Democracy and national destinies on Taiwan

In the case of Taiwan, experts have debated whether passionate national loyalties (Taiwanese or Chinese) facilitated or stymied democratization. This paper argues that nationalism facilitated political change in Taiwan. In fact, democratization during the 1980s and the 1990s was spurred in part by the pursuit of two conflicting national destinies. The Chinese Nationalist Party legitimized reform as the end of a century‐long process for the reconstruction of the Chinese nation. To many Nationalists, particularly those born on the mainland, Taiwan was the fulfilment of Sun Yat‐sen's vision of China known as the Three Principles of the People. At the same time, many opponents of the regime saw successful reform as one step towards the realization of a Taiwanese nation. Dominated by those who identified themselves as Taiwanese, generally those of Chinese descent whose ancestors had lived on Taiwan prior to 1945, these activists hoped to take power through the ballot box, then implement a series of policies to strengthen an island‐wide identity.     

Ethnic belonging of the children born out of rape in postconflict Bosnia‐Herzegovina and Rwanda

Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war in ethnic conflicts, and forced impregnations have been central to this strategy. Scholars however disagree on whether the cultural assimilation to the maternal group influences these children's identities, or whether they are perceived as belonging to the enemy group (Carpenter; Nikolic‐Ristanovic). Drawing on preliminary qualitative findings collected in 2013 in Rwanda and Bosnia‐Herzegovina, this paper analyses the ethnic identification imposed by the enemy group, the mothers and their community on the children born out of rape. It first explores how the mothers' ethnic identities are often subordinated to their fathers' ethnic background, and how this then justifies their social exclusion from their maternal ethnic group. This paper suggests that sexual violence is extremely effective in ensuring the continuation of the ethnic conflict in the aftermath of the violence by attacking the children's senses of belonging.     

Masters of Healing: Cocaine and the Ideal of the Victorian Medical Man

This article offers a new perspective on the relationship between cocaine and medical practitioners in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Cocaine is often understood as one of a number of potentially addictive substances to which Victorian physicians and surgeons were regularly exposed, and tempted to indulge in. However, while cocaine has frequently been associated with discourses of addiction, this article proposes that it was also widely represented as a technological triumph, and that the drug was frequently used as a symbol for the scientific and moral virtues of the medical man. The argument draws on popular journalism, medical publications, and fiction to establish the cultural context of cocaine at the fin de siècle. In 1884, cocaine was revealed to be the first effective local anaesthetic, and this article traces the processes by which cocaine came to be regarded as the iconic achievement of nineteenth-century therapeutic science. This aura of innovative brilliance in turn communicated itself to the medical professionals who employed cocaine in their work, so that many patients and practitioners alike depicted cocaine as a most fitting emblem for the idealized selfhood of the modern medical man. This idea also informs portrayals of the drug in fiction, and I conclude with a detailed analysis of L. T. Meade’s 1895 short story, ‘The Red Bracelet’ (published in the Strand Magazine as part of Meade’s series, ‘Stories from the Diary of a Doctor’), as an example of the way in which cocaine functions as metaphor for the physician’s unassailable moral primacy and technical excellence.     

A history of conservation of built heritage sites of the Swahili Coast in Tanzania

The interaction between the Swahili Coast of the present-day Tanzanian coast and other parts of the Indian Ocean world dates back to the first millennium AD. This commercial communication resulted in the rise of several coastal city-states (stonebuilt towns), some of which date back to the tenth century. Unfortunately, some of these states started to collapse during the second half of the second millennium and the majority of them is in a ruinous state. These material remains, which according to the Tanzania’s Antiquities Act of 1964 deserve legal protection, have not been studied comprehensively mainly to establish their conservation history. The current article addresses this problem, and by analysing documents, it establishes the conservation history of monuments and historic buildings of the Swahili Coast in Tanzania. Research results indicate that some built heritage sites started decaying during the fourteenth century AD. Because of recognising the importance of these built heritage sites, communities of the region embarked on strategies to care these built heritage sites. This observation contradicts the European conventional wisdom maintaining that, in Africa, conservation of built heritage sites such as monuments and historic buildings began in the nineteenth century and was propagated by European colonialists.     

