Communal Performativity—A Seed for Change? The Solidarity of Thessaloniki's Social Movements in the Diverse Fights Against Neoliberalism

The debate on the financial crisis is at an impasse. Neoliberal austerity discourse is often positioned as an almost insurmountable barrier, its disciplinary power affecting even the most change‐oriented citizen‐initiatives existing today. Countering this, this paper highlights the transformative capacity of social movements in Thessaloniki. Drawing from Butler, Laclau and Mouffe, and Gibson‐Graham we develop the notion of “communal performativity” both as an academic and as a practical concept to understand and build trajectories of socio‐economic change. “Communal” denotes the drive of the movements’ participants to interconnect and (re)negotiate with a multiplicity of Others, curbing identity politics to articulate internal differences and Otherness. We see some hopeful signs of bridges being built towards shared trajectories of change that can be understood as different but concrete variations on the abstract counter‐narrative of “breaking with neoliberalism”. Some of these variations challenge, others diversify neoliberal discourses and practices.     

A park of the people: the demotion of Platt National Park,Oklahoma

Platt National Park, Oklahoma, was the smallest national park in the United States until it was combined with an adjacent, reservoir-centered recreation site in 1976 to form Chickasaw National Recreation Area. Set aside as Sulphur Springs Reservation by agreement with the Chickasaw Indians in 1902 and designated a national park in 1906, Platt is the only American national park to be demoted since World War II. The story of Platt's creation and demotion reflects the changing mission of the National Park Service (NPS), shifting images of nature and recreation among the American public, and broader social forces that frame park purposes. What started as local boosterism of hydrotherapy in cold mineral springs grew into one of America's most visited national parks by the 1920s. Despite its popularity, Platt lacked both scenic grandeur and political influence; it did not fit prevailing images of wild nature among NPS bureaucrats and the urban elite who formed the core of the environmental movement; it was too small, too humanized, and too ordinary. As images of people embedded in nature have gained wider acceptance in recent decades, would this small, geographically distinctive, and culturally rich “park of the people” have met a similar fate today?     

‘Musicking’ children from the Bohemian lands: nurtured and hidden musical practices on both sides of the Iron Curtain

Based on an analysis of musical childhood memories from over 80 Germans from the Bohemian lands and historical evidence, this article investigates processes of social and political integration and assimilation of German children and young adults who, in the aftermath of the Second World War, were either expelled to Germany or remained in their Bohemian homelands. Memories of Germans expelled to West Germany disclose the various ways in which musical repertoire and musical practices are able to mitigate both the loss of the homeland and the distressing overall effects of expulsion, as well as reveal how music facilitates the building of a new sense of belonging in the face of geographic displacement and material dispossession. The study further highlights how the reframing and even silencing of musical practices on the other side of the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia affected processes of social-identity reconstruction until and after the 1989 fall of Communism. Results of this study foreground that individual musical experiences reveal new historical narratives of how German expellees used and still use musical practices to negotiate intercultural power relationships and rebuild a sense of belonging in their respective post-war environment in West Germany or Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic.     

晚清时期英国在华租借地历史文化国际学术研讨会综述

在山东威海举办的“晚清时期英国在华租借地历史文化”国际学术研讨会上,来自世界各地的专家学者,以香港、威海两地特定时期的历史文化问题为主题,对近代英国在华租借地的历史事件、历史人物及相关研究进行了多方位的考察和讨论,丰富了晚清时期英国在华租借地研究的成果。     

‘REAL REVOLUTION’ IN KANA COMMUNE

Embarking from a case study of the Danish commune Kana, this article focuses on an overlooked aspect of the youth rebellion that was an intrinsic part of the self‐articulation of the commune movement: namely, the re‐addressing of the relationship between the private and the public, the personal and the political, spare time and work.     

