Recent gis items

Extracting the future: Lithium in an era of energy transition

Thu, 9 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Extracting the future: Lithium in an era of energy transition

Is glacier science undone, or just enough for a just transition? Reflections from Andean Mines

Thu, 9 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Undone science refers to missing areas of scientific knowledge needed for decision-making or public policy. Though the term has become ubiquitous in STS research, it is hard to distinguish undone science from other possibilities like uncertainty, secrecy, or even unknowability. This paper advances a framework for distinguishing undone science from these other scenarios and applies it to the case of glacier management in Chile. Drawing on observations of glaciology science and regulatory documents, the authors compare how glacier science informed decisions on two Environmental Impact Assessments about new mines, nearly 20 years apart: Pascua Lama and Los Bronces, approved respectively in 2006 and 2023. The comparison shows a shift in Chilean glacier management, from a classic case of “undone science,” defined as that needed by specific mobilized or marginalized groups to advance their cause, to one of scientific controversy. In this second moment, contests over uncertainty or what...

Globalization – everything, everywhere, all the time

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Is globalization still a proper descriptor? Does globalization also include satellites and space shuttles in outer space? Recent work widens the definition of globalization: ‘Globalization is the trend of greater worldwide connectivity of people over time and the awareness of this happening.’ This shift of emphasis to connectivity as the driving force and the key point, implies that globalization is just one of the many forms this takes. Important is not the form, which changes according to circumstances, but connectivity and what it aspires and achieves. In an era of comeback of geopolitics this may be an important course adjustment.

Decommissioning: another critical challenge for energy transitions

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

To achieve the dual goals of minimising global pollution and meeting diverse demands for environmental justice, energy transitions need to involve not only a shift to renewable energy sources but also the safe decommissioning of older energy infrastructures and management of their toxic legacies. While the global scale of the decommissioning challenge is yet to be accurately quantified, the climate impacts are significant: each year, more than an estimated 29 million abandoned oil and gas wells around the world emit 2.5 million tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. In the US alone, at least 14 million people live within a mile of an abandoned oil or gas well, creating pollution that is concentrated among low-income areas and communities of colour. The costs involved in decommissioning projects are significant, raising urgent questions about responsibility and whether companies who have profited from the sale of extracted resources will be held liable for clean-up, remediation...

What is Global Studies?

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This discussion examines global studies and whether and how it differs from the earlier wave of globalization studies. Although treatments generally regard these as equivalent, studies of globalization are anchored in social science and humanities disciplines while global studies are, in principle, conceived on a different footing. We can distinguish two accounts of global studies: an empirical account, i.e. a description of actual existing global studies, and an analytical or programmatic account, which refers to what global studies can or should be for theoretical or other reasons. The first section of this paper discusses global knowledge as a database that exists independent of studies of globalization; the second section turns to studies of globalization; the third section concerns global studies as it actually exists; the fourth section offers a programmatic account of global studies. The concluding sections address cognitive problems of global thinking, in particular the...

International morality and international law

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

International morality and international law

Fadi Lama. Why the West Can’t Win: From Bretton Woods to a Multipolar World

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Fadi Lama. Why the West Can’t Win: From Bretton Woods to a Multipolar World

Statebuilding and indigenous rights implementation: Political incentives, social movement pressure, and autonomy policy in Central America

Thu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Statebuilding and indigenous rights implementation: Political incentives, social movement pressure, and autonomy policy in Central America

Strength out of weakness: Rethinking scientific engagement with the ecological crisis as strategic action

Fri, 2 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Faced with the ecological crisis, environmental scientists are asking what else besides providing evidence can they do to steer needed processes of substantive change. We argue that such an exploration should start by recognizing their weakness regarding the forces aiming at slowing down the pace of change. Recognizing this weakness should lead scientists to a change of tactics, embracing forms of strategic action used for centuries by groups on the weaker side of power struggles: that is, guerrilla strategies. Avoiding simplistic celebrations of guerrillas—historically a form of warfare that has produced as much pain as gain—an appraisal of some of its strategic tenets could help scientists to sketch alternative forms of engagement with the ecological crisis. Instead of grand gestures and direct confrontations, they could focus on carrying out epistemic strategic actions, or initiatives centered on the strategic usage of environmental knowledge and knowledge infrastructures to...

