Struggles of recognition: adverse effects of China’s living human treasures program

ABSTRACT

Heritagization processes have resulted in struggles of recognition across the globe. Scholarly work has demonstrated that determining what and whose cultural architecture, objects and practices are to be considered ‘heritage’ results in inclusion and exclusion effects which deprive some individuals, communities or ethnic groups of recognition. Many of these studies build on Western theories of recognition as developed by Axel Honneth or Nancy Fraser. However, due to the Western origin of these theories and – in most cases – application to democratic nation-states, the question arises whether Western theories of recognition can in fact be applied to non-Western authoritarian states. Taking the Chinese LHT system, the so-called ‘representative ICH Inheritor program,’ as a case study, I explore to what extent Western theories of recognition explain struggles of recognition in PR China. I argue that while these theories are useful in explaining the effects and purposes underlying struggles of recognition, authoritarian regimes like China may exacerbate struggles of recognition since their ‘institutional patterns of value recognition’ can more openly and forcefully use recognition and misrecognition as a tool to foster political and economic objectives. However, citizens respond by resigning, contesting or circumventing official decision-making processes.     

Beyond assimilation and refusal: a Warlpiri perspective on the politics of recognition

This paper takes up the concept of recognition as an ever-present structuring arrangement in relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Recognition, in both positive and negative guises, is understood here to foreclose the terms of those relations. For Warlpiri people of Central Australia who have achieved positive recognition and the attendant confirmation of legal rights in land and native title, the contradictions and frustrations of recognition continue to be multiple. Looking back across the eight decades since Warlpiri were first recognised in particular ways by settler-colonists, the paper explores a series of encounters where transformation is visible but ultimately undermined. The paper explores these issues by way of the observations of one remarkable cross-cultural innovator and his quest to ‘be free to the world’. In tracing this work of interpretation and its strategic application to the field of intercultural relations the paper argues that what is being pursued should not be mistaken for assimilation, nor the refusal of recognition, but rather a mode of reciprocal engagement that carries with it significant transformative potential.     

The politics of genocide recognition: Kurdish nation-building and commemoration in the post-Saddam era

This article explores genocide recognition politics (GRP) with a specific focus on Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign (1988) against the Kurdish population in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). In the context of a pending referendum on independence in the KRI, this study investigates the evolution of GRP in relation to secession, nation-building and commemoration as well as the social, political and economic drivers in the process. In addition, the study zeroes in on the internationalization of genocide recognition claims via diaspora lobbying and the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq (KRG)’s bureaux of representation in Europe. The results are based on extensive fieldwork conducted with KRG representatives, diaspora entrepreneurs and other stakeholders between 2012 and 2016 in Europe and Iraqi Kurdistan. The KRG’s genocide recognition claims are not explicitly associated with secession, but instead are employed to legitimize local rule by referencing collective trauma and shared victimhood. In this way, Anfal – as the ‘chosen trauma’ – has become a component of (local) nation-building mechanisms. Nevertheless, recognition claims can become instrumentalized for secession so long as the political circumstances in the region become favourable to Kurdish independence. In the diaspora context, GRP serve to establish a link to homeland through commemoration practices, but they also provide greater space for lobbying and transnational advocacy networking.     

Investigation of coupled hydraulic–geomechanical processes at the KTB site: pressure‐dependent characteristics of a long‐term pump test and elastic interpretation using a geomechanical facies model

The German Continental Deep Drilling Program comprising a pilot borehole down to 4000 m and a main borehole down to 9101 m in southeast Germany (KTB) is continuing to provide a unique opportunity for the identification of important factors and processes in deep‐seated fluid and energy transfer. In situ stress conditions significantly impact flow, transport and exchange characteristics of fracture networks that dominate the permeability of crystalline reservoir rocks. In this paper, several scales of information are combined to present a fully three‐dimensional hydraulic finite element model of the principal KTB fault zones, and linked to a geomechanical model describing the alteration of the hydraulic parameters with stress changes caused by fluid extraction. The concept of geomechanical facies is introduced to define and characterize architectural elements in the subsurface system. Evaluation of a long‐term pump test in the KTB pilot hole, June 2002–July 2003, coupled with a geomechanical model gives an insight into some of the elastic and nonelastic processes controlling hydraulic transport in the basement rocks. Trends in the decline of the permeability and the degree of storage in the system could only partially be explained by elastic processes, clearly indicating the importance of nonelastic processes. A number of inelastic processes are suggested as areas for further research.     

