Tropical forest mimicry in Swiddens: A reassessment of Geertz's Model with Amazonian data

Geertz's famous hypothesis that horticulturalists practicing shifting cultivation intercrop their plots to mimic the protective structure of the tropical forest is evaluated in view of data on the structural ecology of the tropical forest and swidden plots in Amazonian Ecuador. The cultivation practices of the Siona-Secoya Indians reveal a three-fold typology of cropping patterns (high-diversity intercropping, low-diversity intercropping, and monocropping), with variation among the types in terms of plot size and distribution, cultigen inventory, structural complexity, and function. These gardens and the tropical forest are compared and analyzed in terms of morphology, ecological characteristics, and human manipulation and utilization. Gardens with high-diversity intercropping show certain similarities to the tropical forest, as Geertz's model predicts, but their highly transient structure does not function as a mature ecosystem. Furthermore, plots with low-diversity intercropping and monocropping show few similarities to the forest. Garden structure is best understood in terms of the economic utilization of tropical cultigens displaying specific habits, rather than by analogy to tropical forest physiognomy and function.     

The anthropologist as photographer: The visual construction of ethnographic authority

“The Anthropologist as Author"—Clifford Geertz's formulation is emblematic of a theme of anthropology in the 1980s, ethnographic writing. Ethnographic photography, however, was barely a subject of consideration. Reviewing Evans‐Pritchard's The Nuer, a book widely re‐read in the writing culture debate, this article investigates not only the author's visual construction of ethnographic authority. It also reveals ethnographic photography as a medium, which can undermine this authority in a subtle yet compelling manner. Thus concentrating on the medium itself this paper investigates the uneasy relationship between photography and anthropology, and proposes an approach to ethnographic photography that goes beyond the questions of representation.¹     

祁连山牧区妇女社会地位及其对草地政策的认知度

牧区妇女社会地位的高低对草地生态系统健康具有重要的影响。以祁连山区的天祝藏族自治县抓喜秀龙乡为调查研究区域,随机抽取100户藏族牧户为研究对象,采用问卷、座谈和关键人物座谈等形式,对妇女在社会生产中充当的角色、日常生活中承担的家务状况、受教育程度、参与社会活动情况以及对草地政策的认知等方面进行了系统调查和分析。研究结果表明:在农村社会变革中,女性是畜牧业生产的主力军,承担着将近80%的生产管理工作,74.3%的日常家务。其在家庭经济中的决策权和农村社会中的地位也在逐渐提高,在经济方面占36.5%的支配权,拥有14.5%的决策权。但是,妇女的受教育的程度普遍较低,女性的文盲率达14.4%。因此,妇女对草地生产管理技术的接受程度较低,对草原管理方面的政策及相关的法规缺乏认识,这将会对牧区草地畜牧业的可持续发展产生潜在影响。     

How strategy environment and wealth shape altruistic behaviour: cooperation rules affecting wealth distribution in dynamic networks

Societies rely on individual contributions to sustain public goods that benefit the entire community. Several mechanisms, that specify how individuals change their decisions based on past experiences, have been proposed to explain how altruists are not outcompeted by selfish counterparts. A key aspect of such strategy updates involves a comparison of an individual''s latest payoff with that of a random neighbour. In reality, both the economic and social milieu often shapes cooperative behaviour. We propose a new decision heuristic, where the propensity of an individual to cooperate depends on the local strategy environment in which she is embedded as well as her wealth relative to that of her neighbours. Our decision-making model allows cooperation to be sustained and also explains the results of recent experiments on social dilemmas in dynamic networks. Final cooperation levels depend only on the extent to which the strategy environment influences altruistic behaviour but are largely unaffected by network restructuring. However, the extent of wealth inequality in the community is affected by a subtle interplay between the environmental influence on a person''s decision to contribute and the likelihood of reshaping social ties, with wealth-inequality levels rising with increasing likelihood of network restructuring in some situations.     