Military integration and intelligence capacity: informational effects of incorporating former rebels

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Military integration and intelligence capacity: informational effects of incorporating former rebels

Gambling with Violence: State Outsourcing of War in Pakistan and India

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Gambling with Violence: State Outsourcing of War in Pakistan and India

Rebel Mobilization through Pandering: Insincere Leaders, Framing, and Exploitation of Popular Grievances

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Rebel Mobilization through Pandering: Insincere Leaders, Framing, and Exploitation of Popular Grievances

Political Leadership in Africa: Leaders and Development South of the Sahara

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Political Leadership in Africa: Leaders and Development South of the Sahara

Nicaragua: Doubling Down on Dictatorship

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Nicaragua: Doubling Down on Dictatorship

Delegation, Sponsorship, and Autonomy: An Integrated Framework for Understanding Armed Group–State Relationships

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

AbstractWhat types of relationships do armed groups have with states? How do different levels of ties and power relations affect both armed group and government behavior? This article develops a spectrum across which armed group–state relationships can move, focusing on three key types of relationships—delegation, sponsorship, and autonomy. An armed group–state relationship may be classified depending on the degree to which the armed group receives material or security support from a state, whether it pursues the strategic aims of the state, and the balance of power between the armed group and the state. I examine cases and empirical examples of relationships between states and armed groups ranging from criminal organizations to Cold War-era rebels to pro-government and communal militias to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and al-Qaeda. As lines between categories of armed groups and between state and non-state actors are increasingly blurred, the integrated framework enhances...

Disruption from above, the middle and below: Three terrains of governance

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

AbstractThe term disruption has become a buzzword for our times, although there is little clarity over what the term means, how it is deployed, and towards what ends. In order to understand the analytical and political stakes that are embedded in the deployment of ‘disruption’ as a rationale for various sources of upheaval, in this article I argue that these three terrains of disruption should be understood as theories of governance, and term them ‘disruption from above’, ‘disruption from the middle’, and ‘disruption from below’. Each terrain of disruption embodies different ethoses, actors, and goals: the first connoting elite-driven creative destruction and innovation; the second obfuscating the capitalist imperative that produces world-systemic upheavals; and the third seeking to expose the structures of violence and inequality built into such practices. I illustrate these three terrains through a structural account that traces the popularity of the disruption discourse from...

Race and the Chilean Miracle: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights

Fri, 2 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Race and the Chilean Miracle: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights

Embracing the Anaconda: A Chronicle of Atacameño Life and Mining in the Andes by Anita Carrasco London: Lexington Books, 2020. 171 pp.

Fri, 2 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Embracing the Anaconda: A Chronicle of Atacameño Life and Mining in the Andes by Anita Carrasco London: Lexington Books, 2020. 171 pp.

Production/destruction in Latin America

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Production/destruction in Latin America

Use of historical mapping to understand sources of soil-lead contamination: Case study of Santa Ana, CA

Thu, 4 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This paper investigates the historical sources of soil-lead contamination in Santa Ana, California. Even though dangerous levels of soil-lead have been found in a wide variety of communities across the United States, public health institutions lack clarity on the historical origins of these crises. This study uses geo-spatial data collected through archival research to estimate the impact of two potential sources of lead contamination in the past -- lead-paint and leaded gasoline. It examines, through a combination of statistical and historical methods, the association between lead concentrations in contemporary soil samples and patterns in the evolution of the city's physical features, such as the growth of urbanized areas and the historical flow of traffic. We emphasize the value of historical data collected through archival research for understanding the sources of environmental lead, particularly leaded gasoline, which our study found to be the most likely and most prominent...

