This paper considers how the use of 'hybridity' in the peacebuilding literature overlooks the gendered dimensions of hybrid interactions. It does so by examining the United Nations Security Council ...(UNSC) Resolution 1325 national action plans (NAPs) for Liberia and Sierra Leone. By asking the gendered questions of 'who participates?' and 'how do they participate?' it draws from Mac Ginty's conception of hybridity and traces the compliance and incentivizing power in hybridized peace, as well as the ability of local actors to resist and provide alternatives. However, Mac Ginty's model is found to be inadequate because of its inattention to the gendered nature of power. It is found that with a gendered approach to hybridity, it is easier to trace the processes of hybridization of NAPs in post-conflict states where their implementation is limited. In asking the questions of 'who' and 'how', three conclusions about the gendered nature of hybrid peacebuilding are drawn: international intervention relies upon the 'feminization' of local actors; issues framed within the realm of the 'masculine' are more likely to get attention; and the Resolution 1325 agenda in post-conflict states can be subverted by framing it as a 'soft' issue.
This article demonstrates that the inability of the United Nations Women, Peace and Security agenda to realize greater peace and security for women in post-war states stems to a great extent from its ...failure to engage deeply with the materiality of women’s lives under economic empowerment projects. We argue that the Women, Peace and Security agenda reproduces a neoliberal understanding of economic empowerment that inadequately captures the reality of women’s lives in post-war settings for two reasons: first, it views formal and informal economic activities as dichotomous and separate, rather than as intertwined and constitutive of each other; and, second, it conceptualizes agency as individual, disembodied, abstract, universalizing and conforming to the requirements of the competitive pressures of the market. The article then offers a three-pronged postcolonial-feminist framework to analyse international interventions in which representation, materiality and agency are interconnected. We argue that such a framework helps understand better who is empowered in post-war economies and how they are empowered. This, in turn, makes visible how post-war economies produce gendered and racialized (in)securities that need to be addressed by the Women, Peace and Security agenda. With this, we also hope to reflect on broader international political economy concerns about the problems of making conceptual distinctions between politics and economics, and to challenge the constructed borders between materiality and discourse that have pervaded peace and conflict studies.
According to a National Child Labor Survey conducted in 2012 by Vietnam's General Statistical Office in cooperation with the Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA) and ILO, ...one-sixth of Vietnam's 18.3 million children perform some form of economic activity. According to the ILO, "children's work in many cases contributes a substantial fraction of household income, usually around 20 percent. In Vietnam, many children in urban centers come from poor fishing and farming villages where economic opportunities are limited. Because income is often not sufficient for family survival, farmers migrate to urban centers for work. ...perhaps traditional zero-tolerance policies are missing the mark. ⅛ As consumers, are we comfortable with the idea of fourteen-year-olds dropping out of school to make our clothes and shoes? ln many parts of the world, actors of poverty, migration, and demand for cheap labor converge to create conditions where child labor continues to thrive.
Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adolescents disclose their sexual and/or gender identities to peers at school. Disclosure of LGBT status is linked with positive psychosocial ...adjustment for adults; however, for adolescents, "coming out" has been linked to school victimization, which in turn is associated with negative adjustment. This study investigates the associations among adolescent disclosure of LGBT status to others at school, school victimization, and young adult psychosocial adjustment using a sample of 245 LGBT young adults (aged 21-25 years, living in California). After accounting for the association between school victimization and later adjustment, being out at high school was associated with positive psychosocial adjustment in young adulthood. Results have significant implications for training of school-based health and mental health providers, education and guidance for parents and caregivers, fostering positive development of LGBT youth, and developing informed school policies and educational practices.
BACKGROUND: Adolescent school victimization due to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) status is commonplace, and is associated with compromised health and adjustment. Few studies have ...examined the long‐term implications of LGBT school victimization for young adult adjustment. We examine the association between reports of LGBT school victimization and young adult psychosocial health and risk behavior.
