'More Than Just a Hill of Beans': Contested Landscapes in John Nichols' The Milagro Beanfield War

Abstract

The American Southwest is often considered to be a harsh and unforgiving environment, yet it remains an area where indigenous communities have lived for centuries and since being opened up as a tourist destination in the late nineteenth century has witnessed an incredible growth of major urban conurbations. It is a fragile environment coming under increasing pressure and nowhere is this more apparent than in the competition for scarce water resources. Water issues remain high on the political agenda and the threat to small scale acequia farming is under intense pressure from larger agribusiness. This essay, which adopts an ecocritical perspective, revisits John Nichols' 1974 novel The Milagro Beanfield War , analysing his literary strategies as he explores the ramifications of differing interpretations of land use on the contested landscapes of New Mexico.     

Neoconservative intellectuals and the limitations of governing The Reagan administration and the demise of the Cold War

Abstract

During the 1970s, the then-emerging 'neoconservatives' promoted a foreign policy of aggressive containment of the Soviet Union. Many of these neocons were subsequently appointed to the Reagan administration; however, despite the apparent ideological convergence between Reagan and the neoconservatives, his administration did not constitute an opportunity for them to fully implement their foreign policy vision. Their underlying principles were more rigid and absolutist than those of Reagan and rejected any kind of compromise. In contrast, Reagan's strategy had a pragmatic side to it, favouring agreements with Moscow on certain issues. This limited the contribution neoconservatives could make to policy and many of them became quickly disillusioned with Reagan.     

The Price of 'Free' Trade: NAFTA and the Economies of Border Crossing in George Rabasa's The Floating Kingdom and Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead

Abstract

Under contemporary US immigration policy, the US-Mexico border has become a new 'American Frontier', a 'Tortilla Curtain' that marks the edges of nation and of national knowledge. As a result of such US policies and the increased cultural and political tensions in the area that result from them, the border region has more clearly emerged imaginatively and culturally as, in Gloria Anzaldúa's terms, a 'third country'. This paper analyses that 'third country' and its relationship to an arbitrarily imposed and emphatically enforced political and cultural border in the work of the Chicano writer George Rabasa and the Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko. Both Rabasa and Silko actively map a wide variety of ethnicities and cultures into the physical border region itself, engaging with the complex relationships between culture and nature, community and place. Both also emphasise an increasingly transgressive and transnational perspective. In this context, both writers highlight and expose the indeterminacy, fragility and permeability of borders of all kinds.     

粤东传统制造业专业镇发展研究——以潮州市庵埠镇为例

选取广东省潮州市庵埠镇为典型案例区,通过对现有文献资料的梳理、实地调查,结合GIS的可视化表达方法,分析该镇主导产业——食品业和印刷包装产业的形成和发展历程。在此基础上,剖析目前庵埠专业镇发展中存在的企业规模小、人才吸引力不足、产品档次低和基础设施落后等问题,指出未来发展中既要推进食品、印刷两大传统产业,也要大力发展新兴产业,同时更要重视交通网络的构建和专业市场的建设。     

Current and Prior Mental Health Treatment of Jail Inmates: The Use of the Jail as an Alternative Shelter

Changing policies in mental health and welfare are altering the character of urban jail populations. Homeless people, many of them ex–mental-hospital patients, occupy jail space in increasing numbers. They almost never commit violent crimes and seldom commit any real crime. They are given a charge and put in jail as a way to take them off the streets. The way in which official statistics are created and kept makes it difficult to demonstrate the nature and extent of this problem. This paper reports on one way this can be done.     

The real East Asian Aid model: Development assistance as an instrument of comprehensive security in Japan,South Korea and Taiwan

Discussion of East Asian aid modes has remained superficial. And one donor, Taiwan, has been overlooked. This article reconsiders East Asian donorship, and places Taiwan within this category. It argues that East Asian donors are insecure, and see aid as part of a wider security policy. Aid policy pursues two main goals: economic strength and international influence. The aid apparatus is insulated from legislative and public pressure. Due to the nature of the goals pursued, relations with recipient governments in general are good, and recipient publics bad, relative to other Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors. Relations with other donors are ambivalent; good relations are important, but can interfere with other goals. As such, Taiwan is a quintessential East Asian donor.     

From democratic participation to civic resistance: the loss of institutional trust as an outcome of activism in the refugee solidarity movement

Adding to the literature on non‐institutional political action and trust, this article argues that the loss of institutional trust is not only a cause but also an outcome of political activism. Studying the Danish refugee solidarity movement in a mixed‐methods research design including survey and qualitative interview data, the article shows that three kinds of activism – political activism, humanitarian activity, and civil disobedience – relate differently to the loss of trust in the institutions of the Parliament, the legal system, and the police. Political activism primarily affects a loss of trust in the Parliament due to low external efficacy and a closed political opportunity structure. Civil disobedience affects a loss of trust in the legal system and the police due to a perceived lack of procedural justice. Humanitarian activity does not affect a loss of institutional trust because it does not imply interaction with the institutions to the same extent as the other kinds of activism. The consequence of losing trust in the political institutions is not an abandonment of democratic values, nor political apathy, but rather a change in civic engagement from a mode of democratically legitimizing participation in the institutions to a mode of contending and questioning the legitimacy of the political institutions. This finding indicates that in turn loss of institutional trust may cause an increase in extra‐institutional political action which is consistent with the commonly assumed causality in the literature. This leads to a final integrating argument for conceptualizing activism and loss of institutional trust as reinforcing factors in a process where, in line with the main finding of this study, activism may cause a loss of institutional trust which, in turn, may cause additional activism, as argued in the existing literature.     

