Post-disaster reconstruction: lessons from Nagapattinam district,India

As disaster losses continue to rise around the world, it has become increasingly important to understand the long-term outcomes of post-disaster recovery programmes. Often, disaster recovery projects have an abbreviated planning period, involve multiple NGOs, and lack long-term plans for evaluation. This article describes outcomes of the shelter reconstruction programme following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Nagapattinam, India. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected to assess the effect of the programme on housing, community infrastructure, and livelihoods. The study provides useful lessons for future reconstruction programmes and demonstrates the importance of evaluating post-disaster recovery programmes after projects end.     

Queer Contestations and the Future of a Critical “Queer” Criminology

It is intuitive to include critical criminologists in early conversations about “queering” criminology given that the paradigms and methods of critical criminology can be employed to challenge subordination and inequality in its several dimensions. The first part (and main focus) of this article problematizes this intuition, which is easy to accept at face value, by reflecting backwards and explaining how early influential critical criminological views perpetuated damaging stereotypes and representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people as sexual deviants. The second part reflects forward, and discusses the difficulties of carving a space in the discipline for critical queer perspectives. Drawing on critical and critical race theories, this article advocates a relational, intersectional approach to conceptualize sexual orientation and gender identity in criminological theory and research. This approach considers the connections among sexual orientation or gender identity and other differences (e.g., race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, gender, etc.) without assuming or attaching fixed meanings to those differences.     

The decline in sexual assaults in men's prisons in New South Wales: a "systems" approach

Male prison rape and sexual assaults remains a serious and sensitive issue in many countries. Human rights groups claim that sexual assaults among male prisoners have reached pandemic proportions and need to be stopped. Researchers for many years have studied the causes of male sexual assault in prison and offered numerous recommendations on its prevention. Few, however, have presented evidence for a decline in male prisoner sexual assaults and investigated the reasons for the decline. This article provides evidence from population-based surveys of a steady decrease in male prisoner sexual assaults in New South Wales (NSW) between 1996 and 2009. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with former and current inmates, and using a "systems" approach they discuss the complexity of sexual assaults in prison, incorporating a multiplicity of perspectives. In particular, they bring together different sources of data and discuss this in relation to changes in power structures and control in a modern prison, the attitudes of older and younger prisoners, the concept of "duty of care," introduction of prison drug programs, and prisoner attitudes toward gender and sexuality. In anthropology, the term "system" is used widely for describing sociocultural phenomena of a given society in a holistic manner without reducing the complexity of a given community.     

Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?

A novel and important issue in contemporary security policy is the impact of natural disasters on terrorism. Natural disasters can strain a society and its government, creating vulnerabilities which terrorist groups might exploit. Using a structured methodology and detailed data on terrorism, disasters, and other relevant controls for 167 countries between 1970 and 2007, we find a strong positive impact of disaster-related deaths on subsequent terrorism incidence and fatalities. Furthermore, the effects differ by disaster type and GDP per capita. The results consistently are significant and robust across a multitude of disaster and terrorism measures for a diverse set of model specifications.     

The evolution of informed consent

Informed consent and the changes in what is expected over the 21st century provide an instructive case study of the mutual influence on one another of medical law and medical ethics. Over the years we have moved from a doctor-centred standard to a patient-centred standard and from a one-size-fits-all patient-centred standard to a more individual requirement that engages with the needs of a particular patient It is unreasonable to expect those changes to be reflected in anything less than an extended conversation in which the health care professional gives out some version of what a reasonable patient would expect to hear from an informed health care professional and then responds to the patient's questions as informatively and helpfully as he or she can. It is therefore convenient to refer to spontaneous and responsive disclosure as a very concrete implementation of the health care professional-patient partnership that is contemporary health care and at the heart of health care ethics.     

“Unbounded Enthusiasm”:1 Australian Historians and the Outbreak of the Great War

There is a growing body of European scholarship revising the traditionally held view that the peoples of Europe greeted the war with boundless patriotic enthusiasm. Niall Ferguson, Jean-Jacques Becker and Jeffery Verhey in particular have argued that the “August Days” were more myth than reality. The outbreak of the war in Australia has not yet attracted similar attention. With few exceptions, Australian scholars writing about the opening days and weeks of the war have agreed that Australian popular reaction was dominated by overwhelming enthusiasm. This paper will explore the Australian historiography, since the 1930s, and assess the extent to which the “traditional” interpretation is in need of re-investigation.