The social value of culture: learning from revolutionary Cuba

As the tide turns against econometric calculations of cultural value, scope exists for careful reconsideration of the social value of culture. In Cuba after 1959, culture was placed at the heart of a society undergoing radical transformation. This article examines the socially orientated initiatives to which this revalidation gave rise. It shows that substantial changes were wrought in professional circles as art was acknowledged as a form of social production and remunerated accordingly. It also outlines the sustained efforts that were made to diminish the gap between creative intellectuals and the rest of society, by encouraging widespread appreciation of, and participation in, creative activity. This comprehensive programme was underscored by ideas around democratisation and emancipation that remain vital to contemporary discussions.     

After the Exception: HIV/AIDS Beyond Salvation and Scarcity

Abstract: Access to treatment for HIV/AIDS became a flashpoint for global justice struggles in the late 1990s. An expanding international response, premised to a significant extent on the idea of HIV/AIDS as an exceptional global problem, has since delivered treatment, care and prevention to growing numbers of people. HIV/AIDS exceptionalism, however, has increasingly been questioned, many aspects of the response have been critiqued and donor funding has started to decline. I argue that, having been framed as an exceptional humanitarian emergency, the question of HIV/AIDS as a global problem is increasingly located within a discourse of scarcity. Tracking the growing entanglement of global HIV/AIDS relief with neoliberal governmentality and the emergence of something I term therapeutic neoliberalism, I argue that the shift from a rationality of salvation to one of administration poses new challenges for global health activism. Questioning the discourse of scarcity remains essential to an alternative global health agenda.     

Pre-Columbian Ring Ditches along the Yacuma and Rapulo Rivers,Beni, Bolivia: A Preliminary Review

Abstract

Pre-Columbian farmers built a variety of earthworks in the Llanos de Mojos, part of the Bolivian Amazon. Raised fields, canals, causeways, and mounds of various types in this region date to ca. 800 B.C.–A.D. 1600. In central Mojos, archaeological work was carried out along the Yacuma, a large west-bank tributary of the Mamoré River. Four ring ditches and two areas of associated raised agricultural fields were mapped. The Global Positioning System was used to document earthworks under the forest canopy which were analyzed within a Geographic Information System. Ceramic evidence is also included. The ring ditches in this study expand the known range of such earthworks in Mojos by 200 km. This revised distribution of ring ditches changes interpretations of the long-term history of Arawak speakers in Mojos and throughout Amazonia. While earthworks in Mojos clearly represent systems of intensive agriculture, they cannot be associated only with Arawak speakers or with Arawak languages.     

Technology and Global Politics: The Modern Experiences of Bertrand Russell and John H. Herz

As questions of technology and world government are returning to the agenda of International Relations (IR), there is a risk that technology is approached in a simple, instrumentalist manner. Beginning from an overview of the overwhelmingly instrumental approaches to technology lodged in the dominant traditions of IR, the article revisits the post-war decades when scholars thought profoundly about the impact of technology on global politics. Combining the history of (international) political thought, IR theory, and Science and Technology Studies (STS) the article examines the relationship between technology and politics, authority, and liberty in the thought of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and John H. Herz (1908–2005), which leads to the unearthing of a sophisticated and complex set of ideas. Particularly during the nuclear revolution, these figures developed global visions in which the interrelations among technology, security, democracy, sustainability, and freedom were critical. Russell and Herz's approaches to technology and (global) politics are insightful and relevant for IR's attempt to re-engage with technology: by anticipating contemporary critical and reflexive approaches to technology, they can help bridge the fields of IR and STS and open new avenues for research. The Large Technical Systems (LTS) approach within STS is used to exemplify this possibility.     

Guerilla art,social value and absent heritage fabric

There is extensive commentary on the role of unauthorised art, but little on the coincidence of heritage value and guerilla art. This paper analyses the relationship of the two in a 2007 statue which is a monument to a lost place for which there is no surviving historic fabric. The statue functions not just as a place of memory, but of guerilla art; a complex interplay has emerged between an official piece of government art and unsanctioned community performance. Growing heritage emphasis on social value over the previous dominance of original fabric suggests that the delight with which the statue has been greeted illuminates evolving heritage philosophy, monument language and the emergence of the importance of the heritage community especially for its potential performance value at a site. The dramatic contribution that the statue has made to the city has an impact on the fields of landscaping, planning, history and heritage.     

Arguing for a worldwide perspective: Italy and the reform of the international monetary system between transatlantic cooperation and European integration (1971–73)

The end of the Bretton Woods system, following the US decision of August 1971, and the simultaneous re-launch of the European integration with the enactment of the Werner plan came at a critical moment of internal weakness for Italy. This article highlights how the Italian government and the monetary authorities – while not always on the same wavelength – tried to tackle these challenges with a view to preserving the principles of multilateral cooperation that had promoted the country's recovery in the post-war years. By launching the project denominated ‘Global Approach’ in the summer of 1972, Italy tried to interconnect the modification of the Werner plan with the reform of the international monetary system within the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to restrain the growing trends towards unilateralism. However, despite all efforts, both initiatives were doomed to failure while the country entered a dramatic period of political instability and social unrest.     

延安市农民收入可持续增长机制探析

近年来,延安市农民人均纯收入一直低于全国平均水平,城乡居民收入差距也不断扩大。为改变这一局面,延安市政府实施了生态移民工程,进行了农业产业结构调整。这些措施在一定程度上改善了农民的生活水平,但是,制约农民收入增长的根本性障碍仍然存在。只有促进高附加值农业的可持续发展、鼓励农村剩余劳动力的外出就业和使农村非农产业实现较快发展,才能建立起农民收入的可持续增长机制。     

Canada in a global economy

This paper questions the neoliberal understanding of globalization as a coherent and progressive force representing the apotheosis of late capitalism. Here, globalization is seen as a contested and sometimes even chaotic process, which needs to be interpreted in the context of the local geographies and histories in which it is embedded. Viewed as a socio-economic process, globalization is characterized by a recurring interplay between local and global interests, implying that Canada's relations with the global economy have been socially constructed in diverse ways, at different times, in different places. Five distinct relations are examined here, each one being linked to a well known historical figure, as follows: the ecological depletion of resources (John Cabot); technological dependence (Alexander Graham Bell); continental integration (C.D. Howe); cultural deterritorialization (Walt Disney); and the new geometries of power (Conrad Black). Each of these five relations has found distinctive local expression.     

房地产投资环境研究初探

在中国新的投资体制下,房地产投资决策的理性化和科学化已是大势所趋,但是作为投资决策依据之一的房地产投资环境研究还显得零碎而片面,因此迫切需要进行系统深入地研究。针对这一要求,本文论述了房地产投资环境的理论基石与理论背景,在此基础上对房地产投资环境进行了因素分析,建立了"多指标综合价值评定法"的评价方法,旨在为房地产投资环境研究提供科学的理论和可行的方法。