Material Things

In “Positive Bleeding,” I argue that allusions to blood in contemporary South African art and literature fruitfully link myriad stigmatized experiences and embodiments of self usually considered taboo, including HIV/AIDS, female sexuality, menstruation, and sexual violence. Through Mlu Zondi’s and Ntando Cele’s dance performance piece Silhouette (2005), Zanele Muholi’s mischievous and haunting photographic Period series (2006), and Makhosozana Xaba’s revisionist short story “Inside” (2008), blood is defiantly transformed from a remnant of personal and historic trauma into that which incites female–female pleasure and eroticism. I contend that the politics of visibility operate uncomfortably within all four texts; blood serves as both a reminder of and departure from sensationalized images of violence against lesbians.     

Ten Years of the New South Africa

Ambassador Masekela and Ambassador Hume introduce Issue 13/14, a special double issue on the tenth anniversary of South Africa's 1994 democratic elections.     

Friends Have All Things in Common: Utopian Property Relations

Utopian theory has long challenged the conventions of private property. Drawing on two case studies, this article explores utopian practices that challenge dominant property narratives. These practices range from the mundane to the profound and occur inside the domestic, economic, interpersonal and ideological structures of the cases in question. These cases are Riverside and Centrepoint Communities: two intentional communities, comprised of people who have chosen to live and work together for a common purpose, are critical of current socioeconomic (and ideological, spiritual and interpersonal) norms and who intend to create a better life for their members.     

近十年来国内东南亚殖民主义史研究述评

自上个世纪90年代以来,我国的东南亚殖民主义史研究取得了新进展,推出了几部很有影响的著作,获得了对复杂历史问题的深层认识,标志着我国东南亚殖民主义史研究进入了全面总结与成熟阶段.认真研究殖民主义兴衰,有助于把握东南亚历史发展进程,也有助于对当前东南亚问题的思考.     

Things that matter: nostalgic objects in Palestinian Arab homes in Israel

This article addresses the complex identity of Israel's Palestinian Arab citizens from an atypical perspective: through manifestations of their material culture. The cultural expressions that will be examined are objects from the past and objects that relate to the past, particularly to the rustic Palestinian life profoundly destabilized by the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. These objects, displayed in the homes of some of Israel's Arab citizens, are interpreted by contemplating their design, the design of their environment, their relationship to other objects, and their placement within the domestic sphere. Our study is animated by the desire to sketch a cultural portrait of Palestinian Arab Israelis, as well as by a methodological interest in interpretations based on a socio-architectural reading of objects.

This article reveals the various layers of meaning within these nostalgic displays in all their diversity, and will discuss at length their uniqueness, which is linked to the past traumas and present difficulties of Israel's Arabs. Our main purpose is to develop a line of thought whereby objects that express nostalgia are understood as the embodiment of a consciousness that is characteristic of the present.     

The Decline and Fall of Democracy in Venezuela: Ten Theses

This paper presents an argument about the causes of the decline and fall of the 1958–1999 system of democratic politics, commonly known in Spanish as puntofijista , in Venezuela. Competing explanations of this process are evaluated, and an interim assessment of President Hugo Chávez and his political project is offered.     

十年后的展望——关于上海合作组织未来定位与空间的思考

十年之前,上海合作组织的横空出世,成为欧亚大陆历史发展进程中的一件令全球关注的大事.十年来,上海合作组织经历了国际国内环境的巨大变化,推动了区域跨国交往的扩展和深化,揭开了欧亚地区跨国政治经济与安全合作的历史性篇章.历史地看,这一组织是在本世纪初欧亚地区面临新的发展和安全挑战的环境之中形成的,是在不同发展水平、不同宗教文明、不同国力大小和不同国内体制的复杂背景之下建立起来的一个区域性国际组织.上海合作组织的这一成长路径一方面表明了这一组织乃是史无前例的一个历史性创举,而另一方面,也充分说明了这一组织的发展道路决不会一帆风顺.     

