bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Organizing Collectively at Dordoi Bazaar
Authors: Spector Regine A.
Published: May 2018

This chapter is the first of two chapters to examine the creation of order at Dordoi bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This chapter examines efforts by traders at Dordoi bazaar to unite in more sustained and institutionalized ways to defend their common interests against bazaar owners and government officials, and generate creative ways to solve problems related to bazaar property and other conflicts. They did this by imbuing new meanings into Soviet-era understandings of trade unions and adapting practices within this organizational form to meet the needs of the marketizing context. The chapter demonstrates that a certain order at the bazaar resulted from the political work of trade union participants. This chapter finds trade unions to be neither weak nor coopted in this market context; rather traders used, reshaped, and adapted them in a new capitalist environment.
Centralizing to Modernize at Osh Bazaar
Authors: Spector Regine A.
Published: May 2018

This chapter is the first of two to examine order at Osh bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Told from the municipality’s perspective, this chapter retraces attempts to create order at the perceived “chaotic” bazaar through reconstruction, and locates the origins of contemporary disorder to power and property struggles that date back to bazaar’s enclosure, or privatization, in the 1990s. Officials justified bazaar reconstruction through legal discourses and the creation of a distinction between “legal” and “illegal” traders. Once branded as “illegal” the city could remove them, while also extolling the efforts of the “legal” ones.
Becoming Trading Elders and Local Authorities
Authors: Spector Regine A.
Published: May 2018

This chapter continues the analysis of order at Osh bazaar from the perspective of traders working at the bazaar. While many did not disapprove of the removal of “illegal” traders, as discussed in the previous chapter, they resented the selective enforcement of “legality,” and criticized the city for not imposing curtailing the power and authority of the bazaar owners. This chapter also reveals that Osh bazaar did not have a similar all-encompassing trade union the way that Dordoi bazaar did. Instead, in order to solve problems and create order at the bazaar, a subset of traders self-identified as bazaar elders, or aksakals. The chapter explores how older traders narrated their experiences, became aksakals, and practiced this role at the bazaar, thus showing how a pre-Soviet, rural village institution became reappropriated in a new urban market context.
Local Orders in Post-Soviet Bazaars and Beyond
Authors: Spector Regine A.
Published: May 2018

This chapter summarizes the book’s main arguments and then extends the findings from Dordoi bazaar and Osh bazaar to other bazaars within Kyrgyzstan, and then within and beyond the post-Soviet region. These additional cases suggest that within contexts presumed to be corrupt where state institutions are defined as weak, shifting the focus from national-level indicators to local understandings, experiences, and practices provides important insights and perspectives. The chapter demonstrates that order can be produced through different combinations of individual experience and action, translated to a variety of organizational forms, with the precise actors and processes varying depending on the particular historical, cultural, and political environment.
March
Authors: Pretty Jules
Published: May 2018

This chapter details the beginning of spring in the east country, when the days grew longer, rain fell, and the buds became a little greener. Inland, spring-messenger celandine and lemony primrose had appeared in hedge banks. However, forecasters said it will have been the coldest March, just three degrees, quite unlike last year's heat. Nevertheless, hedgerows up and down the valley revealed the erratic arrival of warmth and light. In a good year, Prunus dominates March landscapes. Many call them blackthorn, Prunus spinosa, but mostly this is mistaken. Blackthorn forms spiny thickets, one or two flowers together. The chapter also narrates a day of celebration for the valley's finest author, Ronald Blythe, who writes and gardens every day.
April
Authors: Pretty Jules
Published: May 2018

This chapter describes the east country in April. There were early signs of drought on the heathlands, where free-range pigs slumped, and arum lily were dried to a crisp. Only dew at night saved plants. Continental air advanced northward, a froth of yellow-green appearing on willow. The chapter then recounts a visit to the sailors' Reading Room, which was opened 150 years ago. On the walls inside the Reading Room were pictures of men of the sea. There were beach yawls, gaff-rigged and clinker-built, oyster trawls, and well smacks. Moreover, there were models of naval vessels with tall sails and later gunmetal: lost in the Battle of Solebay. The chapter also looks at the two elms on Assington High Street.
June
Authors: Pretty Jules
Published: May 2018

This chapter describes the east country in June, when drought gave way to showers and hot thunderstorms, and the summer solstice accelerated hard, the days about to shorten. It looks at the Thicks, an ancient woodland of mature oak and holly. The oak drew the eye, but the smooth holly were exceptional. There is more than meets the eye in these old woods: druid ceremonies, the magic of mistletoe, and strange goings-on. The chapter then considers the appealing idea of a contemplative economy. It argues that if people spent more time immersed in nature and attentive to one another, then perhaps there would be less need for material consumption.
July
Authors: Pretty Jules
Published: May 2018