Hazan, Haim: Against Hybridity. Social Impasses in a Globalizing World

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Hazan, Haim: Against Hybridity. Social Impasses in a Globalizing World

Learning from Covid: Three Key Variables

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Covid data show that wealth is not health. What then are the major variables that affect public health in the Covid–19 pandemic? Based on onsite research in 26 countries across the world this paper singles out three variables – knowledge, state capability and social cooperation. If one of these is dysfunctional or absent Covid–19 performance suffers. The variables work best in combination. Under consideration are three phases of Covid–19 – virus control, vaccines, and the race with variants. Which types of society best combine these variables? Comparing varieties of market economies – liberal, coordinated and state-led market economies (with four variants), Covid–19 data indicate that coordinated and developmental state-led market economies tend to generate the best combination of variables and public health outcomes, and liberal market economies and rightwing populist countries produce the worst combination. Comparative Covid–19 research points to the limitations of macro theories...

Global Culture, 1990, 2020

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here I reflect on the main themes of Global Culture, Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity. On these themes, where are we 30 years later? I sidestep the fine print of the 1990 conversations and share notes in brief format on where I have come to in the decades that have passed. I round off with notes on the 2020 conjuncture.

Book Review: Cultural Chauvinism: Intercultural Communication and the Politics of Superiority by Minabere Ibelema

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Book Review: Cultural Chauvinism: Intercultural Communication and the Politics of Superiority by Minabere Ibelema

Protest Begets Progress, Probably: Human Development Report 2013

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Protest Begets Progress, Probably: Human Development Report 2013

What happened to the Miracle Eight? Looking East in the twenty-first century

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

All developing countries have been "looking East" since the rise of the Asian tigers, especially South Korea and Taiwan. The designation of the Southeast Asian economies as "tiger cubs" implies the question: can would-be tigers become tigers? Against the background of both oriental globalisation and China's effect on the region, this article compares trends in Northeast and Southeast Asia in agriculture, industry and services. State and political institutions are part of the comparison. As the conclusion notes, the new imperative for sustainable and inclusive growth excludes simply retracing the tigers development path: political change, in both national and regional institutions, is needed for the reforms in land, fiscal and industrial policy that will permit Southeast Asia to escape the middle-income trap.

Parag Khanna: The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict, and Culture in the 21st Century

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Parag Khanna: The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict, and Culture in the 21st Century

Anastasia Nesvetailova and Ronen Palan: Sabotage: The Hidden Nature of Finance

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Anastasia Nesvetailova and Ronen Palan: Sabotage: The Hidden Nature of Finance

Global Studies: Have Catechism, Will Travel

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This second response to comments on my article 'What is Global studies?' (Globalizations 10, 4, 2013) notes that the comments feature research agendas. These provide scaffolding for global studies but not of course a complete building. Among themes that need further attention are political economy and finance, the dimension of time and history, and the dynamics of twenty-first century globalization and the role of emerging economies. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

What Do People Want?

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract Should a discussion of populism be concerned with populism, along with revulsion of its various extremisms, or should it rather be concerned with the failure of institutions and the misbehavior of elites in a world in which eight billionaires own as much as half the world population? The former option will yield a totally different and probably somewhat more predictable discussion than the latter, which may include “from bad to worse.” A third option is that different types of market economies yield different types of populism, including pluto-populism. This discussion follows the latter two options.

Populism Is a Distraction

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract Should a discussion of populism be concerned with populism—along with revulsion of its various extremisms (perhaps along with hints of social and psychopathology and hence, implicit endorsement of ‘moderate’ positions)? Or should it rather be concerned with the failure of institutions and the misbehavior of elites in a world in which 8 billionaires own as much as half the world population? Option a) will yield a totally different and probably somewhat more predictable discussion than option b), which may include ‘from bad to worse’. According to option c) different types of populism—including ‘pluto-populism’—should generate different treatments. This discussion follows options b) and c).

