“This is our land”: collective violence,property law,and imagining the geography of Palestine

This study seeks to explain the origins of two types of violence occurring on the Palestinian landscape, the erasure of Palestinian farms and the demolition of Palestinian homes. Such violence has two sources. One source derives from an enduring practice of meaning-making about geographical places that has inspired groups with territorial ambitions to seize control of the landscapes they covet and is referred to by Edward Said as the crafting of “imaginative geographies.” The second source focuses on changes in property rights that follow when groups with territorial ambitions succeed in seizing control of coveted land. It is the imagined geography of Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people, first framed by Zionists of the late 19^th century and absorbed into the practices of Israeli state-building, and the changes in property rights inscribed into the Palestinian landscape following Zionist and Israeli military conquests in 1948 and 1967, that lie at the core of violence directed against the Palestinian farm and home today. This process of imagination, legal transformation, and violence is part of a longstanding lineage of dispossession that includes the English enclosures and the taking of land from Amerindians on the Anglo-American colonial frontier.     

The Clean Energy Dilemma in Asia: Is There a Way Out?

A prominent American geographer and specialist on energy and environmental policies in developing countries assesses the challenge to sustainable development posed by Asia's rapid economic growth and the concurrent need to reduce the environmental impacts of energy production and use. A particular focus is on China and India, as rapidly growing energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitters, and on Russia as a potentially important supplier of natural gas and liquid alternatives to coal use. The author suggests some elements of a strategy to resolve the dilemma of reducing global environmental impacts without penalizing Asia's economic development, although a significant energy transition over the next several decades appears quite difficult.     

Economic Transformation in Russia and China: How Do We Compare Success?

One of Europe's leading international economists compares the economies of Russia and China by tracing the evolution of their transformation from central planning to market-oriented systems. The paper singles out the respective structural and policy constraints and the importance of political decisions in moving ahead with reforms in crucial years when the dangers of reversals have materialized. It analyzes, inter alia, the reasons for present growth in both countries, which is robust in Russia and impressive in China. While macroeconomic performance indicators are commonly used to compare success and work out projections, the author argues that underlying structural and political contexts as well as institutional problems of a different nature in each country provide the key to our understanding of the respective obstacles to sustainable growth.     

南京大报恩寺塔建筑琉璃构件的科技研究

南京大报恩寺塔是明初重要的皇家琉璃建筑,是代表中国文化的标志性建筑之一,和罗马大斗兽场、比萨斜塔、中国万里长城等一道被称为中世纪世界七大奇迹,具有极高的历史、文化、科技研究价值。本文以南京大报恩寺塔的建筑琉璃构件为研究对象,利用WDXRF、EDXRF、XRD、OM、热膨胀仪、高温测试仪等测试方法研究其胎釉化学组成、烧制温度、结构及物理性能;探讨南京大报恩寺塔建筑琉璃构件胎体原料来源和釉料配方的传承发展关系,揭示其制备工艺技术中所蕴含的科技内涵。     

Knowing scale: intelle©tual property rights,knowledge spaces and the production of the global

In this article, I am concerned with the importance of knowledge spaces to the construction and politics of scale. I draw together literatures on re-scaling with feminist critiques of knowledge to show how struggles over the scale at which knowledge claims are represented and legitimized are an important, and under-recognized, element of rescaling. I draw from Neil Smith's (1984) concept of scale-jumping to see the construction of the global space of knowledge as a scale-jump in which one particular situated knowledge, Western folk belief, is redefined as global and universal. What distinguishes it from other forms of local/anecdotal/unrecognizable knowledges is its relation to power and its capacity to achieve a scale-jump in which it is defined as global knowledge. I contrast the social, economic and power relations associated with knowledge in the village of Puno in the Philippines with those of technoscientific knowledge, as manifested by regimes of intellectual property, to show that knowledges are not a natural way of understanding a separate, pre-existing world but inform how that world is experienced. I build upon David Turnbull's (1997) concept of knowledge spaces to reveal all knowledges as not only arising from a particular context but also as creating that context.

