Authenticity,intersubjectivity and the ethics of changing sex

This paper examines how specific concepts of the self shape discussions about the ethics of changing sex. Specifically, it argues that much of the debate surrounding sex change has assumed a model of the self as authentic and/or atomistic, as demonstrated by both contemporary medical discourses and the recent work of Rubin (2003 Rubin, H. (2003). Self-made men: Identity and embodiment amongst transsexual men. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. [Google Scholar]). This leads to a problematic account of important ethical issues that arise from the desire and decision to change sex. It is suggested that by shifting to a properly intersubjective and performative model of the self, we can better understand (1) the diagnosis of transsexuality; and (2) issues of success, failure and regret with regard to changing sex. The paper also reveals the important implications this shift has for how the relationship between medical practitioners and transindividuals is understood. The paper concludes by showing how the model of the self as authentic can individualise identity and thus downplay or overlook the tight intertwinement between self and other. A properly intersubjective, performative concept of the gendered self places other people at the centre of both an individual's attempt at self-transformation and the ethical issues that arise during this process.     

Sub-Optimality in NHS Sourcing in the UK: Demand-Side Constraints on Supply-Side Improvement

The UK NHS and its Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA) are implementing reforms for the procurement of goods and services. One aspect of the new approach creates regional confederations in order to overcome the current inability to enforce 'National Framework Agreements' within individual NHS Trusts. This is a sensible approach to resolving a lack of effective consolidation of demand within the NHS at the Trust level, but recent research into the procurement practices of regionally based NHS Trusts has highlighted a number of internal demand problems that this new approach is unlikely to overcome. These include the failure by the Trusts individually, and by the NHS centrally, to control and manage the NHS design and specification process effectively and, in many cases, an inability to measure or collect information on the clinical and cost effectiveness of medical interventions. It is argued, therefore, that while the new reforms may be an improvement on the past, it is likely that the confederations are destined to fail. This is largely the result of the NHS – centrally, regionally and locally – lacking an understanding of how to align demand and supply effectively so as to provide the levers to manage the procurement of goods and services proactively.     

From ‘crime’ to social harm?

Debates around the relationships between criminology and social harm are long-standing. This article sets out some of the key features of current debates between, on the one hand, those who would retain a commitment to ‘crime’ and criminology and those, on the other hand who would abandon criminology for a social harm perspective. To this end, the article begins by highlighting several criticisms of criminology, criticisms raised in particular by a diverse group of critical criminologists over the past 30 to 40 years. While these are hardly new, the rehearsal of these is an important starting point for a discussion of the potential of the development of an alternative discipline. The paper then proposes a number of reasons why a disciplinary approach organised around a notion of social harm may prove to be more productive than has criminology hitherto: that is, may have the potential for greater theoretical coherence and imagination, and for more political progress.     

Living in Partner-violent Families: Developmental Links to Antisocial Behavior and Relationship Violence

Links between living in a partner-violent home and subsequent aggressive and antisocial behavior are suggested by the “cycle of violence” hypothesis derived from social learning theory. Although there is some empirical support, to date, findings have been generally limited to cross-sectional studies predominantly of young children, or retrospective studies of adults. We address this issue with prospective data from the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS), an ongoing longitudinal investigation of the development of antisocial behavior in a community sample of 1,000 urban youth followed from age 14 to adulthood. The original panel included 68% African American, 17% Hispanic, and 15% White participants, and was 72.9% male, and 27.1% female. Measures come from a combination of sources including interviews with parents, interviews with youth, and official records. We test the general hypothesis that there is a relationship between living in partner-violent homes during adolescence, and later antisocial behavior and relationship violence. Employing logistic regression and controlling for related covariates, including child physical abuse, we find a significant relationship between exposure to parental violence and adolescent conduct problems. The relationship between exposure to parental violence and measures of antisocial behavior and relationship aggression dissipates in early adulthood, however, exposure to severe parental violence is significantly related to early adulthood violent crime, and intimate partner violence. Our results suggest that exposure to severe parental violence during adolescence is indeed consequential for violent interactions in adulthood.

