New Media, New Partisanship: Divided Virtual Politics In and Beyond Thailand

Since the military coup of September 19, 2006, Thailand has been characterized by deeply divided politics. This article examines the rise of partisan television channels closely associated with mass protest movements: ASTV, Asia Update, and Blue Sky. Leading figures of each protest movement became media celebrities in their own right: Thai politics became a form of reality TV, while popular entertainment became a mode of politics. As time went on, mediatized populism fueled use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to promote partisan political stances. Each movement invoked its own competing notion of “the people,” offering highly selective and self-serving definitions of what constituted the public sphere and who was entitled to inhabit and, indeed, occupy this space. Partisan electronic media and new media have empowered citizens and deepened popular political engagement. But they have also stoked profound social division and discord, sometimes spilling over into violence. New media have helped generate dangerous forms of populism that undermine social cohesion and that demonize political adversaries

\u27Home was Congo\u27: Refugees and Durable Displacement in the Borderlands of 1,000 Hills

As forced migrants linger at the borders of the world’s conflicts, refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Rwanda remain in camps where they have waited for ‘durable solutions’ to their geographic and political existence for nearly two decades. Protracted displacement such as this results from processes at the local, state, regional, and international levels, with consequences reverberating each of these levels, including insecurity, expenditure of already limited resources, and strained interstate political relationships. As refugees’ stays extend to increasingly long periods of time, situations once assumed to be temporary take on a semblance of permanence. Forced displacement increasingly transitions to relatively durable living instances of conflict spillover, articulating the wider human impacts of such patterns of vital, and often understudied, outcomes of conflict and power struggles. Using a qualitative approach within a specific site of displacement in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, this study engages in dialog with notions of sovereignty, post-colonialism, social constructivism, burden-sharing, and social stratification to uncover the possible motivations for making refugee situations permanent. Home to approximately 16,000 Congolese refugees, Kiziba Camp in western Rwanda serves as a microcosm through which one can observe these multi-layered humanitarian aid and refugee hosting processes. By analyzing semi-structured interview and ethnographic data collected from Kiziba Camp in 2011, 2013, and 2014, interviews with key Rwandan government representatives, and existing media sources and nongovernmental organization reports, this research links the pursuit and maintenance of state sovereignty, as well as aspects of social construction at the local-level, with processes that contribute to protracted displacement. Analyses of this original data reveal intentional and unintentional factors emanating from state foreign and domestic policies, NGO disaster and humanitarian assistance rhetoric, as well as refugees’ own conceptualization of citizenship, identity, and belonging that contribute to the durability refugee displacement. Through the personal narratives of community leaders of Kiziba Camp, this study begins to reveal a theory about state dependency on refugee hosting and the agency of refugees to imagine and define themselves, and how these factors contribute to a form of displacement that becomes increasingly durable over time

EVERYTHING COUNTS: Building a Control Regime for Nonstrategic Nuclear Warheads in Europe

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration insisted in arms control talks with Russia that a follow-on agreement to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) should cover all nuclear weapons and that such an agreement should focus on the nuclear warheads themselves. This would represent a significant change from previous agreements, which focused on delivery vehicles, such as missiles. The United States has been particularly interested in potential limits on nonstrategic nuclear warheads (NSNW). Such weapons have never been subject to an arms control agreement. Because Russia possesses an advantage in the number of such weapons, the US Senate has insisted that negotiators include them in a future agreement, making their inclusion necessary if such an accord is to win Senate approval and ultimately be ratified by Washington. In the wake of Russian nuclear threats in the Ukraine conflict, such demands can only be expected to grow if and when US and Russian negotiators return to the negotiating table

Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town

This ethnographic study explores how people deal with suspicion and navigate the fear of crime in the Observatory suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The study grapples with the question of how the neighbourhood watch, as a recently revived institution, operates. It analyses the institution and relationships within and around it as an alternative source of trust to the state in combatting crime and its wider impact on lived sociality in the suburb and, perhaps, beyond. The focus of the study lies in understanding the strategies people employ habitually in order to create a sense of security in a context where the anticipation of violence permeates various everyday routines. In analysing strategies of living through insecurities, I focus on examining material and highly visible security measures, such as patrol cars and barbed wires, and engage with the body as a site of social and political memory and struggle, while considering the roles it takes on in the face of perceived precariousness. This dissertation offers an insight in to how the body is deployed as an instrument or buffer to deal with insecurity and crime vulnerability. The quality of public life becomes compromised through embodied strategies of (in)security and vulnerability as employed by the neighbourhood watch. The capacity of a constantly perceived presence of criminal violence in shaping individual and institutional bodies and strategies constitutes the main focus of this study. While the study does not identify the roots of crime as is currently practice with related studies of crime in South Africa, it illuminates the engagement with its perceived presence and thus moves away from a fixed victim-perpetrator dichotomy that has dominated the public discourse

