Heterogeneity in Income: Effects of Racial Concentration on Foreclosures in Los Angeles,California

ABSTRACT

The United States continues to be defined by racial concentration, where most racial/ethnic groups live apart from each other. For homeownership, neighborhoods with large proportions of racial minorities are often linked to negative outcomes for minority homeowners; this was particularly the case during the Great Recession. However, middle and upper income ethnic neighborhoods, or resurgent neighborhoods, have grown in numbers because of a concentration of immigrants, federal policies favoring professionals, ethnic-specific resources, and affluence. In 2007, about 37% of Los Angeles, California, Latino tracts were resurgent and 53% of Asian tracts were resurgent. This study finds that homeowners in resurgent neighborhoods had lower default/foreclosure rates and predicted probabilities than those in low-income neighborhoods. Asian resurgent neighborhoods had the lowest predicted probabilities of default or foreclosure, followed by Latino resurgent and White middle-class neighborhoods. There were also discrepancies among Asian neighborhoods based on nativity. Consequently, it is important to recognize that minority neighborhoods are heterogeneous, with differing impacts on homeownership opportunities when examined by class.     

Philosophy and the History of Art

Abstract

Schelling’s philosophy of art between 1801 and 1807 can be defined as metaphysics of art. The object of that metaphysics is to deploy the absolute as the being of art and of the arts. Schelling has been criticized on the basis that this metaphysics of art represses the infinite diversity of existing works of art, while overlooking concrete aesthetic experience. Based on Schelling’s definition of the “philosophical construction” of art as an inseparably speculative and historical construction, the aim of this paper is to challenge such assertions. It will show that “historical construction” has to be understood in a twofold manner: first, as a transcendental history of the absolute’s artistic individuation and second, as a cultural history of both the ancient and modern worlds of art. Working within this twofold setting the paper argues that Schelling’s systematic approach, while exhibiting a unifying force, still remains open to the otherness of the real.     

Alain Badiou's Politics and the Problem of Social History

Abstract

This paper explores the plausibility of Alain Badiou's ahistorical theory of politics. By insisting that the events of egalitarian politics are radically subtracted from social and historical conditions Badiou imagines a form of political action that effectively comes out of nothing. However, in order to establish the very prospect of an event's occurrence Badiou is forced to ground the possibility of political intervention in his theory of "evental recurrence", which effectively enables the subjects of political action to draw on the consequences of a preceding event in order to act in the here and now. The paper argues that by introducing the social dimensions of evental recurrence it is possible to construct an alternative account of political action that resolves a number of inconsistencies in Badiou's otherwise miraculous vision of politics. Consequently, rather than a militant activist that comes out of nowhere, evental recurrence implies that the militants of political action are saturated in their immediate social and political circumstances and in the memory of past struggles.     

Undignified Thoughts After Nature: Adorno's Aesthetic Theory

Abstract

This paper seeks to redress the marginalization of Adorno in environmental philosophical discourse. Kate Soper describes two opposing ways of conceiving nature. There is the redemptive "nature-endorsing" paradigm that lays claim to the intrinsic value or "otherness" of nature. Conversely, the "nature-sceptical" approach denies that we can access originary, untouched nature. This paper argues that the significance of Adorno's treatment of natural beauty lies in how he brings these approaches together. In writings that resonate with the dual connotations of Sebald's phrase "after nature", Adorno both affirms the skeptical point that we cannot transcend a human history alienated from nature as well as retaining redemptive hope wherein art "after" nature seeks creative possibilities from out of the very ruins of history marked by nature's destruction.     

Green tea in the Sahel: The social history of an itinerant consumer good

Since the liberalisation of the market in the 1990s, the amount of green tea imported from China to the Sahel has dramatically increased. This article traces some of the stages in the development of green tea from its introduction in the early nineteenth century by Moorish traders from Morocco to a mass consumer good in the Sahel and the adjoint Savannah regions. Having started as a beverage with medicinal and vitalising properties, it was adopted by the aristocratic urban elite in Sahelian trading towns, and much later via the pastoralists by the general population, while spreading out further south. The gradual democratisation of green tea is related to the changing norms of tea consumption, of family authority, and to different stages in the packaging, naming and presentation of tea, together with sugar. Green tea has become the most popular drink in cities such as Bamako, where it remains strongly associated with its Moorish introduction.     

