THE SEXUAL SUBALTERN IN CONVERSATIONS “SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN”: LAW AND THE OLD POLITICS OF COLONIALISM

Ratna Kapur’s recent book entitled Erotic Justice proposes a new politics of postcolonialism whereby the sexual subaltern disrupts the normative principles of the universal, liberal, legal domain. Kapur traces legal strategies regarding censorship, sex-work, homosexuality, sexual harassment, trafficking and migration which travel a treacherous path, countering allegations of ‘unIndian’ and Western practice with cultural histories of ‘authentic’ sexual legitimacies, towards a new politics of desire. Kapur frames her analysis through postcolonial feminist theory as providing a tool for feminist struggle, yet distinct from and disruptive of a liberal project of global sisterhood. This review deeply values the role of the sexual subaltern which disrupts the tenets of a linear, progressive liberalism. Drawing upon Indian feminist and Western feminist perspectives, the review considers how the distinct position of the postcolonial sexual subaltern subject informs the generic role of law as a tool constructing relations of domination regarding gender, sexuality, caste, property and religion. Kapur observes that both the West and the Hindu Right have engaged with liberal legal principles. This engagement, I argue, exposes and informs law as a historical and contemporary tool of gendered legal colonialism, for sisters to disrupt across the Western and Eastern terrains.Review of Ratna Kapur’s Erotic Justice, Law and the New Politics of Postcolonialism, London: Glasshouse Press, 2005, 219 pp., ￡26, ISBN 1-90438-524-9     

Lawyers' Questioning: The Effect of Confusing Questions on Witness Confidence and Accuracy

The present study investigated the effect on witness confidence and accuracy of confusing questions often used by attorneys in court. Participants viewed a videotaped film and were individually questioned about the incident 1 week later. Half the participants were asked questions using six categories of confusing questions (negatives, double negatives, leading, multiple questions, complex syntax, and complex vocabulary); the remaining half were asked for the same information using simply phrased equivalents. Confusing questions reduced participant-witnesses' accuracy and suppressed confidence–accuracy relationships compared with the condition where simplified alternatives were asked. Witness performance was impaired by the fact that mock-witnesses rarely asked for a confusing question to be explained or qualified their answers. This experiment demonstrates the importance of ensuring that lawyers ask witnesses simple, clear, questions.     

On Correcting Biases in Self-Reports of Age at First Substance Use with Repeated Cross-Section Analysis

Household survey data on age at first use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana,and hard drugs can be biased due to sample selection and inaccuraterecall. One potential concern is attrition, whereby individuals who getinvolved with substance use at an early age become increasingly less likelyto be surveyed in successive years. A comparison of data from the NationalHousehold Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) with data from a longitudinal studysuggested that attrition might have caused substantially less bias thandid forward telescoping, the inflating of age at first useover time. The evidence of forward telescoping was particularly pronouncedwith respect to age at first use of alcohol. This paper presents a procedurefor correcting the distribution of age at first use for forward telescoping(but not attrition) by viewing a portion of the NHSDA data collected insuccessive years as constituting a cohort study. Results are presented fromapplying this procedure with NHSDA data collected from 1982 to 1995 forrespondents born 1968–1973. The findings suggest that preventionprograms need to be introduced at an earlier age than would be indicatedby uncorrected retrospective data. Other implications are alsohighlighted.