scholarly journals Contesting the Shape of Political Space: An Investigation of the "Threat of Asylum" in Britain

Refuge ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Doyle
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Asylum Seeker ◽  
State System ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Asylum Policy ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Security Discourse

Defined in terms of a national security discourse, Britain’s asylum policy facilitates a disturbing dissociation of the asylum seeker from the identity of the refugee. The roots of this discourse can, this paper argues, be understood if the asylum seeker is seen as the site of a clash between two conceptualizations of political space—one that sees only the international state system, marked by the rights of sovereign states and exclusive political spaces, and one that sees a more complicated global political structure, marked by spaces of danger and of opportunity, in which human beings, as such, have a right to demand hospitality and inclusion from the state. Aiming to understand this clash, and the possibilities for moving beyond it, this paper analyzes British asylum policy through the lens of Michel Foucault’s account of sovereign biopower in Society Must Be Defended, read together with Giorgio Agamben’s work on the homo sacer and spaces of exception. These texts point towards the counter-narrative of the asylum seeker who refuses to disappear into discourses of national secur­ity, and who suggests a “rival structure” of political space. Understanding this clash requires uncovering the violence, discernible in British asylum policy, which sustains the international state system and in doing so, creates and marginalizes the asylum seeker. This paper draws out the deeply challenging and complex nature of the “problem of asylum,” working against the simplification that a national security discourse imposes on the issue.

The Head, the Hand, and Matter: New Materialism and the Politics of Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 49-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rekret
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Karen Barad ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Do So

This article seeks to examine the political connotations of a recent ‘material turn’ in social and political theory and its implications for theorizations of political agency. ‘New materialist’ theories are premised upon transcending the limits which social constructivism places upon thought, viewed as a reification of the division of subject and object and so a hubristic anthropocentrism which places human beings at the centre of social existence. Yet new materialist theories have tended to locate the conditions of the separation of mind and world they seek to overcome upon the terrain of epistemic or ethical error. By taking the work of Quentin Meillassoux, Jane Bennett and Karen Barad as exemplary, this article contends that new materialist theories not only fall short of their own materialist pretensions insofar as they do not interrogate the material conditions of the separation of the mental and material, but that the failure to do so has profound repercussions for the success of their accounts of political agency. This essay seeks to offer a counter-narrative to new materialist theories by situating the hierarchy between thought and world as a structural feature of capitalist social relations.

scholarly journals Terminology: Aboutness, Representation, and Metasemantics

2021 ◽  
pp. 51-58
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen ◽  
Josh Dever
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

This short chapter does two things. First, it shows that in fact workers in AI frequently talk as if AI systems express contents. We present the argument that the complex nature of the actions and communications of AI systems, even if they are very different from the complex behaviours of human beings, and the way they have ‘aboutness’, strongly suggest a contentful interpretation of those actions and communications. It then introduces some philosophical terminology that captures various aspects of language use, such as the ones in the title, to better make clear what one is saying—philosophically speaking—when one claims AI systems communicate, and to provide a vocabulary for the next few chapters.

Constructing human agency

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabel S. Brett
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Natural Agents ◽  
The World ◽  
Theological Differences

This chapter argues that human agency is free agency. It is freedom, or dominium over one's own actions, which makes a human being different from all other animals; and it is the foundation of the world of the moral, the juridical, and the political, which are all continuous with one another and from which animals—and a fortiori all other natural agents—are excluded. However, during the sixteenth century, the idea that human beings are essentially and ineradicably free to control their own actions came under severe pressure from new and irreconcilable theological differences over the freedom of the human will—differences that therefore implicitly pressured the primary threshold of political space.

Part VI Refugee Rights and Realities, Ch.50 Non-refoulement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew Penelope
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Asylum Seeker ◽  
Deep Structure ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
Refugee Convention ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Legal Fictions ◽  
The Way

This chapter highlights the most fundamental of all obligations owed to refugees—that of non-refoulement. The raison d’être of the obligation continues to provoke debate about the validity of the lines drawn between refugees, other beneficiaries of the obligation, and other migrants, and the way the purported provider of surrogate protection—the State—is implicated in the production of forced migration. That background or deep structure of the State system assists in explaining the phenomenon explored in the chapter: the interaction between shrinking and expansive approaches to non-refoulement. The chapter first outlines the sources of the obligation, noting the obligation’s place in the Refugee Convention and other treaties as well as its status as customary international law, and the corresponding beneficiaries of the obligation. It then examines the scope of the obligation, with emphasis on States’ attempts to divest their responsibilities through legal fictions and extraterritorial immigration enforcement. The chapter also discusses the concept of constructive or disguised refoulement—that is, when an asylum seeker spontaneously leaves the country of asylum as a result of their treatment in that country.

