Buried voices: Mexican migrants’ views on the question of illegality

How do immigrant Mexican workers perceive the policies and social discourses that regulate their insertion into American society as noncitizens and illegals? Using ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, evidence is presented that unauthorized Mexican migrants do not consider themselves lawbreakers but rather moral actors responding to difficult socioeconomic conditions. Informed by a keen understanding of the social forces oppressing them, these migrants articulate a discourse of social justice that works as a powerful counterpoint to the hegemonic ideas of citizenship, belonging, and illegality. A careful analysis of migrant social reflexivity offers a much-needed corrective to the prevailing top-down perspective typically offered among contemporary scholars. By looking at the ways in which migrants make sense of immigration policies and articulate their right to have rights, this examination departs from the widespread tendency among scholars and policy makers of analyzing the migrant’s social and civic status as a matter of assimilation and immigration control.     

成文宪法中的宗教内容比较研究

宗教信仰自由权是世界范围内各成文宪法保护的重要内容。与其他人权的宪法保护不同,宗教信仰自由权在各国宪法中具有扩散性保护特征。只有综合考量宪法规范中的宗教内容,才能准确理解宗教信仰自由权的宪法规范保护。通过在各成文宪法中查找与宗教相关的关键词,可以发现宗教信仰自由权成文宪法保护具有普遍性。以宗教信仰自由权为核心,辅之以政教关系的相关规定,构成了宗教问题宪法保护的基本框架。从内容上看,成文宪法保护的宗教信仰自由权具有内容的绝对性与相对性相统一、主体自主选择与结社自由相结合的特点;从属性上看,宗教信仰自由权具有入世性与政治性并存的特征。     

劳动权的防御权功能与国家的尊重义务

防御权功能是劳动权的首要功能,以防止国家权力的干预、为公民创设"自由空间"为旨趣。公民劳动权的起始之处,即国家权力的终止之所。防御权功能属于"主观权利"范畴,公民享有"不作为请求权"、"停止侵害请求权"。尽管我国《宪法》未规定劳动自由,然而,从"事实"与"规范"二维度看,防御权功能亦是我国劳动权的题中之义。劳动权的防御权功能之实现仰赖国家履行"消极不作为"的"尊重义务"。尊重义务是劳动权保障的根本义务,立法机关和司法机关是尊重义务的主体,行政机关在一定程度上具有尊重义务的主体资格。     

A comparison of wrongful convictions in death penalty cases between China and the United States

In recent years, both China and the United States (US) have discovered numerous wrongful convictions, including several cases in which innocent people have been sentenced to death. These discoveries have led both countries to reform the death penalty but the extent and nature of the reforms in each country have been greatly different. This article explores the similarities and differences between the nature of wrongful convictions in death penalty cases in China and the US. It will also compare the reforms undertaken in each country. On the whole, the US has made greater progress in the prevention and correction of wrongful convictions involving the death penalty, especially in the areas of evidentiary rules and post-conviction review. In order for China to match America's success, it is necessary that China adopt more substantive reforms. China should learn from America's experience and should continue to adopt international standards of criminal justice, such as due process rights, the presumption of innocence and the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence. In the interim, China should immediately suspend all executions until adequate reforms can be carried out. Ultimately, China should surpass the US in criminal-justice reform and in the field of human rights protection by completely abolishing the death penalty and creating a more effective mechanism for criminal punishment.     

Reinventing political subjectivities: studying critical documentaries on the war on terror

This paper casts a look on media aspects of the anti-war-on-terror struggle in western countries. A peculiar warfare, the “war on terror” that officially begun in 2001, is a low-density global warfare, fought in different internal and external fronts . Within a liberal, increasingly post-political social terrain, where social affairs are objects of expert management lacking public accountability and legitimacy, the role, status and the identity of the contemporary citizen is in decline. New media “affordances” offer critical possibilities for challenging hegemonic political discourses, and addressing political alternatives for a broad range of social problems; a re-invention of citizenship through the construct of a new (collective) political subject is central in the reinvention of democracy today. Discourse analysis, drawing reflexively on post-structuralist discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, is deployed in the study of counter-war-on-terror discourses in different documentaries critical to the “war on terror”. Analysis looks at different constructions of “us” and “them” in the context of counter-hegemonic discourses today. Identity is central in the engagement, participation and orientation of citizens today. Identity is central in organising a collective centre and in initiating subjectivity to fragmented liberal, postmodern individuals.     

Towards cultural citizenship? Cultural rights and cultural policy in Taiwan

This article reviews existing literature on the construction of cultural citizenship, and argues that cultural citizenship expands the concept of ‘citizenship’, promotes citizens' consciousness and ensures the protection of minority rights. Since the 1990s, three cultural policies have arisen related to cultural citizenship in Taiwan: ‘Community Renaissance’, ‘Multicultural Policy’ and the ‘Announcement of Cultural Citizenship’. ‘Cultural citizenship’ has expanded the concept of citizenship in two ways. First, it has led to the consideration of the minority rights of Taiwanese indigenous peoples, the Hakkas, foreign brides and migrant workers in ‘citizenship’; and second, it has placed emphasis on ‘cultural rights’ in addition to civil rights, political rights and social rights. This article begins by exploring what approach to cultural citizenship is used in cultural policy, and what approach is suitable for practising cultural citizenship in Taiwan. I argue that minority groups practise their cultural rights with the public participation of Community Renaissance. Taiwan's case bears out Stevenson's view: a society of actively engaged citizens requires both the protection offered by rights and opportunities to participate. Finally, this article shows the challenges and contradictions of cultural citizenship in Taiwan: the loss of autonomy and the continuation of cultural inequality.     

Citizenship education in divided societies: teachers' perspectives in Northern Ireland

This article aimed to investigate in what ways teachers' developing understandings of citizenship education in a divided society reflect discourses around national citizenship and controversial issues. Based on thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 13 post-primary teachers in Northern Ireland undertaking an in-service programme in citizenship, findings indicate that the controversial nature of past conflict maintains its sensitivity in the educational context though other categories of potential exclusion, such as race and sexuality, compete for space in educational discourse and teaching. Few teachers used controversial issues identified as challenging hegemonic beliefs as an opportunity for role modelling citizenship. However, teachers rarely explored the complex interlinkages between traditional and alternative categories of exclusion. It is argued that this may render teachers' understandings of citizenship and societal conflict disconnected, which in turn may hinder the potential for citizenship education to address societal divisions and to promote active peace in the long term.