Eugenics without the state: anarchism in Catalonia, 1900–1937

Current historiography has considered eugenics to be an emanation from state structures or a movement which sought to appeal to the state in order to implement eugenic reform. This paper examines the limitations of that view and argues that it is necessary to expand our horizons to consider particularly working-class eugenics movements that were based on the dissemination of knowledge about sex and which did not aspire to positions of political power. The paper argues that anarchism, with its contradictory practice afforded by the convulsive social situation of the Civil War in Spain, allows us to assess critically the parameters of the social action of eugenics, its many alliances, and its struggle for existence in changing political circumstances not of its own making.     

Voter Integrity,Trust and the Promise of Digital Technologies: Biometric Voter Registration in Solomon Islands

Drawing on the anthropology of technology, this article examines the introduction of a digital biometric voter registration for Solomon Islands 2014 national election. Four perspectives on biometric voting are brought into dialogue: (1) the technological particularities, strengths and shortcomings of biometric voting registration (BVR), (2) a global and international embrace of the technology for its perceived ‘universal’ tendency to secure identities, (3) efforts by the Solomon Islands state to showcase its political stability by means of BVR and (4) the ways village-based voters come to understand, interpret and re-imagine BVR as political technology. We show how, within the ethnographic context of North Malaita, debates surrounding BVR reveal a continued distrust and uncertainty in North Malaitans’ relationship with the Solomon Islands state and its representatives. Within the context of this uncertainty BVR is re-imagined as technology that aids voter integrity within rather than beyond patronage networks.     

Innovating inequity: if race is a technology,postracialism is the genius bar

ABSTRACT

In this essay I posit race as a kind of technology, one that creates parallel universes and premature death, requiring routine maintenance and upgrade. I suggest that David Theo Goldberg’s Are We Postracial Yet? is a story of innovation that expertly exposes the trade secrets of the social production of race. I argue that not only are technological and social innovation metaphorically linked; technoscience is also one of the most effective conduits for reproducing racial inequality, and so I extend Goldberg’s analysis to address the central role of science and technology in modern statecraft and racecraft. Finally, if postracial innovators are busily refurbishing racism to remake inequality, then those who seek radical transformation in the other direction, towards freedom and justice, must re-examine the default settings, rather than the routine breakdowns, of social life.     

Popper, falsifiability, and evolutionary biology

First, a brief history is provided of Popper's views on the status of evolutionary biology as a science. The views of some prominent biologists are then canvassed on the matter of falsifiability and its relation to evolutionary biology. Following that, I argue that Popper's programme of falsifiability does indeed exclude evolutionary biology from within the circumference of genuine science, that Popper's programme is fundamentally incoherent, and that the correction of this incoherence results in a greatly expanded and much more realistic concept of what is empirical, resulting in the inclusion of evolutionary biology. Finally, this expanded concept of empirical is applied to two particular problems in evolutionary biology — viz., the species problem and the debate over the theory of punctuated equilibria — and it is argued that both of them are still mainly metaphysical.     

War, Factionalism, and the State in Afghanistan

Since September 11, 2001, the explanations offered to account for the rise of a foreign-led terrorist network on Afghan soil have variously focused on the political vacuum opened up by the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, interference by foreign powers in Afghanistan's internal affairs, the failure of Afghanistan to produce a "strong state" because of ethnic factionalism, and an internal moral incoherence inherent to Afghan culture. I argue that none of these explanations is entirely satisfactory in itself. To understand the situation in Afghanistan, we must recognize that its political and military chaos is not an isolated or unique phenomenon, and at the same time acknowledge the particular social and political dynamics of Afghanistan's history that have set the parameters for current events. I show that communal conflicts in Afghanistan are part of a much wider affliction common to many postcolonial states and multinational societies, and that Afghanistan's current situation can only be understood by focusing on its failed attempts at nation-state building within the broader geopolitical circumstance of foreign manipulation and proxy wars that have given rise to particular forms of ethnic division. [Keywords: Afghanistan, nation-building, ethnic factionalism, warfare, the State]     

