Reification and the refugee: using a counterposing dialogical analysis to unlock a frozen category

Thousands of individuals each year seek refugee status and the question of who can be accepted requires politicians within democracies to seek a public mandate. Unlike other socio-political categories individuals cannot self-identify as refugee; the category must be bureaucratically conferred. Therefore sustained humanitarian public concern is vital to the acceptance of refugees. This article sets parameters on this public concern. It examines how public narratives reify the refugee category. Showing how this reification constrains the citizenship, integration and opportunities of individuals, now safe, yet continually categorized in everyday public discourse as refugee. Interviews, focus groups (Study 1) and ethnography (Study 2) were conducted in Sweden and the United Kingdom (N = 57). The article introduces a counterposing dialogical analysis where public positioning of refugees is counterposed against dialogue by “refugees” anticipating their positioning. The analysis uncovers an hegemonic social representation of humanitarianism indexing “the refugee” as the passive recipient of help framed by a public narrative diachronically frozen in the initial act of flight. Three objectifying reification processes stabilize the category. “Refugees” in turn employ counter-positional tactics of distancing, compensation and future-orientation. The limited success of these tactics suggest the need to scale up such tactics to collective-level communication strategies. Success of communication strategies requires questioning the underlying function humanitarian-talk serves in creating a sense of European identity. Together these strategies could re-work the temporal features of the refugee category facilitating a repositioning and enabling the emergence of post-refugee narratives

Viskadalens mekaniska plantskydd

Klövviltet har stor inverkan på skogsbruket speciellt när det gäller viltbetning på tallskog. Som skogsägare finns det många olika insatser som kan vidtas för att motverka viltbetning och därmed reducera ekonomiska förluster i skogsbruket. I fältstudien har det undersökts om de mekaniska plantskydd av metall som Johan Larsson ifrån Viskadalen tagit fram kan skydda huvudstammarna från att bli toppskottsbetade. Eftersom skyddet enbart skall skydda toppskottet på de tilltänkta huvudstammarna finns möjligheten att plantornas sidoskott och de plantor som ej ses som huvudstammar blir viltfoder vilket då samtidigt gynnar markägaren så att denne får en kostnadsfri kvistrensning och röjning. Både samhället och den enskilda markägaren har mycket att vinna på att sköta skogen med en viltanpassad skogsskötsel. Finns det tillräckligt med mer smaklig föda för klövviltet är det större chans att framtidens huvudstammar får vara i fred.This project work is made to evaluate a new form of protection agents grazing from wild animals on pine plants. The evaluation was made by comparing costs, time and efficiency to other types of protection. A study was made out in the forest where the covers efficiency was tested with a few different sample surfaces but also by comparing it to literature studies. The conclusion of the study shows that the protection works very well and isn’t as much work as some of the other methods out there

Tight och loose kontroll - En studie om svenska myndigheters budgetefterlevnad och huruvida samband föreligger med tight och loose kontroll

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att beskriva i vilken utsträckning statliga myndigheter efterlever sin finansiella budget och att analysera huruvida det finns ett samband mellan budgetefterlevnad och om myndigheterna upplever att de styrs med tight eller loose kontroll. Metod: Uppsatsen har ett deduktivt angreppssätt. De undersökningar som gjorts har skett genom ett kvantitativt tillvägagångssätt. Materialet analyseras genom statistisk bearbetning, kopplat till teorin. Materialet presenteras med tabeller och figurer. Teoretiska perspektiv:Studien baseras främst på Van der Stedes teori om tight och loose budgetkontroll, men även teorier om budget och ekonomistyrning behandlas i studien. Empiri: Empiri har insamlats genom en enkätundersökning och data från årsredovisningar hos svenska myndigheter. Studiens målpopulation består av samtliga myndigheter i Sverige som finansieras genom anslag från staten. Slutsatser: Myndigheterna efterlever sin finansiella budget i stor utsträckning. Majoriteten av myndigheterna anser att regeringen utövar relativ loose budgetkontroll. Den statistiska bearbetningen av det empiriska materialet har visat att vi inte med säkerhet kan uttala oss huruvida det finns ett samband eller ej mellan budgetefterlevnad och om myndigheterna upplever att de styrs med tight eller loose kontroll, då det genom tester påvisats signifikans, svag signifikans samt ingen signifikans

