Friendship as Sisters

AFTER more than 100 years of constant change, Hong Kong has finally returned to the motherland. Looking toward at this special occasion, we cannot forget the past events between the women of the mainland and those of Hong Kong. Since September 26, 1984, when the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed in Beijing, the women from these two areas have made efforts for Hong Kong's smooth return and stable transition. As the biggest women's organization on the mainland, the All-China Women's Federation has been in close contact with the women of Hong Kong, increasing mutual understanding as well as deepening feelings of sisterhood.     

My Pleasure as a Postwoman

"THE post office will allow the daughters of post and telecommunications staff to become postwomen," said father after he arrived home. That happened one day in early 1951. When I heard the news, I was so happy I jumped for joy. My father     

Palace Maiden Remembered as Heroine

THE story of Wang Zhaojun's marriage is a true story in Chinese history that has become a common household legend. Zhaojun was a beautiful young Han woman who lived long ago. In order for central China to be on good terms with the minority nationalities in remote, northern China, and to bring the war between these two powers to an end, Wang sacrificed herself, agreeing to marry the chief of the Xiongnu     

Nation-states as empires,empires as nation-states: two principles,one practice?

Empires and nation-states are generally opposed to each other, as contrasting and antithetical forms. Nationalism is widely held to have been the solvent that dissolved the historic European empires. This paper argues that there are in fact, in practice at least, significant similarities between nation-states and empires. Many nation-states are in effect empires in miniature. Similarly, many empires can be seen as nation-states “writ large.” Moreover, empires were not, as is usually held, superseded by nation-states but continued alongside them. Empires and nation-states may in fact best be thought of as alternative political projects, both of which are available for elites to pursue depending on the circumstances of the moment. Ultimately empires and nation-states do point in different directions, but it is not clear that the future is a future of nation-states. Empires, as large-scale and long-lasting multiethnic and “multicultural” experiments, may have much to teach us in the current historical phase of globalization and increasingly heterogeneous societies.     

Engineer Works as Usual Despite Honors

HU Meijuan, 49, is a high-ranking engineer in charge of computer operations at the Qinshan Nuclear Power Station, the first nuclear power station built by China. Among more than 600 technicians, there are many women, but Hu is considered the most understanding of them. In 1987 the Qinshan Nuclear Power Station started operations in scenic Hangzhouwan. A large group of qualified personnel in     

Are Listeners Perceived as Leaders?

Listening is known to strongly correlate with leadership perception. As leadership theories distinguish between people-oriented (consideration) and task-oriented (initiating structure) leaders, we sought to identify parallel listening behaviors: person-oriented listening versus fact-oriented listening. A survey of employees from multiple organizations (N?=?238) suggested that both person-oriented listening and considerate leadership are better measured with subscales differentiating constructive and destructive listening and considerate and inconsiderate leadership. Second, results suggested that the highest correlations for each leadership scale were (a) leadership consideration with person-oriented listening (r = .71), (b) leadership inconsideration with destructive listening (r = .67), and (c) initiating-structure leadership with fact-oriented listening (r = .23). The pattern of relationships was further explored with a path analysis. Based on the data, it appears that measuring listening could benefit from using separate scales for constructive versus destructive listening, and that key aspects of leadership perception are highly correlated with listening behaviors.     

Society as an ethical system†

The idea of society on which the social sciences are premised is one of a structured pattern of interdependence and interaction that drives participation in a shared communication space and, thereby, a degree of common consciousness. These are also the preconditions for ethics to operate as an internal mode of self-understanding rather than an external imposition. Societies, in other words, are ethical systems. In order to understand in what sense societies, in the context of contemporary transformations, can still be thought of and analysed as ethical systems, the article focuses on inequality as both a practically important and normatively complex challenge – one that the international community, through the 2030 Agenda for Inclusive and Sustainable Development, has recognized to be one of its action priorities. These considerations further bear on the relation between the social sciences and the humanities, which is one important dimension of the future of the social sciences.     

Do teenage mothers experience childbirth as traumatic?

Although several hundred thousand teenagers give birth each year in the United States, little is known about their psychological experience of childbirth, especially with respect to its traumatic impact. This article highlights the findings of a pilot study of 28 teenage mothers who reported on their traumatic and depressive symptoms related to childbirth. Literature on adolescent childbearing, posttraumatic stress, and postpartum depression is also reviewed.     

