Role playing: a feminist-geopolitical analysis of the everyday workings of the Mexican state

Participatory methods are increasingly important to geographical research of ‘the everyday,’ yet their viability as a means to understand on-the-ground geopolitical processes has been less explored. This article contributes to the growing body of literature on participatory research in geography and feminist geopolitics by arguing for the use of a specific participatory tool – role play. We present an example of our employment of the technique in a case study on using the method during research with Central American immigrants living in the Mexico–Guatemala border city of Tapachula, Mexico. In doing so, we provide an in-depth examination of the implementation of role play, demonstrating its usefulness in revealing immigrant women's daily experiences with low- to mid-level state actors as they seek to avail themselves of their rights. We conclude that role play is particularly well suited to revealing these experiences due to its encouragement of creativity, embodiment through performance and facilitation of in-depth discussion of difficult subject matter.     

Contesting Putin's nation‐building: the ‘Muslim other’ and the challenge of the Russian ethno‐cultural alternative

This article explains the crystallisation of a new Russian national discourse, shaped by a challenge posed to Putin's statist non‐ethnic national model by a popularly formed ethno‐cultural alternative, constructed through negation of the ‘Muslim other’. The article describes this new and previously overlooked phenomenon of Russian nationalism and explicates the social mechanism behind its formation. The article concludes that when rampant corruption exists, generating a breakdown of legal order, the ‘other’ is defined through behaviour that deviates from accepted local norms, while the contrasting normative ‘general public’ is defined as ‘Russian’. Such group definitions mean that the current process of Russian grass‐roots exclusive national consolidation is based predominantly on culturally based behavioural codes, rather than on mere ethnic or religious affiliation, as is widely believed. Additionally, a conceptual landmark discourse shift from the question of Russia's mere plausibility as a nation‐state to a focus on its ongoing definition is demonstrated.     

谈新四军及华中抗日根据地的报刊精神

新四军及华中抗日根据地报刊,在中国共产党的正确领导下,为新四军及华中抗日根据地的创建和发展,为抗战全面胜利作出了历史性贡献。新四军及华中抗日根据地的报刊精神主要体现在政治坚定、导向鲜明的党性原则;艰苦创业、乐于奉献的革命传统;贴近生活、通俗生动的求实风格三个方面。     

Feasting landscapes and political economy at the Early Horizon center of Huambacho, Nepeña Valley, Peru

The present contribution examines feasting practices at Huambacho (800–200 cal. B.C.), an Early Horizon elite center of the Nepeña Valley, Department of Ancash, Peru. Feasts are approached as long-term strategies essential to the political economy of human societies. Drawing upon data from public architecture, material culture and food remains, the study closely considers feasts as political actions and investigates the organization and social meaning of these special events. At Huambacho, I contend that the diacritical aspects of feasting practices, such as the use of exclusive spaces and special paraphernalia, contributed to the dual celebration of communal identity and prosperity, and the creation and reproduction of social inequalities. The research highlights the dual centripetal and centrifugal dynamics of Early Horizon feasts and demonstrates the role of the Huambacho center in advertising the success of the local community based on new forms of production and innovative rules of commensal hospitality.     

Mobility-driven cultural transmission along the forager-collector continuum

Hunter-gatherers mobility regimes are often treated as discrete adaptive strategies. Here we present a model of forager mobility which treats collectors and foragers as two ends of a continuous spectrum. We show that a mobility regime can be situated along this spectrum by specifying the number of foraging moves a group makes before returning to its home base. The model allows us to explore the behavioural space between forager (i.e. residential mobility) and collector (logistical mobility) adaptations. We discuss the heuristic value of the model by showing how it can be used to make testable predictions about the impact of mobility strategies on archaeological measures such as occupation intensity and raw-material transportation distance. We then use the model to investigate the impact of mobility on rates of cultural transmission. We show that mobility-driven cultural transmission may be equivalent to a Poisson process and that the time it takes for a cultural behaviour to be transmitted between two mobile groups is optimized when the mobility regime is somewhere between pure forager and pure collectors adaptations. In addition, we find that rates of cultural transmission decline in a very regular way, as the inverse of the square root of the number of moves made before returning to home base. This suggests that there is a mechanistic connection between the mean-squared displacement of hunter-gatherers in space and the transmission of cultural traits.     

试论十二桥文化的生业方式——以动物考古学研究为中心

通过对十二桥文化成都平原类型和渝东类型典型遗址所出动物骨骼的可鉴定标本、最小个体数和肉量估算的统计来考察其生业方式,结果显示前者的肉食资源以家畜为主,而后者则以狩猎为主。与香炉石文化的生业方式进行比较,并认为在早期文明阶段,同一考古学文化的不同类型其生业方式不尽相同,而不同的考古学文化间的生业方式则可能趋同。     

散村的形成及其演变——以江汉平原腹地的乡村聚落形态及其演变为中心

传统时代江汉平原腹地的乡村聚落,主要选择地势稍高的自然墩台、长冈或建造人工墩台,以躲避洪水的侵袭;很多台墩依堤而建或与堤相联,但台墩之间并不相连,从而形成以散居为主导的乡村聚落形态。江汉平原腹地以散居为主导的乡村聚落形态之形成,有其根深蒂固的地理基础与社会经济根源。环境与资源条件的限制、传统的经济生活方式,乃是散村形成并长期延续下来的根本原因。     

民国时期江汉平原的粮食市场

粮食贸易在民国时期江汉平原的农村经济中占有重要地位,粮商及粮商组织、粮食加工和运输、粮食价格、粮食集散和粮食存储等几个方面反映了民国时期江汉平原的粮食市场的基本情况。粮食贸易将大量的基层市场、少量中间市场和几个中心市场联系在一起,粮食价格的趋同性表明这个地区当时存在着完整的粮食贸易体系,但相关市场特征又表明这个市场是不完善的。     

中亚国家的民族关系与地区安全

随着地缘政治的变化,中亚五国的民族问题凸显跨国性。民族与宗教因素相结合、相促发,利用宗教服务于极端民族主义是影响民族关系、制约国家经济建设和危及地区安全的突出征象。“9.11”事件以后,由于美国的军事介入,致使中亚的民族问题更加复杂,不仅关涉五国间的国家关系,而且牵动包括我国西北边疆及其他周边国家在内的地区安全。面临来自周边动荡带的巨大压力,中亚的稳定仍然十分脆弱,强化国家安全的任务极其艰巨。中亚各国政府针对本国出现的一些具体问题,积极推行一系列促进族际关系健康发展的措施,民族问题始终处于政府的控制之下,整个地区总体上保持基本稳定态势,但局部片区的安全形势不容乐观,种种变数难以预测。     

民国时期成都平原土地转租问题探讨

Subletting land was widely practiced throughout the Chinese countryside during the early 20^th century. The various modes of land subletting in the Chengdu Plains during the Republican period included sharecropping, contracted tenancy and a large-tract tenancy system. The subletting caused many conflicts among tenants, like the transfer of tax liability, etc. The reasons why there were so many lands being leased out were: (1) The ecological pressure caused by a surplus of people with little available land. (2) The civil customs of subletting land and national laws opposed each other but also complemented each other. (3) Subletting land was a supplement of the tenancy system, and also an economic activity driven by interests. Translated by Tian Changfei from Shilin 史林 (Historical Review), 2006, (3): 85–95