The cosmopolitan city and its Other: the ethnicizing of the Australian suburb

Abstract

In this article I argue that there has been a significant cultural change in the meanings attached to two specific sites in the Australian cultural imaginary—the city and the suburb. I see this change as the product of opposing versions of multicultural Australia. In several Australian cities, particularly Sydney, although the combination of multiculturalism and economic globalization has helped to create increasingly cosmopolitan inner city suburbs, it has also contributed to the development of an antithetical but perhaps more politically significant version of the middle or outer suburb. This new version of the suburb is defined by minority ethnic or racial identities; it is increasingly represented as criminalized; and its development runs against the grain of the traditional conception of the suburb in the Australian national imaginary, as well as the globalizing rhetoric endorsing a cosmopolitanizing transnational citizenship. The context for the discussion is given particular force by the series of ‘race riots’ which occurred in the Sydney beach suburb of Cronulla in December, 2005. These events raised serious concerns about the fate of multiculturalism in Australia and highlighted the tensions that lie beneath what is often regarded as a successful set of social policies.     

Out in the Cold and Back: New-Found Interest in the Great Flu

The article surveys the historiography of the influenza pandemic of 1918–19, charting growing interest in the field and offering a critical review of recent publications. While, against the background of current anxieties concerning the threat of an outbreak of an avian influenza epidemic, the Great Flu has belatedly become a hot topic, the cultural history of this catastrophe remains to be written.     

Take Pictures of the Motherland:Zhao Hui and His Photo Collection"China Story

A story can be narrated in different ways. As to the story about China, Zhao Hui's version is unique. This is a story presented by camera lens, a story that unfolds a cultural China with vitality and grandeur. One can be all but overwhelmed by its new means of presentation, its new concept of photographing, its art language beyond pictures themselves, and its approach decoding human life and history. And this story is a photo collection entitled "China Story", an embodiment of the life experience of Zhao Hui - a photographer who     

战国至西汉时期遣策的解读

丧葬文化是中华文化的重要组成部分,古代墓葬是丧葬文化外显和考古出土文物的重要场域.以简牍为主要载体的遣策,形成于中国古代社会以物质和精神层面送别亡人的丧葬仪式,起着沟通人间与冥世的作用.     

High-Speed Internet Access to the Other: The Influence of Cultural Orientations on Self-Disclosures in Offline and Online Relationships

The global village metaphor, originally popularized by Marshall McLuhan, suggests that individuals connected to information and communication technologies become more involved with others from around the world. The speed at which messages are communicated is one factor why Internet-supported technologies create a sense of community. The diffusion of Internet networks to areas around the world naturally increases the potential for intercultural communication. Considering the cultural differences of the communicators and diminished social cues of the environment, the opportunity for misunderstandings may be elevated in intercultural Internet-based communication. The present investigation explores how two important components of culture—individualism and collectivism—influence communication behaviors in face-to-face and computer-mediated relationships. Self-disclosures, which are fundamental to relationship development, are specifically studied. The findings reveal that collectivism is associated with fewer self-disclosures in computer-mediated relationships than in comparable face-to-face relationships. The difference between self-disclosure behaviors in face-to-face and computer-mediated relationships is more pronounced among individuals high in collectivism than those high in individualism. Implications to social information processing theory and future directions for intercultural Internet-based communication research are considered.     

Fear and Rumour in the People's Republic of China in the 1950s

ABSTRACT

The article explores the nature of popular fears during the early years of the People's Republic of China by examining two types of rumour: those of a ‘secular’ type that told of China's defeat in the Korean War, a third world war or an imminent nuclear attack; and those of a ‘supernatural’ type that told of demons out to snatch vital organs or the end of the world. These rumours testified both to the resilience of ancient cosmological beliefs and values and to their capacity to fuse with elements of ‘modern’ politics. The article asks what they tell us about the relationship of the party-state to the populace.