Is there a Sovietology of South‐East Asian studies?

This article provides an indictment of the study of South-East Asian international relations by confronting head-on the problems that have arisen within this field, in particular the way in which Western academics ended up colluding with deeply illiberal regimes in the area, which excluded dissenting opinions, often by deliberately denouncing these opinions as 'polemical'. This study uses the discipline of Sovietology to explore the reasons why South-East Asian studies developed into a closed community of scholarship, often hostile to dissenting viewpoints. The disciplines bear comparison because they both manifestly failed to predict the cataclysms that befell their respective areas of study. The analysis identifies similarities in the way in which the two disciplines seemed to ignore sceptical voices and evolved a shared belief in 'system stability'. As a result, both Soviet studies and the study of South-East Asian international relations developed serious methodological flaws. However, this study argues that South-East Asian studies suffered even more severe disciplinary shortcomings than its Sovietological counterpart because the academic space was further de-intellectualized by the pervasive influence of the authoritarian South-East Asian developmental state which blurred the distinction between scholarship and bureaucracy and which succeeded in co-opting Western academics. The result was to create a field of study that promulgated the tyranny of the single truth, which erroneously perceived South-East Asia as a region of domestic tranquillity and regional order. What, in fact, emerged was an intellectual culture of self-censorship that kept South-East Asian studies within tacit, self-regulated boundaries.     

Not Feasting with Friends: the Meaning of Meat in Anganen

There are two general ways that meat is deployed in exchange among the Anganen of the Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. One is communion that forges co‐identification between those eating together. The other is effectively the antithesis of communion. Food is given in formal prestation but explicitly through taboo or as an emergent property of how the exchange takes place; food giver and receiver do not consume meat from the same animal. These emergent properties variously come about through the meat being given raw, undercooked, or in portions far too large for the receiver to consume. My main interest is how these taboo or emergent acts of non‐communion effectively involve non‐food. Certainly part of the meaning of meat is that it will eventually be eaten. However, in the act of exchange because meat cannot be immediately eaten or shared that gives rise to its meaning. Part of this meaning is the degree of what I call politicisation. Acts of non‐communion are politically charged events, be they aggressive or motivated by men seeking prestige. A number of different types of exchange are compared to explore the role of meat in Anganen politics.     

Transit Access for Americans: A Proposal for the Next Stage of Implementing the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990

Formany Americans with disabilities, transit is the only path to real opportunities. An open society for them depends upon increased transit services for all Americans. Many transit professionals, however, daunted by transit needs and worn down by their critics, wallow in cost issues, ignoring transit's real value to their communities. The key to improvement is to measure transit benefits that are intuitively obvious to most taxpayers. Empirically, accessible transit proves to be the most valuable transit to passengers and to other taxpayers as well.     

An Empire, Then a Republic?

Book reviewed in this article:
Patrick J. Buchanan,. A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny     

From Little Britain to Little Italy: an urban ethnic landscape study in Toronto

Before World War II, most of Toronto's residents were of British descent, and this was reflected in the urban landscape. On St Clair Avenue West, bordering British working class neighbourhoods, a Georgian style predominated and the area was known as Little Britain. After the war, heavy Italian immigration diversified the city and St Clair. Immigrants settled around St Clair where the identity of Little Britain gave way to Little Italy. This study documents and interprets landscape change on St Clair since the war. Photographs show that St Clair retail façades experienced early and sustained change up to the 1990s with new materials and uses of space. Informant interviews with Italian-origin proprietors yielded insights into the identity and meaning of their own renovations and landscape change generally. The changing landscape, like the social process of ethnicity, involved both pride and tensions. Proprietors believed their own «Italian-style» renovations had necessarily improved upon St Clair's original appearance, and that St Clair now suffers because of recent storefront changes brought on by new immigrant settlers. Together, the visible changes and their meaning to occupants of the landscape suggest how places like St Clair can contribute to our understanding of both landscape and ethnicity.     

An Equity Model for Locating Environmentally Hazardous Facilities

This paper develops a multiobjective mathematical location model to identify possible locations for environmentally hazardous facilities. Risk and equity are recognized as the most important criteria in determining site selection. In contrast to earlier models, the equity objective explicitly considers the existing distribution of environmental burdens when siting new hazardous facilities. Proposed environmentally hazardous facilities are located so that the burdens associated with new and existing hazards are shared as equally as possible among all areas. The application of the model, in a case study of the Greenpoint/Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, illustrates the trade‐offs associated with various risk and equity scenarios. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate how the existing distribution of environmental burdens may act as a constraint and limit the degree of equity that may be obtained when locating new facilities.     

Andrew O. Fort,Jīvanmukti in Transformation: Embodied Liberation in Advaita and Neo-Vedanta

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

The Environmental History of Tigray (Northern Ethiopia) in the Middle and Late Holocene: A Preliminary Outline

This paper outlines the environmental history of the Tigrean Plateau (northern Ethiopia) during the Holocene, based on the available geomorphological, palynological, archaeological, and historical evidence. At present, it seems that (1) the plateau experienced a more humid climate with a denser vegetation cover during the Early Holocene; (2) Soil erosion due to clearing vegetation began in the Middle Holocene; (3) agricultural activity was intensified in the Late Holocene, as a consequence of the rise of a state; (4) demographic pressure increased from the early first millennium BC to the mid–first millennium AD, causing soil erosion; (5) environmental degradation and demographic decline occurred in the late first millennium AD; (6) the vegetation cover was regenerated in the early second millennium AD; and (7) progressive vegetation clearance started again in the second half of the second millennium AD.Cet article trace l'histoire ambiante du Plateau Tigréen dans l'Holocène en utilisant les données géomorphologiques, palynologiques, archéologiques et historiques. Il semble que (1) dans l'Holocène ancien le plateau était caractérisé par une phase humide avec une dense végétation; (2) l'érosion causée par l'abbattage de la végétation commen¸a dans l'Holocène moyen; (3) l'activité agricole s'inténsifia à la fin de l'Holocène, par conséquence de l'essor d'un état; (4) la pression démographique augmenta de plus en plus du début du premier millénaire av. J.-Ch. à la moitié du premier millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; (5) la dégradation ambiante et la diminution démographique se vérifièrent à la fin du premier millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; (6) une régéneration de la vegetation se vérifia au début du seconde millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; et (7) l'abbatage de la végétation recommen¸a dans la seconde moitié du seconde millénaire ap. J.-Ch.     

英国外交档案有关汪精卫“和平运动”及汪政权的部分历史档案文件

英国伦敦国家档案馆外交档案部珍藏着不少有关汪精卫“和平运动”及汪政权的历史资料。这里选译的都是在1939年7月至1944年11月之间上报外交部的文件。报告的作者皆为外交界或驻外使节的高级官员,他们有的有着长期的对华经验,有的则长期在外交界服务。这些文件从一个特殊的侧面,反映了英国政府对远东战事中汪政权的态度,同时更反映了英国对重庆国民政府不折不扣的承认和支持。