‘Only by learning how to live together differently can we live together at all’: readability and legibility of Central Asian migrants’ presence in urban Russia

ABSTRACT

This paper questions the effectiveness and usefulness of the Russian government's policies of migrant integration. Using a unique combination of ethnographic research methods (observations, interviews and survey) with methods from psychology (cognitive mapping) and urban studies (GIS mapping), I depict the presence of Central Asian migrants and their interaction with local long-term residents in two cities of the Russian Federation: Kazan and Saint Petersburg. On the basis of my findings, I argue that the readability (defined as the ease with which the city can be ‘read’ and understood) and legibility (defined as the degree to which individual components of an urban environment are recognizable by their appearance) of urban space in Kazan have positive effects on the relationship between these two communities, while the ambiguity and uncertainty of urban identity in Saint Petersburg make the life of migrants very vulnerable and unpredictable, and result in the growth of xenophobic views among the local residents. This allows me to argue that the policy of migrant integration will be more successful if it is built on learning to live with differences, instead of trying to ‘Russify’ migrants or create various forms of supra-ethnic identity.     

Blind Detection of Region Duplication Forgery Using Fractal Coding and Feature Matching

Digital image forgery detection is important because of its wide use in applications such as medical diagnosis, legal investigations, and entertainment. Copy–move forgery is one of the famous techniques, which is used in region duplication. Many of the existing copy–move detection algorithms cannot effectively blind detect duplicated regions that are made by powerful image manipulation software like Photoshop. In this study, a new method is proposed for blind detecting manipulations in digital images based on modified fractal coding and feature vector matching. The proposed method not only detects typical copy–move forgery, but also finds multiple copied forgery regions for images that are subjected to rotation, scaling, reflection, and a mixture of these postprocessing operations. The proposed method is robust against tampered images undergoing attacks such as Gaussian blurring, contrast scaling, and brightness adjustment. The experimental results demonstrated the validity and efficiency of the method.     

Devolution in England—Is the Genie out of the Lamp?

This article explores the extent to which devolution within England can address the general malaise that is often described as ‘the English Question’. It considers how far the devolution genie might be considered out of the lamp. It takes as its basis three broad arguments for devolution—an economic case, a case concerning public service reform and a democratic argument for the decentralisation of power—and for each of these three it explores the theoretical underpinnings for the argument, how things are currently playing out in the current political context and what we might expect to see in the future. The article concludes with some suggestions as to how debates about the English Question might play out in the years ahead.     

加快现代农业建设 促进地方经济发展——象州县发展现代农业构建和谐社会的实践和思考

在欠发达地区推进社会主义新农村建设,核心任务是发展现代农业。用现代发展理念来推进农村建设,是实现由传统农业大县向现代农业强县转变的重要一环。     

探索社区主导型发展 推动贫困地区新农村建设

该文分析了新农村建设面临的主要问题,认为社区主导型发展（CDD）是一种在贫困地区推进新农村建设的好办法。提出了促进CDD事业发展的改进办法：扩大CDD外延和覆盖面,全面推进新农村建设;整合增量资源和存量资源,降低CDD运营成本;大力发展社区发展基金,改善农村金融服务。     

西部地区农民工生存状况及权益保障实证分析——对陕、甘、宁、川四省区397位农民工的调查与分析

通过问卷调查和深度访谈等形式对陕甘宁川四省区397位农民工的性别、年龄、学历、行业分布、外出打工时间、收入水平、工作稳定性、工作安全、居住状况、就医看病、精神文化生活和对自身生存状况及权益保障的满意度等15个方面的调查来看,当前西部地区农民工生存状况及权益保障十分令人担忧。各地、各级政府必须采取切实措施,从制度安排、社会公平、社会公平、社会保障、权益保护等方面给予西部地区农民工更多的保护,这对于西部地区建设社会主义新农村,构建和谐社会具有重大的现实意义。     

