Proceeding through Colonial Past-Presents in Fieldwork: Methodological Lessons on Accountability,Refusal, and Autonomy

This article examines how the colonial past manifests within the present through an analysis of ethnographic and archival fieldwork. Drawing on feminist geographic scholarship for decolonising knowledge production, I argue that geographers have a responsibility to the people they work with and the places where they conduct research to know what came before. Through an analysis of how the colonial past surfaced in everyday and ongoing experiences of negotiating consent during fieldwork, I show how reflecting on the colonial past-present offers insights into the colonial power geometries of knowledge production. Proceeding through the colonial past-present offers useful lessons on being accountable to people and lands, recognising refusal, and making autonomy. While this article is focused on my experiences as a white settler scholar from the USA who did research in a Mixe community in Oaxaca, Mexico, proceeding through colonial past-presents offers lessons to any and all geographers who struggle to unsettle the persistent colonial power geometries of knowledge production.     

桂西南喀斯特山区土地承载力预测

土地是人们获取食品的最便于使用的最经济的资源。可是,由于土地位置的不可移动性、数量有限性、与及受气候因子影响的产量的不稳定性等特征,使土地生产力在一定时间、一定技术经济条件下,不可能无限制地满足人们的食物需求。因此,研究和了解不同时期特定区域的土地生产力与人口合理承载量的动态关系,对制定该区域人口、经济发展规划将提供重要佐证。本文采用定性定量相结合的方法对桂西南喀斯特地区未来不同时期、不同人口发展方策、不同生活消耗标准的土地承载能力进行预测,其结果可为该地区人口、经济发展战略研究提供科学依据。     

博物馆中的南海知识生产与地理想象

地理想象是通过文化媒介对特定地方的地理“现实”的转录与重构,而博物馆是达成地理想象的一个代表性媒介。博物馆不只是一个展品陈列的空间载体,其中还包含着地理知识的生产。本文以南海博物馆为例,采用参与式观察、半结构式访谈、话语分析方法,探讨中国（海南）南海博物馆对“南海”的呈现。研究表明,南海博物馆对南海的地理想象不仅是话语建构,同时也是一种国家领土主权在话语层面上的实践。地名、地物、地图、地景是南海地理想象的构建基础,中国（海南）南海博物馆通过对“过去”资源的空间组织,构建了“南海”的地域想象、边界想象以及地缘想象。     

Low-Level Food Production

Societies with low-level food production economies occupy the vast and diverse middle ground between hunting–fishing–foraging and agriculture. Efforts by Ford, Harris, Rindos, Zvelebil, and others to characterize this in-between territory are discussed, and a new conceptual framework is proposed. Domestication, the central landmark of this middle ground, is situated well away from the boundaries with hunting–gathering and agriculture, and separates low-level food production economies into two broad categories. Key issues and questions concerning societies with low-level food production, both with and without domesticates, are discussed. Hunter–gatherer and agriculture boundary zones on either side of the middle ground are considered, as are the developmental pathways that traverse them.     

Left-behind and Vulnerable? Conceptualising Development and Older Women’s Agency in Rural China

Abstract:

Concern has been growing recently in China about the well-being of children, women and the elderly “left behind” on the farm when family members leave the village in search of waged work. Increasingly, the left-behind are portrayed in academic and policy discourse as a “vulnerable group” of passive dependants, sidelined by modernisation and abandoned by their families. This paper challenges this discourse, arguing that while attention to the well-being of the left-behind is vital, there is an urgent need for a shift in focus from their vulnerability to their agency. The paper focuses on the agency of left-behind women between the ages of 50 and 80. It aims, first of all, to point the way toward an empirically richer understanding of the social construction of older women’s agency and well-being. The second aim of the paper is to suggest how different conceptualisations of “agency” and “older women” might contribute to more ethical and politically effective strategies for development and the improvement of women’s well-being. To further these two aims, the paper draws on fieldwork conducted in rural Ningxia, north-western China, and on critiques of the “capability approach” to development expounded by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.     

