No. 26: Social Media, The Internet and Diasporas for Development

The recent focus on diasporas by policy-makers researchers has highlighted the rich potential of migrants as a force for shaping development activities in their countries of origin. The study of diasporas in development presents researchers a number of significant challenges. As Vertovec and Cohen suggest, ‘one of the major changes in migration patterns is the growth of populations anchored … neither at their places of origin nor at their places of destination’. The fluid, multi-sited and multi-generational nature of diaspora groupings poses considerable methodological challenges of definition, identification, location, sampling and interviewing. As the nature of African diasporas are constantly in flux so too should the methodologies we use to study them. In practice, traditional approaches lead to the same methodological roadblocks. Census and immigration data (particularly from destination countries) can provide an overall picture of diaspora stocks, flows and locations. However, privacy issues generally preclude these sources from providing disaggregated data at the level of the individual migrant or migrant household. Surveys of diaspora members have therefore become the standard means of collecting information on diaspora characteristics, identities, activities and linkages. This immediately raises a set of problems and challenges. Census data can tell us the size of the population to sample but not who the individuals are, where they live and how to contact them. Without a sampling frame, researchers tend to rely instead on ‘snowball’, ‘purposive’ or ‘convenience’ sampling. This has produced a disproportionate number of studies that rely on key informant and focus group interviews in order to create a profile of diasporas and their development-related activities. Diasporas are often geographically dispersed within a country and across different countries. Cost and time constraints and the bias of snowball and convenience sampling lead to a focus on sub-sets. Studies of diaspora members in particular cities or regions are especially common. While sample sizes vary considerably, there is a marked reliance on very small samples, which raises obvious questions about the representativeness and generalizability of the findings. The mail-out survey is still the preferred method of reaching members of a geographically dispersed diaspora, although response rates remain stubbornly low. To contact members of the diaspora, mailing lists are compiled from organizations that keep, and are willing to share, membership lists (such as diaspora organizations, embassies, alumni associations, immigrant service agencies and religious organizations). However, this means an inherent sampling bias since data collected from these individuals and groups has the potential to be skewed towards diaspora members actively engaged with their origin country. This method of ‘accessing the diaspora through the diaspora’ is also unlikely to provide much information on ‘hidden’ members of a diaspora whose immigration status may be undocumented or uncertain and who are wary of disclosing personal information directly to researchers. Researchers have also noted that members of vulnerable populations such as asylum seekers and refugees might be reluctant to provide personal information due to fear and trust issues. To identify and connect with larger numbers, different strategies need to be adopted. In this context, the potential of the internet has rarely been considered. Since the advent of the internet age, more than one billion people have become connected to the World Wide Web (WWW), creating seemingly limitless opportunities for communication. The past decade has also seen a major increase in the use of the internet by diaspora individuals and groupings. The internet has not only facilitated remittance transfers, but has increased communication among and between diasporas and influenced the formation of diasporic identities. In this context, the potential of web-based methodologies in diaspora research appears promising. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we argue for supplementing conventional approaches with new methodologies that embrace the connectivity of diasporas, the emergence of social media and the potential of online surveys. Second, we illustrate the potential of this approach through discussion of the methods adopted in our current research on the African diaspora in Canada