Some Problems in People's Cognitive Awareness of one Another under Conditions of Modern Production

Psychology studies people's cognitive awareness of one another as a multilevel reflexive process of social psychological interaction among people. The essential features of this interaction are determined by the ensemble of people's relations in their work and in their social and political activity. Study of people's direct and indirect reflection in each other's minds in a production setting is one of the most important scientific and specifically psychological preconditions for improving the management and organization of modern production. As the subject matter of social psychology, the laws of people's cognitive awareness of one another and of themselves are an organic part of processes of group formation; they mediate all forms of practical and emotional communication in a production brigade, and they are regularly manifested in both the group-related and individually oriented mental states of workers and the dynamic patterns displayed by their moods. Cognitive awareness of others, of course, also exerts an influence on the effectiveness of work.     

粤港澳大湾区基塘多功能性尺度效应及生态修复策略

基塘具有生产、生态、社会等多种功能,对保障粤港澳大湾区生态安全和可持续发展具有重要意义,当前学界对基塘多功能性的尺度效应关注尚不足。应用土地利用变化分析、田野调查、半结构访谈等方法,构建了基塘多功能性的尺度分析框架。研究表明：（1）以桑（蔗）基鱼塘为主的基塘发展阶段,基塘生产、生态、社会功能发展均衡,塘基之间,基塘与村落、区域生产生活形成良性循环,孕育了与村落、区域聚落、产业、社会相融合的基塘文化;（2）以单一化养殖为主的基塘发展阶段,村集体和农户作为基塘生产功能的直接受益者,片面追求经济效益最大化导致基塘生态功能的弱化;（3）基塘多功能性的协调发展有赖于不同制度层级的联动协作,通过创新基塘的土地经营模式,协调各个制度层级与以农户为主的基塘经营主体的利益关系,是实现基塘多功能化发展的关键。研究结果对制定分级农业生态系统管理措施、粤港澳大湾区国土空间管制与生态修复均具有启示意义。     

Economic and Social Impact Assessment of China's Multi‐Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules Production

It is important to have insights into the potential sustainability impacts as early as possible in the development of technology. Solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies provide significant environmental, economic, and social benefits in comparison to the conventional energy sources. Because most previous studies of multi‐crystalline silicon (Multi‐Si) PV modules discuss the environmental impacts, this study quantitatively assesses the economic and social impacts of China's multi‐crystalline silicon (mc‐Si) PV modules production stages. The economic analysis is uses life cycle cost analysis, and the social impact analysis is carried out by applying the social index evaluation method. The economic analysis results demonstrate that the main cost of mc‐Si PV modules production in China lies in raw materials and labor and the production of Multi‐Si PV cells have the highest cost among the five manufacturing processes involved in Multi‐Si PV. The result of the social impact analysis reveal that the employment contribution index, S₁₁, is 0.72, indicating that Multi‐Si PV modules production in China has a prominent contribution to employment in comparison with other industries; the labor civilization degree, S₁₂ (i.e., the proportion of mental labor involved in a given job), and labor income contribution index, S₁₃, are both approximately 0.6, indicating that Multi‐Si PV modules production has a less‐significant labor level and income contribution in comparison with other industries; the production capacity contribution index, S₁₄, is merely 0.183, indicating that production of Multi‐Si PV modules does not contribute significantly to the gross domestic product (GDP). Based on the results of these evaluations, some recommendations to improve the economic and social impact of Multi‐Si PV modules production in China are presented, including support for research on polycrystalline silicon production for the purpose of reducing the raw material cost, as well as upgrading manufacturing facilities and implementing the corresponding production training in order to promote the labor civilization degree.     

Dynamic social behaviour in a bacterium: Pseudomonas aeruginosa partially compensates for siderophore loss to cheats

Cooperation underlies diverse phenomena including the origins of multicellular life, human behaviour in economic markets and the mechanisms by which pathogenic bacteria cause disease. Experiments with microorganisms have advanced our understanding of how, when and why cooperation evolves, but the extent to which microbial cooperation can recapitulate aspects of animal behaviour is debated. For instance, understanding the evolution of behavioural response rules (how should one individual respond to another's decision to cooperate or defect?) is a key part of social evolution theory, but the possible existence of such rules in social microbes has not been explored. In one specific context (biparental care in animals), cooperation is maintained if individuals respond to a partner's defection by increasing their own investment into cooperation, but not so much that this fully compensates for the defector's lack of investment. This is termed ‘partial compensation’. Here, I show that partial compensation for the presence of noncooperating ‘cheats’ is also observed in a microbial social behaviour: the cooperative production of iron‐scavenging siderophores by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A period of evolution in the presence of cheats maintains this response, whereas evolution in the absence of cheats leads to a loss of compensatory behaviour. These results demonstrate (i) the remarkable flexibility of bacterial social behaviour, (ii) the potential generality of partial compensation as a social response rule and (iii) the need for mathematical models to explore the evolution of response rules in multi‐player social interactions.     

