Creating a niche,building a community: a case study of young small-scale creative workers in Daegu,South Korea

The global trend of garnering the innovative potential of creative economy has also accelerated in South Korea where ‘creativity’ has recently become a nationwide buzz word. While economic instrumentality underpins the global proliferation of creativity discourse, it has been argued that the contemporary cultural sector is affected by neoliberal norms and hyper-competitive individualism. Notwithstanding such disciplining of creativity, this paper attempts to look into the complexity of cultural work which cannot be solely explained by the ascendant neoliberal ethos. To this end, the paper draws upon interviews carried out in 2016 with youth cultural workers, particularly who commit to independent, small scale creative work, in the city of Daegu. Based on an exploration of their locally oriented moral motivations and how they describe and practice their own work, the paper aims to discuss the ways in which they contribute to local cultural ecologies through their socially engaged creative work.     

A Chak'an Itza Center at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén,Guatemala

Recent excavations conducted by Proyecto Itza investigated a Late Postclassic (a.d. 1400–1525) community at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala. This community was likely occupied by a faction of Itza Mayas called the Chak'an Itzas. Recent work focused on the community's civic-ceremonial architecture and nearby residences. The former was dominated by two colonnaded halls standing abreast. These buildings, believed to have been popol najoob (council houses), likely represented socio-political dualism in Chak'an society. The halls included various sculptures that seem largely associated with the deity Itzamna mounted into architecture so that they were clearly on display. Most sculptures were associated with one of the two halls suggesting that one faction was more powerful and more strongly advertised its connections with Yucatán. Excavations also revealed the avoidance of masonry in residential areas, which differentiated Chak'an residences from their civic-ceremonial areas and also distinguished Chak'an residences from those of their neighbors.     

Global policy paradigms,gender equality and everyday lives in Beijing,Hong Kong,Seoul and Taipei

Focusing on the interface between gender equality, the labour market, and everyday lives in four East Asian societies – China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan – this article seeks to articulate the spatial expression and multi-scalarity of global governance and policy paradigms. It will demonstrate that whilst regions, places and people are influenced by global processes and paradigms, these move and embed in different ways across spaces, time and scales. In this context, the article seeks to develop a more nuanced appreciation of ‘the social lives’ of global policy models, engaging with the role of ideas and institutions and the interactions of transnational, national and local dynamics in the shaping of gender equality policies and everyday experiences. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei the article draws out the perceptions of individuals from different policy, sectoral, social and cultural settings of gender equality. It highlights the tensions and disjunctures between general principles and particular situations, and in embedding gender equality policies into the social imaginaries and everyday lives of women and men. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing the role of place and power relations in shaping localized responses to and experiences of gender justice.     

Folklore without a folk: questions in the preservation of the Marinduque Moriones heritage

Since the 1870s, the Moriones festival has been part of the Lenten celebrations in Marinduque, located at the heart of the Philippines. Inventoried by the Philippine government, the National Commission for Culture and Arts (NCCA) and the Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (ICHCAP) as one of the Philippines’ intangible cultural heritage, the Moriones festival has exhibited various problems regarding a decreasing historical value, political intervention and increasing detachment from the Marinduque community. This study raises questions on regional inventorying of ICH, especially in light of what needs to be tackled before, during and after the incorporation of traditions and practices as ICH.     

Women With AIDS: Will It Change aids Service Organizations?

In the early 1980s, gay men formed AIDS service organizations (ASOs) in areas hardest hit by the disease, such as San Francisco and New York City, to provide assistance to infected members of their own communities. The Ryan White CARE Act of 1990 made funds available for community-based groups, such as ASOs, to provide support services to all people with HIV/AIDS. The epidemiology of AIDS has changed greatly in recent years, and increasing numbers of poor, minority women with children now contract HIV/AIDS. To determine if ASOs are in compliance with the CARE Act, this study surveyed 20 ASOs across the country and a number of their female clients to see if ASOs, some of which were started by gay men, have tailored their services for a growing minority, heterosexual population. The results indicate that a number of ASOs have been slow in responding to the diverse needs of women. Recommendations are offered to make the organizations more responsive.     

MEASURING CONTRIBUTING FACTORS TO INTERREGIONAL AGRICULTURAL LABOR PRODUCTIVITY DIFFERENTIALS: A JOINT PROFIT FORMULATION*

ABSTRACT Using Taylor series approximations of joint profit functions, a methodology is outlined to quantify interregional differentials in the Canadian agriculture sector by region and to quantify the contributing factors to regional labor productivity differences. These contributing factors are output price differentials–both crop and livestock, differentials in “land and buildings” capital deepening, “other” capital deepening, energy prices, other material prices, and efficiency. The joint profit formulation permits the analysis of effects of regional specific output price and output mix differentials.     

秦简"柀"字释义

本文认为出现在《睡虎地秦墓竹简》中的"柀"字,除《日书》甲简一四正壹等通"破"外,绝大多数应读为"颇"。并讨论了《秦律十八种》一七四、《效律》三五、《日书》甲二五背一中的"彼"字及《诘》篇四六背贰中的"女笔"。     

Two systems in one country: the origin,functions, and mechanisms of the rural-urban dual system in China

ABSTRACT

This paper takes an interdisciplinary perspective to focus on the role played by the rural-urban dual system in China’s urbanization and migration. We explain its establishment in China in the 1950s and its genealogy in the industrialization strategy adopted in the USSR in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In the reform era, the system has been refashioned to suit a new set of demands of the state industrialization strategy to cater for the global economy. We analyze the mechanisms of the dual system, and how it has helped generate low-cost migrant labor for urban employers and siphon off revenues for urban governments by expropriating rural land. We also argue that there are fundamental differences between the dual system and the common “dualism,” based on the Lewis dual-sector model, as observed in many developing countries. The plight of children of migrants is used to illustrate the main points made in the paper. Our research challenges the prevailing perspectives in Chinese geography and urban studies, many of which are based on market-driven neoclassical economics or global neoliberalism, often ignoring China’s historical and institutional contexts.