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Criminal law and discrimination in Europe: Towards critical race theory approaches?
No full textRace and the criminal law are closely intertwined in the European context. The social category of race haunts both the formulation and operationalisation of criminal law, including in aspects of statutory law and in judicial opinions. Race functions as a category of analysis and as an explicit feature of law only in certain areas of the criminal law; in other areas, it is absent—unspoken, unwritten, and, in many cases, its mention is avoided. The lack of clear and explicit treatment of race in the criminal law often leaves deep analysis of racialisation and disparate impact in the shadows of the interest in maintaining concepts of law and democracy that insist on the general presumption of law's colour-blindness.The entanglement of the social and legal category of race, the production and execution of criminal law, and the interests and the justificatory logics of state institutions constitute a complex and changing terrain of socio-legal analysis. The majority of this chapter sets out frames for organising an approach to this terrain, underscoring the importance of paying close attention to the specificity of the race concept in European contexts, how social racism impacts the criminal law, the ways criminal law and (civil) racial equality laws interact, and novel ways in which civilians are made to enforce criminal laws. This chapter does not provide a comprehensive survey of criminal laws in Europe that have an explicit racial dimension, but rather suggests that more criminal laws can be understood to have a bearing on race (or be a function of broader racial thinking) than might appear to be the case if one merely looks for the explicit mention of race in the doctrinal language.This chapter asks two foundational questions. First, in what ways can we understand logics and postures of the state to produce racially disparate outcomes by making certain groups more vulnerable to the impacts of criminal law? Second, in what ways is the concept of race made available by the state for consideration in analysing the content and impacts of criminal law, and in what ways does the state foreclose such consideration? The chapter concludes with a brief reflection on the extent to which scholarship considers these two questions, and how and why we might understand such consideration as a critical race theoretical approach to criminal law
Internal Controversy and Literary Heritage: a Discussion of Two Śvetāmbara Dharmaparīkṣā Adaptations
Get PDFSectarian strife was a prominent stimulant for textual production among Śvetāmbara mendicants of the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries. In this article I analyze the Dharmaparīkṣās (Examination of Religion) by two sixteenth-century authors of different Śvetāmbara Tapā Gaccha affiliations, Saubhāgyasāgara and Padmasāgara, to argue that strategies of adaptation can contribute to internal Jain polemics and to the assertion of an exclusive Jain identity. In my analysis, I understand both adaptations as attempts to correct the earlier widely spread version by Amitagati (eleventh century), and to claim the well-known story for their respective literary corpora. Furthermore, I suggest that the controversy within the Tapā Gaccha may have inspired the writing of two different versions. Taken together, my discussion of the two Dharmaparīkṣās will illustrate how the creation of a corpus of literary heritage can help to overcome the crisis that results from internal religious controversy
Silence and degrees of appraisal confusion: A barometer for the strength of teacher-student relationships
No full textThis study investigates the long-term emotional impact of student silence on non-Japanese EFL teachers, focusing on one expatriate teacher in Japan (Elliott). Utilizing a model that includes appraisal confusion and recursive feedback loops, the research explores how teachers emotionally process silence in ambiguous relational contexts. Event-based sampling documented real-time emotional responses to silence, revealing patterns in teacher-student interactions. Key findings indicate that (1) prolonged silence triggered hesitation, frustration, and relational insecurity; (2) the lack of verbal and nonverbal cues led to persistent appraisal confusion; (3) unresolved silent incidents, compounded by breaches of trust, culminated in emotional exhaustion. Silence operated as a barometer of teacher-student relational strength where mutual understanding failed, emotional strain intensified. These findings underscore the emotional labor involved in interpreting silence in high-silence EFL contexts such as Japan, where ambiguity often gives rise to perceptions of disagreement, leaving teachers vulnerable to sustained emotional fatigue
British Woodworking Planes (co-presented with furniture and cabinetmaker Toby Cufflin), for the Making the Museum Project, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
No full textAnthropologist and woodworker Prof Trevor Marchand discusses woodworking planes in the Pitt Rivers Museum collection with furniture and cabinet maker Toby Cufflin. Part of the Making the Museum project series of conversations about making and tools in the museum
Mind the Culture, episode 2: What makes life meaningful?
No full textIn this episode, Eleni Kotsira (Alma Economics; Otherwise Magazine) is joined by John Loewenthal (SOAS; Keele University at the time of recording) and together they attempt to answer whether there is a meaning to life, and what this can be. Listen as they navigate their discussion through the pursuit of meaning in different cultures, the stresses of fleeting existences, the universal ability to care, and the role of psychological anthropology in decoding these
How does credit information sharing shape the cyclicality of bank liquidity creation?
No full textWe investigate the effect of credit information sharing in the banking sector on the fluctuations of bank liquidity creation over the business cycle. Using the Berger and Bouwman comprehensive measure of bank liquidity creation and data representing 354 banks from 40 developing countries between 2012 and 2020, we find that on‐ and off‐balance sheet liquidity creation is procyclical. We also find that credit information sharing significantly reduces the procyclicality of on‐ and off‐balance sheet liquidity creation by increasing banks’ access to interbank funding and enhancing their ability to estimate customer default probabilities more accurately. Our findings suggest that credit information sharing can act as a stabilizing mechanism for bank liquidity creation in developing countries
Hostile Environments: Mould, Race and Blame amidst Birmingham’s Housing Crisis
No full textThe UK Government Home Office’s ‘hostile environment’ policy is aimed at making it difficult for migrants to stay in Britain. This approach has combined securitised practices of bordering and policing, with policies which have hollowed out state provisioning at community level. The purpose of this research was to understand how the hostile environment is experienced in the mouldy homes of Somali families who inhabit temporary or precarious accommodation in Birmingham. We conducted biographic interviews that focused on experiences of multiple forms of housing and creative workshops with more than 50 Somali women, and interviews with nodal figures within the housing ecology. We found that Somali families who have been unhomed livein overcrowded, private and temporary accommodations of varying states of disrepair. When these houses begin to make them sick, blame is apportioned to their quotidian acts of care and homemaking such that they encounter mould as a form of corporeal punishment for seeking state resources. We conclude by arguing that mould acts as a material and metaphor that brings attention to forms of racialised blamecaused byhostile environment and housing policies. We show how the subjects of such policies mobilise their bodies as sites of evidence to ‘hail’ the state
Zabbaleen against corporate waste management: El Cairo, Egypt
No full textThe Zabbaleen of Cairo, traditional waste collectors and recyclers, have built one of the world’s most efficient resource recovery systems, recycling up to 80% of the city’s waste. Living in Mokattam’s “Garbage City,” the Zabbaleen face marginalisation, yet their livelihoods were further threatened when the Egyptian government privatised waste management in 2003, contracting multinational companies that diverted waste from recycling to landfills. These contracts overlooked Zabbaleen’s expertise and displaced them from their established waste collection routes, thus reducing their income. Further setbacks came with the culling of their pigs in 2009; pigs had played a crucial role in their waste processing system. The Zabbaleen continue to face challenges, despite the termination of multinational contracts in 2017, as new private recycling companies and government-led initiatives emerge. Some Zabbaleen have formalised their work into cooperatives, while others remain informal, competing with private enterprises, such as RecycoLife and new recycling kiosks. These initiatives threaten the Zabbaleen’s access to waste and hence their livelihood. Recent government plans to modernise waste management through fines, renewable energy projects, and recycling plants risk further marginalising the Zabbaleen, whose expertise remains vital to Cairo’s waste economy
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