基于MSIASM和能源消费碳排放的中国四大直辖市社会代谢分析

通过社会代谢多尺度综合评估(Multi-Scale Integrated Assessment of Societal Metabolism,MSIASM)方法,采用生物-经济压力和不同组织尺度下的体外能代谢率、能源密度指标,并将能源消费碳排放融入评估框架,评价了中国四大直辖市2004年至2010年的社会代谢及其综合发展状况。研究中能源消费碳排放的加入较好补充了MSIASM在生态评估方面的弱势。研究结果显示,四大直辖市整体社会代谢发展良好,体外能代谢率和生物-经济压力稳步上升,能源密度和单位能耗碳排放不断降低,总体呈现良性发展态势。从各个直辖市的社会经济系统各部门表现来看,各城市体现了自己的突出特点。在深入到行业尺度研究体外能代谢率、能源密度后,整体显示出控制工业部门和交通运输部门的能耗增长对于提高经济生产能源效率的突出作用,同时应继续加大金融和计算机等低能耗高经济生产率行业的发展力度。     

Triple bottom line study of a lignocellulosic biofuel industry

Growing concerns about energy security and climate change have prompted interest in Australia and worldwide to look for alternatives of fossil fuels. Among the renewable fuel sources, biofuels are one such alternative that have received unprecedented attention in the past decade. Cellulosic biofuels, derived from agricultural and wood biomass, could potentially increase Australia's oil self‐sufficiency. In this study, we carry out a hybrid life‐cycle assessment (LCA) of a future cellulose‐refining industry located in the Green Triangle region of South Australia. We assess both the upstream and downstream refining stages, and consider as well the life‐cycle effects occurring in conventional industries displaced by the proposed biofuel supply chains. We improve on conventional LCA method by utilising multi‐region input–output (IO) analysis that allows a comprehensive appraisal of the industry's supply chains. Using IO‐based hybrid LCA, we evaluate the social, economic and environmental impacts of lignocellulosic biofuel production. In particular, we evaluate the employment, economic stimulus, energy consumption and greenhouse gas impacts of the biofuel supply chain and also quantify the loss in economic activity and employment in the paper, pulp and paperboard industry resulting from the diversion of forestry biomass to biofuel production. Our results reveal that the loss in economic activity and employment will only account for 10% of the new jobs and additional stimulus generated in the economy. Lignocellulosic biofuel production will create significant new jobs and enhance productivity and economic growth by initiating the growth of new industries in the economy. The energy return on investment for cellulosic biofuel production lies between 2.7 and 5.2, depending on the type of forestry feedstock and the travel distance between the feedstock industry and the cellulose refinery. Furthermore, the biofuel industry will be a net carbon sequester.     

基于CGE碳税政策对北京社会经济系统的影响分析

根据研究需要与北京市2010年投入产出表部门划分情况,尽可能地对能源部门进行细分,并编制社会核算矩阵。构建可计算一般均衡(CGE)模型模拟碳税政策对北京市社会经济的影响。实证结果显示:碳税政策具有显著的节能减排效果,对于化石能源密集型产业产出具有明显的抑制作用,但对于清洁能源、服务业等行业产出具有促进作用。因此严格限制煤炭、石油等高碳化石能源的使用、开发高碳能源低碳化利用技术是减排的重要措施。由于碳税会使产品价格上升,从而导致消费需求减少,碳税对国内生产总值和社会福利具有一定的负面影响,虽然影响程度的相对量有限,但影响的绝对效果较大,应该避免较高的碳税税率。     

