scholarly journals The Struggle Against Torture: Challenges, Assumptions and New Directions

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-333
Author(s):  
Tobias Kelly

Abstract This short essay offers a broad and necessarily incomplete review of the current state of the human rights struggle against torture and ill-treatment. It sketches four widespread assumptions in that struggle: 1) that torture is an issue of detention and interrogation; 2) that political or security detainees are archetypal victims of torture; 3) that legal reform is one of the best ways to fight torture; and 4) that human rights monitoring helps to stamp out violence. These four assumptions have all played an important role in the history of the human rights fight against torture, but also resulted in limitations in terms of the interventions that are used, the forms of violence that human rights practitioners respond to, and the types of survivors they seek to protect. Taken together, these four assumptions have created challenges for the human rights community in confronting the multiple forms of torture rooted in the deep and widespread inequality experienced by many poor and marginalized groups. The essay ends by pointing to some emerging themes in the fight against torture, such as a focus on inequality, extra-custodial violence, and the role of corruption.

2020 ◽  
Vol 963 (9) ◽  
pp. 30-43
Author(s):  
M.Yu. Orlov

Studying the current state of cartography and ways of further developing the industry, the role of the map in the future of the society, new methods of promoting cartographic products is impossible without a deep scientific analyzing all the paths, events and factors influencing its formation and development throughout all the historic steps of cartographic production in Russia. In the article, the history of cartographic production in Russia is considered together with the development of private, state and military cartography, since, despite some differences, they have a common technical, technological and production basis. The author describes the stages of originating, formation and growth of industrial cartographic production from the beginning of the XVIII century until now. The connection between the change of political formations and technological structures with the mentioned stages of maps and atlases production is considered. Each stage is studied in detail, a step-by-step analysis was carried out, and the characteristics of each stage are described. All the events and facts are given in chronological order, highlighting especially significant moments influencing the evolution of cartographic production. The data on the volumes of printing and sales of atlases and maps by commercial and state enterprises are presented. The main trends and lines of further development of cartographic production in Russia are studied.


Author(s):  
Andrea Harris

The Conclusion briefly examines the current state of the New York City Ballet under the auspices of industrial billionaire David H. Koch at Lincoln Center. In so doing, it to introduces a series of questions, warranting still more exploration, about the rapid and profound evolution of the structure, funding, and role of the arts in America through the course of the twentieth century. It revisits the historiographical problem that drives Making Ballet American: the narrative that George Balanchine was the sole creative genius who finally created an “American” ballet. In contrast to that hagiography, the Conclusion reiterates the book’s major contribution: illuminating the historical construction of our received idea of American neoclassical ballet within a specific set of social, political, and cultural circumstances. The Conclusion stresses that the history of American neoclassicism must be seen as a complex narrative involving several authors and discourses and crossing national and disciplinary borders: a history in which Balanchine was not the driving force, but rather the outcome.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yuxin

Abstract The Wukan Incident attracted extensive attention both in China and around the world, and has been interpreted from many different perspectives. In both the media and academia, the focus has very much been on the temporal level of the Incident. The political and legal dimensions, as well as the implications of the Incident in terms of human rights have all been pored over. However, what all of these discussions have overlooked is the role played by religious force during the Incident. The village of Wukan has a history of over four hundred years, and is deeply influenced by the religious beliefs of its people. Within both the system of religious beliefs and in everyday life in the village, the divine immortal Zhenxiu Xianweng and the religious rite of casting shengbei have a powerful influence. In times of peace, Xianweng and casting shengbei work to bestow good fortune, wealth and longevity on both the village itself, and the individuals who live there. During the Wukan Incident, they had a harmonizing influence, and helped to unify and protect the people. Looking at the specific roles played by religion throughout the Wukan Incident will not only enable us to develop a more meaningful understanding of the cultural nature and the complexity of the Incident itself, it will also enrich our understanding, on a divine level, of innovations in social management.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-261
Author(s):  
Jessica Hinchy ◽  
Girija Joshi

Abstract Indrani Chatterjee’s ground-breaking research has shown the centrality of obligation and provision to historical forms of slavery in South Asia, deepening our understanding of slave-using societies beyond the plantation systems that have dominated historiography, as well as historical memory. In this interview, Chatterjee explains why the crucial question in the context of South Asian slavery was: who do you serve and for what purpose? Enslavers were obliged to materially provide for their slaves, in return for the enslaved person’s service, labor and loyalty, creating varied relationships of dependence. By foregrounding the complex set of relationships and obligations in which slaves were enmeshed, Chatterjee seeks to “make people out of laborers.” This has led her to rethink the ways that resistance and agency have been conceptualized in slavery studies and Subaltern Studies, emphasizing the relationships within which a person became an agent. Her research has also deepened our understanding of colonialism and slavery. British colonizers generally ignored slaves’ entitlements to certain labor or taxation exemptions from the state, and colonial revenue-collection made the already-burdened doubly burdened. But in a hetero-temporal colonial context, older ways of identifying and forms of relationships endured. Chatterjee argues that this history of the provision of survival in contexts of enslavement is not “romanticizing,” but rather historicizes multiple forms of violence and shows a fuller, more varied picture of slavery.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-236
Author(s):  
Shinkarenko Alexander ◽  

