Care,pay, love: commodification and the spaces of live-in care

This paper investigates uses of the concept of commodification in contemporary analyses of waged care. Drawing on theoretical work on commodification and discourse-analytical research on private live-in care in Switzerland, I explore how Swiss live-in care questions central discussions in the literature. Scholars have focused on the ways in which care is embroiled within market relations and the adverse effects of commodification on the character and quality of care. The paper outlines the two central discussions, identifies important limitations and explores the ways in which Swiss live-care contests their underlying assumptions. Swiss live-in care exhibits intricate processes of waging elder care. Live-in care services are offered and arranged on agency websites while taking place at elderly persons’ private households. Elder care thus becomes entangled in market relations both in virtual spaces and at home. Furthermore, live-in care workers do not distance themselves from their work but actively seek to improve their conditions of work. In so doing, they complicate the assumption that paying for care corrupts caregiving or turns it into a product for sale. Based on this evidence from Swiss live-in care, I propose that a careful use of commodification might best serve feminist interventions.     

‘Hanging out in Runescape’: Identity,Work and Leisure in the Virtual Playground

This article explores young people's practices in the virtual spaces of online gaming communities. Based on a three-year field-study of virtual worlds, it considers how young people construct and maintain identities within virtual social systems. The article discusses the relationship between the material and virtual aspects of young people's leisure. It suggests that the boundaries between these domains are porous. Virtual worlds offer spaces for the imagination and can enhance agency and, potentially, resistance. However, virtuality is no ‘liberated space’ and it incorporates norms and practices that often mirror those of the material world.     

‘Life in Happy Land’: using virtual space and doing motherhood in Hong Kong

This paper examines how a group of Hong Kong working mothers use the internet in performing and realizing their paid work and domestic role identities. The internet is a technology-enabled space and also what Michel de Certeau calls a ‘practiced place’, where its nature and functions are necessarily determined by the actions and practices of agents. Through participant observation and the analysis of a sample of chatroom and forum messages from a user-driven Hong Kong-based parenting website called Happy Land, I examine the relationship between this virtual space and its users. I find that the website has developed beyond its technology-mediated nature into a community of face-to-face friendships and social and emotional support. In effect, this virtual space plays a role in the social reproduction of the contemporary dual-earner family by enabling working mothers who use the website to perform roles in production and reproduction respectively.     

The digital restoration of painted patterns on the No. 2 Qin bronze chariot based on hyperspectral imaging

The No. 2 Qin bronze chariot unearthed from Qinshihuang's Mausoleum is world famous for its huge size and colourful painted patterns. However, since it had been buried for a long time and was affected by its harsh environment, its painted patterns have been severely damaged. The traditional restoration methods, which mainly rely on expert experience, are manual, inefficient and lack scientific support. Moreover, to protect the important cultural relics, any invasive operations, such as sampling analysis, are strictly prohibited. This paper presents a method that combines hyperspectral imaging and computer technology for the digital virtual restoration of the bronze chariot's patterns. It is non-destructive, more efficient and more scientific. The method reproduces the damaged patterns with the following approaches: restoring the missing edges of the patterns; and distinguishing the different pigments. The obtained result implies that the method can digitally reproduce some of the damaged patterns, and that it can be used as a reference for recreating the patterns of the other painted bronze.     

We Finished the Plan,So Now What? Impacts of Collaborative Stakeholder Participation on Land Use Policy

There is a growing movement toward collaborative stakeholder participation in environmental policy. Rather than calling for a reliance on government officials to solve environmental problems, this approach calls for empowering a community of stakeholders to contribute meaningfully. Scholars examining citizen participation have investigated the performance of such efforts. This study examines one important aspect of performance, the impact of stakeholder participation on policymaking at the local level. A multiple‐case analysis of county‐level, community‐based task forces working on farmland preservation planning in Ohio, U.S., reveals patterns of policymaking processes and the near‐term impacts of collaborative planning. These patterns are linked to scholarship using prior empirical studies as well as the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, which integrates physical, social, and institutional variables to examine collective decision‐making related to natural resources. Results indicate that the degree of policy change is associated closely with local contextual factors, rather than internal group factors often emphasized in studies of citizen advisory committees and collaborative groups.     

Virtual anthropology and forensic arts: the facial reconstruction of Ferrante Gonzaga

In the last few years virtual anthropology has been used to solve different problems that could not be properly addressed using a traditional anthropological approach. Mainly when dealing with mummies or embalmed bodies, the virtual approach is the only solution to carry out a detailed analysis of the skeleton without jeopardizing the integrity of the physical remains.     

网络虚拟财产的法律保护

网络产业已经成为我国重要的经济增长点,但是,在我国网络上的虚拟财产并没有得到有效的保护,究其原因在于现行法律没有对虚拟财产的合法性作出明确规定,相关法律法规对网络虚拟财产的保护还是一片空白。因此,本文在对虚拟财产进行法律界定的基础上,对虚拟财产的法律保护进行了初步探讨。     

The Anthropology of Virtual Worlds: World of Warcraft

Three recent ethnographies of the well-known massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft demonstrate the health and vitality of the study of virtual worlds. In particular, they emphasize the importance of anthropologists reading ethnographic work done by researchers in other disciplines, and by connoisseurs and cultural practitioners of video games who deserve to be taken as intellectual interlocutors. It may be, however, that less and less work will be done on virtual worlds in the future as scholarly attention focuses on other, more novel forms of technology.     

虚拟腹地：中国大陆口岸地位的度量与解释

口岸是对外开放的门户,支撑起了中国大陆全方位对外开放的格局。章引入虚拟腹地的概念,通过分析进出口商品流向,定量描述口岸对内影响能力,确定口岸的相对地位。并以虚拟腹地面积和通过口岸的进出口总量两个指标对39个口岸子群进行了类型划分。基于沿海、沿边口岸在整个开放体系中的重要性,章进一步分析了沿海、沿边各口岸群的相对地位和对内联系腹地的经济特征。     

Cultural diplomacy in Qatar: between ‘virtual enlargement’, national identity construction and elite legitimation

Abstract

This paper analyses how the government of Qatar has over the last years used practices of cultural diplomacy to enhance its standing abroad, and consolidate its legitimacy at home. Looking in particular at key initiatives of international collaboration of the Qatar Foundation and Qatar Museums, I argue that the Qatari government strategically uses cultural diplomacy to first produce and then disseminate an elite identity narrative of Qatar being a cohesive, future-oriented and rightfully engaged player in international affairs both inside and outside the state. To develop this argument, the analysis builds on observation during fieldwork in Doha between 2015 and 2016, and is enriched by a textual analysis of primary and secondary sources. As a timely contribution, the paper moreover shows that even in the light of considerable economic downturn, where budgets are cut and state-projects downsized, official narratives about Qatar’s global cultural ambitions have so far remained largely unchanged.