Financialization,resistance, and the question of women’s land rights

The financialization of food and agricultural land has been a critical driver of the “land-grabbing” phenomenon in the post 2007–2008 period: the potential for land to be both a productive and financial asset has driven interest in long-term land rentals and sales. Scholars and activists have highlighted the negative effects of these trends for rural populations. International institutions have promoted the recognition of land rights as a means to secure land from seizure, ensure equal participation in land acquisitions, and enable low-income populations, including women, to access credit. At the same time, activists are promoting collective land rights, customary modes of land tenure and the rights of Indigenous peoples. For activists, land reform models that promote the collective rights of peoples to govern land are critical to resisting individualized land ownership models that encourage the alienation of land. This article reviews these rights-based frameworks using a critical feminist perspective and argues that both the institutionalist and activist approaches require more nuanced understandings of gender and difference in order to effect gender-equitable change. This article concludes by mapping new feminist research directions that consider land and resources within the context of local–global processes, the global economy, intersectionality and global rights-based discourses.     

Inequality of opportunity in the land of opportunities, 1968–2001

We measure inequality of opportunity for earnings acquisition in the U.S. between 1968 and 2001. Following recent theories of social justice, earnings determinants are divided into two parts: Circumstances, which are characteristics outside individual control and effort representing factors impacting earnings but under individuals’ responsibility. Equality of opportunity requires that inequality of circumstances must be corrected while differences of effort must remain unaltered. Circumstances are represented by parental education and occupation, ethnic origin, place of birth and age. Effort is modeled with schooling choices and labour supply decisions. Using the PSID from 1968 to 2001, we provide two alternative assessments of inequality of opportunity using counterfactual distributions. The statistical framework is semi-parametric and builds on duration models. Finally, we conclude that inequality of opportunity represents between 20 and 43% of earnings inequality, but decreases all over the period reaching around 18% in 2001.     

The rise (and fall?) of a state land bank

Land markets in most poor cities do not work very effectively and contribute to making social housing unaffordable. One once popular response was to set up a public land bank. In truth, few such banks were terribly successful and, with the onset of neo-liberalism, the approach fell out of fashion. However, one government recently established a state land bank in an attempt to slow the growth of illegal settlement and to improve housing conditions for the poor. Bogotá's efforts have had some measure of success although the agency could never achieve the ambitious goals set for it. The paper describes the different approaches of the agency over the last decade, the problems that it has faced and what it has managed to achieve. Today, the agency no longer buys land and prefers to work in association with private landowners; in effect, Bogotá no longer has a state land bank. However, what it does have is an interesting set of tools with which to confront land speculation and to discourage owners from holding on to serviced land. Whether this set of tools will be able to confront the perennial problem of providing land for affordable social housing remains to be seen. Nevertheless, Bogotá provides many lessons for governments in poorer cities about how and why they should take measures to improve the working of the land market.     

Politics and land in Matatiele 1844–1900: A report from the archives

This essay is concerned with some of the details of the history of Matatiele District, in its wider East Griqualand context, from the mid‐nineteenth century to the 1900s. The Griqua State (capital at Kokstad) is well documented as is the general history of a South African peasantry, a topic which has also inspired a number of specific regional studies. But the polity established by Nehemiah Sekhonyana Moshesh at Matatiele has not been studied and was sufficiently important and long‐lasting to deserve some attention.

Section 1 attempts to show the need to consider Lesotho's influence in the Drakensberg/Matatiele area as opposed to the more obvious Griqua connection; section 2 suggests how weak the Griqua link was in day to day practice. These case studies also provide good illustrations of a number of important themes in both colonial and South African history. Nehemiah's relationship with local and imperial authorities displays well the contrast between local ‘settler’ colonialism with its ‘white settler'concern, its farming vents herding tensions, anditsnearparanoiaaboutpowerful ‘native’ blocs;and long‐distance imperialism which sought ‘control’ without responsiblity (and therefore expense), an attitude that led to a greater tolerance (and sometimes a more realistic assessment) of existing political influence and powers. Land issues likewise seem to demonstrate the validity of the Wilson/Bundy thesis about the early prosperity of the black peasantry, which flourished beside and even ahead of white farming interests in some cases. One of the main themes of section 2 is the irrelevance of ‘colour’ where acquisition of land was concerned, the ability and desire of blacks to become farmers, the scarcity of white takers in an era of supposed ‘white’ preference.     

Safeguard Rights and Interests of Women in Accordance with the Law——the Five-Year Anniversary of the Implementation of the Law of the PRC on the Protection of Righ Is and Interests of Women

ON April 3, 1992, the Law of the PRC on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women (Protection Law), the first basic law for protecting rights and interests of women and promoting equality between men and women in China, was adopted at the fifth session of the Seventh National People's Congress (NPC), and entered into force on October 1 of the same year.     

State and Regional Professional Associations—the Case of the CSA and the PSA

The CSA and the PSA share several critical challenges including maintaining a stable membership, providing opportunities for students to present their work while at the same time maintaining their position as an organization of professional sociologists, meeting the needs of a diverse membership and balancing the teaching and research needs of this diverse membership. The need is for the CSA and the PSA to work together to form an even closer partnership.     

