The Geo-imaginaries of potential in Mexico's Burgos Basin

In this paper, we use the geo-imaginary analytic to show how actors utilized narratives of resource potential and speculative economic futures for the Burgos Basin in northeastern Mexico to affect a broader liberalization of the nation's hydrocarbon sector. Our research traces the history of the word “potential” as a discrete and repetitive rhetorical technique used variously to speculate on hydrocarbon production, economic development, regional energy development, and risks associated with the Burgos. We also identify an array of visualizations, what we refer to as ‘conjurings,’ used with narratives of potential to encourage investments in the Basin's development. These include: maps depicting Burgos geologic continuity with productive Texas fields, quantitative forecasts of growing production, visual depictions of private firms facilitating future production, and fracking as a necessary wedge to pry open the Burgos' unrealized potential. Finally, using governmentality, we link Burgos potentiality discourses to socio-political outcomes, including in the early 2000s, when the Basin was imagined as a way to counterbalance the skyrocketing costs of imported natural gas, continuing with the 2013–2014 Reforms, and into the post-Reform oil and gas conference spaces that facilitated financial investing opportunities. We also argue that the current administration leveraged anti-fracking discourse to reverse the liberalization of Mexico's hydrocarbon sector. By drawing together overlapping elements from scholarship into resources, speculation, and governmentality, and by parsing the ways that potential narratives and conjuring tools are deployed, this research contributes to ongoing debates in political geography around natural resources and the geopolitics of the subsurface.     

“There are mentalities that need changing”: Constructing personhood,formulating citizenship,and performing subjectivities on a settler colonial frontier

Settler colonial nations are sites of legal pluralism in which encounters between differing constructions of citizenship are formulated. These can involve customary, differentiated, and universal modes of citizenship. But the relationships amongst these are problematic, as are the ways they play out in the performance of subjectivities. To understand these dynamics, we need to think about ideas of personhood that are at their root. Based on research in Nunavik, this article focuses on how, through wildlife management, notions of personhood are being legally codified, particularly in relation to property. It examines the degree to which official ideas of personhood coincide with Indigenous ones in the construction of citizenship, and considers how these combine with property relations in the performance of subjectivities. Enforcing state wildlife regulations has altered the moral codes that define what persons are and determine how they should interact with one another. This research underscores the contradictions that arise as a result of codifying notions of personhood and citizenship in the context of settler colonialism.     

从"资治"到"救国"--关于19世纪史学经世致用思想变化之研究

自19世纪40年代伊始,中国社会所发生的空前的沧桑巨变,直接推动了史学由古代史学向近代史学的转变。这种转变的重要标志之一,就是史学经世致用思想的变化,即史学经世致用思想从“资治”到“救国”,从着眼于王朝治乱兴衰到关注国家和民族前途命运之经世致用的宗旨和参照系的变化。同时,这种变化又对整个19世纪中国史学的发展及其走向产生了重大而深远的影响。     

The Icelandic medieval monastic garden - did it exist?

In the multidisciplinary project presented here, 12 known monastic grounds in Iceland were surveyed by a group of medievalists from different fields in the summers of 2009, 2010 and 2011. The aim of the survey was to increase knowledge of the Icelandic monastic garden and of the plants that were known and used there; to look for possible medieval cultural relict plants; to observe continental influence on the island; and to vitalize discussion and research. Landscape and plants were surveyed at the 12 monastic sites, and full botanical investigations made. Many of the plants found have a medieval past as medicinal and utility plants, and some of their properties may have been common knowledge to medieval Icelanders. An investigation of written sources and archaeological and archaeobotanical findings from excavated sites added to the investigators’ knowledge. So were there monastic gardens in Iceland in the Middle Ages? The answer is a rather confident yes. With all the evidence combined, the investigators were able to trace the deliberate use of medicinal, food and utility plants in the monastic contexts. Whether they were cultivated, tended in situ, gathered growing wild or imported is another matter. Continental influence was more evident than has previously been observed.     

The visibility of past trees and woodland: testing the value of insect remains

The reconstruction of woodland history is important in relation to archaeological, ecological, biogeographical and evolutionary problems, and insect remains are a significant source of relevant information. Fully natural interglacial and Holocene ‘waterlogged’ deposits assumed to have formed in woodland generally contain abundant macrofossils of both plants and insects indicative of trees. In contrast, British archaeological deposits rich in macrofossil remains of trees often lack, or contain very few, tree-associated insects. To cast light on this contradiction, assemblages of insect (Coleoptera and Hemiptera) remains from a range of modern deposits with various spatial relationships to woodland and trees have been analysed. The proportions of tree-associated insects varied greatly. There was a general trend from higher values in woodland and near to isolated trees of species supporting a rich insect fauna, to low or zero values where there were no trees. However, low values sometimes occurred in woods or near trees, so that rarity of tree-associated insects in archaeological deposits does not always carry the implication of a treeless environment. Further investigation is suggested, with emphasis on the importance of identifying isolated trees, scrub and hedges as a resource for humans and wildlife in the past.     

