Working the Yucatán in the neoliberal landscape: household management,consumption and the lives of intellectual elite women

This article examines the lives of academic women in Mérida, the state capital of the Yucatán in southern Mexico. In particular, I consider the relationship between work – including household management – and consumer practices in light of Mérida's changing socioeconomic climate. I address how women's lives have been impacted by the neoliberal restructuring of Mexico's political economy and what these changes mean to their experience of university life, household management styles and consumption practices. I point out how labor and consumption are deeply interrelated cultural practices, which have acquired new meanings in the neoliberal landscape. Accordingly, consumption practices must be understood in connection with women's social and professional identities.     

东汉光武帝“度田”再论——兼论东汉户口统计的真实性问题

传统观点认为,光武帝刘秀度田是一次失败的行动。但事实上,光武帝严厉打击度田不实的官员,平息了由此引起的叛乱,使度田取得了成功。与度田措施相一致,光武帝执行抑强政策以限制和打击豪强势力,其政权并非代表豪强地主利益的豪族政权。度田事件后,与此相关的户口调查与上计制度一直得到贯彻执行,因此,东汉时期的户口统计数据是真实可信的。     

Re-thinking festivals: a comparative study of the integration/marginalization of arts festivals in the urban regimes of Manchester,Copenhagen and Vienna

Arts festivals have been on the ascendant since the 1980s. However, while these are proliferating, it remains unclear as to whether they are also flourishing. The present narrow construction of festivals for marketing and economic purposes tends to disregard the festivals’ social and cultural potential, i.e. in terms of functioning as urban laboratories where new and alternative urban and cultural strategies can be tested and developed. In order to address these imbalanced conceptualizations of arts festivals within urban policy frameworks, the article is based on a comparative case study of festivals that try to function as urban laboratories. By examining how these festivals are integrated in or marginalized by the urban regime, and how this influences their operational conditions, the research elucidates the need to create new and more holistic policy frameworks to chart an equitable path for the future development of arts festivals.     

Husband's Circular Migration and the Status of Women left behind in Lamerd District,Iran

Iranian women often serve as temporary heads of household as husbands work elsewhere, returning home at intervals for several months. Results of this preliminary study in Lamerd District in Fars Province, with a high incidence of such patterns, show that, overall, wives of migrants are not ‘left-behind women’ as reported in other countries when husbands migrate. Rather, wives of migrating husbands report a higher level of satisfaction with economic resources and no greater physical or mental health problems relative to those in non-migrant relationships. Counter to expectations, autonomy reported by migrants' wives does not differ from that reported by wives of non-migrant men. Data suggest that work-migrant males, in particular urban migrants, may be more exposed to sexually transmitted diseases. Our findings are limited, being based on data on experiences of women in one district in Iran. There is need for more comprehensive studies based on representative samples.     

Puppet troops revisited: A case study of the Northwestern Army during the Anti-Japanese War

After the Japanese occupation of North China at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, the Nationalist government adopted the strategy of using the regular army to develop the battlefield to the rear of the enemy in order to sustain a protracted war. As a result, the Northwestern Army, which was organizing anti-Japanese forces in North China, became the Nationalist government's main military force in the occupied area. However, caught between Japanese and Communist troops, the Northwestern Army surrendered to the Japanese for the purpose of self-preservation and thus became a puppet army. From a nationalist point of view, the collaborationists who covered up their self-serving motives and later defended their actions as a crooked path to national salvation had a negative image. In response to Communist expansion, the Nationalist government acquiesced in the measure of collaborating with the puppet troops to annihilate the Communists. To reinforce the battles at the front, the Nationalist government also attempted to plot anti-Japanese mutinies among the puppet troops, but its plan was never implemented. The Northwestern Army forces planned to build an alliance in order to survive as a third force both in the confrontation between the Chinese government and the Japanese army and in the confrontation between the Nationalists and the Communists. Yet, due to the tight control exercised by the Japanese in North China, it was difficult for the Northwestern Army to gain momentum as a third force. After the end of the Anti-Japanese War, the Northwestern Army had to take sides in the Civil War, and this dilemma caused its final collapse.     

