An 'unholy' alchemy: the nineteenth-century European medico-scientific encounter with opium smoking and the circulation of knowledge.

Reviewed by: Les savoirs-mondes: Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Âge ed. by Pilar González Bernaldo, Liliane Hilaire-Peréz Theresa Levitt (bio) Les savoirs-mondes: Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Âge. Edited by Pilar González Bernaldo and Liliane Hilaire-Peréz. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015. Pp. 514. €25. Les savoirs-mondes is an ambitious attempt to bring a global perspective to the question of knowledge production and circulation. It grew from a colloquium held in 2011 by the Laboratoire Identités Cultures Territoires, a [End Page 870] multidisciplinary group at Paris Diderot University that combines historians and area specialists. Founded to promote a comparative approach, here it turns that approach to the question of mobilities (including what Anglophone speakers might call modes of transportation) and the circulation of knowledge. The comparative aspect is impressive: there are thirty-eight essays whose chronology covers the medieval period to the present and whose geographical range spans five continents. A preface by Daniel Roche places the work in the context of treating the history of knowledge through the lens of exchange. The contributions are divided into six thematic sections, with each section maintaining a high degree of chronological and geographical diversity. The first, “Between Mirrors of Princes and World Vision,” examines several texts from the pre-Islamic and Islamic East that circulated widely. The second, “The Circulation of Bodies and Sexual Knowledge,” follows the itinerant travels of hermaphrodites, anatomy collections, and female military units. Then “The Metropolitan Acclimation of Knowledge of the Far-off” examines the introduction of exotic materials, such as New World medicines in the sixteenth century, into European metropolitan centers. The fourth, “Circulation of Technical Knowledge: Territoriality Put to the Test,” takes up the issue of science and technology. The fifth, “European Cultures of Translation,” follows texts from Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud, and Israel Zangwill, and racial and judicial theories as they move between languages (and cultures). Finally, “Circulation of Knowledge and Power in the Atlantic Space” examines the movement of ideas, disciplines, methods, texts, and human experts between the Americas and Europe. Historians of technology would be particularly interested in the fourth section, which treats the globalization of technology head-on. The introduction by Irina Gouzévitch places the works within the tradition, dating back thirty years, of applying the study of “circulations” to the history of technology. She categorizes the wide range of approaches that followed into four camps: diffusionist (focused on influence emanating from the center outward), center-periphery (focused on the point of reception), comparative (which examined both in parallel), and spatial (focused on networks and circulation). The spatial approach unites the essays, all of which treat circulation as a practice for constructing and normalizing technical knowledge. The topics range widely, including tanning, sericulture, medical practices, urban transportation, automobiles, telegraphy, telephones, radios, notary practices, and business management. In each case, the author emphasizes that movement was not unidirectional, but took place in the context of connected spaces. While the volume’s essays are united in their participation in the spatial turn, the comparative approach allows for an in-depth examination of fine-grained detail and a focus on the concrete and material (such as Christelle Rabier’s effort to follow the circulation of medical artifacts by [End Page 871] tracing their path from producer to consumer). The articles address both well-known paths of circulation, such as voyages of expertise, missions of promotion, professional correspondence, scientific meetings, etc. and others, such as the organization of surveys or the functioning of public services at the international level. The essays also show the importance of human actors in the movement of knowledge, bringing in not only scientists and engineers, but also less conventional actors such as tourists and missionaries, officers of the merchant marine, alumni organizations, and the representatives of international organizations. The wide variety of approaches also reveals the fault lines of certain tensions. While many essays show the important role of the movement of people across boundaries, some also show the way certain actors (such as professional groups) refused to share knowledge, while others reveal the constraining intervention of the state, including several dictatorships...

During the 1870s and early 1880s, members of the American medical community sought to exclude the Chinese from immigrating to the United States because these physicians believed that the Chinese opium smoking habit threatened the moral system of the country. Doctors were especially concerned about the supposed effects of opium smoking on sexual behavior, arguing that it both heightened male and female desire and endangered the nation's reproductive capacity. They also feared that opium smoking and Chinese prostitution would encourage miscegenation, and that use of the drug could ultimately harm America's socio‐economic progress. The conclusions of these physicians fed into the anti‐Chinese campaign that resulted in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.

