Pictures, Again

Stephanie Schwartz on Words without Pictures, ed. Alex Klein; Jason Weems on AnthonyW Lee and Elizabeth Young, On Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War, Dora Apel and Shawn Michelle Smith, Lynching Photographs, and Anthony W. Lee and Richard Meyer, Weegee and Naked Cit

Homeward Bound: Return Migration and Local Conflict After Civil War

Conflict between returning and non-migrant populations is a pervasive yet frequently overlooked issue in post-conflict societies. While scholars have demonstrated how out-migration can exacerbate civil war, less is understood about what happens when the same populations return. This dissertation interrogates how legacies of forced migration influence conflict dynamics in countries-of-origin. I argue that return migration creates new social divisions in local communities based on where individuals lived during the war – in-country or abroad. These new cleavages become sources of conflict when institutions – like land codes, citizenship regimes, or language laws – provide differential outcomes to individuals based on their migration history. Using ethnographic evidence gathered in Burundi and Tanzania between 2014 and 2016, I demonstrate how refugee return to Burundi after the country’s 1993-2003 civil war created new identity divisions between so-called rapatriés and résidents. Local institutions governing land disputes hardened competition between these groups, leading to widespread, violent, local conflict. Consequently, when Burundi faced a national-level political crisis in 2015, prior experiences of return shaped both the character and timing of renewed refugee flight. By illuminating the role of reverse population movements in shaping future conflict, this study demonstrates why breaking the cycle of return and repeat migration is essential to conflict prevention

Multi-Agent Path Planning for Locating a Radiating Source in an Unknown Environment

A situation is addressed in which multiple autonomous agents are used to search an unknown environment for a target, the position and orientation of which is known with respect to each agent. A controlling framework is proposed to inform and coordinate the agents’ movements in order to reduce the time required to locate the target. Four primary variables are considered: the cost function used to select the agents’ paths, the number of agents in a given scenario, the distance over which the agents are assumed to communicate, and the size of the environment in which the agents are operating. It was found that a cost function that balances progress toward the target with exploration of the environment is generally most effective for all combinations of the other variables. More agents and greater communication are beneficial, to a point, in larger environments, although these may be less effective in smaller ones

Bankruptcy for the Poor?

The conventional wisdom is that the poor are not heavy users of the insolvency system, because creditors are unwilling to take risks on the poor and because many of the poor are judgment-proof. However, credit is now widely available across the spectrum of income groups. In addition, poverty is often a temporary state for many Canadians; therefore, being judgment-proof is likewise temporary. Some of those who are poor at any point in time are in fact in need of bankruptcy protection. They have debts that they are unable to pay and little likelihood of being able to repay in the near future. We begin by presenting evidence on indebtedness among families in the lower income deciles. We then turn to the main question: should the Canadian bankruptcy process be more readily available to poor debtors? Following a comparative analysis (considering the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom) and analysis of interviews with Canadian bankruptcy trustees and other insolvency professionals, we offer six recommendations for reform

Debtor Assistance and Debt Advice: The Role of the Canadian Credit Counselling Industry

A continuing theme of our work, and that of others, has been the failure of insolvency law to keep pace with the new problems faced by low-income debtors. Researchers have suggested that the cost of personal bankruptcy puts it beyond the reach of many of those in need of it, though it has proven difficult to demonstrate conclusively that large numbers of low income debtors would take advantage of bankruptcy if the price was lower. In this paper, we analyze another industry — the not-for-profit credit counselling industry — that has grown rapidly in recent years and that offers a different sort of remedy for financial distress. We begin in Section II with a brief history of the credit counseling industry in Canada and in the US. We show how the industry has evolved from a small set of government-subsidized and community-based not-for-profit groups into an industry that is heavily subsidized by credit suppliers and, for the most part, lacking any significant community connection. In Section III, we briefly set out the regulatory framework that seems to encompass credit counselling agencies (“CCA”), both for-profit and not-for-profit. We do not, however, reach any conclusions on the application of this framework to Canadian CCA. Instead, we describe the concepts underlying the framework in a coordinated way. In Section IV, based on a set of mystery calls to the largest CCA, we show that most simply have nothing to offer low-income debtors and that most do not do a good job of providing information concerning the alternatives available to them. Rather than introducing substantive legislative or legal rules to help low-income debtors, the Canadian federal government has chosen instead to promote financial education with its 2010 Task Force on Financial Literacy. In Section V, we briefly analyze the Task Force process, suggesting that it largely overlooked the needs of the poor

