Technology-nonhuman-child assemblages: reconceptualising rural childhood roaming

This paper argues for reconceptualising how children use technology ‘outdoors’ as a technology-nonhuman-child assemblage, or roaming pathway. Founded in contemporary fears about children’s reduced opportunities to access nature and roam in rural environments, in part due to the ubiquitous presence of technology in their lives, we instead illustrate how the agencies of technologies and plants are folded into children’s outdoor roaming. Combining visual methods, video analysis and qualitative geovisualisation, and in collaboration with the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, this paper exposes how assemblages are contingently brought into being through the actions of what technologies, plants and children do together. We demonstrate how the agentic capacities of non-humans and technologies are assembled through children’s imaginative interaction with them, and how these imaginative interactions make such agencies visible.     

Arrested: Orangutan sexuality and the rehabilitation of wildness through captivity in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

How is sexuality pivotal for paradoxically both proving and causing rehabilitation? This paper engages a captor’s interest in the sexual lives of captives, specifically at a wildlife centre for displaced, semi-wild orangutans on Malaysian Borneo. It suggests a bigger problem in captivity at large: rehabilitation might always be an impossible horizon.     

论加强民族地区党的先进性建设和执政能力建设

民族地区党的先进性建设和执政能力建设,必然要体现少数民族和民族地区的特点,必须结合各民族共同团结奋斗、共同繁荣发展的伟大实践。只有紧紧围绕贯彻党的民族政策、加强民族团结、维护祖国统一和加快民族地区经济社会全面发展的实践,才能使民族地区党的先进性建设和执政能力建设得以真正实现。     

THE 2013 ANTIPODE RGS‐IBG LECTURE New Materialisms and Neoliberal Natures

The rise of non‐deterministic understandings of nature, with their emphasis on intensive difference and non‐linear processes, has occurred in conjunction with the neoliberalization of environmental governance, which at once emphasizes and financializes the inherent productivity of nature. This paper accepts the position that there is a link between the two, but argues that if we are to maintain a crucial ontological distinction between capital and non‐capital, this link must be understood as contingent rather than necessary. Drawing upon Deleuze and Guattari's concept of “universal history”, I argue that the neoliberalization of nature must be understood, in part, as the strategic containment of the critical energies of new materialist thought, and that the role of critical historiography is to recognize within processes of containment the contents and qualities of more radical possibilities. If such critical efforts are to succeed they must continually distinguish between nature's innovative force and the mechanisms that seek to capture this force in the service of capital and state. In turn, if we are to remember the radical potential of these ideas, the neoliberalization of nature must be understood as a response to these critical energies, and not their origin.     

大革命时期党的先进性建设的历史经验及其启示

大革命时期是我们党的建设史上一个非常重要的历史时期。为了生存和发展,年幼的中国共产党从政治、组织、思想、作风等各方面对党的先进性建设进行了初步探索,创造了许多成功经验,但也有不少失误和教训。研究和总结党在这一时期关于加强党的先进性建设的历史经验,有益于我们根据新的时代特征进一步推进党的先进性建设。     

马克思自然概念的多维度解读

马克思以前的自然概念以非实践的方式来看待自然,割裂了自然与人、自然与历史、自然科学与人的科学的联系。马克思“感性的自然”突出了自然界与人的相关性;“人化的自然”强调了自然概念的社会历史性;“历史的自然”体现了自然与历史的辩证法;“人本学的自然”是对自然科学与人的科学分离的克服;“价值的自然”是对人与自然和谐的守望。     

为构建社会主义和谐社会提供强有力的政治保证——学习中共十六届六中全会精神

党的十六届六中全会开辟了中国特色社会主义事业的新境界。构建社会主义和谐社会,是中国共产党领导中国人民走向新胜利的新起点,只有不断推进党的执政能力建设和先进性建设,才能为构建社会主义和谐社会提供坚强有力的政治保证。     

Complexity,Dynamism, and Agency: How Can Dialectical Biology Inform Geography?

