Relational rurals: Some thoughts on relating things and theory in rural studies

This paper considers how shifts within the social sciences towards conceptualising spatiality in relational terms have unfolded in rural studies in particular ways over the past decade or so. A period in which networks, connections, flows and mobility have all established themselves as compelling conceptual frames for research, the rural has increasingly been recast in relational terms as a multi-authored and multi-faceted space, constituted through local-global interconnections and their place specific, sometimes contested, manifestations. In this way, the multiple meanings of the rural continues to be a focus of critical concern, as are the implications ‘of’ and ‘in’ rural spaces for some of the major issues currently being faced by governments and citizens around the world; including climate change and food security. Apprehending the complexity of the rural in these terms, we argue, requires not only thinking space relationally, but at the same time being epistemologically relational or theoretically pluralist. That is, recognising the co-constituent production of rural space through material and discursive phenomenon, processes and practices, and thus the value of existing theoretical resources (social constructionism, political and economic materialism) in relation with the critical and rigorous appraisal of ‘new’ concepts and ideas to better comprehend rural space in its multidimensional complexity and particularity. To this end, we identify Cindi Katz's notion of ‘countertopography’ as a promising conceptual and methodological addition to the rural scholar's toolkit insofar as it attends to a politics of location and differentation in relation to global processes. We conclude our discussion by sketching out possible objects of countertopographical analysis for understanding ongoing processes of change in rural space(s).     

A Blueprint for Full Collective Flood Risk Estimation: Demonstration for European River Flooding

Floods are a natural hazard evolving in space and time according to meteorological and river basin dynamics, so that a single flood event can affect different regions over the event duration. This physical mechanism introduces spatio‐temporal relationships between flood records and losses at different locations over a given time window that should be taken into account for an effective assessment of the collective flood risk. However, since extreme floods are rare events, the limited number of historical records usually prevents a reliable frequency analysis. To overcome this limit, we move from the analysis of extreme events to the modeling of continuous stream flow records preserving spatio‐temporal correlation structures of the entire process, and making a more efficient use of the information provided by continuous flow records. The approach is based on the dynamic copula framework, which allows for splitting the modeling of spatio‐temporal properties by coupling suitable time series models accounting for temporal dynamics, and multivariate distributions describing spatial dependence. The model is applied to 490 stream flow sequences recorded across 10 of the largest river basins in central and eastern Europe (Danube, Rhine, Elbe, Oder, Waser, Meuse, Rhone, Seine, Loire, and Garonne). Using available proxy data to quantify local flood exposure and vulnerability, we show that the temporal dependence exerts a key role in reproducing interannual persistence, and thus magnitude and frequency of annual proxy flood losses aggregated at a basin‐wide scale, while copulas allow the preservation of the spatial dependence of losses at weekly and annual time scales.     

《野草在歌唱》中的空间观

本文探索小说从弱势群体的生仔空间为视角反映殖民和父权制对非洲大陆的影响。     

“现代性”议程与文化“公共空间”的衍变轨辙

由于"现代性"在中国仍是未完成设计的议程,因此用"公共空间"表述哈贝马斯的"公共领域"概念,似乎更切题旨.自晚清以来,中国的文化"公共空间"以现代大众媒体、物质性的公共构造以及具体的公共文化事件,共同见证了中国"现代性"进程.而1990年以来对"现代性"的反思,则直接引发了当代文化公共空间的裂变.     

自由与责任:网络空间伦理诉求及其实现策略

习近平在世界互联网大会上的主旨讲话中指出,互联网把世界变成了“鸡犬相闻”的地球村,改变着人们的生产生活,有力推动了社会发展;同时,他又指出,网络空间不是“法外之地”,并明确提出了加强网络空间治理、规范网络空间行为等要求.网络的虚拟性、开放性和交互性,既给人们提供了自由的空间和舞台,又对人们的道德要求和责任担当提出了更高的要求.行为主体网络信息的自由表达有其必要的边界和限度,网络行为中的责任担当对规范网络空间和现实社会的有序发展存在着积极的应然价值,自由与责任构建了网络空间最基本的伦理诉求.     

