Introduction: Transnational Lesbian Cultures

This special issue examines the transnational shape and shaping of lesbian lives and cultures in and across China, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It uses the expression “transnational lesbian cultures” to suggest that despite sometimes radically different sociopolitical and cultural contexts, the lived experiences of same-sex desire and their emotional attachments create particular affinities between women who love women, affinities that reach across the distinct cultural and social contexts that shape them. The articles brought together explore lesbian subcultures, film, graphic novels, music, and online intimacies. They show that as a cultural and political signifier and as an analytical tool, lesbian troubles and complicates contemporary sexual politics, not least by revealing some of the gendered structures that shape debates about sexuality in a range of critical, cultural and political contexts. While the individual pieces cover a wide range of issues and concerns—which are often highly specific to the historical, cultural, and political contexts they discuss—together they tell a story about contemporary transnational lesbian culture: one that is marked by intricate links between norms and their effects and shaped by the efforts to resist denial, discrimination, and sometimes even active persecution.     

‘Capturing Anarchists Across Borders’: The Transnational Dimensions of Italian Antimilitarist Campaigns, 1911–14

Abstract

This article engages with questions of the integration of different scales of analysis in the study of labour and radical movements: ‘transnational’, ‘national’ and ‘local’ or ‘trans-local’. The article places the study of transnational anarchism in a ‘national’ and ‘trans-local’ perspective. The analysis of the intersection between the networks of those who migrated from Italy and those who remained provides a fruitful means to uncover dynamics within the transnational anarchist movement and the interplay, in both directions, between home country, exile communities and host countries. The article focuses on the crucial, but still unexplored, contributions of communities of Italian anarchists abroad (in, among other places, London, Paris, Berne, Marseille, Barre and Buenos Aires) to the anti-militarist campaigns against the Italian colonial enterprise in Libya from 1911 to 1914, in terms of propaganda, theoretical debate, financing and countercultural production. The investigation of the initiatives of anarchist exiles and how they coordinated with their comrades in Italy provides a significant case study, not only to understand network-based transnational anarchism but also to reflect on mechanisms of political migration and their influence on the development of social conflicts.     

Universal Access to Affordable Housing? Interrogating an Elusive Development Goal

Abstract

Universal access to safe and secure housing has long been a central concern of the international development community. Since 2001, this aspiration has taken the form of global benchmarking embodied in the UN Millennium Development Goal 7–11 and its successor the Sustainable Development Goal 11. Despite these targets, hundreds of millions of households continue to be excluded from this basic human right. How might we understand the politics driving the disjuncture between rhetoric and reality? By historically examining the core policy documents, it is suggested that the self-actualising discourse of neoliberalism—in which the housing goals are framed—work to normalise a reality in which the commodification of basic survival needs and individualised self-help are seen as the only viable alternatives in realising decent shelter for all. Moreover, the construction and reconstruction of neoliberalism over the past 15 years has resulted in the increasingly explicit and central role of corporations in delivering housing justice.     

Big Food,Nutritionism, and Corporate Power

Big Food corporations have capitalized on nutritionism—the reduction of food’s nutritional value to its individual nutrients—as a means by which to enhance their power and position in global processed and packaged food markets. Drawing on the literatures on nutrition and corporate power, we show that Big Food companies have used nutritional positioning to bolster their power and influence in the sector. Through lobbying and participation in nutritionally focused public–private partnerships, they have directly sought to influence policy and governance. Through market dominance in the nutritionally enhanced foods sector, and participation in nutrition-focused rule-setting activities in agrifood supply chains, they have gained power to influence policy agendas. And they have used public outreach and the media to present their views on the nutritional aspects of their products, which shapes public perceptions and the broader regulatory environment. Together, these strategies have enhanced the power of Big Food firms to influence policies in the food sector.     

Governing Global Supply Chain Sustainability through the Ethical Audit Regime

Over the past two decades multinational corporations have been expanding ‘ethical’ audit programs with the stated aim of reducing the risk of sourcing from suppliers with poor practices. A wave of government regulation—such as the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act (2012) and the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015)—has enhanced the legitimacy of auditing as a tool to govern labor and environmental standards in global supply chains, backed by a broad range of civil society actors championing audits as a way of promoting corporate accountability. The growing adoption of auditing as a governance tool is a puzzling trend, given two decades of evidence that audit programs generally fail to detect or correct labor and environmental problems in global supply chains. Drawing on original field research, this article shows that in spite of its growing legitimacy and traction among government and civil society actors, the audit regime continues to respond to and protect industry commercial interests. Conceptually, the article challenges prevailing characterizations of the audit regime as a technical, neutral, and benign tool of supply chain governance, and highlights its embeddedness in struggles over the legitimacy and effectiveness of the industry-led privatization of global governance.     

