Lives on the border: language and culture in the lives of ethnic Russian women in Baltinava,Latvia

This study draws on ethnographic research conducted in a small village, Baltinava in Latvia, 2.5 kilometres from the border with Russia. The research examines how ethnic Russian women create a specific Latvian Russian identity by contrasting themselves from ethnic Latvians and Russians who live in Russia and identifying with both groups at the same time. To narrate their lives and to make them meaningful, real and/or perceived “attributes” are combined to draw boundaries between “us” and “them.” Thus, the same thing such as language can be used not only both to distinguish themselves from Russians in Russia or Latvians but also to form coherent identities and to emphasize similarities. This study suggests that ethnicities cannot be reduced to a list of set ethnic groups that are very often used in official government statistics. Ethnic identities have to be viewed as fluid and situational. Moreover, this study shows the dialectic nature of ethnicity. On the one hand, external political, historical and social processes create and recreate ethnic categories and definitions. Yet, on the other hand, the women in this study are active agents creating meaningful and symbolic ethnic boundaries.     

GPU Repressions of Zionists: Ukraine in the 1920s

This essay explores repressions against Zionist political parties in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s, and considers the formation of an efficient synergetic structure of Soviet secret organs in Moscow and Ukraine. The narrative identifies participants from central and regional secret departments who engaged in systematic mass operations against Zionists, and reveals that despite Moscow's initial vacillation between tolerance and persecution of Zionist parties, the Soviet secret police exhibited a continual escalation of repressions against Zionists. The policies of the secret police in Ukraine illuminate their personal adaptation to the coercive Soviet system of centralisation and ideological exclusion.     

An integrated approach to corporate due diligence from a human rights,environmental, and TWAIL perspective

Ten years since the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, we have witnessed an increasing trend in Europe toward the adoption of mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence. Focusing on due diligence legislation from France, Germany, Norway, and the EU, this article examines the extent to which these laws are laying the foundations for the articulation of an integrated, comprehensive, and robust framework that effectively fosters corporate accountability through preventing, addressing, and remedying corporate-related human rights and environmental harms. In this examination, we draw on international human rights and environmental standards and Third World Approaches to International Law, to identify the lessons learned from current approaches and that ought to be considered in future frameworks.     

Death penalty politics and symbolic law in Russia

In contemporary Russia there is widespread support for the death penalty. Recent Russian presidents have endorsed the nation’s entry into the European Community (EC). The dilemma is that the price of membership into the EC is total abolition of capital punishment. The Russian Duma is much less popular than the president, even though it sides with public opinion in supporting capital punishment. Since 1997, these conflicting political positions have been temporarily neutralized by leaving capital punishment legislation in place but allowing the Russian president to offer clemency to all sentenced to death. In 1999, the Constitutional Court of Russia placed a moratorium on all death sentences until jury trials are re-introduced throughout the nation.     

Neighborhood disorganization, substance use, and violence among adolescents in Puerto Rico

This study investigates the role of neighborhoods in adolescent violence in poor neighborhoods in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The study is part of a larger longitudinal project examining risk and resilience in adolescents' ages 12 to 15 years old and their caregivers. Using a cross-sectional design, a self-completion questionnaire, and an interviewer questionnaire, the authors assessed violent behaviors among participants across demographics, characteristics, and neighborhood social disorganization using the concepts of physical disorders and social disorder. Adolescent violence was positively associated with social disorder. The finding that adults in these neighborhoods walk around with visible firearms and engage in fighting, may have led adolescents to perceive that violence is an accepted behavior. Furthermore, socially disorganized neighborhoods might be less likely to organize on their own behalf because the occurrence of negative experience limits the amount of social support and resources that are available in the neighborhood.     

Typing of ABO locus with biological microchip as a new level in solution of problems in forensic-medical biological expertise of material evidences

There are cases in practice when during expertise of material evidences, discrepancies between results of typing of ABO antigens and molecular-genetic typing of DNA occur. In this work, as a radical approach to objective solution of similar conflict situations, for some contradictory case of expertise, all examinations were performed on the unified methodological base--DNA level. Instead of biological (isoserological) typing of ABO antigen, molecular-genetic typing of ABO locus with biological microchip was performed. In all cases the results, received with the use of biological microchip, do not contradict but completely conform to the results of others molecular-genetic examinations performed in the case. Given results indicate irrationality of further use of traditional methods of isoserological typing of ABO antigen for primary differentiation of biological material. These analyses, if necessary, have to be performed on DNA level with molecular-genetic expertise.