Women in Lhasa, Tibet

Lhasa, capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, is a famous cultural city with a long history on the roof of the world. After more than 30 years' construction, the urban area now covers over 50 sq. kilometers. The city has been gradually equipped with complete facilities for scientific research, culture and education, publication, commerce, fire control, communications and energy supply. Lhasa is now a bright pearl of prosperity on the snowy lands.     

Studying in France,Serving at Home

DEAR EDITOR, I am a 75-year-old retired primary school teacher. I published my new work The Work-Study Movement of Young Chinese in France (1912-1930) three years ago, expressing my fondness of history, especially China's history. Currently, I pay more attention to the Chinese women who came to France for studies in their early years, Could you publish some precise information on their situations before and after returning to China? GABRIELLE REYGNER FRANCE     

Population removal,displacement, and divestment in South Africa∗

In the past twenty years several million Africans have been removed or displaced from the ‘White’ areas to the ‘homelands’. Others have found themselves in the ‘homelands’ by virtue of changed borders between the ‘homelands’ and the rest of South Africa. But all three categories lose on transfer to the ‘homelands’ whatever rights to ‘White’ area residence and employment they might have enjoyed under the pass laws. Transferring people to the ‘homelands’ not only often curtails their access to the labour market; it also adds to the financial burdens of the ‘homeland’ administrations, who find themselves having to provide extra schools, health services, and other facilities. Some of the ‘homelands’ are poorer in terms of public funds than are countries like Lesotho. The financial apartheid that is entailed in the ‘homelands’ policy, which includes classifying public funds supplied to the ‘homeland’ administrations as ‘foreign aid,’ is one of the most insidious forms of racial discrimination in South Africa. Under the stricter enforcement of the pass laws that has come about following the recommendations of the Riekert Commission, people in the ‘homelands’ are having their access to the mainstream economy reduced. Displacing Africans to the ‘homelands’ enables the government to ‘export’ part of South Africa's unemployment problem. One of the chief motives behind the refurbished industrial decentralisation programme announced by the Prime Minister on 31st March 1982 is to promote the policy of influx control. It remains to be seen whether the refurbished programme makes a material contribution to the creation of additional jobs in the ‘homelands’. The action of the authorities in deporting people from Cape Town to the Transkeiin August 1981 under laws governing aliens testifies to continued determination to deflect black urbanisation from the ‘White’ areas to the ‘homelands’. But it is doubtful whether the ‘homelands’ have the space to accommodate people displaced from ‘White’ areas as well as their own natural population increase. Pressures from farmers in the ‘White’ areas for erecting fences between these areas and the ‘homelands’ testifies to growing tensions on the internal borders of South Africa as the ‘homelands’ reach bursting point.     

Autonomy in Everyday Life,for Whom?

A disability reform came into force in Sweden in 1994 which emphasises the importance for disabled people to increased autonomy and self determination in everyday life. Interviews with disabled women and men have shown that while there are those who, because of the legislation, have increased control in their everyday living, there are also those who in no way have benefited from this reform. Some of the disabled participants have not even heard of the legislation before the time of the interview. They are in a situation that they require support, which they do not have, in order to apply for services of their choice and, if necessary, appeal against 'negative' decisions with regard to the applied for services. The paper concludes with a discussion about the Janus-faced nature of individual rights.     

Trends in Female Violence, 1960–1977

Abstract

This paper examines the issue of whether levels of female violent crime are rising. Two differing viewpoints, both using the Uniform Crime Reports as their principal data source, are compared. Both viewpoints suffer because of a failure to specify the major questions on female violent crime and because of inappropriate usage of UCR arrest statistics. The central questions about female violent crime are clarified, and arrest rates are computed to determine whether there has been any change in levels of female violent crime since 1960. The effects of the women's movement on female violent crime are also examined. The conclusion is that female levels of violence are rising, but male levels are increasing at an equal pace. The pattern of the data suggests that the upward trend in female violence, which now appears to be leveling off, is not due to the women's movement or to the changing status of women in the United States. Instead it appears that common social forces are operating to affect levels of violence for both sexes.     

Women in Academic Sociology, 1925–75

Abstract

The career patterns of two distinguished sociologists, Arnold and Caroline Rose, exemplify male-female differentials in academic career patterns in sociology. Arnold's career was a straight and steep line of progression; Caroline's, despite her record of scholarly productivity, existed on the fringes of academia—night school, correspondence courses, and extension and part-time teaching. Examination of the authors and reviews in the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review confirms this model of women at the academic margins: over the years, women have written a far greater proportion of the book reviews than of the articles. This pattern parallels that women in academic life generally, although not all of it can be attributed to discriminatory factors. While the participation of women in mainstream academic life has increased in very recent years, these historic patterns indicate the possible need for different formal models of male and female academic careers.     

