Introducing Circularity in Decentralized Solid Waste Management: Lessons for Scaling-Up Technology Options from Alappuzha

This paper examines Alappuzha’s ongoing effort to shift to a decentralized solid waste management regime. Recounting the solid waste crisis that came to a head in 2012, the paper traces the evolution of the town’s decentralised solid waste management practices to glean the key lessons and the considerable challenges that remain in adopting an alternative service management regime. Specifically, the paper reflects on the challenges to scaling up available technology options for integrating circularity and livelihoods in solid waste management. Alappuzha’s experience with decentralised solid waste management indicates that the social dimension in innovation (ensuring buy-in from the local community) is no less significant than the innovation in the technological realm. In fact, the Alappuzha case shows that a relatively rudimentary set of technologies can lead to quantum jump in efficiency of the waste management regime when the local community plays a proactive role in the functioning of the system. The Alappuzha experience indicates that decentralized SWM requires continuous engagement with the end-users and is not easily amenable to top-down technocratic solutions. It was observed that community participation in technology selection led to better buy-in with the end-users conscientious of operations and maintenance requirement

Organised Crime in Asia: Governance and Accountability, Symposium

The Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore and the School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology sponsored a symposium on organised crime in Asia. The symposium held at the National University of Singapore on June 28-29, 2007 brought together, for the first time, law enforcement officers and academics from several different jurisdictions to discuss current perspectives about organised crime. The theme "Organised Crime in Asia: Governance and Accountability" explored the relevance of such criminal activities to corruption and capture of state agencies or agents in the furtherance of criminal enterprises. Nineteen distinguished speakers from several countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Australia, USA, Canada, United Kingdom, and Italy) spoke to the theme. The topics ranged across many of the issues involved such as the definition and trends in 'organised' crime, lethal violence, utilisation of the Internet, money laundering, problems of researching organised crime, drug and human trafficking. Contributors: Ko-lin Chin,Peter Grabosky, Raymond Choo and Russell Smith,Kent Lee, Nicholas Dorn and Mike Levi, Mark Findlay, Vincenzo Ruggerio, Rebecca La Forgia and Marinella Marmo, James Sheptycki, Margaret Lewis, R. Thilagaraj, Noriyoshi Takemura, Mohd Kassim Mohamad, Dan Ng, and Yik-Kon Teh

Divide & Conquer: Race, Gangs, Identity, and Conflict / by Robert D. Weide

10.1080/01419870.2023.2168204Ethnic and Racial Studies473630-63

THE SOCIOLOGY OF POLICING MARITAL VIOLENCE IN SINGAPORE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Theorizing police response to domestic violence in the Singaporean context: Police subculture revisited

This article focuses on the well documented, yet potentially contested concept of rank-and-file policesubculture to conceptualize policeresponse to situations of domesticviolence in Singapore. It argues that the utility of the concept to explaining police behavior is often undermined by an all-powerful, homogenous, and deterministic conception of it that fails to take into account the value of agency in police decision-making and the range of differentiated policeresponse in situations of domesticviolence. Through reviewing the literature on policeresponse to domesticviolence, this study called for the need to rework the concept of policesubculture by treating it as having a relationship with, and response to, the structural conditions of policing, while retaining a conception of the active role played by street-level officers in instituting a situational practice. Using Pierre Bourdieu's relational concepts of ‘habitus’ and ‘field,’ designating the cultural dispositions of policesubculture and structural conditions of policing respectively, the study attempted to reconceptualize the problem of policing domesticviolence with reference to the Singaporean context