scholarly journals A culture of reaction : Canadian refugee policy in an era of environmental migration

Author(s):  
Eric Omeziri

In 2010, forty-two million people worldwide were displaced from their homes due to environmental causes. These environmental migrants lack international recognition and have no recourse to the protections of the international refugee regime. This paper examines contradictions inherent in the environmental migration concept, and argues that state-level migration policies related to issues of environmental displacement are reactive and ad hoc in nature. Examining Canadian and US migration policies, this paper demonstrates that national governments have developed a "wait and see" approach towards environmental displacement. With a long history of responding to incidences of displacement, Canada is an important country in terms of its refugee resettlement policies. Accordingly, a review of Canadian refugee policy will provide insights relating to the policy response of western countries to future incidences of environmental displacement.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Omeziri

In 2010, forty-two million people worldwide were displaced from their homes due to environmental causes. These environmental migrants lack international recognition and have no recourse to the protections of the international refugee regime. This paper examines contradictions inherent in the environmental migration concept, and argues that state-level migration policies related to issues of environmental displacement are reactive and ad hoc in nature. Examining Canadian and US migration policies, this paper demonstrates that national governments have developed a "wait and see" approach towards environmental displacement. With a long history of responding to incidences of displacement, Canada is an important country in terms of its refugee resettlement policies. Accordingly, a review of Canadian refugee policy will provide insights relating to the policy response of western countries to future incidences of environmental displacement.


Refuge ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-53
Author(s):  
Eric Omeziri ◽  
Christopher Gore

In 2010, 42 million people worldwide were displaced from their homes as the result of environmental factors. These “environmental migrants” lack international recognition and have no recourse to the protections of the international refugee regime. Given Canada’s history of international refugee resettlement, this paper examines Canada’s past and potential response to environmental migrants. Evidence reveals that the Canadian government relies on ad hoc, temporary measures, and that clear, long-term policy measures for issues surrounding forced migration due to environmental events are unlikely. The implications of this outcome are discussed, providing observations and lessons for researchers and advocates of migration rights.


2017 ◽  
pp. 527-537
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Ljustina

Migration is one of the oldest and most used strategies for overcoming negative social issues. Despite the fact that it is historically deeply rooted, environmental migration as a social phenomenon has only recently become the subject research of numerous scientific fields. However, the study of current environmental migration is characterized by a number of issues, such as absence of an adequate definition and multi-causality of environmental migration. In this paper, through conceptual framework, author analyzed two main questions: who are environmental migrants and what reasons cause environmental migration. Due to the destruction of the global environmental balance, as well as accumulated environmental disturbances, it is likely that environmental migration will increase in future and there is nowhere you cannot make more use of scientific and professional projection of the future than in demographic and environmental spheres of human life. There is no doubt that our future is unpredictable. However, the environmental factors influencing the pattern of human interaction with the environment must be taken into account when projecting future development of the modern society. Such is the context in which the complex relation among migration, change and the environment has to be studied. In order to establish the basis for controlling environmental migration caused by negative changes in the environment, it is necessary to adopt a consistent strategy instead of ad hoc activities that are being used. In this paper, author analyzed societal response for the challenges caused by environmental migration, specifically regarding actions related to governing environmental migrations.


Author(s):  
Laura Quick

This chapter argue that ritual behaviours might be just as good a source as literary texts for the diffusion of traditional cursing and treaty material across different cultures in the ancient Near East. In particular, the role of ad hoc oral Targum in the ritual process could have been an important means by which traditions were shared between different language communities. Recognition of the ritual context of this material also provides insights for the comparative method, the dating and authorship of Deuteronomy 28, and the subversive impetus thought to have stood behind its composition. Ultimately, the function of the written word in a largely oral world is shown to be fundamental to understanding the composition, function and the early history of the curses in the book of Deuteronomy.


