Spies and Postmen: Communications Liaisons and the Evolution of the Qing Bureaucracy

This article introduces the “communications liaison” (titang guan)—an official category little acknowledged in past scholarship on the late imperial Chinese state. Communications liaisons stationed at garrisons and administrative seats compiled intelligence and news reports for supervising officials in distant locations. In Beijing, capital liaisons compiled documents into court gazettes and supervised the distribution of documents, seals of office, and imperial gifts to the provinces. Besides these responsibilities, capital liaisons acquired reputations for following personal and patronage agendas that undermined the integrity of the bureaucratic state. Longstanding financial and administrative inconsistencies within the Qing bureaucracy induced liaisons to misbehave. Still, characterizations of liaison malfeasance transformed over the course of the dynasty due to institutional developments including the implementation of new communications systems, the standardization of provincial administrations, and the expansion of office sales. Whereas liaisons in the early and mid-Qing periods were parties to political exchanges among the bureaucratic elite, by the dynasty’s waning years, liaisons provided services for the larger population of bureaucratic personnel. The liaisons’ transformation from spies into postmen, as seen through the eyes of official critics, offers an opportunity to evaluate the impact of major changes in the Qing bureaucracy upon some of its least known officeholders.     

PLACES AND SPACES OF DISLOCATION: LADY ORACLE'S TORONTO

In this paper we explore some of the issues relating to place, identity, and ideology in Margaret Atwood's third novel, Lady Oracle, first published in 1976. Simply, Lady Oracle relates the story of the writer Joan Foster as she struggles to come to terms with her multiple identities. In so doing, the novel depicts some of the many social and spatial changes taking place in Toronto from the 1940s to the 1970s. Herein we focus on the representations of home and city, and how Joan's search for identity is embedded in the reconfiguration of these geographical spaces and places. Home assumes negative connotations as it is associated both with the suburbs and with a mother who relinquished her own needs and desires for motherhood. The city, on the other hand, is an ambiguous landscape; we suggest, however, that it is precisely this ambiguity that encourages and permits Joan to explore alternative identities. By way of conclusion, we will point to some of the novel's assumptions and silences. Dans cet article, nous examinons comment Lady Oracle (le troisième roman de Margaret Atwood, publié pour la première fois en 1976) traite les questions de place, d'identité et d'idéologie. Simplement, Lady Oracle ra- conte l'histoire de l'ecrivain Joan Foster, qui rencontre des difficultés d se reconcilier avec ses identities multiples. En même temps, le roman dépeint les transforma- tions sociales et spatiales A Toronto entre les annees quarante et les annees soixante-dix. Ici, nous portons principalement sur les représentations de la maison et de la ville, et comment la reconfiguration de ces places et espaces géographiques est integree à I'enquéte pour une identité entreprise par Joan. ‘La maison’ acquiert des connotations negatives, vue qu'elle est associee a la fois aux banlieux et à une mere qui renonce à sa propre volonte et à ses propres besoins pour se vouer à la maternite. Par contre, la ville est un paysage equivoque: nous proposons cependant que c'est precisement cette equivocation qui permet à Joan d'explorer des nouvelles identites. Enfin, nous examinerons les presuppositions et les silences du roman.     

Creating Colonial Christian Cultures in Canterbury: St. Augustine's Missionary College*

Throughout the nineteenth century, religion and Empire became increasingly fused in the Victorian imagination through a lens of providentialism that saw Empire as an instrument for worldwide Christianisation. This article uses the case of St. Augustine's Missionary College to explore the creation of a distinctly colonial Christian culture in Canterbury. This culture was both created and curated through networks and connections made between Canterbury and colonial dioceses, the imagined world of letters fostered by the College, and the presence in Canterbury of “foreign students” whose apparently exemplary lives brought the Empire home to the “garden of England.” Reinforcing the important point that Britain was part of a mutually-constituted Empire, this article demonstrates how colonial cultures in Britain could be sustained through various means–cultural, social, and here institutional. It moreover uses the case of St. Augustine's to showcase the increasingly self-conscious links between religion and Empire within Established Anglicanism as colonisation forged the city of Canterbury into the head of a colonial and global Anglican Communion.     

Mediating messiness: expanding ideas of flexibility,reflexivity, and embodiment in fieldwork

This article aims to help researchers think about some big-picture challenges that occur in the early stages of fieldwork. In particular, we address the transition from a clear, concise research proposal to the often complicated, messy initiation of a project. Drawing on autobiographical accounts of our own PhD research projects, we focus on dilemmas that may arise for researchers guided by feminist epistemology and methodology. First, we discuss parameters regarding acceptable changes to original research plans and questions. Noting that the carefully planned proposal may dramatically change as fieldwork begins, we draw on feminist literatures to expand and concretize the notion of flexibility in the research process. Second, we puzzle out the relationship between theory, epistemology, and method as the researcher delves into her fieldwork. As logistical challenges may take priority, theoretical and epistemological concerns may temporarily wane. Third, we consider the many ways in which the researcher's personal and field life bleed into each other to shape the conduct of research. We emphasize the importance of considering – prior to research as well as during – what the concepts of reflexivity and embodiment mean in fieldwork, especially for the researcher in terms of personal needs and logistical realities. Finally, while we suggest that there are certain unique pressures that shape the early stages of the field research period for PhD students, we conclude the article by focusing on ways in which lessons learned during our own experiences might be broadly useful for any researchers in the beginning stages of fieldwork.     

Between Tragedy and Farce: 9/11 Compensation and the Value of Life and Death

This paper examines how lives have been valued (or not) in the US federal compensation programs set up in the wake of 9/11. The Victim Compensation Fund (VCF), implemented within days of the attacks, provided unlimited funds to the victims. In contrast, many first responders who developed illnesses later have had access to limited support. Only in 2011 was the Zadroga Act signed into place, which extends compensation to these workers and others. This paper compares and contrasts the two programs to make two points. One, the debates around compensation lay bare the differential values that are ascribed to life, and how biopower not only fosters life but abandons some to the point of death. Two, despite the controversies around extending compensation, the Zadroga Act was eventually enacted. Our second point is thus that war is not just destructive, but can be used to reconstitute the social and political in unanticipated ways.     

“A Survey of Surveys” Revisited: Current Approaches to Landscape and Surface Archaeology in Southern Africa

African Archaeological Review - Surveys are an important reconnaissance tool in African archaeology, but surface-oriented research is still relatively limited. Thirty years on from John...