我们需要什么样的田野作业

对于田野作业,在民俗学界,有两种不同的声音,一种是说田野作业做得不够,一种是说我们的田野作业太多了。我想这其中其实并没有矛盾,关键在于什么样的田野作业不够,什么样的田野作业太多了。在我看来,目前民俗学学科的田野作业处于相当低下的水平,没有完整深入的规范,更缺乏基础扎实的专业训练,似乎任何人只要到调查地跑一跑、看一看,采访几个人就可以称为田野调查。如果田野作业都在这样的“业余”层面重复,那当然是太多了。硬币的另一面是,我们缺少真正有质量的、科学的、专业的田野作业。     

铜器与陶范讲了什么

<正>二里头遗址出土了大量铜器,种类包括兵器、工具、容器以及无法确知用途的铜器、铜块、铜片等,还发现了目前中国最早的铸铜作坊、一批与冶铸有关的遗迹,获得大量冶铸遗物,包括陶范、石范、熔炉碎片、铜渣、铜矿石、木炭、小件铜器。经过学者们多年的努力,对二里头铜器的制作技术和生产的研究已经取得许多重要成果,但是,仍旧存在许多难题,比如矿料来源、冶炼技     

Laughter and Truth in Fiji: What We May Learn from a Joke

This paper examines a series of events which took place in a Fijian village in the late 1980s and which, for the ethnographer, brought into question joking, lying and telling the truth. The analysis suggests that our ideas of what language is good for necessarily inform our understanding of the truth conditions of what is said, from which it follows that truth may be regarded not as an absolute, but as a function of the moral force of language — itself an historical phenomenon that is embedded in, and constituted through, the everyday social relations that we may analyse in terms of gender, kinship, chiefship, and ideas of the person. Laughter emerges as central both to the events described and their analysis. Subtle though they may be, people's ideas of the moral force of language are amenable to investigation and analysis; but for all we may learn from laughter, it ultimately eludes any analysis — an observation that provides the key to its revelatory force.     

What You Don't Know by What You Do

F.H. HINSLEY et al. British Intelligence in the Second World War; its Influence on Strategy and Operations. Volume II. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. xvi, 850. $39.50 (US).     

Reevaluating What We Know About the Histories of Maize in Northeastern North America: A Review of Current Evidence

The adoption of maize in northeastern North America is often seen as a catalyst for the development of settled village life. In this review we develop a theoretical framework centered on shifting-balance theory (SBT) and domesticated landscapes through which to understand the context for the adoption of maize agriculture in the Northeast. We review micro- and macrobotanical evidence and stable carbon isotope data from various sources to reevaluate maize histories and adoption trajectories. These data are coupled with contributions of subregionally significant predecessor plants, such as those constituting the Eastern Agricultural Complex, and wild rice. We find no evidence for rapid transitions to settled village life as a result of maize adoption. Maize was grown for centuries before settled village agricultural systems evolved. It was grown for a sufficiently long time that the potential for local selection leading to Northern Flint is a viable working hypothesis. We call for a refocusing of research questions and a systematic application of contemporary techniques as a means by which to strengthen future inferences based on comparative information sets.     

A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing: What We Know about the Role of the Media in State Politics

Abstract

This article explores the intellectual itinerary of the contemporary French political philosopher Pierre Manent. In particular, it highlights his efforts to do justice to the three great “poles” of human existence: philosophy, politics, and religion. Manent is shown to be a philosophically minded Christian, one who thinks politically and who rejects the temptation to “despise the temporal order.” Manent's reservations about the European project in its present form are shown to be rooted in a understanding of politics that emphasizes the need to weave together “communion” and “consent” if Europeans are to avoid administrative despotism and those postpolitical fantasies that prevent them from thinking and acting politically. The article ends with a reflection on Manent's impressive history of “political forms” in the Western world.     

Mean airstreams of Australia

Streamline analyses of mean monthly resultant surface winds over Australia are presented. Mean confluences represent either cyclone trajectories, or modal fronts. These analyses suggest that Australia's annual airstream climate is of two regimes: that of September to March inclusive, and April to August inclusive. The winter half-year is exemplified by a continental airstream source in southern Australia which diverges over virtually the entire continent. It continues into September and October, although dominating only the southern third to half of Australia, and is absent from November to March. During the summer half-year a new pattern emerges, with three maritime air stream sources represented over the continent: first, air from the Southern Ocean penetrates the south coast reaching its furthest northward extension from December to March inclusive; a second source originating over the Pacific Ocean dominates eastern and northern Australia; and a monsoon source originating over the Indian Ocean which flows overland affecting northern Western Australia. Two modal confluences are noted, one over northwestern Australia from November-February separating monsoon flow from that emanating from the east, and another extending from the west central coast east-southeastward to the southeast coast from November-March separating Southern Ocean air from that originating over the Pacific Ocean.     

The Gift We Bring

Abstract

Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith invites religious traditions, especially Christianity, to bring their best elements into the public square in a spirit of hospitality and engagement for the common good. With regard to Christianity, he claims that one of the best elements we can offer the public square is a complexly relational vision of the human person made to love self, others, God. In this essay Dávila proposes that the preferential option for the poor is a particular expression of this anthropological vision of Christianity that is well poised for public engagement based on humility and care for the most vulnerable members of society. Following Volf’s proposal, the option for the poor functions as a paradigm for imaginative and creative engagement in the public square that might help people of faith navigate seemingly intractable political and cultural disagreements in the public square.     

In Cloth We Trust

In this essay, I contextualize recent studies of cloth and culture in Africa, South America, and Oceania within changing anthropological concerns. Examining cloth as an important aspect of art, technology, and economy, I question how specific properties of objects are connected with cultural and social significance. Over the last two decades in particular, cloth—whether woven or nonwoven—has often been construed as an especially potent polyvalent symbol. Examining how scholars have explored this potential, I address the conceptual relocation of cloth in different, often contradictory regimes of value that join discrete physical locations, from isolated community to cosmopolitan museum.     

为什么我们需要环境史

现代环境危机要求一种新的史学和历史意识。我们要以全新的眼光审视历史 ,将其视为人与自然之间长期交互作用、彼此挑战、彼此改变的历史。环境史己经在世界上许多国家出现 ,它对于那些试图应对危机的科学家和政策制定者实际上有很大的帮助。环境史可以对资源保护以及环境保护主义———现代社会中两种强大的政治力量———的兴起提供更深刻的理解。环境史有助于生态学以及其他环境科学提出更富有创见、更加成熟的解决问题的方法。环境史有助于我们更深刻、更富批判性地了解我们的经济文化和制度 ,特别是占有统治地位的资本主义的经济文化及其对地球所造成的后果。环境史可以让我们对我们所栖居的每一个特定的地方———我们必须在那里发现更好的生活方式———有更深邃的了解。