Telling digital stories as feminist research and practice: a 2-day workshop with migrant women in London

In this paper we look at Digital Storytelling (DS) as a specifically feminist epistemology within qualitative social research methods. DS is a process allowing research participants to tell their stories in their own words through a guided creative workshop that includes the use of digital technology, participatory approaches and co-production of personal stories. The paper draws on a two-day DS workshop with migrant women which was set up to understand the life stories and work trajectories of volunteers working in the women's community and voluntary sector in London. By outlining this innovative approach, the paper highlights its potential and makes a case for DS as a feminist approach to research while taking into account epistemological, practical and ethical considerations

Mothering through Islam: narratives of religious identity in London

This paper draws upon research with mothers of diverse Muslim backgrounds in London to explore how these women use ‘conservative’ interpretations of Islamic beliefs and practices to underpin their parenting strategies. In particular the paper looks at how mothers use religion as a frame to make sense of and give meaning to their experiences and encounters in Britain. We suggest that the women use Islam in four key ways: (i) as a framework for teaching their children right and wrong, (ii) as a means of protecting children from the ‘moral’ dangers of British society, (iii) as an authoritative voice that reinforces parenting, and (iv) as a means of critiquing specific aspects of both the traditional and British culture in which they live and daily negotiate their different cultural and religious belonging. In attempting to instil religious values in their London-based children, these mothers have to negotiate the hostility that Islam increasingly provokes in British society’s public arenas

From a/topia to topia: towards a gendered right to the city for migrant volunteers in London

The paper makes use of an un-orthodox Lefebvrian formulation of the ‘right to the city’ as it adds the gender dimension which was absent from Lefebvre’s work. The lens of ‘gendered right to the city’ (Doderer, 2003; Fenster, 2005; Vacchelli, 2014) is used in order to understand the experiences of volunteers working in the women’s community and voluntary sector in London. We look specifically at the role of migrant organisations both as places of co-option of migrant labour, as places that enable the integration of migrants and make their participation in the urban fabrics possible, and as places that are appropriated by migrant volunteers in London as a means of enacting active citizenship. London’s governance, policy discourses and practices seek to impose a top-down idea of civic participation. In this vision, the role of migrant groups and organisations can only be valued in the context of an active civil society, able to replace the vacuum left by the progressive erosion of the welfare state, leading to a crisis of social reproduction. Lefebvre’s theoretical framework of ‘space appropriation’ serves as a way to explore these questions and we propose a further spatial reading which is specific to a gendered right to the city, i.e. the shift from a/topia (not having a space or being denied access to public spaces broadly conceived) to topia . We speculate on what this newly found space looks like and what is its potential for the subversion of top-down policy discourses on civic participation in the neoliberal city

Local integration policies for newcomers in the United Kingdom

While integration policies as such are not new, and in some countries date back to the 1980s and beyond, there have been important shifts in the debates on integration and in related re-configurations of integration policymaking in the past decade or so. One of the main recent trends is the linkage of integration policy with admission policy and the related focus on recent immigrants. A second trend is the increasing use of obligatory integration measures and integration conditions in admission policy, and third, integration policymaking is increasingly influenced by European developments, both through vertical (more or less binding regulations, directives etc.) and through horizontal processes (policy learning between states) of policy convergence. An increasing number of EU Member States have, in fact, adopted integration related measures as part of their admission policy, while the impact of such measures on integration processes of immigrants is far less clear. In addition, Member States' policies follow different, partly contradictory logics, in integration policy shifts by conceptualising (1) integration as rights based inclusion, (2) as a prerequisite for admission residence rights, with rights interpreted as conditional, and (3) integration as commitment to values and certain cultural traits of the host society. The objective of PROSINT is to evaluate the impact of admission related integration policies on the integration of newcomers, to analyse the different logics underlying integration policymaking and to investigate the main target groups of compulsory and voluntary integration measures. The project investigated different aspects of these questions along five distinct workpackages,. These analysed (1) the European policy framework on migrant integration (WP1), (2) the different national policy frameworks for the integration of newcomers in the 9 countries covered by the research (WP2), the admission-integration nexus at the local level in studied in 13 localities across the 9 countries covered by the research (WP3), the perception and impacts of mandatory pre-arrival measures in four of the nine countries covered (WP4) and a methodologically oriented study of the impact of admission related integration measures (WP5). The countries covered by the project were Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Apart from individual cases project reports generally cover the period until end of 2010. For more information about the project visit http://research.icmpd.org/1429.html

