Cruel and unusual

From early April to late June 2018, the nearly 2,600 immigrant children – mostly refugees fleeing violence and poverty in Central America – were forcibly taken from their parents at the United States’ southern border following implementation of the Trump administration's ‘zero tolerance’ policy. The policy took effect when the US Justice Department began aggressively prosecuting undocumented immigrants crossing the US‐Mexico border. Following a public outcry and growing protests, President Trump issued an executive order declaring an end to family separations on 20 June. Several days later, a federal court mandated that the government reunite those immigrant families affected by the ‘zero tolerance’ policy. In mid‐August, more than 550 children who had been detained following the implementation of the policy remained in federal custody. Thousands more ‘unaccompanied minors’ – typically teenagers who were caught crossing the border without adults –remain in indefinite detention. This editorial analyzes this situation from an anthropological perspective by reviewing relevant ethnographic literature on undocumented Latin American immigrants in the US.     

【华夏论坛】残忍的微笑

摄影家在到海南拍摄风光的旅程中,不期然撞上了这骇人的一幕.他端起相机,屠夫居然志得意满地转过身来,根本没想擦净手上的鲜血,反而自以为英雄似的面对镜头,神色傲然地微笑.摄影师把这家伙残忍的微笑永远留在了胶片上.     

残暴罪行不容掩盖--揭露侵华日军在中国的毒气实验

侵华日军在中国东北进行的毒气实验是其化学战罪行中重要 的组成部分，而且其残暴程度是骇人听闻的。但是战后的日本右翼势力一直竭力掩盖这一罪 行，制造了大量谎言，而我国国内对于该问题的实证性研究也比较少。本文首先根据近年来 国外披露的有关资料，对关东军在东北进行毒气实验的基本情况进行概括性的介绍，又根据 实地考察的结果对实验地点进行了推论和考证。在“九·一八事变”70周年来临之际，谨以此文回击日本右翼势力对历史的歪曲，并告慰为中华民族的解放而牺牲的同胞们。     

The limits to optimism: Australia and the rise of China

The Australian government optimistically expects that China's rise can be easily managed. They predict US–China relations will be cooperative, and reject concerns that Australia may face hard choices between them. This optimism seems to be based on the view that as China grows it will become increasingly integrated into a US-led global system. That overestimates America's power, and underestimates China's ambitions. The best we can hope for instead is that China and the US will cooperate in a concert of power, but the US will be very reluctant to make the necessary concessions to China for that to happen. So there is a real risk of even worse outcomes: Chinese primacy, sustained US–China hostility, or war. Australia therefore needs to try to persuade America to work with China in building a new ‘Concert of Asia’.     

The culture of Sofia: At the crossroads of paradox and optimism

NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CULTURAL ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION FOR CULTURAL ECONOMICS INTERNATIONAL (ACEI) in co‐operation with Northeastern University, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, USA 8–11 May 1996     

After Gentrification: Social Mix,Settler Colonialism,and Cruel Optimism in the Transformation of Neighbourhood Space

Social mix policies have emerged as a prominent mechanism to legitimate neighbourhood redevelopment efforts across the US. Despite integrationist rhetoric, results often disabuse marginalised communities of their claims to the city. This paper employs a hybrid spatio‐temporal analysis at the intersection of political‐economic theories of gentrification and post‐colonial and Black geographies literatures to examine underlying cultural logics and affective experiences animating such processes of neighbourhood transformation, contestation, and succession. Reflecting on 15 years of experience researching Over‐the‐Rhine (OTR), Cincinnati, we contribute a stylised distinction between the foundational, mature, and ongoing legacies of urban settler colonial relations. Our account discloses the power geometries shaping neighbourhood space by illustrating the impact of the discourses, tactics, and strategies employed by pro‐development actors and neighbourhood activists as OTR's socio‐political landscape shifted over time. In conclusion, we engage the thorny questions these dynamics raise surrounding how inner‐city neighbourhoods are theorised and struggled over after gentrification.     

The rationalist tradition and the problem of induction: Karl Popper's rejection of epistemological optimism

This article evaluates Karl Popper's contribution to analytic philosophy, and outlines some of the contradictions in his work which make it difficult to locate in any particular tradition. In particular, the article investigates Popper's own claims to be a member of the rationalist tradition. Although Popper described himself as a member of this tradition, his definition of it diverged quite radically from that offered by other supporters of rationalism, like, for example, Mach, Carnap, and the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. The reason for this was that Popper believed the rationalist tradition, if it were to remain coherent and relevant, needed to overcome the dilemma posed by Hume's problem of induction. Popper believed that this problem rendered conventional understandings of rationalism, science, and inductive reasoning incoherent. This article suggests that Popper's principal contribution to modern philosophy was to reconfigure the rationalist tradition in such a way as to circumvent the problem of induction while preserving the rationalist commitment to reason, rational debate, and objective knowledge. Popper's reconfiguration of the epistemological bases of the rationalist tradition challenged dominant understandings of rationalist and analytic philosophy, and may be appropriately understood as part of a wider move among philosophers like Quine and Putnam to challenge conventional understandings of analytic philosophy, and of what philosophy itself could and could not achieve. It also informed a vision of social and political life (and of the social and political sciences) as rooted in principles of freedom, equality, and rational debate, but which cannot be fit within the traditional ideological landscape.