Cricket, migration and diasporic communities

Ever since different communities began processes of global migration, sport has been an integral feature in how we conceptualise and experience the notion of being part of a diaspora. Sport provides diasporic communities with a powerful means for creating transnational ties, but also shapes ideas of their ethnic and racial identities. In spite of this, theories of diaspora have been applied sparingly to sporting discourses. Due mainly to its central role in spreading dominant white racial narratives within the British Empire, and the various ways different ethnic groups have ‘played’ with the meanings and associations of the sport in the (post-)colonial period, cricket is an interesting focus for academic research. Despite W.G. Grace’s claim that cricket advances civilisation by promoting a common bond, binding together peoples of vastly different backgrounds, to this day cricket operates strict symbolic boundaries; defining those who do, and equally, do not belong. C.L.R. James’ now famous metaphor of looking ‘beyond the boundary’ captures the belief that, to fully understand the significance of cricket, and the sport’s roles in changing and shaping society, one must consider the wider social and political contexts within which the game is played. The collection of papers in this special issue does just that. Cricket acts as the point of departure in each, but the way in which ideas of power, representation and inequality are ‘played out’ is unique in each

Neutrophils infiltrate sensory ganglia and mediate chronic widespread pain in fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a debilitating widespread chronic pain syndrome that occurs in 2 to 4% of the population. The prevailing view that fibromyalgia results from central nervous system dysfunction has recently been challenged with data showing changes in peripheral nervous system activity. Using a mouse model of chronic widespread pain through hyperalgesic priming of muscle, we show that neutrophils invade sensory ganglia and confer mechanical hypersensitivity on recipient mice, while adoptive transfer of immunoglobulin, serum, lymphocytes, or monocytes has no effect on pain behavior. Neutrophil depletion abolishes the establishment of chronic widespread pain in mice. Neutrophils from patients with fibromyalgia also confer pain on mice. A link between neutrophil-derived mediators and peripheral nerve sensitization is already established. Our observations suggest approaches for targeting fibromyalgia pain via mechanisms that cause altered neutrophil activity and interactions with sensory neurons

Recruitment of inflammatory monocytes by senescent fibroblasts inhibits antigen-specific tissue immunity during human aging

We have previously shown that healthy older adults exhibit reduced cutaneous immune responses during a varicella zoster virus (VZV) antigen challenge that correlated with a nonspecific inflammatory response to the injection itself. Here we found that needle damage during intradermal injections in older adults led to an increase in the number of cutaneous senescent fibroblasts expressing CCL2, resulting in the local recruitment of inflammatory monocytes. These infiltrating monocytes secreted prostaglandin E2, which inhibited resident memory T cell activation and proliferation. Pretreatment of older participants with a p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitor in vivo decreased CCL2 expression and inhibited monocyte recruitment and secretion of prostaglandin E2. This coincided with an increased response to VZV antigen challenge in the skin. Our results point to a series of molecular and cellular mechanisms that link cellular senescence, tissue damage, excessive inflammation and reduced immune responsiveness in human skin and demonstrate that tissue-specific immunity can be restored in older adults by short-term inhibition of inflammatory responses

Youth, terrorism and education: Britain’s Prevent programme

Since the 7/7 bombings of July 2005, Britain has experienced a domestic terror threat posed by a small minority of young Muslims. In response, Britain has initiated ‘Prevent’, a preventative counter-terrorism programme. Building on previous, general critiques of Prevent, this article outlines and critically discusses the ways in which Prevent has approached young Muslims and their educational institutions. The article argues that, rather than trust in broader and non-stigmatising processes of anti-extremist education, the police-led Prevent has ‘engaged’ with and surveilled young Muslims. Within Prevent there is little evidence of educational processes that explicitly build youth resilience against extremism. Instead, Muslim youth are viewed as both ‘risky and at risk’ (Heath-Kelly, 2013), ‘at risk’ of catching the terrorist disease, with the contested model of ‘radicalisation’ and child protection concepts utilised to portray risks of exploitation by Islamist extremists that necessitate a deepening process of education-based surveillance. The article identifies non-stigmatising alternatives to the approach of Prevent, approaches of anti-extremism education that learn from previously problematic anti-racist educational efforts with white young people. This enables the article to advocate for enhanced human rights-based approaches of citizenship education (admittedly, in themselves contested) with all young people as the most effective way of building individual and collective youth resilience against terrorist ideologies

Race at the margins: A Critical Race Theory perspective on race equality in UK planning.

