Pushed to the Margins: Ethiopian Migrants in South Africa

Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa are increasingly occupying informal trading space in townships, rural areas and in select central business districts across the country. This article documents the experiences of Ethiopian migrants in the informal sector in South Africa. Theoretically, the article rests on the concept of everyday life. It draws on data from interviews, focus group discussions and observations carried out between October 2020 and September 2021. This signals a period in which everyone was challenged by COVID-19, especially migrants, which compounded the hierarchies of marginality in which Ethiopian migrants in South Africa are situated. Coupled with this, Ethiopian migrants face two broad levels of marginality: firstly, marginality from state policies and the communities in which they reside and work;and secondly, marginality from gendered and class-based inequalities within the Ethiopian community. The structural and hegemonic barriers range from lack of documentation to regularize residency status and business respectively, extortion by gangs in the name of "protection fee,” exploitation by local level state/community structures and women restricted to female roles. By the same token, we see the creativity and ingenuity of this community, that focuses on their personhood, to make sense of their lives and create conditions to live meaningful lives. This article explores some of the core contestations emerging out of these twin marginalities the ways in which Ethiopian migrants structure their lives and livelihoods in South Africa.

Microlevel Analysis of Institutional Intermediation in a Rudimentary Market-Based Economy: Entrepreneurship in Kathmandu's Indrachok Market

Institutional theory research on institutional intermediation typically focuses on how institutional intermediaries address voids in market-based institutions that inhibit entrepreneurship. In doing so, the research rarely studies what types of institutional intermediaries entrepreneurs prefer to use. We address this gap with a microinstitutional inquiry of how entrepreneurs in a rudimentary market-based economy differ in the relevance they place on different types of institutional intermediaries. Using a sample from the Indrachok market in Kathmandu, Nepal, and using a three-stage qualitative and quantitative abductive investigation of a cascading set of increasingly refined research questions, we identify two key preferences for institutional intermediaries. First, we find a key institutional intermediation tripod consisting of three locally focused institutional intermediaries: family, suppliers, and peer entrepreneurs. The tripod is supplemented by institutional intermediaries with more moderate preference in this context: four other locally focused institutional intermediaries (local politicians, police, religious figures, and political gangs) and three broad-based institutional intermediaries (government, microlenders, and nongovernmental organizations). Second, the importance of suppliers and peers as institutional intermediaries reflects entrepreneurs' registration status (registered versus unregistered) and microgeographic location (dispersed versus clustered businesses). The research reconceptualizes institutional intermediation in rudimentary market-based economies from the entrepreneurs' perspective, identifying mechanisms that shape entrepreneurs' preferences and providing proposition for future testing.

The pandemic did not interrupt LA's violence interrupters

PurposeThe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on crime has been highly variable. One possible source of variation runs indirectly through the impact that the pandemic had on groups tasked with preventing and responding to crime. Here, this paper aims to examine the impact of the pandemic on the activities undertaken by front-line workers in the City of Los Angeles Mayor's Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD). Design/methodology/approachThe authors use both autoregressive integrated moving average modeling and a regression-based event study design to identify changes in GRYD Community Intervention Worker proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities induced by the onset of the City of Los Angeles "safter-at-home" lockdown. FindingsAnalyses show that the proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities either remained stable or increased with the onset of the lockdown. Originality/valueWhile the City of Los Angeles exempted GRYD's Community Intervention Workers from lockdown restrictions, there was no guarantee that proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities would continue unchanged. The authors conclude that these vital functions were indeed resilient in the face of major disruptions to daily life presented by the pandemic. However, the causal connection between stability in Community Intervention Worker activities and gang-related crime remains to be evaluated.

Toa and the Wero: The Gang and Community Contract Ko Tū a Waho, ko Rongo a Roto. Tū Outside, Rongo Inside

This article is about the gang-community contract in Aotearoa New Zealand, and asks whether the patch can be used for good. To date, little academic attention has been given to the role that predominantly Māori patched street gangs occupy in their communities or the role that re-Indigenisation plays in the trajectory of community-based work by such groups. Using the wero (challenge) as a metaphor for the gang-community contract, a study of gang membership is applied to assess notions of toa (warrior) and the warrior culture, while asking whether such contemporary expressions and embodiment of toa can be used in the form of gang membership for the betterment of the broader society;essentially using the patch for good. Through the application of two Māori concepts-toa and wero-as metaphor, this article will explore the relationship between contemporary expressions of the toa and the challenges they face in the current climate of socioeconomic inequality and COVID-19. Lastly, this article provides a case study of the Black Power Movement Whakatane chapter to identify processes of re-Indigenisation and the role the patch plays in restoring the mana of marginalised communities.

