Neoliberal Reform, Governance and Corruption in the South: Assessing the International Anti‐Corruption Crusade

This paper presents a critique of current thinking on the causes and impacts of corruption and the measures designed to combat it. It begins by exploring the evolution of the current preoccupation with corruption and traces the growth in international initiatives designed to tackle the issue. It then moves on to consider the assumptions underlying the dominant schools of thought on corruption and alternative definitions of the phenomenon. The limitations of the dominant neoliberal perspective are explored in detail, focusing particularly on its blindness to the complex interplay between economic liberalisation, political power and institutional reform. An alternative framework that locates corruption at the systemic level is proposed. The paper concludes with some thoughts on potential directions for future geographical research on the topic.     

Social structure is where the hearth is: a "woman's place" in Beti society

Among the patrilineal, virilocal Beti, a people of the Southern Cameroon, the 3 stones of the cooking hearth symbolize the 3 kinship identities which define a woman's place in Beti society: her mother-in-law ("senior co-wife"), her daughter-in-law ("junior co-wife"), and her son-in-law ("daughter's husband"). Among her own descent group she is always a daughter; among her marital relations she is an adult, but a foreigner; but her real place in society is defined in terms of her position among her "co-affines," i.e., those with whom she is linked by common marital ties. A Beti village is the material manifestation of the "house of people," which is composed of a headman, his same-womb brothers, his mother's house's junior co-wives' sons, and his unmarried same-womb sisters and daughters. The house of people's women's children are classified as "of same father." Within the "same father house of people" are a series of matrifocal houses, which form the basis of new domestic units when the headman dies and the mens' house is dismantled. A new house of people is formed with son as headman and mother as "hindwoman." Thus, although the Beti are patrilineal, a man's house of people proceeds from his mother's house, but whether or not a woman becomes a "hindwoman" depends on her sons-in-law's bridewealth payments, which enable her to have daughters-in-law. A woman's becoming a "hindwoman" and originator of a new domestic unit depends on both her mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relation and her mother-in-law/son-in-law relation. Thus in the domestic organization of the village, the making of a woman's place determines the making of a man's. On the level of the lineage system, an analogous process takes place. The Beti are divided into about 100 exogamous, patrilineal, patrilocal clans, each consisting of up to 4 levels of patrilineages, designated by the names of their eponymous female ancestors. Descent is determined by recruitment and alignment. Recruitment proceeds from the matrimonial ties to the mother's husband's group or (in the absence of bridewealth) to her father's group. Alignment is founded on ritual food distribution and operates through co-affinal links between women. On the level of lineage organization a woman's place is determined by a succession of mother-in-law/daughter-in-law ties. The woman's place in Beti society is thus defined by both the static domestic structure and by the dynamic supra-domestic lineage syste.     

Money Games: Currencies and Power in the Contemporary World Economy

Abstract: A well‐known cliché has it that “money makes the world go round” Certainly, monetary arrangements, specifically exchange‐rate mechanisms, can serve to show the degree to which markets and states intersect to direct the workings of the world economy. It is common to assume that the singular model over recent decades has been a neoliberal one based on independent floating exchange rates. I challenge this assumption by showing that a number of different combinations of money and power have operated in the recent past, creating a number of distinctive “money games”. Only one of these, the globalist/transnational, is facing a particularly severe crisis. The others, what I term the classic/territorial, integrative/shared, and imperialist/substitute provide available alternatives. The recent history, geographical features, and future prospects of the various money games are the main concerns of the essay. The analysis welcomes the recent financial crisis as providing an opportunity to further pluralize political‐economic visions beyond the perceived dominant one‐size‐fits‐all neoliberal ideology of the globalist regime.     

Understanding the Shortcomings of Commodity‐based Technology in Input–Output Models: an Economic‐Circuit Approach

Abstract.  The Make‐Use Model serves as a basis for most national accounting systems as the System of National Accounts (SNA) and is acknowledged as the most suitable model for interregional analysis. Two hypotheses are traditionally made featuring either industry‐based technologies (IBT) or commodity‐based technologies (CBT). While industry‐based technologies can be easily interpreted in terms of a demand‐driven economic circuit, it will be shown that: (1) commodity‐based technologies cannot be interpreted as a demand‐driven economic circuit because this involves computing the inverse of a matrix (the matrix of industry output proportions), which is either impossible or generates negative terms; (2) the only way to obtain a plausible explanation of CBT is to convert it into a supply‐driven model. This provides a new reason for rejecting CBT: either IBT is adopted but violates Kop Jansen and ten Raa's axioms, or CBT is chosen but must be converted into a poor or unrealistic supply‐driven model.     

