Political Activism and the Experience of Adversity

Objective: To explore the relationship between adverse experience in childhood, social support, and physical and psychological sub-health status among middle school students in 3 cities in China. Methods: 15 278 adolescents were selected as subjects from 20 junior and senior middle schools located in 3 cities of China by stratified cluster sampling method. The survey collected the demographic information, ACEs, social support and physical-psychological status. A total of 14 820 valid questionnaires were retained for analysis. We assessed ACE score (count of six categories of childhood adversity), social support (adolescent social support questionnaire), and the prevalence of two outcomes: physiological and psychological sub-health status. Logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, social support, and physiological and psychological sub-health status. Results: The prevalence of physiological and psychological sub-health status were 26.4% (3 917/14 820) and 24.1%(3 572/14 820), respectively. A total of 89.4% (13 247/14 820) reported at least 1 adverse childhood experiences. The rates of physiological and psychological sub-health status were higher among girls (28.1%(2 092/7 443), 26.0%(1 932/7 443)) than boys (24.7%(1 825/7 377), 22.2%(1 640/7 377)). Among adolescents without ACEs, the rate of physiological and psychological sub-health status were 15.4%(243/1 573) and 10.4%(163/1 573), for those with 5-6 ACEs, the rate were 40.9%(636/1 556) and 43.6%(678/1 556). Among adolescents with higher social support, the rate of physiological and psychological sub-health status were 19.9%(724/3 635) and 13.0%(474/3 635) for those with lower social support, the rate of physiological and psychological sub-health status were 35.9%(1 403/3 913) and 39.0%(1 528/3 913). The rates of physiological and psychological sub-health status were higher with more ACE exposure or less social support. At each level of ACE exposure, physiological and psychological sub-health status were less in those with greater social support. For example, among adolescents reporting 5-6 ACEs, those in the lowest tertile of social support increased the risk of physiological sub-health status than those in the highest tertile (adjusted prevalence ratio (95%CI)=1.79 (1.23-2.56)); for those reporting no ACEs, the ratio was 3.04 (1.91-4.83). Among adolescents reporting 5-6 ACEs, those in the lowest tertile of social support increased the risk of psychological sub-health status than those in the highest tertile (adjusted prevalence ratio (95%CI)=3.77 (2.57-5.52)); for those reporting no ACEs, the ratio was 3.97(2.33-6.76). Conclusion: The findings suggest that ACEs should be considered as risk factors for physiological and psychological sub-health status among middle school students. Across a range of exposures to ACEs, less social support was associated with more physiological and psychological sub-health status. Identifying those with ACE exposure who also have lower social support could be used to improve the health of adolescents.

Violence against children is actually as serious public health, human rights, legal and social issue in Latvia. Currently there is a significant amount of information available about the negative long...

Outcomes research examines the effects of healthcare interventions and policies on health outcomes for individual patients and populations in routine practice, as opposed to the idealized setting of clinical trials. A national survey from 1998 to 2000 that evaluated the extent to which patients received established processes of care for 30 medical conditions illustrated the importance of outcomes research.1 Among adults living in 12 metropolitan areas in the United States, only half of patients received proven elements of preventive care, treatments for acute illness, and chronic disease management for which they were eligible. For cardiovascular conditions, the use of proven therapies varied widely from 68% to 25% of patients who received recommended care for coronary artery disease and atrial fibrillation, respectively.1 Despite these gaps between ideal and actual care, patient outcomes have improved in many fields. For instance, the age-adjusted mortality from cardiovascular disease in the United States fell by >40% from 1980 to 2000 as a result of improvements in risk factor modification and uptake of evidence-based treatments for coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, and heart failure.2,3 Nevertheless, many Americans do not receive the ideal recommended care (either at all or in a timely fashion), whereas others receive too much or the wrong care.4,5 In the field of cardiovascular diseases, substantial opportunities for improvement remain. Outcomes research has generated a foundation of knowledge about what constitutes ideal care and what gaps exist between ideal and actual care, but we have less understanding about how to deliver this ideal care to every patient every day. The potential for basic science breakthroughs to reach and improve the health of individual patients and populations may be substantially delayed or may not be realized if science is not efficiently translated to action. Moreover, in many cases, increased delivery of …

