Managing elopement on the mobile phone: continuity and change in Woɗaaɓe te’egal marriage

Based on extended fieldwork among Ful?e Wo?aa?e in Niger and by analysing an ethnographic case, this paper discusses aspects of continuity and change in the practice of a culture-specific form of elopement marriage, called te’egal, in which a married woman leaves her husband to marry a man from another clan. The discussion focuses on two major aspects: (1) the extensive use of mobile phone communication in arranging and logistically managing elopement, and (2) the increasing police involvement in the settlement of te’egal cases. Mobile phone use in the context of elopement is interpreted as a modern means of achieving cultural ends. It acts as a catalyst, making elopement more dynamic. In the wider context of globalization and urbanity, however, this leads not simply to continuity but also to contradictions, as the moral and legal institutions of the state increasingly interfere with the normative framework of customary law.     

Xenophobia and violence in Germany 1990 to 2000

This article presents findings on the following themes: the spread of xenophobic attitudes in Europe; the change of xenophobic attitudes over time in Germany; xenophobic, rightwing extremist and anti‐Semitic crime in the 1990s; biographical backgrounds of xenophobic suspects; level of education and the fear of unemployment; the family risk factor — the lack of reliable and adequate nonviolent care; the saliency of prejudices and the readiness to carry out violent acts; the coincidence of economic fear and immigration. The findings lead to following conclusions: (1) Problems in family socialization can generate stronger prejudices and propensity to violence. (2) There is a cultural factor: the cognitive dissonance caused by the settlement of strangers is higher in smaller towns and villages than in urban areas. (3) More important, however, is the factor of disappointed economic aspirations, especially in East Germany. Xenophobic attitudes cumulate among groups who, because of their low qualifications, fear competition with immigrants for jobs, housing and welfare benefits and perceive government aid to the latter as ‘'unjust preferential treatment.’’     

Felder und Institutionen. Der soziologische Neo-Institutionalismus und die Perspektiven einer praxistheoretischen Institutionenanalyse

The rise of new institutionalism in American sociology and its quest for a theoretical foundation has improved attention to Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The article examines chances of a combination of new institutionalism and practice theory as well as prospects of a practice-theoretical analysis of institutions. With some exceptions, it is revealed that neither in theory nor in empirical research Bourdieu’s theory of practice is properly considered by new institutionalism. Nevertheless, fruitful connections between new institutionalism and practice theory are identified especially with regard to basic problems of institutional analysis: the ambiguity of the concept of rule and the delimitation of social institutions as a sociological object of research.     

Determination of cathinone,cathine and norephedrine in hair of Yemenite khat chewers

A sensitive and reproducible method for the quantitative determination of cathinone (CTN), norpseudoephedrine (NPE, cathine) and norephedrine (NE) from hair was developed. The compounds were extracted for 4 hours with phosphate buffer pH 2.0, followed by a standard solid phase extraction procedure on a mixed phase column, derivatization with heptafluorobutyric anhydride (HFBA) and GC-MS separation and quantification using D(3)-ephedrine (D(3)-E) and alpha-aminoacetophenone (AAP) as the internal standards. The diastereomers NPE and NE were satisfactorily separated. In the validation, the limits of detection and of quantification were determined at 0.03-0.08 ng/mg and 0.10-0.24 ng/mg, respectively and the interday standard deviation was between 10 and 15%. The method was applied to hair samples of 24 Yemenite khat chewers. All three compounds were detected in 23 of these cases. The concentrations ranged from 0.57 to 23.9 ng/mg for NPE, 0.19-25.0 ng/mg for NE and 0.11-22.7ng/mg for CTN. A highly significant correlation was found between the self-reported data about the khat consumption habits of the volunteers (4-56h chewing per week) and the concentrations of norephedrine and norpseudoephedrine in hair.     

Building a ‘culture of dialogue’ among stakeholders in North-West Russian oil extraction

This article analyses the development of relations between indigenous communities, oil companies and the state in Russia's Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO). Using first hand information from anthropological fieldwork and one co-author's own involvement in regional politics, we analyse efforts to establish stakeholder dialogue. We show that ‘collective agency’ is crucial to prepare the ground for trustful relations, whereas high personnel turnover within interest groups jeopardises initially promising initiatives. Lessons from this experience have relevance for similar analyses throughout Russia in those cases where consistent federal and regional legislation is not likely to be in place in the near future.     

Das System der Blankettverweisungen der 71 und 71a BNatSchG im Lichte des Bestimmtheitsgrundsatzes – Rechtliche Bestandsaufnahme und kritische Würdigung

Natur und Recht - Das BNatSchG ist seit seiner Einführung im Jahr 1976 wiederholt geändert worden. Mit nahezu jeder Änderung wurde das verwaltungsrechtlichen Regelungsregime...     

Medicolegal aspects of tornadic storms in Kansas, U.S.A.

Kansas is known for its fierce whether, including tornados in the spring and fall and blizzards in the winter. A recent series of tornados cut a path of destruction a mile wide for greater than 40 miles (64 km), killed 20 people, and caused several hundred casualities on the evening of April 26, 1991, in Tornado Alley, which runs from the northern border of Oklahoma through southern Kansas past Wichita toward Emporium, Kansas. The wind velocity was greater than 200 mph. Twenty people were killed, 17 of these in Andover, Kansas, a small town east of Wichita. Injuries caused by the tornados and the excellent emergency response and care provided by medical, law-enforcement, and volunteer personnel in the wake of the storms are described here.     

Japan's ikumen discourse: macro and micro perspectives on modern fatherhood

Ikumen is a buzzword that describes fathers who are actively involved in childrearing. This article focuses on the process in which the term ikumen and its meaning are diffused and investigates how soon-to-be fathers, themselves potential ikumen, view the ikumen discourse. Our endeavor is to grasp the transformation of father roles and the wider family in contemporary Japan through the public and individual engagement with the term ikumen. In this article, we combine macro and micro approaches to analyze ikumen as a discourse circulating in Japanese society and study the way in which the subjects of the discourse – soon-to-be fathers – view the ikumen discourse and interact with it. Utilizing an analysis of newspaper articles, we inquire into the process in which the concept ikumen became popular in Japan and the images that are affiliated with it. Through interviews, we then investigate how soon-to-be fathers as potential ikumen themselves perceive the term. Our results show the way in which an ikumen discourse emerged in Japan in opposition to the term kazoku sabisu, which since the 1970s describes the activities fathers engage in for the satisfaction of their families and fulfillment of social expectations. However, while the term is very popular in the media, the young families we interviewed see ikumen more skeptically. They both resist the popular discourse and adapt it into their construction of paternal identities through a differentiation between a strong versus a weak ikumen image.