245 research outputs found
Empty spaces and the value of symbols: Estonia's 'war of monuments' from another angle
Taking as its point of departure the recent heightened discussion surrounding publicly sited monuments in Estonia, this article investigates the issue from the perspective of the country's eastern border city of Narva, focusing especially upon the restoration in 2000 of a 'Swedish Lion' monument to mark the 300th anniversary of Sweden's victory over Russia at the first Battle of Narva. This commemoration is characterised here as a successful local negotiation of a potentially divisive past, as are subsequent commemorations of the Russian conquest of Narva in 1704. A recent proposal to erect a statue of Peter the Great in the city, however, briefly threatened to open a new front in Estonia's ongoing 'war of monuments'. Through a discussion of these episodes, the article seeks to link the Narva case to broader conceptual issues of identity politics, nationalism and post-communist transition
Education as site of memory: developing a research agenda
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordThe field of memory studies tends to focus attention on the
â3Msâ â museums, monuments, memorials â as sites where
memories are constructed, communicated, and contested.
Where education is identified as a site for memory, the
focus is often narrowly on what is or is not communicated
within curricula or textbooks, assuming that schools simply
pass on messages agreed or struggled over elsewhere. This
article explores the possibilities opened when educative processes are not taken as stable and authoritative sites for
transmitting historical narratives, but instead as spaces of
contestation, negotiation and cultural production. With
a focus on âdifficult historiesâ of recent conflict and historical
injustice, we develop a research agenda for education as
a site of memory and show how this can illuminate struggles
over dominant historical narratives at various scales, highlighting agencies that educational actors bring to making
sense of the past
Human Rights and the Pink Tide in Latin America : Which Rights Matter?
Latin America witnessed the election of ânew Leftâ governments in the early 21 st century that, in different ways, sought to open a debate about alternatives to paradigms of neoliberal development. What has this meant for the way that human rights are understood and for patterns of human rights compliance? Using qualitative and quantitative evidence, this article discusses how human rights are imagined and the compliance records of new Left governments through the lens of the three âgenerationsâ of human rights â political and civil, social and economic, and cultural and environmental rights. The authors draw in particular on evidence from Andean countries and the Southern Cone. While basic civil and individual liberties are still far from guaranteed, especially in the Andean region, new Left countries show better overall performances in relation to socio-economic rights compared to the past and to other Latin American countries. All new Left governments also demonstrate an increasing interest in âthird generationâ (cultural and environmental) rights, though this is especially marked in the Andean Left. The authors discuss the tensions around interpretations and categories of human rights, reflect on the stagnation of first generation rights and note the difficulties associated with translating second and third generation rights into policy
ÂżâNos enfrentamos y nos abrazamosâ? Un nuevo recorrido por los usos oficiales del pasado durante el bicentenario de la RevoluciĂłn de Mayo
El presente trabajo analiza, en primer lugar, los modos en que la historia argentina se tradujo, durante los festejos oficiales del bicentenario de la RevoluciĂłn de Mayo, en artefactos culturales y festivos dirigidos a atraer un pĂșblico vasto, prestando especial atenciĂłn a los usos del pasado allĂ exhibidos. En segundo lugar, pone en relaciĂłn dichas operaciones con las variaciones ocurridas en el nivel de las prĂĄcticas polĂticas gubernamentales tras la crisis polĂtica de 2008. En Ășltima instancia, se plantea que el gobierno de Cristina FernĂĄndez de Kirchner se inclinĂł, al momento de proyectar el festejo patrio en cuestiĂłn, por una lĂłgica discursiva liberalâcentrada, especialmente, en el consenso inclusivo y la aceptaciĂłn de las diferenciasâcon el fin de matizar la particiĂłn del espacio socio-polĂtico, exhibir una naciĂłn reconciliada, interpelar a la sociedad argentina en su conjunto y, de ese modo, contribuir a la reconstrucciĂłn de su hegemonĂa polĂtica.Firstly, this paper analyzes how Argentinian history was translated, during the national celebrations of the May Revolution bicentennial, into cultural and festive devices aimed at attracting a massive audience, paying special attention to the uses of the past displayed. Secondly, it illustrates the relations between these operations and the variations of government policy that occurred after the 2008 political crisis. Ultimately, it claims that the Cristina FernĂĄndez de Kirchner administration adopted, when it came to planning this national holiday, a liberal discursive logic â mainly characterized by inclusive consensus and pluralism â in order to ease the division of the social and political space, display a reconciled nation, address the entire Argentinean society and, thereby, contribute to the reconstruction of Kirchnerist hegemony.Fil: Amorebieta y Vera, MarĂa Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Centro CientĂfico TecnolĂłgico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la EducaciĂłn. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales; Argentin
The sixth international RASopathies symposium: Precision medicineâFrom promise to practice
The RASopathies are a group of genetic disorders that result from germline pathogenic variants affecting RASâmitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway genes. RASopathies share RAS/MAPK pathway dysregulation and share phenotypic manifestations affecting numerous organ systems, causing lifelong and at times lifeâlimiting medical complications. RASopathies may benefit from precision medicine approaches. For this reason, the Sixth International RASopathies Symposium focused on exploring precision medicine. This meeting brought together basic science researchers, clinicians, clinician scientists, patient advocates, and representatives from pharmaceutical companies and the National Institutes of Health. Novel RASopathy genes, variants, and animal models were discussed in the context of medication trials and drug development. Attempts to define and measure meaningful endpoints for treatment trials were discussed, as was drug availability to patients after trial completion
Placental transfusion: a review
Recently there have been a number of studies and presentations on the importance of providing a placental transfusion to the newborn. Early cord clamping is an avoidable, unphysiologic intervention that prevents the natural process of placental transfusion. However, placental transfusion, although simple in concept, is affected by multiple factors, is not always straightforward to implement, and can be performed using different methods, making this basic procedure important to discuss. Here, we review three placental transfusion techniques: delayed cord clamping, intact umbilical cord milking and cut-umbilical cord milking, and the evidence in term and preterm newborns supporting this practice. We will also review several factors that influence placental transfusion, and discuss perceived risks versus benefits of this procedure. Finally, we will provide key straightforward concepts and implementation strategies to ensure that placental-to-newborn transfusion can become routine practice at any institution
A history of post-communist remembrance: from memory politics to the emergence of a field of anticommunism
This article invites the view that the Europeanization of an antitotalitarian âcollective memoryâ of communism reveals the emergence of a field of anticommunism. This transnational field is inextricably tied to the proliferation of state-sponsored and anticommunist memory institutes across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), but cannot be treated as epiphenomenal to their propagation. The diffusion of bodies tasked with establishing the âtrueâ history of communism reflects, first and foremost, a shift in the regionâs approach to its past, one driven by the rightâs frustration over an allegedly pervasive influence of former communist cliques. Memory institutes spread as the CEE right progressively perceives their emphasis on research and public education as a safer alternative to botched lustration processes. However, the field of anticommunism extends beyond diffusion by seeking to leverage the European Union institutional apparatus to generate previously unavailable forms of symbolic capital for anticommunist narratives. This results in an entirely different challenge, which requires reconciling of disparate ideological and national interests. In this article, I illustrate some of these nationally diverse, but internationally converging, trajectories of communist extrication from the vantage point of its main exponents: the anticommunist memory entrepreneurs, who are invariably found at the helm of memory institutes. Inhabiting the space around the political, historiographic, and Eurocratic fields, anticommunist entrepreneurs weave a complex web of alliances that ultimately help produce an autonomous field of anticommunism
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