Transitional Justice: Key Concepts, Processes and Challenges

This briefing paper focuses on transitional justice as one of the key steps in peacebuilding that needs to be taken to secure a stable democratic future. It provides key stakeholders with an overview of transitional justice and its different components, while examining key challenges faced by those working in this area. The paper focuses on key concepts of transitional justice before addressing its traditional components: justice, reparation, truth and institutional reform. The paper concludes with some remarks that challenge the traditional concept of transitional justice and its processes in order to initiate important debate on where future work in this field is needed

Integration and development trajectories: Latin American populations in The Netherlands: exploratory study

This document gathers the main results of an exploratory study about the obstacles and possibilities of articulating the population of Latin American origin residing in The Netherlands to the receiving society. Two specific issues on the matter are presented: an overview of the types of organizations working with or for said populations; and information on the living conditions, potential and needs of the individuals. A review of the available statistical data from various government institutions is exposed and analysed and, on the basis of the results from a survey as well as several interviews, the situation of the target population is analyzed. The document contains a special section about the conditions of ‘populations in special situations’ and, when required, pertinent recommendations on their needs and the possibilities to improve their conditions are made. The study demonstrates that the increases in number of Latin American migrants as well as the changes in the causes for migration and the profile of those who arrive to The Netherlands are issues which deserve attention both at a theoretical level as well as in the practical and policy formulation aspects.civil society;migration;integration;organizations;Latin American populations

The Venezuelan Economy in the Chavez Years

This paper examines how Venezuela's economy has fared since President Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998. The paper looks at growth, employment, poverty, investment and other indicators, and considers the popular conception of whether the current economic expansion is an "oil boom headed for a bust.

Frank Lloyd Wright. Earthwork for a symbiotic landscape

En los años veinte Wright tiene que trabajar en las laderas de California con nuevas estrategias proyectivas, sus casas ya no pueden ser horizontales y tienen que adaptarse a la pendiente. No obstante, él no renuncia a que se extiendan por la empinada parcela recurriendo al uso del bancal. También emerge con potencia la idea de hacer el suelo, en el que deja impresa la retícula con la que controla el proyecto, entonces, el hormigón aparece como el material del pavimento confiriendo a esa superficie un valor metafórico. Este aspecto, el proceso de geometrización y la abstracción entrarán en juego como instrumentos de análisis y para proyectar con el paisaje, para desentrañar su estructura interna y encontrar un orden natural con la arquitectura. Los proyectos que realiza en el desierto a partir de esos años denotan un intenso trabajo telúrico. Muros, bancales y plataformas fueron instrumentos en su interpretación de la topografía. Retículas ortogonales y giradas o angulosas analizan el territorio o se acoplan con él para conseguir la mejor asociación de sus edificios. También los materiales son incorporados con naturalidad exponiendo su vinculación al lugar y sus cualidades térreas. La obsesión por establecer vínculos entre lo próximo y lo lejano, el suelo y el horizonte, el recorrido y el tiempo, incluido el transcultural, y la percepción múltiple, está en su obra. Y, especialmente, la manipulación de ese elemento fundamental que es la tierra.In the 1920s, Wright found that working on California slopes made new projective strategies necessary. No longer could his houses be horizontal: they had to adapt to hillside inclinations. Nevertheless, he refused not to let them extend over the steep lots, resorting to the terrace. The idea of working the land also emerged powerfully: the grid with which he controlled the project was impressed into the concrete and he then made it the paving material, giving the surface a metaphoric value. This issue -the process of geometrization and abstraction- would be used as tools to analyze and to design with landscape, to unravel its internal order and find a natural order with architecture. From then on, Wright’s desert projects revealed intense telluric work. Walls, terraces and platforms are instruments for his interpretation of the topography. Orthogonal grids, twisted or angular, explore the territory or connect with it to make his buildings more cohesive. The materials are also incorporated naturally, emphasizing their link to the site and its earthy qualities. The obsession with establishing connections between the near and the far, the land and the horizon, the path and time, even including cross-cultural and multiple perceptions, are all palpable in Wright’s work. And especially present is his manipulation of that fundamental element: the land

Chicana/o Artivism: Judy Baca's Digital Work with Youth of Color

Part of the Volume on Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media Astounding digital murals have emerged from the minds and souls of Chicana artist Judy Baca and the youth of color who have collaborated with her over the past ten years. Their workspace is SPARC, the Social and Public Art Resource Center, founded by Baca in 1996 and dedicated to the creation and support of community and public art in Southern California. But the digital art they produce is not only located in SPARC -- it can be found in virtual installations globally, as well as on the walls of Los Angeles barrio housing projects and in the hybrid spaces of the Internet. We call their activity "digital artivism," a word that is itself a convergence between "activism" and digital "artistic" production. The digital artivism we find expressed through SPARC, we argue, is symptomatic of a Chicana/o twenty-first century digital arts movement. This digital artivist movement also advances the expression of a mode of liberatory consciousness that Chicana feminist philosopher Gloria Anzaldua calls la conciencia de la mestiza, i.e. the radical consciousness of a mixed race peoples. Chela Sandoval and Guisela Latorre call attention to this mode of digital artivism enacted by Baca and young people who are vested in the convergences between creative expression, social activism, and self-empowerment

Update on the Ecuadorian Economy

This paper provides an overview of major macroeconomic and social indicators and policy changes in Ecuador over the two and a half years since President Rafael Correa took office in January 2007, including economic growth, social spending, fiscal policy, inflation, foreign debt, the trade balance, and various policy changes as well as the recent impacts of the world recession