Sexuality and Space

Author(s):  
Glen Elder ◽  
Lawrence Knopp

. . . I have noticed with some dismay in recent years the appearance of tables representing various strange groups attending meetings of the Association of American Geographers. Marxist Geographers and Gay Geographers come to mind, and I wonder what next? Are we going to have a table of Whores in Geography, and Russian Communist Geography? . . . As for special tables, rooms and meeting times for such groups as Gay Geographers, we should flatly refuse any such groups the right to such representation. When engaging in their gay behavior they are not acting as geographers. . . . Our exclusion of such groups cannot be taken as a moralistic stand on the part of the Association, but simply as a professional one. It is not our business to support the Gay or the Street Walkers, or the Democrats or the Republicans. None of these groups, though they may have members or practitioners in geography, can be said to be geographers, per se. They should then not be permitted official or even associative status at our meetings. We have plenty to do in geography, and room for greater diversity of professional interest than almost any other society. There are, however, limits. We should confine our meetings to geography by geographers and for geographers. All others keep out. Carter (1977: 101–2) . . . In 1996, the Sexuality and Space Specialty Group (SSSG) came into being as a forum for addressing the sorts of sentiments expressed in the letter above, and for exploring the unquestioned heterosexuality of the geographical enterprise. While the sentiments expressed may seem extreme, they point to disciplinary resistances to certain lines of inquiry. The comments and the subsequent creation of the SSSG reveal how the topical contours of geography are, and always have been, politically negotiated. Until recently, sexuality research in geography had been considered especially out of place (see Valentine 1998; Chouinard and Grant 1995). Organized collectively under the aegis of the AAG, the SSSG represents considerable political will and work. Its presence underscores how marginalized groups can never take for granted their place in society, including the academy.

Author(s):  
Madeline Baer

Chapter 5 provides a case study of the human rights-based approach to water policy through an analysis of the Bolivian government’s attempts to implement the human right to water and sanitation. It explores these efforts at the local and national level, through changes to investments, institutions, and policies. The analysis reveals that while Bolivia meets the minimum standard for the human right to water and sanitation in some urban areas, access to quality water is low in poor and marginalized communities. While the Bolivian government expresses a strong political will for a human rights approach and is increasing state capacity to fulfill rights, the broader criteria for the right to water and sanitation, including citizen participation and democratic decision-making, remain largely unfulfilled. This case suggests political will and state capacity might be necessary but are not sufficient to fulfill the human right to water and sanitation broadly defined.


Author(s):  
Jeremiah Sundararaj Stanleyraj ◽  
Nandini Sethuraman ◽  
Rajesh Gupta ◽  
Sohanlal Thiruvoth ◽  
Manisha Gupta ◽  
...  

Abstract Severe COVID-19 is a biphasic illness, with an initial viral replication phase, followed by a cascade of inflammatory events. Progression to severe disease is predominantly a function of the inflammatory cascade, rather than viral replication per se. This understanding can be effectively translated to changing our approach in managing the disease. The natural course of disease offers us separate windows of specific time intervals to administer either antiviral or immunomodulatory therapy. Instituting the right attack at the right time would maximize the benefit of treatment. This concept must also be factored into studies that assess the efficacy of antivirals and immunomodulatory agents against COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Jimmy Chia-Shin Hsu

Abstract In this article, I bring the constitutional jurisprudence of major East Asian courts into reconstructive dialogue with that of the United States, South Africa, and several former Soviet-bloc countries, on per se review of capital punishment. This fills in a gap in the literature, which has failed to reflect new developments in Asia. Besides analysing various review approaches, I extrapolate recurrent analytical issues and reconstruct dialogues among these court decisions. Moreover, I place the analysis in historical perspective by periodising the jurisprudential trajectory of the right to life. The contextualised reconstructive dialogues offer multilayered understanding of my central analytical argument: for any court that may conduct per se review of capital punishment in the future, the highly influential South African Makwanyane case does not settle the lesson. The transnational debate has been kept open by the Korean Constitutional Court's decisions, as well as retrospectively by the US cases of Furman and Gregg. This argument has two major points. First, the crucial part of the reasoning in Makwanyane, namely that capital punishment cannot be proven to pass the necessity test under the proportionality review, is analytically inconclusive. The Korean Constitutional Court's decision offers a direct contrast to this point. Second, the exercise of proportionality review of the Makwanyane Court does not attest to the neutrality and objectivity of proportionality review. Rather, what is really dispositive of the outcome are certain value choices inhering in per se review of capital punishment.


