Abstract:The recent growth of soybean cultivation in the Brazilian Amazon has been unprecedented, even as the debate continues over its economic and environmental consequences. Based on contemporary datasets as well as our own field studies, this paper examines the social and economic costs and benefits of increases in soybean production for local populations. After presenting some background information on the rise of soybean cultivation in Brazil we examine the relationship between increases in soybean production and local economic indicators. We find that increased soy production both reduces poverty indicators and raises median rural incomes. However, we also note that this increase is associated with increased measures of inequality, and we consider the wider political and social consequences of this connection in our qualitative fieldwork. The mixed--method approach helps shed light not only economic effects of soy cultivation but also on the more complex social and political context that is, arguably, even more policy--relevant.

RESUMEN Este artículo analiza tanto el proceso como los efectos del proceso de titulación de las tierras indígenas por parte del pueblo Ashéninka en el Perú. Aquí se toman en cuenta las relaciones entre el estado y los grupos indígenas y se muestra cómo estas relaciones pueden ocurrir en múltiples maneras, difiriendo no sólo entre distintos grupos nativos sino también al interior de un mismo grupo étnico. El artículo compara las diferentes historias de varias comunidades Ashéninka; tanto las que han luchado por la obtención de derechos a la tierra como las que han buscado su reconocimiento oficial como parte de un proceso de formalización legal. En comunidades del segundo tipo el artículo muestra que el deseo de lograr una mejor educación para sus hijos es el fundamento de la búsqueda del reconocimiento oficial. El artículo toma en cuenta los efectos que conlleva para los Ashéninka el vivir en comunidades oficialmente reconocidas. Concluye que las identidades y acciones comuna les pueden ser no una motivación sino mas bien la consecuencia en la comunidad de un reconocimiento oficial de derechos a la tierra. This article analyzes the process and effects of land titling in Ashéninka communities in eastern central Peru. Through this analysis the article considers the relationship between nation states and indigenous groups and shows how this relationship can occur in multiple ways, differing not only between distinct indigenous groups but also within a single ethnic grouping. The article compares accounts of Ashéninka communities that have had to fight for their rights to land with the experiences of communities that have sought official recognition as part of an established legal process. In these latter communities the article argues that it is the Ashéninka's desire for schooling that underpins their wish to gain official recognition. The article also considers the effects that living in defined settlements is having and concludes that communal identities and action can be a result of the recognition of land rights rather than an impetus for land rights claims.

Through an ethnographic account of contemporary relations between Ashéninka men and mestizos on the Ucayali River in Eastern Peru, this article examines how individuals use specific cultural idioms in their attempts to counteract the exploitative nature of economic relations. Specifically the article considers how the institutions of ayompari trading partners and compadrazgo (godparenthood) are used by Ashéninka and mestizo individuals respectively to understand and try to control their relationships within the local economic system of habilitación. The article concludes by noting the continued importance of these individual relationships in light of recent changes to Peru's forestry laws.

Under recent reforms, the UK Government has eroded state funding for civil legal aid. Funding cuts affect asylum and immigration law as produced, practiced and mediated in the course of interactions between case workers and their clients in legal aid-funded Law Centers in South London. The paper explores the contradictory character of one-on-one relationships between caseworkers and clients. Despite pressure to quantify their work in "value for money" terms, the empathy which often motivates caseworkers drives them to provide exceptional levels of aid to their clients in facing an arbitrary bureaucracy. Such personalized commitment may persuade applicants to accept the decisions of that bureaucracy, thus reinforcing a hegemonic understanding of the power of the law. The paper, however, challenges the assumption that, in attempting to shape immigrant/refugees as model-albeit secondclass-citizens, case worker/client interactions necessarily subscribe to the categories and assumptions that underpin UK immigration and asylum law.

Starting with Ashéninka people's avowed preference for living apart, in nuclear family households, this article analyses Ashéninka social practices within the context of ongoing academic debates over reciprocity, kinship, and the relative importance of similarity and difference in Amazonian thought. I argue that instead of attempting to pull others into fixed and narrowly prescribed relationships, particularly those based on kinship, the Ashéninka prefer for all ties to be based on relations of friendship that remain voluntary, limited, and flexible. I show how these relationships are underpinned by a cultural imperative on unilateral giving that is manifested in masateadas, social gatherings centred on the consumption of manioc beer. Résumé À partir de la préférence déclarée des Ashéninkas pour une vie isolée en maisonnées composées de familles nucléaires, l’article analyse les pratiques sociales dans le contexte des débats académiques actuels sur la réciprocité, la parenté et l’importance relative de la similitude et de la différence dans la pensée amazonienne. L’auteur avance qu’au lieu de tenter de contraindre les autres à des relations fixes et strictement prescrites, notamment sur la base de la parenté, les Ashéninkas préfèrent qu’elles soient tissées à partir de liens d’amitié volontaires, limités et souples. L’auteur montre comment ces relations sont sous‐tendues par un impératif culturel de don unilatéral, manifesté dans les masateadas, des rassemblements sociaux centrés sur la consommation de bière de manioc.

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Three years after the global financial crisis started academic and popular publications assessing its origins, consequences and wider implications are starting to emerge. The origins of the crisis are generally explained as stemming from the rapid increase in subprime mortgage lending in the United States and the credit default swaps banks and other financial institutions traded amongst themselves based on these loans. As homeowners found it increasingly difficult to make their repayments and housing prices in the United States started to drop, a downward spiral ensued. In this cycle ever-growing numbers of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages, unable to meet interest payments or to re-mortgage, and banks foreclosed on the houses even as their own assets and investments were exposed to the losses stemming from defaulted mortgages. With the foreclosures devaluing house prices further and the exposure of banks making them less willing and able to refinance mortgages, the situation quickly spiraled downwards. The complex global trade in credit default swaps and other derivatives meant that the problems were amplified and spread beyond the United States until ultimately many national governments decided to intervene with financial assistance mainly aimed at the financial institutions.

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