Migration and the European Convention on Human Rights

This book investigates where the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as a living instrument stands on migration and rights of migrants. Individual chapters in the volume address how the tension between the textual silence of the Convention concerning migrant rights and the significant number of cases that the ECHR have addressed concerning migration and rights migrants are resolved or left to the discretion of European states. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of cases brought by migrants in different stages of migration covering the right to flee, who is entitled to enter and remain Europe, what treatment is owed to them when they come within the jurisdiction of a Council of Europe member state, not only to those who recently entered Europe, but also to those who have been living in Europe for a longer time. As such, the book evaluates the case law of the ECHR concerning different categories of migrants including asylum seekers, irregular migrants, those who have migrated through domestic lawful routes and those who are currently second- or third-generation migrants in Europe. The broad perspective adopted by the book allows for a systematic analysis of how and to what extent the Convention protects non-refoulement, migrant children, family rights of migrants, status rights of migrants, economic and social rights of migrants, as well as cultural and religious rights of migrants.

Thomas Browne and the Silent Text

Throughout his writings, the physician and essayist Thomas Browne (1605–82) grapples with the problem of how and whether to interpret the silence of texts. His innovative solutions to the problem of “negative authority,” the term used in early modern theological debates over the significance, or lack thereof, vested in things omitted by the scriptures, challenge more conventional reformed defenses of scriptural perspicuity and also reveal how these hermeneutic puzzles in turn shape Browne’s understanding of the relationship between theology and natural philosophy and between rhetoric and logic. This article analyzes Browne’s idiosyncratic treatment of textual silence within its historical moment and also considers the interpretive challenges posed by omissions in Browne’s own writings, focusing in particular on his Pseudodoxia Epidemica. À travers son oeuvre, le médecin et essayiste Thomas Browne (1605–82) se demande s’il faut interpréter le silence des textes, et si oui, comment. À la question de « l’autorité négative », ainsi que le problème était nommé dans les débats théologiques de la première modernité — que signifient les silences et les omissions des Écritures, s'ils signifient quelque chose? — il répond de manière originale et défie les défenses réformées, plus conventionnelles, de la perspicacité scripturale ; ces réponses révèlent également l'influence de ces énigmes herméneutiques, en retour, sur la conception de Browne quant aux relations entre théologie et philosophie naturelle, ainsi qu' entre rhétorique et logique. Cet article analyse la façon spécifique dont Browne, dans son contexte historique, traite du silence textuel, et il considère les problèmes d’interprétation que posent les omissions dans les textes de Browne lui-même, en particulier dans son Pseudodoxia Epidemica.

Identifying textual silence in scientific research articles. Recontextualizations of the field account in Geology

Long neglected as a primary impetus of study, textual silences abound in such field disciplines as geology, where most field results seem to ‘disappear’ from the published research article. This paper first discusses the nature of textual silence and then proposes a typology of textual silences associated with written scientific discourse. Next, by examining the different disciplinary genres involved in the “recontextualizations” of a fieldwork study in geology, this study seeks to (1) identify textual silence in the various recontextualizations and (2) offer explanations for it.

THE DIALOGUE OF THE DEAF: EXPLORING TEXTUAL SILENCE IN STEPHEN CHIFUNYISE’S PLAY, INTIMATE AFFAIRS

This article examines Stephen Chifunyise’s calculated focus on the domestic spaces – the family, personal relationships and the psycho-sexual dilemmas at the expense of the wider national socio-economic and political context during a period in Zimbabwe that has come to be known as the “decade of crisis”. Ignoring a plethora of social, economic and political challenges such as the collapse of a welfarist state, unprecedented inflation, political violence, sycophancy and corruption among others, the dramatist chooses to focus solely on the contradictions within the home and the family. The central question with which the article grapples is the ideological motivation behind this deliberate focus by the dramatist. Using Wall’s (1989) theory of the dialogue of the deaf in conjunction with Macherey’s (1978) theory of the “unsaid” in a text, the article argues that despite the author’s calculated omission or silence on the socio-economic and political realities, the average intelligent reader is not only able to read into the dramatist’s ideological position and motive but also the ugly reality that he is trying to cover up or hide from the reader.

Nature Writing, American Exceptionalism, and Philosophical Thoughts in Edward Bliss Emerson's Caribbean Journal

Through the use of qualitative content analysis (Patton, 2002), this essay examines the philosophical thoughts presented in the journal and family letters of Edward B. Emerson for 1831-1834, written in the Caribbean while he was seeking relief from consumption (tuberculosis). The analysis focused on the themes of nature writing, American Exceptionalism, and the journal as evidence of a liminal life-death event. Edward was actively engaged in the genres of travel and nature writing, where Transcendentalist ideas were not evident. In contrast, important elements of that movement emerged in his philosophical expressions. Edward evinced an acute and creative mind until the end of his life, and his philosophical thoughts can be placed under the rubric of the philosophy of life. Edward's texts manifest a prejudiced contempt toward the people and culture of Puerto Rico and showed a sense of elitism that reflects American Exceptionalism, but his beliefs of human perfectibility seem to derive from a religious model of absolute moral conceptions. Edward's liminal intimations of mortality elicited a textual silence on consumption and death. The figure of the tragic hero fits Edward's life and demise.

Searching for Poverty-aware Social Work: Discourse Analysis of Job Descriptions

This article aims to enrich the current limited body of knowledge regarding social work professional discourse. More specifically, it seeks to examine the extent and ways in which the social work intra-profession discourse, as it is manifested in formal job descriptions of social workers in Israel, reflects the commitment to working with people living in poverty and to confronting poverty. We provide a brief review of the concept of professional discourse and the role of formal job descriptions in this discourse in general, and in Israel in particular. ‘Poverty-aware social work’ is then conceptualised. Against this background, we analysed 75 job descriptions in order to ascertain whether, and in what ways, references to poverty appear in defining client populations, in directions for assessing their situation, and in defining the goals and methods of professional intervention. The research findings reflect a textual silence in relation to poverty issues in job descriptions. The analysis of poverty-related sub-topics in these documents suggests that job descriptions offer, and simultaneously reproduce a conservative and a-political perspective on poverty and on social work practice with people living in poverty.