Determining ‘truth’ at the border: immigration interviews,Chinese marital migrants,and Taiwan's sovereignty dilemmas

As Taiwan transitions from an immigrant-sending to an immigrant-receiving country, it struggles to build an immigration bureaucracy while its status as a sovereign nation-state is not recognized by much of the international community. Taiwan's largest immigrant group, marital migrants from China, are perceived as posing the greatest challenges to border control due to longstanding political tensions between the two countries and governmental and societal suspicions about Chinese spouses' marital motives. Based on research conducted with immigration officials and during immigration interviews at the border, this article interrogates the status of ‘truth’ in official efforts to determine definitively immigrants' marital intentions. It analyzes such truth demands in relation to Taiwan's anxieties about its national standing and the ability of an immigration bureaucracy to generate ‘sovereignty effects’.     

Allocating Family Responsibilities for Dependent Older People in Mexico and Peru

This paper applies different analytical frameworks to explore processes of family bargaining about providing care for dependent older people in Mexico and Peru. These frameworks include cultural norms, life course effects and material exchange. The paper is based on 19 in-depth qualitative family case studies, which are linked to a wider set of quantitative survey data. Care arrangements and bargaining processes are revealed to be highly gendered, and largely conform to prevailing cultural norms. Rather than neutral and objective, the self-identified role as main carer is found to be subjective and potentially ambiguous. The few men who self-identify as main carers are more likely to play an indirect, organisational role than engage directly in daily care. As such, bargaining mainly relates to which woman performs the main care role, and large family networks mean that there is usually more than one candidate carer. Bargaining can occur inter-generationally and conjugally, but bargaining between siblings is of particular importance. Bargaining is framed by the uncertain trajectory of older people’s care needs, and arrangements are sometimes reconfigured in response to changing care needs or family circumstances. Taking the narratives at face value, the influence of life course effects on bargaining and care arrangements is more obvious than material exchange. There are, however, indications that economic considerations, particularly inheritance, still play an important behind the scenes role.     

The Development of Ethnic/Racial Self-Labeling: Individual Differences in Context

Ethnic/racial self-labeling represents one’s knowledge of and preference for ethnic/racial group membership, which is related to, but distinguishable from, ethnic/racial identity. This study examined the development of ethnic/racial self-labeling over time by including the concept of elaboration among a diverse sample of 297 adolescents (Time 1 mean age 14.75, 67% female, 37.4% Asian or Asian American, 10.4% Black, African American, or West Indian, 23.2% Hispanic or Latinx, 24.2% White, 4.4% other). Growth mixture modeling revealed two distinct patterns—low and high self-labeling elaboration from freshman to sophomore year of high school. Based on logistic regression analyses, the level of self-labeling elaboration was generally low among the adolescents who were foreign-born, reported low levels of ethnic/racial identity exploration, or attended highly diverse schools. We also found a person-by-context interaction where the impact of school diversity varied for foreign-born and native-born adolescents (b?=?12.81, SE?=?6.30, p?<?0.05) and by the level of ethnic/racial identity commitment (b?=?14.32, SE?=?6.65, p?<?0.05). These findings suggest varying patterns in ethnic/racial self-labeling elaboration among adolescents from diverse backgrounds and their linkage to individual and contextual factors.     

Suicide Risk in Emerging Adulthood: Associations with Screen Time over 10 years

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Suicide rates have increased over the past decade, and screen media (and social media in particular) are often blamed for this marked increase. However, there is...     

PTSD compromises battered women's future safety

Intimate partner violence continues to be a social crisis that results in a complex array of physical and mental health problems. Although resources to counteract the effects of the violence are sometimes available, the posttrauma sequelae may prevent access by those in need. Using the Chicago Women's Health Risk Study, a naturalistic longitudinal study of 320 abused women, the current study examined the impact of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression on battered women's safety at follow-up. Participants completed both a baseline and follow-up interview, including data on abuse experiences. Results suggest symptoms of PTSD predict severity of violence at follow-up over the impact of help-seeking behaviors, perceived helpfulness of these behaviors, and social support. Implications of results are discussed.     

Community violence victimization and depressed mood: the moderating effects of coping and social support

The objectives of the current study were to (a) determine how lifetime community violence (CV) victimization, coping behavior, social support (SS), and depressed mood are related in young adults, and (b) assess whether the relationship between CV victimization and depressive reactions is moderated by perceived SS and coping style. Five hundred fifty college students (160 men, 355 women) completed questionnaires measuring lifetime experiences with violence, current depressed mood, perceptions of SS from family and friends, and general coping styles. Results of a series of hierarchical regressions indicated a positive relationship between frequency of CV victimization and depressed mood. Low levels of perceived SS and problem-focused coping and high levels of disengagement coping were associated with increased depression scores overall, but there was an interaction effect such that high disengagement coping strengthened the relationship between CV and depressed mood. Moreover, when controlling for the effect of posttraumatic stress, high-perceived friend support and low disengagement coping served as protective factors for depressed mood. These results were particularly strong in individuals whose last CV experience occurred within the previous 2 years. Findings suggest that perceptions of support and ability to actively cope with stressors are very important in the adjustment to CV victimization.     

The Origins of the Redemption in Occupied Suburbia? The Jewish-American Makings of the West Bank Settlement of Efrat, 1973–87

Founded primarily by Jewish-American immigrants after the 1973 Arab–Israeli war, Efrat has emerged as one of the most highly recognizable settlements in the occupied territories. Drawing on archival materials, the periodical press, and interviews never before brought to light, this article both explores the untold history of this ‘city on a hilltop’ as the product of a quadrilateral relationship between American–Israelis, the Israeli government, the native Israeli settler movement, and local Palestinian communities, as well as reconstructing the discourses in the making of Efrat, which combine religio-political imperatives alongside a deeply Americanized vision of building new, utopian, suburbanized communities in the occupied territories, during its formative years between 1973 and 1987.     

Rights,women, and the state of Pakistan

Violence against women is a problem around the world. Addressing the issues of physical and sexual violence against women has been a complicated endeavor for criminologists. Much of the traditional criminological research on violence against women has frequently focused on rape as a crime of power between individuals. However, this framework has been expanded to incorporate the analysis of rape during times of war and rape as a state crime. In these cases, rape serves a broader purpose within the military and social structure. By focusing on the specific case of the gang rape of Mukhtar Mai, the goal of this paper was to demonstrate and analyze the role of the state in many of these crimes. Mukhtar Mai’s case should not be understood in isolation, but as a way to illuminate the role of the state in these numerous crimes.