The Transnational Engagement of the Somali Diaspora: for Whose Benefit? Involvement Between Clans Politics and State-building

The Somali federal government established in 2012 presents still limited capacity to provide for the needs of the population, particularly in terms of livelihood support and security. This creates space for state contestation and for other actors, including Somali clans and Islamist groups, to address people’s needs in its place. Current Somali politics thus reverts around multiple sources of governance, which the Somali diaspora inevitably uses to channel support to relatives and trusted networks in Somalia. The diaspora plays a vital role in ensuring income and investments, and participates in statebuilding initiatives as well as peace and conflict dynamics embroiling the homeland. By doing so, the diaspora is caught in a double and opposite process, as its engagement can at once undermine state-building processes while foster development and security, the latter being key to favour long-term reconciliation and stability. This article seeks to examine patterns of Somali transnational engagement in order to assess its modalities of interaction and its relationship with societal dynamics and the ongoing federal statebuilding project

Greater Somalia, the never-ending dream?:Contested Somali borders: the power of tradition vs. the tradition of power

This paper provides an historical analysis of the concept of Greater Somalia, the nationalist project that advocates the political union of all Somali-speaking people, including those inhabiting areas in current Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. The Somali territorial unification project of \u201clost territories\u201d was a direct consequence of the arbitrary borders drawn up by the European colonial powers in order to realise their expansionist interests. This paper underlines the instability produced by the European colonial powers in the Horn of Africa, and presents their arbitrary decisions as the root cause of Somali grievances and border disputes, which dogged the region from the end of colonial rule to the outbreak of civil war. The aim of the paper is three-fold: firstly, it seeks to identify the reasons behind the instability of Somalia\u2019s borders; secondly, it attempts to explain why the Greater Somalia project has not been realised. Finally, it discusses the overall issue, in order to achieve a balance in terms of myth and reality

Generation of an ultrastable 578 nm laser for Yb lattice clock

In this paper we described the development and the characterization of a 578 nm laser source to be the clock laser for an Ytterbium Lattice Optical clock. Two independent laser sources have been realized and the characterization of the stability with a beat note technique is presente

Migrazioni nei Balcani: una prospettiva regionale su dinamiche e traiettorie degli ultimi trent’anni

Questo saggio ripercorre la storia degli stati successori dell’ex Federazione jugoslava tramite l’analisi delle dinamiche migratorie che li hanno interessati negli ultimi tre decenni, sottolineando come tale approccio sia utile – oltre che per completare gli studi esistenti, anche per una serie di importanti ragioni, qui di seguito anticipate. Prima di tutto, fare dei migranti, rifugiati, sfollati interni, e delle traiettorie e problematiche ad essi connessi oggetto principale di studio aiuta a comprendere cosa si intenda in effetti quando si descrivono alcuni processi societari dei Balcani come “incompleti”, e alcune ferite storiche come ancora vive. Infatti, anche dopo la fine del conflitto, i Balcani sono rimasti una regione di forte emigrazione avente come protagonisti di questi deflussi la popolazione più giovane: ho descritto altrove come l’emigrazione di tanti giovani dalla regione rappresenti un caso di “voto con i piedi”, ovvero di una sfiducia verso la classe politica e di una reazione alla mancanza di prospettive economiche loro imputabili

Preliminary results of the Italian neutron experimental station INES at ISIS: Archaeometric applications

The INES project was sponsored by the CNR Neutron Spectroscopy Advisory Committee, stressing the importance of realizing an Italian Neutron Experimental Station (INES) at the world most powerful pulsed neutron source (ISIS, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK) and evidencing the strategic value that such a test station would assume in the field of applied sciences like, for example, chemistry, material science, Earth science, crystallography, and last, but not least, in the field of science applied to the study of cultural-heritage artifacts

REINSER 2022 International Conference for Sharing Best Practices: Economic and Social Integration of Refugees and Asylum Seekers through Social Entrepreneurship. Book of abstracts

This book collects the proceedings of the Conference “Economic and Social Integration of Asylum Seekers and Refugees through Social Entrepreneurship – International Conference for Sharing Best Practices” held at the Forlì Campus of the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna on the 10th and 11th of March 2022. The organisation of the conference took place in the framework of the Interreg-ADRIONfunded project REInSER – Refugees’ Economic Integration through Social Entrepreneurship – which brings together partners from six countries of the ADRION area, namely, Slovenia, Italy, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Croatia. The project aims to improve the economic and social integration of refugees and asylum seekers in host societies of the ADRION programme area by using social economy approaches and, in particular, social entrepreneurship (SE). The long-term objective is to enhance the possibilities for refugees to become active economic actors and agents of their integration in a given host society, contributing to the local and regional sustainable economic development by generating employment and supporting the creation of new social and responsible businesses