Recent research demonstrated the potential of psychedelic drugs as treatment for depression and death-related anxiety and as an enhancement for well-being. While generally positive, responses to psychedelic drugs can vary according to traits, setting, and mental state (set) before and during ingestion. Most earlier models explain minimal response variation, primarily related to dosage and trust, but a recent study found that states of surrender and preoccupation at the time of ingestion explained substantial variance in mystical and adverse psilocybin experiences. The current study sought to replicate the previous model, extend the model with additional predictors, and examine the role of mystical experience on positive change. A hierarchical regression model was created with crowdsourced retrospective data from 183 individuals who had self-administered psilocybin in the past year. Scales explored mental states before, during, and after psilocybin ingestion, relying on open-ended memory prompts at each juncture to trigger recollections. Controlled drug administration was not employed. This study replicated the previous model, finding a state of surrender before ingestion a key predictor of optimal experience and preoccupation a key predictor of adverse experience. Additional predictors added to the explanatory power for optimal and adverse experience. The model supported the importance of mystical experiences to long-term change. Mental states of surrender or preoccupation at the time of ingestion explain variance in mystical or adverse psilocybin experiences, and mystical experiences relate to long-term positive change. The capacity to recognize this optimal preparatory mental state may benefit therapeutic use of psilocybin in clinical settings.

Human Rights & Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. By Sally Engle Merry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Pp. ix+269. $55.00 cloth; $20.00 paper. Cultural Bourdieu taught us, denotes critical and diacritical markings of social status, distinguishing us from them. Human Rights 6? Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice, Merry invites us to rethink culture as capital, with provocative implications. the new international order, culture, like capital, is at once a resource and the instantiation of complex relationships embedded in time and place. And, in the current global movement to promote human rights and eradicate gender violence, cultures, like different forms of capital, have more or less currency. Merry begins her analysis with a simple but powerful statement: In order for human rights ideas to be effective ... they need to be translated into local terms and situated within local contexts of power and meaning. They need, in other words, to be remade in the vernacular (p. 1). Merry explores the work of creating, exporting, interpreting, and implementing human rights discourse. She begins at the top-at the United Nations (UN)guiding us into the corridors and meeting rooms in which (mostly) women write and debate model legislation (mostly) for nations of the South. The UN officials, nongovernmental organization members, and state representatives involved in this process hold standards that emphasize personal autonomy, security, and equal rights. the culture of the human rights activists, these premises are nonnegotiable. Enter next into this world the complex array of cultures as commodity forms in which different use and exchange values compete. Cultures that protect human and gender rights are highly valued; those that permit gender inequity and ignore gender violence are not. From the UN Merry takes us into the Asia-Pacific region, visiting Hawaii, Delhi, Beijing, Fiji, and Hong Kong, where human rights laws are being implemented. She describes organizations, programs, and networks that promote human and gender rights. She finds common patterns in each place, that the universalizing culture we have encountered at the UN and its human rights discourse homogenizes. Everywhere it carries forward the mantra of the autonomous person, the safe body, and the rights-bearing citizen. Everywhere, too, it uses similar tactics: pressure on states to adopt accords and agreements, surveys to document abuse, training workshops to eradicate violence, hotlines and shelters for victims, counseling sessions for batterers, and T-shirts that advocate freedom from violence. To be successful, however, local advocates must translate theory into community action. This discussion of the translators, the people who adapt universal principles to local conditions and institutions, is one of the book's most insightful. How do grassroots activists translate global human rights into a language and praxis that is meaningful to people who are far from the centers where such laws are created? …

New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights is a contribution to both sociology and to human rights research, particularly where these are oriented to challenging power relations and inequalities in contemporary societies. It expands and develops the sociology of human rights as a sub-field of sociology and of interdisciplinary human rights scholarship. The volume suggests new directions for the use of social and sociological theories to analyse issues such as torture and genocide; and addresses a range of issues and themes which have not previously been a sustained focus in the sociology of human rights literature, ranging from climate change and the human rights of soldiers to corporate social responsibility and children’s rights in relation to residential care. The collection is thus multi-dimensional, examining a range of specific empirical contexts, and also considering relationships between sociological analysis and human rights scholarship and activism. Hence in a variety of ways it points the way for future analyses, and also for human rights activism and practices. It is intended to widen our field of vision in the sociology of human rights, and to spark both new ideas and new forms of political engagement. We have co-edited this volume as conveners of the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of Rights Study Group. 1 New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights is a successor to our previous special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights, titled ‘Sociology and Human Rights: New Engagements’, which was published in November 2010 and edited by the same team. 2 That original volume included an introductory article outlining the history of the relationship between sociology and human rights and the state of our sub-field as we saw it, 3 together with contributions by members of the study group, on a wide range of themes. The collection was subsequently published as a book of the same title. 4 More recently we have co-edited the annual special issue of the British Sociological Association’s journal Sociology, presenting a volume titled The Sociology of Human Rights which was published in October 2012. 5 That volume originated with a Call for Papers which received 83 submissions, and we were informed this was the highest number in the recent history of Sociology, demonstrating a huge appetite for the development of the sociology of human rights as a field. ‘The Sociology of Human Rights’ included a range of articles which delineated and engaged with the major analytical axes and conceptual parameters of the sociology of human rights, as suggested in a substantial editorial foreword; it thus offered an extensive map of the field in theoretical terms, while simultaneously including research from a number of empirical contexts internationally. New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights by comparison is distinctive for opening up and addressing a wide range of substantive issues, empirical contexts and topics in the sociology of human rights, with a somewhat greater emphasis on examining the application of human rights in practice, while also pressing forward sociological analysis in areas where its deployment is underdeveloped. The collection addresses the place of human rights in relation to key social

The Republic of South Africa has erected a constitutional democracy including many institutional devices for the protection of human rights following a long process of negotiations between groups in deep conflict. How can we judge the probability of successful democracy in South Africa, taking a long‐term perspective? The article employs the regression technique for estimating the impact of social and political conditions upon democratic viability there. Adding the positives and the negatives together, the article concludes that there is a structural and institutional deficit, especially if one accepts the very high democracy rankings of South Africa made recently. In the long‐run perspective this is a negative for democratic viability in South Africa.

Responding to sexual violence in armed conflict

Author’s Response

Globalizing Human Rights: The Work of Transnational Human Rights NGOs in the 1990s Jackie Smith (bio), Ron Pagnucco (bio), and George A. Lopez (bio) I. Introduction This paper summarizes the results of a mailed survey sent to nearly 300 transnational human rights organizations, of which more than half responded. The survey was designed to identify the geographic distributions of human rights organizations, their political activities, their work with international agencies, their organizational structures and resources, their links with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and their definitions of human rights goals. This study is part of a larger project to better understand how the work of transnational human rights NGOs influences global political and social change. [End Page 379] A. Background 1 Research on the development of international human rights law and institutions has identified the crucial role played by nongovernmental agents in defining international human rights norms, developing institutional mechanisms to ensure adherence to international norms, and monitoring national and local human rights practices. In recent years, researchers have made more concerted efforts to understand how NGOs operate and interact with other global actors to promote changes in local and global policies. 2 This research grows in part from the observation that a growing number of NGOs are engaging in international political activities. An increasing number of these groups are organized across national boundaries. This study is directed toward a better understanding of the work being done by transnational human rights NGOs. Much of the existing research on transnational human rights NGOs consists of: case studies of individual organizations working for human rights; 3 comparative studies of a select number of organizations; 4 studies of the work of human rights organizations and institutions in specific countries or regions; 5 and studies of the political processes surrounding human rights standard-setting and enforcement. 6 This study complements previous research [End Page 380] with a systematic survey of the population of transnational human rights NGOs, addressing questions about how these groups are organized and how they seek to influence global human rights work. The survey was intended to help answer, in a systematic way, a series of questions involving the array of transnational human rights NGOs, their locations, resources, structures, and memberships. Special emphasis was placed on the distribution between the Global North and South, and whether these transnational human rights NGOs are mass-based organizations with many individual members or, rather, are comprised largely of small professional staffs. There is an underlying assumption that the structure and the configuration of organizations within the movement will have important consequences for the human rights movement’s goals, strategies, and impacts. In addition, the mandates of these NGOs were compared, with emphasis on the difference in the goals on which these NGOs focus and the categories of rights that are receiving their attention. It will be interesting to see what these differences reveal about the human rights movement. What are the strategies and activities of international human rights NGOs? Is there some kind of specialization or division of labor among them? Do all the groups work with international institutions? How much attention does the human rights movement devote to public education on human rights, standard-setting, implementation, and enforcement? What do the differences in activities tell about the human rights movement? How fragmented and competitive are the NGOs? Is this a diffuse and uncooperative human rights movement, or is there some degree of integration and cooperation? Below follows a description of some of the broad characteristics of international human rights NGOs in an attempt to begin to answer these questions. B. The Survey The survey used in this study was developed in consultation with human rights advocates, scholars of international human rights politics, and researchers familiar with organizational surveys. 7 Several items in the survey [End Page 381] build upon previous studies of national social change organizations such as those John McCarthy has made of US-based organizations working to combat drunken driving 8 and to promote empowerment of the poor. 9 It also builds upon a survey of national and local US-based peace movement organizations 10 and a broad study of US voluntary associations by Dennis Young and colleagues. 11 Relying on previous studies...

This opening contribution to ‘Social-Environmental Conflicts, Extractivism and Human Rights in Latin America’ analyses how human rights have emerged as a weapon in the political battleground over the environment as natural resource extraction has become an increasingly contested and politicised form of development. It examines the link between human rights abuses and extractivism, arguing that this new cycle of protests has opened up new political spaces for human rights based resistance. Furthermore, the explosion of socio-environmental conflicts that have accompanied the expansion and politicisation of natural resources has highlighted the different conceptualisations of nature, development and human rights that exist within Latin America. While new human rights perspectives are emerging in the region, mainstream human rights discourses are providing social movements and activists with the legal power to challenge extractivism and critique the current development agenda. However, while the application of human rights discourses can put pressure on governments, it has yielded limited concrete results largely because the state as a guardian of human rights remains fragile in Latin America and is willing to override their commitment to human and environmental rights in the pursuit of development. Lastly, individual contributions to the volume are introduced and future directions for research in natural resource development and human rights are suggested.

Two studies investigated children's reasoning about their mental and bodily states during the time prior to biological conception-"prelife." By exploring prelife beliefs in 5- to 12-year-olds (N=283) from two distinct cultures (urban Ecuadorians, rural indigenous Shuar), the studies aimed to uncover children's untutored intuitions about the essential features of persons. Results showed that with age, children judged fewer mental and bodily states to be functional during prelife. However, children from both cultures continued to privilege the functionality of certain mental states (i.e., emotions, desires) relative to bodily states (i.e., biological, psychobiological, perceptual states). Results converge with afterlife research and suggest that there is an unlearned cognitive tendency to view emotions and desires as the eternal core of personhood.

This dissertation asks: What is the relationship between the political activity of undocumented migrants and the effectiveness of human rights law? The relationship between human rights law and migrant politics it is a two-way street; political rights provide an infrastructure and protection for political activities; and political activities in turn contribute to rights-making. The introductory chapter lays out a very specific definition of ‘right’ and ‘rights-making’. A right is not only ‘made’ when it becomes formal law—it is ‘made’ when it is realized; it is ‘made’ when it is applied; it is ‘made’ when it is used. This dissertation aims to inform effective interpretation of undocumented migrant political rights, in order to further the overall protection of undocumented migrant human rights. There exists extensive legal analysis about the inclusion and exclusion of undocumented migrants from different human rights, but this detailed analysis does not extend to political rights. The general exclusion of migrants from political rights is assumed without detailed legal analysis. At the same time, there is well developed literature from other disciplines on the political practices of migrants, which literature also suggest a relationship between these political practices and the effectivity of human rights law. Political theorists write that human rights-claiming constitutes rights subjectivity; sociologists and anthropologists write that migrant activism furthers access to the content of rights; political scientists write extensively on the political participation practices of migrants; and social movement and legal mobilization scholars write about the role of migrant activism in lobbying for treaty drafting and ratification, or engaging in strategic litigation to apply existing rights to migrant claimants. This dissertation brings together these different academic traditions within a human rights legal analysis to make sense of this political activity in a legal way. Rather than reverting to a legal analysis that focuses on state practices of exclusion at the border; or a habit of defining a political community as formal citizens, this dissertation encourages careful legal analysis of the political rights of migrants with attention for effectivity of the political rights that migrants ‘have’. Rather than reverting to a political theoretical analysis to understand the rights subjectivity of migrants, this dissertation shows when and how the migrant is the subject of political rights under human rights law. Part I of the dissertation contains a doctrinal analysis of the political rights of migrants under international human rights law. While Chapter 2 focuses on the political participation rights of ‘migrants’ broadly (documented and undocumented), Chapter 3 shifts to an analysis of ‘adjunct political rights’ (freedoms of expression, assembly, association) of undocumented migrants. Part II of the dissertation contains the legal ethnographic analysis with three case studies that explore the ‘use’ of adjunct political rights by undocumented migrant activists. Each of the three chapters in Part II focuses on the use one of the three adjunct political rights (expression, assembly, association) by undocumented migrant activists. The dissertation has suggested an epistemological shift toward thinking of the undocumented migrant rights subject not only as the recipient of piecemeal socio-economic rights, but as the political and legal subject—a rights-maker of human rights law. This shift has required a shifting lexicon on the political rights of migrants toward a conceptualization that reflects the political activities of migrants in multiple jurisdictions and against multiple duty bearers. This shift has also encouraged an engagement with the principle of effectiveness that is responsive to the unique ways that undocumented migrants exercise freedom, as understood through empirical legal scholarship.

Evidence-informed and human rights-based combination prevention combines behavioural, biomedical, and structural interventions to address both the immediate risks and underlying causes of vulnerability to HIV infection, and the pathways that link them. Because these are context-specific, no single prescription or standard package will apply universally. Anchored in 'know your epidemic' estimates of where the next 1000 infections will occur and 'know your response' analyses of resource allocation and programming gaps, combination prevention strategies seek to realign programme priorities for maximum effect to reduce epidemic reproductive rates at local, regional, and national levels. Effective prevention means tailoring programmes to local epidemics and ensuring that components are delivered with the intensity, quality, and scale necessary to achieve intended effects. Structural interventions, addressing the social, economic, cultural, and legal constraints that create HIV risk environments and undermine the agency of individuals to protect themselves and others, are also public goods in their own right. Applying the principles of combination prevention systematically and consistently in HIV programme planning, with due attention to context, can increase HIV programme effectiveness. Better outcome and impact measurement using multiple methods and data triangulation can build the evidence base on synergies between the components of combination prevention at individual, group, and societal levels, facilitating iterative knowledge translation within and among programmes.

Protest and activism embody a critical communicative dimension. From alternative broadcast and print media to community radio and television, from internet activism to the contemporary protesting on social media, the history and trajectory of social movements worldwide is deeply intertwined with communication and technology. With the transition to the digital, rights like freedom of opinion, freedom of expression and freedom of association have taken on a new meaning. This chapter will adopt the human rights perspective to explore protest activism as it meets communicative action and media technology. The aim of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand, it takes the use of media and technology for protest and activism as a human right, pertaining in particular to the sphere of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to know. On the other hand, it looks at how social movements put media and technology at the service of human rights and related struggles. Here the use of media for protest and activism is articulated in relation to the manifold ways in which technology shapes the way human rights discourse is presented in the public sphere, focusing in particular the human right struggle is articulated across a variety of platforms. The chapter straddles the disciplines of media studies and political sociology, and builds on our extensive research on community media, internet activism, cloud protesting (or the use of social media for political mobilization), and communication and digital rights. It is illustrated with examples from the author's experience in the field in a variety of countries in Latin America, Africa and Europe.