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In this piece, we reflect on the significance of accessing court records for feminist endeavours. We discuss two examples that illustrate the value of accessing and critiquing court processes. Feminist judgment writing, as a feminist endeavour, demonstrates the significance of hearing women’s stories as well as the importance of nuanced factual analysis that takes account of the lived experiences of women. Access to the court file in one of the rewritten judgments exposed missing relevant facts in the appellate decision, and demonstrates how the appellant’s story was never fully reflected in the judgment or verdict. In our rape trial research, access to court records makes visible the complainant’s evidence and the response of the judge to her as a person. It also allows inquiry as to how the rules of evidence enacted for the protection of the complainant, such as non-disclosure of their occupation, are actually working in practice. En este artículo, reflexionamos sobre el significado de acceder a archivos judiciales para objetivos feministas. Comentamos dos ejemplos que ilustran el valor de acceder a esos archivos y de criticar procesos judiciales. La redacción feminista de decisiones judiciales demuestra la importancia de escuchar los relatos de las mujeres, así como del análisis matizado de hechos que toma en consideración el relato de la experiencia vivida por las mujeres. En uno de los fallos reescritos, el acceso al archivo judicial puso de manifiesto hechos relevantes ausentes en la decisión en apelación, y cómo el relato de la recurrente nunca llegó a reflejarse del todo en la sentencia. En nuestra investigación sobre juicios por violación, el acceso a los archivos hace visibles las pruebas de la denunciante y la respuesta que, como persona, le dio el juez. También permite cuestionar cómo se lleva a la práctica el reglamento probatorio dictado para proteger a la denunciante, como la no revelación de su profesión. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=3178159

The 2008 elections in Ghana reflect the democratic health of a country that has opted for an exemplary political change-over. Two trends shape the electoral geography that arises from the votes: the upholding of the ethno-regional bastions of the two dominant parties, and the swing of four regions to the opposition party, which shows complex developments on a local scale mainly due to socio-economic factors.

Eastern Senegal is faced with the beginnings of a mining activities expansion that involves numerous and unequal players. The difficulties encountered during the survey reflect invisible stakes and palpable tensions. It’s a matter of analyzing the fragile position of local authorities in a complex set of players, facing at the same time economic globalization and unfulfilled decentralization. The region and the rural communities have a determining part to play in the direction of the territorial dynamics, between a distant national level and a too emphasized ultra-local level.

Background and Aims: Much is known about the impact of pain in terms of medical costs and missed work. Less is known about its associations when individuals are present for work. This study examines “presenteeism” by analyzing the psychosocial costs of pain in the workplace, using the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). Methods: We conducted cross-sectional analysis of 2384 individuals with chronic pain and 2263 individuals without pain (matched by age and sex) using data from the 2015 EWCS. We compared groups in terms of the following psychosocial factors: supervisor support, job responsibility, team cohesion, discrimination, threats/abuse, job competency, job reward, sexual harassment, stress, and job security. The groups were also compared in terms of days lost due to illness. Results: People with pain were 64% less likely to view their job as rewarding (odds ratio [OR] = 0.61; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.57–0.65), 47% more likely to be subjected to threats/abuse in the workplace (OR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.63–0.73), 30% more likely to report poor supervisor support (OR = 0.77; 95% CI, 0.73–0.82), and 28% more likely to perceive discrimination in the workplace (OR = 0.78; 95% CI, 0.71–0.85). People with pain missed approximately nine more days of work per year than respondents without pain. Conclusions: Chronic pain was associated with lower vocational fulfillment and feelings of being ostracized in the workplace. These findings suggest that the presence of pain in the workplace goes well beyond lost productivity due to absenteeism.

Always attuned to the dialectical relationship between literary productions and their sociohistorical contexts, the writings of Kenneth Burke refuse to essentialize literary discourse by making it a unique kind of language. This article maintains that Burke’s theory of literature and language as symbolic action is capable of encompassing both these intrinsic and extrinsic aspects without being reducible to either of them. Dramatism is his name for the theory, and its strength derives from its recognition of the necessarily ambiguous transaction between the system of signs and the frame of reference. Nevertheless, there is an essentializing tendency in Burke’s thought. Logology, a perspective on language that achieves fruition in The Rhetoric of Religion (1961), is symptomatic of this tendency. I argue that there is a perceptible discontinuity between the dramatistic idea that literature and language are to be considered as symbolic action and the logological idea that words about God bear a strong resemblance to words about words. Logology— words about words—discovers in theology—words about God—the perfectionism implicit in all discourse. I conclude, however, that despite his flirtation with linguistic essentialism, Burke never loses sight of the fact that words are first and foremost agents of power, that they are value-laden, ideologically motivated, and morally and emotionally weighted instruments of persuasion, performance, representation and purpose. As a form of symbolic action in the world, literature is inextricably linked to society and history—it is not a privileged form of language that exists in its own separate and autonomous sphere.