Violence and the Production of Borders in Western Slavonia

Slavic Review ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 422-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mila Dragojević

AbstractThis article examines how the production of a dividing line, through violence, the accompanying narratives, and the policing of a physical border from 1991 to 1995, shaped and influenced the lives of ordinary people, all residents of Western Slavonia. How was it possible for people to be divided so abruptly and effectively in a community with a history of multiethnic solidarity? How were these new social divisions produced and reproduced over the course of warfare on a social level? By considering new archival sources, in-depth interviews, and recent scholarly publications, this study argues that such dividing line made the process of ethnicization, or of polarization, possible. Thus, by representing the space where the top-level political cleavages, local-level cleavages, and individuals’ beliefs and momentary choices meet, the wartime dividing line effectively transformed former neighbors into political enemies who were no longer familiar, visible, or accessible on a human level.

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 657-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelm J. Wessels

The book of Jeremiah reflects a particular period in the history of Judah, certain theological perspectives and a particular portrayal of the prophet Jeremiah. Covenant theology played a major role in Jeremiah’s view of life and determined his expectations of leaders and ordinary people. He placed high value on justice and trustworthiness, and people who did not adhere to this would in his view bear the consequences of disobedience to Yahweh’s moral demands and unfaithfulness. The prophet expected those in positions of leadership to adhere to certain ethical obligations as is clear from most of the nouns which appear in Jeremiah 5:1–6. This article argues that crisis situations in history affect leaders’ communication, attitudes and responses. Leaders’ worldviews and ideologies play a definitive role in their responses to crises. Jeremiah’s religious views are reflected in his criticism and demands of people in his society. This is also true as seen from the way the people and leaders in Judah responded to the prophet’s proclamation. Jeremiah 5:1–6 emphasises that knowledge and accountability are expected of leaders at all times, but in particular during unstable political times.


Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts

This chapter describes the contours of the epistemic crisis in media and politics that threatens the integrity of democratic processes, erodes trust in public institutions, and exacerbates social divisions. It lays out the centrality of partisanship, asymmetric polarization, and political radicalization in understanding the current maladies of political media. It investigates the main actors who used the asymmetric media ecosystem to influence the formation of beliefs and the propagation of disinformation in the American public sphere, and to manipulate political coverage during the election and the first year of the Trump presidency, , including “fake news” entrepreneurs/political clickbait fabricators; Russian hackers, bots, and sockpuppets; the Facebook algorithm and online echo chambers; and Cambridge Analytica. The chapter also provides definitions of propaganda and related concepts, as well as a brief intellectual history of the study of propaganda.


Author(s):  
Mirza Sangin Beg

The second part of the translation has three segments. The first is dedicated to the history of Delhi from the time of the Mahabharat to the periods of Anangpal Tomar to the Mughal Emperor Humayun as also Sher Shah, the Afghan ruler. In the second and third segments Mirza Sangin Beg adroitly navigates between twin centres of power in the city. He writes about Qila Mubarak, or the Red Fort, and gives an account of the several buildings inside it and the cost of construction of the same. He ambles into the precincts and mentions the buildings constructed by Shahjahan and other rulers, associating them with some specific inmates of the fort and the functions performed within them. When the author takes a walk in the city of Shahjahanabad, he writes of numerous residents, habitations of rich, poor, and ordinary people, their mansions and localities, general and specialized bazars, the in different skills practised areas, places of worship and revelry, processions exemplifying popular culture and local traditions, and institutions that had a resonance in other cultures. The Berlin manuscript gives generous details of the officials of the English East India Company, both native and foreign, their professions, and work spaces. Mirza Sangin Beg addresses the issue of qaum most unselfconsciously and amorphously.


2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-267
Author(s):  
Rashmi Dyal-Chand

Preemption is one of the most important legal doctrines for today’s progressives to understand because of its power to constrain progressive policymaking and social movement lawyering at the state and local level. By examining the detailed history of a decades-long campaign by the labor and environmental movements to improve working conditions in an industry at the heart of the global supply chain, Scott L. Cummings’s Blue and Green: The Drive for Justice at America’s Port (2018) provides a case study about the doctrine and impacts of preemption. The study also inspires lawyers and activists alike to reexamine core questions of factual relevance, representation and voice, and precedent.


Author(s):  
Paulina Guerrero-Miranda ◽  
Arturo Luque González

Natural disasters can generate millions of tons of debris and waste, which has an impact on the environment and poses direct risks to the health of the population, hence the need to analyze public policy and its consequences following the 2016 earthquake in Ecuador. Several in-depth interviews were conducted with individuals active in public service during the post-earthquake management period, together with fieldwork analysis of debris management and the institutional strategies for its recycling and reuse in three of the most affected cities: Pedernales, Portoviejo, and Manta. The environmental impact was examined, including its taxonomy of inconsistencies within public administration, alongside the processes of decentralization and shared decision-making. Similarly, the links between corporate social responsibility (CSR), public policy, and sustainability were analyzed at both the national and local level for their wider implications and ramifications. The study highlighted the gaps in the management of such a crisis, exposing a lack of ethics and the shortcomings of social (ir-)responsibility in the distorted processes of public welfare in the country, aspects that should rather work in concert to achieve full sustainable development.


