衣及权力:明代中国的礼仪、服装与国家权威

As soon as Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, assumed the throne, he and his Confucian assistants imposed a system of clothing regulation on the court and society in order to create a hierarchical power structure. As an important aspect of Chinese civilization, the clothing system functioned to form a social hierarchy, to regulate people’s activities, to harmonize the relations among the people, and finally to make a stable society under the close control of the state. The state control in the Ming remained effective until the reigns of Hongzhi (1488–1506) and Zhengde (1506–1521), when commercialization released people’s consumption desires and economic dynamics and caused deregulation of the Ming clothing system, which eventually undermined the state authority.     

Monkey business: human–animal conflicts in urban Singapore

Ongoing human–long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) conflicts in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Singapore, have seen native macaques significantly affected, as residential development encroaches into animals' habitat, destroying important wildlife corridors. The search for a more humane treatment of these transgressive animals can be seen as an attempt to extend and include non-human animals within humanistic notions of ethics and care, in the process destabilizing the assumed divide between human/animal. Yet, a feasible solution is difficult to reach as National Parks Board (NParks), the state agency overseeing the conservation of reserves and wildlife, has to negotiate constantly between their goal of maintaining biodiversity and appeasing the complaining residents. The paper seek to understand urban–wilderness conflicts between human–macaque, showing that the divide between tamed/wild is multi-sited, ambiguous and constantly shifting. In this regard, we are especially interested in the role of intermediaries in initiating actions to ‘make discursive as well as material space’ for macaques in the reserve. Intermediaries, here referring to NParks and animal activists, are actors who do not reside near the reserve thus having no frequent encounters with wildlife, yet are enrolled as mitigators during instances of human–animal conflicts.     

Trace fossils on penguin bones from the Miocene of Chubut,southern Argentina

Several traces of biological interaction were found on penguin bones from the basal levels (Aquitanian) of the Miocene Gaiman Formation in the lower Chubut valley of the Provincia del Chubut, Argentina. The fossil-bearing beds were deposited in littoral to sublittoral environments within sediments of mostly pyroclastic origin. We interpret many traces to have been produced by predators and/or scavengers while the penguins were still in a breeding area. Many bones show cracking marks due to aerial exposure. The material is disarticulated as is usual in recent breeding areas. Potential predators were coeval terrestrial mammals, most probably marsupial carnivores. After a marine transgression, these bones were buried or exposed on the sea bottom where they could be colonized by algae, sponges, cnidarians, and other benthic organisms. We identified sponge borings in several bones. Other traces are interpreted to have been produced by echinoderms feeding on sponges or algae. No evidence of other invertebrate predators such as muricid or naticid gastropods, or decapods was found. Finally, other traces appear to have been generated by shark and possibly teleostean vertebrates feeding on epibionts. One coracoid is interpreted to have been marked by a shark that is common in the Gaiman Formation, the carcharhiniform Galeocerdo aduncus. From an ethological (Seilacherian) classification, traces on bones from the Gaiman Formation include Domichnia (sponge perforations), Praedichnia (terrestrial marsupials, sharks, teleosteans) and Pasichnia (echinoderms). Remarkably, remains of marine organisms with skeletons made of calcium carbonate are very poorly preserved in the Gaiman Formation. Only large oysters, sparse shell fragments, skeletal moulds, and bioturbation is evident. The fossil assemblage is mainly composed of phosphatic (e.g. teeth, bones, crustacean parts) and siliceous (sponge spicules, diatoms) remains.     

‘We or them,’ ‘you and I,’ and ‘I’: spaces of intimacy and (not so) public displays of affection in Hanoi

Through an exploratory study of romantic heterosexual couples in a public park situated in Hanoi’s outskirts, this article offers a conceptual rethinking of a western understanding of the park’s public/private dichotomy which can then be used to better appreciate how these categories are evolving in western urbanizing societies and their impacts on gender relations. By developing a relational, spatialized understanding of how young romantic couples justify their ‘transgressive’ displays of sexual intimacy in public spaces in contemporary urban Vietnam, this article focuses on how couples, especially women, manage their visibility. This analysis confronts the public civilizational discourse on Vietnamese sexual restraint by analyzing how young couples justify their romantic displays by creating an intimate space within a public environment. This space of visible intimacy is justified through their commitment to marriage. For the individuals involved in these romantic couples, visibility is justified, particularly for young women, through the enjoyment of a newly gained sexual autonomy as they migrate to the city.     

