Seeds: Contracting the Audience in a Play about Science

Abstract

In pursuing the question ‘what can scientists learn from theatre?’ Particularly, ‘what can scientists, as scientists, learn from theatre?’ this paper argues that science lacks a normative framework that theatre is capable of providing. Despite science’s well-earned epistemic reputation, there is adequate reason to question its ethical reputation, particularly at the point where cutting edge scientific technology impacts society. I consider science as operating in four categories: the scientific method; the scientific hypothesis; the scientific experiment; and the scientist’s personal character. The realms of the scientist’s hypothesis and personal character are those where social pressures are reciprocally exerted, where imaginative play mentality and epistemic values are most in evidence. Theatre can examine these realms effectively because it is able to use narratives that appeal not only to logical and social moral judgements but to emotional and visceral responses, so as to situate science in the social context in which the pressures of law, funding, experimentation, society, and personal ambition converge in ‘the game of life’.

This can be seen in the theatrical process known as ‘contracting with the audience’. I point out a spectrum of traditional narrative tropes by which science makes “contracts with” audiences. The paper draws on theories of entrainment and theatrical game-play from Peter Stromberg and Philippe Gaulier, as well as my own practice and research into the process of contracting with the audience, to propose how to reach beyond tradition and to shift normalising contracts “outside the box”. To illustrate my proposition, I examine the play Seeds by Annabel Soutar as directed by Chris Abraham for Crow’s Theatre and Theatre Porte Parole. Seeds follows the controversial court battles of Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser against agricultural-biotech corporation Monsanto, which sued him for patent infringement of its Genetically Modified Organism Roundup Ready Canola. Seeds helps its audience define a public arena for discourse even as it brings to our attention the factors that make this difficult to do, while making an excellent contribution to the genre of ‘Documentary Theatre’. It is a successful contract with the audience that creates a public forum for discussion about contemporary ethical debates in science, thereby merging artistic ambiguity and scientific theory.     

基于面板模型的城市居民国内旅游消费实证分析

本文通过整理面板数据并构建面板模型,分别以出游率、人均旅游花费与旅游购买力衡量旅游消费,引入虚拟变量区分收入水平与SARS危机的影响,从而揭示了收入对城市居民国内旅游消费的决定作用。模型估计结果表明：第一、对不同的旅游消费指标,收入的决定作用存在差异,其中,旅游购买力与出游率的收入弹性远大于人均旅游花费的收入弹性;第二、与低收入城市居民相比较,高收入城市居民国内旅游的出游率收入弹性减小,人均旅游花费收入弹性增大;第三、SARS对高收入城市居民国内旅游消费的负面影响更大。最后,根据面板数据的描述性统计结果与模型估计结果,从供给角度,建议在全国层次注重发展观光旅游,在旅游目的地层次注重细分目标市场。     

Refugees, repatriation and liberal citizenship

This article considers the meanings attached to refugeehood, repatriation and liberal citizenship in the twentieth century. Refugees are those who have been unjustly expelled from their political community. Their physical displacement is above all symbolic of a deeper political separation from the state and the citizenry. ‘Solving’ refugees’ exile is therefore not a question of halting refugees’ flight and reversing their movement, but requires political action restoring citizenship.All three ‘durable solutions’ developed by the international community in the twentieth century - repatriation, resettlement and local integration - are intended to restore a refugee's access to citizenship, and through citizenship the protection and expression of their fundamental human rights. Yet repatriation poses particular challenges for liberal political thought. The logic of repatriation reinforces the organization of political space into bounded nation-state territories. However, it is the exclusionary consequences of national controls over political membership - and through this of access to citizenship rights - that prompt mass refugee flows. Can a framework for repatriation be developed which balances national state order and liberal citizenship rights?This article argues that using the social contract model to consider the different obligations and pacts between citizens, societies and states can provide a theoretical framework through which the liberal idea of citizenship and national controls on membership can be reconciled.Historical evidence suggests that the connections in practice between ideas of citizenship and repatriation have been far more complex. In particular, debate between Western liberal and Soviet authoritarian/collectivist understandings of the relationship between citizen and state played a key role in shaping the refugee protection regime that emerged after World War II and remains in place today. Repatriation - or more accurately liberal resistance to non-voluntary refugee repatriation - became an important tool of Cold War politics and retains an important value for states interested in projecting and reaffirming the primacy of liberal citizenship values. Yet the contradictions in post-Cold War operational use of repatriation to ‘solve’ displacement, and a growing reliance on ‘state-building’ exercises to validate refugees’ returns demonstrates that tension remains between national state interests and the universal distribution of liberal rights, as is particularly evident when considering Western donor states’ contemporary policies on refugees and asylum. For both intellectual and humanitarian reasons there is therefore an urgent need for the political theory underpinning refugee protection to be closely examined, in order that citizenship can be placed at the centre of refugees’ ‘solutions’.     

Intersectionality and planning at the margins: LGBTQ youth of color in New York

Through an intersectional lens, this article reflects on the dialog between planning and gender, feminist, and queer studies to analyze the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color (YOC) community in New York City (NYC). The community is subject to multiple disenfranchisements, given their ethno-racial status, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation. This community's limited access to safe public spaces and amenities, housing, health services, job training, and other opportunities is an urban planning challenge insufficiently understood or addressed. Our methodology includes participant observation and analysis of an LGBTQ YOC tour of West Village in NYC, interviews with LGBTQ individuals and NGO staff, life stories, observations in LGBTQ-friendly meetings and facilities, and content analysis of LGBTQ reports and media coverage. The research shows the agency of an LGBTQ youth group as a resilient community organization effectively participating in planning processes and exerting rights to public space and services. Finally, it offers recommendations to planners and policy-makers to facilitate the recognition and expansion of rights to the city for LGBTQ, particularly YOC, by committing to understanding their unique conditions and needs and expanding their access to safe housing and public spaces, poverty reduction programs and job opportunities, and health and social support services.     

