A mobile system for postmortem genital examinations with colposcopy: SART-TO-GO

The interpretation of genital findings in the deceased is a vital and timely issue. A paucity of information exists on the nature and appearance of the anogenital tissues in the postmortem interval. The traditional postmortem genital examination consists of gross visualization, which may preclude detection of the subtler trauma that usually constitutes injury in sexual assault. The mobile system grew out of a need to bring the examiner to the patient, e.g., in jurisdictions that lack a centralized morgue. The theoretical framework of the methodology lies in the sexual activity that culminates in the death of the sexual homicide victim. This sequential methodology was based on the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) model, with adaptation to the autopsy milieu. Colposcopy is well-established for the medical-legal investigation of living sexual assault victims. During the author's initial rape-homicide examinations, only gross visualization was available. It soon became apparent that a system that facilitated detailed scrutiny of the anogenital tissues at various postmortem intervals was needed. Colposcopy was selected as the examination method because of its magnification, photodocumentation, and peer review potential. The sequential protocol was developed and refined during an ongoing accumulation of baseline cases. The role of the forensic nurse examiner is described within a defined scope of expertise and as a collaborative member of the homicide investigative team.     

Women's Studies: Between a Rock and a Hard Place or Just Another Cell in the Beehive?

The article traces the history of Women's Studies from its beginnings as the ‘intellectual arm of the women's movement’. It argues that the complex story of Women's Studies has been marked by both ambiguity and uncertainty as well as sustained political commitment in the face of both institutional opposition and feminist ambivalence about Women's Studies as a field of scholarship. The development of Women's Studies occurs through crucial shifts in the theoretical paradigms of feminism and the political preoccupations of the women's movement. These shifts have both deconstructed the founding premises of feminist theory and generated a greater depth to feminist thinking and research. These challenges to Women's Studies have paralleled a different set of problems arising from the increasingly market-oriented direction pursued throughout the tertiary education sector. In spite of these difficulties Women's Studies continues to survive and constitutes an important and contested site of contemporary feminist thought.     

D. Reviews and notes: bibliographies and works of reference

RANNYAYA PERSIDSKAYA LEKSIKOGRAFIYA, XI‐XV vv. [Early Persian lexicography, 11th‐15th centuries]. By S.I. BAEVSKII. Moscow, Nauka, 1989. 166pp.

PERIODICALS IN TURKISH AND TURKIC LANGUAGES: A UNION LIST OF HOLDINGS IN U.K. LIBRARIES. Edited by MUHAMMAD ISA WALEY. Oxford, Middle East Libraries Committee (U.K.), 1993. 95pp. £20.‐

DIRECTORY OF TURKISH STUDIES 1993. Edited by MALCOLM WAGSTAFF and CHRISTINE WOODHEAD. [Southampton,] Turkish Area Study Group, 1993. 19pp. £2.00

LEBANON. Compiled by C.H. BLEANEY. (World Bibliographical Series, 2.) Oxford, Clio Press, 1991. xxxi, 230pp. Map. £39.00.

THE ILLUSTRATED ATLAS OF JERUSALEM. By DAN BAHAT, with C.T. RUBINSTEIN. Jerusalem & New York, Carta Israel Map and Publishing Company; English‐language Edition: Simon & Schuster, 1990. 152pp. £60.‐

DER NAHOSTKONFLIKT SEIT AUSBRUCH DER INTIFADA: EINE AUSWAHL BIBLIOGRAPHIE / THE ARAB‐ISRAELI CONFLICT SINCE THE OUTBREAK OF THE INTIFADAH: A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY. By IN‐GEBORG OTTO and MARIANNE SCHMIDT‐DUMONT. (Biblio, 17.) Hamburg, Deutsches Ubersee‐Institut, 1990. ix, 98pp. DM 15.‐

THE INTIFADA: THE PALESTINIAN UPRISING IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES 1987–1992. By HALA KALEH and SIMONETTA CALDERINI. (Middle East Libraries Committee Research Guides, 6.) Oxford, Middle East Libraries Committee, 1993. 59 + 10 + 50pp. [Arabic title: al‐INTIFADA. AL‐INTIFADA AL‐FILASTINIYYA FI AL‐ARADI AL‐MUHTALLA: BIBLIYUGHRAFIYYA LI‐L‐KUTUB WA‐AL‐MAQALAT i987–1992. By HALA KAYLA wa‐SIMUNITA KALDIRINI.] £25.‐

ALGERIEN‐BIBLIOGRAPHIE: PUBLIKATIONEN AUS DER BUNDES‐REPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND, ÖSTERREICH, UND DER SCHWEIZ, 1962–1989. Compiled by ERNSTPETER RUHE. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1990. 181pp. DM48.‐

OPEC AND THE WORLD ENERGY MARKET: A COMPREHENSIVE REFERENCE GUIDE. By JOHN EVANS, fully revised by GAVIN BROWN. 2nd edition. Harlow, Longman Current Affairs, 1991. xxvii+749 pp. £115.‐

WHO'S WHO IN THE ARAB WORLD 1993–1994. Eleventh edition (thoroughly revised and completed). Beirut, Publitec Publications, in co‐edition with K.G. Saur, München, 1993. 978pp. £225.00.