This chapter details the east country in July, looking at a nuclear power station in Sizewell. Once a fishing village and a remote smugglers' spot, Sizewell has been known for fifty years for the hint of nuclear fear. The chapter then turns to the farmlets of Albion. In the Second World War, allotments were vital for the Dig for Victory campaign, swelling in number to two million. The ministry printed pamphlets on growing the exotic potato, the carrot and onion, and encouraged the formation of pig clubs. Vegetable rows appeared on bomb plot, front garden, village green, rail line side strip, and airfield. Postwar they fell away. Today, some 300,000 plots remain. The chapter also recounts a heat wave, when the poppy died and some roads were cheaply repaired patch by plastered patch.
September
Authors: Pretty Jules
Published: May 2018

This chapter details the east country in September. Mist was in the valley, every field in fog, and westerly gales brought drenching rain. Showery rain spotted paving, then an Indian summer shone inside the whole valley. Indian summer was a term used in rural New York in the 1770s, thus derived from Native Americans rather than the East Indies. On this continent, it was long a St. Luke's or St. Martin's summer, the latter for sun as late as November. It was autumn, yet still in flower were mallow and harebell, yarrow and white campion, and hawkweed and buttercup. High in hedge were rose hip and haw, wild damson, and blue-black sloe. The chapter then focuses on farms and farm identities.
November
Authors: Pretty Jules
Published: May 2018

This chapter details the east country in November. There were a hundred flood alerts, a hundred warnings, then overspill and breach. Insurance companies forecast withdrawal from lowlands in favor of profit. The elderly were pulled from cars and upper-story windows and ferried by rescue boats. Canoes paddled along streets and lifeboats sculled over meadows. It was not Hurricane Katrina, but which was worse: the probable consequences of climate change, or the earnest politicians? Meanwhile, the end of the month was marked by days of saints: St. Hugh's, St. Cecilia's, St. Clement's, St. Catherine's, and St. Andrew's. Each was a custom of feast and visit for sweet and soul cake eaten for rhymes recited or songs sung. Yet rural late November was also for the hiring fair.
In Praise of Suicide
Authors: Orsini Alessandro
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses Sacrifice's spiritual education. Fascist mysticism promotes a number of values, including love of family, loyalty to friends, fairness in sports competitions, solidarity with the poor, love for Italy, voluntary service, and physical exercise. These values, however, can be considered “secondary.” There are three primary values in revolutionary Fascism. The first value is the courage one demonstrates by accepting or provoking fights with the enemy. The second value is sacrifice: fighting even though one knows he cannot win. The third value is honor, which Sacrifice comrades consider a consequence of courage and sacrifice. The greater the willingness of Sacrifice comrades to fight against a stronger enemy, the greater the honor. The chapter then describes the books that the Lenintown and Mussolinia militia members read. Everyone agrees that the books of Niccolò Giani, Léon Degrelle, Julius Evola, and Corneliu Condreanu are fundamental for entering the mental universe of the Sacrifice militants.
The Great Fight
Authors: Orsini Alessandro
Published: May 2018

This chapter looks a battle between Sacrifice militants and extreme leftists taking place in a major Italian city. It turned on its head the official accounts of a huge fight, involving a hundred or more youths, in which Sacrifice militants were entirely to blame. The main Italian TV networks and the major newspapers had dealt at length with this violent encounter, and it had also been the subject of a parliamentary debate, in which left-wing members had warned against the dangers of a return of Fascism. On the basis of the journalists' stories and the politicians' statements, everyone was convinced that Sacrifice Fascists had attacked a peaceful march of left-wing militants without provocation. Public opinion had been horrified by the comrades' violence, and many had asked why the magistrates, under the Italian constitution, had not ordered Sacrifice to be dismantled and its leaders arrested.
Soldiers Who Fight and Soldiers Who Don’t
Authors: Orsini Alessandro
Published: May 2018

This chapter argues that daily life in the parallel world is typified not by “soldiers who fight,” but by “soldiers who don't fight.” To escape the bourgeois society, Sacrifice militants try to construct a social order in which they are courageous soldiers. Yet most Sacrifice members know nothing about fighting. The question is this: how can militants who do not participate in street brawls and who do not fight in the MMA cage matches prove they are real soldiers? The clashes that result in police investigations and arrests offer the chance to all militants, even those who do not know how to fight, to sacrifice themselves for the militia, just as ancient Roman legionnaires did. Sacrifice members have copied not only the legionnaires' form of greeting but also the idea that the militia is a sacred place. Indeed, according to Sacrifice comrades, “the true soldier is someone who loves the militia.”
A Mass Youth Organization
Authors: Bernstein Seth
Published: May 2018

In the late 1930s, the Komsomol nearly tripled in size. Its emergence as a mass youth organization demanded that the requirements for members become more lax. The expansion of the league was tied to the start of World War II in Europe, which contributed to the stratification of the league between professional organizers and younger members. A consensus emerged among Komsomol leaders and members that material benefits and social promotion were key aspects of membership in political society and in the construction of socialism. By involving large numbers of youth in official culture, youth organizers hoped to cultivate them as defenders of socialism and to prevent them from becoming irredeemable enemies.
Youth at War
Authors: Bernstein Seth
Published: May 2018

