Crippling the Will of a People: Morphostatic Structures of Violence and the Crawl-Space of Agency in the Lives of Eritrean Refugees

<p>In conjunction with an exposition of the larger historical and political context of the nation of Eritrea, this thesis examines the life narratives of five refugees hailing from the Horn of Africa. In doing so, certain institutional, relational, and embodied forms of violence are identified as permeating Eritrea’s socio-political fabric and thus also the inter- and intra-personal lives of the participants. Where morphostatic structures are deemed as those that constrain an individual’s capacity to pursue their ultimate concerns, it is maintained that violence in the form of extreme nationalism, routinised fear, and varying subjective affects partially accounts for the fact that an estimated 5,000 people are fleeing this small, modernising African nation every month. Following this, I argue that, by examining the life-narratives of Eritrean refugees, violence can be understood as transpiring at the interstices of an ongoing – albeit skewed – dialectic between, on one hand, morphostatic structures of violence appearing in institutional, relational, and embodied forms, and, on the other, a degree of mimetic agency that, when harnessed, acts as a crawl-space through which individuals – if they are to realise their ultimate concerns – must absent themselves relative to such structures of violence.</p>

Crippling the Will of a People: Morphostatic Structures of Violence and the Crawl-Space of Agency in the Lives of Eritrean Refugees

<p>In conjunction with an exposition of the larger historical and political context of the nation of Eritrea, this thesis examines the life narratives of five refugees hailing from the Horn of Africa. In doing so, certain institutional, relational, and embodied forms of violence are identified as permeating Eritrea’s socio-political fabric and thus also the inter- and intra-personal lives of the participants. Where morphostatic structures are deemed as those that constrain an individual’s capacity to pursue their ultimate concerns, it is maintained that violence in the form of extreme nationalism, routinised fear, and varying subjective affects partially accounts for the fact that an estimated 5,000 people are fleeing this small, modernising African nation every month. Following this, I argue that, by examining the life-narratives of Eritrean refugees, violence can be understood as transpiring at the interstices of an ongoing – albeit skewed – dialectic between, on one hand, morphostatic structures of violence appearing in institutional, relational, and embodied forms, and, on the other, a degree of mimetic agency that, when harnessed, acts as a crawl-space through which individuals – if they are to realise their ultimate concerns – must absent themselves relative to such structures of violence.</p>

Impact of weather conditions and building design on contaminant infiltration from crawl spaces in Swedish schools--Numerical modeling using Monte Carlo method

Some Swedish school buildings built in the 1960s and 1970s experience indoor air quality problems, where the contaminants are suspected to come from the crawl space underneath the building. The poor indoor air quality causes discomfort among pupils and teachers. Installing an exhaust fan to maintain a negative pressure difference in the crawl space relative to indoors or increasing the ventilation in the classroom are two examples of common measures taken to improve the indoor air quality. However, these measures are not always effective, and sometimes the school building has to be demolished. The relation between pressure distribution, contaminant concentration in the classroom, outdoor temperature, wind, mechanical ventilation, and air leakage distribution is complex. A better understanding of these relations is crucial for making decisions on the most efficient measure to improve the indoor air quality. In this paper, a model for contaminant infiltration from the crawl space is used together with the Monte Carlo method to study these relations. Simulations are performed for several cases where different building shapes, building orientations, shielding conditions, and geographical locations are simulated. Results show, for example, that for a building with an imbalanced ventilation system, air is leaking from the crawl space to the classroom for the majority of cases and that concentration levels in the classroom are usually the highest during mild and calm days.

Pressure distribution around the thermal envelope - a parametric study of the impact from wind and temperature on contaminant transport within a building

Several school buildings in Sweden have indoor air quality problems. The contaminant source is often assumed to come from within the construction, for example from the crawl space or attic space. Contaminants, in these cases, are transported by air leaking between compartments in the building. Here, the driving force for the air leakage is difference in pressure and, therefore, determining pressure also determines the direction of contaminant transport. In many cases, measures to improve the air quality are taken without a thorough understanding of how it might affect the pressure distribution in the building. In this paper a numerical model is used to examine how different climate scenarios and different building configurations affect the leakage and contaminant transport in a building with a crawl space. Results show that for leaky buildings the ventilation rate increases with increased wind and therefore the contaminant concentration decreases. The worst scenario in terms of high contaminant concentration is mild days with little wind. Also, when installing an exhaust fan in the crawl space with the purpose to prevent air from leaking from the crawl space to the classroom it is advisable to also consider the airtightness and the climate, not only the pressure difference across the floor.

Highly insulated crawl spaces with controlled minimal ventilation – proof of concept by field measurements

In current practices crawl spaces are typically ventilated with outdoor air. This leads very often to high relative humidity especially in the beginning of the summer, which can be problematic if the excess humidity cannot be ventilated efficiently enough. This paper introduces a crawl space concept where the crawl space is highly insulated and traditional ventilation openings are replaced by minimal mechanical exhaust ventilation set by pressure difference with the aim to prevent potential pollutants to penetrate indoors through the base floor. The concept that has been developed based on the simulation study is tested in this study with field measurements in four single family houses. Continuous measurements of relative humidity and temperature in crawl spaces and outdoor air were running more than one year in each building. The results revealed that all the crawl spaces had very low relative humidity, mostly below 75% and for very short periods close to 80% even though some of the buildings were new and construction phase moisture was drying out. The results revealed that the crawl space concept studied provided an ultimate moisture safety and can be recommended for all buildings with wooden floor.

Study of Indoor Radon/ Thoron Concentration with Respect to Construction Types of Dwellings in Mizoram, India

Indoor radon and thoron concentrations have been measured in the year 2015-2016 using the newly developed pin-hole based radon/thoron discriminating dosimeters with single entry. The measurements have been carried out in fifty dwellings of eight different villages/town situated in Saiha and Lawngtlai District, Mizoram. Dwellings were selected from the building type along with an idea of different ventilation conditions which affects the indoor concentration. Reinforce Cement Concrete (RCC) type of buildings are found to have the highest concentration of indoor radon (100.34 ± 7 Bq/m3) and thoron (41.41 ± 18 Bq/m3) and grounded house are found to have higher concentration compared to that of house with crawl space. However, the concentrations obtained in this work lies in the range covered by nationwide survey result as well as the ICRP regulations.