Culture and Environment in Inner Asia: Society and culture

Culture and Environment in Inner Asia: Society and culture
Author: Caroline Humphrey
Publisher: Global Oriental
Total Pages: 230
Release: 1996
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781874267171

This volume describes the enormous social change which inner Asia has experienced, due to the advent of democracy in Russia and economic reforms in China. It investigates how long-term historical social changes, produced by migration and economic development, were succeeded by the effects of socialist organization and then by the divergent paths of capitalism and privatization. It shows how the steppe environment is not pristine "nature", but intermeshed with these processes, and with the distinctive, often religious, attitudes of the pastoral people. The book also covers topics such as the effect of recent reforms on the division of labour and employment, education, health and medicine, women's work and language and ethnicity.

The End of Nomadism?

The End of Nomadism?
Author: Caroline Humphrey
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780822321408

Those who herd in the vast grassland region of Inner Asia face a precarious situation as they struggle to respond to the momentous political and economic changes of recent years. In The End of Nomadism? Caroline Humphrey and David Sneath confront the romantic, ahistorical myth of the wandering nomad by revealing the complex lives and the significant impact on Asian culture of these modern "mobile pastoralists." In their examination of the present and future of pastoralism, the authors recount the extensive and quite sudden social, political, environmental, and economic changes of recent years that have forced these peoples to respond and evolve in order to maintain their centuries-old way of life. Using extensive and detailed case studies comparing pastoralism in Siberian Russia, Mongolia, and Northwest China, Humphrey and Sneath explore the different paths taken by nomads in these countries in reaction to a changing world. In examining how each culture is facing not only different prospects for sustainability but also different environmental problems, the authors come to the surprising conclusion that mobility can, in fact, be compatible with a modern and urbanized world. While placing emphasis on the social and cultural traditions of Inner Asia and their fate in the post-Socialist economies of the present, The End of Nomadism? investigates the changing nature of pastoralism by focusing on key areas under environmental threat and relating the ongoing problems to distinctive socioeconomic policies and practices in Russia and China. It also provides lively contemporary commentary on current economic dilemmas by revealing in telling detail, for instance, the struggle of one extended family to make a living. This book will interest Central Asian, Russian, and Chinese specialists, as well as those studying the environment, anthropology, sociology, peasant studies, and ecology.

The Avoidable War

The Avoidable War
Author: Kevin Rudd
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2022-03-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1541701305

A war between China and the US would be catastrophic, deadly, and destructive. Unfortunately, it is no longer unthinkable. The relationship between the US and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. It rests on a seismic fault—of cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility. No other nations are so quick to offend and be offended. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer, and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily. Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who has studied, lived in, and worked with China for more than forty years, is one of the very few people who can offer real insight into the mindsets of the leadership whose judgment will determine if a war will be fought. The Avoidable War demystifies the actions of both sides, explaining and translating them for the benefit of the other. Geopolitical disaster is still avoidable, but only if these two giants can find a way to coexist without betraying their core interests through what Rudd calls “managed strategic competition.” Should they fail, down that path lies the possibility of a war that could rewrite the future of both countries, and the world.

Culture and Environment in Inner Asia: The pastoral economy and the environment

Culture and Environment in Inner Asia: The pastoral economy and the environment
Author: Caroline Humphrey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 272
Release: 1996
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This work explores a number of real threats to the environment in Inner Asia. For example, in some regions vast areas of steppelands are subject to pasture degradation. Pastoral economies developed under Russian, Mongoliana and Chinese governance are analysed in terms of steppe impact.

Does ASEAN Matter?

Does ASEAN Matter?
Author: Marty Natalegawa
Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2018-07-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814786748

Written by the highly regarded diplomat Marty Natalegawa, former ambassador and foreign minister of Indonesia, this book offers a unique insider-perspective on the present and future relevance of ASEAN. It is about ASEAN’s quest for security and prosperity in a region marked by complex dynamics of power. Namely, the interplay of relations and interests among countries — large and small — which provide the settings within which ASEAN must deliver on its much-cited leadership and centrality in the region. The book seeks to answer the following questions: How can ASEAN build upon its past contributions to the peace, security and prosperity of Southeast Asia, to the wider East Asia, the Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific regions? More fundamentally and a sine qua non, how can ASEAN continue to ensure that peace, security and prosperity prevail in Southeast Asia? And, equally central, how can ASEAN become more relevant to the peoples of ASEAN, such that its contributions can be genuinely felt in making better the lives of its citizens?

World Resources 2000-2001

World Resources 2000-2001
Author: C. Rosen
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2000-11-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0080543863

World Resources 2000-2001, People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life focuses on the critical link between ecosystems and people and provides an overview of current global environmental and economic trends using hundreds of indicators in more than 150 countries. Until now there has not been a comprehensive, formalised process to assess human damage to our ecosystems, to establish a baseline for future actions, or to disseminate information that would aid the formulation of better policies world-wide. This book is the first reliable, comprehensive base of evidence for taking stock and taking care of the world's diverse ecosystems. • deals with the critical issues that focus on the link between ecosystems and people • highlights the goods and services that ecosystems provide and illustrates the benefits of a better understanding and better management of the planet's natural wealth • reports on pilot studies by leading scientists and international institutions assessing the state of the world's ecosystems - forests, croplands, grasslands, freshwater systems and coastal areas • increases the understanding of human dependence on nature • raises awareness of environmental threats • provides examples of wise stewardship from all corners of the globe • focuses on four main issues: population and human well-being, food and water security, consumption, energy and wastes, trace emissions since the Kyoto protocol • gives data tables for more than 150 countriesIt demonstrates the power of information and new digital technologies to transform the way we interact with our environment and is particularly important for environmentalists, scientists, professionals, journalists, policy-makers and students. This special Millennium Edition of the World Resources Institute's biennial report published by Elsevier Science in September 2000 in partnership with the World Resources Institute, the UN Environment Program, the UN Development Programme and the World Bank. NEW FROM APRIL 2001 - http://www.enviromod.subnet.dk/Ecological and Environmental Modeling - An Interactive Internet Course

The Art of Symbolic Resistance

The Art of Symbolic Resistance
Author: Joanne N. Smith Finley
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004256784

Against the background of the Ürümchi riots (July 2009), this book provides a longitudinal study of contemporary Uyghur identities and Uyghur-Han relations. Previous studies considered China’s Uyghurs from the perspective of the majority Han (state or people). Conversely, The Art of Symbolic Resistance considers Uyghur identities from a local perspective, based on interviews conducted with group members over nearly twenty years. Smith Finley rejects assertions that the Uyghur ethnic group is a ‘creation of the Chinese state’, suggesting that contemporary Uyghur identities involve a complex interplay between long-standing intra-group socio-cultural commonalities and a more recently evolved sense of common enmity towards the Han. This book advances the discipline in three senses: from a focus on sporadic violent opposition to one on everyday symbolic resistance; from state to ‘local’ representations; and from a conceptualisation of Uyghurs as ‘victim’ to one of ‘creative agent’.

Teaching for Global Competence in a Rapidly Changing World

Teaching for Global Competence in a Rapidly Changing World
Author: Asia Society
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2018-01-23
Genre:
ISBN: 926428902X

This new publication sets forward the PISA framework for global competence developed by the OECD, which aligns closely with the definition developed by the Center for Global Education at Asia Society.