‘Life is Not Simply Fact’: Aesthetics,Atmosphere and the Neoliberal University

The main objective of this article is to reflect on the way in which a certain neoliberal logic and rationality have become common-sense and to contemplate the possibility of a different aesthetic. The tone or mood of this piece draws on recent work on atmosphere, affect and complexity, which will be used to explore the theme of neoliberalism within the context of the university. In the course of this discussion, I will consider questions such as: how could a different aesthetic influence the university as public space; the curriculum and academic community and friendship? How could a different aesthetic respond to epistemic, ontological and, inherently tied to them, spatial injustice?     

Does IPSAS Meet Heritage Assets’ User Needs?

Public organizations need to custody and protect heritage assets. This article questions the appropriateness and quality of the unique International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) in delivering financial reports that meet the user needs in regard to heritage assets. By refining the earlier findings in Italian local governments with data from a completely different region being Flanders, the results highlight that the IPSASs are lacking an important area of expectations from a relevant user need perspective, being the local ruling politicians. Finally, current article improves previous publication by examining the different kinds of responses in the light of certain municipal characteristics.

List of abbreviations

IFRS: International Financial Reporting Standards IPSASs: International Public Sector Accounting Standards IPSASB: International Public Sector Accounting Standards Boards UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization     

Across Islands and Oceans: Re-imagining Colonial Violence in the Past and the Present

Law and Critique - The three texts addressed in this review essay challenge us to question and creatively re-imagine the representation of material spaces at the centre of the colonial project:...     

Bordering through domicide: spatializing citizenship in Calais

ABSTRACT

This paper examines domicidal practices against illegalized border crossers in Calais, France as a technology of citizenship and migration governance. It addresses recent calls to include actions and interventions which restrict citizenship in the context of illegalized migration within critical citizenship studies literature. Studying the state violence upholding and spatializing normative citizenship allows for a deeper understanding of citizenship’s implication in the European border regime, and raises questions on the concept’s continued application to theorizations of migrants’ political movements and spatial manifestations. The paper proposes anti-citizen politics as an alternative before arguing that the presence of this politics within the city’s squats and jungles, more than the physical occupations as such, is what the French state seeks to eradicate through acts of domicide. Working from empirical examples, the article describes a ‘carrot-and-stick’ domicide currently at work in Calais where the eviction and destruction of autonomous forms of migrant inhabitance is combined with a simultaneous offer of state managed accommodation. These tactics operate together to drive migrants out of the city of Calais, away from the UK border, and ultimately into a determination of their detain/deport-ability via citizenship’s scrutiny.     

Network of Networks: Preliminary Lessons from the Antwerp Port Authority on Crisis Management and Network Governance to Deal with the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this article, the authors describe and illustrate what they call a “network of networks” perspective and map the development of a lead network for the Antwerp Port Authority that governed organizations and networks in the port community before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. They find that setting a collective focus and selective integration are crucial in the creation and reproduction of an effective system to adequately deal with a wicked problem like the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings on crisis management and network governance are used to engage practitioners and public policy planners to revisit the current design and governance of organizational networks within organizational fields that have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.