Sexual harassment of women in athletics vs academia

Abstract

Sexual harassment at institutions of higher learning is not a new phenomenon but discussions of this problem in the sporting arena are still scarce. Many studies have focused on student-teacher relationships, few investigations have researched athlete-coach relationships, and hardly any have conducted comparative analyses. This study compares the perceptions and the experiences of sexual harassment of athletes and students. It is not a surprise that most harassing behaviors are extended from men towards women. Thus, this investigation analyses and compares female student/male teacher interactions with female athlete/male coach relations. The findings indicate that sexual harassment is slightly more prevalent in academia than in athletics. However, in order to guarantee a safe learning environment for all participants in both domains, it is necessary to formulate clear guidelines, to set up educational workshops and to implement intervention programs.     

Book reviews

Stuart M. Kaye. International Fisheries Management. Kluwer Law International, The Hague, Netherlands, 2001. 606 pp. (hard cover). $172.00

Rosalee Love. Reefscape, Joseph Henry Press, Washington D.C., 2001. 264 pp. (hard cover). $24.95

Olav Schram Stokke (ed.), Governing High Seas Fisheries: The Interplay of Global and Regional Regimes, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001. 365 pp. (hard cover). $95.00

Norman J. Vig and Michael E. Kraft (eds.). Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty‐First Century. 4th ed. Congressional Quarterly Press, Washington D.C., 2000. 416 pp. (paperback). $39.95

Joseph Franke and Teresa M. Telecky. Reptiles as Pets: An Examination of the Trade in Live Reptiles in the United States. The Humane Society of the United States, Washington D.C. 2001. 146 pp. (paperback). $10     

Accepting the Bargain? An Experimental Study of Political Rights, Economic Development and Support for Government in Rural China

All governments are dependent upon a degree of political support and legitimacy. Some authoritarian countries, like Singapore and China, have staked this legitimacy on an “authoritarian bargain” in which residents exchange their political rights for economic growth and development. However, this bargain is complicated in the Chinese countryside, where rural residents have been granted a key political right – the right to participate in the election of their local leadership. In this paper, we ask whether rural residents have accepted the authoritarian bargain, and base their political support solely on economic development, or whether rural residents also consider their political rights when evaluating government. Based on an experimental study conducted in rural China, we find that rural residents place equal importance on their political rights and economic development when assessing their support for government.     

The Mujahideen in Bosnia: the foreign fighter as cosmopolitan citizen and/or terrorist

This article explores the idea of the Mujahideen in Bosnia as ‘cosmopolitan citizens’. During the Balkan War in the early 1990s, these foreign fighters flocked to Bosnia in order to take up arms alongside those whom they understood to be their besieged Muslim brethren. Although this act of transborder mobilization can be framed as an act of cosmopolitan citizenship, the subsequent ‘problem’ of the Mujahideen in a post-9/11 context destabilized their original cosmopolitan act through a re-enactment of borders and the revocation of their (literal) citizenship. Within the larger post-9/11 narrative, where the Mujahideen must necessarily be understood as terrorists/potential terrorists, they are an interesting point of study in an examination of what can be seen as the sinister side of transnational citizenship, and they expose what Appadurai (A. Appadurai, 2006. Fear of small numbers: an essay on the geography of anger. Durham: Duke University Press.) calls our ‘fear of small numbers’. Particularly compelling is that the post-9/11 Mujahid is an unsympathetic figure, and is always already a questionable candidate for ‘citizenship’ as it is commonly understood. Furthermore, his (sic) original ‘cosmopolitan’ act suggests that, although the ‘cosmopolitan ideal’ is the achievement of a citizenship that transcends or escapes borders, the cosmopolitical must nevertheless be assigned value in order to be ethically intelligible.     

