Etching the Law on the Land: The Role of Landscape and Custom in Defining the Space of the Hungarian Village in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Abstract

This article explores the interaction between the historical landscape of Hungary and the structure of rural society that developed therefrom. It establishes the means through which the Hungarian peasantry were able to construct the spatial order of the village in response to the particular environment of the Hungarian plain, and how this informed attempts to reform Hungarian rural society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this, it argues that customary practices and customary rights, in particular ‘beating the bounds’ (határjárás), provided a means for the peasantry to assert their own claims to the landscape in the face of reforms imposed from beyond the boundaries of the village.     

Gatekeepers of the Urban Commons? Vigilant Citizenship and Neoliberal Space in Multiethnic Paris

This article draws from ethnographic research on a recently built park in one of Paris' predominately West African and Maghrebi districts. It demonstrates how urban design is used to “build‐in” neoliberal subjectivities to the city. This design approach appropriates a tradition of street democracy held by neighborhood associations and redirects their disproportionately middle class, French membership into managerial roles traditionally held by municipal agencies. This neoliberal political subjectivity, which I term vigilant citizenship, makes monitoring and controlling the social composition of the urban commons a form of civic engagement for middle class urbanites. In Paris, this vigilance is fueled by anxieties over the presence of West African and Maghrebi youth in public spaces. Activists do not passively adopt this neoliberal role; they strike a delicate balance as gatekeepers, weighing inclusion against an expectation to maintain a “successful” public space conforming to a republican model of citizenship.     

城市社区户外共享空间促进交往的模式研究

本文提出社区尺度上的户外空间主要由半公共空间和半私密空间复合而成,并引入\"户外共享空间\"的概念,在此基础上分解共享空间的组成要素,剖析共享空间的功能,分析共享空间在促进居民社会交往方面的重要作用。本文按照半公共半私密的特性及空间的主导功能将户外共享空间分成七类,提出这七类共享空间居民交往的模式,以及不同功能主导的共享空间的结构布局。研究表明,共享空间的合理使用是城市生态社区结构和功能在人文关怀上的体现,良好的共享空间设计对营造活跃、融洽的城市生活氛围,推动城市社区朝向生态化和可持续方向发展有不可忽视的作用。     

But I'm Just an Artist!? Intersections,Identity, Meaning,and Context

This article revisits the complex intersections of identity and meaning in the context of a world in which cosmopolitanism is increasingly questioned. The role of the artist with regard to activism and cosmopolitan flows becomes difficult to navigate but important to probe. Findings drawn from fieldwork indicate that the artist is highly conflicted; often ephemerally aligned with various social movements that may or may not be related; and in a constant state of self‐negotiation and identity formation that are highly dependent on local context. Intersectionality may be a useful frame to reconceptualize the artist as a relationally connected set of constantly shifting identities rather than an assumed category, as sometimes portrayed. Key to this is an appreciation of the role of the observer in this process. Singapore is envisioned as a place of intersecting identity; so, too, are the artists within it, caught between local context and global currents.     

城市空间重构进程中的土地利用冲突研究——以广州市为例

目前,城市空间重构所孳生的土地利用冲突现象已成为当前我国快速城市化进程中迫切需要解决的重要问题之一,获得了学术界、地方政府和社会大众的高度重视,而对土地利用冲突的类型和影响因素的探讨构成了后续治理途径研究的根本前提。本文基于城市政治经济学理论中社会空间辩证统一的视角,以广州市为例,选取了我国快速城市化进程中广泛存在的旧城更新、工业用地置换和城中村改造等城市空间重构的重点领域为研究对象,总结了土地利用冲突的类型及其影响因素,证实了空间调整与社会变迁之间的辩证统一关系。     

From China's Urban Social Space to Social and Environmental Justice

A senior American specialist on China and noted geographer argues that the preoccupation of China geographers' with empirical analyses of that country's dramatic economic, social, and urban transformation over the last two decades—usually explained in terms of the now familiar quadruple forces of globalization, marketization, deregulation, and decentralization—should be broadened to reflect a concern for the problems of disadvantaged groups impacted negatively in dynamic urban and environmental settings. The methodology of reflexive activism is proposed as affording a framework for a more relevant geography focused on the study of China, with the potential to bring about positive and constructive change on behalf of China's disadvantaged population and its natural environment, and (as a possible side benefit) generate local epistemologies enriching the study of geography more broadly. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P30. 68 references.