Post-capitalist property

When writing about property and property rights in his imagined post-capitalist society of the future, Marx seemed to envisage ‘individual property’ co-existing with ‘socialized property’ in the means of production. As the social and political consequences of faltering growth and increasing inequality, debt and insecurity gradually manifest themselves, and with automation and artificial intelligence lurking in the wings, the future of capitalism, at least in its current form, looks increasingly uncertain. With this, the question of what property and property rights might look like in the future, in a potentially post-capitalist society, is becoming ever more pertinent. Is the choice simply between private property and markets, and public (state-owned) property and planning? Or can individual and social property in the (same) means of production co-exist, as Marx suggested? This paper explores ways in which they might, through an examination of the Chinese household responsibility system (HRS) and the ‘fuzzy’ and seemingly confusing regime of land ownership that it instituted. It examines the HRS against the backdrop of Marx’s ideas about property and subsequent (post-Marx) theorizing about the legal nature of property in which property has come widely to be conceptualized not as a single, unitary ‘ownership’ right to a thing (or, indeed, as the thing itself) but as a ‘bundle of rights’. The bundle-of-rights idea of property, it suggests, enables us to see not only that ‘individual’ and ‘socialized’ property’ in the (same) means of production might indeed co-exist, but that the range of institutional possibility is far greater than that between capitalism and socialism/communism as traditionally conceived.     

The Baghdad railway: Its new rôle in the Middle East

General

Gardens of Paradise: The History and Design of the Great Islamic Gardens. By John Brookes. London, Weidenfeld &; Nicolson, 1987. Pp. 240. Maps. Bibliog. Index. Chronology. Illus. £20.00.

The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia. By E. L. Jones. Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. 279. Bibliog. Index. £27.50 Hb, £9.95 Pb.

Expansion of Third World Navies. By Michael A. Morris. London. Macmillan, 1987. Pp. 293: Index £35.00.

Central Asia

Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom ‐ the Legend of the Kingdom of Prester John. By Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev. Translated from the Russian by R. E. F. Smith, Cambridge University Press, 1987. Pp. 403. Bibliog. Index. Maps. (First published in Russian, under the title: Poiski vymyshlennogo Tsarstva: legenda o Gosudarstve presvitera Ioanna, Moscow, 1970). £37.50.

Buried Treasures of Chinese Turkestan. By Albert von Le Coq. Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. 180. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £8.50 Pb.

The Tragedy of Afghanistan: the Social, Cultural and Political Impact of the Soviet Invasion. Edited by Bo Huldt and Erland Jansson. London, Croom Helm, 1988. Pp. 270. Index. £27.50.

South Asia

The New Cambridge History of India. Vol. II 1. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. By Dr. C. A. Bayly. Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. 206. Gloss. Bibliographical Essay. Index. £17.50.

The New Cambridge History of India, II, 2: Bengal: the British Bridgehead: Eastern India 1740–1828. By P. J. Marshall. Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. 195. Index. Maps. £17.50.

India and Tibet. By Francis Younghusband. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1985. Pp. 455. Illus. Maps. Index. £21.00.

Below the Peacock Fan: First Ladies of the Raj. By Marian Fowler. New York, Viking, 1987. Pp. 337. Illus. Notes. Bibliog. $19.95.

Mediaevalism to Modernism: Socio‐economic and Cultural History of Hyderabad 1869–1911. By Sheela Raj. London, Sangam Books, 1987. Pp. 340. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £19.95.

The Days of the Beloved. By Harriet Ronken Lynton and Mohini Rajan. London, Sangam Books, 1988. Pp. 279. Illus. £11.95.

South Asia: The Narrowing Options. Economist Intelligence Unit Special Report No. 110. By Brian Slocock. London. Economist Intelligence Unit. 1988. Pp. 119. Map. £115.00 Pb.

