The identity crisis in Jordan: historical pathways and contemporary debates

This study aims to identify the attempts to form a Jordanian national identity from the establishment of the Jordanian state in 1921 to date. This study reviews the efforts of the Jordanian state, which was subject to internal, external, political, social, economic, and cultural circumstances, and variables that led to change the Jordanian national identity to incorporate religious, national, regional, ethnic, and tribal aspects. The regime has been unable to address and resolve the issue of national identity; instead, it has tried several means to circumvent the problem of national identity. The identity card is a means that the regime has used to achieve its goals. These policies led to the state’s failure to define, establish, and maintain a comprehensive national identity for its citizens. The formation of a national identity has been a dilemma for Jordan since the establishment of the state; there is almost no known national identity. This situation calls for the construction of the Jordanian national identity on a fixed and clear basis to prevent its disintegration, to facilitate the process of social integration, and to build a final national identity that is both inclusive and representative. Without this identity, division and conflict may prevail in Jordanian society.     

Extractive peasants: reframing informal artisanal and small-scale mining debates

This paper explores the ongoing reconfiguration of peasant labour processes from agriculture to informal mineral extraction, outlining the motivations of the rural poor in adopting mining and quarrying, and discusses how social sciences can best account for this significant shift towards extractive livelihoods. It argues that the ‘extractive peasants’ best explain the contemporary changes in rural, mineral-rich tracts throughout the Global South, and peasant mining practices are part of the informal economies. The extractive peasants return intellectual attention to practices that disrupt contemporary global mineral production and place the politics of the poor within broader debates on resource politics.     

Dominant discourses, debates and silences on child labour in Africa and Asia

Drawing on the relevant literature, this article explores key debates and controversies on child labour in the context of Africa and Asia. It first identifies and analyses three dominant discourses on child labour: 1) the work-free childhoods perspective; 2) the socio-cultural perspective; and 3) the political economy perspective. Against the backdrop of these discourses, the article goes on to critically examine aspects of child labour that are underrepresented in the literature and in international policy circles. It concludes by highlighting the importance of grounding children's gendered work within the complex material social practices of interconnected histories and geographies in which their livelihoods unfold.     

Putting gender into health and globalisation debates: New perspectives and old challenges

Debates continue about the impact of globalisation on human well-being. However, they are often based on little empirical evidence. This is not surprising, given the contested nature of the term 'globalisation' itself, the different ways in which health and well-being can be measured and the diversity of globalising trends in different parts of the world. The aim of this paper is to clarify some of these issues by looking at the recent experiences of women across a variety of social settings. It will begin with the development of a gender-neutral framework for analysing the links between globalisation and health. This will be followed by a more detailed examination of how sex and gender have shaped women's experiences of global change in ways that have been hazardous to the health of many of the most vulnerable. It will go on to identify the opportunities for improvement that these same changes have opened up and will conclude by discussing the ways in which many women are using these opportunities to reshape their lives in healthier ways.     

Managing the difficult past: Ukrainian collective memory and public debates on history

This article analyzes the status of difficult historic events in Ukrainian collective memory. Difficult elements of collective memory are defined as those which divide society on basic matters, such as identity and national cohesion, and events which are being actively forgotten because of the role of Ukrainians as perpetrators. Three such issues were analyzed: World War II and the role of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Holocaust, and the ethnic purge of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–1945. Utilizing data from quantitative and qualitative studies, the author showcases the significance of these issues for contemporary Ukrainian identity and Ukraine’s relations with its neighbors. In particular, the evaluation of World War II and the role of the UPA in Ukrainian history polarizes Ukrainian society to a great degree. At the same time, this element of national history is used to construct a common, anti-Russian identity. The difficulty of relating to the memory of the Holocaust and the ethnic purge in Volhynia is of a different character. These events are problematic for Ukrainian collective memory because they demand a painful settling of accounts with the past. At present, only Ukrainian elites are willing to work on these subjects, and only to a limited degree, while the common consciousness either denies or ignores them altogether.     

