The association between Ugandan adolescents’ viewing of specific television genres and sex-related normative beliefs and behaviours

Growing evidence in Western nations indicates that exposure to high levels of sexual media content influences adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviours in those countries. Although media in many sub-Saharan markets contain increasingly higher levels of sexual content, little research has investigated the effects of that content on adolescents’ HIV-related risk and protective behaviours. This project used cultivation theory to examine Ugandan adolescents’ media use, and to test the relationship between their exposure to specific television genres and their sex-related normative beliefs and behaviours. Three hundred and sixty secondary school students from four purposively sampled schools filled out a questionnaire about their television viewing, their beliefs about the prevalence of sexual intercourse among their peers, and their own sexual behaviours. Preliminary evidence of relationships between watching comedy and cartoon programming, and high estimates of the proportion of adolescents who engage in sexual intercourse, were observed. Watching comedy programming and non- African programming was associated with the higher likelihood to have ever had sexual intercourse.     

Truth and Consequences: Law,Myth and Metaphor in American Indian Contested Adoption

This article considers the effects of the operations of myth and metaphor on law through a comparison of a United States Supreme Court decision and a novel that deal with the contested trans-racial adoption of an American Indian child. It argues that the United States founding myth of Manifest Destiny—of the divinely ordained fate of the continent to host a (white) Christian state—is determinative of the way in which legal decisions regarding American Indians are made. The myth of Manifest Destiny contains a metaphor of vanished American Indians, such that contemporary American Indians are rendered nearly invisible and whose existence is not easily absorbed into the working of the American legal system. The American Indian Child Welfare Act provides protections against assimilation for indigenous families and community, thus working at cross-purposes to the ultimate aim of Manifest Destiny. What happens in those instances when legal provisions and interpretation run counter to Manifest Destiny? Through the consideration of the situation of a contested adoption, this article reveals the heavy influence of Manifest Destiny in the Supreme Court decision, which is counter to the vision of a pluralistic culture envisioned in both the novel and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) itself. The consequences of legal resistance to ICWA for American Indian communities and as to the operation of the legal system itself are discussed.     

Patriarchal Investments: Marriage,Dowry and the Political Economy of Development in Bangladesh

This article explores why dowry inflation persists in Bangladesh, despite the country being widely heralded as a development success, especially with regard to gender. The article asks three questions. Does rural Bangladesh show changing patterns of marriage similar to those reported elsewhere in South Asia and more broadly? What might explain the persistent spread and inflation of dowry payments? How might changes in marriage and the inflation of dowry be related to the broader political economy of development in Bangladesh? Analysis of primary data from rural Bangladesh affirms shifts in norms of marriage arrangement and conjugal relationships, but also emphasises considerable continuity. The political economy of development in Bangladesh is briefly described. Dowry is argued to function not as compensation for perceived weakness in women’s economic contribution, but to bolster men’s. In mobilising “additional” resources, dowries help sustain the economic system and indicate ongoing commitment to cultural idioms of masculine provision and protection, against a background of widespread corruption and political and gender violence.     

Negotiating Refugee Empowerment(s) in Resettlement Organizations

In-depth interviews with both organizational staff and refugee clients in two American refugee resettlement organizations explore how empowerment is communicated to and understood by refugees being “empowered.” This study found that while organizational staff professed empowerment focused on self-sufficiency as self-determination, in practice their communication to clients defined self-sufficiency a priori in economic terms. Refugee clients instead constructed empowerment(s) in economic, educational, personal, and family terms. These findings highlight the need for changes in U.S. resettlement policy and for theoretical and practical understandings of refugee empowerment to recognize polysemic and conflicting empowerments in different life arenas and from different positionalities.     

The Adaptive Capacity of Markets and Convergence in Law: UK High Yield Issuers,US Investors and Insolvency Law

This article examines the increasing access by UK issuers of high yield bonds to US investors notwithstanding substantive differences in the approach to valuation of the issuer in financial distress in US and UK restructuring law and, therefore, in anticipated return on default. It examines the development of the market in the context of existing theories on the relationship between law and finance and suggests that previous accounts have overlooked the adaptive capacity of the finance market to legal environment and the implications of such structural adaptation for the prospects of convergence in law. Three states are identified: where the market is poorly adapted to the legal environment and reinforces other pressure for change, where the market is adapted to the legal environment and is a neutral influence on, or even dampens, other pressure for change and where both legacy and adapted structures exist, potentially pulling in different directions at the same time.