Author(s):  
Gabriel Rockhill

This chapter proposes a counter-history of a seminal debate in the transition from structuralism to post-structuralism. It calls into question the widespread assumption that Derrida rejects Foucault’s structuralist stranglehold by demonstrating that the meaning of a text always remains open. Through a meticulous examination of their respective historical paradigms, methodological orientations and hermeneutic parameters, it argues that Derrida’s critique of his former professor is, at the level of theoretical practice, a call to return to order. The ultimate conclusion is that the Foucault-Derrida debate has much less to do with Descartes’ text per se, than with the relationship between the traditional tasks of philosophy and the meta-theoretical reconfiguration of philosophic practice via the methods of the social sciences.


Author(s):  
Marek Wierzbowski ◽  
Marek Grzywacz ◽  
Joanna Róg Dyrda ◽  
Katarzyna Ziółkowska

Before 1989, Polish courts in some cases affirmed the liability of the State on the basis of existing legislative provisions. After 1989, the Constitution admits administrative liability in very general terms, because everyone shall have the right to be awarded damages for any harm done by administrative action contrary to the law. The more detailed provisions of the Civil Code implement such general principle. More generally, the liability of administrative authorities is regarded as being subject to private law standards. However, in some cases illegality per se will not suffice for liability. This is the case, in particular, for administrative acts that are characterized by real discretion. Moreover, administrative procedures are regulated by parliamentary legislation. Another particular feature of Polish law is that, to prove the unlawfulness of the action taken by administrative authorities, on both procedural and substantive grounds, claimants must bring an action before administrative courts.


Never Trump ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 240-248
Author(s):  
Robert P. Saldin ◽  
Steven M. Teles

This concluding chapter highlights how the Republican Party has been substantially transformed by the experience of having Donald Trump at its head. The president's reelection in 2020 would only deepen that transformation. Deep sociological forces—in particular, a Republican Party base that is increasingly white, working class, Christian, less formally educated, and older—will lead the party to go where its voters are. What Trump started, his Republican successors will finish. Just as parties of the right across the Western world have become more populist and nationalist, so will the Republicans. That, of course, bodes poorly for most of the Never Trumpers, who combined a deep distaste for Trump personally with a professional interest in a less populist governing style and a disinclination to see their party go ideologically where he wanted to take it. Ultimately, the future is unwritten because it will be shaped by the choices of individuals. Never Trump will have failed comprehensively in its founding mission, which was to prevent the poison of Donald Trump from entering the nation's political bloodstream. However, it is likely to be seen, in decades to come, as the first foray into a new era of American politics.


Author(s):  
Bumke Christian ◽  
Voßkuhle Andreas

This chapter discusses the provisions of Art. 8 of the Grundgesetz (GG) with regard to the fundamental right of freedom of assembly. It begins by reviewing the Federal Constitutional Court's first landmark decision on freedom of assembly in 1985, in which it emphasised the importance of the process of political will formation and the right of citizens to free assembly through demonstrations, noting that ‘the unhindered exercise of this freedom counteracts the consciousness of political powerlessness and dangerous tendencies of disgruntlement with the state and its institutions’. The chapter also examines the Court's jurisprudence concerning the scope of protection for the right of freedom of assembly, focussing on issues such as peacefulness in sit-in protests and the constitutionality of the registration requirement for rapidly organized assemblies. It concludes with an analysis of the question of interference with the right of freedom of assembly, along with the constitutional justification of such interferences.


2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (10) ◽  
pp. 654-661
Author(s):  
Simona Giordano

Studies suggest that the majority of gender diverse children (up to 84%) revert to the gender congruent with the sex assigned at birth when they reach puberty. These children are now known in the literature as ‘desisters’. Those who continue in the path of gender transition are known as ‘persisters’. Based on the high desistence rates, some advise being cautious in allowing young children to present in their affirmed gender. The worry is that social transition may make it difficult for children to de-transition and thus increase the odds of later unnecessary medical transition. If this is true, allowing social transition may result in an outright violation of one of the most fundamental moral imperatives that doctors have: first do no harm. This paper suggests that this is not the case. Studies on desistence should inform clinical decisions but not in the way summarised here. There is no evidence that social transition per se leads to unnecessary medical transition; so should a child persist, those who have enabled social transition should not be held responsible for unnecessary bodily harm. Social transition should be viewed as a tool to find out what is the right trajectory for the particular child. Desistence is one possible outcome. A clinician or parent who has supported social transition for a child who later desists will have not violated, but acted in respect of the moral principle of non-maleficence, if the choice made appeared likely to minimise the child’s overall suffering and to maximise overall the child’s welfare at the time it was made.


2003 ◽  
Vol 102 (663) ◽  
pp. 180-185
Author(s):  
Jean-Marc F. Blanchard

Given East Asia's positive economic attributes, it is easy to conclude that the region's long-term economic future will be bright. … Unfortunately, the capacity and political will to implement the right choices may be lacking.


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