中国特色社会主义认识方法论思考

在中国特色社会主义建设实践中,科学的认识方法论是完整、准确理解和把握中国特色社会主义理论体系的基础。即：依据矛盾普遍性与特殊性辩证关系原理,将思维基点放在特殊性上;根据经验和变化了的现实,而不是根据书本认识社会主义;注意把握事物发展的阶段性与过程性的统一。     

Material Footprints: The Struggle for Borders by Bedouin‐Palestinians in Israel

In the following article, borders become an epistemology for reading the social and political history of settler geographies, and their particular manifestation in the southern Naqab region of Israel. It takes as its starting point the idea that borders are activated in an assemblage of encounters; and that they act as markers, not only of the power of the settler state to rupture and control indigenous life and mobility, but of the multiple resistances that divert, disrupt and unsettle settler movements and spaces. Based on more than three years of fieldwork with the Unrecognised Bedouin‐Palestinian communities of the Naqab, the article investigates the significance of borders in spaces the state has conceived and structured as empty and dead. In exploring the multiple modes of resistance and resilience that constitute Bedouin struggles for recognition in Israel, it finds relevance in the lines they carve out, and the living spaces that persist and evolve in their shadows.     

Spaces of Not Belonging: Inclusive Nationalism and Education in Scotland

This study addresses the issue of the role of national identity-making through education and how this positions migrants in the national discourse in Scotland. The issue has been highlighted by the arrival of European Union migrants post-enlargement, whose children are being schooled in Scotland. The study discusses the tensions, particularly in relation to migrant populations, between the policy discourse of inclusive nationalism and emphasis on performance that promotes standardization processes and individual accountability. Giving particular attention to the language regulations and practices in education, this article notes the fact that language creates a barrier to the fair benefits of education for migrant populations. Rather than facilitating migrants' inclusion, language has become a vehicle for assimilating migrants into the dominant social and cultural norms of the host society. The study concludes by reflecting on the notion of inclusive citizenship and the implications of social responsibility to balance the economic benefits of people's mobility with cultural recognition and protection.     

Beyond Nussbaum’s Ethics of Reading: Camus,Arendt, and the Political Significance of Narrative Imagination

The article contributes to current theoretical debates about the political significance of narrative imagination by drawing on Camus’s and Arendt’s existential aesthetic judging sensibility. It seeks to displace the prevalent tendency to probe literature for its moral-philosophical insights, and instead delves into the experiential reality of our engagement with literary works. It starts from Martha Nussbaum’s recognition of the literary ability to account for the fragility of human affairs, yet finds her reduction of narrative imagination to the role of furthering moral lessons wanting politically. Against this background, the article reclaims Camus’s and Arendt’s dialogical-representative judging orientation and its insight into the narrative ability to respond to the intersubjective character of politics. As such, their aesthetic sensibility reveals the potential political significance of literary imagination in its capacity to open a public space where the contradictions of our situated existence can be confronted through politics between plural equals.     

基于荷载修正的传统木构建筑构件重要性分析方法研究

传统木构建筑的构件重要性对于整体结构状态的评估具有重要意义,为弄清楚传统木构建筑的构件重要性,开发了一种基于荷载修正的传统木构建筑构件重要性评价程序,基于荷载工况修正与荷载重分布修正重构了荷载分布矩阵,基于荷载施加构件修正改进了构件重要性计算方法。以典型传统木构建筑——保国寺大殿为例进行了数值模拟分析,并基于广义刚度评价了构件重要性,分析了各项修正对构件重要性的影响情况以及最终修正对构件重要性的结果变化率。结果表明:柱类构件的修正变化为-0.526%~2.192%;梁栿类构件的修正变化为-2.638%~50.598%;铺作类构件的修正变化为-12.763%~9.989%;槫类构件的修正变化为-7.586%~6.918%。保国寺大殿构件重要性排序:柱类>槫类>梁栿类>铺作类;修正后柱类、梁栿类重要性提高,铺作类、槫类重要性降低。可为传统木构建筑的结构状态评估和预防性保护提供参考。     

基于模糊关系识别的多要素空间离散化方法——以江苏阜宁人口与经济分析为例

社会、经济要素的空间离散化是精细化县级主体功能区划的重要需求,本文提出了一种基于模糊关系识别的空间数据离散化方法。该方法利用广义权距离实现对专家知识与多系统分层要素的综合集成,并通过建立待离散化要素与其影响指标的模糊关系识别模型,获得空间离散化权重。以2009年江苏省阜宁县人口、GDP以及经济发展水平的空间离散化为例进行实例分析。结果显示,本文提出的空间离散化方法具有较好的准确性与可信度,可较好揭示各影响要素对待离散要素的空间影响。