Firefighters across frontiers: two fire brigades cooperating in the Dutch–German borderland

This article focuses on boundaries as symbolic constructs to overcome structural impediments to cooperation in a borderland constituted by two nation states – Germany and the Netherlands – that, from a global perspective, may be regarded as close cultural neighbours. Empirically, the vicissitudes of cross‐border cooperation are analysed at the level of a Dutch and a German fire brigade in adjacent borderland villages. The diminishing visibility of borders does not necessarily lead to more openness, but gives rise to the emergence of socially constructed symbolical boundaries, which has major effects on issues of national identity and loyalty within organizations operating in trans‐border spaces. Cultural differences can complicate processes of transnational coordination, harmonization, and negotiation. However, cooperation and trust, based on an affinity with a local culture in borderlands, may provide a more stable fundament for successful common ventures than do regulations enacted by state authorities. Addressing the question of how processes of transnationalization affect inter‐organizational cooperation, this article describes and analyses the ways in which European integration, national bureaucracies and cultural similarities and differences form partly converging and partly conflicting forces in cooperative efforts in the Dutch–German borderland.     

Italian Americans in the ‘Bocce Belt’: ‘Old World’ memories and ‘New World’ identities

This essay examines the development of an ethnically and racially segregated resort landscape in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York in the twentieth century. Focusing on the history of Italian American resorts clustered primarily in Greene County, New York, it demonstrates that ethnicity continued to shape the social and cultural lives of many European immigrant New Yorkers and their families well after World War II. Ethnic resorts provided vacationers with an insulated recreational environment in which group identity and transatlantic ties – both real and imagined – could be fostered and sustained. However, the flexibility of these ethnic identities and the pervasive discrimination against African Americans at ethnic resorts in the 1940s and 1950s reveals the extent to which European Americans had largely internalized a sense of white ethnic identity by the postwar decades. The history of ethnic resorts in the Catskills sheds light on the process by which generations of European Americans in New York City negotiated these multiple ethnic, national, and racial identities.     

Transnational highly skilled Finnish migrants in Europe: Choosing one's identity

When transnational migration begins to resemble internal mobility, as is the case in the European Union, is there any need for integration into the country of destination, or do intra-European migrants adopt a European identity? This article is based on data collected about highly skilled Finns who have moved within the EU. Most of them continued to form their identity around their country of origin. Nearly 60% of the migrants of the study also identified with Europe, while only one-third identified with their country of residence. The article argues that, for such privileged migrants, the possibility of choice is central to identity formation. Neither the national identity of the new home country nor a European identity per se can substitute the former, more important identity received through socialization. However, moving abroad does have an impact on the ways these migrants ‘do identity’. Adding a dimension of Europeanness to their existing national identity is a way of belonging to a greater collective when the localized identification with the country of residence is not required.     

Towards a social history of suffering: Dignity,misery and disrespect

ABSTRACT

This article examines the working-class audience in Soviet Ukraine and the changes in its reading appetites during the 1920s. Under the Soviet nationalities policy of korenizatsiia introduced in 1923, the print-runs of Ukrainian-language literary products increased significantly. Nonetheless, as this article argues, those numerous publications often did not reach Ukrainian readers and if they did, they could hardly satisfy the interest appetites of an ever-growing Ukrainian audience. As the book reviews collected in the second half of the 1920s showed, the worker readers were interested in a certain type of literature – entertaining, easy to comprehend, dealing with contemporary issues and characters – that was not yet available in Ukrainian. Nevertheless, once that literature began to emerge in the late 1920s, the interest in contemporary books in Ukrainian increased. By examining every aspect of reading in Ukrainian – production, dissemination and consumption of the printed word – this article highlights the decisive role of Soviet readership in determining future official Soviet Ukrainian literature. The case of Soviet Ukraine emphasizes regional specifics and introduces an important language component to the Bolshevik reading revolution of the 1920s to early 1930s, largely ignored in the scholarship.     