Cloud-computing strategies for sustainable ICT utilization : a decision-making framework for non-expert Smart Building managers

Virtualization of processing power, storage, and networking applications via cloud-computing allows Smart Buildings to operate heavy demand computing resources off-premises. While this approach reduces in-house costs and energy use, recent case-studies have highlighted complexities in decision-making processes associated with implementing the concept of cloud-computing. This complexity is due to the rapid evolution of these technologies without standardization of approach by those organizations offering cloud-computing provision as a commercial concern. This study defines the term Smart Building as an ICT environment where a degree of system integration is accomplished. Non-expert managers are highlighted as key users of the outcomes from this project given the diverse nature of Smart Buildings’ operational objectives. This research evaluates different ICT management methods to effectively support decisions made by non-expert clients to deploy different models of cloud-computing services in their Smart Buildings ICT environments. The objective of this study is to reduce the need for costly 3rd party ICT consultancy providers, so non-experts can focus more on their Smart Buildings’ core competencies rather than the complex, expensive, and energy consuming processes of ICT management. The gap identified by this research represents vulnerability for non-expert managers to make effective decisions regarding cloud-computing cost estimation, deployment assessment, associated power consumption, and management flexibility in their Smart Buildings ICT environments. The project analyses cloud-computing decision-making concepts with reference to different Smart Building ICT attributes. In particular, it focuses on a structured programme of data collection which is achieved through semi-structured interviews, cost simulations and risk-analysis surveys. The main output is a theoretical management framework for non-expert decision-makers across variously-operated Smart Buildings. Furthermore, a decision-support tool is designed to enable non-expert managers to identify the extent of virtualization potential by evaluating different implementation options. This is presented to correlate with contract limitations, security challenges, system integration levels, sustainability, and long-term costs. These requirements are explored in contrast to cloud demand changes observed across specified periods. Dependencies were identified to greatly vary depending on numerous organizational aspects such as performance, size, and workload. The study argues that constructing long-term, sustainable, and cost-efficient strategies for any cloud deployment, depends on the thorough identification of required services off and on-premises. It points out that most of today’s heavy-burdened Smart Buildings are outsourcing these services to costly independent suppliers, which causes unnecessary management complexities, additional cost, and system incompatibility. The main conclusions argue that cloud-computing cost can differ depending on the Smart Building attributes and ICT requirements, and although in most cases cloud services are more convenient and cost effective at the early stages of the deployment and migration process, it can become costly in the future if not planned carefully using cost estimation service patterns. The results of the study can be exploited to enhance core competencies within Smart Buildings in order to maximize growth and attract new business opportunities

Cyber defensive capacity and capability::A perspective from the financial sector of a small state

This thesis explores ways in which the financial sectors of small states are able todefend themselves against ever-growing cyber threats, as well as ways these states can improve their cyber defense capability in order to withstand current andfuture attacks. To date, the context of small states in general is understudied. This study presents the challenges faced by financial sectors in small states with regard to withstanding cyberattacks. This study applies a mixed method approach through the use of various surveys, brainstorming sessions with financial sector focus groups, interviews with critical infrastructure stakeholders, a literature review, a comparative analysis of secondary data and a theoretical narrative review. The findings suggest that, for the Aruban financial sector, compliance is important, as with minimal drivers, precautionary behavior is significant. Countermeasures of formal, informal, and technical controls need to be in place. This study indicates the view that defending a small state such as Aruba is challenging, yet enough economic indicators indicate it not being outside the realm of possibility. On a theoretical level, this thesis proposes a conceptual “whole-of-cyber” model inspired by military science and the VSM (Viable Systems Model). The concept of fighting power components and governance S4 function form cyber defensive capacity’s shield and capability. The “whole-of-cyber” approach may be a good way to compensate for the lack of resources of small states. Collaboration may be an only out, as the fastest-growing need will be for advanced IT skillsets

The Practice of Public Topography: Teaching People to Appreciate Ordinary Places Using Books and New Media

