Global religious changes and civil life in two Chinese societies: a comparison of Jiangsu and Taiwan

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2015.1039305Published versio

Goddess unbound: Chinese popular religion and the varieties of boundary

Mazu is an important deity who spread widely within and beyond China. The hardening of internal and external boundaries during the Cold War greatly limited the flow of the cult on the mainland, and completely cut the tie to temples in Taiwan and abroad. The end of the Cold War, however, brought many new possibilities, which are best understood by opening up the concept of "boundary." The Cold War had strengthened the idea that borders are meant to be unambiguous and well defended. This vision of the boundary as a brick wall, however, is incomplete. This essay explores two further aspects of boundaries: the oozing of people, goods and deities through pores in the boundaries (more cell wall than brick wall); and the boundaries that are crossed through the rhythms of ritual, fostering moves back and forth across both political and spiritual lines (a "tennis net" wall, crossed by the moving ball).Accepted manuscrip

On the boundaries between good and evil: Constructing multiple moralities in China

This essay discusses three contrasting versions of the relationship between good and evil in contemporary China: a spirit medium who maneuvers between them, a charismatic Christian group that forges an identity by defending the border between them, and an official state and religious discourse of banal goodness and universal love that that seeks to annihilate evil. Each defines good and evil differently, but more importantly, each imagines the nature of the boundary itself differently – as permeable and negotiable, clear and defensible, or simply intolerable. These varied conceptions help to shape alternate views of empathy, pluralism, and the problem of how to live with otherness

Cyclic fatigue testing of surface mooring hardware for the Arabian Sea mixed layer dynamics experiment

The Arabian Sea is strongly forced by monsoon winds. Surface moorings deployed in the Arabian Sea are exposed to high winds and large waves. The waves, generated by strong wind events, impose a dynamic load on all mooring components. The dynamic cycling of mooring components can be so severe that ultimate strength considerations are superseded by the fatigue properties of the standard hardware components. Concerns about all in-line mooring components and their fatigue endurance dictated the need for an independent series of cyclic fatigue tests. The components tested included shackles of various sizes and configurations, wire rope, instrument cages, chain, and a variety of interconnecting links such as weldless sling links and end links. The information gained from these tests was used in the design of the surface moorings deployed in the Arabian Sea by the Upper Ocean Processes group of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The results of the cyclic fatigue tests conducted in support of the Arabian Sea surface mooring design effort are presented in this report. Recommendations are made with regard to all in-line components for surface moorings where dynamic conditions might be encountered for extended periods. The fatigue test results from shackles, and sling links were compiled to generate an SIN diagram where the cyclic stress amplitude is plotted versus the number of cycles to failure. In addition, the wire rope test results were compiled with historical wire rope data from US steel to generate a SIN diagram for torque balanced 3x19 wire rope. These results can be used in conjunction with future design efforts.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research through Grant No. N00014-94-1-0161

Respecting silence: longing, rhythm, and Chinese temples in an age of bulldozers

This essay distinguishes the silence that makes rhythm (and thus ritual) possible, and the silence of loss and longing. It argues that both, as they intertwine, are crucial parts of the adjustment to traumatic change. The interaction between these two kinds of silence offers an alternative to theories that focus primarily on speaking as a way of overcoming trauma, or on silence as antisocial. The ethnographic evidence comes from a surgical case that illustrates the basic approach, followed by a case of rapid urbanization on the outskirts of a large Chinese city, involving the resettlement of 100,000 people. Both cases show the two kinds of silence as they resonate with each other. The analysis argues that silence is not just the absence of sound, but a necessary part of all the rhythms of life, not replaced but invoked by speech.Accepted manuscript2022-01-2

Arabian Sea mixed layer dynamics experiment : mooring deployment cruise report R/V Thomas Thompson cruise number 46, 14 April-29 April 1995

This report describes in a general manner the work that took place during the R/V Thomas Thompson cruise number 46 which was the mooring turnaround cruise for the moored array program. A detailed description of the WHOI surface mooring and its instrumentation is provided. Information about the XBT and CTD data and near-surface temperature data collected during the cruise is also included.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research through Grant No. NOOOl4-94-1-0161

A self-contained wind speed, direction and location system for buoys and ships in the World Ocean Circulation Experiment

Knowledge of the absolute wind velocity near the surface of the ocean is a requirement of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and other large programs directed towards understanding air-sea interactions and how ocean circulation and climate are interrelated. The measurement is made possible using IMET (Improved METeorology) modules, a next generation meteorological data acquisition system developed as part of the WOCE program. An IMET system consists of a set of intelligent modules for each measurement variable, with data being recorded on a computer, typically PC-based. The IMET wind module includes a propeller for wind speed, a vane and optical encoder for wind direction, a flux gate compass for the north reference, and microprocessor-based electronics for control and data formatting. The IMET Global Positioning System (GPS) module includes a five chanel GPS receiver and microprocessor based electronics for control and data formatting. These modules, as part of the complete measurement suite, result in a self-contained system that can make accurate measurements from research ships, drifting and moored buoys, and volunteer observing ships (VOS).Funding was provided by Grant No. OCE-8709614 from the National Science Foundation

Overnight urbanization and changing spirits: disturbed ecosystems in Southern Jiangsu

Three Chinese cases involving ghost attacks, the increase of spirit mediums, and innovations in the forms and objects of temple worship suggest how nonequilibrium ecology, broadly conceived, can clarify processes of urban change. They extend Ingold’s call for “ecologies of life” by clarifying how latent potentials become manifest and how new symbiotic assemblages can be created in disturbed ecosystems. These cases arise from the rapid urban expansion in wealthy parts of China, accompanied by the resettlement of many villagers into high-rise buildings, wiping out farms, village temples, and rural graves and making earlier forms of social organization impossible. The territorially based religion described in much of the anthropological and historical literature has thus become increasingly untenable. Contrary to many expectations, the expanding urban edge at our field sites in southern Jiangsu cities has fostered an especially creative zone of innovation.Accepted manuscrip

The Human Dimension of Pollution Policy Implementation: Air Quality in Rural China

The People's Republic of China is experiencing severe air pollution with very serious public health and economic consequences. Over the past decade, the Chinese government has sought to utilize bureaucratic, political, legal and educational vehicles to address these problems. This paper examines the ways in which those policy measures have been communicated to, understood by, and acted upon by the citizenry, drawing in important part on household and epidemiological surveys conducted in Anhui. Our study suggests that the central government's message has yet to be absorbed to the degree intended and then considers both why this has been the case and how the effectiveness of policy mechanisms might be enhanced