俄罗斯人如何看待自己的十年改革

在俄罗斯改革10年之际,俄罗斯科学院社会综合研究所会同德国艾伯特基金会就改革的种种问题,做了一次题为“俄罗斯:10年改革”的全俄社会抽样调查,内容涉及俄国人对改革成败得失的评价、改革后俄罗斯社会环境、生活准则、社会精神心理气氛、人们的生活战略、俄罗斯社会结构和居民社会地位的变化等方面。调查对象总共1750人,年龄18岁以上,包括11类人:企业、矿井和建筑行业的工人;工程技术知识分子;人文科学类知识分子(学者、高等院校教师、中小学教师);商业、日常服务、运输、通讯领域的工作人员;职员;中小企业家;军人和内务部人员;村镇和农村居民;城市退休金领取者;高等院校学生;失业者。调查后所形成的研究成果共分为13个部分,其中有关2001年以前的材料,是借鉴俄罗斯社会和独立问题研究所在1992—2000年间所做的研究成果。下面是其中的一部分,摘译如下:     

Trust in Democratic Institutions in Germany: Theory and Evidence Ten Years After Unification

The German welfare state is in crisis. Alarming long-term demographic trends, the still not fully digested consequences of German unification and the current economic downturn in much of the Eurozone have combined to create an urgent need for welfare reform. Yet the constitutional arrangements which govern the German political system, and well-entrenched political practice, mean that any such reform process is a daunting challenge. Thus, the welfare crisis is also a crisis of German-style co-operative federalism. Current empirical evidence makes for uncomfortable reading, and triggers debate on the nature of the German federation: have the two constitutional principles of federalism and establishing equal living conditions throughout the federation become mutually exclusive? However, as much of the welfare state is centred on the best utilisation of scarce financial resources, it is debatable to what extent alterations in the functional distribution of welfare responsibilities among the territorial levels of government can be regarded as a solution for the current problems. The article concludes that in the search for long-term sustainability of the welfare state the territorial dimension is likely to remain a secondary issue.     

普京全球反恐主张十论

近年来 ,俄联邦总统普京在一系列文章和讲话中 ,就反对恐怖主义问题提出了许多发人深省的理论观点。认真解读其基本主张 ,对于当前以及今后一个时期在全球范围内有效地打击国际恐怖主义势力 ,具有重大理论意义及实践意义。     

从统一战线到共赢:中国侨务政策的新发展及其思考

在过去十多年里,中国的侨务政策表现得更加积极,并且展现了一系列新变化和新特点。如国外侨务成为侨务工作的重点、侨务工作涉及的对象更加广泛、侨务"引资引智"得到飞速发展、侨务与外交的结合得到前所未有的重视。从整体而言,中国的侨务政策实现了从统一战线到共赢的过渡,即"为国家大局服务"与"为侨服务"的统一,在借重华侨华人力量的同时强调"涵养侨务资源"。中国对侨务工作的重视在世界范围并非孤例,有必要抛弃冷战思维,从全球化的视野客观审视中国侨务政策的新变化。此外,侨务政策的敏感性依旧,实行有差别的侨务政策也许是中国的应对之策。     

The Sovereignty of Things: Nationalism and Its Materials in Mexican Photography (1920s–1940s)

The ubiquity of the artefact in Mexican photography needs to be understood as the locus of key originary concepts and as a point of purchase for metaphotographic reflexivity and not merely as an emblematic prop or decorative marginalia. The article discusses the way in which strategies of focus, composition and visualisation, along with the selection or ‘find’ of particular objects and materials, made palpable the abstractions of self‐hood and cultural singularity through the disclosure of form, light and texture. It considers how the practice of the close‐up itself became a cultural trope and how, paradoxically, the pursuit of sovereign objects and autochthonous production in modernist photography elicited a response that infringed visibility in favour of proximity.