scholarly journals Energy and Culture, The Social Construction of the Myanmar-China Pipelines

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jeremy Todd

<p>Transnational oil and gas pipelines have a troublesome history of disagreements and disputes that in many cases have led to a cessation of supply. While geopolitics and weak international institutions are often pointed to as explanations, considering pipelines as social as well as material constructs can also shed light on why disputes emerge. This paper will consider the social construction of the Myanmar-China pipelines. In China, the pipelines are seen as the solution to China’s ‘Malacca dilemma’. In Myanmar, the changing political situation has allowed new actors to contest the military junta’s narrative of economic development and the pipelines have become a lightning rod for national conversations about local resource ownership, social and environmental norms and Chinese exploitation of Myanmar’s energy resources.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jeremy Todd

<p>Transnational oil and gas pipelines have a troublesome history of disagreements and disputes that in many cases have led to a cessation of supply. While geopolitics and weak international institutions are often pointed to as explanations, considering pipelines as social as well as material constructs can also shed light on why disputes emerge. This paper will consider the social construction of the Myanmar-China pipelines. In China, the pipelines are seen as the solution to China’s ‘Malacca dilemma’. In Myanmar, the changing political situation has allowed new actors to contest the military junta’s narrative of economic development and the pipelines have become a lightning rod for national conversations about local resource ownership, social and environmental norms and Chinese exploitation of Myanmar’s energy resources.</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 171-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wung Seok Cha

TheSŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi (Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat)is one of the major chronicles of the events of the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910). Although the records prior to the year 1622 are no longer extant, the remaining records from the years 1623 to 1910 meticulously recount the daily activities of the reigning Chosŏn kings, including copious information on their physical and mental status. Because the king’s health was considered as important as other official affairs in many respects, detailed records were kept of royal ailments and how court doctors treated them. This article surveys the state of Korean-language scholarship on the medical content of theDaily Recordsand presents selected translations to demonstrate how this valuable historical source can shed light on both the social history of Chosŏn medicine and the political importance of kingly health at the Chosŏn court.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-951
Author(s):  
Emma Teng

Engseng Ho proposes that “the study of Asia, thought of as an Inter-Asian space, and smaller than the whole globe, can provide tractable concepts for a new round of research to shed light on the social shapes of societies that are mobile, spatially expansive, and interactive with one other.” Moving us away from more static models of China studies, Japan studies, etc., the concept of “inter-Asian”—where I take the “inter” to stand for inter-national, inter-regional, inter-faith, inter-racial, and inter-ethnic—offers a productive framework for examining histories that have been previously marginalized in dominant historical narratives: for example, the history of colonial Hong Kong's Eurasian community. In such a case, where the scope of inquiry is neither fully global in scale nor strictly local, the inter-Asian framework provides a middle ground and intermediate scale that brings this history into focus.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-406
Author(s):  
Mehdi Parvizi Amineh ◽  
Henk Houweling

AbstractThis article develops several concepts of critical geopolitics and relates them to the energy resources of the Caspian Region. Energy resources beyond borders may be accessed by trade, respectively by conquest, domination and changing property rights. These are the survival strategies of human groups in the international system. The article differentiates between demand-induced scarcity, supply-induced scarcity, structural scarcity and the creation, respectively, transfer of property rights. Together, the behaviors referred to by these concepts create a field of social forces that cross state borders involving state and a variety of non-state actors. During World War II, the US began to separate the military borders of the country from its legal-territorial borders. By dominating the world's oceans, the Anglo-Saxon power presided over the capacity to induce scarcity by interdicting maritime supplies to allies and enemies alike. Today, overland transport increasingly connects economies and energy supplies on the Eurasian continent. The US has therefore to go on land in order to pre-empt the land-based powers from unifying their economies and energy supplies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mie Thorborg Pedersen ◽  
Per Lyngs Hansen ◽  
Mathias Porsmose Clausen

Useful attempts to shed light on the nature of gastronomy from a scientific point of view and to unravel the crucial connection between food, eating and well-being are currently underrepresented in the scientific literature. However, several scientific disciplines ranging from the natural to the social sciences offer valuable new perspectives on gastronomy. As one of the key disciplines in natural science, physics offers original and rigorous perspectives on all processes and structures constrained by the laws of nature. The emerging discipline called gastrophysics employs the full range of concepts, techniques and methods from physics to generate useful scientific input to the complex and holistic reflections on gastronomy. Relying on a review of the existing literature, this article illustrates how a science-based gastrophysics emerges, to a large extent from the convoluted history of food science as well as from various recent – and often overlapping – attempts to combine modern scientific methodology to questions from gastronomy. However, the present review also insists on a physics-inspired methodology to handle scale and complexity in food preparation and consumption across length scales from sub-molecular to entire foods. We exemplify how gastrophysics directly helps to develop gastronomy and how it adds to current approaches in traditional food science. We also suggest that gastrophysics may prove relevant in the context of the ongoing food transformation, which focuses strongly on sustainability, but where the importance of gastronomic aspects in this transformation is greatly needed.