Dialectical approaches, variously interpreted, have been advocated for by geographers for several decades. At the same time, critical environmental geography has recently become dominated by vital materialist strands of thought, the advocates of which have sometimes framed their own work in opposition to dialectics. Critics perceive two major problems with a dialectical framework; that it cements a nature–society dualism and that it insufficiently accounts for the agency or vitality of non‐human life. This paper seeks to address these criticisms by engaging with work by biologists who have been influenced by dialectical ideas. I outline two examples, Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins’ understanding of the way organism and environment mutually construct each other and research by Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer that offers a non‐dualist approach to wildlife conservation in agricultural ecosystems. The article discusses some of the ways in which these understandings might inform contemporary debates in political ecology.     

Childhood collecting in nature: quality experience in important places*

ABSTRACT

A need for a more specific understanding of childhood geographies has motivated an investigation of one activity, childhood collecting in nature. This study examined collecting behavior, places of collecting, and the relationship of these places to environmental connectedness in adulthood. Topophilia is presented as a guide to help consider why children collect in nature and to expand upon a limited understanding of collecting behavior. These ideas are explored with a mixed-method design strategy involving surveys and semi-structured interviews with a sample of Swedish university students. Results show collecting in nature to be a widespread, meaningful, and memorable experience in the formative years of participants. Results also demonstrate potential support for topophilia as a way to understand the childhood collecting nature phenomenon. Implications include recognition of the importance of family to support children’s engagement in the natural world and proximate access to nature as a critical aspect of childhood experience.     

追寻存在的意义--对约翰·福尔斯的《法国中尉的女人》主题研究

受存在主义思潮影响,英国后现代作家约翰·福尔斯十分关注人类生存本质的问题.在他的作品<法国中尉的女人>中,福尔斯对人的本真的问题给予了深刻的思考.本文试图从存在主义哲学理论出发,通过分析主人公查尔斯的非本真和本真生活来探讨人生存在的意义.     

Theorizing a child–dog encounter in the slums of La Paz using post-humanistic approaches in order to disrupt universalisms in current ‘child in nature’ debates

This paper theorizes children's interspecies relation with dogs in La Paz Bolivia utilizing post-humanism and new materialism as its approach. This approach allows for the deconstructing of human–nature binaries found in discourses central to the children in nature movement. Questioning the universalizing of children's experience in nature the paper considers three propositions. Firstly, what if children were viewed as nature rather than outside of it. Secondly, can the objects or ‘things’ of nature be viewed as animated. And finally, how sensitive is the contemporary imperative to reconnect children to a romanticized more natured life, to children's diverse worldly experiences. I explore these propositions drawing on a study where I have adopted a materialist ontology and theorized using the work of [Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press] and her concept of intra-action as adopted by Rautio [2013a. “Children Who Carry Stones in Their Pockets: On Autotelic Material Practices in Everyday Life.” Children's Geographies 11 (4): 394–408]. Based on my child–dog interspecies exploration, I will conclude by re-addressing the three propositions.     

THE SPACES OF NATURE: INTRODUCTION

The articles in this section aim at critical reappraisal of space from the viewpoint of the materiality of human action which is underpinned by a special focus on its dealings with nature. Space is primarily viewed by others than geographers and/or from outside Scandinavian and Anglo‐American research. The role of language and culture, as well as using the possibilities of ecosemiotics grown out of the Tartu–Moscow school, is highlighted in an attempt to enliven discussions of lived space and human relationships with nature.     

‘Of place’ or ‘of people’: exploring the animal spaces and beastly places of feral cats in southern Ontario

Feral cats are contentious and transgressive, with opposing views on whether to classify them as abandoned pets, wild animals, or invasive species. Concerns about their welfare often conflict with fears that they are impacting native fauna. This paper presents the results of a case study of human–feral cat relations that took place in southern Ontario, Canada in 2014. This research investigates the discursive constructions of feral cats and their ‘animal spaces’ using the results of 40 semi-structured interviews. Following recent calls to move beyond human representations of animals and better integrate animals’ geographies, this study also explores the ‘beastly places’ of feral cats using the results of field observations of 20 feral cat colonies and anecdotal evidence from colony caretakers. The results emphasize the diversity of free-living contexts and the complexity of management options. This paper ends by discussing the place-making practices of cats, along with their potential ethical ramifications. Overall, it illustrates the importance of spatial factors in understanding the complex social and ethical dynamics of human–animal relations, and advances an understanding of nonhuman animals as inhabitants of personally meaningful homes.     