Despite evidence of the growing ethnic diversity of British cities and its impact on urban governance, the issue of racial equality in UK planning remains marginal, at best, to mainstream planning activity. This paper uses Critical Race Theory (CRT) to consider the reasons why the ‘race’ and planning agenda continues to stall. CRT, it is argued, offers a compelling account of why changes in practice over time have been patchy at best, and have sometimes gone into reverse

Social cohesion and the notion of 'suspect communities': A study of the experiences and impacts of being 'suspect' for Irish communities and Muslim communities in Britain

In this article, we consider how the practice of conceiving of groups within civil society as 'communities' meshes with conceptualisations of certain populations as 'suspect' and consider some of the impacts and consequences of this for particular populations and for social cohesion. We examine how Irish and Muslim people in Britain have become aware of and have experienced themselves to be members of 'suspect communities' in relation to political violence and counterterrorism policies from 1974 to 2007 and investigate the impacts of these experiences on their everyday lives. The study focuses on two eras of political violence. The first coincides with the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) bombing campaigns in England between 1973 and 1996, when the perpetrators were perceived as 'Irish terrorists'; and the second since 2001, when, in Britain and elsewhere, the main threat of political violence has been portrayed as stemming from people who are assumed to be motivated by extreme interpretations of Islam and are often labelled as 'Islamic terrorists'. We outline why the concept of 'suspect communities' continues to be analytically useful for examining: the impact of 'bounded communities' on community cohesion policies; the development of traumatogenic environments and their ramifications; and for examining how lessons might be learnt from one era of political violence to another, especially as regards the negative impacts of practices of suspectification on Irish communities and Muslim communities. The research methods included discussion groups involving Irish and Muslim people. These demonstrated that with the removal of discourses of suspicion the common ground of Britain's urban multiculture was a sufficient basis for sympathetic exchanges. © 2012 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Macrophage Activation and Polarization: Nomenclature and Experimental Guidelines

Description of macrophage activation is currently contentious and confusing. Like the biblical Tower of Babel, macrophage activation encompasses a panoply of descriptors used in different ways. The lack of consensus on how to define macrophage activation in experiments in vitro and in vivo impedes progress in multiple ways, including the fact that many researchers still consider there to be only two types of activated macrophages, often termed M1 and M2. Here, we describe a set of standards encompassing three principles—the source of macrophages, definition of the activators, and a consensus collection of markers to describe macrophage activation—with the goal of unifying experimental standards for diverse experimental scenarios. Collectively, we propose a common framework for macrophage-activation nomenclature

Understanding informal payments in health care: motivation of health workers in Tanzania

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is growing evidence that informal payments for health care are fairly common in many low- and middle-income countries. Informal payments are reported to have a negative consequence on equity and quality of care; it has been suggested, however, that they may contribute to health worker motivation and retention. Given the significance of motivation and retention issues in human resources for health, a better understanding of the relationships between the two phenomena is needed. This study attempts to assess whether and in what ways informal payments occur in Kibaha, Tanzania. Moreover, it aims to assess how informal earnings might help boost health worker motivation and retention.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Nine focus groups were conducted in three health facilities of different levels in the health system. In total, 64 health workers participated in the focus group discussions (81% female, 19% male) and where possible, focus groups were divided by cadre. All data were processed and analysed by means of the NVivo software package.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The use of informal payments in the study area was confirmed by this study. Furthermore, a negative relationship between informal payments and job satisfaction and better motivation is suggested. Participants mentioned that they felt enslaved by patients as a result of being bribed and this resulted in loss of self-esteem. Furthermore, fear of detection was a main demotivating factor. These factors seem to counterbalance the positive effect of financial incentives. Moreover, informal payments were not found to be related to retention of health workers in the public health system. Other factors such as job security seemed to be more relevant for retention.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study suggests that the practice of informal payments contributes to the general demotivation of health workers and negatively affects access to health care services and quality of the health system. Policy action is needed that not only provides better financial incentives for individuals but also tackles an environment in which corruption is endemic.</p