Translation Alignment: Actor‐Network Theory,Resistance, and the Power Dynamics of Alliance in New Caledonia

Abstract: This study of resistance to multinational mining in New Caledonia expands actor‐network theory's concept of translation by exploring ways that power dynamics affect alliances and the translations that both support and challenge them. Examining relationships among an indigenous protest group, environmentalist grassroots organizations, a human rights lawyer, the mining company, and the provincial government, I argue that power often requires alliances, mediated by compatible translations. However, if alliances are to succeed, at least temporarily, these translations must be made compatible through a process of translation alignment. Ironically, this alignment inevitably alters at least one of the translations, diminishing the power of the actor‐network that articulated it to achieve its original goals. This paper's findings also enhance radical geographical understandings of capitalism's infrastructure, as uneven development increasingly relies upon—yet finds it increasingly difficult to achieve—the alignment of local communities’ translations with those of the agents of industry.     

“Who teaches,learns”: writing groups in geographical education

Abstract

The ability to communicate is acknowledged by employers to be a valuable attribute of a university graduate. That ability is also vital in fulfilling geography discipline objectives of mutual understanding and emancipation. Writing groups have been used in geography departments in Australia and the USA as a means of improving student skills in written communication as well as to stimulate positive attitudes to writing, intellectual growth and rhetorical skills. From the point of view of teachers, writing groups were employed to fulfil pedagogic objectives and to free up time for instructional improvements and other academic business. This paper outlines the rationale for using writing groups in geography courses, means by which they might be applied, and their merits and shortcomings.     

The forest or the trees? Behavioral and methodological considerations for geochemical characterization of heavily-tempered ceramic pastes using NAA and LA-ICP-MS

In this paper, the utility of LA-ICP-MS for instrumentally separating clay and temper within pottery samples is examined through a well-known case study that has been previously characterized through NAA and petrography. Coarse Orange pottery is composed of kaolinitic clays heavily tempered within volcanic ash from the basalt-rich Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz, Mexico. We attempt to address the following topics with analyses on this pottery: 1) can LA-ICP-MS replicate the same groups previously identified by NAA and petrography; 2) can instrumental isolation of the clay fraction within the pottery replicate known patterns in raw clay source geochemistry in the Tuxtla Mountains; 3) can data for both the clay and volcanic ash fractions of each pottery sherd be combined to simulate the bulk INAA data? The results demonstrate that the clay fraction of the pottery sherds can be isolated. Furthermore, the LA-ICP-MS data for the clay fractions display nearly identical chemistry to available NAA data for raw clay samples collected from geological contexts in the region. Instrumentally isolating the clay fraction in this case eliminates the homogenizing effects of adding a common temper and increases the chemical separation among groups making it easier to identify clay procurement strategies for each specimen. However, focusing only on the clay fraction ignores significant tempering variation. Attempts to simulate the bulk NAA by combining LA-ICP-MS data for clays and temper was reasonably successful in reestablishing the tempering variation lost by exclusive focus on clays, but such an approach could not replace the more precise data generated from NAA and petrography.     

COITAL EXPERIENCE AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN THREE SOCIAL-EDUCATIONAL GROUPS IN URBAN CHIANG MAI,THAILAND

This article compares coital experience of Chiang Mai 17–20-year-olds who were: (1) out-of-school; (2) studying at vocational schools; and (3) studying at general schools or university. Four-fifths, two-thirds and one-third, respectively, of males in these groups had had intercourse, compared to 53, 62 and 15 per cent of females. The gender difference for general school/university students, but not vocational school students, probably reflects HIV/AIDS refocusing male sexual initiation away from commercial sex workers. Vocational school females may have been disproportionately affected. Loss of virginity was associated, for both sexes, with social-educational background and lifestyle, and was less likely in certain minority ethnic groups. Among males, it was also associated with age and parental marital dissolution, and among females, with independent living and parental disharmony. Within social-educational groups, lifestyle variables dominated, but among general school/university students, parental marital dissolution (for males) and disharmony (for females) were also important, and Chinese ethnicity deterred male sexual experimentation.     

