‘To favor the side of freedom’: judicial opinions and the law of slavery

This essay uses the appellate judicial opinions in more than 800 suits for freedom from across the United States to analyze the additional commentary antebellum judges included when issuing their decisions. Judges used arguments that mirrored broader debates between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates, while also upholding the central importance of the rule of law. In doing so, they sought to defend the judicial system from the many challenges brought by African Americans and other anti-slavery activists. Regardless of their own individual beliefs about slavery, judges often chose to frame their written opinions around appeals to morality. The use of moral arguments allowed judges to anticipate the positions of African Americans and their supporters and then render these ideas irrelevant in the face of positive laws supporting slavery. The decisions they made had real consequences for future legal pathways to freedom, and the ways judges chose to structure their decisions reveal both awareness and anxiety over the power of judicial challenges to the institution of slavery.     

The ‘compliant’, the ‘pacified’ and the ‘rebel’: experiences with Swiss disability insurance

Switzerland’s social policies in the field of disability have been significantly reshaped over the last two decades by reducing the number of allowances awarded and by increasing the recourse to vocational rehabilitation measures. What stances do individuals who experience the implementation of these policies adopt? What kind of tests are they subjected to? How can we explain the posture they adopt – be it ‘compliant’, ‘pacified’ or ‘rebellious’ – when facing the (re)assignations of their identity and professional status? Drawing on interviews conducted with individuals who have recently been involved in programmes set up by Swiss disability insurance, we highlight their uncertainties and concerns relating to their place in society, as well as their reactions to disability insurance’s interventions.     

‘To be Free is Very Sweet’

Subject to Others: British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery, 1670–1834. MOIRA FERGUSON. New York & London: Routledge, 1992. xiii, 465pp. £12.99. ISBN O‐415–90476–5.

The Hart Sisters: Early African Caribbean Writers, Evangelicals, and Radicals. MOIRA FERGUSON. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. ix, 214pp. £38.00. ISBN O‐8032–1984–9.     

Doing Sociology in the Age of ‘Evidence-Based Research’: Scientific Epistemology versus Political Dominance

Social science history from its beginnings has witnessed periods of confrontation between – generally speaking – qualitative and quantitative paradigms, even talking of ‘war’, ‘wrestlers’ and ‘warriors’. And, again from the very beginnings, our discipline has been forced to relate with funding agencies. Sometimes, the two paths – the scientific one and the financial one – cross: we may think at the role of the private foundations in financing a certain type of investigation, notably surveys against case studies or qualitative research. Nowadays, we see an increased attention by federal agencies and private foundations on a particular sector of research, randomized controlled trials (RCTs), focusing on techniques seen intrinsically superior from the methodological and epistemological point of view. This article will analyze the recent increase of the randomized controlled trials as the new “gold standard” for social research; the call for the “experimenting society” (Campbell American Psychologist, 24(4), 409–429, 1969), willing to import the randomized controlled trials approach into the field of social policy and planning, is not new, if we think that yet in 1963 Campbell and Stanley wrote that “a wave of enthusiasm for experimentation dominated the field of education in the Thorndike era, perhaps reaching its apex in the 1920s” (Campbell and Stanley 1963/1966: 2). Many problems of validity with RCTs soon came to be recognized – even by Campbell, who stated that he has “held off advocating an experimenting society until they can be solved” (Campbell Evaluation Practice, 15(3), 291–298, 1994: 294). In the following years a different set of evaluation strategies were developed, but today there’s a new effort to re-introduce the experimental approach in the academic arena. What is the difference? As we will see, the scientifically-based research is now established and codified by law, funding is linked to a particular way of doing research, and the consequences on scientists work are yet to be explored.     

Investigating the Effects of Pre‐school Provision: Using Mixed Methods in the EPPE Research

The Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) project is a longitudinal study of young children between the ages of 3 and 7 years. Research began in 1997 and both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to explore the effects of pre‐school education on children’s attainment and social/behavioural development at entry to school, and of any continuing effects on such outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 (age 7). The sample included over 3,000 children and 141 pre‐school centres drawn from six different types of providers. In addition, a home sample of children who had not attended a pre‐school centre was included. In order to identify the processes that might influence centre effectiveness, observational data were collected and centre managers interviewed. In‐depth case studies of 12 more effective centres were used to explore and illuminate the processes, particularly in relation to pedagogy, associated with better child outcomes. A mixed method approach was adopted to simultaneously answer both confirmatory and exploratory questions, to support user engagement and provide triangulation. The paper argues that the mixed method approach supported the development of stronger research inferences.     

