SPACES OF ENCOUNTER–DISPLACEMENT: CONTEMPORARY LABOUR MIGRANTS' RETURN VISITS TO LATVIA

The context of this paper is return visits to the homeland of labour migrants in Europe. The paper draws on data from the author's ethnographic fieldwork on the island of Guernsey and in Latvia during 2010–2012. By theorizing the relevance which the research participants attached to the phenomenon of corporeal co‐presence in relation to these visits, the paper bridges a timegeographic perspective with phenomenological interpretations. It explains how actual experience during the return path is influenced by both past trajectories and future anticipation. Return visits are conceptualized as spaces of encounter‐displacement and illustrated through examples of sensory and emotional experiences of anticipating for the return, the actual travel, time spent in the home area, and departure. The paper suggests that a focus on the body scale can help researchers to gain important insights into how the path is shaped through the corporeal experiences and how it shapes interpretations about home and possible future orientations.     

20世纪七八十年代引滦工程决策历程

水资源短缺一直制约着京津唐地区经济和社会的发展。20世纪70年代,因缺水引发的经济、社会问题逐渐凸显,促使中央和地方政府开始考虑实施跨流域调水工程。引滦工程作为北方最大的跨流域调水工程,其决策经历了曲折的过程。1958年,北京和唐山曾分别提出引滦河水的设想,唐山还实施了引滦入还和引还入陡工程。1972年,海河流域大旱促使中央做出加快实施引滦工程的决定,但由于地质情况复杂等原因,引滦工程设计方案被反复修改。1981年,天津提出了单独引滦济津路线并得到了中央的支持。引滦工程对缓解京津唐用水紧张发挥了重要作用,天津是引滦工程受益最大的地区。     

The Uses of Neoliberalism

Abstract: The term “neoliberalism” has come to be used in a wide variety of partly overlapping and partly contradictory ways. This essay seeks to clarify some of the analytical and political work that the term does in its different usages. It then goes on to suggest that making an analytical distinction between neoliberal “arts of government” and the class‐based ideological “project” of neoliberalism can allow us to identify some surprising (and perhaps hopeful) new forms of politics that illustrate how fundamentally polyvalent neoliberal mechanisms of government can be. A range of empirical examples are discussed, mostly coming from my recent work on social policy and anti‐poverty politics in southern Africa.     

The consequences of nationalism: A scholarly exchange

The main thrust of the scholarship on nationalism has so far been concerned with its origins. But nationalism also has effects. Whether it underpins the nation-building efforts of states, is mobilised by counter-state forces or is used in everyday life, nationalism might implicate a wide range of substantive outcomes, including political regimes, public goods provision, citizenship and immigration laws, and different patterns of conflict. Yet—with a few notable exceptions—the consequences of nationalism have received significantly less scholarly attention. In response, the aim of this Exchange is to create a new dialogue between different strands of scholarship around what we know and do not know about the consequences of nationalism. We organise this Exchange around the following questions: (1) What is nationalism? (2) How can we measure nationalism? (3) What are the consequences of nationalism? (4) What are new research frontiers?     

Strontium isotope analysis in ancient glass from South Asia using portable laser ablation sampling

In order to carry out strontium (Sr) isotope analysis, glass artefacts from South Asia were sampled with portable laser ablation (pLA), a relatively novel sampling technique that leaves damage invisible to the naked eye. Subsequently, thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) was used to obtain Sr isotope ratios after sample dissolution and separation. In this study, the goal was twofold: to determine whether the measurements of Sr isotope ratios were impacted by using a portable laser as a sample tool; and to assess the pertinence of using Sr isotope ratios to provenance Indian glass. Despite a deterioration in the precision of the measurement of the Sr isotope ratios for artefacts sampled with pLA compared with the traditional sampling method, the Sr isotope ratios of certain Indian glass are so different that this does not affect their separation but a comparison of data sets obtained using standard methods and pLA might be challenging.     

