Sacred groves,sacrifice zones and soy production: globalization,intensification and neo-nature in South America

Soy has become one of the world's most important agroindustrial commodities – serving as the nexus for the production of food, animal feed, fuel and hundreds of industrial products – and South America has become its leading production region. The soy boom on this continent entangles transnational capital and commodity flows with social relations deeply embedded in contested ecologies. In this introduction to the collection, we first describe the ‘neo-nature’ of the soy complex and the political economy of the sector in South America, including the new corporate actors and financial mechanisms that produced some of the world's largest agricultural production companies. We then discuss key environmental debates surrounding soy agribusiness in South America, challenging especially the common arguments that agroindustrial intensification ‘spares land’ for conservation while increasing production to ‘feed the world’. We demonstrate that these arguments hinge on limited data from a peculiar portion of the southern Amazon fringe, and obfuscate through neo-Malthusian concerns multiple other political and ecological problems associated with the sector. Thus, discussions of soy production become intertwined with broader debates about agrarian development, industrialization and modernization. Finally, we briefly outline the contributions in this volume, and identify limitations and fruitful directions for further research.     

当前东北亚安全困局及其“病灶”探析

2016年以来,因朝鲜第四次核试验及美韩宣布在韩国部署"萨德"反导系统,东北亚固有的安全困境更加突出,并引起相关国家及国际社会的进一步密切关注。就当前而论,东北亚安全困境具体表现为朝鲜在进行第四次核试验后,其核武器开发继续"跃马扬鞭";美韩以朝核威胁为由加强驻韩美军实力,包括不顾中俄强烈反对,决意在韩部署"萨德"反导系统;日本在进一步倚美的同时,趁势拉拢韩国,强化对华敌视政策,致使中日关系频现紧张;美国一方面以应对朝核威胁为由而加强其在东北亚的军事力量和"前沿部署",另一方面又极力拉紧美日韩同盟,其在东北亚遏制中俄的态势更趋明朗。东北亚安全局势持续紧张的深层次原因:一是由于东北亚国家间存在复杂的领土领海及历史纠葛,二是朝鲜半岛南北长期对立,三是日本在历史认知及其与东北亚邻国领土领海分歧等问题上长期采取顽固立场,四是美国搞"亚太再平衡",利用东北亚国家间的固有矛盾从中渔利,企图通过对华进行"局部遏制"而长期维持其在东北亚的同盟体系及霸权。未来东北亚安全困境是继续加深、激化还是逐步淡化,取决于上述深层次原因的演变方向。     

Culture and working life: Ari Sitas and the transformation of labour studies in South Africa

This lecture was given at the Celebrating Ari Sitas: the World of Work and the Power of Poetics, Global Studies Programme (GSP) conference, September 4 & 5 2017, at the Centre for African Studies Gallery, University of Cape Town.     

Still a new democracy? Individual-level effects of social trust on political trust in South Korea

The social capital theory holds that there is a positive relationship between social and political trust; however, despite the prominence of this postulation, this relationship has often been disputed among political scientists. While recent studies on advanced democracies have shown a strong positive relationship between social and political trust, studies on East Asian democracies, which previously showed a weak or negative relation, remain scant, separating these countries into their own category of new democracies. The motivation of this study is based on the importance of revisiting the relationship between social and political trust using recent data from one such country—South Korea—to determine the nature of this previously studied negative or weak relationship. The results of this study indicate that generalized social trust in South Korea is positively associated with political trust. This result is in line with recent findings in advanced democracies. While this positive relationship is consistent and significant across models, a greater portion of political trust is explained by economic and political performance, including factors such as the economy, corruption, inequality, and the welfare system, making institutional performance a critical predictor of political trust.     

The internal and external constraints on foreign policy in India: exploring culture and ethnic sensitivities

The main argument of this contribution is that the distinction between internal and external is at best blurred and in reality does not make much sense in the case of India’s foreign policy. It may start and end at the border and be determined by negotiations, diplomacy or brute force but there is no conclusive evidence in the literature to decide what determines what. There are important dynamics and interplays across the thin line between the domestic and international spheres, especially in terms of understanding the reciprocal challenges related to how factors of culture and ethnicity relate with the legitimacy of the state. The aim of the paper is to serve four purposes. To unpack and give a critical overview of the debates concerned with the internal and external aspects of India’s foreign policy; to situate the literature dealing more specifically with domestic issues related to culture and ethnicity and outline the main approaches involved; to give an overview of how external factors impact foreign policy conduct and relate to India’s role in defining international norms and regulations; and, finally, to give some theoretical markers, suggestions and concluding remarks.     