Comunicar ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (43) ◽  
pp. 15-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa García-Ruiz ◽  
Antonia Ramírez-García ◽  
María-del-Mar Rodríguez-Rosell

Access to technology and the Internet is having a positive impact on all levels, personal, family, professional and social. However, the influence of the media has not been accompanied by the promotion of media literacy. The development of the media skill among citizens, especially young people and children, in order to exercise a critical and active role in relation to the media, is a key development in this society of «media prosumers». This paper discusses the results of a research project at state level, surveying a sample of 2.143 students from Kindergarten, Primary and Secondary School, in this study using a questionnaire ad hoc online. The objetive of the research project is to identify levels of media literacy amongst children and adolescents. It can be seen that a significant portion of the sample is proficient in the media, at an acceptable level. However, and despite belonging to the generation of socalled «digital natives» the sample does not possess the skills necessary to practice as a «media prosumers». We conclude the work highlighting the necessity of complementing the digital competence established in the school curriculum with media literacy as a key element into developing a «prosumer culture». This would resolve the convergence of an urgent need to improve the training of young audiences as responsible citizens capable of consuming and producing media messages in a free, responsible, critical and creative way. El acceso a las tecnologías y a Internet está teniendo consecuencias positivas en todos los niveles, personales, familiares, profesionales y sociales. Sin embargo, la influencia de los medios de comunicación no se ha acompasado con el fomento de la alfabetización mediática. El desarrollo de la competencia mediática en la ciudadanía, y especialmente en los jóvenes y niños para que puedan ejercer de forma crítica y activa su papel ante los medios, se revela como clave en esta sociedad de «prosumidores mediáticos». En este trabajo se presentan los resultados de un proyecto de investigación de ámbito estatal con el objetivo de identificar los niveles de competencia mediática de niños y adolescentes, encuestando a una muestra de 2.143 estudiantes de Educación Infantil, Primaria, Secundaria y Bachillerato, mediante un cuestionario ad hoc online. Puede observarse que una importante parte de la muestra es competente ante los medios, en un nivel aceptable, sin embargo, y a pesar de que pertenecen a la generación de los denominados «nativos digitales», no poseen las habilidades necesarias para ejercer como «prosumidores mediáticos». Concluimos el trabajo destacando la necesidad de complementar la competencia digital establecida en el currículum escolar con la competencia mediática, como elemento clave para desarrollar una «cultura prosumidora», convergencia de imperiosa necesidad para mejorar la formación de las jóvenes audiencias como ciudadanos responsables capaces de consumir y producir mensajes mediáticos de manera libre, responsable, crítica y creativa.


2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 398-416
Author(s):  
Yasir Mohammad Sakr

Sinan’s Ambivalence: The Triangular Design of the Süleymanıye Schools Complex in Istanbul interrogates the anomalous configuration of the Süleymanıye schools, including the unorthodox angular Dar-ul-Hadith, the largest and most important Ottoman educational institution, designed by the great Ottoman master-builder Sinan in 1548–59. The Süleymanıye, as Yasir Mohammad Sakr demonstrates, is not a mere adaptation of preexisting symmetrical school models to contextual contingencies, as historians have contended. Rather, the Süleymanıye and its seeming anomalies are a function of the architect’s own relentless retrospection, repeatedly reinterpreting and opposing the very types that he initially created during the same design process. Sinan synthesized the idealized Ottoman planning patterns with a vigorous fragmentation and dispersal of its functional and symbolic elements to create an innovative hybrid typology for the Süleymanıye schools, especially the Dar-ul-Hadith. The study concludes that the triangular Dar-ul-Hadith is not a residual, ad hoc space as commonly perceived. It is the key to formulating the Süleymanıye master plan, which the author defines as a powerful symbolic scheme monumentalizing the new social arrangement by Sinan’s patron, Süleyman the Magnificent. Thus, far from the negative association usually attached to the notion of “ambivalence,” Sinan’s design practice presents it as a viable alternative approach for the history of Ottoman architecture.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Athina Nikolarakou ◽  
Dana Dumitriu ◽  
Pierre-Louis Docquier

Primary arthritis of chondrosternal joint is very rare and occurs in infants less than 18 months of age. Presentation is most often subacute but may be acute. Child presents with a parasternal mass with history of fever and/or local signs of infection. Clinical symptoms vary from a painless noninflammatory to a painful mass with local tenderness and swelling, while fever may be absent. Laboratory data show low or marginally raised levels of white blood cells and C-reactive protein, reflecting, respectively, the subacute or acute character of the infection. It is a self-limiting affection due to the adequate immune response of the patient. Evolution is generally good without antibiotherapy with a progressive spontaneous healing. A wait-and-see approach with close follow-up in the first weeks is the best therapeutic option.


