The history of family and colonialism: Examples from Africa,Latin America,and the Caribbean

The historical study of the family started later in the “Third World” than in Europe and North America, and the link between colonialism and family structures in the colonized or formerly colonized countries has not been explored thoroughly. In this issue we have chosen examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean in part because the importance of people of African background in both continents provided a certain link. The main connection, though, was the fact that all examined cultures had to cope with Christian-European family norms and with the values of the colonizers. The aims, forms, and historical circumstances of the colonial situation were quite different in all the cases examined. When changing conditions made traditional kinship bonds less reliable or less workable, people turned to alternative institutions such as gynaegamy or gender groups. If there is one conclusion to be drawn from all the examined cases, it is that colonized societies had the ability to use a variety of family forms as they adjusted to new situations.     

American Indian Tribes: ``Not as Belonging to But as Existing Within'

This article is an extended analysis of the historyand anomalies in the doctrine of American Indiantribal sovereignty. I explain that America gainedindependence, but took Indian land and colonized thetribes just as it had been colonized under theBritish. It asserted sovereignty for itself, butsubordinated the once independent tribes with aparadoxical semi-sovereign status as `dependentdomestic nations', all of this justified by the racialand cultural otherness of Indians. Using a Lacanianperspective, I show that America was founded on a`wound' or inconsistency at the heart of itsideological and constitutional order. In order torectify the inconsistencies that the initial `wound'produces, the law and political order havecontinuously had to adopt fictions (legal and racial). American law and policy has never been able to settlethe ambiguous doctrine of Indian sovereignty. As aresult, the law circles round and round in trying todefine it, and asserting and denying it, all in anunsuccessful attempt to make the constitutional orderwhole. It cannot succeed, however, since the ultimatesolution is an American sovereignty which, like God,admits of no limitation.     

Regulation of Cohabitation, Changing Family Policies and Social Attitudes: A Discussion of Britain Within Europe

This article considers the differing legal and policy responses to the common trends of family restructuring away from marriage within Britain and Europe. Conceding that Europe is in the process of losing heterosexual marriage as a universal epicenter of family law at the very time when legal harmonization within Europe is being promoted, it goes on to explore the best way forward for regulating same- and different-sex cohabiting couples. It concludes that the legal response to these trends should be "de-moralized" but principled. A plurality of legal regulative structures to accommodate the now diverse family forms that are found within our less marriage-centric societies should be put in place providing at least some default protection for all families, yet allowing people to opt out and make their own arrangements.     

Dictatorship,democracy and corruption in Chile

The study of corruption in Chile suffers from the lack of a pre-existing body of academic research on which to draw for historical or contemporary analysis. This situation may be partially explained by several factors. Firstly, academic research tends to be reactive rather than proactive, in the sense that issues rarely become researched until they are either topical, or perceived to be problematic and significant. The configuration of historical circumstances in Chile has meant that corruption has been perceived to be considerably less widespread and less overt than in other parts of Latin America. For reasons which will be examined below, Chile is quite clearly not in the same league as Brazil, México or Venezuela in terms of corruption in the political system, and therefore the body of existing research has tended to focus on those cases where corruption is evident and more easily observable. Secondly, the lack of research material may also be partially explained by the nature of corruption in Chile. It undoubtably exists, but it has been characteristically low-key, assuming its own particular characteristics which have become known as corrupción a la chilena. Low-intensity corruption is undoubtedly more difficult to categorise, define and measure in comparison with flagrant abuses by individuals, sectors of society or ruling parties, and this may also be a contributory factor. A third factor may be that such low-intensity activities may become such an integral part of the political culture that they become accepted ways of the business of politics and therefore fail to even raise objections from public opinion. Only when the political environment changes do these issues become perceived as unacceptable. However, what is beyond dispute is that corruption has and does exist in Chile but it is influenced by the political culture of a particular period and by the political and social context.     

Three kinds of preindustrial household formation system in historical Eastern Europe: A challenge to spatial patterns of the European family

In their modelling and classificatory ventures western scholars have usually mistakenly included family forms in historical Eastern Europe by induction in well-established generalizations about Russian or Balkan populations. At the same time, well into the late 1990s, most of Eastern European historians have shown no interest in studying domestic groups in socio-historical perspective. This article attempts to restate that picture through a thorough analysis of an unprecedented collection of historical household data for the late eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largests political entities in Europe of that time. Through an application of a variety of methodologies three regional family patterns have been distinguished on the historical Polish territories, their main characteristics described and then juxtaposed against the major features of paradigmatic examples of the ‘Eastern European family type’. The results indicate that the existing models of household systems in preindustrial Europe are far too rigid to meet the diversity of residential patterns of the Eastern European serfs. Analysis of the data set on spatially, culturally and socioeconomically diverse regions has also facilitated a preliminary identification of the factors shaping these family systems. The data presented here suggests that the conventional wisdom regarding the institutional mechanisms of the Eastern European manorialism of the second serfdom as sufficient to create a homogenous pattern of family residence must be seriously questioned. In particular, what must be meticulously revised is a sweeping generalization still in practice that posits a functional link between coercive forms of labor control and complex household structures among peasant subjects.     

