抗战时期的国统区农村金融--以农村合作金融事业为中心

抗日战争爆发后,南京政府认识到抗战将是持久战,持久抗战的关键之一在于农村能否持久地提供支持。因而,维持和发展农村经济就成为坚持抗战的重要一环。而维持和发展农村经济的关键又在于是否能够为农村提供金融支持。本文以台湾"中研院"近代史研究所档案馆藏有关资料为中心,特别是农林部中央农业实验所农业经济系所作的农村金融调查资料,辅以其他史料,对1939年至1944年间国统区15个省的农村金融借贷、放款利率、放款期限、借贷办法、放款机关等情况进行具体考察,分析和观察其成效与特点,并与抗战前后的情况进行比较,以期对抗战时期国统区的农村金融发展和演变情况,有一个较为清晰的认识。     

Gender equality: a core dimension in Rural Development Programmes in Austria?

The supranational gender equality regime of the European Union (EU), in place since the 1990s, affects gender-related social policy including the so-called ‘gender-neutral’ policy fields such as the common agricultural policy and rural development policy. Especially, the implementation of gender equality in all policy fields through the strategy of gender mainstreaming in EU Structural Funds and Rural Development Programmes has become a key challenge for political and administrative players and stakeholders. Analysis reveals that the existing institutional, political and social barriers for an effective implementation of gender equality in rural development policy are manifold. Instead of promoting rural women's agency and empowerment, Rural Development Programmes and processes in Austria are preserving and perpetuating traditional gender roles and patriarchal structures in rural society.     

Community Engagement in Historical Site Protection: Lessons from the Elmina Castle Project in Ghana

Abstract

Engaging communities in the protection of heritage means that the communities living around the heritage sites are involved in the process of identifying issues that affect the conservation of these sites and can propose ways by which they can be addressed. In Ghana, the Elmina Castle project shows close collaboration between the communities living around these slave forts and castles, the legal custodians, and other stakeholders. This case study unpicks the process to show how the existing traditional systems were approached and involved. The result of this participatory collaboration is a strategic document which will be implemented to ensure proper protection of these sites in the wake of development and modernization.     

Thinking Past Henri Lefebvre: Introducing “The Theory of Ground Rent and Rural Sociology”

This introduction to the translation of Henri Lefebvre's 1956 essay “The theory of ground rent and rural Sociology” moves through three stages. First, it suggests that Anglophone appropriations of Lefebvre have tended to focus too much on his urban writings, at the expense of understanding his early work on rural sociology, and failing to recognise how his urban focus emerged as a result of his interest in rural–urban transformation. Second, it provides a summary of his wider work on rural questions, including his unfinished work on a major treatise of rural sociology; and outlines the key themes of the present essay in relation to these other projects. Third, it connects Lefebvre's issues to wider debates in political economy and geography about aspects of the rural, land and ground rent, not least including the work of Antonio Gramsci and José Carlos Mariátegui.     

Pursuing Urban Commons: Politics and Alliances in Community Land Trust Activism in East London

Community land trust (CLT) practices contribute to analyses of the commons in both conceptual and on‐the‐ground ways. As collective action organizations, CLTs emphasize common land stewardship and resist traditional land speculation and development practices through the mitigation or halting of land value inflation. This paper traces the activist efforts of the East London CLT organization, one of Britain's first urban CLTs, in securing common land in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, and examines their navigation of political decisions and creation of alliances. Although this process has been challenging as a result of neoliberal governance and private development interests, the East London CLT's trajectory demonstrates the frustrations of activism within these contexts but also the small successes in the pursuit and establishment of urban commons.     

A gender analysis of everyday mobility in urban and rural territories: from challenges to sustainability

Gender differences in mobility patterns between women and men have long been acknowledged. This study analyses how these differences are reproduced in different urban and rural contexts. Using mobility data from a large travel survey taken in 2006 in Spain, we examine the differences between gender mobility through age, modal split and trip purposes. Special attention is paid to how territory shapes mobility and how these territorial settings differently affect gendered mobilities. The use of this data source allows the comparison of all trips made by the total population, including all means of transport. By taking a global view on mobility, the uneven relationships that men and women have with different means of transport become more visible. After disaggregating data by age and territorial settings, results show that women are using sustainable transport modes more often than men, and travelling for more diverse reasons. Gender is thus a fundamental variable in understanding modal split and, by extension, transport sustainability, in terms of energy consumption and the emission of greenhouse gases. From this point of view, we consider women's mobility knowledge and practices – typically related to the most sustainable means of transport – as factors with rising value that could effectively guide public policy in its way to promote more sustainable mobility patterns.     

