Improvised Hybridity in the “Fixing” of Chinese Infrastructure Capital: The Case of Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway

The article explores the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the globalisation of China's infrastructure capital. Examining how accumulation strategies of Chinese SOEs are driven by a complex set of political and economic, state and private, interests, it foregrounds the inherently hybrid nature of China's state capitalism. We use Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as a case study to analyse how state infrastructure capital traverses borders, and the specific ways that contradictions of accumulation in China are relocated through the improvised hybridity of SOEs. In Kenya, China Road and Bridge Corporation, the main SGR contractor, shifted and adapted its strategies as the pursuit of economic productivity gave way to political priorities in China, simultaneously responding to changing socio-political circumstances in Kenya and across East Africa. Analysing these dynamics, we highlight the contingencies of, and limitations to, structural reorganisation of actually existing forms of state capitalism in China and beyond.     

Railway Architecture: The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) at Dundalk

ABSTRACT

This article is adapted from the dissertation ‘Railway Architecture: The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) at Dundalk’, completed by Siobhan Osgood for the MPhil in Art History: Art + Ireland, where it was awarded a distinction. The study provides an historical analysis in the context of architectural development and broader railway culture in Ireland to provide an interpretation and understanding of the use of polychromatic yellow, red and black brickwork to create a visual identity for railway architecture. The use of accented colours to pick out key features is repeated across a series of buildings, thus creating a distinctive style of ‘brick-branding’. These are most prominent in the town of Dundalk, where the GNRI had its central engineering works at the halfway point on the Dublin to Belfast mainline and at the point where the Irish North line extended west and north. The buildings were each intricately designed by the GNRI's first chief engineer, William Hemingway Mills, a second-generation railway engineer who merged the roles of architect and engineer using an amalgamation of architectural designs from his earlier career in Derby, Scotland, Mexico and Spain. Mills thus created his own ‘Millsian’ style of industrial architectural design.     

Urban commons are more‐than‐property

Urban commons are characterised in the literature as collectively shared property in the city shaped by a context of scarce resources, population density, and the interaction of strangers. In the broader commons literature, commons appears as a verb, a noun, and a process made by practices of commoning—albeit still with a focus on property. In this paper, I argue that an understanding of urban commons as more‐than‐property is needed to recognise how present but elusive urban commons are. I use examples from interviews and observations conducted at a Women's Library to discuss how the access, use, benefit, care, responsibility, and ownership of this urban commons bring it into being through particular practices of commoning. By questioning current ways of defining urban commons, urban scholars gain a grounded understanding of the role of property, and other practices, in maintaining an urban commons over time.     

Historical and Textual Notes on Magical Texts in the Papyrus Collection of the University of Oslo Library†

This article, which concerns the history and texts of some of the magical papyri in the collection of the University of Oslo Library, has two parts. The first part (Hickey and Maravela) sheds light on the acquisition of the celebrated Oslo magical roll, P.Oslo I 1, by drawing on Samson Eitrem's account of the purchase in the Norwegian daily Aftenposten and the correspondence of Francis W. Kelsey, who had sought to buy the papyrus for the University of Michigan. The second part (Zellmann-Rohrer) offers critical remarks on the formats and texts of the magical papyri P.Oslo I 1, 4–5 and II 15.     

《四库全书》本胡曾《咏史诗》的文献价值

《四库全书》所收南宋人胡元质重新编排注释的胡曾《咏史诗》,在今天看来至少具有三方面的文献价值,一可用以校勘文字,二可资以辑录佚文,三可据以推断某些古籍的亡佚时代。     

缪荃孙与江南图书馆

清末有识之士缪荃孙在江宁（今南京）建立藏书楼,编纂书目、订立规章,创建了著名的江南图书馆,成为近代图书馆中之出类拔萃者。     

图书馆读者投诉问题之分析

读者投诉是图书馆服务工作中的常见问题,如果处理不当,就会进一步激化矛盾,因此成为图书馆管理工作的重点之一。本文认为,关键是要正确认识读者投诉现象,认真分析读者投诉的原因,从读者的投诉中发现图书馆服务工作中存在的问题。同时,要进一步建立和完善读者投诉制度,采取切实有效的措施,不断提高图书馆的服务质量。     

吉黑两省铁路交涉局的“嬗变”——1898—1917年中东铁路附属地行政管理权研究

清末,在俄国中东铁路管理局的要求下,中东铁路途经的黑、吉两省将军衙门分别设置了相应的交涉机构——"铁路交涉局"。在中东铁路建设、经营、管理过程中,它负责中俄之间有关铁路事务的交涉,同清朝的其他涉外机构有较大区别。它一度成为中方在中东铁路属地及其影响下地区的"准行政机构"。时事变迁,该机构的名称及功能也不断演变。由于它同时接受中俄双方影响,功能也复杂,所以其地位和作用难定,争议至今。从初设时被打上沙俄扩张的烙印,到后来成为制衡沙俄侵略的重要力量,"铁路交涉局"机构的嬗变体现了哈尔滨作为一座现代城市的独特发展史和基本特征。     

安徽省图书馆所藏徽州祁门善和程氏宗族文书研究

祁门善和程氏是徽州程氏宗族的重要支派,遗存文书众多.笔者2008年参与整理了安徽省图书馆古籍部保存的一批祁门善和程氏宗族文书资料,此次整理文书近150件,分为土地文书、房契文书、赋役文书、商业文书、宗族关系实态文书、社会文书、会社文书七个方面.这批文书具有时间跨度大、内容丰富、种类齐全、关联度强、保存完整、民间性突出等特点,价值较大,值得进一步挖掘整理和深入研究.     

图书馆人力资源开发与管理刍议

人力资源是图书馆可持续发展的关键所在。本文分析了图书馆坚持以人为本管理的必要性以及现代图书馆人力资源管理的现状和特征,提出了推动人力资源开发与管理工作的相应对策。