Lumbee Indian cultural nationalism and ethnogenesis

Conclusions In both cultural and political nationalism we find people attempting to make their own history from within, but at the same time seeking to move beyond the conditions imposed upon them. Because oppression is not just political and economic, but cultural as well, cultural nationalism is a liberating force. Through cultural nationalism, the Lumbee seek to generate their own culture, in contradistinction to the culture that flows from their oppressed position.But the liberating potential of cultural nationalism is only partial in the presence of political and economic exploitation. Cultural nationalism provides an abstract cultural unification of the Lumbee, and it calls for political and economic equality between Lumbee and Whites. Implicit in Lumbee cultural unification is internal socio-economic equality, but as their cultural nationalism seeks to move from self-definition to self-determination, it says nothing explicit about this.The absence of a specific program for internal social and economic transformations, in the direction of establishing equality, makes it possible for cultural nationalism to be based on an alliance between the emerging Lumbee elite and the Lumbee working class. The rise of the Tuscarora movement points to the likelihood that this alliance will be short-lived.A contradiction has appeared: at the same time that cultural nationalism, by generating not just pride but collective pride, functions to hold the Lumbee together culturally, it also functions to widen class divisions. It is too early to predict how this contradiction will be resolved, but its centrality indicates that the future political development of the Lumbee will lie in its resolution. Either cultural nationalism will move in the direction of a program of social equality, which would yield cultural unification and enhance the sense of political and economic reality, or it seems likely that cultural nationalism will do what white oppression could not — it will split the Lumbee apart and reinforce the penetration of the Lumbee community by national and multinational corporations.An alliance between cultural and political nationalism, based on the collectivization of Lumbee resources and the expansion of the cultural content of cultural nationalism to include recognition of the dynamics of class formation, seems to be necessary to permit the Lumbee to enjoy the right to make their own history. Such an alliance would entail a greater transformation of the cultural than the political nationalist position. This could occur with the ethnic elite backing cultural nationalism, since the elite witness the continual looting of their people under the aegis of the large corporations that they help bring in, and/or it could occur as their political power is eroded by the continual attacks of the political nationalists. As the only significant accumulators of capital among the Lumbee, however small, their role in an alliance would then lie in their participation in the initial founding of a socialist sub-economy. It could well be argued that this is asking the ethnic elite to commit suicide as a class. Yet the choice seems to be between that outcome, however arrived at, and abandoning communal identity.The split between cultural and political nationalism is basically a class antagonism. If the cultural nationalists win this struggle, the only answer — paradoxically — to the pressing material needs and problems of the poorer Lumbee may well turn out to be an abandonment of their cultural identity as Lumbee in a straightforward lower class alliance within the larger nation-state. Should the political nationalists become the dominant power among the Lumbee then perhaps sufficient economic and political self-determination might be established to provide the basis for a nontrivialized Lumbee Indian culture. The poignancy of this inversion of the intent and the effect of cultural nationalism can only be realized by appreciating the deep and genuine cultural concern — whether also opportunistic or not — of most Lumbee cultural nationalists.There are, in the usual view, two options open to a people such as the Lumbee. The first is stagnation, clinging to their roots and changing as little as possible: preservation with continued impoverishment as the likely price. The second is progress or economic development, with the attendant major increase in assimilationist pressures brought about by the increased penetration of the dominant state: modest material betterment at the price of major cultural decline. Cultural nationalism resists the first option as an obvious affront to collective pride. It also, however, eventually resists the second option, being opposed not just to the debasement of culture but also to its destruction. Whatever its present strength, it thus has no future.The absence of ethnogenesis from this usual array of options reflects not just a limited anthropological or ethnic nationalist vision, but the real limitations of capitalism. Fundamental to capitalist economic processes are regional inequalities. As has been well demonstrated, these regional inequalities generate nationalism, they do not, however, create nationalities. The precondition for the ethnogenetic formation of viable nations from submerged and dominated minority peoples — for a world that culture not only symbolizes, but creates — is the kind of regional equality and communal material foundation conceivable under socialism.Gerald Sider is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Richmond College, City University of New York.

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Did the Earth Move for You? The Social Seismology of a Natural Disaster in Maluku,Eastern Indonesia

In 1968, the volcano on the island of Nila in the Banda Sea erupted causing the inhabitants of this island to take temporary refuge on the nearby islands of Serua and Teun. Some ten years later, after a period of prolonged volcanic inactivity, the residents of Nila left their island again. This time, however, they were escorted by the Indonesian Navy and their departure from the island to a recently cleared site in southern Seram was of a more permanent nature. To a casual observer, the 1978 exodus looked, for all intents and purposes, like an invasion. Officially, it was called an evacuation (evakuasi). In time, it would take on the appearance of the government-initiated transmigration (trans-migrasi) program. In this paper, I explore the social seismology of this natural disaster and argue that displacement in this context amounts to more than just a shift in geographical space. It shakes the very foundations of identity, engendering, as it does, tectonic movements in social memory, cultural knowledge and environmental practice. Notwithstanding the destabilising effects of state-driven territorialisation, and its objectives of social order, political control and economic development, the people of Nila counteract this project of ‘humanitarian’ intervention through the enactment of their own political agendas, self-fashioning exercises and strategies of environmental reshaping.     