Perceived Distributive Fairness of EU Transfer Payments, Outcome Favorability, Identity, and EU-Tax Compliance

In a representative UK study (N = 1000) the link between distributive fairness perceptions, outcome favorability, identity, and tax compliance was researched in the context of European transfer payments. Results showed that both forms of tax compliance (i.e., individual and collective EU-tax compliance) were influenced by perceived distributive fairness judgments of EU transfer payments. Fairness itself was related to perceived outcome favorability (i.e., whether their own nation benefits from the EU in financial as well as socio-political terms). Additionally, national identifiers (i.e., people identifying with their own nation, but not with Europe) perceived EU membership as unbeneficial in financial as well as in socio-political terms and thus considered the transfer payments as less fair. Dual identifiers (i.e., people identifying with their own nation and with Europe) perceived the socio-political outcomes from EU membership as more beneficial and thus evaluated the transfer payments as fairer.     

Introduction: disability,partnership, and family across time and space

ABSTRACT

Notions of family life and romantic partnership, like notions of disability, have been culturally constructed and socially produced over historical time, and our understandings of these notions are being continually challenged and re-negotiated across time and space. Policies, institutions, and cultural practices across the globe have brought about changes to the construction of the family and to the rights and inclusion of disabled people in private and public life. This special issue brings together a collection of studies from different countries and time periods to explore the interplay between disability, romantic partnerships, and family life across the individual lifetime and between generations. With this interdisciplinary collection, we seek to merge disability research and research on family and partnerships through a life course lens. This offers unique insights and opportunities to interconnect historical and cultural location and changing social institutions with individual and family experiences. This introduction presents the eight studies in the collection and discusses them within a life course frame that views disabled people’s roles as partners, spouses, and members of a family. In so doing, it engages in an analysis of (dis)similarities concerning how family dynamics, romantic relationships, and disability have developed over time and in different spaces.     

Child Abuse,Social Support,and Social Functioning in African American Children

This study examined the relationship among child abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual), social support from friends and family, and social functioning in a sample of low-income African American children (N?=?152). With the exception of the association between sexual abuse and peer support, all of the correlations among study variables were significant. The relationship between child physical and emotional abuse and social functioning were mediated by both family and peer support; however, only family (not peer) support was a significant mediator in the sexual abuse-social functioning link. Additionally, there was no difference found in the strength of mediation via family support versus peer support. Results suggest that mental health professionals should inquire about and attempt to increase children’s levels of social support from family and peers when working with abused youth in order to promote healthy psychological and psychosocial outcomes.     

Family formation and everyday travel in Britain since c.1850

This paper focuses on the extent to which everyday travel behaviour in Britain changes in relation to family responsibilities, and examines how this has altered over the past century and a half. It is argued that prior to the mid-twentieth century changes in the family such as increased child-care responsibilities barely influenced the modes of transport used for everyday travel, but that increasingly in the later twentieth century people adjusted their travel behaviour during the family formation phases of the life cycle. In particular, parents of young children have become more car-dependent and less likely to walk or cycle. Data are drawn from two separate projects, one that collected travel life histories from the past half-century as context for research on cycling in later life, and one that uses personal diaries to reveal everyday mobility strategies of people in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is argued that the observed changes are due not only to increased access to a wide range of different transport forms, especially the motor car, but also to changes in societal perceptions of risk and norms of travel behaviour. In conclusion, it is suggested that more awareness of past travel behaviours could aid the development and implementation of more sustainable transport policies in the UK.     

河南省刑事案件司法精神病学鉴定案例的随访研究

目的研究司法精神病学鉴定后各方对结论及处理的看法及社会影响等随访因素。方法作者通过通信函调、电话随访和登门拜访等三种方法,用自编调查表对208例鉴定案例分别向委托机关、被鉴定人本人或家属、受害人本人或家属进行随访。结果被鉴定人受教育年限平均为4.84年,以30岁左右已婚男性农民居多。暴力犯罪(129例占83.77%)远较非暴力犯罪(25例占16.23%)为多,前者又尤以杀人(44例占28.57%)为最常见。本资料再鉴定率为2.93%。被鉴定人及其家属对34例无责任能力的处理意见认为恰当的占76.47%,对判为无罪释放的28例,认为处理恰当的占71.43%,认为不恰当的占10.7%。对就医者几乎全都满意,对判刑或关押的认为恰当与不恰当者各占43.18%。受害人目前现状为死亡7例,残废10例,恢复健康10例。被鉴定人及其家属的意见与司法机关认为案件引起的社会影响似乎无关。被司法机关无罪释放的41例(26.62%)被鉴定人中,再杀人2例(4.87%),放火2例(4.87%),盗窃2例(4.87%),回归社会后有破坏行为但尚未构成犯罪者3例(7.31%)。结论建议政府有关部门尽快建立违法犯罪精神病人的监管和医疗机构。     

