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This article discusses the recent resurgence of interest in capitalism in social sciences and humanities fields. Scholars are reexamining capitalism and its relationship to uneven development and social difference. The article brings together papers from various disciplines, including geography, sociology, anthropology, and global political economy, to explore how these concepts intersect. The papers highlight the importance of understanding capitalism as an overdetermined whole and emphasize the role of spatial and social difference in its development. The authors also emphasize the importance of struggle and concrete social interventions in shaping the geographies and temporalities of uneven development. [Extracted from the article]

The negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have motivated an unprecedented level of global advocacy for gender-responsive and gender-transformative social protection systems that buffer individuals from shocks and vulnerabilities. This turn to a systems approach reflects growing recognition that the presence of one or two social protection programmes targeting women does not guarantee that they are protected throughout the course of their lives and over a wide range of contingencies. Relative to the high levels of interest, however, very little empirical evidence exists about what a gender-responsive or transformative social protection system entails in practice. This article departs from existing literature that focuses on the design and impact of discreet social protection instruments, to present a 'state of the evidence' on gender and social protection systems. Drawing on the results of a phased scoping review of academic and policy literature spanning various fields, the article charts the defining features of the existing evidence base, summarizes what is known and identifies pathways for future research. In addition to scholarly analysis, the article offers a comprehensive view of the evidence for policymakers, practitioners, movement leaders and funders working on policy problems from a gender perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the concept of nearshoring, which involves moving manufacturing from China to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. It discusses the potential for job creation in the border region and highlights the geopolitical tensions between the United States and China as a driving force behind this shift. The article also delves into the historical development of the maquiladora industry in Ciudad Juárez and its connection to border militarization. It argues that the militarization of the border is crucial for the economic competitiveness of the region and for U.S. economic interests. The Covid-19 pandemic raised concerns about factory closures in Mexico and their impact on U.S. supply chains, leading to pressure from the U.S. government to keep maquiladoras open. The nearshoring of supply chains to Mexico allows transnational firms to maintain high profits while paying low wages. The article highlights the exploitative labor practices and profit motives behind these decisions, which are often obscured by rhetoric linking nearshoring to national security concerns. Border militarization has intensified in recent years, with both the U.S. and Mexican governments deploying troops to maintain a safe investment environment. This historical transformation of the borderlands illustrates the intertwining of economic interests, national security, military intervention, and the extension of U.S. influence globally. Maquiladora workers face low wages, militarized landscapes, and the risks of unauthorized border crossings as they navigate these struggles. [Extracted from the article]

Economic geographers have long emphasized the ways in which borders are central to capitalism's uneven development. Yet even as scholarship outlines how borders are central devices for the articulation of the global political economy, they often are framed as functional to the system's immanent dynamics or as theoretical devices, with borderlands invisibilized as complex sites and spaces in their own right. Drawing on Margaret Ramírez's concept of a borderland analytic, I ask what a position from the U.S.–Mexico borderlands might help us to understand about capitalism's uneven development, both in particular and more generally. On the one hand, a borderland analytic connotes an empirical return to border spaces as a way to reconstruct how the border, and processes of bordering, underpin the creation of relational (and racialized) hierarchies that assign differential value to human life, labor, and place in the borderlands, effectively underwriting the forms of economic devaluation key to the region's 'competitiveness' in a restructuring global economy. On the other hand, a borderland analytic connotes a methodological orientation to the work that borders do as a part of processes of uneven development more broadly, which evolves through the (re)ordering and recoding of sociospatial differences, rather than from their elimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we trace mobilizations of the Hong Kong 'model' through mutating policy networks to highlight connections made by (and around) Nobel‐prize‐winning economist Paul Romer, as a roving policy advocate for charter cities and as an 'economist in the wild'. Frustrated in practice but politically resilient, the idea of charter cities recycles the notion of territorial enclaves founded on 'empty' land and governed in accordance with purified market rules. Typically indexed to a stereotypical reading of Hong Kong, this model repurposes the tabula‐rasa conceit of 'startup' urbanization, yoked to a neoliberal vision of 'islands' of experimentation. Via an account of the faltering mobilities of the charter‐cities model, the article explores the reciprocating circuits and recurring motifs that connect Romer's expertise as a prominent economist with expedient abstractions of the Hong Kong 'model', with the reproduction of ideologically selective policy networks, and ultimately, with the troubled frontiers of charter‐city policy development. It culminates in an examination of the protracted effort to build a 'Hong Kong of the Caribbean' in Honduras, where grandiose acts of policymaking projection and developmental hubris meet a repeating history of governmental corruption, corporate opportunism and banana republicanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each week, thousands of Mexican nationals living in northern Mexican border cities cross the border into the United States with nonimmigrant visas to "donate" blood plasma at commercial collection centers in exchange for a prepaid Visa gift card (valued at up to US$50). For these