Dominant Discourses,Debates and Silences on Child Labour in Africa and Asia

Drawing on the relevant literature, this article explores key debates and controversies on child labour in the context of Africa and Asia. It first identifies and analyses three dominant discourses on child labour: 1) the work-free childhoods perspective; 2) the socio-cultural perspective; and 3) the political economy perspective. Against the backdrop of these discourses, the article goes on to critically examine aspects of child labour that are underrepresented in the literature and in international policy circles. It concludes by highlighting the importance of grounding children's gendered work within the complex material social practices of interconnected histories and geographies in which their livelihoods unfold.     

Dangerous Places and Nimble Fingers: Discourses of Gender Discrimination and Rights in Global Corporations

This paper considers how women's employment rights are being constructed in multinational corporations by examining three high-tech organizations—a U.S. company in Silicon Valley, its subsidiary in New Delhi, India, and a comparable local Indian company. It first describes the legal frameworks for addressing gender employment discrimination by state governments in India and the United States. Then it examines how these frameworks are appropriated and negotiated within the local contexts of the workplaces in the study. Finally, it reflects on recent transnational attempts to legislate and enforce women's employment rights in multinational corporations, specifically the challenges that such attempts face in light of the three case studies.     

Labour in Paradise: Gender,Class and Social Mobility in the Informal Tourism Economy of Urban Bali,Indonesia

Bali’s recent socio-economic transformation is mainly a result of rapid growth in mass-tourism, which, as a capitalist labour-intensive industry, represents a new regime of labour that reorganises, dislocates, and multiplies wage labour opportunities. ‘Localising globalisation’ through labour in tourism alters conditions for gaining a living wage; yet, it also produces new contestations of gender, caste and class. This article argues that the labour regime shift has produced a large informal economy that provides new paths for social mobility for low caste Bali-Hindus, whilst at the same time class, gender and caste inequalities interlock in the shaping of different labour trajectories.     

Globalising cities at the crossroads of migration: Puebla,Tijuana and Monterrey

This article is part of a larger project that focuses in part on the migration dynamics in large Mexican metropolitan areas or globalising cities. In particular, it develops a comparative analysis of the urbanised region of Puebla-Tlaxcala, the metropolis of Monterrey and Tijuana. All three metropolitan areas are important industrial centres that attract rural–urban as well as interstate migrations. Moreover, these urban centres are situated at routes used by migrants from Central and South America to get to the US. Yet, despite the increasing impact of migration(s) on urban areas, very little is known about its characteristics and municipal authorities have not identified inward or transmigration as issues of political importance. For our analysis we intend to map the different migrations through addressing the following question: How are migrations transforming the urban areas of Monterrey, Tijuana and Puebla-Tlaxcala and how are they inserted in and contributing to urban assemblages in these metropolitan zones? For this particular article we have chosen three distinct migratory groups to contrast: Germans in Puebla-Tlaxcala, Haitians in Tijuana and Indigenous populations in Monterrey.     

Citizen Participation in Governance Through Representation: Issue of Gender in East Asia

Abstract

In the modern age, although East Asia represents some of the most successful economies such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and (now) China, the level of political and administrative development in the region remains controversial. One of the major indicators of such politico‐administrative development is the extent of citizen participation in governance through various democratic means, including the formation and expression of public opinion, people's involvement in government decisions and deliberations, and direct representation of citizens in governing institutions. However, the direct representation of citizens is considered one of the most effective modes of participation in institutions such as legislature, cabinet, and bureaucracy. In this regard, although the representation of women in these governing institutions has gained global significance, it still remains relatively weak in most East Asian cases. This article evaluates the extent of such women's participation in governance through representation in East Asia, examines the major factors constraining this representation, and suggests remedial alternatives to improve the situation.     

Sex, Maids, and Export Processing: Risks and Reasons for Gendered Global Production Networks

Increasing numbers of women have become sex workers, maids, or employees in export production networks—all largely female sectors—to earn incomes in the restructured global economy. Many must migrate domestically and internationally. Women encounter many risks and much insecurity in these sectors: low wages, no benefits, long hours, harassment, health hazards, and lack of rights or legal recourse. By examining work in these three sectors simultaneously, we find that, as a result of globalization, economic restructuring, and crises, 1) women have increasingly been forced into such income-earning activities and 2) many governments have been pushed into strategies that foster these occupations.     

Talking Cop: Discourses of Change and Policing Identities

This paper presents empirical and theoretical analysis of the enactment of New Public Management (NPM) within the UK police service. It draws on empirical material gathered in a two-year study that explores the ways in which individual policing professionals have responded to, and received, the NPM discourse. Theoretically informed by a discursive approach to organizational analysis, the paper focuses on the new subject positions promoted within NPM that serve to challenge traditional understandings of policing organization and identities. The paper examines the implications of this for policies that promote community orientated policing (COP) and increased inter-agency partnership. The paper argues that the promotion of a more progressive form of policing, based on community orientation and equality principles, may struggle to gain legitimacy within the current performance regime that legitimizes a competitive masculine subjectivity, with its emphasis on crime fighting.     

