Social Movement,Action and Change: The Influence of Women's Movements on City Government in Mumbai and London

This article reports on a research investigation into gender and local government in Mumbai in India and London in England. In both these cities female representation at the political level stands at around one third, achieved in London slowly in recent years and in Mumbai more rapidly through the adoption of a quota, or seat reservation system, implemented in 1992. In considering the experience of the women concerned it is argued that their presence and aspirations have been influenced through the networks of their respective women's movements, operating through civil society and the local state. In considering the ways in which they organize and manage the duties of office and their gendered identities, as well as in their focus on the most disadvantaged in their communities and in their dealings with others, the part played by social movements in influencing change is examined.     

Protest avatars as memetic signifiers: political profile pictures and the construction of collective identity on social media in the 2011 protest wave

Protest avatars, digital images that act as collective symbols for protest movements, have been widely used by supporters of the 2011 protest wave, from Egypt to Spain and the United States. From photos of Egyptian martyr Khaled Said, to protest posters and multiple variations of Anonymous' mask, a great variety of images have been adopted as profile pictures by Internet users to express their support for various causes and protest movements and communicate it to all their Internet peers. In this article, I explore protest avatars as forms of identification of protest movements in a digital era. I argue that protest avatars can be described as ‘memetic signifiers’ because (a) they are marked by a vagueness and inclusivity that distinguishes them from traditional protest symbols and (b) lend themselves to be used as memes for viral diffusion on social networks. In adopting these icons, participants experience a collective fusion in an online crowd, whose gathering is manifested in the very ‘masking’ of participants behind protest avatars. These forms of collective identification, while powerful in the short term, can however prove quite volatile, with Internet users often discarding avatars with relative ease, raising the question whether they can provide durable foundational elements of contemporary social movements.     

‘Quiet Food Sovereignty’ as Food Sovereignty without a Movement? Insights from Post-socialist Russia

Abstract

What does food sovereignty look like in settings where rural social movements are weak or non-existent, such as in countries with post-socialist, semi-authoritarian regimes? Focusing on Russia, we present a divergent form of food sovereignty. Building on the concept of ‘quiet sustainability’, we present a dispersed, muted, but clearly bottom-up variant we term ‘quiet food sovereignty’. In the latter, the role of the very productive smallholdings is downplayed by the state and partly by the smallholders themselves. Those smallholdings are not seen as an alternative to industrial agriculture, but subsidiary to it (although superior in terms of sociality and healthy, environmentally friendly produce). As such, ‘quiet food sovereignty’ deviates from the overt struggle frequently associated with food sovereignty. We discuss the prospects of ‘quiet food sovereignty’ to develop into a full food sovereignty movement, and stress the importance of studying implicit everyday forms of food sovereignty.     

黑社会性质组织财产刑的适用

2011年《刑法修正案（八）》中对黑社会性质组织罪增设了财产刑,从而形成了对黑社会性质组织及其成员财产的三种处置措施：罚金、没收财产与刑事没收。在黑社会性质组织及其成员财产的处理上需要贯彻宽严相济刑事政策,即“在整体从严的基础上,区别对待”。合理地认定黑社会性质组织及其成员的财产与财产的性质,是黑社会性质组织财产适用的关键。在“灰色”财产的认定与处理上,我国司法实践的越权处理有导致财产刑的异化的危险,亟待立法上补足财产来源合法性举证责任倒置的规定。     

知天以知人:道家哲学的生态智慧启示录

道家哲学挺立于号称"轴心时代"的春秋战国,《老子》的"道",以对"天"的理性认知,率先宣告了上帝世界的倒塌。"道",作为照亮中国哲学王国的第一抹阳光,以其生成的、联系的、复杂的宇宙观和对立统一的辩证法,为人与自然的关系处理以及人在自然中的生存提供了科学的理论依循。从"道"这一宇宙自然的总规律出发,《老子》为人类提出了"无为而为"、"知常曰明"、"知止不殆"和"知不知上"的思维和行为警示:人类必须遵循自然法则才能有所作为,而自然的循环性、资源的有限性以及人类在复杂、联系的宇宙自然面前的无知性,则全部都是自然法则的具体展现。人类对自然的索取和改造都必须建立在对这些法则认知和遵循的基础之上,才有可能是成功的和可持续的。《老子》"无为"、"知常"、"知止"与"无知"论,作为古老的东方智慧,尤其对于近代西方自然科学发展以来在自然面前膨胀起了征服欲的人类而言,是一种回归理性和科学的哲学矫正。     