World War II was the ultimate test of Soviet youth culture. The USSR’s heavy reliance on youth in the pre-war period increased as Stalin’s regime drafted youth into the army, in factories and as keepers of order on the home front. Soviet practices of mobilization and coercion developed during the interwar period continued and intensified during the war. As victory appeared imminent, youth leaders pondered how wartime brutalization and the compromises young people had made under occupation had changed the requirements of official youth culture. The victory reinforced the righteousness of pre-war practices as the correct way to raise youth under socialism.
Introduction
Authors: Shatkin Gavin
Published: May 2018

This chapter defines ‘urban real estate megaprojects’ as large, integrated, master planned, and commercially driven real estate developments that seek to fundamentally transform the urban fabric. It analyses the implications of the proliferation of such projects across Asia for theories of neoliberalization, arguing that an analysis of the trials and travails of such projects, and their eventual outcomes, helps shed light on the role that historically formed institutions and socio-political dynamics (property rights, state landownership, customary claims to land) play in shaping the ways that market oriented modes of governance do or do not take root in a given setting. The chapter further deploys Neil Smith’s concept of the rent gap as a tool to interpret when and where state actors have sought to transform urban space through strategies of land monetization.
Comparing State Agendas of Land Monetization
Authors: Shatkin Gavin
Published: May 2018

This chapter develops a comparative framework for analyzing state land strategies across cities. This framework focuses on two fundamental variables that differentiate societies—the relative autonomy of land managers from non-state sources of social influence, and the extent of state control of urban land markets, specifically through state ownership of land. The chapter develops a basic typology of land management regimes: a political economy of the land grab (represented in the case studies by Indonesia); a political economy of state capitalist urban planning (represented by China); and a political economy of ‘occupancy urbanism’ (represented by India).
Chongqing
Authors: Shatkin Gavin
Published: May 2018

Chongqing has witnessed an extraordinary experiment in urban development intended to deploy land-based finance as a tool to overcome the social and ecological problems that have increasingly beset China’s cities. This experiment included the use of land-based financing to undertake a public housing program that added a remarkable 800,000 units of affordable housing between 2011 and 2015. It also included efforts to accelerate urbanization through reforms to the household registration, or hukou system, and efforts to give farmers greater ability to gain access to the market value of their land. This chapter places the Chongqing experience in the context of China’s state capitalist model of urban development, which is premised on the state’s ownership of all urban land. This model has allowed the state to use commercial land development by state-owned enterprises as a powerful tool for economic growth, infrastructure development, and social engineering.
Kinship as Politics
Authors: Agmon Danna
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers the role of family networks, both French and Tamil, in the development of French empire in India. It charts how two Tamil dynasties drew on their kinship ties to create commercial networks that spanned the Indian Ocean, and highlights the involvement of of one local woman in the relationship between French colonists and local familial institutions.
The Denial of Language
Authors: Agmon Danna
Published: May 2018

This chapter serve as a corrective to the tendency in European imperial history to overlook the centrality of polylinguistic scenarios in colonial encounters. It examines the relationship between French, Portuguese, and Tamil in colonial politics of commerce and conversion and in the unfolding of the Nayiniyappa Affair, and explains how translation and interpretation were tools that could be used to impede communication as much as enable it.
Archiving the Affair
Authors: Agmon Danna
Published: May 2018

This chapter describes the archives in which documentary traces of the Nayiniyappa Affair are sedimented and, informed by the “archival turn” in historical scholarship, it reveals the agentive processes by which these archives and subsequent historical narratives were created. It shows how French and Tamil actors alike viewed their archives, and especially their personal diaries, as the bedrock of claims they made in the course of the Nayiniyappa Affair.
The Masters
Authors: Belodubrovskaya Maria
Published: May 2018

Chapter Three discusses the implications of the director-centered mode of film production and suggests why entrusting self-governance and self-censorship to a select group of director-masters was counterproductive. The Soviet film industry did not have producers, and only directors had the creative and technical expertise to make films. This unique expertise, which was hard to replicate, as well as their status as “engineers of human souls,” put Soviet film directors in a formidable position vis-à-vis the party-state. Moreover, most of them were not propagandists, but artists, and their professional agenda was never entirely subsumed by Stalinism.
Screenwriting
Authors: Belodubrovskaya Maria
Published: May 2018

Throughout the Stalin period cinema experienced a perpetual “scenario crisis,” or a shortage of suitable screenplays. This was due to the lack of professionalization in Soviet screenwriting and to the director-centered mode of production. Studios had no personnel to convert potential stories into solid, censorship-proof scripts, and directors had an outsized role in screenwriting through the practice of the director’s scenarios. Lacking a large contingent of professional screenwriters who could write on order, the industry focused on mobilizing established writers to author high-quality literary screenplays. Writers did not deliver masterpieces, while weakening censorship and making it only more difficult to produce films on a large scale.
Censorship
Authors: Belodubrovskaya Maria
Published: May 2018

