“In Front of the World”: Translating Beatriz Nascimento

This collection translates some of the work of the influential Black Brazilian thinker and activist Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995) for the first time into English, in collaboration with her only daughter, Bethânia Gomes. Historian, poet, theorist and organiser, Beatriz Nascimento was a key figure in Brazil’s Black Movement until her untimely death in 1995. She dangerously wrote at the height of Brazil’s Military Dictatorship (1964–1985), and theorised extensively on the Black condition in Brazil; the unique experience of Black women; and quilombos—Brazilian maroon societies that she imagined as spaces of both historical and contemporary fugitivity. Following Alex Ratts, this introduction outlines her contribution to radical geography, in particular Black geographies, territoriality and embodiment. It also positions Nascimento within the trans‐Atlantic Black radical tradition. We present two of Nascimento’s essays in translation here. The first, “The Concept of Quilombo and Black Cultural Resistance”, introduces a crucial strand of her scholarly work, on the history and socio‐political significance of quilombos (maroon communities). The second, “For a (New) Existential and Physical Territory”, shows Nascimento in a different mood: philosophical, reflective and iconoclastic. In addition, two of her poems—“Dream” and “Sun and Blue”—are also translated here for the first time.     

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。     

明代苏州宗族形态探研

明人追求通过修谱与祠祭表达祖先崇拜和宗族共同体的意识。明人的祖先祭祀,依据祭祖地点,可以划分为墓祭、家祭、祠祭。娄坚《徐氏宗谱序》分析了明代江南故家大族与谱牒不盛的问题,认为吴人不能聚族在于习俗的鄙、奢所造成的,强调通过宗族建设移风易俗。明代族谱更加盛行,表现出强烈的以谱法接济宗法的观念。苏州士大夫发扬光大了宋代范仲淹设置义田、义庄的传统,以此赡族进行宗族建设,官府倡导并保护义田与义庄,形成了不同于其他地区宗族形态的特色。明代苏州处于宗族组织化的新阶段。     

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.     

部落与民族主义的竞逐——1953年法国在摩洛哥的政变与格拉维部落的兴衰

部落构成了中东社会生活的一个重要层面,是理解中东国家必不可少的视角。1953年,法国在摩洛哥发动政变,废黜了支持民族主义力量的苏丹穆罕默德五世。格拉维部落在此期间经历了兴衰起落。此次政变集中反映了摩洛哥国内部落和民族主义力量对国家政权的竞逐,是观察中东地区部落和国家间复杂逻辑关系的典型个案。摩洛哥传统势力的代表格拉维部落与国家间关系表现出复杂形态:部落利用国家力量实现崛起,部落对抗民族主义力量发动政变企图控制国家,最后部落被国家抛弃而衰落。在部落和民族主义竞逐国家政权的过程中,法国殖民者成为二者沉浮的决定性因素和制衡力量。由于部落对国家认同的脆弱性,殖民主义政权得以通过玩弄部落认同对殖民地进行分而治之。     

自然与城市历史的缠绕--草海之城堪萨斯城的变迁

堪萨斯城崛起于密苏里河与堪萨斯河的交汇处,是一个依赖大平原的农牧业所建立的美国中西部都市。铁路助力资本打破了自然的种种限制,令大平原转化为堪萨斯城的腹地。虽然征服自然以实现城市经济的永续增长,一直是堪萨斯城,乃至整个资本主义制度与经济文化的野心,但是成为腹地并不意味着自然完全受到资本与技术力量的操纵,更不意味着自然的消失。作为一种自发的、独立的力量,自然以其丰饶奠定城市发展的基础,也以其极限挑战着城市发展的野心和规划。在堪萨斯城的故事中,1930年代的尘暴与1951年的洪水以灾难的形式迫使这个城市去适应新的生态现实。     

解放太原战役期间中国共产党与阎锡山集团民众动员之比较

解放太原战役期间战争双方均需在当地动用大量民力、物资,民众动员起着至关重要的作用。中国共产党与阎锡山集团往复争斗近十五年,彼此已相当熟悉,二者的动员模式、技术极其相似,但实践效果却判若两途。通过比较双方在政治宣传、民众保障、组织发动、思想教育等方面的动员活动,可见中国共产党的民众动员更贴合人们的需求,能够获得民众的自觉支持;反观阎锡山方面却是官民区隔、上下离心,浩大的动员声势常流于表面。二者迥异的组织能力和政党文化影响了实际动员效果。太原战役期间双方在动员中呈现的差异不啻是当时国共之别的重要缩影,也折射出左右两党最终胜败的内在原因。     

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.     

Frontiers’ violence: The interplay of state of exception,frontier habitus,and organized violence

As global capitalism is expanding to the most remote areas of the world, the notion of “frontier”, where competing social orders are contesting each other, is gaining traction in academic analyses. Contemporary frontiers are associated with resource exploitation in marginalized spaces and processes of socioecological transformation, which are characterized as particularly violent. This article offers a conceptual contribution to the frontier debate by putting violence in the center of a frontier concept. Building on a sociology of violence, this approach assumes that every social order comes with some form of organized violence. We argue that the frontier is characterized by a tidal passage: Existing orders and their institutions, which socially embed and constrain a particular use of violence, are challenged by an expansive order which comes along with new formations of violence, leading to a reorganization of violence. Thus the frontier describes a momentum in which the interplay of social order and organized violence becomes highly disputed. Representatives of the expansive order refuse to recognize existing orders and favour a state of exception, in which law is set aside to impose the new order.     

Limits to climate action - Narratives of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage

In recent years, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has been awarded a key role in climate mitigation scenarios explored by integrated assessment models and referenced in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Because a majority of scenarios limiting global warming to 2 °C or 1,5 °C include vast deployment of BECCS, a critical discussion has emerged among experts about the moral implications of thus introducing an unproven technology into the policy realm.In this paper, we analyse this discussion as it has played out between 2013 and 2019, with a focus on how expert narratives are constructed in the mass media about the possibilities for decarbonisation within the current political-economic order. We find there are almost no narratives that support massive deployment of BECCS, and that all narratives presuppose limits to decarbonisation imposed by the current political-economic system. The perception of such limits lead some to argue, through deterministic and apolitical narratives, for the necessity of negative emissions technologies, while others argue instead that “degrowth” is the only solution. Thus, there is a distinct lack of positive narratives about how capitalism can bring about decarbonisation.