The title Secret Cures of Slaves is somewhat ambiguous: Is the book dealing with cures that slaves themselves practiced, or with the treatments that were applied to them? In fact it is dealing with both, though the emphasis is clearly on the latter, focusing on scientific experiments conducted by French and British physicians in the West Indies in the late eighteenth century. Londa Schiebinger is well known for her scholarly publications in this field, and a number of the chapters draw on these. Four of the book's five chapters discuss the particular experiments that were conducted and address the questions about the origins of remedies, how human subjects were chosen, and how bodies were differentiated in terms of race, gender, and age. Schiebinger acknowledges that experimentation was not new but argues that the practices that developed in Europe in the eighteenth century were procedurally different. This helps to define the focus of the book but might be challenged by some as Eurocentric, especially by those working on other periods and regions.Secret Cures of Slaves challenges a number of preconceived ideas about the treatments applied to slaves. Schiebinger argues that despite the absence of regulated research ethics at the time, medical practitioners generally adhered to the Hippocratic oath of “To help, or at least do no harm.” In Europe experiments were generally conducted on soldiers, sailors, prisoners, orphans, or those in charitable institutions. Plantations in the New World housed similar captive and subordinate populations and might thus be deemed suitable for conducting tests. However, as Schiebinger argues, the unbridled employment of slaves in experiments was constrained because slaves were regarded by plantation owners as valuable property. Nevertheless, she acknowledges that some physicians did undertake experiments that were driven by science and showed little care for patients' lives. Such were John Quier's experiments with smallpox inoculation on plantation slaves, which included pregnant and nursing women, and James Thomson's inoculation of slave children for yaws.It is important to note that experiments were conducted not only on slaves but also on sailors and soldiers, who also suffered high mortality. Since the aim of physicians at the time was to find universal remedies, human bodies were regarded as interchangeable; racial distinctions were not made, and experiments, whether on sailors or slaves, were seen as equally valuable in assessing the general applicability of treatments. As Schiebinger argues in chapter 1, James Thomson investigated the physiological basis of black skin, and Colin Chisholm analyzed differences in body temperature, but their concern was not with race per se, as was the case in the nineteenth century, but rather with climatic and geographical influences that could affect the adaptation of slaves to the plantation environment. Slaves were worthy of study not because they were racially different but because they were essential to the colonial economy; Amerindians, who were small in number and marginal as a workforce, were not included in experiments.Despite the focus on European physicians, Schiebinger exposes the high level of circulation of medical knowledge in the Caribbean that drew on several traditions—African, Amerindian, and European. In chapter 2, she shows how A. J. Alexander experimented with a cure for yaws developed by an African living on one of his estates in Grenada but suggests that this cure may have been adopted first by the French from Amerindians and subsequently diffused to slave doctors. Yet, as she rightly points out, there were obstacles to the transfer of knowledge: the decimation of the Amerindian population, the diversity of cultural-linguistic groups from which slaves were drawn, and fear and prejudice of practices, such as Obeah, that remained secret to Africans all limited the potential contribution of non-European groups to medical knowledge. Several authors have begun to reveal this, notably Pablo Gómez in his excellent and effectively complementary monograph The Experiential Caribbean: Creating Knowledge and Healing in the Early Modern Atlantic (2017).Secret Cures of Slaves is a scholarly, well-illustrated monograph that draws on archival as well as printed sources. It makes a valuable contribution to knowledge of the history of medicine in the British and French West Indies and reveals its links across the Atlantic. It will be of particular interest to scholars of the history of science and medicine, colonialism, and slavery, though it will probably be appreciated best by those with some knowledge of the changing character of science and medicine at the time, a fuller discussion of which would have helped those less versed in the field. The book makes some interesting comparisons between medical practices in the British and French West Indies, but given that the Caribbean was fringed by Spanish possessions, it is curious that medicine in Spain and Spanish America is absent from the discussion, in terms of both the circulation of knowledge and the nature of experimentation. What knowledge, for example, did medical practitioners in the Caribbean have of the science that underpinned the three-year (1803–6) inoculation program conducted by Francisco Javier de Balmis in Spanish America and the Philippines? The book raises some interesting questions and avenues for future research, all of which argue for placing medical practice in the Caribbean in a broader cultural and geographical context.