从以人为本执政理念看苏共垮台的原因和教训

从以人为本执政理念新视角重新审视苏联解体、苏共垮台的原因可知,苏共在执政理念上背离了"以人为本",在实践上表现为未能切实保障好人们的经济、政治和文化权益。由此可以得出一条重要教训:共产党执政必须牢固树立以人为本的执政理念。而落实以人为本执政理念必须从经济、政治、文化等各方面着手。     

Subjective Quality of Life of Young Europeans. Feeling Happy but who Knows why?

Latest developments in modern societies have altered living circumstances. Upcoming insecurities concerning employment and family relationships make life more and more incalculable. Especially young adults throughout the modern world are forced to rethink their life concepts and to desist from the lives of former generations. As difficulties to achieve a successful life increase, one could assume that the young are confronted with the impossibility of feeling happy and satisfied with their lives anymore. Yet, latest social surveys prove wrong. Although increasing unemployment, lower net income and single parenthood make life more difficult for the young, they still enjoy very high subjective quality of life in comparison to the older population. Throughout the paper I argue that it is not the objective conditions that make young adults (15–29 years old) feel overwhelmingly happy. Looking for other sources of explanation of high quality of life among people aged 29 or below, I argue for indicators of social embeddedness as being influential on their assessment of life. But again, the proportion of explained variance is smaller compared to older people. With the help of empirical data taken from the European Social Survey I highlight the differences in life circumstances between the young and the total population. Concerning occupation, habitation (kind of inhabited household) and financial situation, most of the young live under different situations compared to the adult world. But surprisingly, the rates of perceived high quality of life among the young do not vary to such a large extent as among the adults. I show that young adults, often damned to fail social demands because of their withdrawal from social life, are still the most happy in modern (more and more individualizing?) societies. But it gets more difficult to account for the reasons of their happiness.     

技术哲学视野下的苏联工业化问题研究

苏联的工业化是社会主义发展史上不可磨灭的大事件,它开辟了落后的社会主义国家通过政府的强力干预从而实现快速工业化的崭新道路。从历史上看,苏联的社会主义工业化是一次成功的实践,但为此也付出了沉重的代价。全面认识苏联工业化,特别是从苏联技术哲学的视角出发分析工业化的指导思想和具体实践,总结苏联工业化的历史经验和教训,对于我国落实科学发展观、走新型工业化道路具有重要的借鉴意义。     

美、苏两种传统的民族生态学之比较——“民族生态学理论与方法研究”之二

本文从理论渊源、研究对象、研究方法和学术影响上对美、苏两种传统的民族生态学进行了比较,认为两者虽然都诞生于民族学或人类学界内部,从事研究的也主要都是人类学家或民族学家,但却有着较大区别。两者之间的根本差别在于前缀ethno-意义的区别。苏联/俄罗斯的ethno-ecology前缀ethno-仅表示着与民族(ethnos)相关,而并不像美国的ethno-ecology前缀ethno-,其意思乃是文化持有者的内部眼界,是一种主位的对人与环境相互关系的研究。     

略论欧盟的文化政策及文化创意产业的发展

文化事业离不开文化创意产业的发展,因为后者的产品渗透着并体现着一个国家或一个地区文化和文明的精髓。欧盟文化软实力的提升必须要有文化创意产业的硬实力作为基础。为此,欧盟在促进域内文化和文化创意产业发展方面制订了较为明确的政策。欧盟试图将各成员国的文化政策统一置于同一平台之上,并注重文化项目的连续性和多样性。欧盟在发展文化创意产业时既注重其经济效果,也注重其社会效果,并特别强调文化创意产业应定位于内容的独特性和不可复制性。     

西欧封建社会的多元结构及其开放性

西欧封建社会结构的多元性表现在:政治上,天主教会、封建领主与自治城市的鼎立;经济上,农奴经济、小农经济与商品经济的并存;文化上,天主教神学、日耳曼文化、希腊罗马文化、民族国家文化以及人文精神的共处。这种社会结构中政治、经济与文化各要素内部以及相互间的异质性产生了特殊的开放性,最终促进了西欧资本主义的产生。