Pathways, race and gender responsive reform: through an abolitionist lens

In this article we take stock of a recent moment in penal history in Victoria, Australia, where agencies have implemented gender responsive policies to address the disproportionate growth in women’s prison numbers, and in particular the overrepresentation of women constructed as ‘culturally diverse’. We draw upon abolitionist and intersectional frames to provide a theoretical critique of this political event. Our analysis extends beyond the unitary frame of gender, which has until recently dominated critiques in this area, to highlight the ways in which racializing logics are reproduced through such policies and practices. We explore the implications of the adoption of the criminological notion of pathways through the language of liberal feminist reform, which signifies a reinvestment in the myth of individual rehabilitation. The consequences of these discursive practices include the reproduction of pathologizing and risk-focused practices that can only yield more racializing, interventionist and expansionist responses within correctional spaces.

The relationship between start performance and race outcome in elite 500-m short-track speed skating

Initial short-track speed-skating 14-m start performance has substantial influence on 500-m race outcome at the international level, yet the relationship has not been systematically quantified. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between rank position entering first corner (RPEFC) and race outcome and to understand how this relationship changes with competition round and absolute race intensity. Data were compiled from 2011-2014 World Cup seasons and 2010 and 2014 Olympic Winter Games. Association between RPEFC and race outcome was determined through Kendall tau-rank correlations. A visual comparison was made of how the relationship changes with relative competition level (race tau correlations were sorted by competition round) and with race intensity (race tau correlations were sorted by within-event winning time). A very large relationship between RPEFC and race outcome was observed (correlations for cohort, τ = .60; men, τ = .53; women, τ= .67). When examined by competition round (quarter- to A-finals), no substantial change in relationship was observed (men, τ= .57-.46; women, τ= .73-.53). However, when the start-performance relationship was considered by within-event winning time, the relationship strength increased with decreasing time (men, τ = .61 to .46; women, τ = .76 to .57; fastest to 7th- and 8th-fastest combined, respectively). These results establish and quantify RPEFC as an important aspect of elite short-track 500-m race outcome. RPEFC as an indicator of race outcome becomes increasingly important with absolute race intensity, suggesting that RPEFC capability is a discriminating factor for competitors of similar top speed and speed endurance.

Book review: Glamour in the Pacific. Cultural internationalism and race politics in the women's Pan-Pacific

Since the publication of Leila J. Rupp’s Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement in 1997, historians have begun to investigate the myriad ways in which women, largely excluded from formal, government-based international relations, nonetheless forged significant personal and institutional relationships across national and cultural boundaries. As a result, women’s international activism has become an increasingly popular field of scholarly enquiry.

Narratives of a race: how the media judged a presidential debate

The first debate in 2008 was a turning point in the presidential electioncampaign: a race that was close before the debate turned decisively inObama’s favor following it. This article explores how the media reachedtheir verdict that “Obama won.” We examine two aspects of this problem:how, in practice, the media reached this verdict and whether they madethe right decision from a normative standpoint. Based on content analysisof debate transcripts, we argue that the media interpreted the debate bysynthesizing three pre-debate narratives in roughly equal proportions.Crucially, two of these narratives favored Obama. We also find that the“Obama won” verdict was consistent with what we might expect had thedebate been judged by a public-spirited umpire.

A mission divided race, culture and colonialism in Fiji’s Methodist mission

This book provides insight into the long process of decolonisation within the Methodist Overseas Missions of Australasia, a colonial institution that operated in the British colony of Fiji. The mission was a site of work for Europeans, Fijians and Indo-Fijians, but each community operated separately, as the mission was divided along ethnic lines in 1901. This book outlines the colonial concepts of race and culture, as well as antagonism over land and labour, that were used to justify this separation. Recounting the stories told by the mission’s leadership, including missionaries and ministers, to its grassroots membership, this book draws on archival and ethnographic research to reveal the emergence of ethno-nationalisms in Fiji, the legacies of which are still being managed in the post-colonial state today.

Does inter-jurisdictional competition engender a “race to the bottom”? A meta-regression analysis

A growing literature documents the existence of strategic political reactions to publicexpenditure between rival jurisdictions. These interactions can potentially createa downward expenditure spiral (“race to the bottom”) or a rising expenditure spiral(“race to the top”). However, in the course of identifying the existence of such interactions and ascertaining their underlying triggers, the empirical evidence has produced markedly heterogeneous findings. Most of this heterogeneity can be traced back to study design and institutional differences. This article contributes to the literature by applying meta-regression analysis to quantify the magnitude of strategic inter-jurisdictional expenditure interactions, controlling for study, and institutional characteristics. We find several robust results beyond confirming that jurisdictions do engage in strategic expenditure interactions, namely that strategic interactions: (i) are weakening over time, (ii) are stronger among municipalities than among higher levels of government, and (iii) appear to be more influenced from tax competition than yardstick competition, with capital controls and fiscal decentralization shaping the magnitude of fiscal interactions.

On the race of worms and patches: modeling the spread of information in wireless sensor networks

Sensor networks are a branch of distributed ad hoc networks with a broad range of applications in surveillance and environment monitoring. In these networks, message exchanges are carried out in a multi-hop manner. Due to resource constraints, security professionals often use lightweight protocols, which do not provide adequate security. Even in the absence of constraints, designing a foolproof set of protocols and codes is almost impossible. This leaves the door open to the worms that take advantage of the vulnerabilities to propagate via exploiting the multi-hop message exchange mechanism. This issue has drawn the attention of security researchers recently. In this paper, we investigate the propagation pattern of information in wireless sensor networks based on an extended theory of epidemiology. We develop a geographical susceptible-infective model for this purpose and analytically derive the dynamics of information propagation. Compared with the previous models, ours is more realistic and is distinguished by two key factors that had been neglected before: 1) the proposed model does not purely rely on epidemic theory but rather binds it with geometrical and spatial constraints of real-world sensor networks and 2) it extends to also model the spread dynamics of conflicting information (e.g., a worm and its patch). We do extensive simulations to show the accuracy of our model and compare it with the previous ones. The findings show the common intuition that the infection source is the best location to start patching from, which is not necessarily right. We show that this depends on many factors, including the time it takes for the patch to be developed, worm/patch characteristics as well as the shape of the network.

Mobilising spaces of agency through genealogies of race and gender: issues of indigeneity, marginality and schooling

This article presents data from a case study of a non-traditional secondary school for Indigenous girls located in a suburban area of Queensland (Australia). The focus is predominantly on the identity and practices of Nicole who is one of the school’s teachers. Nicole’s identity as an Indigenous woman and teacher and the school’s approach to supporting its marginalised students are theorised in relation to particular elements of feminist genealogy. These elements are associated with the possibilities for agency opened up through the subject’s critical reflection on, and resistance of, the discursive relations that constitute the self. The article draws on feminist theories to explicate the potential of such reflection and resistance to disrupt and transform gendered and racist norms and to legitimise alternative constructions of female indigeneity – to that represented in dominant colonial discourse.