Respect and Protection:A Review of the Implementation of the Law of the P.R.C. on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women

JIANG Zemin, President of the People's Republic of China, once said: "Respecting women and protecting women is an important sign of social progress. It should become a civilized society's legal provision and moral concept." On October 1, 1992 the Law of the P.R.C. on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women was put into effect, which was considered a major accomplishment for China and Chinese women. More than two years have passed since the implementation of the law. How well has the law been     

Polarization and the Limits of Politicization: Cordoba’s Mosque-Cathedral and the Politics of Cultural Heritage

Qualitative Sociology - This article examines a recent controversy over the Catholic Church’s registration of Cordoba’s iconic Mosque-Cathedral as official Church property in 2006. In...     

Protect the Health of Women and Children

CHINA has reached its present standard of maternal and child health by constant effort. Before the founding of New China in 1949, Chinese women's life expectancy was only 37.6 years. A girl born today can expect to live an average of 72 years. Hygienic practices barely existed for mother and children in the early 1950s, said a health worker who remembers that period. Maternal mortality was high as a result of traditional midwifery practices, which often caused childbed fever. Infant     

Why the hyphen? Individual and collective memories of Italianness in the United States at the intersection of class and generation

This three-generation oral history study offers insight into why descendants of Italian migrants to the United States still choose hyphenated identities today. The research project shows how the meaning of Italianness shifts among the interviewees depending on class affiliation: among the middle-class offspring the use of the hyphen can be understood mainly as a reaction to the experienced pressure to give in to Anglo conformity. Among the blue-collar, urban progeny, Italianness expresses itself as a combination of an experienced ethnic environment on the one hand and a symbolic ethnicity on the other.     

Reaping the benefits of sickness? Long-term illness and the experience of welfare claims

This article documents the experience of people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) in claiming sickness-related benefits in the United Kingdom. Based on responses to an enquiry on an email noticeboard, it focuses on the work and stress involved in making a claim; the felt stigma of being a claimant; and the strong desire to return to paid employment. The paper also notes the lack of documentation of the experience of making claims for, and of living as, a claimant of these benefits, and argues for the importance of research in this area, especially given that tightened criteria are currently generating even greater anxiety and risk of impoverishment.     

The minority identity and the idea of the ‘unity’ of the nation: the case of Hungarian minorities from Romania,Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine

A comparison analysis of the ethno-national identity of Hungarian minorities living in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine is performed in the paper, including the identifications to majority community and the relationship with Hungary, respectively.

According to the empirical results in every country, the community with the pan-Hungarian ethnocultural nation, and the identification with actual Hungary, is less important than regional Hungarianness in the minority identity of Hungarian minority members from outside the borders of Hungary. The primary in-group is the self-minority community in every country. This may be empirically grasped both on the level of the perceptions of social distances and on stereotypes toward Hungarians from Hungary and toward majority populations (Romanians, Slovaks, etc.).     

After the Crisis and Beyond the New Constitutionalism? The Case of the Free Movement of Capital

This article examines the ‘new constitutionalism’ of the free movement of capital at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the global economic crisis. It is argued that the concept of new constitutionalism, as developed by Stephen Gill, is an indispensable concept to understand the still growing institutionalization of neoliberal policies in constitutions, laws, institutions, and regulations. The latest attempt to further extend the constitutionalization of the free movement of capital, one of the pillars of neoliberalism, is the IMF's newly developed ‘institutional view’ on capital flows. This approach, while more pragmatic than earlier attempts, can be understood as a renewed effort to prevent emerging markets and developing countries from installing capital controls and deviating significantly from neoliberal policies. However, emerging markets and developing countries have opposed this new IMF framework. As such, the ability to further extend the new constitutionalism of the free movement of capital is severely weakened.

Este artículo examina el ‘nuevo constitucionalismo’ del libre movimiento de capital en el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), después de la crisis económica global. Se sostiene que el concepto del nuevo constitucionalismo, como lo desarrolló Stephen Gill, es un concepto indispensable para entender la aún creciente institucionalización de las políticas neoliberales en las constituciones, leyes, instituciones y regulaciones. El último intento para extender aún más la constitucionalización del movimiento libre de capital, uno de los pilares del neoliberalismo, es la ‘visión institucional’ sobre los flujos de capital, recientemente desarrollada por el FMI. Este enfoque, aunque más pragmático que en intentos anteriores, puede entenderse como un esfuerzo renovado para prevenir a los mercados emergentes y a los países en desarrollo, de instalar controles de capital y la desviación de modo significativo, de las políticas neoliberales. Sin embargo, los mercados emergentes y los países en desarrollo se opusieron este nuevo marco del FMI. Como tal, la habilidad para extender más allá al nuevo constitucionalismo del movimiento libre del capital se ha debilitado mucho.

