Migrant African women: tales of agency and belonging

This paper explores issues of belonging and agency among asylum seekers and refugee women of African origin in the UK. It discusses the ways these women engendered resistance in their everyday life to destitution, lack of cultural recognition, and gender inequality through the foundation of their own non-governmental organization, African Women’s Empowerment Forum, AWEF, a collective ‘home’ space. The focus of this account is on migrant women’s agency and self-determination for the exercise of choice to be active actors in society. It points to what might be an important phenomenon on how local grassroots movements are challenging the invisibility of asylum seekers’ and refugees’ lives and expanding the notion of politics to embrace a wider notion of community politics with solidarity. AWEF is the embodiment of a social space that resonates the ‘in-between’ experience of migrant life providing stability to the women members regarding political and community identification

Diffusing Alpha-Emitters Radiation Therapy in Combination With Temozolomide or Bevacizumab in Human Glioblastoma Multiforme Xenografts

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is at present an incurable disease with a 5-year survival rate of 5.5%, despite improvements in treatment modalities such as surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy [e.g., temozolomide (TMZ)], and targeted therapy [e.g., the antiangiogenic agent bevacizumab (BEV)]. Diffusing alpha-emitters radiation therapy (DaRT) is a new modality that employs radium-224-loaded seeds that disperse alpha-emitting atoms inside the tumor. This treatment was shown to be effective in mice bearing human-derived GBM tumors. Here, the effect of DaRT in combination with standard-of-care therapies such as TMZ or BEV was investigated. In a viability assay, the combination of alpha radiation with TMZ doubled the cytotoxic effect of each of the treatments alone in U87 cultured cells. A colony formation assay demonstrated that the surviving fraction of U87 cells treated by TMZ in combination with alpha irradiation was lower than was achieved by alpha- or x-ray irradiation as monotherapies, or by x-ray combined with TMZ. The treatment of U87-bearing mice with DaRT and TMZ delayed tumor development more than the monotherapies. Unlike other radiation types, alpha radiation did not increase VEGF secretion from U87 cells in culture. BEV treatment introduced several days after DaRT implantation improved tumor control, compared to BEV or DaRT as monotherapies. The combination was also shown to be superior when starting BEV administration prior to DaRT implantation in large tumors relative to the seed size. BEV induced a decrease in CD31 staining under DaRT treatment, increased the diffusive spread of 224Ra progeny atoms in the tumor tissue, and decreased their clearance from the tumor through the blood. Taken together, the combinations of DaRT with standard-of-care chemotherapy or antiangiogenic therapy are promising approaches, which may improve the treatment of GBM patients

De la migration de style de vie au mode de vie mobile : Plaidoyer pour une conception large/ambiguë de la mobilité (essai)

