Subaltern connections: Brazilian critical geographers,development and African decolonisation

Abstract

This article explores the relations to Africa and African decolonisation of three key figures in Brazilian critical geographies and development studies, Manuel Correia de Andrade (1922–2007), Josué de Castro (1908–1973) and Milton Santos (1926–2001). Based on an analysis of their works and unpublished archives, I argue the radical Third World perspectives these intellectuals expressed anticipated later critiques of development as a neocolonial device. Drawing upon current literature on decolonisation, international conferencing and anti-racist solidarity networks, I discuss these matters in relation to these authors’ interest in cultural diversity and internal colonialism. Crucially, they developed this sensitivity in the Brazilian Northeast, a region especially shaped by Afro–Brazilian and Indigenous cultural legacies. While supporting anti-imperialist nationalisms in the Third World, these Brazilian scholars fostered multilingual, internationalist and cosmopolitan activism and scholarship. This is revealed by the study of the transnational networks they developed during exile and the various persecutions that many of them suffered after the 1964 military coup. Finally, I argue these works can substantiate recent claims to ‘decolonise’ geography and development studies, on the condition that these fields of study take seriously their anti-imperial traditions and their ‘voices from the South’.     

Violence on Iraqi bodies: decolonising economic sanctions in security studies

Abstract

United Nations agencies report that by 1998, Iraqi infant mortality had risen from the pre-Gulf War rate of 3.7% to 12%. Insufficient food and medical supplies and deterioration of sewage and sanitation systems and electrical power systems reportedly caused an increase of 40,000 deaths annually of children under the age of 5 and of 50,000 deaths annually of older Iraqis. Why is this violence on Iraqis absent from analyses of sanctions in international relations and security studies? This paper is concerned with, first, situating sanctions against the Global South as violence by challenging the conventional theorisation of violence inflicted by the hegemon as a mechanism of ‘national security’. Second, we offer a decolonial reading of the sanctions imposed on Iraq by shifting the locus of enunciation from the state to Iraqi people’s suffering.     

Fragility within stability: the state,the clan and political resilience in Somaliland

Abstract

Even in the context of a relatively flourishing state, fragility can be an enduring feature of a political system, particularly in the case of recently established or unrecognised states. This article examines the nature of state-building in a specific context to question the assumption that forms of hybrid governance or pre-existing forms of governance are a necessary evil to be tolerated but which needs ultimately to be overcome during state-building. It does this by adopting the language of resilience and focusing on the case of Somaliland to highlight the role of clan governance as a mechanism of political resilience and as a means of promoting the flexibility required for state-building. Yet, at the same time, the process of state-building often involves formalising governance and limiting the role of traditional social-political forms of governance such as clans, ignoring their role in legitimating and stabilising the political system. However, as this article argues, stability and fragility are inextricably linked; while the clan system has been an important force in stabilising the state, it has also become a pressure point for the state’s latent fragility. By contextualising fragility and stability within the language of resilience, though, this symbiotic relationship can be better analysed.     

From discourse to policy: US policy communities’ perceptions of and approaches to climate change and security

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, a diverse set of policy communities, including those with defence, development and environmental mandates, frame climate change as a security threat. Most often this discursive formation labels climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’. This framing, however, is vague, linear and leaves many questions unanswered regarding how institutions can develop and implement policy that addresses the joint challenges of climate change, conflict and security. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, and grounding data collection in US policy communities, this article examines how policy actors and institutions integrate climate-security discourses into policy processes. The objective of this research is to provide direct insight into how the discourses and technical understandings of climate-security transition into policy priorities and implementation realities. This research identified three common approaches to climate-security: (1) A challenge of adaptation and resilience; (2) A potent political argument; and (3) An issue of limited importance and feasibility. These approaches, however, are inconsistent across sectors and within organisations, suggesting a lack of cohesion and considerable challenges in identifying and responding to climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’.     

