Emergence of a region. Exploring the role of spatial planning in the emergence of high-tech region ELAt using assemblage and actor-network theory

ABSTRACT

Regions or regional development have not only gained importance in spatial planning, but also got fuzzy meanings. Originally regions refer to a specific geographical demarcated area, often with an inductive historic or cultural meaning. In the meantime, in our networked world, the concept also refers to transport regions based on models of daily urban systems, or functional regions based on distinctive urban or social functions. Within the post-industrial era, the concept also gained importance as economic regions. In this paper, we will explore how regional concepts emerge out of specific economic interest concerning technological innovation. We will focus on a cross-border municipal case, for example, the triangle Eindhoven–Leuven–Aachen. With the help of the assemblage and actor-network theory, we will show how the identity of regions is translated by evolving actor-networks, and how these actor-networks are influenced and adapted by those alternating regional identities themselves. From these insights, we will come up with some ideas and propositions how regional planning could play an important role within these co-evolving processes.     

THE TRUTH HURTS: VERA SCHWARCZ'S HEARTFELT QUEST

Vera Schwarcz offers a penetrating examination of the concept and meaning of “truth” in China (antiquity to contemporary) and elsewhere (primarily in the Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible to contemporary thinkers). Highly critical of the sharp turn toward cultural relativism which abandons the search for truth in the name of everyone having his or her own situated truths, she examines in particular how scholars, philosophers, and writers living in dark times have sought to cut through the enforced amnesia of oppressive regimes, especially that of post‐1949 China. This broad‐ranging search brings numerous great minds into a kind of transtemporal, transcultural conversation, voices rarely, if ever, discussed between the covers of the same book.     

‘Prevention of evil,production of good’: Jeremy Bentham’s indirect legislation and its contribution to a new theory of prevention

ABSTRACT

This paper critically analyses current depictions of prevention and tries to offer a new theoretical reflection on the concept by reconstructing it on the basis of Jeremy Bentham’s writings on indirect legislation. It is my aim not only to explore Bentham’s concept of indirect legislation as an outstanding example of enlightened social/public policy, but also to show to what extent his thoughts might be a fruitful contribution to a necessary reconceptualization of current conceptions of prevention, which are heavily criticized by many scholars.     

William T. Cavanaugh and René Girard

Abstract

This article examines the argument of William T. Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence in the light of the mimetic theory of the French-American cultural theorist Rene Girard. Though the two projects are significantly different I argue for their mutual compatibility. Each author is “apologetic” for the Christian revelation, though the presence of theology in “The Myth . . .” is muted or implicit, as in Walter Benjamin’s parable of the puppet and the dwarf. I argue for four areas of specific convergence between Cavanaugh and Girard, arising from a shared Augustinian, “two Cities” suspicion of the state, and their resistance to the secularising marginalisation of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The notion of martyrdom as a “dramatic” performance is a further shared dimension. Finally, I argue that the apparent divergence of their approaches, between an anthropological thesis (Girard’s) and a historical one (Cavanaugh’s) is narrowed when we consider the later work of Girard and its examination of nineteenth century dynamics of escalation in warfare in his last book Battling to the End.     

Narrating urban assemblages—Chris Ware and Building Stories

This article takes up the recent interest in assemblage theory in urban geography and considers the potential for art to contribute to our narrations of urban assemblages. In particular, it uses Chris Ware's recent magnum opus, Building Stories, as not only an account of the urban as an assemblage, but to indicate more broadly the way in which comics might be used to narrate urban assemblages in ways that highlight their multiplicity and plurivocality. The article draws out three themes in its analysis of Building Stories: more-than-human subjects, the various temporalities of the city, and the way memory and narrative are emergent from urban assemblages.     