从社会主义事业的辉煌发展透视社会主义的开放性

本文聚焦社会主义国家的发展,从理论与实践的向度对社会主义的开放实践及其探索进行了历史考察,探讨了社会主义的开放性这一基本属性,认为社会主义作为人类社会发展的文明成果具有广阔的前景。     

Beyond ‘resistance’: rethinking nonhuman agency for a ‘more-than-human’ world

This article argues that rethinking historical agency to include nonhuman agents is one way to integrate better animals into historical narratives. Drawing on posthumanist theories from geography, anthropology and science and technology studies (STS), and forming part of a growing interest in nonhuman, particularly animal, agency, it aims to clear some theoretical and historiographical ground to provide a basis for claims that nature has agency. It then argues that environmental and animal historians have too readily equated nonhuman agency with ‘resistance’, a concept that does not easily map onto animal behaviour and one which also fails to capture the diversity of nonhuman agencies. Using case studies of Police rescue dogs in early twentieth-century France and animals on the Western Front, it argues that exploring the diverse types of nonhuman agencies and their deep and multiple entanglements with human agents will extend studies of nonhumans beyond the resistance model.     

关于真理的几个问题新议

在实践唯物主义精神的指引下,遵循实践哲学的方法原则,正确对待真理的主观特征和主体本性,挖掘深藏其中的主观意蕴,是关乎真理论研究和发展方向的重大问题,是唯物主义反映论的基本要求。真理作为主体对客体的正确反映,即科学的理论,它包含认识和正确的认识两个规定性,简而言之,真理是特殊的认识。     

THE CRISIS OF HUMANITY: OR,WHAT IF WE HAVE NEVER BEEN HUMAN?

This collection of nine essays brings together a variety of responses to the question of the “nonhuman turn” within the humanities and the social sciences, understood broadly as a developing concern with overcoming anthropocentrism in its diverse manifestations. Emerging from The Nonhuman Turn conference held at the University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee in 2012, which was hosted by the Center for 21st Century Studies, it represents the first attempt to account for and consolidate the many intellectual approaches and developments that may now be regarded as constituting the nonhuman turn. The nonhuman turn is contextualized as both “yet another” turn but also a necessary one, and as something critically distinct from “the posthuman turn”—whereas the posthuman turn is concerned with what comes after the human (ways of being, ways of thinking), the nonhuman turn insists (according to editor Richard Grusin) that “we have never been human.” My reading of this volume suggests that this claim is not borne out across the chapters it contains, and that the notion that we have never been human, though a noble gesture to Bruno Latour's widely lauded claim that “we have never been modern,” does not enable a new philosophy, nor does it advance the two primary streams of philosophical thought featured here: object‐oriented ontology (OOO) and new materialism.     

环境史及其对自然的重新书写

长期以来,由于根深蒂固的静止世界观及地理环境决定论的消极影响,再加上人类对自然的生态价值缺乏认识,自然长期被历史学家所忽视。自19世纪后半期,一些美国学者尝试将自然纳入历史的写作范畴。经过长时间摸索,这一努力日臻成熟,集中表现在20世纪六七十年代出现的环境史。环境史扩大了历史研究的范畴,提供了观察历史的新思路和新视角,它还可以对一些重大历史事件和理论问题重新做出解释。     

青年森鸥外与庄子的"性命"论

青年时代的森鸥外主张“余等自然学者,求人类之进步与知识的开拓”。他以近代科学的发展为基点来理解《庄子》的“性命”论,并在与他人的论争中引用《庄子》的学说为自己的主张立论。鸥外以为,依照庄子的学说,今天的学者们应该以“有涯之生随无涯之知”,而非单纯地守“性命”或养“性命”。鸥外还列举了康德和叔本华的哲学概念为佐证,将其与自己对《庄子》“性命”论的理解融合为一,以此来探求“自然”与“知性”的关系。     

党的先进性根植于中国特色社会主义事业之中

坚持与时俱进,以科学的态度对待马克思主义,是党保持先进性的理论前提;发展生产力,建设社会主义市场经济,为党保持先进性奠定了坚实的物质基础;依法治国,建设社会主义法治国家,为党保持先进性提供了可靠的政治保障;构建社会主义和谐社会,为党保持先进性营建了社会基础。总之,只有把党的先进性根植于中国特色社会主义事业之中,我们的党才会永葆生机。