individuals, many of whom work on maquiladora assembly lines, a single donation can nearly double their weekly wages. If the ability to keep wages low remains a key means of leveraging the border's competitiveness in the global economy, we argue that the devaluation of maquiladora labor in fact relies on the capacity of communities and households to increasingly absorb the hidden costs of social reproduction. Grounded in two years of ethnographic research in Ciudad Juárez–El Paso, this article argues that plasma donation is an increasingly vital strategy through which Mexican households meet the costs of social reproduction. Further, participation in the cross-border plasma economy is inseparable from institutions and frameworks that govern border crossing. By following the movement of Mexican blood plasma across the border, it becomes possible to understand how the border itself—as a material barrier and geopolitical project—shapes collective capacities for social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International monetary organisations argue the 'developing countries' should foster linkages to the world economy as a means to overcome backwardness. In this article we refute the narrative that Mexico has experienced industrial upgrading. Rather, industrial growth in Mexico over the last 40 years has been shaped by neoliberal economic policies which have turned the Mexican economy into an export-led manufacturing platform designed to supply the North American market, sustained by a precarious labour market. As a result, Mexico occupies the most labour-intensive and low value-added segments of regional production chains. To make this argument, we perform an in-depth analysis of the Mexican automotive industry, demonstrating that instead of being an engine for domestic industrial development, the auto industry has become a dominant economic sector through productive hyper-specialisation concentrated in the northern Mexican border states, a reliance on transnational capital, particularly from the United States, a disconnect with domestic markets, and the super-exploitation of labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis C viral (HCV) infection is present in 30 to 98% of intravenous drug users. Intravenous substance abuse represents the main route of HCV transmission in industrialized countries. A multi-centre, randomized, controlled, prospective study assessed sustained virological response (SVR), adverse events such as depressive episodes and retention rate of HCV treatment in opioid-dependent patients. Stabilized, opioid-dependent patients with chronic HCV infection (genotype 2 or 3) received pegylated interferon alpha-2a in combination with ribavirin 800 mg/day (Group A) or 400 mg/day (Group B). Participants were randomized, blocked and stratified by genotype and viral load. A standardized psychiatric assessment, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Van Zerssen's list of complaints were administered at each study visit. In 31 months, 300 opioid-dependent patients were screened; 190 (63.3%) were hepatitis C antibody positive. According to study protocol, out of 75 ‘potential-to-treat’ patients with genotype 2 or 3, 17 stable patients (22.6%) were included in the study. All participants completed the study. Significant haemoglobin decreases occurred in both Groups A ( P = 0.001) and B ( P = 0.011). All the patients had an end-of-treatment (week 24) HCV RNA negativity. Fifteen (88.2%) achieved SVR at week 48. Overall, 52.9% developed depressive symptoms during treatment. Because of the prompt initiation of antidepressant medication at first appearance of depressive symptoms, no severe depressive episodes occurred. Our data show a high retention rate and reliability, and good viral response for both treatments. Hepatitis C treatment in stable opioid-dependent patients was efficacious, suggesting that addiction clinics can offer antiviral therapy in combination with agonistic treatment as part of multi-disciplinary treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Neonates born to opioid-maintained mothers are at risk of developing neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which often requires pharmacological treatment. This study examined the effect of opioid maintenance treatment on the incidence and timing of NAS, and compared two different NAS treatments (phenobarbital versus morphine hydrochloride). Fifty-three neonates born to opioid-maintained mothers were included in this study. The mothers received methadone (n =22), slow-release oral morphine (n =17) or buprenorphine (n =14) throughout pregnancy. Irrespective of maintenance treatment, all neonates showed APGAR scores comparable to infants of non-opioid dependent mothers. No difference was found between the three maintenance groups regarding neonatal weight, length or head circumference. Sixty percent (n =32) of neonates required treatment for NAS [68% in the methadone-maintained group (n =15), 82% in the morphine-maintained group (n =14), and 21% in the buprenorphine-maintained group (n =3)]. The mean duration from birth to requirement of NAS treatment was 33h for the morphine-maintained group, 34h for the buprenorphine-maintained group and 58h for the methadone-maintained group. In neonates requiring NAS treatment, those receiving morphine required a significantly shorter mean duration of treatment (9.9 days) versus those treated with phenobarbital (17.7 days). Results suggest that morphine hydrochloride is preferable for neonates suffering NAS due to opioid withdrawal. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

ABSTRACT Objective The objective of this study is to compare maternal and neonatal outcome of opioid-dependent women maintained on buprenorphine or methadone throughout pregnancy in a randomized double-blind double-dummy clinical trial (CT) with a comparison group undergoing a structured standard protocol (SP) at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Methods One hundred and fourteen subjects were included in the analysis, with 77 in SP ( n = 51 methadone, n = 26 buprenorphine), and 37 in CT ( n = 19 methadone, n = 18 buprenorphine), comparing maternal concomitant consumption during third trimester, demographic birth data, duration of treatment for neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), morphine dose for NAS treatment and length of hospital stay (LOS). Results Both study groups yielded healthy neonates with no significant demographic differences and equivalently low rates of positive maternal urine toxicologies. However, NAS parameters were significantly better in CT regarding total medication dose administered to neonates ( p = 0.014) and LOS ( p = 0.015). Superior results were achieved in buprenorphine compared with methadone-exposed neonates regarding gestational age at birth ( p = 0.003), birth weight ( p = 0.011), total morphine dose administered ( p = 0.008), NAS treatment duration ( p = 0.008) and LOS ( p = 0.001). Conclusions Comparably favorable outcome for mothers and infants and efficacy and safety of opioid medications were shown in both treatment approaches. Neonatal care could benefit from transferring successful CT procedures into clinical practice. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Through a novel synthesis of the literature and our own clinical experience, we have derived a set of evidence-based recommendations for consideration as guidance in the management of opioid-dependent pregnant women and infants. Methods PubMed literature searches were carried out to identify recent key publications in the areas of pregnancy and opioid dependence, neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) prevention and treatment, multiple substance abuse and psychiatric comorbidity. Results Pregnant women dependent on opioids require careful treatment to minimize harm to the fetus and neonate and improve maternal health. Applying multi-disciplinary treatment as early as possible, allowing medication maintenance and regular monitoring, benefits mother and child both in the short and the long term. However, there is a need for randomized clinical trials with sufficient sample sizes. Recommendations Opioid maintenance therapy is the recommended treatment approach during pregnancy. Treatment decisions must encompass the full clinical picture, with respect to frequent complications arising from psychiatric comorbidities and the concomitant consumption of other drugs. In addition to standardized approaches to pregnancy, equivalent attention must be given to the treatment of NAS, which occurs frequently after opioid medication. Conclusion Methodological flaws and inconsistencies confound interpretation of today's literature. Based on this synthesis of available evidence and our clinical experience, we propose recommendations for further discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims: In recent years, quality of life (QoL) assessments have proved useful for evaluating and comparing drug treatment programs. To compare QoL of patients maintained on methadone versus slow-release morphine, a prospective, randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, cross-over study was conducted. Methods: Over two 7-week study phases, participants received either oral slow-release morphine capsules followed by methadone oral solution or vice versa. QoL status was assessed at baseline, week 7, and week 14 using the German version of the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile. Results: No statistically significant difference was found between methadone and slow-release morphine in any QoL domain. A significant time effect for nearly all QoL domains was observed after 14 weeks of opioid medication, independent of the chosen drug (general well-being, p < 0.001; mental health, p = 0.001; general state of health, p = 0.018; leisure time at home, p = 0.034; leisure time out of the home, p = 0.008). Furthermore, this study revealed that even short-term maintenance yields significantly higher QoL scores in the important domain of general well-being. Conclusion: These results indicate that slow-release morphine has effects comparable to methadone on patient-reported QoL data and is thus a promising option for treatment of opioid-dependent subjects. Copyright © 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine a cohort of unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) by means of psycholinguistic methods in order to obtain a more subtle picture of their degree of traumatization. Methods: Twenty-eight participants were included in the Stress-Inducing Speech Task (SIST) consisting of a free association (FA) and a stress (STR) condition. Narratives were examined by means of (1) quantitative parameters (word count); (2) psycholinguistic variables (temporal junctures, TJs), narrative structure, referential activity (RA)--a measure of emotional expressivity; and (3) content analysis ratings. Results: Word count was significantly lower than in age-matched norms. In the FA condition, TJs were lower, but in the STR condition, rates were comparable. RA was significantly higher in both conditions. Content analysis ratings showed that the experiences described by these youths were potentially traumatic in nature. Conclusions: This pattern of narrative shows a mixture of fulfilling the task demand, while containing an emotionally charged narrative. Narrative structure was absent in the FA condition, but preserved in the STR condition, as URMs struggled with the description of non-normative events. This indicates that these youths have not yet emotionally dealt with and fully integrated their trauma experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slow-release morphine may represent a much-needed new pharmacological treatment for opioid dependence. In a 14-week randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, cross-over study oral slow-release morphine was compared with methadone as a treatment for opioid dependency. During two study periods, each consisting of a 1-week titration and a 6-week fixed-dose treatment phase, medication was administered daily under supervised conditions. The study was carried out at the Addiction Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Medical University Vienna. Sixty-four subjects (56 males, eight females) with opioid dependence participated in the trial. Efficacy was evaluated on the basis of retention, use of illicit substances based on urinalysis, extent of drug cravings, withdrawal symptoms and general wellbeing. Safety was assessed on the basis of adverse events and clinical and physical examination. Demographic and baseline characteristics were assessed using the European Addiction Severity Index. Fifty-five patients (86%) completed the study, with a mean methadone dose of 85 mg and a mean slow-release morphine dose of 680 mg. No significant differences in retention or use of illicit substances (opioids, benzodiazepines, cocaine) were observed, irrespective of treatment group or medication. However, patients receiving slow-release morphine had significantly lower depression ( P < 0.001) and anxiety scores ( P = 0.008) and fewer physical complaints ( P < 0.001). Oral slow-release morphine is as effective as methadone in the treatment of opioid dependency, with comparable safety and tolerability and a greater benefit on patient wellbeing. Greater pharmaceutical diversity represents a modern development in mainstream medicine. Slow-release morphine might represent a future treatment option that will improve long-term outcomes for this target group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]