ISIS in Mosul and Sirte: Differences and similarities

Today, ISIS is a serious security threats in the Mediterranean area; it is active or controls areas in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey) and in North Africa (Libya, Tunisia and Sinai). Media reports and several research papers seem to refer to ISIS as a group that operates indiscriminately in these areas and regions using the same political, military, social, and economic pattern. However, looking closely at some of the theatres of war the situations appears different. Taking into account two case studies, Iraq and Libya, it is possible to see how different social, economic, and political conditions have influenced the ability of ISIS to fight and to rule, and consequently its ability to “remaining and expanding”. The comparison between the longer and more linked to social fabric operations in Iraq and the shorter and more alien to social fabric operations in Libya will shed light on weaknesses and strength of ISIS, its future developments, and potentially on operations of other militias.     

Exemption: A Gendered History

Diverse questions might be contemplated once we consider the gender implications and impacts of Aboriginal exemption policies. The article traces such questions in relation to a series of distinct episodes in the history of exemption. The first of these focuses on postwar New South Wales, where marital status was core to the application process from the point of its introduction, and the system built upon older policies of ‘training’ Aboriginal girls as servants. The second moment, moving back in time, discusses a petition for collective exemption for a group of women domestic workers in Broome, Western Australia, that was presented to a government enquiry in 1934. The third concerns the quest for release from government controls by several domestic workers brought to Adelaide in South Australia, from the Northern Territory, in the late 1920s. Finally, the article reflects upon the efforts of young women placed in service in early-twentieth-century Brisbane, Queensland, to secure exemptions, and the responses of the authorities. While exemption policies may have been designed to impose Anglo-Australian gender norms of female dependence, Aboriginal women who worked in service consistently subverted these aims, by using the discourses of domesticity to challenge and resist the authorities' power.