The Cat and the Lion. Robert W. Stern. Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1988. Pp. 331. Bibliog. Index. $56.00.

Tribal Guerrillas: The Santals of West Bengal and the Naxalite Movement. By Edward Duyker. Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. 201. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £11.95.

The Political Economy of Pakistan, 1947–85. By Omar Noman. London, KPI, 1988. Pp. 218. Bibliog. Index. £25.00.

Banditry in Islam: Case Studies from Morocco, Algeria and the Pakistan North West Frontier. By David M. Hart. London Middle East and North African Studies Press, 1987. Pp. 86. Maps.

Sri Lanka: A History. By Chandra Richard de Silva. London, Sangam books, 1987. Pp. 316. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £14.95.

Crime, Justice and Society in Colonial Sri Lanka. By John D. Rogers. Curzon Riverdale, 1987. Pp. 270. Appendices. Bibliog. Index. No price stated.

South‐East Asia

ASEAN at the Crossroads. Ed. by Noordin Sopiee, Chewhay See and Lim Siang Jin. Kuala Lumpur. ISIS, Malaysia, 1987. Pp. 577. $25.00.

Financing East Asia's Success. By Michael Skully and George Viksnis, London, Macmillan, 1987. Tables. Bibliog. Index. £29.50.

The Commerce in Rubber ‐ The First 250 Years. By Austin Coates. Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1987. Pp. 380. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £25.

Government and Politics in Singapore. Ed. Jon S. T. Quah, Chan Heng Chee and Seah Chee Meow. Southeast Asian Studies Program, Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1987. Tables, Bibliog. Index. Pp. 338. £11.50.

On the Road to Tribal Extinction: Depopulation, Deculturation, and Adaptive Well‐Being Among the Batak of the Philippines. By James F. Eder. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987. Pp. 276. Maps. Notes. Index. $38.00.

Land, Poverty and Politics in the Philippines. By Mamerto Canlas, Mariano Miranda Jr., and James Putzel. London, Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1988. Pp. 87. Map. Index. £4.95.

Punishing the Poor: The International Isolation of Kampuchea. By Eva Mysliwiec. Oxford, Oxfam Publications, 1988. Pp. 172. £3.95. Pb. £14.95 Hb.

Middle East

Israel and the American National Interest ‐ A Critical Examination. By Cheryl A. Rubenberg. Urbana and Chicago. University of Illinois Press, 1986. Pp. 446. Index. $24.95.

The Zealous Intruders: The Western Rediscovery of Palestine. By Naomi Shepherd. London, Collins, 1987. Pp. 282. Illus. Map. Bibliog. Index. Price not stated.

Far East

The Cambridge History of China. Volume 13. Republican China 1912–1949, Part 2. Edited by John K. Fairbank and Albert Feuerwerker. Cambridge University Press, 1986. Pp. 1111. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £60.00.

The Cambridge History of China. General Editors, Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank. Volume 14, The People's Republic, Part 1: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1949–1965. Edited by R. L. MacFarquhar and J. K. Fairbank. Cambridge University Press, 1987. Pp. 722. Bibliographical Essays. Bibliog. Gloss. Index. £50.00.

The Archaeology of Ancient China. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged. By Kwang‐Chih Chang. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1987. Pp. 475. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £45.00 Hb. £14.95. Pb.

A Dream of Red Mansions. By Ts'ao Hsüeh‐ch'in and Kao Ngo, (tr. Yang Hsien‐yi and Gladys Yang). London, Unwin Paperbacks, 1986. Pp. 499. £7.95 Pb.

Outlaws of the Marsh. By Shih Nai‐an and Lo Kuan‐chung (tr. Sidney Shapiro). London, Unwin Paperbacks, 1986, Pp. 458. £7.95 Pb.

Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century. By Susan Naquin and Evelyn S. Rawski. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1987. Pp. 288. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £22.50 US $35.00.

