CJS Blog publishes news about the Canadian Journal of Sociology, including abstracts of forthcoming articles, and links to advance versions of book reviews.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Article: An Accelerating Divergence? The Revisionist Model Of World History And The Question Of Eurasian Military Parity
An Accelerating Divergence? The Revisionist Model Of World History And The Question Of Eurasian Military Parity: Data From East Asia
Tonio Andrade
Abstract
Over the past few years, this journal has hosted a debate central to world history and historical sociology: Joseph M. Bryant’s bold assault on the revisionist model of global history and the revisionists’ equally trenchant defense. A key point of disagreement concerns Europeans' relative military advantages vis-a-vis Asians. Both sides cite literature from historians’ Military Revolution Model, but each takes different lessons from that literature. The revisionists see a slight military imbalance in favor of Europe but deny that it reflects a general European technological lead. Bryant believes that the European technological lead is significant and reflects a more general modernizing trend. This article tries to resolve the disagreement by appealing to data from East Asia. First, it argues that recent work in Asian history points to what we can call a Chinese Military Revolution, which compels us to place the European Military Revolution in a larger, Eurasian context: not just western European but also East Asian societies were undergoing rapid military change and modernization during the gunpowder age. Second, it adduces evidence from a new study of the Sino-Dutch War of 1661-1668 (a war that both Bryant and the revisionists cite, each, again, taking divergent lessons) to come to a more precise evaluation of the military balance between China and western Europe in the early modern period: western cannons and muskets didn’t provide a discernible advantage, but western war ships and renaissance forts did. The article concludes that the revisionists are correct in their belief that Asian societies were undergoing rapid changes in military technology and practices along the lines of those taking place in western Europe and that the standard model Bryant defends is incorrect because it presumes that Asian societies are more stagnant than is warranted by the evidence. At the same time, the article argues that counter-revisionists like Bryant are correct in their belief that military modernization was proceeding more quickly in Europe than that in Asia, which may indicate that the counter-revisionists are correct on a basic point: there was an early divergence between the west and the rest of Eurasia. At first this divergence was slight – so slight, indeed, that it probably left little clear evidence in the noisy and poor early modern data we have available. But the divergence increased over time. Thus, we can speak of a small but accelerating divergence.
Full Text: PDF
Tonio Andrade
Abstract
Over the past few years, this journal has hosted a debate central to world history and historical sociology: Joseph M. Bryant’s bold assault on the revisionist model of global history and the revisionists’ equally trenchant defense. A key point of disagreement concerns Europeans' relative military advantages vis-a-vis Asians. Both sides cite literature from historians’ Military Revolution Model, but each takes different lessons from that literature. The revisionists see a slight military imbalance in favor of Europe but deny that it reflects a general European technological lead. Bryant believes that the European technological lead is significant and reflects a more general modernizing trend. This article tries to resolve the disagreement by appealing to data from East Asia. First, it argues that recent work in Asian history points to what we can call a Chinese Military Revolution, which compels us to place the European Military Revolution in a larger, Eurasian context: not just western European but also East Asian societies were undergoing rapid military change and modernization during the gunpowder age. Second, it adduces evidence from a new study of the Sino-Dutch War of 1661-1668 (a war that both Bryant and the revisionists cite, each, again, taking divergent lessons) to come to a more precise evaluation of the military balance between China and western Europe in the early modern period: western cannons and muskets didn’t provide a discernible advantage, but western war ships and renaissance forts did. The article concludes that the revisionists are correct in their belief that Asian societies were undergoing rapid changes in military technology and practices along the lines of those taking place in western Europe and that the standard model Bryant defends is incorrect because it presumes that Asian societies are more stagnant than is warranted by the evidence. At the same time, the article argues that counter-revisionists like Bryant are correct in their belief that military modernization was proceeding more quickly in Europe than that in Asia, which may indicate that the counter-revisionists are correct on a basic point: there was an early divergence between the west and the rest of Eurasia. At first this divergence was slight – so slight, indeed, that it probably left little clear evidence in the noisy and poor early modern data we have available. But the divergence increased over time. Thus, we can speak of a small but accelerating divergence.
Full Text: PDF
Article: Parental Traffic Safeguarding At School Sites: Unequal Risks And Responsibilities
Parental Traffic Safeguarding At School Sites: Unequal Risks And Responsibilities
Arlene Tigar McLaren, Sylvia Parusel
Abstract
Based on a comparison of two public elementary schools located on the east and west sides of Vancouver, British Columbia, the paper explores the effects of spatial and social contexts on parents’ school traffic safety practices. By taking into account the dynamics of gender and social class in different geographies of mobility at the two schools, we illustrate how parents’ (especially mothers’) daily concerns, practices and volunteerism reflect unequal risks and responsibilities in safeguarding children from motorized traffic. We also suggest that despite geographical differences and social inequalities, auto-centred environments and traffic safety governance create remarkably similar parental mobility concerns at the two schools, reflecting the stratifying effects of automobility. Our analysis of the troubling effects of the automobility system underscores the importance of acknowledging how parental traffic safety practices contribute to the illusion of traffic safety and to the necessity of challenging auto hegemony.
Full Text: PDF
Arlene Tigar McLaren, Sylvia Parusel
Abstract
Based on a comparison of two public elementary schools located on the east and west sides of Vancouver, British Columbia, the paper explores the effects of spatial and social contexts on parents’ school traffic safety practices. By taking into account the dynamics of gender and social class in different geographies of mobility at the two schools, we illustrate how parents’ (especially mothers’) daily concerns, practices and volunteerism reflect unequal risks and responsibilities in safeguarding children from motorized traffic. We also suggest that despite geographical differences and social inequalities, auto-centred environments and traffic safety governance create remarkably similar parental mobility concerns at the two schools, reflecting the stratifying effects of automobility. Our analysis of the troubling effects of the automobility system underscores the importance of acknowledging how parental traffic safety practices contribute to the illusion of traffic safety and to the necessity of challenging auto hegemony.
Full Text: PDF
Article: The Shift From Victim To Deviant Identity For Those Diagnosed With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
What Once Was Sick Is Now Bad: The Shift From Victim To Deviant Identity For Those Diagnosed With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Erin Dej
Abstract
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is constituted by different networks and institutions. I demonstrate that while the symptoms associated with FASD do not differ from childhood to adulthood, their conceptualization and thus societal and governmental responses to individuals with FASD changes dramatically. This work is theoretically grounded in Rose’s work on psy-identities and Hacking’s concept of a looping effect, which suggests that the way an individual and their associates make sense of an identity manipulates the identity itself. In order to unpack the reconstruction of the FASD identity in adulthood, I have identified two linked but distinctive loops – that of the promising child and the deviant adult. These two loops help conceptualize the different institutions, stakeholders and knowledges that take interest in the ‘FASD child’ and those that constitute the ‘FASD adult’ identity within the criminal justice system.
Full Text: PDF
Erin Dej
Abstract
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is constituted by different networks and institutions. I demonstrate that while the symptoms associated with FASD do not differ from childhood to adulthood, their conceptualization and thus societal and governmental responses to individuals with FASD changes dramatically. This work is theoretically grounded in Rose’s work on psy-identities and Hacking’s concept of a looping effect, which suggests that the way an individual and their associates make sense of an identity manipulates the identity itself. In order to unpack the reconstruction of the FASD identity in adulthood, I have identified two linked but distinctive loops – that of the promising child and the deviant adult. These two loops help conceptualize the different institutions, stakeholders and knowledges that take interest in the ‘FASD child’ and those that constitute the ‘FASD adult’ identity within the criminal justice system.
Full Text: PDF
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