In this article, the author touches upon the formation of ecological geopolitics and the role of Latin America in it. The socio-political processes that are currently taking place in the region focus on environmental problems, as well as the possibility of reducing the intensity of extractivistic initiatives. The relevance of the environmental discourses and the costs generated with the rental model of the economy, is characteristic not only of Latin America, but also other regions of the world. Nevertheless, it is here we can observe the active work of antiextractive movements to form a contemporary environmental agenda and search for models that are alternative to the current state of the world.


Author(s):  
Alexandra Shiller

This article is dedicated to examination of the role of guilt and shame, namely to prevalence one of these emotions in a particular culture as the leading mechanism of social control. The prevalence of guilt or shame as a cultural “dimension” has become one of the first criteria for the division of cultures into Western and Eastern, and was used by the researchers as a basic postulate for cross-cultural r. Over time, the perception of emotions as the criterion for the division of cultures has been revised. The article traces the history of research on emotions in general, namely the emotions of guilt and shame as social emotions, as well as describes guilt and shame as collective and individual experiences. Analysis is conducted on the role of guilt and shame in methodology of research on social emotions, cross-cultural studies. The author outlines certain methodological problems and contradictions, and assesses the current state of scientific research dedicated to social emotions. The conclusion is made that the research on collective sense of guilt and shame is more advanced from the perspective of cross-cultural psychology and philosophy, as well as the overall methodology of science; it allows shifting from the study of the role of individual emotions in interpersonal (conditioned by collective ties), intergroup and intragroup communication towards the integrated study of emotions associated with interaction of the individual and society, i.e. social experiences.


Author(s):  
Ackerly Brooke

This chapter explores the theoretical and political history of human rights that emerges out of the struggles that have been waged by feminists and other non-elites. It first considers the bases for the moral legitimacy of human rights and challenges to those arguments before discussing three aspects of feminist approaches to human rights: their criticism of some aspects of the theory and practice of human rights, their rights claims, and their conceptual contributions to a theory of human rights. It then examines the ways in which feminists and other activists for marginalized groups have used human rights in their struggles and how such struggles have in turn shaped human rights theory. It also analyses theoretical and historical objections to the universality of human rights based on cultural relativism. Finally, it shows that women’s rights advocates want rights enjoyment and not merely entitlements.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvain Ozainne ◽  
Laurent Lespez ◽  
Yann Le Drezen ◽  
Barbara Eichhorn ◽  
Katharina Neumann ◽  
...  

At Ounjougou, a site complex situated in the Yamé River valley on the Bandiagara Plateau (Dogon country, Mali), multidisciplinary research has revealed a rich archaeological and paleoenvironmental sequence used to reconstruct the history of human-environment interactions, especially during the Late Holocene (3500–300 cal BC). Geomorphological, archaeological, and archaeobotanical data coming from different sites and contexts were combined in order to elaborate a chronocultural and environmental model for this period. Bayesian analysis of 54 14C dates included within the general Late Holocene stratigraphy of Ounjougou provides better accuracy for limits of the main chronological units, as well as for some particularly important events, like the onset of agriculture in the region. The scenario that can be proposed in the current state of research shows an increasing role of anthropogenic fires from the 3rd millennium cal BC onwards, and the appearance of food production during the 2nd millennium cal BC, coupled with a distinctive cultural break. The Late Holocene sequence ends around 300 cal BC with an important sedimentary hiatus that lasts until the end of the 4th century cal AD.


2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane A. Siegel

Although research shows that sexually abused children appear to be at risk of subsequent aggressive behavior, few investigations address whether such behavior persists beyond childhood. This research describes the self-reported adolescent and adult fighting behavior of 136 women sexually abused as children and examines the role of intervening variables in the risk of such behavior. The women are part of a longitudinal study of 206 primarily low-income, urban women whose abuse was documented at the time it occurred. Fighting was common, particularly during adolescence. Adult aggression was strongly associated with being a victim of violence by an intimate partner. A history of exposure to other forms of violence significantly increased the risk of fighting while strong maternal attachments mitigated the risk, primarily by reducing the likelihood of involvement in an abusive intimate relationship.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria Orrego Hoyos

AbstractThe article below, which is written by Gloria Orrego Hoyos, presents an overview of the Inter-American Human Rights System, its main instruments, its organs for the protection and promotion of human rights in the Americas and the available tools for the academic research and the activism in the vindication for human rights in the region. This information is presented from the contextualization of the system within a history of violation of human rights in the region, and the role of both the Inter-American Convention and the Inter-American Court in the transformation of the social, political and institutional realities of the people of the continent.


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