Chinese Independent Documentary Films: Alternative Media,Public Spheres and the Emergence of the Citizen Activist

This article argues that contemporary independent documentary filmmaking in China has been used as a tool by Chinese citizens to intervene in the public sphere and to provoke social change. I therefore propose to look at the phenomenon of Chinese video activism under the umbrella of alternative media. In particular, I take into consideration the “rhizomatic” media approach, which focuses on the interaction of alternative media with authority, the market and civil society. The case studies I present consist of several documentary projects completed between 2004 and 2010 that opened up spaces of dialogue between filmmakers and local authority, mass media and civil society. The paper claims that documentary films have an impact on audiences, whose members are consequently motivated to engage in discussion and action. I argue that activist video-making in China is reshaping the identity of urban citizens: through filmmaking, urban citizens claim their right to access information and demonstrate their will to participate and intervene in social issues.     

The Politics of Emotion in Participatory Processes of Empowerment and Change

In this article I reflect on the role of critical analysis and emotions in participatory approaches to empowerment and change. I argue that, in participatory research and practice, certain cognitive and analytical knowledges are prioritized as principal catalysts of empowerment and transformation at the cost of recognizing, and making full use of, the empowering potential of emotional and embodied knowledges. This argument is developed based on 2 years of fieldwork in a local youth participation project in Mejicanos, a poor and violent neighborhood in El Salvador, aiming at empowering young people by involving them in participatory action research (PAR). ¹ As part of my research, I looked critically at the young people's PAR process, asking whether and how they felt empowered by it and whether and how social change came about. Originally, the research did not focus on emotions, yet, in an inductive fashion, emotions and embodied knowledges evolved from fieldwork as crucial elements in understanding participation, empowerment and social transformation.     

AN OPEN INVITATION?: ADDING LINKS TO THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF HISTORICAL REPRESENTATIONS

Gradual changes in the way historians select, interpret, and represent aspects of the past are related to equally or perhaps more gradual changes in museum practice. Edited collections on this subject reflect the state of both disciplines and offer an opportunity to evaluate trends, assess progress, and forecast the future. The collection examined in this review essay focuses on the idea of sharing historical authority: How far have we come? What methods have been used? What is the value of collaborative effort? Have technological developments, including digital media and the “participatory Web,” really enabled more inclusive participation? The analysis of the collection includes specific attention to the text itself as an exhibitionary object and emphasizes the effects of its unusual design elements, deictic signals, and heterogeneous genres—particularly the case studies and “thought pieces” that form a significant part of the collection. Other focal points include: the interrogative mood of the text and its call for active reading; explicit historical, social, and disciplinary contexts; and precursor texts that have addressed similar subject matter.     

Subsidizing Migration? Mexican Agricultural Policies and Migration to the United States

Migration theories often ignore the role that states play in stimulating migration through public assistance policies. Using the case of Mexico, this article explores the role of the state as a migrant‐producing actor by examining the relationship between migration and social assistance policies in the form of monetary cash transfers. It argues that direct, unconditional cash transfers, like those provided by agricultural programs such as Procampo, rather than providing the incentives needed to retain individuals in their home country, may instead be providing the resources needed to migrate, particularly if the amount of the transfer is insufficient to spur investment. Instead of discouraging migration by enhancing economic opportunities and reducing poverty, such policies can actually make it easier and more appealing for its beneficiaries to migrate.     

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‘.     

Engaging Local Knowledge in Biodiversity Research: Experiences from Large Inter- and Transdisciplinary Projects

Abstract

The management of biodiversity represents a research topic that needs to involve not only several (sub-) disciplines from the natural sciences but, in particular, also the social sciences and humanities. Furthermore, over the last couple of years, the need for the integration of other kinds of knowledge (experience based or indigenous knowledge) is increasingly acknowledged. For instance, the incorporation of such knowledge is indispensable for place-based approaches to sustainable land management, which require that the specific ecological and social context is addressed. However, desirable as it may be, such an engagement of the holders of tacit knowledge is not easy to achieve. It demands reconciling well-established scientific procedural standards with the implicit or explicit criteria of relevance that apply in civil society — a process that typically causes severe tensions and comes up against both habitual as well as institutional constraints. The difficulty of managing such tensions is amplified particularly in large integrated projects and represents a major challenge to project management. At the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research — UFZ, several integrated research projects have been conducted over the past years in which experience has been gained with these specific challenges. This paper presents some of the lessons learned from large integrated projects, with an emphasis on project design and management structure. At the centre of the present contribution are experiences gained in the coordination and management of LEGATO (LEGATO stands for Land-use intensity and Ecological EnGineering — Assessment Tools for risks and Opportunities in irrigated rice based production systems, see www.legato-project.net), an ongoing, large-scale, inter- and transdisciplinary research project dealing with the management of irrigated rice landscapes in Southeast Asia. In this project, local expertise on traditional production systems is absolutely crucial but needs to be integrated with natural and social science research to identify future-proof land management systems.     