Contextualising the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ in Darfur

ABSTRACT

This article argues for a thorough contextual analysis based on understanding local, regional and international politico-economic linkages in the Sudan, in order to ground prospects of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine in the ongoing crisis in Darfur. The R2P framework was crystallised by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001. It was adapted and subsequently endorsed by United Nations (UN) member states during the 2005 UN World Summit. The R2P ostensibly provides normative benchmarks on how states should respond to the quadruple human rights violations of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Indeed, there is debate on whether the prevailing crisis in Darfur constitutes a test case for the application of the R2P. However, such debate is misplaced on two grounds: first, it glosses over the inherent conceptual deficiencies of the R2P, as presently constituted. More importantly, such debate is primarily inspired by reactionary and externalising influences based on past international failings, like Rwanda (1994) and Bosnia (1993). Hence, it is argued that the starting point of analysing the Darfur crisis should be a thorough investigation of how local, regional and international politico-economic factors have historically worked in an orchestrated fashion to trigger and sustain the crisis in the Sudan. Knowledge and an understanding of such historical specificity is a requisite for determining the relevance of the R2P in Darfur. The R2P, as presently constituted and practised, does not address this gap.     

African indigenous ecology control and sustainable community livelihood in southern African history

Abstract

Based on sources for African Indigenous Ecology Control and Sustainable Community Livelihood in Southern African history this article argues that political independence in the Southern African region has altered the historiography of the region and the African continent as a whole. Black Africans are now looking to the past for inspiration to constitute the foundations of sustainable livelihoods using their own indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and resources. The indicatives of the African Renaissance also demand that we draw on the significance of the control by pre-colonial African communities of their ecosystems. Existing testimonies show prosperity among pre-colonial African communities in the region. The argument is that, in order to restore the historical achievements of Africans in the region, IKS should form a constitutive part of education.     

Knowledge free and ‘unfree’: Epistemic tensions in plant knowledge at the Cape in the 17th and 18 th centuries1

ABSTRACT

This article utilises the same epistemic objects, particular indigenous medicinal plants of the Cape region, to explore the gamut of epistemologies in contested, dynamic tension in the early Cape Colony: That of the frontiersman, the Khoikhoi, the Sonqua or Sankwe, and the slave. Drawing on a transdisciplinary set of literatures, the article puts Africana studies, the study of indigenous knowledge systems, and social studies of science and technology in wider conversation with each other, and argues for the adoption of an epistemic openness, methodologies which ‘braid’ seemingly separate strands of social history and differing knowledge practices, and cross-border collaboration among scholars of African and African diasporic knowledges. The findings and interpretation suggest new ways to view the ‘multiplexity’ of early indigenous southern African botanical, therapeutic and ecological knowledges, as well as the necessity for rethinking both the construction of colonial sciences and contemporary concerns about indigenous knowledge, biosciences and their 21^st century interaction.     

民族地区农村文化建设中女村官的作用及实现途径——基于广西少数民族聚居地区的调查

女村官是民族地区农村文化建设的一支重要力量。她们是党的农村文化政策和民族文化政策的重要宣传者和实施者,是民族文化传播和民族文化产业开发的重要推动者,是乡风文明、和谐农村的示范者和引领者。由于受多种因素的制约,女村官在农村文化建设中的主导作用并没有得到充分发挥,为此,需要通过健全农村文化建设的投入机制,建设民族地区农村女性人才库,构建先进性别文化,分层次、多渠道培训女村官等多种途径,推动女村官在民族地区农村文化建设中发挥主导作用。     

广西民族地区农村居家养老模式探析

居家养老模式是家庭养老和机构养老的有效整合,是未来我国养老事业重点建设的目标之一。中国目前居家养老服务多为政府购买服务、民间组织提供服务或社区承办服务等模式。广西民族地区农村人口老龄化速度快、经济欠发达、家庭结构失衡、养老设施匮乏,居家养老模式应成为养老方式的首选。建设广西农村居家养老模式应重点完善农村基本医疗照顾,加强农村传统邻里互助关系,保护和传承少数民族文化习俗。