Public Discourses and Politics on Migration: A Precarious Situation and Dismal Outlook?

Emotions dominating normative frameworks is not new in the making of migration-related policies or in public discourses on migration. However, this matter has entered a different dimension in the age of populism and post-factualism reshuffling the parameters of this issue to a large extent. I will argue in this article that we can find a mixture of developments that consecutively reveals a state of public discourses that is highly precarious and that needs change and counteraction. Instead of retreating into welltrodden policy issues and overtly neglecting the potentiality for a constructive discourse that includes the deliberation on migration realties and migratory processes and its complexities, a vision is needed for new evidencebased, well-informed, yet not technocratic, forms of discourse and a future of reflexive knowledge production. Öffentliche Diskurse und Migrationspolitik: Eine prekäre Situation und ein düsterer Ausblick? Die Prägung politischer und öffentlicher Migrationsdiskurse durch Emotionen und Normativität ist nicht neu. Im Zeitalter von Populismus und Post- Faktizität hat diese Prägung jedoch Dimensionen angenommen, die die Parameter dieses Sachverhalts deutlich verschieben. Ich werde in diesem Beitrag verschiedene Entwicklungen diskutieren, die einen öffentlichen Diskurs kenntlich machen, der als hochgradig prekär bezeichnet werden kann und der Änderungen sowie Gegenmaßnahmen benötigt. Anstatt bekannte und veraltete Politiken zu rekurrieren und einen potenziell konstruktiven Diskurs zu vernachlässigen, braucht es Ideen und Visionen einer evidenzbasierten, jedoch nicht technokratischen, Form eines Migrationsdiskurses und einer zukünftigen reflexiven Wissensproduktion

Galaxy Collisions - Dawn of a New Era

The study of colliding galaxies has progressed rapidly in the last few years, driven by observations with powerful new ground and space-based instruments. These instruments have used for detailed studies of specific nearby systems, statistical studies of large samples of relatively nearby systems, and increasingly large samples of high redshift systems. Following a brief summary of the historical context, this review attempts to integrate these studies to address the following key issues. What role do collisions play in galaxy evolution, and how can recently discovered processes like downsizing resolve some apparently contradictory results of high redshift studies? What is the role of environment in galaxy collisions? How is star formation and nuclear activity orchestrated by the large scale dynamics, before and during merger? Are novel modes of star formation involved? What are we to make of the association of ultraluminous X-ray sources with colliding galaxies? To what do degree do mergers and feedback trigger long-term secular effects? How far can we push the archaeology of individual systems to determine the nature of precursor systems and the precise effect of the interaction? Tentative answers to many of these questions have been suggested, and the prospects for answering most of them in the next few decades are good.Comment: 44 pages, 9 figures, review article in press for Astrophysics Update Vol.

Clean skins: Making the e-Border security assemblage

How do border security practitioners engage with data and technology, and what difficulties or limitations arise from these engagements? Responding to calls for critically examining how technological ‘solutions’ are enacted, we analyse the notion of e-Borders in the UK context as an assemblage comprising abstract conditions, concrete objects, and agents whose roles often manifest themselves through perceptions and practices. We draw upon interviews with former and currently serving senior staff from the UK Home Office, UK Border Force, intelligence services, and private sector suppliers. Practitioners’ reflections reveal how political, social, and human factors—including intuition and management cultures—both construct the e-Border assemblage and introduce discontinuities and frictions within it. Using a more tightly specified theory of assemblage, we highlight how human agents contribute to datafied phenomena like border control. In total, our study emphasises how assemblages are dynamic, never entirely coherent, and always being re-made

Packaging and Food: A Complex Combination

The advent of packaging materials in the modern food industry has deeply changed the relationship between people and foods. Food packages have progressively been turned into essential element for the sale and the consumption of food products. On these bases, packaged foods can become communicative media of values and information: the user receives and understands these data by means of suitable tools of physical, cultural and personal nature. Functional and communicative requirements of food packaging are continuously evolving: the careful analysis of these factors should be recommended because of their influence on chemistry of foods, food technology, biochemical interactions between different food phases, and chemistry of food packaging. This section is dedicated to the study and the ‘chemical’ interpretation of food packaging requirements