Place, Space, and Time in the Sign of Property

Property is a complex sign in semiotics. It is also the source of tension and conflict in law. This paper examines property in triadic terms consisting of what Charles S. Peirce would identify as the icon (firstness), the index (secondness), and the symbol (thirdness). From this perspective the paper explores the ideas of place, space, and time at the iconic level of the sign of property. Discussion addresses the way in which property serves as a coded system for communicating information about a given community’s values and its cultural-interpretive hierarchy. Much like an aboriginal songline, property functions as a way of imprinting the land with impressions of social ordering related to place, space, and time. In the context of global trade we therefore observe property conflicts which are sometimes not so much about the technical language of property as they are about tensions among the embedded values in competing signs of property.

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The unintended consequences of New Zealand's primary health care reforms

In 2001, the New Zealand government commenced a program to reform the organization of publicly funded primary care services. While there have been several positive results of this reform, including the reduction of patient co-payments and the extension of the range of primary care services, the government's program was a hastily implemented attempt to place primary care, the delivery of which is dominated by private doctors, under firm state control. It was also an attempt to override preexisting arrangements. As such, the government succeeded in its goal of establishing new primary health organizations (PHOs), but there were also significant unintended consequences. As detailed in this article, these consequences include (1) the creation of a labyrinthine funding and organizational system with a variable capacity to deliver on the government's reform objectives, (2) an increase in the power and scope of preexisting doctor organizations combined with a government unable to wrest control over the setting of patient co-payment levels, and (3) an emerging lack of clarity about future directions for the primary health care sector.     

Toward a better understanding of racial and ethnic disparities in search and seizure rates

Recent studies demonstrated a consistent research finding that compared to Caucasian motorists, Black and Hispanic motorists were significantly more likely to be subjected to personal and/or vehicle searches during traffic stops, but significantly less likely to be found in possession of contraband. Explanations for these findings were typically based on speculation regarding officers' racial animus, bias, and discrimination. Unfortunately, very little is truly known about the reasons for these disparate patterns in police behavior. This article presents an alternative explanation for the reoccurring findings of racial/ethnic disparities in searches and seizures, based on research findings regarding the accuracy of clues of deception and suspicious behavior taught to officers through highway criminal interdiction training. These research findings are used to develop a hypothesis that could account for the patterns of racial/ethnic disparities in search rates. The implications for future research and policing policies based on this hypothesis are discussed.