It’s People That Make Places

ON July 9, 2010, I paused on the Great Wall of China on the outskirts of Beijing, trying to imagine all the people who had stood in that spot before, feeling the same breeze and viewing the same horizon.     

European capitalism and the effects of agricultural commercialization on slave labor in Tunisia, 1780s–1880s

Abstract

The paper argues that while the significance of Tunisian state economic and political reforms during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has reflected the changing patterns of the caravan slave trade in previous research, much of this research has not considered the role of slaves in the emergent Tunisian economy. Nowhere is this negligence more apparent than in the agricultural sector, which was predominantly responsible for strengthening economic growth from the late eighteenth century until its weakening as a result of encroaching European capitalism by the mid-nineteenth century. Drawing on Tunisian state population data known as the Majba Census and the extant economic literature, the paper addresses this gap by exploring the implications of the Tunisian state economic reforms on enslaved labor in the agricultural sector. Exploring this research gap will enable us to ascertain the extent to which enslaved labor contributed to Tunisia’s burgeoning agricultural sector in a manner that has dodged academics’ attention. After providing a historical context of European capital penetration and its implications on political and economic reforms from the Ottoman conquest through the Husaynid periods, the paper looks at how European capital infusion after the first quarter of the nineteenth century transformed the agricultural sector and examines the role of slave labor prior to the European capital infusion and commercialization of the agricultural sector. Using the Majba Census records’ regional distribution of blacks in the Regency the paper sheds light on the implications of the precarious economy engendered by agricultural commercialization under the aegis of European capitalism on the structure of enslaved labor.     

Prosecutors and the Definition of the Crime Problem in Italy: Balancing the Impact of Moral Panics

In western liberal countries late modernity brings in its wake certain distinctive patterns of crime control. Common sense, experience and stigmatization of crime and deviance seem to be the basis on which crime control policies are debated and eventually implemented. Insecurity and fear of crime are the enemies for an effective legal system. What is left for specialist crime control agencies? The Italian case can demonstrate that legal actors, in particular prosecutors, can still effectively participate in the developing of the criminal justice discourse. I will argue that prosecutorial practice can possibly provide the information to understand the socio-legal conditions that shape prosecutors’ role during the pre-trial phase. This role is far from being merely reactive to certain social, historical and cultural developments. Prosecutors’ reactions appear to be aimed at restating their role of guardians of the law. While they react to external influences they try not to adapt to them. In this way they partially mediate the impact of moral panics.     

Evaluation of the Role of Toxicological Data in Discriminating Between H2S Femoral Blood Concentration Secondary to Lethal poisoning and Endogenous H2S Putrefactive Production

Hydrogen sulfide is a colorless gas and has a strong odor of rotten eggs. It is absorbed by the upper respiratory tract mucosa, and it causes histotoxic hypoxemia and respiratory depression by exerting an inhibitory effect on cytochrome oxidase. To evaluate the role of toxicological data in distinguishing between the H₂S blood concentration secondary to lethal poisoning and the endogenous H₂S produced during putrefaction, we compared the postmortem H₂S concentrations of six fatal H₂S poisoning cases (8.7–28.6 mg/L) with the postmortem concentrations of endogenous H₂S of 12 subjects who died from other causes (traffic‐related deaths) (2.2–32.7 mg/L). These results will be of interest to the forensic community as it underlines the importance of considering circumstantial evidence along with the toxicological and pathological findings in the identification of H₂S lethal poisoning.