While interest in land use in the prehistoric periods in Italy has received attention, that cannot be said of the Post-Medieval period. The general view is that all activities and objects from the last 300–500 years or so are so indecipherable from their contemporary counterparts and that there is no need to study them. There is, in fact, very little Post-Medieval archaeological work done in the south of Italy, which is the focus of this paper. The landscape of southern Calabria has changed radically over the centuries. The distribution of dense macchia forests was diminished in the late 18th and 19th centuries for building railroads and ships, and more recently, arson has been used as social or political revenge. The removal of the macchia led to erosional landscapes and the loss of archaeological footprints. This paper explores agricultural practices and forest exploitation in the early 19th and 20th centuries by the citizens of Bova to better understand the social and economic dynamics that continue to influence the lives of people living in the community. It utilizes cadastral records, archival documents from the early 1800–1900s, and spatial analysis to better understand the potential economic and social dynamics in this community. Consideration is also given to how social status and power, represented by Church-owned vs. lay citizen-owned properties, was reflected in local land use. The overall paucity of archaeological materials from this period across the landscape supports and complicates the overall picture while also supporting an interpretation of a very local and insular community poorly integrated into the greater Italian economy of the day.

This chapter introduces the narrative of de-sensualization promoted by early German Protestants, and briefly outlines its persistence in modern academic and popular discourse. It then addresses recent attempts to deal with the senses in religion among historians of early modern Europe and the German Reformation specifically, showing how the scholarship has enriched our understanding of the relationship between religious changes and sensory culture in this period, but has tended to focus primarily on vision and hearing and has often ignored some of the political, economic, and social power dynamics that often complicated the place of the senses in religious belief and practice. Thereafter, it outlines the major arguments of the study, its scope and methodology, and previews each of the body chapters.

ABSTRACTWhat did peasants discuss at party meetings? Were they mobilized by ethnic politics or indifferent to them altogether? The end of the First World War brought about universal male suffrage in much of Europe, and with it the process of mass politics began. The concept of national indifference is important in understanding interwar politics, because this period is often studied teleologically with attention focused on extremism and nationalism as the primary mobilizing issueAgrarian movements have been under-researched, and when Agrarians have been studied, it has been through the prism of elite politics. This comparative paper seeks to redress this omission by looking at grassroots rural politics. The interwar countryside was marked by profound political, economic and social transformation but also in terms of what Robert Paxton has described as the ‘triple crisis of the countryside’ – worsening economic conditions, the declining status of the countryside and inadequate political representation. The paper will explore how reform and crisis impacted how agrarian politics functioned at a local level by asymmetrically comparing cases from Romania, Poland and Ireland, with the final case helping to contextualize Eastern Europe within the wider European experience This paper argues that the rural population was mobilized, but primarily in the context of local issues rather than national ethno-political questions. Local party organization was, to paraphrase James C Scott, the site ‘of an exchange of small arms fire’ in rural class conflict, as questions regarding the control of public space, generational conflict and power within the village mobilized peasants. Thus, I argue that it was the underlying socio-economic issues that mobilized the rural population, not nationalism. The dynamics of these conflicts were shaped by local economic, political and social power dynamics, and by using indifference as a concept, we can look more deeply at interwar politics from a grassroots perspective and develop a more nuanced understanding of local, national and European politics.

Janice Radway unearths the story of how a form of countercultural communication and indie art entered one of the key institutions of American book culture—the library. Tracing the efforts that American librarians undertook in the 1990s to collect zines—ephemeral handcrafted publications that typically combine image and text to espouse idiosyncratic or politically dissident views—Radway interprets the interest of US “book custodians” in zines as an index of their dissatisfaction with the commercialization and homogeneity of mainstream book culture. Conceptualizing zines as an early form of networked communication, Radway urges us to examine the economic, social, and political power dynamics shaping US book culture and the literary marketplace as well as to ask how the book as a “social form” may contribute to a genuinely democratic culture.

One of the distinctive characteristics of urban planning as a discipline is its responsibility to educate practitioners who have to ‘go out there and get things done’. The world of planning today is seen by scholarly literature as an exciting, but also a challenging, profession in reference to the political economic framework which is dominated by authoritarianism, neoliberalism, informality, crime, fragmentation, depoliticization, and populism (see Filion, 2011; Gunder, 2010; Kunzmann, 2016; Ponzini, 2016; Ruming, 2018; Tasan-Kok & Baeten, 2011; Thornley, 2018; Sager, 2009; Roy, 2015). Although the practitioner’s role is prone to high levels of political and economic pressures in this ‘dark’ impression, recent studies have shown that there is a tendency among planning practitioners to push boundaries (Forester, 2013; Tasan-Kok et al., 2016; Tasan-Kok & Oranje, 2017) and even to become activists (Sager, 2016). Furthermore, work with planning students shows that radical critical approaches in planning education may turn into mere cynicism when they do not offer an analysis of problems or offer tools for alternative and emancipatory ideas (Tunström, 2017). Keeping this viewpoint in mind, and the theme of the 2018 AESOP Congress in Gothenburg, Sweden, which was ‘Making Space for Hope’, I proposed to place ‘critical constructive thinking’ in planning research under the spotlight as a topic for discussion with PhD students and young scholars during the AESOP PhD workshop, which followed the same theme of ‘hope’. It provided an excellent platform to debate for planning researchers on how to remain critical while still being able to provide constructive solutions in a landscape of complex social, economic and political relations and power dynamics. These are, I believe, also fundamental characteristic of planning practitioners and should be highlighted in planning education.