Italy’s unification and its discontents: Giovanni Verga’s Cos’è il Re?

ABSTRACT

The article, ‘Italy’s Unification and its Discontents: Verga’s Cos’è il Re, focuses on the mental confusion of the protagonist, Cosimo, which becomes symptomatic of the southern rural masses’ disenfranchisement from the unification process. Verga’s political disillusion with the new state, for which he fought, comes to the fore, underlining how the Savoy kingdom’s constitution was no guarantee of a real improvement for the rural masses. Verga’s story contrasts the Savoy king, whose power is limited by the constitution, with the Bourbon Monarch’s Corpus Mysticum, as described by Ernest Kantorowicz, whose power is absolute, like that of Jesus Christ. The story denounces, then, the paradox that the Bourbon monarch, in his paternalistic governance, was better for the impoverished rural masses than the constitutional Savoy king. Moreover, Italy’s unification under the Savoy sovereign further developed a national discourse that systematically racialized Southerners because of their subaltern position within the nation.     

Ethnic/National Identity Incrimination in and through Social Constructionism

Social constructionism, and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory in particular, are well-known for their anti-essentialist understanding of identity. Hence these discourses have theoretically been utilized for understanding social identity construction and for deconstructing identities. However, I claim that social constructionism and Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory may have the as yet non-theorized operation of detecting and combating wholesale indictments of identities. This operation helps us diagnose how ethnic identity and affect become incriminated as supposedly inextricably intertwined with racism, chauvinism and related pathologies. Yet interestingly, instead of unveiling and critiquing the new hegemony of blanket indictment of ethnic identity/affect, social constructionism and Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory have been used to incriminate identity as such. The present article interprets Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory against the grain to chastise the tendency to declare ethnic identity/affect as the new enemy. It shows how such new, hegemonic incrimination aspires to fill the empty signifier of peaceful coexistence with otherness, yet runs the risk of effacing otherness. The article concludes with an example of a reconstructive alternative.     

Canadian Philosophy: A Dialectical Exploration

This article inquires into the difference between philosophy as a universal practice and philosophy as a cultural product; its aim is to establish a case for there being Canadian philosophy. Philosophy as a practice can exhibit a dialectical framework. The practice can pursue both universal truths and cultural variations in expressions of those truths. Each philosophical endeavor requires the other to be meaningful. No matter how abstract a “truth” may be, an example always creates cultural relevance. The article introduces the example of an early Canadian philosopher, whose work is documented in the book by Leslie Armour and Elizabeth Trott, The Faces of Reason: An Essay on Philosophy and Culture in English Canada, 1850-1950. John Watson (1847–1939) was the most prolific and well-known contributor to philosophy in early Canada, pursuing universal questions and yet responding to the circumstances of his new home in developing Canada and, in doing so, contributing to Canadian cultural interpretations of philosophical questions. This article uses his example to conclude that the study of philosophy in Canada must include Canadian philosophy.     

Cooperative Competition

This article focuses on the collision between the communal-based and individual-based business cultures within the merchant community of Pori. The conflict is analysed by examining divergent petitions, complaints, and statement letters written to and by various authorities at the local, provincial, and national levels during the first half of the 19th century. The case study concentrates on confrontations between a nobleman of Swedish origin, Frans Fredrik Wallenstråle (1771–1857), and members of the local merchant community. The article strives to explain how and why the merchant community and the members of the town council made every possible effort to prevent Wallenstråle from developing his business activities and participating in communal cooperation within the community. In contrast to earlier literature, this article does not concentrate on petitions, their rhetoric, or the interaction between individual and state authorities. It analyses petitions as historical sources that resulted from collisions between the communal, cooperative business culture and vested interests.