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Further Old Khotanese Texts in ‘Metre B’
Full text linkOld Khotanese poetry makes use of three metres, conventionally referred to as A, B and C. The metre of the longest surviving Old Khotanese poem, the Book of Zambasta (Z) was analysed in detail in Sims-Williams 2022, which was followed by a series of articles studying the use of metre C in other texts and fragments, in order to determine to what extent their treatment of this metre conforms to the practice of Z. The present article applies the same approach to passages in metre B, identifying some which probably belong to lost parts of the Book of Zambasta and others which certainly do not. The relevant passages are presented with a detailed metrical analysis as well as an English translation and brief commentary
Right-wing Times: Fascism, Left/Right Convergences and the Relationship of ‘Gender-Critical’ to Anti-Gender
No full textThis article considers the role that so-called ‘gender critical’ feminist mobilizations play transnationally, not only in amplifying global anti-gender movements, but in fuelling broader left and liberal complicity in growing fascism. While anti-gender mobilizations most often act in the name of conservative, right-wing or fascist politics, ‘gender critical’ articulations are more politically ambiguous. This is particularly apparent when considering anti-trans/‘gender-critical’ arguments within feminism, where left and right arguments coalesce around claims to protect women and children from danger. While asking broader questions on leftist/liberal complicity in rising fascism, I caution against blanketly understanding all ‘gender criticals’ as fascists. Rather, I am interested in what ‘gender critical’ thought, especially on the Left, does for fascism. I analyse transnational sites of this ambiguity and argue that ‘gender critical’ left positions offer a key case study that helps us theorize the role of the Left and of Liberalism in ‘right-wing times’ more generally. A ‘right-wing times’ framework is useful because it redirects attention to the discursive boundaries of the debate rather than the positionality of the speakers involved. Both in left/liberal and right-wing iterations, anti-gender and anti-trans politics frequently overlap with anti-immigration and anti-Palestine rhetoric and attacks on fields of knowledge like critical race theory and intersectionality. Analyzing these discourses together, as I suggest, will not only generate more precise tools to address the current global rise of fascism but also reveal the necessity for explicitly transnational epistemologies and organizing strategies in response
Gender, Social Reproduction, and Feminist Approaches to Food Systems
No full textThe study of food systems through a gender lens highlights gender roles and relations in the production, processing, and consumption of food. The concept of “food system” has a long history, but its uses have increased significantly in recent decades, driven by the quest to change the food system, making it more sustainable, caring, and fair. Food systems are now understood in broad terms, informed by systems thinking and encompassing the conditions—agroecological, social, economic, and so forth—of food production, transformation, distribution, consumption, and waste. Efforts to define food systems explicitly have increased, but the concept is used in varied ways across disciplines and intellectual strands. The growing public and policy concern with food systems is also reflected in the creation of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems in 2015 and the announcement of the first UN Food Systems Summit in 2021. Multi- and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of food systems, from both natural and social sciences, abound. However, the literature that investigates gender relations in the food systems is often multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary, and it is largely located in the social sciences, including anthropology, development studies, economics, and sociology, among others. The main aim of such literature has been to analyze gender relations and inequality in various parts of the food system, from production to consumption. In doing so, this literature foregrounds care relations and reproductive work in the food system, placing the emphasis on forms of invisible and unpaid work carried out for food to be produced, processed, and consumed. Sociocultural relations that shape how people relate to food have also been considered from a gender perspective, highlighting the existence of disparities in nutrition and health outcomes on grounds of gender. Questions of ecology, sustainability, and alternatives to the capitalist organization of the world food system have also been examined through a feminist lens. Increasingly, intersectional approaches where gender relations are seen as being co-constituted with other relations of power—along the lines of class, race, and migration status, among others—appear in the feminist literature on food systems. Finally, the literature that seeks to achieve a more complete understanding of food systems from a feminist social reproduction perspective not only documents the existence of inequalities in the food system but also seeks to explain how inequalities are central to the functioning of the food system as we know it
Nonsense: Talal Asad, Wittgenstein, and Religion
Full text linkWittgenstein maintained that religion was central to his thinking, yet the concept is distinctly absent from his magnum opus, the Philosophical Investigations. This article explores this apparent paradox by reading Wittgenstein alongside Talal Asad. In doing so, it reveals how Wittgenstein's encounter with non-Western “religion” was critical to what many have identified as the shift from his early to his later work. Moreover, by reading the two thinkers together, the article illuminates crucial moments and notable parallels in their respective oeuvres, particularly with respect to their engagement with the valences of “nonsense.” The article intervenes by contending that the category of religion elucidates the ways in which our ordinary language works in “nonsensical” ways. While this blurs the supposed boundaries between “religious” and “nonreligious” forms of life, nevertheless the article argues that the former might be understood as paradigmatic of how we operate in the latter
Saving Indigenous Children? The Government of Childhood and the Coloniality of Development in Amazonia
