ASYLUM SEEKERS AND THE STATE. WHOSE THREAT? WHOSE SECURITY?

This dissertation examines the disparity between how states define asylum seekers and who identifies him or herself to be an asylum seeker. Using interpretive methodologies I examine how states construct asylum seekers in security discourses, and the role of international geopolitics in solidifying state-based identities in state discourses. Narrative interviews with asylum seekers offer insight into how state security discourses act upon asylum seekers as individuals. I juxtapose narratives addressing the experience of being an asylum seeker with the state based analysis. I use the theory of ontological security as an analytical tool capable of furthering a comprehension of the contention between state-based security discourses and decentered security that reveals the power of state-based identities and how the dominance of state-based identities in the international system actively detracts from other identities. The theory of ontological security can offer an explanation as to how and why state discourse positions asylum seekers as a threat. The biographical identity narrative within the state and the way the state acts amongst its international peers offers insight into the ways migrants contest state identity and state security. By intersecting the this security literature that assumes the state and migration literature that problematizes the state I make an intervention. This intervention is situated within the human security paradigm, in which I offer a decentered human security that incorporates the logic of ontological security without the state, whereby human security does not have to rely on state based identities

(Re-) Conceptualising vulnerability as a part of risk in global health emergency response: Updating the pressure and release model for global health emergencies

Vulnerability has become a key concept in emergency response research and is being critically discussed across several disciplines. While the concept has been adopted into global health, its conceptualisation and especially its role in the conceptualisation of risk and therefore in risk assessments is still lacking. This paper uses the risk concept pioneered in hazard research that assumes that risk is a function of the interaction between hazard and vulnerability rather than the neo-liberal conceptualisation of vulnerability and vulnerable groups and communities. By seeking to modify the original pressure and release model, the paper unpacks the representation or lack of representation of vulnerability in risk assessments in global health emergency response and discusses what benefits can be gained from making the underlying assumptions about vulnerability, which are present whether vulnerability is sufficiently conceptualised and consciously included or not, explicit. The paper argues that discussions about risk in global health emergencies should be better grounded in a theoretical understanding of the concept of vulnerability and that this theoretical understanding needs to inform risk assessments which implicitly used the concept of vulnerability. By using the hazard research approach to vulnerability, it offers an alternative narrative with new perspectives on the value and limits of vulnerability as a concept and a tool

Foundations in Wisconsin: A Directory [26th ed. 2007]

The 2007 edition of Foundations in Wisconsin marks the 26th release of the print directory and the 7th year of the online version (www.wifoundations.org). The directory is designed as a research tool for grantseekers interested in locating information on private, corporate, and community foundations registered in Wisconsin. Each entry in this new edition has been updated or reviewed to provide the most current information available. Most of the data was drawn from IRS 990-PF tax returns filed by the foundations. However, additional information was obtained from surveys, foundation Web sites, annual reports, and newsletters. Wisconsin foundations continue to grow in the following key areas: number, grants, and particularly assets. Active grantmaking foundations now number 1,251, with 73 new foundations identified since last year’s publication, resulting in a 25% increase over the past 10 years. Over the past year, total grants increased by 5.8% to a total of almost $479 million, while assets increased by 12.5$6.2 billion.https://epublications.marquette.edu/lib_fiw/1003/thumbnail.jp

The global politics of a ‘poncy pillowcase’: Migration and borders in Coronation Street

This article examines the ways in which popular culture stages and supplies resources for agency in everyday life, with particular attention to migration and borders. Drawing upon cultural studies, and specific insights originating from the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, we explore how intersectional identities such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender are experienced in relation to the globalisation of culture and identity in a 2007 Coronation Street storyline. The soap opera genre offers particular insights into how agency emerges in everyday life as migrants and locals navigate the forces of globalisation. We argue that a focus on popular culture can mitigate the problem of isolating migrant experiences from local experiences in migrant-receiving areas