The Association Between Work-Family Conflict and Job Burnout Among Correctional Staff: A Preliminary Study

Working in corrections can be a demanding career in which work-family conflict and job burnout are possible. This study examined the relationship of the different forms of work-family conflict (time-based conflict, strain-based conflict, behavior-based conflict, and family on work conflict) with job burnout. Multivariate analysis of survey results from 160 staff who worked at a private Midwestern correctional facility for youthful offenders indicated that strain-based conflict, behavior-based conflict, and family on work conflict all had positive associations with job burnout. Time-based conflict had a non-significant relationship with job burnout.     

Arresting Women: Pro-arrest Policies,Debates, and Developments

Police departments across North America have adopted pro-arrest policies in intimate partner violence (IPV) cases with the intent of constraining police discretion and providing better protection for IPV victims. It has been suggested that an unintended consequence of pro-arrest policies has been an increase in the number of women arrested for IPV when their behavior is defensive rather than aggressive. Concern about inappropriate arrests of women is particularly pronounced in cases of dual arrest. This study examines the arrests and court processing of 2,736 women in heterosexual relationships accused of IPV offences in Winnipeg, Canada. The characteristics of accused and court processing of dual and sole arrested women are examined. Dual arrested women are less likely to be prosecuted than sole arrested women. We explore whether an effective ‘primary aggressor’ policy can reduce dual arrests, which are the cases most likely to be dropped at the prosecution level.     

Does hypernatremia cause subdural hematoma in children?: two case reports and a meta-analysis of the literature

Hypernatremia has been causally linked with subdural hematoma (SDH), but more recently this has been called into question. Conversely, there is a well-established link between SDH and injury. We wish to examine the evidence base that hypernatremia in infants and young children causes SDH.We present 2 cases of children with severe hypernatremia whose intracranial contents were assessed by imaging in the first case and postmortem examination in the second. Neither demonstrated SDH. The first case was important as the hypernatremia was iatrogenic occurring in a controlled hospital environment.We also searched the literature from 1950 to 2007, collecting data on all reported cases of hypernatremia in children younger than 7 years whose intracranial contents were examined by imaging, surgery, and/or postmortem examination. Of 124 cases reported in 31 articles, 112 cases developed hypernatremia in the community, and 12 in the hospital. Subdural hematoma was demonstrated in 7 cases, all of which had developed hypernatremia in the community under circumstances that would make it difficult to exclude nonaccidental injury. None of the 12 cases that developed hypernatremia in a controlled hospital environment had SDH.The evidence base supporting the hypothesis that hypernatremia causes SDH is poor, depending on isolated reports with uncertain histories.     

Domestic revolution and cultural formation in nineteenth-century ontario,canada

Postwar consensus theory ensured that a middle-class cultural order was fated in North America. Its abandonment encouraged alternative perspectives, including close historical studies of the rise of the urban middle class family through the mid-nineteenth century. These studies located the core of middle-class formation in a virtual domestic revolution, among other changes. A review of recent, diverse evidence, focused on nineteenth-century Ontario, suggests alternatively that in some places the roots of the twentieth-century hegemony of middle-class family culture are more widespread, and are more deeply buried in the last century than current theory and research allows.     

Access to treatment as a right to life and health

In some countries in Latin America, in the absence of leadership from governments, activists have had to resort to the courts to obtain access to HIV/AIDS treatments for people with HIV/AIDS. In his presentation to the XIII International AIDS Conference (abstract TuOrE458), Edgar Carrasco, of Acción Ciudadana Contra el Sida (ACCSI), discusses the process that was followed in Venezuela. The presentation describes the very limited access people with HIV/AIDS had to antiretroviral therapies and treatments for opportunistic infections under Venezuela's health and social security systems. It provides details of lawsuits that were launched on behalf of several individuals living with HIV/AIDS, and that resulted in the courts ordering the government to provide treatments for these individuals and, eventually, for all people with HIV/AIDS in Venezuela. The presentation concludes that recourse to the courts is a useful tool for activists and that civil actions launched on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS can serve as an example for people with other chronic diseases.     

