Working while being followed: Reflections on fieldwork constraints in a Beijing public park

While some scholars recommend to follow official channels when conducting social science research in contemporary China, it is also acknowledged that research permissions are not always necessary in a number of cases. However, as the boundary between sensitive (mingan) and insensitive issues is not always graspable a priori, and authorities’ control over particular objects or places can also intensify, fieldworkers may sometimes have to deal with relatively unexpected difficulties, writes Lisa Richaud

Life Amidst Rubble: Migrant Mental Health and the Management of Subjectivity in Urban China

While previous studies have documented the trials of rural-to-urban migration in post-reform China, little is known of the consequences of urban demolition and attendant uncertainty on migrant mental health. Exploring the affective and subjective dimensions of life lived amidst rubble in a migrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Shanghai, this essay describes and analyzes small-scale practices of endurance through dynamics of time, place, and sociality. We understand these modes of dwelling in a ruined environment as key to what we refer to as the management of subjectivity, producing moments of being that potentially enable to feel and act otherwise. Considering the management of subjectivity in its own rights rather than as mere echoes of postsocialist governmentalities, we sustain a dialogue with recent writing on the production of happy and self-reliant marginalized subjects through the Chinese authorities' turn to “therapeutic governance.”ESRC Newton Gran

Mental health, subjectivity and the city: an ethnography of migrant stress in Shanghai.

Ethnography, with its focus on everyday experience, can yield significant insights into understanding migrant mental health in contexts where signs of severe mental distress remain largely imperceptible, and more generally, into how stresses and strains are lived through the spaces, times and affective atmospheres of the city. Migrant ethnography can help us reconsider the oft-made connection between everyday stress and mental ill health. In this contribution, drawing on field evidence in central and peripheral Shanghai, we highlight the importance of attending to the forms of spatial and temporal agency through which migrants actively manage the ways in which the city affects their subjectivity. These everyday subjective practices serve to problematize the very concept of 'mental health'. The paper engages in a critical dialogue with sociological and epidemiological research that assesses migrant mental health states through the lens of the vulnerability or resilience of this social group, often reducing citiness to a series of environmental 'stressors'. Distinct from methods ascertaining or arguing against the prevalence of mental disorders among urban migrants, the insight of urban ethnography is to open up a space to explore the mediations that operate dialogically between the city as lived by migrants through particular places and situations and forms of distress

Mise en scène de l’innocence et jeux d’attention

Si enquêter en contexte autoritaire peut contraindre à suivre les canaux officiels, nombre d’espaces demeurent aisément accessibles sans permis de recherche. Mais le caractère « difficile » de certains terrains n’est pas toujours évaluable a priori, et la frontière du possible peut ne devenir saisissable qu’une fois franchie. Cet article décrit et analyse les difficultés rencontrées lors de mon enquête sur les rassemblements de retraités dans un parc public de Pékin, où mes venues répétées ont été soumises à la surveillance de gardes de sécurité en civil et en uniforme. En tentant de réconcilier le concept goffmanien de role performance avec la phénoménographie et l’autographie proposées par Albert Piette, la contribution vise à examiner la façon dont l’ethnographe négocie, par son mode de présence à la fois physique et mental, la définition de la situation imposée sur son terrain. La performance de la suspicion par les individus en charge de la surveillance donne lieu à des coprésences et des interactions majoritairement non verbales à travers lesquelles l’attention de la chercheuse est constamment ramenée aux regards de ses surveillants. Ces situations conduisent l’anthropologue à réagir par une mise en scène de l’innocence en s’efforçant d’embrasser son propre rôle. L’approche proposée ici contribuera à une réflexion sur l’objectivation des contingences situationnelles inhérentes au processus de collecte et production des données.While conducting fieldwork in authoritarian contexts sometimes entails to follow official channels, in a number of cases, research permissions are not always necessary. Yet, the boundary between sensitive and insensitive issues is not always graspable a priori. This paper reflects upon a recent experience of police intrusion and ongoing surveillance by security guards during my fieldwork in a well-known Beijing public park, where I conducted research on retirees’ collective activities. Repeated visits to the park were subject to monitoring by security guards, both in uniform and in civilian clothes. Drawing on fieldnotes, this contribution intends to examine the ways in which the ethnographer negotiates, both through her physical and mental modes of presence, the definition of the situation imposed upon her field research. From a theoretical standpoint, it attempts to reconcile the goffmanian concept of ‘role performance’ with the methods of ‘autography’ and ‘phenomenography’ coined by anthropologist Albert Piette. The suspicion enacted by those in charge of my surveillance created mainly non-verbal interactions and co-presence which constantly diverted my unsettled attention. Imbued with a heightened sense of visibility, these situations led me to attempt to embrace my own role (that of the ethnographer), in order to perform and convey innocence. More broadly, this article calls for a better integration, in research accounts, of the situational contingencies inherent to the process of data collection and production