Self-rated Health of older persons in Indonesia

This study contributes to expanding the knowledge of the health of older persons living in Indonesia, a country with limited welfare benefits. The research employs a variable, ‘self-rated health’ (SRH), to investigate socio-cultural factors linked to the health of older Indonesians. The data presented in this study are based on fieldwork collected using a mixed-method approach. Sex-difference in SRH in older age is shown to be predominantly a result of enduring inequalities across the life course, manifested in cultural practices, education, employment and programs for health. An older person's status within the family is a significant determinant of SRH, but the direction of the relationship depends on the sex and ethnicity of the person. Other variables related to SRH are age, lifestyle, education, residential area and intergenerational transfers.     

Quantifying Indonesia's Ethnic Diversity

Ethnicity used to be a political taboo in Indonesia, a country with more than 600 ethnic groups, but this has changed since the advent of the Reform era (1998). The government of Indonesia (through Statistics-Indonesia) included a question on ethnicity in its 2000 population census, and continued in the 2010 census. This paper produces the first estimates of ethnic diversity at the national, provincial, and district levels using tabulations provided by Statistics-Indonesia based on the full enumeration data set of the 2010 Indonesia Population Census. It analyzes three measurements of ethnic diversity: the percentage of the largest ethnic group, Ethnic Fractionalization Index (EFI), and Ethnic Polarization Index (EPOI). This paper provides a quantitative start for further studies to link ethnic diversity with many social, economic, and political variables, including studies on the dynamics of ethnic diversity. We conclude that Indonesia is relatively ethnically fractionalized, though not as polarized. Among provinces and districts, we have seen a continuum ranging from ethnically homogeneous to heterogeneous, from the least fractionalized to the most fractionalized, and from the least polarized to the most polarized province or district. Variation in ethnic diversity is also seen across islands although provinces and districts in the Island of Java are more likely to be homogeneous, less fractionalized and less polarized than provinces and districts outside Java Island.     

意识形态与美国革命的历史叙事

世界近现代史上的革命往往也是一种意识形态事件,而革命史写作与意识形态之间有着复杂的关联。美国史学界关于美国革命的历史叙事,经历了从辉格主义范式向新美国革命史学的转变,这场革命也从建国之父领导的政治革命,被改写成了一场由普通民众和边缘群体扮演主角的全面变革。在这一转变中,平民主义、多元文化主义和女性主义等思潮与革命史写作之间发生了微妙的互动。这种经过重构的美国革命史带有浓厚的意识形态色彩,已经从学术的边缘走向了中心,并为当前美国社会各种激进的意识形态提供了新的能量。但它仍只是美国革命史的众多相互竞争的版本中的一个。     

康雍乾时期的贵州山地文化观

清代康雍乾时期派到贵州地方官员的奏折、疏言、著述和皇帝的上谕、朱批、圣旨等所构成一系列对治理贵州的决策及实施过程,正记述了对贵州山地、山地民族和山地文化及其特征的认识过程,形成了独特的贵州山地文化观,在贵州社会历史发展中起到了重要作用,至今仍有参考价值。     

Policy Feedback and Preschool Funding in the American States

The early childhood education policy community has been described as a “divided constituency” in which groups with the same underlying goals sometimes work at cross purposes. This article examines how this internal division affects the contemporary funding of preschool education. It finds that states with a relatively large Head Start community are significantly more likely not to fund preschool education and significantly less likely to dedicate preschool funding exclusively to a freestanding state program. These results suggest that the creation and political solidification of Head Start generated policy feedback. They contributed to an ongoing tension within the early education community as Head Start beneficiaries viewed the creation of a freestanding preschool program as a political threat. This political dynamic illustrates the more general way in which the existence of a public policy can alter the dynamics of future political action.     

中大语言历史学研究所与现代中国西南民族研究

本文以中山大学语言历史学研究所的运作理念和学术实践为考察视角,试图将其放入新思潮的背景之下,由个人扩大到群体,对研究所同仁在"科学方法论"指导下开创的西南民族研究及其学术影响作出了讨论。语史所同仁利用其所倡导的田野调查实践和多学科交叉融合等方法对西南民族的调查研究,不仅开启了中国现代西南民族研究之先声,还直接催生了历史学与人类学、民俗学、民族学等诸多交叉学科的形成和新的学术流派的诞生。但是,我们也应该看到,其早期的研究实践也存在着明显的不足:一是由于民族学田野调查缺乏必要的理论指导和学科训练,致使对调查方法和研究分析工具的掌握有欠成熟;二是受研究经费的不足和战乱的影响,导致调查时间的不足,一定程度上影响了调查结论的深度和准确性。