From economic stagnation to systemic fragility?

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

From economic stagnation to systemic fragility?

Connectivity and Global Studies

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The book explores intricacies of connectivity through genetic codes, technology, art, borders, populism and much more. This is a major contribution to understanding globalization.

Multipolar Globalization Emerging Economies and Development

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Accessible and insightful, this book will be an essential guide for both students in the social sciences and for professionals and scholars seeking a fresh perspective.

Changing Constellations of Southeast Asia From Northeast Asia to China

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

From Northeast Asia to China Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Abdul Rahman Embong, Siew Yean Tham. Nederveen Pieterse, Jan. 2014. Asia rising: Welcome to the multipolar world. In Hyun-Chin Lim, W. Shafer, and Suk-Man Hwang, eds.

College Major Restrictions and Student Stratification

Tue, 7 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Underrepresented minority (URM) college students have been steadily earning degrees in relatively less-lucrative fields of study since the mid-1990s. A decomposition reveals that this widening gap is principally explained by rising stratification at public research universities, many of which increasingly enforce GPA restriction policies that prohibit students with poor introductory grades from declaring popular majors. We investigate these GPA restrictions by constructing a novel 50-year dataset covering four public research universities’ student transcripts and employing a dynamic difference-in-difference design around the implementation of 29 restrictions. Restricted majors’ average URM enrollment share falls by 20 percent, which matches observational patterns and can be explained by URM students’ poorer average pre-college academic preparation. Using first-term course enrollments to identify students who intend to earn restricted majors, we find that major restrictions disproportionately...

An urban proletariat with peasant characteristics: land occupations and livestock raising in South Africa

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

An urban proletariat with peasant characteristics: land occupations and livestock raising in South Africa

Sustainable Territories: Rural Dispossession, Land Enclosures and the Construction of Environmental Resources in China

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As urbanization and industrialization continue to spread through China's countryside, the central government has officially declared the construction of master planned eco-industrial zones and eco-cities as primary strategies for accelerating the transformation of industrial structure and the prevailing model of economic development, as well as for “constructing a socialist economic, politically, culturally… and ecologically civilized… harmonious society” (NPC 2011: chapter 1, np). Based on recent fieldwork, this paper demonstrates how these strategies extend beyond the “green washing” of rural land enclosure and transformation, arguing that processes of rural dispossession are linked to the commodification and circulation of natural capital. This paper analyzes processes of environmentalization and enclosure as linked state-led strategies for governing economic growth, rural transformation and interventions into global market-based solutions to climate change as integral problems...

Will They Stay or Will They Go? International Graduate Students and Their Decisions to Stay or Leave the U.S. upon Graduation

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The U.S. currently enjoys a position among the world's foremost innovative and scientifically advanced economies but the emergence of new economic powerhouses like China and India threatens to disrupt the global distribution of innovation and economic competitiveness. Among U.S. policy makers, the promotion of advanced education, particularly in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields, has become a key strategy for ensuring the U.S.'s position as an innovative economic leader. Since approximately one third of science and engineering post-graduate students in the U.S. are foreign born, the future of the U.S. STEM educational system is intimately tied to issues of global competitiveness and American immigration policy. This study utilizes a combination of national education data, a survey of foreign-born STEM graduate students, and in-depth interviews of a sub-set of those students to explain how a combination of scientists' and engineers' educational...

