The Capitalocene Part II: accumulation by appropriation and the centrality of unpaid work/energy

This essay – Part II – reconceptualizes the past five centuries as the Capitalocene, the ‘age of capital’. The essay advances two interconnected arguments. First, the exploitation of labor-power depends on a more expansive process: the appropriation of unpaid work/energy delivered by ‘women, nature, and colonies’ (Mies). Second, accumulation by appropriation turns on the capacity of state–capital–science complexes to make nature legible. If the substance of abstract social labor is time, the substance of abstract social nature is space. While managerial procedures within commodity production aim to maximize productivity per quantum of labor-time, the geo-managerial capacities of states and empires identify and seek to maximize unpaid work/energy per ‘unit’ of abstract nature. Historically, successive state–capital–science complexes co-produce Cheap Natures that are located, or reproduce themselves, largely outside the cash nexus. Geo-managerialism’s preliminary forms emerged rapidly during the rise of capitalism. Its chief historical expressions comprise those processes through which capitalists and state-machineries map, identify, quantify and otherwise make natures legible to capital. A radical politics of sustainability must recognize – and seek to mobilize through – a tripartite division of work under capitalism: labor-power, unpaid human work and the work of nature as a whole.     

‘Whichever way you turn,there is the face of God’ diaspora,memory, and historiography from the margin in The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami

In The Moor’s Account, Laila Lalami dares to dust off the archive of official history that passed over the testimonies of a Moroccan slave during the Discovery Age. This paper explores the way the slave capitalizes on historiography to reconstruct the Western monolithic history. In so doing, the re-constructor’s memory performs a number of roles. It registers the history of the European conquest of La Florida using micro narrative frameworks that highlight salient differences from the official record. Besides, the diasporic memory that the present novel advocates has the intention to mark a difference of the silenced subjectivity from the supremacist histories through a transnational matching of homeland with diaspora. This transnationalism is coupled with a look forward to circumvent the essentialism implied in the monologic narratives. In shuttling between the past, present, and future, memory espouses cosmopolitanism as an alternative to the fundamentalism which threatens people’s cultural diversity.     

A tale in stone and bronze: old/new strategies for political mobilization in the Republic of Macedonia

The redesign of Skopje’s main square and the wider central area in the last six years has been a top priority of the Macedonian government. The project, called Skopje 2014, provoked intense domestic debate and controversy as well as international reaction and concern. Although officials say that project’s aim is to unify ethnic Macedonians, it has produced several lines of political, intra-ethnic/interethnic as well as intra-cultural/intercultural divisions in the fragile Macedonian society. The aim of the paper is to offer reflections about its mobilizing potential among ethnic Macedonians in a set of social, economic, and political contexts. In that sense, four areas of mobilization are suggested: (1) around new identity markers; (2) around the name dispute and against threats (real or imagined) to the ethnic and national identity; (3) against the internal Other, that is, the ethnic Albanian community, as well as critics of these identity politics; and (4) in reaction to the global financial crisis and problems within the EU.     

Black geographies of struggle and pleasure in Nona Faustine’s White Shoes

In Nona Faustine’s photo series of self-portraits, White Shoes, the artist’s body becomes the agent in exposing the instability of racialized historical geography. Faustine revisits New York City’s landmarks to address what is missing or made invisible: a slave ship, a fugitive woman’s rebirth, or African burial grounds. Making herself visible where she is supposed to remain invisible, she highlights the unacknowledged connection between national wealth, nationalism, geography, and black labor. She discloses the topography of her travels as a changeable terrain, where one slips from the national iconic to ambiguous and finally, to the sacred. I suggest that Faustine doesn’t seek to democratize the extant historical maps, but to shift the terms of reading the city’s geography. She lifts the boundaries between the polarized pathways of knowing – the secularized and the sacred, the living and the dead, the verifiable and the missing. This shift is also made possible by the medium of photography and a feminist turn towards pleasures in one’s body. As Faustine comes to terms with the psychic and cultural inheritance of the diaspora, she moves from the collective body of pain towards black women’s pleasure in their own bodies without purging the history of sexual trauma.     

Youth Work in Croatia: Collecting Pieces for a Mosaic

This article explores the historical development of youth work in Croatia. By drawing from available data and personal experience, we describe three key phases of youth work development in a post-conflict country: (a) the period of the early 1990s as a “direct peace building" youth work; (b) the rise of nonformal education during the mid and late 1990s; and (c) the growth of a networked youth sector and its focus on youth policy advocacy starting in 2000. In addition, we refer to today's context, particularly because of its project-management orientation. Such categorization highlights various practices that we consider to represent youth work in a specific and contested national framework. Work with young people with fewer opportunities is being presented as a case, building on our observation that contemporary youth work continues to be embedded in civil society development and nonformal education, facing challenges of funding-driven discourse and unsystematic support.     

