“It's Like Fighting for Survival”: How Rejected Black African Asylum Seekers Experience Living Conditions in an Eastern German State

This article explores how Black African asylum seekers in an eastern German state experienced living conditions and the forms of agency they exhibited to redress the stressful circumstances of everyday life. The article draws on 12 in-depth interviews with rejected Black African asylum seekers and ethnographic research. Participants experienced various socio-environmental stressors and the absence of resources that affected their well-being and were injurious to their human rights. Their responses were embedded in different practices tied to the accumulation of capital that buffered stress and contested repressive asylum laws. The implications of the study for policy and advocacy are discussed.     

‘They treat us like criminals’: urban public spaces and ethnic discrimination in Italy

Mantovan’s article analyses the processes that lead to discrimination against migrants in the public spaces of Italy’s towns. Her analysis is based on a three-year research project conducted in northeastern Italy using mixed methods—ethnographic observation, semi-structured interviews, a press review, an analysis of relevant documentation and data collection—and remaining constantly in touch with research conducted in various Italian cities. Starting from an idea of a city whose evolution is the product of alliances, conflicts, active networks of individuals and their respective competing interests, Mantovan sheds light on how discrimination against immigrants in Italy’s urban public spaces is the result of a process of social construction implemented by a number of social actors (journalists, citizens’ committees, politicians and police forces) who represent the visible presence of migrants in these public spaces as deviant and unlawful, especially if they are undocumented immigrants and/or of low socio-economic status. She also argues for the importance of taking into consideration the contribution of economic and political dynamics, both global and national, to the generation of these phenomena by interacting with those at the local level.     

Gender discrimination in Vietnam: the role of personal face

This paper examines gender discrimination using two novel perspectives: its relationship with personal face and its manifestation in contemporary Vietnam. Interviews with a sample of college teachers in Nha Trang city suggest that gender discrimination is reflected in and institutionalised through learning and enacting ‘acceptable’ face-related behaviours. These processes are exemplified in gender based linguistic conventions, role differentiation and segregation, the higher value associated with male roles, the (surface) acceptance of double standards by both genders and the recognition of public sanctions as effective reinforcers of gender inequality. Despite limitations in generalising from this research, an approach based on personal face-related language, behaviour and attitudes has promise for understanding how gender inequality functions at both individual and societal levels.     

The rise of the far right in Greece and opposition to ‘othering’, hate speech,and crime by civil and civic organizations

This article focuses on forms of opposition to ‘othering’ and far-right politics in present-day Greece. This opposition takes a variety of forms, comes from a range of actors, and is motivated by a number of concerns with differing assessments of what should be done. More specifically, the article focuses on the far right in Greece and discrimination, hate speech, and hate crime against the ‘other’ from the perspectives of those who are active in mobilizing against racism and counteracting the country’s populist and neo-nationalist turn. Concentrating on the forces opposing discrimination, the analysis describes present-day social movements and actions from grassroots to governmental level, their strategies and politics, their diversity of thought and action, and their contribution in providing the resources for social change, and the production of new meaning in the context of anti-racism in Greece. Trying to provide answers as to how social movements and activists produce meaning, we argue that activists develop less intentional, inadvertent meanings which emerge in the course of the not-always conscious schemas of their struggle. This calls for a more dynamic explanation of the relationship between practice and meaning-making in social movement contexts.     

Maximum likelihood estimation of structural VARFIMA models

This paper considers the maximum likelihood estimation of a class of structural vector autoregressive fractionally integrated moving-average (VARFIMA) models. The structural VARFIMA model includes the fractional cointegration model as one of its special cases. We show that the conditional likelihood Durbin–Levinson (CLDL) algorithm of Tsay (2010a) is a fast and reliable approach to estimate the long-run effects as well as the short- and long-term dynamics of a structural VARFIMA process simultaneously. In particular, the computational cost of the CLDL algorithm is much lower than that proposed in Sowell (1989) and Dueker and Startz (1998). We apply the CLDL method to the Congressional approval data of Durr et al. (1997) and find that the long-run effect of economic expectations on Congressional approval is at least 0.5718, which is over twice the estimate of 0.24 found in Table 2 of Box-Steffensmeier and Tomlinson (2000). This paper also tests the divided party government hypothesis with the CLDL algorithm.     

日俄国家主义的形态特征及相互关系辨析

日本与俄罗斯,无论在地区还是在全球政治中,都是扮演重要角色的国家。在历史与现实中,两国的国家主义传统既有相似性,又有差异性。两国的国家主义对近代以来各自的历史都产生了重要影响,并且对地区和全球政治格局的构造与变迁发挥过不可忽视的作用。两国的国家主义在历史上既有冲突又有合作,在现实中既有竞争又有协调。作为邻国,日俄两国国家主义的取向和属性,无疑会对中国对日、对俄战略产生基础性影响,它会制约中日关系和中俄关系战略定位的层级。     

女大学生就业性别歧视现象分析及解决策略

女大学生就业性别歧视现象广泛存在,并对诸多方面都产生了消极影响。女大学生就业性别歧视的根源在于用人单位节约成本和提高效益的需求与女大学生满足这种需求的能力相对较弱之间的矛盾,也与传统性别文化观念的影响以及法律保障不力等息息相关。国家应采用经济调节手段消除二者之间的矛盾,同时广泛宣传马克思主义妇女观,强化男女平等意识,并完善相应的法律法规。     

论消除就业歧视的法律保障

就业是民生之本和安国之策,在一个法治社会,以健全的法制表达民生立场,是必需的选择;消除就业歧视是促进就业的应有含义,通过法律制度消除就业歧视是促进就业的必经之路。本文旨在通过比较、借鉴发达国家先进的立法经验,完善我国相关法律制度,从而促进和保障就业工作的顺利进行。     

关于一类半无限多目标规划离散型算法的偏差估计

本文将文献[5]中的偏差估计公式推广到有任意多个目标函数和α∈(0, ∞)的情形并给出约束参数集维数可任意的数值例子.     

关于性骚扰立法的几点思考--兼评《妇女权益保障法》相关条款

本文就中国性骚扰立法提出浅见。首先须准确界定性骚扰的概念,将公众场所性骚扰、女性对男性性骚扰、同性间性骚扰和非受雇性骚扰纳入性骚扰范畴;其次坚持以反性别歧视法为主的立法路径,明确雇主责任;最后应综合运用公法和私法手段,形成反性骚扰的法律体系。