scholarly journals Editorial Essay: Iraqi Refugees, Beyond the Urban Refugee Paradigm

Refuge ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Géraldine Chatelard ◽  
Tim Morris

Displacement and exile have been recurrent and durable phenomena affecting Iraqi society for the last 90 years. The process of forming an Iraqi state from the ruins of the Ottoman empire, which Aristide Zolberg has analyzed as a prime factor generating refugee flows,has been ongoing since 1920. Unfinished endeavours to build a state and nation have been characterized by almost incessant antagonistic claims over the nature of the state and national identity, the exercise of and access to political power, control of natural resources and border sovereignty. Political repression, violent regime change, redefinition of national identity, demographic engineering, and domestic or international armed conflicts have resulted in eviction, deportation, denaturalization, political emigration, and flight from violence. A large part of displacement in Iraq has been internal. But vast numbers of refugees and exiles have also formed a regional and global diaspora extending from Iran, Jordan, Israel, Syria, all the way to such distant emigration countries as New Zealand.

Author(s):  
Alistair Fox

The conclusion reaffirms the essential role played by cinema generally, and the coming-of-age genre in particular, in the process of national identity formation, because of its effectiveness in facilitating self-recognition and self-experience through a process of triangulation made possible, for the most part, by a dialogue with some of the nation’s most iconic works of literature. This section concludes by point out the danger posed, however, by an observable trend toward generic standardization in New Zealand films motivated by a desire to appeal to an international audience out of consideration for the financial returns expected by funding bodies under current regimes.


Author(s):  
James Meffan

This chapter discusses the history of multicultural and transnational novels in New Zealand. A novel set in New Zealand will have to deal with questions about cultural access rights on the one hand and cultural coverage on the other. The term ‘transnational novel’ gains its relevance from questions about cultural and national identity, questions that have particularly exercised nations formed from colonial history. The chapter considers novels that demonstrate and respond to perceived deficiencies in wider discourses of cultural and national identity by way of comparison between New Zealand and somewhere else. These include Amelia Batistich's Another Mountain, Another Song (1981), Albert Wendt's Sons for the Return Home (1973) and Black Rainbow (1992), James McNeish's Penelope's Island (1990), Stephanie Johnson's The Heart's Wild Surf (2003), and Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip (2006).


Polar Record ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. Shaughnessy ◽  
Mark Pharaoh

Abstract Sir Douglas Mawson is a well-known Antarctic explorer and scientist. Early in his career, he recognised opportunities for commerce in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions. While at Cape Denison, Antarctica, in 1913 on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE), the Adelie Blizzard magazine was produced. Mawson contributed articles about Antarctic natural resources and their possible use. Later, he advocated Australia be involved in pelagic whaling. He collected seal skins and oil for their commercial value to be assessed by the Hudson’s Bay Company. During the AAE, Mawson visited Macquarie Island where an oiling gang was killing southern elephant seals and royal penguins. Mawson was concerned that they were over-exploited and lobbied successfully to stop the killing. His plans for Macquarie Island included a wildlife sanctuary, with a party to supervise access, send meteorological observations to Australia and New Zealand, and be self-funded by harvesting elephant seals and penguins. Macquarie Island was declared a sanctuary in 1933. Although Mawson has been recognised as an early proponent of conservation, his views on conservation of living natural resources were inconsistent. They should be placed in their historical context: in the early twentieth century, utilisation of living natural resources was viewed more favourably than currently.


2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martijn C Vlaskamp

Natural resources can be an important source of funding for warring parties in armed conflicts. Curbing the trade in these so-called conflict resources is, therefore, part of the European Union’s conflict management policies. The article explores the EU’s policies in this field and asks, specifically, why the EU is using supply chain due-diligence measures to achieve this goal. The author argues that they are the response to enforcement problems of most existing multilateral and unilateral sanction regimes because of state weakness in the targeted regions. This approach results from a broader idea from the EU that transparency can improve resource governance and, therefore, safeguard both its political and economic interests in conflict zones, such as the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, when the issue becomes specific—as in the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation—translating this idea into concrete policies becomes more contentious as the EU institutions set different priorities for the final policy design.


Author(s):  
James H. Liu ◽  
Felicia Pratto

Colonization and decolonization are theorized at the intersection of Critical Junctures Theory and Power Basis Theory. This framework allows human agency to be conceptualized at micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, where individuals act on behalf of collectives. Their actions decide whether critical junctures in history (moments of potential for substantive change) result in continuity (no change), anchoring (continuity amid change with new elements), or rupture. We apply this framework to European colonization of the world, which is the temporal scene for contemporary social justice. Several critical junctures in New Zealand history are analyzed as part of its historical trajectory and narrated through changes in its symbology (system of meaning) and technology of state, as well as the identity space it encompasses (indigenous Māori and British colonizers). The impact of this historical trajectory on the social structure of New Zealand, including its national identity and government, is considered and connected to the overarching theoretical framework.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Le Billon

Water wars, oil conflicts and blood diamonds. Three terms reflecting a widespread belief that people fight over resources. Is this belief backed by evidence? What power relations does such a belief reflect and shape? If natural resources have a conspicuous presence in accounts of armed conflicts, the term ‘resource wars’ represents a gross oversimplification. Strategically deployed to prepare for ‘the wars of the future’ or to shame belligerents by exposing their ‘greedy’ motives, ‘resource war’ narratives often overlook the multiple causes of conflict and alternative options to militarized resource control. A main threat from ‘resource wars’ narratives is that they become self-fulfilling prophecies. As such, ‘resource wars’ studies should first be self-reflexive, and then strive to encompass the broad causes, specific historical contexts, and wide variety of effects that resource sectors have on the environment and social relations.


Author(s):  
John Newton

Review(s) of: The Invention of New Zealand: Art and National Identity, 1930-1970, by Francis Pound, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2009, xxi, 425 pp., [80] pp. of plates. ISBN 9781869404147


Author(s):  
Eveline Dürr

The entanglement and mutual constitution of New Zealand's branding strategies, national identity and local understandings of 'New Zealandness' are discussed. The key aspects and features of the Pakeha perceptions of brand New Zealand are highlighted.


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