Soviet censors were also poorly equipped to guide filmmakers. Censorship was primarily carried out by the industry itself, which created conflicts of interest and contributed to risk aversion. When industry self-censorship proved unsuccessful, Stalin and the Central Committee apparatus intervened. Stalin’s involvement and party censorship, the outcome of which was hard to predict, introduced extreme uncertainty and lack of responsibility to the already compromised self-censorship, making it only less productive. It was not the strength of censorship, but its weaknesses that made it impossible for Soviet cinema to properly function. While industry censors multiplied, film production slowed.
Achieving Access
Authors: Harris Joseph
Published: May 2018

Why do resource-constrained countries make costly commitments to universal health coverage and AIDS treatment after transitioning to democracy? At a time when the world’s wealthiest nations struggle to make healthcare and medicine available to everyone, this book explores the dynamics that made landmark policies possible in Thailand and Brazil but which have led to prolonged struggle and contestation in South Africa. While conventional wisdom suggests that democratization empowers the masses, this book draws attention to an underappreciated dynamic: that democratization empowers elites from esteemed professions – frequently doctors and lawyers – who forge progressive change on behalf of those in need in the face of broader opposition at home and from abroad. The relative success of professional movements in Thailand and Brazil and failure in South Africa highlights critical differences in the character of political competition. Whereas fierce political competition provided opportunities for professional movements to have surprising influence on the policymaking process in Thailand and Brazil, the unrivaled dominance of the African National Congress allowed the ruling party the luxury of entertaining only limited healthcare reform and charlatan AIDS policy in South Africa. The book offers lessons for the United States and other countries seeking to embark on expansive health reforms.
Democratization, Elites, and the Expansion of Access to Health Care and Medicine
Authors: Harris Joseph
Published: May 2018

Sociologists have rarely imagined elites as capable of delivering for society the promise of a better future. More frequently, labor unions and left-wing parties, or grassroots social movements, have been looked to as champions of social progress. This chapter explores the broader theoretical contributions of the book and situates the key concepts of “professional movements” and “heightened political competition” in the literature. First, whereas scholarship has emphasized the way in which democratization empowers the masses, this book turns conventional wisdom on its head by suggesting that democratization empowers elites. Second, it calls attention to the role that newly empowered (and public-minded) professionals play in expanding access to healthcare and medicine on behalf of the poor and those in need. Third, it highlights the importance of differences in the character of political competition in the wake of democratic transition in conditioning the possibilities for well-organized professional movements to institute such changes.
Thailand: From Village Safety to Universal Access
Authors: Harris Joseph
Published: May 2018

While Chapter 2 explored the historic contributions of the Rural Doctors’ Movement to universal healthcare in Thailand, this chapter explores the critical role played by the Drug Study Group and activist professionals in the Ministry of Public Health in expanding access to AIDS medication in Thailand. In a political context that increasingly placed importance on citizens’ rights, the chapter shows how this professional movement drew on its legal knowledge to empower AIDS NGOs who used the courts to challenge pharmaceutical companies; to promote the government’s use of generic drugs; to build state (and civil society) capacity to address concerns related to the drugs’ cost; and to resist pressures from the United States and powerful drug companies.
Brazil: Constituting Rights, Setting Precedents, Challenging Norms
Authors: Harris Joseph
Published: May 2018

How did Brazil become an international model for the treatment of AIDS? In a domain dominated both by human rights and battles over patent law, this chapter argues that an understanding of the contributions of professionals with knowledge in the law is central to understanding Brazil’s success. Amid competitive political dynamics that did not provide Brazilian policymakers with the luxury of entertaining dissident science (as happened in South Africa), this chapter highlights the critical role that newly empowered professionals with training in the law played in expanding access to AIDS medication in Brazil in the wake of democratization. This chapter explores how these professionals embedded new rights in the constitution; used positions in the state and ties to allies to increase funding for treatment and hold the state accountable; helped redefine the state’s relationship with pharmaceutical companies; and worked to embed new norms in international legal conventions.
The Development Dance
Authors: Swedlund Haley J.
Published: May 2018

The Development Dance is about how donor countries and recipient governments negotiate the delivery of foreign aid. The book provides a conceptual framework for understanding donor-government relations and a theory for explaining the sustainability of aid delivery mechanisms. Drawing on extensive in-country fieldwork in four sub-Saharan African countries, as well as an original survey of development practitioners in twenty countries, the book points to a fundamental problem in the delivery of aid: the policy compromises reached by donor agencies and recipient governments are rarely politically sustainable. Commitment problems constrain the policy compromises reached by donors and recipients. As a result, fads and fashions dominate development cooperation, and the delivery of foreign aid is not determined by effectiveness alone. If we want to know whether an aid delivery mechanism is likely to be sustained over the long term, we need to look at whether it induces credible commitments from both donor agencies and recipient governments.
The Development Dance
Authors: Swedlund Haley J.
Published: May 2018