诗学观视角下探析林语堂英译《讨武瞾檄》--以林语堂译本《Lady Wu》为例

文化翻译学派代表人物勒弗维尔提出诗学观对翻译有深远影响,在翻译研究领域被广泛关注。《讨武"檄》是我国古代檄文中为数不多的经典之作,林语堂在其长篇传纪文学《Lady Wu》中将此文全篇收录并翻译。林语堂英译《讨武"檄》受到何种诗学观的影响,以及体现何种诗学特点,值得深入研究。本文考察《讨武"檄》英译文在字词、句式、修辞以及历史典故层面的诗学翻译策略,揭示译者诗学观对翻译的影响。     

The social model of disability as an oppositional device

This article engages with debates about the UK Disabled People’s Movement’s ‘Big Idea’ – the social model of disability – positioning this as an ‘oppositional device’. This concept is adapted from the work of the art theorist and activist Brian Holmes, elaborated using insights from Foucault and others. The model’s primary operation is introducing contingency into the present, facilitating disabled people’s resistance-practices. We recognise, however, that the device can operate in a disciplinary manner when adopted by a machinery of government. Whilst our primary goal is to understand the character and operation of the social model, by providing a more general definition of an oppositional device as the concrete operation of technologies of power, we also propose a concept potentially useful for the analysis of the resistance-practices of activists involved in a wide variety of struggles. This concept may thus have implications for wider social and political analysis.     

‘How dare you pretend to be disabled?’ The discounting of transabled people and their claims in disability movements and studies

Although the contours of the ‘disabled person’ category are questioned by anti-ableist activists, they remain rigid regarding transabled people (who want to become disabled). For anti-ableist activists, transabled people do not count as disabled. They are perceived to: be falsely disabled; steal resources from disabled people; and be disrespectful by denying, fetishizing, or appropriating marginalized realities. By combining critical discourse analysis, genealogy, and deconstruction, I examine these negative discourses to encourage alliances between anti-ableist activists and transabled people. Ideas developed in disability and trans studies reveal the limits of these discourses anchored in ableist and cisnormative* assumptions.     

Politics beyond identity: reconsidering the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland

The Northern Irish civil rights movement, like other minority or subaltern struggles, has been interpreted in terms of the national minority’s struggle for state recognition. Such frameworks emphasise the importance of identity in political conflict and tend to assume the state as guarantor of the recognition of identity. The difficulty here is that political possibilities that exceed the terms of identity and the state are obscured. Moreover, the interpretation of the Northern Irish conflict in these terms forms part of the consociational approach to conflict resolution which operates as normative underpinning to the post-conflict state. This article provides an alternative interpretation of the political significance of the civil rights movement. Rather than assuming the analytical usefulness and political significance of identity, I seek to trace the tension between identity and disidentification within the movement, drawing attention to the ways in which activists were aware of, and sought to respond to, the dangers of identity politics.     

SafetiPin: an innovative mobile app to collect data on women's safety in Indian cities

Women's safety is a key concern of governments and civil society today. In India, the issue has become prominent in the wake of the gang rape and murder in 2012. One of the key elements in addressing the lack of safety in cities is identifying the causes. SafetiPin, a mobile app, is one tool that has been developed to collect data on safety in cities. Building on the international methodology of safety audits, SafetiPin has transformed it into a mobile app that crowd sources data and information on insecurity in cities. Using SafetiPin, data have been collected in seven Indian cities. This article examines some of the data to understand what factors lead to lack of safety and insecurity in cities, and discusses future plans for the project.