Search results for ""university of british columbia press""

David Neel was an infant when his father, a traditional Kwakiutl artist, returned to the ancestors, triggering a series of events that would separate David from his homeland and its rich cultural traditions for twenty-five years. Drawing on memories, legends, and his own art and portrait photography, David Neel recounts his struggle to reconnect with his culture after decades of separation and a childhood marred by trauma and abuse. He returned to the Pacific Coast in 1987, where he apprenticed with master carvers from his father’s village.The art of his ancestors and the teachings of the people he met helped make up for the lost years and fuelled his creativity. His career as a multimedia artist also gave him the opportunity to meet and photograph leading artists, knowledgeable elders, and prominent people from around the world. The Way Home is an uplifting tale that affirms the healing power of returning home. It is also a testament to the strength of the human spirit to overcome great obstacles, and to the power and endurance of Indigenous culture and art.

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Steel is the mainstay of the world’s major industries. Worldsteel production has grown dramatically as countries industrialize andadd their own steel-producing capacity. China’s prodigiousexpansion of steel output increases the industry’s naturalvulnerability to oversupply and volatile prices. Big Steel explores how the integrated steel industry isadapting to trade and international competition. These arise from theindustry’s diffusion beyond its historical core in North Americaand Europe. To show how this occurred, Big Steel applies PaulKrugman’s Nobel-Prize-winning explanation of industrial locationand trade. The industry’s technology and economic structure, andthe pricing strategies available, produce fateful competition andincentives to consolidate internationally. Examining theindustry’s survival options, including close co-operation withits primary customers, the automakers, this book anticipates acosmopolitan future. It is a straightforward account of a complicatedprocess, and the development of a new phase in the global steelbusiness.

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Women’s environmental activism is often described in maternalist terms – as if motherhood and caring for the environment go hand in hand. While feminists celebrate this connection, women and all those who care for people and environments are facing increasing burdens and decreasing time for civic engagement.In Beyond Mothering Earth, MacGregor argues that celebrations of “earthcare” as women’s unique contribution to the search for sustainability often neglect to consider the importance of politics and citizenship in women’s lives. Drawing on interviews with women who juggle private caring with civic engagement in quality-of-life concerns, she proposes an alternative: a project of feminist ecological citizenship that affirms the practice of citizenship as an intrinsically valuable activity while recognizing the foundational aspects of caring labour and natural processes that allow its specificity to flourish.Beyond Mothering Earth provides an original and empirically grounded understanding of women’s involvement in quality-of-life activism and an analysis of citizenship that makes an important contribution to contemporary discussions of green politics, globalization, neoliberalism, and democratic justice. It will be of value to scholars and activists interested in the politics of environmental sustainability and the shifting meanings of citizenship in an increasingly vulnerable world.

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The BC treaty process was established in 1992 with the aim of resolving the outstanding land claims of First Nations in British Columbia. Two discourses have since become prominent within the treaty negotiations between First Nations and the governments of Canada and British Columbia. The first, a discourse of justice, asks how we can remedy the past injustices imposed on BC First Nations through the removal of their lands and forced assimilation. The second, a discourse of certainty, asks whether historical repair can occur in a manner that provides a better future for all British Columbians.In Between Justice and Certainty, Andrew Woolford examines the interplay between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal visions of justice and certainty in the first decade of the BC treaty process to determine whether there is a space between the two concepts in which modern treaties can be made.Using interviews, field research, and both archival and modern treaty documents, Woolford argues that the goal of certainty is overriding the demand for justice, and suggests that greater attention to justice is necessary if we are to initiate a process of reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in British Columbia.

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From award-winning journalist Sarah Cox comes the inspiring and astonishing story of the farmers and First Nations who stood up against the most expensive megaproject in BC history and the government-sanctioned bullying that propelled it forward.In 2010, the BC government announced its plan to build a third hydroelectric dam on the Peace River. Although Site C would flood land of great significance to First Nations and some of Canada’s best farmland, BC Hydro, Premier Gordon Campbell, and his successor, Christy Clark, insisted it was necessary to generate jobs and clean energy. In this powerful work, Cox reveals the true costs and hidden dangers of the project, as told to her by the local farmers, ranchers, and First Nations leaders who tried to stop the dam and the wholesale destruction of their valley in courts of law and the court of public opinion.This modern-day David-and-Goliath story, told in frank and moving prose, stands as a much-needed cautionary tale during an era when concerns about global warming have helped justify a renaissance of environmentally irresponsible hydro megaprojects around the world.

