‘There’s just places ya’ don’t wanna go’: the segregating impact of hate crime against Native Americans

Between 1999 and 2001, I interviewed or surveyed nearly 300 Native Americans in seven states, in an effort to uncover insights into the prevalence, dynamics, and local contexts of hate crime as experienced by Native Americans living in remote, rural reservations. One of the predominant themes that emerged revolved around one of the most damaging effects of the ongoing racial harassment and violence that threatens them on a daily basis. What I have observed is that hate crime has become an institutionalized mechanism for establishing boundaries, both social and physical. It reinforces historical patterns of withdrawal and isolation, in short, segregation. Through violence, the threat of violence, or even through the malevolent gaze, Native Americans are daily reminded that there are places in which they are not welcome. For too many American Indians, the perception, if not the reality of ‘what’s out there’ has its intended effect of keeping people in their place.     

Prospective lawyers’ rape stereotypes and schematic decision making about rape cases

Abstract

Two studies explored stereotypic information processing in rape cases by prospective lawyers in Germany. In Study 1, 451 undergraduate law students rated rape scenarios varying with respect to defendant–complainant relationship and coercive strategy (force versus exploitation of the complainant's alcohol-induced defencelessness). Acceptance of rape myths was also measured. Likelihood of defendant liability was rated to be lower when there was a prior relationship between the parties and when the defendant exploited the complainant's defencelessness as compared to when he used force (except in the ex-partner rapes where blame was higher in the alcohol-related than in the force-related cases). Complainant blame was higher when there was a prior relationship between the parties and was higher in the alcohol-related cases than in the force-related cases, except in the ex-partner rape where the pattern was reversed. Participants with high rape myth acceptance held the defendant less liable and blamed the complainant more, especially when the two had known each other. Study 2 largely replicated these findings with 129 postgraduate trainee lawyers and showed that sentencing recommendations also varied as a function of defendant–complainant relationship and coercive strategy. Providing participants with the legal definition of rape did not reduce reliance on rape stereotypes.     

Anatomy of a Riot: The Social Imaginary,Single Women,and Religious Violence in Niger

This article asks us to rethink the models that have conventionally represented the coming of Islam to Africa: that of a pre-established entity, given from the outside, coherent, monadic, unity, like an already formed identity. Using Lacanian challenges to conventional notions of identity, this article contests the above version of Islam, viewing it as an incarnation of the imago: always there, always obeying the logic of a model of transmission into Africa as a reception from abroad. The conventional representation of its irruption into Africa has always involved the misrecognition of an identity as a pre-existent, already-whole form, wait ing to be born, presumably in complete unity. What this model ignores is that the language and form of what it came to recognize and name as Islam were already there, and that the Islam that formed its newlyconscious sense of self was grounded in the same act of misrecognition as characterizes the mirror stage, that is, the stage at which the subject comes to state: “This is who I am.” In order to rethink the identitarian model, this article evokes the figure of the dead father, the “McGuffin” on which turns the drama of Hampaté Ba’s Wangrin and Sembène Ousmane’s Faat Kine. In both works, the act of exhuming the father’s body takes on a degree of fantastical importance because it situates the struggle between two competing mirror stage tendencies: narcissism and aggression, tendencies around which all forms of subject-identity formation take place.     

Standard of Living and Disability in Cambodia

Little is known about the extra costs faced by households with disabled members in low resource settings and the impact of these costs on living standards. In this paper we estimate the direct cost associated with disability for households in Cambodia. Using the Standard of Living approach, the direct cost associated with having a member with disabilities is estimated to be 19 per cent of monthly household consumption expenditure. Accounting for the direct cost of disability doubles the poverty rate amongst households with disabled members from 18 per cent to 37 per cent, and increases the poverty gap from 3 to 8 per cent. A comparison of the direct cost associated with disability and income support received from government and family sources reveals that only 7 per cent of the costs of disability are met. Our findings suggest that, in the absence of increased coverage of public income support, households with disabled members will continue to experience a lower standard of living compared to households without disability in Cambodia.     

Using job evaluation to achieve pay equity

Job evaluation has become linked to debates over comparable worth. Proponents of pay equity complain that job evaluation is often biased against predominantly female jobs. Nonetheless, job evaluation is proposed as a tool to achieve more equitable pay for predominantly female jobs. We discuss ways in which conventionally used job evaluation plans incorporate sex bias and how these biases may be minimized. We conclude that, when care is taken to avoid sex bias, job evaluation is the best available tool to achieve pay equity. We predict that its use will grow, particularly in the public sector.     

An examination of gender and age in print media accounts of child abductions

Previous research has suggested that the print media over-report on certain demographics of abducted children. Specifically, cases where the abduction victim is younger or the abduction victim is female are most often covered. The purpose of the current study was to systematically examine, through the research technique of content analysis, whether a lack of congruency exists between newspaper articles detailing child abduction victims and empirical data of the same. Newspaper articles were collected from LexisNexis Academic, and empirical data were drawn from the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. The results revealed that gender and age play only a minor role in deciding which abduction incidents are covered by newspapers, as well as the extent to which they are reported on. Specifically, newspapers dedicated more words to female victims than male victims and reported more on younger children (aged 11 and under) than older children (aged 12 and over) when they were the victim of a nonfamily abduction. It appears, however, that in all other types of abduction cases, newspapers are reporting a rather factual depiction of the demographics of victims. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Understanding Strategic Planning and the Formulation and Implementation of Strategic Plans as a Way of Knowing: The Contributions of Actor-Network Theory

ABSTRACT

This article has two purposes: first, to take seriously the notion of strategic planning as a way of knowing, and second, to argue that actor-network theory provides a particularly apposite method for understanding whether and how strategic planning works in particular circumstances. Pursuit of these purposes also helps illuminate possible contributions of strategic planning to inclusive, participative, and democratic public management. The paper is illustrated with examples from the 1995 and 2007 strategic planning and subsequent implementation efforts of MetroGIS, an organization created to foster widespread sharing of geospatial information primarily among public organizatons serving the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota, USA, and further, to enhance their individual and collective effectiveness. The Metropolitan Council, the regional government, is the primary sponsor of MetroGIS, which is comprised of over 300 organizational partners across the region. Conclusions are offered about the importance of viewing and studying strategic planning as a way of knowing and as a potential vehicle for inclusive public management in a democratic society.

[A table featuring a complete timeline of the major MetroGIS accomplishments between 1995 and 2008; the controversies, participants, processes, technologies, and artifacts involved; and the outcomes or major consequences resulting from the accomplishment is included as an online supplement on the publisher's website.]