Seven days in medicine: 23-29 November 2022

Samantha Black, consultant anaesthetist and patient information lead at the Royal College of Anaesthetists, said, “‘Dennis has an anaesthetic’ is a fantastic resource that can be used in preoperative assessment clinics and at home with parents to answer children’s questions and to reassure them.” (See www.rcoa.ac.uk/dennis-has-anaesthetic) Antimicrobial resistance Comments are sought for next five year plan England’s Department of Health and Social Care launched a consultation to inform the next five year plan to tackle antimicrobial resistance and is calling for input from technical experts on human health, animal and plant health, food, and the environment. The consultation closes on 20 January.3 Measles Disease is “imminent threat” worldwide Falling vaccination rates and reduced surveillance during the covid pandemic have created an “imminent threat” of measles spreading in every region of the world, said the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Root Causes of Migration, Development, and US Aid to Northern Triangle States

For decades, governments have sought to deter migration by investing in the development of migrant-sending communities, despite macroeconomic data that shows that development can increase emigration. However, emerging research suggests that well-designed aid can promote rootedness in home communities. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has increasingly attempted to use development to deter migration from the Northern Triangle states of Central America. Is this policy sound?This paper argues that development should not be instrumentalized to discourage people from migrating. It examines migration and development policies from the lens of Catholic social teaching, which recognizes the need for states to respect the agency of individuals. This is particularly important when it comes to complex and consequential decisions like whether to migrate. The Catholic Church recognizes both a right to migrate, when necessary, and the responsibility of states, particularly wealthy nations, to help people realize the right not to migrate;that is, to thrive in their home communities. The paper argues for US government assistance to alleviate poverty and invest in human capital in Central America, but independently of efforts to deter migration. Prioritizing aid to potential migrants risks reducing its effectiveness. The United States should instead pursue a whole-of-government strategy that emphasizes the right relationships with aid recipients, and that prioritizes and empowers the poor and marginalized. The paper is strongly influenced by the author's 15 years of work for Catholic agencies on migration and development, more than one-half of those with Catholic Relief Services.

Bookshelf 2021

Covid-19 has continued to affect book reviewing this year, as reviewers whom we had to remind wrote us back saying everything from "I'm stuck in Dakar" or "I crushed my right index finger in an anchor mishap two months ago [and] ... typing was problematic for a number of weeks" to "in the midst of the pandemic I fell and broke my leg in two places," not to mention people's frequent child-care/remote learning challenges (for some books, we had to identify and ask as many as nine potential reviewers before one agreed) or the difficulties of getting books from publishers to reviewers in pandemic-bombed Brazil. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020, cloth US$ 79.00) Celia Sánchez Manduley: The Life andLegacy of a Cuban Revolutionary, by Tiffany A. Sippial (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020, paper US$29.95) Staging Discomfort: Performance and Queerness in Contemporary Cuba, by Bretton White (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2020, cloth US$ 85.00) The World That Fear Made: Slave Revolts and Conspiracy Scares in Early America, by Jason T. Sharples (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020, cloth US$ 45.00) Afrocubanas: History, Thought, and Cultural Practices, edited by Devyn Spence Benson & Daisy Rubiera Castillo (Lanham MD: Monster in the Middle (New York: Riverhead Books [Penguin/Random House], 2021, cloth US$27.00), is the second novel by Virgin Islands-born Tiphanie Yanique-in "Bookshelf 2014," we called her first one, the multiple prize-winning Land of Love and Drowning, "a gem," and this one is as well. In the fictional town of Pleasantview, we meet Syrian shopkeepers, Muslimeen converts, Pentecostal churchgoers, street gang members, Hindus with roadside fruit and vegetable stands, sex workers trafficked from Venezuela and Colombia, lawyers, politicians, and police, as well as myriads of Black women, but the focus, always, is on family relations-misogyny, poverty, violence, and the allure and perils of migration (to New York, Barbados ...)

Gang-related crime in Los Angeles remained stable following COVID-19 social distancing orders.

Research Summary: The onset of extreme social distancing measures is expected to have a dramatic impact on crime. Here, we examine the impact of mandated, city-wide social distancing orders aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19 on gang-related crime in Los Angeles. We hypothesize that the unique subcultural processes surrounding gangs may supersede calls to shelter in place and allow gang-related crime to persist. If the normal guardianship of people and property is also disrupted by social distancing, then we expect gang violence to increase. Using autoregressive time series models, we show that gang-related crime remained stable and crime hot spots largely stationary following the onset of shelter in place. Policy Implications: In responding to disruptions to social and economic life on the scale of the present pandemic, both police and civilian organizations need to anticipate continued demand, all while managing potential reductions to workforce. Police are faced with this challenge across a wide array of crime types. Civilian interventionists tasked with responding to gang-related crime need to be prepared for continued peacekeeping and violence interruption activities, but also an expansion of responsibilities to deal with "frontline" or "street-level" management of public health needs.