Greening Without Conflict? Environmentalism,NGOs and Civil Society in China

This article argues that the specific features and dynamics of China’s environmentalism can be attributed to two factors: the ‘greening’ of the Chinese state at the time when environmentalism emerged, and the alternating politics of toleration and strict control of social organizations. As a result, environmentalism has developed in a gradual way, encompassing the various forms of ‘green’ NGOs that we see in the West and the ex–socialist states of Eastern and Central Europe. Yet, on the other hand, environmentalism was also robbed of the opportunity, as well as the immediate urgency, to openly confront the government. This is where it deviates from environmentalism in the West and the former Eastern–bloc countries.     

Intolerable Cruelty： Marriage,Law, and Society in Early Twentieth-Century China

In Intolerable Cruelty： Marriage, Law, and Society in Early Twentieth-Century China, Margaret Kuo argues that legal reforms allowed wives in the Republican era unprecedented opportunities to leave abusive or undesirable marriages. In addition to reevaluating Republican-era law, Kuo significantly contributes to scholarship by acknowledging the agency of the wives who brought forth their cases in court. In contrast to CCP scholarship that ＂has worked to expunge GMD contributions＂ to women＇s rights and family law （p. 12）, Kuo argues that the Republican era offered flexible solutions during ＂an important transitional period＂ （19. 198）.     

Historical shifts in remembering China’s “Nanjing Massacre”

ABSTRACT

Immediately after the occurrence of the Nanjing Massacre, it was reported by both official and nonofficial media, and followed by witness accounts and victim recollections. All this formed the basic memory of the atrocity in Chinese society. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, the National Government conducted preliminary investigations and organized memorial services. However, the investigation was interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War (1947–49). After the Communist victory in 1949, relationships between the Communists and Nationalists, China and United States and China and Japan all played a role in suppressing and even forgetting the memory of the Nanjing Massacre. It was not until the 1980s, after the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations, that the memory finally entered a process of reconstruction.     

New Subjectivities: Capitalist, Colonial Subject and Archaeologist. Review of “Capitalism in Colonial Contexts”. Society for Historical Archaeology, Albuquerque, January 2008”

The sub-discipline of Historical Archaeology continues to push out its borders from its origins as the archaeology of British colonial settlement in North America. This review article evaluates the contribution of a set of papers presented at the Society of Historical Archaeology meeting in Albuquerque New Mexico in early 2008, and shows how new theoretical formulations are taking shape.

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Résumé  La sous-discipline de l’archéologie historique continue à faire reculer ses frontières de ses origines en tant qu’archéologie de l’implantation du colonialisme britannique en Amérique du Nord. Cet article évalue la contribution d’un ensemble d’articles présentés à la Society of Historical Archaeology à l’occasion de la rencontre qui s’est tenue à Albuquerque au Nouveau Mexique au début de l’année 2008, et montre comment les nouvelles formulations théoriques prennent effet.

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Resumen  Desde sus orígenes en los trabajos arqueológicos de la colonización británica de Norteamérica, la sub disciplina de Arqueología Histórica ha ido ampliando sus límites. Este artículo revisado evalúa la contribución de una serie de trabajos presentados en la junta de la Sociedad de Arqueología Histórica en Alburquerque (Nuevo México) a principios del 2008, y demuestra que las formulaciones teóricas están empezando a tomar forma.

     

Disability and the Family in South Wales Coalfield Society,c.1920–1939

This article utilises the south Wales coalfield in the interwar period as a case study to illustrate the applicability of two sociological theories – family systems theory and the social ecology of the family – to impairment in the past. It demonstrates that a theoretically-informed approach can help to situate impairment in its particular contexts, most especially the family and the community, and give a better sense of the lived experience of disability. It also demonstrates the complexity of the experience of disability as the family and economic circumstances of each impaired individual varied and led to different forms of care-giving or the utilisation of different sources of support. The article also sheds further light on the ubiquity of disability as many families included a number of individuals with different impairments and this too had consequences for experiences and coping strategies.     

About S. V. Kalesnik's Article on “Monism” and “Dualism” in Soviet Geography

The author defends V. A. Anuchin's efforts to develop the theory of unity of geography based on Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Konovalenko finds that Americans are closely following the theoretical discussion in Soviet geography because they, too, are supposedly searching for a methodological foundation of a unified geography. He holds that Soviet geography, by developing such a theory on a Marxist basis, can win followers within the ranks of foreign geographers, including Americans. S. V. Kalesnik's article appeared in Izvestiya Vsesoyuznogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva, 1962, No. 1, pp. 15–25, and was translated in Soviet Geography, September 1962 pp. 3–16).     

“Keep withstanding”: Territory in the body,home and market in Xinjiang,China

Geographic literature has explored how territorialization occurs by multiple actors in material and symbolic spaces, especially in the home and body. Building on the important research in feminist geography concerning the body as territory, important questions remain: How do Uyghurs in China respond to state territory in their everyday lives? How does fear, pleasure, and mistrust constitute the social relations of territory? How do people experience and navigate state dispossession of territory? I use long-term ethnographic fieldwork to study these questions. China is a strong, authoritarian state with a monopoly on power and seemingly unlimited surveillance and policing capabilities. Uyghurs explored survival strategies that constituted social relations of territory as a node in overlapping networks in Xinjiang. My main argument is that despite a strong government presence, embodied Indigenous practices enabled survivance for the Uyghur people. People escaped the stress of government surveillance and policing by turning to material and symbolic modes of constituting embodied territory.     

Is There a Civil Society in Africa?

There certainly exists an African civil society which is actively seeking to raise the living standards of citizens as well as to promote and protect their rights and interests.The lack of such crucial resources as finance and an environment conducive to civic activity are, however, as the author suggests, major inhibitions to the development of Africa's civil society. In combating these problems, Africa will need external donor support in various forms for quite some time to come.     

“He hath not dealt so with any. nation”: Three Recent Books on Religion,Economy, and Society in Colonial Mexico

The Wages of Conquest: The Mexican Aristocracy in the Context of Western Aristocracies. By HUGO G. NUTINI. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Pp. xviii, 444.

Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797. By STAFFORD POOLE. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995. Pp. 325.

The History of Capitalism in Mexico: Its Origins, 1521–1763. By ENRIQUE SEMO. Trans. LIDIA LOZANO. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993. Pp. 231.