(Re)cognizing Postmodernity: Helps for Historians – of Science Especially

(An)erkennung der Postmodernität: Hilfen für Historiker – und Historiker der Wissenschaften im Besonderen. Ausgehend von einer Unterscheidung zwischen der Postmodernit?t als einer von der Modernit?t durch eine breite Umkehr ihrer kulturellen Grundannahmen abgegrenzten historischen Ära und dem Postmodernismus – einer von den selbsternannten Postmodernisten in der frühen Postmodernität angenommenen intellektuellen Attitüde – thematisiert der Aufsatz zwei grundsätzliche Charakteristika der Postmodernität: Erstens die Umkehrung der kulturellen Rangfolge von Wissenschaft und Technik, worin Postmodernität und Postmodernismus übereinstimmen. Zweitens die Ablösung des Ideals eines methodisch vorgehenden, uneigennützigen Wissenschaftlers, nicht durch ein fragmentiertes Subjekt, wie der Postmodernismus behauptet, sondern durch den einseitig interessierten Unternehmer, welcher unter Missachtung aller Regeln hartnäckig seine Eigeninteressen verfolgt. Diese Umkehr in Bedeutung und Rolle von Wissenschaft und Technologie, die um 1980 begann, ist ein Kennzeichen des Übergangs von der Modernit?t zur Postmodernität. Diese Umkehr ist primär zu erkennen als eine Ablehnung des Regelhaften, des methodischen Vorgehens – mit dem “Methodismus” als einer die Modernität auszeichnenden kulturellen Perspektive – aber auch als eine Ablehnung der Uneigennützigkeit, einer in der Modernität besonders wert geschätzten Geisteshaltung. Postmodernität konstituiert sich somit als diese Umwertung der Werte, die ihre Quelle im ich‐fixierten, transgressiven und “risiko”‐freudigen postmodernen Individuum und seinen anti‐sozialen Annahmen in Bezug auf Persönlichkeit hat. In der Wissenschaftsgeschichte selbst findet sich daher seit circa 1980 ein entsprechender Wandel der wissenschaftlichen Aufmerksamkeit weg von der Wissenschaft und hin zur Technologie. Damit einhergeht eine erstaunliche Vermeidung sozialhistorischer Perspektivierung, wie sie sich nicht zuletzt in der Abkehr von kausalistischen “Einfluss”‐Erklärungen zugunsten voluntaristischer “Ressourcen”‐Erklärungen spiegelt. (Re)cognizing Postmodernity: Helps for Historians – of Science Especially. stmodernity, a historical era demarcated from modernity by a broad reversal in cultural presuppositions, is distinguished from postmodernism, an intellectual posture adopted by self‐identified postmodernists early in postmodernity. Two principal features of postmodernity are addressed: first, the downgrading of science and the upgrading of technology in cultural rank – on which postmodernity and postmodernism are in accord; second, the displacement of the methodical, disinterested scientist, modernity's beau ideal, not by a fragmented subject as postmodernism claims, but by the single‐minded entrepreneur, resourcefully pursuing his self‐interest in disregard of all rules. The reversal in rank and role as between science and technology, setting in circa 1980, is a marker of the transition from modernity to postmodernity. That reversal is to be cognized primarily as rejection of rule‐following, of proceeding methodically – ‘methodism’ being the cultural perspective that uniquely distinguished modernity – but also as rejection of disinterestedness, the quality of mind especially highly esteemed in modernity. Postmodernity is constituted by this transvaluation of values, whose well‐spring is the egocentric, transgressive (hence ‘risk taking’), postmodern personality and its anti‐social presumptions regarding personhood. Within the history of science itself there has been since circa 1980 a corresponding turn of scholarly attention away from science to technology, and a growing distaste for social perspectives, reflected, i. a., in the rejection of causalist ‘influence’ explanations in favor of voluntarist ‘resource’ explanations.     

Running road races as transgressive event mobilities

Running is a unique form of mobility because while it involves traveling over distance, it is not usually done as a means of transportation. Although running can and does take place almost anywhere, bringing together hundreds or thousands of runners at a time via an event known as a road race enables a different, transgressive occupation of space that no one runner could accomplish on his or her own. In this paper, based on participant observation, I argue that the transgressive but sanctioned nature of the mobilities that road races allow, by temporarily taking over a space devoted to motorized vehicles and turning it into a space for pedestrians, defines these events as unique moments that are only possible through the collective nature of this usually solitary form of mobility and that allow for the pleasure of being transgressive without the risks that transgression normally entails. The paper further argues for considering ‘event mobilities’ as more than traveling in order to participate in an event, because some kinds of mobility are only possible in the context of an event.     

