“A garden had been left to grow wild there”: considering nature in Ivan Vladislavić’s Johannesburg

Johannesburg has frequently been subjected to critical examinations that conceive the city as a metropolis dominated by late capitalist excess and gold mining hyperbole. Along these particular lines, much of the literary scholarship that considers Vladislavi?’s city texts have focussed on his conception of the built environment that critiques its exploitative extractive history and its simulacral tendencies. However, sustained critical attention of his treatment of nature in the urban space has largely been neglected or underplayed. The natural Highveld environment, for Vladislavi?, occupies a fraught and liminal space in the city, pushed to the margins of a brutalizing modernity. Nature in Johannesburg, he opines, is a construction, an imposition and inheritance that belies the city’s colonial and European settler history. However, there are moments in which, when human attention is turned away, nature in its untended and generative capacity works to unmake the structural obduracy of the settled city. This manifests in episodes that embrace the quiet potency of wild gardens that disrupt the urban status quo.     

早期文明与美感类型

在各类早期文明中,美感的总特征是以实体之神为主和以神庙为主的美感体系,具体来讲,又可分为以埃及为代表的人兽一体之神为主,以两河为代表的人兽相伴为主,以及从克里特到希腊的人形为主、中国的以天地四方为结构进行安排的人体和物饰一体,印度的把历史演进整合为神的多面形象的美感体系。     

Hegemony, Discipline and Control in the Administration of Police in Colonial India

The Indian subcontinent was under British colonial rule for over two centuries until 1947. To administer the large country and its diverse population, the British designed a criminal justice administrative system which played a key role in maintaining their dominance and hegemony. In particular, the police organization, largely composed of natives, furthered the goals of colonial dominance through its functions of order maintenance, crime control, and surveillance. This paper, using Gramsci’s conception of hegemony and Foucault’s study of disciplining and control, analyzes the important role that the police played in maintaining British rule in India.

Electric Shock: The 2012 India Blackout and Public Confidence in Politicians

How do disruptions in basic public service delivery shape people’s perceptions of politicians? We offer evidence from the July 2012 blackout in India, the largest in human history. Using data from the India Human Development Survey, we compare confidence in politicians between households that were surveyed during the outage and affected by it (treatment) and only days before it (control). Balance statistics show that the treatment and control groups are statistically indistinguishable, and further tests indicate that there was no disturbance to the pattern of surveying. Far from undermining public confidence in politicians, the outage increased it, as citizens reacted to the anxiety created by the crisis. The implications are normatively troubling, as politicians seem to have reaped benefits from disruptions in public service delivery.     

Anti-Corruption Policy: China’s Tiger Hunt and India’s Demonetization

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the different styles of anti-corruption strategy, particularly at the local level in China and India. In China there has been a central push with a role of anti-corruption agencies that have law-enforcement power. In India there has been a focus on institutional building together with a visible role of the civil society. China has had a top-down approach while India has more of a bottom-up approach combined with top-down initiatives such as demonetization. Interviews with 44 mid-career and senior officials investigate the two approaches and the impacts of anti-corruption measures in China and India. Interviewees support the approaches adopted by China and India but doubt their effectiveness and sustainability. The way forward, they suggest, is to reduce the influence of political parties especially in India and to enhance e-governance in both countries. Experiences of the two countries have significant implications especially on capacity building, institutional development, and law enforcement.     

中缅石油管道设计中的美印因素

中国的石油绝大多数从中东和非洲进口.鉴于目前马六甲海峡的形势,中国应该修建一条从缅甸西部的实兑深水港到昆明的输油管道.中国的企业和地方政府支持修建中缅石油管道计划.但是,要把这项计划变成现实,还需要克服许多障碍.     

语言的权利与权力的语言:试析乌尔都语在印度和巴基斯坦的不同地位

莫卧尔时期,乌尔都语逐渐取代波斯语和阿拉伯语的官方地位。英国殖民地时期,英国推行英语教育和西方教育政策,英语逐渐成为权力语言。英国出于分而治之钳制印度教徒和穆斯林的需要,曾经默许资助和扶持穆斯林传统教育,使乌尔都语在殖民地后期得到发展。印巴分治后,乌尔都语在穆斯林统治的巴基斯坦成为官方语言,而在印度教派统治的印度却只能是地区语言。正如塞缪尔.亨廷顿所说:"文化在世界上的分布反映了权力的分布。文化几乎总是追随着权力。"     

俄印关系中的心理因素分析

冷战结束以来,经过短期的波动,俄罗斯与印度的关系有了长足的发展,但是一些负面影响也日益突显出来。在导致这些负面影响的诸因素中,虽然现实的政治与经济目标是俄印两国关系中的决定性因素,但在长期社会历史发展过程中形成的俄罗斯人与印度人的疑虑、偏见、独立性、对西方的态度及殖民地心理等诸多心理因素给俄罗斯与印度关系的发展带来诸多麻烦和困难,致使现实乃至未来俄罗斯与印度关系发展存在相当程度的不确定性。