Cattle Slaughter Industry in Qing China: State Ban,Muslim Dominance,and the Western Diet

Cattle slaughter and beef consumption are barely mentioned in the literature on Chinese economic, food, or animal history. This is possibly due to the widely held popular and scholarly assumption that beef was avoided and even considered taboo in the daily diet of Chinese people in premodern times. This article investigates the tangible regulation and practice of cattle slaughter in Qing China—the period when the beef taboo was argued to be formally subsumed into Chinese morality. I ask the following questions: To what extent did the Qing state ban cattle slaughter? How was the ban enforced in the localities? Did Chinese people slaughter cattle for consumption? Were there lawful beef markets in Qing China proper? How did increasing beef-eating Western sojourners since the mid-19th century impact this sector? Accordingly, I demonstrate that with the leeway provided by the state, the cattle slaughter industry developed in many regions of China proper, especially large cities. In this sector, Chinese Muslim merchants played a dominant role, even though the Han merchants could outnumber them. Their efforts have prepared the state and Chinese merchants to better cope with new circumstances since the mid-19th century. Broadly, this paper sheds light on how different religious, ethnic, and national groups affected the economy and the practice of law in the Qing dynasty.     

乡村振兴背景下农村基本公共服务与多维贫困的时空耦合特征研究

村级尺度上探索农村基本公共服务与区域贫困之间的关联特征以及二者耦合作用机理,是实现精准扶贫与乡村振兴战略有机结合的重要一环。本文分别建立农村基本公共服务和多维贫困综合发展监测模型,结合时空探索性分析和耦合协调分析方法,综合揭示两者的时空发展分布特征及其耦合关联关系。2015—2018年研究区内58个行政村的实证结果表明：①研究区内农村基本公共服务的发展呈中段高、南北段低的空间非均衡性分布,整体发展差异呈缩小趋势;②研究区内贫困村的多维贫困状况在空间分布上呈现出中北段地区贫困程度较轻、南段贫困程度较深的格局;③农村基本公共服务与多维贫困存在空间负相关性关联与明显耦合,且自实施乡村振兴战略以来,贫困村多转为同步型发展。研究结果可为现阶段乡村振兴战略的实施提供科学的决策依据和参考。     

Discourse on the Docks: Containerization and Inter-Union Work Disputes in US Ports, 1955–85

Research on labour markets has often focused on the economics of work location. Far less attention has been paid to how labour markets are constructed discursively. In this paper, I analyse how the creation of rival discourses concerning traditions of work were central elements in the efforts of two unions to structure local labour markets, in order to retain work for their members in the face of technological innovation. The struggle between the two unions centred on their abilities to construct rival discourses concerning the historical geography of work in the industry. These formed the basis for judicial interpretations concerning whether the actions of the dockers' union represented a legal work preservation action or an illegal work acquisition measure. Such interpretations shaped the subsequent evolution of work and labour markets in the industry. The ability of economic actors to shape discourse in their favour can be a powerful force in the regulation of local labour markets, and thus in the production of economic landscapes.     

Appeasing the Spirits Along the ‘Highway of Horror’: Civic Life in Wartime Republic of Vietnam

During the Easter Offensive hundreds of Republic of Vietnam soldiers and civilians were killed while fleeing Qu?ng Tr? city along Highway One, earning this stretch of the road the name ‘the Highway of Horrors’ [??i L? Kinh Hoàng]. This article examines this understudied event and the efforts of ordinary people, particularly the staff of the daily newspaper Sóng Th?n, to collect and bury the corpses left on the highway. In focusing on this humanitarian endeavour, it highlights the spiritual consequences of mass death, people’s agency in countering the violence of the Vietnam War, and the dynamism of South Vietnam’s civil society.     

Gabrielle Lévy and the Roussy-Lévy syndrome

In 1934, Gabrielle Lévy died at the age of 48. She became well known for an article she published on a hereditary polyneuropathy in cooperation with Gustav Roussy, resulting in the eponym Roussy-Lévy syndrome. Not much is known about this extraordinary neurologist/neuropathologist. Her family declared that she died from the disease she was studying. She was a pupil of Pierre Marie, with whom she worked at the Salpêtrière in Paris and wrote on war neurology. In cooperation with Marie, she published a number of articles on postencephalitic syndromes, which also became the subject of her 1922 thesis. Three years later, she became associate physician at the Paul-Brousse Hospital in Paris, where the study of brain tumors became one of the subjects of her scientific work. Remarkably, Lévy was first author in a few of her many articles, although Roussy confirmed that she often initiated the study and even wrote the main part. In this article her career is considered in the context of the struggle of women physicians to improve their position during the early-twentieth century. She probably died from a brain tumor or a postencephalitic syndrome.     

