Bringing the ‘invisible farmer’ into sharper focus: gender relations and agricultural practices in the Peak District (UK)

Women's farm work and the gendered nature of the farm space and farm practices have been important intersecting themes within feminist enquiry over the last 30 years. Much research has tended to underplay the wider evolution of these gender relations – leaving under-explored the longer-term formation and contestation of the gendered activities, spaces and identities observed in the present. This article draws on research on 64 farms in the Peak District (UK) to take a wider temporal view of farm gender relations. Utilising a farm life history approach the article considers three key moments within farming histories to explore the active role(s) played by women in shaping farms and farming practices. In doing so the article adds complexity and nuance to understandings of both processes, such as the ‘masculinisation’ of agriculture, and to the gendered geographies of the farm space.     

从生命体验结构涌出的诗歌创作——《人傍山斋残稿》序

《人傍山斋残稿》所收之诗,皆能吐属心声,抒发性灵,触景感发,多为佳句,不期而至之中,似有神助,实则仍来源于诗人之生命体验结构,离不开对生活物态之细腻微妙观察。足证真诗者,皆精神之所为;而诗歌之语言,实即生命体验之艺术升华。     

关于生与死的探讨与沉思

生与死是一个古老而又沉重的话题。要正确深刻地探讨这个问题,可能条件还不很具备。本人只是想借重前贤的智慧与奇思妙想,沿着他们思维的足迹,作进一步的思考与探索,就灵魂有无的问题,有无因果报应的问题,气与灵的问题,乃至宇宙本体的问题等,表述一些个人的体会与想法。     

Hypermobility and the governance of global production networks: The case of the Canadian cycle industry and its links with China and Taiwan

Western firms engaged in mass retailing and in product assembly make frequent changes to their global production networks (GPNs). Indeed, some GPNs show a tendency to hypermobility, which we define as a rapid switching of economic links among manufacturers, importers, and retailers. This theme is explored in the context of the Canadian bicycle industry where domestic production collapsed between 1980 and 2008, following a century of remarkable stability. After a period of flux when Taiwan was the key player, China has emerged as the dominant original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of bicycles sold in Canada, with big‐box stores accounting for the great majority of sales. We connect this increasing fluidity in supply arrangements and in the global organization of the industry with the governance of these GPNs. Several aspects of governance are considered, including the Sloanist practices of the largest Canadian retailers, and the activist role of the Chinese state in directing regional patterns of manufacturing in China.     

“乞休”与“挂冠”:晚明弃官现象与政治文化嬗变

在明代君臣关系中,君权一直处于强势地位,并左右着官员进退。明中后期,这种情况出现了微妙的变化。时值万历朝出现大范围缺官,以京官为首的文官群体以此为契机,引发了群体性的致仕乞休现象,不惜以影响政府的正常运作为代价,孤立皇帝,从而扭转了在致仕问题上长期处于被动的局面,并由此引发了官员对于君臣关系、权力分配及仕隐哲学的再思考,影响了主流舆论的变化以及政治力量在中央与地方之间的转移等。这种主动弃官的现象所折射出的理性精神和反传统思想在一定程度上催生了晚明政治文化的进步因子,并为中国日后具有近代意义的民主政治发展奠定了基础。     

汉画中“捞鼎”的社会意义及其生死象征

汉画像石中的“捞鼎”图像具有丰富的内涵和重要的意义,它不仅表现的是王权的更迭,更是两汉时期社会信仰意识的集中体现。画像中“鼎”的捞起与失落这一过程反映了生命的意义,具有灵魂重生和生命复出的隐喻。捞鼎画像在一定程度上反映了董仲舒的天人感应思想、汉代民间的宗教信仰以及汉人的生死观。     

Consuming and living the corner shop: belonging,remembering, socialising

This paper presents findings from an ethnographic case study in Germany investigating the relationship between shopkeepers and customers of small grocery stores owned by immigrants. The focus is on social practices within the shops and how those engaged in these activities make sense of them. Shops become meaningful through shared practices that revolve around selling and buying. However, this process is complex and not without conflict. Moving through the themes of belonging, remembering and socialising, I will show how the everyday lifeworlds of customers and shopkeepers, including their aspirations, expectations and uncertainties, intersect and how the shop emerges as a meaningful space through negotiation. Rather than looking at cultural differences alone, it is concluded that there can be significant other ways to understand multicultural places by focusing on the multiple ways that consumers engage with so-called ‘ethnic’ enterprises.     

Spirit knows: materiality,memory and the recovery of Spiritualist places and practices in Stoke-on-Trent

Abstract

Much has been written about constructing memories of place, yet few speak of the difficulties in dealing with lost, partial and fragmented histories of place. We argue that behind the idea of ‘memory of place’ is an assumption that these memories are recoverable and can build a sense of place. Our research has led us to assume the opposite: not just that the fragments of history cannot build a complete memory of place, but that this understanding of memory and place is itself skewed by its reliance on materiality. This paper stems from a project that explores the place of spirituality in everyday life through insights from Spiritualist churches and their congregations. Whilst evidence of Spiritualist locations can be partially obtained through documentary records, a key challenge has been in understanding practices in the context of Spiritualism’s disassociation with materiality and the centrality of Spirit. The paper concludes that retracing Spiritualism’s past, and capturing its contemporary spiritual practices, uncovers a ‘memory of place’ that is not only in constant transience, but that can only be known through Spirit.     

Expatriate everyday life in Dar es Salaam,Tanzania: colonial origins and contemporary legacies

Under German colonial rule and the British mandate, Dar es Salaam was a racially segregated city. The means of segregation were a series of building ordinances that established varying standards of construction in the city's neighborhoods. A result of these ordinances was the concentration of expatriates—those people living outside their home country—in two areas of the city: the City Center and the Msasani Peninsula. Using qualitative survey and interview data with fifty expatriates in contemporary Dar es Salaam, this paper demonstrates that segregation persists in spite of postcolonial efforts to desegregate the city. In fact, segregation in contemporary Dar es Salaam affects more than just residential patterns; all aspects of expatriate everyday life are overwhelmingly concentrated in these two urban areas. This paper engages with colonial city and expatriate literatures to identify the lingering effects of colonialism and the various ways that residents perceive and transform urban space. Several explanations exist for the persistence of this segregation. These two areas historically housed expatriates and thus contain desirable urban amenities such as supermarkets and shopping malls. These areas also offer expatriates the comfort of living among other expatriates in a perceived safe environment.     

How environments speak: everyday mobilities,impersonal speech and the geographies of commentary

This paper examines commentary as a mode of speaking that has not received sufficient attention by social and cultural geographers. In contrast to a representational understanding of commentary, where commentary is the expert interpretation of an environment, this paper develops a more passive understanding of commentary where the commentator is a figure through which the affective, material forces that constitute environments become expressed. Based on qualitative fieldwork in Sydney, Australia, the paper examines three modes of everyday commentary related to commuting. The commentaries of reportage, anecdote and autoventriloquy each demonstrate in different ways how the affective, material environments of commuting become spoken. The paper shows, first, how commentary is a constitutive rather than derivative aspect of the experience of commuting. Second, it shows that commentary is an expression of affective, material environments, rather than either the willed self-expression of the speaker, or the manifestation of socially and historically contingent discourses. Third, it shows that commentary can both close down and draw out specific affective, material environments. Fourth, it shows how commentary modulates the powers of existence in the zone of the commute, transforming the affective possibilities immanent to different situations.