Full text linkThe moral imperative of “saving” Indigenous children has been historically used as a tool to facilitate land appropriation in Amazonia. This paper examines how three types of child-centered interventions—early colonial tutelage, state schools, and conditional cash transfers—have contributed to reinforcing development models that threaten Indigenous livelihoods. Drawing insights from governmentality and decolonial studies, this literature review foregrounds the interplay between child saviorism, land dispossession, and predatory extractivism in Amazonia. The paper concludes by calling for the integration of Indigenous perspectives in social policies to challenge the colonial legacy of child-centered development
Coercion and Co-option: Strategies of Labour Control and Labour Survival in the Indian E-commerce Warehouses: An Amazon India Case Study
No full textThis research explores the dynamics of labour-capital relations and the nature of the labour regime at three Amazon.in warehouses located in Maharashtra, India’s most industrialised state, as measured by its share of total economic output. It is the first fully participant observation-based study of Amazon warehouse labour in India, conducted through the researcher’s own experience of working as a warehouse worker for seven months during a year-long fieldwork period 2018- 2019. Analytically, the study is grounded in labour regime theory and advocates for a bottom-up analytical approach, focusing on the survival micro-politics of work as observed on the shop floor.Given Amazon.com’s central role in shaping contemporary global capitalism, academic interest in Amazon’s labour practices has grown significantly. While this has led to a rich body of empirical research on Amazon warehouses in the Global North, there remains a notable gap in comprehensive studies from the Global South. Existing literature has largely concentrated on the structural mechanisms of control and consent within Amazon’s operations, often adopting a top-down perspective. However, such approaches frequently overlook the everyday lived experiences and workplace politics of warehouse workers. This omission is critical, as it is precisely these micro-level interactions and survival strategies that illuminate how specific labour regimes emerge and persist in Amazon warehouses in India—and potentially globally.This study investigates the disciplinary and ideological mechanisms of labour control and consent in relation to workers’ daily experiences, particularly within the core warehouse labour processes of ‘picking’ and ‘packing.’ By doing so, it unpacks the complex power relations between capital and labour, as well as among workers themselves, across organisational hierarchies and management-labour interfaces. The findings reveal how these dynamics culminate in a distinctive form of workplace survival politics and a hegemonic despotic labour regime—characterised by a blend of coercion, consent, and co-option. This regime fosters a subtle, yet significant, two-way interaction between labour and capital, enabling workers to navigate a technologically intensive environment where continued employment hinges their working towards a good productive worker image at the workplace.The thesis addresses three interrelated questions: How is Amazon’s labour process structured, how do workers navigate it, and how do these dynamics shape the form and nature of the labour regime? The research demonstrates that workers not only meet but often exceed productivity targets. Contrary to interpretations that attribute this solely to surveillance and pressure, the study shows that workers engage in a unique survival micro-politics—tactical, everyday strategies rooted in personal and social interdependencies in and around the work processes. The need for social recognition and individual worker’s insecurity is intertwined with workers’ survival attempts resulting into a hegemonic despotism labour regime at the workplace. This not only explains why workers work harder here but also illuminates practices that reflect a nuanced form of labour agency and help explain the scarcity of overt resistance in neoliberal workplaces
Unwavering Loyalty: The Constitutional Council’s Role in Excluding Cameroon’s Main Opposition Leader From The 2025 Presidential Election
No full textDigital Foodscapes: Past - Present - Future
Full text linkThe everyday production, consumption, distribution, communication and management of food and culinary practices are increasingly influenced and mediated by digital technologies, ranging from digital procurement systems and online shopping, marketing and promotion to digital food activism. This socio-digital realm, and its typical food practices including planning, cooking, and eating, is often marked by mundane, seemingly banal interactions between humans and technologies. Yet, it is precisely these everyday interactions that are crucial to understand food, nutrition and health practices, especially given the growing reach and impact of digital technologies. This position paper proposes the concept of ‘digital foodscapes’ as an analytical and methodological lens to grasp and investigate how everyday spaces, discourses and practices around food, nutrition and health are changing with and through digitalisation. It provides a multi-scalar approach to understanding both micro-level everyday interactions and meso- and macro-level structures. In bringing together highly diverse disciplinary perspectives, this paper also identifies key future research areas around food and digitalisation
Transitional Justice in Sudan: Between a Long-Standing Elusive Quest and the Foundation for an Alternative Future
No full textTailoring Anti-Corruption Reforms to Political Settlements: Insights from Indonesia
No full textAnti-corruption interventions by development organizations and multilateral donor agencies in the Global South have largely failed. This paper argues that such efforts have been ineffective because they prioritized technical fixes while overlooking the fundamentally political nature of corruption. To exemplify this argument, this paper applies a Political Settlement Analysis (PSA) to identify the political drivers that shape corruption dynamics in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy. The PSA shows that Indonesia’s current political settlement is best described as “competitive clientelism” whose defining consequence is an accountability deficit that runs along both vertical and horizontal lines. To illustrate how this accountability deficit has undercut reform efforts, the paper examines two prominent but ultimately unsuccessful donor-backed anti-corruption initiatives: the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK – Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi) and the Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (SKK Migas – Satuan Kerja Khusus Pelaksana Kegiatan Usaha Hulu Minyak dan Gas Bumi). Emphasizing the need to address the conditions that cause both the vertical and horizontal accountability deficits, the paper calls for a political reconceptualization of corruption and suggests context-specific, politically informed anti-corruption reform initiatives
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