Divided Diasporas: Southern Africans in Canada

The protracted economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe led directly to a major increase in mixed migration flows to South Africa. Migrants were drawn from every sector of society, all education and skill levels, equal numbers of both sexes, and all ages (including unaccompanied child migration). Many migrants claimed asylum in South Africa which gave them the right to work while they waited for a refugee hearing. Many others were arrested and deported back to Zimbabwe. Migrants who were unable to find employment in the formal economy turned to employment and self-employment in the informal economy. These migrant entrepreneurs used personal savings to establish small and micro enterprises in many urban areas. The businesses focused on retail trading, manufacturing and services and contributed to the South African economy in various ways, including providing employment for South Africans. Nationwide xenophobic violence in 2008 targeted all migrants, irrespective of origin and legal status. From 2008 onwards, violent attacks on migrant-owned informal businesses began to escalate. This culminated in a second round of nationwide xenophobic violence in early 2015 when migrant-owned businesses were targeted by mobs. Migrants send essential remittances to family in Zimbabwe and return migration is not a viable or long-term response until Zimbabwe’s economic crisis is resolved. As a result, informal migrant entrepreneurs have adapted to hostile business conditions by adopting a range of strategies to avoid and protect themselves and their businesses from xenophobia. Against this backdrop, this report first discusses the nature of the crisis in Zimbabwe and its connections with large-scale out-migration, particularly to South Africa. The South African response to crisis-driven migration is reviewed showing how the government shifted from a predominantly coercive and control-oriented policy towards a more realistic assessment of the need to accommodate migrants through an immigration amnesty and the right to work in the formal and informal sector. One of the major challenges facing migrants and all stakeholders in South Africa is xenophobic violence. Nationwide attacks on migrants and refugees in 2008 and 2015 have been interspersed with ongoing lower-level episodes of violence. These attacks have increasingly targeted migrants and refugees, including many Zimbabweans, seeking to make a living in the country’s urban informal economy. The research for this report focused on the business activities and responses to xenophobic violence of Zimbabweans in the informal economy. Amongst the key findings were the following: Between 20-30% of Zimbabwean migrants in South African cities are involved in the informal economy and the importance of informal sector employment to Zimbabweans has increased over time. Zimbabweans operating enterprises in the informal economy are predominantly young (50- 75% under the age of 35) and male (60-70%). Nearly two-thirds of the migrant entrepreneurs arrived in South Africa in the peak years of the Zimbabwean crisis between 2000 and 2010 (42%). Another 32% migrated after 2010. Less than 2% migrated to South Africa before the end of apartheid. Economic hardship, unemployment and political persecution are the main push drivers of migration to South Africa. Pull drivers include the assistance of relatives already in South Africa and the prospect of employment. The majority of the Zimbabwean migrant enterprises are in the retail, trade and wholesale sector, followed by services and manufacturing. Around three-quarters of the migrants relied on their personal savings to start their businesses and many worked in the formal economy first. Business expansion has occurred despite the prime obligation of the entrepreneurs to support family still in Zimbabwe. Instead of reinvesting all of the business profits into further expansion, a portion is therefore diverted into remittance channels. Over one-third remit funds at least once per month and only 12% never send remittances. A significant number of the entrepreneurs had been victims of or knew other who had been victims of crime such as looting and robbery, xenophobic abuse and police misconduct abuse. The report then presents the results of in-depth interviews with Zimbabwean business-owners who had experienced xenophobic violence in 2008 and 2015 or at other times. The narratives of the migrants provide insights into the unpredictable nature of the violence, their vulnerability to attack, the loss of business goods and property during mob violence and the need to restart from scratch, and the various strategies that they adopt to reduce risk. These strategies include operating in safer areas (not feasible for all), avoiding areas where corrupt police tend to operate, paying for protection and flight when xenophobic violence erupts. Return to Zimbabwe is not considered a viable option because of the economic conditions there. The interviews also provide insights into the migrants’ perceptions of government and stakeholder responses to the xenophobic violence. Almost without exception, the migrants felt that neither government (the Zimbabwean or South African) had done anything to protect or assist them during and after the violence. This perception of inaction also extended to international and non-governmental organisations. The migrants were particularly harsh in their comments about the police who were widely seen as either conniving in the violence or uninterested in protecting migrants. The perceptions of the migrants that nothing is done may simply be a function of who was interviewed and does not necessarily reflect the actual reality. The report therefore evaluates the response of the South African government to the ongoing crisis of xenophobia and concludes that some actions – such as sending in the army – are taken during episodes of nationwide violence but that ongoing daily and weekly attacks are generally ignored. There is a strong official line that these attacks are not motivated by xenophobia and. Indeed, that xenophobia does not even exist. This is clearly contradicted by the migrants who view the attacks as motivated by xenophobia. A second element of the official response is that the migrants are partially to blame for what happens to them as their business success builds resentment amongst South Africans. Government has yet to acknowledge that migrant-owned informal enterprises make a valuable contribution to the economy of the country, including through job creation for South Africans. The primary response to the violence of 2015 was the launching of a military-style Operation Fiela which was justified as a crime-fighting initiative but appears to have targeted migrant enterprises. The final sections of the report examine the responses and programmes of various non-governmental and international organisations to the crisis of xenophobia. During large-scale xenophobic violence there is considerable mobilisation of anti-xenophobia civil society organisations to offer protection and protest. Their effectiveness and impact tends to dissipate when the violence is more scattered and random. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has played a major role in the past in holding government to account and articulating extensive recommendations for remedial action, most of which have not been taken up and many of which are still highly relevant. International organisations have tended to target integration and education programming at the community level but there has only been one systematic evaluation (of the UNHCR’s response) which was highly critical of the organisation. These organisations and other governments are considerably hamstrung by xenophobia denialism at the highest level because it means that government will avoid the kinds of partnership that are urgently needed to address this endemic crisis

