In search of solace and finding servitude: human trafficking and the human trafficking vulnerability of African asylum seekers in Malta

This article presents the findings of a 12-month ethnographic study of the development of human trafficking vulnerability among African irregular migrants in Malta. It illustrates the role that European migration and asylum policies have played when fostering the development of trafficking vulnerabilities amongst asylum seekers following their arrival through the gates of Fortress Europe. It critically evaluates the discourse and discursive frameworks that have held dominion over the way in which academics and policy-makers have understood human trafficking practices, drawing attention to forms of human trafficking exploitation that are underrepresented within both trafficking literature and empirical studies.     

Vulnerability,context, and fear of victimization: Exploring race and ethnicity

The importance of individual- and structural-level factors in predicting fear of victimization has been a source of many empirical evaluations. Theoretical predictors that influence these associations such as those outlined in the vulnerability thesis on fear of crime regularly find that age, race, and gender are predictors of fear. We explore whether adolescent populations, not yet having internalized vulnerability, are more influenced by contextual factors. To explore this hypothesis, we employ the National Crime Victimization Survey: School Crime Supplement to examine the role of vulnerability on fear of victimization at school. Logistic regression suggests that contextual school-level factors may mediate the relationship between fear of victimization at school and individual characteristics such as age, race, and gender.     

When rights collide: land grabbing,force and injustice in Uganda

The realisation of rights and enforcement of correlative duties through practice and politics legitimate the use of force against some, to protect and fulfil the rights of others. When a conflict occurs, whose rights and which rights should take priority require clarification. Land grabs represent a conflict not just between use and exchange values but also potentially between different types of rights – such as property rights and the right to the means of subsistence. In such cases, it seems that the dictum ‘between equal rights force decides’ seems to be particularly applicable. This paper explores recent experiences of displaced people in the Karamoja and Teso regions of North Eastern Uganda in order to examine this phenomenon. A socially inclusive and just epistemic perspective requires that we extend our gaze to take account of the local political dynamics and impacts on, and voices of, people who have been displaced and how their basic rights have been affected – ‘putting the last first’. The analysis suggests that the transition to formalised property regimes based on liberal conceptions of ‘rights’ represents a case where the language of rights is usurped to serve the interests of the powerful and privileged rather than challenging social injustice.     

Justified state partiality and the vulnerable subject in migration

According to David Miller, there exists a special relationship between migrants at the border and members of a political community that the migrant hopes to join. It is the task of a political philosophy of migration to define a state’s obligations toward individuals who are vulnerable to the state’s actions without being members of the political community. I define the vulnerability in question as lacking capacity to be autonomous for lack of options to realize one’s plan of life. I then discuss Miller’s claim that what matters is sufficiency of generic options rather than access to all options. Miller wants to say that sufficiency can be achieved by assuring the protection of human rights. This claim neglects the source of the individual migrant’s vulnerability. I therefore argue that Miller neglects the specific relationship he has identified between potential host state and hopeful migrant, and advocate instead that the potential host state has to consider the vulnerability that is due to its own policies, such as migration regimes. This grounds a causal responsibility to protect the basic interest in leading autonomous lives for the migrant at the border.     

脆弱性视角下气候变化与暴力冲突的传导机制探究

气候变化通过直接或间接的方式影响暴力冲突发生的可能性,但气候变化与暴力冲突之间的因果传导机制仍需要进行深入探究。作者从脆弱性的视角出发,探索从气候变化到暴力冲突的传导机制,基于复杂交织的自然因素和社会因素,通过联系的独立性和多重性,分析了气候冲突的三级传导机制,并在此基础上强调了脆弱性在气候变化与暴力冲突复合传导机制中的结构性地位。文章从生态、经济、社会和政治四个方面对脆弱性进行阐述,并分析了其在气候冲突传导机制中的作用。气候变化是暴力冲突的一种外源性触发器,脆弱性作为社会内生性因素在气候冲突风险中发挥一种屏障作用。脆弱性升高将会造成国家对暴力冲突风险的屏障作用减弱,导致气候冲突风险显著上升。     

