Rural geographies and the New Chinese Cinemas: Imaging progressive places in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Dust in the Wind and Jia Zhangke’s Platform

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Lo
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Visual Perception ◽  
Contact Zone ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Porous Interface ◽  
Chinese Cinemas ◽  
A Site

The New Chinese Cinemas were unprecedented in critiquing official narratives of progress through dramatic location-shot images of rural Taiwan and China. Much more than standing in as a picturesque backdrop, the rural was a site of complex ideological contestations. Yet, existing scholarship overlooks the richness of rural representations, reductively interpreting rural films as works of nostalgia and cultural salvage. Through a comparative analysis of representations of landscape, travel and visual perception in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Dust in the Wind (1986) and Jia Zhangke’s Platform (2000), this article brings into focus the important but largely ignored roles that Hou and Jia have played in envisioning new frameworks for thinking about rural geographies. Drawing from Doreen Massey’s notion of the ‘progressive place’, I investigate how Jiufen and Fenyang – the films’ shooting locations – are stages upon which the directors experimented with imaging and imagining communities. Jiufen is represented in Dust as a porous interface between the urban and rural, a metonym for the film’s representation of Taiwan as a contact zone with China. Platform, by contrast, fashions an image of Fenyang as a non-place, a microcosm of China as it undergoes unchecked neo-liberal development. Significantly, these films went beyond revising rural imaginaries on-screen, to making a material impact on Jiufen and Fenyang by transforming them into landmarks of global film tourism. This work demonstrates how Hou and Jia responded to disorienting social changes not by resisting, but by tactically embracing the blurring of divides between the urban and rural, and local and global.

scholarly journals REFINING THE CALCULATION OF THE CAR TRACTION POWER

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 572-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Maksimov ◽  
E. P. Chelyabinsk
Keyword(s):  
Elastic Modulus ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Contact Zone ◽  
Traditional Method ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Friction Forces ◽  
Refined Equation ◽  
Refined Calculation ◽  
Traction Power ◽  
Tangential Friction

Introduction. Traction power of the car is used to determine its traction-speed properties. The purpose of the paper is the calculation refinement of the car traction power.Materials and methods. The authors used the methodology of the refined calculation of the car traction power.Results. The authors carried out the comparative analysis of the refined and traditional methods for calculating traction power. As a result, the authors obtained the refined equation for calculating the traction power, taking into account the elastic modulus, the width of the contact track, the free radius of the wheel, the deflection of the tire and the tangential friction forces in the contact zone. The largest discrepancy between the curve of the vehicle’s traction power calculated by the updated methodology and the curve of the vehicle’s traction power calculated by the traditional method was 26.8%.Discussion and conclusions. The results of the research are useful to specialists of automobile and transport enterprises and masters of universities to compare the traction and speed properties of the various car types.

Through a Black Hole into Parallel Universes

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-424
Author(s):  
Heinrich Härke
Keyword(s):  
Contact Zone ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Internal Contact ◽  
Cultural Boundary ◽  
Parallel Universes ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Settlement Areas

Abstract The Anglo-Saxon immigration of the 5th-6th centuries AD led to a dual contact situation in the British Isles: with the native inhabitants of the settlement areas in south-eastern England (internal contact zone), and with the Celtic polities outside the Anglo-Saxon areas (external contact zone). In the internal contact zone, social and ethnogenetic processes resulted in a complete acculturation of the natives by the 9th century. By contrast, the external contact zone between Anglo-Saxon and Celtic polities resulted in a cultural and linguistic split right across the British Isles up to the 7th century, and arguably well beyond. The cultural boundary between these two domains became permeable in the 7th century as a consequence of Anglo-Saxon Christianization which created a northern communication zone characterized by a distinct art style (Insular Art). In the early medieval British Isles, contact resulting from migration did not lead to cultural exchange for about two centuries, and it took profound ideological and social changes to establish a basis for communication.

Introduction Tè glise, Continents à la dérive

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
John Patrick Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Environmental Injustice ◽  
Historical Awareness ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Political Time ◽  
Slow Violence ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
A Site ◽  
Dominant Narratives ◽  
Point Of Departure

The book opens with analysis of Yanick Lahens’ reflection on the disastrous convergence of geological and political time in the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Lahens contemplates the imbrication of geological, political, and social fault lines to complicate the exceptional image of Haiti as a site of disaster. The introduction considers Lahens’ understanding of fault lines, below and above ground, in light of Rob Nixon’s critique of the slow violence of environmental injustice and Michel Serres’ idea of a natural contract with the planet. It brings together Lahens, Nixon, and Serres to illustrate the different conceptions of time and space that inform the ecological thought of a Haitian writer, an American critic, and a French philosopher. Taking this comparative analysis as its point of departure, the introduction begins to develop a theory of an eco-archive as an ethical and imaginative writing on the environment. It merges ecocriticism with the historical awareness of Haitian studies to argue that Lahens and other Haitian writers challenge the neocolonial and neoliberal political economies that feed the dominant narratives of the Anthropocene.

