Domestic relations in Brazil: legacies and horizons

Grounded in literature review and an ethnographic study, this article examines contemporary Brazilian domestic life. Relations among women (employers and maids) and between women and men are analyzed with a focus on the home as a space in which gender, race, and class inequalities are constantly reproduced. The article argues that what happens in domestic life is constitutive of wider social divisions and that the domestic is a universe integral to the national social context. A case in point is the connection between the widespread use of paid domestic labor and the naturalization of black women as subservient, complementing the pairing of whiteness and class entitlement. Another case is the buffering role of maids in the development of gender conflicts in well-off homes, thus blurring gender hierarchies at a broader scale. Locating the domestic within the recent discussion on global domestic labor, the article compares particularities of Brazilian domestic life to those elsewhere.     

Can analysis of a small clod of soil help to solve a murder case?

Soil forensics utilizes extensive soil information to answer legal questions and test hypotheses. The main difficulty often is the determination of different variables from a small amount of soil sample collected on the suspect. We developed a sequential mineralogical and chemical analyses to assess a limited quantity of soil vestiges (0.5 g) from a suspect's vehicle (adhered to the outside rear-view mirror and to the left front fender) involved in a murder case and compared them with the surface samples found at the victim's body disposal site at the Graciosa Road, Paraná State, Brazil. All results affirm that the suspect’s vehicle could have been in contact with the edge of the Graciosa Road, approximately the place where the victim’s body was located. As a result of the soil analysis and comparison, the results support the likely contact of the suspect’s vehicle with the crime scene.     

Heat Induced Changes to Dental Resin Composites: A Reference in Forensic Investigations?*

The objective was to investigate color change and surface damage in dental resin composites exposed to high temperatures over different time intervals for comparative purposes. Samples were prepared using two resins - Z100(R) (R1) and Charisma (R2), heated at the following temperatures: 200 degrees C, 400 degrees C, 600 degrees C, 1000 degrees C, for 15, 30 and 45 min (n = 104 for each resin sample). Color (DeltaE) and brightness (DeltaL) changes were analyzed by spectrophotometry using the CIE Lab system and surface changes by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). R1 showed more intense color changes after heat exposure than R2. DeltaL values were found to be the best parameter for evaluation of light and color change. A biphasic pattern after thermal exposure was detected, from dark brown to light white. SEM showed more intense alterations in R2 than in R1. These results indicate that the parameters observed in both resins are useful as a guide in forensic analyses.     

In defense of human rights of indigenous people

The nations of the world are generally shaped by a cultural diversity, which must be preserved. This leads to a fundamental and essential defense of indigenous groups and their human rights. The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of defending human rights of indigenous cucapa, natives settled in the northeast of the state of Baja California in the Delta of the Colorado River, especially with regards to their fishing rights, which is their main source of food and survival. The environmental laws that have been issued in the country have greatly affected them, banning commercial fishing in some areas and totally in many other areas, adding to that a not to subtle performance by the appropriate regulation authorities, preventing them from fishing sea bass, hence their consumption and marketing, which is reflected in their socioeconomic status. For this reason and in response to this violation of their human rights, women have decided to enter a cucapa womb strike, which threatens the existence of the tribe by not reproducing.     

Evaluation of Lip Prints on Different Supports Using a Batch Image Processing Algorithm and Image Superimposition

This study aimed to develop and to assess an algorithm to facilitate lip print visualization, and to digitally analyze lip prints on different supports, by superimposition. It also aimed to classify lip prints according to sex. A batch image processing algorithm was developed, which facilitated the identification and extraction of information about lip grooves. However, it performed better for lip print images with a uniform background. Paper and glass slab allowed more correct identifications than glass and the both sides of compact disks. There was no significant difference between the type of support and the amount of matching structures located in the middle area of the lower lip. There was no evidence of association between types of lip grooves and sex. Lip groove patterns of type III and type I were the most common for both sexes. The development of systems for lip print analysis is necessary, mainly concerning digital methods.     

EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS IN MEXICO OF OLDER ADULTS AS A FUNCTION OF THEIR ANTIQUITY

The population grows and ages. Older adults, which is the group of people sixty years of age and older, increasingly represents a numerically larger group. Therefore, the legal rules are issued, and must be of such a nature that adequately protects them. In particular labor standards in Mexico, containing general provisions, but are emissive in relation to work of older adults subordinate.     

The Permeability of Urban Cultures

Stephen Dovers (ed.): Australian Environmental History: Essays and Cases . Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Tim Flannery: The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of Australasian Lands and People . Chatswood, NSW: Reed Books, 1994. Distributed in the USA by George Braziller Inc., New York.

Stephen J. Pyne: Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia , New York: Henry Holt, 1991.     

Veni,vidi, vici: postcolonial studies comes of age

This review article offers a critical assessment of Ato Quayson's Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature (2012), engaging in passing with a debate between postcolonial theorists that appeared also in 2012 in the New Literary History (43.1 & 2). It posits that the History presents postcolonial literature, and indeed postcolonial studies, as much too settled fields, a view clearly at odds both with their genesis and with that reflected in the essays in NLH.