Reviews

Women writing in India

Susie Tharu and K. Lalita (eds), Women Writing in India — 600 B. C. to the Present; Volume 1: 600 B. C. to the Early Twentieth Century (The Feminist Press, City University of New York) New York, 1991.

Poststructuralism and politics

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge) New York and London, 1990; Rosalyn Diprose and Robyn Ferrell (eds), Cartographies: Poststructuralism and the Mapping of Bodies and Spaces (Allen and Unwin) Sydney, 1991; Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (University of Minnesota Press) Minneapolis, 1989.

Postponed lives, secondary data and pushing our own barrow

Laura S. Brown and Esther D. Rothblum (eds), Fat Oppression and Psychotherapy: A Feminist Perspective (Haworth Press) New York, 1989; Helen Roberts (ed.), Women's Health Counts (Routledge) London, 1990; Health Sharing Women, The Health Sharing Reader: Women Speak about Health (Pandora) Sydney, 1990.

Primatology and feminism

Donna Haraway, Primate Visions (Routledge) New York, 1989, distributed by the Law Book Company Limited.

Domestic violence

Heather McGregor and Andrew Hopkins, Working for Change: The Movement Against Domestic Violence (Allen and Unwin) Sydney, 1991; Jan Horsfall, The Presence of the Past: Male Violence in the Family (Allen and Unwin) Sydney, 1991.

Feminist strategies and the state

Clare Burton, The Promise and the Price (Allen and Unwin) Sydney, 1991; Hester Eisenstein, Gender Shock (Allen and Unwin) Sydney, 1991; Gretchen Poiner and Sue Wills, The Gifthorse (Allen and Unwin) Sydney, 1991; Margaret Thornton, The Liberal Promise (Oxford University Press) Oxford, 1990.     

Book reviews

Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Une Révolution, une victoire. L'union soviétique de Lénine à Staline 1917–1953. Paris: Editions Richelieu, 1972. 446 pp. 60 F.

Joel C. Moses, Regional Party Leadership and Policy‐Making in the USSR. (Praeger Special Studies in International Politics and Government.) New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974, and London: Pall Mall Press, 1975. xv+263 pp. £8.00.

Robert J. Osborn, The Evolution of Soviet Politics. Homewood, Ill. and London: The Dorsey Press, 1974. xiii+574 pp. $10.95.

Robert H. Donaldson, Soviet Policy toward India: Ideology and Strategy. (Russian Research Center Studies, 74.) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1974. x+338 pp. £7.50.

Lloyd G. Churchward, Contemporary Soviet Government. Second Edition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. 368 pp. £6.95.

Otto Ul?, Politics in Czechoslovakia. San Francisco and Reading: W. H. Freeman, 1975. xi+181 pp. £4.70.

Ivan Volgyes (ed.), Environmental Deterioration in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. (Praeger Special Studies in International Politics and Government.) New York: Praeger, 1974, and London: Pall Mall Press, 1975. xiii+168 pp. $14.00. £6.00.

Rolf Freund, Investitionskriterien als Mittel zur Realisierung eines Entwick‐lungspfades. Dargestellt am Beispiel der UdSSR. Berlin: Osteuropa‐Institut an der Freien Universität Berlin, 1974. v+202 pp. DM 12.00.

László Szamuely, First Models of the Socialist Economic Systems. Principles and Theories. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiádó, 1974. 109 pp. £2.60.

Iain F. Elliot, The Soviet Energy Balance. Natural Gas, Other Fossil Fuels, and Alternative Power Sources. (Praeger Special Studies in Economics and Development.) New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974, and London: Pall Mall Press, 1975. xv+277 pp. £8.00.     

Strategies and hybrid dynamics of soy transnational companies in the Southern Cone

Economical liberalization, market globalization and soy expansion stimulated the advance of big transnational companies in the Southern Cone countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay). Currently, the main corporations acting on the last links of the productive chain are ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus (the ABCD firms), global leaders in the soy trade. The objective of this contribution is to analyze the different strategies these companies articulate in the Southern Cone, and their dynamics in local space through market relations with local producers. The results show the rapid and intense process of denationalization of the firms in the soy productive chain as well as the high level of market internationalization and company concentration. In spite of this, this study shows that all transnational power of ABCD firms, which seems so abstract and intimidating when seen in the global scale, depends on its basis of the formation, maintenance and exploration of relations of proximity, trust and reciprocity with local actors (especially rural producers), including family friendship linkages.     

Psychologists as ‘the quiet ones with the power’: understanding indeterminate sentenced prisoners’ experiences of psychological risk assessment in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

Prisoners serving indeterminate sentences in the United Kingdom do not know when or if they will be released from prison. Release and progression decisions are determined by the risk the ISP presents of reoffending. This makes the assessment of risk a high stakes business for ISPs. Whilst there is a large body of literature focused on prisoners’ general experiences of prison, there is an absence of specific empirical exploration of prisoners’ experiences of risk assessment. This paper aims to address this gap by reporting the results of a qualitative exploration of ISPs’ experiences of psychological risk assessment. Interviews with 10 ISPs were conducted and analysed using Grounded Theory methods. Analysis indicated that prisoners experienced the prison environment as characterised by violence, volatility and suffering. Psychological risk assessment is embedded within this emotionally and physically challenging context but also contributes to the experience of suffering. Within this context, prisoners felt stuck, powerless and out of control in relation to risk assessment, and experienced psychologists as untrustworthy yet powerful. Understanding prisoners’ experiences is the first step in resolving some of the long-reported difficulties in working relationships between psychologists and prisoners as well as making the process more procedurally just.