Protecting the Sacred: Tunisia's Islamist Movement Ennahdha and the Challenge of Free Speech

Since the 2011 uprising, Tunisia's Islamist movement Ennahdha has proposed a political project based on reclaiming the nation's Arab-Islamic identity. At the heart of this is the issue of ‘protection of the sacred’, which seeks to define limits to freedom of expression to protect religious symbols from criticism. This is part of Ennahdha's post-Islamist evolution. The movement has drawn away from its earlier ambitions to Islamise the state and now seeks to reconstruct the role of Islam by asserting a cultural Islamic identity, which recasts religious norms as conservative values and which has yet to determine the precise limits of new individual freedoms. The result was to propose a new set of rules for the community under which Tunisians would freely express their religious belief in a way denied them under the former regime, but would also live under a state that defended and guaranteed their religious values

Islamism, party change, and strategic conciliation: Evidence from Tunisia

What happens to an Islamist party after moderating its behaviour and ideology? Existing work on Islamist parties has elaborated the varied causes of moderation. Yet, the mixed findings do not capture the full range of Islamist dynamics. This article draws on a multiyear, interview-based study of the Tunisian Islamist party Ennahda to interrogate the process of intraparty change after moderation. Islamist parties face a two-level problem with external and internal trade-offs. I argue that the intraparty characteristics that enable moderation may also contribute to undermining a party’s institutional structure and identity as it responds to an uncertain political context. These findings bring processual evidence from Islamist parties into broader explanations of party change and highlight the ongoing effects of moderation, not just its causes

Transgressive Protest after a Democratic Transition: The Kamour Campaign in Tunisia

A democratic transition is likely to bring significant changes to the character of contentious politics. Scholars argue protest is likely to become normalized and more frequent because of new opportunities, but less radical because it is channelled by political actors into a more responsive political system. However, less attention has been paid to explaining those protest episodes, which remain transgressive. This article uses an original event catalogue and informant interviews to examine the microlevel interactions within one such episode, the Kamour protest in Tunisia in 2017, in which hundreds of young unemployed protesters staged a four-month long sit-in and shut off an oil pipeline to demand jobs and increased state spending in their region. Findings show that in conditions of low political trust, protesters relied on three mechanisms: they escalated but self-limited their actions; organized autonomously but used fraternization to seek the protection of the military; and resisted institutionalization as a political party even as they transformed their claims to appeal to the ‘absent state’ to demand deeper democratic reforms. Evidence from Tunisia contributes to explaining how political mistrust shapes transgressive protests after a democratic transition

Hizb al-Tahrir Tunisia

Ḥizb al-Taḥrīr Tunisia is an Islamist group which emerged in the late 1970s as a branch of the international Ḥizb al-Taḥrīr movement, which had been established in Jerusalem in 1952 by the Palestinian Islamic scholar Taqi al-Dīn al-Nabhānī (1909-77). The group critiqued the Tunisian state as a colonial implant, and advocated the installation of an Islamic state. It was repressed during the 1980s, and remained largely underground until a popular uprising toppled the authoritarian regime of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. The party was legalized in July 2012, and continued to campaign for an Islamic state

The Sikh Diaspora in Australia: Migration, Multiculturalism and the Imagining of Home

When studying a diasporic population, understanding the relationship between dispersed peoples and their cultural homelands can be instructive. Scholars of diaspora have long understood that a relationship exists between a diaspora, and its place of origin. This dissertation approaches the question of connections between population and homeland from a perspective of emotion and nostalgia, asking how differing generations of Sikhs living in Australia think, talk and feel about their cultural homeland of Punjab. These connections to Punjab are filtered through shifting discourse on immigration and ideas of belonging that exist in Australia. Ethnographic research was conducted in Woolgoolga, New South Wales, Australia, over a period of nice months. Family migration narratives were collected from Sikhs living there, who were divided into two age groups- those 35 years of age and under, and those between the ages of 36 and 55. The purpose of this division is to replicate approximate generations of Sikhs, for the comparison of attitudes and experiences with Punjab. Informal and semi-structured interviews were conducted, and participant observation was done at Woolgoolga’s two Sikh gurdwaras, at meetings held during the organizational phase of a major Indian cultural festival, and at various activities and events held in town throughout the course of the field stay. Data collected shows that there is generational variation in the degree of emotional attachment to Punjab as a perceived cultural homeland. At the same time, there is generational difference in the understanding of recent political history in Punjab, and Sikh struggles for an independent state of Khalistan. Where older generations of Sikhs hold a much stronger connection to Punjab at the level of emotion and nostalgia, they tend to be more critical of the idea of an independent Sikh state. Conversely, younger generations of Sikhs demonstrate much less emotional connection to Punjab, and have little knowledge about the independence movement for Khalistan. Those who are familiar with the Khalistani movement have romanticized notions about the struggle, and are more likely to support claims that Sikhs are mistreated in India, and require their own state

The complexity of trauma exposure and response; profiling PTSD and CPTSD among a refugee sample

Objective: This study investigated the latent dimensional and categorical structure of ICD-11 Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) within a refugee sample. Method: A subsample that identified as refugee (n = 308) was selected from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC-II). Factor Mixture Modelling (FMM) was employed to establish the dimensional structure of CPTSD symptomology and the categorical distribution of these dimensions. It was then evaluated whether trauma history could differentiate between the distribution of trauma response profiles. Results: A correlated six-factor model with five latent classes was the best fitting model. Two classes were characterised by symptom profiles that were consistent with ICD-11 CPTSD and PTSD formulations. The remaining classes were characterised by non-specific variation across dimensions. CPTSD class membership was predicted by traumas that were predominantly interpersonal in nature (serious neglect, physical assault and sexual assault) while PTSD class membership was predicted by situational traumatic experiences (unarmed civilian in a conflict environment and a serious accident). A distinct dose response effect was evident between cumulative traumatic exposure and CPTSD class membership. Conclusion: FMM class profiles distinguished between PTSD and CPTSD symptom formulations. Moreover, class membership was determined by specific trauma exposure histories

New insights from field observations of the Younger giant dyke complex and mafic lamprophyres of the gardar province on Tuttutooq island, South Greenland

LK, RW, RC, LM and AM received funding from the Mining Institute of Scotland, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, the Edinburgh Geological Society, the Augustine Courtauld Trust and the Scott Polar Research Institute. LK received funding from the Society of Economic Geology Hickok-Radford Fund.The Gardar Province of south Greenland is defined by the products of alkaline igneous magmatism during the Mesoproterozoic. The most laterally extensive Gardar intrusions are a series of giant dyke complexes best exposed on the Tuttutooq archipelago. We present new field observations and a geological map of north-east Tuttutooq island that provide fresh insights into the temporal evolution of the Younger giant dyke complex and two associated ultramafic lamprophyres. Our data demonstrate that distinctive crystallisation regimes occurred in different sectors of the dyke complex, leading to the formation of marginal gabbros and ovoid pod-like domains displaying lamination, modal layering and/or more evolved differentiates. We infer that at least two pulses of magma contributed to the formation of the Younger giant dyke complex. In addition, the relative ages of two ultramafic lamprophyre diatremes are constrained and attributed to two distinct phases of rifting in the Gardar Province.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Extent and mechanism of phase separation during the extrusion of calcium phosphate pastes.

The aim of this study was to increase understanding of the mechanism and dominant drivers influencing phase separation during ram extrusion of calcium phosphate (CaP) paste for orthopaedic applications. The liquid content of extrudate was determined, and the flow of liquid and powder phases within the syringe barrel during extrusion were observed, subject to various extrusion parameters. Increasing the initial liquid-to-powder mass ratio, LPR, (0.4-0.45), plunger rate (5-20 mm/min), and tapering the barrel exit (45°-90°) significantly reduced the extent of phase separation. Phase separation values ranged from (6.22 ± 0.69 to 18.94 ± 0.69 %). However altering needle geometry had no significant effect on phase separation. From powder tracing and liquid content determination, static zones of powder and a non-uniform liquid distribution was observed within the barrel. Measurements of extrudate and paste LPR within the barrel indicated that extrudate LPR remained constant during extrusion, while LPR of paste within the barrel decreased steadily. These observations indicate the mechanism of phase separation was located within the syringe barrel. Therefore phase separation can be attributed to either; (1) the liquid being forced downstream by an increase in pore pressure as a result of powder consolidation due to the pressure exerted by the plunger or (2) the liquid being drawn from paste within the barrel, due to suction, driven by dilation of the solids matrix at the barrel exit. Differentiating between these two mechanisms is difficult; however results obtained suggest that suction is the dominant phase separation mechanism occurring during extrusion of CaP paste

Characterizing Community Health Workers on Research Teams: Results From the Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities

Objectives. To quantify the characteristics of community health workers (CHWs) involved in community intervention research and, in particular, to characterize their job titles, roles, and responsibilities; recruitment and compensation; and training and supervision

StrategyNZ: mapping our future strategy maps - from Te Papa to the Legislative Council Chamber

This report explains the inputs, processes and outputs of the StrategyNZ workshop held in March 2011. The aim was to encourage a conversation about our long-term future. Consensus emerged that New Zealand should work to ‘create a place where talent wants to live’. See Report 12 and the workshop booklet