Domestic revolution and cultural formation in nineteenth-century ontario, canada

Postwar consensus theory ensured that a middle-class cultural order was fated in North America. Its abandonment encouraged alternative perspectives, including close historical studies of the rise of the urban middle class family through the mid-nineteenth century. These studies located the core of middle-class formation in a virtual domestic revolution, among other changes. A review of recent, diverse evidence, focused on nineteenth-century Ontario, suggests alternatively that in some places the roots of the twentieth-century hegemony of middle-class family culture are more widespread, and are more deeply buried in the last century than current theory and research allows.     

Relationships between the deinstitutionalization of healthcare for patients with mental disorder, substance abuse, and isolated death

Isolated death (ID) (i.e., dying alone without anyone noticing for several days) has been suggested to be related to social isolation, mental disorder, and alcohol and/or drug abuse. A major transfer of patients with a mental disorder and/or alcohol and/or drug abuse from institutionalized care to treatment as outpatients has been enacted in Sweden during the past decade. On the basis of the assumption that such deinstitutionalization is likely to result in increased social isolation, our working hypothesis was that the incidence of ID among patients belonging to these categories has increased in Sweden. The present study involved all deaths subjected to a medicolegal examination in Stockholm County (with a population of approximately 1.9 million people) during the period 1992-2000. The pattern of ID (defined as cases involving a postmortem delay between death and discovery of at least 1 week), as well as the incidence of fatalities subjected to medicolegal examination with a record of mental disorder and/or alcohol and/or drug abuse was evaluated. Throughout this period, the proportion of the deceased with a record of a mental disorder was high among all the cases examined and higher still among the cases of ID, especially among those younger than 65 years of age. There was a rather limited increase in the incidence of ID and a much more pronounced increase in the number of former psychiatric patients whose deaths were subjected to medicolegal examination, but did not satisfy the criteria for ID. A record of alcohol and/or drug abuse was more common than a diagnosis of mental disorder among both the males and females who died at an age of less than 65, with a clear difference between the cases of ID and non-ID in the case of men. There was no significant increase in incidence over the course of this study. Thus, this study reveals a slight increase in the number of IDs and a more pronounced increase in the number of medicolegal examination of non-IDs of individuals with a record of a mental disorder.     

Between patterns and processes: Measuring labor markets and family strategies in Flanders, 1750–1990

Although the relationship between “internal” household strategies and “external” constraints has received much attention in recent family history, the debate about the conceptualization of “historical time” and the measurement of the micro-macro-linkages is still in its infancy. The aim of this article is two-fold: (a) to emphasize the importance of recurrence in historical time, by tracing three periods of acceleration in the societal changes of the two last centuries, and (b) to test the possibilities of comparative statistics that link micro-patterns and macro-processes. The exercise is applied to two rural regions and one urban area in Flanders.     

The patriarchy index: a comparative study of power relations across historical Europe

This article stands at the confluence of three streams of historical social science analysis: the sociological study of power relations within the family, the regional demography of historical Europe, and the study of spatial patterning of historical family forms in Europe. It is a first exercise in the design and application of a new ‘master variable’ for cross-cultural studies of family organization and relations. This indexed composite measure, which the authors call the Index of Patriarchy, incorporates a range of variables related to familial behaviour, including nuptiality and age at marriage, living arrangements, post-marital residence, power relations within domestic groups, the position of the aged, and the sex of the offspring. The index combines all these items, with each being given equal weight in the calculation of the final score, which represents the varying degrees of sex- and age-related social inequality (‘patriarchal bias’) in different societal and familial settings. In order to explore the comparative advantages of the index, the authors use information from census and census-like microdata for 91 regions of historical Europe covering more than 700,000 individuals living in 143,000 domestic groups, from the Atlantic to the Urals. The index allows the authors to identify regions with different degrees of patriarchy within a single country, across the regions of a single country, or across and within many broader zones of historical Europe. The unprecedented patterning of the many elements of power relations and agency contained in the index generates new ways of accounting for both the geographies and the histories of family organization across the European landmass.     

Violence,Guns, and Suicide in New Orleans: Results from a Qualitative Study of Recent Suicide Decedents

Many Americans own guns to protect themselves against other people, but there is evidence that both victimization and gun access increase suicide risk. We conducted qualitative interviews with informants of 17 suicide cases in New Orleans of the 60 who died between January 2015 and April 2016 to understand the relationship between past trauma, gun access and storage, and suicide. Nine cases had experienced a past trauma, including three who had recently had a family member killed by homicide. Eight died via firearm; of those, seven owned the guns they used to take their lives and stored them locked (but loaded) at home or in their cars. Preventing community violence and addressing its sequelae may be important for reducing suicides. A multi‐pronged strategy consisting of policies, education, and marketing will likely be needed to address the risk of suicide conferred by gun access.