La trata de seres humanos y la cultura legal

[Resumen] Este artículo tiene por objeto analizar el Protocolo para Prevenir, Reprimir y Sancionar la Trata de Personas. En la primera parte, se ofrece una discusión crítica sobre el carácter deficitario de las medidas adoptadas para lidiar con el problema social de la trata de seres humanos. A continuación, se analizarán las dos narrativas que compiten en este problema y la forma en las que se responde a esta circunstancia; se explica la necesidad de aprender más sobre los intereses y valores que condicionan la aplicación de la ley. En la última parte, se discute sobre la relevancia potencial de la idea de la “cultura legal” para explicar los patrones de la ley en acción en distintos países y por diferentes agencias. El objetivo general de este artículo es mostrar la existencia de un vínculo entre la forma en la cual el problema de la trata es definido socialmente en la práctica y el rol de la cultura legal a la hora de darle forma a este vínculo.[Abstract] This Article discusses the Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons. In the first part it offers a critical discussion of what is entailed by speaking of a “shortfall” of enforcement in dealing with the social problem of human trafficking. It then goes on to show that there are two competing narratives of this problem and of the way it is being responded to, and explains why we need to learn more about the interests and values that condition the “law in action.” In the last section the Article discusses the potential relevance of the idea of the “legal culture” for explaining the patterns of “law in action” in different countries and different agencies. The Article’s overall aim is to show the existence of a link between the manner in which the problem of trafficking is socially defined in practice, and the role of legal culture in shaping this link

Signaling Conformity: Changing Norms in Japan and China

Whatever their differences, the articles in this issue also have much in common in addition to their regional focus. The author of this Comment shall discuss in turn three (related) theoretical issues that arise, to a greater or lesser degree, in all four contributions. The first Part of this Comment considers the insights of these articles on the need to move from discussing transplants to focusing on transnational legal processes. The second Part examines what the contributions tell us about culture, legal culture, and the so-called norm of conformity. I shall concentrate in particular on the cultural sources of choices to conform. The conclusion discusses the contribution of these articles toward the further study of the processes for spreading conformity. In the author’s view, the articles\u27 insights on these processes encompass many of their most valuable common elements. But, conversely, the significance of their claims can only be appreciated if placed in a larger framework

Frequency discrimination and stimulus deviance in the inferior colliculus and cochlear nucleus

[EN] Auditory neurons that exhibit stimulus-specific adaptation (SSA) decrease their response to common tones while retaining responsiveness to rare ones. We recorded single-unit responses from the inferior colliculus (IC) where SSA is known to occur and we explored for the first time SSA in the cochlear nucleus (CN) of rats. We assessed an important functional outcome of SSA, the extent to which frequency discriminability depends on sensory context. For this purpose, pure tones were presented in an oddball sequence as standard (high probability of occurrence) or deviant (low probability of occurrence) stimuli. To study frequency discriminability under different probability contexts, we varied the probability of occurrence and the frequency separation between tones. The neuronal sensitivity was estimated in terms of spike-count probability using signal detection theory. We reproduced the finding that many neurons in the IC exhibited SSA, but we did not observe significant SSA in our CN sample. We concluded that strong SSA is not a ubiquitous phenomenon in the CN. As predicted, frequency discriminability was enhanced in IC when stimuli were presented in an oddball context, and this enhancement was correlated with the degree of SSA shown by the neurons. In contrast, frequency discrimination by CN neurons was independent of stimulus context. Our results demonstrated that SSA is not widespread along the entire auditory pathway, and suggest that SSA increases frequency discriminability of single neurons beyond that expected from their tuning curves

Indicators, security and sovereignty during COVID-19 in the global south

This paper considers the spread of COVID-19 as a telling moment or épreuve in contests over governance in global south states. Two distinct governance modes are engaged in this crisis: 1) indicators/metrics; and 2) securitization. Indicators have been a vehicle for the government of states, particularly in the global south, through the external imposition and internal self-application of standards and benchmarks and through the comparative rankings which ensue therefrom. Securitization refers to the performative calling-into-being of emergencies in the face of existential threats. National sovereignty is at stake in both modes: limited, superintended, and redirected by indicators on the one hand; articulated as originary and untrammelled through securitizing moves on the other. Health has been a key focus for analysts of each. We may hypothesize that COVID-19 is the occasion for an as yet undecided contest between de-spatialized health governmentality and the reassertion of territorial segmentation as the frame for an autochtonously defined national interest, a retreat, it is feared, from Post-Westphalian to Westphalian governance in global health. In what follows, I first sketch an outline of each governance mode, remarking on the application of each to health promotion in the global south. The purchase of this theoretical outline is then tested briefly through a focus on Kenya, and, in particular, its response to COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic, between February and May 2020. Both modes were deployed in political and legal interventions during this period. It is clear that government ministers tended to adopt securitization language, while foreign and civil society actors drew on indicators and related benchmarks to support criticism of state action and inaction

Codes of Commitment to Crime and Resistance: Determining Social and Cultural Factors over the Behaviors of Italian Mafia Women

This article categorizes thirty-three women in four main Italian Mafia groups and explores social and cultural behaviors of these women. This study introduces the feminist theory of belief and action. The theoretical inquiry investigates the sometimes conflicting behaviors of women when they are subject to systematic oppression. I argue that there is a cultural polarization among the categorized sub-groups. Conservative radicals give their support to the Mafia while defectors and rebels resist the Mafia. After testing the theory, I assert that emancipation of women depends on the strength of their beliefs to perform actions against the Mafiosi culture

Neural Decision Boundaries for Maximal Information Transmission

We consider here how to separate multidimensional signals into two categories, such that the binary decision transmits the maximum possible information transmitted about those signals. Our motivation comes from the nervous system, where neurons process multidimensional signals into a binary sequence of responses (spikes). In a small noise limit, we derive a general equation for the decision boundary that locally relates its curvature to the probability distribution of inputs. We show that for Gaussian inputs the optimal boundaries are planar, but for non-Gaussian inputs the curvature is nonzero. As an example, we consider exponentially distributed inputs, which are known to approximate a variety of signals from natural environment.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Low-Level Information and High-Level Perception: The Case of Speech in Noise

Auditory information is processed in a fine-to-crude hierarchical scheme, from low-level acoustic information to high-level abstract representations, such as phonological labels. We now ask whether fine acoustic information, which is not retained at high levels, can still be used to extract speech from noise. Previous theories suggested either full availability of low-level information or availability that is limited by task difficulty. We propose a third alternative, based on the Reverse Hierarchy Theory (RHT), originally derived to describe the relations between the processing hierarchy and visual perception. RHT asserts that only the higher levels of the hierarchy are immediately available for perception. Direct access to low-level information requires specific conditions, and can be achieved only at the cost of concurrent comprehension. We tested the predictions of these three views in a series of experiments in which we measured the benefits from utilizing low-level binaural information for speech perception, and compared it to that predicted from a model of the early auditory system. Only auditory RHT could account for the full pattern of the results, suggesting that similar defaults and tradeoffs underlie the relations between hierarchical processing and perception in the visual and auditory modalities

Auditory-Visual Object Recognition Time Suggests Specific Processing for Animal Sounds

cote interne IRCAM: Suied09bNone / NoneNational audienceAuditory-visual object recognition time suggests specific processing for animal sound