甘肃白龙江流域生态系统粮食生产服务价值时空分异

粮食生产服务是区域生态系统主要的服务功能之一,也是人类福祉和社会发展的基础,受自然环境和社会经济发展而不断变化。然而,目前国内外尚缺乏统一的生态系统服务价值的时空动态评估方法,尤其是在脆弱的山区过渡带区域。以灾害频发的脆弱生态过渡带——甘肃白龙江流域为例,尝试引入自然环境和人文社会要素对区域生态系统生产服务经济价值进行系数调整与修正,构建生态系统服务价值的计量评估模型,测算流域内生态系统生产服务价值并分析其时空差异性。结果表明:(1)1990—2010年间白龙江流域耕地面积波动起伏较大,但流域内生态系统生产服务价值却表现出持续上升的趋势,至2010年平均生产服务价值达186.74万元。生态系统生产服务价值空间格局变化不大,其高产区约占42.4%以上,主要分布在宕昌县西北部的岷江两岸和舟曲城关镇—武都汉王镇的白龙江两岸及其以北区域。(2)方法改进后,白龙江流域生产经济价值相对减小(172.74万元),间接反映了研究区内滑坡、泥石流等自然灾害和区位人文社会要素对生产经济价值的影响,更符合流域的实际情况。     

Environment,livelihood and household: The ethno‐history of Rana Tharus Badaghar households

This paper focuses on the changes occurring in households in the indigenous Rana Tharus community. I discuss the household not in terms of physical structure but instead on the social aspects: how people relate to each other through the lens of the household context. I argue that the fluid nature of households makes its flexible to different ecological environments and socio‐economic scenarios. My ethnography of Rana households clearly illustrated that the formation, structure and management of Rana households was fundamentally linked to people's livelihoods. Before 1950s, abundant land resources allowed Ranas to live in joint‐type households. This particular household arrangement not only fulfilled labour needs but also secured the mutual security for every household member. Gradually, undivided and big households (known in Rana as Badaghar) became the ideal model for Ranas as soon as such establishments did not become divided or separated. This household structure also served as an important safety net for most Ranas and fundamental to other social relationships especially Mukhiya (household head system) and Kurmaa (patrilineal kin). However, since the 1950s, new socio‐economic landscapes have significantly challenged the maintenance of traditional Rana households. Within the lifetime of most Ranas, they first experienced household fission and the disappearance of the Mukhiya system. The dynamic relationships between Rana household and new ecological, social and economic landscapes are explored here. It is concluded that the household is a critical institution allowing anthropologists to better understand the long‐term social impacts caused by state policies and ecological changes. This is because people often practice their new household relations in their everyday life as a response to environmental and livelihood changes.     

Syncretism and the Politics of the Tingkeban in West Java

For the rural Sundanese of West Java who identify with Nahdatul Ulama Islam, the tingkeban is considered a mandatory ritual to be conducted for a woman who is seven months pregnant. However, like other local practices around birth, the tingkeban has come under state and urban modernising influences that have attempted to displace some of its elements as ‘culture’ rather than ‘religion’ and to discredit many of these as superstitious and backward. This paper examines the ritual elements of the tingkeban that produce and reinforce local cosmological and ontological ideas about the nature of personhood and society, and, in particular, how the ritual highlights the ambivalent status of the villagers within broader relations of power such as the Indonesian State and other forms of Islam existing in Indonesia. The paper also explores how the assumptions within the ideology of modernisation propagated under the last years of the Suharto regime coincide with assumptions in scholarly work such as those underlying Geertz's depiction of the syncretic nature of Javanese religion.     

Let the earth forever remain! Landscape legacies and the materiality of history in the northern Basin of Mexico

This article examines the landscape as an enduring protagonist in the northern Basin of Mexico over the past 1,000 years in communities north of Mexico City. Viewing materiality as the mutual constitution between social and physical worlds, I discuss the production and inheritance of landscape legacies. The manner in which legacies are inherited is tied to changing political, economic, and social conditions. This project integrates multiple sources of information (archaeological, ethnographic, historical, and ecological) to understand transforming connections between people and the landscape in this region, from the ancient state of Xaltocan to the Aztec and Spanish empires, continuing into the struggle for a modern nation. It reveals relationships that are apparent only via a perspective in dialogue with the landscape's materiality over time. In so doing, this article asserts archaeologists' unique contribution to the study of not only long‐term change but also historical processes inherited by and relevant to the contemporary world.     