Artisan dynamics in the age of colonialism: the social history of Moroccan Jewish goldsmiths in the inter-war period

The article highlights the social history of Jewish goldsmiths in French Morocco between the two World Wars, a period in which the global capitalist system challenged their historical monopoly over production and commerce. Continued external intervention (Moroccan commercial treaties with European capitalist markets), direct competition (the import of cheap industrial products and an influx of entrepreneurs), the mechanisation of local manufacturing, the encouragement of individualism resulting in the breakdown of Jewish social cohesion and the taking over of political institutions by France (the Makhzen) and its local agent (the Muhtaseb) had all eroded the Jewish monopoly of the precious-metals industry and created an unexpected atmosphere of strong economic, political and judicial pressures on Jewish goldsmiths. In order to explore the struggle and survival of Jewish goldsmiths in the new economic order, the article addresses the following key questions: (1) What was the influence of various forces, both external and internal, on the Jewish goldsmiths' industry?; (2) How did the artisans respond to and cope with these new economic conditions?; and (3) Why did the Protectorate revert back from liberal economic policy to that of local producers' protection?     

Models of disability,ideas of justice,and the challenge of full participation

The definitions of disability adopted in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) necessitate an important change in the way disability is assessed and introduce a new idea of justice in relation to persons with disabilities. The article starts by reviewing the various ‘models of disability’ prevailing in the past and the respective ideas of justice underlying them. The charity model, for instance, was rooted in ideas of divine justice and human beneficence, where care for the disabled led in practice to their being segregated from the rest of society, while the medical model saw justice in terms of treatments or compensations for individual pathologies rather than of positive enablement for active living. The CRPD overturns these models and the related conceptions of justice by emphasising society's obligations towards persons with disabilities and, above all, their human right to full inclusion and participation in society. The key concepts are empowerment and capability. In Italy these concepts and this new conception of justice have started to be applied by the Osservatorio nazionale sulla condizione delle persone con disabilità, the body created to monitor the effective application of the CRPD in Italy, and they are included in the two-year action programme on disability, approved by the Italian government in October 2013.     

改革开放前广东省出口商品生产基地建设的历史考察

建立出口商品生产基地,是改革开放前党和政府为了解决出口货源问题、促进对外贸易的发展而采取的一项方针政策,多次载入中央的文件,相关政策沿革和实践发展有一个从探索到推广,在受冲击和破坏后恢复与发展的历程。在中央作出决策和进行全国性规划之前,毗邻港澳、供应港澳市场任务重的广东省,初步探索并建立了一些出口商品生产基地;基地建设工作在全国范围内铺开后,广东省继续承担探索实践的角色和发挥主力军作用。透过对广东省的个案研究,可以从一个局部观察中国出口生产基地的历史发展,并有望深化对相关历史问题的认识。     

唐三彩的仪器中子活化分析其在两京地区发展轨迹的研究

本文采用仪器中子活化分析技术测定四个主要的唐三彩窑遗址(河南黄冶窑、陕西铜川黄堡窑、长安礼泉坊窑、河北邢窑)以及墓葬、建筑遗址出土唐三彩胎的元素组成,分辨了不同产地唐三彩胎的元素组成差别。而且,本文综合考古资料、实验数据的统计学处理结果,将唐三彩在盛唐时期的发展历程划分为两个阶段,大约以公元705年(武则天退位)为界。前一阶段的唐三彩属于白胎类型,制作中心集中在洛阳地区,唐三彩器主要由黄冶窑制造,大型唐三彩俑由洛阳地区(包括黄冶附近)未被发现的窑场制作。后一阶段唐三彩的制作中心向长安地区转移,该中心的重要产品是红胎唐三彩,同时可能采用外来的原料制作白胎唐三彩,洛阳地区作为唐三彩的另一个制作中心同时存在。进而论证唐三彩器和唐三彩俑存在两个相对独立的发展轨迹。