The profitability of bonded labour: The gem‐cutting industry in rural South India

The system of debt bondage in the gem‐cutting industry of South India is considered. Evidence is examined from intensive field work in villages in Tamilnadu, and one large village in particular, which has been a major centre in the synthetic gem‐cutting industry for 70 years. It is argued, against various authors, that here bonded labour is not a pre‐capitalist relation of production. Rather, it is part of a dynamic, capitalist small‐scale industry that is rapidly expanding into global markets. Moreover, since 1990 a dramatic change is noted in part of the industry: the introduction of semiautomatic machinery, with which a new product (the American diamond) is made. This has led, inter alia, to the displacement of women workers. The profits earned by employers, the nature of relations between employers and workers, and especially the use of kinship ideology, and the relevant inter‐connections are explored.     

Security, Equality, and the Clash of Ideas: Sweden's Evolving Anti-Trafficking Policy

Seeking to explain the emergence of anti-trafficking initiatives, scholars have explored two sets of ideas??national security and gender equality??thought to shape policy. In this study, we examine whether such ideational influence accounts for Sweden's evolving anti-trafficking policy over the past decade. As powerful domestic ideas about gender inequality informed the adoption of an abolitionist prostitution policy in the 1990s, one would expect similar ideas to influence domestic responses to the related issue of cross-border trafficking. However, our case study shows that the policy area of trafficking has largely followed a different ideational path. Gendered ideas, periodically nested in a human rights discourse, have been salient in the public debate on trafficking in human beings, especially during the campaign to boycott the 2006 FIFA World Cup. However, they have exerted substantially less influence on Swedish legislative initiatives to combat trafficking, with security concerns still holding sway.     

Local Councillors: Between Local 'Government' and Local 'Governance'

With a two-dimensional concept of 'New Public Management' as its point of departure, the article points to the development of a specific Danish model of NPM at the local level of government. In the municipalities the market-oriented NPM dimension has been almost absent and the managerial dimension has been interpreted and translated into a 'governance'-oriented model that combines decentralized self- and user-governance from below with centralized goal-steering from above. This combined model institutes new governing roles including a new leadership role for elected councillors as central goal-steering decision and policy makers. Rather than strengthening the local councillors, the new leadership role has turned out to be problematic for the elected councillors. The problems inherent in the new institutional role as goal-steering decision makers are discussed and arguments are put forward in favour of a more 'governance' and less NPM and government-oriented role for elected councillors. What seems to be needed is another new role that stresses local councillors as co-governors and guardians of an inclusive and democratic form of local governance.     

`The Capabilities Approach', `The Imaginary Domain', and `Asymmetrical Reciprocity': Feminist Perspectives on Equality and Justice

In this article the author revisits the question of how feminist theory/theories could address questions regarding universalism, sameness, difference, and the quest for justice. She reconsiders the quest for justice and equality for women and the (im) possibilities of a feminist perspective on justice and a feminist `community'. The three feminist theorists that she discusses are Martha Nussbaum, Drucilla Cornell, and Iris Marion Young. Nussbaum is closer to a liberal defense of universal values – Cornell and Young stand critical of liberalism and focus on sublimity, dignity, and asymmetrical reciprocity. The author supports the perspective of the latter two theorists and applies these perspectives to aspects of South African equality jurisprudence. She also considers critically the extent to which the Draft Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa breaks with liberal universalism and sameness. To the end she supports a notion of` slowing down' in order to protect women's freedom and dignity, to approach each other with wonder and respect. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Consistency of adolescents' self-report of sexual behavior in a longitudinal study

This study examines three issues relevant to adolescent self-reported sexual behavior: the extent to which adolescents rescind reports of sexual intercourse, changes in reporting of lifetime sexual intercourse, and changes in reported age at first sexual intercourse. Data come from a three-year longitudinal study of health-compromising behaviors among a cohort a 758 rural adolescents. Students completed a self-administered questionnaire on health behaviors annually in eighth, ninth, and tenth grades. Findings show that 88.8% of students in eighth grade and 94.3% in ninth grade who reported having had sexual intercourse gave the same answer in a subsequent year. Approximately 15% of students reported fewer numbers of lifetime sexual intercourse experiences in tenth grade than they did in ninth grade. Age at first sexual intercourse was reported inconsistently by 67% of the students. Inconsistency rates differed by racial-gender groups, question sensitivity, and prior sexual experience.Received Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include adolescent health and early adolescent development.Received Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include personality, stress, and coping.Received Ph.D. from University of Chicago. Research interests include adolescent delinquency and substance use.Received Dr. P.H. from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include rural adolescents and international health issues.Received Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include adolescent sexuality and contraceptive decision making.     

Forensic Informativity of ~3000 bp of Coding Sequence of Domestic Dog mtDNA

The discriminatory power of the noncoding control region (CR) of domestic dog mitochondrial DNA alone is relatively low. The extent to which the discriminatory power could be increased by analyzing additional highly variable coding regions of the mitochondrial genome (mtGenome) was therefore investigated. Genetic variability across the mtGenome was evaluated by phylogenetic analysis, and the three most variable ~1 kb coding regions identified. We then sampled 100 Swedish dogs to represent breeds in accordance with their frequency in the Swedish population. A previously published dataset of 59 dog mtGenomes collected in the United States was also analyzed. Inclusion of the three coding regions increased the exclusion capacity considerably for the Swedish sample, from 0.920 for the CR alone to 0.964 for all four regions. The number of mtDNA types among all 159 dogs increased from 41 to 72, the four most frequent CR haplotypes being resolved into 22 different haplotypes.     

Are you talking to me? Influencing behaviour and culture in police interviews

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between two types of influencing behaviour in police interviews (being kind and rational persuasion) and three types of interview effectiveness, i.e. the suspects’ willingness to give a statement, their estimation of the quality of the relationship with the detective, and suspects’ admission. We expected that being kind and rational persuasion (arguments referring to logic and rationality) would have a different effect on suspects from cultures that tend to be direct and content-oriented (low-context cultures) versus cultures in which communication is more indirect and context orientated (high-context cultures). To examine this, experienced police detectives interviewed mock theft suspects from low-context (n=25) and high-context (n=27) cultures. As predicted, and particularly for high-context suspects, being kind in terms of rewarding and offering was positively related to the perceived quality of the relationship of the suspect, while being kind in terms of active listening behaviour was positively related to admissions. Furthermore, and as expected, there was a positive relationship between rational persuasion of the police detective and admissions for low-context suspects, but also a negative relationship between rational persuasion and admissions for high-context suspects.     

The application of geographic information systems and spatial analysis to assess dumped and subsequently scattered human remains

This study utilizes geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis (SA) technology to address the problems associated with prediction of location and effective recovery of dumped and scattered human remains in Louisiana. The goals are to determine if a selective bias exists in Louisiana as to where and when human remains are dumped and to assess whether or not geographically specific patterns exist in the dispersal of human remains. We hypothesized that a positive relationship exists between postmortem interval (PMI) and dispersal distance, and that there are negative relationships between PMI and dispersal direction and between dispersal direction and distance. Our results indicate that, in Louisiana, remains are more often dumped in rural areas away from a structure, and are found within (1/4) mile of the nearest road. For Louisiana, no seasonal bias was found in the analysis of when remains are dumped. Furthermore, with the exception of the relationship between PMI and the shortest distance remains were dispersed, no geographically specific patterns were detected in the analyses of dispersal distance, dispersal direction, and PMI.