Tendering a Tactile Tectonic: Discovering and Deploying Architecture’s DNA

In a current academic architectural design culture often characterized by parametricism, cybernetics, and virtual reality, architectural design’s visceral and haptic dimensions have assumed an inferior position in architectural design ideation and process. Whether through intentional dismissal or benign neglect, the design process pursued in many undergraduate architectural programs has assumed an occularcentric modality. Students ideate in a weightless, immaterial, design landscape of simulation, devoid of the shifting qualities of color, light and shadow, the nuance of olfactory and tactile cues, and material resonance. Rather than advance a nostalgic, anti-digitally mediated position, the design practices described here deploy haptic means to tender a design process that advances a tactile tectonic grounded in the DNA or patterns of human experience and nature.

The Challenges of Managing Water for Wetland Ecology, Flood Mitigation and Agriculture in the Upper Lunan Water, an Intensive Arable Catchment in Scotland

The “Water for All” project has aimed to develop a multi-disciplinary science case for adaptive management through a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme in the Lunan Water, a lowland catchment in Scotland. Management needs for high and low flows, standing water levels and flow routing to/from high nature value mesotrophic wetlands were appraised. A key part has been the development of a real time hydrological-hydraulic model of the upper Lunan Water as an aid to management and scenario analysis especially with respect to existing and potential hydraulic structures. This provides better working knowledge and forecast-based simulations of high or low flow situations for catchment management planners, farmers, riparian owners and other local stakeholders. Engagement with local users and residents has included surveying Willingness To Pay (WTP) for hydraulic management as a function of governance mechanisms, development of a catchment management group , and interviews and workshops with riparian and other land-users. The work has highlighted the joys and sorrows of seeking to develop a PES approach and lessons to be learnt in project management, promotion of multiple benefits, catchment-scale water governance and the vices and virtues of “benign neglect”.

HIV Beliefs Among African Americans with HIV/AIDS in the Deep South Can Time Heal Old Wounds?

This study explored rumors about HIV among HIV+ African Americans in Louisiana, comparing the results of surveys conducted in 2000/2001 and 2010/2011. This investigation sought to determine if the passage of time would diminish malicious intent and benign neglect beliefs. The study employed quantitative descriptive statistics to produce the comparison. This research should be considered exploratory only because of the stated limitations. The results indicated that the benign-neglect belief of government truthfulness about the disease had not diminished in the decade. In contrast, the strength of belief in the malicious-intent rumor of HIV/AIDS as genocide had declined. The study further examined relationships between the HIV beliefs and certain characteristics of the samples. Bivariate analyses revealed that education was not related to HIV beliefs in 2000/2001 but was related to the HIV/AIDS as genocide in 2010/2011. Further, emotional well-being was mildly related to HIV beliefs in both samples. Several recommendations are offered for future research. Although this study frequently used the term “conspiracy” – the common nomenclature for this type of research, the author joins with others to caution researchers to rethink labeling these beliefs among African Americans as conspiracies. That label too easily casts Black Americans in a light as being paranoid rather than understandably suspicious considering the lived experiences of that group in the Deep South.

Explaining the Politics of Security: Syrian Refugees in Turkey and Lebanon

Under what conditions do governments view and respond to the arrival of refugees primarily as a security threat? Comparatively analyzing the securitization of Syrian refugees in two host countries, Turkey and Lebanon, this paper proposes a domestic political context–based theory and typology of securitization. Based on a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the media data including mainstream national Turkish and Lebanese newspaper articles, this research first differentiates between different levels of securitization and finds that moderate securitization in Lebanon during the early years of the refugee crisis (2013–2014) coincided with an open border policy, inaction, legal ambiguity, and benign neglect. From 2015, a marked increase of securitization in Lebanon coincided with controlled borders, restrictive policies, and heightened tension. Securitization of Syrian refugees has followed a somewhat different trajectory in Turkey, where the state switched from non-recognition (2013–2014) to recognition (2014–2016) and then from recognition to integration (2016–present), while a decrease in securitization mapped onto this policy trajectory despite the opposition's and the public's increasing discontentment with the presence of refugees. Then, this paper argues that the low level of securitization in Turkey is an outcome of the incumbent party's Islamist political ideology that motivates transnational religious solidarity, whereas the high level of securitization in Lebanon is a consequence of elite divisions and the country's unique historical experiences with Palestinian refugees that engender competing security perspectives and agendas on Syrian refugees. Overall, this study demonstrates how contextual or domestic factors are key to explaining government attitudes toward refugee groups and contributes to our understanding of the sources and processes of securitization.

Philosophies of integration? Elite views on citizenship policies in Scandinavia

Research on the ‘civic turn’ in European citizenship policies suggests that concerns over immigrant integration have fueled the restrictive development of citizenship policies in recent decades. However, few efforts have been made to explore the normative ideas underlying this development. Departing from Favell’s (1998) influential concept of ‘philosophies of integration’, this article draws on elite-interviews with top-level bureaucrats, politicians and citizenship experts in the Scandinavian countries and explores how ideas about nationhood and integration have influenced the divergence in citizenship policies in the region, and what overall purpose the policy-changes reflect. We find that, especially in Denmark, the gradual introduction of ever more demanding civic integration requirements appears to be a part of the broader aim of controlling the inflow of migrants and not to enhance the integration of those already present in the country. Conversely, the Swedish liberal approach to citizenship, which regularly has been analyzed as a steppingstone to societal integration, might in reality have been a reflection of benign neglect. In Norway, immigrant integration has clearly been part of the underlying rationale for changes in naturalization requirements, yet the control dimension have played an increasingly important role. These findings suggests that, although the citizenship institution remains important in nation states’ efforts to solve their ‘ethnic dilemmas’, the underlying rationale behind policy-change is more multifaceted than previously understood.