Women’s Experiences of Pornography: A Systematic Review of Research Using Qualitative Methods

Given the proliferation of pornography in personal, relational, and social realms, it is vital to understand women’s experiences of this accessible, stimulating, and versatile sexual material. We therefore conducted the first systematic review of research using qualitative methods published in English in peer-reviewed journals. Our search of five databases yielded 22 eligible articles. Thematic analysis of results revealed four broad themes: women encountering pornography, pornography and the self, pornography in the context of relationships, and making sense of pornography. Discussion of themes and subthemes included reflections on women’s explanations of intentional and unintentional encounters with pornography, conflicted perceptions of themselves in relation to female pornography actors, diverse perceived effects of pornography on intimate relationships, and tensions between women’s arousal to pornography and their values. It was evident that women’s experiences of pornography are complex and nuanced, often paradoxical, varying among and within individuals. Our synthesis of results and assessment of limitations suggest (a) that researchers need to define what they mean by pornography and specify any content used in their research and (b) that understanding would be enriched by research that is culturally contextualized and acknowledges public discourses about pornography.     

‘To lie down to death for days’

On 20 October 2000, the longest and most deadly hunger strike in modern history began in prisons throughout Turkey. Organized as a response to the government's plans to develop and construct new so-called ‘F-type’ prisons – in which prisoners are isolated from one another, from legal advocates and from family members – the strike was also intended to challenge several recently-enacted ‘anti-terrorism’ policies that have resulted in thousands of arrests. In a country where political prisoners make up roughly one-sixth of the total prison population, and where a long history of prison torture has been criticized by a wide range of outside human rights groups, the hunger strike sees little chance of achieving its goals: convincing government officials to repeal the official legislation and to reconsider its shift to the F-type prison system. Nonetheless, the Strike has continued for well over two years, and has claimed at least 107 lives. This essay is intended to explore the political effects and performative value of a mode of resistance (1) founded on the eventual death of many, if not all, of its practitioners and (2) ineffective in eventuating its desired changes. By definition, hunger striking is an unsustainable form of resistance; and yet, the Turkish strikers have continued to fast far longer than anticipated, and seem to be willing and able to continue indefinitely. How are cultural meanings and political currencies of Hunger Striking reformulated in such a radically changed temporal context? In a practice that so dramatically fuses the subject and object of state violence into a single body (and at the behest of such a maligned community), what kind of political subject is produced, and how is her/his relationship to the state redefined? And finally, how might political efficacy be redefined in the case of the Turkish strike, and by the performative value of various attempts to represent the strike in the context of European assimilation?     

‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization: A View from the ‘East’

Abstract

In view of the broad scope of literature on globalization, this paper provides a synoptic reading of some of the globalization literatures, organized as ‘discourses’. The analysis of the discourses on globalization is confined to three overlapping discourses, namely, regional, ideological and economic discourses. Specific references and examples of local uptake of globalization will be drawn from Singapore and the wider Asia pacific region, as Beck (2002) has reminded us that we cannot even think about globalization or discuss it effectively without the reference to specific locations and places. Hence the subtitle of this paper, ‘A View from the East’, is deliberate to signal the often forgotten fact that Singapore, as well as the wider Asia Pacific region, is ‘part of the “global” sphere that the West has dispersed itself into’.     

‘Deprivation’ and ‘the rural’: An investigation into contradictory discourses

This paper investigates the issue of ‘rural deprivation’ using material collected for the Rural Lifestyles Project, conducted at Saint David's University College, Lampeter. The concept of ‘deprivation’ usually deployed within the literature in rural studies is problematic, and a number of criticisms are made about existing conceptualisations of the term. One of these criticisms is based on the finding that amongst respondents interviewed for the study of lifestyles in rural areas of England, a number were highly critical of the application of the term ‘deprivation’ to rural areas. This issue is explored through an investigation of the discourses of ‘the rural’, taken to mean a system of meanings that describe English rural areas. An examination of these discourses shows how ‘deprivation’ is denied, and this is investigated through a discussion of the representation of rural areas as problem-free and ‘idyllic’ in some way; through the portrayal of ‘deprivation’ as a fault of the individual; and through the construction of ‘deprivation’ as a feature of ‘the rural's’ ‘other’, i.e. the urban. The paper concludes with a call for the attitudes and beliefs of different groups of people living in rural areas to be taken account of in the production of research into lifestyles in rural areas.     