Localising Globalisation: Gendered Transformations of Work in Emergent Economies

This introduction identifies central traits of the contemporary labour situation in emergent economies of the global South, and situates the articles for the special section within this broader context. The focus is on the ways changes in labour produce reconfigurations of gender and power relations, and on how local models of gender shape new forms of labour and emerging labour markets. The object of study is thus the complexities different forms of capitalist integration pose in specific socio-historical localities and moments where people’s ‘work membership’ in society is becoming actualised in new ways.     

Gender,Land and Sexuality: Exploring Connections

This article explores links between the issues of sexuality and gendered control over agricultural land. It discusses gendered land rights in several settings, concentrating particularly on agrarian and land reforms. I argue that land redistribution in the “household” model, discussed for Chile and Nicaragua, tends to entrench male household and agricultural control. In contrast, more collective forms, discussed for Vietnam, have displayed economic weaknesses but had potential to undercut such control by socialising women’s labour. Fears about and visions of female sexuality have much to do with backlashes against inclusion of women, either through allowing them membership of cooperatives and collectives or through granting rights such as joint titling to land. In sub-Saharan Africa, there currently exists much discussion of improving women’s control over agriculture and its products. These continue to meet opposition, despite female predominance in agriculture in the region. Thus, even though women work on the land in many societies, this does not give them any automatic “closeness” to nature or say within households. Control over women’s, especially wives’, labour within peasant households, is linked to the manner that their persons and their labour are bound up in this socio-economic form. The article also examines two feminist attempts to configure alternative agricultural forms: the case of a lesbian agricultural collective in the west of the USA and an Indian model of new female-centred households for single women. Heterosexuality as an institution and gender subordination more broadly, as the examples here indicate, have to do not only with sexual practices or identity but extend also to issues of labour and access to crucial resources.     

Nuclear terrorism: Threat,perception, and response in South Asia

Abstract

This paper seeks to answer the question: What should be done in South Asia in response to the dangers of nuclear blackmail and terrorism? The relevance of the recommendations of the Nuclear Control Institute's International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism is explored. The authors examine conventional terrorism in the context of increased nuclear activities and provide an overview of recent nuclear developments in the region. Policy recommendations are given, and specific proposals are made to counter the threats of nuclear blackmail and terrorism.     

Trade,Development, and Nonproliferation: Multilevel Counterterrorism in Central Asia

This article was presented in its original form in October 2005 at the Conference on Central Asian Security in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This article seeks to add to the discourse on counterterrorism by looking at the challenges posed by sub-state radicalism to development and regionalization. Specifically, adequate counterterror campaigns require addressing socioeconomic feeders of radicalism while simultaneously dealing with the threat of political violence itself. In terms of development, this means advocating increased trade volumes and export oriented growth while concurrently controlling for illicit trade (which often finances terrorist movements) and trade in strategic goods (which could serve to undermine the security of the state). The authors use the case study of Uzbekistan and Central Asian insecurity to illustrate the utility of customs modernization, border security, and export control legislation as integral components in wider counterterror campaigns. The study addresses circumstances specific to present day Central Asia but has wider implications in stymieing the relationship between “grey areas” and terrorist movements worldwide.     

Globalizing Time and Space: Temporal and Spatial Considerations in Discourses of Globalization

Globalization discourse is concerned with the effects of spatial change—changes in the shape, scale and extensity or social processes—and the effects of temporal change—particularly changes to, or away from, modernity. By drawing together both axes of change, globalization discourse suggests a way of navigating this tension. However, it is argued here that most globalization theories accord primacy to one of these axes, which results in them being conflated. As a result, globalization theories are often presented in highly systemic terms and downplay the diversity of social processes.     

Teacher Gender,Student Gender,and Primary School Achievement: Evidence from Ten Francophone African Countries

Using an exceptionally rich, standardised education assessment dataset comprising over 1800 primary schools and 31,000 grade six students from 10 francophone Western and Central African countries, this study analyses the relationship between teacher gender, student gender, and student achievement. Findings indicate that, for girls, being taught by a female teacher increases math and reading performance. For boys, however, teacher gender has no effect. Similar, but less strong effects are also found for subject appreciation. Moreover, traditional academic gender stereotypes remain prevalent among both male and female teachers. Our findings suggest that hiring more female teachers in the region can reduce educational gender gaps without hurting boys.     

Kindergarten killers: Morality,murder and the child soldier problem

The argument advanced refers to the problem of children serving as soldiers in various military or quasi-military groups around the world. It looks to international law for guidelines on how this situation might be brought to an end, examining legislation currently in force, and also why enforcement has proved to be problematical. Given the apparent inadequacies of legal instruments to prevent this type of issue occurring, this article takes a closer examination of the conditions that create underage combatants, together with analysis of the effects this has on the young people involved. In support of these observations, the text offers a real world look at the problem in Sierra Leone, a country that has suffered years of divisive internecine warfare featuring the extensive use of children in combat roles. In a postwar situation, the study includes analysis of the difficulties of rehabilitating Sierra Leonian children traumatised by combat experiences, which reflects on the larger dilemma of national reconciliation and peace building.