THE VERTIGO OF HISTORICAL ANALYSES IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD

In this anthology, Joan Scott reconfigures her understanding of feminist history and thus contributes to a long overdue theoretical discussion on how we can write feminist history in a globalizing world. She traces both the history of gender history and the history of feminist movements. Scott's main source of inspiration is the French version of psychoanalysis following Lacan. In a further development of her pioneering 1986 article, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” she points out that gender is neither a mere social construction nor a somehow biological referent (such as “sex”). Integrating the constructive criticism of her approach elaborated prominently by Judith Butler during the 1990s, Scott argues instead that gender is a historically and culturally specific attempt to resolve the dilemma of sexual difference. Sexual difference, for its part, is also far from referring simply to physically different male/female bodies. Sexual difference is, for Scott, a permanent quandary for modern subjects, a puzzle to which every society or culture finds specific answers. My reading of her book concentrates on two main questions that run like a thread through her considerations: First, how can we bridge the gap between a subject and a group? Second, how can we overcome binary oppositions and/or fixed categories and entities—a challenge that becomes even more important every day in a rapidly globalizing world. I broadly discuss the benefits and shortcomings of the pivotal role Scott ascribes to fantasy. Although the concept of fantasy is powerful and striking, particularly with reference to the concepts of “imagined communities” and “invented traditions,” coined by Eric Hobsbawm and Benedict Anderson, I find the Lacanian tone to be less convincing.     

THE WORDS OF HISTORY

In From History to Theory, Kerwin Lee Klein writes a history of the central terms of the discipline of theory of history, such as “historiography,” “philosophy of history,” “theory of history,” and “memory.” Klein tells us when and how these terms were used, how the usage of some (“historiography” and “philosophy of history”) declined during the twentieth century, and how other terms (“theory” and “memory”) became increasingly popular. More important, Klein also shows that the use of these words is not innocent. Using words such as “theory” or “historiography” implies certain specific ideas about what the writing of history should be like, and how theoretical reflection on the nature of history and its writing relates to the practical issues of the discipline. In the second half of his book, Klein focuses more on the concept of memory and the memory boom since the later part of the 1980s. He observes that “memory” came to be seen as a kind of “counterhistory,” a postcolonial, fragmented, and personal alternative to the traditional mainstream discourse of history. Klein does not necessarily disagree with this view, but he does warn us about unwanted side effects. More specifically, he argues that the discourse of memory is surprisingly compatible with that of extremist right‐wing groups, and should be treated with suspicion. Although Klein certainly has a point, he presents it in a rather dogmatic fashion. However, a more nuanced version of Klein's criticism of memory can be developed by building on Klein's suggestion that there is an intimate connection between memory and identity.     

Culture and Legal Policy Punctuation in the Supreme Court's Gender Discrimination Cases

For the most part, punctuated equilibrium scholarship has ignored the legal policy change generated by the Supreme Court. In this study, I address this gap though an examination of the Court's equal protection and gender cases from the 1970s. My case study here has two aims. First, I offer an adaptation of the jurisprudential regimes framework as a device for framing and identifying legal policy punctuations. After identifying Reed v. Reed (1971) as the cut point of such a regime, I then use Reed and its progeny to illustrate the promise of culture in explaining stasis and change, specifically focusing on the concepts of cultural cognition and cultural surprise.     

Cultural Worldview and Preference for Childhood Vaccination Policy

In the face of the reemerging threat of preventable diseases and the simultaneous vaccine risk controversy, what explains variations in Americans’ policy preferences regarding childhood vaccinations? Using original data from a recent nationwide Internet survey of 1,213 American adults, this research seeks to explain differing public opinions on childhood vaccination policies and related issues of governance. As Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky's grid‐group cultural theory of policy preference formation suggests, cultural biases have a significant impact on the formation of preferences toward various vaccination policies. Hierarchs are in support of mandatory vaccination, oppose religious and philosophical exemption, and believe the government should preside over vaccination‐related decisions. Fatalists strike a bold contrast in their opposition to mandatory vaccination policy and support for religious and philosophical exemptions and the role of parents in deciding on vaccinations. Falling between hierarchs and fatalists, egalitarian support for vaccinations is stronger than individualists‘.     

新时期中国文化发展的几个宏观问题研究

改革开放以来,中国共产党的文化理论与政策经历了从“一体化”的文化建设理论与方针到建设“高扬主旋律”的多样化的文化观念与政策的演进;党在知识分子问题上的认识和政策也发生了很大转变,不但认识到知识分子是工人阶级的一部分,是先进生产力的开拓者,而且把市场经济、知识经济、信息时代与知识分子政策密切联系在一起;与此同时,建立在一元化基础上的一体化的文化形态开始解构,并形成了主导文化、大众文化和精英文化三足鼎立的当代中国文化的基本格局。