Managing Work, Hedonism and 'the Borderline' Between the Legal and Illegal Markets: Two Case Studies of Recreational Heavy Drug Users

In the context of cultural and/or differential ‘normalisation’ of certain forms of drug use, this article describes two case-studies of heavy recreational drug users. The daily lives of these users blur the line between the legal and the illegal; their drug trading is generally as a consumer and ‘friend of a friend’ small dealer in the low-level market. In the first case, problems with management of employment, time and financial budgeting are described; in the second case, such management is accomplished. Discussion refers to: differences between the two in relation to resources and vulnerability to risks, and to leisure/pleasure cultures of hedonism. The research agenda should pay more attention to users who seek to maintain a legitimate lifestyle but who develop problems managing work and their drug-related leisure. Understanding the consumer demand and dealing activity of such users is important in trying to develop a fuller understanding of drug markets.

g4c2c: A model for citizen engagement at arms' length from government

The recognition that Web 2.0 applications and social media sites will strengthen and improve interaction between governments and citizens has resulted in a global push into new e-democracy or Government 2.0 spaces. These typically follow government-to-citizen (g2c) or citizen-to-citizen (c2c) models, but both these approaches are problematic: g2c is often concerned more with service delivery to citizens as clients, or exists to make a show of ‘listening to the public’ rather than to genuinely source citizen ideas for government policy, while c2c often takes place without direct government participation and therefore cannot ensure that the outcomes of citizen deliberations are accepted into the government policy-making process. Building on recent examples of Australian Government 2.0 initiatives, we suggest a new approach based on government support for citizen-to-citizen engagement, or g4c2c, as a workable compromise, and suggest that public service broadcasters should play a key role in facilitating this model of citizen engagement.

Teaching about trafficking : opportunities and challenges for critical engagement

When I was first invited to teach a women's studies course called Sex Trafficking in 2002, most of my students had never heard of the issue. Internet and literature searches for "trafficking" mostly turned up references to trafficking in drugs and weapons, not people. When I revised the course for a topical capstone in Criminology, Justice, and Policy Studies in 2006, all of my students had heard about human trafficking, and a handful had already studied it in other classes. The availability of books, films, scholarly articles, and advocacy pieces had all increased exponentially since I first became engaged in the field. This bounty provided a wealth of resources for teaching but also presented a greater challenge when it came to deciding which texts to include. It also added to the inevitable pedagogical angst over what to leave out. I came to know about trafficking by accident, when I was hired as a research assistant at The Protection Project (TPP) in 1999. In my time at TPP I authored a literature review on human trafficking. At that time, my comprehensive database of sources contained fewer than one hundred books and articles, a few UN documents, a handful of films, and some websites from nongovernmental organizations. My review of the literature inevitably reflected the ideological chasm between those who saw trafficking as primarily a labor, migration, and rights issue and those who saw it as primarily a sexual exploitation issue. On the policy end, these ideological orientations created bizarre bedfellows of individuals and organizations that otherwise would have been at odds. The ideological divide has not diminished in the intervening years, and it is important to be aware of and to negotiate this in designing a course on trafficking. As a feminist teacher, I was very aware of the divisions among feminists on the subject of trafficking, and was interested in communicating these differences to students who were not well versed in the varieties of feminist thought. I was also mindful of the difficulties my American students had in engaging with some of the course texts and issues the first time around. For some students, moral judgments about prostitutes were as far as they were able to go in engaging with the course. These students could not find a way in to think about the many issues involved in trafficking. How could I reach them? In this article, I share some of my texts and tactics with others who might find themselves in a position to teach about human trafficking. I include my case for why feminist teachers should teach trafficking, an overview of the debate that divides the field, my rationale for organizing the course the way that I did, issues to consider when designing a course on trafficking, and some suggested readings, films, and web resources.

Ideal victims in human trafficking awareness campaigns

Amidst a proliferation of bestseller books, blockbuster films, television documentaries and sensational news reports, public awareness campaigns have claimed their place in a growing chorus of concern about the crime of human trafficking. These campaigns aim to capture the public’s support in efforts to eliminate a ‘modern slave trade’ in which individuals seeking a better life are transported across borders and forced into exploitative labour conditions. Constrained by the limitations of primary campaign materials (posters, print ads, billboards) typically allowing for only a single image and minimal text, it is unlikely that these awareness campaigns can accurately convey the complexity of the trafficking problem. This chapter explores how the depictions of trafficking victims in awareness campaigns can exclude those who do not fit a restrictive narrative mould. Nils Christie’s pivotal work on the construction of society’s ideal victim is the lens through which this paper examines the literal ‘poster child’ of the anti-trafficking movement.

Sex trafficking and moral harm : politicised understandings and depictions of the trafficked experience

This paper explores notions of harm in sex work discourse, highlighting the extent to which essentialist ideas of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ sex have pervaded trafficking policy. In a comparative examination of Australian Parliamentary Inquiries and United States Congressional Hearings leading to the establishment of anti-trafficking policy, we identify the stories that have influenced legislators, and established a narrative of trafficking heavily dependent upon assumptions of the inherent harm of sex work. This narrative constructs a hierarchy of victimisation, which denies alternative discourses of why women migrate for sex work. We argue that it is not sexual commerce that is harmful, but pathological, systemic inequalities and entrenched disadvantage that are harmful. A narrow narrative of trafficking fails to adequately depict this complexity of the trafficked experience.