People have a deep need to connect to places, but modernity has weakened many of the traditional ways that people have bonded with localities. Geographers of the past believed that a core responsibility of geography was to describe places. This connection between geography and place education, however, has attenuated as geographers have become increasingly concerned with theory and have eschewed regional geography. This research seeks to revitalize the geographic tradition of topography (writing about small places) by examining its best works, while at the same time exploring new ways to connect people with places. It answers the question, “What lessons can we learn about place writing for non-academic audiences from the genre’s best examples, and how can these lessons inform the use of new media to connect people with places?” Examples of excellent topographic books and audio podcasts were analyzed to answer this question. Based on a study of the topographic tradition, literature on place attachment, and an empirical examination of topographic books, three essential features of a modern public topography are proposed: 1) topography teaches people to appreciate particular places; 2) topography engages the general public; and 3) topography is inherently geographical. Topographic works that incorporate these elements are found to use one or more of three strategies for facilitating the appreciation of place: 1) an explanatory strategy; 2) a poetic strategy; 3) or an experiential strategy. Specific recommendations for the application of these features and strategies to topographic writing are given. These essential features and strategies were used to analyze audio podcasts about small places. The result is a series of recommendations for the creation of topographic podcasts. To illustrate the utility of these recommendations, a podcast about the influence of the Brazos River on the landscape of Texas’s Brazos Valley was produced, along with an accompanying webpage. This research suggests that while modernity has created significant obstacles to place attachment, a new interpretation of the old geographic tradition of topography has the potential to reduce those obstacles and to help the public to better appreciate places obstacles to place attachment, a new interpretation of the old geographic tradition of topography has the potential to reduce those obstacles and to help the public to better appreciate places.Based on a study of the topographic tradition, literature on place attachment, and an empirical examination of topographic books, three essential features of a modern public topography are proposed: 1) topography teaches people to appreciate particular places; 2) topography engages the general public; and 3) topography is inherently geographical. Topographic works that incorporate these elements are found to use one or more of three strategies for facilitating the appreciation of place: 1) an explanatory strategy; 2) a poetic strategy; 3) or an experiential strategy. Specific recommendations for the application of these features and strategies to topographic writing are given. These essential features and strategies were used to analyze audio podcasts about small places. The result is a series of recommendations for the creation of topographic podcasts. To illustrate the utility of these recommendations, a podcast about the influence of the Brazos River on the landscape of Texas’s Brazos Valley was produced, along with an accompanying webpage. This research suggests that while modernity has created significant obstacles to place attachment, a new interpretation of the old geographic tradition of topography has the potential to reduce those obstacles and to help the public to better appreciate places

Film policy and the emergence of the cross-cultural: exploring crossover cinema in Flanders (Belgium)

With several films taking on a cross-cultural character, a certain ‘crossover trend’ may be observed within the recent upswing of Flemish cinema (a subdivision of Belgian cinema). This trend is characterized by two major strands: first, migrant and diasporic filmmakers finally seem to be emerging, and second, several filmmakers tend to cross the globe to make their films, hereby minimizing links with Flemish indigenous culture. While paying special attention to the crucial role of film policy in this context, this contribution further investigates the crossover trend by focusing on Turquaze (2010, Kadir Balci) and Altiplano (2009, Peter Brosens & Jessica Woodworth)

Growing Up Butchona on the Texas-Mexico Border A Marimacha Memoir

Growing Up Butchona on the Border is a queer, Latina memoir that takes place on the Texas-Mexico border. This thesis is a journey in words and pictures that spans throughout an immigration crisis, a worldwide pandemic and the fallout that follows a world-wide lockdown; eventually leading down the rocky road to self-discovery. The thesis opens with a fictional account of Torita Torcida, a seven-year-old Honduran immigrant that makes her way across the Texas-Mexico border with her mother only to be ripped away from her when the truck they were smuggled in is seized by border patrol. Images and words come together to tell the story of Torita\u27s struggles on the border and then pick back up thirty years into the future where Torita now goes by Torcida and finds herself in more elaborate predicaments. At the outset, there was a clear vision of what the focus should be, immigration. The first part of this thesis was written during a border crisis when it was necessary to tell the story of countless refugees and the repercussions stemming from their encounters with border officials. The fever pitch with which the thesis was written was made easy by watching the crisis unfold on television, social media, and informed by journal articles; it essentially wrote itself. The images were drawing themselves and confidence that the thesis would be a successful account of the immigration/ border crisis was all but guaranteed. Feedback from workshop peers was incredibly positive and it was clear that Torcida had the potential to be published as a fullfledged comic book. The future was bright and the possibilities endless. It was then that the world went on lockdown with the news that a worldwide pandemic (Covid- 19) was taking the world hostage and humanity would be forever changed. During lockdown a shift took place, and the theme of the thesis took its first of a few turns. Challenges regarding inspiration amid the pandemic began to dwindle. As a result of the pandemic mental health began to breakdown and people began to use different coping mechanisms to deal with a ‘new normal’. The normalization of daily drinking and substance abuse became commonplace; it is here that the lens is turned onto the author and the realization that she is twisted, she is Torcida. The thesis concludes after her subsequent recovery and the experience of becoming a foster parent to her infant grandson where she sets out to uncover the roots of her demons by returning to the beginning, her upbringing on the Texas-Mexico border