, however, that the connection between social prestige—essentially the goal of Lokop personal adornment—and real economic or political power is not necessarily direct. For Lokop herders, foreign traits of spear morphology are the stylistic raw material for constituting internally defined social fields. Ethmic distinctions are more pasively constituted, almost as an epiphenomenon. Second, the constituative significance of material symbols may be grasped without appealing to or understanding the cultural meaning of forms (in an emic sense) from only the archaeological evidence. In fact, prehistorians should not concern themselves with attempts to reconstruct the meaning of cultural phenomena. Rather, archaeological inquiry should attempt to infer the meaningfulness of formal traits within a specific social context, based on significant material patterns in the archaeological record. Third, the items of meaning themselves are constituted with their own material means of production, and these systems may be interpreted through economic models more familiar to archaeology. The Lokop case encompasses producers and users both as specialists. Blacksmiths rely on their marginal positions in herding society to make them the brokers of morphological traits. Warriors, also accustomed to marginal status, effectively collaborate with blacksmiths to set up their own future place as elders. For archaeological applications in prehistory, the exchange and processing of raw materials should reconstitute economic hierarchy in a very clear manner.     

滇南山区多元民族文化下的土地利用与区域可持续发展

立体性地貌气候特征下的滇南多元民族文化地区,由于文化背景、生活方式及社会经济发展水平的差异性,构成了资源利用及保护的多样性。我们利用遥感、地理信息系统等高新技术,从土地空间结构及土地利用时空变化着手,结合野外村寨调查,研究了民族文化在边疆、山区、民族地区经济生态系统中、在区域可持续发展中的地位和作用。     

Sign Geography

Signs are significant elements of cultural landscapes throughout the world. Through their form and content, signs reveal a variety of information about places ranging from locational and physical geographic data through social, economic and political characteristics. Signs, which tell of past events, current conditions and future expectations, are landscape notes on the geography of change. Signs are frequently evidence of cultural diffusion and convergence. Many signs give direction to human activity and symbolize societal quest for order. Others reflect tastes, values and attitudes, in concert with prevailing belief systems. Signs are both cultural phenomena and landscape statements that attest to the way of life in a place.     

西方经济地理学文化转向的哲学思考

在西方经济地理学宽泛的文化转向浪潮中文化因素从"常量"转而成为"变量",文化等非经济因素对经济活动的影响及它们之间的相互作用已成为新的研究焦点。在此过程中,新经济地理学家解释世界的理论不再强调镜射世界的能力,不再将"无视角视界"作为隐喻的蓝图,反而强调将自身置于作者地位的重要性,承认科学家的背景和它能影响其所知的及其诉说的内容,即"有视角视界"。后现代主义解释学认为科学家是以感兴趣的方式以社会环境限制的方式参与知识的理解、创造过程,新经济地理学受其影响强调探讨,认为理论一直是处于争论的状态,一直是处于探讨过程中的。新经济地理学不主张提出客观唯一的叙事,也难以做到,这也正是其兴起的重要原因。     

Demographic Continuities and Discontinuities in Neolithic Europe: Evidence, Methods and Implications

Observations of continuities and discontinuities in the archaeological record depend in important ways on the spatial and temporal scale at which we make the observations, which are in turn affected by the observational tools we have available. Nowhere is this more important than in matters of chronological resolution and its impact on our sense of stability and change. But theoretical considerations are also relevant and specific theoretical positions and observational tools tend to go together. A variety of new methods have made it possible to attain levels of chronological resolution not previously accessible and also to obtain information about aspects of past societies that were not previously available, such as the genetic make-up of their members. These developments have undermined the long-standing view in Anglo-American archaeology that change is gradual and autonomous and are leading to a view of the past that is much more dynamic. The implications of these new developments are examined in relation to the demographic patterns of the European Neolithic. It is argued that demographic fluctuations—‘boom-bust’ patterns—play a key role in accounting for patterns of cultural change over the course of the Neolithic and that a variety of methods can inform on them, including the use of summed radiocarbon probability distributions, which have the advantage that the information to construct them is very widely available. Given the speed with which demographic processes operate, it is important that the temporal resolution of our methods is sufficient to characterise the patterns that result from them. While the demographic patterns are becoming clearer, much more work needs to be done to understand the cultural, social and economic processes at work following regional collapse in populations, where this does not simply lead to reoccupation by new groups from elsewhere.     

Three arguments against ‘soft innovation’: towards a richer understanding of cultural innovation

This paper critiques recent research on innovation in the cultural and creative industries. In particular, this paper examines Paul Stoneman’s idea of ‘soft innovation’ as a jumping off point for discussing theories of cultural innovation more broadly. Three critiques are advanced. Firstly, soft innovation is a theoretical perspective that has developed from neoclassical economics, and is therefore vulnerable to criticisms levelled at neoclassical explanations of economic behaviour. Secondly, the theory of soft innovation can be criticised for being contingently inaccurate: the observed reality of cultural industries and marketplaces may not reflect the theory’s premises. Thirdly, because soft innovation defines the significance of an innovation in terms of marketplace success, it implies that only high-selling cultural products are significant, a difficult claim to substantiate. This paper concludes by arguing that our understanding of innovation in the cultural sphere can benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach grounded in the full gamut of human creativity.     

For a Critical Cultural Political Economy

This paper argues that, if cultural political economy is to be worthwhile, it needs to be critical of its object. In order to develop its critical understanding of contemporary society, it needs to do at least three things. Firstly, while the cultural turn has corrected and sometimes inverted economic reductionism's dismissive treatment of culture and the lifeworld, it needs to avoid reducing economic systems to the lifeworld in which they are embedded, so that the extent to which systems are responsible for economic and cultural effects—good or bad—is not obscured. Secondly, it needs to take a more critical look at the social and cultural embedding of economic activities, and at the way system mechanisms of capital accumulation and uneven development have powerful dis embedding and disruptive effects. Thirdly, it needs to reconsider, rather than ignore, classical political economy, which was always cultural and is still of relevance today, even though it failed to anticipate new issues of cultural and political significance, such as the politics of identity.     

Working at the ambivalence of race: ethnomimesis and the cancellation of St Paul's Carnival

The ambivalence of race is taken as a starting point in exploring the cancellation of the 2012 St Paul's Carnival, an African-Caribbean arts event in Bristol, England. That race is unstable, that it can be done and undone, has long been a focus of scholarship in social and cultural geography and beyond. This article asks instead how such a fragile state is maintained and with what implications. This necessitates regarding racial ambivalence as an activity; a condition that has to be worked at to be sustained. Ethnomimesis is used to frame these operations of racial ambivalence. Ethnomimesis is the way in which we encounter, stereotype and recognise cultural practices for ourselves and manifest them to others. It demonstrates how different configurations of race are precariously held between the creative possibilities and contingencies of situated cultural practices. Three moments of cancellation are narrated to show how ethnomimetic processes work through multiple formulations of race. This racial ambivalence is central to Carnival's failure. The organisers attempted to produce a performance of African-Caribbean culture that simultaneously denied the histories of racism that motivated the event. Ethnomimesis exposes how the racial ambivalence emergent in these cultural practices both opens and closes the possibilities to belong.