Putting women back in their place. Reflections on slut-shaming,the case Asia Argento and Twitter in Italy

ABSTRACT

Compared to racist and ethnicist discourses, literature on sexist discourses – both off and on-line – as hate speech is relatively underinvestigated. This is partly due to the tendency to minimise accusations of sexism and to reframe misogyny as ‘acceptable’ by constructing it as a form of humour. We decided to focus on slut-shaming, one of the most virulent forms of hate speech, which has always existed but was boosted by social media, becoming a stable low-cost ingredient of today’s rape culture. We propose to consider online slut-shaming as a form of ‘technology-facilitated sexual violence’, where digital technologies are used to facilitate both virtual and face-to-face sexually based harms. According to feminist analysis of sexual violence, this would be a matter of power rather than sex: sex would be the weapon, not the motive. We have tested this research hypothesis by focusing on the Italian reception of the MeToo campaign, triggered by Asia Argento’s denunciation. More specifically, two Different Twitter corpora produced within the same five months period were examined by means of a quantitative and a qualitative methodology.     

Kairos economies in the post-Soviet transition period of Central Asia

There are times when entire populations of certain countries have had to readjust their lives and economic strategies as all of society is under transition. Post-Soviet Central Asia underwent this period after 1991. During times of transition, there are always people that tend to be able to make use of the new uncertainties, even at the risk of entering legal grey areas. Here new social groups emerge, ethnic origin becomes relevant and new kinship ties are made. These transformation periods are often short and provide limited opportunities for analysing the strategies of those pioneers that I call Kairos economists. They often act only in cooperation with residents of the border and with duty customs and security personnel. This article analyses this special economy with the help of case studies that have been observed during the transformation period from the Soviet to an independent Central Asia.     

The politics of leisure and labor mobilities: discourses of tourism and transnational migration in Central Java,Indonesia

This article presents narratives and tropes of transnational tourism from a less considered perspective: rural migrant-origin villagers of Central Java. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Cilacap and Yogyakarta, I analyze how and why some former temporary labor migrants depict their typically harsh experiences in terms of tourism and leisure. Addressing the tendency in current research to approach labor migration and tourism as mutually exclusive or unrelated class categories and experiences, I consider the ways in which former migrants and non-migrant villagers evaluate or identify labor migration in terms of gender, class, religious, and ethno-national subjectivities associated with ‘tourist’ and/or ‘migrant’ categories. Popular and commercial imaginations of leisure travel and tourism importantly shape the subjectivities and positionalities of precarious labor migrants. Foregrounding the relations between tourism and labor migration reveals the multi-scalar ways in which associated discourses and infrastructures of both mutually shape and constitute global socio-economic inequalities.     

习近平外交思想指向下中日关系发展的新定位

近年来中日关系逐步转寒回暖,无论政治交流氛围,还是经济合作环境都得到了较大改善,这离不开中国政府根据国际形势及中日关系的变化及时调整对日政策,也充分体现了习近平新时代中国特色社会主义外交思想对中日关系缓和发展的引领作用。在安倍首相访华及习近平主席出席大阪G20峰会之后,两国政府在努力建设契合新时代要求的中日关系上达成多点共识。中日双方将依托“一带一路”倡议和第三方市场合作的平台,进一步致力于深化经济合作,维护多边主义和自由贸易体制,共同培育新动能和新的增长点,加速东北亚区域命运共同体的构建。     

符码化与景观生产——东北乡村喜剧的伪现实主义特点研究

符码化和景观生产是东北乡村喜剧节目呈现出的一种伪现实主义特点。伪现实主义是在现实主义的参照下，当下中国学术界新提出的一种理论观点。信息化时代，媒介突起是伪现实主义出现的背景，主要表征在影视节目文本的创作和艺术特点等方面。东北乡村喜剧是近年来最为流行的节目之一。在电视、网络等电子媒介的助推下，东北乡村喜剧首先建构出迎合受众感官和心理体验方面的“伪现实”情境；表面上打着追求“快乐”的幌子，实质上是在对东北方言进行编码；祛除历史蕴涵，错置文化语境，刻意强化、突出俚俗特点是编码的主要形式。成功编码的东北方言成为一种具有“召唤”功能的景观，观众沉浸在“傻乐”景观中，丧失了思考自身真实生活处境的能力，变成了单向度的人。     

20世纪初东北叙事文学话语的现代形态和意义

20世纪初的东北文学叙事话语的现代性,体现在对近现代国家的体认、对现代社会的认知,以及对现代文学的趋赴。在文学中体现出的国家观念,仍旧徘徊于旧的封贡体系中,近现代民族国家意识缺位,滞后于国际政治体系的变化。这使得其时的东北叙事文学中出现了两类独具时代特色的内容,一是外国政史小说的书写,一是"外国"世情小说创作。在其时的文学镜像中,城市文明呈现的是一种失衡、倾斜的形象,在从旧文化向新文化攀升的艰难行程中,来自旧时代的写手似乎更多地关注和记录了它转型中丑陋的足迹。在文学性方面,则表现出对现代文学的趋赴,内容上从教谕文学、游戏文学转向对人生的写实,篇章结构从说话体、笔记体的框制中挣脱出来,书写日常生活、人物和风景,逐步建设以呈现人生为追求的现代文学。     

对海洋霸权与大陆均势关系的再探讨

虽然以往研究海洋霸权与大陆均势关系的成果颇丰,但还是存在一些不足。为此,本文对海洋霸权与大陆均势关系的结构类型、运行机制及其影响等进行了深化与细化。在海洋霸权国国力大于或小于或等于大陆均势中的有关国家的不同情况下,大陆均势可以分为不需要海洋霸权仅凭大陆国家就能形成的大陆均势和需要海洋霸权且支持其中一方才能形成的大陆均势。不同的国力对比和均势构成情况,对海洋霸权与大陆国家的政治安全与经济发展所产生的影响是不同的。经过分析和比较,本文得出结论:海陆分界难分优劣,关系互补战略呼应,这就是美英极力推行海洋霸权与大陆均势战略的现实诠释。     

China’s flexible overseas food strategy: food trade and agricultural investment between Southeast Asia and China in 1990–2015

Using the UN Comtrade database and multiple sources of agricultural investment data, this paper outlines the emerging patterns of food trade and agricultural investment between Southeast Asian countries and China. The paper shows that China has adopted a flexible overseas food strategy. First, China has increased food export and shifted its food trade with Southeast Asia from a dependent relationship towards a complementary relationship at the regional level in recent years. Second, China tends to adapt to the existing conditions of food production and trade in Southeast Asian countries instead of fundamentally altering them. Finally, Chinese overseas agricultural investment is less driven by domestic food demand but more oriented for profit making, and this gives it flexibility in diversifying investment. An adequate understanding of China’s flexible food strategy in bilateral and multilateral relationships holds implications for global food security.     

Sharing and exchanging: understanding common grounds in northeast India

ABSTRACT

Northeast India, a ‘zipper region’ that gives impetus to Southeast Asian and Himalasian studies, is marked by complexities and ambiguities. The paper examines the multiple identity construction in contemporary Assam, the central state of this region and seeks to recover the other experiences that make ethnic life-world possible while challenging the ethnocentric discourses—in academia, politics, public and social movements. Acknowledging the presence of common or possibly universal processes behind the production of such discourses, it aims to interrogate the factors that cut across socio-cultural, political-economical or ecological dimensions. It further examines the multiple discourses and narratives that makes that social possible in the region. In doing so, it locates the strategic positioning of such discourses and how they deal with Indian nation-state and beyond. This paper in essence is interested in the question of possibility of various discourses—as a question of post-history.