Whiteness and Farmers Markets: Performances,Perpetuations … Contestations?

Abstract: Academics and activists highlight the potential for alternative agrifood movements to contribute to the evolving coalescence of justice and sustainability. This potential, however, is constrained by what scholars have identified as the prevalent whiteness of such movements. This paper uses ethnographic research at two northern California farmers markets to investigate how whiteness is performed and perpetuated through the movements’ discourses and practices. We found that many managers, vendors and customers hold notions of what farmers and community members should be that both reflect and inform an affluent, liberal habitus of whiteness. Although whiteness pervades these spaces, we have also witnessed individual discourses and acts of solidarity and anti‐racism, as well as fledgling institutional efforts to contest white cultural dominance. We conclude by discussing the potential of farmers markets to create an anti‐racist politics of food.     

Biophysikalisches Doppelleben, 1939–1946. Oder: Räume der Lange‐weile. Zur (Nicht‐)Zäsur des ‘Informationsdiskurses’

Biophysical Double‐lives, 1939–1946. Or: Spaces of Boredom. On ‘Information Discourse’ and (Dis)continuities in the Life Sciences. Arguably, few things have shaped the historiography of the mid‐twentieth century psy‐sciences (and indeed, of the life sciences and science/technology/intellectual life quite generally) more profoundly than the story of cybernetics. This essay aims to undermine this technofuturistic picture of epistemological upheavals, of cyborg regimes of knowing, and of the incipient post‐human, by reinserting back into the story the rather dull and unspectacular lives (and occupations) of the great majority of British, ‘diverted’ biologists during World War II. Instead of Ratio Clubbers or Macy‐Conference frequenters, this essay is concerned with a much larger population of would‐be biologists and their most pedestrian appropriations of, and exposures to, electronics. What I argue is that the prevalence and systematicity of such exposures in the course of the personnel‐hungry radio‐war points to a very different – low‐key – picture of the war/technology‐induced deflections of biological science at mid‐century. As an example of how deeply at odds narrations of cybernetic's ascent tend to sit with developments on ground level, special attention will be devoted to the physiologists‐turned‐radar‐scientists Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley, and their war‐time, or more properly, spare‐time investigations into the biophysics of nerve. The latter – technical, difficult, and utterly unphilosophical – while absent from the cyber‐theme‐focused historiography, provided the basis for the tremendous impact Hodkgin and Huxley would in fact have on the mainstream, disciplinarily conservative physiological sciences; the larger aim however is to weave these far from peculiar biographical trajectories into a somewhat bigger picture of the intersections between radar electronics and biological science: a picture which does not centre on sensational discourses but on mundane electronic practices; and thus, on the generational experience of those who were known at the time as “ex radar folk with biological leanings”.     

The political commentary on May Fourth in 1950s Hong Kong and Taiwan

Abstract

“May Fourth” has long been considered a turning point for modern China, resulting in continuous heated discussion on the topic since the 1920s. These discussions not only reexamine culture but also have political intent. Many recent scholars have discussed the “ideologization” of May Fourth from the perspective of “memory politics.” They argue that “May Fourth discourse” was not only used to understand and recapture the past, but also to help one’s own cherished values occupy a core position in modern Chinese history, thus using historical interpretation to create a compass for China’s future that conforms to historical tides. From the four great philosophies of modern China, the Nationalists and Communists have incorporated May Fourth into the “Three People’s Principles” and “New Democracy,” respectively. Liberals held up democracy and science as a need for China’s future, and made efforts to propagate and practice democracy in Hong Kong and Taiwan after 1949. As for New Confucians who had continuously criticized May Fourth for being anti-tradition, they supported traditional values but also believed that democracy and science were a “priority and necessity for China's cultural development,” and hoped to use the spirit behind this ideal. They along with liberals criticized the Nationalist and Communist autocracy for departing from May Fourth ideals, and especially noted how May Fourth created fertile ground for the rise and expansion of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), “resulting in the growth of the Communist Party,” and the Nationalist government’s move to Taiwan. After 1949, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and the Guomindang (GMD) Nationalist Party he led primarily assessed the May Fourth Movement by synthesizing the views of the liberals and New Confucians. They highlighted the slogans of saving the nation, ethics, democracy, and science to promote ethical education and “national spirit education” as top-priority cultural policies. The focus of this article is to examine how liberals and New Confucians used the topic of May Fourth to criticize the CCP and GMD in Hong Kong and Taiwanese political commentary magazines during the 1950s (approximately 1949–1960). It also explores how the GMD synthesized liberal and New Confucian views to lay out their own position. This discourse shows how May Fourth had diverse interpretations under the context of conflict between the liberals and the New Confucians as well as Nationalists and Communists. The criticism of the ideologization of May Fourth in recent years is actually an important turning point in the scholarly study of May Fourth.     