France faced with terrorism

Abstract

France is an interesting laboratory for studying terrorism, or antiterrorism, not because extreme violence has been committed on a large scale as in Lebanon, but because, faced with diverse terrorist actions over a short period, France has worked out and considerably modified a policy for dealing with terrorism. The subject herein is not terrorism but the official response to it, namely counterterrorist policy and actions.     

法国开启萨科齐时代

在今年5月6日举行的法国总统选举第二轮投票中,萨科齐以53%的得票率战胜罗亚尔,成为法兰西第五共和国的第六任总统.5月16日,萨科齐与希拉克在爱丽舍宫举行权力交接仪式,正式走马上任.     

Analysing agricultural investment from the realities of small-scale food providers: grounding the debates

Abstract

Over the past decade, agricultural investment has been presented as a catchall solution to a converging set of global crises, often with poor rural communities as the proclaimed beneficiaries. Yet the promises of such investment, such as poverty alleviation and improved food access, are routinely at odds with realities on the ground. This article offers frameworks for analysis of agricultural investment that are grounded in the realities of small-scale food providers, drawing from two studies. The first study employs a right to food framework to identify the main channels through which food for consumption is procured by small-scale food providers and the factors impacting these channels. It draws on empirical data from within the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), an investment model promised to lift rural communities out of poverty, which reflects a regional trend. Based on the shortcomings of the large-scale investments examined, the second study employs a food sovereignty framework to explore alternative forms of investment envisioned and/or already being put into practice by small-scale food providers in the SAGCOT area and elsewhere in Tanzania. While two different frameworks formed the basis of two different studies, both the studies and their frameworks are interrelated. The final section of this article makes the case for why both the right to food and food sovereignty are essential lenses for understanding agricultural investment vis-à-vis small-scale food providers and the ways in which they can serve as complementary tools for effective analysis.     

Economic ideas and institutional change: Evidence from soviet economic debates 1987–1991

The article analyses the shift in ideas that took place in Soviet economic thought between 1987 and 1991 and its relation to the changes in the real economy. The main focus of the article is on the issue of whether the evolution of Soviet economic thought in the analysed period changed in a gradual, path-dependent manner, or in a discontinuous, revolutionary fashion. Following the approach of Imre Lakatos, I argue that the conviction of being on the road to the ‘wholesome society’ formed the hard core of Soviet ideology, while ‘democratic centralism’ and the centralised economy provided its protective belt. Perestroika was the last attempt to save the hard core of Soviet ideology by adjusting the protective belt. This attempt failed, and the economic debates, which at first had been restricted to the protective belt, more and more approached its hard core, until it finally cracked. In this sense there was certainly a paradigm shift in Soviet economic thought. However, the notion of history as a purposeful process was not given up even by the Soviet adherents of monetarism. The utopian liberalism which became fashionable among Russian economists for a short period of time, it is argued, provides evidence that paradigm shifts and path-dependence in the evolution of economic ideas are not mutually exclusive.     

Tangled Nets of Discourse and Turbines of Development: Lower Mekong mainstream dam debates

Abstract

Hydropower development on the mainstream of the Mekong River in the Lower Mekong Basin (lmb) has become one of the most pressing issues on the development agenda, being touted as the way forward in solving energy, development and sustainability needs in the region. Despite dominant and compelling arguments in favour of such development, a growing anti-dam lobby has taken to arguing that hydropower development will threaten the economic, social, environmental and food security of some 62 million people living in the lmb. The anti-dam lobby comprises a heterogeneous assemblage of actors, agencies and networks, working to provide critical and alternative geographical (re)imaginations of the lmb. This paper explores these multiple perspectives afforded by the anti-dam lobby through the lens of knowledge production. The anti-dam lobby, it will be seen, engages in a politics of legitimacy and re-scaling with the pro-hydropower lobby, played out through varying strategies, while highlighting urgent and critical knowledge gaps which need to be taken seriously for future development in the lmb.     

法国总统选举中的新看点

2007年最引人瞩目的选举莫过于法国的总统选举了.从去年的11月一直到现在,它不仅拨动着每一个法国人的心弦,也牵动着全世界的目光.