Bodies of science and law: forensic DNA profiling, biological bodies, and biopower

How is jurisdiction transferred from an individual's biological body to agents of power such as the police, public prosecutors, and the judiciary, and what happens to these biological bodies when transformed from private into public objects? These questions are examined by analysing bodies situated at the intersection of science and law. More specifically, the transformation of ‘private bodies’ into ‘public bodies’ is analysed by going into the details of forensic DNA profiling in the Dutch jurisdiction. It will be argued that various ‘forensic genetic practices’ enact different forensic genetic bodies'. These enacted forensic genetic bodies are connected with various infringements of civil rights, which become articulated in exploring these forensic genetic bodies’‘normative registers’.     

The modern Lithuanian kinship system: a descriptive analysis of generational differences in reckoning the saliency of kin terms

Lists of kin terms were elicited from four different generational-status samples: children, young adults, parents, and grandparents. Lists were compared in terms of frequency counts of terms and their respective saliencies. Saliency was measured using Smith’s S, which combines frequency and the rank of terms in a list. Using primarily saliency, we are able to synthesize genealogical and cultural theories for analysing kinship. Genealogy was found to be an important variable, but variations across generations could only be accounted for by relying on cultural factors.     

Didactic Realism in Ousmane Sembene's Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu

La Republique islamique de Mauritanie a la triste réputation d'être l'un des quelques pays au monde ou des formes traditionnelles d'esclavage persistent malgré les multiples tentatives de les éradiquer. Mais on ne connait que peu de choses sur le mouvement social de contestation de l'esclavage créé dans ce pays par des activistes d'origine servile depuis la fin des années 1970. Cet article cherche à combler cette lacune en retraçant la trajectoire heurtée de ce mouvement en mettant l'accent sur les transformations successives de ses modes d'action. On s'intéressera surtout au mouvement des Haratines suivant les formes d'organisation qu'il est amené à adopter, les modes d'action qu'il met en oeuvre et les débouchés de son activisme.     

The political economy of China's economic reform

In China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle, Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett present a withering critique of China's market reforms and development strategy. To assess their critique, I believe it is essential to provide a somewhat fuller discussion of the context within which China's reform strategy emerged than appears in the work of Hart-Landsberg and Burkett. My discussion of this context appears after a brief discussion of their main points, and is followed in turn by a more detailed evaluation of the specific assertions they make. Although I am sympathetic to the spirit of their critique, I believe that in the last analysis they are unable to offer any genuine alternative to the development strategy China has pursued and that their analysis of the consequences of that strategy is in many respects deeply flawed.