Territory, Border, Infrastructure

This paper analyzes the role that infrastructures have played in the discourses and practices of sovereignty and territory in China's far western province of Xinjiang from the late 19th century into the mid-20th. The paper reveals the gap between the Qing and Republican reformers' plans for a state-encompassing transport system and, the fragmented piecemeal character of the actual network. The archival materials analyzed here suggest that the central government's involvement in funding and designing infrastructures in Xinjiang was limited. One of the aims of the present paper is thus to identify the territorializing agents in this border region. Though both Qing and Republican reformers dreamt of encompassing infrastructures, the hard financial reality of twentieth century China set clear limits to these dreams. As a result, we can observe an ongoing process of negotiation between the dreams of national integration, highly limited central funding and the provincial and local governments' attempts to patch the financial and technological gaps with resources that were available. This led to the opening of the province to Russian, and later the Soviet Union. The material analyzed here foregrounds this somewhat paradoxical role that foreign-built infrastructures in Xinjiang played in the processes of Chinese state territorialization in the twentieth century

The Han Minzu, Fragmented Identities, and Ethnicity

This paper focuses on the majority population in the People’s Republic of China—the Han—and their various collective identities. The Han play a pivotal role in consolidating the Chinese territory and the multiethnic Chinese nation. Therefore, the governments in the twentieth century have invested substantial efforts in promoting a unitary Han identity. In spite of that, powerful local identities related to native place, occupation, and family histories persist. This essay traces these identities and analyzes their intertwinement. Further, it discusses the question of ethnicity of both the Han and local identity categories, and concludes that while Han enact ethnicity in their relations to other minzu, local identity categories are more social than ethnic. It further posits that moments of confrontation, “degree” of ethnicity, scales of categorization, and relationality of identities are notions that should be given particular attention in the studies of ethnicity in China and elsewhere

Territory, Border, Infrastructure

This paper analyzes the role that infrastructures have played in the discourses and practices of sovereignty and territory in China's far western province of Xinjiang from the late 19th century into the mid-20th. The paper reveals the gap between the Qing and Republican reformers' plans for a state-encompassing transport system and, the fragmented piecemeal character of the actual network. The archival materials analyzed here suggest that the central government's involvement in funding and designing infrastructures in Xinjiang was limited. One of the aims of the present paper is thus to identify the territorializing agents in this border region. Though both Qing and Republican reformers dreamt of encompassing infrastructures, the hard financial reality of twentieth century China set clear limits to these dreams. As a result, we can observe an ongoing process of negotiation between the dreams of national integration, highly limited central funding and the provincial and local governments' attempts to patch the financial and technological gaps with resources that were available. This led to the opening of the province to Russian, and later the Soviet Union. The material analyzed here foregrounds this somewhat paradoxical role that foreign-built infrastructures in Xinjiang played in the processes of Chinese state territorialization in the twentieth century

Labour of Love: An Open Access Manifesto for Freedom, Integrity, and Creativity in the Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences

We are a group of scholar-publishers based in the humanities and social sciences who are questioning the fairness and scientific tenability of a system of scholarly communication dominated by large commercial publishers. With this Manifesto we wish to repoliticise Open Access to challenge existing rapacious practices in academic publishing—namely, often invisible and unremunerated labour, toxic hierarchies of academic prestige, and a bureaucratic ethos that stifles experimentation—and to bear witness to the indifference they are predicated upon. We mobilise an extended notion of research output, which encompasses the work of building and maintaining the systems, processes, and relations of production that make scholarship possible. We believe that the humanities and social sciences are too often disengaged from the public and material afterlives of their scholarship. We worry that our fields are sleepwalking into a new phase of control and capitalisation, to include continued corporate extraction of value and transparency requirements designed by managers, entrepreneurs, and politicians. We fervently believe that OA can be a powerful tool to advance the ends of civil society and social movements. But opening up the products of our scholarship without questioning how this is done, who stands to profit from it, what model of scholarship is being normalised, and who stands to be silenced by this process may come at a particularly high cost for scholars in the humanities and social sciences

