The New Policy on Hyperandrogenism in Elite Female Athletes is Not About “Sex Testing”

In April 2011, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) updated their regulations regarding elite female athletes with hyperandrogenism: Women whose testosterone levels crossed into the male range could not compete with other women unless it was shown that they are resistant to the effects of testosterone. Although the new rule is a marked improvement over past attempts to ensure that men were not trying to compete as women in elite competition, several criticisms have been leveled against the new regulations. Here we offer our reactions to claims that the new regulation promotes a sex-verification test, claims that intersex athletes will automatically be disqualified from competition, and proposals to either divide athletes based on variables beyond sex or completely eliminate sex groupings. Although elite sports can never achieve a perfectly level playing field, there should be parameters to which athletes must conform for a given sport. Yet elite athletes themselves should play a decisive role in what is best for their sport.     

Twelve Jewish boys from the class of '47 of a Budapest grammar school – and their families: memories and reminiscences

Based on personal memory and interviews with former classmates the author outlines the lives of 12 men from the professional middle class, who between 1939 and 1947 attended a segregated “Jewish class” of a renowned Budapest grammar school. The article follows their youth, education, survival of the Holocaust and their careers at home or abroad till the end of the twentieth century. Additionally, as far as it became known, one or two generations of ancestors, siblings, and spouses, and one or two generations of offspring are also presented. Finally, central issues of the lives of the “boys,” such as emigration, political conformism, and, above all, assimilation to the majority society will be discussed in separate chapters. These life and family histories may be regarded as typical of a not insignificant segment of Budapest Jewish society.     

Seasonal patterns in slot-machine gambling in Germany

Although several aspects of gambling have been thoroughly investigated, little is known about the effect of seasonality on gambling. This study investigated the seasonal patterns in slot-machine usage, based on a unique data set of slot-machine usage from a German gambling centre using time series analysis. Knowledge of seasonal slot-machine usage patterns provides useful insights for researchers, gambling centre managers and legal authorities. Slot-machine gambling activity appears to be highest in November, when poor weather is compounded with lack of entertainment activities and lowest in December, when ample entertainment possibilities may distract people from gambling. The estimated daily and weekly seasonal patterns support the self-control literature, which suggests that self-regulatory failures are more likely when people are more tired; after work, or late in the evening. The high variation in gambling during winter implies that the availability of alternative entertainment activities may have an important influence on slot-machine usage.     

Daily street life in the inner city of Prague under transformation: the visual experience of socio-spatial differentiation and temporal rhythms

The paper is concerned with the everyday manifestation of increasing social, lifestyle and cultural diversity in the transforming inner city of Prague. The Smíchov neighbourhood and particularly its central hub, the Anděl junction, were chosen as the focus of the study. The regeneration dynamics during the post-socialist transformation make this place particularly interesting for an inquiry into the interplay of the social and physical environment, into the interactions of changing urban landscapes and people's everyday practices. Particular attention is paid to the character of ordinary daily street life, to the users of urban space and to the manifestation of close-knit social, spatial and temporal diversity in the close vicinity of the Anděl hub. The paper concludes with the necessity of including the temporal dimension of space in urban planning and design practice. Methodologically the case study derives principally from direct observation of neighbourhood life and users, but also draws on the extensive research previously conducted in the neighbourhood by the authors and from intensive experience of living in the area.     

The struggle for ‘our streets’: the digital and physical spatial politics of the Ferguson Movement

ABSTRACT

The Ferguson Movement of 2014 and 2015 reached national salience immediately following the murder of Michael Brown, after residents took to social media platforms to report from what many activists called ‘ground zero.’ Some popular and scholarly conversations have couched the movement largely through its online manifestations; this study, however, places the movement within the intersections of digital and physical space as well as the broader political context of St. Louis. Triangulating data from 21 unstructured interviews with local activists in St. Louis, Missouri with GIS and digital media analysis, we illustrate how activists in the Ferguson Movement organized within St. Louis’ physical space and challenged popular arguments about resistance in digital space. Consequently, we argue that social movements’ placeness remain important despite recent emphases on digital media.     