“Hätte, wäre, wenn…”

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Maden-Weinberger
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Subjunctive Mood ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Different Levels

The German subjunctive mood (‘Konjunktiv’) is a grammatical feature that attests to the freedom of human beings to step out of the boundaries of their immediate situation and explore new possibilities in hypothetical scenarios. It therefore plays a pivotal role in advanced learner argumentative writing, but due to its highly complex nature regarding both form and usage, the ‘Konjunktiv’ challenges learners on virtually all levels of linguistic knowledge. This paper presents the first learner corpus-based study of this phenomenon with a two-pronged Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis approach: comparing learner data to native-speaker data and learner data at different levels of proficiency using the Corpus of Learner German (CLEG). The investigation seeks to explain the detected patterns of over-, under- and misuse and developmental paths by drawing on cognitive theories of second language acquisition.

International Cooperation in Combating Human Trafficking in the EU: Evidence from Turkey

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gönül Oğuz
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Human Smuggling ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Irregular Migrants ◽  
The Eu

Human trafficking lies at the heart of international organised crime. It is concerned with profits in terms of the exploitation of human beings. It is an abuse of basic rights. The enormous interest and concern for trafficking and human struggling is factual evidence. In the EU, policy on irregular migration is driven by the perception that the member states risk being overwhelmed by large numbers of irregular migrants thought to constitute a threat to national security. This has implications for policy measures designed to combat trafficking and human smuggling, which may not work without international cooperation. In most cases, victims are brought to the EU member states from abroad. This creates a demand for international obligations for cooperation and related instruments for combating human smuggling and trafficking. Therefore, the member states and their law enforcement agencies cannot tackle human trafficking alone. A question arises as to whether Turkey can be a vital partner, based on the facts that it is a transit country, with a strong border and assuming that it has a role to play, through its expertise and its commitment to dealing with the effects of trafficking. Unfortunately, these facts are still overlooked, while disproportionately intensive efforts are expended on dealing with questions of national security by the member states. Combating illegal immigration and reducing and controlling migration are frequently seen through the magnifying glass of the struggle against human trafficking. This article focuses on the international factors involved and how the wider international community might be able to play an effective role in helping to tackle human trafficking. It argues that continued coordination and collaboration across the countries is vital. The article reviews the empirical evidence from Turkey, as non-EU/candidate countries' cooperation and assistance in human trafficking may have an important dimension.

NATIONAL SECURITY, LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY AND IRRESPONSIBILITY: PROBLEMS OF THE MECHANISM OF INTERACTION AND SYSTEMIC RELATIONS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitriy Lipinsky ◽  
Nikolay Makareyko ◽  
Aleksandra Musatkina ◽  
Aleksey Fomin ◽  
Alexey Stankin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
National Security ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
State System ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
Normal Functioning ◽  
Legal Provision ◽  
Mechanism Of Interaction ◽  
Legal Security

The monograph is devoted to a relatively new direction in legal science - the theory of national security and its legal support. National security is considered from the point of view of its mechanism and legal provision in connection with legal responsibility and irresponsibility. The work identifies the place, importance and role of legal responsibility with legal security in the national security mechanism, as well as the threats posed by legal irresponsibility to the normal functioning of society and the state. System links between these phenomena are investigated. The book is addressed to researchers, students of legal fields of training, graduate students, undergraduates, as well as all persons interested in issues of national security and legal responsibility.

scholarly journals Perhaps the Dodo should have accounted for human beings? Accounts of humanity and (its) extinction

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 826-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Gray ◽  
Markus J. Milne
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
Species Extinction ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Root Cause ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
Specific Species ◽  
Substantial Change

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a counter-narrative to accounts of specific species extinction. The authors place humanity’s ways of organising at the core and recognise that only fundamental re-appraisal of humanity’s taken-for-granted narratives offers hope for biodiversity and sustainability. The authors challenge producers of accounts of all sorts to reconsider the context and level of resolution of their accounts. The authors argue that humankind is the root cause of most (if not all) current species extinctions; that such extinctions represent one reason why humanity might itself be threatened with extinction; and why human extinction might be a good thing. The authors need to imagine other, better, futures. Design/methodology/approach The piece is an essay which assembles a wide range of literature in order to support its contentions. Findings There are many individual accounts of species which explore the (albeit very serious) symptoms of a problem without, the authors maintain, examining the systematic source of the problem. The source problem is western mankind’s organisation and somewhat taciturn conception of humanity. There is a lack of accounts offering new possibilities. Research limitations/implications The piece is an essay and, consequently, limited to the quality of the argument presented. The essay suggests that the principal implications relate to how producers of counter-accounts frame their construction of accounts and how accounts of species extinction need to be more cognisant of underlying causes. Practical implications Without substantial change, planetary ecology, including humanity, is very seriously threatened. Imagining a plausible future is a most practical act of faith. Social implications The essay suggests that as accountants the authors might think to approach the counter-accounts with a lower level of resolution: one that is directed towards a more challenging notion of what it is to be human. Originality/value Whilst building upon the growing sophistication in the understanding of (new) accounts and responding to the emerging literatures on biodiversity, species extinction and utopian vision the authors offer what the authors believe to be a unique suggestion in the accounting literature about the extinction of mankind.

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