Historical coastline adjustment at MacVanes Pond Inlet, Eastern Prince Edward Island

Sea levels are rising throughout the Atlantic Provinces at present and this is expected to continue throughout this century, forcing general coastline retreat and adjustment. In this study, a part of the coastline of eastern Prince Edward Island is examined for changes during historical time (1784–1994) using maps and aerial photography. MacVanes Pond is located between Basin Head Harbour and South Lake, all three of which were once lagoons connected to the same tidal circulation system. Sand barrier retreat has closed the connection to Basin Head Harbour and it is now a separate body of water. Meanwhile, the location of a tidal inlet at MacVanes Pond has been strongly influenced by longshore drift and the inlet has closed, re‐opened to the northeast, and subsequently shifted to the southwest. Human activities in the area have previously been, and will continue to be, affected by sea level rise and transgression. Actuellement, le niveau de la mer s'élève dans la région des provinces de l'Atlantique et l'on prévoit que cette tendance se maintiendra tout au long du présent siècle, ce qui aura pour effet général de faire reculer le littoral et de le modifier. La présente étude examine une partie du littoral est de l'Île‐du‐Prince‐Édouard pour y déceler des changements qui se sont produits dans le temps (1784–1994) à partir de cartes et de photographies aériennes. L'étang MacVanes est situé entre le bassin Head‐Harbour et le lac South, trois plans d'eau qui étaient autrefois des lagunes reliées au même système de marée. Or, une barre de sable a fermé le lion avec le bassin Head‐Harbour, qui est maintenant une masse d'eau distincte. Entre‐temps, l'emplacement d'un goulet de marée à l'étang MacVanes a été grandement influencé par la dérive littorale, au point de se fermer pour se frayer une nouvelle ouverture au nord‐est et par la suite au sud‐ouest. Les activités humaines de cette région ont été affectées, et continueront de l'être, par l'élévation du niveau de la mer et sa transgression.     

Feeling sexual transgression: subjectivity,bodily experience,and non-normative hetero-erotic practices in women's cross-border sex in Costa Rica

Participating in sexual tourism and cross-border sex, heterosexual Euro-North American women are a targeted social group whereby accusations, such as ‘fucking gringa’, label them as sexual transgressors for violating multiple boundaries of heteronormativity. The complex power dynamics of women's cross-border sex are due to negotiations of race, gender, and class that are played out in specific locales and political economies of desire. Within these dynamics, women are agentive social actors and exert considerable sexual agency in their desires for local men who are positioned unevenly vis-à-vis tourist women's mobilities within erotic markets. Yet women's hetero-erotic sexual practices, which are experienced at the level of the body, cannot be assumed; looking at the lived experiences of women as sexual trangressors in these spaces promises to complicate non-normative heterosexuality and the gendered dynamics of (straight) transnational sex. Using critical ethnography and a performance approach to writing that places subjectivity at the center of the ethnographic record and analysis, this article conveys an ‘insider’ or emic account of women's transnational sex taking place in a Caribbean region of Costa Rica renown for women's sexual and romance tourism. In taking this approach, I aim to show how heterosexuality, hetero-erotic practices, and cross-border sex are not always what they seem and a glimpse into ‘the subjects’ worlds in their words' (Madison, Soyini. 2005. Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance. London: Sage, 174) has implications for theory concerned with the body and performance as fundamental to the social production of sexual transgression.     

Space,power and sexuality: transgressive and transformative possibilities at the interstices of spatial boundaries

The themed section consists of articles that explore the relationship between power and space in relation to gender and sexuality by looking at processes of transgression, subversion or expansion of normative spatial practices and narratives. Using a theoretical framework that draws out power and space within a more specific context of feminist and queer literature, the articles explore the possibility to transgress, subvert or expand norms at the interstices of spatial boundaries beyond traditional binaries and hierarchies. Collectively, the articles call for a continued theoretical and methodological focus into the importance of looking at everyday sites of struggles and resistance in the crevasses, the liminal zones of space. The transgression of spatialized norms of sexuality and gender present a transformative potential that should be recognized for its political significance but, we argue, with caution as heteronormative and heteropatriarchal norms too often remain de rigueur in a neoliberal context.     

江南地区夏商文化断层及原因考

江南地区夏商化断层是一个长期的化断层过程,良渚化大量海侵遗迹的存在可证明其原因为海侵所致。