新中国劳动经济史的历史分期探析

新中国劳动经济史研究的对象是1949年新中国成立以来在中国共产党领导下社会主义劳动经济的产生、演变和发展的历史。当前研究新中国劳动经济史,应从全面建设小康社会、城乡统筹发展视角,从工业化、市场化和现代化视角,以劳动力资源配置方式变革为主线,进行全面系统研究。新中国劳动经济发展可以划分为六个阶段:1949-1956年两次社会经济形态转变中的劳动经济,主题是"转变中建立";1957-1978年计划经济体制下的劳动经济,主题是"曲折中探索";1979-1991年向市场经济转轨初期的劳动经济,主题是"摩擦中改革";1992-2001年建立市场经济体制时期的劳动经济,主题是"定向中转轨";2002-2012年完善市场经济体制时期的劳动经济,主题是"统筹中完善";2013年以来的劳动经济,这个新阶段目前还没有结束,其主题应该是"共享中发展"。     

A Census of Medicolegal Death Investigation in the United States: A Need to Determine the State of our Nation’s Toxicology Laboratories and Their Preparedness for the Current Drug Overdose Epidemic

In 2007, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported on 2004 data collected from the Census of Medical Examiner and Coroner Offices (CMEC). The CMEC was one of the first comprehensive reports on the state of the medicolegal death investigation system in the United States and included information on administration, expenditure, workload, specialized death investigations, records and evidence retention, and resources. However, the report did not include responses on questions that were related to toxicology such as specimen retention and type of testing. The purpose of this publication is to provide the community with toxicology laboratory-specific responses from nearly 2000 medical examiner and coroner (MEC) offices. Data obtained from a BJS CMEC public use dataset for any remaining information that was not reported in the 2007 BJS report were evaluated specific to the operation of toxicology laboratories within a MEC office or specific to toxicology testing. The CMEC includes information on average operating budget for MEC offices with internal or external toxicology services, budget for toxicology/microbiology services, respondents’ routine uses of toxicology analysis, toxicology specimen retention time, average turnaround times, use of computerized information management systems, and participation in federal data collections. These historical data begin to address the present state of our nation’s toxicology laboratories within the medicolegal death investigation system and their preparedness for the current drug overdose epidemic.     

百色起义精神的历史作用和当代价值

百色起义是我党在大革命失败后较早在我国西南少数民族地区实行的“工农武装割据”的光辉实践,由百色起义所孕育的百色起义精神具有深远的历史作用和巨大的现实价值。它对中国革命道路的摸索,对建设有中国特色社会主义道路的选择具有重要的启示作用;它所体现的对理想信念的执著追求和不怕牺牲的大无畏精神是引领当代人价值取向的一面旗帜;它所体现的辛勤劳动、艰苦奋斗的作风是当代人应发扬的优良作风,也成为社会主义荣辱观的主要内容之一;它所蕴涵的依靠群众,全心全意为人民服务的思想与当今共产党人“以人为本”的执政理念息息相通。     

侦查学科建设和学术研究的困境和出路

当前我国侦查学科建设和学术研究存在许多致命问题,主要表现在研究对象含混、学术共同体没有形成、没有科学的学术目的、学术话语系统没有形成、学术资源欠缺等多个方面。在学科建设和学术研究的内在逻辑中思考以上问题有一定意义,但对未来侦查学建设和发展景象和效果应审慎乐观。欲推进侦查学科建设,开展学术研究,首先需要解决学科队伍素质的提高、研究对象和研究方法论的界定、公安院校办学模式的变革等三个根本问题。     

隐私的历史考察和思考

隐私是一个动态、发展的概念,其内容不是一成不变的,而是随着社会政治、经济、文化的发展和人们隐私意识的提高,其内涵不断丰富,外延不断扩展。政治上,公私领域的划分是其存在和发展的前提;经济上,生产力和科学技术的发展为其存在和发展提供了物质基础;心理上,人们对本能、自我保护和自我实现的需要为其存在和发展创造了动力;文化上,不同的文化传统使其存在和发展更具多样性。隐私是一种事实状态,不等同于隐私权的客体,更不等同于隐私权。