Purpose Drawing on the politeness theory, this study explored the dubbing of English children's cartoons into Modern Standard Arabic, focusing on negative face speech acts such as compliments, suggestions, rejections, and suggestions in rejections. Design/methodology/approach Through quantitative and qualitative comparative analyses, this study investigated the influence of cultural differences on the selection of dubbing strategies, analyzed the politeness strategies employed in dubbing, and examined the maintenance of pragmatic equivalence in translated speech acts. Data were collected from the cartoon series “The Loud House” from popular digital platforms Shahid and Netflix, chosen for their regional (the Arab world) and global popularity, respectively. Findings The findings revealed shifts and adaptations in the dubbing process influenced by linguistic and cultural factors, particularly emphasizing social norms and power dynamics (e.g. respect for elders) prevalent in the Arab culture. Translators strategically employed politeness strategies, such as off-record and bald on-record strategies, to ensure cultural appropriateness and maintain the integrity of familial relationships depicted in the content. The comparative analysis of translators' approaches on Shahid and Netflix platforms highlights significant differences in the translation of negative face-threatening act scenarios. Netflix shows a tendency to adjust politeness pragmatic levels to better suit the preferences of the target audience, indicating a proactive effort to enhance viewer engagement through effective translation strategies. In contrast, Shahid adopts a more conservative approach, maintaining a consistent politeness level in its translations, which aligns closely with cultural norms and expectations. This comparative analysis underscores the divergent translation strategies employed by the two platforms, with Netflix prioritizing adaptation to audience preferences and Shahid favoring preservation of established politeness levels. The cultural social factors that influenced the translation and adaptation of face threatening acts can be grasped by considering elements such as social distance, power dynamics, and relative imposition. In Arabic culture, these factors play a crucial role in determining the social dynamics and interactions between individuals. The observed patterns of shifts and adaptations in the translation of face threatening acts on Shahid and Netflix reflect the nature of stratified Arabic societies where communal relationships are defined by factors like family ties, elder-younger dynamics, and friendships. These cultural factors shape the social norms and expectations surrounding face threatening acts, which, in turn, influence the translation choices made on these platforms. Research limitations/implications The study has several limitations that need acknowledgment. Firstly, the sample size was limited, focusing on the dubbing of only two versions of an animated series and four seasons, comparing translations across two platforms. Additionally, there were challenges related to the accessibility and availability of data, with limited information about the translators involved in the dubbing process. Furthermore, the study's focus on specific types of translations may have overlooked other important factors influencing translation practices. Lastly, regional variations in translation practices within the Arab world were not considered. Despite these limitations, the study provides valuable insights into translation practices in animated series on Shahid and Netflix platforms, highlighting the need for future research to address these limitations and provide a more comprehensive understanding of translation practices in the Arab world. Practical implications

Purpose: The general objective of the study was to explore the sociological implications of climate change, that is, community adaptation and resilience. Methodology: The study adopted a desktop research methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library. Findings: The findings reveal that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to the sociological implications of climate change. Preliminary empirical review revealed that sociological perspectives are crucial for understanding and addressing climate change challenges. It emphasized the significance of social capital, participatory approaches, and context-specific strategies in enhancing community resilience. By examining the interplay between social dynamics, power relations, and adaptive capacities, the study highlighted the importance of addressing socio-economic disparities and fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Overall, it underscored the need for holistic and transformative approaches to climate change adaptation that integrate social, ecological, and economic dimensions. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Social Capital theory, Risk Society theory and Ecological Modernization theory may be used to anchor future studies on the sociological implications of climate change. The study provided valuable recommendations that contributed to theory, practice, and policy. It emphasized the integration of sociological perspectives into climate change adaptation, highlighting the role of social networks, cultural norms, and power dynamics. Practical implications included advocating for community-based approaches, participatory decision-making, and knowledge co-production activities. At the policy level, the study underscored the importance of mainstreaming social considerations into climate change policy frameworks, promoting equity and participatory governance. Recommendations for future research included exploring socio-economic drivers of vulnerability, conducting longitudinal studies, and advancing interdisciplinary research agendas to inform evidence-based strategies for building resilient communities.

