Engaging political histories of urban uprisings with young people: The Liverpool riots, 1981 and 2011

Based on a participatory research project which involved academics and young people at KCC Live, a community radio station in Merseyside, exploring the 1981 and 2011 riots in Liverpool, UK, this paper argues that co-produced research involving young people and radio provides an under-utilised avenue for research on historical and political geographies. Working together for a year in 2012–13, the academic and non-academic participants produced a radio documentary exploring how and why the 1981 riots in Liverpool occurred, and what we could learn from those historical events to help understand the more recent 2011 riots. Young people’s capacities to engage with past events that took place before they were born, in order to reflect on and understand the political present, are seldom explored in research. The research that this paper is based on therefore provides an original and significant contribution to debates on conducting research with young people, in particular developing approaches to thinking through how young people engage with, and make sense of, politics and political activity, especially disruptive or insurgent activities like riots/urban uprisings. As a result, the paper makes an important contribution to work being done on the political capacities of young people; collective histories and memories in young people’s understandings of politics, place, and space; and knowledges of urban uprisings. We argue that bringing children’s/youth geographies into dialogue with political and historical geographies such as those discussed here is a useful avenue for future research. © The Author(s) 2020

Banal nationalism and the imagining of politics

Banal nationalism and the imagining of politic

Interferon-α-Conditioned Human Monocytes Combine a Th1-Orienting Attitude with the Induction of Autologous Th17 Responses: Role of IL-23 and IL-12

IFN-α exerts multiple effects leading to immune protection against pathogens and cancer as well to autoimmune reactions by acting on monocytes and dendritic cells. We analyzed the versatility of human monocytes conditioned by IFN-α towards dendritic cell differentiation (IFN-DC) in shaping the autologous T-helper response. Priming of naïve CD4 T cells with autologous IFN-DC in the presence of either SEA or anti-CD3, resulted, in addition to a prominent expansion of CXCR3+ IFN-γ-producing CD4 Th1 cells, in the emergence of two distinct subsets of IL-17-producing CD4 T cells: i) a predominant Th17 population selectively producing IL-17 and expressing CCR6; ii) a minor Th1/Th17 population, producing both IL-17 and IFN-γ. After phagocytosis of apoptotic cells, IFN-DC induced Th17 cell expansion and IL-17 release. Notably, the use of neutralizing antibodies revealed that IL-23 was an essential cytokine in mediating Th17 cell development by IFN-DC. The demonstration of the IFN-DC-induced expansion of both Th1 and Th17 cell populations reveals the intrinsic plasticity of these DC in orienting the immune response and provides a mechanistic link between IFN-α and the onset of autoimmune phenomena, which have been correlated with both IL-17 production and exposure to IFN-α

It’s not the size, it’s the relationship: from ‘small states’ to asymmetry

Debate about the definition of “small state” has produced more fragmentation than consensus, even as the literature has demonstrated its subjects’ roles in joining international organizations propagating norms, executing creative diplomacy, influencing allies, avoiding and joining conflicts, and building peace. However, work on small states has struggled to identify commonalities in these states’ international relations, to cumulate knowledge, or to impact broader IR theory. This paper advocates a changed conceptual and definitional framework. Analysis of “small states” should pivot to examine the dynamics of the asymmetrical relationships in which these states are engaged. Instead of seeking an overall metric for size as the relevant variable—falling victim in a different way Dahl’s “lump-of-power fallacy,” we can recognize the multifaceted, variegated nature of power, whether in war or peacetime