Travel Agency: A Critique of Anti-Trafficking Campaigns

This paper offers a critical evaluation of anti-trafficking campaigns spearheaded by some in the feminist movement in an attempt to deal with the issues of unsafe migrations and labour exploitation. I discuss how calls to “end trafficking, especially in women and children” are influenced by – and go on to legitimate – governmental practices to criminalize the self-willed migration of people moving without official permission. I discuss how the ideological frame of anti-trafficking works to reinforce restrictive immigration practices, shore up a nationalized consciousness of space and home, and criminalize those rendered illegal within national territories. Anti-trafficking campaigns also fail to take into account migrants’ limited agency in the migration process. I provide alternative routes to anti-trafficking campaigns by arguing for an analytical framework in which the related worldwide crises of displacement and migration are foregrounded. I argue that by centering the standpoint of undocumented migrants a more transformative politics emerges, one that demands that people be able to “stay” and to “move” in a self-determined manner.Cet article propose une évaluation critique des campagnes contre la traite des femmes menées par certaines personnes appartenant au mouvement féministe, et cela dans une tentative pour résoudre les problèmes de migrations dangereuses et d’exploitation des travailleurs. J’examine comment les appels pour « arrêter la traite, spécialement des femmes et des enfants » sont influencés – et servent à légitimer – aux pratiques gouvernementales visant à criminaliser la migration volontaire des gens qui voyagent sans permission officielle. Je démontre comment le cadre idéologique anti-traite sert éventuellement à renforcer des pratiques plus restrictives en matière d’immigration, à la nationalisation des notions d’espace et de domicile et à criminaliser ceux qui sont rendus clandestins à l’intérieur des territoires nationaux. De plus, les campagnes contre la traite ne prennent pas en considération le peu d’influence des migrants dans le mécanisme de la migration. Je propose des voies alternatives aux campagnes contre la traite, en demandant la mise sur pied d’un cadre analytique qui donnerait une place de première importance aux crises mondiales jumelées aux déplacements et à la migration. Je soutiens, qu’en ramenant le point de vue des migrants sans-papiers au centre de la discussion, on arrive à une politique qui acquiert un pouvoir de transformation et qui requiert que les gens aient le droit de « rester » et de « circuler » à leur gré

‘The New Order of Things’: Immobility as protection in the regime of immigration controls

In this paper, I discuss two 1835 ordinances passed by the local council of the British colony of Mauritius. Passed shortly after Britain’s 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, these restrictions initiated the regulation and restriction of immigration within the British Empire. Seen as quite novel in their day, these ordinances employed the rhetoric of ‘protecting emigrants’ to legitimise the new constraints they imposed on free human mobility. Today, when the national ‘logic of constraint’ on human mobility is almost uncontested, the idea that immigration controls protect migrants remains central to the discursive practices concerning human trafficking. Nation-state constraints on human mobility are normalised while the exploitation and abuse of people on the move is ideologically redirected to ‘modern-day slavers’ or ‘evil traffickers’, thus absolving both the state and globally operative capital of their culpability

Race, Class, Gender and the Making of Difference: The Social Organization of "Migrant Workers" in Canada

By investigating the effects of Canada's Non-Immigrant Employment Authorization Program on the "migrant workers" it recruits, this paper argues that concepts of "citizenship" and citizens rights organize social and legal practices that determine - and legitimize - who is entitled to certain "rights" and protections within the space controlled by national states and who is excluded.En faisant une enquete sur les effets que le Programme de permis de travail pour les non-migrants du Canada a surles travailleurs qu'il recrute, cet article soutient que le concept de "citoyennete" et les droits de citoyens organisent les pratiques sociales et legales qui determinent, et legitiment, ceux qui ont droit a certains "droits" et a certaines protections dans les limites du territoire controle par les etats nationaux, et ceux qui sont exclus

Editorial: Why No Borders?

This editorial article argues for No Borders as a practical political project. We first critically examine borders as ideological, generating and reinforcing inequality. We consider some responses to injustices produced by borders: the call for “human rights”; attempts to make immigration controls more “humanitarian”; and trade unions’ organizing and campaigning with undocumented workers. Recognizing the important contributions of some of these responses, we argue that nevertheless they have often been limited because they do not question sovereignty, the territorializing of people’s subjectivities, and nationalism. No Borders politics rejects notions of citizenship and statehood, and clarifies the centrality of borders to capitalism. We argue that No Borders is a necessary part of a global system of common rights and contemporary struggle for the commons. The article concludes by highlighting the main themes of the papers that make up the Special Issue, a number of which explore practical instances of the instantiation of No Borders politics.Le présent article de tête présente le mouvement No Border comme projet politique pratique. Les auteurs examinent d’abord de façon critique les frontières en tant qu’idéologie produisant et renforçant l’inégalité. Ils considèrent quelques réactions aux injustices produites par les frontières: appels aux « droits humains », tentatives de rendre les contrôles d’immigration plus « humanitaires », mouvements syndicaux d’organisation et de lutte avec les travailleurs sans-papiers . Reconnaissant l’importante contribution de certaines de ces réactions, ils soutiennent qu’elles sont néanmoins souvent limitées parce qu’elles ne mettent pas en cause la souveraineté, la territorialisation des subjectivités individuelles et le nationalisme. Le mouvement No Border rejette les notions de citoyenneté et d’État et met au grand jour le rôle central des frontières au sein du capitalisme. Les auteurs soutiennent que No Border est un élement nécessaire d’un système mondial de droits communs et de lutte contemporaine pour les communes. Ils mettent enfin en évidence les thèmes principaux des articles qui composent ce numéro spécial, dont plusieurs étudient des cas pratiques de la manifestation des politiques No Border