‘Eyesight to the Blind’: Secular and Religious Dialogue in the ‘Devil's Music’

I adopt a dialogic approach to refute Paul Oliver’s claim that there is no challenge to the authority of the black Church or religion in the segregated ‘race records’ of the first half of the 20th century in the United States. I dismiss the claims of some black theologians that the presence of biblical imagery in the blues means that performers were essentially religious. I show that the dialogue between secular song and religious sermons on record involved mutual parody, satire, and polemic in a common speech genre. Attacks on the Church, its members, clergy, and doctrines were common. Recorded sermons spoke back in defense. Mikhail Bakhtin's concepts offer purchase on the relations between secular and religious recordings in an ongoing struggle for hegemony in black cultural production.     

‘To return to the bosom of their fatherland’: Brazilian immigrants in nineteenth‐century Lagos

This article explores the southern prison system during the expansion of slavery in the nineteenth-century USA, to reveal struggles over landscape and geography. It suggests connections between diverse institutions such as plantation jails, county and city jails, workhouses, state penitentiaries and slave pens that have not been conceptualized as part of a carceral system supporting slavery. Slaveholders' various means of using these institutions are outlined as are their perceptions of these prisons. The article concludes by discussing the perspective of enslaved peoples, arguing that prisons were the site of considerable resistance as slave geographies were unable to be completely confined by the expanding carceral system.     

“VY Mudimbe: from the ‘Nation’ to the ‘Global’ – ‘Who is the Master?' ”

This article examines Valentin Yves Mudimbe's work form the early 1970s, in the neo-colonial era, to the present day, a period marked by the advent of “Empire”, as conceived by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri. The investigation appraises the way in which Mudimbe's epistemological excavation of African discourses and discourses about Africa serves wider ethical and political objectives resonating with critiques of anthropology as formulated by Benoît Verhaegen and Johannes Fabian in the 1960s and 1970s. Part I focuses on Zairian nationalism (“Zairianization”) and the ambition, on the part of the Mobutu regime, to develop an authentic national culture. This examination of the birth of a Zairian “community” is developed through a comparison between Mudimbe's little-studied Autour de la “nation” (1972) and Kangafu Kutumbagana's Discours sur l'authenticité (1973) and is argued on the basis of a number of propositions formulated by Jean-Luc Nancy in The Inoperative Community (1991). The second part of the article focuses on Mudimbe's On African Fault Lines (2013); it examines Mudimbe's attempts, in his analyses of contemporary works by Deepa Rajkumar and Geert Hofstede, to reflect on globalization and to assess the political and ethical relevance of critical tools developed in the neo-colonial period to denounce the unequal basis of anthropology.     

Paradigm of ‘better life’: ‘development’ among the Khumi in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Development is conventionally understood in various ways including economic growth, increase of gross domestic product (GDP), rise of per-capita income, improvement of social facilities, political stabilities, and women's empowerment and many other issues, but it finally means bringing positive changes in the life of people. However, development is always contextual because the notion and nature of development often varies from society to society depending on the context of local–societal dynamics. Therefore what is regarded globally accepted model of development can be challenged by the local discourse of development, since local-level perception could contest the universal model. This article addresses such a case of development which is conceptualised from the social and cultural point of view amid everyday experiences of ordinary people's lives. The article contextualises its argument with specific reference to the Khumi people living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.     

Failing ‘Abyan’, ‘Golestan’ and ‘the Estonian Mother’: Refugee Women,Reproductive Coercion and the Australian State

Abstract

In September and October 2015, the story of detained Somali refugee ‘Abyan’ unfolded in the Australian media. A victim of rape on Nauru and seeking an abortion that could not be obtained on the island nation, Abyan was escorted to Sydney where she was to attend an abortion clinic. She was ultimately returned to Nauru without having had an abortion. This paper situates Abyan’s story alongside other stories from Nauru and in a longer history of reproductive coercion in Australian Immigration Department accommodation since the Second World War.     

