Imagining a dialectical African modernity: Achebe's ontological hopes,Sembene's machines,Mda's epistemological redness

In Chinua Achebe's book of essays Hopes and Impediments, he asserts that Nigeria's failure to ‘develop’ and ‘modernise’ like Japan is because of a ‘failure of imagination’. Yet for many Africans, modernity is a tainted ‘gift’ because it was introduced into the African continent along with European colonial capitalism which simultaneously caused an ontological crisis of self. Although many Africans want to ‘catch up’ with the West, how is it possible when Western technological superiority was equated with white racial superiority? Achebe declares that, as Africans ‘begin their journey into the strange, revolutionary world of modernization’, literature should function as guide. Hence, I examine Ousmane Sembene's novel God's Bits of Wood which depicts Africans laying claim to ‘race-less’, ‘language-less’ ‘machines’. But does (Western) technology change culture? Can African culture appropriate technology to form a dialectical African modernity? If so, what role does ‘tradition’ play? In Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness, we witness the emergence of a traditional modernity made possible by a dialectical epistemology.     

4F‐MDMB‐BINACA: A New Synthetic Cannabinoid Widely Implicated in Forensic Casework

This is the first report regarding the characterization of the new synthetic cannabinoid 4F‐MDMB‐BINACA. 4F‐MDMB‐BINACA was first analytically confirmed in seized drug material using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC‐MS), liquid chromatography–quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (LC‐QTOF), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Subsequent to this characterization, 4F‐MDMB‐BINACA was detected in biological specimens collected as part of forensically relevant casework, including medicolegal death investigations and drug impaired driving investigations, from a variety of regions in the United States. Further analysis of biological specimens resulted in the identification of the metabolites 4F‐MDMB‐BINACA 3,3‐dimethylbutanoic acid and 4‐OH‐MDMB‐BINACA. 4F‐MDMB‐BINACA is appearing with increasing frequency as a contributory factor in deaths, creating morbidity and mortality risks for drug users. Laboratories must be aware of its presence and impact, incorporating 4F‐MDMB‐BINACA into workflows for detection and confirmation.     

Beyond faith: social marginalisation and the prevention of radicalisation among young Muslim Australians

Counterterrorism responses in Australia have mirrored trends in other nations with a focus on pre-emption, including the criminalisation of activities defined as preparatory offences. Security-based transnational approaches to combat terrorist activity and propaganda alone are ineffective. Sometimes security measures can actually damage efforts to counter the appeal and take-up of violent extremism. While such measures should be used in domestic contexts where threats are critical or imminent, robust soft power initiatives are needed. Even though governments recognise the importance of soft power approaches, public discourse and commentary frequently reproduces negative stereotypes of young Muslim people linking them, through their religion, in negative ways to radicalisation and terrorism. This article describes empirical research investigating the impact of such discourses on the lives of young Muslim Australians. It demonstrates how dominant public discourse and counter-narratives add to feelings of marginalisation, even in those who are well integrated into Australian society. It argues that such social marginalisation contributes to the conditions of possibility for radicalisation and concludes by discussing some of the ways that young Muslim Australians maintain resilience in an environment that could easily be perceived as increasingly hostile and divisive.     

Combating Child Sex Tourism in South‐east Asia: Law Enforcement Cooperation and Civil Society Partnerships

Many states have enacted extra‐territorial child sex tourism (CST) offences. Despite the existence of these offences, some states, including Australia and the United Kingdom, continue to privilege territorial competence as the basis of criminal jurisdiction. However, many destination countries for CST in South‐east Asia lack the capacity to support prosecutions in this crime. This article explores the utility of partnerships between local and international law enforcement agencies and NGOs to facilitate prosecution in the jurisdiction of the offence. Through a case study of Cambodia, the article argues that such partnership arrangements provide the resources and integration required to enable sexual offences against children, by foreign offenders, to be prosecuted. NGOs undertake complex strategies to address the immediate needs of exploited children, while seeking to maintain their capacity to influence government policy. The risks, challenges, and sustainability of such partnerships are discussed, along with wider implications for South‐east Asia.     

Supplying Disadvantaged Schools with Effective Teachers: Experimental Evidence on Secondary Math Teachers from Teach For America

Teach For America (TFA) is an important but controversial source of teachers for hard‐to‐staff subjects in high‐poverty U.S. schools. We present findings from the first large‐scale experimental study of secondary math teachers from TFA. We find that TFA teachers are more effective than other math teachers in the same schools, increasing student math achievement by 0.07 standard deviations over one school year. Addressing concerns about the fact that TFA requires only a two‐year commitment, we find that TFA teachers in their first two years of teaching are more effective than more experienced non‐TFA teachers in the same schools.     

Workforce Crisis in Residential Aged Care: Insights from Rural,Older Workers

In Australia, workforce shortages in residential aged care present a significant challenge for the aged care industry. The growing demand for workers in aged care, combined with the shrinking supply of younger workers entering the field, highlights a future workforce crisis. The current shortfalls are set to worsen with the retirement of a generation of women who have provided the backbone of the workforce. Although targeted retention of this group may alleviate this issue, few studies have explored the retirement decisions of this cohort. This paper reports on a qualitative study of this cohort of Victorian public sector residential aged care staff. Although current government rhetoric promotes intrinsic rewards (altruism, moral fulfilment) over extrinsic rewards (excessive workload, pay and conditions), a combination of these factors was associated with job satisfaction. It would seem timely to revisit some of these concerns to ensure an adequate and sufficiently skilled workforce.     

Established and emergent political subjectivities in circular human geographies: transnational Arab activists

In this paper, we argue that Arab transnational citizenship mobilization can be configured through ‘geographies of circularity’ (e.g. bridging multiple locales, encircling the state, transversally stirring political subjectivities, and in the full-circle return of identity). Circularity helps ground and highlight the character and significance of transnational political and social activism, and the transfer of communications, skills, behaviors, organizational forms, tools, and projects (political technologies’) for citizenship. Based on the networks initiated by the Arab revolts, we argue that Arab émigrés, workers, and students – framed here as Arab transnationals – traverse and embody these geographies of circularity and leverage connectivity to mobilize citizenship claims and remit/ bridge/diffuse/export/import important progressive ideas and values locally in the western world and into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.     

The Impact of Collective Efficacy on Risks for Adolescents’ Perpetration of Dating Violence

Given prevalence rates and negative consequences that adolescents’ perpetration of dating violence may have on an individual’s well-being and future relationships, it is imperative to explore factors that may increase or reduce its occurrence. Thus, we aimed to identify how multiple contextual risk factors (individual, family, schools, and neighborhoods) were related to adolescents’ perpetration of dating violence over a 6 year period. Then, we assessed how neighborhood collective efficacy, an important predictor of urban youths’ well-being, buffered the relationship between each of the risk factors and adolescents’ perpetration of dating violence. Three waves of data from the Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study were used (N = 765; Ages 16–20 at Wave 3). The sample is 53 % female, 42 % African-American, and 53 % Hispanic. For the total sample, drug and alcohol use, low parental monitoring, academic difficulties, and involvement with antisocial peers were significant early risk factors for perpetration of dating violence in late adolescence. Risk factors also varied by adolescents’ race and sex. Finally, perceived neighborhood collective efficacy buffered the relationship between early academic difficulties and later perpetration of dating violence for Hispanic males. These results imply that multiple systems should be addressed in dating violence prevention programs.