Mise en scène de l’innocence et jeux d’attention

Si enquêter en contexte autoritaire peut contraindre à suivre les canaux officiels, nombre d’espaces demeurent aisément accessibles sans permis de recherche. Mais le caractère « difficile » de certains terrains n’est pas toujours évaluable a priori, et la frontière du possible peut ne devenir saisissable qu’une fois franchie. Cet article décrit et analyse les difficultés rencontrées lors de mon enquête sur les rassemblements de retraités dans un parc public de Pékin, où mes venues répétées ont été soumises à la surveillance de gardes de sécurité en civil et en uniforme. En tentant de réconcilier le concept goffmanien de role performance avec la phénoménographie et l’autographie proposées par Albert Piette, la contribution vise à examiner la façon dont l’ethnographe négocie, par son mode de présence à la fois physique et mental, la définition de la situation imposée sur son terrain. La performance de la suspicion par les individus en charge de la surveillance donne lieu à des coprésences et des interactions majoritairement non verbales à travers lesquelles l’attention de la chercheuse est constamment ramenée aux regards de ses surveillants. Ces situations conduisent l’anthropologue à réagir par une mise en scène de l’innocence en s’efforçant d’embrasser son propre rôle. L’approche proposée ici contribuera à une réflexion sur l’objectivation des contingences situationnelles inhérentes au processus de collecte et production des données.While conducting fieldwork in authoritarian contexts sometimes entails to follow official channels, in a number of cases, research permissions are not always necessary. Yet, the boundary between sensitive and insensitive issues is not always graspable a priori. This paper reflects upon a recent experience of police intrusion and ongoing surveillance by security guards during my fieldwork in a well-known Beijing public park, where I conducted research on retirees’ collective activities. Repeated visits to the park were subject to monitoring by security guards, both in uniform and in civilian clothes. Drawing on fieldnotes, this contribution intends to examine the ways in which the ethnographer negotiates, both through her physical and mental modes of presence, the definition of the situation imposed upon her field research. From a theoretical standpoint, it attempts to reconcile the goffmanian concept of ‘role performance’ with the methods of ‘autography’ and ‘phenomenography’ coined by anthropologist Albert Piette. The suspicion enacted by those in charge of my surveillance created mainly non-verbal interactions and co-presence which constantly diverted my unsettled attention. Imbued with a heightened sense of visibility, these situations led me to attempt to embrace my own role (that of the ethnographer), in order to perform and convey innocence. More broadly, this article calls for a better integration, in research accounts, of the situational contingencies inherent to the process of data collection and production

[Analyse de la dégradation thermique du Poly(éther imide)]

The thermal degradation of PEI has been studied in wide ranges of temperature (between 180 and 250 °C) and oxygen partial pressure (between 0.21 and 50 bars). First of all, the thermal ageing mechanisms have been analysed and elucidated by FTIR spectroscopy and by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) on sufficiently thin PEI films (between 10 and 60 μm thickness) to be totally free of the effects of oxygen diffusion. As expected, and by analogy with other aromatic polymers of similar chemical structure, oxidation occurs preferentially on the methyl groups of the isopropylidene unit of the bisphenol A part, leading to the disappearance of their characteristic IR absorption band at 2970 cm -1 and the growth of a new IR absorption band centered at 3350 cm -1 and attributed to alcohol groups. In addition, oxidation leads successively to a relative predominance of chain scissions (decrease in T g ) and crosslinking (increase in T g ). Finally, the consequences of oxidation on the elastic properties have been analysed and elucidated by micro-indentation on preliminarily polished cross-sections of PEI plates of 3 mm thickness. However, the increase in Young's modulus in the superficial oxidized layer is mainly due to a physical ageing

