Anti-Afropolitan ethics and the performative politics of online scambaiting

ABSTRACT

Online scambaiting problematises the identity of the 419 scammer whose virtual labours connect significantly to the digital dimensions of Afropolitanism. When examined through the photographic practices demanded of 419 scammers in several Internet communities, scambaiting, a form of Internet vigilantism that is targeted at online scammers to avert scam, produces epistemic violence which evacuates the black male body of human dignity. Although scambaiting is potentially an ethical project, it embeds a system of oppression that generates Afropolitan masculinities, caricatured performances of the bodies of 419 scammers exhibited online as objects of shame. As a philosophical and aesthetic response to translocality and mobility, Afropolitanism stresses the cultural experiences and agency of ordinary Africans who assert a global sense of awareness. As both the Afropolitan subject and the 419 scammer are entangled in the assertion of agency, the globalism of both is shown to converge at the intersection of the digital. Building on Lisa Nakamura's essay on dogshaming, I argue that the sexual exploitation of black bodies on scambaiting websites gestures at technology's complicity in interpellating digital subjects and circulating social injustices. Unlike Nakamura, I foreground the performative aspects of scambaiting and connect these to Afropolitanism's intrinsic digitality.     

Evidence-based intervention and services for high-risk youth: a North American perspective on the challenges of integration for policy, practice and research

This paper explores the cross-national challenges of integrating evidence-based interventions into existing services for high-resource-using children and youth. Using several North American model programme exemplars that have demonstrated efficacy, the paper explores multiple challenges confronting policy-makers, evaluation researchers and practitioners who seek to enhance outcomes for troubled children and youth and improve overall service effectiveness. The paper concludes with practical implications for youth and family professionals, researchers, service agencies and policy–makers, with particular emphasis on possibilities for cross-national collaboration.     

On the Use of Hierarchical Probabilistic Models for Characterizing and Managing Uncertainty in Risk/Safety Assessment

A general probabilistically-based approach is proposed for both cancer and noncancer risk/safety assessments. The familiar framework of the original ADI/RfD formulation is used, substituting in the numerator a benchmark dose derived from a hierarchical pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic model and in the denominator a unitary uncertainty factor derived from a hierarchical animal/average human/sensitive human model. The empirical probability distributions of the numerator and denominator can be combined to produce an empirical human-equivalent distribution for an animal-derived benchmark dose in external-exposure units.     

Planning and economics

It is an ironic fact that British industrialists, who regularly complained so bitterly about the amount of planning (or interference) by the last government, should have been so ready to embrace Corporate Planning. Yet this welcome has been very real, as can be judged by the number of advertisements appearing in the quality papers for corporate planners and the large numbers who enrol for any course which incorporates corporate planning in its title. The irony lies in the fact that formal definitions of corporate planning could be applied as much to the state as the firm. However, whilst the one is ‘good’ business the other is alleged to sap initiative, ruin morale, and interfere with the natural workings of the market place.     

Normalization in Econometrics

The issue of normalization arises whenever two different values for a vector of unknown parameters imply the identical economic model. A normalization implies not just a rule for selecting which among equivalent points to call the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE), but also governs the topography of the set of points that go into a small-sample confidence interval associated with that MLE. A poor normalization can lead to multimodal distributions, disjoint confidence intervals, and very misleading characterizations of the true statistical uncertainty. This paper introduces an identification principle as a framework upon which a normalization should be imposed, according to which the boundaries of the allowable parameter space should correspond to loci along which the model is locally unidentified. We illustrate these issues with examples taken from mixture models, structural vector autoregressions, and cointegration models.     

Infants' Reactions to Object Collision on Hit and Miss Trajectories

This experiment investigated the impact of the path of approach of an object, from head on versus from the side, and the type of imminent contact with that object, a hit versus a miss, on young infants' perceptions of object looming. Consistent with earlier studies, we found that 4‐ to 5‐month‐old infants do indeed discriminate hits versus misses. We also found a novel result regarding the path of the approaching object. The discrimination of hits from misses was modified by whether or not the approaching objects passed in front of the infants' faces; objects crossing the line of sight evoked more frequent defensive reactions than objects that did not cross the line of sight, regardless of whether or not such objects were on a collision course. These findings are discussed within the context of the development of visually guided locomotion and linear versus nonlinear paths of translation through the world.     

Charting a Discursive Field: Environmentalists for U.S. Population Stabilization*

This article seeks to extend our understanding of the forces that shape social movement messages. Using a framework that focuses on a movement's discursive field, I analyze the U.S. movement for population stabilization, which is made up of groups that call for stricter limits on immigration to the United States as a means to forestall environmental decline. Drawing upon data from a range of sources, including the Web sites of 10 environment‐oriented immigration‐reduction organizations, I make the case that this movement's particular field is composed of the discursive repertoires (or messages) of a set of environmental and nonenvironmental social actors and three central discourses: science, political economy, and nationalism. I argue that the movement's relative lack of success is partially attributable to its position in the discursive field in which it must operate.