Author(s):  
Shytierra Gaston

African Americans are disproportionately victimized by various forms of racialized violence. This long-standing reality is rooted in America’s history of racist violence, one manifestation being racial lynchings. This article investigates the long-term, intergenerational consequences of racial lynchings by centering the voices and experiences of victims’ families. The data comprise in-depth interviews with twenty-two descendants of twenty-two victims lynched between 1883 and 1972 in the U.S. South. I employed a multistage qualitative analysis, revealing three main domains of harmful impacts: psychological, familial, and economic. The findings underscore that racist violence has imposed harm beyond victims and for many decades and generations after the violent event. These long-term, intergenerational harms, especially if multiplied across countless incidents, can fundamentally impact the well-being of individuals, families, and communities as well as contribute to structural and macrolevel forces. Findings from this study have implications for research, policy, and practice, including efforts toward redress and reparations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Chunchun Wang

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the transformations of prosthetic practices in China, as well as the daily experiences and dilemmas arising from the everchanging practices since 1949. On the basis of materials, this paper explores an everyday perspective to review the history of technology.Design/methodology/approachEthnography was collected with the application of participant observations, informal interviews and in-depth interviews during a 13-months study at a rehabilitation center in Chengdu, China. The literature on prosthetic manufacturing was also reviewed for this paper.FindingsChina's prosthetic technology seems to evolve from traditional to modern. However, this progressive narrative – innovation-based timeline (Edgerton, 2006, xi) – has been challenged by daily practices. Due to institutional pressures, prosthetists are in a dilemma of selectively using their knowledge to create one kind of device for all prosthesis users with a certain kind of disability, thereby regulating the physical and social experiences of prosthesis users. Besides, prosthesis users are accustomed to prostheses made with old techniques, and must correct themselves from old experiences to the daily practices recognized by the selected techniques.Originality/valueThis paper provides a cross-cultural case to reexamine Edgerton's criticism of the progressive and orderly innovation-centric technological narrative. More importantly, it reviews the history and practices of China's prosthetics from daily experiences rather than Edgerton's concentration on technology; therefore, it provides an everyday perspective for future research on technological transformations.


2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMILY CALLACI

ABSTRACTThis article explores the relationship between understandings of youth sexuality and mobility, and racial nationalism in late colonial Tanganyika through a history of dansi: a dance mode first popularized by Tanganyikan youth in the 1930s. Dansi's heterosocial choreography and cosmopolitan connotations provoked widespread anxieties among rural elders and urban elites over the mobility, economic autonomy, and sexual agency of youth. In urban commercial dancehalls in the 1950s, dansi staged emerging cultural solidarities among migrant youth, while also making visible social divisions based on class and gender. At the same time, nationalist intellectuals attempted to reform dansi according to an emerging political rhetoric of racial respectability.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092199852
Author(s):  
Aneta Piekut ◽  
Gill Valentine

In this article, the authors move away from approaching generations as static categories and explore how ordinary people, as opposed to scholars, distinguish generations and justify their different responses to cultural diversity in terms of ethnicity, race and religion/belief. The analysis draws on 90 in-depth interviews with 30 residents in the Polish capital, Warsaw (2012–2013). Through approaching generation as an analytical category, the authors identify various differentiating narratives which the study participants employed to draw boundaries between generations, reinforcing the common belief that the youngest Poles are most accepting of diversity. Although generations are seen as the axis of difference, conditioning generation-specific responses to diversity, the accounts emerging from the interviews reveal their relational nature, as well as similarities and points of connection between their experiences.


Author(s):  
Julia Wesely ◽  
Adriana Allen ◽  
Lorena Zárate ◽  
María Silvia Emanuelli

Re-thinking dominant epistemological assumptions of the urban in the global South implies recognising the role of grassroots networks in challenging epistemic injustices through the co-production of multiple saberes and haceres for more just and inclusive cities. This paper examines the pedagogies of such networks by focusing on the experiences nurtured within Habitat International Coalition in Latin America (HIC-AL), identified as a ‘School of Grassroots Urbanism’ (Escuela de Urbanismo Popular). Although HIC-AL follows foremost activist rather than educational objectives, members of HIC-AL identify and value their practices as a ‘School’, whose diverse pedagogic logics and epistemological arguments are examined in this paper. The analysis builds upon a series of in-depth interviews, document reviews and participant observation with HIC-AL member organisations and allied grassroots networks. The discussion explores how the values and principles emanating from a long history of popular education and popular urbanism in the region are articulated through situated pedagogies of resistance and transformation, which in turn enable generative learning from and for the social production of habitat.


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