Political Consumption as Supplement to Conventional Political Participation in Promoting Social Change

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Adugu
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Using Data ◽  
A Site ◽  
Political Consumption

Research indicates that individual consumers with food safety, environmental and ethical concerns regarding the provisioning of food may be motivated to use the marketplace as a site for political action to promote social change—a phenomenon known as political consumption (PC). Using data from Ohio 2007 Survey of Food, Farming and Environment, this research examined individual level attributes shaping engagement in PC and conventional political action. Findings based on logistic regression analyses, reveal that engagement in conventional political behavior is positively related to the likelihood of engagement in political consumption. This suggests that engagement in conventional political action and political consumption are not mutually exclusive. The main factors associated with engagement in political consumption are: knowledge about food production, environmental and food safety concerns. These findings suggest that consumers with concerns about the organization and character of food production believe they can create social changes via their consumptive decisions.

scholarly journals TRANSFORMATION OF THE STRUCTURE OF LABOR IN RUSSIA AND EUROPE IN THE MODERN CONDITIONS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (68) ◽  
pp. 41-43
Author(s):  
O. Ganaza
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
Existing Structure ◽  
The Eu

The efficiency of the labor market functioning directly depends on a qualitative analysis of the existing structure of the labor force. The article presents the results of the analysis of the influence of the main trends in economic development on the structure of the labor force. The absolute changes and the share in the structure of the employed are calculated, which characterize the labor force of the EU countries and Russia. A comparative analysis of the existing relationships in the structure of the labor force of Russia and the EU countries is carried out. According to the results of the study, it was concluded that structural changes in the economy, acceleration of technological and social changes lead to a reduction in low-skilled employees, an increase in the group of highly qualified workers.

scholarly journals Upcycling Wild Pigeon's Field in a post-hydrocarbon Brunei - An Exploration of Architecture Reacting to Social Changes Through Narratives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ak Hj Saifulnizam Piw Pg Dr Hj Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Architectural Discourse ◽  
Industrial Heritage ◽  
Socioeconomic Structure ◽  
Societal Structure ◽  
A Site ◽  
Local Narratives

<p>The hydrocarbon industry has immensely influenced and moulded the societal structure of the inhabitants of modern day Brunei. Nonetheless, the dependency on this commodity will eventually cease, shifting the future social structure and leaving questions on plausible resolutions towards treatments on the existing sites, ‘non-buildings’ and infrastructures of the industry. Infrastructures and ‘non-buildings’ are typically subjected to the process of dismantling, removal, deep sea dumping and abandonment. It has been observed that in recent times, alternate methods are offered within the architectural profession. Through the application of adaptive reuse architecture, warehouses, factories and even ‘non-building’ are repurposed, where its industrial heritage and cultural value are highly recognised and considered necessary to retain. Focusing on specified onshore oilfields in Brunei, this thesis seeks an exploration into a methodology of regenerating a site and offering spaces that evoke a ‘sense of belonging’ or cultural identity. Through architectural discourse on memory and semiotics, local narratives are put forward and explored as an extension to cultural identity. This methodology is further explored through the application of John Hejduk’s concept of languages and masques. It proposes an imaginative practise into visual experiments for an exploration on the effect of reusing hydrocarbon infrastructure as architectural spaces. As Brunei shifts towards a new epoch, studies on current socioeconomic structure are critical to recognise where the structure is leaning towards to as it cannot simply change overnight.</p>

Comparative Analysis of the Composition of Carbon-Rich Rocks from Domanik Deposits and the Oil–Water Contact Zone Exemplified by Tatarstan’s Bavly Oilfield

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 659-667
Author(s):  
Yu. M. Ganeeva ◽  
T. N. Yusupova ◽  
E. E. Barskaya ◽  
E. S. Okhotnikova ◽  
G. V. Romanov
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Contact Zone ◽  
Water Contact ◽  
Oil Water

scholarly journals Comparative Analysis of the Local Observation-Based (LOB) Method and the Nonparametric Regression-Based Method for Gridded Bias Correction in Mesoscale Weather Forecasting

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 1243-1256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia R. Gel
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Bias Correction ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Weather Forecasting ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Mesoscale Model ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
Local Observation ◽  
A Site

Abstract The comparative analysis of three methods for objective grid-based bias removal in mesoscale numerical weather prediction models is considered. The first technique is the local observation-based (LOB) method that extends further the approaches of several recent studies and is focused on utilizing the information obtained from meteorological stations or neighbor grid points in the proximity of a site of interest. The bias at a site of interest might then be considered as a spatiotemporal function of the weighted information on the past biases observed in the cluster of neighbors during a certain time window. The second method is an extension of model output statistics (MOS), combining several modern multiple regression techniques such as the classification and regression trees (CARTs) and the alternative conditional expectation (ACE) and, therefore, is named the CART–ACE method. The CART–ACE method allows representing possible nonlinear aspects of the bias in a parsimonious linearized statistical model. Finally, the third considered method is a natural combination of the LOB and CART–ACE methods in which the information provided by the LOB method is interpreted as an extra predictor in the regression model of the CART–ACE method. The proposed methods are illustrated by a case study of an observation-based verification and bias correction of fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model (MM5) 48-h surface temperature, that is, 2-m temperature, forecasts over the Pacific Northwest.

Reconfiguring rural spaces and remaking rural lives in central Thailand

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Rigg ◽  
Suriya Veeravongs ◽  
Lalida Veeravongs ◽  
Piyawadee Rohitarachoon
Keyword(s):  
Local Economy ◽  
Agricultural Activities ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Central Plains ◽  
Agricultural Communities ◽  
Local Livelihoods ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Village ◽  
Agrarian Transformation ◽  
Central Thailand

AbstractDrawing on fieldwork in the central plains of Thailand, the paper traces the transformation of the study villages from agricultural communities, to divided and often fractious dormitory settlements. Agriculture has been largely squeezed out of the local economy and local livelihoods by a raft of economic, environmental and social changes. At the same time, the rural spaces of Thailand have been infiltrated by a range of non-agricultural activities – in this instance, reflected in the arrival of an industrial park – and villagers as well as migrant sojourners from other parts of Thailand have taken up these new opportunities in the non-farm economy. The net result of these processes of agrarian transformation has been that the village, as a community, a unit of production, a site of identity, and a place with a common history, is evaporating.

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