The border city of Goma: zone of contestation or laboratory of change?

In order to assess the remarkable paradox of Goma’s dynamic development and transformation from a peripheral town into an important regional economic hub in a generalized context of state collapse and armed conflict, this article tackles the city as a zone of contestation and a centre of opportunity. The semi-autonomous development observed is strongly linked to the city’s connection to the extensive and flourishing transborder trade in natural resources. These dynamics have had a considerable impact on urban socioeconomic activities, have strengthened the position of the city as a ‘borderland’ and have redefined the relations between city, state and region

In search of chiefly authority in ‘post-aid’ Acholiland : transformations of customary authorities in northern Uganda

This paper investigates the complex relation between protracted donor interventions and the production of customary authority. More specifically, the paper analyses the impact of post-conflict donor interventions (and their withdrawal) on the position of customary chiefs in the Acholi region in northern Uganda. As important brokers between international aid agencies, the Ugandan government and Acholi communities, customary chiefs became key actors in post-conflict peacebuilding programmes. Using the concepts of extraversion and development brokerage, the paper demonstrates how dwindling access to external donor funds has strongly affected Acholi customary authority. To secure their authority and legitimacy, customary chiefs re-shifted from an 'outward' to an 'inward' orientation, a process that we call 'introversion

Recruiting a nonlocal language for performing local identity: indexical appropriations of Lingala in the Congolese border town Goma

This article describes discursive processes by which inhabitants of the Congolese border town Goma attribute new indexical values to Lingala, a language exogenous to the area of which most Goma inhabitants only possess limited knowledge. This creative reconfiguration of indexicalities results in the emergence of three "indexicalities of the second order": the indexing of (i) being a true Congolese, (ii) toughness (based on Lingala's association with the military), and (iii) urban sophistication (based on its association with the capital Kinshasa). While the last two second-order reinterpretations are also widespread in other parts of the Congolese territory, the first one, resulting in the emergence of a Lingala as an "indexical icon" of a corresponding "language community," deeply reflects local circumstances and concerns, in particular the sociopolitical volatility of the Rwandan-Congolese borderland that renders publicly affirming one's status as an "autochthonous" Congolese pivotal for assuring a livelihood and at times even personal security. (Lingala, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Goma, orders of indexicality, language community, autochthony, Kiswahili)

Search for pair production of unstable heavy leptons in e+e−e^{+}e^{-} collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 161 and 172 GeV

The data collected at 161 and 172 GeV by ALEPH at LEP, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 22 pb-1, are analysed in a search for pair-production of heavy leptons. No evidence for a signal was found. New limits on production cross-sections and on masses of sequential leptons are set, which significantly improve existing limits from searches at LEP1.5

African cities and violent conflict : the urban dimension of conflict and post conflict dynamics in Central and Eastern Africa

This article forms the introduction of a special issue on the relation between dynamics of violent conflict and urbanisation in Central and Eastern Africa. The aim of this collection of articles is to contribute to a profound understanding of the role of ‘the urban’ in African conflict dynamics in order to seize their future potential as centres of stability, development, peace-building or postconflict reconstruction. This introduction argues for the need to bridge both the ‘urban gap’ in African conflict studies as well as the ‘political’ gap in African urban studies. Building on empirical and analytical insights from multi-disciplinary research in different African conflict settings, the author presents urban centres in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, South Sudan and Kenya as crucial sites of socio-spatial and political transformations and productions. The main argument running through its analysis is that emerging urbanism in the larger Great-Lakes region and its Eastern neighbours present fascinating lenses to better understand the transformative power of protracted violent conflict. This will be demonstrated by elaborating on the conflict induced production of urban landscapes, urban governance, and urban identities. Finally, this will lead us to crucial insights on how protracted regional dynamics of political violence, forced displacement, militarised governance and ethnic struggles strongly reinforce the conflictual nature of emerging urbanisation and urbanism

Memórias emocionais, auto-criticismo e alexitimia : que contributo para a psicopatologia

Dissertação de mestrado em Psicologia Clínica (Intervenções Cognitivo-Comportamentais em Problemas Psicológicos e da Saúde), apresentada à Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra.A importância e efeito das experiências precoces com as figuras significativas tem vindo a ser âmbito de numerosas investigações, tendo-se reconhecido que, com efeito, os comportamentos dos pais e a perceção dos mesmos, por parte da criança, têm impacto no desenvolvimento e maturação do futuro adulto. Esta investigação tem como objetivo estudar a relação entre as memórias emocionais (de vergonha parental ou de cuidado e segurança por parte dos pais), o auto-criticismo (eu inadequado, eu detestado e eu tranquilizador) a alexitimia (a dificuldade em descrever e identificar sentimentos) e a psicopatologia (depressão e ansiedade) numa população de estudantes do ensino superior da Universidade de Coimbra. Ambicionamos ainda estudar a relação das memórias emocionais em componentes que refletem bem-estar e saúde mental, nomeadamente a autocompaixão e o flourishing. Com uma amostra de 455 participantes do sexo masculino e feminino da população estudante do ensino superior procedemos às análises necessárias para obter a informação pretendida. Dado existirem diferenças entre os géneros em algumas variáveis, realizámos as análises separadamente para a maioria dos estudos. Os dados obtidos sugerem que pais caracterizados por criticismo e vergonha representam um fator de vulnerabilidade para o desenvolvimento de alexitimia e psicopatologia na idade adulta. Por outro lado, pais marcados por comportamentos e atitudes calorosos e afetuosos para com as crianças parecem ser um fator estimulador de saúde mental e flourishing, bem como de auto-compaixão. Para além disto, os resultados remetem para um efeito preditor da alexitimia no autocriticismo e na psicopatologia, nomeadamente a depressão e a ansiedade. Verificámos ainda, que o auto-criticismo representa um fator de vulnerabilidade para o desenvolvimento de psicopatologia (depressão e ansiedade) e que o seu efeito na mesma é moderado ppela alexitimia, nomeadamente pela dificuldade em identificar sentimentos.The importance and effect of early experiences within significant relationships has been object of inumerous studies and, in fact, it has been recognized that parental behaviors and the child’s perception of them has an impact on its development and maturation. This research aims to study the relationship between emotional memories (of parental shame or warmth and safeness), self-criticism (inadequate self, hated self and reassure self), alexithymia (difficulty describing feelings and difficulty identifying feelings) and psychopatholgy (depression and anxiety) in a sample of students of the Coimbra University. Furthermore, we will analyse the association between emotional memories (of parental shame or warmth and safeness) on psychological well-being measures like self compassion and flourishing. With our sample of 455 male and female bachelor and master degree students we realized the statistical analyses required for the pretended information. As we found differences between genders on some of our outcome variables, those studies that included these variables were calculated separately for both male and female. Data suggest that parents showing a critical and shaming behavior towards their children make them vulnerable for the later development of alexithymia and psychopathology. On the other hand, a parental style marked by warmth and affection seems to stimulate mental health, flourishing and self-compassion in adulthood. Results indicate as well that alexithymia has a significant predictive effect on self-criticism, depression and anxiety. Lastly we found that self-criticism predicts anxiety and depression and that this effect is moderated by the difficulty to identify emotions facet of alexithymia