Certifications of citizenship: the history, politics and materiality of identity documents in South Asian states and diasporas

Experiences in the post-partition Indian subcontinent refute the conventional expectation that the 'possession of citizenship enables the acquisition of documents certifying it' (Jayal, 2013, 71). Instead, identity papers of various types play a vital part in certifying and authenticating claims to citizenship. This is particularly important in a context where the history of state formation, continuous migration flows and the rise of right-wing majoritarian politics has created an uncertain situation for individuals deemed to be on the ‘margins’ of the state. The papers that constitute this special issue bring together a range of disciplinary perspectives in order to investigate the history, politics and materiality of identity documents, and to dismantle citizenship as an absolute and fixed notion, seeking instead to theorise the very mutable ‘hierarchies’ and ‘degrees’ of citizenship. Collectively they offer a valuable lens onto how migrants, refugees and socio-economically marginal individuals negotiate their relationship with the state, both within South Asia and in South Asian diaspora communities. This introduction examines the wider context of the complex intersections between state-issued identity documents and the nature of citizenship and draws out cross-cutting themes across the papers in this collection

Black hole non-uniqueness via spacetime topology in five dimensions

The domain of outer communication of five-dimensional asymptotically flat stationary spacetimes may possess non-trivial 2-cycles. We discuss how this may lead to a gross violation of black hole uniqueness, beyond the existence of black rings, even for solutions with two commuting rotational symmetries. We illustrate this with a simple example in minimal supergravity; a four parameter family of supersymmetric black hole solutions, with spherical horizon topology and a 2-cycle in the exterior. We show there are black holes in this family with identical conserved changes to the BMPV black hole, thereby demonstrating black hole non-uniqueness in this context. We find a decoupling limit of this family of black holes that yields spacetimes asymptotic to the near-horizon geometry of a BMPV black hole which contain a black hole and an exterior 2-cycle.Comment: 24 pages. v2: minor additions, published version. v3: corrected physical quantities, results unaffected, differs from published versio

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]

Post-Tragedy 'Opportunity-bubble' and the Prospect of Citizen Engagement

This article appeared in Homeland Security Affairs (September 2011), v.7 no.2From the journal's abstract for this article: "Fathali Moghaddam and James Breckenridge examine the 'opportunity-bubble' that allows leaders to mobilize the public immediately following a tragic event. 'Although great crisis will inevitably invite consideration of many alternatives, leadership must pay special attention to opportunities to engage the public as capable partners in their country's response to the crisis -- calling upon them as citizens with civic duties, as well as rights.'"Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Homeland Security and Support for Multiculturalism, Assimilation, and Omniculturalism: Policies among Americans

This article appeared in Homeland Security Affairs (September 2010), v.6 no.3This article presents data suggesting that Americans' views of policies toward immigrants are pertinent to matters of homeland security. 'Homeland' is a concept shaped partly by how people psychologically differentiate 'citizen' from 'immigrant.' The differentiation of these categories is critical to individuals' political and social identity. Homeland security scholars are unlikely to be aware, however, of this country's substantial majority preference for an alternative to the traditional, yet deeply divided, incompatible policies of assimilation and accommodation. Moreover, the publics' appraisal of the threat of terrorism, the priority they assign to homeland security institutions, their trust and confidence in homeland security organizations, and their support for counter-terrorism measures are linked to their immigration policy preference even after accounting for their race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Homeland security professionals would do well to consider the potential implications of these preferences.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited