Stanford University Press Blog

Pardis Mahdavi and Rhacel Parreñas on Human Trafficking

Across the globe each year there exist an astonishing number of humans who are forced into labor in one way or another. The numbers range from hundreds of thousands to millions upon millions, and yet each year we fail to understand the true process and implications of human trafficking. SUP authors Pardis Mahdavi and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas take us one step further toward understanding this grave phenomenon in their books, which highlight the behind-the-scenes aspect of human trafficking. 

Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo by Rhacel Parreñas has yet to be published and will hit the shelves in September of this year. In the book, Parrenas attempts to unveil the true nature of trafficking in Japan by documenting her experience while working alongside Filipina migrant workers--who accounted for more that 10 percent of the total estimated trafficking victims in 2004.  She addresses both the unknown and the misconceived in the world of trafficking and attempts to uncover the true motives and experiences of the workers themselves. 

Like Parreñas’ forthcoming book, Pardis Mahdavi’s recent Gridlock: Labor, Migration and Human Trafficking in Dubai also addresses the misunderstandings of forced human labor and how they can lead to more harm than good for the workers involved. Gridlock illustrates the true reality and atrocity of the migrant worker’s life in Dubai with an abundance of personal narratives from the workers themselves. 

Mahdavi supplements the workers' stories with exhaustive research into the Western policies for tracking and limiting human trafficking. The US creates a Trafficking in Persons Report each year, categorizing countries into 3 tiers of trafficking conditions. While some believe that the TIP Report is a political tactic for the US, masked in the rosy language of human rights, Mahdavi believes that though the Western policies may be more harmful than helpful in some cases, the TIP is a respectable and viable step to identifying and reducing human trafficking instances around the globe.  You can view the TIP Report as well as the designated 3-Tier chart here. 

In a recent review in Jadaliyya, the relationship between Mahdavi’s research and the TIP Report is examined and excerpts of the compelling worker narratives are explored.  Through these excerpts is a glimpse into how Mahdavi highlights the fact that people enter into forced labor for any number of reasons – force, economic conditions, escape – while still focusing on the fact that Western anti-trafficking policies may serve to make circumstances worse for the trafficked persons and delving into aspects of Western trafficking policy that many may be unfamiliar with.   

To learn more about SUP’s author’s insights into human trafficking, visit the Stanford University Press website for more on Pardis Mahdavi’s Gridlock here and the upcoming Illicit Flirtations by Rhacel Parreñas here.

 

Back to School Reading List, Part IV

This week, as the Supreme Court reconvenes after summer break, Keith Bybee’s All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law  is on our back-to-school reading list.  Bybee considers the curious state of the American judicial system and public opinion in which,  as he wrote in a recent post for the Washington Post’s ‘Political Bookworm’ blog, “we routinely pair lofty assertions of principle and impartiality with the aggressive pursuit of partial interests, calling for neutral application of the law at the same time that we demand our side win.”  (In some circles, that’s called wanting to have our cake and eat it too.)  While this apparent contradiction or hypocrisy might make one think that our judicial system is on the verge of collapse, it is in fact this very contradiction that creates a dynamic that actually underwrites enables it.
 Listen to Bybee discuss the book on WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show".

Leo Chavez on Arizona's new Immigration Law

The nation is stirring over Arizona's new immigration law that allows authorities to question anyone that they suspect is in the country illegally. Some say it's a good idea to investigate suspects while others think it's merely an excuse to for authorities to question people based on their Hispanic appearance alone.

Leo Chavez is the author of the book The Latino Threat, which investigates how stereotypes and prejudices have plagued the immigrant population and redefined what it means to be American. Chavez was recently interviewed by the Huffington Post and uses his expertise in the subject to shed light on the issues at stake in Arizona immigration.

Read the Huffington Post interview  here.

The internal justice situation in Arizona – Dr. Mona Lynch to testify before House Study Committee

The Arizona State Legislature will hold a House Study Committee on sentencing this Friday to review and assess Arizona’s sentencing laws, which have been criticized by some for being overwhelmingly harsh. The Committee will hear testimony from State Representatives, members of the House Corrections Committee and the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee, and other experts on the subject.

Dr. Mona Lynch, author of Sunbelt Justice: Arizona and the Transformation of American Punishment, (Stanford University Press, 2009) has been invited to testify as well. Lynch’s book examines the development of the Arizona penal system over a period of fifty years, and she uses this history to help explain some of the catalysts of the national trend toward expanded use of imprisonment and harsh sentencing. Lynch will present her research and opinions to the Arizona House Study Committee on Friday, May 14.

You can watch the meeting via live stream and find out more details  on the Arizona State Legislature website.