The image of the city in modern literature

This article considers the meanings attached to refugeehood, repatriation and liberal citizenship in the twentieth century. Refugees are those who have been unjustly expelled from their political community. Their physical displacement is above all symbolic of a deeper political separation from the state and the citizenry. ‘Solving’ refugees’ exile is therefore not a question of halting refugees’ flight and reversing their movement, but requires political action restoring citizenship.

All three ‘durable solutions’ developed by the international community in the twentieth century – repatriation, resettlement and local integration – are intended to restore a refugee's access to citizenship, and through citizenship the protection and expression of their fundamental human rights. Yet repatriation poses particular challenges for liberal political thought. The logic of repatriation reinforces the organization of political space into bounded nation–state territories. However, it is the exclusionary consequences of national controls over political membership – and through this of access to citizenship rights – that prompt mass refugee flows. Can a framework for repatriation be developed which balances national state order and liberal citizenship rights?

This article argues that using the social contract model to consider the different obligations and pacts between citizens, societies and states can provide a theoretical framework through which the liberal idea of citizenship and national controls on membership can be reconciled.

Historical evidence suggests that the connections in practice between ideas of citizenship and repatriation have been far more complex. In particular, debate between Western liberal and Soviet authoritarian/collectivist understandings of the relationship between citizen and state played a key role in shaping the refugee protection regime that emerged after World War II and remains in place today. Repatriation – or more accurately liberal resistance to non-voluntary refugee repatriation – became an important tool of Cold War politics and retains an important value for states interested in projecting and reaffirming the primacy of liberal citizenship values. Yet the contradictions in post-Cold War operational use of repatriation to ‘solve’ displacement, and a growing reliance on ‘state-building’ exercises to validate refugees’ returns demonstrates that tension remains between national state interests and the universal distribution of liberal rights, as is particularly evident when considering Western donor states’ contemporary policies on refugees and asylum. For both intellectual and humanitarian reasons there is therefore an urgent need for the political theory underpinning refugee protection to be closely examined, in order that citizenship can be placed at the centre of refugees’ ‘solutions’.     

Humphrey and Civil Rights: The Politics of Racial Progress

Abstract

This article explores and defends Leo Strauss's interpretation of Edmund Burke's thought. Strauss argues that Burke's conservatism is rooted in the modern empiricist school of John Locke and others. Following Strauss, this article sets out to consider the suitability of these foundational principles to conservative politics. Burke wants to temper or ennoble Lockean politics by inspiring sublime attachment to the political community and its traditions, but he shies away from stating universal standards according to which the traditions of political communities ought to be judged. This respect for reason in history without moorings in transcendent standards of reason or revelation leaves his conservatism on precarious ground.     

苏州市旅游者目的地消费支出空间分布特征研究

基于2003年江苏省国内游客抽样调查资料,选择以苏州为目的地的来自188个地级市的3337份有效游客样本,在综合考虑社会经济要素的基础上,采用相关分析等统计学方法进行研究,结果显示:旅游者在苏州市的目的地消费支出空间分布特征曲线分为两个阶段:递增阶段和停滞阶段。采用同样的方法对江苏省内游客样本进行了研究,结果验证了这种空间分布特征的可靠性。从不同细分消费项目角度的进一步研究发现,住宿、餐饮消费项目对总体消费的空间分布特征贡献最大,娱乐消费项目对总体消费的空间分布特征贡献较大,而其它消费项目贡献不显著。     

基于传播学视阈的西安旅游业创新发展初探

现代旅游业的竞争让旅游业的创新势在必行,本文从传播学的视阈论述了旅游与传播、旅游业与文化创意产业的关系,进而提出旅游业创新的两个基点:创新思维模式与延伸价值链。从信息传播的角度讨论了西安城市形象及旅游发展存在的问题,最后,提出西安市可在城市品牌经营及文化创意产业两方面创新思路,促进旅游产业的发展。     

联总援助与我国铁路交通善后

抗战期间及战后初期,我国内陆交通遭到严重破坏。根据《中国善后救济计划》,联合国救济善后总署（简称联总）无偿提供大批交通运输器材,帮助我国恢复残破不堪的水陆交通。出于控制华北的政治目的,国民党政府曾打算利用联总援 助的铁路器材优先修复津浦、平汉、平绥和胶济铁路;停战协定生效后,中共曾表示,在保留解放区境内铁路区段实际控制权的前提下,愿意协助修复华北铁路交通。由于国民党政府顽固坚持以武力解决国内政治争端的错误政策,致使全国内战爆发,铁路再度成为交战双方争夺的焦点而频遭破坏。交通部不得不改变初衷,转而将联总器材主要用于修复粤汉、浙赣、南洵铁路和改善华东地区的路况,并收到显著成效。     

假日旅游高峰对旅游生态环境的破坏及对策分析

假日旅游带来的客流高峰对旅游生态环境造成多层次、多方面的破坏,本文对此进行了较为详尽的分析,并从时间分流、客源分流、信息分流、价格分流和景区分流等角度,对解决假日旅游高峰问题提出建议和措施.