Infant “surprise” expressions as coordinative motor structures

This study found that the facial action of moderately or widely opening the mouth is accompanied by brow raising in infnats, thus producing surprise expressions in non-surprise situations. Infants (age = 5 months and 7 months) were videotaped as they were presented with toys that they often grasped and brought to their mouths. Episodes of mouth opening were identified and accompanying brow, nose, and eyelid movements were coded. Results indicated that mouth opening is selectively associated with raised brows rather than to other brow movements. Trace levels of eyelid raising also tended to accompany this facial configuration. The findings are discussed in terms of a dynamical systems theory of facial behavior and suggest that facial expression cannot be used as investigators' sole measure of surprise in infants.This research was conducted as part of the second author's undergraduate honors program project and was supported in part by a grant from the NICHHD #1RO1 HD 22399-A3 awarded to G. F. Michel.     

“Marrying off” children as a developmental stage

Conclusion Marrying off the children is an important developmental stage in adulthood. Part of the very long and complex stage described by Erik Erikson as Generativity vs. Stagnation, this stage, like many earlier life stages, can be understood to give rise to a normative adult crisis that is destabilizing and anxiety-provoking. The marriage of one's offspring requires an ongoing transformation of parental narcissism, part of a developmental process that is intrinsic to parenthood. Issues of selfesteem are revived and reworked during this period. Traditional theory looks to oedipal rivalry or drive conflict of some kind to explain the anxiety at this time. An expanded understanding of narcissism, provided by Kohut and Elson has given us a broader view of these phenomena.The experience of hurt and sadness at a time when there is reason to celebrate can be a profoundly lonely and bewildering experience. As informed clinicians we can alleviate some of the loneliness and guilt about these feelings by understanding the challenge to the self that the marriage of adult children may represent.     

Organized Environmentalists: Democracy as a Key Value?

This article, taking as its point of departure that voluntary organizations are of crucial importance in a democracy, views the transformation of the Norwegian voluntary sector through the lenses of what happens within the environmental field. Seeing changes within this field as prototypical for the transformation of the voluntary sector more generally, we start with the organizational level and contrast old versus new environmental organizations. The aim is to ascertain to what extent the newly built organizations are leaving the historically important democratic organizational model. Second, we compare attitudes toward democracy of members of the democratically and nondemocratically built organizations: attitudes both toward democracy within a voluntary organization (internal) and democracy in society (external). Furthermore, we compare these findings with what we find for the population at large. The last section analyzes demographic characteristics of organized environmentalists to see whether a new type of elite, more distanced from the population at large, is emerging in the new and nondemocratically built organizations. The study finds that new organizations are definitely breaking with the democratic organizational model. The support for democracy (internal and external) is comprehensive but not always overwhelming, and there is a tendency in the direction of congruence between organizational structure and individual attitudes. That is, members of democratically built organizations especially value internal but also to some extent external democracy more than members of nondemocratically built organizations. However, even if formal democratic structure and democracy as an absolute and generalized value seems to be under pressure, it does not follow that a new type of elitism is emerging.     

As good as it gets? Rethinking old age

Although approximately half of aging Americans will probably not be able to live independently after retirement age, there is a greater focus on end-of-life matters, such as living wills, than on exploring creative long-term care models that promote healthy aging. With more Americans aging healthfully, now is the time to look at innovations in long-term care that will not only provide safe housing, but will also focus on the trajectory from healthy aging to end-of-life care, including health promotion and even reversal of disabilities incurred in the aging process. Nurses and other health care professionals need to rethink how those they care for will live out their later years and explore creative approaches for extending living options that foster autonomy.     

ping-mechanism as a new attempt to resolve the problem

new way of the reformation of agriculture extension system, it is also a beneficial trial to construct the agriculture extension system with Chinese characteristics.agriculture extension; Nanping-mechanism; technology specialists国家软科学资助项目(2003DGQ3D111)0科技和产业Science Technology and Industry91-95F327J14938J;J14     

Landcare as a politically relevant new social movement?