微空间主流意识形态边缘化危机及消解策略

微空间的主体多样性、信息碎片化、文化多元性为各种思想观念、价值理念的传播提供了平台,对微空间主流意识形态的主导性形成挑战、权威性产生冲击、理论性带来消解,导致主流意识形态出现边缘化危机.要克服微空间中淡化意识形态思潮渗透、主流意识形态“失语”、传播信息整合能力弱化的影响,必须增强微空间主流意识形态的主导向心力和辐射凝聚力意识,通过更新话语体系提升微空间主流意识形态的话语效力,强化人文关怀改进微空间主流意识形态的话语方式,重视培养微空间主流意识形态队伍的媒介素养与隐性传播方式的运用,建立和完善微空间信息评估反馈监管机制,加强主流意识形态对微空间信息的整合力度,以消解微空间主流意识形态边缘化危机.     

Youth studies,citizenship and transitions: towards a new research agenda

A key goal in youth studies is to gain holistic understandings of what it means to be young. However, a significant impediment to achieving this has been the tendency of youth studies to develop along siloed and stratified subfields. In keeping with the goal of creating more productive dialogue between subfields in youth studies, this paper examines the intersections between research in youth citizenship and youth transitions to consider the fresh insights and cross fertilisations that such an analysis may yield. This examination reveals a sense of dissatisfaction in both subfields with traditional normative and linear models of citizenship and transitions which rely on step-wise and sequential notions of time. In response, the paper advances a new research agenda which posits more temporally, spatially and relationally-sensitive understandings of youth citizenship and transition. Drawing on Ingold (2007. Lines: A brief history. London: Routledge), this agenda proposes the use of three alternative metaphors – genealogical, wayfaring and threads – which could hold the potential to unsettle the normativity and linearity of previous youth transitions and citizenship frameworks, and thus provide deeper insights into what it means to live and to be young citizens in times of transition.     

Estimation and Inference Procedures for Semiparametric Distribution Models with Varying Linear‐Index

More flexible semiparametric linear‐index regression models are proposed to describe the conditional distribution. Such a model formulation captures varying effects of covariates over the support of a response variable in distribution, offers an alternative perspective on dimension reduction and covers a lot of widely used parametric and semiparameteric regression models. A feasible pseudo likelihood approach, accompanied with a simple and easily implemented algorithm, is further developed for the mixed case with both varying and invariant coefficients. By justifying some theoretical properties on Banach spaces, the uniform consistency and asymptotic Gaussian process of the proposed estimator are also established in this article. In addition, under the monotonicity of distribution in linear‐index, we develop an alternative approach based on maximizing a varying accuracy measure. By virtue of the asymptotic recursion relation for the estimators, some of the achievements in this direction include showing the convergence of the iterative computation procedure and establishing the large sample properties of the resulting estimator. It is noticeable that our theoretical framework is very helpful in constructing confidence bands for the parameters of interest and tests for the hypotheses of various qualitative structures in distribution. Generally, the developed estimation and inference procedures perform quite satisfactorily in the conducted simulations and are demonstrated to be useful in reanalysing data from the Boston house price study and the World Values Survey.     

Convergence rate of wavelet density estimator with data missing randomly when covariables are present

In this article, we study global L₂ error of non linear wavelet estimator of density in the Besov space B^s_pq for missing data model when covariables are present and prove that the estimator can achieve the optimal rate of convergence, which is similar to the result studied by Donoho et al. (1996) Donoho, D.L., Johnstone, I.M., Kerkyacharian, G., Picard, D. (1996). Density estimation by wavelet thresholding. Ann. Stat. 24:508–539.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] in complete independent data case with term-by-term thresholding of the empirical wavelet coefficients. Finite-sample behavior of the proposed estimator is explored via simulations.     

“空间、空间生产”五问——对张之沧教授几个观点的质疑

既然空间是物质的存在方式,它就不可能具有主观性、意识性,也不可能是精神的存在方式。先在的、外在于人类实践的自然空间不可能是人创造的。我们在改造自然的同时,也改变了自然事物的原有空间形式,新的空间形式是适合于人类生活的。但我们不能创造物质本身,只能改变物质的具体形态,因而,我们也不能创造空间本身,只能创造具体事物的空间形式。社会存在是物质的高级存在方式,社会存在的空间形式可以称之为社会空间。但"社会空间"不表示这种空间具有社会性。社会存在包含着自然存在,不是自然存在的存在是非存在。社会空间实际上是社会存在的自然物质基础具有的空间形式。空间是物质的自然属性而非社会属性,"社会空间"不具有社会性。空间的生产只是生产的一个方面,不能用"空间生产"的概念代替"物质生活资料的生产"和"生产方式"的概念,应当从生产方式来理解人类历史和帝国主义、霸权主义在空间上的扩张、争夺。