Christian colleges amid political changes: The University of Nanking’s reorganization and registration (1927-1928)

Jinling University, or the University of Nanking, was created in 1910 from the merger of three Christian missionary schools in Nanjing (Nanking). After a period of smooth development in the second decade of the twentieth century, the University of Nanking had to face huge challenges in the 1920s when nationalism and revolutionary movements gained momentum in China. After the Nanjing Incident in 1927, the university was forced to deal with all the serious challenges of running a new school. Within two years, the University of Nanking underwent comprehensive reform, which included the reorganization of the school administration, the establishment of a board of directors, the accession of the university’s first Chinese president, and the completion of a process of government-mandated registration. All this ultimately led the University of Nanking into a new era. The university reacted to the registration requirement and the internal administrative reshuffling in a process of gradual, interlocking responses. This process reflects the general nature of relations between church universities and the Chinese government during this important historical moment, though the unique characteristics of the University of Nanking’s own experience are also apparent.     

The two starting points of World War II: a reexamination from a global perspective

Although the factual chronology of World War II is not in dispute, how to best make sense of these facts and how to objectively evaluate that history have always been limited by political circumstances and personal biases. Viewing WWII seven decades later, we need to move away from Eurocentrism and to stop seeing the war from the prism of a European war or Pacific war. The entire history of WWII, from beginning to end, including its several phases characterized by fermentation, outbreak, climax, and conclusion, is extremely complex. This paper argues that the war has two origins or starting points because it resulted from disparate prewar conditions in Europe and Asia. Viewed from this perspective, the strategic importance of the China Theater in WWII and the enormous sacrifices and contributions the Chinese people made to the victory over Fascism and for world peace ought to be given due credit.     

The cultivation of Communist cadres during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression

During the Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made great progress in its cultivation of cadres. The favorable environment of the National United Front made it possible for the CCP to successfully train a large number of cadres with intellectual backgrounds while continuously using and promoting those who came from worker or peasant backgrounds. By so doing, the CCP raised the quality of its cadres. The CCP’s cultivation of its cadres during the War of Resistance was a systematic undertaking, with interrelated and mutually reinforcing components of education, training, examination, criticism, and self-criticism. Based on cadre self-consciousness and training, a regularized yet not rigid process of cadre cultivation was established. During the same period, the CCP also launched a rectification campaign (Zhengfeng yundong) to further unify and transform the Party. This important movement also left a deep mark on the cultivation of Communist cadres.     

How Chinese scholars think about Chinese foreign policy

China’s assertive diplomacy in recent years has ignited intense debates among international relations (IR) scholars. Some argue that China’s assertive behaviour is rooted in its perception of increasing power and capabilities. Others suggest that it is US policies that triggered China’s assertive reactions. Relying on an original survey of China’s IR scholars conducted in Beijing in 2013 and using structural equation modelling, we empirically examine Chinese IR scholars’ attitude towards Chinese power versus the United States, their perceptions of US policy in Asia, and their preference for an assertive Chinese foreign policy. We find that both the power perception and policy reaction arguments make sense in accounting for Chinese IR scholars’ attitude regarding China’s assertive diplomacy. However, our research suggests that a more pessimistic view on Chinese power is more likely to be associated with a preference for an assertive foreign policy.     

Mothering,digital media and emotional geographies in Hamilton,Aotearoa New Zealand

This article traces a line between two literatures that can usefully be drawn into deeper conversation: geographies of digital media, and geographies of emotion. Its broad theoretical aim is to ascertain what insights might be gleaned by increasingly bringing together these two literatures. The more specific and primary aim, however, is an empirical one and that is to offer a materially grounded example of 35 mothers who live in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand who use digital media to communicate with their children. Particular attention is paid to the capacities of different digital media, both individually and combined, to help facilitate, but certainly not guarantee, different emotions. The research is informed by a feminist geographical reading of theories of digital media and emotion. Findings illustrate that increasingly mothers are making use of digital media, both singularly and collectively, to increase the chances of a particular desired emotional outcome with their child or children. This article concludes that bodies, devices, screens, sounds and images comingle to mediate emotions over time and space.     

Innovations in the afterlife of the Cold War: German-language human geography

This commentary will coalesce around two main points. First, the articles by Markus Hesse on urban geography, by Annika Mattissek and Georg Glasze on recent developments in discourse-analytic approaches, and by Ulrich Best on the genealogy of radical–Marxist or critical German-language geography all support the contention that key features of Germanophone human geography still mark it out as a ‘Cold War’ human geography. As will become clear, this contention goes well beyond noting the marginality (until recently) of radical–Marxist positions (Belina, B., Best, U., & Naumann, M. (2009). Critical geography in Germany: From exclusion to inclusion via internationalization. Social Geography, 4, 47–58). Second, I will argue that although this configuration has had real costs, including both analytic and ‘civic’ deficits, it has also allowed the development of distinctive strengths and innovative emphases in human geographic research that can and should be engaged by other sub-communities in the international discourse.