本文检讨全球经济危机之后在国际货币基金组织（IFM）内的资本自由流动的“新宪政主义”。由吉尔（Stephen Gill）提出的“新宪政主义”的概念,被认为是理解在宪法、法律、机构和规章方面仍然扩张的新自由主义的制度化的不可或缺的概念。最近的进一步扩大资本流动的宪政化即新自由主义的支柱之一的企图就是IMF新开发的关于资本流动的“制度观点”。尽管比之早先的观点更务实,这一企图可以看做是为阻止新兴市场和其它国家设立资本控制和实质性地远离新自由主义政策的最新努力。不过,新兴市场和发展中国家反对IFM这一新框架。因此,进一步延伸资本自由流动的“新宪政主义”的能力遭到严重削弱。

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Эта статья исследует “новый конституционализм” свободного движения капитала в Международном Валютном фонде (МВФ) после глобального экономического кризиса. Утверждается, что концепция нового конституционализма, разработанная Стивеном Гиллом, является незаменимой для понимания концепции растущей институционализации неолиберальной политики в конституциях, законах, институтах и правилах. Последняя попытка МВФ продлить конституционализацию свободного движения капитала, одного из столпов неолиберализма, недавно разработанный "институциональный взгляд" на потоки капитала. Этот подход, хотя и более прагматичный, чем более ранние попытки, может быть понят как возобновленные усилия по предотвращению того, чтобы возникающие рынки и развивающиеся страны установили контроль за движением капитала, значительно отклоняясь от неолиберальной политики. Однако, развивающиеся страны и рынки выступили против этой новой структуры МВФ. По существу, способность к дальнейшему расширению нового конституционализма свободного движения капитала сильно ослаблена.     

Rising Rates of Cohabitation and the Odds of Repartnering: Does the Gap Between Men and Women Disappear?

Men are more likely to repartner than women. This pattern might reflect gender disparities in barriers to repartnering. When rates of cohabitation increase, the gender disparity might shrink, as cohabitation is a less institutionalized form of coresidential partnership and therefore has lower entry barriers in comparison to marriage. Using event-history models applied to Czech data from the Generations and Gender Survey, we show that the odds of repartnering were indeed higher among men than among women in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. No significant change in the gender effect, however, was found. Similarly, the analysis revealed no change in the effect of gender on the odds of entering cohabitation rather than marriage.     

Ethical injunctions: the University of the Western Cape in the face of the ‘here and now’

This essay poses the question of the ethical in relation to the work of memorialising the University of the Western Cape (UWC) after apartheid. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s statement on the ethical in The Logic of Sense and reading its implications through Walter Benjamin’s ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ and Jeremy Cronin’s ‘Even the Dead’, I argue that the ethical entails becoming adequate to the fracturing of event, leading to an understanding of the subject effect prior to its stamping by race, gender and identity. The ethical, in this formulation, reckons with the materiality of the past as its weight orders the present. It is this possibility of becoming adequate, of ‘not being unworthy of what happens to us’, which is offered in Ingrid Masondo’s photo-essay on UWC. I read Masondo as offering an encounter with images of the Leibnizian world as they appear at UWC, an encounter that registers alternate trajectories as they are expressed in ‘point of view’. Becoming adequate, here, involves registering the role of UWC (both conscious and unconscious) in the subjectification of persons during and after apartheid. This essay punctuates the rhythm of the memorialisation of UWC, by asking that this weight of the past be reckoned with while articulating alternate trajectories for both the university (and particularly the disciplines of the humanities) and for the understandings of subjectivity that attend to it, a demand that cannot be settled cheaply.     

Publicizing the Law of the P.R.C.on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women

More than 50,000 women in Qianxi County have learned about the law.     

The beautiful game and the proto‐aesthetics of the everyday

Abstract

This article provides a critique of the postmodernist notion that there has been of recent years a dissolution of the divide between aesthetics and practical activities, between Art and Life. It does so by considering the game of soccer from a phenomenological viewpoint, which shows that the game possesses intrinsically ‘aesthetic’ qualities. The conditions of possibility of such qualities are understood by introducing the idea of the ‘proto‐aesthetics’ of soccer and other mundane phenomena. By considering the proto‐aesthetics of the quotidian we argue that recent changes in the nature of practical life should not be regarded as due to ‘aestheticisation’ but rather as springing from processes of commodification.     

The selfie and the transformation of the public–private distinction

The selfie is a contemporary form of self-portraiture, representing a photographic image of the human face. The selfie is created for the purpose of reproduction and to communicate images visually with others from a distance. The proliferation of web 2.0 technologies and mobile smart phones enables users to generate and disseminate images at an unprecedented scale. Coupled with the increasing popularity of social media platforms, these technologies allow the selfie to be distributed to a wide audience in close to real time. Drawing upon Erving Goffman’s approach to the study of face-to-face social interaction, this article presents a discussion of the production and consumption of the selfie. We draw upon Goffman’s dramaturgical approach, to explore how the ‘presentation of self’ occurs in the context of a selfie. Next, we consider how the selfie as a form of visual communication holds critical implications for mediated life online as individuals go about doing privacy. We conclude by reflecting on the role of the selfie and its impact on the boundaries between public and private domains in contemporary social life.