As Basket and Papu: Making Manus Social Fabric

Between 2012 and 2019, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, hosted Australia's offshore detention centre for asylum seekers and refugees, known as the Regional Processing Centre (RPC). This paper analyses some of the social impacts of the RPC on Lorengau town, the urban centre of Manus, through the analytical lens of the Manus idiom, as basket (Tok Pisin). Materially this refers to the everyday Manus basket whilst metaphorically, it refers to an individual's or community's social, cultural, political and economic base. First, I examine asylum seekers and refugees as a social category that emerged during this period when they were referred to as papu by locals. Papu is an honorific kinship term for grandfather or elder man; for men who are symbols for family identity, social belonging, and rights to land. Second, I examine the changing materiality of Lorengau's markets as indicative of wider societal transformations and dissonance brought about by the RPC. My ethnographic data are based on long term involvement in Manus, including three recent visits to Lorengau in 2017, 2018, and 2019 where I studied the social impacts and the changing social practices of Manus people in response to the RPC.     

Development of a systems model to visualise the complexity of children's independent mobility

Substantial changes to the built environment, urbanisation patterns, and societal norms have contributed to limiting children's opportunities for being independently mobile. Several linear causal pathway models have been developed to understand the influences on children's independent mobility; however feedback loops between and within the various levels of influence cannot be modelled using such an approach. The purpose of this paper is to refine the interrelationships of factors related to children's independent mobility, taking into account earlier models, broader contextual factors, recent children's geographies literature, and feedback loops. Systems model components were informed by attributes known to influence children's independent mobility, related qualitative findings, and the development of a framework that could lend itself to multilevel modelling approaches. This systems model may provide a useful structure for identifying how best to develop and monitor interventions to halt the declining rates of children's independent mobility.     

尺度概念的演化与尺度的本质:基于二次抽象的尺度认识论

尺度是人文地理学的核心概念。为了深化对尺度的理解,本文详尽梳理了目前西方研究中的尺度认知,从隐喻、实践和认识论角度对尺度进行了理解和定义;在此基础上,基于二次抽象的视角,探讨了尺度的本质含义及其分析框架。本文认为,尺度本质上是对基本地理维度(如地方、网络和领土)的二次抽象,是一种建构的概念,因此讨论尺度真假并无实质意义;另一方面,尺度的划分不单纯是容器,而是与各种社会-权力关系相交织,并被不断重构和利用,从而形成了各种尺度化实践和尺度政治。因此,对尺度的研究和运用更应关注其解释力和影响力。最后,本文基于这一理解,探讨了中国政治文化背景中的尺度概念和尺度政治课题。     

生态关系视角下国家高新区的演进机制与发展路径

基于对国外文献的综合分析,借助网络对国家重点高新区的历史演变和发展动态进行了理论审视。在对国家高新区进行抽样调查的基础上,迁移运用协同进化理论、复杂性理论和演进经济理论,采取自上而下的方法,对国家高新区的演进机制和发展路径进行了理论抽象,构建了"技术创新过程及成果产业化"、"高新区演进机制"、"技术极功能组织"以及"高新区发展路径"等概念模型;对高新区的创新、创业环境(生境结构)、孵化器体系以及产业集群的组织结构等,进行了深入的生态学解析。     

旅游目的地忠诚度：一个历时态的概念模型

本文在对国外相关文献中旅游目的地忠诚度概念及其测量维度进行系统梳理的基础上,从目的地忠诚度形成的阶段性和动态性出发,构建了一个基于历时态视角的旅游目的地忠诚度概念模型。在厘清了态度、意向、行为和累积行为忠诚度的概念、形成过程及影响关系后,本文认为,旅游目的地忠诚度是一个由多个忠诚度维度构成的阶段性变量,在时间上呈现为一个周期性的连续演进过程。     

