The minor rural aristocracy and great lords in thirteenth-century Tuscany: three cases from the entourage of the Guidi counts

This article examines relations in thirteenth-century Tuscany between the minor rural aristocracy and great rural lords, that is, those based outside cities. The subject is approached through a study based on three families, with special emphasis on the way they were bound to the extended family of the Guidi counts, who were prominent at the highest level in the thirteenth-century kingdom of Italy. In the thirteenth century, attendance on the counts was not attractive to families of the minor aristocracy: it was universally acknowledged that the great rural lords of Tuscany had little to offer their adherents in terms of wealth, power and prestige, incentives which could be obtained from the cities of the region. Minor aristocrats who chose to live as professional soldiers were particularly attracted to the cities, which were always in need of soldiers for their armies.     

Rural–urban divide and identity conflicts of migrant Muslim students in Northwest China

Abstract

A huge flow of internal migrants in China is an indicator of the significant changes in the geographical and cultural patterns brought by China’s recent economic growth. The Hui (10.6 million), as one of the largest ethnic minority groups in China, and the Dongxiang, with almost 100% of them holding the Islamic belief, are migrating from rural areas to urban centers in Northwest China. Analyzing the qualitative data from narrative stories, thematic photos, group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and field observations, this study interprets the cultural experience of rural Muslim migrant students in Chinese public schools and examines their complex and fluid rural–urban identities. This study further discusses the possibilities of including and integrating rural migrant students in cities.     

定县实验与农村复兴运动

20世纪二三十年代晏阳初领导的以定县实验为主体的平民教育与乡村建设运动和国民政府倡导的农村复兴运动相结合,使乡村运动走上了“政治与学术合流”的道路,“合流”的结果产生了河北省县政建设研究院。在县政与研究院的双重作用下,平教会的工作得以推进,同时也因此失去了原有的独立地位。但是,无论怎样,这些现象表明当时政府和民间在重构国家权威上的一致性,在自觉地为达到“国家再造”这一目标而进行不懈的努力。     

Top-down or bottom-up: rural settlement and raised field agriculture in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia

Differing interpretations regarding the organization of past intensive farming are often distinguished as “top-down” or “bottom-up” perspectives. The development of intensive farming and its social organization are attributed to either nascent states and centralized governments or the incremental work of local communities or kin-based groups. We address the social organization of raised field farming in one region of the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andean altiplano, Bolivia. We evaluate past research in the Katari Valley, including our own, based on recent settlement survey, excavation, and a variety of analyses. Taking a long-term perspective covering 2500 years, we find that relations of production and rural organization changed greatly over time in relation to changing sociopolitical conditions. Local communities played dynamic roles in the development and organization of raised field farming, yet its intensification and ultimate recession were keyed to the consolidation and decline of the Tiwanaku state. We conclude that the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy is overdrawn. Local communities and their productive practices never operated in a political or economic vacuum but both shaped and were transfigured by regional processes of state formation, consolidation, and fragmentation.     

我国乡村地理学研究的回顾与展望

乡村地理学作为研究乡村发展过程中人文经济活动与地理环境相互关系的一门学科,有着悠久的历史。在我国,其深入发展则是在七十年代末,随着以家庭联产承包责任制为主体的经济体制改革的推行,乡村社会经济面貌发生了深刻的变化,同时,也出现了大量问题,迫切需要地理学家去研究解决,这种形势为我国乡村地理学提供了广阔的实践天地,并极大地推动了我国乡村地理学的研究进展。
本文从乡村地理学产生的背景出发,回顾了我国近年来乡村地理学的发展过程,同时对我国乡村地理学的主要研究领域进行了阐述,最后本文指出了我国乡村地理学研究存在的主要问题以及今后的发展方向。     

城乡边缘带研究的回顾与展望

本文综述了国内外对城乡边缘带的概念、地域结构、土地利用形态、社会经济特征、形成演变机制等方面的研究,并对城乡边缘带研究的最新进展及今后的研究方向作了评述。     

石门坎现象成因分析

石门坎,云贵乌蒙山区的一片蛮荒、高寒之地。石门乡至今仍是贵州屈指可数的边远贫困乡。但在20世纪上半期,石门坎竟成为＂西南苗族最高文化区＂、＂文化圣地＂,创造了数个文化奇迹。分析其成因有：特殊的社会、历史背景;基督教进入、认同、互动与大环境建设;创制苗文及乡村教育网络的形成等。     

An evaluation of the site specificity of soil elemental signatures for identifying and interpreting former functional areas

Soil multi-element analysis is now a routine technique employed to help answer questions about space use and function in and around archaeological sites. The pattern of enhancement of certain elements, including P, Pb, Ca, Zn, and Cu, has been shown by numerous studies to correlate closely with the archaeological and historical record. Interpretation of these soil signatures, however, has generally been more problematic. One approach to the problem has been the use of ethnographic or “known” sites to guide interpretation, but how confidently can results from one site be extrapolated to another? This study of abandoned farms tests the site specificity of soil multi-element signatures of past space use through the use of discriminant models. Data analysis suggests that one to one comparisons of similar sites are much less accurate (38% accuracy) than comparisons based on a wider range of sites (59.3% accuracy), even when the latter have contrasting geology. The results highlight the importance of individual anthropogenic practices during occupation and abandonment in the development of diagnostic soil geochemical signatures.     

Historicizing counterurbanization: In-migration and the reconstruction of rural space in Berkshire (UK), 1901–51

This article uses census data for Berkshire to argue that large-scale counterurbanization began much earlier than is generally recognized in some parts of southern England. This was not just movement down the urban hierarchy, which as Pooley and Turnbull have demonstrated was a long-term feature of England’s settlement system, but in some cases at least amenity-driven migration to rural areas of the kind increasingly recognized as a core component of recent counterurbanization. Despite a reduction of acreage Berkshire’s rural districts saw a 54% rise in population between 1901 and 1951. The sub-regional pattern of growth is assessed to gauge whether ‘clean break’ migration to the remote west of the county (which remained effectively out of commuting range from London throughout the period) was taking place, or whether counterurbanization was confined to the more accessible eastern districts. However, whilst population did increase in both west and east, it was in fact the central districts that grew most impressively. Three case study parishes are investigated in order to gauge the nature and consequences of counterurbanization at a local level. Professional and business migrants figure prominently, seeking to preserve and promote the rural attributes of their new communities, without however cutting their ties to urban centres. It is argued that migration to rural Berkshire in the first half of the twentieth century cannot adequately be described either as a form of extended suburbanization or an anti-metropolitan ‘clean break’. Rather, early counterurbanization marks the first stage on the long road to a post-productivist countryside, in which countryside becomes detached from agriculture, there is socio-economic convergence between town and country, and the ‘rural’ increasingly becomes defined by landscape and identity rather than economic function.     

农村社会管理体制改革创新的多维动因探究

提出改革与创新农村社会管理体制并不是偶然的,而是以马克思主义社会管理思想为理论基础,充分借鉴西方国家社会管理理论研究的有益成果,结合我国农村经济社会关系深刻变动的实际,深刻总结建国以来农村社会管理体制发展的经验教训的产物。