A visible geography of invisible journeys: Central American migration and the politics of survival

Human rights groups have called undocumented Central American migrants the ‘invisible victims’ of criminal violence in Mexico. However, the geography of the unauthorised migration route through Mexico is highly visible; its location, protocols and violent practices constitute common knowledge in the communities through which it cuts its path. This paper examines the visual cues of the route. Images of places, such as the trailhead, the river at the borders, the migrant shelter and the train yard, provide focal points that orient migrants to the physical terrain. These images also orient activists, providing potent symbols for political contestation in favour of migrants’ rights. However, visibility attracts criminal gangs who rob, kidnap and rape migrants, and the gaze of state officials who detain and deport migrants. Thus, this paper traces how geographic icons become beacons to migrants, activists, criminal predators and state actors, and it examines the nature of information and representation under this strategic interaction. It examines how victims and perpetrators become visible to one another

Matryoshka journeys: im/mobility during migration

Acts of mobility require corresponding acts of immobility (or suspended mobility). Migrant journeys are not only about movement. Indeed, in the present policy context, this is ever more true. Whether a migrant is contained within a hidden compartment, detained by migration authorities, waiting for remittances to continue, or marooned within a drifting boat at sea, these moments of immobility have become an inherent part of migrant journeys especially as states have increased controls at and beyond their borders. Migrants themselves view this fragmentation – the stopping, waiting and containment – as part of the journey to be endured. Drawing on the authors’ fieldwork in Central America and Southern Europe, this paper destabilises the boundary between transit and settlement, speaking to a larger policy discourse that justifies detentions and deportations from the United States and countries on the periphery of Europe. We argue that migrants’ nested experiences of these ‘matryoshka journeys’ reveal how increased migration controls encourage them not only to take greater risks during the journey, but also to forfeit their agency at opportune moments. In turn, states exploit images of such im/mobility during the journey in order to emphasise the irrational risks migrants take in order to traverse seas and deserts and to cloak their own border policies in a humanitarian discourse of rescue

Comments on Angela Lee’s “Statistical Mechanics and the Past Hypothesis”

“Statstcal Mechanics and the Past Hypothesis” By Angela Lee (University of California, Berkeley) Comments by Emory Brigden Chair: James Conle

Missing Women: Recovering and Replacing Female Activists in Australian Labour History

There is relatively little research about women in labour councils and labour federations. Focusing on the historical and contemporary uses and impact of separate organising, this paper explores key developments in shaping patterns of women's activism through the experiences of women unionists in an Australian labour federation.Ceci est plus ou moins petite une recherche sur les femmes dans les conseils du travail et dans les fédérations du travail. En se concentrant l'utilisation historique et contemporaine des syndicats, cet article explore les développements clés qui ont contribué à façonner l'activisme des femmes par les expériences de femmes syndicalistes dans une fédération de travail en Australie

Underground Railroads and Coyote Conductors: Brokering Clandestine Passages, Then and Now

This article juxtaposes the Underground Railroad with contemporary Central American smuggling practices. Activists in the US Sanctuary Movement, seeking to provide safe passage to the USA for Central American refugees, summon the legacy of the Underground Railroad as a normative frame for understanding their mission. In the original Underground Railroad, a loose network of ‘conductors’ ushered escaped slaves north to freedom. In contrast to immigrant rights activists and slavery abolitionists, for-profit smugglers have been vilified as violent predators. Nevertheless, surprising similarities in social practices and relationships that underpin such dramatically different cases of migration brokerage point to the contingencies, complexities and ambiguous roles of smugglers. A counterintuitive comparison between the contemporary smuggling route and the historical freedom trail shows how normative imaginaries reshape social boundaries and territorial borders in North America

A tachistoscopic study of the differentiation of perception

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Kansas, Psychology, 1931

A study of thirty-two early adoptive placements by the Kansas children’s service league 1954-1957

Submitted to the Department of Social Work and the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work

The dynamics of spiral movement in man

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of Kansas, Psychology, 1934

Evaluation of a miniaturized double-focusing mass spectrometer

Evaluation of miniaturized magnetic double focusing mass spectrometer to measure gas concentrations in flight environmen