Paleobiology ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Fisher

Many questions have emerged recently regarding the importance and methodology of analysis of adaptation. Divergent views reflect both problems of definition and more substantive issues of interpretation. Defining the state of adaptation in terms of its contribution to current fitness, rather than origin by natural selection, is essential if natural selection is to be considered anexplanationof adaptation. The context dependency and relativity of fitness apply also to adaptation. Design criteria are essential components of adaptation, but only to the extent that they are subsumed as elements of the causal interactions determining relative reproductive potential. The local, relational, contingent character of adaptation supports only limited reference to improvement. Most long-term patterns of change can be better described as diffusion within a structured design-space than as progressive improvement of design. The analysis of adaptation is part of a broader inquiry into the processes and constraints that control form and the history of changing form. It offers one perspective on how organisms operate on ecological time scales and how their configurations might be maintained or transformed over evolutionary time. Hypotheses concerning adaptation are sometimes tested by reference to predictions concerning the central tendency or trend of some aspect of an anatomical-behavioral system. These can be interpreted with minimal reference to assumptions of optimality if the analysis is viewed in terms of Bayesian inference. However, an alternative and frequently preferable approach to testing relies on limit-oriented predictions. Analysis of adaptation can be visualized as inferring the pattern and nature of interactions comprising the causal plexus that determines fitness. A comprehensive understanding of form and form-change requires that this be integrated with the perspective offered by studies of development, genetics, phylogenetic history, and external perturbations acting on the system.


2013 ◽  
Vol 98 (10) ◽  
pp. 4006-4012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ségolène Hescot ◽  
Sophie Leboulleux ◽  
Laurence Amar ◽  
Delphine Vezzosi ◽  
Isabelle Borget ◽  
...  

Abstract Context: The natural history of malignant pheochromocytoma or paragangliomas (MPP) remain unknown. Objective: The primary aim of this study was to define progression-free survival at 1 year in therapy-naive patients with MPP. Secondary objectives were to characterize MPP and to look for prognostic parameters for progression at 1 year. Design and Setting: The files of MPP followed up between January 2001 and January 2011 in two French Endocrine Networks were retrospectively reviewed. Therapy-naive patients were enrolled. Main Outcome Measures: The main outcome was progression-free survival at 1 year in therapy-naive MPP patients according to Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors 1.1 criteria. Results: Ninety files (46 men, 44 women, mean age of 47.5 ± 15 years) were reviewed on site by one investigator. MPP characteristics were as follows: presence of an adrenal primary, a mitotic count exceeding 5 per high power field, hypertension, inherited disease, and presence of bone metastases in 50%, 22%, 60%, 49%, and 56% patients, respectively. Fifty-seven of the 90 patients with MPP (63%) were classified as therapy-naive. The median follow-up of these 57 patients was 2.4 years (range, 0.4–5.7). At 1 year, progression-free survival was 46% (CI 95: 33–59). Twenty-six of 30 (87%) patients with progression at 1 year had exhibited progressive disease at the first imaging workup performed after a median of 5.7 months. No prognostic parameter was identified. Conclusions: Half of the therapy-naive patients with MPP achieved stable disease at 1 year. In symptom-free patients with MPP, a wait-and-see antitumor policy seems appropriate as first line. Modality for a prospective follow-up is proposed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 198 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-162
Author(s):  
Roberta Biasillo

Through considering a "Geo Archive" as a tool of history, this paper explores several conundrums concerning environmental migration in social sciences. It demonstrates how historical perspectives can problematize and unsettle various automatisms that are widely present in journalistic, public, and policy discourses. Through examples from the Geo Archive, the article illustrates how unavoidable historical dimensions can enrich our understandings on the interaction between environmental issues and migration flows. This paper engages with an open access "archive in-the-making". This Geo Archive includes case studies of migration flows and puts those flows in conversation with environmental transformations and climatic changes. The analysed collection presents high-profile stories which are representative samples of different approaches, temporalities, geographies, sources of information, narratives, and scales. This endeavour encompasses different disciplines and fields of expertise: environmental humanities, IT and communication experts, and political ecology. The archive places itself within the realms of public history, environmental history, and history of the present and aims to reach out to wider audiences. This digital humanities project stemmed from a support action funded by the EU initiative Horizon 2020 titled CLISEL whose overarching goal was to analyse and better inform institutional responses and policies addressing climate refugees and migrants.


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