Teaching Historical Research Skills to Undergraduates: Thoughts on Microcomputers and the Classroom

Abstract. In a classic article written in 1994, Robert Fogel assumed that the distribution of calories per head is log normal and that the variance of income per head is greater than the variance of calories per head. Using these assumptions, Fogel was able to conclude that approximately 50 percent of the economic growth since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is due to changes in nutrition. The author tests those two assumptions with the 1888 cost of living survey (U.S. Department of Labor 1890). Although he finds that the variance of income is greater than the variance of calories per head, distributional tests reveal that the distribution of calories per head is not log normal. In particular, the calorie distribution is skewed to the left, and the tails of the distribution are thicker than those of a log-normal distribution. Graphical tests, however, show that the log-normal assumption is appropriate, and departures from log normality are quite modest. Kernel density estimates further confirm that the distribution of calories per head is approximately log normal. Given the nature of the departures from log normality, Fogel's calculations may understate the role that nutrition has played in economic growth.     

A Biographical Note on James Maxwell,Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod

This note seeks to clarify the course of the career of James Maxwell, gentleman usher of the black rod in several earlier Stuart parliaments. Maxwell was a Scot who followed James I south in 1603, serving in his household and that of Charles I, first as a gentleman usher daily waiter, and from 1619 as a groom of the bedchamber. In 1620 he secured the office of black rod. In 1642 he failed to follow the king to Oxford but remained with the parliament at Westminster, although largely delegating his duties as black rod to his associate, Alexander Thayne. In 1647, he was allowed by parliament to attend the king at Holdenby House. He died in 1650 as earl of Dirletoun in Scotland, although the circumstances in which he acquired this title are obscure.     

城市和区域产业发展分析的增长商测度

区域产业分析的常用测度之一是区位商,该测度用于一个地理单元（如北京市）中某种行业在全部行业中的比重与特定区域（如全中国）的同种行业比重做比较。然而,区位商是一个静态概念,不能反映一种行业的相对增长幅度或者变化速度。基于数学中"商"的概念和理论地理学中测度构造的一般方法,本文定义了一个行业增长商测度,用于比较一个子区域中某种行业的增长幅度与特定地理区域中同一行业增长幅度,数值越大表明一个子区域的某种行业相对于特定区域的同种行业的增速越快、增幅越大。进一步地,定义了一个区域增长商,用于比较某种行业的相对增幅与全部行业的平均增幅,数值越大表明某种行业在全部行业中的增速越快。采用信阳实例说明了增长商分析的应用方法。作为参照,定义、对比并讨论了区位熵和增长熵测度。增长商是一个动态的测度,简明易懂,在区域产业分析中可以与区位商功能互补,在未来的主导产业选择中可能发挥一定作用。     

产业要素配置结构对生产率的影响研究——以杨凌示范区为例

本文基于要素生产率变动的视角,以杨凌示范区为例,在分析产业要素配置结构对生产率的作用路径基础上,通过估算资本存量,分析产业要素配置结构的构成,并利用偏离-份额法研究产业要素配置结构对生产率的影响作用。研究结果表明,杨凌示范区存在产业要素错配,第二产业成为杨凌示范区经济增长的核心部门,而第一产业的要素投入与发展农业现代化的目标不协调;劳动生产率的增长主要来自产业内部的增长效应,而非配置效应,其经济增长主要依赖要素投入带来的产业规模扩张;资本生产率的增长主要来源于产业内部的作用,在杨凌示范区发展初期,产业要素配置结构对资本要素生产率起到了阻碍作用,但这一情况正在逐渐改善。     

战国秦汉城市人口结构初探--以农民问题为中心

伴随着中国古代城市的发展,城内居民的构成也在不断地发生变化。城最初是军事防御的城堡,居民以农人为主。随着经济的发展和市场的兴盛,春秋战国时的城市居民主要被划分为士、农、工、商四类,但农民一直都是主体。两汉时仍然延续着战国的传统,但在交换经济和土地兼并的破坏下,大量农民丧失了土地,沦为流民或大土地所有者的依附民,城内农业人口的数量不断趋于下降,但短期内还不会完全被排挤在城墙之外。