Space use by giant otter groups in the Brazilian Pantanal

Giant otters (Pteronura brasiliensis) live in groups that seem to abandon their territories during the flooding season. We studied the spatial ecology of giant otter groups during dry and wet seasons in the Vermelho and Miranda rivers in the Brazilian Pantanal. We monitored visually or by radiotelemetry 10 giant otter groups monthly from June 2009 to June 2011.We estimated home-range size for all groups with the following methods: linear river length, considering the extreme locations of each group, and fixed kernel. For the radiotracked groups, we also used the k-LoCoh method. Spatial fidelity and habitat selection of giant otter groups were analyzed seasonally. On the basis of k-LoCoh (98%) method, home-range sizes during the wet season (3.6-7.9 km2) were 4 to 59 times larger than during the dry season (0.1-2.3 km2). Home-range fidelity between seasons varied among giant otter groups from 0% to 87%, and 2 radiotagged groups shifted to flooded areas during the wet seasons. Giant otter groups were selective in relation to the composition of the landscape available during the dry seasons, when the river was used more intensively than other landscape features. However, they seemed to be less selective in positioning activity ranges during the wet season. During this season, giant otters were frequently observed fishing in the areas adjacent to the river, such as flooded forest, grassland, and swamps. © 2013 American Society of Mammalogists

Vocal repertoire of the social giant otter

According to the “social intelligence hypothesis,” species with complex social interactions have more sophisticated communication systems. Giant otters (Pteronura brasiliensis) live in groups with complex social interactions. It is likely that the vocal communication of giant otters is more sophisticated than previous studies suggest. The objectives of the current study were to describe the airborne vocal repertoire of giant otters in the Pantanal area of Brazil, to analyze call types within different behavioral contexts, and to correlate vocal complexity with level of sociability of mustelids to verify whether or not the result supports the social intelligence hypothesis. The behavior of nine giant otters groups was observed. Vocalizations recorded were acoustically and statistically analyzed to describe the species’ repertoire. The repertoire was comprised by 15 sound types emitted in different behavioral contexts. The main behavioral contexts of each sound type were significantly associated with the acoustic variable ordination of different sound types. A strong correlation between vocal complexity and sociability was found for different species, suggesting that the communication systems observed in the family mustelidae support the social intelligence hypothesis

Factors associated with crisis pregnancies in Ireland: Findings from three nationally representative sexual health surveys

Background: Findings on the demographic and sexual health characteristics associated with the experience of a crisis pregnancy is important to inform the public health policy of a country, including Ireland. Findings from other jurisdictions have suggested that certain demographic groups are at risk for unintended pregnancies and the disparity between the groups have been growing in recent years. Ireland is a country which experienced much economic and societal change in the first decade of the 21st century, changes which are likely to have affected demographic variables pertaining to sexual health. The current study had two aims: to investigate changes in the socioeconomic characteristics associated with crisis pregnancies over a seven year period [2003 to 2010], and to investigate the recent [2010] socioeconomic risk factors associated with crisis pregnancies in Ireland. Methods: The study compared the results from 18-45 year old women using data from three broadly similar nationally representative Irish sexual health surveys carried out in 2003, 2004-2006 and 2010. Chi square analysis compared of the socioeconomic characteristics across the seven year period and found that a higher proportion of women with two or more children and women for whom religion was not important reported a crisis pregnancy in 2010 compared with earlier years. A logistic regression then investigated the sexual health history and socioeconomic factors associated with the experience of a recent crisis pregnancy using the most recent 2010 data. Results: Receipt of sex education and contraception use at first sex significantly predicted the experiencing of a recent crisis pregnancy. Younger women and those with a lower level of education were more likely to report having experienced a recent crisis pregnancy. Conclusion: Similar demographic groups are at risk for experiencing a crisis pregnancy in Ireland compared with international research, yet the disparities between demographic groups who have experienced a crisis pregnancy appear to be decreasing rather than increasing over a seven year period. Recommendations are made with regard to the provision of continued sex education throughout the lifespan, particularly for those women who are at an increased risk of experiencing a crisis pregnancy

Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide association analyses in 3 million individuals

We conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of educational attainment (EA) in a sample of ~3 million individuals and identify 3,952 approximately uncorrelated genome-wide-significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A genome-wide polygenic predictor, or polygenic index (PGI), explains 12–16% of EA variance and contributes to risk prediction for ten diseases. Direct effects (i.e., controlling for parental PGIs) explain roughly half the PGI’s magnitude of association with EA and other phenotypes. The correlation between mate-pair PGIs is far too large to be consistent with phenotypic assortment alone, implying additional assortment on PGI-associated factors. In an additional GWAS of dominance deviations from the additive model, we identify no genome-wide-significant SNPs, and a separate X-chromosome additive GWAS identifies 57