The discourse of counter-monuments: semiotics of material commemoration in contemporary urban spaces

This article analyses strategies of material commemoration in contemporary urban spaces. Deploying a philosophical and social-theoretical interpretation systematised by, in particular, Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies and its analysis of material commemoration, the article compares the semiotics of modes of commemorating through monuments and counter-monuments. As is argued, counter-monumental commemoration aligns much better than the traditionally static and non-dialogic monuments with the ongoing post-modern transformation and fluidity of contemporary urban spaces. By the same token, counter-monuments also allow commemoration of complex and difficult past events – such as the Holocaust – that are traditionally surrounded by multiple interpretations and often-conflicting attempts to commemorate them. The analysis at the core of the paper looks in-depth at counter-monumental installations known as Stolpersteine, or Stumbling Blocks, developed since the early 1990s by the German artist Gunter Demnig as a form of commemoration of victims of National Socialism and especially the Holocaust. As is suggested, counter-monuments such as the Stolpersteine carry multiple meanings and have multiple functions which allow for diverse patterns of interaction with past/present. They also allow embedding the dialogue between forms of commemoration (monument/counter-monument) various recipients (locals/tourists, spectators/passers-by) as well as their varied interpretations and expectations of commemoration in the discourse of contemporary urban space.     

Reconstructing the past in a post-Ottoman village: Turkishness in a transnational context

This study analyzes transformations of historiography and identity discourses by focusing on the Memory House of Ali R?za Efendi (the father of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk) as a “site of historical consciousness” which was reconstructed in the western part of the Republic of Macedonia. The House, referred to by the villagers as the “Memory House of Atatürk,” was opened in 2014 in a Muslim village, Kocac?k, with the support of the Turkish state. Through material and textual representations of Atatürk’s life, the House speaks to the Turkishness and Turkish presence in the Balkans. The Turkishness, however, is imagined through the neo-Ottoman and Islamic prisms. The House thus becomes the locus of alternative interpretations of the past, and, consequently, narratives of Muslims’ identity and origin in the region. Moreover, as it is reconstructed at the nexus of the local and the transnational, the House is also called a symbol of the “politics of brotherhood” between Macedonia and Turkey. In this way, the institution embodies the reconstruction of the past not only at the local and national levels, but also at the international level.     

Remittance Behaviour of Forced Migrants in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This paper looks at the determinants of South-South remittances. An original dataset of African migrants living in Johannesburg is used. As South Africa attracts both economic and forced migrants, we focus on the impact of the reason of emigration (violence versus economic concerns) on migrants’ remittance behaviour. On the extensive margin, the results show that leaving a home country for reasons of violence decreases the probability of remitting to the home country. On the intensive margin, transferred amounts do not differ according to whether the migrant was forced to migrate or not. When the migrant has decided to remit, it is more his/her current conditions in the host country and traditional factors (income, education, sex, etc.) that determine the amounts transferred. Our results are robust when restricting the definition of forced migration.     

‘Frenchmen’ in Polish Mines: The Politics of Productivity in Coal Mining in Poland 1946–1948

In the period 1946–1948, 13,721 Polish miners were repatriated by the state from France to Poland. The repatriation was vital to the development of coal mining. This repatriation was distinct because it did not involve returning to Poland people who had been displaced during the war. These Poles had emigrated to France during the interwar period. After a successful start, when over 5,000 men and their families came to Poland in 1946, the project came to a halt. Poland was not a welcoming environment for these men and France wanted to retain them.     

Determination of benzodiazepines in human hair by on-line high-performance liquid chromatography using a restricted access extraction column.

A method is described for the identification of five frequently prescribed benzodiazepines (BZD) (clonazepam, diazepam, flunitrazepam, midazolam and oxazepam) in human hair samples by reversed phase HPLC, following on-line simple enrichment and clean-up on a restricted access extraction column. 50mg of powdered hair were incubated (2h at 45 degrees C) after sonication (1h) in 1 ml of the following solution (methanol:ammonia, 97.5/2.5, v/v). The aliquot was centrifuged and the methanolic phase transferred to a conical tube and evaporated under a gentle stream of nitrogen. The residue was reconstituted by adding 100 microl of a mixture of phosphate buffer (20mM, pH=2.2) and acetonitrile (94/6, v/v). A total of 80 microl were injected into the system with the column switching technique. The pre-column or clean-up column was washed with phosphate buffer pH=7.2. The drugs retained on the pre-column were then eluted in the back-flush mode and separated on a C(8) semi micro column, Lichrospher select B, 125 mm x 3 mm. The BZD were determined by a photodiode-array detector at 254 nm, using reference data (retention time and UV spectra) stored in a personal library. The method showed excellent linearity between 0.5 and 20 ng/mg of hair for clonazepam, flunitrazepam and midazolam and between 0.5 and 100 ng/mg of hair for diazepam and oxazepam. Finally, the present method has been applied to a number of forensic cases in our laboratory.     

How a luxury monopolist might benefit from the aspirational utility effect of counterfeiting?

Thanks to an intertemporal analytical model, we incorporate aspirational consumers in Veblen markets for luxury fashion items. We show how a luxury monopolist can increase its profits thanks to the presence of counterfeit products. The genuine producer profit is shaped by two opposite effects: (1) a positive aspirational effect resulting from a sales increase due to the aspirational consumers who seek to imitate the lifestyle of snob consumers (2) a negative snob effect, resulting from a sales decrease due to the reduction of consumption by some snob consumers. We identify the conditions under which the overall effect generated by counterfeiting can increase the genuine firm profit. These conditions imply the existence of large aspirational effects and high additional utility gain associated with buying an original product instead of obtaining a counterfeit product.     

Women's pictures and the politics of resistance in Poland

The paper focuses on the understudied troping of women as the embodiment of nationhood in the region of East-Central Europe with a particular emphasis on the scenarios of resistance to these persisting images of women. Focusing on the terrain most familiar to the author, that is Poland, the essay demonstrates that various projects aimed at decolonizing the female body undertaken by contemporary Polish representatives of critical art (e.g. Dorota Nieznalska, Katarzyna Kozyra and Alicja ?ebrowska) serve as currents of contestation that provoke debate that is necessary to change the conservative, predominantly Catholic, Polish society.     

In Search of Peace: Structural Adjustment, Violence, and International Migration

The authors analyze the effects of structural adjustment and violence on international migration from selected countries in Latin America by estimating a series of event history models that predicted the likelihood of initial migration to the United States as a function of the murder rate, economic openness, and selected controls in the country of origin. Although several theories posit a connection between structural economic change and violence, such a pattern held only in Nicaragua, where the homicide rate increased as the economy was opened to trade and average incomes deteriorated. Moreover, only in Nicaragua was lethal violence positively related to out-migration. In Mexico, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, rising violence reduced the likelihood of emigration. Violence does not appear to have uniform effects on patterns of international migration but depends on broader social and political conditions within particular countries.