Thomas Malthus and maternal bodies politic: gender,race, and empire

Abstract

This essay explores the uneasy fit of representations of the Victorian monarchy and maternal metaphors of state with Malthusian doctrine and the debates over colonial initiatives and population pressures. Malthus's work on the principle of population authorized a potent mid-Victorian narrative which viewed the exalted body of the mother – and, by metaphoric homology, that of the state – as diseased, corrupt, and in imminent danger of putrefaction and decay. In Malthusian discourse, the colonies became the absolute sign of the pathology eating its way to the heart of the body politic. Malthusian discourse re-gendered the early nineteenth-century social body so that it became a silent, passive space upon which discursive expressions of the masculine could act. In the process, it also brought together troublesome conceptions of both race and gender to make a case for imperial progress and expansion     

A SECOND CHANCE FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES: A MODEL STATUTE TO REINSTATE PARENTAL RIGHTS AFTER TERMINATION

There are more than half a million children in foster care in the United States. Some of these children are adopted into loving families, but many are considered hard to adopt and never find a permanent family. Research suggests that the outlook for the teens who exit or age out of foster care without a permanent home or a meaningful adult relationship is bleak. They are more likely to face homelessness, joblessness, drug addiction, early pregnancy, mental health problems, and prison time. With such grim statistics, states should explore every possible permanent family resource for youth in foster care. This Note proposes that, in limited circumstances, it is in the best interest of the child to vacate a final order of termination and reinstate parental rights. It calls for states to adopt a model state statute based on the five state statutes currently in place that already allow for the reinstatement of parental rights.     

Forensic DNA against wildlife poaching: Identification of a serial wolf killing in Italy

The recent expansion of the Italian wolf population through the Apennine and western Alps, after centuries of contractions, is causing conflicts with human activities leading to a rise in poaching or illegal killings. Here we show how molecular population genetics has been used to identify a suspect serial wolf killer. We analysed DNA extracted from a necklace made of ten presumed wolf canine teeth, confiscated in 2008 to a man living in the northern Italian Apennine (Liguria Region). Individual genotypes were determined using 12 unlinked autosomal microsatellites (STRs), mtDNA control-region sequences, a male-specific ZFX/ZFY restriction-site and three Y-linked STRs. Results indicate that the teeth belonged to six different individuals (three males and three females), which were assigned to the Italian wolf population with p > 0.90 by Bayesian procedures. One of these genotypes matched with the genetic profile of a male wolf previously found-dead and already non-invasively sampled in the same area. Another genotype matched with that of a female wolf non-invasively sampled twice in the same area 1 year before. These data are being used as forensic genetic evidence in the ongoing criminal trial against the suspect serial wolf killer.     

Migrant life stories and the Web: the experience of having your life story made public

The life stories of migrants are increasingly being told, as part of the work of cultural organizations, and websites are well suited to making such life story projects accessible to the public. However, by using the lives of real people as raw material in a public forum, Web projects raise important questions about the terms on which participants are given a voice. This article focuses on a Danish website which depicts the life stories of migrant men through written texts, audio clips, and photographs. It presents a detailed analysis of the life story of one young man from a Muslim background who has openly declared himself an atheist. The article examines his experience of having this somewhat sensitive story made public. The religious aspect inevitably positioned his story in relation to broader political debates about Muslims in Denmark. Since migrants' stories often touch on highly politicized issues, it is crucial that their stories are not co-opted by societal discourses which they do not themselves support.     

‘Making Our Country Great Again’: The Politics of Subjectivity in an Age of National-Populism

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - How could we understand the emotive power of national-populist discourses, indeed the calls to...     

The Interenterprise Arrears Crisis in Russia

Two American economists discuss in considerable detail the critical problem of interenterprise arrears (overdue payments for goods and services) in Russia that undermines the transition to a market economy and privatization. The study is based on interviews involving directors of 32 industrial enterprises, managers of commercial banks, and Central Bank officials in Moscow, Novosibirsk and Sochi from May to mid-November 1992. In addition to analyzing the causes of the mounting accumulation of debt and highlighting the financial problems of enterprises coping with the crisis, the authors examine the anatomy of present-day banking and extension of credit to finance production in the former USSR. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P21, Ol7, G20.     

Roadblock to Economic Reform: Inter-Enterprise Debt and the Transition to Markets

Two American specialists on Soviet and East European economies examine the relationship between inter-enterprise payments for goods and services and economic reform in Russia. Based on extensive interviews with Russian governmental officials and enterprise directors, as well as unpublished documents, the authors trace and discuss the unsuccessful policies of the government and Central Bank of Russia to eliminate arrears during 1992-93. They also explain why financial underdevelopment poses a serious obstacle to economic reform, and why an effort to sharply tighten credit in 1993-94 could lead to cascading enterprise failures. The analysis includes references to the change after October 1993. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: P21, O17, G20.     

The contested nature of Afro-descendant quilombo land claims in Brazil

In Brazil, Afro-descendant quilombola communities were for the first time in history recognised as legal rights-holders to land in the 1988 constitution – 100 years after the abolition of slavery. Drawing on fieldwork in the quilombo Bombas in the state of São Paulo, and a review of relevant literature, this contribution explores the historical trajectory of the constitutional quilombo provision and how it has been translated into practice. Combining a discussion of the use of self-identification and the concepts of ‘regulation’, ‘force’, ‘market’ and ‘legitimation’ when analysing the dynamics of access and exclusion, we show how struggles over land are simultaneously enacted in controversies over the meanings of quilombola identity and its implications.