Struggling with child domestic work: what can a postcolonial perspective offer?

Majority World working children's voices have attained some prominence in debates over their well-being. Many have defended their right to work, challenging Minority World understandings of children's ‘best’ interests. Yet employers' voices remain sidelined, raising questions over the extent to which the discursive and material spaces of children's work have been decolonised. A postcolonial perspective on children's work challenges suggestions that Majority World adults (and societies) need western guidance on how children ought to be raised. It also creates opportunities to look beyond western discourses of economic exploitation, to the potential for more-than-economic relationships between working children and their employers.     

Muslim Selbstverständnis: Ahmet Davutoğlu answers Husserl's Crisis of European Sciences

In formulating his understanding of Islamic history, thought and politics, the Turkish Muslim thinker Ahmet Davuto?lu approves and adopts the German philosopher Edmund Husserl's formulation of phenomenology — or, philosophy of consciousness. Both Husserl and Davuto?lu perceive a crisis in humanity and identify its causes in scientism and logical positivism, against which they develop their respective phenomenological alternatives. This article places in parallel Husserl's stylised history of Western thought and Weltanschauung method with that of Davuto?lu's Muslim worldview, in order to illuminate the latter's putatively comprehensive interpretation of Islam, diagnosis of the ills of secularism, modernisation, and crisis of values he finds in Muslim societies; and his prescribed treatment for those ills: the privileging of ontology over epistemology, and the full unfolding of core theological concepts of revelation, monotheism, and prophecy. Davuto?lu seeks to reconcile tensions and disputes within Islamic intellectual traditions concerning the nature of God and God's attributes, and the tension between mysticism and rationalism, and the historical and the atemporal. In summary, Davuto?lu's intervention in Islamic traditions is interesting in the effort it makes to appropriate elements of both Husserl and GWF Hegel for the purpose of reconciling a phenomenological reading of Islam with established Islamic authorities and commitments.     

Manufacturing in the 18th Century

The putting-out spinning of flax for merchants and weaving of kersey in house-manufactories for export are examples of new elements in wool production and manufacturing in late 18th-century Iceland. The import of luxuries also increased, and a broader group of inhabitants acquired these items from the monopoly-trade merchants. The article analyses how these elements can be understood in light of Iceland’s pre-industrial society. How did these changes become visible and have an impact on the country? Did changes in wool production and consumption signify new trends in 18th-century society, or should one interpret them as extensions of structures that already existed within what can be called the ‘Old Society’?     

加拿大二线城市华人新移民经济融合研究——“三重玻璃效应”与移民向下层社会流动

论文对加拿大二线城市卡尔加里和爱德蒙顿华人新移民的主要特点、移民动机和融合过程中的主要障碍进行了分析,探讨了新移民在加拿大向下层社会流动的问题。研究显示,新移民在经济融合过程中遭遇多方面的障碍,尤其在就业和语言方面。他们在移民加拿大之后,经历了去技能化和以前的学历和工作经验贬值,促使他们向下层社会流动,而这种状况反过来又阻碍了他们的融合进程。华人新移民的负面经历可以归因于由玻璃大门、玻璃房门和玻璃天花板构成的"三重玻璃效应"。加拿大政府应采纳融合框架政策,除承认移民的流动自由外,还要保证他们能享有与其他加拿大人一样同等的公民权益。     

从乡村商店到百货商店--1877年至20世纪20年代美国南方乡村的经济生活

随着收成制在战后美国南方的确立,乡村商店成为南方转型初期经济生活的重要部分。它的特点是“靠男性消费者为生,以农作物借贷制为杠杆,商品综合经营”。但是,世纪之交,由于工业化力量的推动和现代消费观念的冲击,乡村商店从南方经济生活中逐渐淡出,“以吸引女性消费者为主,采用现金支付或分期付款形式”的百货商店取而代之,并且广告在经济生活中起越来越重要的作用,南方经济生活逐步走向现代化。     

产地农产品批发市场的功能创新与发展

文章运用产业经济学和市场经济理论,分析了产地农产品批发市场在我国存在和发展的社会经济条件及其在农产品市场流通体系中的重要地位;立足国情,探析产地市场作为农业经济组织所具有的内在特性与社会职能,探索性地提出了产地市场是一个能够长效拉动我国农业经济和农村社会发展的经济组织形式。文章认为,产地农产品批发市场具有组织生产、一体化经营、组织农产品加工、农业科技服务和农民教育培训、提高农产品质量、保障农产品安全、促进农村社会发展等重要功能。     

Establishing the Public Sphere and Abolishing the Private Domain: The Rise of a Doctrine and Its Social Significance in the Spring and Autumn Period

The dominant views regarding the concepts of “the public” (gong) and “the private” (si) took shape in the Spring and Autumn period and matured in the succeeding years of the Warring States period. This paper is an attempt to trace both the growth of the vocabulary containing “gong” and “si” and the development of philosophical views regarding issues that center on the relation between the individual and the larger social/communal/political body, of which that individual is a member; it also touches on issues related to the proper handling of public affairs and the relation between state, sovereign, and the individual. The era is often characterized as “The Contention of the Hundred Schools of Thought,” notwithstanding it ended with but one view that is universally accepted by thinkers of diverse persuasion, namely, si is the source of all social evil and, therefore, should be condemned. This is the doctrine known as ligong miesi (abolishing si so gong may be established), which contributed to the orthodox for that era and the millennium to come. By extolling gong and condemning si, it painted a portrait of the pair as two irreconcilable norms or forces in social and political life; it provided a justification for the then emerging new social arrangement and ways of distribution of power and resources, and it also led to acute conflicts between the sovereign and the state, the ruled and the ruler, the state and the subject, as well as the public sphere and the private domain. Translated from Nankai Journal, Vols. 4, 5, 2004     

The Impact of Global Financial Crisis on the Mechanism of Economic Growth in Russia

A noted specialist on the Russian economy presents an assessment of the impact of the global financial crisis on the mechanism of the country's economic growth. Focusing on the demand side of the economic ledger, the author explores the question of whether Russia will be able to re-attain the high economic growth rates of the period from 2000 to 2007 after recovering from the crisis. The paper analyzes the sharp drop in production in 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, attributing most of the damage to liquidity problems and declines in the price of oil. Empirical evidence is based primarily on data collected by the author from the Central Bank of Russia and the country's federal bureau of statistics (Rosstat). Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E010, E200, E660, F210, G010. 11 figures, 3 tables, 29 references.     

China's Emergence and Impact on Technology in East Asia: The Case of Machinebuilding

Two Taiwan-based economists estimate the technology content of exports by the machinebuilding industry of the East Asia region during 2004-2008, using comparative analysis to clarify changes in the relative competitiveness of four East Asian nations (China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) accompanying the formation of a regional trading bloc and production networks. In particular, they examine the technology content of these countries' machinebuilding sub-industries' exports within the Southeast Asian market (documenting the rise of the machinebuilding industry in China) as well as the penetration of Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese sub-industries into China's market. The results point to areas of emerging competition among China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan for East Asian markets, which can only be expected to intensify in the future. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F14, F15, F36, O14, P23. 7 tables, 36 references.