Landscapes of (neo-)liberal control: the transcarceral spaces of federally sentenced women in Canada

This article maps the racializing, classing and gendering cartographies of cross-spatial marginalization and social control experienced by women who were formerly federally incarcerated in Canada. By investigating women's criminalization, prison and post-prison experiences, this article traces practices of racialization, gendering and classing that underwrite liberal to neo-liberal forms of social control. Results from 68 interviews with women released from federal prisons in Canada show that women's criminalization cannot solely be traced to shifts from liberal to neo-liberal governance, but rather to the ways in which structures of oppression have influenced women's criminalization across liberal to neo-liberal rationalities. This analysis shows how liberal ‘welfarist’ ideas and ideals are embedded in neo-liberal reforms and provide the discursive platforms of an extended and widened network of social control of criminalized women beyond prison walls, across institutions, including a variety of (non-)government actors and the women themselves. This widened web of (neo-)liberal social control constitutes practices that have formed carceral spaces beyond prison walls and have perpetuated and exacerbated women's marginality after their release from federal prisons in Canada.     

Gender perspective on the social networks of household heads and community leaders after involuntary resettlement

The study of social network analysis in Indonesia and the Philippines reveals that after a certain period in a new community and living among involuntarily resettled strangers, household heads and community leaders will eventually replace their disrupted previous networks with new network ties. The paper likewise demonstrates how gender moulds social network features at the levels of the Indonesian household heads and Philippine community organization after involuntary resettlement. Existing gendered context in two settings like the Indonesian woman’s role as primary caretaker of the household and the absence of a consolidated patriarchal system in the Philippines is shown to have reinforced gender (dis)advantages. As reflected in the two settings, those who have the biggest networks are also the brokers or the influential actors who can control and have an advantage in accessing social capital. Further, basing on the two cases, we identify the gender norm of the centrality of women’s role as homemaker and caregiver in addition to other roles as a similar explanation for the bigger proportions of friends in the networks of women as compared to men. Unless outside interventions reconfigure the natural trajectory of the social networks, gender equality in terms of leadership, decision-making and access to suitable programs and projects as well as to the relevant authorities, remains problematic.     

Complex Pathways Towards Emergent Pastoral Settlements: New Research on the Bronze Age Xindian Culture of Northwest China

Journal of World Prehistory - The Xindian culture of northwest China has been seen as a prototypical example of a transition toward pastoralism, resulting in part from environmental changes that...