Social work students dealing with moral dilemmas in the care for children and young people: an evaluation of moral case deliberation as an educational tool

Social work professionals face moral dilemmas. Evidence-based guidelines only partly help them to deal with these dilemmas. Recently, moral case deliberation (MCD) as a bottom-up aid has been successfully introduced into Dutch health care to help strengthen professional moral competence. This research investigates whether MCD can help future professionals caring for children and young people to deal with their dilemmas. Research questions are: (1) How do students evaluate two series of four MCD sessions related to moral dilemmas in cases they experienced in practice? and (2) Does MCD contribute to students’ ability to justify their decisions? Applying a mixed-method evaluation study, we found that students consider MCD highly important. They feel supported in their ability to justify decisions ethically. Most students value the challenge of thinking critically in MCD. However, some do not appreciate the uncertainties which come with this. One-third of the students prove able to justify their decisions ethically after attending MCD sessions. Robust conclusions about MCD as the cause of these results cannot be drawn on the basis of the study design. Suggestions are made for future research regarding the contribution of MCD to the development of competence in dealing better with moral dilemmas.     

The development of anti-cancer programs in Canada for the geriatric population: an integrated nursing and medical approach

Cancer control in Canada refers to the development of comprehensive programs utilising modern techniques, tools and approaches that actively prevent, cure or manage cancer. The scope of such programs is quite vast. They range from prevention, early detection and screening, comprehensive treatment both curative and palliative to comprehensive palliative care. Cancer is a disease associated with the aging population, and as the population ages the incidence of cancer would be expected to rise as well. This in itself poses a great challenge. In addition, the aging population demographics with the projected rise in the numbers of senior citizens, especially the over 80 group in the next decade, poses its own creative challenges to health planners. In Canada, health care is centrally administered, and controlled by the provincial governments of Canada, under the Canada Health Act. The challenge of developing comprehensive programs for the geriatric population requires changes in the care models and care pathways. The patient-centred models that have been adapted require a multidisciplinary approach to the clientele and their families that integrates cancer therapy and geriatric care and realities. This requires changes in the nursing and medical approach, as well as education in the subtleties of the two intersecting medical realities.     

The social dimension of European cohesion policy in a 27-state Europe: an analysis of the European Social Fund

On the basis of the relevant content of the Treaty of Lisbon (rejected in the Irish referendum of June 2008), this paper examines European Union cohesion policy as a fundamental dimension of the scant European social policy. In the context of a 27-state union with a slim budget, the European Social Fund remains the main social instrument of cohesion. An analysis of its application in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Galicia affords insights into the economic and political impact of European Union economic, social and territorial cohesion policy.     

Walk the Walk but Don't Talk the Talk: The Strategic Use of Color‐Blind Ideology in an Interracial Social Movement Organization

In this study, I examine the strategies interracial organizations use in the twenty‐first century, where color‐blind ideology dominates. Much theoretical work on racism examines how it has evolved during different historical periods, but this work does not address how these changing forms of racism affect social movement organizations, particularly those on the left. While the literature on color‐blind ideology has examined how it is expressed by African Americans and European Americans separately, my work investigates how color‐blind ideology operates when European Americans and people of color are working together in the same organizational setting. Studies of social movements have examined how organizational culture affects strategies but have neglected how external racist culture and color‐blind ideology impacts organizational strategies. Findings from 3 years of ethnographic data collected on an interracial social movement organization and its corresponding coalition suggest that activists in interracial organizations use racism evasiveness strategically to maintain solidarity. I conceptualize racism evasiveness as the action resulting from color‐blind ideology within a larger system of racism. While activists perceive advantages to these strategies, there are also long‐term negative consequences. Without explicitly naming and addressing racism, progressive organizations may be limited in their ability to challenge systemic racism.     

金融危机影响下上海外向型制造业恢复增长研究——基于闵行区问卷访谈调查的分析

本文根据对问卷调查和访谈调查所获资料的分析,了解到金融危机对上海市闵行区外向型制造业在海外市场的销路影响非常严重,使经营成本对企业发展的制约显得更加突出。在应对金融危机影响方面,更多的企业选择直接降价和缩小经营规模等消极应对措施,而选择转产和搬迁的企业较少。但调研结果也表明,上海的外向型制造业基础比较扎实,仍然保持着一定的赢利能力,内外并举的和谐发展模式仍然需要。通过政府帮助企业减税或增加退税、扩大内销、降低成本和推动升级换代,并支持和帮助企业大力发展供应链管理,发挥自身的优势,更加专注于研发、精密制造等高端制造业以及港口加工、包装、贸易和物流等核心业务,上海的外向型制造业一定能够再创辉煌。