Critiquing the heteronormativity of the banal citizen in New Zealand's mediated civil union debate

This article extends Billig's (1995) landmark thesis on banal nationalism by considering how processes of national deixis circumscribe the boundaries of citizenship and forms of belonging within nation-states. Drawing on critical analyses of sexual citizenship, the article provides a discursive analysis of the debate over civil union in the New Zealand mainstream press during 2004–2005. It argues that this mediated debate represented an historical moment where the routine deictic flagging of the nation, and the correlated flagging of the ‘banal citizen’, fundamentally broke down, thereby allowing this unmarked and ‘ordinary’ process to be systematically examined. Four major discourses are identified in press coverage: ‘Homosexual’ subjects as abnormal and disordered, tolerance, equality and human rights, the sanctity of marriage and the preservation of the family (and the social order). Although the passing of the Civil Union Act does mark a (faltering) step forward in sexual equality, we argue that the presence of these discourses suggests that forms of both ontological and cultural heterosexism persist in New Zealand society. Despite the Act conferring new legal rights, ultimately we conclude that the four discourses act to restrict the extent to which ‘homosexual’ subjects are considered ‘valid’ and ‘legitimate’ citizens. In continuing to structure the public politics of sexual citizenship in New Zealand, these discourses have influenced recent debates over legislative moves towards ‘marriage equality’ in ways that raise concerns over the continuation of heterosexist norms, as well as exclusionary forms of homo-nationalism. More generally, this research demonstrates the effectiveness of Billig's work as a valuable and productive analytic lens to explicate concerns over the exclusionary nature of citizenship itself.     

阿普尔加斯与19世纪英国工人运动的发展

19世纪中期,随着新模范工会在各行业的发展,英国工人运动进入了一个新的历史阶段,在阿普尔加斯等人为代表的新一代工会领导人的努力下,工会不仅成功地克服了1866年谢菲尔德暴行带来的巨大危机,而且在各阶级进步人士的帮助下,推动议会在19世纪70年代相继通过了有利于工会运动的立法,使工会从此成为英国产业制度中一个不可缺少的组成部分。而新模范工会所倡导的自助自制精神、阶级合作和劳资和解的政策,不仅为工会运动的合法化开辟了道路,同时也为19世纪中期英国社会的和谐稳定,经济的繁荣发展提供了保障。     

Labour Migration and the Swedish Labour Market Model: a case study of recruitment of Yugoslav workers to Svenska Fläktfabriken in Växjö, 1969–1970

This essay deals with active labour recruitment from Yugoslavia to Sweden at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. It is a case study of recruitments of foreign-born workers to one particular manufacturing industry. It focuses primarily on trade-union actions and strategies in connection with the recruitments, analysed in the light of the power relations within the corporatist Swedish labour market model. This approach illuminates how the Swedish labour market model dealt with an issue involving both conflicting and coincident interests between labour and capital, with the state as an intermediary. But the recruitments are also analysed from the recruited workers' points of view. The essay reveals great union influence in the process of labour recruitment, and suggests that the national Swedish labour market authority only approved as many work permits for non-Nordic workers as the trade union concerned accepted. This power, in combination with the shortage of workers, could be used by the unions as a forceful instrument in their struggle to transform working life according to their members' interests. Accordingly, the labour recruitments to Sweden were framed by the power relations and the corporative practices within the Swedish labour market model.     

清末民初广州的行会工会化

“工商合行”是广州传统行会组织结构的主要特色。然而,随着清末民初资本主义生产关系的发展,尤其“劳工神圣”西潮的浸润与激荡及革命政权扶助劳工政策的实施,使得“工商合行”的行会模式开始了以“工商分离”为主题特征的行会工会化的艰难蜕变。不过,这种由行会孕育出来的工会组织的肌体上不可避免地附着“工商合行”的深深烙印,这在一定程度上削弱并阻碍了国民革命时期中国共产党对广州工人的政治与阶级动员。从阶级斗争与“工商合行”两种理念交锋而导致行会工会化“曲折与艰辛”的事实中,可以窥视到传统行会近代转型“变”与“不变”的新旧交合的复杂面相。     

