Justice and morality:human suffering, natural law and international politics

Bridging the contending theories of natural law and international relations, this book proposes a 'relational ontology' as the basis for rethinking our approach to international politics. The book contains a number of challenging and controversial ideas on the study of international political thought which should provoke constructive debate within international relations theory, political theory, and philosophical ethics. © Amanda Russell Beattie 2010. All rights reserved

Seeking out the untold stories of mobility

Posted on blog Relations International by Laura Sjoberg, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida

Engaging autobiography:mobility trauma and international relations

This article outlines the possibilities of autobiographical stories to criticize status quo iterations of International Relations (IR). The article draws on the personal experiences of the author’s deportation order issued by the United Kingdom’s Home Office and its associated Border Agency (UKBA) to challenge the accepted assumptions of a cosmopolitan worldview as it relates to orderly international institutional design. It highlights the possibilities of trauma when border management and personal mobility collide. It suggests that mobility trauma ensues when the expectations of human mobility, outlined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, infringe the state’s role as security provider. It begins in part one with a challenge to the traditional role and understanding of international borders that sustain order within the international. It examines the unacknowledged role that human vulnerability plays within IR and institutional design while frankly engaging with human vulnerability and trauma in the second section. This section details the experiences of the author when her mobility rights were curtailed and the ensuing identity crisis prompted by such events. The final section investigates the ideas of critical cosmopolitan scholarship demanding that such discourses acknowledge and work through the possibility of failed agency when the demands of state security supersede individual mobility rights. It turns to the possibility of traumatic iterations of IR in order to probe such possibilities. The article suggests, in its conclusion, the possibility of storytelling and psychoanalysis to endorse unorthodox agency, and the possibility of a dynamic international institutional design, that challenges the status quo iterations of IR

The slowly structured classroom:Narrative time, lived experience and the contemporary he classroom

The detrimental impact of a globalised, highly technological world within the academe is well documented. The combination of moral efficiency, the global proliferation of contemporary capitalism and the compressing of time and space all have a role to play in the professional practice of contemporary higher education. This article attends to the negative outcomes of time and professional practice. It suggests the narrative classroom as one means of demonstrating agency and disrupting the status quo design of the higher education establishment. It employs an autoethnographic methodology to preface individual voice cultivated through storytelling and reflexivity. It suggests that this transformative process entails the establishment of creative communities. These communities are, by their very nature, relational and affective – and a necessary component of individual transformation

Between safety and vulnerability:the exiled other of international relations

Inspired by the idea of safe citizenship this article queries the possibilities of safety in an age of securitization. It challenges the cosmopolitan worldview and its iteration of a global cosmopolitan citizen. It champions an account of affective citizenship, narration and attends to the trauma of exile. It offers an account of exile before suggesting an institutional design premised on politicization. This design, it is argued, facilitates moments of storytelling fostering individual empowerment. This unorthodox rendering of agency allows the traumatized exile to negotiate the world as it is, not as it could be, as a potential ‘safe’ citizen

PREPARE manual for nurses : Building trust, promoting health and changing communities

One in every five people in the world is an adolescent and 85% live in low and middle-income countries. Nearly two thirds of premature death and one third of the total disease burden in adults are associated with conditions or behaviour that begin in youth. Among 15-19 year olds, suicide is the second leading cause of death, followed by violence in the community and family. Promoting nurturing relationships between parents and children early in life, good relationships between young people, training in life skills, and reducing access to alcohol and lethal items such as firearms and knives can help prevent violence. More effective and sensitive care for adolescents experiencing violence is needed. Many adolescent health challenges are closely interrelated and successful interventions in one area can lead to positive outcomes in other areas. The World Health Organization reports that among women aged 15-45 years, gender-based violence accounts for more deaths and disability than cancer, malaria and traffic injuries put together. This has become an important factor, which negatively affects girls and women’s reproductive health and wellbeing. This manual was written for the PREPARE school clinics to promote positive relationships through mentoring, role modelling, education, research and empathic service provision so that young people feel valued, respected and can enjoy positive self and peer relationships free from harm

The crossroads of industry and ecology : the new landscapes of Robert Smithson, Edward Burtynsky and Susan Leibovitz Steinman

This thesis is concerned with the changing status of the North American landscape art tradition, focusing on the 1970s to the present day. The relationship between industry and ecology is at the forefront of these changes, as the interaction between these areas has become essential during this time of ecological crisis. With the use of different media and from diverse theoretical approaches, artists Robert Smithson, Edward Burtynsky and Susan Leibovitz Steinman all contribute to the development of a 'new landscape' and utilize industrial and urban sites as the subject matter and location of their artworks. They enable the possibility of a nature/culture dialogue through their art production that has the capacity to introduce a deeper understanding of environmental concerns from an original perspective. This thesis focuses on select works from Smithson's land reclamation projects of the early 1970s, Burtynsky's industrial photography of the 1990s, and Steinman's interactive environmental art of the 1990s, and demonstrates that art can play a significant role in raising awareness on the state of our environment. These artists' works are powerful tools of communication that encourage contemplation and, in certain cases, direct action toward a deeper appreciation of the environment in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and play significant roles in the contemporary landscape art tradition