REOCCUPYING SECULARIZATION: SCHMITT AND KOSELLECK ON BLUMENBERG'S CHALLENGE

This article analyzes the compound of the categories of secularization and reoccupation in its variations from Hans Blumenberg's philosophy to Carl Schmitt's political theory and, ultimately, to Reinhart Koselleck's conceptual history. By revisiting the debate between Blumenberg and Schmitt on secularization and political theology with regard to the political‐theoretical aspects of secularization and the methodological aspects of reoccupation, I will provide conceptual tools that illuminate the partly tension‐ridden elements at play in Koselleck's theorizing of modernity, history, and concepts. For Schmitt, secularization is inherently related to the question of political conflict, and, correspondingly, he attempts to discredit Blumenberg's criticism of secularization as an indirectly aggressive, and thereby hypocritical, attempt to escape the political. To this end, I argue, Schmitt appropriates Blumenberg's concept of “reoccupation” and uses it alternately in the three distinct senses of “absorption,”“reappropriation,” and “revaluation.” Schmitt's famous thesis of political concepts as secularized theological concepts contains an unmistakable methodological element and a research program. The analysis therefore shows the relevance of the Blumenberg/Schmitt debate for the mostly tacit dialogue between Blumenberg and Koselleck. I scrutinize Koselleck's understanding of secularization from his early Schmittian and Löwithian theory of modernity to his later essays on temporalization of history and concepts. Despite Blumenberg's criticism, Koselleck holds onto the category of secularization throughout, but gradually relativizes it into a research hypothesis among others. Simultaneously, Koselleck formalizes, alongside other elements, the Schmittian account of reoccupation into his method of conceptual analysis and uses the term in the same three senses—thus making “reoccupation” conceptually compatible with “secularization,” despite the former notion's initial critical function in Blumenberg's theory. The examination highlights a Schmittian residue that accounts for Koselleck's reserved attitude toward Blumenberg's metaphorology, regardless of a significant methodological overlap.     

Gravestones and Monuments in the Maritime Cultural Landscape: Research Potential and Preliminary Interpretations

Thousands of memorials around the world commemorate maritime disasters and death. In addition to commemoration, memorials provide insight into the conceptual landscape of maritime peoples. Types of maritime memorials, locations where they can be found, and the limitations of memorials as archaeological artefacts are discussed. Data from 18th- and 19th-century English and American maritime memorials are used to make preliminary interpretations regarding Anglo-American maritime beliefs. Based on this I argue that memorials are a valuable source of data for maritime cultural landscape studies, particularly for what they reveal about maritime belief systems.
© 2006 The Author     

THE CONCEPT OF TRANSPARENCY,ITS HISTORY,AND THE THEORY OF BEGRIFFSGESCHICHTE

In this review essay, I examine the theoretical assumptions required in order to reconstruct an understanding of another historical period. Stefanos Geroulanos has produced a masterful history of mid‐twentieth‐century French thought, and he argues for a significant difference between that period and our own based on the values and ideas associated with the concept of transparency. The book is innovative in both its method and interpretation of the period of 1945–1984. However, despite the suggestive theoretical framework announced at its start, Geroulanos prefers to explore the theoretical content of conceptual history more than to explain how one might go about identifying, understanding, and translating the concepts of a different epoch. In order to contribute to what is already a successful project, I endeavor to extend some of Geroulanos's theoretical sketches through a comparison with Reinhart Koselleck's theory of Begriffsgechichte. Despite some muted criticism of Koselleck from Geroulanos, I argue that the projects share similar commitments, although Geroulanos needs to develop his theoretical premises at greater length, both for a full comparison and in order to complete the critical project that Transparency appears to be undertaking.     

EMOTIONAL TRANSLATIONS: CONCEPTUAL HISTORY BEYOND LANGUAGE

Conceptual history is a useful tool for writing the history of emotions. The investigation of how a community used emotion words at certain times and in certain places allows us to understand specific emotion knowledge without being trapped by universalism. But conceptual history is also an inadequate tool for writing the history of emotions. Its exclusive focus on language fails to capture the meanings that can be derived from emotional expressions in other media such as painting, music, architecture, film, or even food. Here emotion history can contribute to a rethinking of conceptual history, bringing the body and the senses back in. This article proposes a theoretical model to expand conceptual history beyond language by exploring three processes of emotional translation: First, how the translation between reality and its interpretation is mediated by the body and the senses. Second, how translations between different media and sign systems shape and change the meanings of concepts. Third, how concepts translate into practices that have an impact on reality. The applicability of the model is not limited to the research on concepts of emotion; the article argues that emotions have a crucial role in all processes of conceptual change. The article further suggests that historicizing concepts can best be achieved by reconstructing the relations that actors have created between elements within multimedial semantic nets. The approach will be exemplified by looking at the South Asian concept of the monsoon and the emotional translations between rain and experiences of love and romance.