Ambiguous Transparency: Resumé Fetishism in a Slovak Workshop

This article considers how curricula vitae (C. V.s) reflect and contribute to the social and political conditions of their production. Working with observations of a 2001 workshop in Slovakia on how to write a new style of C. V. and with the related style of life chronicles from personnel files in socialist Czechoslovakia, I argue that this genre's social effects in different economic orders might arise from how authors couple or decouple the referent of a text to other actors in time and space. One ideology that I observed in the workshop encouraged shifts in notions of evidence. Such shifts, I argue, might be furthering the ideological work of creating new forms of personhood and inequality that underlie Slovakia's ‘transition’ to capitalism. Post-socialist C.V.s and socialist life chronicles appear to rise out of different graphic ideologies that govern how actors see themselves as social subjects.     

Opportunism and Diversification: Entrepreneurship and Livelihood Strategies in Uncertain Times

As economic crisis deepens across Europe people are forced to find innovative strategies to accommodate circumstances of chronic uncertainty. Even with a second multi-billion euro bailout package secured for Greece, the prospects of a sustainable recovery in the near future look bleak. However, crisis has also created dynamic spaces for entrepreneurial opportunism and diversification resulting in social mobility, relocation, shifts in livelihood strategy and a burgeoning informal economy. Although economic systems are currently undergoing radical reassessment, social demands such as competitive consumption remain. Opportunities for investment in renewable energy programmes, especially photovoltaics, are also pervasive. By considering cases of business opportunism and livelihood diversification in relation to Max Weber's concept of wertrational and notions of uncertainty, this article brings new perspectives to strategies of negotiating the worst economic crisis in living memory.     

Renovated: Gender and Cinema in Contemporary Vietnam

This article discusses the changes in Vietnamese cinema from the Socialist to the contemporary period from the viewpoint of gender representation. Under socialist conditions of cultural production, films were made by state-funded studios, with a clear mandate to provide the population with film material appropriate to the state's ideals. Since Doi moi (“Renovation”) in the late 1980s, Vietnam was opened up to market forces and cinematic practices have responded. Issues of gender have come into focus, and films exploring these themes have emerged from both state studios and private investors. Nevertheless conservative social values remain strong, and gender remains an area of dynamic uncertainty.     

基于AHP-模糊综合评价法的新安江流域生态补偿政策绩效评估

为了改善流域生态环境,我国推行了流域生态补偿试点,逐渐形成具有我国特色的流域生态补偿模式和机制,目前全国已有十余个省份实行了流域生态补偿政策。生态补偿政策的推行对流域生态环境改善发挥了极其重要的作用,同时也对流域内的社会、经济、健康等方面带来不同程度的影响。如何科学、合理的界定和评价补偿政策带来的社会、经济以及生态环境影响及影响的程度对政策的实施和改善意义重大,这也是流域生态补偿政策得以继续推行的重要条件。在总结和梳理政策效果评价方法的基础上,结合流域生态补偿政策的特点,建立了基于层次分析（AHP）-模糊综合评价法的政策评价模型以及生态补偿政策绩效评估指标体系,并以我国首个跨省流域生态补偿机制试点-新安江流域为研究对象,评估了新安江流域生态补偿政策在第一个试点阶段（2012-2014年）期间的绩效。结果表明：新安江流域生态补偿政策实施效果整体较好,但对区域经济和社会发展的促进作用不显著,并且需要从政策目标的确定、政策体系的健全、政策设计与执行等方面进行完善。建议推动建立流域生态补偿动态评估机制,研究制定相关技术指南;重视强化政策的配套机制能力建设,完善区域联动长效机制和信息共享;促进补偿政策目标从生态资源到生态资本转化,改善和保障河流生态基流;拓宽流域补偿资金来源渠道,鼓励多元主体进入环保市场。在谋求生态效益最大化的前提下,进一步统筹规划经济和社会效益,更好地运用经济杠杆进行流域治理和生态保护,实现经济、社会、生态的共赢。