Global Restructuring,Transmigration and Mexican Rural Women Who Stay Behind: Accommodating,Contesting and Transcending Ideologies

In a time when globalization has escalated the migration of groups of people there is still little known of the families and communities that stay behind. Based on over five years of ethnographic research with campesinas (rural Mexican women) in a highly migratory part of Central Mexico, this article examines the manner in which campesinas who stay behind as their husbands migrate are implicated in global processes. As a result of the movement of spouses to and from the United States new ideas, capital, bodies, and information are introduced that alter the roles and perspectives of women who stay behind. From a gendered glocal framework that links global and local processes and considers power relations stretched across various spaces and amongst gender relations, the author examines how women learn to accommodate, contest, and transcend their transmigrant state and changing ideologies. Women's integration in a non-governmental organization, reliance on family networks and cultural traditions, among others, help maintain their integrity and wholeness as single mothers, group leaders, and community participants.     

Identity and the preservation of being

The Mamos are the spiritual and political authorities of the four indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada in the Colombian Caribbean: the Arhuacos, Kankuamos, Kogis and Wiwas. Their work to preserve their own and their peoples’ identity is connected to a larger task; that of preserving the life and being of all that exists. This implies that identity can be conceptualised in two levels, a metaphysical and a social level, and that processes of identity reconstruction are vital. However, in the colonial relations in the dominant society only a specific mode of being that does not include a realm central to the Mamos is validated. This is the realm of aluna in which all beings are interconnected with the Mother. To the Mamos, the negation of these dimensions of reality is a form of bad faith whereby they and all other beings are relegated to the zone of non-being. When their people live in bad faith and relegate the Mother to the zone of non-being, the authority of the Mamos is crushed, their work to preserve life and being is weakened, and coloniality is reinforced.     

Hungarian Horoscopes as a Genre of Postsocialist Transformation

In the mid-1990s in Hungary, astrology publications and horoscopes—along with porn and evangelical literature—were among the Western cultural forms once restricted or banned by the socialist state that were enjoying enormous popular interest. Rather than examine astrology as a religious belief or superstitious practice, I approach it as a particular genre of self-transformation, often regarded as harmless and entertaining but nonetheless having efficacious potential. Drawing on numerous examples from print publications, interviews with professional practitioners and informal discussions, this article makes two observations: first, that readers of horoscopes looked to the divinatory capacity of horoscopes to assist them in making decisions and navigating the uncertain context of the 1990s; second, that as a genre able to shape and constrain subjectivity, horoscopes were instrumental in affecting transformations of normative character, moral codes and worldview from a localist, state-socialist cosmology to one more in accord with the demands (and enticements) of a global, neoliberal capitalist order.     

The Influence of Water Access in Subjective Well-Being: Some Evidence in Yucatan, Mexico

The literature on happiness or subjective well-being has explored the determinants of happiness without taking into consideration the role that water plays. In this paper we attempt to draw attention to water in subjective well-being studies. Approximately one hundred million people do not have access to water. A lack of clean water causes diseases such as diarrhea and cholera, responsible for around 5% of the total deaths in the world. Access to water should therefore be a necessary asset in life. In order to consider access to water, we estimate its influence on subjective well-being using data from rural Yucatan, Mexico. Residents in Yucatan suffer from low quality access to water and there are also imperfections in the management of the service, such as water cuts. We estimate the influence of water on subjective well-being, finding a positive and significant relationship. In a second stage of the research, we relate water access variables to subjective well-being, the health and the water domain of life, finding significant results. These results make it possible to formulate political measures concerning access to water and happiness maximization. We demonstrate that access to water is important for well-being in Yucatan and might be important in many other places; we therefore encourage future research to contemplate water satisfaction and water variables in their analysis.