What is Flint? Place,storytelling, and social media narrative reclamation during the Flint water crisis

ABSTRACT

The Flint Water Crisis became a national news story in January of 2016, when major publishers such as The New York Times began covering the story. In the same month, an influx of social media activism occurred in response to the crisis, with citizens developing hashtag campaigns such as #FlintFwd in order to disseminate news and stories from a citizen’s perspective; these campaigns often positioned Flint positively ? as a recovering community ? rather than a city in the middle of a public health crisis, and often addressed not a national public but a local audience. This paper considers Flint-based social media activity to investigate the emergence of place-based activism within the ostensibly global network of social media. In doing so, it identifies three key themes; 1) leveraging social media to forward a critique of deficient journalistic storytelling; 2) using the affective process of storytelling via social media to claim authority over their own material offline existence, and 3) using place-based storytelling to implicate others as witnesses via the global network of social media. These themes coalesce around a distinctly critical logic of connectivity. This logic extends the notion of connectivity articulated by Van Dijck and Poell [2013. Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1(1), 2–14.] and the strategies of platform activism explored by Tufekci [2017. Twitter and tear gas: The power and fragility of networked protest. New Haven: Yale University Press.] to explain how social media works to expose discrepancies between the public story of the water crisis and material, lived conditions of Flint, rendering visible a discursive identity of Flint thus far unrecognized.     

Toward a sociology of global comparative placemaking

I call for a globally informed sociology of comparative placemaking that integrates historical and contemporary processes and includes the ephemeral, institutional, and personal. By placemaking, I am referring to the explicit or tacit cooperation among people to create, maintain, and give meaning to places in space through bodily occupation given differential resources and constraints. I review select place, space, and community-based literature about urban, Black, migrant, LGBTQ, and international populations to think about how we can build upon and integrate multiple theoretical, methodological, and epistemological insights to form an explicit placemaking research agenda. A US focus on neighborhoods contrasts with a comparative examination of global urban networks, social polarization, and transformation of the built environment in the interdisciplinary field of global urban studies (Ren, 2018). I argue for a placemaking research agenda that bridges insight from US Urban Sociology with Global Urban Studies to consider how various structures and actors constrain and facilitate place projects. With a globally reaching and comparatively informed sociology of placemaking, we can illuminate our multi-structured story of place and agency in context. We can answer questions about how and why we co-create and are simultaneously disciplined by the process of creation.     

Developing ethical approaches to data and civil society: from availability to accessibility

This research note reflects on the gaps and limitations confronting the development of ethical principles regarding the accessibility of large-scale data for civil society organizations (CSOs). Drawing upon a systematic scoping study on the use of data in the United Kingdom (UK) civil society, it finds that there are twin needs to conceptualize accessibility as more than mere availability of data, as well as examine the use of data among CSOs more generally. In order to deal with the apparent “digital divide” in UK civil society – where, despite extensive government rhetoric about data openness, organizations face not only the barriers of limited time, funds, and expertise to harness data but also the lack of representation within existing data – we present a working model in which ethical concerns accompanying data utilization by civil society may be better accounted. This suggests there is a need for further research into the nexus of civil society and data upon which interdisciplinary discussion about the ethical dimensions of engagement with data, particularly informed by insight from the social sciences, can be predicated.     

我国民事审级制度的改革与完善——比较法学视角下的分析

比较分析中国、日本、德国、美国、法国及我国台湾地区的民事审级制度可以看出我国审级制度中存在的弊端。实际上 ,实行有条件的三审终审制更具合理性。为此 ,我国原有的两审终审制必须加以改革 ,那就是实行以两审终审为原则、以三审终审为例外的民事审级制度。     

试析抗战时期国民政府对基层民意机关的理论设计

本文从总原则与具体细节两个方面论述了抗战时期国民政府对基层民意机关的理论设计，并且指出这种设计具有两个显著特点：１．阶级性，２．欺骗性。     

Religious Nongovernmental Organizations: An Exploratory Analysis

This paper represents the first systematic attempt at an analysis of religious nongovernmental organizations (RNGOs). Largely ignored as an organizational field, RNGOs constitute a new breed of religious actors shaping global policy–an organizational hybrid of religious beliefs and social activism at local, national, and international levels. This paper proposes a definition of RNGOs, traces the emergence of RNGOs from an historical perspective, and situates them in their current religious and sociopolitical contexts. Drawing on interviews and documentary data from a sample of 263 United Nations-affiliated RNGOs, the author proposes an analytical framework to examine the religious, organizational, strategic, and service dimensions of these organizations. Religious nongovernmental organizations' unique contributions to the redefinition of a just society as well as the sociopolitical challenges arising from their religious identity are discussed.     

严复的能力观及其对当代公共管理创新的启示——对史华兹《寻求富强:严复与西方》的一种解读

对美国著名汉学家史华兹的代表作<寻求富强:严复与西方>进行文本解读发现:该著所反映出的严复能力观对当代公共管理的创新发展具有重要的启示意义.严复认为中西方的关键性差别在于能力,而隐含其中的是以能力为导向的主体意识和公共意识方面的差距."-3代公共管理的创新发展有必要吸收严复能力观中的思想精髓,以国家能力建构为着力点,以公民启蒙为社会基石,以突显公正为其内在灵魂.对正处于社会转型期的国家而言,努力实现国家能力与公民自由问的平衡是达致善治的关键.     

浅议民事责任竞合

违约责任与侵权责任竞合是由于某种违反民事义务的行为既符合违约责任构成要件又符合侵权责任构成要件 ,从而在法律上导致多种民事责任并存和冲突所产生的现象。因此 ,采取责任聚合与自由选择诉因的措施来解决责任竟合 ,以期充分保护受害方权利 ,消灭责任重叠可能导致的不公平 ,合并不重叠部分的责任。     

论我国民事诉讼证据保全制度及其完善

证据保全是法院对证据采取保护措施、保证其证明力的一种制度,包括诉前证据保全与诉讼中的证据保全。我国民事诉讼证据保全制度并不完善,应当规定全面的证据保全制度,即对诉前证据保全制度应当加以规定;另外,还要完善证据保全的具体程序与规定证据保全申请错误的赔偿和诉讼等。     

“以人为本”与我国民事诉讼程序的完善

以“以人为本”为研究视点，从立法和司法两方面对其便民的内涵进行分析的基础上，对我国传统民事诉讼制度及其观念进行了理性分析，认为我国民事证明制度和诉讼模式在选择上与我国司法实际不相适应。并从保障当事人的程序主体地位、构建人性化的诉讼程序及建立案件分流制度全新视角探讨我国民事诉讼程序制度完善的思路。