FATORES ENVOLVIDOS NA ADESÃO AO TRATAMENTO ANTIRETROVIRAL UTILIZADOS PELOS PACIENTES ATENDIDOS PELO SERVIÇO DE ATENDIMENTO ESPECIALIZADO DE DOURADOS

O tratamento antirretroviral (TARV) tem sido instituído ao longo dos últimos anos visando reduzir a replicação viral de tal forma que aumentasse a sobrevida do paciente infectado. Nos últimos anos, o TARV tem sido também aplicado como estratégia de redução da carga viral desde o diagnóstico visando diminuir as transmissões pela redução da carga viral no paciente infectado. Considerando que nem todos os pacientes entendem a importância dessa etapa e o reflexo da descontinuidade dentro do processo de evolução da infecção pelo HIV em seu organismo, a presente pesquisa teve o objetivo de avaliar a adesão ao tratamento de pacientes atendidos pelo serviço de assistência especializado (SAE). A pesquisa trata-se de um estudo de campo descritivo, realizada com pacientes atendidos pelo atendimento especializado de Dourados. Os dados obtidos dos pacientes atendidos na cidade de Dourados mostram que a adesão ao tratamento antiretroviral foi satisfatória e pode estar relacionado como alto índice de escolaridade, que garante a pessoa uma boa compreensão. Além dos esquemas mais utilizados serem aqueles indicados pelo protocolo, com menores doses diárias, baixos efeitos colaterais e serem disponibilizados na rede pública, porém, as pessoas mais jovens são as que mais possuem meios de informações simples, mas são o perfil que mais cresce

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl), maintained at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) near Cambridge, UK, is a comprehensive collection of nucleotide sequences and annotation from available public sources. The database is part of an international collaboration with DDBJ (Japan) and GenBank (USA). Data are exchanged daily between the collaborating institutes to achieve swift synchrony. Webin is the preferred tool for individual submissions of nucleotide sequences, including Third Party Annotation (TPA) and alignments. Automated procedures are provided for submissions from large-scale sequencing projects and data from the European Patent Office. New and updated data records are distributed daily and the whole EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database is released four times a year. Access to the sequence data is provided via ftp and several WWW interfaces. With the web-based Sequence Retrieval System (SRS) it is also possible to link nucleotide data to other specialist molecular biology databases maintained at the EBI. Other tools are available for sequence similarity searching (e.g. FASTA and BLAST). Changes over the past year include the removal of the sequence length limit, the launch of the EMBLCDSs dataset, extension of the Sequence Version Archive functionality and the revision of quality rules for TPA data

The contribution of X-linked coding variation to severe developmental disorders

Abstract: Over 130 X-linked genes have been robustly associated with developmental disorders, and X-linked causes have been hypothesised to underlie the higher developmental disorder rates in males. Here, we evaluate the burden of X-linked coding variation in 11,044 developmental disorder patients, and find a similar rate of X-linked causes in males and females (6.0% and 6.9%, respectively), indicating that such variants do not account for the 1.4-fold male bias. We develop an improved strategy to detect X-linked developmental disorders and identify 23 significant genes, all of which were previously known, consistent with our inference that the vast majority of the X-linked burden is in known developmental disorder-associated genes. Importantly, we estimate that, in male probands, only 13% of inherited rare missense variants in known developmental disorder-associated genes are likely to be pathogenic. Our results demonstrate that statistical analysis of large datasets can refine our understanding of modes of inheritance for individual X-linked disorders