Neoliberalism and the Economic Utility of Immigration: Media Perspectives of Germany's Immigration Law

Abstract: Germany's new immigration law, which took effect in 2005, was hotly debated over a period of four years. This paper follows the debate on the law through the newsprint media, examines the representation of immigration as an economic utility, and investigates the contents of this economic‐utility perspective of immigration in light of neoliberal restructuring in Germany. The analysis focuses on 609 articles sampled from five major German daily newspapers published between July 2001 and August 2005. A discourse analysis suggests that the newsprint media represented immigration on the one hand as an economic necessity to replenish the labor market and ensure the international competitiveness of key industrial sectors. On the other hand, immigration was depicted as an economic liability that raises unemployment rates and burdens the public welfare system. Although the media emphasized the economic necessity of immigration, the final law does not permit any significant immigration of labor. The paper resolves this contradiction by situating media discourse in a wider context of neoliberal reforms and European Union expansion.     

Resource abundance constraints on the early post-contact Cherokee population

We present the combination of an analysis of resource demand by the early post-contact (1721) Cherokee population with spatially explicit estimates of production for five key resources: architectural land, agricultural land, firewood, hard mast, and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). We combine a recent synthesis of village location and population, a map of recognized Cherokee territory, digital terrain data, estimates of per capita demand, and productive capacity for each resource. Average, high, and low demands were estimated for each resource and assigned based on a weighted function of terrain and distance from each village. We conclude that Cherokee demands for architectural and agricultural land, hard mast, and fuelwood were easily met within a short proximity to each town under all combinations of production and demand. These resources were likely not limiting, and were satisfied for the entire Cherokee population by less than 1% of the entire recognized Cherokee territory in 1721. These resources likely exceeded demand even when sources were restricted to the convex hull of the Cherokee territory, or to near stream, flat regions. Deer resources were likely harvested over a much larger area and to a much greater extent. Our best estimate of deer resource demand was 32% of annual sustainable production in the Cherokee territory, with from 16 to 48% of estimated sustainable production harvested for low and high demand estimates, respectively. Our estimates vary in response to uncertainties in deer production, harvest proportion, deer density, and sustainable harvest rates. Deer demand was substantially higher under all combinations of conditions than that available within the convex hull of Cherokee villages, indicating significant travel was needed to furnish deer requirements. Spatially explicit models that consider terrain- and distance-related tradeoffs suggest that Cherokee demand for deer drove harvest over areas consisting of over half the recognized Cherokee territory.     

统筹配置财政资源 促进青海经济社会又好又快发展

本文从青海实际出发,阐述了如何统筹配置财政资源,发挥财政职能作用,促进经济社会又好又快发展的具体政策和措施。     

Bone frequencies: differential transport, in situ destruction,and the MGUI

Human transport of bones with high food values, and destruction of bones with low density values are the traditionally invoked explanations of the frequencies of bones in archeological contexts. The manner in which these two explanations have been used suggests archaeologists assume the explanations to be independent of one another. The transport explanation is operationalized as the modified general utility index (MGUI) of Binford, and the destruction explanation is operationalized with measures of bone density. Statistical correlation of the MGUI with bone density, while weak, indicates that many high utility bones have low density values while many low utility bones have high density values. Because low density bones tend to be destroyed more readily than high density bones, inferences of human utility strategies derived from bone frequencies and based on the MGUI may be inaccurate. The utility strategies suggested by three archaeofaunas are compared to bone density, and two of these faunas are shown to potentially be the result of differential destruction and not human transport as measured by the MGUI.     

展望中国人文地理学的发展

中国自改革开放以来,人文地理学得到了复兴,在理论、方法和研究内容方面都有了新的发展,其中尤以经济地理学、城市地理学和旅游地理学的进展较快,原先被视为禁区的政治地理学、文化地理学和社会地理学,也开始出现了一批可喜的成果。目前在中国经济体制转轨的新形势下,中国人文地理学正处于一个重要的转折时期,即面临着严重的挑战,又出现了前所未有的发展机遇。
在迈入21世纪时,作者建议中国人文地理学着重研究以下各课题:
(1)为充实中国人文地理学的基础理论,研究人地关系地域系统;
(2)为配合(中国21世纪议程)的实施,研究全国和各地区社会经济的持续发展;
(3)以土地利用为中心来研究全球变化和人类活动的关系;
(4)从节约利用和保护资源出发,研究地区自然资源系统;
(5)为发扬中国地理学的传统,更认真地为农业服务,研究促进农业和农村的持续发展问题;
(6)从理论和方法上提高区域地理研究的水平、并配合国家任务,开展区域综合发展的研究,包括国家和各省经济建设的重点区、海域、生态脆弱区等。