Kavkaz-forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 90-100
Author(s):  
Ф.С. Киреев

В статье анализируются причины возвращения войсковой системы самоуправления Терского казачества и показан сам процесс создания выборности войсковой власти. Актуальность исследования казачьего самоуправления обусловлена необходимостью теоретического обоснования и практического осуществления самоорганизации казачества России. Исторический анализ процесса организации самоуправления Терского казачества на войсковом уровне может послужить фундаментом для лучшего понимания и оценки современных процессов и явлений в казачьей среде и поможет выстраиванию государственной политики в отношении казачества в современной России. В отечественной историографии отсутствуют работы, посвященные конкретно восстановлению выборности власти в Терском казачьем войске. Поэтому научная новизна исследования определяется тем, что впервые предпринята попытка хронологической реконструкции истории создания войсковой системы самоуправления Терского казачества. Методологической основой исследования является принцип историзма, что предусматривает изучение момента возникновения исторического события и этапы его развития. Анализ событий на Тереке в 1917 г. показывает, что терские казаки смогли самоорганизоваться, создать полноценное административно-территориальное образование, и лишь изменение социально-политической ситуации в России в целомпомешало укрепить и продолжить это начинание. Еще необходимо отметить, что терские казаки к моменту восстановления войскового самоуправления подошли уже с готовыми проектами соответствующих документов, что позволило Терскому войску первым среди других войск создать свою выборную власть. Это говорит о высоком интеллектуальном потенциале в среде терских казаков. The article analyzes the reasons for the restoration of the military system of self-government of the Terek Cossacks and shows the very process of creating the elective military power. The relevance of the study of Cossack self-government is due to the need for theoretical justification and practical implementation of the self-organization of the Cossacks of Russia. Historical analysis of the process of organizing self-government of the Terek Cossacks at the military level can serve as a foundation for better understanding and assessment of modern processes and phenomena in the Cossack environment and will help to build state policy towards the Cossacks in modern Russia. In the Russian historiography, there are no works devoted specifically to the restoration of the election of power in the Terek Cossack army. Therefore, the scientific novelty of the research is determined by the fact that for the first time an attempt was made to chronologically reconstruct the history of the creation of the military system of self-government of the Terek Cossacks. The methodological basis of the research is the principle of historicism, with its focus on the study of the moment of occurrence of a historical event and the stages of its development. An analysis of the events on the Terek in 1917 shows that the Terek Cossacks were able to organize themselves and create a full-fledged administrative-territorial entity and only a change in the socio-political situation in Russia as a whole was placed, strengthened and continued this initiative. It should also be noted that the Terek Cossacks, by the time of the restoration of military self-government, came up with ready-made drafts of relevant documents, which allowed the Terek army to be the first among other troops to create their own elected power. This indicates a high intellectual potential among the Terek cossacks.


Author(s):  
Angela V. Dolgova

During the Civil War, Soviet workers had to fight against desertion and banditry. Since the majority of the country’s population was the peasantry, a confrontation arose with the Soviet government of that part of it that could not accept it. More often than not, peasants fell under such Bolshevik propaganda labels as “white gangs” or “gangs of deserters”, which had spread through the efforts of the party-Soviet propaganda machine. According to archival documents, local Soviet workers used terror not only to suppress resistance, but also as a forced measure caused by the real military-political situation in the Perm Governorate. The fight for the establishment of the power of the Soviets was fought against banditry, not desertion, and was fierce. Consequently, the widespread thesis in the history of the Civil War in the Perm Governorate about mass desertion is nothing more than an assumption. The line of the Eastern Front passed next to the Osinsky District, so the most fierce fight unfolded here, which in turn had an impact on the military-political situation in the governorate as a whole.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Zebiniso A. Akhmedova ◽  

The article analyzes the culture of Turkestan in the second half of the 19th century. The social, economic, politicaland cultural life of Bukhara during the Mangit dynasty is revealed. Clarified trade and diplomatic relations between Bukhara and Russia.On the basis of the works of Ahmad Donish, the economic and political situation in Bukhara, as well as relations with neighboring countries, are studied. The author draws attention to the military-bureaucratic colonial system of tsarism in Turkestan and reveals the reasons for the emergence of ideas of national liberation in the country. Examples are used to analyze the life of Bukhara before and after the invasion of tsarism


Author(s):  
Samuel Teague ◽  
Peter Robinson

This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 911-931
Author(s):  
Tomasz Zarycki ◽  
Tomasz Warczok

The article argues that Poland’s mainstream national historical narrative, at least as far as the last two centuries of history of the country is concerned, is full of ‘traumatic’ motives which are regularly used and developed in diverse current political and intellectual contexts. Polish history is imagined to a large extent as an endless chain of 200 years of suffering, caused, among other things, by occupations, wars and exploitation, which are usually seen as not fully recognized in other countries, in particular in the West. The article attempts first of all to explain this specific nature of Poland’s historical identity by the privileged role of the intelligentsia, understood as a specific type of elite based on possession and control of cultural capital. It reconstructs the historical rise of the intelligentsia and its impact on the mainstream narrative in question, pointing to a selective choice of potential ‘traumas’ which are assigned a national status. They may be seen as tools to build positions in what can be called the Polish ‘field of power’, to use the notion coined by Pierre Bourdieu. The particular configuration and recent history of the field of power in Poland is reconstructed in order to explain different strategies of what can be called the social and political construction of historical traumas in Poland.


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