‘Memory is the strength of our resistance’: an ‘other politics’ through embodied and material commemoration in the San José Peace Community,Colombia

Scholars have shown how memory is an embodied and spatial practice that potentially generates more just possible futures, and that peace is a politicized and contextually specific process, but how does place-based memory performance actually contribute to social movements’ construction of peace? This article explores massacre commemoration pilgrimages and stones painted with victims’ names in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, a group of small-scale farmers living in the war-torn region of Urabá, Colombia. Based on 15 months of ethnographic research in Colombia from 2011 to 2014, including participant observation and 49 interviews, I explore the relationship between these spatially embodied practices and the community’s resistance to forced displacement and peace-building project. I argue that these forms of memorialization cultivate key elements for an autonomist ‘other politics’, including solidarity with allies; mobilizing bodies across space to defend life and land; and ongoing reflection, education and strategic planning that strengthen community cohesion and organization. Integrating scholarship on memory performance, peace geographies, and social movements, I illustrate how the San José de Apartadó Peace Community’s massacre commemorations and stones reject vindictive violence and instead build an alternative, transformative and emancipatory politics through internal and external solidarity.     

Blame it on Kissinger? The international factor and the failure of the “Markezinis Experiment”

The aborted 1967 attempt of the dictatorship to transform itself into some form of democracy has generally been under-researched, and even more so with regard to its international implications. And yet, the issue of foreign influences on the “Markezinis Experiment” has been given excessive weight – first and foremost by the protagonist himself, who blamed his failure and downfall on negative American interference – namely on the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s adversarial stance. Based on the examination of the international context in three main frameworks – namely its relations with the United States, Europe and the Cyprus issue – this article seeks to give an answer to the question of the foreign factor’s impact on the failure of the “experiment”.     

‘No distinction exists as to religion,profession, or sex’: Imperial Reform and the Electoral Culture of the East India Company's Court of Proprietors, 1760–84

As contemporaries frequently pointed out, and often in disparaging terms, the governing institutions of the British East India Company contained an almost unprecedented ‘democratical’ element. By this, they were referring to the Company's General Court of Proprietors, its sovereign deliberative body, composed of all East India stockholders. Ownership of certain proportions of stock conferred the rights to participate in debate, to vote on policy, and to elect on an annual basis the directors who governed the day-to-day affairs of the Company. These electoral rights were granted solely by virtue of stock-ownership and made no distinctions based on sex, social status, nationality or religion. This article examines the ways in which women, non-Britons and religious minorities, in particular, took advantage of the opportunities for political participation opened up by the politicisation of the East India Company's general court in the 1760s, as well as the ways in which this was discussed and debated by contemporaries both in parliament and the press. Tracing the political activities of Mary Barwell, William Bolts and Joseph Salvador provides a unique window into a variety of ways in which the Company offered an alternative venue for political activity for groups often otherwise excluded from the formal politics at Westminster. In doing so, it also shows how the democratic elements of the Company's general court played a significant role in shaping the reform of the East India Company between 1767 and 1784, a process which ultimately led to their curtailment.     

新中国农村基层政权初创时期的历史考察

1949～1957年,新中国农村基层政权的建设经历了四个阶段:1949～1950年,在新解放区进行了以废除保甲制为中心的接管建政;1950～1953年,以土地改革为中心进行群众建政; 1953～1954年,以普选为中心进行民主建政;1954～1957年,在农业合作化运动中实现了农村基层政权的调整与发展。经过这几个阶段,新中国的农村基层政权逐步建立起来。其中蕴含的历史启示是:农村基层政权建设的基石是中国农村社会的现代化转型;农村基层政权建设的核心是农村基层民主的发展;农村基层政权建设的关键是加强中国共产党执政能力建设。     

《中华人民共和国宪法》制订与修改、修正的历史考察

文章详细地叙述了《中华人民共和国宪法》制订及其三次修改、五次修正的基本过程 ,论述了它们之间的内在联系 ,总结了我国立宪、修宪中的主要特点 ,充分肯定了《中华人民共和国宪法》作为我国的根本大法 ,在制订、修改、修正的过程中 ,对于建设中国特色的社会主义民主政治 ,对于推进社会主义民主政治的制度化、规范化、程序化所产生的重大作用。     

The Newcastle Upon Tyne Peace Society (1817–50)

The 1816 foundation of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace in London was followed by the creation of a number of Auxiliary societies throughout the country. This paper analyses the history of the Newcastle Auxiliary, covering its establishment in 1817, its disaffiliation from the London Society in 1840, and its subsequent re-affiliation in 1850. After an initial period of quietism after their formation, the paper demonstrates how the radical pacifism of the society developed in the 1830s and 1840s, placing their activities in relation to the specificities of Newcastle’s political history, wider transformations in the British peace movement, and the influence of transatlantic networks of American peace advocacy and anti-slavery activism. The local Richardson family of Quakers personified these transformations, even as anarchists such as Joseph Barker represented a militant outer fringe of the society. Ultimately, however, the society struggled to garner wider support in Newcastle, clashing with local Chartists and with the town’s militarist merchants and businessmen in 1848. The paper therefore demonstrates how the Auxiliary societies need to be thought of active, agential organisations which negotiated the contradictions between their pacifist ideologies and the local and regional milieus within which they were enmeshed.     

战后日本女性文学萌生的时代土壤

战后日本女性文学伴随着日本社会体制的剧烈变化,以及民主主义思潮的冲击,女权主义的鼓噪和经济高速增长下衍生的都市化情怀的洗礼,呈现出与以往全然不同的盛况,使同时代的日本女性文学基于富饶的时代土壤,开出绚丽的花朵。     

和战之间--战后中共建国方针之演变(1945年8月-1946年11月)

抗日战争胜利后中共的建国方针实际上经历了以战建国,到和平建国,再到打谈图和,终到弃和就战的过程.从以战建国到和平建国的转变中,美国、苏联的作用不可低估.和平建国方针确立后,中共为之实现付出了真诚而艰辛的努力.