Degree doesn’t guarantee employment: Jeffery on the “Timepass” phenomenon in India

A recent article on livemint.com explores the devastating unemployment phenomenon in small town India, where even the most educated people have difficulty attaining the jobs they seek.

The most sought after jobs in India are those in the government sector – they offer stability and benefits that are unparalleled compared to other employment opportunities.  However, these jobs are not easy to come by. Students with several bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and even PhDs are having trouble securing a steady job at all. The education available to students in rural India is simply not up to par, and even students with advanced degrees cannot compete with graduates from more prestigious institutions like Delhi University.

The article cites the work of Craig Jeffrey, a scholar at Oxford University who has become an expert on the subject. Jeffrey is the author of the forthcoming book Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India in which he presents a case study of Meerut -- just one of the towns in India where inferior educational opportunities and the resulting hiring bias have put local graduates at a disadvantage.

“The word (timepass) should have a positive connotation,” explains Jeffrey, “but for these men it has a melancholy, sad feeling. They feel that they are being left behind; for them, life has just become a timepass.”

Many rural students get so discouraged that they give up and return to their villages and an agrarian life. Others, however, remain optimistic about their future careers and persistent in trying to carve out an academic program that will allow them to achieve their goals.  Jeffrey presents both sides of the situation in his fascinating study.

Craig Jeffrey's, Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India, will be published in August, 2010, by Stanford University Press.

Being "smart on crime," Mona Lynch on Arizona's corrections budget

With the economic pitfalls of the past few years still tightening state budgets across the U.S., every dollar counts. There are many factors contributing to state budgets, and in Arizona, prison sentencing has become a hot topic in budget reform. A recent article in azfamily.com asks "Could sentencing reform save the state money, help justice system?"

According to the article, over 10 percent of Arizona’s state budget will go to corrections next year because of the increase of sentencing happening in the state. Mona Lynch, author of Sunbelt Justice has studied the Arizona state system and explains that this increase in sentencing happened because power was taken out of judicial hands and given to prosecutors.  Lynch's book looks at the development of Arizona's punishment politics, policies, and practices, and brings to light just how and why we have become a mass incarceration nation. With her years of research in the area, Lynch suggests that the answer to the sentencing budget woes of Arizona lie not in being tough on crime but “’smart on crime’, spending dollars where they'll have the most impact.” With the state and nation’s budget the way it is, perhaps they’ll take her advice.

Read the full article on azfamily.com here.

Is Health Care Reform Possible?

Stephen Davidson, author of the upcoming Still Broken, Understanding the U.S. Health Care System lays out the problems of our health care system and asks what changes we need to solve those problems. He goes on to explain, in a political context, what strategy for reform might get us close to a solution. His approach to health care, “intended to be both comprehensive and analytic, attempts to build on the lessons gained from past reform efforts with the goal of helping to make reform a reality of this time.” (p14)

With the health care Summit still fresh on the nation’s political mind, we might ask where health care reform will go from here and if reform really is a reality of our time. The bi-partisan summit yesterday brought many points to light from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, although some say it may have been just more political theater. President Obama began the summit yesterday by saying:

“I'd like to make sure that this discussion is actually a discussion, and not just us trading talking points. I hope that this isn't political theater, where we're just playing to the cameras and criticizing each other, but instead are actually trying to solve the problem.”

Davidson thinks that the solution lies in generating the political momentum to pass one comprehensive bill that encompasses all pertinent areas of reform: increasing access, improving quality, and containing health care expenditure so that all individuals can afford and have access to good health care. While the Obama administration’s current plan, along with the two bills already passed, may not be a silver bullet in Davidson’s mind, he does see them as a historic achievement nonetheless. 

“But will they cross the finish line?” Only one other administration has been able to bring health reform to the floor, and that was Lyndon Johnson 36 years ago. Davidson points out that thus far the Obama administration has succeeded, in some ways, that he hadn’t predicted. However, one area they have lacked in is taking advantage of the bully pulpit. The president has yet to really rally the public and the Democratic Party into reform. At this point, it seems like a do or die situation. If Congress cannot reconcile their views and pass one comprehensive reform, not only will it be a political downfall for the democratic administration but it’s possible that we’ll go another thirty some years without a chance of any reform at all.

     The White House reported that President Obama will make and announcement next week about what the best way forward will be from this point. Will health care reform become a reality?  Will President Obama rally support from the nation and his party? As Steve Benen points out in the Washington Monthly, “The train is leaving the station. If 217 House Dems and 51 Senate Dems are on board, the nation will finally have the health care reform we've been waiting for since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. If not, reform will die, the crisis will worsen, and Democrats will have committed electoral suicide on a grand scale.”