比较文学视阈下的中国俄罗斯文学研究（1978-2017）

自俄罗斯文学进入我国学者的视野起,比较文学即被应用于其研究当中。特别是20世纪90年代以来,比较文学更是以其跨文化性和开放性的特点为我国的俄罗斯文学研究带来了较为丰硕的成果。但是,相较于比较文学在其他国别文学研究中的应用,我国学者在中俄文学关系、俄罗斯文学的中国形象建构研究等问题的研究中,存在着研究思路与话语陈旧、方法运用生硬刻板、中国学者的主体性意识与民族立场弱化、具有国际影响力的高质量成果欠缺等一系列问题。此外,我国学者编撰的俄罗斯文学史著作也折射出其在世界文学眼光与比较文学意识方面存在的欠缺。     

Natural population movement and marriage restrictions and hindrances in Styria in the 17th to 19th centuries

To marry has never been an egalitarian option or everybody's wish. There have always been calculations or considerations, structural or individual hindrances and even societal restrictions for individuals to get married despite wishing to do so. Without any doubt and apart from the debate on determination or love and free choice in former times, to marry has always been a societal event, a mutual relationship between personal wishes and societal environmental expectations.And apart from all the debates on paradoxes in modernization processes, it is clear that in pre-modern times societal marriage restrictions were widespread.It is very unlikely that people should have been forbidden to marry because they should not have sexual contacts, just for morality reasons. The keys have been considerations and calculations on reproductivity, economic and social resources, social and human capital. This paper deals with aggregated vital data from four parishes in Styria, Austria, covering the outgoing 17th century until the end of the 19th century, in order to detect hints of marriage restrictions.The paper proves the well-known variety of marriage systems in pre-industrial and pre-modern times. It supports the idea that the presence of marriage restrictions hindered population growth, but the absence of such restrictions did not automatically foster more societal transparency and developmental chances in a modern sense, as mortality and inequality were very strong factors in pre-modern agrarian societies. In the end, the question of marriage restrictions was apparently posed and answered by privileged groups.     

The impact of mining rights on the local communities in Limpopo Province, South Africa： A comparative study

The paper aims to give an account of the substance and support the development of community based organizations in balancing their interests against the interests of the mining industries. It further examines the issue of the protection of social and economic right in the context of the globalization of the activities of multinational mining and petroleum companies, as illustrated by different instances of increasing state withdrawal and with regard to specific African countries. In Africa, economic liberalization has been accompanied by a programmed redefining of the role of the state withdrawal from certain areas： planning, production and social reform, a reorientation of state intervention from certain other areas, redistribution, regulation and mediation etc, with a view of promoting a particular type of growth strategy based on promotion of private economic interests. This process has led to the delegitimation and weakening of states which were already characterized by fiscal crises, notably in countries under structural adjustment. While the process of reconceptualisation of the role of the state is not specific to Africa, its impact has been particularly significant with regard to the possibility of implementing developmental strategies designed to protect social and economic rights.     

The dual logic of Russia's party system nationalization

The article attempts to identify major factors of the nationalization of the vote in contemporary Russia using the two level approach: the between- and within-region. The former compares regions as units of analysis while the latter additionally takes into account voting in municipalities to obtain levels of voting homogeneity within the regions. The study uses data from the last 2012–2016 national-regional electoral cycle investigating both federal and regional election results. Following Ishiyama (2002) for the between-region level of analysis the Regional Party Vote Inequality index has been utilized. The Party Nationalization Score proposed by Jones and Mainwaring (2003) has been applied to the measurement of voting territorial diversity at the within-region level. The results show that regional political factors may be still considered as major drivers of the nationalization of the vote as it did in the 1990s. The difference is that in politically recentralized Russia non-competitive regions headed by politically strong governors provides between-region inequality rather than contributing to nationalization. At the same time, the similarity continues in the ability of governors’ “political machines” to contribute homogeneity of the vote, but only within their regions.