Global networks of money and information at the crossroads: Correspondent banking and SWIFT

This article explores how transaction information is a fundamental element enabling and fostering global flows of money. Financial systems, constructed around account-based money, require infrastructure, which is separated into two parts: messaging and settlement, performed via trusted agents. This separation has allowed the geographical expansion of banking, and to this day constitutes a key architecture of increasingly global networks of money. Focusing on the correspondent banking system and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, this article demonstrates the workings of this infrastructure in cross-border payments and in enacting economic sanctions. This sociotechnical infrastructure is a crucial yet overlooked area of global banking, which makes global economic and financial activity possible in the first place. Importantly, by analysing the organizational architecture of the global payments system and including the actors and agencies within it, we elucidate the (changing) relationships between data/information, geographies and power, contributing to the formation of a literature that conceptualizes financial infrastructure.     

Adapting to Unknown Disturbance Autocorrelation in Regression with Long Memory

We show that it is possible to adapt to nonparametric disturbance autocorrelation in time series regression in the presence of long memory in both regressors and disturbances by using a smoothed nonparametric spectrum estimate in frequency–domain generalized least squares. When the collective memory in regressors and disturbances is sufficiently strong, ordinary least squares is not only asymptotically inefficient but asymptotically non–normal and has a slow rate of convergence, whereas generalized least squares is asymptotically normal and Gauss–Markov efficient with standard convergence rate. Despite the anomalous behavior of nonparametric spectrum estimates near a spectral pole, we are able to justify a standard construction of frequency–domain generalized least squares, earlier considered in case of short memory disturbances. A small Monte Carlo study of finite sample performance is included.     

Hybrid identities: juxtaposing multiple identities against the ‘authentic’ Moken

The Moken and Moklen are an indigenous population residing along the Andaman coast of Thailand. They have been represented, both in popular and academic discourse, as seafaring nomads living in traditional boats and small temporal coastal communities. The overwhelmingly precept of the existing literature about the Moken is one of vulnerability and of stemming the erosion of ‘authentic’ Moken cultural identities. Identification of Moken as being under threat transpired as a consequence of the 2004 Asian tsunami, in which many Moken were killed and the plight of others who had their houses and sources of livelihood destroyed was propelled onto an international stage. This paper critically discusses how Moken identities and associated discourses of vulnerability have been depicted in media and academic literature as fixed and traditional. We argue that such rigid identity narratives contrast sharply to the contemporary realities of the Moken identities as articulated by the Moken we interviewed.     

Burnout and Wellbeing: Testing the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory in New Zealand Teachers

The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) is a public domain questionnaire measuring the degree of physical and psychological fatigue experienced in three sub-dimensions of burnout: personal, work-related, and client-related burnout. This study first examines the reliability and validity of the CBI in measuring burnout in New Zealand secondary school teachers, and then the relationship between burnout and wellbeing among this population. The CBI had acceptable reliability (internal consistency and homogeneity) as well as factorial and criterion-related validity. As expected, burnout was negatively related to wellbeing measures (wellbeing index, school connection, and perceived general health). The findings indicate that this burnout questionnaire is a valid instrument to use with New Zealand secondary teachers, and also highlight the potential impact of burnout on the health and wellbeing of teachers.

A feminist history of Australian midwifery from colonisation until the 1980s

This paper uses a feminist interpretation and secondary sources to describe the history of Australian midwifery from colonisation until the 1980s. There have been too few midwife scholars who have had access to or used primary data collections to describe the role and place of midwives in the colonising community. I draw on a range of biography, medical literature and work by sociologists and economic historians to produce a limited picture of the history of professional midwifery. This helps to explain the position of midwives today and the problematic relationship we often have with medicine.     

The educational attainment of young women: Role model effects of female high school faculty

To test for the presence of role model effects of female high school faculty and professional staff on young women in high school, we estimate several models of educational attainment for young women using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Exposure to female high school faculty and professional staff has a positive impact on the educational attainment of young women. This result, combined with our finding that female faculty and professional staff have no significant impact on the educational attainment of young men, supports a female role model hypothesis.