Ya Quds! Academic Cultural News Letter, Issue No. 2

Greetings and a warm welcome to the second issue of Ya Quds!. Ya Quds! received many good words of encouragement following the first issue. We thank all those who have expressed their views and shared their suggestions. After all, it is you, our readers, whom we care about, so your comments and suggestions are very important to us. We hope that Ya Quds! will continue to offer valuable information and stimulate productive discussion about the city of Jerusalem. In this issue, as in the first, we did not seek to focus on a particular theme but have rather left it to the individual authors to select themes of interest and importance to them. All the articles are different, yet all are united by the word “Al-Quds.” Ya Quds! is written about and for Jerusalem and its inhabitants, the stories and articles help to deconstruct the complex mystery and charm of this city. What you will find in the following pages is a collection of ten articles, five in Arabic and five in English, written by academics and researchers whose contributions we are honoured to have in Ya Quds! . The five articles in English reflect various perspectives: historical ( The Fatimids in Jerusalem ), social ( The Gypsies of Jerusalem ), political ( Mussala al-Marwani: An unrecognised Palestinian triumph? ; and On the 16th Anniversary of the Camp David Negotiations ), and urban planning ( Urban Spatial Changes during Political Uncertainty ). There are so many topics about Jerusalem on which we have yet to hear, so take hold of your pens and add your voices. We hereby send out a call for articles for the third issue of Ya Quds! . Articles may be in Arabic or English and should not exceed 1200 words. The deadline for submission is December 12, 2016. We look forward to your contributions. The Centre for Jerusalem Studies team is also working hard to prepare for the upcoming conference on Production of Inequalities: Realities and Prospects for Change in Jerusalem, to be held on December 3–5 in Jerusalem and Abu Dis. We take this opportunity to invite all those interested in the topic to join us for this event

Psychology

Psychology is designed to meet scope and sequence requirements for the single-semester introduction to psychology course. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of core concepts, grounded in both classic studies and current and emerging research. The text also includes coverage of the DSM-5 in examinations of psychological disorders. Psychology incorporates discussions that reflect the diversity within the discipline, as well as the diversity of cultures and communities across the globe.https://commons.erau.edu/oer-textbook/1000/thumbnail.jp

Housing Conditions in Palestinian Refugee Camps, Jordan

This paper evaluates the quality of housing in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. More than two million registered refugees live in Jordan, most of whom living in thirteen refugee camps established in the late 1960s following the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967. Many of these camps are characterized by poor living conditions and associated health, social and environmental problems. However, there is scant empirical evidence regarding the quality of the housing in these camps. This paper addresses this gap by reporting on the findings of a questionnaire survey of 382 household units in Baqa’a Camp, the largest of the camps. The quantitative survey was triangulated by a series of extensive fieldwork visits to the area. Findings reveal that the housing in the camp is generally substandard. Poor structure and maintenance are key problems and this paper identifies and discusses various challenges, political and practical, that stand in the way of housing improvements. The paper concludes by suggesting that new models of ownership and responsibility need to be forged between the stakeholders in order to break the current stalemate of inaction

Building successful value chains for diversified cropping systems, using Hodmedods as an example (DiverIMPACTS Practice Abstract)

Hodmedods is an example of a shortened supply chain, established to support farmers to grow novel pulses and grains, to process and market them and ensure a purposeful communication and fair price to farmers and consumers

Evaluating the impact of befriending for pregnant asylum seeking and refugee women

NoPregnant asylum-seeking and refugee women are a particularly vulnerable group in society, who may be possibly living alone in poverty in inappropriate accommodation (Dunne, 2007) and experiencing hostile attitudes (Hynes and sale, 2010). They may have poor physical and mental health, placing them at an increased risk of poor pregnancy outcomes (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), 2010). Despite this, they are less likely to attend for timely maternity care. This article discusses the evaluation to date of an ongoing befriending project located in Northern england, targeting pregnant asylum-seeking and refugee women and helping to address difficulties that they may face. Volunteer befrienders, who themselves are asylum-seeking and refugee mothers, receive training to provide support and guidance to clients. Preliminary data suggest that befriending has advantages for both client and volunteer: clients appear to develop a trusting relationship with their befriender which facilitates self-confidence and helps overcome social isolation; and the volunteers feel that they are undertaking a worthwhile role and often move onto paid employment. Befriending may be a useful resource for midwives and ultimately improve pregnancy outcomes for asylum-seeking and refugee women

Related but different: Examining pseudoneglect in audition, touch and vision

Although researchers have consistently demonstrated a leftward attentional bias in visual and representational (e.g. tactile/mental number line) line bisection tasks, the results from audition have been mixed. Differences in methodology have also meant that researchers have not been able to compare directly performance in visual, tactile and auditory line bisection. In this research, 39 neurologically typical individuals participated in standard visual and tactile line bisection tasks, together with a newly developed auditory line bisection task. Results demonstrated significant leftward bisection biases across all three modalities. Hence, we demonstrate auditory pseudoneglect in peripersonal space for the first time. Tactile and auditory line bisections showed a relatively small but statistically reliable correlation, but neither task correlated with visual line bisection. This suggests that the processes underlying auditory line bisection are not synonymous to those involved in visual perceptual bisection, and further we argue that this bias may be related to representational pseudoneglect.div_PaS113pub4682pu

The internet, empowerment, and identity: an exploration of participation by refugee women in a Community Internet Project (CIP) in the United Kingdom (UK)

This article considers the relationship between the Internet, empowerment, identity, and participation; and focuses on refugee women in the United Kingdom (UK) participating in a Community Internet Project (CIP) to learn Internet skills. Semi-structured interviews and a non-participant observation were conducted with 6 refugee women and the course tutor participating in the final session of the CIP. Thematic analysis of the interviews supplemented with findings from the observation, revealed outcomes associated with technological engagement and participation. Technological engagement outcomes included intermediate outcomes of maintaining links and re-building networks, and facilitating resettlement and integration; and empowerment and identity outcomes facilitating the maintenance and development of personal identities, and fostering psychological empowerment. Participation outcomes included the development of social identity and community narratives, and collective consciousness-raising. These findings are used to reflect on the theory of the social psychology of participation (Cambell and Jovchelovitch, 2000), by contextualising technological engagement within participatory processes. The article concludes by discussing individual agency within participation; and calls for further research into the utility of digital technologies in community participatory processes

Beyond incommensurability: Jerusalem and Stockholm from an ordinary cities perspective

This paper’s core argument is that we should start creating theories that encompass different cities and include them in a more flexible and relational comparative framework. This must include a new urban terminology which does not continue the all-too-fashionable labelling of cities on a continuum between first world and third world, global North-West and South-East or as I emphasize below, including what have been labelled extremely contested cities in a more flexible and relational ordinary cities framework. To introduce such a comparative approach, I will examine Jerusalem and Stockholm via three contrastive and relational patterns: institutional segregation; urban violence; and non-governmental organization involvement in planning. In so doing, I point towards the necessity to open up research on extreme urban conflicts, suggesting that when assessing specific contextual patterns, those labelled as extremely contested cities (such as Jerusalem) share more similarities with other more ordinary cities (represented by Stockholm) than was previously perceived, often stemming from ethnic, racial and class conflicts revolving around issues of politics, culture and identity, among others