„Sag ihr, es ist ein Spiel – Sag ihr, es ist ernst“ : einige Gedanken zu Caryl Churchills Seven Jewish Children: a play for Gaza

Die britische Autorin Caryl Churchill hat ein Stück gegen den israelischen Einmarsch in Gaza geschrieben – und sich den Vorwurf des Antisemitismus eingehandelt. Doch tatsächlich stellt dieses brutal-offene Stück einen mutigen Versuch der Einfühlung dar und zeigt so, was Politisches Theater sein kann

LifeWatch – A European e-Science and observatory infrastructure supporting access and use of biodiversity and ecosystem data

There are many promising earth and biodiversity-monitoring projects underway across the globe, but they often operate in information islands, unable easily to share data with others. This is not convenient: It is a barrier to scientists collaborating on complex, cross-disciplinary projects which is an essential nature of biodiversity research. 

LifeWatch (www.lifewatch.eu) is an ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) initiative which has just entered its construction phase. It is aiming at new ways of collaboration, in an open-access research environment to solve complex societal and scientific questions on biodiversity and ecosystems. It installs a range of new services and tools to help the researchers communicate, share data, create models, analyze results, manage projects and organize the community. The power of LifeWatch comes from linking all kinds of biodiversity related databases (e.g. collections, long-term monitoring data) to tools for analysis and modeling, opening entirely new avenues for research with the potential for new targeted data generation. At this level the interface with national data repositories becomes most important, as this opens the opportunity for users to gain advantage from data availability on the European level. LifeWatch will provide common methods to discover, access, and develop available and new data, analytical capabilities, and to catalog everything, to track citation and re-use of data, to annotate, and to keep the system secure. This includes computing tool-kits for researchers: for instance, an interoperable computing environment for statistical analysis, cutting-edge software to manage the workflow in scientific projects, and access to new or existing computing resources. The result: ‘e-laboratories’ or virtual labs, through which researchers distributed across countries, time zones and disciplines can collaborate. With emphasis on the open sharing of data and workflows (and associated provenance information) the infrastructure allows scientists to create e-laboratories across multiple organizations, controlling access where necessary

Myanmar: the country that ‘has it all’

For scholars of Southeast Asia interested in human rights, Myanmar is a country that ‘has it all.’ I use this tongue-in-cheek expression to suggest the myriad ways that the country remains mired in structural challenges that inform its current human rights problems. In this paper, I point out the country’s most glaring structural challenges and link these to its most pressing human rights problems. A brief section about Myanmar in the context of COVID-19 offers the same conclusion as the rest of the article: while there is variance in the actors targeted and the degree of suppression, the underlying patterns of oppression remain unchanged over time

Precarity of Place: a complement to the growing precariat literature

The growing precarity literature offers some valuable ways of thinking about both the roots of and responses to precarity, whether defined existentially (as per Butler), economically (Standing) or intersubjectively (Neilson and Rossiter). Yet the term precarity, in its eagerness to encompass all those who experience it, fails to properly capture the challenges of one of its subset populations: that of noncitizens. Rather than discard the term altogether, this paper incorporates elements from the precariat literature and offers a counter (sub)concept: ‘precarity of place.’ The paper briefly reviews the precarity literature, then argues for the importance of a separate term for precarity of place, and then notes how the concepts are well aligned. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research, both theoretical and empirical.Collective Behavior & Social Movements section of the American Sociological Association, the Development Sociology section of the American Sociological Association, the Human Rights section of the American Sociological Association, the RC02 (Economy and Society) of the International Sociological Association and the School of Social & Political Sciences of the University of Sydney

Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal: Anticipating the Impact of Resettlement

When refugees resettle to new countries, populations left behind are affected. These include remaining camp residents, political leaders and local residents. This report presents a preliminary forecast of the impacts to remaining populations of the mass resettlement of Bhutanese refugees currently residing in Nepal. In summary, the forecast is mixed for the remaining population, with some aspects of life expected to improve while other elements may worsen. As resettlement moves forward, morale has wavered between hopeful and tense. There have been violent and even fatal clashes between refugees who oppose resettlement and those who support it. This has resulted in a highly charged camp atmosphere in which hope, resentment, and anxiety have all played significant roles. A lack of information about the resettlement process is compounded by the reluctance of many refugees to show an interest in resettlement for fear of being attacked. As large numbers of refugees depart from the camps, common resources (such as firewood) will be more readily available and camp facilities less overcrowded. At the same time, the likely depletion of educated, skilled and experienced workers could reduce the quality of camp services, particularly in the health and education sectors. Overseas remittances will likely increase as refugees resettle to richer countries. However, informal income from regional or local work may decrease as educated and skilled refugees resettle early. Spates of violent attacks associated with the advent of resettlement in and near the refugee camps represent a clear deterioration of the security environment. In response, the Government of Nepal has brought in a larger police presence, which may reduce overall crime but could simultaneously lead to a more restrictive environment in which refugees cannot travel outside of the camps. Bhutanese political leaders fear that resettlement will dilute the efforts of refugees who continue to promote political reform in Bhutan, as their cause loses its urgency and its constituents. Conversely, resettlement may lead to an injection of resources and media attention for political leaders. For local residents living near the camps in Nepal, the departure of large numbers of refugees will decrease competition for local resources and employment. In the long-term, however, resettlement will lead to a contraction of the local economy and a reduction in the pool of available human capital