This paper explores the political relevance of the Landcare movement in Australia in an attempt to understand the capacity of rural people to develop political outcomes through social action in civil society. We relate Claus Offe's notion of a politically relevant new social movement to movement development in Landcare and discuss the implications of this in terms of movement stability, relationships with the state and neo-liberal governance in Australia.Landcare has many of the characteristics attributed to new social movements. People involved in Landcare typically express a commitment to participatory forms of action and coordination, believe in a ‘win-win’ approach to conflict and are opposed to government ‘telling them what to do’. Forms of limited protest and conflict with government occur when core values of autonomy and participation are perceived to be under threat and these values are perceived to be universal rather than just applying to movement participants. However, in contrast to the attributes associated with new social movements, Landcare does not have an outwardly ‘oppositional’ character and a high proportion of movement members in Landcare are farmers and close to the imperatives of agricultural commodity production. Further, the state has had a central role in the initiation and ongoing support of the ‘movement’.These two latter points of difference, however, confer the most ‘political relevance’ to the movement. The role of the state in catalysing Landcare and promoting the ‘program’ in terms of its participatory values, confers significant legitimacy on the outcomes of participatory Landcare fora. Further, the increased transparency and learning of the environment through Landcare activities by farmers can lead to a questioning of the current economic orthodoxy that underpins rural policy.     

Why Do Temp Workers Work as Hard as They Do?: The Commitment and Suffering of Factory Temp Workers in Japan

This qualitative study on blue‐collar temporary agency workers in Japan uses participant observation and in‐depth interviews to revisit the Marxist problem of surplus appropriation; that is, why do temp workers work as hard as they do, when management has little to offer in return? Existing literature has provided two answers of “coercion” and “consent.” This study attempts to bridge the debate by employing Bourdieu and Wacquant's concepts of practical sense and illusio. Workers entering the factory as novices initially made conscious efforts to master the specific bodily schemes necessary to survive on an insecure job. It was in the process of mastering the practical knowledge of factory work that temp workers came to be taken in, and by the game. Temp workers came to experience joy in investing their mind and body in the tasks, for they saw themselves reflected in the good job they did. Yet workers were not wholehearted believers in the game; they questioned their commitment and deeply suffered from reflecting on the poor treatment they continued to receive despite their commitment.     

‘We are not as alike,as you think’ sense of individuality within the co-twin relationship along the life course

We have explored how older twins experience and describe themselves in relation to their co-twin. The life stories of 20 older twins were analyzed with narrative analysis.Results showed that the twins described themselves from the point of differences in relation to the co-twin. This was based on experiences of how other people viewed them as alike, as well as on life events along the life course, which contributed to the perception of oneself as an individual in relation to the co-twin. The emphasis on unlikeness was therefore interpreted as a way of trying to establish a position as an individual within the co-twin relationship and to assert ones individuality to the rest of the social environment. To claim oneself as an individual was an ongoing identity work along the life course.     

Creative precarity? Young fashion designers as entrepreneurs in Russia

ABSTRACT

This article explores the careers of young fashion designers as entrepreneurs in Russia. It discusses entrepreneurial experiences and labour practices of fashion designers in the context of precarity: that is, the structural conditions characterized by a lack of social, economic and emotional security caused by a shift of responsibilities for the labour market from the state to the citizens. The article takes the perspective of designers’ agency and answers the question of how young fashion entrepreneurs deal with such structural conditions using state support, community support, organizational practices and emotional management. The article also focuses on creative labour in the broader context of the circumstances of a creative class in an authoritarian state. We argue that in today’s Russia, the discourse on the creative class is perhaps more important than the discourse on precarity, since belonging to the creative class is a source of political identity for fashion designers. The issue of precarity, then, can become a further basis for solidarity and political action. The research draws from 21 in-depth interviews with fashion designers and experts conducted in the cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk between 2015 and 2016.     

Terror as potentiality – the affective rhythms of the political

ABSTRACT

The paper addresses the ways in which the cultural, the affective and the political intersect, counter and/or feed upon one another in the context of contemporary terror. Initially, building upon Machiavelli and Hobbes, we deal with the political significance of terror (and the fear it provokes), emphasizing its potentiality, which inscribes future within the present. Then we turn to an analysis of terror in the prism of securitization. Terror, in this respect, amounts to de-materialization (the enemy as spectre), de-temporalization (the erasure of the temporal difference between the present and the future), and de-territorialisation the breakdown of the distinctions between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Following this, we observe how these three processes are dealt with at the subjective and objective (social) levels. Regarding the first, subjective, level we differentiate three attitudes as paranoid, panic and rational. Regarding the latter, we consider terror in terms of accident, risk and catastrophe. Then, discussing the rhythmic relations between these conceptualizations and their spatio-temporal consequences, we focus on the notion of catastrophe. We end with articulating the aporias emerging in this context