摘要
亚洲水稻种植的历史通常被描述为一个日益集约化的故事,这是一个线性叙事,其中日益复杂的灌溉多作物系统支持了国家的崛起和经济的扩张。从这个角度来看,不太集约的水稻系统,如旱地丘陵水稻(swiddens)的轮垦,似乎是历史变化边缘的原始幸存者。然而几个世纪以来,它们一直与集约型系统并存,形成一幅庞杂无序的马赛克拼图,并一直延续到现在。如果我们不把这幅马赛克拼图看作是由一个个各自独立的单元组成的,而是将其视为一个融为一体的组合,那么亚洲各种水稻种植类型的长期共存或相互依存就讲得通了。要了解特定时间点任何单个元素的配置,我们需要分析塑造它的种种联系,以及它在区域甚至全球网络中的联动。无论是在精心灌溉的稻田还是山坡上的水浇地种植,东亚、东南亚和南亚的水稻生产和流通都将令人印象深刻的文明和偏远的小社区联系起来,并形成了一个个商业网络,而随着早期近代和近代世界经济的壮大,这些商业网络也均蒸蒸日上、欣欣向荣。
The history of Asian rice-farming is often told as a story of increasing intensification,a linear narrative in which increasingly sophisticated systems of irrigated multi-cropping supported the rise of states and the expansion of economies.From this perspective,less intensive rice-systems such as shifting cultivation of dryland hill-rice(swiddens) appear to be primitive survivors marginal to historical change.Yet they have persisted alongside intensive systems,in a sprawling mosaic,for many centuries and into the present.This long-term co-existence,or indeed interdependence,of rice-farming types in Asia makes sense if we think of the mosaic not as composed of separate units,but as an assemblage.To understand the configuration of any individual element at a specific point in time we need to analyse the connections that shaped it,its linkages in a regional or even global network.Whether grown in meticulously irrigated paddies or hillside swiddens,the production and circulation of rice across East,Southeast and South Asia linked impressive civilizations and tiny,remote communities alike into networks of commerce that steadily intensified as the early-modern and modern world economy gathered strength.
作者
李皓(译)
Francesca Bray(The School of Social and Political Science,University of Edinburgh,UK)
出处
《古今农业》
2024年第4期12-17,共6页
Ancient and Modern Agriculture
关键词
亚洲
大米
图景
Asian
Rice
Mosaics
作者简介
白馥兰(Francesca Bray,1948-),女,英国爱丁堡大学社会人类学教授,国际技术史学会前主席,英国皇家学院院士,主要从事技术及农业史研究;李皓(1973-),自由职业者,主要从事自然科学史、金融、商业等方面的翻译工作。