METHODS: The young adult survey from the Family Acceptance Project included 245 LGBT young adults between the ages of 21 and 25 years, with an equal proportion of Latino and non‐Latino White respondents. A 10‐item retrospective scale assessed school victimization due to actual or perceived LGBT identity between the ages of 13 and 19 years. Multiple regression was used to test the association between LGBT school victimization and young adult depression, suicidal ideation, life satisfaction, self‐esteem, and social integration, while controlling for background characteristics. Logistic regression was used to examine young adult suicide attempts, clinical levels of depression, heavy drinking and substance use problems, sexually transmitted disease (STD) diagnoses, and self‐reported HIV risk.
RESULTS: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender‐related school victimization is strongly linked to young adult mental health and risk for STDs and HIV; there is no strong association with substance use or abuse. Elevated levels of depression and suicidal ideation among males can be explained by their high rates of LGBT school victimization.
CONCLUSIONS: Reducing LGBT‐related school victimization will likely result in significant long‐term health gains and will reduce health disparities for LGBT people. Reducing the dramatic disparities for LGBT youth should be educational and public health priorities.
Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes well suited for adoptive immunotherapy. Attempts with adoptive NK cell immunotherapy against ovarian cancer have proven unsuccessful, with the main ...limitations including failure to expand and diminished effector function. We investigated if incubation of NK cells with interleukin (IL)-12, IL-15, and IL-18 for 16h could produce cytokine-induced memory-like (CIML) NK cells capable of enhanced function against ovarian cancer.
NK cells were preactivated briefly with IL-12, IL-15, and IL-18, rested, then placed against ovarian cancer targets to assess phenotype and function via flow cytometry. Real-time NK-cell-mediated tumor-killing was evaluated. Using ascites cells and cell-free ascites fluid, NK cell proliferation and function within the immunosuppressive microenvironment was evaluated in vitro. Finally, CIML NK cells were injected intraperitoneal (IP) into an in vivo xenogeneic mouse model of ovarian cancer.
CIML NK cells demonstrate enhanced cytokine (IFN-γ) production and NK-cell-mediated killing of ovarian cancer. NK cells treated overnight with cytokines led to robust activation characterized by temporal shedding of CD16, induction of CD25, and enhanced proliferation. CIML NK cells proliferate more with enhanced effector function compared to controls in an immunosuppressive microenvironment. Finally, human CIML NK cells exhibited potent antitumor effects within a xenogeneic mouse model of ovarian cancer.
CIML NK cells have enhanced functionality and persistence against ovarian cancer in vitro and in vivo, even when exposed to ascites fluid. These findings provide a strategy for NK cell-based immunotherapy to circumvent the immunosuppressive nature of ovarian cancer.
•Cytokine-induced memory-like (CIML) NK cells demonstrate enhanced function and proliferation against ovarian cancer cells.•A novel killing assay demonstrated enhanced CIML NK-cell-mediated cytolytic function against ovarian cancer in real time.•The functional and proliferative ability within immunosuppressive ascites was rescued with healthy donor CIML NK cells.•Human CIML NK cells exhibit potent antitumor effects within an in vivo mouse model of ovarian cancer.
This paper examines the practice of participatory evaluation through an exploratory single case study of the Evaluation Team of Books & Beyond, a co-curricular service-learning program of the Global ...Village Living-Learning Center at Indiana University. The paper, which is authored by three undergraduate members of the evaluation team and their faculty advisor, juxtaposes the process of conducting the evaluation and reporting the results with reflections from the Evaluation Team participants on conducting youth participatory action research, which offers a means of improving youth-serving programs and developing a greater understanding of why youth choose to participate in these programs. In their review of the implementation of their evaluation project, the team noted that the difficulties of getting past lessons learned to methodological rigor in service-learning evaluation are compounded by the realities of engaging in a student-faculty partnership in a co-curricular service-learning context.
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