Spatial interaction and security: a review and case study of the Syrian refugee crisis

ABSTRACT

Sir Alan Wilson's ideas have been highly influential in the modelling of phenomena including migration, transport and economics. Latterly, research has explored the application of similar ideas to new problems at larger scales. Many of these studies relate to global challenges with significant policy implications. Here, we present an example in the form of original empirical work concerning forced migration associated with the current Syrian refugee crisis. We employ a spatial interaction framework to examine the flows of migrants fleeing Syria and the characteristics which influence their choice of destination country. In line with the broader literature, we find that shorter distances, economic prosperity, and cultural similarity (e.g. shared language) attract forced migrants, as does the probability of being granted asylum; a finding with potential implications for policy. Contrary to expectation, we find little influence for levels of security in potential host nations (e.g. absence of terrorism).     

苏风入夏考实

得益于全面的文艺创作成就带来的影响力,苏轼书法很早就传入北方的辽,并影响到稍后的金。尽管目前尚未发现苏轼书法在西夏传播的直接证据,但据目前所见西夏中期的考古资料,特别是碑刻、文书,确实不乏苏风浓郁者。这在证明苏轼书法传入西夏的同时,也足以证明书法史上的"唐宋之变"并不局限于中原地区。     

身体、情感与空间：老年人休闲旅居的具身体验

在新的流动范式认识下，“旅居”的出游方式因为更加自由和舒适的体验得到老年群体的青睐，当前研究主要关注偏“精英”色彩的老年人“旅居”现象，聚焦探讨这些现象背后的系列问题，但忽视了现象本身。目前一种更加大众化的老年人“旅居”现象得到蓬勃发展，但对其深层内涵与价值的探究鲜有见者。研究基于具身认知，聚焦现象本身，通过改良旅游者具身体验研究框架，采用既定程序的文本分析方法对样本深度访谈内容进行分析。研究发现，上述现象可参与群体广泛，舒适的异地休闲需求显著，活动具有高度的群体情感特性，承接空间接近过程相对轻松，舒适停留条件良好，老年人的日常休闲活动和社交群体能够更为便利和大众化的在异地实现有效延续与发展。研究将该现象命名为老年人休闲旅居，其能够成为老年人居家养老生活的有益补充，有重要现实意义。     

满族传统体育项目“绫球”

古代满族人发源于我国的东北，一到冬天白雪盖地，用手把雪攥成球，互相追打，成了儿童们喜爱的游戏。1644年，满族人来到了北京，这里夏秋时间长，冬春时间短，下雪的时间比东北老家要少，儿童们不能经常玩“打雪仗”的游戏了。怎么办呢?聪明的满族妇女想了个办法，用做衣服的剩下来的碎布缝成包，里面装上杂豆，以此代替“雪球”，让孩子们嬉戏。     

Early history of Chinese domestic sheep indicated by ancient DNA analysis of Bronze Age individuals

China has a long history of sheep husbandry, and has several indigenous sheep breeds. However, the exact geographic origin of Chinese domestic sheep remains unclear. To provide valuable genetic information for origin of Chinese domestic sheep, we performed an ancient DNA study on 22 sheep excavated from four Bronze Age archaeological sites in Northern China. Two lineages (A and B) were observed in ancient Chinese sheep, of which lineage A was predominant reaching a frequency of 95.5%. Furthermore, phylogenetic network showed that the most frequent haplotype in ancient sheep was the founder of lineage A. These results suggest that Lineage A may hold the key to understanding the origin of Chinese domestic sheep. Sequence sharing and principal component analysis showed that the ancient Chinese sheep had a close affinity to modern Chinese sheep. However, there was no significant breed structure among three modern Chinese sheep groups, making it difficult to determine their relationship to ancient Chinese sheep. Lastly, our results imply that ancient DNA analysis could provide a new way to investigate prehistoric East-West contact.     

From excess to encompassment: Repetition,recantation, and the trashing of time in Swedish Christianities

ABSTRACT

I explore the conversion of a Swedish Pentecostal Prosperity preacher to the Roman Catholic Church in order to examine questions of analytical perspective, temporal scale, and ethical discernment in the operation of religiously charged forms of repetition. The paper juxtaposes neo-Pentecostal with Roman Catholic understandings of temporality through tracing the ideological movements of Pastor Ulf Ekman over the past three decades, summarizing these understandings as based around tropes of ‘excess’ and ‘encompassment’ respectively. In exploring repetition as both theoretical category and ethnographic object of observation, I distinguish between actively marked repetition and the merely repetitious, while also drawing distinctions between continuity and the iterative, oscillatory character of repetitive actions.     

Sport as politics and history: the 25th SEA Games in Laos (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Like the recent World Cup in South Africa and the Beijing 2008 Olympics, December 2009's Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Laos were embraced by the state as evidence of national achievement and progress. Yet, just like these much larger global sporting events, a range of controversies threatened to turn the pride of the Games into embarrassment. Of particular concern was the fact that, despite significantly reducing the size of the Games, Laos — one of the smallest and poorest countries in Southeast Asia — depended greatly on foreign help to conduct them, especially from China. The ultimate success of the SEA Games in Laos reinforced the power of sport to consolidate nationalism, despite the paradox in Laos of nationalism emerging from a complex mix of autonomy and dependence.