Chapter 1 summarizes the core arguments of the book and introduces the significance of the project both theoretically and practically. The chapter argues that scholars and practitioners too often focus on aid effectiveness, ignoring how choices regarding aid delivery mechanism are made to being with. The chapter then provides a brief historical look at foreign aid, demonstrating that the history of foreign aid is a history of fads and fashions. Finally, the chapter summarizes the core theoretical argument of the book, which is that commitment problems constrain the policy compromises reached by donors and recipients. If we want to know whether an aid delivery mechanism is likely to be sustained over the long term, we need to look at whether it induces credible commitments from both donor agencies and recipient governments.
It Takes Two to Tango
Authors: Swedlund Haley J.
Published: May 2018

Chapter 2 outlines the theoretical arguments of the book. The chapter first provides a theoretical framework for understanding aid policy bargaining between donor agencies and recipient governments. Then, drawing on theories of institutional economics, the chapter articulates how commitment problems in foreign aid are theorized to influence choices in aid delivery and the sustainability of aid delivery mechanisms over time. The chapter argues that the sustainability of a aid delivery mechanism depends on its ability to incentivize both donors and recipients to uphold their commitments over the long term.
Leveraging Power
Authors: Bank Muñoz Carolina
Published: May 2018

Chapter 3 presents the analytical framework for the book. The warehouse union can be characterized by strategic democracy, whereas the retail unions are characterized by flexible militancy. The warehouse workers have significant structural power, a tradition of political education, leaders with trade union experience, and a deeper culture of union democracy. As a result they have been particularly successful in achieving economic gains. The retail workers are newer unions with weaker social power but a strong culture of autonomy and militancy, and democratic structures. They have achieved some economic gains and have significantly and effectively challenged Walmart culture. These two models of unionism set up the case studies in chapters 4 and 5.
The Flexible Militancy of Walmart Retail Workers
Authors: Bank Muñoz Carolina
Published: May 2018

Chapter 5 discusses the retail workers in detail. The chapter analyzes workplace abuses, including human rights abuses and Walmart’s anti-union practices, organizing strategy, and outcomes for these unions. The independent retail unions in the study are complex and multifaceted particularly because they represent over 4,000 workers. Although the two retail federations differ in their cultures and strategies, both can still be characterized by flexible militancy. Their structural location, expansive geography, on the ground flexibility, and militancy shape their outcomes and give these unions the capacity to push back Walmart culture.
Introduction
Authors: Millie Julian
Published: May 2018

West Java is a diverse Islamic society in which different segments attach contrasting meanings to Islamic communications. Many Muslims are accustomed to listening to preachers when carrying out their routines of piety and celebration. These preachers shape their messages to everyday realities. Other segments problematize routine preaching, arguing that preaching should enable Muslims to transcend their everyday realities. The chapter introduces West Java and its capital city, Bandung, and conveys the multi-faceted Islamic heritage of the region, providing background to the critiques of preaching produced by Muslim elites of the region.
The Languages of Preaching in the Islamic Public Sphere
Authors: Millie Julian
Published: May 2018

Chapter Five explores the ways in which the preaching styles analysed in the two preceding chapters are publically evaluated, pointing out the way in which public norms about appropriate communication inform negative judgements of one of them (Al-Jauhari’s). The analytical approach to those norms is made through the subject of language selection (Sundanese versus Indonesian), a variable that expresses listeners’ recognition of a hierarchy of preaching styles.
Introduction
Authors: Wang Ning
Published: May 2018

This introductory chapter argues that political exiles to the Great Northern Wilderness were not necessarily real or even potential opponents of Mao's government, rather, they were often “loyal dissidents” and faithful followers of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some of them were receptive to ideological remoulding and worked hard to achieve self-redemption. This struggle for redemption was self-imposed and was significantly compounded by mental and physical distress. In addition to Party politics, the conditions in the camps also contributed to the suffering of exiles. The chapter looks at both the resistance and subversion of state efforts to subdue these exiles on the one hand, and regrettable infighting and service to those same dark forces on the other.
Beijing Rightists on the Army Farms of Beidahuang
Authors: Wang Ning
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on the experience of Beijing rightists on the army farms of Beidahuang. Some rightists, not silenced by the Anti-Rightist Campaign, continued to articulate their criticisms and expressed abhorrence of Beidahuang; many others, however, were willing to be sent down in order to ease the political pressure placed upon them or to display their commitment to self-redemption. Heavily indoctrinated by Party norms or overwhelmed by the mass condemnation in 1957, a considerable number of the persecuted admitted their “crimes” and their need to go through labour reform to cleanse their “reactionary” minds and to achieve spiritual growth through trial and tribulation.
Inner Turmoil and Internecine Strife among Political Exiles
Authors: Wang Ning
Published: May 2018

