Mr Upjohn’s Debts: Money and Friendship in Early Colonial Calcutta

The paper discusses the effective operation of money and credit among Europeans in Calcutta around 1800, arguing for the importance of informal processes and ties of friendship that facilitated, regulated and enforced agreements, helping both to tide over individuals in times of economic stress and to underwrite the provision and transfer of capital. The argument is advanced by a detailed case study in regard to debts owed by one resident, Aaron Upjohn, to another, Richard Blechynden, amidst a web of acquaintance, officialdom and law that variously ensured that the debts were honoured. It is defined as ‘a support system among acquaintances, necessitated in part by shortage of money and abundance of risk’

Building Effective Responses: An Independent Review of Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Services in Wales

Independent researchers from the Connect Centre for International Research on Interpersonal Violence based in the School of Social Work at the University of Central Lancashire were commissioned by the Welsh Government in 2013 to conduct research into violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence services in Wales. The research aimed to inform the forthcoming Ending Violence Against Women and Domestic Abuse (Wales) Bill, implementation of the legislation and future policy more generally, as well as informing future funding decisions. The remit of the review covers: Domestic abuse, including that experienced in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) relationships and elder abuse. Violence against women, including female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriage and honour-based violence. Sexual violence including rape, sexual assault and harassment Sexual exploitation including prostitution and trafficking1 for sexual purposes. Services for women and men who are victims or perpetrators of violence against women, domestic abuse or sexual violence. The review does not encompass criminal justice services or housing services and, with the exception of prevention work, services for children and young people in Wales were also excluded from this study

The Institution of Gender-Based Asylum and Epistemic Injustice: A Structural Limit

One of the recent attempts to explore epistemic dimensions of forced displacement focuses on the institution of gender-based asylum and hopes to detect forms of epistemic injustice within assessments of gender related asylum applications. Following this attempt, I aim in this paper to demonstrate how the institution of gender-based asylum is structured to produce epistemic injustice at least in the forms of testimonial injustice and contributory injustice. This structural limit becomes visible when we realize how the institution of asylum is formed to provide legitimacy to the institutional comfort the respective migration courts and boards enjoy. This institutional comfort afforded to migration boards and courts by the existing asylum regimes in the current order of nation-states leads to a systemic prioritization of state actors’ epistemic resources rather than that of applicants, which, in turn, results in epistemic injustice and impacts the determination of applicants’ refugee status

The regulations of honour: an attempt at a Weberian and anthropological enquiry through the prism of a Spanish trading group

Abstract: This paper is concerned with a rather neglected issue in sociological analysis: honour as a value and regulating principle of social life. The attempt is made to study honour from a perspective which pays attention to both the carriers of honour and the social order itself, its maintenance and reproduction. It focuses on a group of Spanish traders who were fervent Catholics who claimed and were reputed to be men of honour. The article shows that honour was incarnated in two external domains: the family house and lineage, providing status-honour, and the trading routes, which brought our group fame as courageous and trustworthy men. Engaging with contemporary debates, it is contended that neither trust nor ethics need be brought to the exchanges from the outside, as is the case with modern capitalist forms, for they are a function of personalised social bonding and embedded in honour itself. Abstract: Cet article traite d'un sujet plutôt négligé par l'analyse sociologique: l'honneur comme valeur et principe régulateur de la vie sociale. La perspective retenue considére les groupes porteurs de l'honneur et l'ordre social lui-même, son maintien et sa reproduction. L'article se centre sur un groupe de commerçants espagnols, catholiques fervents, qui se proclamaient et sont reconnus hommes d'honneur. L'article montre que l'honneur s'incarne dans deux domaines: la maison et le lignage familiaux, sources d'honneur comme statut, et les routes commerciales, qui conféraient au groupe une réputation d'hommes courageux et dignes de confiance. En lien avec les débats contemporains, nous soutenons qu'il n'y a ici nul besoin d'introduire dans ces échanges confiance et éthique, comme il le faut dans les formes capitalistes modernes. Ici, ils s'ancrent dans l'honneur même. Abstract: Diese Besprechung untersucht ein von der soziologischen Analyse vernachlässigtes Thema: die Ehre als Wert und Regelungselement des sozialen Lebens. Untersuchungsgegenstand: eine Gruppe spanischer Kaufleute, überzeugte Katholiken, die sich als Ehrenmänner bezeichneten und auch als solche betrachtet wurden. Die Ehre gründet sich auf zwei Bereiche: den Familienstamm, Ausgangspunkt für den Ehrenstatus, und die Handelsstraßen, die der Gruppe den Ruf von mutigen Männern und Vertrauensleuten einbrachten. Im Zusammenhang mit der gegenwärtigen Auseinandersetzung behaupten wir, dass im Austausch weder Vertrauen noch Ethik eingeführt werden müssen, wie es bei modernen Formen des Kapitalismus notwendig ist. Sie sind mit der Ehre verwurzelt

Vulnerability, Trust and Microcredit: The Case of China?s Rural Poor

This paper investigates the economic conditions of rural households in China. Historical survey data indicate that over 80 per cent of rural households earn less than 4,500 yuan in net disposable income each year, that for the vast majority of rural households disposable income is insufficient to meet food consumption needs, and that in terms of economic growth rural households are receiving an ever decreasing percentage of China?s growing economy with rural household incomes being only 31 per cent of urban household income in 2004. To reduce vulnerability and food insecurity, this paper investigates the role of microcredit in China. It is argued that in China the conventional wisdom is to provide credit using traditional means, but we provide a model that shows how a microcredit market based on trust can co-exist with a commercial collateral-based market. This model is developed in detail and certain propositions are supported using dominant strategies in a trust-honour game based on the prisoner?s dilemma. The theoretical model is then applied to the case of microlending in China. It explains why, in the absence of trust, rural credit corporations do not make loans to the very poor. Furthermore, the model explains how Central party policies on rural credit can actually crowd out micro finance institution (MFI) and NGO microlending in China, and also explains why moneylenders dominate in many of the poorer regions of the country. From a policy point of view, the theoretical model indicates that trust-based lending, coupled with certain incentives, can go far in supporting growth opportunities in rural China. It is argued that Chinese policy should be flexible enough to permit trust-based microlending to the poor, regardless of how counterintuitive this must appear to the conventional wisdom. Indeed, in the absence of flexible credit strategies, China?s rural poor will remain in a persistent food-insecure poverty gap.equilibrium, game theory, rural, credit, China

Victorian Women's Trust, Annual Report 2009/2010

We are an independent advocate for women and grant maker dedicated to improving the status of women and girls. We are now among the world's oldest women's funds, and pride ourselves on a thirty-year tradition of progressive philanthropy, strategically targeted to maximise our impact across the range of issues we seek to address - violence against women and girls, gendered discrimination and disadvantage, the quest for due recognition of the value of women's paid and unpaid work, and towards equal representation in the decision making processes that shape our lives