This work explores the intersection of toxicity and symbolic violence as fundamental concepts for understanding two critical dimensions of online violence: its propagation and legitimation. Drawing from Critical Discourse Analysis, we emphasize language's role in negotiating power relationships, demonstrating its significance in shaping social practices and power dynamics. Building on our previous work on gender toxicity, we investigate how toxicity becomes a form of legitimizing violent discourses.Further, we present a framework categorizing violence legitimation into "discursive structure" and "spreadable structure." Discursive structures encompass implicit and explicit violence, including humor, stereotyping, and name-calling, revealing strategies employed in violent discourse. Spreadable structures, including polarization and toxicity, explore how discourse spreads on platforms, affecting visibility and influencing dominant perspectives. The understanding of these categories requires consideration of social and infrastructural power dynamics within the online context.

This study investigates how negative news coverage about the pastor of a large Korean-American church affected the social ties and power dynamics among members of the congregation. The study adopts a media effect approach and the competing theories of social selection and social influence to provide a theoretical framework for the cognitive and behavioral processes that affect the formation of social ties. Through the interview method, this study found that two distinctively different types of new social network phenomena: tie formation and removal based on perceptions on the article vs. changes in perspectives on the news story due to the existing social network.

This study examines the transformative impact of European trade on the social structures and power dynamics of Old Calabar between 1847 and 1877. Following the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, European trading firms redirected their commercial interests toward palm oil, reshaping the economic foundations of the region. The transition from slave exports to commodity trade not only altered patterns of wealth accumulation but also redefined political authority among the Efik and Ibibio communities. Traditional institutions such as the Ekpe society and the Obong monarchy adapted to new realities, negotiating with European merchants while consolidating internal control. European firms introduced new hierarchies of influence, and empowered certain elites, and marginalised others; this gradually eroded indigenous autonomy. This period also marked the intensification of European intervention in local governance, and laid the groundwork for colonial subjugation. By situating Old Calabar within broader Atlantic trade networks, the research highlighted how commerce became a vehicle for cultural exchange, social reorganisation, and political realignment. Drawing on archival records, oral traditions, and secondary literature, the study underscores the dual legacy of European trade: economic integration into global markets and the destabilisation of indigenous institutions, ultimately paving the way for colonial rule in southeastern Nigeria.

The DeGroot–Friedkin (DF) model is a recently proposed dynamical description of the evolution of individuals’ self-appraisal and social power in a social influence network. Most studies of this system and its variations have so far focused on models with a time-invariant influence network. This paper proposes novel models and analysis results for DF models over switching influence networks, and with or without environment noise. First, for a DF model over switching influence networks, we show that the trajectory of the social power converges to a ball centered at the equilibrium reached by the original DF model. For the DF model with memory on random interactions, we show that the social power converges to the equilibrium of the original DF model almost surely. Additionally, this paper studies a DF model that contains random interactions and environment noise, and has memory on the self-appraisal. We show that such a system converges to an equilibrium or a set almost surely. Finally, as a by-product, we provide novel results on the convergence rates of the original DF model and convergence results for a continuous-time DF model.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unimaginable adversity, with nations across the globe devising ways to cope with the loss of life, economic productivity, and social fabric. Due to the agnostic nature of the virus, no facet of society, whether in the Global North or South, has been left untouched. As beacons of economic and social agglomeration, the pre-pandemic city, in particular, has seen a rapid transformation, in often unforeseen directions. Local businesses have shuttered, while large technology companies have thrived; offices have closed, while their adjacent streets have been opened for active mobility and social activities; apartment rents have decreased, while single-family home prices have increased; the underprivileged have been adversely affected by both the virus as well as the economic reality of the pandemic, while the affluent have been largely untouched in both health and economy. Responses to COVID-19 in various nations have only exacerbated existing socioeconomic inequities, and, expectedly, not all federal, state, or local responses have been beneficial to all strata of society. This white paper focuses on several core themes that have evolved over the course of the pandemic and have behaved differently across geographies: (1) urban economics and equity (2) social and economic power dynamics, and (3) strategies to preserve urban social and economic systems.