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Assumptions about the harmful nature of polygamy have left little room for debate, with monogamy coming to represent a hallmark of civil society, and polygamy the immoral alternative. Opponents have argued that polygamy is harmful to women, children, personal freedom, and even national values, and press for prosecution.Yet in this volume, eleven scholars ask whether this response is justified by examining, among other perspectives, the lived experiences of polygamous families. In essays that fearlessly explore difficult questions of love, choice, and dignity, these historians, legal scholars, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars, some of whom are personally connected to polygamous families, seek to complicate a conversation that is more often simplified.Thoughtful and persuasive, Polygamy’s Rights and Wrongs is both a close consideration of polygamy -- its historical place and its presence in contemporary society -- and a challenging reflection on the ways in which we value family and intimacy.

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In the 1970s, Hydro-Québec declared in a publicity campaign “We Are Hydro-Québécois.” The slogan symbolized the extent to which hydroelectric development in the North had come to both reflect and fuel French Canada’s aspirations. The slogan helped Quebecers relate to the province’s northern territory and to accept the exploitation of its resources.In Power from the North, Caroline Desbiens explores how this culture of hydroelectricity helped shape the landscape during the first phase of the James Bay hydroelectric project. Policy makers and citizens did not, she argues, view those who built the dams as mere workers – they saw them as pioneers in a previously uninhabited land now inscribed with the codes of culture and spectacle. This insightful work shows that if Quebec hopes to engage in truly sustainable resource development, all actors must bring an awareness of their cultural histories and visions of nature, North, and nation to the negotiating table.

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We all know what water is, and we often take it for granted. Because it seems so natural, we seldom question how we see water. But the spectre of a worldwide water crisis suggests that there might be something fundamentally wrong with the way we think about water. Jamie Linton dives into the history of the modern concept of water, that water can be stripped of its wider environmental, social, and cultural contexts and reduced to a scientific abstraction – to mere H20. This abstraction has given modern society licence to dam, divert, and manipulate water with impunity, giving rise to a growing suite of problems. Linton argues that part of the solution to the water crisis involves deliberately reinvesting water with social content.

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For decades the crown jewels of Japan’s postwar manufacturing industry, motorcycles remain one of Japan’s top exports. Japan’s Motorcycle Wars assesses the historical development and societal impact of the motorcycle industry, from the influence of motor sports on vehicle sales in the early 1900s to the postwar developments that led to the massive wave of motorization sweeping the Asia-Pacific region today.Jeffrey Alexander brings a wealth of information to light, providing English translations of transcripts, industry publications, and company histories that have until now been available only in Japanese. By exploring the industry as a whole, he reveals that Japan’s motorcycle industry was characterized not by communitarian success but by misplaced loyalties, technical disasters, and brutal competition.

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In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in Canada v. Bedford that key prostitution laws were unconstitutional. The decision provoked wide interest but little new insight into sex work.Red Light Labour addresses Canada’s new legal regime regulating sex work through the analysis of past and present policy approaches and consideration of how laws and those who uphold them have constructed, controlled, and criminalized sex workers, their clients, and their workspaces. This groundbreaking collection also offers nuanced interpretations of commercial sexual labour that foreground the personal perspectives of workers and activists. The contributors highlight the struggle for civic and social inclusion by considering sex workers’ advocacy tactics, successes, and challenges.Red Light Labour promotes social and economic justice within a sex-work-as-labour framework. This book is a timely intervention that showcases up-to-date legal, policy, and social analysis of sex work in Canada.

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Since the seventeenth century, Chinese, Japanese, Manchu, Russian, and other imperial forces have defied Manchuria’s unrelenting summers and unforgiving winters to fight for sovereignty over the natural resources of Northeast Asia. Until now, historians have focused on rivalries between the region’s imperial invaders. Empire and Environment in the Making of Manchuria examines the interplay of climate and competing economic and political interests in the region’s vibrant – and violent – cultural narrative. In this unique and compelling analysis of Manchuria’s environmental history, contributors demonstrate how geography shaped the region’s past. Families that settled this borderland reaped its riches while at the mercy of an unforgiving and hotly contested landscape. As China’s strength as a world leader continues to grow, this volume invites exploration of the indelible links between empire and environment – and shows how the geopolitical future of this global economic powerhouse is rooted in its past.