Cold atoms in space: community workshop summary and proposed road-map

We summarise the discussions at a virtual Community Workshop on Cold Atoms in Space concerning the status of cold atom technologies, the prospective scientific and societal opportunities offered by their deployment in space, and the developments needed before cold atoms could be operated in space. The cold atom technologies discussed include atomic clocks, quantum gravimeters and accelerometers, and atom interferometers. Prospective applications include metrology, geodesy and measurement of terrestrial mass change due to, e.g., climate change, and fundamental science experiments such as tests of the equivalence principle, searches for dark matter, measurements of gravitational waves and tests of quantum mechanics. We review the current status of cold atom technologies and outline the requirements for their space qualification, including the development paths and the corresponding technical milestones, and identifying possible pathfinder missions to pave the way for missions to exploit the full potential of cold atoms in space. Finally, we present a first draft of a possible road-map for achieving these goals, that we propose for discussion by the interested cold atom, Earth Observation, fundamental physics and other prospective scientific user communities, together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and national space and research funding agencies.publishedVersio

Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry:Workshop Summary

This document presents a summary of the 2023 Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry Workshop hosted by CERN. The workshop brought together experts from around the world to discuss the exciting developments in large-scale atom interferometer (AI) prototypes and their potential for detecting ultralight dark matter and gravitational waves. The primary objective of the workshop was to lay the groundwork for an international TVLBAI proto-collaboration. This collaboration aims to unite researchers from different institutions to strategize and secure funding for terrestrial large-scale AI projects. The ultimate goal is to create a roadmap detailing the design and technology choices for one or more km-scale detectors, which will be operational in the mid-2030s. The key sections of this report present the physics case and technical challenges, together with a comprehensive overview of the discussions at the workshop together with the main conclusions

Cold atoms in space: community workshop summary and proposed road-map

We summarise the discussions at a virtual Community Workshop on Cold Atoms in Space concerning the status of cold atom technologies, the prospective scientific and societal opportunities offered by their deployment in space, and the developments needed before cold atoms could be operated in space. The cold atom technologies discussed include atomic clocks, quantum gravimeters and accelerometers, and atom interferometers. Prospective applications include metrology, geodesy and measurement of terrestrial mass change due to, e.g., climate change, and fundamental science experiments such as tests of the equivalence principle, searches for dark matter, measurements of gravitational waves and tests of quantum mechanics. We review the current status of cold atom technologies and outline the requirements for their space qualification, including the development paths and the corresponding technical milestones, and identifying possible pathfinder missions to pave the way for missions to exploit the full potential of cold atoms in space. Finally, we present a first draft of a possible road-map for achieving these goals, that we propose for discussion by the interested cold atom, Earth Observation, fundamental physics and other prospective scientific user communities, together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and national space and research funding agencies

Cold atoms in space: community workshop summary and proposed road-map

We summarise the discussions at a virtual Community Workshop on Cold Atoms in Space concerning the status of cold atom technologies, the prospective scientific and societal opportunities offered by their deployment in space, and the developments needed before cold atoms could be operated in space. The cold atom technologies discussed include atomic clocks, quantum gravimeters and accelerometers, and atom interferometers. Prospective applications include metrology, geodesy and measurement of terrestrial mass change due to, e.g., climate change, and fundamental science experiments such as tests of the equivalence principle, searches for dark matter, measurements of gravitational waves and tests of quantum mechanics. We review the current status of cold atom technologies and outline the requirements for their space qualification, including the development paths and the corresponding technical milestones, and identifying possible pathfinder missions to pave the way for missions to exploit the full potential of cold atoms in space. Finally, we present a first draft of a possible road-map for achieving these goals, that we propose for discussion by the interested cold atom, Earth Observation, fundamental physics and other prospective scientific user communities, together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and national space and research funding agencies