The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. By Joseph W. Esherick. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987. Pp. 451. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. $45.00.

The Communist Party of China and Marxism 1921–1985: A Self‐Portrait. By Laszlo Ladany. London, C Hurst &; Co 1988. Pp. 588. Bibliog. Index. £32.50.

The Sino‐Soviet Confrontation since Mao Zedong. Dispute, Detente, or Conflict? By Alfred D. Low. Social Science Monographs, Boulder, 1987. Distributed by Columbia University Press. Pp. 332. Notes. Bibliog. $40.

Education and Socialist Modernization ‐ A Documentary History of Education in the People's Republic of China, 1977–1988. Edited by Shi Ming Hu and Eli Seifman. New York, AMS Press, 1987. Pp. 229. $62.50.

East Asian Conflict Zones. Ed. Lawrence E. Grinter and Young Whan Khil. Basingstoke, Macmillan Press, 1988. Pp. 239. Map. Notes. Bibliog. Index. £29.50.

Visions of Virtue in Tokugawa Japan: The Kaitokudō Merchant Academy of Osaka. By Tetsuo Najita. Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press. 1987. Pp. 344. Index. £29.95. Hb. £11.95 Pb.

Japan in the Victorian Mind: A Study of Stereotyped Images of a Nation, 1850–1880. By Toshio Yokoyama. London, St Antony's/Macmillan, 1987. Pp. 233. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £27.50.

Fire Across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan, 1965–1975. Princeton University Press, 1987. Pp. 329. Illus. Notes. Index. £25.00. Hb. £11.70. Pb.

The Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual. By Emiko Ohnuki‐Tierney. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1987. Pp. 269. Illus. Index. Bibliog. £18.75.

Dōgen Kigen: Mystical Realist. By Hee‐Jin Kim. Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1987. Pp. 324. Bibliog. Index. $18.95 Pb.

Hong Kong in Transition. Ed. Joseph Y. S. Cheng. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. 457. £8.95. Pb.

Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong. By Carl Smith. Oxford University Press, 1985, 1988. Pp. 252. Chronology. Plates. Notes. Index. £15.00.

Siberia and the Soviet Far East: Strategic Dimensions in Multinational Perspective. Ed. Rodger Swearingen. Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1987. Pp. 298. Index. $32.95.

Shorter notes

Soviet Economic Assistance to the Less Developed Countries. By Quintin V. S. Bach. Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. 175. Bibliog. £27.50.

The Tibet Guide. By Stephen Batchelor. London, Wisdom Publications, 1987. Pp. 466. Illus. Index. £13.95 Pb.

The Second Afghan War 1878–1880 Casualty Roll. Compiled by Anthony Far‐rington. The London Stamp Exchange Limited, 1987. Pp. 189. (A4) £14.95.

Indian General Service Medal 1895 Casualty Roll. Compiled by Anthony Far‐rington. The London stamp Exchange limited, 1987. Pp. 166. (A4) £14.95.

The Makers of Indian Colonial Silver 1760–1860. Wynyard R. T. Wilkinson. London, W. R. T. Wilkinson, 1987. Pp. 229. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £97.50.

Kashmir. By Raghubir Singh. London, Thames and Hudson, 1987. Pp. 32. Illus. Map. £9.95 Pb.

Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Society. Ed. Chowdhury E. Haque. Winnipeg, Bangladesh Studies Assemblage, University of Manitoba, 1987. Pp. 139. Price not stated.

Course for Disaster: From Scapa to the River Kwai. By Richard Pool. London, Leo Cooper, 1987. Pp. 196. £13.95.

Medieval Persia 1040–1797. By David Morgan. Longman, London and New York, 1988. Pp. 197. Bibliog. Index. £15.95 Hb. £7.95 Pb.

Iron in the Fire: the Chinese Potters’ Exploration of Iron‐oxide Glazes. London, The Oriental Ceramic Society, 1988. Intro. Plates. £16 (incl. postage).