RELIGION IN POLITICS: A WORLD GUIDE. Edited by STUART NEWS. (Longman International Reference.) Harlow, Longman, 1989. 332pp.     

Examining the Link Between Funding and Intellectual Interventions Across Universities and Think Tanks: a Theoretical Framework

Policy-oriented expert knowledge is increasingly applied, collaborative and socially accountable, created in a variety of organisations and institutions that display a diversity of funding patterns with a wide range of requirements and expectations. Given the complexities of knowledge production and recent changes in its funding environment (e.g. mode and availability of research funding and evaluation), few existing theoretical elaborations consider tensions between structural funding conditions and intellectual production in policy research contexts. This paper examines the role of funding in shaping the policy issues, format and content of intellectual output across two research contexts (universities, think tanks). It sets out a theoretical and methodological approach to understand the link between funding modalities and the type of knowledge and intellectual interventions they facilitate or thwart.     

Unpacking the Public Private Partnership Revival

This paper examines the recent resurgence of interest in public-private partnerships (PPPs) to provide infrastructure in developing countries. First, the paper demonstrates that there has been a revival of support for private sector participation in infrastructure. Second, the paper argues that this revival differs from earlier attempts to increase the involvement of the private sector in public service provision in a number of respects. In particular, the current support for PPPs is related to an increased availability of global financial capital. Third, the paper considers the implications of this distinct feature of the revival for development.     

Civil society: Bringing the family back in

This article explores the complex and contradictory positioning of the family within civil society literature. In some accounts, the family is seen as the cornerstone of civil society. In others, the family is positioned firmly outside – even antithetical to – civil society. This paradox arises from the ways in which civil society is variously defined through a series of binary oppositions – in relation to each of which the family sits uneasily. And while feminist critiques have tried to bring women back into view, they too tend to marginalize the family. In addition, the normative nature of these oppositions has meant that while civil society tends to be seen as the property of the political ‘left’, the family is often associated with the political ‘right’. The article argues that we need to move beyond oppositional definitions of civil society and assumptions about the family if we are to understand the multiple ways in which the family is implicated as not only the ‘reproducer’ of particular resources and dispositions but as a principal source and focus of civil society engagement and activism.     

Missing Masculinities: Gendering Practices in Australian Alcohol Research and Policy

The issue of ‘alcohol-fuelled violence’ has been the subject of intense policy debate in Australia. While this debate is warranted, its contours and content have been informed and shaped by a surprisingly narrow range of research resources. Narrow research engagements of this kind warrant scrutiny because they can exclude from consideration crucial issues. In this article we identify one such issue, that of gender. Following a review of the Australian literature on gender, alcohol and violence, our analysis explores four case studies drawn from the Australian research corpus, focusing on large quantitative studies as these tend to receive most attention and citation in policy debate. Such studies consistently erase the contribution of key gender dynamics, namely enactments of particular (often youthful) masculinities, to violence involving alcohol, even where they simultaneously provide strong support in their data for such a conclusion. We show how this research is mobilised specifically in support of claims about the causal role of alcohol in violence and of blanket population-level responses to the problem. There is an urgent need to map the character and scope of the tendency to erase certain gender issues in research on alcohol and violence in order to better inform policy responses.     

Compensation,retraining and respiratory diseases: British coal miners, 1918–1939

By 1918, the British coal industry, like all industries, was facing the pressures of transitioning from a wartime to a peacetime economy. The pressures brought by a slowing economy would leave many coal miners, who possessed limited transferrable skills, harbouring deep concerns about their future employment. For those still in employment, concerns were increasing for workers’ health. Sharp increases in respiratory illnesses across the nation’s coalfields were now a major cause of disablement. Accompanying this was the almost inevitable possibility of unemployment, prompting major concerns among workers and trade unions. This article will explore how the nature of industrial relations across Britain’s coalfields changed during the interwar years in response to these challenges, and reveals how the government developed schemes to train disabled coal miners for work in other industries. The relationship between trade unions and the Ministry of Labour, and the incremental passage of legislation to address issues concerning workers’ occupational health in Britain’s coal mines will be examined. The onset of the Second World War ensured the coal industry was now central to the war effort. Recruitment was intensified accordingly. The improvement to working conditions underground, negotiated by trade unions, helped ensure that the workforce and the coal industry more generally were well-prepared for the challenges of the post-First World War economy, and the difficulties the Second World War would bring.     

Supervised Devolution: The Case of Child-Support Enforcement

Supervised devolution in the area of child-support enforcementhas produced a tenuous but politically popular sharing of powerbetween the federal government and the states for more thantwo decades. In this paradigm, policy has proceeded simultaneouslyalong two developmental tracks. Along the first track, the federalgovernment has pushed states toward reform by establishing thelegal framework for the program. Along the second track, thefederal government also has granted the states freedom to experimentwith a variety of new policies, including those that targetan extremely important group: low-income fathers. This freedom,however, is not without its limits. The federal government activelysupervises the states' performance through a combination offinancial incentives, penalties, and funding for demonstrationprojects. When the states have innovated in a particularly noteworthydirection, the federal government has followed through withappropriate rewards. When they have faltered, the states havefaced negative repercussions. Future challenges to this delicatebalance of power include processing interstate cases, adaptingto a changing clientele base, and resolving outstanding cost-sharingissues.