The state and the stateless: The legacy of Hannah Arendt reconsidered

This chapter re-examines Arendt's analysis of the mechanisms which gave rise to statelessness in the first part of the twentieth century and the forms of governance which she believed sustained such deprivation. The concept of statelessness occupies a central place in Arend's The Origins of Totalitarianism. Citizenship and gender are not significant in predicting livelihood outcomes, such as income and happiness, though gender is a leading indicator of education which in turn affects income and other livelihood outcomes. By focusing the analysis within the state, and by analysing the context in which stateless people live, it is possible to identify interests, potential cleavages, and arenas for engagement. This includes working with development agencies and donor governments to treat the stateless as a specific category of beneficiary in the hope that in so doing, they remedy some of the effects of discrimination and disempowerment

Protection through Revisionism?

One problem complicating the task of humanitarian protection is the quality of data on the populations most affected. If protection agencies cannot identify those who need help, then their ambitions are unlikely to be realized. This is especially relevant when considering “invisible,” hard-to-reach, or historically marginalized groups such as stateless people for whom we have little baseline data. Undercounting is often a political matter. Who is counted also tells us about governmental and institutional priorities and exposes biases about what counts, and the ways in which resources should be allocated. This chapter presents a critical review of how statelessness has been underestimated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partners. It argues that the process of undercounting is indicative of a revisionist turn in humanitarian management characterized by a fixation with numbers and “results.” The ways in which the UNHCR data are presented reflects an increasingly top-down logic that ignores the lived experience of stateless people and does little to advance the cause of humanitarian protection

Counting the Population in Need of International Protection Globally

Statistical data and evidence-based claims are increasingly central to our everyday lives. Critically examining ‘Big Data’, this book charts the recent explosion in sources of data, including those precipitated by global developments and technological change. It sets out changes and controversies related to data harvesting and construction, dissemination and data analytics by a range of private, governmental and social organisations in multiple settings. Analysing the power of data to shape political debate, the presentation of ideas to us by the media, and issues surrounding data ownership and access, the authors suggest how data can be used to uncover injustices and to advance social progress

Gender and displacement in Jaffna, Sri Lanka

This report presents the preliminary results of a household survey of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Jaffna District in Northern Province, one of the areas that still has a large IDP population. The main focus of this survey conducted in October 2020 employing Covid-19 safety protocols was to examine the gendered experiences arising from protracted displacements spanning over three decades. The survey covered 220 households (182 male-headed and 38 female-headed), which accounts for 54.3 per cent of the total IDP households in the Jaffna District. Among other topics, the survey gathered data on the respondents’ current living conditions, finances, asset ownership, safety and security concerns, access to services, social networks and relationship with other IDPs and the host community, and water, sanitation and hygiene issues they face. It also gathered data on the respondents’ pre-displacement experiences to compare that with their current lives, in order to examine the role of displacement in gendered issues they face

Molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the evolution of form and function in the amniote jaw.

The amniote jaw complex is a remarkable amalgamation of derivatives from distinct embryonic cell lineages. During development, the cells in these lineages experience concerted movements, migrations, and signaling interactions that take them from their initial origins to their final destinations and imbue their derivatives with aspects of form including their axial orientation, anatomical identity, size, and shape. Perturbations along the way can produce defects and disease, but also generate the variation necessary for jaw evolution and adaptation. We focus on molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate form in the amniote jaw complex, and that enable structural and functional integration. Special emphasis is placed on the role of cranial neural crest mesenchyme (NCM) during the species-specific patterning of bone, cartilage, tendon, muscle, and other jaw tissues. We also address the effects of biomechanical forces during jaw development and discuss ways in which certain molecular and cellular responses add adaptive and evolutionary plasticity to jaw morphology. Overall, we highlight how variation in molecular and cellular programs can promote the phenomenal diversity and functional morphology achieved during amniote jaw evolution or lead to the range of jaw defects and disease that affect the human condition

Gas flows, star formation and galaxy evolution

In the first part of this article we show how observations of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy: G- and K-dwarf numbers as functions of metallicity, and abundances of the light elements, D, Li, Be and B, in both stars and the interstellar medium (ISM), lead to the conclusion that metal poor HI gas has been accreting to the Galactic disc during the whole of its lifetime, and is accreting today at a measurable rate, ~2 Msun per year across the full disc. Estimates of the local star formation rate (SFR) using methods based on stellar activity, support this picture. The best fits to all these data are for models where the accretion rate is constant, or slowly rising with epoch. We explain here how this conclusion, for a galaxy in a small bound group, is not in conflict with graphs such as the Madau plot, which show that the universal SFR has declined steadily from z=1 to the present day. We also show that a model in which disc galaxies in general evolve by accreting major clouds of low metallicity gas from their surroundings can explain many observations, notably that the SFR for whole galaxies tends to show obvious variability, and fractionally more for early than for late types, and yields lower dark to baryonic matter ratios for large disc galaxies than for dwarfs. In the second part of the article we use NGC 1530 as a template object, showing from Fabry-Perot observations of its Halpha emission how strong shear in this strongly barred galaxy acts to inhibit star formation, while compression acts to stimulate it.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, to be presented at the "Penetrating Bars through Masks of Cosmic Dust" conference in South Africa, proceedings published by Kluwer, Eds. D.L. Block, K.C. Freeman, I. Puerari, & R. Groes

Transforming growth factor beta signaling: The master sculptor of fingers

Transforming growth factor beta (TGF?) constitutes a large and evolutionarily conserved superfamily of secreted factors that play essential roles in embryonic development, cancer, tissue regeneration, and human degenerative pathology. Studies of this signaling cascade in the regulation of cellular and tissue changes in the three-dimensional context of a developing embryo have notably advanced in the understanding of the action mechanism of these growth factors. In this review, we address the role of TGF? signaling in the developing limb, focusing on its essential function in the morphogenesis of the autopod. As we discuss in this work, modern mouse genetic experiments together with more classical embryological approaches in chick embryos, provided very valuable information concerning the role of TGF? and Activin family members in the morphogenesis of the digits of tetrapods, including the formation of phalanxes, digital tendons, and interphalangeal joints. We emphasize the importance of the Activin and TGF? proteins as digit inducing factors and their critical interaction with the BMP signaling to sculpt the hand and foot morphology

Conclusion to Forced Migration, Gender and Wellbeing

This chapter looks into the long-term predicaments of war displacement as experienced by different populations of women and men in the three post-Yugoslav states, pointing to some regionally specific and universally relevant lessons on complex trauma and recovery of wellbeing. It reflects on findings presented in the book with its specific research methods and argues that for forced migrant women, achieving psychosocial wellbeing is not an objective of secondary significance, less important than access to safe shelter/housing, legal status and protection or any other basic human and civilian rights. It is rather deeply linked to struggles for inclusion from peace settlements to accessing full socio-economic rights in a post-conflict period. Forced displacement trauma impacting individual, inter-group and societal recovery further demands psychosocial support services suitable for long-term, gender-sensitive and transgenerational perspective