A place to transform: creating caring spaces by challenging normativity and identity

Like all spaces, concrete caring places both shape and are shaped by understandings and constructions of normativity and identity. The traditional understanding of care for older people, imagining clearly demarcated dyadic roles, is firmly embedded in heterosexual logics of relationships within families, the own (family) home and institutional support. Social and residential places for older people thus both assume particular gender and sexual identities and contribute to a (re)production of the very normativity. But how can this interlinkage between the construction of caring spaces and the normativity of identities be understood and, possibly, challenged? In this article we discuss the transformative potential of the social (and partly residential) space of La Fundación 26 de Diciembre, in Madrid, Spain, which opened up to specifically support older LGBT people. Drawing on an in-depth case study we explore a space that allows visibility of different forms of living and caring practices of people with different genders, sexual preferences, origins, classes or political backgrounds. Through the daily life narratives of the people who work, volunteer or simply use the centre we discuss the potential of challenging the restricted notions, assumptions and constructions through which particular places gain both social and political meaning. The article highlights the transformative power of the active and collective making of caring spaces through which narratives of care, collective sexual and gender recognition and practices of caring relationships can replace both traditional/informal forms of living together and institutional spaces that provide professional care.     

How do western democracies cope with the challenge of societal diversity?

In the modern era, the grand forces of modernism, liberalism and nationalism have opposed and minimized societal diversity in Western states. The Civil Rights Movement in the USA and the flow of millions of unassimilable immigrants, mostly Muslims, to Europe opened Western societies to cultural diversity. But liberal multiculturalism in the West consists mainly of endorsement of subcultures, non‐discrimination and inclusion. It falls short of instituting consociational components like cultural autonomy and power‐sharing. Fear and unease in the West increasingly give priority to majority over minority rights. While all Western democracies object to societal diversity, they differ in the way they handle it: liberal democracies deny it, consociational democracies institutionalize it and ethnic democracies partially allow and partially subordinate it. These three different strategies are evident in the way representative cases of Western democracies, namely the USA, Switzerland and Estonia, respectively, cope with societal diversity.     

A Persistent Place for Hunter-Gatherers During the Late Holocene: The Case of Burials in Pit on the Coast of Lángara Bay,Argentine Patagonia

In Argentine Patagonia, the type of archaeological burial “in pit” has been only identified on the coast of Lángara Bay. This modality is characterized by the presence of single and multiple primary burials. Studies on five human burials in pits are presented in this article. The aim is to compare the contexts of burials in pit at the site level and the spatial characteristics of their distribution in the Lángara Bay locality from a diachronic perspective. The approach focuses on mortuary practices and social relations of hunter-gatherer groups during the Late Holocene. A characterization of the burials, their chronologies, bioarchaeological determinations, stable isotope studies, and their spatial distribution are included. The results allow us to chronologically place the contexts between ca. 3000 and 2000 cal BP. A spatial pattern in the distribution of burials in the coastal landscape was identified. Finally, it is proposed that this part of the Patagonian coast was a persistent place of burials in pit.     

建国初期闵行镇归属问题研究

明代中后期,闵行镇凭借其便利的交通条件与繁荣的棉花种植业,成为上海县重要的商业市镇。近代以来,随着上海城市的发展,闵行镇与上海城区间经济联系不断密切,政治地位也日趋重要。新中国成立初期,优先发展重工业的国家政策与华东沿海地区的战略地位,使得民国时期奠定重工业基础的闵行镇备受各方重视。在国家政策、经济体制、地方利益等因素的综合作用下,闵行镇最终由江苏省上海县划归上海市。     

北大藏秦水陆里程简“阳”县考辨

北京大学入藏的秦代水陆里程简册中记载秦代有"阳"县存在,关于这一新出现的秦县,前辈学者认为可能是位于今河南省方城县的秦汉"阳城"。然而,从简册中记载的"阳"县下属各乡到其他地区的距离来看,"阳县"不太可能在今方城附近,而更有可能是位于先秦"唐"国故地的"唐"县。其他出土材料所见的"唐"县一般写作"阳",清华简《系年》中还有楚国曾灭"唐(阳)"置县的明确记载。秦代的阳县应该就是继承了楚灭唐国之后所设的阳县。