The Big End of Town Meets the Local Council: The Investment Habitus of Four Sets of Australian Councils during the GFC

The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 led to a substantial write‐down in the value of investments such as collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) with one class of investors being NSW Local councils.  This article analyses interviews with four different investor types (or sets) of local councils, each of which took a substantially different approach to CDO investment. This categorisation into sets was based on interviews of 28 individuals working within 14 local councils as well as commentaries on legal cases involving a class action of local councils suing Lehman Brothers Australia as well as Grange Securities over losses in their investments. This article adopts Bourdieu's Theory of Practice to describe and explain behaviour regarding decisions to invest (or not) in CDOs. Interesting themes arise regarding differing views on the appropriate role of local councils, and on the degree and form of ‘capital’ (which includes knowledge, competencies, skills, and economic resources) that a council should have before investing in sophisticated financial products. This article explores the role that field, habitus, and capital played in moderating and influencing council investment making decisions. The analysis shows that these Bourdieuian concepts can be utilised to help explain individual behaviour. This case study shows that excessive capital left in the hands of individuals may result in suboptimal decision making. Local councils may need to consider ways of implementing policies and procedures that can be used to moderate individual action.     

From Passive Objects to Active Agents: A Comparative Study of Conceptions of Victim Identities at the ICTY and ICC

Contemporary developments in international criminal justice have led to new systems of victims' rights and redress. A number of studies have identified the processes of victim protection, participation, and reparations at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, little attention has been paid to how these changing practices have served to constitute victim identities. This article seeks to address this gap in scholarship through an analysis of the changing definitions, status, and integration of victims into these institutions. It explores how institutional practices serve to construct victims as either “passive objects” or “active agents” of the law. It then considers whether this “active agent” translates to ideas of the person in all social contexts. The article argues that the ICC needs to consider whether victims hold the necessary personal, material, and social “resources” required to action their rights in this institutional context.     

Cheating death: the potency and perversity of Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple

ABSTRACT

Comic narratives provide an arena wherein the marginalised are centre stage, in the tradition of the carnival. This article examines Margaret Rutherford's performance in the role of Miss Marple in the 1960s MGM films, exploring how Rutherford's persona articulates complex discourses concerning age, gender and national identity, in the tradition of the contradictory nature of the trickster. The trickster tradition, in its evocation of a mythological resonance, creates a liminal space in the narrative, bridging life and death, male and female, chaos and order. Her narrative function is to restore social stability, to “cure” and “heal”, through chaos and cunning. Rutherford ultimately defies socially inscribed definitions of ageing femininity, inhabiting Agatha Christie's Miss Marple as a comic entity, whose ability to dissemble, impersonate and subvert makes her a potent and yet perverse force for good. Her performance as Miss Marple can be read within the social context of reconfigured discourses regarding age and gender in the second half of the twentieth century; greater life expectancy, social mobility and evolution of family structures challenged the traditional role of the ageing woman. She is a nostalgic articulation of Englishness which draws on the figuration of the village spinster.     

Quantitative PCR overestimation of DNA in samples contaminated with tin

Metals can pose challenges while conducting forensic DNA analysis. The presence of metal ions in evidence-related DNA extracts can degrade DNA or inhibit PCR as applied to DNA quantification (real-time PCR or qPCR) and/or STR amplification, leading to low success in STR profiling. Different metal ions were spiked into 0.2 and 0.5 ng of human genomic DNA in an “inhibition study” and the impact was evaluated by qPCR using the Quantifiler™ Trio DNA Quantification Kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific) and an in-house SYBR Green assay. This study reports on a contradictory finding specific to tin (Sn) ions, which caused at least a 38,000-fold overestimation of DNA concentration when utilizing Quantifiler Trio. This was explained by the raw and multicomponent spectral plots, which indicated that Sn suppresses the Quantifiler Trio passive reference dye (Mustang Purple™, MP) at ion concentrations above 0.1 mM. This effect was not observed when DNA was quantified using SYBR Green with ROX™ as the passive reference, nor when DNA was extracted and purified prior to Quantifiler Trio. The results show that metal contaminants can interfere with qPCR-based DNA quantification in unexpected ways and may be assay dependent. The results also highlight the importance of qPCR as a quality check to determine steps for sample cleanup prior to STR amplification that may be similarly impacted by metal ions. Forensic workflows should recognize the risk of inaccurate DNA quantification of samples that are collected from substrates containing tin.     

“We’re Not Like These Weird Feather Boa-Covered AIDS-Spreading Monsters”: How LGBT Young People and Service Providers Think Riskiness Informs LGBT Youth–Police Interactions

Research has suggested that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people are “at-risk” of victimization and/or legally “risky.” Relatively few studies have examined the social construction of risk in “risk factor” research and whether risk as a concept influences the everyday lives of LGBT young people. This article reports how 35 LGBT young people and seven service provider staff in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia perceived LGBT youth–police interactions as reflecting discourses about LGBT riskiness and danger. The participants specifically note how they thought looking at-risk and/or looking risky informed their policing experiences. The article concludes with recommendations for improving future policing practice.