The Triad of Transnationalism, Legal Recognition, and Local Community: Shaping Political Space for the Burmese Refugees in Japan

Refugee participation in transnational acts – from advocating for regime change in home countries to strengthening modes of safe passage for friends and family to host countries – is only as effective as the ability of refugees to organize, collaborate with one another, and develop strong communication links between communities in the home and host countries. While many assume that legal status improves the ability of refugees to engage in political transformation, research on the Burmese refugees living in Japan reveals that the application and provision of legal status can have the opposite effect, weakening fragile community structures, stemming advocacy efforts, and discouraging communication between divided political and ethnic groups. I argue that transnational acts form a three-way relationship with legal recognition and local community, and that, because of conflictual relationships among local refugee communities, refugees from Burma with higher degrees of legal recognition in Japan do not necessarily expand transnational space.La participation des réfugiés aux lois transnationales – depuis leur plaidoyer en faveur d’un changement de régime dans les pays d’origine au renforcement des modes de passage sécuritaire pour les amis et la famille vers les pays hôtes – est aussi efficace que leur capacité à organiser, à collaborer entre eux et à établir des liens étroits de communication entre les pays d’origine et d’accueil. Bien qu’il soit admis que la situation juridique améliore la capacité des réfugiés à envisager une transformation politique, des recherches menées auprès des réfugiés birmans qui résident au Japon révèlent que l’application et la disposition de la situation juridique peut avoir l’effet inverse et fragiliser les structures communautaires, interrompre les tentatives de plaidoyer et décourager la communication entre les groupes politiques et ethniques déjà divisés. L’article défend la thèse que les lois transnationales forment une relation à trois avec la reconnaissance juridique et la communauté locale et que, à cause de relations conflictuelles parmi les communautés locales de réfugiés, les réfugiés de Birmanie dotés d’un fort taux de reconnaissance juridique au Japon n’élargissent pas nécessairement l’espace transnational

Empowering family owned tourism business in Obudu Mountain Resort

Family owned tourism business development and sustainability has tremendous contribution to family life, community viability, destination development and industry competitiveness. They are nowadays arguably effective vehicles for the economic transformation and revitalization of rural communities. With their copious benefits, very little academic attention has been given to the phenomenon as a promising approach for rural communities’ empowerment in the context of developing countries. The existing approaches to rural communities’ empowerment such as Community Based Tourism (CBT), Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) and Community Benefit Tourism Initiatives (CBTIs) are laudable initiatives but, they have limitations in terms of understanding the family system and their ability to provide wide spread empowerment for all strata of rural communities. In order to explore this contemporary phenomenon, Obudu mountain resort whose host communities still live in poverty was chosen. It is currently relatively the most organized tourists destination in Nigeria with the existence of active family owned tourism businesses. Thus, factors affecting the development and sustainability of micro and small tourism businesses were examined. Using a qualitative case study research strategy, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 members of 14 family owned tourism businesses and 10 management staff members of the government and private agencies. The collected data was analysed thematically. The study found inadequacy of disposable capital and extreme seasonality as the main factors affecting the development and sustainability of family owned tourism businesses in the mountain destination. While the low capital base impedes industry specific training and effective marketing, extreme seasonality impact severely on the entire business and family system as the owners depend solely on the businesses for survival. Despite the effects of seasonality, the ability of the operators to remain in business all year round, adopting varying strategies indicates that the “familiness” of family owned tourism business has the potential of reducing seasonality effects in rural areas. As a way of promoting the development and sustainability of family owned tourism business in Obudu mountain resort, for rural poverty alleviation and communities’ well-being sustainability, a multi-stakeholder framework was designed to guide the government, private organizations and the existing and prospective tourism entrepreneurs

Development of COFRADIC HPLC system for proteomics. Sorting of N-terminal peptides

Proteomics, the study of the proteins constituting the proteome, has featured in the past few years as an essential tool in a number of diverse areas of therapeutic research for detection of the initial stage of a disease, for consideration of therapy response and for disintegrating fundamental pathophysiological mechanisms. Proteomics has a wide range of applications such as diabetes research, neurology, nutrition research, diagnosis of renal disease, tumor metastasis, urological cancer research, cardiovascular disease, etc. This context makes proteomics a link between genomics and biology. Proteins can be subjected to posttranslational modifications (PTMs) processes. The results are that the kinds of measured proteins have inter – and intra individual variability. PTMs have a great influence on proteins in the cause of its activity dynamics regulation

Voluntourism and the Contract Collective

Critiques of the voluntourism industry focus on power imbalances, colonial legacies, and white privilege. Drawing on the literatures of development and voluntourism to find points of comparison, we argue that the voluntourism industry reflects myriad de-velopment problems, such as structural challenges, the fungibility of aid, corruption, representation, worker narratives, and temporality. We assert that many of the prob-lems inherent in voluntourism could be remedied by the evolution of a contract norm between volunteers and their local partners, where reciprocity and transparency might practically serve as a corrective to voluntourism's most entrenched problems