REPRESENTATION AS A COGNITIVE INSTRUMENT

This essay discusses the role of the notions of reference, truth, and meaning in historical representation. Four major claims will be argued. First, conditional for all meaningful discussion of historical representation is that one radically discards from one's mind the paradigm of the true statement and all the epistemological and ontological problems occasioned by it. Second, representation is not a two‐place, but a three‐place operator: in representation a represented reality (1) is represented by a representation (2) focusing on certain aspects of represented reality (3). Third, applying the notions of reference, truth, and meaning to historical representations compels us to give them a content basically different from the ones they have in contemporary philosophy of language and science. Fourth, it will be shown that in (historical) representation, meaning precedes truth—and not the other way around as in most of contemporary philosophy of language.     

The social production of ‘attractive authenticity’ at the World Heritage Site of Røros,Norway

This paper examines how authenticity and its use as a way of conceptualising the past participates in processes of heritage production, which are here defined as both the social construction of heritage sites and the uses of heritage sites as resources to achieve social goals. We argue that the social production of place and the social values generated by place are linked by a common approach based on the use of ‘place attraction’ as a unifying social concept. The World Heritage Site of Røros has as an attractive place become a resource for the production of cultural capital among various stakeholders, taking the form of a large body of ‘heritage knowledges’. However, a symbolic capital production of ‘attractive authenticity’ has today generated an idealised past and a purified iconic image of Røros as World Heritage. The discourse of ‘attractive authenticity’ reveals a conflict of interests where symbolic capital unfolds and makes power relations evident. This exposes a discussion about cultural heritage management practices at World Heritage Sites.     

Symbolic Violence and the Politics of Environmental Pollution Science: The Case of Coal Ash Pollution in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract: Environmental justice movements often contest environmental knowledge by engaging in scientific debates, which implies accepting the predominance of scientific discourses over alternative forms of knowledge. Using Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, this paper warns that the engagement with hegemonic forms of knowledge production may reproduce, rather than challenge, existing social and environmental inequalities. The argument is developed with reference to a case study of coal ash pollution in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The case study shows that the construction of knowledge in a scientific project led to the exclusion of local definitions of the situation and the dismissal of their observations of environmental pollution. The case suggests that the capacity of different actors to put forward their interpretation of an environmental issue depends on the forms of symbolic violence that emerge within hegemonic discourses of the environment.     

HISTORY WRITING WITHOUT CLOSURE

In The Work of History: Constructivism and a Politics of the Past, Kalle Pihlainen pays tribute to Hayden White's work on narrative constructivism through a comprehensive and critical evaluation of his work. The book's seven chapters are based on previously published and reworked essays, starting with Pihlainen's 2013 essay on narrative truth and ending with his 2006 essay on the confines of the form. The Work of History is timely in light of some world political leaders’ apparent immunity to facts, their use of history, and the role of power, as Pihlainen also discusses the ethics and politics of historical constructivism (xiii). At the same time, the book is “a meta-critical enterprise,” as White states in his foreword (x): it scrutinizes and explains White's work and its reception, including the debates on the production of knowledge, the ontological status of historiography, the various representations of history, and the kinds of audiences historians envision. Although narrative constructivism seems a bit passé, Pihlainen wants to further elaborate this theoretical approach to disentangle and explain some fundamental misconceptions about it that still exist among historians. One misconception is that constructivism inherently neglects the ethical impulse and supposedly lacks the potential for political engagement. Pihlainen urges historians and theorists to find ways of becoming politically committed in their writings and to challenge their readers to do the same.     