This chapter delves into the psychological world and behavioural patterns of political exiles. It shows that many of them, especially the rightists, still identified with Party ideology and accepted the notion of ideological remoulding through labour; many worked hard in order to show repentance and achieve self-redemption. Some, although not all, of the political exiles transformed the Party's ideological battle into self-affliction. Moreover, the chapter's most important theme is the ultra-activism of the exile community. Both on the army farms and in the Xingkaihu labour camp complex, some of the intellectual inmates attacked others in order to advance themselves and to show their loyalty to the authorities.
Conclusion
Authors: Wang Ning
Published: May 2018

This concluding chapter explains that the suffering endured by political exiles did not come only from the state and its agents: it was also self-imposed. Indoctrinated with Party ideology, many political exiles acknowledged their offence, wished to cleanse their minds of “erroneous thoughts,” and worked hard to show their repentance and to achieve self-redemption through manual labour. This struggle for redemption was a self-imposed affliction. When they discovered that their fate was decided more by Party policies than by their individual efforts at labour reform, many exiles found themselves in psychological agony. Internecine strife exacerbated their misery and led to moral corruption.
Making Ends Meet
Authors: Salamon Sonya , MacTavish Katherine
Published: May 2018

Park families struggle monthly to make ends meet due to their modest incomes, debts, and housing costs. About one-fifth of the study families (19 percent) are housing cost burdened due to it consuming 30 percent or more of their monthly income. The price for living in rural America also includes higher costs for energy, transportation, food, and childcare. Detailed financial information from 13 North Carolina families shows how housing costs, education levels, job benefits, and credit-card or car loan debts account for their position in a household typology ranging from impoverishment or working-poor to low or high lower income.
The New Mexico Parks
Authors: Salamon Sonya , MacTavish Katherine
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers trailer park life among families in rural New Mexico where a marginal economy makes trailer park residence and economic necessity for many. Long family histories, deep embeddedness in community and extensive kin networks “root” families in place providing a sense of belonging and supports that buffers against the challenges of poverty and trailer park residence.
I, the Citizen
Authors: Balasubramaniam R. , Venkatachalia M. N.
Published: May 2018

This book is an attempt to understand citizen development and engagement. It takes the reader through interpretations of development initiatives at the grassroots and what good governance means to ordinary people. The book unravels the power of citizen engagement through the author's experiences of leading civil society campaigns against corruption and towards strengthening democratic participation of people. It also deals with the philosophical underpinnings of public policies, drawing from the author's on-the-ground experience as well as engagement with those in the higher echelons of policymaking and implementation. The last section of the book provides glimpses into milestones of a development movement; milestones that are responsible for a continued faith in citizen engagement despite the hindering forces.
Understanding development
Authors: Balasubramaniam Dr. R , Venkatachaliah M N
Published: May 2018

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the different facets of development and what it means to different people and agencies. The debate on development has intensified over the last three to four decades, gathering much momentum after the United Nations made the grand announcement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Rethinking and redefining development goals is needed, but it must also be accompanied by a rethinking of how these goals shall be achieved. The chapter then argues that development needs to be seen, interpreted, and assessed not from the dimension of the agency, but from that of the community. This is because people's interpretation of poverty and their problems are often different from the conventional standpoint of the government and its enforcement machinery. Ultimately, the chapter is embedded with questions and perspectives that can help critique the current paradigm of development and provide a better understanding of the phenomenon.
Governance, democracy and citizenship
Authors: Balasubramaniam Dr. R , Venkatachaliah M N
Published: May 2018

This chapter argues that citizen engagement, democracy, and good governance are all interconnected and each one of them is responsible for the health of the other two. When citizen engagement thrives, it invariably leads to a vibrant democracy and eventually towards an environment of mutual trust, respect, and accountability between the state and the citizenry. That, in turn, can pave way for good governance and democratic functioning of the state's institutions. However, the interpretation of good governance and levels of citizen engagement vary widely between communities and so does the state's willingness and comfort levels with citizen engagement. In such a scenario, both the state and the citizenry have to step out of their comfort zones and take it upon themselves to create space for greater dialogue and innovative ways of engagement. The chapter then assesses whether this is really possible given the changing and complex societal dynamics.
Introduction
Authors: Shaw Claire L.
Published: May 2018

