International relations and foreign policy in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

The Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS) has evolved from a publication that deliberately relegated articles in international relations (IR) to a secondary status to one that has defined and encouraged leading-edge contributions to that field. This development can be attributed to successive AJPS editorial teams’ realisation that contemporary political problems are increasingly interconnected and that emerging approaches to IR reflect this condition. Several recent and key IR debates that have emerged within the journal’s pages are assigned special attention here: the linking of Australia’s domestic politics to that country’s foreign policy interests and behaviour; in-depth discussions that relate to ongoing trends in the international political economy; critical analysis of national defence and regional security postures; and diverse theoretical perspectives that are increasingly shaping the IR field’s paradigmatic identity. It is concluded that the AJPS is now a leading source of IR thought and discourse.     

Whatever Happened to the Mother? A New Look at the Old Problem of the Mother's Brother in Three New Guinea Societies: Gimi,Daribi, and Iatmul

Kinship systems cannot be analysed as straightforward translations of the ‘facts of nature’ when those facts are limited to the production of a child by a heterosexual couple. Based upon analyses of three New Guinea societies (Gimi, Daribi, and Iatmul), I suggest that kinship systems take account – often by denying – certain ‘facts’ of human reproduction when those facts are extended beyond coitus and parturition to include both the very long period of infantile dependence upon one significant caregiver (always the mother in the societies in question and nearly universally) and the subsequent requirement for the child to be extracted from a dyadic maternal universe. Separation from mother is as critical to the survival and development of the individual as is the original prolonged and intense attachment to her. The question, then, is not whether indigenous peoples accurately understand coitus and conception – they do – but rather the ways in which they manipulate that knowledge in rules and rites of kinship in order to manage the growth and development of a child long after parturition. Rules of kinship and social relations neither ignore nor exist apart from theories of procreation as many anthropologists now claim. Rather, it is precisely because theories of procreation indicate and idealise the flow of bodily substance during coitus and pregnancy that they serve as organisational premises for social relations. The fact that kinship is a symbolic construction does not mean that it is wholly ideological nor, like a language, free to vary in ways that are arbitrary and unconnected to the ‘facts of life’ as Westerners understand them. Even when interlocutors openly deny such understanding and knowledge, especially of the male role in coitus and conception, evidence to the contrary is abundantly provided in myth, ritual, and indigenous theories of procreation. What kinship systems often do show, however, is a strategic denial of the role of the mother who, upon deeper understanding of indigenous concepts of procreation, turns out to be a ‘sterile vessel’ or without substantial contribution to her child. I illustrate this premise by extending earlier analyses of Gimi kinship and reexamining certain materials on neighbouring Daribi provided by Roy Wagner and on Iatmul peoples of the Sepik River as originally described in Naven by Gregory Bateson eighty years ago.     

先秦中国和古代希腊文明起源的地理环境之比较

文明起源的地理环境可以分为整体地理环境和中心地理环境。前者指文明整体能力所及的极限地理范围,后者指文明主体的主要活动区域。从这两个角度分别进行比较,将有助于解释希腊和中国文明侧重于陆地或是海洋发展的原因。     

在中外历史文化长河中徜徉——访刘家和教授

刘家和先生是学贯中西的著名学者,在世界古代史和中国古代历史文化的研究上都有卓著的成就。长期以来,他善于进行历史比较的理论思考和实证性研究,对希腊、印度、中国的历史文化进行过个案的研究;并致力于把中国古代历史纳入世界史的体系之中,同时在世界史的背景下对中国古代历史文化进行深入的探索。此外,对历史比较研究的方法论问题也有独到的见解。     

华人网络与韩人网络的比较研究

通过当前韩国对于海外华人四个方面的"似是而非"认识的分析,对华商网络的倾向与特征、建设韩民族网络等问题的探讨,得出结论:韩国华侨与韩国所理解的海外华人之间存在很大的差异;当代韩国政府希望能像中国充分发挥海外华人的优势那样,使海外韩人发展成为韩国在21世纪的新的成长动力并加以利用的认识是一种错误的"乐观判断";海外华人对祖国的向心力,不只是来自爱国情,更重要的是其生存保障与利益的实现;中韩两国的侨务政策存在区别,中国致力于"护侨",而韩国的目光集中于"用侨"。     

Zionism and Irish Nationalism: Ideology and Identity on the Borders of Europe

This paper is a comparative cultural history of Zionism and Irish nationalism, focusing on themes of race, gender and identity. It seeks to highlight the strong similarities of both nationalist projects: to show how Zionists and Irish nationalists were both heavily invested in state-building projects that would disprove European racist stereotypes about their respective nations and yet, paradoxically, were also part of the general history of European nationalism. Both Zionism and Irish nationalism sought to create idealised images of the past and claimed to be rebuilding a glorious ancient society in the future as a means of escaping a degraded present. Both movements saw language revival as a key means of carrying out this ‘return to history’. And both emphasised martyrdom as a way to build up prideful ideals of devotion to the nation and used sport, militaries and agriculture as forms of nationalist social engineering. Despite their claims to the contrary, neither national movement was truly unique.     

Cultural participation in Europe: shared problem or shared problematisation?

Europe has a ‘problem’; it is becoming a ‘less cultural continent’ as fewer Europeans are ‘engaging in cultural activities’. This conclusion has been reached due to the findings of the latest cross national cultural participation survey. This paper questions the existence of this ‘problem’ and instead suggests that there is a shared problematisation across Europe sustained by common discursive archaeology that employs various discursive strands in relation to a dominant institutional discourse. The argument is that the ‘problem’ of ‘non-participation’ legitimates a ‘solution’ that predates its emergence: the state subsidy of arts organisations. The paper recaps the comparable problematisations that the researchers have previously identified in the policy texts of their respective countries. It progresses to consider three distinct but interwoven discursive strands upon which the problem representation in both countries, and potentially across Europe, appears to rely.     

IS COMPARATIVE HISTORY POSSIBLE?

In recent years the trend toward comparative histories, frequently read in terms of transnational studies, has produced some remarkably exciting work. The prospect of the comparative is gaining broader appeal, a development we should applaud but at the same time begin to examine in a critical fashion. This essay lays out some of the problems involved in comparative work and suggests ways in which we might profitably utilize these potential snares in productive ways. Comparative history has the potential to operate as a “bridge‐builder,” encouraging inventive thinking that moves scholars beyond the familiar terrain of their training. In this respect, it encourages original and innovative ways of approaching historical work. But there are lessons to be learned and problems to be faced in managing a complex scholarly enterprise of this kind. Comparative work runs the risk of reproducing and consolidating older models of universalist history that assume universal standards. It further runs the risk of assuming rather than historicizing the idea of the nation as a fixed point of historical reference rather than seeing the nation itself as a site for historical scrutiny. In this paper, my goal is to lay out these problems alongside the palpable rewards of comparative work, and then to suggest how we might turn such problems to our advantage.