Un atto d’amore: Manifesto Open Access per la libertà, l’integrità e la creatività nelle scienze umane e nelle scienze sociali interpretative

Labour of Love: An Open Access Manifesto for Freedom, Integrity, and Creativity in the Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences, is the result of an LSE Research Infrastructure and Investment–funded workshop entitled Academic Freedom, Academic Integrity and Open Access in the Social Sciences, organised by Andrea E. Pia and held at the London School of Economics on September 9, 2019.Un atto d’amore: Manifesto Open Access per la libertà, l’integrità e la creatività nelle scienze umane e nelle scienze sociali interpretative, è il risultato di un workshop finanziato da LSE Research Infrastructure and Investment Funds dal titolo Academic Freedom, Academic Integrity and Open Access in the Social Sciences, organizzato da Andrea E. Pia e tenuto presso la London School of Economics il 9 settembre 2019

Un acto de amor. Un Manifiesto de Acceso Abierto por la libertad, la integridad y la creatividad en las humanidades y las ciencias sociales interpretativas

Labour of Love. An Open Access Manifesto for Freedom, Integrity, and Creativity in the Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences, is the result of an LSE Research Infrastructure and Investment–funded workshop entitled Academic Freedom, Academic Integrity and Open Access in the Social Sciences, organised by Andrea E. Pia and held at the London School of Economics on September 9, 2019.Un acto de amor. Un Manifiesto de Acceso Abierto por la Libertad, la Integridad y la Creatividad en las Humanidades y las Ciencias Sociales Interpretativas, es el resultado de un taller financiado por la Infraestructura de Investigación y la Inversión de la LSE, titulado Academic Freedom, Academic Integrity and Open Access in the Social Sciences, organizado por Andrea E. Pia y celebrado en la London School of Economics el 9 de septiembre de 2019

The Han Minzu

This paper focuses on the majority population in the People’s Republic of China—the Han—and their various collective identities. The Han play a pivotal role in consolidating the Chinese territory and the multiethnic Chinese nation. Therefore, the governments in the twentieth century have invested substantial efforts in promoting a unitary Han identity. In spite of that, powerful local identities related to native place, occupation, and family histories persist. This essay traces these identities and analyzes their intertwinement. Further, it discusses the question of ethnicity of both the Han and local identity categories, and concludes that while Han enact ethnicity in their relations to other minzu, local identity categories are more social than ethnic. It further posits that moments of confrontation, “degree” of ethnicity, scales of categorization, and relationality of identities are notions that should be given particular attention in the studies of ethnicity in China and elsewhere

A road, a disappearing river and fragile connectivity in Sino-Inner Asian borderlands

In 2013, President Xi Jinping formulated China's vision of Eurasian connectivity: The Silk Road Economic Belt. The strategy envisages the construction of infrastructure networks that will enmesh the Eurasian continent and form an interconnected space of exchange. Since the plan was announced, the Economic Belt has attracted much academic and media attention in terms of the infrastructure being built and its future potentialities. At the same time, questions about the sustainability of this infrastructure in a dynamic Sino–Inner Asian borderland, with its highly fluid terrain and socio-political geography, have been virtually absent from the debate. The inevitable decay, maintenance and social ambiguity surrounding transport infrastructure lack the appeal associated with new construction projects; yet, discussing them is crucial in the context of mega initiatives such as the Economic Belt. It is important to bring it back ‘down to the ground’ and into more mundane terms. By zooming in on a single desert road in northwest China that has been designated as a crucial conduit in the westward arc of the Economic Belt, this article draws attention to the social complexity and ecological vulnerability of transport infrastructure in the Sino–Inner Asian borderlands. At one scale, this infrastructure is part of China's vision of globalization; at another scale, however, it is firmly embedded in local contexts. By pushing the political, ecological and material complexity of road maintenance to the centre of our inquiry, the article offers a new perspective on the current construction boom and its sustainability