This introduction presents an overview of deaf history in the Soviet context, and establishes the central themes – marginality, community and identity – that frame the monograph. It considers how deafness was defined in USSR, looking particularly at the intersection of medical and social models, and the impact of revolutionary ideology on Soviet approaches to deafness. It also discusses how Soviet deaf history engages with, and complicates, existing understandings of marginal identity in the USSR, and adds a new, socialist perspective to the growing literature on deafness and deaf history in the global context.
Revolutionizing Deafness
Authors: Shaw Claire L.
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the development of a model of deaf Soviet selfhood from the revolutions of 1917 to the foundation of the All-Russian Society of Deaf-Mutes (VOG) in 1926. Deaf people engaged with the subjectivizing practices of the early Soviet period, negotiating with Marxist ideology and language of revolution to define the contours of their path to self-definition and agency. Yet, as this chapter argues, this dialogue with dominant social and cultural frameworks was influenced by pre-revolutionary experiences: the longstanding rejection of charity and state tutelage, and the demand, on an individual and a community level, for rights and citizenship, informed and shaped the ways in which deaf people responded to Soviet notions of subjectivity and social welfare.
Epilogue
Authors: Shaw Claire L.
Published: May 2018

This epilogue draws together the arguments of Deaf in the USSR and considers the history of the deaf community after the fall of the Soviet Union. It argues that, while deaf people insisted on their inclusion in the frameworks of Soviet identity, they also shaped themselves as a distinct community with its own unique path to socialism. This tension between inclusion and exclusion characterized the history of the Soviet deaf community, and continued after the USSR’s demise; while VOG (barely) survived the collapse, the deaf community’s attempts to reframe its identity since 1991 have been contradictory, problematic, and dogged by narratives of crime and otherness. Russian deafness, the epilogue argues, remains poised between medical and social models, between language and embodiment, disability and agency, and is irrevocably shaped by its Soviet past.
Introduction
Authors: Freed Joanne Lipson
Published: May 2018

This chapter establishes the fundamental question at the heart of the manuscript: in an increasingly interconnected world, shaped by persistent inequalities and asymmetries of power, what role can literature play in bringing us into ethical relation with one another? Bringing the tools and methods of rhetorical narrative theory to bear on the abiding concerns of ethnic and postcolonial literature, the Introduction complicates existing models of narrative ethics, both those grounded in empathy (sameness), and those that celebrate alterity (difference). Ultimately, this chapter offers haunting as a metaphor for the complex relationships that certain works of global fiction forge with their readers across boundaries of difference: intense, temporary, and potentially transformative.
Rural Radicalism in Our Time
Authors: Stock Catherine McNicol
Published: May 2018

In the post-war years, many farm groups continued the tradition of non-violent protest against falling crop prices and community decline. But falling incomes and rising racial resentments in the increasingly isolated countryside also brought about growth in new hate groups. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols acted to avenge the FBI and ATF killings at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. But many more less well known groups, like militias and sovereign citizen organizations, also developed in the countryside, preparing for what they believed could be the end days of white America.
Transparent Electrode‐Free Light‐Emitting Devices Exploiting Ion Transport‐Controlled Electrochemiluminescence
Authors: Yee Hyeono , Jung Keonhee , Park Junwoo , Choi Woochul , Kim Nam Hun , Kim Jungwook , Kang Moon Sung
Published: November 2024

Transparent electrode‐free light‐emitting devices are presented that exploit electrochemiluminescence (ECL). These devices feature two side‐by‐side noble metal electrodes connected by an ECL active layer. The significance of bulk ion‐transport characteristics is investigated within the ECL active layer in producing uniform planar emission from the device. These characteristics can be enhanced by simply increasing the ECL active layer thickness or adding an ion gel electrolyte layer on top of the ECL active layer. The use of only electrochemically stable noble metal electrodes results in an operational lifetime exceeding 10 h, which is the longest lifetime reported for ECL‐based light‐emitting devices to date. The device structure based on ECL does not require transparent electrodes, allowing for increased flexibility when designing devices for future light‐emitting device applications.
One‐Step Synthesis of Closed‐Loop Recyclable and Thermally Superinsulating Polyhexahydrotriazine Aerogels
Authors: Wang Chang‐lin , Chen Yi‐Ru , Eisenreich Fabian , Tomović Željko
Published: November 2024

Organic aerogels are an advanced class of materials renowned for their ultralow thermal conductivity and highly porous architecture, making them ideal for applications in thermal insulation, catalysis, and chemical absorption. However, these polymeric networks pose environmental concerns as their permanently crosslinked scaffold makes recycling back to the original monomers virtually impossible. To tackle this issue and develop next‐generation organic aerogel, a set of polyhexahydrotriazine (PHT) aerogels specifically designed for closed‐loop chemical recycling are prepared. Remarkably, these innovative materials can selectively be synthesized in a one‐step condensation reaction using commercially available aromatic amines. They showcase outstanding thermally insulating performance, along with strong mechanical performance, pronounced thermal stability, and intrinsic hydrophobicity, all achieved without the need for additional modifications. More importantly, these aerogels exhibit quantitative depolymerization under acidic aqueous conditions, achieving high yields and purities of the recovered monomers. The successful preparation of fresh organic aerogels from recycled monomers with nearly identical material properties underscores the efficiency and reliability of this recycling process. The facile one‐step synthesis process, combined with the high‐performance properties and excellent recyclability of these PHT aerogels, accelerates the advancement of sustainable thermally superinsulating materials.
Augmenting Protein Degradation Capacity of PROTAC through Energy Metabolism Regulation and Targeted Drug Delivery
Authors: Tan Mixiao , Li Xiaoyang , Cheng Long , Long Xianli , Cao Guoliang , Yu Shengji , Ran Haitao , Feng Helin , Wang Hai
Published: November 2024

