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1 – 10 of 80The paper aims to relocate discussions on police stops and police interactions from the Anglophone world to the particularistic context of the post-colonial state of India. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to relocate discussions on police stops and police interactions from the Anglophone world to the particularistic context of the post-colonial state of India. The paper further frames the everyday policing practices in a theoretical dialog between questions of legitimacy, accountability and tolerated illegalities. For that purpose, the author contextualizes the discussion in the post-colonial state of India, in the jurisdictions of two police stations (PSs), in the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the State of Kerala.
Design/methodology/approach
The author conducted ethnographic studies in one station each in Kerala and Delhi, India, from February to July 2019 and July 2019 to January 2020, respectively. The study mapped everyday power relations as the relations manifested within the site and jurisdiction of the PSs.
Findings
Through the research, the author found that to fully understand everyday practices of policing, especially police interactions and police stops, one must contextualize the police force within the administrative power-sharing relations, police force's accountability structures, legal procedures and class dynamics, which mark the terrain in which personnel function. In that terrain, the author found that the dialog between particularistic legitimacy, accountability and tolerated illegalities offered an important framework to interpret the everyday policing practices.
Originality/value
Through the paper, the author seeks to expand the analysis of ethnographic descriptions of policing by contextualizing them in the political economy of the state. In doing so, the author aims to provide a framework through which police interactions in post-colonial India could be understood
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Meropi Tzanetakis and Stefan A. Marx
This chapter examines how darknet drug marketplaces operate within platform capitalism. While capitalist power relations remain underexplored in research on digital drug markets…
Abstract
This chapter examines how darknet drug marketplaces operate within platform capitalism. While capitalist power relations remain underexplored in research on digital drug markets, the analysis shows that the basic foundation of cryptomarkets relies on the infrastructure of platform capitalism. The authors use the concept of platform capitalism to explore cryptomarkets in an ideology-critical way. Platforms are infrastructure for the mediation of buyers and vendors; however, they are designed to extract data on the activities of their users. Platform capitalism refers to the process by which the vast collection of user data feeds into the accumulation of capital. The authors use a dialectical method to examine the constellation of digital drug platforms by disclosing a threefold contradiction: state control and self-regulation; visibility and concealment; and legality and illegality. The analysis reveals that darknet drug platforms make a profit not only from the trade of illicit drugs and the collection of user data, but also based on the illegal status of drugs, the associated ideology, and the closed ecology of darknet platforms. Power relations in cryptomarkets thereby mimic those observed in platform capitalism in general. Finally, the authors discuss the implications of platform capitalism for online drug markets.
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The growth in cryptomarkets has reinvigorated the research on illicit drug distribution due to the availability of large-scale data. This data has enabled researchers to ask new…
Abstract
The growth in cryptomarkets has reinvigorated the research on illicit drug distribution due to the availability of large-scale data. This data has enabled researchers to ask new and detailed questions about how participants in these markets trust each other enough for the market not to collapse. This question deserves more attention because it has become a taken-for-granted notion that repeated transactions and social categories create trust. Whether online or on the street, economic exchanges under illegality are more uncertain than transactions in the legal economy. This puts higher demands on trust, as there is less information and the stakes are higher. In this chapter, the author presents definitions, typologies, and disciplinary contributions to the study of trust and examine how it has been operationalised in a sample of 13 peer-reviewed articles. These articles focus on three dimensions of trust: process-based trust that derives from repeated transactions with known partners; character-based trust measured by the networked reputation scores; and institutional-based trust in the platform and its administrators. In practice, the trust bases are intertwined. Drawing on the broader social science literature on trust, a mesolevel operationalisation that centres on networked reputation scores as embedded in processes and institutions can draw the research together in a multidisciplinary framework.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between “informal economies” and the concept of “resistance.” The author argues that the petty illegalities of the dominated and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between “informal economies” and the concept of “resistance.” The author argues that the petty illegalities of the dominated and subaltern classes should be seen in their connections to the illegalism of the élites and the state. Within this framework, the informal economy is seen as both the outcome of a set of material conditions aiming at the subordinated inclusion of entire classes of citizens, and the mark of the willingness by these same subalterns to evade the bonds imposed on them by the legislations and the social hierarchies.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of the ethnographical and socio-economical literature on the issue of informality, accompanied by ex-post reflections on pertinent studies conducted in the past by the researcher.
Findings
Against the dominant public rhetoric, the informal economy is here seen as a particular space of enactment by the dominated and subalterns aimed at self-producing paradoxical forms of inclusion within social contexts characterized by barriers to access integration within mainstream society. It is argued that in consideration of the power relations that structure the “field,” researchers themselves become part of the struggle counterpoising individuals and institutions, and should thus make a choice among the clashing parties.
Originality/value
The paper draws on a vast body of literature that appears to go in the same direction. However, it radicalizes the instances proposed by previous authors and studies, and draws conclusions concerning the nature of the object and the ethics of research, that are opposed to the prevalent approaches to the subject.
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Shqipe Gashi Nulleshi and Malin Tillmar
The purpose of this paper is to examine how rural entrepreneurship is discussed by analyzing articles in the leading journals of the two main research fields, entrepreneurship…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how rural entrepreneurship is discussed by analyzing articles in the leading journals of the two main research fields, entrepreneurship studies, and rural studies, through the concept of rural proofing.
Design/methodology/approach
The systematic literature review centers on the two main fields where rural entrepreneurship is studied and covers papers in nine leading journals in entrepreneurship studies and two leading journals in rural studies, between the years 1989 and 2020. In total, 97 papers were reviewed and we utilize and operationalize the rural proofing concept based on Fahmy et al.'s (2004) 3 characteristics of rural: remoteness, accessibility, and rural locale and sense of place. The authors take stock of the dimensions of rural proofing addressed within each of the research fields to find similarities and differences; that is, if articles are rural proofed (or not) when discussing rural entrepreneurship.
Findings
The classification of articles across the three dimensions of rural proofing shows that the field of rural entrepreneurship is being addressed mainly in the dimensions of remoteness and accessibility, while few authors in rural studies journals give priority to the rural locale and sense of place dimension. The results of the authors' review reveal that out of a total of 97 articles on rural entrepreneurship, 56 articles address at least one dimension of rural proofing and 41 articles do not address any dimension. Among the 41 articles not rural proofed, rurality is not problematized when discussing rural entrepreneurship. Instead, the authors focus on specific topics such as social capital, community entrepreneurship/networks, entrepreneurs'/farmers' identity, illegality in rural areas, and institutional framework. The number of non-rural-proofed articles in entrepreneurship journals is almost double that in rural studies journals. This means that authors in entrepreneurship journals do not problematize rurality to the same extent as authors in rural studies journals when addressing rural entrepreneurship.
Research limitations/implications
The authors emphasize the need for increased cross-fertilization between the fields of entrepreneurship and rural studies as an avenue to develop the entrepreneurship field in the direction towards rural proofing. A close collaboration with academia and policymakers is essential to promote interdisciplinary research in order to make a distinctive contribution to rural development. Scholars in either of the two fields will benefit from our review and identification of similarities and differences in the research. The review is one step towards promoting a closer dialog between the two fields.
Originality/value
Previous reviews have focused mainly on what rural entrepreneurship entails (e.g. what topics are discussed) rather than how rural entrepreneurship is discussed. This paper centers on the differences and similarities of the two main fields and provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of how rural entrepreneurship is discussed by utilizing the rural proofing concept.
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Isabel Pereira and Lucía Ramírez
Colombia has been one of the main cocaine producing countries. The state’s response has been a repressive approach against the primary levels of the coca economy, such as…
Abstract
Colombia has been one of the main cocaine producing countries. The state’s response has been a repressive approach against the primary levels of the coca economy, such as cultivators and consumers. Although recent literature has documented the gendered impacts of drug policy, that is not the case for women who grow illicit crops. This chapter examines the ways drug policy has impacted women coca growers, cocaleras, in Putumayo, Colombia. Cocalero or cocalera is the term referred to rural workers dedicated to the cultivation and harvest of coca leaf. The term is a vindication from these communities, dignifying the rural activities they perform. In this chapter, we will use the term cocalera to refer to women coca growers.
From an intersectional gender perspective, the chapter explores the implications of rural life, gender, armed conflict and illegality over the trajectories of cocaleras in Putumayo, southern Colombia, a region where non-state armed actors, poverty and a precarious state presence converge. In this context, cultivating coca has become the main livelihood for rural families. It has transformed women’s roles within their communities, providing them with economic autonomy they previously did not have, but also located them in vulnerable positions. This chapter – which is an adaption from some chapters of the book ‘Voices from the coca fields: Women Building Rural Communities’ (Dejusticia, 2018 ) – is the outcome of research undertaken through in-depth interviews and social mapping exercises.