Traceability in global governance

An increasingly important challenge in global governance, which in some issue areas has been labelled ‘traceability’, has been to track the cross‐border travels of objects that are associated with positive or negative effects. However, the common properties and identifiable patterns of variation of traceability across issue areas or industries have been insufficiently explored. We identify key properties of traceability systems, including the variation and interactions between the physical properties of the traced object, the positive or negative effects with which it is associated, the monitoring technology, and the institutionalized power relations that activate and constrain traceability systems. We examine and compare traceability systems for food safety, conflict minerals, pharmaceuticals, carbon emissions, money laundering and financial transactions. Understanding traceability in this way is important not only for these cases, but also for understanding interactions between objects, infrastructures, as well as monitoring and political mechanisms in global governance more generally.     

The daughter‐in‐law questions remittances: changes in the gender of remittances among Indian migrants to Australia

In this article, I present a cross‐generational analysis of the gendered meanings and politics surrounding monetary remittances. Indian female migrants to Australia, who contribute significantly to household incomes, have recently started to question the sources and directions of remittances. This happens when the woman's earnings are sent, without consultation, to the husband's parents for luxuries, while the family in Australia is struggling. Women in paid work also want to send their earnings to their own parents, particularly if there is financial need. Remittances have become a testing ground for the traditional belief that the husband and his family own the money in the patrilineal marital household. It is possible to interpret male control of remittances without consultation as a form of financial abuse of the wife in the sending household. The article draws on two qualitative studies on five decades of Indian migration to Australia covering 203 people from 112 families.     

Transnational marriages in Yiwu,China: tensions over money

In this article, I explore the role of transnational marriages in the activities and strategies of trading networks, through the lens of money and uncertainty in marriage. I argue that uncertainty in spousal relations challenges the durability of such unions and hence the effectiveness of their role in trading activities. These uncertainties are shaped by intertwined factors, including especially the embedded relationship between commercial and social networks (for example, business partners, kinship, friendship) and spousal relations, the differing cultural values and practices of the partners to such unions, stereotypes, varying forms and degrees of trust and mistrust, and the dynamics of global markets and state policy. Uncertainties driven by these factors exacerbate mistrust in both marriages and trading relations; they also shape shifting orientations toward future life. Therefore, I argue that the role of marriage in trading activities should be neither simplified nor romanticized.     

Your Money or Your Life: Behavioral and Emotional Predictors of Money Pathology

This study sought to examine self-reportedemotional and behavioral correlates of money pathology,defined as inappropriate behavior with respect to moneyand associated material goods. In all, 267 British adult subjects completed a battery ofquestionnaires including Rubinstein's (1981) extensivePsychology Today survey on money and Forman's ipsativemeasures that describe five Money Pathology Scales(miser, spendthrift, tycoon, bargain hunter, gambler),an overall pathology scale combining the five and hisshort moneysanity measure. The former measure was factoranalyzed and selected factor scores regressed on to the moneysanity measure along withdemographic measures in order to attempt to establishwhich individual difference factors best predicted thedifferent types of money pathology. Thus females were more extravagant, prone to depression, but lesslikely to take moral risks for money, while richer, moreright-wing people tended to be more materialistic. Thosewith overall less money sanity tended more to believe luck and dishonesty were moreimportant in making money; were self-denying andeconomically pessimistic, and had powerful negativeemotions like anger and anxiety around money. Multiple regressions on to the money types showed thatbetween 15 and 30% of the variance could be explainedand accounted for, by the selected independent variables(demographic, religious and political belief, illness, and more general attitudes towardwealth). Demographic variables like age, and negativeemotions about money were consistent predictors of moneypathology. Results are discussed in terms of the small, but growing literature on the psychologyof money (Furnham, 1997; Furnham & Argyle,1998).