人民公社供给制探析

本文深刻剖析了 1 958年大办农村人民公社时期 ,人民公社实施供给制分配原则的弊端、原因及经验教训 ,从理论和实践上阐明了平均主义与社会主义、共产主义的原则区别。历史证明 ,随心所欲地改变生产关系 ,制定超前的分配原则 ,一定遭到历史的惩罚。     

The Dynamics of Incrementalism: Subsystems, Politics, and Public Lands

A host of research has been produced in the decade since Baumgartner and Jones' theory of punctuated equilibrium first drew attention to the dynamics of policy change over time. Much of this research follows a topic across time, highlighting the shift from negative to positive feedback as challengers push an issue from subsystem to institutional level. Far less attention has been paid to the periods between major punctuations, neglecting key questions about whether incremental periods reflect an absence of challengers or the successful defense of established subsystem interests.
This research is a comparison of policy change across two segments of environmental policy. The breakup of the timber subsystem was a clear victory for environmentalists, yet these same actors have been largely unsuccessful at dislodging established grazing interests. These findings highlight the strategic value of venue shifting for bypassing entrenched interests and illustrate the potential for successful challenges to occur in judicial venues.     

Evaluating the Contemporaneity of Households at the Eden‐Farson site

Archaeologists often rely on absolute dating methods, but the standard deviations associated with these approaches often leave us wondering what to make of spatially related archaeological units, such as adjacent sites, clusters of features or regional‐scale investigations. This issue is particularly relevant to the Shoshone Protohistoric site of Eden‐Farson located in southwest Wyoming. The campsite consists of at least 11 discrete excavation units and is associated with a successful communal game drive of over 156 pronghorn. Yet the sheer number of pronghorn and the ambiguous nature of the near‐surface cultural deposits have left researchers debating whether it represents a single occupation associated with a single successful game drive. Using a multivariate refit model, I have performed a bilateral refit analysis to identify links between the excavation units. Strong evidence for contemporaneity of Eden‐Farson excavation units comes from 38 linkages between 10 of the 11 proveniences. Coeval occupation of the separate houses also allows for an analysis of food‐sharing behaviours. With the last game drive occurring in the 1870s, the Eden‐Farson site provides a rare opportunity to examine the social organisation of communal hunting. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Religious Pluralism

Abstract

This essay aims to lay out standards, personal and communal, for openness about religious diversity, without declining into a patronizing or trivializing relativism and without succumbing to the kindred weakness of skepticism. It is not inconsistent, I argue, to hold fast to one's religious convictions and practices while respecting and learning from other religious (and non-religious) traditions. Critical appropriation is the key here. For states and communities as well, openness and indeed support are warranted. But here too critical scrutiny is called for. Social harmony does not require unanimity or consensus, nor does diversity entail incommensurability, let alone inevitable tragedy. Sharp divisions between faith and practice are often artificial and unnecessary for a wholesome pluralism. The bien pensant reduction of all religious commitments to an imagined common core is unhelpful and often rightfully unwelcome. But equally unhelpful is the romantic if admiring stereotyping of the exotic. What's recommended here, societally, is the even-handed fostering of religious traditions (based on voluntary affiliation and support), on the grounds that, like education and the arts, religious communities promote human flourishing. But the same reasoning cautions against support for those religious trends that thwart or stymie human well-being. Societies do not require the level of coherence that individuals may pursue. But neither can they afford, for their own sake and that of their members, to ignore dangerous and destructive claims upon the human spirit.     

Commons and councils: agrarian collectivism and balanced development in the north of Spain in the modern period

In light of the extensive presence and preservation of communal property and resources in territories in mainland Spain, the aim of this paper is to analyse the keys to the use, distribution and retention of such properties and resources, particularly those still in existence, with particular regard to common pasture lands and woodlands. A compilation of council by-laws from past periods, combined with the production of a catalogue of agricultural patterns, has enabled an in-depth study of certain fundamental points relating to social and economic development. Such development has tended to maintain the balance between resources and population and to conserve resources through sustained and sustainable use that to some extent has guaranteed the occupation of lands, the preservation of rural communities and the perpetuation of traditional systems in the context of new challenges and contemporary needs. A combination of qualitative and quantitative documentary sources has enabled elucidation of the role and the full dimensions of communal properties. In particular, the causes and consequences, either of their sale or privatisation, or of their preservation and exploitation, will be outlined in the context of changes and new contemporary needs.