珠三角地区科技创新与生态环境的耦合协调发展研究

探究科技创新与生态环境之间的耦合协调关系,是当前我国高质量发展过程中亟待解决的关键问题。通过探讨科技创新与生态环境的耦合协调机制,构建两者的综合评价指标体系,借助物理学耦合协调度模型定量测算2007—2018年珠三角地区科技创新与生态环境的耦合协调度,并对其时空演化特征进行探讨分析。结果表明：珠三角各市的科技创新综合指数与生态环境综合指数均呈现不断上升的趋势,且两者耦合度、耦合协调度也呈现出由低水平向高水平的演进特征。在空间分布上,珠三角地区科技创新与生态环境的耦合协调度呈现出以珠江入海口城市“广深佛莞”为中心,向两侧递减的空间格局。在作用类型上,珠三角多数城市在2007年的科技创新能力起到明显地滞后作用,但随着时间的推移,城市创新能力不断增强,与生态环境之间达到基本协调,甚至高级协调水平;而肇庆市发展相对缓慢,仍处于“基本失调—科技创新受阻型”。以区域高质量发展为引领,通过加大创新要素投入、控制污染物排放、合理布局生态用地等方法提高生态创新,有助于未来珠三角实现科技创新与生态环境协调可持续发展。     

“微世界，大情怀”：浅谈微生物学课程思政教学设计与改革

充分发挥课堂教学主渠道在高校思想政治工作中的作用,运用教学创新方法、创新方式,助力课程思政工作创新。我们在微生物学课程教学中,通过改革教学模式,采用大班授课小班辅导,注重过程考核,将理论教学与实验教学、创新实践紧密结合,以及挖掘典型教育案例、代表性人物励志故事、我国科技创新的事例等,将课程知识点与思政元素相结合。实践表明,改革后的课程教学培养了学生的自主学习能力,夯实了学生的专业基础,有效提升了教学效果和学生的科学素养,提高了学生的应用能力和综合素质,有助于增强学生的自信心和服务社会的责任感,增强学生的爱国主义情怀,能够实现知识传授、能力培养与价值引领的有机统一。     

Eugenics without the state: anarchism in Catalonia, 1900-1937

Current historiography has considered eugenics to be an emanation from state structures or a movement which sought to appeal to the state in order to implement eugenic reform. This paper examines the limitations of that view and argues that it is necessary to expand our horizons to consider particularly working-class eugenics movements that were based on the dissemination of knowledge about sex and which did not aspire to positions of political power. The paper argues that anarchism, with its contradictory practice afforded by the convulsive social situation of the Civil War in Spain, allows us to assess critically the parameters of the social action of eugenics, its many alliances, and its struggle for existence in changing political circumstances not of its own making.     

False Teeth and Real Suffering: The Social Course of `Germectomy' in Eastern Uganda

The removal of the incipient canine teeth (`germectomy') insmall babies is a practice carried out in many parts of easternAfrica. This article describes how `germectomy' among theJop'Adhola in Eastern Uganda is an important idiom of distress,referred to as false teeth by English speaking people, and lakijomarach (bad teeth) or gira kwanya (that which is removed) in thelocal language Dhop'Adhola. Through an analysis of how the notionof false teeth is shaped by macro social forces of war andpoverty as well as by negotiations within the local social world,the discussion is taken beyond the question of cultural belief.False teeth as a practice seems to have spread through vastgeographical areas within a few decades, but as the example ofthe Jop'Adhola shows, it has taken a particular social course ineastern Uganda – as it is most likely to also have doneeverywhere else it has gained a footing. By analyzing its socialcourse we may gain insight into important mediating socialprocesses which may have as much to do with actual health outcomein a particular area as health care per se.     

