Interpreting enterprise, state, and society: A critical review of the literature in modern Chinese business history, 1978�C2008

This article offers a critical review of literature in the area of modern Chinese business history from 1978 to 2008. It focuses on four interconnected topics: (1) the evolution of industrial capitalism, (2) the adoption of corporate hierarchies and/or social networks, (3) the change of financial institutions and monetary system, and (4) the development of state-owned industries and the formation of the (central) state enterprise system. The review reveals not only significant growth of the field of modern Chinese business history over the last three decades but also the existence of major gaps. The article concludes by considering the implications of its findings for understanding the political economy of business enterprises and enterprise systems in different national and historical contexts.     

Viewing animal bodies: truths,practical aesthetics and ethical considerability in UK livestock breeding

This paper focuses on the production of aesthetic ‘truths’ in UK livestock breeding, drawing on detailed qualitative research with breeders and breed societies. It extends emerging interest in the aesthetic in human geographical research, examining how aesthetic judgements about non-human animals depend, in part, on the agency of the animal and their inter-subjective relations with humans in specific places. Aesthetic evaluation further produces implicit judgements about animals' ethical considerability, at the same time obscuring the effects of such judgements on their framing and treatment. Aesthetic evaluation is thus related to sets of material and ethical interests. The paper develops a more-than-human reading of Foucault's biopower, which explores how truths about visual evaluations of animals become established. Two empirical perspectives explore, first, a ‘relational practical aesthetic’ for evaluating beef cattle and sheep, exploring the implications of the aesthetic framing of specific animals and, second, the tensions involved in looking at animals when different aesthetic truths conflict and when traditions of aesthetic evaluation encounter genetic modes of evaluation. The paper concludes by discussing the ethical implications of ongoing transformations of evaluative modes in livestock breeding, suggesting that shifts away from inter-subjective modes of aesthetic evaluation further diminish the ethical status of animals.     

‘It’s one of the first times I’ve felt fully engaged’: developing student engagement using blogging as a form of assessment

There is a widespread debate in higher education about how best to support students in becoming more active and engaged learners. Geographers have occupied a central position in these debates having long been concerned with understanding and creating teaching spaces that encourage active and experiential learning. Recent pedagogical innovations have seen a movement away from a reliance on lecturing as the key pedagogical method and a redefinition of the roles of both teacher and learner. In this paper, we look at the role that assessment, specifically assessed blogs, can play in enhancing student engagement. Drawing on interviews with Course Organizers from two case study courses, student focus groups, and course evaluation surveys we show the various ways in which blogs enhance engagement. We draw attention to how blogging enabled students to personalize their learning and make it more meaningful to them, as well as to foster greater engagement with the course materials including making connections across the course as a whole. Further, we show how blogging enabled students to develop transferable skills that would stand them in good stead for the rest of their time at university and in their future professional lives.     

Young islanders,the meteorological imagination,and the art of geopolitical engagement

There is scant literature analysing how young islanders regard climate change, particularly in terms of resilience, agency and a geopolitical aesthetic. To address that gap, this paper offers a theoretical framework and empirical example responding to such issues. The work's theoretical foci are upon the role of the artist as interlocutor; the importance of arts practices in encouraging children to participate in climate change debates and actions; and the potential of what anthropologist Tim Ingold has called the meteorological imagination. These three matters inform a two-year praxis project – A Map of a Dream of the Future – involving methods from the geohumanities and engagement with young islanders, academics, artists and writers, community cultural development workers, and educators. Together, we worked on various activities to draw out our individual and collective ideas about islands, arts, climate change, and geopolitics. In the process were created an education kit, children's workshops and exhibitions, and a professional art installation at a major national arts festival. At the same time, new insights have been gained about how the meteorological imagination may be a significant resource by which to work with children as they come to terms with a future whose climate has changed.     

Sacred Wells in Wales

GUIDE D'ÉTUDE DIRECTE DES COMPORTEMENTS CULTURELS. By M. MAGET. Paris, 1953. Pp. xxxv, 260 ; 16 plates and drawings Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

TOBIAS TOMAMICHEL, Bosco GURIN, DAS WALSERDORF IM TESSIN. Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (G. Krebs Verlagsbuchhandlung). Basle, 1953. Pp. 155, illustrated. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CELTIC FOLKLORE, Stornoway and Oban, October 5th–13th, 1953. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

MY GYPSY DAYS : RECOLLECTIONS OF A ROMANI RAWNIE. By DORA E. YATES. Pp. 192, 9 plates. 8vo. London, Phoenix House, 1953. Price 16s. Reviewed by E. O. Winstedt.

WORD FOR WORD. AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF BEER. Vol. X I in the Whitbread Library. 1953. 5s. Reviewed by Leslie F. Newman.

RADNORSHIRE. By W. H. HAWSE. E. J. Thurston, Hereford. Price l6s. 6d. Reviewed by Lilian H. Hayward.

CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF SEX AND MARRIAGE. An Inquiry Relating to all Races and Nations from Antiquity to the Present Day. By GEORGE RYLEY SCOTT, F.Ph.S. (Eng.) F.Z.S., F.R.A.I., Torchstream Books, London, 1953. Reviewed by B. Z. S.