Would it be rude if I asked…

Esther N. Goody, ed. Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology 8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. viii + 324 pp. $7.95 paper; $29.95 cloth.     

Anthropology of the far right: What if we like the ‘unlikeable’ others?

Drawing on her own experience of studying the far right, the author discusses the recent tendency to establish far-right activists and supporters as anthropology’s new ‘exotic others’. Three main tools of ‘exoticization’ and ‘othering’ are described, which the author deems to be co-responsible for the peculiar status of the subject of the far right within the discipline. She relates these tools to three research steps: ‘naming’, ‘locating’ and ‘explaining’. In providing her own reflections on these problems and relating them to the literature on the subject, the author attempts to shed some light on the growing presence of various far-right extremisms and to show the ways in which the study of the far right reflects some broader problems that anthropology and anthropologists have been addressing in recent years.     

What's wrong,what's ahead,how do we make it right?

The "Environmental Perspective" of the UN outlines 6 major problem areas and suggests what should be done about them. 1) Overpopulation exceeds the carrying capacity of the environment. Specific attention should be given to the problems of cities and public works projects should be designed to provide employment and improve the environment. 2) Food shortages must be dealt with to ensure security and restore the environment. Governments must adopt policies and institute regulatory measures for land and water use. 3) The available energy resources are being consumed at vastly different rates throughout the world. Policies should be devised to more equitably meet energy demands without further increasing the costs to the environment. 4) Industrial development is damaging the environment, and government policies, especially in developing countries, must be geared to minimizing waste of resources and increasing pollution. 5) Inadequate housing and public health services are causing high morbidity and mortality in many areas. Programs must be developed to deal with tropical diseases and unsanitary conditions. 6) International economic relations often adversely affect development. Aid to developing countries must be increased and trade patterns developed to mutual advantage and to safeguard the environment.     

‘Stuffed if I know!’: Reflections on post‐modern feminist social research

This paper tells the tale of a social research project which has been situated within and shaped by the flux of current feminist debates. In particular it addresses the challenges posed by post‐modern theory to feminist social research which hinge on the status of women as an identity. If we are to accept that there is no unity, centre or actuality to discover for women, what is feminist research about? What might be the effects of researching women in mining towns as though such a group were a natural, self‐evident and coherent category? In this paper I explore the politics of situating a research project on women with respect to the discursive terrain already mapped out. I rethink action research methods in the light of post‐modern politics and research practice, and I argue that social research can play a role in discursive destabilisation and in the creation and promotion of alternative discourses of gendered subjects.     

万岁!中华人民共和国——忆在天安门广场打腰鼓

半个世纪以来,每当听到鼓声,我就会跃跃欲试感到无比亲切,这是因为在中华人民共和国开国大典上,我作为华北大学第三文艺工作团(简称华大文工三团)的演员,曾打腰鼓祝贺;在庆祝大会上演出了大型腰鼓舞《万岁!中华人民共和国》,而这也正是我从事革命文艺工作后进入舞蹈专业的开端。在即将迎来中华人民共和国成立50周年的前夕,忆及当年开国大典盛况,犹如昨日;翻阅当时的照片与文字资料时,更是激奋不已……。1949年4月23日,中国人民解放军横渡长江,解放了南京;接着,势如破竹又解放了上海、杭州、南昌、武汉等地,人民解放战争的全面胜利已指日可待…     

Policy for children and young people: What is the evidence and can we trust it?

In a range of settings in health, education, social care, housing and justice, policy makers are urged to make decisions based on research evidence. At present, those seeking sound research evidence to underpin interventions with children and young people will frequently find the evidence cupboard disappointingly bare. This article signposts resources pointing to networks producing research evidence for policy and practice, and discusses drivers and obstacles to the use of research evidence in policy. The authors highlight the importance of synthesising different kinds of evidence in order for practice, policy and end point research users to have greater confidence in interventions in the lives of children and young people.     

