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The Silk Road, Bitcoins, and the Global Prohibition Regime on the International Trade in Illicit Drugs: Can This Storm Be Weathered?
Get PDFThe global prohibition regime on the international trade in illicit drugs is a relatively recent phenomenon, which finds its origins in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a part of the bigger system of international norms and regulations arising from the American hegemony. Historically, one could hardly find any effort resembling the modern prohibition regime on the trade in illicit drugs around the historical Silk Road that traversed much of the ancient known world and connected civilisations through trade. Merchants from across the world travelled safely, for the most part, on this road and took part in a globalized trade, which was unprecedented. Centuries later, a new Silk Road was allegedly created by 29-year-old Ross William Ulbricht, the self-styled Dread Pirate Roberts
Environmental Interest Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy: A Case Study of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
No full textThis paper discusses environmental interest groups’ influence on U.S. foreign policy behaviour. Environmental interest groups have long been pushing for state-level responses to transnational environmental problems such as climate change and changes to the marine environment. The nature of contemporary environmental problems is forcing states to act both independently and in collaboration with other state and non-state actors. In the U.S., the prominent environmental interest group, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), has become a strong voice for environmental issues. Since its inception in 1970, the NRDC boasts several victories, including the passing of U.S. Public Law 99-500, October 18, 1996, requiring the U.S. government to set up an early-warning system to prevent federal funding of environmentally harmful multilateral bank projects overseas. My objective is to understand if the activities of the NRDC successfully influence U.S. foreign policy behaviour. I identified five case studies from the 2011 NRDC Annual Report and from the NRDC website by applying several filters. I then constructed a timeline and collected information that indicated U.S. foreign policy behaviour including press releases, presidential memorandums, directives, congressional hearings, legislation, and participation in conventions and treaties. Using a methodology inspired by Porter and Gareth (1996) to categorize my results, I conclude that the NRDC does not consistently influence the U.S. to act as a lead state in solving transnational environmental problems
Music as Literature, Literature as Music: Combining Aurality and Text in Street Scene
Get PDFThe story of Street Scene has been realized to high acclaim many times over as a play and as an opera. Each is exceptionally inventive and employs intermediality—the practice of creating a piece within a single medium while referencing, either literally or structurally, other mediums—to reach critical and popular success. Playwright Elmer Rice turned to music, which inspired his structure and introduced polyphony into his play Street Scene. He also incorporated the musical quality of repetition into his play and made it central to his characters’ oppressive social immobility. In his opera version of the story, composer Kurt Weill transformed literature into music to create uniform mental images similar to those evoked by words, and reversed Rice’s rejection of the narrating role by including arias in his opera. Each version of Street Scene has managed to transcend the limitations of its medium by reaching across the arts to convey the powerful and moving themes of alienation, loneliness, and diversity
Ditchin’ the Cafeteria: The Culture of Eating Lunch Out for High School Students
Get PDFStudies involving young people and food consumption have focused predominately on the “barriers” to accessing “good” food and its effect on health and/or the poor food choices of young people. Although relevant to young people’s lives, they tend to ignore the broader social, cultural, symbolic, and emotional roles involved in eating practices. This research explores these broader sociocultural influences on food choice among high school students, and takes an ethnographic and exploratory research approach in order to examine the everyday food encounters of two high school students. A total of 2 participants aged 16 and 17 from separate high schools in the East Toronto area took part in this study. This research provides a unique insight into the ways in which these participants construct and mediate identity through food. Data was collected based on the accounts retrieved through an audio-recorded focus group session with the two participants. Additional data was collected through anonymous survey results, participant observation insights, and a scholarly literature review. The analysis found that three patterns emerge; space/place, social relationships, and social mobility
Globalization on Trial: Globalization, Capitalism, and Greece
Get PDF“If we cannot pay today, we can pay tomorrow.” Is debt our friend? This research project investigates contemporary globalization led by a neoliberal economic system. Taking modern-day Greece as a case study, the author examines the relationship between consumerism and consumer debt. Greece has always been held accountable for its national debt, and must endure fierce austerity measures to receive its bailout funds. Using a collection of real-world statistics, interviews, and video captured during the Greek riots (2012), the author shares feedback from both Greeks and non-Greeks with respect to the Greek debt crisis. The dilemma in Greece illustrates the devastating effects of consumerism, and how the accrual of debt within financial capitalism is a tragedy waiting to unfold, because globalization will accelerate and spread debt crises. The global community could learn from Greece’s debt plight