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In the mid-1910s, what historians call the "Golden Age ofChinese Capitalism" began, accompanied by a technologicaltransformation that included the drastic expansion of China’s"Gutenberg revolution." Gutenberg in Shanghaiexamines this process. It finds the origins of that revolution in thecountry’s printing industries of the late imperial period andanalyzes their subsequent development in the Republican era. This book, which relies on documents previously unavailable to bothWestern and Chinese researchers, demonstrates how Western technologyand evolving traditional values resulted in the birth of a unique formof print capitalism whose influence on Chinese culture was far-reachingand irreversible. Its conclusion contests scholarly arguments that viewChina’s technological development as slowed by culture, or thatinterpret Chinese modernity as mere cultural continuity. A vital reevaluation of Chinese modernity, Gutenberg inShanghai will be enthusiastically received by scholars of Chinesehistory and by specialists in cultural studies, political science,sociology, the history of the book, and the anthropology of science andtechnology.

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Common military education was the lifeblood of the armies, navies, and air forces of the British Empire. It permeated every aspect of the profession of arms and was an essential ingredient for success in both war and peace. Military Education and Empire is the first major scholarly work to address the role of military education in maintaining the empire throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bringing together the world’s top scholars on the subject, this book places distinct national narratives – Canadian, Australian, South African, British, and Indian – within a comparative context. The contributors examine military education within the British Empire as a generator of institutional knowledge, as a socializing agent, and as an enhancer of interoperability. This volume is the first to examine military education from a transnational perspective, which allows readers the opportunity to consider the connections between education and empire.

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Non-governmental organizations have increased dramatically in China since the 1970s, despite operating in a restrictive authoritarian environment. With labour migrants moving to the cities en masse in search of higher wages and better standards of living, the central and local states now permit migrant NGOs to deliver community services to workers in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Engaging a new conceptual framework, Jennifer Hsu reveals how NGOs are interacting with the layers and spaces of the state and navigating a complex web of government bodies, lending stability to, and forming mutually beneficial relationships with, the state. Interacting with the layers and spaces of the Chinese state, NGOs conduct and scale up their programs, while the state engages with NGOs as a means to remain relevant and further legitimize its own interests.

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In China, both opium and alcohol were used for centuries in the pursuit of health and leisure while simultaneously linked to personal and social decline. The impact of these substances is undeniable, and the role they have played in Chinese social, cultural, and economic history is extremely complex.In Intoxicating Manchuria, Norman Smith reveals how warlord rule, Japanese occupation, and political conflict affected local intoxicant industries. These industries flourished throughout the early twentieth century, even as a vigorous anti-intoxicant movement raged. Through the lens of popular Chinese media depictions of alcohol and opium, Smith analyzes how intoxicants and addiction were understood in this society, the role the Japanese occupation of Manchuria played in their portrayal, and the efforts made to reduce opium and alcohol consumption. This is the first English-language book-length study to focus on alcohol use in modern China and the first dealing with intoxicant restrictions in the region.

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“This text seeks to provide an introduction to issues of land use and the economic tools that are used to resolve land-use conflicts. In particular, tools of economic analysis are used to address allocation of land among alternative uses in such a way that the welfare of society is enhanced. Thus, the focus is on what is best for society and not what is best for an individual, a particular group of individuals, or a particular constituency. What this text seeks to provide is a balanced and just approach to decision-making concerning allocation of land.” – from the IntroductionLand Resource Economics and Sustainable Development has already been tested, in a slightly different format, on over 400 students in a number of upper-level undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses. It presents a pragmatic approach to the issues of land use and sustainable development, and breaks away from the narrow focus of most economics texts on resources as it takes into account current political and ecological concerns while at the same time providing readers with the essential economic tools for a rational discussion of land use conflicts.Land Resource Economics and Sustainable Development addresses a wide range of issues not covered in other economics texts. These include: soil erosion; wetlands preservation; global climatic change; urban/rural conflict; urban land use; range management; forest management; and public land management. The broad scope and practical perspective make Land Resource Economics and Sustainable Development useful to students, interdisciplinary researchers, and professional economists and managers working in the fields of economic development, the environment, agriculture, and forestry.Both U.S. and Canadian data are used throughout the text to illustrate the issues discussed in the book.

