Telling the stories of others: claims of authenticity in human rights reporting and comics journalism

ABSTRACT

There are various intermediaries bearing witness to distant conflicts and atrocities. They travel to distant parts of the world to collect different kinds of evidence and stories, motivated by the assumption that knowledge can evoke change. This article asks how authenticity is claimed in this context of humanitarian witnessing. It focuses on two, at first sight quite different, practices of representation: NGO human rights reporting and comics journalism, also known as graphic reporting. It argues that representations of first-hand access to sites and people involved in abuses, or of ‘having been there’, figure centrally in establishing authenticity and thereby truth. The article discusses two techniques through which first-hand truth claims are performed: representations of field research methodologies, and personifications of truth in the figure of the witness. The intermediaries chosen for an in-depth study are the human rights NGO Human Rights Watch and the US comics journalist Joe Sacco.     

Preparing NATO for the Future – Operating in an Increasingly Contested Environment

The global proliferation of precision-strike systems may be challenging the foundations of Western military-technological supremacy. Relatedly, the development of so-called Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities across the globe threatens to complicate Western freedom of military movement and access, and could give way to a more contested military-strategic environment. The twin challenges of precision-strike proliferation and A2/AD strongly impact NATO’s agenda, which revolves around strengthening deterrence and defence in Eastern Europe, and addressing the different threats emanating from the so-called Southern European neighbourhood. In order to address or mitigate such challenges, the Alliance needs to produce operational concepts and capabilities able to deliver deterrence and expeditionary warfare in a maturing precision-strike environment, one characterised by the emergence of A2/AD capabilities.     

Authority in rebel groups: identity,recognition and the struggle over legitimacy

This article asks how rebel leaders capture and lose legitimacy within their own movement. Analysing these complex and often uneasy relations between elites and grassroots of insurgency is important for understanding the success or failure of peace processes. This is because internal contestation over authority between rival rebel leaders can drive a movement’s external strategy. Based on ethnographic research on the Karen and Kachin rebellions in Myanmar and insights from Political Sociology, the article suggests that leadership authority is linked to social identification and the claim to recognition among insurgent grassroots. If rebel leaders manage to satisfy their grassroots’ claim to recognition, their insurgent orders are stable. Failing this, their authority erodes and is likely to be challenged. These findings contribute to understanding insurgency and peace negotiations in Myanmar and civil wars more generally by showing how struggles over legitimacy within rebel groups drive wider dynamics of war and peace.     

Mobility in pastoral societies of Northern Mali: Perspectives on social and political rationales

Since the 1980s, the so-called “nomadic” populations in the regions of Northern Mali and Niger have embarked on an extensive process of settlement. Today they mostly live in villages or “settlement sites”. But, at the same time, individuals and small groups among these same populations have considerably enlarged their area of mobility and accelerated the rate and the value of the trade in which they engage. These two phenomena could, at first sight, appear contradictory. But the observation of empirical situations shows, rather, compatibilities, similarities even, between these two concomitant phenomena. Building on innovative debates conducted in geography and sociology, this article puts forward the hypothesis that the building of villages, as well as integration into military bases and barracks, proceeds from (social) rationales of mobility, just as much as transhumance, journeys, migration. Much more than a simple displacement in space, the notion of mobility could describe an “art of doing”, a way of being to others and to the world.     

Trading in development: norms and institutions in the making/unmaking of European Union–African,Caribbean and Pacific trade and development cooperation

This paper offers a contribution to recent debates on European Union (EU) external trade and development policy, with a specific focus on the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries. The question asked is why the EU encountered such difficulties in the attempt to translate its normative preferences for freer trade and closer economic integration into a series of binding agreements? Drawing on both economic constructivist and historical institutionalist insights, it is argued that the case for reform initially rested on a strong convergence between institutions and ideas, enabling the EU to discursively present desired policy reforms as necessary to satisfy World Trade Organisation trade rules. However, in due course, the institutional dynamics behind the latter began to diverge from the EU's policy preferences and blunt its norm-based argument – thus creating the space for transnational coalitions to, first, question and, ultimately, undermine aspects the EU's trade and development prospectus for the ACP.     

GC/ECD检验生物检材中的氟乙酸钠

建立对生物检材中氟乙酸钠的GC/ECD检验方法。用PFBBr作衍生化试剂,对氟乙酸钠或氟乙酰胺中毒后脏器中的氯乙酸（氯乙酸钠）进行衍生化,GC/ECD和GC／MS的分析。在1ml血中添加lμg1080,其回收率为76．2％,RSD为3．07（n＝7）;在1g肝中添加2μg的1080其回收率为84．4％,RSD为1．87（n=5）。研究的方法经动物试验和大量中毒案件的验证,效果较好。该方法已在中毒案件的检验中广泛应用。     

《鹿特丹规则》下无单放货解决机制：从凭保函放货到凭指示放货

《鹿特丹规则》对无单放货问题设计了新的解决机制，通过使特定条件下的无单放货合法化，试图减轻承运人的负担，平衡船货双方的利益。采取规范分析的方法，对这一机制进行解构，论述其给各当事方的法律地位所带来的变化，认为对现有制度进行改良可能是更好的选择。     

自制海洛因标准品在常用有机溶剂中稳定性研究

目的 研发海洛因标准品及优化分析方法,以对云南缴获海洛因样本提纯制备成的自制海洛因对照品在常用有机溶剂中的稳定性进一步研究.方法 采用内标及GC、GC/MS方法,通过对提纯制备的海洛因在5种有机溶剂中冷藏保存后含量的变化,观察海洛因在常用有机溶剂中的稳定性.结果 乙醇、三氯甲烷及乙腈为溶剂的自制海洛因对照品储备液,保存30天时间范围内海洛因含量未发生明显变化;以丙酮作为溶剂的自制海洛因对照品储备液,在7至30天时间范围内,海洛因含量明显升高;以甲醇作为溶剂的自制海洛因对照品储备液,在0小时至30天时间范围内,海洛因含量一直呈明显的下降趋势.结论 乙醇、三氯甲烷及乙腈可以作为海洛因样品储备液溶剂使用,丙酮、甲醇不适合作为海洛因样品储备液溶剂使用.     

中毒死者体内毒鼠强的GC/MS-SIM分析

一 1 9岁男子赌气吞服一白色粉末 ,1 0min后口鼻流血、抽搐 ,迅速送医院 ,经催吐、透析等方法治疗 5天后死亡。根据中毒症状和经验怀疑为毒鼠强中毒。用GC/NPD检验肝中毒鼠强有干扰。改用GC/MS -SIM法分析 ,心血、肝和胃组织中全部检出毒鼠强 ,浓度分别为 0 5 1 μg .mL- 1、0 4 5 μg .g- 1和 0 33μg .g- 1,和文献结果在同一水平。GC/MS -SIM对复杂检材中低含量毒鼠强测定具有更高的选择性 ,也具有较高的灵敏度 ,同时进一步证实毒鼠强排泄较慢 ,经过较长时间后在体内分布比较均匀