Correspondence

THE MYTH OF THE PENT CUCKOO. By JOHN EDWARD FIELD, M.A. Pp. vii+212. London: Elliot Stock. 1913. Reviewed by S. A. H. Burne.

RUSTIC SPEECH AND FOLK-LORE. By ELIZABETH MARY WRIGHT. Oxford: University Press. 1913. Pp. xx + 342. Reviewed by C. S. Burne.

THE ENGLISH FOLK-DANCE SOCIETY'S JOURNAL.

SPORT AND FOLKLORE IN THE HIMALAYA. By CAPTAIN H. L. HAUGHTON. Demy 8vo. Pp.ix+332. 12s.6d.net. London: E. Arnold. 1913. Reviewed by W. Crooke.

PEMBA, THE SPICE ISLAND OF ZANZIBAR. By CAPTAIN J. E. E. CRASTER, Demy 8vo. Pp. 358. 12s. 6d. London : T. Fisher Unwin. 1913.

RELIGIOUS CHASTITY. An Ethnological Study. By JOHN MAIN. New York, 1913. 8vo, pp. xxii+ 365. (No price.) Reviewed by W. R. HALLIDAY.

DER TRAUMSCHLÜSSEL DES JAGADDEVA. Ein Beitrag zur indischen Mantik. Von JULIUS VON NEGELEIN. [Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, xi. Band, 4 Heft]. Pp. xxiv + 428. 17 m. Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann. 1912. 8vo. Reviewed by W. R. Halliday.

DIE LEBENSALTER Ein Beitrag zur Antiken Ethnologie und zur Geschichte der Zahlen. Mit einem Anhang über die Schrift von der Siebenzahl. Von FRANZ BOLL. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1913. 8vo, pp. iv + 58. Two pl. 2 m. 40 pf. Reviewed by W. R. Halliday.

DIE VERLOBUNG IM VOLKS- UND RECHTSBRAUCH, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Schweiz vergleichend-historisch dargestellt. Von HANNS BÄCHTOLD. Basel: Verlag der Schweiz. Gesellschaft für Volkskunde, 1913. 8vo, pp. 219. Reviewed by W. R. HALLIDAY.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REPORT ON THE IBO-SPEAKING PEOPLES OF NIGERIA: Part I., Law and Custom of the Ibo of the Awka Neighbourhood, S. Nigeria; Part II., English-Ibo and Ibo-English Dictionary; Part III., Proverbs, Narratives, Vocabularies and Grammar. By NORTHCOTE W. THOMAS. Demy 8vo. Pp. 161,391,199. London: Harrison &; Sons. 1913. Reviewed by W. Crooke.

PSYCHE'S TASK : A DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERSTITION ON THE GROWTH OF INSTITUTIONS. By J. G. FRAZER. Second edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo. Pp. viii+186. London : Macrnillan &; Co. 1913. Price 5s. net. Reviewed by W. Crooke.     

Framing the Poor: Media Coverage and U.S. Poverty Policy, 1960–2008

Public policy toward the poor has shifted from an initial optimism during the War on Poverty to an ever‐increasing pessimism. Media discussion of poverty has shifted from arguments that focus on the structural causes of poverty or the social costs of having large numbers of poor to portrayals of the poor as cheaters and chiselers and of welfare programs doing more harm than good. As the frames have shifted, policies have followed. We demonstrate these trends with new indicators of the depth of poverty, the generosity of the government response, and media framing of the poor for the period of 1960–2008. We present a simple statistical model that explains poverty spending by the severity of the problem, gross domestic product, and media coverage. We then create a new measure of the relative generosity of U.S. government policy toward the poor and show that it is highly related to the content of newspaper stories. The portrayal of the poor as either deserving or lazy drives public policy.     

The boundary dispute between Chile and Argentina

In November 1920, James Young Simpson, Professor of Natural Science in New College, Edinburgh and Trinity College, Glasgow, was invited by the governments of Latvia and Lithuania to chair a commission which would settle the disputed border between the two newly‐independent states. Upon his return to Edinburgh in May 1921, Simpson deposited the papers and final report on the commission's decision with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, of which he was an active member. This article will explain why and how Simpson came to be involved in diplomatic decisions so remote from his home life and work, and will analyse the significance of the results of Simpson's efforts on the arbitration commission.     

Materialism and history: Diderot and the Histoire des deux Indes

In the last years of his life, Diderot made a large number of anonymous contributions to Raynal's widely read Histoire des deux Indes. The identification of these passages over the last thirty years has led to a view of Diderot's later political thought as being far more radical than had previously been supposed. But his contributions in general are notable for their pessimism about the situation in France and in Europe generally. In part this was due to his belief in a cyclical view of history, but it was also due to his bringing to his understanding of history the materialist, and resolutely non‐providential, view of nature which he had developed earlier.