The ubiquitin‐proteasome system (UPS) is responsible for degrading over 70–80% of cellular proteins. Consequently, proteolysis‐targeting chimeras (PROTACs) are developed to induce the ubiquitination and subsequent degradation of proteins of interest (POIs) by the UPS. To amplify the therapeutic efficacy of PROTACs, energy metabolism regulation is first harnessed to boost UPS function in tumor cells. Proteomic and ubiquitinome analyzes reveal that total ubiquitinated proteins and proteasome activity are significantly increased in 143B and MDA‐MB‐231 tumor cells following fasting‐mimicking diet (FMD) treatment. As a result, the degradation efficiency of PROTACs targeting focal adhesion kinase (FAK‐P) or bromodomain‐containing protein 4 (BRD4‐P) is significantly enhanced in FMD‐treated 143B and MDA‐MB‐231 tumor cells. Then, silica‐coated iron oxide nanoparticles are developed modified with tumor cell membranes for targeted delivery of PROTACs. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and fluorescence imaging confirm that nanocarriers significantly improve the delivery efficiency of PROTACs in FMD‐treated 143B or MDA‐MB‐231 tumors. In vivo studies demonstrate that the antitumor efficacy of FAK‐P and BRD4‐P is greatly augmented when combined with targeted delivery and FMD treatment. Overall, this study presents a strategy to enhance the efficacy of PROTACs in cancer therapy.
Organic–Inorganic Hybrid Perovskite for Ferroelectric Catalysis
Authors: Hu Huihui , Jing Zheng‐Yin , Pan Qiang , Sha Tai‐Ting , Ji Hao‐Ran , Cao Xiao‐Xing , Song Xian‐Jiang , Feng Zi‐Jie , Yao Jie , Zhou Ru‐Jie , Wang Cheng , Xiong Ren‐Gen , You Yu‐Meng
Published: November 2024

Organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite ferroelectric has gained significant attention for its structural flexibility and diversity. They can directly utilize metal nodes and organic groups as active sites in catalysis. Additionally, their ferroelectric polarization occurs around these active sites, significantly enhancing catalytic activity and demonstrating immense potential for applications. However, their catalytic applications remain underexplored. This work marks the first utilization of the molecular perovskite ferroelectric [3,3‐difluorocyclobutylammonium]2CuCl4 (Cu‐DFCBA) as a catalyst for alkane oxidation. Under ultrasonic stimulation, it achieved a remarkable turnover number as high as 2402. Compared to inorganic ferroelectrics like lithium niobate (LiNbO3), the molecular ferroelectric exhibited a 1200‐fold increase in catalytic activity. This highlights Cu‐DFCBA's robust ferroelectric properties and underscores the vast potential of molecular ferroelectrics in catalysis, guiding future system designs.
Phosphor‐in‐Ceramic‐Converted Laser‐Driven Near‐Infrared Light Sources for Multiple Intelligent Spectroscopy Applications
Authors: Chen Weibin , Wang Yuzhen , Liu Gaochao , Li Chaojie , Xia Zhiguo
Published: November 2024

Ultrabright broadband near‐infrared (NIR) phosphor‐converted laser diode (pc‐LD) as a light source is increasingly essential for improving the sensitivity and spatial resolution of intelligent NIR spectroscopy technologies. However, the performance of NIR pc‐LD is greatly hindered by the low external quantum efficiency (EQE) and poor thermal resistance of phosphor materials. Herein, a highly stable phosphor‐in‐ceramic (PiC) film deposited on high thermal conductivity substrate, in which the NIR‐emitting Ca3MgHfGe3O12:Cr3+ phosphor is incorporated into a glass‐crystallized Ca3Ga2Ge3O12 ceramic matrix, along with the formation of a new type PiC composite material with high efficiency, absorbance, and thermal conductivity, is designed and prepared. The obtained PiC exhibits an impressive EQE of 57.7%, high thermal conductivity of 17.1 W m−1 K−1, and the PiC wheel demonstrates a broadband NIR emission exceeding 5 W when excited by a 450 nm laser. Finally, a groundbreaking electrically driven pc‐LD device based on PiC achieves 1.6 W of NIR output, enabling multiple intelligent spectroscopy applications in archaeology and night vision imaging. This work paves the way for advancing broadband NIR light sources in a diverse range of photonic applications.