论意大利自由派获得统一大权的历史必然性

本通过比较马志尼、加里波第与以加富尔为首的自由派在意大利统一过程中不同的政治、经济和外交措施,及其效果来论证意大利自由派获得统一大权的历史必然性。     

儒家天人观的政治哲学反省

把握普遍的必然性是人的天性。天是中国古代思想家所能认识到的最高意义的本体性存在,理解天人关系是中国古代思想家把握普遍的必然性的基本途径。思孟学派的天人合一论更多地注意到了天人之间的统一性,表达了古代思想家在更抽象的水平上把握客观世界的心理取向。宋代理学家用形而上的思想方式理解和把握天,从而使必然意义的天与可感觉的天和有神性的天分离开来,儒家的天人观也因此而达到了最高的境界。     

Between dependency and engagement: Centring subaltern geopolitics in multiperspectival border studies. Lessons from the Western Sahara

Contributing to the growing interest in multiperspectival border studies, this article advocates for a re-centring of subaltern geopolitics in the debate. Focusing empirically on Morocco's diplomatic dispute with the EU over the application of trade agreements to the Western Sahara (2015–2019), the analysis considers the geopolitical bordering of the controversy through the concepts of dependency and engagement to explain how the disputed territory both structured Morocco's disadvantageous relationship to the EU, while also giving rise to material and symbolic possibilities for the state leadership to subvert these geopolitical asymmetries in the late 2010s. The events are theorised through the combined lenses of critical border studies, subaltern geopolitics, and the politics of space to bring two complementary insights to the fore: (i) to insist that multiperspectival approaches account for the uneven landscape of borders, and the entities that act upon, animate, and transform geopolitical affairs from outside the dominant nodes of power and knowledge; conversely (ii) to destabilize prevailing binaries of geopolitical marginality and centrality through a reading of borders in an irreducibly multiple sense. Together, the analysis demonstrates the value of centring subaltern geopolitics in emerging debates on border multiplicity in the field today, while also avoiding the tendency to reinforce the spectacle of the border itself.     

当前农村信用社改革需要注意的几个问题

我国农村信用社的改革虽然取得了一定成绩,但也存在一些不容忽视的问题。主要是:部分农村信用社采取变通方式强行达标,高指标也带来了高水分;省联社过于“强势”,实际上沿袭了原有县联社对乡镇信用社的控制模式;农村信用社法人治理工作进展迟缓,外部股东参与农村信用社决策、管理的积极性十分有限;农村信用社改革和服务“三农”并不完全一致等等。对这些问题需要警惕,否则将影响“花钱买机制”改革目标的实现。     

The politics of recognition: symbols,nation building and rival nationalisms

ABSTRACT. Ceremonial initiatives linked to nation‐building projects are highly visible in multiethnic states, where governments seem to have adopted a Durkheimian approach in which ceremonies contribute to the strengthening of communities. However, national ceremonies are not invented or exported to other nations easily, as seen when outlining the pattern of a successful national day. A unifying narrative (sometimes the historical genesis) is significant in the establishment of successful national days, as is the nature of the national day design. The celebrations of the constitution in Norway – and the 77 year struggle to get the Norwegian flag officially recognised – became part of resisting the enforced union with Sweden (1814–1905). Therefore, the growth of Norwegian nationalism must be understood in the context of rival nationalisms in Scandinavia. However, Constitution Day (17 May) has remained a powerful component of Norwegian nationalism long since the constitution ceased to be threatened because of its incorporation in primary and secondary school curricula and, more recently, within the debate on multiculturalism.     

Negotiating Neoliberal Empowerment: Aboriginal People,Educational Restructuring,and Academic Labour in the North of British Columbia,Canada

Aboriginal peoples in Canada are gaining influence in post‐secondary education through Aboriginal‐directed programs and policies in non‐Aboriginal institutions. However, these gains have occurred alongside, and in some cases through, neoliberal reforms to higher education. This article explores the political consequences of the neoliberal institutionalization of First Nations empowerment for public sector unions and workers. We examine a case where the indigenization of a community college in British Columbia was embedded in neoliberal reforms that ran counter to the interests of academic instructors. Although many union members supported indigenization, many also possessed a deep ambivalence about the change. Neoliberal indigenization increased work intensity, decreased worker autonomy and promoted an educational philosophy that prioritized labour market needs over liberal arts. This example demonstrates how the integration of Aboriginal aspirations into neoliberal processes of reform works to rationalize public sector restructuring, constricting labour agency and the possibilities for alliances between labour and Aboriginal peoples.