Trafficking in US Agriculture

Based on a qualitative methodology that includes in‐depth interviews with 90 Mexican migrant smugglers and 45 Central American farmworkers, this article analyzes the three separate elements of trafficking in US agriculture, namely acts, means, and purposes. We conclude that some US employers participate in human trafficking by financing or helping to recruit and transport Mexican and Central American migrants to the US by means of “abuse of a position of vulnerability” for the purposes of involuntary servitude, debt bondage, and sex exploitation.     

The securitisation of migrant smuggling in Australia and its consequences for the Bali Process

This article analyses the Bali Process in the context of Australia’s securitised approach to migrant smuggling, and the consequences this has for both the Australia–Indonesia diplomatic relationship and the Bali Process overall. The Bali Process is the premier regional forum for combating migrant smuggling and is well placed to discuss and develop regional cooperation policies on irregular migration within the region. In particular, the Bali Process remains a key domain where Australia and Indonesia can contest and amend the norms and practices around the human rights of refugees and asylum-seekers. This article traces and analyses the emergence of Australia’s bilateral agreements for offshore processing and resettlement between 2011 and 2014, which Australian political elites aligned rhetorically to the Bali Process, but which the authors argue remain in tension with stated Bali Process objectives in terms of rights and protections for asylum-seekers and refugees. This article identifies that Australia’s security-driven policies and regional disagreements over humanitarian responsibility remain an ongoing tension within Bali Process states, and provides commentary on the implications of this for future Australian policy relating to regional cooperation on irregular migration.     

Smuggling,Trafficking, and Extortion: New Conceptual and Policy Challenges on the Libyan Route to Europe

This paper contributes a conceptual and empirical reflection on the relationship between human smuggling, trafficking and kidnapping, and extortion in Libya. It is based on qualitative interview data with Eritrean asylum seekers in Italy. Different tribal regimes control separate territories in Libya, which leads to different experiences for migrants depending on which territory they enter, such as Eritreans entering in the southeast Toubou controlled territory. We put forth that the kidnapping and extortion experienced by Eritreans in Libya is neither trafficking, nor smuggling, but a crime against humanity orchestrated by an organized criminal network. The paper details this argument and discusses the implications.     

State Responses and Migrant Experiences with Human Smuggling: A Reality Check

Using Bigo's (2002) notion of “the governmentality of unease” this article reveals a shift in popular discourse around human smuggling in Western Europe and Canada since the 1990s towards increasing criminalization. To analyze this process of criminalization we have identified three recurring elements: boat arrivals; high fees and “bogus” asylum seekers; and the involvement of organized crime. The finding that smugglers today are generally perceived as “evil criminals” who undermine states' ability to manage migration and who need to be punished is contrasted with data derived from interviews with smuggled migrants in the Netherlands and Canada that offer an alternative, more socially embedded understanding of human smuggling. We posit that this reality check and a more nuanced understanding of human smuggling are needed for the protection of international migrants.     

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.     

Cultural Resource Management for a Majapahit Kingdom Site in Trowulan,East Java,Indonesia

Abstract

The Kingdom of Majapahit located in East Java, Indonesia, was established in 1293 ce and lasted until its destruction in the sixteenth century. At its peak, the Kingdom covered the modern-day region of Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula. Archaeological remains from the Majapahit era have been discovered in several places, including Java, Bali, and Sumatra, but the most important site is located in the small town of Trowulan in East Java. Trowulan has been researched since the beginning of nineteenth century, with most of the work concerned with the study and preservation of the archaeological remains; little research has taken place regarding the archaeological remains in the relation to the local community. Archaeologists and the government agree that the inhabitants of Trowulan have violated regulations related to the protection of the monuments and that their activities have damaged the site. Until now neither the neither archaeologists nor the government have conducted any research into the reasons behind the local community’s actions. Understanding the local communities’ perspectives and aspiration is essential in order to develop relevant recommendations regarding the protection and management Trowulan’s cultural heritage. This research has been undertaken using qualitative methods, including observations, in-depth interviews, and Focus Group discussions.     

Greenland in the center: what happened when the Danish–Norwegian officials met English and Dutch whalers in Disko Bay, 1780–1820

Between 1780 and 1820 crucial changes took place in the economic and cultural relationship between Denmark–Norway and its North Atlantic dependencies. In Greenland, the state imposed a stringent set of social and economic controls, at the same time when the restrictions on trade in Iceland and Northern Norway were relaxed. In 1776 the Royal Greenlandic Trading Company was established, but during the eighteenth century the waters around Greenland were a hub of international whaling trade as Dutch, American, and British ships came into contact with the Inuit, who were legally under Danish-Norwegian social regulation. This article uses records of Danish officials in Greenland and those of incidental observers to understand the disjuncture between the law of Denmark–Norway and the realities of Disko Bay. The officials contended with better equipped foreign ships, the Inuit desire to trade with these ships, and communication problems with the capital. This period is characterized by experimentation with different methods of production, contrasting strongly with the later nineteenth century, in which Danish–Greenlandic policy became more restrictive. By the nineteenth century international whaling trade had followed the declining whale stocks westward to the Canadian and American waters, so Denmark-Norway could impose these restrictions more easily.