Views and Commentaries: Composed Versus Simple Pasts: About Archaeologists and Their Partners

Partnership is an equitable exchange of knowledge. In fact, the very nature and indisputability of imported and taught knowledge—the scientific one and here archaeological—question the nature of the traditional and ordinary knowledge of peoples concerned. These two kinds of knowledge differ in the nature of the facts recognized by each of them: scientific facts or tacit common knowledge facts built differently, and in the number and strength of the external allies they succeed in mobilizing. Even if they remain translatable one into the other at a certain cost, they are engaged in a race. The result seems lethal for traditional knowledge unless powerful nonscientific allies, opposed to this leveling standardization, get involved with researchers aware of the stake for the South but also for the North, committed for some centuries to a rationalization supported by science, its technics, and the socioeconomic powers able to fund them.Le partenariat est un échange équitable de savoirs. En réalité, la nature et l'indiscutabilité du savoir importé et inculqué—le savoir scientifique et ici archéologique—met en cause la nature du savoir ordinaire et traditionnel des peuples concernés. Ces deux formes de savoirs diffèrent par la nature des faits reconnus par chacun d'eux: faits scientifiques ou faits du savoir observationnel ordinaire, construits différemment, et par le nombre et la force des alliés extérieurs qu'ils réussissent à se donner. S'ils sont traduisibles l'un dans l'autre à un certaincoût, une course est néanmoins engagée entre eux. L'issue en semble fatale aux savoirs traditionnels à moins que des alliés puissants non-scientifiques, opposés à ce nivellement uniformisateur, s'engagent à leurs côtés avec l'appui des chercheurs conscients d'un enjeu qui concerne certes le Sud, mais aussi le Nord engagé depuis quelques siècles dans une rationalisation appuyée sur la science, ses techniques et les puissances socio-économiques capables de les financer.     

Teaching and learning in the tropics: an epistemic exploration of “the field” in a development studies field trip

Development studies employs theories, tools and methods often found in geography, including the international field trip to a “developing” country. In 2013 and 2014, I led a two-week trip to Ethiopia. To better comprehend the effects of “the field” on students’ learning, I introduced an assessed reflexive field diary to understand what the field trip experience teaches students about themselves and their relationship to the field. In this paper, I present critical reflections on “the field” that speak to a provocative concept – “the tropics”. These reflections illuminate prevailing challenges in the study and practice of development and suggest a way forward.     

Public game funding in the Nordic region

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore the policies related to support structures surrounding national game industries, with focus on the three Nordic countries Finland, Norway and Sweden, and investigate what kind of context the Nordic welfare state model has provided for game development. The three cases illustrate how Nordic welfare state measures have interacted with the games industry over time. While the political ideals have been fairly similar, our study demonstrates how the objectives and practical means of state engagement have differed significantly. We argue that although the three countries all have support schemes of which game companies can take advantage, there are significant differences in the degree to which each individual country has organized government interventions and support. While the Finnish state has treated game development as an endeavour in business development, the regional Nordic game program and the Norwegian state has developed a cultural policy that primarily aims to protect the cultural heritage. The Swedish state has not established a tailormade policy directed towards game development but has a broad spectrum of general policies for supporting research and business development. We suggest that future research should investigate how the public funding is structured and how discourses are formulated around appeals for more public funding for the games industry.     

Local government reforms in Georgia and their impact on state-society relations

Abstract

This paper studies how the local governance reforms carried out between 1997–2014 shape state-society relations at Georgia’s local level. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of governmentality, I analyze how the reforms shape practices and actors at the local level. Research interviews with state officials at the national and subnational levels and citizens of the Georgian district Marneuli highlight both government rationalities and how people react to them. I argue that the reforms, which have been declared to promote participation and accountability, hardly contribute to bridging the huge gap between state and society, particularly with respect to the case of the Azeri minority in Marneuli. Thus far, the newly introduced formal actors at the local level, the municipalities, lack power. Societal action in absence of the state and interaction with the state via informal networks remains dominant. The study contributes to literature on state-building and transformation in Georgia by shedding light on the often-neglected local level and to the debate on external democracy promotion and policy transfer by empirically studying the effect of a policy transfer.     

西汉前期的蜀商在中外文化交流史上的贡献

西汉前期的巴蜀商人活动能量十分惊人。他们把蜀地的商品远销至中亚、印度、东南亚、东北亚等地。他们充当了南方走私贸易的主角。岭南和西南地区成为走私行为蔓延和滋生的温床。南印度迈索尔出土的公元前138年的古汉钱,似应与蜀地的走私商人有关,正与《史记》所记载的蜀身毒道相印证。汉武帝消灭南越国,平定西南夷,蜀商走私活动赖以生存的环境和土壤荡然无存。在中国历史舞台上纵横捭阖数百年的巴蜀商人集团从此黯然失色。他们在中外文化交流中所发挥的作用也从此微不足道了。     

中印建交与新中国外交抉择

新中国成立后,印度是第一个同中国进行建交谈判的国家,也是资本主义国家中第一个同我国建交的国家。同印度建交是新中国外交的一次重要实践,它不仅确立了中国同其他国家先谈判后建交的外交原则,还赋予了"一边倒"更丰富的内涵,开创了中国周边外交的新局面。     

Can Voluntary Environmental Regulation Work in Developing Countries? Lessons from Case Studies

Hamstrung by weak institutions that undermine conventional environmental regulatory tools, policymakers in developing countries are increasingly turning to voluntary approaches. To date, however, there have appeared few evaluations of these policy experiments. To help fill this gap, we summarize arguments for and against the use of voluntary regulation in developing countries, review the nascent literature on the topic, and present case studies of agreements negotiated between regulators and leather tanners in an industrial city in Mexico, a national environmental audit program in Mexico, and a national public disclosure program in India. Admittedly few in number, these three case studies nevertheless suggest that although voluntary environmental regulation in developing countries is a risky endeavor, it is by no means doomed to failure. The risks can be minimized by emphasizing the dissemination of information about pollution and pollution abatement options and by avoiding voluntary approaches in certain situations—those where regulatory and nonregulatory pressures for improved environmental performance are weak and where polluters can block quantified targets, individual sanctions for noncompliance, and other widely accepted prerequisites of effective voluntary initiatives.     

中国上古时期国家道路的几个特点

史前国家、准集权制国家、统一集权制国家是中国上古国家道路的三大阶段。截然有别的三个发展阶段背后的历史现象、社会制度、权力方式等方面有着深刻的联系。历史过程中的偶然因素与社会结构中的稳定内核使上古历史沿着一定的轨迹运行。东亚相对封闭的地理空间、中国东部沿海与内地文明的不平衡性、以及新石器时期的海侵等主要因素既促成以宗法血缘为基础的大一统国家观的早熟,又造成实现国家集权费时长久,并与浩繁的战争形成对照。     

20世纪中日俄(苏)三国关系史分期问题试论

历史研究需要进行科学分期,由于所研究的对象不同,因而分期的标准也不尽相同。20世纪中日俄(苏)三国关系史可分为7个时期。1900-1917年为两强凌-弱时期;1917-1931年为三国关系初次变化时期;1931-1945年为战争笼罩三国时期;1945-1949年为三国关系特殊时期;1949-1960年为三国关系再次变化时期;1960-1972年为敌友关系相互转变时期;1972-1991年为三国关系终趋正常时期。     

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。