“以债生财”还是“因债致贫”？——家庭住房债务对贫困脆弱性的影响

脱贫的长效机制应考虑到未来贫困风险问题，即应关注贫困脆弱性。随着住房债务在家庭债务中的主体地位日益显现，住房债务或将影响家庭的贫困脆弱性。基于2016年中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）数据对两者关系展开研究，结果显示，平均而言，负有住房债务的家庭贫困脆弱性程度显著低于无住房债务的家庭，且以住房债务资产比度量的住房债务压力能够缓解贫困脆弱性。但这种缓解作用并非是持续的，而是表现出“U型”非线性特征。当住房债务资产比低于137.5%时，住房债务主要表现出净“财富效应”，存在“以债生财”的可能；在此之后，“房奴效应”将占主导地位，刺激“因债致贫”现象的发生。当然，家庭特征不同也会使这种影响产生差异。为减缓相对贫困，可进一步提高住房信贷效率、发挥住房信贷效能。     

Governance and Tools for the Post-Industrial Re-Conversion of the North-West European Mining Area： From a Contemporary Vulnerability to a Territorial Resilience

Many European countries （including Germany, Belgium, France, and England） were faced with industrial decline, creating a new issue in the territories： Brownfields sites inside or on the periphery of industrial cities. The post-industrial contemporary vulnerability involves prospective and strategic planning choices in terms of rehabilitation, requalification, or in terms of destruction of the existing heritage. The research targets North-West European mining area brownfields requalification via the paradigm of territorial resilience with a view to a socio-economic revitalisation. What can be the vectors of a sustainable territorial recovery and what are the resilience indicators of those traditional industrial regions of Europe？ By such research, the imperative commitment of political players and citizens to carry out a long-term proactive resilience of a space system to a major industrial heritage is demonstrated. Even if governance is not the only factor of territorial resilience, it remains a major sign in its vulnerable territories.     

Human Rights in Policing: The Past,Present and Future

This article seeks to demonstrate, largely from practitioners’ perspectives, the growing evolution in understanding and implementation of meaningful human rights standards within the policing context. In the early 2000s, human rights were perceived and treated as a rather restrictive framework in UK policing. They are now more readily seen as a set of tools that guide and help the police to balance the views and interests of all parties to the criminal justice process. Human rights values enable police in the UK to better endeavour to do the right thing, ‘without fear or favour’.     

Building climate-resilient cities： Examining climate change actions and hazard vulnerability in U.S. coast

The U.S. Gulf of Mexico＇s coastal counties have experienced many serious climate-related coastal hazards. It is important to identify how well local jurisdictions in gulf coast have prepared for climate change. The objective of this study is to exam how well the coastal jurisdictions have been aware of climate change and how well they have taken actions in climate change mitigation and adaptations. This study uses geographic information system （GIS） to identify the spatial variations of seventy-seven gulf coastal jurisdictions＇ climate change actions. The results show that only twelve coastal counties and their incorporated cities have made actions for climate change. The majority of coastal population in Gulf of Mexico are totally not be covered by local climate change initiatives or plans. The logistic regression results find that most of the contextual variables never show any statistical contribution to local climate change actions. The research suggests further coordination and education efforts to enhance local climate change awareness and actions.     

“I No Longer Let Anyone Hit Me for Free”: Affective Identificatory Practices of Women Imprisoned for Violent Crimes

This article explores the ways in which Finnish women serving prison sentences for violent crimes attach meaning to their violence and to themselves in relation to it. The analysis is based on a study involving 20 imprisoned women, who either sent a written account or were interviewed. The analysis draws upon critical discursive psychology and Sara Ahmed’s theorization of emotions. Hence, it focuses on the affective and discursive processes through which the women participating in the study enact identities in their narratives about their involvement with violence. These enactments are conceptualized as affective identificatory practices in which gendered, socio-culturally circulating meanings and valuations become entwined with personal histories in locally variant ways. Four different groups of selves that emerged from the participants’ narratives are discussed: victimized selves, defender selves, lost selves, and rehabilitated/unrehabilitatable selves. By looking at the constitution of these selves in close detail, I put forward a reading in which the participants are seen as primarily striving to enact autonomous identities and hence to subvert devaluation by distancing themselves from vulnerability, which threatens their integrity as subjects.