“Don’t Call Me Eskimo”: Representation, Mythology and Hip Hop Culture on Baffin Island

Through a contextualization of the song, “Don’t Call Me Eskimo,” which was launched on the interactive website YouTube in 2007 and an analysis of three examples of hip hop culture drawn from her ethnographic fieldwork on Baffin Island in June/July 2008, the author makes the argument that hip hop culture in Nunavut enables a re-working of contemporary Inuit identity. As part of this re-working, Inuit youth mediate representations of themselves and their current lived experiences through mobile technologies and local networks, challenging common stereotypes and reified identities that continue to circulate in political, cultural, and national discourses

Globalization, Identity, and Youth Resistance: Kenya’s Hip Hop Parliament

The Hip Hop Parliament is a youth-initiative comprised of underground hip hop MCs and artists that began in 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya. Representing itself as a collective conscious movement that has no boundaries and is open to participants from all over the world, the Hip Hop Parliament formed to offer youth a voice and a place from which to participate in the social, political, and cultural processes of Kenya. Drawing on hip hop culture and its mythologies of struggle, resistance, reclamation, and social consciousness, the Hip Hop Parliament released a Declaration as a means to present a unified front on a number of controversial issues concerning ethnicity, gender, respect for human life, reconciliation between communities, violence, youth culture, justice, peace, the use of SHENG as one of Kenya’s “official” languages, the importance of good leadership and the responsibility to provide security, education, and health care available to all citizens regardless of economic circumstance. Given this context, in this article the authors begin to explore the following questions: What is the significance of the Hip Hop Parliament and its declaration as a movement/ culture for youth in Kenya? How does hip hop, as an artistic form, work towards the expression of a contemporary Africa

IKK phosphorylates Huntingtin and targets it for degradation by the proteasome and lysosome

Expansion of the polyglutamine repeat within the protein Huntingtin (Htt) causes Huntington's disease, a neurodegenerative disease associated with aging and the accumulation of mutant Htt in diseased neurons. Understanding the mechanisms that influence Htt cellular degradation may target treatments designed to activate mutant Htt clearance pathways. We find that Htt is phosphorylated by the inflammatory kinase IKK, enhancing its normal clearance by the proteasome and lysosome. Phosphorylation of Htt regulates additional post-translational modifications, including Htt ubiquitination, SUMOylation, and acetylation, and increases Htt nuclear localization, cleavage, and clearance mediated by lysosomal-associated membrane protein 2A and Hsc70. We propose that IKK activates mutant Htt clearance until an age-related loss of proteasome/lysosome function promotes accumulation of toxic post-translationally modified mutant Htt. Thus, IKK activation may modulate mutant Htt neurotoxicity depending on the cell's ability to degrade the modified species

The Impact of Weapons and Unusual Objects on the Construction of Facial Composites

The presence of a weapon in the perpetration of a crime can impede an observer’s ability to describe and/or recognise the person responsible. In the current experiment, we explore whether weapons when present at encoding of a target identity interfere with construction of a facial composite. Participants encoded an unfamiliar target face seen either on its own or paired with a knife. Encoding duration (10 or 30 seconds) was also manipulated. The following day, participants recalled the face and constructed a composite of it using a holistic system (EvoFIT). Correct naming of the participants’ composites was found to reduce reliably when target faces were paired with the weapon at 10 seconds but not at 30 seconds. These data suggest that the presence of a weapon reduces the effectiveness of facial composites following short encoding duration. Implications for theory and police practice are discussed

Applying a gender lens to understand pathways through care for acutely ill young children in Kenyan urban informal settlements

Background: In many African settings, gender strongly influences household treatment-seeking and decision-making for childhood illnesses. While mothers are often the primary engagers with health facilities, their independence in illness-related decisions is shaped by various factors. Drawing on a gender lens, we explored treatment-seeking pathways pre- and post-hospital admission for acutely ill young children living in low income settlements in Nairobi, Kenya; and the gendered impact of child illness both at the household and health system level. Methods: Household members of 22 children admitted to a public hospital were interviewed in their homes several times post hospital discharge. In-depth interviews covered the child's household situation, health and illness; and the family's treatment-seeking choices and experiences. Children were selected from an observational cohort established by the Childhood Acute Illness and Nutrition (CHAIN) Network. Results: Treatment-seeking pathways were often long and complex, with mothers playing the key role in caring for their children and in treatment decision-making. Facing many anxieties and dilemmas, mothers often consulted with significant influencers - primarily women - particularly where illnesses were prolonged or complex. In contrast to observations in rural African contexts, fathers were less prominent as influencers than (often female) neighbours, grandparents and other relatives. Mothers were sometimes blamed for their child's condition at home and at health facilities. Children's illness episode and associated treatment-seeking had significant gendered socio-economic consequences for households, including through mothers having to take substantial time off work, reduce their working hours and income, or even losing their jobs. Conclusion: Women in urban low-income settings are disproportionately impacted by acute child illness and the related treatment-seeking and recovery process. The range of interventions needed to support mothers as they navigate their way through children's illnesses and recovery include: deliberate engagement of men in child health to counteract the dominant perception of child health and care as a 'female-domain'; targeted economic strategies such as cash transfers to safeguard the most vulnerable women and households, combined with more robust labour policies to protect affected women; as well as implementing strategies at the health system level to improve interactions between health workers and community members.The primary author (KM) was funded through the DELTAS Africa Initiative [DEL-15-003]. The DELTAS Africa Initiative is an independent funding scheme of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS)’s Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) and supported by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) with funding from the Wellcome Trust [107769/Z/10/Z] and the UK government. This work was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded to the CHAIN Network (grant: OPP1131320)

Reading Contemporary "Bad Girls": The Transgressions and Triumphs of Madonna's "What It Feels Like For a Girl"

Through an analysis of Madonna's "What it Feels Like for a Girl," I problematize the impulse to dismiss women who transgress boundaries and challenge gender norms in spite of their complicity within systems of power and privilege. Résumé Par l’entremise d’une analyse de la chanson de Madonna ‘ What it Feels Like for a Girl ‘, je problématise l’impulsion qu’on a de ne pas tenir compte des femmes qui transgressent les limites et défient les normes assignées à chacun des sexes en dépit de leur complicité à l’intérieur de systèmes de pouvoir et de privilèges

In & Out of the Classroom: Reflections on Identity, Technology, and the Radio Project

In this article I share my reflections on the radio project, a pedagogical tool that I incorporated in my upper-level seminars while teaching at University of Regina from 2004 to 2006. My analysis interrogates the merits (and disappointments) of the radio project as a productive (and potentially transgressive) pedagogical tool. I draw on theorists Spivak and Britzman in order to think about how social bonds are mediated by a technological environment outside the conventional university classroom. Furthermore, I explore how, through alternative pedagogies such as the radio project, social bonds may develop through processes of identification rather than identity politics.Dans cet article, je partage mes réflexions concernant le projet radio, un outil pédagogique que j’ai incorporé dans mes séminaires aux études supérieures alors que j’enseignais à l'université de Regina de 2004 à 2006. Mon analyse questionne les mérites (et déceptions) du projet radio à titre d’outil pédagogique productif (et potentiellement transgressif). À partir de la pensée des théoriciens Spivak et Britzman, je réfléchis à la manière dont les liens sociaux sont modifiés par un environnement technologique extérieur à la salle de classe universitaire traditionnelle