Rural schools in China have long been in a state of underdevelopment. Studies have mainly addressed this issue from the perspective of rural–urban structural inequality, while neglecting the cultural processes that lead to inequality reproduction. Through the lens of cultural production, this study analyses qualitative data gathered in Gongshui county in central China, revealing how rural teachers and parents construct a negative perception of rural schools, evoked by devalued meanings associated with schools’ physical appearance, teaching staff characteristics and academic performance. Influenced by the discourse on rural inferiority, teachers and parents have cultivated a collective identity of becoming “less” rural and adopt strategies to disassociate themselves from rural education and community. Their cultural production of “bad” rural schools perpetuates and reinforces the underdevelopment of rural schools. This study draws attention to the cultural misconceptions surrounding rurality and the cultural processes by which educational inequalities are produced and reproduced in rural areas, both in China and globally.

Using new interpretations of oral traditions written in older documents, this article changes the origin of complex societies and larger kingdoms. Showing that the Kingdom of Kongo, presently believed to be the origin of large kingdoms actually achieved it status by conquering an existing kingdom, called Mpemba, the author reassigns both the date and origin point of kingdom level polities there. The author further points to new interpretations of documentary evidence to demonstrate that Mwene Muji and Kulembembe, located to the east and south of Kongo were also early large scale polities at a date as early as Kongo.

This paper provides a historiographical periodization of China’s Long 1980s (1978–1992) by conceptualizing its political and intellectual contexts and illustrating the reformism–conservatism dichotomy across key events throughout this period. The identification of China’s Long 1980s not only illuminates China’s policy trajectories and ideological landscape back then and ever since but also enriches the global scholarship of modernity, Marxism and 20th-century communist experiences.

Poetry played a unique role in disseminating anti-colonial thought and solidarity. I argue that the Anthology of Black Poetry in Portuguese (1958), and its circulation in Brazil, strengthen our understanding of this process. By tracing the production and circulation of this anthology as a cultural underground of decolonization, I demonstrate how its poetry articulated a grammar of blackness that resonated with the Brazilian, Thereza Santos. This grammar provided the foundation for Santos’s political solidarity with the African struggles for independence from Portugal. In the end, I reflect on the legacy and limits of poesia negra as a basis for solidarity.

The texts left behind by the Old Turks, who were ruled by various tribes and dynasties between AD 550 and 840, are found on different objects and spread across a wide area. These Old Turkic texts carry much valuable information about the Old Turks to the present day. Notably, the inscriptions of the khaganate consist of longer texts and serve as historical sources. Additionally, there is a much larger number of inscriptions consisting of shorter texts with various contents. Although it is understood that these texts were created by men, many references to women are encountered. In the inscriptions, the god Tengri is masculinised and associated with the khagan, while Umay, who was likely a goddess, is associated with the khagan’s wife, the khatun. It is observed that both the ruler and the ruler’s wife were chosen by the deity, and the power to rule was granted to them by the deity. Based on this, expressions related to women have been identified in the Turkic inscriptions found across a vast geography, the collected data have been presented, and they have been evaluated collectively. Along with the role of women in society, the reasons why queens were chosen by the deity have been explored.

Amid intensifying geopolitical competition and accelerating climate commitments, China’s rare earth elements (REE) sector has emerged as a strategic asset and a site of political contestation. While existing accounts emphasize China’s dominance through central control, this article develops the concept of “fractured extraction” to show how REE governance is mediated by uneven, multi-scalar negotiations among central authorities, provincial governments, municipal actors and firms. Drawing on historical analysis and provincial case studies from Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi and Sichuan, we argue that China’s REE governance is marked by cycles of alignment and divergence, where central mandates around environmental reform, industrial upgrading and resource consolidation are selectively implemented, reinterpreted or resisted by subnational actors pursuing local development goals. This dynamic reflects not fragmentation or coherence but fracture: a provisional, relational mode of governance that persists across China’s evolving extractive landscape. We identify four interrelated processes – innovation, upgrading, financialization and formalization – through which fractured extraction materializes to develop a framework for understanding the politics of green industrialization and strategic resource governance that foregrounds subnational actors and the contested nature of China’s low-carbon transition.

This paper examines the life trajectories, social contexts and living conditions of women of uncertain status in post-slavery, colonial-era Tabora, with a focus on those involved in the production and consumption of beer. It thereby searches insights into the aftermath of slavery in this region, particularly for women. It reflects on the persistent social unease surrounding slavery and its aftermath, and on the way it shapes and limits sources, arguing that a focus on post-slavery is nevertheless productive. Set in context, brewers’ life stories provide a vivid illustration of a competitive urban environment, the chances for self-emancipation that it offered, and the concomitant challenges and dangers. They thereby also enable fresh insight into the social history of alcohol and of urban women in colonial Africa. We find evidence of more successful brewing careers than existing studies would predict, but also of very stark vulnerability and persistent quests for safety in family networks. This spread of outcomes highlights the contingent nature of emancipation and the endlessly varied ways in which social constraints and personal motivations combined in individual lives.