Aesthetics of self-scaling: parallaxed transregionalism and Kutluğ Ataman's art practice

This article examines relations of ethnography, contemporary art-practice, globalisation and scalar geopolitics with particular reference to Kutluğ Ataman’s artworks. Having been shortlisted for the Turner Prize at the Tate and awarded the prestigious international Carnegie Prize in 2004 with his forty-screen video installation Küba (2004), Ataman became an extremely well-known, globally acclaimed artist and filmmaker. Self-conscious of their global travel and critically attentive to the contemporary ethnographic turn in the visual arts scene, Ataman’s video-works perform a conscientious failure of representing cultural alterity as indigeneity. Concentrating on the artist’s engagement with ethnography, this article contains three main parts. Analyses of the selection of videos in each part will give an account of different scalar aspects of Ataman’s artworks. It will first revisit a previous study (Çakirlar 2011) on the artist’s earlier work of video-portraits including Never My Soul! (2002) and Women Who Wear Wigs (1999). A detailed discussion of Küba follows, which may be taken as the ‘hinge - work’ in Ataman’s oeuvre that marks a scalar transition in his critical focus - from body and identity to community and geopolitics. The discussion will then move to a brief analysis of the series Mesopotamian Dramaturgies, including the screen-based sculptures Dome (2009), Column (2009), Frame (2009), English as a Second Language (2009), and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (2009). Rather than addressing scale as a differential concept, this article aims to demonstrate the ways in which Ataman’s art-practice produces self-scaling, self-regioning subjects that unsettle the hierarchical constructions of scale and facilitates a critique of the scalar normativity within the global art world’s regionalisms and internationalisms

Radio-Frequency Spectroscopy

Contains reports on four research projects

Justice from an interdisciplinary perspective: the impact of the revolution in Human Sciences on Peace Research and International Relations

Peace and justice have been a preferred couple in theoretical writings - but what do we know about their empirical relationship? Insights from other disciplines suggest that humans are highly sensitive to violations of justice and that justice concerns permeate social relations. Neuroscientists have located the parts of the brain responsible for negative reactions to violation of claims for justice. Evolutionary biologists have identified rules of distribution and retribution not only in early human societies but among other socially living species as well. Psychologists have observed the emergence of a sense of justice in very early childhood, while behavioral economists have identified behavior of average persons in experiments that deviated significantly from the model of the "economic man" and could only be explained by a sense of justice. The chapter summarizes these findings and outlines their implications for peace research. It highlights the ambivalent nature of justice for social relations. Justice concerns can exacerbate conflicts between individuals and groups but justice can also provide standards for arriving at durable peaceful solutions to conflicts. Understanding these ambivalences and their repercussions for international and intrastate relations provides a promising path towards understanding conflict dynamics

Historical Research Approaches to the Analysis of Internationalisation

Historical research methods and approaches can improve understanding of the most appropriate techniques to confront data and test theories in internationalisation research. A critical analysis of all “texts” (sources), time series analyses, comparative methods across time periods and space, counterfactual analysis and the examination of outliers are shown to have the potential to improve research practices. Examples and applications are shown in these key areas of research with special reference to internationalisation processes. Examination of these methods allows us to see internationalisation processes as a sequenced set of decisions in time and space, path dependent to some extent but subject to managerial discretion. Internationalisation process research can benefit from the use of historical research methods in analysis of sources, production of time-lines, using comparative evidence across time and space and in the examination of feasible alternative choices

Impact of housing on the survival of persons with AIDS

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Homeless persons with HIV/AIDS have greater morbidity and mortality, more hospitalizations, less use of antiretroviral therapy, and worse medication adherence than HIV-infected persons who are stably housed. We examined the effect of homelessness on the mortality of persons with AIDS and measured the effect of supportive housing on AIDS survival.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The San Francisco AIDS registry was used to identify homeless and housed persons who were diagnosed with AIDS between 1996 and 2006. The registry was computer-matched with a housing database of homeless persons who received housing after their AIDS diagnosis. The Kaplan-Meier product limit method was used to compare survival between persons who were homeless at AIDS diagnosis and those who were housed. Proportional hazards models were used to estimate the independent effects of homelessness and supportive housing on survival after AIDS diagnosis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 6,558 AIDS cases, 9.8% were homeless at diagnosis. Sixty-seven percent of the persons who were homeless survived five years compared with 81% of those who were housed (p < 0.0001). Homelessness increased the risk of death (adjusted relative hazard [RH] 1.20; 95% confidence limits [CL] 1.03, 1.41). Homeless persons with AIDS who obtained supportive housing had a lower risk of death than those who did not (adjusted RH 0.20; 95% CL 0.05, 0.81).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Supportive housing ameliorates the negative effect of homelessness on survival with AIDS.</p