As Basket and Papu: Making Manus Social Fabric

Between 2012 and 2019, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, hosted Australia's offshore detention centre for asylum seekers and refugees, known as the Regional Processing Centre (RPC). This paper analyses some of the social impacts of the RPC on Lorengau town, the urban centre of Manus, through the analytical lens of the Manus idiom, as basket (Tok Pisin). Materially this refers to the everyday Manus basket whilst metaphorically, it refers to an individual's or community's social, cultural, political and economic base. First, I examine asylum seekers and refugees as a social category that emerged during this period when they were referred to as papu by locals. Papu is an honorific kinship term for grandfather or elder man; for men who are symbols for family identity, social belonging, and rights to land. Second, I examine the changing materiality of Lorengau's markets as indicative of wider societal transformations and dissonance brought about by the RPC. My ethnographic data are based on long term involvement in Manus, including three recent visits to Lorengau in 2017, 2018, and 2019 where I studied the social impacts and the changing social practices of Manus people in response to the RPC.     

“A plantation can be a commons”: Re‐Earthing Sapelo Island through Abolition Ecology

This paper is based on the 2018 Neil Smith Lecture presented at the University of St Andrews. It considers the plantation past/futures of Sapelo Island, Georgia, one of the Sea Islands forming an archipelago along the US Southeastern coast. I work through the abolitionist efforts of the Saltwater Geechee’s who have resided there since at least 1803 to better understand how we can mobilise an emancipatory politics of land and property and to produce commons that work to repair and heal the violence done through enslavement and ongoing displacement. I weave together a series of historical threads to better situate linked ideas of abolition democracy and abolition geography, and to extend the notion of abolition ecology as a strategic notion to connect Eurocentric based political ecologies with the emancipatory tradition of Black geographies.     

胡人发型:中古“剪头胡雏”艺术形象试解

古人发型是文化界长期关注的一个重要现象。发型不仅是时代的特征与时尚的符号,也是各个族群的辨识标志。从北朝到隋唐的中古社会,"剪头胡雏"的文物图像屡屡出现,一般来说,此类胡人形象是剪发而不是束发,在当时以"高髻为尚"的社会习俗中,"剪头胡雏"发型是有着"阶级感"的存在,是有关底层胡人的直观艺术产物。也说明当时入华胡人还没有彻底"汉化",仍然保留着本族群的发型特征。该发式是胡人与汉人的区别,也是其身份归属的象征。     

Evidence for local,regional and interregional exchange networks on Failaka: Some remarks on late Islamic pottery from Kharaib al-Dasht

The site of Kharaib al-Dasht, located on the northern coast of Failaka, is a late Islamic settlement with an extensive fishing infrastructure. It has been excavated since 2013 by the Kuwaiti-Polish Archaeological Mission. The ceramic assemblage collected so far exceeds 18,000 fragments. The sherds underwent technological and typological analyses, which demonstrated a wide diversity of local common kitchen wares, consistent with the needs of households specialised in fishing. A considerable percentage of imported vessels was brought to Failaka from the Arabian Gulf and Persia, though Far Eastern luxury tableware was also attested. This paper demonstrates the socioeconomic role of Kharaib al-Dasht in the context of trade exchange on the microregional (Kuwait) and macroregional (the Gulf, South and Eastern Asia) scales in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.     

Colonising geology: Volcanic politics and geopower

This paper discusses the experiences of Christian Montserratian residents through the 1995-present eruptions of the Soufrière Hills Volcano, highlighting that while the earthly powers of the volcano are fundamentally nonhuman, they are known and understood in a diversity of ways by different actors – and they interfere in politics and the production of knowledge. Montserrat, as a UK Overseas Territory, is a non-sovereign territory with a strong Christian identity that has been enhanced by its geological experience. At the same time, the UK has used the eruption to hold greater legislative control over the island. A final group of stakeholders in the eruption is the volcanologists, mainly from the UK until 2010, whose terminology and knowledge-world has had significant impact on the island, but has also been significantly extended by it. The paper ultimately uses this example to suggest that while there are useful and important insights from the “ontological turn” (incorporating vitalism, materialism, speculative realism) in thinking about the “lively earth”, the enactment of volcanic risk management at the governmental level also constitutes a knowledge-practice that must be approached critically to avoid the pitfalls of modernist science and ensure meaningful political change.