Ill-prepare: International field research methods training

Political science values international fieldwork as a source of academic credibility, particularly for scholars studying violence and related topics. Yet the training for conducting this type of research remains piecemeal. In this paper, we present the results of a targeted survey of International Relations and Comparative Politics faculty and graduate students on their attitudes towards, and preparation for, international field research. We find a prevalent belief that fieldwork is highly advantageous for scholars of violence. At the same time, most graduate students have not had formal training in conducting fieldwork, instead relying largely on peers and junior women faculty for informal advising. These dynamics endanger scholars and the communities in which they work and perpetuate inequalities within the discipline. We argue that treating fieldwork preparation as methodology will improve safety and research quality, and have distributional benefits, promoting consistency in access to training and valuing the work that goes into providing it

Credit Counselling in Canada: An Empirical Investigation

When debt becomes unmanageable, two options for a consumer debtor in Canada are: (1) enlisting the services of a bankruptcy trustee, and (2) becoming a client of a not-for-profit credit counselling agency. Each of these options is regulated differently and has public and private dimensions. At first glance, these two options might seem to illustrate the potential of multiple legal orders to better serve the public. In this paper, however, we argue, based on empirical research on the credit counselling industry, that while this pluralism has potential to facilitate debt relief in Canada, it has failed to do so. The lines between public and private options have been blurred to the point where they are difficult to discern, and the consumer debtor is ultimately disadvantaged

Bankruptcy for the Poor?

For two reasons, the conventional wisdom is that the poor are not heavy users of the insolvency system. First, creditors are reluctant to extend credit to the poor because the risks of non-payment are high. Not having been able to borrow, the poor are not over-indebted and are therefore not in need of bankruptcy protection. Second, some poor debtors - lone parents on social assistance for example - are judgment-proof meaning that judgments for money recoveries obtained by their creditors are of no effect because these debtors do not have sufficient non-exempt property or income to satisfy the judgment. Developments in two areas may challenge the conventional view. Undoubtedly, credit is now widely available across the spectrum of income groups. Even a short-term, low-wage job can bring a credit card to the doorstep of the poor and the slogan no credit, no problem testifies to the availability of retail credit. In addition, we now know that poverty is often a temporary state for many Canadians, with many moving in and out of low-income. Accordingly, the judgment-proof state is not a permanent condition, but a temporary status for many. While this may be welcome news in some respects, it means that debts can be accumulated during periods of relative economic well-being only to go unpaid when a job ends or when hard times return. These developments suggest the possibility that some of those who are poor at any point in time are in fact in need of bankruptcy protection. They have debts that they are unable to pay and little likelihood of being able to repay in the near future. We begin the paper by presenting evidence from the 1999 Survey of Financial Security on indebtedness among families in the lower income deciles. We then turn to the main question: should the Canadian bankruptcy process be more readily available to poor debtors. We draw on two sources to shed light on this question: a) a comparative analysis (considering England and Wales, the United States, Australia and New Zealand) and b) a series of semi-structured interviews with Canadian bankruptcy trustees and other insolvency professionals

Bankruptcy for the Poor?

The conventional wisdom is that the poor are not heavy users of the insolvency system, because creditors are unwilling to take risks on the poor and because many of the poor are judgment-proof. However, credit is now widely available across the spectrum of income groups. In addition, poverty is often a temporary state for many Canadians; therefore, being judgment-proof is likewise temporary. Some of those who are poor at any point in time are in fact in need of bankruptcy protection. They have debts that they are unable to pay and little likelihood of being able to repay in the near future. We begin by presenting evidence on indebtedness among families in the lower income deciles. We then turn to the main question: should the Canadian bankruptcy process be more readily available to poor debtors? Following a comparative analysis (considering the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom) and analysis of interviews with Canadian bankruptcy trustees and other insolvency professionals, we offer six recommendations for reform

Influenza epidemics, seasonality, and the effects of cold weather on cardiac mortality

Background: More people die in the winter from cardiac disease, and there are competing hypotheses to explain this. The authors conducted a study in 48 US cities to determine how much of the seasonal pattern in cardiac deaths could be explained by influenza epidemics, whether that allowed a more parsimonious control for season than traditional spline models, and whether such control changed the short term association with temperature. Methods: The authors obtained counts of daily cardiac deaths and of emergency hospital admissions of the elderly for influenza during 1992–2000. Quasi-Poisson regression models were conducted estimating the association between daily cardiac mortality, and temperature. Results: Controlling for influenza admissions provided a more parsimonious model with better Generalized Cross-Validation, lower residual serial correlation, and better captured Winter peaks. The temperature-response function was not greatly affected by adjusting for influenza. The pooled estimated increase in risk for a temperature decrease from 0 to −5°C was 1.6% (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1-2.1%). Influenza accounted for 2.3% of cardiac deaths over this period. Conclusions: The results suggest that including epidemic data explained most of the irregular seasonal pattern (about 18% of the total seasonal variation), allowing more parsimonious models than when adjusting for seasonality only with smooth functions of time. The effect of cold temperature is not confounded by epidemics