The existing tensions in the defining of human trafficking at a UK and international level: a critical overview

Human trafficking is an ancient trade that took several forms over the centuries, from full blown state-perpetrated slavery through to illegal exploitative employment of migrants in the sex and other labor industries. At the start of the twenty-first century, a new definition of human trafficking was produced by the United Nations, within which are contained terms such as “coercion,” “deception,” “abuse of power” and “consent.” While the definition itself has largely been agreed upon, deep divisions – about the interpretation of those terms within the definition – continue to polarize the views of antagonizing political and feminist lobbying groups. The agreement on the definition seems to have served little in ironing the differences and the debates continue to be fuelled. In this article, the author elaborates on the tensions that surround the interpretation of the definition and argues that the main group to have fallen victim to the relevant yet inept international and individual state regulations is the trafficked people, while the traffickers tend to largely escape punishment. Rectifying the situation can be extremely challenging and requires sustained and large scale multinational collaborative work. So far, only little is being done to address the problem and the expectation is that it will become significantly worse before it eventually gets better.     

风水及文化积累的局限——旧金山华人移民的文化认同

20世纪80年代以来,移居美国的香港华人极力想要在美国积累文化资本和经济资本,开始在旧金山的湾区购买房地产。他们带去“风水”的文化逻辑,即在他们认为会给他们带来好运的地方进行房地产投资。这一行为在当今这样一个跨国时代的背景下,向皮埃尔.布迪厄提出的文化资本积累的观点提出了挑战。新的移民也许可以获得文化资本,但却难于把它转变为社会资本,因为在象征资本和种族认同之间产生了一种不协调,也因此造成了他们在东道社会中社会地位低下的原因。所以,文化资本积累上的局限对移民来说是十分明显的。     

The Social Function of Carlos Fuentes: A Critical Intellectual or in the ‘Shadow of the State’?

This article seeks to raise meaningful questions about the role, or wider social function, of the intellectual within state–civil society relations in Latin America characterised by conditions of socio–economic modernisation. It does so by pursuing such questions through a detailed examination of the social function of Carlos Fuentes as an intellectual in Mexico. Through a focus on the social function of Carlos Fuentes, it is possible to distinguish the role intellectual activity can play in the construction and contestation of hegemony in Mexico. Most crucially, the article prompts consideration of the social basis of hegemony and the agency of intellectuals organically tied to particular social forces functioning through state–civil society relations in the struggle over hegemony. Put differently, it is possible to grant due regard to the mixture of critical opposition and accommodation that has often confronted the intellectual within Latin America.     

Nativism or Economic Threat: Attitudes Toward Immigrants During the Great Recession

To better evaluate the weight of economic versus cultural factors in determining individual attitudes toward open borders, this article reports on a survey experiment conducted over the course of the Great Recession. Over the course of the recession, we measured changes in attitudes on both immigration and trade policies, controlling for economic circumstance. Based on the data provided by respondents on both their current salaries as well as a subjective assessment of their economic well-being, we illustrate how both objective and subjective perceptions of the economy interact with cultural factors and influence attitudes on open borders. The panel provides a unique picture of the “stickiness” of policy attitudes in hard economic times, and by extension, the level of commitment in the United States to globalization.     

对陕南移民搬迁工作规范化建设的思考

陕西省委、省政府提出,用10年时间对陕南三市居住在深山半坡和地质灾害点上的60万户,240万群众实施移民搬迁,这是解决陕南恶劣环境地区群众居住安全和生存发展的重大民生工程。要达到"搬得出、稳定住、能致富"的目标,就必须大力推进搬迁工作的规范化建设。笔者认为,应在搬迁工作制度化、规划选址科学化、工程建设规范化、搬迁安置项目化、资金筹集多元化、安置政策优惠化、社区组建新型化、移民致富产业化等八个方面进一步推进移民搬迁工作规范化建设。     

雅加达印度移民及其社会组织探析

印度人移民印尼有着悠久的历史,且呈现出民族、宗教、职业上的多样性,印尼的印度移民主要集中在雅加达地区。二战后至今,雅加达涌现出各种类型的印度人组织,这些组织对印度人的生存与发展产生不同的影响。     

“Murderers,Rapists, and Bad Hombres”: Deconstructing the Immigration-Crime Myths

ABSTRACT

Immigration control is at the center of the political debate and it is an important component of the Trump administration agenda. Restrictive immigration policies have expanded under the current administration justified in rhetoric that portrays immigrants as criminals and threats to public safety. This article presents the different mythologies surrounding the immigration and crime link and critically appraise the empirical evidence investigating the relationship between immigration and crime. The review provides ample evidence contradicting the commonly held belief that immigration increases crime. At the macro-level, research shows that immigrant communities have no higher crime rates than non-immigrant communities and that sanctuary cities do not foster crime. At the micro-level, research shows that neither immigrants in general nor undocumented immigrants, in particular, engage in more criminal behavior than non-immigrants. In fact, evidence seems to suggest the opposite. Despite researchers largely agreeing that the portrait of immigrants as a threat is not founded in empirical reality, the consequences of the immigrant threat narrative and the policies they promote are all too real.     

Discriminant function analysis for sex assessment in pelvic girdle bones: sample from the contemporary Mexican population

Sex assessment of skeletal remains plays an important role in forensic anthropology. The pelvic bones are the most studied part of the postcranial skeleton for the assessment of sex. It is evident that a population-specific approach improves rates of accuracy within the group. The present study proposes a discriminant function method for the sex assessment of skeletal remains from a contemporary Mexican population. A total of 146 adult human pelvic bones (61 females and 85 males) from the skeletal series pertaining to the National Autonomous University of Mexico were evaluated. Twenty-four direct metrical parameters of coxal and sacral bones were measured and subsequently, sides and sex differences were evaluated, applying a stepwise discriminant function analysis. Coxal and sacra functions achieved accuracies of 99% and 87%, respectively. These analyses follow a population-specific approach; nevertheless, we consider that our results are applicable to any other Hispanic samples for purposes of forensic human identification.     

Neighborhood Advantage,Relative Status,and Violence Among Foreign-Born Adolescents

Immigrant families and contexts are protective for delinquency, even though recent immigrants are more likely to be poor and reside in disadvantaged settings. Yet it is unclear whether the protective effects of immigrant status depend on the match between family SES and neighborhood advantage. This study examines the interplay among immigrant status, family SES, and neighborhood advantage in predicting adolescent violence. Using multilevel longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (N = 1,908), findings show that first-generation adolescents from low-SES families have the highest odds of violence in the most advantaged contexts, exceeding that of even third-generation adolescents. In contrast, high-SES first-generation adolescents have the highest probability of violence in less advantaged contexts, but the lowest in the most advantaged neighborhoods. The results identify conditions under which the protective nature of immigrant status is eroded, and highlight the importance of relative status for understanding violence among foreign-born adolescents.