LETTERS FROM THE RSAA ARCHIVE: SIR AUREL STEIN,COLONEL REGINALD SCHOMBERG AND A SECRET MISSION TO CENTRAL ASIA

In 2004 a collection of thirty-four letters from the Silk Road explorer Sir Aurel Stein was found in the archives of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and catalogued, although not transcribed or studied. Neither of Stein's biographers, Jeannette Mirsky (published 1977), nor Annabel Walker (published 1995) knew about these letters, and there are no references to them in more recent publications either. What is perhaps even more interesting is that the Society's letters are addressed to a man whose name does not appear in any published works on Stein; a man who remains an elusive figure more than half a century after his death – Colonel Reginald Schomberg D.S.O. (1880-1958), an explorer and spy. This article analyses the contents of the letters, which shed light on a secret mission undertaken by Schomberg in Chinese Central Asia in the early 1930s.     

Japan’s strategic contrast: continuing influence despite relative power decline in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Since 2008 the Japanese government has become more responsive to the exercise of Chinese economic, diplomatic and military power in Southeast Asia, suggesting an intensifying rivalry. The Japanese government has thrown off any reticence about self-promotion by more forcefully positioning Japan as a sensitive and sustainable strategic partner for Southeast Asian nations in a strategic contrast with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Rather than trying to contain China, Tokyo is seeking to mediate how China turns its material resources into influence. Despite an increasing asymmetry in material resources between China and Japan, this article argues that Japan maintains a surprising ability to influence the preferences of Southeast Asian nations and responses to exercises of PRC power, which in turn has allowed Japan to influence China’s regional strategy.     

韩国民主化进程中的工人运动

一般认为，工人阶级在一个社会中是最活跃、最具革命性的群体，在民主化过程中，工人阶级应当发挥关键乃至领导者的角色。但本文认为，韩国的经验并未证明这一．最。相反，在韩国的民主化过程中，工人阶级表现得比较稳定。不论是1987年之前的“不充分民主”阶段，还是之后的“形式民主”的实质化阶段，韩国的工人阶级都始终表现为社会中的稳定力量，而不是积极参与民主运动并容易引起社会动荡的力量。这主要是由于国家通过控制意识形态、工会和立法以及限制工人阶级的体制外同盟对工人运动加以控制，同时也采取了相应的经济、政治以及配套的社会措施对其加以疏导，同时也伴随着工人阶级自身所作的适应和调整。     

Trade,peace-building and hybrid governance in the Sudan-South Sudan borderlands

ABSTRACT

Trade and markets in weak states are often discussed in relation with violence, security and peace-building. A case in point are marketplaces in the Sudan-South Sudan borderlands where communities separated by insecurity and hostility meet, not only to trade but also to negotiate and exchange information. This does not imply that establishment of such markets automatically results in peace and stability. Based on new empirical research on the Amieth market in Abyei – an area contested by the two Sudans – I argue that such markets rely on security guarantees negotiated between a set of heterogenous societal groups and that the overall impact of such border markets is largely determined within a context of hybrid security governance. The conclusion emphasises that without a proper analysis of this context, external assistance to such borderland markets might just as well enable violent conflict actors as being a tool for peace-building.     

Making the Korean nation in the Russian Far East, 1863–1926

Exploring the history of Koreans in the Russian Far East from the perspective of New Imperial History, the article demonstrates that political activism of Koreans and policies of the Russian (Soviet), Korean, and Japanese governments resulted in consolidation of two visions of their future. The first vision implied unity between the Koreans living in the Russian Far East with those who stayed in Korea, moved to Japan, or emigrated elsewhere and corresponded to the agenda of building a Korean nation. The second vision implied that the bilingual or Russified Koreans aspired to stay in the Russian Far East permanently, ensuring their own livelihood in the new regional frontier. The two currents interlaced in the project of Korean autonomy in a post-imperial state, first the Far Eastern Republic and later the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. The project involved inclusion of Koreans into the global spread of revolution through the Communist International and left open the issue of the duration of Korean presence in the Russian Far East. Its ultimate failure in 1926 left the Koreans partly excluded from the Soviet system without the institutional benefits of national autonomy.