Stanford University Press Blog

Convenient boundaries and inconvenient lives in the Pandemic

Governance of mobility during the pandemic in China

MINHUA LING

Wuhan, China on a sunny day. Free for commercial use. Via Pixabay

 

Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 12, 2020, governments around the world have been adopting lockdown measures to contain the virus. While the virus knows no geographic and racial boundaries, government policies and social commentaries often act upon and reinforce those existing boundaries. Amid our global struggles with the often asymptomatic yet highly contagious disease has arisen much prejudice and national and racial discrimination. While overseas Chinese have carried signs reading “I am not a virus” to protest against the anti-Asian racism and Sinophobia implied by the use of the term “the Chinese virus” in America and Europe, exclusive policies and social discrimination against Hubei people within China have been equally disheartening.

On January 23, the world was shocked by the complete closure of Hubei province’s capital Wuhan where the outbreak came to light before the Lunar New Year holidays. The city of Wuhan sitting on two rivers announced full closure from 2 AM Jan 23 and closed all public transportation means form 10 AM that same day. Its residents were barred from leaving home and outsiders could not enter. Thirteen neighbouring cities adopted similar measures from Jan 24, which made the province largely in lockdown. Residents who left Wuhan before the complete lockdown of the city were shunned by hotels and local communities where they were sheltering. Cars with Hubei plates were frequently pulled over and checked by police on city streets around China and even denied entrance to certain areas. Wuhanese who have been living outside of Hubei for years have also been subjected to strict quarantine and close monitoring simply because of their Hubei hukou (household registration) status.

Virtual Event for Stanford's Middle East Series

A look at SUP's Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Culture series

 

Last week, Stanford University Press hosted a virtual event about our Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Culture series ».

This event featured series editors Joel Beinin and Laleh Khalili leading a wide-ranging conversation on the current state of the field as well as Stanford University Press’s own contributions. Fellow panelists include series authors Darryl Li (The Universal Enemy) and Nahid Siamdoust (Soundtrack of the Revolution). Kate Wahl—SUP’s Publishing Director, Editor-in-Chief, and acquisition’s editor for the Middle East Studies list—hosted.

A Look at SUP's DH Virtual Exhibit

SUP is excited to present our titles for the Digital Humanities conference

 

In lieu of our booth exhibit, please enjoy this Virtual Book Exhibit and receive a 30% discount and free shipping to the US and Canada on the books listed below using the discount code S20XDH-FM

 

Stanford Digital Projects

 

The nascent fields of digital humanities and computational social sciences have ballooned in recent years. Emergent technologies and scholars’ increasing fluency with these technologies are providing academics with new ways to visualize, analyze, and interpret data. Yet, there are no formal channels for publication or consistent peer review standards for digital projects. Our initiative, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, allows us to advance a publishing process that helps authors develop their concept (in both content and form) and reach their market effectively to confer the same level of academic credibility on digital projects as print books receive

 

Constructing the Sacred »

Visibility and Ritual Landscape at the Egyptian Necropolis of Saqqara

ELAINE A. SULLIVAN

"Unimaginable in any other format, this publication is a one-stop shop for our attempt to untangle the significance of Saqqara over time."

—Peter Der Manuelian, Harvard University

 

Utilizing 3D technologies, Constructing the Sacred addresses ancient ritual landscape from a unique perspective to examine development at the complex, long-lived archaeological site of Saqqara, Egypt. Sullivan focuses on how changes in the built and natural environment affected burial rituals at the temple due to changes in visibility. Flipping the top-down view prevalent in archeology to a more human-centered perspective puts the focus on the dynamic evolution of an ancient site that is typically viewed as static.

Start reading Elaine A. Sullivan's entry for the SUP blog Archaeological Landscapes And 3d Technologies »

 

 

Black Quotidian »

Everyday History in African-American Newspapers

MATTHEW F. DELMONT

Winner of the 2019 Garfinkel Prize in Digital Humanities, sponsored by the American Studies Association (ASA) - Digital Humanities Caucus.

 

"Turning Black History Month on its head, Matthew Delmont insists that black life is not and cannot be limited to big events, past greats, or historical study in specified time slots. Distinctive and unique, Black Quotidian provides students an opportunity to examine the nuances and complexities of black life inside and outside the classroom."

—Nishani Frazier, Miami University

 

Black Quotidian explores everyday lives of African Americans in the twentieth century. Drawing on an archive of digitized African-American newspapers, Matthew F. Delmont guides readers through a wealth of primary resources that reveal how the Black press popularized African-American history and valued the lives of both famous and ordinary Black people. Claiming the right of Black people to experience and enjoy the mundane aspects of daily life has taken on a renewed resonance in the era of Black Lives Matter, an era marked by quotidian violence, fear, and mourning.