The dialogic of ethnology

Conclusion I have tried, here, to raise a number of questions which challenge the normal practice of Anthropology and I have tried to show why such a challenge needs to be formulated at all. It should be clear by now that the initial step — without which the effort to hear the Other's challenge would have been hopeless from the beginning — must be to seek forms of social action which do not silence the Other's full voice at the outset, which do not abstract it from its context, and which allow it to be heard in a critical address to the Self. Only in conceiving such forms and working towards them (and the Other's voice must be heard at the earliest possible stages of this process) can Anthropology and social action in general begin to embrace its own vulnerability. The failure to do this leads, as we have seen, to either a monologue (as with Radin's voice of the Other or the comparativist's voice of the Self) or to an antilogue (as in the relativist approach), where both Self and Other speak but not to one another.The event + dialogue form which the Faqir and I settled on during one stage of my fieldwork suggests an alternative to this practice; but it should be emphasized that this alternative is in no sense meant to be definitive. At best, such a record testifies to several aims: to convey faithfully the power of the Other; to demonstrate the need to seek new forms of the anthropological and the Western project which will recognize their wager aspect and the inherent vulnerability; and to strive for a critical examination of this record's own success or failure in achieving these objectives.The event + dialogue form must thus be looked at not as a model but as a suggestive metaphor for social action and for an Anthropology which embrace their wager character. It cannot provide a model for, just as the confrontation between the West and other human groups is not summarized in all its complexity by Anthropology, and just as fieldwork does not encompass all phases of Anthropology, neither does this record, as event + interview, exactly reflect the fieldwork experience. But the focus on Anthropology, on fieldwork, and on the event + interview, is not arbitrary — it carries a particular significance: it marks the desire to take that moment of the Western encounter with the Other where the Western project is at its most vulnerable, most deeply called into question and to penetrate the shield of immunity that has been constructed around it. If we can begin to do this here, perhaps we can then move toward restituting vulnerability to those other aspects of the confrontation where the Self is even more heavily protected.Kevin Dwyer is an anthropologist, and currently directs Middle East affairs for Amnesty International.     

Homo Nullius or `Where Have All the People Gone‘? Refiguring Marine Management and Conservation Approaches

In Australia, much has been said and written about recent events which finally brought about the rejection of the Western legal concept of terra nullius. The legal recognition of native title in Australia and elsewhere, does not necessarily signify a corresponding and dramatic change in the social status and political position of indigenous peoples. This discontinuity between legal and social discourses is particularly evident when it comes to matters concerning conservation, resource management and sustainable development in a marine environment. All too often in these situations indigenous peoples are ignored and their concerns are dismissed as obstacles to development. They are, to all practical extents and purposes, homo nullius. Drawing upon a range of material from Indonesia and Australia, I argue that in order to understand the phenomenon of homo nullius it is instructive to examine the way we and others think, talk and write about such things as the sea, marine species and the indigenous peoples who possess and use these spaces and resources. In this connection, I focus upon two particular discourses which not only inform marine management and conservation approaches but which also have a tendency to create similar kinds of effects in terms of power, knowledge and agency.     

The use of khat

Chewing of khat leaves has been noted to be widespread in Yemen. Immigrants to Israel brought that practice along and have kept it alive ever since their initial settlement over thirty years ago. The small epidemiological study reported here made an inquiry into the extent of khat use in two agricultural villages. It also explored the association of that practice with social and psychiatric variables. Of interest was the finding that — contrary to most addictions — the prevalence rate of psychopathology was not higher among users than among abstainers.     

With a Little Help from EPR?: Technological Change and Innovation in the Norwegian Plastic Packaging and Electronics Sectors

In this article we discuss the interplay between extended producer responsibility (EPR) and technological change and innovation (TCI) in Norway. We ask whether Norwegian EPR policy has an effect on TCI and, if so, whether it makes any difference how the EPR policies are designed. By carrying out a comparative study between the plastic packaging (PP) sector and electrical and electronic (EE) sector in Norway, we conclude that there is a correlation between Norwegian EPR policy and TCI, but the causality is rather weak. EPR has an effect on downstream activities through increased recycling and indirectly through institutional innovation and learning. It does not, however, make a significant difference how the policies are designed, because they are considered similar by a majority of actors contributing financially to the EPR schemes. As for technological change and innovation upstream, the role of Norwegian EPR policies in the observed trends is not significant. Other factors such as the EPR-based Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive promulgated by the European Union (EE sector) and the need for competitiveness (PP sector) seem far more important. In order to make collective EPR policies more powerful in inducing technological change and innovation, decision-makers should consider more specific measures that directly address the core businesses of the producers.     

以基地平台为抓手,促进生物技术创新与转化

生物技术领域技术创新与成果转化类基地平台是开展生物技术关键技术研究,推动应用示范、成果转化及产业化的重要载体。通过对近年来我国生物技术领域技术创新与成果转化类基地平台发展现状进行梳理分析,探讨基地平台在促进生物技术创新与转化中的作用,总结优势和不足,为其今后的发展建设提供参考和借鉴。     

Revising the ethnodevelopment model: addressing Karen self-determination within the context of the failed ethnocratic state of military-ruled Burma