地方理论在城市休闲中的应用

地方理论认为,人与地之间的情感连接,使地方成为一个充满意义的空间。以休闲为导向发展的城市正是一个这样的充满意义的空间。在国内外相关研究的基础上,从人本主义的微观认知方法论角度,以地方理论为基本研究视角,阐释了城市休闲与地方性、地方意义、地方依恋感的联系,探讨了休闲主体与城市之间的"人与地"关系,提出了城市休闲的地方依恋研究框架,分析了地方观应用于城市休闲研究的必要性,最后构建了城市休闲的地方观研究概念框架。以期为休闲领域的理论和实践提供一个新的研究视角。     

人文地理学视角下的国外饮食文化研究进展

随着人文地理学的文化转向,以及跨学科的研究趋势,有关饮食、饮食文化体系和饮食活动的研究成为了地理学的研究对象之一。人文地理学视角下国外饮食文化研究主要集中在饮食的象征意义、饮食的文化经济、饮食的文化政治以及饮食与认同的相关研究四个方面。而国外的饮食文化研究趋势主要表现在(1)强调饮食全球化和跨国现象及其带来的影响;(2)关注饮食的意义以及人、饮食、物质环境和社会之间关系的探讨;(3)从探讨饮食和饮食文化本身的地理学研究,转向对饮食空间问题的探讨。在此基础上,从人地关系、跨地方以及文化政治三个方面对人文地理学视角下国内饮食文化研究提出了展望。     

Science, text and space: thoughts on the geography of reading

The idea of a 'geography of reading' provides a potential point of conversation between the cultural and scientific wings of our profession. Here I explore some dimensions of the geography of reading scientific texts. Drawing on a number of theoretical pronouncements – Gadamer's 'fusion of horizons', Said's 'travelling theory', Secord's 'geographies of reading', Beer's 'miscegenation of texts', Fish's 'interpretive communities' and Rupke's 'geographies of reception'– I focus on the spaces where scientific theories are encountered. The argument is that where scientific texts are read has an important bearing on how they are read. This realization points to a fundamental instability in scientific meaning and to the crucial significance of what might be called located hermeneutics. As a case study in the development of a cartographics of scientific meaning, I explore the different ways in which Darwin's fundamentally biogeographical theory of evolution by natural selection was construed in a number of different settings. The sites I have chosen to illustrate this are the scientific communities which congregated around the Charleston Museum of Natural History in South Carolina, the Wellington Philosophical Society and New Zealand Institute, and the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists in Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century. In each case the encounter with evolution theory, and the ways it was interpreted, are shown to have been shaped by local cultural politics, thereby disclosing the critical role that space plays in the production of scientific meaning.     

论颜师古对音义关系的认识

词是音义的结合体,音义关系是词汇研究中的一个重要问题。我国历代语言学家都十分重视对音义关系的探索与研究,唐代初年名语言学家颜师古就是其中一位,他在其《汉书注、《匡谬正俗》等作中充分运用音同,音义同,声相近,声之转等方法来辨通假,推求事物命名之意,贯通异形词。其因声求义的观念是明确的,方法是科学的。可以说,颜师古的因声求义已开清代以声音通训诂方法的先河。了解并研究颜师古因声求义的实践与理论,对汉语词汇史以至中国语言学史,都有重要意义。     

Group Identity, Individual Creativity, and Symbolic Generation in a BaKongo Diaspora

This article applies theories of group dynamics and individual agency to past material expressions of core symbols within particular African American religious beliefs. The past creation and use of such artifacts is analyzed using theories concerning modes of symbolic expression, the interplay of dominant and nondominant religions, formation and maintenance of social group identities, and the role of individual creativity and innovation within those processes. This analysis demonstrates the ways in which facets of the core symbolic expressions of the BaKongo people of West Central Africa evolved over time and across the trans-Atlantic region.     

城市雕塑景观象征意义对城市新区居民地方依恋的影响——以鄂尔多斯康巴什为例

城市雕塑景观作为最重要的城市文化景观之一,研究其象征意义对城市新区居民地方依恋的影响具有重要意义。本文运用结构方程模型,以鄂尔多斯康巴什为案例进行实证研究。研究发现:①城市雕塑景观象征意义可分为地方文化、政治意义以及情感意义三个维度;②城市新区居民地方依恋可分为地方依赖与地方认同两个维度且地方依赖大于地方认同;③城市雕塑景观象征意义会影响居民对城市新区地方依赖,进而影响地方认同;另外象征意义也会直接对地方认同产生影响;同时城市雕塑景观象征意义三个维度两两之间存在着较强的相关关系。