Criminal sittings – rape in the colony, New Zealand, 1862

In 1862 His Honor, Justice Johnston, issued his instructions to the jury of the New Zealand Supreme Court for two simultaneous rape trials – the alleged rape of a European woman by two Māori men, and an alleged “assault with intent to commit a rape” of a Māori woman by a European man. This article argues that those instructions should be read within an historiographical critique of British colonial expansion, print capitalism and violence. Drawing on feminist postcolonial theorizing the question posed here, is, “What is the historical, ideological context for a newspaper reporting of the possible rape of a Māori woman in 1862?     

New Ways of Life, Thinking, Cause Distress in Modern Families

THE social news that has appeared in the media comes in all forms. Some people regard an increase in the number of divorce cases brought by omen as a sign that society has advanced. Others look at the activity of selecting "model husbands" as a trend that women are prospering, while the age of male dominance is in decline. Some say that the "single child" is an expedient measure for the state population policy, while in reality, the state has reached its goal of "fewer births, but excellent child-rearing and     

Servant,sailor, soldier,tailor, beggarman: Black survival in white society 1780–1830

Black history has witnessed an upsurge in historical interest from the 1970s onwards. However, significant developments have been impaired by the lack of direct black testimony and the paucity of information in general. Thus, scholarship has concentrated on a triumvirate of black literary figures and on the abolition of slavery. New dimensions and departures have been achieved by the work of Duffield, Lorimer and Braidwood; nevertheless, there remain identifiable areas in which our knowledge is deficient. One of the most important is that of black economic survival in white society, which has received only cursory attention. The aim of this study is to reconstruct black occupational structures and examine strategies of survival during the period 1780 to 1830.

This reconstruction of black socio‐economic groupings and employment patterns identifies complexities that were previously obscured. Important distinctions between the free and enslaved are discernible, especially in the occupations of servant and sailor. To support these conclusions evidence has been quarried from newspapers, parish registers and criminal records and comparisons made with the white population. Occupational structures of black men and women have been analysed and the material has enabled black people in the metropolis to be geographically located. Furthermore, the results reinforce the young male dominance of the black population as gender ratios and ages are distinguished.

By adopting a ‘history from below’ approach, attention has finally been diverted away from an elitist group of articulate black men and the issues of abolition towards an analysis of ‘rank and file’ black men and women, and will assist those in search of black roots.     

Guoqiao Mixian, A Local Flavor in Yunnan

YUNNAN Province, at the southwest border of China, is one of the main rice producing area in China and much of its culture is connected with the planting and consuming of rice. It also has a rich variety of local snacks. The most popular snack is guoqiao mixian (rice noodles that go across the bridge). Local people like to serve this treat to their guests and visitors from faraway lands. Mixian, a fine noodle made of rice flour, is popular in many southern regions like Hunan, Guangxi and Guangdong provinces. It looks quite similar to the common noodle, except     

While in Shanghai,Enjoy Unigue Bars!

Today, bars are nothingnew for people who live inmajor cities. Bars have becomeso common that they have toseek a revolution for survival.It seems the only way tosurvive the fierce market competitionis to take the lead in being special. Asa result, some bars are attractingcustomers with unique features.Among them are:     