National frame for the integration of newcomers in the United Kingdom

While integration policies as such are not new, and in some countries date back to the 1980s and beyond, there have been important shifts in the debates on integration and in related re-configurations of integration policymaking in the past decade or so. One of the main recent trends is the linkage of integration policy with admission policy and the related focus on recent immigrants. A second trend is the increasing use of obligatory integration measures and integration conditions in admission policy, and third, integration policymaking is increasingly influenced by European developments, both through vertical (more or less binding regulations, directives etc.) and through horizontal processes (policy learning between states) of policy convergence. An increasing number of EU Member States have, in fact, adopted integration related measures as part of their admission policy, while the impact of such measures on integration processes of immigrants is far less clear. In addition, Member States' policies follow different, partly contradictory logics, in integration policy shifts by conceptualising (1) integration as rights based inclusion, (2) as a prerequisite for admission residence rights, with rights interpreted as conditional, and (3) integration as commitment to values and certain cultural traits of the host society. The objective of PROSINT is to evaluate the impact of admission related integration policies on the integration of newcomers, to analyse the different logics underlying integration policymaking and to investigate the main target groups of compulsory and voluntary integration measures. The project investigated different aspects of these questions along five distinct workpackages,. These analysed (1) the European policy framework on migrant integration (WP1), (2) the different national policy frameworks for the integration of newcomers in the 9 countries covered by the research (WP2), the admission-integration nexus at the local level in studied in 13 localities across the 9 countries covered by the research (WP3), the perception and impacts of mandatory pre-arrival measures in four of the nine countries covered (WP4) and a methodologically oriented study of the impact of admission related integration measures (WP5). The countries covered by the project were Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Apart from individual cases project reports generally cover the period until end of 2010. For more information about the project visit http://research.icmpd.org/1429.htm

From a/topia to topia: Towards a gendered right to the city for migrant volunteers in London

The paper makes use of an un-orthodox Lefebvrian formulation of the ‘right to the city’ as it adds the gender dimension which was absent from Lefebvre's work. The lens of ‘gendered right to the city’ (Doderer, 2003; Fenster, 2005; Vacchelli, 2014) is used in order to understand the experiences of volunteers working in the women's community and voluntary sector in London. We look specifically at the role of migrant organisations both as places of co-option of migrant labour, as places that enable the integration of migrants and make their participation in the urban fabrics possible, and as places that are appropriated by migrant volunteers in London as a means of enacting active citizenship. London's governance, policy discourses and practices seek to impose a top-down idea of civic participation. In this vision, the role of migrant groups and organisations can only be valued in the context of an active civil society, able to replace the vacuum left by the progressive erosion of the welfare state, leading to a crisis of social reproduction. Lefebvre's theoretical framework of ‘space appropriation’ serves as a way to explore these questions and we propose a further spatial reading which is specific to a gendered right to the city, i.e. the shift from a/topia (not having a space or being denied access to public spaces broadly conceived) to topia. We speculate on what this newly found space looks like and what is its potential for the subversion of top-down policy discourses on civic participation in the neoliberal city

Trial Watch: experimental TLR7/TLR8 agonists for oncological indications

Resiquimod (R848) and motolimod (VTX-2337) are second-generation experimental derivatives of imiquimod, an imidazoquinoline with immunostimulatory properties originally approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the topical treatment of actinic keratosis and genital warts more than 20 years ago. Both resiquimod and motolimod operate as agonists of Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) and/or TLR8, in thus far delivering adjuvant-like signals to antigen-presenting cells (APCs). In line with such an activity, these compounds are currently investigated as immunostimulatory agents for the treatment of various malignancies, especially in combination with peptide-based, dendritic cell-based, cancer cell lysate-based, or DNA-based vaccines. Here, we summarize preclinical and clinical evidence recently collected to support the development of resiquimod and motolimod and other TLR7/TLR8 agonists as anticancer agents

Natural humoral immune response to ribosomal P0 protein in colorectal cancer patients

Tumor associated antigens are useful in colorectal cancer (CRC) management. The ribosomal P proteins (P0, P1, P2) play an important role in protein synthesis and tumor formation. The immunogenicity of the ribosomal P0 protein in head and neck, in breast and prostate cancer patients and the overexpression of the carboxyl-terminal P0 epitope (C-22 P0) in some tumors were reported

Immune monitoring and TCR sequencing of CD4 T cells in a long term responsive patient with metastasized pancreatic ductal carcinoma treated with individualized, neoepitope-derived multipeptide vaccines : a case report

Abstract Background Cancer vaccines can effectively establish clinically relevant tumor immunity. Novel sequencing approaches rapidly identify the mutational fingerprint of tumors, thus allowing to generate personalized tumor vaccines within a few weeks from diagnosis. Here, we report the case of a 62-year-old patient receiving a four-peptide-vaccine targeting the two sole mutations of his pancreatic tumor, identified via exome sequencing. Methods Vaccination started during chemotherapy in second complete remission and continued monthly thereafter. We tracked IFN-γ+ T cell responses against vaccine peptides in peripheral blood after 12, 17 and 34 vaccinations by analyzing T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire diversity and epitope-binding regions of peptide-reactive T-cell lines and clones. By restricting analysis to sorted IFN-γ-producing T cells we could assure epitope-specificity, functionality, and TH1 polarization. Results A peptide-specific T-cell response against three of the four vaccine peptides could be detected sequentially. Molecular TCR analysis revealed a broad vaccine-reactive TCR repertoire with clones of discernible specificity. Four identical or convergent TCR sequences could be identified at more than one time-point, indicating timely persistence of vaccine-reactive T cells. One dominant TCR expressing a dual TCRVα chain could be found in three T-cell clones. The observed T-cell responses possibly contributed to clinical outcome: The patient is alive 6 years after initial diagnosis and in complete remission for 4 years now. Conclusions Therapeutic vaccination with a neoantigen-derived four-peptide vaccine resulted in a diverse and long-lasting immune response against these targets which was associated with prolonged clinical remission. These data warrant confirmation in a larger proof-of concept clinical trial