Choosing to Stay: (Im)Mobility Decisions Amongst Mongolia’s Ethnic Kazakhs

One of the defining characteristics of globalization is the increased flow of migrants across international borders. Fluctuating migration flows in rural communities of the Global South have the potential to significantly contribute to or undermine the livelihoods of local residents. Households that choose not to migrate, that remain immobile, play a key role in sustaining rural communities. Migration studies in the Global South, however, have largely neglected these households. Utilizing questionnaire and life history interview data collected between 2006 and 2009, we examine immobility amongst the Kazakh ethnic minority population in rural Mongolia. Our findings challenge the dichotomous portrayal of immobile households as either ‘left behind’ or ‘embedded’ within their community, providing evidence that immobility decisions are both fluid and flexible and require more interrogation from scholars. Our findings help broaden the social and cultural context in which immobility studies are conducted and the characterization of immobility amongst non-migrant populations. More broadly, this study contributes to our understanding of the implications to livelihood sustainability in rural communities.     

What does ‘active citizenship’ mean for Erasmus students?

Since ERASMUS (European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) was launched there has been a constant debate about the civic significance of this mobility programme. The purpose of this article is to analyse the understanding of active citizenship by Erasmus students. In order to discover Erasmus students’ perceptions, values, beliefs and attitudes regarding the issue under discussion, original data were collected from 174 students who participated in our survey in March 2014. By applying a statistical analysis, the most and the least important criteria for being considered an active citizen have been extracted from the answers of our respondents. In addition, we studied their attitudes towards and knowledge of the European Union (EU). We found that their understanding of ‘active citizenship’ echoes with the definition of the concept provided in the research literature.     

Social reproduction in Sicily’s agricultural sector: migration status and context of reception

This article illuminates the social reproductive experiences of migrants labouring in Sicily’s (Italy) greenhouses. Current global transformations in agricultural production are intersecting with longstanding local economic and social realities, as well as with the 2007 Global Financial Crisis and EU enlargement, to make migrants, male and female, indispensable to a sector resorting to intensified informality in pursuit of flexible and cheap workers. Understanding social reproductive experiences as configured by migrant status and context of reception, the article includes analysis of interview and observational data with two nationalities of migrants – Tunisians and Romanians – occupying different positions in Italy’s migration regime. The article concludes that the harsh context of reception posed by labour market conditions, alongside a familialistic Italian welfare regime, largely precludes opportunities for proximate social reproduction for Tunisians and Romanians. In response, migrants develop transnational resilience strategies resting on cross-border actions combining market-, family-, community and State-based practices, to navigate the social reproductive challenges encountered. Such strategies, however, are less feasible for irregular migrants whose socio-legal position exposes them to the most exploitative working arrangements, denies them access to State welfare and renders them immobile. Moreover, for some regular migrants, such transnational resilience strategies are not their strategies of choice.     

跨国融资:会计的障碍与对策

随着我国加入WTO后融入全球经济一体化的不断深入,我国企业的跨国融资活动将迅猛发展。然而由于传统和体制方面的因素形成我国现有的会计体制,特别会计准则方面的差异给我国企业进行跨国融资活动造成了障碍,因而我国应该建立满足国际投资者需求的会计准则体系,走会计国际化的道路,才能适应资本国际流动的需要。     

论全球金融危机背景下的公司社会责任的正当性与可操作性

全球性金融危机的爆发宣告了公司社会责任时代的来临.强化公司社会责任的理论根据在于公司的社会属性、公司的巨大经济力量、公司的竞争方略等.我们应当建构由公司自律、契约正义、公平竞争、政府服务、立法引导、司法救济、信用体系和社会监督组成的金字塔型公司社会责任实施机制.与非国有公司相比,国有公司应当承担更大的社会责任;与非上市公司相比,上市公司应承担更大的社会责任.