Intracellular trafficking and secretion of inflammatory cytokines

The secretion of cytokines by immune cells plays a significant role in determining the course of an inflammatory response. The levels and timing of each cytokine released are critical for mounting an effective but confined response, whereas excessive or dysregulated inflammation contributes to many diseases. Cytokines are both culprits and targets for effective treatments in some diseases. The multiple points and mechanisms that have evolved for cellular control of cytokine secretion highlight the potency of these mediators and the fine tuning required to manage inflammation. Cytokine production in cells is regulated by cell signaling, and at mRNA and protein synthesis levels. Thereafter, the intracellular transport pathways and molecular trafficking machinery have intricate and essential roles in dictating the release and activity of cytokines. The trafficking machinery and secretory (exocytic) pathways are complex and highly regulated in many cells, involving specialized membranes, molecules and organelles that enable these cells to deliver cytokines to often-distinct areas of the cell surface, in a timely manner. This review provides an overview of secretory pathways - both conventional and unconventional - and key families of trafficking machinery. The prevailing knowledge about the trafficking and secretion of a number of individual cytokines is also summarized. In conclusion, we present emerging concepts about the functional plasticity of secretory pathways and their modulation for controlling cytokines and inflammation.

Understanding the operational structure of Southeast Asian drug trafficking groups in Australia

This thesis examined the operational structure of Southeast Asian drug trafficking groups operating on the eastern seaboard of Australia by testing the validity and application of organised crime and drug trafficking typologies using data obtained from 159 drug trafficking cases in three Australian states: New South Wales; Queensland; and Victoria. Key findings indicated that the usefulness of typologies is limited when classifying and analysing organised crime groups. In particular, Southeast Asian drug trafficking groups operated largely in small, informal, family-based hierarchies or groups that were better conceptualised using theoretical perspectives from network and cultural studies. The study recommended that replicating previous empirical research in the field is an effective approach that will contribute towards building a cumulative body of knowledge on organised crime structures.

Review : "The Jammed" -- Dee McLachlan

Synopsis and review of Australian crime film The Jammed (Dee McLachlan, 2007). Includes cast and credits. One of the strengths of Dee McLachlan’s shocking and moving film is the extensive research undertaken in pre-production, which grounds the film in a reality of which many Australians are unaware. The film opens with a caption stating that it was inspired by court transcripts, and closes with an intertitle stating that in 2001 and 2002, two sex trafficked victims died in Villawood Detention Centre. The film makes it clear that human trafficking and the coercion of women into prostitution are as much problems in Australia as anywhere; Project Respect, an organisation that acts on behalf of trafficked sex workers, has estimated that about 1000 women are illegally brought to Australia to work as prostitutes each year. The film’s title is taken from the term used by support workers to describe how the women are ‘jammed’ between their captors and the authorities; their illegal status and often heavy endebtedness, coupled with their innate fear of authority figures and the captors threats to their families back home, deter them from escaping or going to the police. The latter course of action may only lead to incarceration and deportation, as it does for Crystal in The Jammed. They are also deterred from speaking out by the implied (and often real) collusion between the traffickers and the authorities. While she is held in an apartment shortly after she arrives in Australia, Crystal threatens to call the police, only to be told by her captor ‘My best friend is the police’...

Brothers in arms – An experiment on the alliance puzzle

The generic alliance game considers players in an alliance who fight against an external enemy. After victory, the alliance may break up, and its members may fight against each other over the spoils of the victory. Our experimental analysis of this game shows: In-group solidarity vanishes after the break-up of the alliance. Former ‘brothers in arms’ fight even more vigorously against each other than strangers do. Furthermore, this vigorous internal fighting is anticipated and reduces the ability of the alliance to mobilize the joint fighting effort, compared to a situation in which victorious alliance members share the spoils of victory equally and peacefully

The Politics of Sex Trafficking : a Moral Geography

This book offers a unique insight into the moral politics behind the making of human trafficking policy in Australia and the United States of America. As governments around the world rush to meet their international obligations to combat human trafficking, a heated debate has emerged over the rights, wrongs, and harms of prostitution, and its relationship to sex trafficking. The Politics of Sex Trafficking identifies and challenges intrinsic notions of moral harm that have pervaded trafficking discourse and resulted in a distinctly anti-prostitution agenda in trafficking policy in recent decades. Including rare interviews with key political actors, this book charts the competing perspectives of feminist, faith-based, and sex-worker activists, and their efforts to influence policy-makers. This critical account of the creation of anti-trafficking policy challenges the sex trafficking narrative dominant in US Congressional and Australian Parliamentary hearings, and demonstrates the power of a moral politics in shaping policy. This book will appeal to academics across the fields of criminology, criminal justice, law, human rights and gender studies, as well as policy-makers.

Help-seeking strategies of victim/survivors of human trafficking involving partner migration

Victim/survivors of human trafficking involving partner migration employ diverse help-seeking strategies, both formal and informal, to exit their exploitative situations. Drawing on primary research conducted by Lyneham and Richards (forthcoming), the authors highlight the importance of educating the community and professionals from a wide range of sectors—including health, mental health, child protection, social welfare, social work, domestic violence, migration, legal and law enforcement services—about human trafficking and the help-seeking strategies of victims/survivors in order to support them to leave exploitative situations. Enhancing Australia’s knowledge of victim/survivors’ help-seeking strategies will better inform government and community responses to this crime, improve detection and identification of human trafficking matters and subsequent referral to appropriate victim services.