Mapping "Romeic" and "Hellenic" Same–Sex Desire: Articulating Heteropatriarchy and Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Greece

This study of the articulation of heteropatriarchy and male homosexuality in contemporary Greece questions the widely accepted paradigm that male same–sex desire in modernity is both ontologically and ritually divorced from ancient Greek practices. Drawing on Herzfeld's (1982) ethnographic model of the dual construction of modern Greek identity as "Romeic" ( qua actual, vernacular, rural–rooted, and "oriental"), and "Hellenic" ( qua constructed, idealized, cosmopolitan, and occidental), the study explores the similarly dual sociosexual construction of male homosexuality following the creation of the modern Greek state in 1830. The study concludes that the Greek national project required desexing the ancient Greek past in the process of crafting a sanitized, heteronormative, and patriarchal polity in line with its Victorian–era counterparts in Western Europe. Furthermore, modernity reordered the extensive diasporic Greek communities in the Europe, the Middle East, and the Black Sea region in ways that promoted the fertilization of metropolitan Greece with a variety of rural and immigrant sexual imaginaries.     

‘Las Vegas is not where we are’: Queer readings of the Civil Partnership Act

This article interrogates the United Kingdom's new Civil Partnership Act, which is intended to create a new legal status of ‘civil partner’. The Act confers benefits and imposes legal responsibilities on those same-sex couples who register their relationships. Analysing the Governmental material produced in support of the legislation, as well as Parliamentary debates, the article provides a critical analysis of the ideological underpinnings of civil partnership. A series of dichotomies—marriage/not marriage; sex/no sex; status/contract; conjugality/care; love/money; responsibilities/rights—informs the Government's construction of the category of ‘same-sex partner’. Those dichotomies lend themselves to a deconstructive analysis, applying the insights of queer theory. The result is a skepticism regarding the Act's replication of a marriage model for same-sex couples. Instead, the article concludes by advocating the search for more pluralistic and flexible legal models that better represent the diversity of relationship forms found today.     

"Seeing" and "Hearing" in a Deaf–Blind World: Laura Bridgman's Legacy (Review Essay)

Books reviewed in this article:
Ernest Freeberg, The Education of Laura Bridgman: The First Deaf and Blind Person to Learn Language
Elisabeth Gitter, The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf–Blind Girl     

"Seeing" and "Hearing" in a Deaf–Blind World: Laura Bridgman's Legacy (Review Essay)

Books reviewed in this article:
Ernest Freeberg, The Education of Laura Bridgman: The First Deaf and Blind Person to Learn Language
Elisabeth Gitter, The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf–Blind Girl     

New Perspectives on the "Dao" of "Huidaomen": Redemptive Societies and Religion in Modern and Contemporary China

This essay uses research in Chinese religion,and specifically Chinese "redemptive societies," to challenge and enrich the received history of "sects and secret societies" in modern and contemporary Chinese history,and suggests that a future "history of cultivation movements" might be a helpful means to steer between competing narratives of state-building and personal religious experience.The discussion is illustrated with a brief biography of Li Yujie (1901-94),founder of the redemptive society Tiandijiao who devoted his life to cultivation and religion,but also to independent journalism and the Guomindang.     

From the "Phoenix of Legends" to the "Ultimate Monument" of the times: stadia, spectators, and urban development in postwar Paris

This article analyzes the renovation and construction of the Parc des Princes and the Stade de France in post-Second World War Paris. The history of the two stadia testifies to a shift in the envisioned role of stadia in the Parisian basin between the late 1960s and the end of the twentieth century and stands as evidence for the emergence of new urban planning actors. Both stadia were also critiqued as symbols of broader problems with Parisian urbanization, notably as manifestations of anti-democratic planning processes. At the same time, the Parc and the Stade also reflected an emerging consensus over the role of spectator sport in society, accompanied by attempts to re-envision mass sporting spectatorship as a more democratic and familial practice. This article thus situates the two stadia within the history of Parisian urbanization and within broader global urbanizing processes.     

The open black box: the role of the end‐user in GIS integration

Formalist theories of knowledge that underpin GIS scholarship on integration neglect the importance and creativity of end‐users in knowledge construction. This has practical consequences for the success of large distributed databases that contribute to spatial‐data infrastructures. Spatial‐data infrastructures depend on participation at local levels, such as counties and watersheds, and they must be developed to support feedback from local users. Looking carefully at the work of scientists in a watershed in Puget Sound, Washington, USA during the salmon crisis reveals that the work of these end‐users articulates different worlds of knowledge. This view of the user is consonant with recent work in science and technology studies and research into computer‐supported cooperative work. GIS theory will be enhanced when it makes room for these users and supports their practical work .     

时序“矛盾”与“增删五次”及版本传抄——《红楼梦》中时序“矛盾”考辨之四

现存《红楼梦》(《石头记》)所有的版本,都只是过录本。这些:过录本,完全有可能不是抄自一种版本,而是拼凑抄的,即都不是据曹雪芹的原稿抄录的(更不是曹雪芹的原稿),这样也就难免出现矛盾现象了。因此,《红楼梦》中存在的“矛盾”现象,不一定都是曹雪芹造成的,而有些是在后来的传抄过程中造成的。同时,还有一些是由于曹雪芹在“披阅十载,增删五次”的过程中,“修改未尽”而留下的“痕迹”。另外,也与作者的注重写意有关。