Evaluation of socio-economic status and cost-return structure of major vegetable crops in Kullu Valley of Himachal Pradesh (India)

The present study was carried out in Kullu Valley of Himachal Pradesh with the objective of finding out the socio-economic status and cost-return structure of the farmers. The multi-stage random sampling procedure was adopted to select the respondents. The costs and returns structure has been reported for the production of major vegetables, viz. tomato, cauliflower and peas in two vegetable-dominated developmental blocks of the district Kullu (Kullu and Naggar). Primary data has been collected through survey method for the agricultural year 2019-2020. The study revealed that per hectare cost A1 was highest for peas, followed by tomato and was the lowest for cauliflower. However, the per quintal cost of cultivation has been found to be the highest for tomato, followed by peas and cauliflower. Gross returns as well as net returns per hectare have been observed to be highest for tomato, followed by pea and cauliflower. The study suggests that to promote this enterprise, niche areas for off-season vegetable cultivation need to be identified as the vegetables grown in the district enjoy price advantage due to their off-season nature and efforts to tap irrigation potential in those areas should be enhanced. Education of farmers for scientific management of crops and provision of improved tools for efficient use of labour have also been suggested to lower production costs and make the vegetable cultivation more beneficial to farmers, particularly to the small and marginal farmers in the state

A computational model of observer stress

Stress is a major growing concern in our age, adversely impacting individuals and society. Stress research has a wide range of benefits with the potential to improve health and wellbeing, personal day-to-day activities, increase work productivity and benefit society as a whole. This makes it an interesting and socially beneficial area of research. It motivates objective understanding of how average individuals respond to events they observe in typical environments they encounter, which this thesis investigates through artificial intelligence particularly bio-inspired computing and data mining. This thesis presents a review of the sensors that show symptoms which have been used to detect stress and computational modelling of stress. It discusses non-invasive and unobtrusive sensors for measuring computed stress. The focus is on sensors that do not impede everyday activities which could be used to monitor stress levels on a regular basis. Several computational techniques have been developed previously by others to model stress based on techniques including machine learning techniques but these are quite simplistic and inadequate. This thesis presents novel enhanced methods for modelling stress for classification and prediction using real-world stress data sets. The main aims for this thesis are to propose and define the concept of observer stress and develop computational models of observer stress for typical environments. The environments considered in this thesis are abstract virtual environments (text), virtual environments (films) and real environments (real-life settings). The research comprised stress data capture for the environments, multi-sensor signal processing and fusion, and knowledge discovery methods for the computational models to recognise and predict observer stress. Experiments were designed and conducted to acquire real-world observer stress data sets for the different environments. The data sets contain physiological and physical sensor signals of observers and survey reports that validate stress in the environments. The physiological stress signals in the data sets include electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), galvanic skin response, blood pressure and the physical signals include eye gaze, pupil dilation and videos of faces in visible and thermal spectrums. Observer stress modelling systems were developed using analytics on the stress data sets. The systems generated stress features from the data and used these features to develop computational models based on techniques such as support vector machines and artificial neural networks to capture stress patterns. Some systems also optimised features using techniques such as genetic algorithm or correlation based techniques for developing models to capture better stress patterns for observer stress recognition. Additionally, a computational stress signal predictor system was developed to model temporal stress. This system was based on a novel combination of support vector machine, genetic algorithm and an artificial neural network. This thesis contributes a significant dimension to computational stress research. It investigates observer stress, proposes novel computational methods for stress, models stress with novel stress feature sets, and proposes a model for a temporal stress measure. The research outcomes provide an objective understanding on stress levels of observers, and environments based on observer perceptions. Further research suggested includes investigating models to manage stress conditions and observer behaviours

Efficient introduction of aryl bromide functionality into proteins in vivo

Artificial proteins can be engineered to exhibit interesting solid state, liquid crystal or interfacial properties and may ultimately serve as important alternatives to conventional polymeric materials. The utility of protein-based materials is limited, however, by the availability of just the 20 amino acids that are normally recognized and utilized by biological systems; many desirable functional groups cannot be incorporated directly into proteins by biosynthetic means. In this study, we incorporate para-bromophenylalanine (p-Br-phe) into a model target protein, mouse dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), by using a bacterial phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase (PheRS) variant with relaxed substrate specificity. Coexpression of the mutant PheRS and DHFR in a phenylalanine auxotrophic Escherichia coli host strain grown in p-Br-phe-supplemented minimal medium resulted in 88% replacement of phenylalanine residues by p-Br-phe; variation in the relative amounts of phe and p-Br-phe in the medium allows control of the degree of substitution by the analog. Protein expression yields of 20–25 mg/l were obtained from cultures supplemented with p-Br-phe; this corresponds to about two-thirds of the expression levels characteristic of cultures supplemented with phe. The aryl bromide function is stable under the conditions used to purify DHFR and creates new opportunities for post-translational derivatization of brominated proteins via metal-catalyzed coupling reactions. In addition, bromination may be useful in X-ray studies of proteins via the multiwavelength anomalous diffraction (MAD) technique

Study on Self-Medication and Self Diet-Management by Women of Indore City, India

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PNEUMOCOCCAL BIOFILMS AND THEIR INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

Pneumonia is a fatal infection with hard time breathing, cough, and fever. The children are at high risk worldwide due to pneumonia. This is responsible for childhood mortality and morbidity worldwide. It is mainly caused by bacteria. Pneumonia-causing bacteria are resistant to most of the antibiotics and therapeutic agents due to the formation of biofilms. Laboratories around the world are trying to develop strategies to combat pneumococcal biofilms. This review deals with the formation of pneumococcal biofilms and their different intervention strategies.Â