Using Questioning to Facilitate Discussion of Science Teaching Problems in Teacher Professional Development

Previous research has shown that questioning is a key strategy that facilitators use to promote discussion in Problem-Based Learning (PBL). Yet, there is a lack of detailed understanding on what questions facilitators ask and how those questions affect discussion. In this study we examined different types of questions that experienced facilitators asked to promote discussion of teaching problems in professional development for science teachers. We videotaped six PBL sessions facilitated by three pairs of experienced facilitators. Data analysis showed that facilitators asked a set of questions to initiate and advance PBL discourse, including questions to solicit ideas, to reframe ideas, to clarify ideas, to push for elaboration, to check for interpretation, and to connect to teachers’ classroom practice. This study has implications for the development of PBL facilitators

Salmonella Aortitis in an Elderly Male, a Rare but Deadly Cause of Abdominal Pain: A Case Report

Introduction: Infectious aortitis is a rare condition with mortality rates approaching 100% without surgical intervention. Symptoms and findings may be vague. Computed tomography (CT) with intravenous (IV) contrast, once the gold standard of diagnosis, may only show subtle findings. More recently, CT angiography (CTA) and magnetic resonance angiography have become the diagnostic modalities of choice.Case Report: A 58-year-old diabetic male presented to our emergency department with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fevers, and abdominal pain of two weeks duration. The patient had been seen just days before at another facility with the same complaints. He received an abdominal CT with IV contrast that was reported as negative and discharged with the diagnosis of gastroenteritis. He failed to improve and presented to our facility. On presentation, the patient was diaphoretic and uncomfortable. A repeat abdominal CT with IV contrast revealed a mantle of low density around the aorta. The patient was started on IV antibiotics, and a follow-up CTA of the abdomen and pelvis showed an irregular saccular aneurysm. Vascular surgery was consulted, and the patient underwent vascular reconstruction.Conclusion: Because of the high level of mortality seen in infectious aortitis and improvement in patient outcomes with surgical intervention, a high index of suspicion needs to be maintained in patients presenting with fever and chest, abdominal, and back pain, especially in the setting of risk factors and bacteremia. The clinician should be aware that the usual modality for the evaluation of abdominal pain, CT with IV contrast, may not be adequate to make the diagnosis

Salmonella Aortitis in an Elderly Male, a Rare but Deadly Cause of Abdominal Pain: A Case Report

Introduction: Infectious aortitis is a rare condition with mortality rates approaching 100% without surgical intervention. Symptoms and findings may be vague. Computed tomography (CT) with intravenous (IV) contrast, once the gold standard of diagnosis, may only show subtle findings. More recently, CT angiography (CTA) and magnetic resonance angiography have become the diagnostic modalities of choice.Case Report: A 58-year-old diabetic male presented to our emergency department with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fevers, and abdominal pain of two weeks duration. The patient had been seen just days before at another facility with the same complaints. He received an abdominal CT with IV contrast that was reported as negative and discharged with the diagnosis of gastroenteritis. He failed to improve and presented to our facility. On presentation, the patient was diaphoretic and uncomfortable. A repeat abdominal CT with IV contrast revealed a mantle of low density around the aorta. The patient was started on IV antibiotics, and a follow-up CTA of the abdomen and pelvis showed an irregular saccular aneurysm. Vascular surgery was consulted, and the patient underwent vascular reconstruction.Conclusion: Because of the high level of mortality seen in infectious aortitis and improvement in patient outcomes with surgical intervention, a high index of suspicion needs to be maintained in patients presenting with fever and chest, abdominal, and back pain, especially in the setting of risk factors and bacteremia. The clinician should be aware that the usual modality for the evaluation of abdominal pain, CT with IV contrast, may not be adequate to make the diagnosis