Gast! A Breton moment in Cré na Cille,and why it matters

Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s famously difficult Irish language novel Cré na Cille contains a cluster of Breton words that have not all been recognised as such. These words are a clue that the French-speaking airman, arguably the only character in the novel with a significant “arc”, is in fact supposed to be a Breton. His immersion in Gaelic Ireland, his frustrated hope of fulfilment in philological studies and pan-Celticism and his ultimate lapse into patriotic Frenchness mirror the experiences of Breton nationalists of the 1940s – some of whom were helped by Ó Cadhain himself to take refuge in Ireland after the Second World War – and represent a subtle critique of Brittany’s pan-Celticist hopes within the novel’s larger multifaceted critique of Irish rural life.     

‘I've had it with them!’ Younger migrant women's spatial practices of conformity and resistance

This article examines how younger migrant women from Turkey maneuver the public and private spaces of their everyday lives in a neighborhood in Germany, and how they challenge and affirm the patriarchal practices and gender norms that husbands, fathers, and older migrant women seek to impose within and outside private homes. Younger migrant women selectively comply with gendered and generational norms of veiling and dress, while at the same time also reworking gender roles, and avoiding and transgressing masculinist spaces. Younger migrant women's practices and spatial representations in mental maps reveal the complex entanglements of compliances and resistance, and dispel simple assumptions of being overwhelmingly victimized by their potentially violent men that are so prominent in contemporary Western societies.     

“You can make it here!”: Producing Europe’s mobile borders in the New Gambia

European border externalization to “sending states” throughout Africa is a well-documented phenomenon. Less clear, however, is the role that African governments and implementing organizations play in border externalization, nor the precise mechanisms by which European borders are “mobilized” (Szary & Giraut, 2015) and projected into everyday spaces in “sending states”. Drawing on a case study of three different European border enforcement projects in The Gambia, I argue that a collaboration between the International Organization for Migration, the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, and the Gambian government makes Gambians themselves agents of the European border. Drawing upon Szary and Giraut's notion of “borderities” (2015), I illustrate how the border is projected into The Gambia through an articulation of humanitarian borderwork with developmental approaches intended to solve the “root causes of migration” (Zaun & Nantermoz, 2021). Furthermore, I argue that the Gambian government is not passive in the process of border externalization, but actively involved in interpreting and rearticulating European policies and narratives about migration. Following Adamson and Tsourapas' (2020) reworking of the “migration state” concept, I demonstrate the Gambian government's active interests in bordering its own citizens: simultaneously encouraging emigration for the sake of national “development” while immobilizing young Gambians as part of a broader strategy to cooperate with European states. This research illustrates both the immense value of a “borderities” approach to studying contemporary migration management, and the close association between borderwork and nationhood in African post-colonial states.     

哎呀,汉奸怎么这么多!——德王想建蒙古国——“蒙古军政府”

1931年,＂九.一八＂事变爆发,全国人民奋起抗战,然而,一些败类却卖国求荣。在日军的诱迫下,他们或半推半就,或明目张胆,先后在东北、华北、南京、华中、内蒙古等地建立了一系列伪政权,为日军军事上进攻、政治上统制、经济上掠夺、思想上欺骗中国人民充当帮凶。     

“This is an Indigenous city; why don't we see it?” Indigenous urbanism and spatial production in Winnipeg

This paper examines indigeneity and spatial production in the city of Winnipeg, home to the largest urban Indigenous population in Canada. Using data from semi‐structured interviews with Indigenous inhabitants, municipal officials, and Indigenous leaders, this paper argues that the right to the city and to difference are deradicalized for urban Indigenous communities. Indigenous engagement in processes of everyday urbanism occurs through broadly participatory public consultation and through mechanisms designed by City Hall to communicate with Indigenous communities about municipal initiatives. To arrive at a more robust and meaningful Indigenous urban visibility in Canadian cities, spatial production and programming mechanisms will need to be reconstituted. Guided by the perspectives of Indigenous participants, this paper considers some of what Indigenous urbanism might yet entail. Fulfilling coexistence and reconciliation is dependent on enabling Indigenous urbanism to guide the course taken in urban governance, spatial planning, and the built environment of Canadian cities.