Healthy discretion? Breastfeeding and the mutual maintenance of motherhood and public space

Although idealizations of motherhood are ever in flux, specific historical moments can be said to produce distinctive tropes of ‘good’ motherhood that have very real impacts on how women act and conceptualize themselves as mothers. This article examines good motherhood in its current iteration, and how now-common beliefs about breastfeeding are implicated in its construction. Furthermore, it looks at the ways in which idealizations of motherhood discipline the breastfeeding body so that it will fit into public space without disruption. I discuss the contradictory impacts of characterizations of the good mother as they appeared in the pro-breastfeeding dialogs that arose following a 2007 incident in which a mother was asked to cover herself up while nursing in a Kentucky restaurant. I posit that while these characterizations helped to make breastfeeding a more widely accepted public activity, they also had the effect of reifying a very narrow conception of what it means to be a good mother. I make this claim through an analysis of two common refrains heard in pro-public-breastfeeding arguments: breast milk is exceedingly healthy and mothers should not be persecuted if they nurse discreetly. Although these assertions together are compelling to the general public in that they provide a scientific justification for breastfeeding while at once assuaging fears of discomfort presented by a reproductive act being performed in a public space, I suggest that they also work to discipline women and maintain public-space-as-usual.     

Imperial power, gentry power and clan power: Western and Chinese cultural traditions in a comparative perspective

The differences between China and Western countries in human and physical environment has brought about two distinctive models of state. In the Chinese-style state of quasi-consanguinity, in which family and state have a similar structure, imperial power, gentry power, and clan power are the product of common ownership of consanguineous groups. The similarity in the structures of these three kinds of power derives from the fact that they are all restricted by the power of lineage generated from the self-sufficient small farmer economy, and must obey the conventions of ancestors which hold the benefits of the group as supreme. The relationship between these three kinds of power, is definitely not the one that is based on the division of power that is founded on individual private ownership in Western countries, where ‘public power’ and ‘individual private ownership’ are antithetic, but are three aspects of the patriarchal dictatorship that complement each other. Therefore, village rule in China and autonomy in the West are two totally different concepts, and gentry power is also not the ‘authorized power’ from the state. __________ Translated from the Journal of Tianjin Normal University, 2004: 1     

Establishing the Public Sphere and Abolishing the Private Domain: The Rise of a Doctrine and Its Social Significance in the Spring and Autumn Period

The dominant views regarding the concepts of “the public” (gong) and “the private” (si) took shape in the Spring and Autumn period and matured in the succeeding years of the Warring States period. This paper is an attempt to trace both the growth of the vocabulary containing “gong” and “si” and the development of philosophical views regarding issues that center on the relation between the individual and the larger social/communal/political body, of which that individual is a member; it also touches on issues related to the proper handling of public affairs and the relation between state, sovereign, and the individual. The era is often characterized as “The Contention of the Hundred Schools of Thought,” notwithstanding it ended with but one view that is universally accepted by thinkers of diverse persuasion, namely, si is the source of all social evil and, therefore, should be condemned. This is the doctrine known as ligong miesi (abolishing si so gong may be established), which contributed to the orthodox for that era and the millennium to come. By extolling gong and condemning si, it painted a portrait of the pair as two irreconcilable norms or forces in social and political life; it provided a justification for the then emerging new social arrangement and ways of distribution of power and resources, and it also led to acute conflicts between the sovereign and the state, the ruled and the ruler, the state and the subject, as well as the public sphere and the private domain. Translated from Nankai Journal, Vols. 4, 5, 2004