Defence cooperation between Brazil and Namibia: Enduring ties across the South Atlantic

This article addresses the nature of transatlantic relations between Brazil and Namibia in the last two decades and argues that, in stark contrast with any other relationship regarding the African continent, Brazil's motivation in deepening ties with Namibia was largely built upon an extensive military-to-military cooperation partnership. By focusing on long-standing bureaucratic interests, the article demonstrates how Brazilian–Namibian relations were driven over the years by strategic affinities, business opportunities made available by the security sectors of both countries and, more recently, growing concerns over the sovereignty of their respective maritime areas in tandem with renewed interest for security developments within the the South Atlantic region.     

Everyday health security practices as disaster resilience in rural Bangladesh

Health security is a relatively new concept in terms of how it is practised in disaster-prone locales. We observed 10 rural households in Bangladesh for four months using informal interviews, field diaries, and observation. The findings suggest that the everyday practises of health security involve the capabilities of “caring for themselves” in resource-constrained contexts. Understanding how households care for themselves prior to and during disasters presents an opportunity to examine how improved health might reduce the effects of disasters, ill health, and poverty. Some interventions are proposed to improve health security for poorer households in general and women in particular.     

Energy poverty amidst abundance in Malaysia: placing energy in multidimensional poverty

In developing countries the analysis of energy poverty has been framed in terms of a nexus; linking poverty, gender, and energy as obstacles to sustainable development. This article considers the dual challenges of energy and fuel poverty in Malaysia, a middle-income country boasting high levels of grid penetration, suggesting that there are limitations to this approach in relation to articulating the relationship between energy and poverty, specifying the dynamics of energy poverty, and informing policies to address this. Locating energy deprivation in the context of multidimensional poverty offers a basis for addressing energy poverty in a wider range of spatial and temporal contexts.     

Entrepreneurial traits and micro-enterprise performance: a study among women micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia

This article reports on a study that examined the effect of key entrepreneurial traits on the performance of micro-enterprises owned and managed by Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) women micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia. This study adopted a cross-sectional design and a quantitative approach, and collected data from 407 micro-entrepreneurs. The study findings revealed that an ability to identify and tap into entrepreneurial opportunity is the key entrepreneurial trait that has a significant positive effect on the performance of micro-enterprises. AIM should therefore focus on designing enterprise development training programmes to improve entrepreneurs’ ability to identify and tap into entrepreneurial opportunity.     

Russia and South Ossetia: conferring statehood or creeping annexation?

Abstract

Events in Ukraine have distracted international attention from the ongoing Russian involvement in the unresolved conflicts of the South Caucasus. This article explores the intensification of relations between South Ossetia and Moscow, focusing on the extent to which South Ossetia exists as a functioning state entity. Are the authorities in Tskhinvali able to provide vital services such as defence and control over ‘state’ borders and territory without Russian involvement? What has been happening in South Ossetia is important, despite being overshadowed by events in Ukraine, as it is indicative of what may well occur in eastern Ukraine: a simmering separatist conflict that is far more than a domestic territorial dispute, with both regional and international implications.     

Space Invaders: border crossing in Dan Halter’s Heartland

Using springstone sculpture and woven paper photographs, the Zimbabwean-born artist Daniel Halter draws from African craft traditions to expose the precariousness of migrant experiences in South Africa. Halter, who lives in Cape Town, exposes the ironic tensions between hostility towards migrants and metaphors of inclusiveness in the post-apartheid nation. This essay reads metaphors of belonging, border crossing, and nationalism evoked by Halter’s materials and modes of production. Building from Ranjana Khanna’s work on demetaphorization – an undoing of discourses of community – and Edward Casey and Mary Watkin’s analysis of the border as always already undone by its lived functions, the essay argues Halter addresses the immigrant’s position uncovering the borderland as both a porous zone and a metaphor of exclusion. By weaving, Halter addresses this condition through an interdependency that, following Derrida’s work on hospitality, offers a framework to reconsider discourses of citizenship and nationalism in southern Africa.     

An interview with Eben Venter: Trencherman and environmentalism in South Africa

This interview explores the role of environmentalism – specifically as it relates to meat and agriculture – in the literature of South African writer Eben Venter. As discussed in the interview, Venter’s novel Trencherman, through its envisioning of a post-apocalyptic South Africa, serves as an especially productive text for examining the interplay of colonialism and ecological violence.     

Procedural justice and perceived electoral integrity: the case of Korea's 2012 presidential election

Recently, there has been an increase in the number of scholars focusing on why voters around the world differ in their evaluations of electoral integrity. One group of scholars contends that perceived electoral integrity is determined by partisan status according to election results. Another group claims that individual perception of election quality is influenced by such political cues as institutional support for election management bodies. Although the two groups have developed this subject differently, they both underestimate the degree to which the election process affects electoral integrity. Based on the theory of procedural justice, this study argues that the more problems citizens see in the electoral process, the more negatively they tend to rate elections. An analysis of a public opinion survey conducted immediately after the December 2012 presidential election in South Korea provides credible evidence for our theoretical expectations and presents an important implication for elections of new democracies in a comparative perspective.     

Commitments and challenges in participatory development: a Korean NGO working in Cambodia

Despite their growing significance in the development field, academic research regarding development NGOs from emerging donors, such as South Korea, is almost non-existent. This study is based on a case study of LotusWorld, a Korean NGO, and its two recent projects conducted in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Based on interviews with Korean staff and with a group of villagers in the local community, the article examines how LotusWorld’s vision and practices of participation have evolved from the first project to the second, as well as the challenges that they faced. Suggestions for further community participation are made for key actors.