Chick lit politics in a post-truth era: tricksters,blessees and postfeminist girlpower in Angela Makholwa’s The Blessed Girl

The possibility of an emancipated politics in chick lit novels remains a contested question among postfeminist critics. Drawing on definitions of postfeminism as a transnational sensibility, this article examines South African chick lit in relation to what has been termed post-truth or trickster politics in the context of the rise of politicians, such as Donald Trump. I read Angela Makholwa’s novel The Blessed Girl as an example of African chick lit that features a blessee narrator, a young woman who lives a luxurious lifestyle financed by older men, who is deeply influenced by a Trumpian mode of self-making. By employing a trickster aesthetic and narrative strategies, such as unreliable narration and reader address, the novel, I argue, however also unsettles established parameters of neoliberal girlpower, moving beyond its assumed anti-politicalness, as well as a simple understanding of the blessee figure through either a lens of victimhood or amorality.     

The limits of agency: Emily Hobhouse’s international activism and the politics of suffering

Abstract

This article pieces together the activism of the British welfare worker and feminist-pacifist Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926) during two largely unrecorded episodes of transnational activism: firstly, her ministry of Cornish miners in Virginia, Minnesota, in the United States; and secondly, her interventions during the period of reconstruction following the South African War (1899–1902). The article endeavors to contextualize Hobhouse’s activism and offer a broader understanding of the limitations and restraints on her actions. Ultimately, her activism required a platform that was in the gift of political actors and establishment figures, and dependent on fluctuations within specific political and bureaucratic situations. Based on close inspection of undocumented material in both South African and British archives, the article investigates Hobhouse’s repertoire of missionary and philanthropic roles within a wider context of humanitarian politics. It demonstrates how women’s activism and their behind-the-scenes politicking informed political decision-making in modern imperial and international affairs.     

Dental hygiene students' matching accuracy when comparing antemortem dental radiographs and oral photographs to simulated postmortem WinID3® odontograms

Matching dental antemortem (AM) and postmortem (PM) data for human identification is especially challenging when the workforce is limited. Dental hygienists have served mass fatality incidents (MFIs) due to dental-related expertise. However, forensics within dental hygiene education and research on transferable skills is limited. This qualitative balance design study assessed senior dental hygiene students' match accuracy of simulated cases varying in dental identifiers based on AM full mouth series (FMS) radiographs and oral photographs to PM WinID3^® odontograms to demonstrate possible disaster victim identification (DVI) transferable skills gained during formal education. A convenience sample of senior dental hygiene students (n = 31) was presented information on WinID3^® interpretation, then presented with 5 mismatched cases and asked to visually interpret each to make 10 total matches; five based on AM FMS with simulated PM WinID3^® odontograms and five based on AM photographs with PM WinID3^® odontograms. Match accuracy scores ranged from 41.9% to 58.1% for cases with 1–10 identifiers, and 77.4% to 93.5% for cases with 11–40 identifiers. Accuracy when matching AM radiographs to PM odontograms versus AM photographs to PM odontograms was compared and revealed no statistical differences in match accuracy depending on image type (p = 0.388 to 1.000). Results of this pilot study suggests transferable match accuracy skills resulted from the participants' dental hygiene formal education. These baseline skills with additional specialized training support the rationale for dental hygienists serving on DVI teams. More research is needed in education and practice when preparing dental hygienists for forensic-based service.     

Compounds identified in an illicit generic Xanax tablet are the result of a failed synthesis of alprazolam

Unintended compounds produced by inexperienced clandestine chemists may present a challenge in laboratories tasked with their identification. In March 2020, an anonymously submitted tablet purchased as a generic form of Xanax was analyzed by Erowid's DrugsData.org . The gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) results publicly released online indicated several unidentified compounds due to a lack of database references at that time. Elucidation by our group indicated the presence of several structurally related compounds that were linked to a failed synthesis of alprazolam. For this case study, a published procedure for the synthesis of alprazolam starting with the chloroacetylation of 2-amino-5-chlorobenzophenone was identified as a potential source of this failure. The procedure was reproduced to identify pitfalls of the methodology and examine its possible link to the illicit tablet. Reaction outcomes were analyzed via GC–MS and compared to the tablet submission data. The major compound in this submission, N-(2-benzoyl-4-chlorophenyl)-2-chloroacetamide, along with several related byproducts were successfully reproduced indicating that the tablet contents potentially stem from a failure to synthesize alprazolam.     