The Nuances of Data Colonialism

A Q&A with Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias

NICK COULDRY and ULISES A. MEJIAS

Free for commercial use. Via Pixabay

 

Earlier this month, Stanford University Press hosted an online discussion between Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias, authors of the recently released The Costs of Connection », and Safiya Umoja Noble, author of the bestselling Algorithms of Oppression. The Costs of Connection uncovers "data colonialism," and its designs for controlling our lives—our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation. Because attendees of the talk posed far more questions than could be answered in a short amount of time, we invited Nick and Ulises to continue the conversation here.

 

What do you think are the key/most concerning issues in the age of data colonisation and why?

At the core there are two issues. First, the capture of what in our book we call ‘the space of the subject,’ the basic protection from interference and monitoring that is essential to our integrity as individual selves. This affects all possible selves, even if detailed effects are, as we just said, deeply unequal. But then, second, there is data colonialism’s way of deepening and obscuring how inequality gets reproduced through automated algorithmic processing — the implications of this for social life in every country in the next decades will also be severe, all the more so, because much of that will be easy to hide from view.

 

Data colonialism might be free of violence, but only of the once applied in the former colonial times. I believe it is just a different time of physical violence, which is even more profitable. Digital platforms are clearly damaging brains, propelling sedentarism as well as social isolation. It is also pulling people into debt by promoting consumption in each website which in an more extreme way is pulling people into poverty, which in the long run shortens life expectation. Do you agree?

Absolutely. As we said in the webinar, the question of violence is complex. It would be wrong to even hint that the situation with data colonialism involves anything like the brutal and sustained physical violence that was at the core of historic colonialism. But for sure data colonialism is introducing a social order that relies on a lot of force and pressure. So if you are in a low-paid job, you won’t have the chance to negotiate whether or not you put on your phone the app that tells you where your next assignment is, even if it takes your data. When these sorts of pressures are overlaid with others (about debt, housing etc), then the net effect may well be physically violent. And then there’s the effect on people’s brains of their continued exposure to digital devices and the intense pressures this can bring, as noted in our last answer. Finally, there is the symbolic violence that lies at the core of how data colonialism categorises and orders everyday life. All of this is important to our reading of data colonialism, and justifies the statement, as you say, this is a time of a different type of violence, even if the apparent difference from the immediate brutality of historic colonialism must always be recognized.

Inequality and Poverty in China’s West

C. Patterson Giersch introduces his new book Corporate Conquests

C. PATTERSON GIERSCH

President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People 2016 by 美国之音. From Voice of America Chinese. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

 

It’s 2020, and Xi Jinping's promise to eradicate rural poverty comes due this year. By most accounts, China has achieved extraordinary success in poverty reduction over the last few decades, but it seems unlikely Xi, no matter what he claims, will fulfill his promise, even despite a frantic sprint to the finish.

One reason that Xi will fail is the difficulty in eradicating poverty among western ethnic minority communities. Despite efforts to implement economic development specially tailored to each region, the Communist Party acknowledges that many “ethnic minority regions are still lagging behind on the path to moderate prosperity.”[1] As of 2016, up to 48 percent of those who lived in poverty were in these regions, where, according to Arthur Holcombe, “top-down…policies to reduce poverty have been least effective.”[2] Throughout China, poverty alleviation has been hampered by inequality and an inability to promote inclusive growth,[3] but these problems are particularly acute in minority communities.

Why has inequality and poverty proven difficult to address in China’s vast and ethnically diverse West? The simplest answers point to geography, not ethnicity: Chinese citizens in rural, inland provinces tend to be poor no matter what their ethnicity.[4]

However, a more accurate answer lies in the intertwined histories, stretching over the past century, of Chinese economic development, nation-building, and ethnicity. If one understands these intertwined histories, then it becomes clear why the Chinese state’s extraordinary efforts since 2000 to ‘Develop the West’ have largely failed to be equitable or to inspire widespread loyalty to Beijing. Instead of equity and inclusiveness, researchers find increasing ‘marginalization’ among ethnic minorities, leading some influential Chinese academics to conclude that long-standing policies to promote political autonomy and social equality for minorities have failed.[5] At the highest levels of government, moreover, that conclusion is shared and has led to Xi Jinping’s brutish policies of subjugation through the internment of Uyghurs and others.[6]