Privacy in its Various Contexts

What kinds of things are you comfortable sharing? Your “Interests” and favorite “Quotations” on Facebook – many people are. Your professional profile on Linkedin – absolutely. Your personal financial documents and bill statements – maybe not.  Ultimately, everyone has a different take on what they think should be private.

With all the different possible circumstances, perhaps we shouldn’t base our definition of privacy on the convention arguments between private and public; personal and collective; protected and unprotected.  But how should we be approaching the idea of privacy? In this day and age when the advent of the internet has allowed unthinkable expanses of information to be available at the click of a mouse, how should privacy be defined -- from both political and moral standpoints?

 In an interview with Concurring Opinions, Helen Nissenbaum, author of Privacy in Context, Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, sheds light on this very question. Nissenbaum posits that instead of focusing on a public/private distinction, we should focus on what particular constraints should be placed on any information in any particular situation. So rather than place info into one of two categories, we would decide how much regulation, if any, that particular information should have in context.

So, when we join online communities like Facebook and Linkedin, we allow a certain amount of personal information to be accessible to others and we decide just how much we’d like them to see. However, when we sign up for online banking, we expect that all of the information we enter is protected and unseen by others. It’s not a simple matter of private vs. public anymore. With so many possible ways to share information, it seems like a two-category system just won’t work. While the amount of information flowing through our world increases daily, a look at privacy in its various contexts may be just what we need to sort it out.

Is a global floor possible? Heymann on working conditions around the world

There have been many theories and countless myths about the economic costs of providing good working conditions around the world This despite the fact that we have had little data to compare costs  and related benefits across different countries.  Working with a team of international researchers, Jody Heyman (and coauthor Alison Earle) of Raising the Global Floor, worked to fix that.  The book compares data from  190 countries, finally giving us a comprehensive look at working conditions around the globe. In recent interviews with ZÓcalo and the Diane Rehm show, Heymann uses her research to answer previously unanswerable questions, most importantly: What can we do to make a global floor possible?

 Previous theories about good working conditions have held that providing benefits in the workplace puts an upward pressure on prices and can be bad for a company’s, or a nation’s, competitiveness leading to an increase in unemployment. According to Heymann, “It turns out they’re just not factually true.”  She found that most countries actually do provide basic benefits like sick leave, including 14 of the 15 most competitive countries (all except the U.S.) However, many developing countries are behind, and even some of the world’s top competitors, like the U.S., have neglected to provide very basic needs to workers.

On the Diane Rehm Show, Heymann mentioned that one reason for the rapid spread of the H1N1 flu in the U.S. early last year may have been that in the absence of sick leave people continued to work even though they were sick, allowing the disease to spread quickly. Over 60 million Americans are currently without paid sick leave, according to Heymann, making the U.S. extremely behind other top competitive economies countries in that respect.

Overall, the research in the book supports the fact that the countries that flourish the most have provided workers with at least some benefits, (excluding the U.S.) Though our own country seems to be lagging in this respect, Heymann is optimistic about our future. When identifying what kinds of conditions would be needed for a global floor, Heymann makes it clear that things like paid sick leave for all, and annual family leave are beneficial for both workers and businesses.

So, is a global floor what we need for a better economy? Perhaps, according to Heymann’s findings, “the answer is yes.”

Stepping up science: Mitroff on the 'climategate' clamor

The recent ‘climategate’ flap – regarding some leaked e-mails suggesting that science has manipulated data to under-exaggerate global warming – has caused quite a stir within the field of science, and more importantly, outside of it.

 In an op-ed in the Short Stack of the Washington Post, Ian I. Mitroff addresses the ‘climategate’ scandal. Mitroff attributes the commotion surrounding climategate to science’s inability to educate the public about how scientific research is actually conducted. While science is often seen as a completely objective field of knowledge, what people have to bear in mind is that in reality science is conducted by real humans with, understandably, real opinions and biases. This fact, however, does not make science any less respectable or true.

As Mitroff says in his book Dirty Rotten Strategies: How we Trick Ourselves and Others into Solving the Wrong Problems Precisely, (co-author Abraham Silvers) “Although science is certainly one of the best ways that humans have ever invented for producing knowledge, it is not the only way.” What Mitroff wants us to take away from the 'climatgate' flap is not that science is flaky and fallible but that scientists do have social considerations and biases that actually allow their data to be better tested and proven over time. From Mitroff’s piece in the Short Stack: “ It's not just that opposing biases cancel out -- which they do -- but that opposing passions prod scientists to collect more data and invent new theories to see who's right. Without such passions, science would grind to a halt. After all, science is done by all-too-human beings.”

Scientists must now be unafraid to bring the social aspects of the field into the light of the public. Then, perhaps, we might have a better understanding of their methods and a better chance of dealing with the important issues that lie in our future.