In Pursuit of the Working Class

A review of Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class (Verso, 2012), Zygmunt Bauman, Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age (Polity, 2011) and David Nichols, The Bogan Delusion: Myths, Mischief and Misconceptions (Affirm, 2011)

Common Pursuits

A review of Ben Highmore, Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday (Routledge, 2011)

Law, Religion and Violence: The Importance of Islamic Law as a Tool for Refuting the Ideology of Violent Extremists

Violent attacks by radical Islamists against civilians represents a serious and continuing threat to human security in a number of States, including India and to a lesser extent Australia. Causes of such violence have been extensively debated in the literature of a variety of disciplines including law, psychology and political science. This paper examines one aspect of this debate: the use by extremists of concepts derived from Islamic law to justify violence against civilians. It does so by identifying religious norms that underpin the ideology of radical Islamists who engage in terrorism. The thesis advanced here is that an effective response to such violence requires, among other things, that the ideology propagated by radical Islamists be challenged. To do so, their approach to interpretation and application of Islamic law must be refuted. It is argued that Muslim States and the schools of Islamic jurisprudence must energetically engage in this task if the ideology that motivates such attacks is to be thoroughly discredited. Until this occurs, it will be difficult to counter the process of radicalisation of young Muslims who, through exposure to the ideology of radical Islamist organisations such as al-Qaeda and Jamaa Islamia (\u27JI\u27), often regard violence against civilians as permitted by their religion

Law, religion and violence: A human rights-based response to punishment (by state and non-state actors) of apostasy

This article examines Islamic law on the punishment of apostasy and its use and abuse by state and non-state actors to justify the taking of human life. It highlights the traditional view of Muslim jurists that apostates must be killed. This approach is contrasted with the growing body of juristic opinion that holds that neither the Qur’an nor authoritative hadith requires apostates to be executed. This debate has assumed greater importance since al-Qaeda and similar groups have sought to justify acts of violence on the grounds that they are engaged in lawful jihad against apostates, apostate governments and collaborators. The thesis advanced here is that all laws (both secular and religious) that sanction the killing of apostates should be reconsidered for three reasons: they violate international human rights law; they are based on unsound Islamic jurisprudence; and they have been abused by both state actors (to punish political opponents and religious minorities) and non-state actors (including al- Qaeda and various other criminal organisations) who claim that their violent actions against apostates are justified under Islamic law. It is argued that all states party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) (‘ICCPR’) should guarantee, through law reform if necessary, that crimes against religion (including apostasy) are not legally punishable. Put differently, ICCPR principles, including non-discrimination, should be codified by lawmakers and upheld by the judiciary. Under this approach, elements of Islamic law that are inconsistent with the ICCPR would not be enforced. This represents a significant departure from the current position of the Islamic law schools on the punishment of apostasy. Yet it is argued that such change is necessary if various categories of people, including those deemed apostates from Islam, are to be protected from violence and discrimination by state and non-state actors

In memoriam: Sir Ian Brownlie

In Memoriam: Sir Ian Brownlie CBE QC (19 September 1932 - 3 January 2010) Sir Ian Brownlie, QC, aptly described as ‘[a] titan in the crowded field of international law’, died tragically in a road accident while on holiday in Cairo in January 2010. Best known to generations of law students across the world as author of Principles of Public International Law, Brownie was also a skillful advocate. Dealing firstly with his legal scholarship, Principles of Public International Law has been accurately described as the ‘most well established and authoritative textbook on international law on the market.’ Brownlie’s other works include: International Law and the Use of Force by States (1963) [his PhD thesis and first book]; Basic Documents in International Law (1967) (6th ed., 2008); Basic Documents on Human Rights (1971) (5th ed., 2006); African Boundaries: A Legal and Diplomatic Encyclopedia (1979); System of the Law of Nations: State Responsibility (1983); and The Reality of International Law: Essays in Honour of Ian Brownlie (1999), co-edited by Guy S Goodwin-Gill, Stefan Talmon and Brownlie himself

Ideological Extremism and the Abuse of Religion: \u27Punishment of Apostasy\u27 as a Rationale for Religious Violence by State and Non-State Actors

This paper critiques the phenomena of religious violence in Arab and Islamic States from a human rights perspective. It highlights the tendency of Islamists who engage in violence to justify their actions by reference to the religious doctrine of ‘apostasy’. The inherent conflict between the notion that apostasy is a punishable crime and universal human rights norms (such as freedom of conscience and religion) is explored. It is argued that one way out of the cycle of religious violence and sectarian hatred is for Arab and Muslim States to adopt non-discriminatory laws modelled on the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which most of these States have ratified). By moving towards a universal human rights based approach to law and punishment, religion becomes a matter of personal conscience and belief. In time the danger of violent abuse of religion by State and non-State actors is likely to recede as there is a cultural shift away from the justification of violence by reference to religion. The thesis advanced below may not appeal to everyone. However so long as the status quo prevails, religious minorities and others will continue to be exposed to discrimination and in some cases violence from religious extremists - be they State or non-State actors - who justify their actions by reference to religious laws that permit violent punishment of ‘apostates’ and ‘heretics’

Crowding in humans is unlike that in convolutional neural networks

Object recognition is a primary function of the human visual system. It has recently been claimed that the highly successful ability to recognise objects in a set of emergent computer vision systems---Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs)---can form a useful guide to recognition in humans. To test this assertion, we systematically evaluated visual crowding, a dramatic breakdown of recognition in clutter, in DCNNs and compared their performance to extant research in humans. We examined crowding in three architectures of DCNNs with the same methodology as that used among humans. We manipulated multiple stimulus factors including inter-letter spacing, letter colour, size, and flanker location to assess the extent and shape of crowding in DCNNs. We found that crowding followed a predictable pattern across architectures that was different from that in humans. Some characteristic hallmarks of human crowding, such as invariance to size, the effect of target-flanker similarity, and confusions between target and flanker identities, were completely missing, minimised or even reversed. These data show that DCNNs, while proficient in object recognition, likely achieve this competence through a set of mechanisms that are distinct from those in humans. They are not necessarily equivalent models of human or primate object recognition and caution must be exercised when inferring mechanisms derived from their operation

‘I am Busy Independent Woman Who has Sense of Humor, Caring about Others’: Older Adults’ Self- representations in Online Dating Profiles

Similar to their younger counterparts, older adults (age +) are increasingly turning to online dating sites to find potential romantic and sexual partners. In this paper, we draw upon qualitative data from a thematic analysis of  randomly selected online dating profiles posted by Canadian heterosexual older adults who self-identified as Asian, Black, Caucasian or Native American. In particular, we exam-ined how the older adults’ self-presentations varied according to race/ethnicity, age and gender, and how the language they used to describe themselves and their preferred potential partners reflected and reinforced idealised images of ageing. Our analysis identified five primary ways in which the older adults portrayed them-selves. They depicted themselves as active and busy with cultural/artistic, social and adventurous activities; and also as physically healthy and intellectually engaged. Third, they emphasised the ways in which they were productive through work and vol-unteer activities. Fourth, they accentuated their positive approach to life, identifying themselves as happy, fun-loving and humorous individuals. Finally, they highlighted their personable characteristics, portraying themselves as trustworthy and caring. We discuss our findings with a particular focus on gender differences, drawing on lit-erature on masculinity and femininity, and also look at capital and power relations by considering the online dating setting as a field in the Bourdieusian sense