“Don’t Frack with Our Karoo”: Water,Landscape, and Congregational Song in Kroonvale,South Africa

There is a new environmental threat to the South African Karoo region in the form of hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) for natural gas reserves buried deep underground. In this article, I use the issue of fracking in the Karoo to investigate the power of this landscape over its people and focus particularly on the question of how the cultural traditions of the Karoo would be affected. In contrast, W.J.T. Mitchell argues that landscape exerts a relatively weak power over its residents. My work serves as a critique of theories that see landscape as exerting only marginal influence over people. I argue that not only does landscape exert a palpable power over its inhabitants, but also that landscape affects the musical traditions of these residents and, ultimately, the configuration of the Karoo soundscape. To investigate this, I draw on my research of music in three churches with coloured people’s membership in the town of Graaff-Reinet and examine this tradition in the context of its surrounding landscape.     

Against General Theory in Comparative Research

This paper argues against the search for a general theory of crime causation in comparative criminology. It includes a critique of two advocates of general theory, and offers three propositions which suggest appropriate strategies for theory construction in comparative research.     

Undelivered: the space/time of the sacred in Bataille and Benjamin

Bataille’s work of the 1930s on the sacred has strong echoes of Walter Benjamin’s writing on space and messianic time. In bringing together Bataille’s theoretical and fictional writings, alongside key Benjamin texts, this article seeks to develop our understanding of a perversely grounded sacred.     

The Contradictory Effects in Efficiency and Citizens’ Participation when Employing Geo-ICT Apps within Local Government

Abstract

With the increasing use of web-based mapping applications, inter-mediation between public planning agencies and citizens is changing. This article investigates how one form of inter-mediation, geo-ICT-enabled apps (applications on mobile phones and/or internet that use maps or locations as basic references for any functional analysis), influences the degree of efficiency and participation in managing public space. The theoretical assumption here is that such apps encourage information disclosure and therefore have the potential to make a local government more responsive and transparent. Drawing on observation, interviews, and document and web content analysis conducted as part of a case study, this article suggests that the apps have indeed enhanced one municipality’s response and have made citizens more active in uploading their complaints. However, unexpected and contradictory effects include an increase in trivial complaints, which has made the handling of reports less efficient, and the emergence of opportunistic behaviour by third parties on the basis of the complaints, which has made the services less effective. Consequently, the assumed causal relation between enhanced citizen participation and increased transparency and information disclosure requires an adaptation that incorporates such wicked effects.     

社会转型的时空压缩性特征对我国生态文明的影响

"时空压缩"是当前中国社会转型的一个显著特点。"时空压缩"给我国生态文明带来影响是双重的:它为我国生态文明建设提供了丰富的物质基础,给我国生态文明建设提供了"择优综合"的外部条件,也为我国生态文明建设提供了合作共赢的国际环境。同时,时空压缩性也使我国生态文明建设面临着国内外的双重挤压。     

Migrant workers and migrant entrepreneurs: changing established/outsider relations across society and space?

Drawing on Elias and Scotson's theory of established/outsider relations, in this paper we argue that migrants can be outsiders in one spatial context and established in another simultaneously. Our empirical focus is the situations and experiences of migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe in four towns across Wales. While their position as outsiders is reinforced in the occupational spaces of meat-processing factories, outside the workplace a small but growing number of migrants are engaging in entrepreneurial activities that create new spaces of cultural diversity. We argue that this is having a wider affective impact on established/outsider relations.     

App时代大学生媒介素养现状及对策研究

以移动终端APP为主体表征的移动互联网络传播时代的最大特征就是信息的自产性、交互性、及时性、随意性。作为社会新知力量的大学生群体主动适应APP互联网时代特色的信息传播方式,培养良性坚定的价值观,树立科学健康的媒介素养观,提高自身甄别传媒讯息、利用传媒工具有目的地检索讯息、利用讯息的综合能力才是得当之法。如何提高大学生群体的媒介素养,从而建构一种科学、美好、负责的媒介生态环境,让大众传媒真正成为一种纯粹有益的思想交流、价值导向平台和一种新型的知识传播平台成为一种迫切的现实需求。     

我国有组织毒品犯罪活动的嬗变及侦查启示

毒品犯罪活动具有广泛和深刻的社会危害性,一直受到国际社会的普遍关注。当代我国有组织毒品犯罪活动不断发展变化,毒品问题愈发严峻,毒品犯罪组织的结构形式和运作模式不断呈现出新的特点,所产生的犯罪能量日益扩大,对我国缉毒侦查工作造成极大的挑战。有必要系统分析我国毒品犯罪的成因及有组织毒品犯罪活动的嬗变过程,在深刻发掘毒品犯罪本质的基础上提出针对有组织毒品犯罪的侦查策略。     

Integrity verification of user space code

We present a novel approach for the construction and application of cryptographic hashes to user space memory for the purposes of verifying the provenance of code in memory images. Several key aspects of Windows behaviour which influence this process are examined in-depth. Our approach is implemented and evaluated on a selection of malware samples with user space components as well as a collection of common Windows applications. The results demonstrate that our approach is highly effective at reducing the amount of memory requiring manual analysis, highlighting the presence of malicious code in all the malware sampled.