California oil: Bridging the gaps between local decision-making and state-level climate action

Thu, 3 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

California has set ambitious climate policies, including economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2045. Yet levels of oil production and consumption remain high in the state. This gap between California's oil politics and its climate ambitions is deepened by decentralized decision-making processes. County officials are tasked with extractive planning decisions that have wide-ranging implications. In this Viewpoint article, we analyze proposals for enhanced extraction at the Cat Canyon oilfield in Santa Barbara County. After two of three proposals were withdrawn in recent months, we highlight how it has been oil industry volatility and public opposition - rather than state regulations - that have brought county development plans into closer alignment with state climate goals. As California pursues a goal of 'managing the decline' of domestic oil production, we identify strategies for bridging such gaps between local decision-making and state-level climate action, including: a comprehensive...

Chile's Environmental Assessments: Contested Knowledge in an Emerging Democracy

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract: In 1990, Chile transitioned to democracy after 17 years of military rule. The new democracy built the country's first environmental institutions and began efforts to revitalize science, among them attempts to connect scientific expertise to public decision-making. Just over a decade into these efforts, conflicts over the environmental impacts of large industrial projects began to multiply. These environmental conflicts were often also credibility contests, where the authority of science to speak to public issues was contested. Two such conflicts, a gold mine called Pascua Lama and a hydroelectric project called HidroAysén, enrolled several scientific teams, yet in each case the state made its final decision on each project autonomously from science. Though some scientists became central participants in each conflict, carving out for themselves access to needed resources that they used to practice ever-narrower forms of science, their credibility was called into question...

Documenting rubble to shift baselines: Environmental assessments and damaged glaciers in Chile

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Worldwide, governments use environmental impact assessments (EIAs) to manage the environmental impacts of industrial activity. EIAs contain baselines that describe the specific environment where the project would go, and impact evaluations that identify ways to eliminate, reduce, or compensate the environmental harms the project would have. Although EIA baselines promised to democratize and improve decision-making, in practice, many affected communities, environmental activists, and scholars of EIAs find that baselines often obscure certain ecological impacts. Drawing on science and technology studies and environmental history, I reflect on why this happens and propose that it results from the ways in which EIA baselines reproduce modernist views of economic growth and progress. I analyze EIA baselines as a “memory practice” which meet the needs of the present by projecting a timeless, static past to be preserved. This naturalization of modernism can be challenged through two...

Reaching for the Stars? Astronomy and Growth in Chile

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

While scholars and policy practitioners often advocate for science and technology transfer as a motor for economic growth, many in Latin America have long warned of the pitfalls of such top-down, North-South transfers. To many in Latin America, scientific aid or cooperation from the North has often reproduced hierarchies that perpetuate dependency. Large astronomy observatories located in Chile – with a high price tag, cutting-edge technology, and seen to answer seemingly arcane research questions – seem ripe for reproducing precisely these kinds of hierarchical relationships. Using data from documents, interviews, and a site visit to Gemini South, one of several large telescopes in Chile, this paper takes a historical perspective to examine how resilient these hierarchical relationships are. Over forty years, astronomy in Chile grew thanks to new policies that fostered cooperation among universities and gave locals privileged access to the telescopes. But the community also grew...

An empirical study of EIA litigation involving energy facilities in Chile and Colombia

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

An empirical study of EIA litigation involving energy facilities in Chile and Colombia

Constructing rights in Taiwan: the feminist factor, democratization, and the quest for global citizenship

Tue, 4 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Constructing rights in Taiwan: the feminist factor, democratization, and the quest for global citizenship

Reflexivity and Temporality in Researching Violent Settings: Problems with the Replicability and Transparency Regime

Tue, 3 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Reflexivity and Temporality in Researching Violent Settings: Problems with the Replicability and Transparency Regime

Recasting the rural: State, society and environment in contemporary China

Wed, 3 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recasting the rural: State, society and environment in contemporary China

Lithium and development imaginaries in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia

Tue, 4 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Lithium and development imaginaries in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia

Iconoclasm: ISIS and Cultural Destruction

Mon, 1 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This paper examines utopian ideologies and their effects in motivating iconoclasm. Using the cases of Islamic State, the Nazi’s destruction of Warsaw, and the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, this paper analyzes the utopian elements of each group’s ideology that motivates iconoclasm. I argue that Islamic State engages in iconoclasm in order to promote a unified and ideal community rooted in their utopian religious ideology. They achieve this goal by destroying cultural artifacts and museums that clash with their vision. While most of the debate around Islamic State has focused on non-religious aspects like oil-backed finance, this paper attempts to reorient the debate around the religious character of Islamic State’s actions. Given the salience of Islamic State and other similar groups in recent attacks globally, this paper attempts to analyze their operational motivations through the destruction of cultural artifacts.

