Interethnic Tensions in Kyrgyzstan: A Political Geographic Perspective

Two U.S. geographers review an array of intertwining political geographic issues that provide context and set the stage for deadly armed conflict between groups of ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh in June 2010. Applying a disaggregated and localized approach to understanding the ambiguous and complex factors underlying the current instability in Kyrgyzstan, they focus on: the role of north-south political competition; the country's uneasy economic relationship with its western neighbor, Uzbekistan; widespread official corruption and the penetration of organized crime into government structures; as well as broader geopolitical issues. The latter include Tashkent's policy toward the Uzbek diaspora, perceived threats from international terrorism/Islamist fundamentalism, the potential for the export of a "color revolution" to Uzbekistan, the presence of U.S. and Russian military forces in Central Asia, and the relative ineffectiveness of regional security structures such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization.     

Trafficked Enough? Missing Bodies,Migrant Labour Exploitation,and the Classification of Trafficking Victims in Singapore

Critical geographical research has recently drawn attention to representations of vulnerable or exploited groups that articulate racist or neo‐colonial imaginations, including where these geographical imaginations are implicated in the classification and characterisation of groups for legal purposes. In the case of vulnerable groups of migrants such practices can be invoked to create distinctions that justify the socio‐spatial exclusion or containment, thus oftentimes having profound implications for real people who must manoeuvre the consequences of classification. The paper builds on this strand of inquiry by exploring the imaginaries surrounding trafficking victimhood and the implications of classification for temporary labour migrants in Singapore into “trafficked” and “non‐trafficked” categories. I argue that in the Singaporean context government interest in maintaining the current labour/migration regime is equally as significant as racist and neo‐colonial imaginations and intersect with the latter in productive ways to sort vulnerable migrants into categories of trafficked and non‐trafficked.     

Regulating sex work in the EU: prostitute women and the new spaces of exclusion

Contemporary prostitution policy within the European Union has coalesced around the view that female prostitution is rarely voluntary, and often a consequence of sex trafficking. Responding, different nation-states have, however, adopted antithetical legal positions based on prohibition (Sweden), abolition (UK) or legalisation (Netherlands). Despite the apparently sharp differences between these positions, in this article we argue that there is now a shared preoccupation with repressing spaces of street prostitution. Noting the forms of exploitation that nonetheless adhere to many spaces of off-street work, we conclude that the state and law may intervene in sex work markets with the intention of tackling gendered injustice, but are perpetuating geographies of exception and abandonment.     

Vulnerable geographies: human trafficking,immigration and border control in the UK and beyond

Human trafficking inspires strong responses from feminists and other interested parties. This article takes the UK anti-trafficking measures as a case study to explore the interaction between discourses of trafficked women's vulnerability to sexual harm, and national vulnerability to external threats such as organized crime. Drawing on feminist engagements with human trafficking and commercial sex, my aim is to contribute to these debates. I explore how the government's moralistic response to trafficking reflects a particular form of regulation that animates new systems of governmentality and biopower. Against this backdrop I attempt to advance feminist perspectives on trafficking by demonstrating the relationality between UK anti-trafficking measures, and its plans to reorganize its regulatory capacity overseas. I suggest an interpretation of UK overseas anti-trafficking measures that foregrounds respatialized border and immigration controls. I show how this kind of regulation works on and through the bodies and behaviours of government actors. I conclude that while aspects of these overseas interventions do go some way to protect trafficked women, they do not operate in isolation of other geopolitical agendas.     

Human Trafficking and Online Networks: Policy,Analysis, and Ignorance

Dominant anti‐trafficking policy discourses represent trafficking as an issue of crime, “illegal” migration, victimhood and humanitarianism. Such a narrow focus is not an adequate response to the interplay between technology, trafficking and anti‐trafficking. This article explores different levels of analysis and the interplay between human trafficking and technology. We argue for a shift from policy discourses with a very limited focus on crime and victimisation to more systemic understandings of trafficking and more robust micro‐analyses of trafficking and everyday life. The article calls for an agnotological understanding of policy responses to trafficking and technology: these depend upon the production of ignorance. We critique limitations in policy understandings of trafficking‐related aspects of online spaces, and argue for better engagement with online networks. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond a focus on “new” technology and exceptionalist claims about “modern slavery” towards greater attention to everyday exploitation within neoliberalism.     

湖北省拐卖儿童犯罪的时空特征及其影响因素

拐卖儿童犯罪对社会的危害严重,对家庭和个体的影响深远.早前研究侧重于犯罪现象的宏观分析,当前亟需转向重点地域与重点人群开展研究.本文聚焦我国拐卖犯罪的高发省份湖北,采用文本分析、数理统计、空间分析等方法探究湖北省拐卖儿童犯罪的时空特征与影响因素.结果表明:①被拐儿童的性别年龄结构呈"工"字形特征,高发于1-6岁和13-...     

Sexual trafficking in Nepal: constructing citizenship and livelihoods

Sexual trafficking is a priority issue for many governments and has increasingly become a focus for debate within the academy. Despite this, many aspects of sexual trafficking remain poorly understood. In this article we focus on an area that has received scant attention in the literature: the situation of trafficked women when they return home and, specifically, the livelihood opportunities available to them as they experience differing notions of citizenship. In addition to the fact that there has been very little attempt to document poverty alleviation strategies post-trafficking, within the mainstream development literature little attention has also been given to questions of sexuality and how they relate to development and poverty reduction strategies. The aim of this article, therefore, is to seek to highlight a new research agenda and to develop an interdisciplinary framework to understand what we have termed ‘the sexual politics of poverty’. Bringing together distinct literatures on sexual citizenship and sustainable livelihoods we develop our analysis of these themes through a focus on the livelihood opportunities and strategies of returnee trafficked women in South Asia, drawing on policy analysis at national and regional levels and qualitative research carried out in Nepal. In particular, the Nepal case study highlights problems with skills training for returnee women and examines the relationship between marriage and sustainable livelihood opportunities.     

鄂尔泰对西南地区“汉奸”的认识及治理

鄂尔泰的西南治理对象,除了少数民族土司与普通民众外,还有一个特殊群体——“汉奸”。由于“汉奸”既威胁到清政府在西南地区的统治深入,也暴露了西南地区特别是贵州地区吏治的松弛,鄂尔泰在雍正帝的支持下对其进行了两次集中打击。同时,鄂尔泰企图通过实行“民族隔离”政策,在贵州苗疆地区杜绝“汉奸”的进入,但是这种极端做法不仅没有消灭“汉奸”。而且影响了民族之间的正常交往。     

Many Chains to Break: The Multi‐dimensional Concept of Slave Labour in Brazil

This article examines the concept of slave labour through two case studies from Brazil. One involves internal migrant workers and the other cross‐border migrant workers. There have been accusations of slave labour in both cases. I argue that slave labour is a multi‐dimensional concept and that cognate notions (eg forced and unfree labour) could also be reconceived as multi‐dimensional. Recent works have proposed that a continuum viewing labour relations as more or less free should replace dichotomies such as free vs unfree. I argue for taking this further to recognise, first, that workers may be more or less free in different ways, and second, that the resulting conditions of employment can be characterised as more or less degrading, also in different ways. This multi‐dimensional approach allows for a better understanding of the heterogeneity of apparently unfree labour relations and for greater recognition of the agency of workers labelled as slaves.