Organic impurity profiling of fentanyl samples associated with recent clandestine laboratory methods

Nearly a decade ago, fentanyl reappeared in the United States illicit drug market. In the years since, overdose deaths have continued to rise as well as the amount of fentanyl seized by law enforcement agencies. Research surrounding fentanyl production has been beneficial to regulatory actions and understanding illicit fentanyl production. In 2017, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) began collecting seized fentanyl samples from throughout the United States to track purity, adulteration trends, and synthetic impurity profiles for intelligence purposes. The appearance of a specific organic impurity, phenethyl-4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine (phenethyl-4-ANPP) indicates a shift in fentanyl production from the traditional Siegfried and Janssen routes to the Gupta-patent route. Through a collaboration between the DEA and the US Army's Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center (DEVCOM CBC), the synthesis of fentanyl was investigated via six synthetic routes, and the impurity profiles were compared to those of seized samples. The synthetic impurity phenethyl-4-ANPP was reliably observed in the Gupta-patent route published in 2013, and its structure was confirmed through isolation and structure elucidation. Organic impurity profiling results for illicit fentanyl samples seized in late 2021 have indicated yet another change in processing with the appearance of the impurity ethyl-4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine (ethyl-4-ANPP). Through altering reagents traditionally used in the Gupta-patent route, the formation of this impurity was determined to occur through a modification of the route as originally described in the Gupta patent.     

What Does ‘Collaboration’ Without Government Look Like? The Network Qualities of an Emerging Partnership

Cross‐sectoral partnerships are increasingly common in Australian human service delivery. Yet research has not often focused on partnerships where private actors broker an arrangement to address complex community needs. Using a combination of interviews, focus groups, and social network analysis (SNA), this paper investigates the network qualities of a nascent partnership between a not for profit (NFP) service provider and a major retail water company that seeks to address financial hardship. Ultimately, we assess whether this represents genuine collaboration or another form of joint action. We find that the privately steered partnership generates instrumental benefits characteristic of cross‐sectoral arrangements, as well as challenges. SNA reveals a very high degree of connection between the partner organisations, but the results suggest that the partnership is coordinative rather than collaborative. We also find that this is leading to tacit organisational and institutional modifications as the NFP assumes a ‘market facing’ posture and adjusts to the demands of working with private sector partners. However, at this early stage of development, the level of systemic adjustment between both organisations remains incomplete.     

Children’s Exposure to Partner Violence in Homes Where Men Seek Help for Partner Violence Victimization

In the last several decades, the field of family violence has paid increasing attention to children’s exposure to partner violence (CEPV). Most of this research has focused on the children of women seeking help for partner violence (PV) victimization. In this paper we examine exposure to PV among children of men who sought help for PV victimization (n?=?408), as compared with children of men in a population-based sample (n?=?666). We examined children’s exposure to psychological, physical, and sexual PV and also examined CEPV that is perpetrated by women, men, or both partners. The results show that CEPV is higher among children of helpseeking men than among children of men from the population-based sample, and that most of that PV is perpetrated by the female partner. We did not find differences in CEPV based in child age or gender. We discuss implications for the field of family violence professionals.     

Training in the Strategic Use of Evidence technique: Improving deception detection accuracy of American law enforcement officers

The Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) approach is a framework for planning and executing suspect interviews with the aim of facilitating judgments of truth and deception. US law enforcement officers (N = 59) either received training in the SUE approach or did not. Each officer interviewed a mock suspect (N = 59) who had either committed a simulated security breach or had completed a benign task. The officers who received SUE training interviewed in line with the training: They questioned the suspect systematically, withheld the evidence and critical case information until after questioning, and relied on statement-evidence inconsistency to detect deceit. Consequently, SUE-trained interviewers achieved a higher deception detection accuracy rate (65%) compared to untrained interviewers (43%).