Connaître l'échelle: les droits relatifs à la propriété intellectuelle, les espaces de savoir et la production du mondial

Dans cet article, je me penche sur l'importance des espaces de savoir dans la construction et les politiques d'échelle. Je marrie les corpus sur les transformations d'échelle et les critiques féministes du savoir pour montrer comment les débats qui entourent l'échelle à partir de laquelle les prétentions au savoir sont représentées et admises comme légitimes sont une dimension importante et peu connue des transformations d'échelle. Le concept de saut d'échelle proposé par Neil Smith (1984 Smith, N. 1984. Uneven Development, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]) me sert de point d'appui pour mieux situer la construction d'un espace mondial du savoir en tant que saut d'échelle par lequel un savoir contextualisé, en l'occurrence les croyances folkloriques occidentales, est redéfini en fonction du mondial et de l'universel. Ce savoir se démarque des autres formes de connaissances locales/anecdotiques/indiscernables par son rapport au pouvoir et par sa capacité d'opérer un saut d'échelle vers un savoir mondial. Je compare les relations sociales, économiques et de pouvoir liées au savoir dans le village de Puno aux Philippines avec celles qui relèvent du savoir technoscientifique, telle qu'elles se manifestent dans des régimes de propriété intellectuelle, pour montrer que ces connaissances ne sont pas un moyen naturel de comprendre un monde distinct et préexistant, mais représentent plutôt une source d'informations sur la manière dont le monde est connu. Je prolonge le concept des espaces de savoir de David Turnbull (1997 Turnbull, D. 1997. Reframing science and other local knowledge traditions. Futures, 29: 551–563. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) afin de démontrer que toutes les connaissances proviennent non seulement d'un contexte en particulier, mais qu'elles peuvent également créer ce contexte.

Sabiendo escala: derechos de propiedad intelectual, espacios de conocimiento y la producción de lo mundial

En este artículo trato la importancia de espacios de conocimiento con relación a la construcción y la política de escala. He unido literatura sobre el reescalar con críticas feministas sobre conocimiento para ilustrar como la lucha sobre la escala a que se representa y legitima los conocimientos es un elemento del reescalar importante y poco reconocido. Hago uso del concepto de Neil Smith (1984 Smith, N. 1984. Uneven Development, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]) de saltar escalas para ver la construcción del espacio mundial de conocimiento como un salto de escala en que un conocimiento particular, la creencia folklórica occidental, se redefine como mundial y universal. Lo que le diferencia de otras formas de conocimiento locales/anecdóticas/irreconocibles es su relación al poder y su capacidad de saltar de una escala para otra, así redefiniéndose como conocimiento mundial. Comparo las relaciones sociales y económicas y relaciones de poder asociadas con conocimiento en el pueblo de Puno en las Filipinas con las relaciones de conocimiento tecnocientíficas, tal como son manifestados por regimenes de propiedad intelectual para ilustrar que los conocimientos no representan una manera natural de entender un mundo separado que ya existía, sino que informan la manera en que se experimenta ese mundo. Amplio el concepto de espacios de conocimiento de David Turnbull (1997 Turnbull, D. 1997. Reframing science and other local knowledge traditions. Futures, 29: 551–563. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) para revelar que todos los conocimientos no sólo surgen de un contexto paricular, sino que también crean ese contexto.     

华侨房屋权益保护的法律思考：问题与对策

论文以厦门市内侨房处理中的法律问题及现实问题为例,结合现行《物权法》的相关原则及规定,对被改造、征收的华侨房屋之“一房两制”问题、“两权分离”问题、华侨信托代管房之清退问题以及城市侨房的拆迁补偿问题等,进行了分析研究,并提出了相应的法律对策。主要观点有：华侨房屋的所有人对自己享有所有权的房屋具有完全的权利,必须受到《物权法》的保护;因历史原因被“错改”的华侨房屋应当退还给业主,但根据当时的政策规定,对华侨的非住宅房屋,国家已进行了赎买或者改造的房屋,所有权为国家所有,不存在退还产权问题;政府机构对确定为华侨的房屋应主动退还给所有人;对已经拆迁的房屋应当按照法律规定进行补偿;《物权法》规定了财产平等保护的规则,因此华侨房屋权益优先保护的观念和处理方式不再符合《物权法》的规定。     

