Using Films in Teaching About Africa

Didactic approaches to teaching about Africa are problematic for several reasons: they do not benefit students pedagogically; they cast Western academy/academics as guardians of truth about Africa; and they cast students as possible receptacles of objective knowledge of Africa. An approach based on 'border pedagogy' offers a helpful alternative. This paper outlines the advantages of using films from/about Africa to achieve this. A level 3 UK undergraduate module is outlined, and the eight films used in the module are briefly described. Finally, attention is given to students' reactions to the use of films, and some of the issues raised by these.     

Himalayan border citizens: Sovereignty and mobility in the Nepal–Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China border zone

For over half a century, a border zone mandated by bilateral treaty has existed along the full length of the international border between Nepal and China's Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Since 2002, people classified as “border inhabitants” who live within 30 km of the border on both sides have been issued “border citizen cards” which allow them to cross the border without a passport or a visa, and travel up to 30 km on the other side. This article explores historical and contemporary experiences of life in the Nepal–TAR border zone for such border citizens. Their state-sanctioned cross-border mobility complicates existing work on Tibetan refugee citizenship, and expands previous models for understanding ethno-political identities and sovereignty in the Himalayan region. The legally recognized category of border citizenship between Nepal and China's TAR provides a compelling example of how states may create alternative categories of citizenship in response to practices from below, while further shaping such practices through regimes of differentiated citizenship. I argue that this form of border citizenship emerges out of non-postcolonial trajectories of state formation in the Himalayan region, which offer important contrasts with other parts of South Asia.     

Solidarity as Spiritual Exercise: Accompanying Migrants at the US/Mexico Border

Abstract

This essay seeks to articulate a practical understanding of Christian solidarity as spiritual exercise that is based on Jon Sobrino's theological insights, uniquely grounded in his formation in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and his particular witness to the martyrs of El Salvador. We then turn to an exploration of the Kino Border Initiative, a binational ministry of sociopastoral accompaniment, educational outreach, research and advocacy as an institutional attempt to pursue a praxis of solidarity.     

An anatomy of race and immigration politics in California

At the US–Mexico border specific community organizations have played an important role in reinforcing and challenging dominant ideas about race and immigration through a series of protest and media campaigns. In this paper I explore the ways in which key community organizations have relied upon specific and specified constructions of race and ethnicity to redefine notions of borders and identities. I argue that an examination of debates around immigration reveals the centrality (and marginalization) of the images and spaces of the racialized immigrant body. An exploration of the ways in which policy, media, national and individual identities are mapped on to particular spaces provides an opportunity to interrogate and challenge the 'naturalness' of representations of race and immigration and the ways in which power is strategically located yet hidden in discussions of the border(s).     

战时陕甘宁边区的劳动英模运动

典型人物英雄化或先进化是中共的一项重要政治仪式。抗战时期,中共在陕甘宁边区发动了大规模的劳动英模运动,创造和发现了一大批典型人物,形成中国历史上第一个劳动英模群体。该项活动既是中共在抗战时期根据地政权建设的基本内容,又是中共中央直接领导陕甘宁边区社会建设的新型组织形式。奖励劳动英模的根本目的在于使之在群众中发生作用,组织起一个群众性运动,以达到发展生产、巩固根据地、促进各项建设事业的目标。     

Constructing the border from below: Narratives from the Congolese-Rwandan state boundary

This article is about the simultaneous subversion and perpetuation of political borders ‘from below’. Using the state boundary between the cities of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gisenyi in Rwanda as a case study, this article shows how people make sense of their border-related social world. By analyzing everyday narratives and practices of people who live on both sides of the border, this article reveals popular geopolitics at work and demonstrates the inchoate character surrounding the idea of ‘the border’. Border talk is examined in key narratives and narrative clusters to emphasize the primacy of certain thematic plots and to reveal which aspects of the border people prioritize and how they attribute meaning to the idea of the border. Views of the border ranging from a desired barrier against the demonized ‘other,’ and as a means of exclusion, to its conception as an institution that may be in need of reform but is essential to economic survival, make clear that approaching the border through narratives means allowing for its historicity and relationality. Border narratives and practices reveal some neglected aspects of violent conflict in the study region and provide insights into state-society relations, an understanding of the state’s legitimacy, and an understanding of the effects of the border as a social construction that influences everyday life.     

明代雁北地区城堡的职能与选址特征

本文总结出明代雁北地区存在政区治所、居中应援城堡、长城边堡与收保之堡等四种城堡类型,并指出,正是因为其职能与地理位置的差异,导致不同类型的城堡在后世有着不同的发展道路。卫所与州县治所延续其政区驻地职能,在今天大多仍为市、县与建制镇驻地;居中应援城堡由于地处通衢,农业条件较好,在今天为乡镇驻地;而后两种类型的城堡随着民族关系的缓和,军事职能逐渐淡化,在今天基本上成为普通村落,很多甚至遭到废弃。     

江南土墩墓相关建筑遗存的发现与研究

江南土墩墓建筑遗存主要分为与墓葬构造密切相关的建筑遗存和墓下建筑遗存,前者又可分为墓坑设施、木椁和甬道或墓道建筑设施,其与后者的形制演变均具有由简单到复杂,平面由长方形到"凸"字形的规律。与墓葬构造相关的建筑带有明显的祭祀功能,墓下建筑的主要功能则为墓地标识和祭祀。土墩墓营建过程中最重要的祭祀行为是对墓葬建筑的焚烧毁弃。江南土墩墓相关建筑遗存的发现,为进一步研究江南地区青铜时代的社会生活、丧葬礼俗提供了重要的物质资料。     

Between colonising waters and extracting forest fronts: Entangled eco-frontiers in the Usumacinta River Basin

The eco-frontier concept has addressed the processes of certain territories that are subject to ecological concern and appropriation of different actors. This study approaches the underexplored interaction with the frontier. The article sharpens the focus on the relations between the eco-frontier and the frontier as both a naturally rich periphery with importance to political centres and as an advancing front. The research discusses empirical results in the case of the transboundary Usumacinta River Basin (URB), which extends from Guatemala's highlands and lowlands through three Mexican states to the Gulf of Mexico. Three historical stages of eco-frontiers—exploratory, epistemic, and institutionalised—are identified in the URB. Its entangled eco-frontiers transform wildernesses and waters to forest ecosystems with inhabitants both spatially and mentally, yet contain some colonial, geopolitical, and global components. This article suggests that the eco-frontiers are fundamentally created because of contemporary frontier dynamics.     

Deaths,disappearances, borders: Migrant disappearability as a technology of deterrence

This paper analyses migrant disappearances in connection to EU bordering practices and techniques. Drawing on fieldwork in various localities at Greek borderlands, I argue that death or disappearance, due to drowning, hypothermia, exhaustion, violence, deprivation of medical care, and road accidents, to name but a few examples, has become an integral part of border enforcement in the Global North. To engage analytically with such an instantiation of border violence, I propose to utilise the notion of migrant disappearability. This disappearability is a produced condition (as opposed to accidently or randomly appearing) of everyday existence that does not necessarily lead to death or disappearance but, nevertheless, exerts pressure towards certain kind of precarities and threats by limiting the horizon of possibilities racialised migrants from the Global South have ahead of them. Furthermore, the state of being disappearable is a social space one constantly enters, leaves, re-enters and leaves again; rather than being at the forefront at all times, it looms above like a ghost.