Polycentricity as spatial imaginary: the case of Helsinki City Plan

The paper analyses with a case study the use of a widely applied normative concept of polycentricity as spatial imaginary. The case study of Helsinki City Plan and the conflict over its city-boulevard scheme draws on qualitative content analysis of planning documents and expert interviews. It demonstrates the instrumental role of multiple interpretations of polycentricity in tension-ridden metropolitan and city-regional spatial planning. The conflict reveals how the conceptual ambiguity of polycentricity and the institutional vagueness of city-regional planning have together enabled advancing contradictory political aims under their guise. In conclusion, the paper emphasizes the persuasive performativity and fluidity of polycentricity as a spatial imaginary in multi-scalar planning settings.     

Morality and the Concept of the Market Seller among Gehamo

This paper examines the negative moral evaluations of people who buy and resell fresh food by Gahuku and Gehamo people in and around Goroka, the capital of Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. During my fieldwork from 2010 to 2015, vendors in the Goroka fresh food market argued that the value of fresh food should be based on the work that people did to produce it rather than on price competition, or on supply and demand. An examination of market vendors’ practice of ‘giving extra’ to customers, and the responses of vendors who resold food to negative moral evaluations of their activities, led me to an examination of the morality of production in relation to land, ancestors, and social relations; the morality of the marketplace; as well as ideas about what makes someone a good social person. Drawing on Erik Schwimmer's (1979) discussion of the concept of work in Melanesian societies, I argue that vendors in the Goroka market continue to emphasize use value and their own identification with the food that they are selling rather than the exchange value of alienated produce. While marketplaces are the apparent locus par excellence of capitalist economic activity, a consideration of the morality of Goroka market vendors leads to the caution that just because one sees something that looks like a marketplace in which people are engaging in commodity transactions does not necessarily mean that it is a marketplace in which people are engaging in commodity transactions. Similarly, just because something looks like a price does not necessarily mean that it is a price. Those considerations, in turn, lead to a re‐examination of Kenneth Read's (1955) characterization of morality and personhood among Gahuku in light of contemporary market exchange.     

Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea: Place,Personhood and Exchange

In Papua New Guinea (PNG) more rural people, and especially rural women, earn cash from selling in marketplaces than from any other source. PNG's marketplaces are critical for food security, and for the redistribution of wealth. They are also important meeting places where people gather to see friends, hear the latest news, attend court cases, play cards and be entertained. This introduction to this special issue on ‘Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea’ reviews the history of PNG marketplaces and their contemporary forms. It charts their transformation from introduced colonial spaces into dynamic Melanesian places, which, as places to buy, sell and socialise, have become pervasive institutions in the lives of both urban and rural Papua New Guineans, and places where people interact with both known and unknown others. From this, marketplaces emerge as important spaces of moral evaluation and contestation in relation to what constitutes morally acceptable exchange and what practices are acceptable in these places. The paper demonstrates that exchange in the marketplace should not be reduced to commodity transactions, and questions assumptions about the types of people marketplaces create. It argues that the country's marketplaces are productive sites to consider ideas of exchange, social relations and social personhood, and that there is a critical need to understand the concrete details of what takes place in contemporary marketplaces.     

Weathering the Storm: Social Policy and the Great Recession

This review discusses recent challenges to the welfare state arising from the Great Recession (GR). The GR was a significant event for social policy analysts, as it tested the responsiveness of welfare systems in the midst of a recent trend toward austerity politics in advanced economies. Social policy changes were part of the toolkit advanced democracies used to respond to the GR, and the welfare state mitigated the consequences of the GR. However, a stark limitation of the social safety net in the United States was the failure to assist immigrant households. The nexus of immigration and social policy is likely to be a significant controversy as we consider the meaning of social citizenship.     

Bringing Organizations Back In: Multilevel Feedback Effects on Individual Civic Inclusion

Policy feedback scholarship has focused on how laws and their implementation affect either organizations (e.g., their resources, priorities, political opportunities, or incentive structures) or individuals (e.g., their civic skills and resources or their psychological orientations toward the state). However, in practice the distinction between organizations and individuals is not clear‐cut: Organizations interpret policy for individuals, and individuals experience policy through organizations. Thus, scholars have argued for a multi‐level model of feedback effects illuminating how policies operating at the organizational level reverberate at the individual level. In this theory‐building article, we push this insight by examining how public policy influences nonprofit organizations’ role in the civic life of beneficiaries. We identify five roles that nonprofit organizations play. For each role, we draw on existing research to identify policy mechanisms that either enlarge or diminish nonprofits’ capacity to facilitate individual incorporation and engagement. From these examples, we derive cross‐cutting hypotheses concerning how different categories of citizens may need policy to operate differently to enhance their civic influence; whether policy that is “delivered” through nonprofits may dampen citizens’ relationship with the state; and how the civic boost provided by policy may be influenced by the degree of latitude conferred on recipient organizations.     

"近代城市发展与社会转型"学术研讨会综述

近代以来,城市发展引领着中国社会转型,社会转型以城市发展为先驱,为中心,为标识,为推力。而社会转型的过程,同样对于城市发展有着反馈与推动的作用。在城市化问题和社会转型话题愈来愈受人们普遍关注的当下,出席东华大学与上海市档案馆联合主办的“近代城市发展与社会转型”学术研讨会的学者们,以城市史与社会史复合研究为视野,分别就城市发展与社会变迁、城市管理与城市文化、工商金融与城市比较、社会群体暨重要人物、重大事件等方面进行了深入研讨,试图探寻历史的经验和教训,为现实提供借鉴与启示。     

朱熹《家礼》与明清徽州宗族以礼治族的实践

明清时期,在徽州社会中形成了对朱熹及其《家礼》极端崇拜的社会风气。徽州宗族多依据《家礼》进行本族内部的制度设计和制度建设,同时还十分重视对礼仪的执行与监督,旨在以此实现以礼治族、维持宗族社会秩序的目的。     

建国初期社会救助体系的构建与评析--以1949～1953年的广州市为个案

建国初期,中共在广州构建了一个过渡性的社会救助体系,在短短的4年内,广州市通过它救助了大量的失业者和城市贫民,基本上遏制了由于新旧转轨带来的社会危机,为新政权即将展开的社会主义各项建设奠定了基础.在救助理念和救助过程上,它体现了以往社会救助的一些特点,同时也反映了我党的诸多特色,诸如鲜明的意识形态性、广泛的群众参与性和严格的组织纪律性,隐隐约约闪烁着以统一调配为主要特征的计划时代社会政策的影子.     

国民经济恢复时期北京的失业知识分子救济政策及其成效

国民经济恢复时期,面对失业和人才需求关系的矛盾,城市失业知识分子受到党和政府的高度关注。北京市的失业知识分子虽人数不多,但呈现出一定程度的复杂性。为此,北京市根据党和国家的政策,从首都社会秩序的稳定和首都建设的人才需求出发,在较短的时间内,有计划有步骤地对失业知识分子进行了必要的社会救济,达到了预期的目标。同时,实际操作中也遇到了一些不容回避的问题。