My paper examines the Karen ethnic nationality and their fifty-eight-year self-determination struggle against ethnic cleansing resulting from the ethnocratic and military governments of Burma. I frame Karen self-determination as a development issue by employing Rodolfo Stavenhagen's ethnodevelopment model. Ethnodevelopment argues that, if asymmetrical development occurs within a multi-ethnic state, state-oriented ethnic minority development strategies are needed to neutralize the asymmetry. However, Stavenhagen's ethnodevelopment does not question the premise of an authoritarian state or the systemic crisis experienced by ethnic minorities under authoritarian rule. Thus, I revise ethnodevelopment from its top-to-bottom trajectory where ethnic minority development is dependent upon the centralized state, to a bottom-to-top trajectory I designate as liberation ethnodevelopment. I argue that Karen liberation ethnodevelopment is also a development process, but one that develops and shields the Karen from ethnic cleansing.     

The social construction of unreality: The real American dilemma

Conclusion Before Marx took up the concept of consciousness it was damaged by the submissive theology of Hegel. Marx grounded consciousness in the nuts-and-bolts happenings of everyday life in a repressive society. From the predicament of a dominated mind arises false consciousness, a condition in which subject classes are cognitively incapable of identifying their own interests, historical role, and human potential. Mystification is the construction of a collective unreality in which myth displaces the real antagonisms of social life. Of all the ideologies that contribute to a state of false consciousness, individualism is the most significant in its relation to de-fusing a class struggle; it is the divide and conquer tactic par excellence. Taking a page from Marx, we have presented scenarios from everyday life that perpetuate the individual's image of him or herself as an isolated, privatized element in society. We have also followed Marx in the view, amply supported by the historical evidence, that the dominant class projects the standard cultural norms in capitalist society.Sociologists of a phenomenological persuasion have viewed the social world as a dialectic between mind and concrete environment. Reality as such is the end product of subjective definitions by individuals and groups. We have argued that perceptions of social reality are in large part engineered by a minority whose interest rests in creating images that effectively disguise their control of society's resources. Thus, Americans who have been thoroughly mystified by the ideology of individualism are capable of seeing their own lives as bright with promise, while their nation's fortunes decline. Such mental acrobatics are not explainable in terms of dissonance theory, which gives an ahistorical analysis, or particularization, which reduces false consciousness to the psychological level. False consciousness — whether it be evidenced by individualism, chauvinism, religious fanaticism, aestheticism, or nature worship — does not result from a random ordering of phenomena: It is the reflection of a conscious choice by dominating classes and their agents, i.e., distortion of reality to prevent communal actions threateningH.C. Greisman and Sharon S. Mayes are Assistant Professors in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.     

The Response to Novel Foods in Common Marmoset (Callithrix jacchus): The Effects of Different Social Contexts

The main aim of this study was to verify if the response to novel foods in common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is influenced by different social settings. This question was tested in three tests involving four social groups. The data regarding the response to novel foods were collected from a total of eight food-naive young. In particular, we explored if direct contacts between food-naive and experienced individuals would have a different effect on the response to novel food by the first, in comparison with a situation in which only visual contacts were allowed. These two different social settings were then compared to a situation in which the response to novel food was not mediated by the experience of group-mates. The results showed a significantly higher number of intervals in which naive young, in social settings, were observed feeding compared with a control test. However, this result was confirmed only in the case of novel foods, not in the case of familiar foods. Furthermore, in the tests in which direct social contacts were allowed, naive young obtained food from group-mates significantly more often in the case of novel than familiar foods. This study suggests that although naive young, when left in pairs, responded quickly to novel foods without the need to observe or interact with experienced group-mates, a process of social facilitation was evident. Such a process was not observed in the case of familiar foods, confirming the hypothesis that social facilitation operates in order to acquire novel foods in the diet of the group in the long term.     

Reproduction and the central project of evolutionary theory

In much of the discourse of evolutionary theory, reproduction is treated as an autonomous function of the individual organism — even in discussions of sexually reproducing organisms. In this paper, I examine some of the functions and consequences of such manifestly peculiar language. In particular, I suggest that it provides crucial support for the central project of evolutionary theory — namely that of locating causal efficacy in intrinsic properties of the individual organism. Furthermore, I argue that the language of individual reproduction is maintained by certain methodological conventions that both obscure many of the problems it generates and serve to actively impede attempts to redress those difficulties that can be identified. Finally, I suggest that inclusion of the complexities introduced by sexual reproduction — in both language and methodology — may radically undermine the individualist focus of evolutionary theory.I am indepted to the Rockefeller Foundation for a Humanities Fellowship that supported this research during the spring of 1986. I am also grateful to Richard Lewontin, Diane Paul, and Lisa Lloyd for many extremely helpful conversations.