Utopia,Food Sovereignty,and Ethical Fashion: The Narrative Power of anti-GMO Campaigns

ABSTRACT

The idea of utopia has become pervasive in the age of everyday humanitarianism. Digital media communicate utopian ideas that allow people to “do good” for vulnerable others and the environment. At the same time, campaigns mobilize citizens by invoking apocalyptic images, such as genetically modified (GM) “monster” foods. This article looks at the construction of utopian and apocalyptic narratives in social movement campaigns and how they contribute to the construction of identities in the campaigns against GM food and Bt cotton, especially in India. Based on an analysis of campaign material, we show that “organic food” and “ethical cotton” products would be less successful without the concurrent use of apocalyptic narratives. Narratives that are more radical enabled the anti-GM food movement to mobilize large resistance. By contrast, a more inclusive narrative approach in the cotton/textile sector risks supporting interests that are detrimental to social justice and environmental protection.     

Citizen co‐production of cyber security: Self‐help,vigilantes, and cybercrime

Given the limited resources and capabilities of states to maintain cyber security, a variety of co‐production efforts have been made by individuals or by collectives, of varying degrees of organization and coordination. This article identifies different forms of citizen co‐production of cyber security and notes the risk of unintended consequences. Safeguards and principles are proposed in order to facilitate constructive citizen/netizen co‐production of cyber security. Although co‐production of security can contribute to social control, only those activities within the bounds of the law should be encouraged. Activities of private citizens/netizens that test the limits of legality should be closely circumscribed.     

Post-Pussy Riot: art and protest in Russia today

This article shows that resistance and a critical discourse continue in the arts, especially in visual art, in Russia under the present political conditions when free speech has been seriously circumscribed. When in May 2012 Vladimir Putin was reinstalled as president with a new authoritarian conservative agenda, it was expected that the situation for culture would change. This article addresses the question of whether a critical discourse survived in the arts under the new conditions. It presents the new political context for the arts, and provides examples of various artistic strategies of resistance/protest in Russian contemporary art by applying Jacques Ranciere’s concept of dissensus. The focus is on visual art, although references are also made to the world of theater. The first section presents the new official role given to culture and the new state cultural policy as components of a reactionary backlash against the reform policies under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, and describes conflicts around art and art productions that followed from the new state policy. A second section gives examples of dissensus in art today by presenting artworks by Piotr Pavlenskii, Arsenii Zhilyaev, Stas Shuripa, and Anna Titova.     

Does Russia need a general staff?

The institutional arrangements and mechanisms for preventing and managing conflicts will determine the future of European security and the balance of power in a wider Europe. Russian policy and Russia‐NATO relations are anaylsed within the context of the ongoing changes at Russia's southern periphery. The embryos of three distinct security systems are developing ‐ a Russia‐led, a NATO‐led and one led by the international community. The article suggests that instability in the southern periphery in the future will require security cooperation and a joint approach by Russia and NATO countries.     

Domestic politics,news media and humanitarian intervention: why France and Germany diverged over Libya

The European Union member states split over the military intervention in Libya with France, Germany and the UK voting differently in the United Nations Security Council. This article compares news media in France and Germany to better understand the foreign policy decisions of these key actors. Using a newspaper analysis of 334 articles, it shows that the German domestic debate started very late and was much less stable than the French debate. This supports arguments that Germany's decision-making was erratic. The analysis, however, also shows that the German debate was comprehensive and included an extensive discussion of the legitimacy of intervention. This fits in well with the traditional reluctance of German foreign policy elites to support military action.     

Sudden infant death syndrome: diagnostic practices and investigative policies, 2004

Using a 2004 population-based survey of all US medical examiner and coroner offices, we examined the characteristics of offices accepting an infant death case and calculated the percentage of offices that had death scene investigation or autopsy policies for the investigation of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID). We also calculated the percentage of offices that used and did not use sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) as a cause of death, and we compared differences in characteristics among those offices.Of medical examiner and coroner offices, 52% did not report an infant death in 2004. Of the 7957 infant deaths reported, 43% occurred in jurisdictions that experienced 1 or 2 infant deaths. Of the offices that used SIDS as a classification, 34% did not have policies for conducting death scene investigations and autopsies for SUID. At least 5% of offices that reported an infant death did not use SIDS as a cause of death classification. These findings have important implications for understanding recent trends in SIDS and SUID. Supporting the implementation of national standards for investigating and certifying infant deaths could provide guidelines for consistent practices in medical examiner and coroner offices.     

Male and Female Party Images in Sweden

This article is based on the 1991 Swedish Election Study and sets out to analyse gender differences in voting behaviour. To increase our understanding of the dynamics between the parties and women and men in the Swedish electorate, an analysis of gender-based "party images" is undertaken. Party images refer to policy orientations and the analysis thereof is empirically based on three sets of open-ended questions about the most dent issuer in the election. The main purpose is to investigate to what extent women and men who vote for the same party in an election. in their mind. have differing images of the party they cast their vote for. With large differences in party images it can be put into question if women and men vote for the "same" parties even if the party label is the same on the ballots they choose on election day. The results show that for the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party there was to a large extent an agreement between the male and female voters in their party images in the 1991 Swedish Election. This was also true for the Christian Democratic Party. Among women and men who voted for the other five parties analysed in the article, a larger degree of gender-based disagreements in the party images was found.     

engendering ‘race’ in calls for diasporic community in Sweden

The Asian Debt Crisis of 1997–2001 led to drastically higher levels of unemployment, resulting in enormous social anxiety and shock. For the first time in its history, South Korea's attention was forcibly drawn to homeless people. Both the new government of the first civilian president, Kim Dae Jung, and an emerging civil society began to pay unprecedented attention to homeless issues. In this new context, homelessness was constructed as a product of the economic crisis. However, although certain homeless men who fit the category of employability and rehabilitation were considered ‘deserving’, long-term street living people and homeless women were disregarded and further marginalized through specific gendered processes. In particular, homeless women were rendered invisible and considered ‘undeserving’ because they fell outside of normative gender expectations, including the idea that a woman's place was in the home, regardless of their ability or desire to work. Building upon ‘needs-talk’ analysis created by Nancy Fraser, this paper exposes the important role of gender norms in the making of a neoliberal welfare citizenship in South Korea, by arguing that the narratives of homeless policy administrators and shelter managers designated homeless women as ‘undeserving’ welfare citizens.