WeChat: social and political development of China’s dominant messaging app

This article traces the development of the Chinese social media app WeChat from its origins to its current role as a leading communications tool for some 600 million Chinese citizens. It analyzes the ways the small-group oriented app is changing China’s social connections, as it enhances trusted, personal contacts while transforming opportunities for larger online group formation. The article assesses methods the Chinese Government employs to monitor and control WeChat communication, and provides a case-focus study. It also considers the apolitical features, in particular, those related to entertainment and personal social relations, which have made important contributions to WeChat’s great popularity.     

克吕尼运动的性质及其与格列高利改革的关系

本文旨在考察克吕尼运动的性质及其与格列高利改革的关系。作为中世纪欧洲集权尝试的开端,克吕尼运动和格列高利改革分别指向集权的两个基本面,即道德方面和政治方面。克吕尼运动在本质上是一场道德革新运动,其成功关键在于将集权作为道德革新的基本手段。格列高利改革将克吕尼的经验拓展至政治领域,一反遁世离俗的本尼迪克式理想,要求按照基督教原则改造现实世界,从而奠定了12、13世纪政教斗争的基本逻辑。一方面,克吕尼运动为格列高利改革提供了思想条件和技术手段;另一方面,克吕尼运动始终将自己约束在道德革新领域。究其原因,它的理想本质上是本尼迪克式的。     

‘There it will be better … ’: Southern Sudanese in Khartoum imagining a new ‘home’ away from ‘home’

At the time of the research, Khartoum was a multi-ethnic and multinational metropolis of 8 million people. A considerable part of the population consists of Southern Sudanese migrants and displaced persons that came during the 20 years plus of civil war in South Sudan to the capital. These people were categorised after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), as displaced people regardless as to whether they come to the capital as labour migrants, students or because of the war to the capital. The notion of displacement assumes that they are people who are ‘out of place’: thereby assuming a former situation of being in place, a place that can be called ‘home’. After the CPA from 2005, this frequently only imagined home became a real place for the IDP’s to which they are supposed to go back. Yet, many migrants and displaced people are reluctant to move to Southern Sudan. Their decision about going to the South or staying in Khartoum depends not only on the opportunities and perspectives in their respective ‘home’ areas but also on the perceptions of belonging and identity. The imaginations and aspirations about the future life in South Sudan, which I analyse in this article, reflect this ambivalent positioning.     

The politics of community arts: quilting the power and identity of women

This article attempts to articulate and re-validate the unique social contributions of marginalized and working women to their communities and to society-at-large, contributions which tend to be obscured if not forgotten, given the global dynamics of exclusion as they are at work in the capitalist society of Hong Kong. It looks at how a group of disenfranchised women workers renegotiate their identity, reclaim their dignity and regenerate social power through a community arts project ‘Quilting the Power and Identity’; that is, how through these creative but powerful actions, their transformation from a transient state of imposed victimhood into active agency could be made possible.     

Jamming the jamming: Brazilian protests as an illustration of a new politics of consumption

ABSTRACT

Based on a reflexive and critical analysis of the citizen protests that pervaded Brazilian cities in June 2013, in this article we argue that a significant part of the demonstrators’ dissatisfaction took the form of a new politics of consumption with particular characteristics, including the subversion of the culture jamming concept by citizens and by corporations. Our main contribution is to provide the Brazilian protests as an illustration of a new politics of consumption, where ‘citizen-consumers’ direct their dissatisfaction toward the government using tactics that, historically, were considered counter-hegemonic and directed to the market, as is the case of the culture jamming. Likewise, the corporations present themselves as partners of those citizen-consumers. Mobilizing a dialectical reasoning, our results invite readers to reflect on the ambiguities among politics of consumption and culture jamming, and the challenges they bring to organizations and society.     

论新时期电影中女性情欲的政治表述

在倡导生产伦理的主导政治的影响下，新时期电影中的女性情欲话语依然内含着某种变形后的政治动员机制，它们或以情欲展演完成政治神话的表述，或以情欲规划引导观众的利比多流向。然而，新时期电影所获得的半自律性生存空间，使得越轨的银幕女体情欲展演亦拥有其存活土壤，它们与主导政治文化之间既有共谋亦有背离。     

《红岩》:知识分子的凤凰涅槃

在新中国十七年"红色经典"当中,<红岩>是社会影响最大的一部小说,作品成功塑造了一批中国共产党人的光辉形象,并以生动而感人的故事情节,书写了知识分子革命者的钢铁意志和精神炼狱,进而成为了广大知识分子思想改造的政治"教科书",由此深深影响了几代中国人的成长历程.     

简论高校校务公开与构建和谐校园

校务公开是高校民主政治建设的重要内容,也是依法治校和构建和谐校园的必然要求。分析了高校校务公开的基本涵义,研究了深化校务公开的措施和途径：强化领导者的校务公开意识,创新校务公开的体制和机制,拓宽校务公开的内容和载体,健全校务公开的评价体系。