Candidate Spending in the 41st Election and its Implications
No full textElections are an expensive exercise of democracy, often requiring vast amounts of money to fund candidates, parties, and officials, etc., to make the system work. However, this very same process can affect voter behaviour and eventual election results. Using the 2011 Canadian Federal Election, I compiled the financial data of all candidates from the three major federal parties (Liberal, Conservative, and New Democratic) from the Elections Canada database and investigated who gave money (how many donors, and how much was the average donation), how much in loans the candidates took out, and how much they spent. I then assessed the data’s correlation to winning, as well as external influences such as media, geography, Canadian federal laws on election spending, and other intangible qualities such as a candidates’ likability.Evidently there were a few problems with the methodology, among the presence of “outliers” (candidates who spend excessively higher or lower than average), which may skew the results. There were also a few cases where candidates did not disclose their finances (such as Nancy Charest).In the end, one can conclude that money donated and spent makes a slight difference in the election results. However, there are other factors which affect a candidate’s chances outside of money: 1) Perception of candidate/party/leadership; 2) Candidates’ background (race, gender, locale); 3) Media coverage and “spin”; 4) Incumbency; 5) Geographical location of the riding; 6) Demographic makeup of the riding
The Construction of Filipinos as Servants of Imperial America
No full textFilipinas are over-represented as nannies, domestic workers, and nurses worldwide. Socio-economic and political instability in the Philippines partially account for this occupational ghettoization; however, the literature reveals that American imperialism in the Philippines beginning in the late 1800s has greatly contributed to this phenomenon. My research involved a review of scholarly sources and the use of the concepts of imperialism, “race,” racism, gender, conditional inclusion, and co-optation. These highlight the ways in which this population’s mass recruitment as nannies, domestic workers, and nurses occurred and were perpetuated. As a Filipina, this research has provided me with an insight into this imperial history and experiences of racialization, racism, and conditional inclusion that I share with other Filipinas and Filipinos; however, as a Filipina who is alien to their experiences of working as nannies, domestic workers, and nurses, this research has illuminated some of the factors that have contributed to their occupational ghettoization.In this paper, I argue that imperial and racist ideologies among many Americans purported that Filipinas and Filipinos were “inferior” beings whose value was restricted to low-skill and low-wage labour in the United States and its former colonies. Furthermore, Euro-American notions of gender were imposed, which influenced the recruitment of Filipinas as caregivers and of Filipinos as plantation workers and military stewards. Although American colonization in the Philippines has ended, the ghettoization of Filipinas and, to an extent, of Filipinos into domestic service- and care-oriented work continues
Archives as Good Medicine: Rediscovering Our Ancestors and Understanding the Root Causes of Intergenerational Trauma
Get PDFMy field research was directed towards tracing back my genealogical history to comprehend the social ills that plague contemporary Cree and Métis communities in Saskatchewan. Moreover, I undertook this research to better understand why I, a reformed addict and homeless person, along with the rest of my biological family, was so troubled in the modern times and why we had so many negative social barriers and problems. Ultimately, however, this paper is a very preliminary work and is incomplete. In the future, I hope to publish a more-detailed body of work in an extended thesis which, I am hoping, will help other Métis and First Nations people understand, combat, and cope with intergenerational trauma. I am basically trying to build a template for Indigenous wellness through historical research. In peeling back the layers of the Métis historical onion, I found that we “Michif” are a nation that both predates Canada as well as suffers from the mechanical processes of colonialism that helped create it
“That Place Where the Wave Finally Broke and Rolled Back”: Modernism and Adolescent Psychological Development
Get PDFModernism represents the crisis of opportunity: a period of liminality brought about by intense and sustained changes in technology and society is accompanied by an unbalancing expansion of possibilities for the individual in this new and mutable landscape. Understanding this unprecedentedly unpredictable world required contemporaries of the modern era to develop a correspondingly “modern” consciousness. We can deepen our understanding of this process by drawing analogies to adolescent psychological development—a period in the individual’s life that serves as a more-than-apt analogue for exploring the historical period of Modernism. Using the archetype of “modern man” as observed and represented by German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his metaphorically sensitive parable, Faust, as a launching point, it is possible to identify corollary developments in the history of Modernism and the modern subject and adolescent psychological development