‘Me Against the World’: Autoethnographic poetry

The existing literature on race and ethnicity overlooks learning disability (LD), and the latter often overlooks Black males and segregated schooling. Thus, this poetic account embodies the voice of a Black male with LD. As an autoethnographer, I applied critical disability theory to learn and become cognizant about my academic journey and identity development. Autoethnography allowed me to examine my personal experiences to understand the cultural experiences that were meaningful during my academic journey. The purpose of the poetic account serves two purposes: to shatter all notions that Black males with LD in special education cannot succeed academically; and to become a voice by offering an inside perspective of how I understood my position in special education. Moreover, this account is important because it is rare that scholarship captures the combination of academic literature and poetry among Black students who have navigated the special education system.     

‘To Infinity and Beyond…’: The American Vernacular and Democratic Space

Abstract

The spatial strategies adopted by the founding fathers of the American Republic are examined and their political roots and consequences explored. In particular the reasons for the neo-classical style becoming prominent are questioned, and whether that style was an appropriate spatial strategy for democratization. An analysis is presented of how American writing and literature was a forum for the working out of the questions of expansion into, and settlement in, new space.     

The Pragmatic Case Study in Psychotherapy: A Mixed Methods Approach Informed by Psychology’s Striving for Methodological Quality

At least as far back as Plato and Aristotle, psychology began as a stepchild of philosophy. The establishment by Wilhelm Wundt in 1879 of the first formal psychological laboratory focused on studying psychophysiological phenomena was psychology’s declaration of independence as a discipline. By positioning itself as the application of natural-science-based, empirical methods involving quantitative, group-based approaches to psychological topics, the discipline consolidated its independence and its societal status and clout. This paper first summarizes these developments, to highlight the causes of psychology’s historical resistance to qualitative case studies, and to qualitative research generally. I then briefly review three movements that have stimulated psychology to slowly but surely embrace qualitative case study research, with the addition of complementary, quantitative data: the rise of postmodern philosophy, the related “cognitive revolution” in psychology, and the “mixed methods” model of research in the social sciences that synergistically combines qualitative and quantitative methods. The result of this embrace, in the context of psychology’s established science-oriented identity, has been for psychology to add quality-of-knowledge guidelines for elevating the yield of case study knowledge. This result is illustrated by three examples: Kazdin’s (J Consult Clin Psychol 49:183–192, 1981) strategies for reducing threats to the validity of conclusions from case studies; Elliott, Fischer, and Rennie’s (Br J Clin Psychol 38:215–229, 1999) development of methodological standards for both quantitative and qualitative research; and my own work in developing the Pragmatic Case Study (PCS), which particularly reflects three of the recent trends in psychology: pluralism, pragmatism, and the mixed methods approach. Comparisons between organized social work’s and organized psychology’s approach to psychotherapy training and research is noted, with the two fields starting off in opposite directions and recently coming together.     

‘Sit in the corner and don’t eat the crayons’: postgraduates with dyslexia and the dominant ‘lexic’ discourse

The lack of cultural diversity in higher education is recognised by policy objectives and a current focus on the development of widening participation for a range of students, including those with disabilities. Amongst this group are those with dyslexia who might previously have been disenfranchised from formal education and under‐represented within it. This paper explores the personal narratives and learner histories of six postgraduates and academics with dyslexia from their earliest memories of learning to their present experiences. It examines how literacy, as a dominant form of discourse, has defined concepts of academic ability resulting in the early exclusion of these learners from formal education. It is argued that this dominant discourse can be challenged by non‐authorised, informal learning resulting in stories of resistance.     

From ‘temporary migrants’ to ‘permanent residents’: Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States

Literature on international migration from India in the past has focused on the formation and development of ‘Indian diasporas’; that is, Indians who have moved to various parts of the world and maintain socio-economic, cultural and political lives in India as well as other countries. However, little attention has been paid toward ‘temporary migrants’ who have migrated to different countries with a temporary visa and in the course of time extended their visas to become ‘permanent residents’. Temporary migration from India has become a common trend over the last two decades, especially since the acceleration of globalisation and the developments in the fields of information and communication technologies. Although it is argued that this type of migration took place in the past – for instance, Indians migrated to British, French, Dutch and Portuguese colonies during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries as indentured labourers for a period of three to five years and later extended their stays – what is new about the current trend is the new state policies of different host countries and the socio-economic and cultural background of the immigrants. This paper is an exploratory study of this contemporary phenomena of movement from ‘temporary migrant’ to ‘permanent resident’, a phenomena which has not been given much attention by academicians and policy makers in India. The present paper outlines this trend with an illustration of Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States.