Hungry for Information: Public Attitudes Toward Food Nanotechnology and Labeling

What people think about food nanotechnology (nanofood) is under‐explored in the United States, especially outside of quantitative surveys. As such, we set out to examine public attitudes toward food nanotechnology in conversational, focus group settings in order to identify policy options for nanofood governance, and in particular, options for labeling. Through analysis of focus groups in six U.S. locations, we found that the vast majority of the participants wanted nanotechnology labels for all types of food products, and most were willing to pay a premium for labeling. Participants cited abilities to choose and avoid potential risk as the main purposes of nanofood labels. However, they recognized that labels alone do not provide much meaning and that information concerning food nanotechnology products needs to be sought and supplied beyond the label to enable informed choices. Additionally, willingness‐to‐use and risk–benefit perceptions varied according to the position and intended functions of the nanomaterials in food products.     

Making Land Rights Accessible: Social Movements and Political-Legal Innovation in the Rural Philippines

In recent years, rule of law and legal reform has grown to be a major concern of national governments, international financial institutions, development agencies and donor organisations. Part of this concern has focused on expanding access to justice for the poor. However, little effort has gone into understanding the role of justice sector institutions in shaping the opportunities and limits of redistributive justice. Little attention has been paid to the actual workings of obstacles entrenched within the justice sector to land reform, for example. Instead, pro-market scholars cite difficult legal problems as a reason to turn away from state-led land reform and toward market-oriented land policies. Yet as this paper shows, a closer look at the details of dynamics around land reform in the Philippines suggests that political-legal problems associated with implementation of the agrarian reform law can be overcome under certain conditions. It is argued that for rural poor claimants it is important to have access to a support structure for political-legal mobilisation, particularly an alternative ‘rights-advocacy’ outreach network, and also to adopt an integrated political-legal strategy. An integrated political-legal strategy is one that is capable of activating state agrarian reform law, exploiting independent state actors' pro-reform initiatives, and resisting the legal and extra-legal manoeuvres of anti-reform elites. However, such a strategy appears to have limits as well.     

Struggles for land and livelihood

Abstract

Scholars, policy practitioners, and political activists alike have had difficulty grappling with the complex dynamics that have unfolded over the past decade and a half in Philippine banana plantations in the context of the 1988 agrarian reform law. While some focus their attention exclusively on land redistribution issues, others concentrate on the modalities of contract farming and still others emphasize trade union issues — all to the neglect of underlying agrarian dynamics. Relatively few have attempted a more integrated examination of developments in this sector of the Philippine economy. The still-limited availability of studies of land-reform-related experiences in agribusiness plantations outside the Philippines further constrains our understanding of the issues arising in Philippine plantations. This article tries to build on and deepen previous attempts at understanding the complex and confusing dynamics involving the banana elite, the state, and various segments of organized farmworkers and to fill in an important gap in the literature, using an integrated, rights-based, and process-oriented historical-institutional approach. It cites two reasons for an unexpectedly contingent land reform process in commercial banana farms in the Philippines: (1) the surprisingly unsettled character of the prevailing political-legal institutional environment within which land and livelihood struggles are playing out, and (2) the diverse perceptions among farmworkers of the meaning and purpose of, and opportunity for, land reform.     

Raman Spectroscopy as a Simple,Rapid, Nondestructive Screening Test for Methamphetamine in Clandestine Laboratory Liquids

Raman spectroscopy has found increased use in the forensic controlled substances laboratory in recent years due to its rapid and nondestructive analysis capabilities. Here, Raman spectroscopy as a screening test for methamphetamine in clandestine laboratory liquid samples is discussed as a way to improve the efficiency of a laboratory by identifying the most probative samples for further workup among multiple samples submitted for analysis. Solutions of methamphetamine in ethanol, diethyl ether, and Coleman fuel were prepared in concentrations ranging from 0.5% to 10% w/v, and Raman spectra of each were collected. A concentration‐dependant Raman peak was observed at 1003 per cm in each solution in 4% w/v and greater solutions. Case samples were analyzed and also found to reliably contain this diagnostic peak when methamphetamine was present. The use of this diagnostic indicator can save the forensic controlled substances laboratory time and materials when analyzing clandestine laboratory liquid submissions.