‘No place like home': experiences of an Ethiopian migrant in the host country and as a returnee to the homeland

ABSTRACT

Using an in-depth interview with an Ethiopian returnee who lived abroad for 17 years, this study examined both integration and reintegration experiences. For this returnee, the experience of migration was psychologically costly. Challenges in the host country included acquiring a resident permit, overcoming language barriers, and contending with oppression and marginalization. Being treated unequally was a major push factor for his return to Ethiopia. Despite his relief upon reentering his home country, he faced challenges which made reintegration difficult, including the inefficiency of government offices, lack of a work ethic, time mismanagement, and the unsystematic processes in a developing country. To facilitate integration and reintegration processes, more effective policy responses of both the host and home countries are needed. Developing countries should not miss the opportunity to capitalize on the potential contributions of returnees who are committed to bringing about positive change in their homeland.     

Shading,lines, colors: mapping ethnographic taxonomies of European Russia

This article explores the role of maps in the construction and development of ethnographic taxonomies in the mid-century Russian Empire. A close reading of two ethnographic maps of “European Russia” produced by members of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, Petr Keppen (1851) and Aleksander Rittikh (1875), is used to shine a spotlight on the cartographical methods and techniques (lines, shading, color, hatching, legends, text, etc.) employed to depict, construct, and communicate these taxonomies. In doing so, this article draws our attention to how maps impacted visual and spatial thinking about the categories of ethnicity and nationality, and their application to specific contexts and political purposes within the Empire. Through an examination of Keppen’s and Rittikh’s maps, this article addresses the broader question of why cartography came to be regarded as such a powerful medium through which to communicate and consolidate particular visions of an ethnographic landscape.     

Social Competence in Late Elementary School: Relationships to Parenting and Neighborhood Context

Despite evidence that neighborhoods confer both risk and resilience for youth development, the existing neighborhood research has a number of methodological limitations including lack of diversity in neighborhoods sampled and neighborhood characteristics assessed. The purpose of this study was to address these methodological limitations of existing research and to examine the relationship of neighborhood structural and social characteristics to family-level social processes and teacher-reported social competence during early adolescence. The study sample of 3,624 fifth graders (51?% girls) was ethnically diverse, including roughly even proportions of non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic youth. Neighborhood measures included economic disadvantage derived from the U.S. Census, physical and social disorder obtained by direct observation, and social capital from parental reports. Family-level social processes included parent reported family cohesion and youth reported maternal and paternal nurturance. We found that neighborhood factors significantly associated with youth social aggression and social competence but not social withdrawal, after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and parenting factors. There was limited evidence of moderation of family influences by neighborhood characteristics as well as the moderation of neighborhood effects by children’s gender. Neighborhood physical disorder was associated with increased social aggression among boys but with increased social withdrawal among girls. Implications of the study’s findings for research on neighborhoods and adolescent development and the development of preventive interventions are discussed.     

Saving Strong Neighborhoods From the Destruction of Mortgage Foreclosures: The Impact of Community-Based Efforts in Detroit,Michigan

Mortgage foreclosures hit Detroit, Michigan hard between 2005 and 2014, especially in what we define as strong neighborhoods; there, more than one third of homes experienced foreclosure. Before the crisis hit, these selected tracts had largely intact physical environments and higher owner occupancy, household income and property value than the citywide median. In some of them residents worked intensely to abate the neighborhood effects of mortgage foreclosures. This study examines those efforts’ effectiveness. We selected neighborhoods with the most extensive efforts, as measured, for instance, by creation of community-based plans and applications for grants, and we conducted interviews and field observations to examine those efforts. To assess strengthening of neighborhood housing markets, we applied a modified adjusted interrupted time-series approach to evaluate changes in prices as one measure of neighborhood change. We found that strong resident initiative supported by community development organizations and external assistance led to increased neighborhood housing prices, compared with comparable neighborhoods. However, when initiative, context, and support were weaker, community-based efforts could not prevent considerable decline.     

Strategic use of evidence in state-level policymaking: matching evidence type to legislative stage

Although interest in research utilization in the policy process has grown, how advocates strategically deploy different types of evidence to influence lawmakers remains not well understood. In this paper, we draw on the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Narrative Policy Framework to show how various types of evidence—from empirical findings to personal anecdotes—were utilized by advocates during the 2 years leading to the passage of California’s historic 2010 law to extend foster care. The result was a generous and flexible entitlement policy passed with bipartisan support in the context of a recession, a state budget deficit, and an ambivalent governor. We find that leaders of a diverse advocacy coalition strategically showcased different types of evidence at specific moments in the legislative process. Each evidence type can be tied to a specific narrative element and strategy. Advocates first used research evidence to convince lawmakers of the policy’s effectiveness, then used professional expertise and benefit-cost analysis to convince them it would come at an acceptable cost, and finally used personal narratives to motivate them to act. We conclude that though benefit-cost analyses play an integral role in policymaking during a time of austerity, advocacy coalitions may still benefit from personal stories that lend emotional potency and urgency.     

‘Policies that Fail – Words that Succeed’: The Politics of Accessible Housing in Australia

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate over the efficacy of voluntary agreements versus regulation, and uses a study of the Livable Housing Design initiative to deliver voluntarily new‐built accessible housing in Australia. We first probe why regulation has become such a significant component of government policy making, and then ask why political campaigns focus on this issue as a strategy for reform. We refer to research by disability activists, which claims that the voluntary approach has failed and regulation is necessary. Amongst our conclusions are: (1) that the disjuncture between policy rhetoric and outcome can be attributed to the power of lobbyists, reliance on the private market to address inequality, and antipathy to regulatory enforcement; and (2) that there is a need for greater interrogation of the language deployed in policy texts to identify whether they are crafted to maintain the government's legitimacy or to deliver purposeful change.     

China's Hybrid Adaptive Bureaucracy: The Case of the 863 Program for Science and Technology

Portrayals of China's bureaucratic behavior tend to emphasize either streamlined central control via top‐down directives emanating from a Leninist system, or a highly fragmented organization characterized by continuous horizontal bargaining. While both views have merit, they miss important but little‐recognized dynamics of Chinese bureaucratic behavior. Examination of the 30‐year evolution of a single organization, China's 863 Program, allows us a unique look inside the “black box” of decision making. First, we highlight a largely unrecognized mechanism of top‐down control: a signal‐response process that fosters substantial uncertainty for officials in the system. Second, our case highlights a circumstance in which reformers made radical moves—deployed as a “band‐aid” layer of rational‐instrumentalism—to meet a perceived external security threat. These moves demonstrate efforts to incorporate Weberian norms, and suggest sources of dynamism and learning in a “hybrid adaptive” bureaucracy.     

Gendering the union: imperial feminism and the ladies’ land league

The Act of Union of 1800, establishing Westminster control over Irish affairs, had important repercussions for the development of feminism within nineteenth-century Ireland, as well as contributing towards adifferentiation of Irish from British feminism. Feminism within Ireland was shaped by class, religion and racial identification: one strand followed theBritish model of Protestant philanthropy, while the other was concerned with asserting women's right to take part in nationalist political struggle. ‘Imperial’ feminists in Britain and Ireland, concerned with establishing their right to take part in the affairs of the ‘nation’, perceived those Irish who rejected British imperial rule as uncivilised, reserving sympathy for those whose economic position was threatened by the activities of those who campaigned against the landlord system. The period of the Land War of 1879–82 illustrates these conflicting discourses. The subsequent decline of imperial power in Ireland can be traced through a gradual change within Irish feminism from an initial support for the Union to a later embrace of nationalism, as young middle-class women, many from Catholic backgrounds, became involved in the movement