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Criminal Justice: Legitimacy, accountability, and effectivit

Seeing blue: negotiating the politics of Avatar media activism

This thesis examines how the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar (2009) has been taken-up in media activism directed towards Indigenous struggles against imperialism. It assumes the importance of locating this phenomenon within the discursive and material regimes that mediate, enable, and constrain it. I therefore offer a contextualised analysis of the film and media relating to its appropriation, which focuses on the representational practices and structural mechanisms that inform the production, circulation, and reception of the texts. This approach emphasises the tensions and contradictions that underpin activists’ relationship to the media they mobilise. Such contradictions are particularly apparent in relation to the politics of race that shape Avatar, the Indigenous activism that references it, and the media regimes that make this possible. The very forces that marginalise Indigenous voices empower auteur James Cameron to speak on their behalf and to be heard. Activists must also negotiate the tension between co-opting media spectacle and being commercialised as spectacle. However, refusing a simple critique of the representations activists deploy as media spectacles, I argue for a model that foregrounds the alliances that they seek to engender. Drawing on the work of feminist scholars Oliver (2001) and Deslandes (2010), I signal a theoretical approach that focuses on how the mediated spectator relates to such representations and insists on the spectator’s responsibility to respond. Acknowledging that the tensions that animate Avatar media activism can be both constrictive and creative, this project seeks a model that maximises the potential for the latter. It thus resists the paralysis of activism that can come with critiquing how we fight for the world we imagine

Action research and democracy

This contribution explores the relationship between research and learning democracy. Action research is seen as being compatible with the orientation of educational and social work research towards social justice and democracy. Nevertheless, the history of action research is characterized by a tension between democracy and social engineering. In the social-engineering approach, action research is conceptualized as a process of innovation aimed at a specific Bildungsideal. In a democratic approach action research is seen as research based on cooperation between research and practice. However, the notion of democratic action research as opposed to social engineering action research needs to be theorized. So called democratic action research involving the implementation by the researcher of democracy as a model and as a preset goal, reduces cooperation and participation into instruments to reach this goal, and becomes a type of social engineering in itself. We argue that the relationship between action research and democracy is in the acknowledgment of the political dimension of participation: ‘a democratic relationship in which both sides exercise power and shared control over decision-making as well as interpretation’. This implies an open research design and methodology able to understand democracy as a learning process and an ongoing experiment

Midtrimester preterm prelabour rupture of membranes (PPROM):expectant management or amnioinfusion for improving perinatal outcomes (PPROMEXIL - III trial)

BACKGROUND: Babies born after midtrimester preterm prelabour rupture of membranes (PPROM) are at risk to develop neonatal pulmonary hypoplasia. Perinatal mortality and morbidity after this complication is high. Oligohydramnios in the midtrimester following PPROM is considered to cause a delay in lung development. Repeated transabdominal amnioinfusion with the objective to alleviate oligohydramnios might prevent this complication and might improve neonatal outcome. METHODS/DESIGN: Women with PPROM and persisting oligohydramnios between 16 and 24 weeks gestational age will be asked to participate in a multi-centre randomised controlled trial. Intervention: random allocation to (repeated) abdominal amnioinfusion (intervention) or expectant management (control). The primary outcome is perinatal mortality. Secondary outcomes are lethal pulmonary hypoplasia, non-lethal pulmonary hypoplasia, survival till discharge from NICU, neonatal mortality, chronic lung disease (CLD), number of days ventilatory support, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), periventricular leucomalacia (PVL) more than grade I, severe intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) more than grade II, proven neonatal sepsis, gestational age at delivery, time to delivery, indication for delivery, successful amnioinfusion, placental abruption, cord prolapse, chorioamnionitis, fetal trauma due to puncture. The study will be evaluated according to intention to treat. To show a decrease in perinatal mortality from 70% to 35%, we need to randomise two groups of 28 women (two sided test, β-error 0.2 and α-error 0.05). DISCUSSION: This study will answer the question if (repeated) abdominal amnioinfusion after midtrimester PPROM with associated oligohydramnios improves perinatal survival and prevents pulmonary hypoplasia and other neonatal morbidities. Moreover, it will assess the risks associated with this procedure. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NTR3492 Dutch Trial Register (http://www.trialregister.nl)