Evaluating Cosmopolitanism

Mon, 1 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As the international community has become increasingly connected, cosmopolitanism has often been proposed as a means to reduce inequalities and maintain peace. Cosmopolitan scholars, like Martha Nussbaum, hypothesize that this citizenship can be achieved through standardized, international education standards. While it is undeniable that the projects which cosmopolitans seek to solve are vital, this paper seeks to examine the plausibility and effectiveness of cosmopolitan theory, contending that modern cosmopolitan justifications only serve to further Western interests. It is imperative to examine the applicability of cosmopolitanism, because flawed theory produces flawed policy. Cosmopolitan scholars fail to recognize that one universalized standard of education creates a monolithic culture, without a capacity for innovation or ability to cultivate strong cultural identities. Furthermore, while cosmopolitans call for the disintegration of physical borders, past trends suggest...

The Armenian Diaspora: Migration and its Influence on Identity and Politics

Mon, 1 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The diasporan occupies a liminal space as a person that comes from one place, yet lives in another. This split identity can often pose challenges for diaspora communities, not only in questions of assimilation but also in coming to an understanding of what “identity” means at all. Understanding the diasporan’s lack of belonging and its influence on the way in which different diaspora communities function in their host nations is crucial in the present day, at a time in which identities are more fluid than ever. In this study, I explore the concept of diaspora through the particular lens of Armenian diaspora communities in the United States. This article will not only focus on the causes and effects of Armenian migration historically, but will also explore the characteristics and goals of the Armenian diaspora in the United States today – particularly in terms of its current understanding of identity, its uniting factors, and political influence. In studying the Armenian diaspora,...

Addressing Water Scarcity in the Nile Delta: Virtual Water, Fresh Water, and Desalination

Mon, 1 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Water scarcity has direct implications for food security in arid regions. Egypt faces an escalating situation of water scarcity, as its renewable fresh water resources are fixed and the population is growing rapidly. The per capita supply of fresh water is already dangerously low and predicted to plummet even further by the year 2025. This paper critically analyzes three different approaches to the water scarcity problem in Egypt: importing virtual water, using Nile water more efficiently, and creating new sources of fresh water with desalination. The advantages and disadvantages of each approach are reviewed. This exposes a number of fundamental trade-offs that must be resolved. Discussion and recommendations are made as to which solution is most viable.

Uncertain Outcomes: Evaluating the Effects of the Trafficking in Persons Reports in South Africa and Thailand

Mon, 1 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Demonstrated by the establishment of anti-human trafficking institutions such as the Palermo Protocol and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 (and the associated Trafficking in Persons (TIP) reports), the commodification of forced labor swiftly rose to the forefront of political and humanitarian consciousness beginning in the 1990s. The dominating institution remains the unilaterally enforced TIP reports, issued annually by the United States. This paper examines the TIP reports, seeking to explain their effects on human trafficking outcomes for institution-implementing nations. Focusing on two critical cases—Thailand and South Africa— this research demonstrates the ways in which the same anti-trafficking models can lead to very different consequences—both beneficial and costly— for implementing countries. Ultimately, through an examination of cultural values, political alliances, and economic well-being for implementing nations, it is shown that the effects...

Has Liberia Turned a Corner?

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Has Liberia Turned a Corner?

Contemporary Visual Art and Iranian Feminism