Collective violence in China, 1880–1980

Conclusion This article began by noting that certain current theories of rural violence, predicated upon the demise of the peasantry, are of limited applicability to China. However, it is not my intention to argue that China scholars should therefore feel free to ignore general theories altogether. Quite the contrary. As the preceding discussion has tried to show, general theories are of considerable value in illuminating our understanding of specific cases of raphy cleaves to a rigid five modes of production approach, in recent years alternative arguments have gained some currency. The least innovative of these alternatives is a resurrected Asiatic Mode of Production theory, an approach whose main appeal lies in its claim to Marxist legitimacy. Though Marx and Engels should be credited for the recognition that hypotheses developed to account for West European history may be ill-suited to explain the social history of India or China, their resort to an Asiatic Mode has, quite properly, drawn criticism. For one thing, Asian societies differed markedly among themselves. For another, the allegedly despotic political systems of Asian countries did not in fact prevent substantial socioeconomic change over time.Despite these familiar criticisms, however, in some respects the theory is of interest to the student of China. As Marx described it, the foundation of Oriental despotism was actually collective property, in most cases created through a combination of manufacture and agriculture within the small community which thus becomes entirely self-sustaining... The key to a powerful state, in other words, was the strength and isolation of local corporate communities. The theory is interesting for the attention it focuses upon two elements: the state and local collectivities.Recently in China, a number of theorists - while rejecting many of the assumptions of the Asiatic Mode - have nevertheless retained its concern with state and local society. Some theorists, characterizing the Chinese polity as an ultrastable system (chaowending xitong), have stressed bureaucratic continuity. They emphasize the homeostatic properties of the imperial political system: flexibility provided through peasant rebellions, migration, partible inheritance, and the like. Such safety-valves, these theorists suggest, allowed periodic changes in the ruling elite, but no fundamental alteration of the strong state structure itself.Other theorists, emphasizing China's small-peasant economy (xiaonong jingji), look to the peculiarities of traditional Chinese agriculture for the key to her historical experience. Chen Ping, for example, identifies the Chinese concentration on grain production, in contrast to Europe or the United States where grain production has been balanced by animal husbandry and forestry, as a critical factor. By his account, the mixture of agricultural pursuits in the West encouraged a division of labor, commercialization, and scientific progress. The Chinese system, by contrast, stunted such developments and served instead as a secure foundation for landlord-bureaucratic domination. According to Chen Ping, it was small-peasant agriculture that constituted an ultrastable economic structure (chaowending de jingji jiegou). Although particular dynasties came and went in periodic peasant rebellions, the limiting economic system continued to reproduce despotism. Chen Ping's lessons for contemporary China are basically economic: utilize the international market, diversify beyond grain production to develop an ecologically balanced agriculture, encourage a type of industrialization that complements agricultural needs.Though the critique presented by the small-peasant economy theorists remains largely in the realm of economics, another group offers a more directly political challenge. These are the writers who characterize contemporary China as operating under a system of agricultural socialism (nongye shehuizhuyi). According to their analysis, the persistence of small-scale production has given rise to a pernicious bureaucratism that permeates all facets of socialist China. Cadres - chosen for their peasant class origins rather than for any expertise - are said to operate by principles opposed to economic progress. Administrative fiat, maintained by political force, overshadows efficiency as the criterion of operational feasibility. While arguing that the root of the problem lies in small-scale peasant production, the agricultural socialism critics insist that bureaucratism has become a major barrier to further development.Limited as these various formulations are, their attention to state and local peasant society resonates with a central theme of this essay. Much more research is needed to delineate the precise structure of state and local collectivities, interactions between them, and variations over time and from one geographical setting to another. But eventually such work promises to take us nearer to the reality of the Chinese case than we can hope to approach through the wholesale transfer of theories devised to explain quite different historical developments. The peasant studies school, whose central thesis hinges - ironically enough - on the demise of the peasantry, offers but partial explanations for a society whose peasants refuse to die.

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‘He outfitted his family in notable decency’: Slavery,Honour and Dress in Eighteenth-Century Lima,Peru

For elite Spaniards in eighteenth-century Lima, elegant clothing provided a language for expressing their wealth, status and honour. They frequently made their way around town in the company of elegantly dressed slave attendants, whose presence underscored their owners' privilege. Yet many slaves found opportunities to function as more than mere canvasses for the expression of their owners' identities. Indeed, for a surprising number of slaves, elegant clothing was a key tool with which they negotiated their status and laid claim to their own definitions of honour. By mapping the study of material culture onto the study of slavery, this paper brings into relief the social meanings that clothing contained for slaves, and highlights the possibilities that urban life contained for the creation of social identities that fell outside the social and colour lines drawn by the colonial state.¹     

What Women Do,Believe in,and Financially Contribute—What Matters More in Couples' Decision Making? Gender Inequality in Ghana's Small-Scale Fisheries☆

Studies of couple's decision-making power consistently show that women disproportionately occupy subordinate positions. Using survey data (N = 400) from an ethnographic study on Ghanaian female fisherfolk, we examine the influences of women's financial contributions, ownership of production assets and gender role attitudes, and how they interact with the bodily capacities required to perform different fishery tasks to shape women's decision-making power. Findings show that financial contributions and ownership of production assets remain salient determinants of women's fishery decision-making power. However, their participation in strenuous tasks dampens the positive relationship between their financial contributions, gender role attitudes and decision-making power, such that financial contributions become insignificant. Women's decision-making power varies according to the sex-typed division of labor in small-scale fishing, and those who violate it are ‘punished’—as evident in their decreased decision-making power. Attention to the co-implications of socio-economic forces and material factors such as women's embodied experiences highlights (1) the specificities of occupational sex segregation and decision-making in agricultural sectors of developing economies and (2) how such entanglements can be reconfigured to enhance women's decision-making power in such contexts.