L’une des critiques le plus souvent adressées au concept du « paradigme de la mobilité » de Mimi Sheller et John Urry (2006) est qu’il englobe trop de types de mobilité différents et que, ce faisant, il risque d’occulter d’importantes distinctions entre les motivations, les circonstances, les formes et les conséquences des déplacements à travers le monde. Mais il y a aussi des avantages importants à élargir la notion de « mobilité ». Tout d’abord, plutôt que de traiter a priori les différentes formes de mobilité comme des silos de recherche distincts, ce type d’expansion nous permet d’interroger les relations, les chevauchements et les intersections ainsi que les distinctions entre les différents modes de déplacement dans le monde. Dans ce traitement, la mobilité devient un cadre permettant d’élargir l’éventail des questions sur la mobilité que nous pouvons approfondir plutôt que de présupposer les réponses par le biais d’une classification préalable. Mais les premières discussions (par exemple Cohen et al. 2015) introduisant l’idée de « mode de vie mobile » paraissent impliquer une tentative de chevauchement des interprétations tant restrictives qu’élargies de la mobilité, ce qui n’est pas toujours aisé. Dans cet essai, je souhaite faire valoir que le fait de lancer des discussions sur le mode de vie mobile en le distinguant d’autres formes de déplacement telles que la migration permanente, temporaire ou saisonnière sape une partie des attentes liées à cette notion. Le passage, dans la terminologie, de « migration de style de vie » (lifestyle migration) à « mode de vie mobile » (lifestyle mobility) peut et doit permettre d’examiner de manière plus ouverte ou plus large la relation entre le mode de vie, le volontarisme, le travail, les voyages, les séjours et l’installation, les projets de vie, les concours de circonstances et le hasard. Autrement dit, la notion de « mobilité liée au mode de vie » peut être plus utile si elle échappe à une définition restrictive au profit d’une notion plus élargie qui s’avérera par conséquent utilement ambiguë, avec laquelle il est bon de réfléchir.One of the most common criticisms of Mimi Sheller and John Urry’s (2006) conception of a “mobility paradigm” was that it subsumed too many different types of mobility, in the process risking an obfuscation of important distinctions between motivations for, circumstances, forms and outcomes of moving about the world. But there are also some important advantages of an expansive rendering of mobility. First and foremost, rather than treating different forms of mobility a priori as separate silos of inquiry, this kind of expansiveness allows us to interrogate the relationships, overlaps and intersections as well as distinctions between different modes of moving about the world. In this treatment, mobility becomes a framework for opening up the range of questions about mobility that we can probe rather than presupposing the answers through prior classification. But initial discussions (for e.g., Cohen et al. 2015) introducing the idea of “lifestyle mobility” seem to involve an attempt to straddle both expansive and restrictive interpretations of mobility, and not always comfortably so. In this paper, I want to argue that launching discussions of lifestyle mobility by bracketing it off from other forms of movement such as permanent, temporary or seasonal migration undermines some of the very promise of this term. A shift in terminology from lifestyle “migration” to lifestyle “mobility” can and should provide an opportunity for a more open-ended or expansive consideration of the relationship between lifestyle, voluntarism, work, tours, sojourns, and settlement, life projects, serendipity and happenstance. In other words, the notion of “lifestyle mobility” can be more useful if it eschews restrictive definition in favour of an expansive and hence usefully ambiguous idea that is good to think with.Una de las críticas que con más frecuencia se hacen del concepto de «paradigma de la movilidad» de Mimi Sheller y John Urry (2006) es que abarca demasiados tipos de movilidad diferentes y que, por ello, corre el riesgo de ocultar importantes diferencias entre los motivos, las condiciones, las formas y las consecuencias de los desplazamientos al rededor del mundo. Sin embargo, la representación exhaustiva de la movilidad presenta asimismo ventajas importantes. Ante todo, más que encuestar sobre diferentes formas de movilidad como si fueran unidades a priori separadas, ese tipo de exhaustividad nos permite examinar las relaciones, los cortes y las intersecciones así como las distinciones entre las diferentes formas de desplazamiento al rededor del mundo. En esta manera de abordar el problema, la gama de cuestiones sobre la movilidad se vuelve más amplia y podemos así sondear más que proponer respuestas mediante una previa clasificación. Las primeras discusiones (véase por ejemplo Cohen et al. 2015) que lanzaron la idea de «movilidad de estilo de vida», parecían implicar un intento de superponer, al mismo tiempo, tanto interpretaciones restrictivas como exhaustivas de la movilidad, lo que no es fácil. En el presente ensayo deseo demostrar el hecho de que embarcarse en discusiones sobre las migraciones de estilos de vida poniendo entre paréntesis otras formas de desplazamiento tal como la migración permanente, temporal o estacional, menoscaba una parte de lo que dicho concepto auguraba. Un deslizamiento en la terminología, de migración de estilo de vida (lifestyle migration) a estilo de vida móvil (lifestyle mobility) – movilidad y ya no migración, para llegar a otro modo de vida – puede y debería dar la oportunidad de considerar de manera más abierta y exhaustiva la relación entre modo de vida, voluntarismo, trabajo, viajes turísticos, estancias, instalación, proyectos de vida, combinación de circunstancias y azar. En otras palabras, la noción de «movilidad motivada por la búsqueda de una mejor forma de vida» puede ser más útil, pues nos permite evitar una definición demasiado estrecha en favor de una noción más exhaustiva, y que se revelerá en consecuencia preciosamente ambigua