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The ancient region of Gandhara, with its prominent Buddhist heritage, has long fascinated scholars of art history, archaeology, and textual studies. Discoveries of inscriptions, text fragments, sites, and artworks in the last decade have added new pieces to the Gandharan puzzle, redefining how we understand the region and its cultural complexity.The essays in this volume reassess Gandharan Buddhism in light of these findings, utilizing a multidisciplinary approach that illuminates the complex historical and cultural dynamics of the region. By integrating archaeology, art history, numismatics, epigraphy, and textual sources, the contributors articulate the nature of Gandharan Buddhism and its practices, along with the significance of the relic tradition. Contributions by several giants in the field, including Shoshin Kuwayama, John Rosenfield, and the late Maurizio Taddei, set the geographical, historical, and archaeological parameters for the collection.The result is a productive interdisciplinary conversation on the enigmatic nature of Gandharan Buddhism that joins together a number of significant pieces in a complex cultural mosaic. It will appeal to a large and diverse readership, including those interested in the early Buddhist religious tradition of Asia and its art, as well as specialists in the study of South and Central Asian Buddhist art, archaeology, and texts.A Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book on Buddhism and Comparative Religion.

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This timely book is the first complete descriptive grammar of Lillooet, an indigenous Canadian language spoken in British Columbia, now threatened with extinction. The author discusses three major aspects of the language – sound system, word structure, and syntax – in great detail. The classical structuralism method of analysis, as developed in North America by Leonard Bloomfield and his followers, is used to look at every aspect of Lillooet in terms of its function and position within the whole structure of the language. Van Eijk explains terms and procedures in order to make the book accessible not only to the advanced linguist, but also to the undergraduate student with basic linguistic training. Written with great clarity, and well organized, the book is illustrated with copious examples drawn from many years of fieldwork in St’át’imc territory.A fully analysed and translated Lillooet text is included in an appendix to illustrate the grammatical patterns discussed in the main body. A second appendix has a conversion table comparing the standard Amerindian orthography used in the book with the practical orthography used in Lillooet-speaking communities.The Lillooet Language is an invaluable addition to other recent studies of neighbouring Salish languages such as Squamish, Halkomelem, Thompson, and Shuswap. It could be used both as a textbook for studies in the structure of a selected language, and as collateral reading for courses in phonology, morphology and syntax.

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In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the region of Liangshan in southwest China was plagued by violence. Indigenous Nuosu communities clashed with Han migrants, the Qing and Republican states, and local warlords. Large numbers of Nuosu and Han alike were kidnapped and killed in widespread patterns of captive taking. The first English-language history of Liangshan, A Frontier Made Lawless challenges the view that the persistent turmoil was the result of population pressures, opium production, and the growth of local paramilitary groups. Instead, Joseph Lawson argues that the conflict resulted from the lack of a common framework for dealing with property disputes, compounded by the repeated destabilization of the region by turmoil elsewhere in China. Drawing on a range of sources including court records, locals’ memoirs, regional government records and surveys, and Nuosu epic poetry, Lawson adds new insights and comparative perspectives to the study of conflict in Liangshan.

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In August 1917, the Canadian Corps captured Hill 70, a vital piece of ground just north of the French industrial town of Lens. The Canadians suffered some 5,400 casualties and defeated three days of determined German counter attacks. This spectacularly successful but shockingly costly battle was as innovative as Vimy, yet only a handful of Canadians have heard of it or of subsequent attempts to capture Lens, which resulted in nearly 3,300 more casualties. In Capturing Hill 70, leading military historians mark the centenary of this triumph by dissecting different facets of the battle, from planning and the conduct of operations to long-term repercussions and commemoration.This richly illustrated and thought-provoking book reinstates Hill 70 to its rightful place among the pantheon of battles that helped forge the reputation of the famed Canadian Corps during the First World War, and it sheds new light on the key role played by Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, who fought his first major action as commander of the Canadian Corps.

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In 1875, the Canadian government created a reserve for Icelandic immigrants on the southwest shore of Lake Winnipeg. Hoping for a better life in Canada, many of the New Iceland colonists found only hardship, disappointment, or death. Those who survived scurvy and smallpox faced crop failure, internal dissension, and severe flooding that nearly ended the project only six years after it had begun.This innovative book looks beyond the experiences of these Icelandic immigrants to understand the context into which their reserve fits within the history of settler colonialism. Ryan Eyford juxtaposes the Icelanders’ experiences with those of the Cree, Ojibwe, and Metis people they displaced. By analyzing themes such as race, land, health, and governance, he draws out the tensions that punctuated the process of colonization in western Canada and situates the region within the global history of colonialism.

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