Urban patricians and ‘bourgeois’ society: A study of wealthy elites in Florence, 1862–1904

This case study presents the results of research carried out on the principal wealthy families in Florence between 1862 and 1904. It shows that while Tuscany was in many ways a particular case, it offers an important opportunity for studying those distinctions between ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’ that are implicit in debates on the social history of this period. From the 30,000 declarations of inheritance resulting from deaths registered in these years, the author examines 300 estates that were valued at over half a million lire and 146 ‘millionaires’, reconstructing the balance between fixed and liquid assets in the overall composition of the estates. The data show that estates based mainly on landed property of a type which was aristocratic in origin remained common throughout the period, and this finding is confirmed by the importance that farms in the case of rural property, and noble houses in the case of urban property, retained as forms of immovable property. A comparison of the structure of the wealth of the nobility (theoretically a more ‘traditional’ group) and that of Jewish bankers (in theory a more ‘modern’ group) indicates that all sections of the elite followed the same tendencies. The author argues that the elite was characterized by a ‘Renaissance paradigm’ in which forms of rural and urban seigneurial power were combined in a mixture of both relatively modern and relatively conservative features, and that this same combination was evident over the longer period in many other northern and central Italian urban elites. The statistical data offered by the sources are insufficient, however, to carry the analysis further without taking account of institutional structures and individual behaviour. In the final section of the article the author discusses several examples of inheritance settlements that confirm the complementary nature of family strategies aimed at perpetuating the integrity of the property through the male line and forms of management that sought to develop a variety of forms of economic enterprise and activity.     

On voodoo economics: theorising relations of property, value and contemporary capitalism

This paper reflects on how we can productively theorise the contemporary treatment of property, by a range of different economic agents, as a locus for the attempted creation of economic value. Its argument is that the theorisation offered by David Harvey (1982) in The limits to capital has a continued and arguably even heightened relevance in the present-day context, but that this theorisation can be embellished with insights from the sociology of finance, particularly in regard to the power of representation. This argument is developed with reference to two parallel empirical 'stories' from early twenty-first century capitalism: the economist Hernando de Soto's influential thesis about the 'mystery of capital' and his related policy ideas; and the attempts of western-based financiers to extract profit from companies with significant real estate assets by separating those property assets from the operational side of the businesses in question.     

Intellectual property and the licensing of Canadian government geospatial data: an examination of GeoConnections' recommendations for best practices and template licences

In Canada, Crown copyright permits government to assert control over its works. These Crown rights have often been justified on the basis that government must assert intellectual property rights so as to be better able to control the accuracy, integrity and quality of any information that reaches the public through Crown works. In this article, the authors examine GeoConnections' template agreements for the licensing of government geographic data. They argue that not only is the basis and scope of claims to intellectual property rights uncertain, the objectives of quality control, data integrity and accuracy do not appear to motivate the licence terms. The uncertainty as to the legal basis of the intellectual property claims is significant, as licences of this kind may give support to otherwise weak downstream claims by third parties to copyright in data products generated through the use of geographic data provided by the Crown.     

We Branded Ourselves Long Ago: Intangible Cultural Property and Commodification of Fijian Firewalking

ABSTRACT The Fijian firewalking ceremony (vilavilairevo), traditionally performed only by members of the Sawau people on the island of Beqa, is a prime example of a propitiation ritual that has become commodified to suit the requirements of tourism. The Sawau ‘gift’ of walking on white‐hot stones introduces another dimension of the gift practice. Although gifts and commodities are often treated as ideal‐type opposites, and a tradition of Melanesian scholarship has focused attention on the inalienability of gifts, I argue that the self‐consciously traditional firewalking practice of Beqa Island, Fiji, is an inalienable sui generis commodity that becomes effective by ‘branding’ Fijian concepts of different places' distinct custodianships. Over the last two centuries, the gift of firewalking has transmuted itself into a sociocultural tool that has consistently indigenized the power of the foreign. The gift of firewalking has allowed its custodians to locally sustain their community, to gain a reach and respect across the nation and beyond, and to intensify the group's social sentiment and social capital.