From centralisation to fragmentation and back again: the role of non-state actors in Brazil’s transformed foreign policy

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Brazil’s foreign policy-making, traditionally a highly centralised and hierarchical process, has become more fragmented, plural and horizontal. In this context, the role of non-state actors has been increasingly relevant. The impact and significance of these actors have been however a matter of debate. While there are authors that consider that non-state actors play only a secondary role in the policy-making process, there are others that assert that these actors work alongside governmental actors and directly influence policy choices. Drawing on the concept of network governance, the paper proposes a different view from the two recurrent approaches in the literature mentioned above. It argues that the recent steps to transform Brazil’s state governance from hierarchy to horizontal networks have indeed expanded the room for the direct participation of non-state actors in the policy process. However, state authorities fought to adjust this tendency, in order to retain control over the decision-making process, by putting in place formal and informal coordinating mechanisms led by the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the Presidency. This suggests Brazil’s foreign policy was made in the shadow of hierarchy. The paper demonstrates the argument using the case of Brazil’s foreign policy towards China.     

Defenders of Freedom or Perpetrators and Facilitators of Crimes? Beyond Progressive Retreatism in the Trump Era

ABSTRACT

Heavily influenced by broad definitions of crime developed by a few pioneering critical criminologists, the main objective of this article is to provide evidence showing that the current Trump administration is a regime that commits crimes of the powerful and facilitates some types of interpersonal violence in private places. Special attention is devoted to direct and in-direct state-perpetrated violent crimes against women.     

‘No toques mi pelo’ (don’t touch my hair): decoding Afro-Cuban identity politics through hair

ABSTRACT

People across the African Diaspora have developed a complex socio-visual-language system of hair as a means of self-expression; however, the decades of economic sanctions in Cuba generated a unique political dynamic that has shaped concepts of self-image and cultural expressions. Sixteen Afro-Cuban women were interviewed about the cultural significance of their hair using The Guided Hair Autobiography methodology. Participant themes included aesthetic pride and confidence, hair bullying and embarrassment, and hair damage and distress. A Cuban cultural critique underlines how Afro-Cuban women have been socialized to have a bias towards straightened long hair over tightly coiled hair textures. These findings suggest that despite the ‘raceless’ political revolutionary spirit infused into Cuban cultural ideology, people of African descent process racial politics and identity through hair.     

企业的权力分析:理论反思与问题意识

本文对不同理论流派的企业权力观点进行批判性回顾,进而阐述被传统理论及其现代发展所忽略的关于企业权力分析的某些重要方面,并出于“问题意识”,提出了建立企业的权力分析范式的思路。     

浅析纸钞的公众防伪设计

钞票是国家名片,各国为了防范伪造都在钞票上采用了大量防伪技术。钞票的防伪技术一般分为公众防伪、专业防伪和专家防伪三个层次。公众防伪特征是公众无需使用特殊设备就能鉴别钞票真假的主要手段,也是假币犯罪分子突破的重点。为了应对制假技术的提高,增强货币的防伪能力,中国人民银行和欧美等国央行也在不断对钞票进行改版提升,将最新的防伪技术应用到钞票中,同时加大宣传力度,提高普通民众对钞票防伪点的识别能力。本文调研了欧美等国央行在钞票防伪技术提升与防伪点的公众识别方面的研究,分析了新版人民币与部分国家和地区最新发行的纸质钞票的公众防伪特征,对比了不同纸钞的公众防伪特点,结合纸钞防伪设计分析,从更新钞票防伪设计、加强公众宣传等方面,为防范假币提出了建议。     

论职务犯罪侦查权的优化配置与运行

职务犯罪侦查权的优化配置与运行,不仅关系到检察机关法律监督职能的强化和检察工作的深入发展,而且涉及到国家权力配置模式和运行方式的完善.在深化司法体制改革,推进刑事诉讼法修改,贯彻全国人大常委会<关于批准〈联合国反腐败公约〉的决定>的时代背景下,进一步加强对职务犯罪侦查权配置与运行问题的专题研究,具有重要的现实意义.特别是要对职务犯罪侦查权从法理上作出进一步的阐释,正确认识国家立法机关将这一权力赋予检察机关的法理基础,准确把握职务犯罪侦查权的性质,科学确立职务犯罪侦查权配置和运行的原则.