Doing family: Responses to the constructions of ‘the migrant family’ across Europe

This paper draws on how constructions of ‘the migrant family’ in political discourse influence migrants' and their families' lives. In specific national contexts, ‘the migrant family’ is determined according to the national and European debates and expressed by their respective rules and regulations. By ‘doing family’, migrants and their families develop strategies in order to fit these requirements of living a certain family life. Fulfilling specific norms and perceptions which are not necessarily required for the majority of society is a precondition to succeed. Who is and who is not part of the family, who holds responsibility — such aspects have to be proved and repeatedly reproduced by migrants and their families. This not only affects their position in society, but also has strong implications on their lives as a couple and family, since it requires the continuous adaptation and reconstructions of their everyday reality.     

重楼总皂苷对人胃癌细胞SGC-7901 增殖、迁移和侵袭能力的影响

目的 探讨重楼总皂苷（Rhizoma Paridis total saponin,RPTS)在体外对人胃癌细胞SGC-7901侵袭转移能力的影响。方法 取对数生长期的SGC-7901细胞,用不同浓度RPTS(2.5、5、10、20、40 μg/mL)处理24 h,四甲基偶氮唑蓝（methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium, MTT）法观察RPTS对细胞增殖能力的影响;采用细胞划痕实验、Matrigel transwell小室侵袭实验检测SGC-7901细胞的迁移和侵袭能力。结果 MTT法检测表明RPTS（10、20、40 μg/mL）可明显抑制SGC-7901细胞的增殖能力（P＜0.05）;细胞划痕实验、Matrigel transwell小室侵袭实验结果表明RPTS(2.5、5、10 μg/mL)处理过的SGC-7901细胞,迁移能力和侵袭能力降低（P＜0.05）。结论 RPTS具有抑制人胃癌细胞SGC-7901细胞增殖、迁移和侵袭的能力。     

From Exclusion to Resistance: Migrant Domestic Workers and the Evolution of Agency in Lebanon

In addition to hosting a large population of refugees and displaced persons, Lebanon is home to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 migrant domestic workers. Under Lebanese law, domestic workers fall under the kafala, or sponsorship, system. Existing literature has focused on the legality of the kafala system and the ensuing human rights violations resulting from workers' exclusion from Lebanese labor law. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2016, this article argues that migrant domestic workers in Lebanon have defied their spatial, social, and legal exclusion by organizing collective resistance, triggered in part by the July 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.     

Principles of Participatory Communication Reconceptualised for Instructional Corporate Social Responsibility Communication

One of the main aims of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is to contribute to sustainable development, and effective communication is imperative in reaching this goal. When the aim of communication is to contribute to sustainable development, it falls within the field of communication for social change, where the participatory approach is the norm. However, the context of instructional CSR communication poses challenges to the traditional conceptualisation of the participatory approach. This creates a need to reconceptualise the participatory approach for instructional CSR communication contexts. A literature review identified four main principles of the participatory approach (dialogue, participation, cultural identity, and empowerment) and illustrated how they are traditionally conceptualised. The empirical study focused on two companies’ CSR programmes where agriculturists were assisting emerging farmers with training, skills development and mentoring. Sixteen semi-structured interviews with farmers and agriculturists were conducted to determine the applicability of the theoretical principles as traditionally conceptualised for this context. We argue that beneficiaries may not be able to participate as equal partners in all aspects of the CSR initiative from the beginning (as traditionally assumed), but that they should, through their involvement, be empowered to participate more meaningfully in later stages even though power will remain largely with the company.     

Quelles mobilités pour quelles ressources?

In West Africa, where the available natural and financial resources are not always sufficient to support a family for a whole year, mobility has become a strategy for accessing the resources of the region as a whole. Daily life is based on a mixed sedentary and mobile logic which responds to opportunities at greater or lesser distances, for longer or shorter periods of time, and with greater or lesser regularity of movement, and which enables survival or a better livelihood to be secured. Mobility requires mobilisation – of social networks, individual capacities and sociabilities, elements we can also refer to as resources, only this time social resources. This article explores the notion of resources and its connotations to show how populations in the West African Sahelian space seek a balance of survival and livelihood through mobility.     

The Social Sciences and a New Administration

The policy issues confronting the new administration in 2009 can benefit greatly from the results of social, behavioral, and economic sciences research. Climate change, energy, human capital, social, capital, migration, public health, fairness, new technologies, and foreign and defense policy are all issues that the research has addressed. The participation of social scientists in the policy process will enhance the contributions of the research.

Y-chromosomal haplotype diversity for 27 STR loci in the Tigray population (Northern Ethiopia)

The Horn of Africa is among the main areas of origin of migrants trying to reach Europe through the so-called central Mediterranean route (from Libya to Sicily). Migration-related accidents in the Straits of Sicily are commonplace. In such circumstances, Y-STR analysis can effectively complement autosomal STR data in the identification of shipwreck victims and help reuniting families separated during the crossing.To expand currently available Y-STR haplotype reference data for Eastern Africa, the AmpFlSTR YFiler Plus PCR Amplification kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific) was used to analyze samples from 247 Ethiopian Tigray volunteer donors. The Tigray ethno-linguistic group represents over 95% of the population in the Regional state of Tigray (Northern Ethiopia), and accounts for ∼50% of the population in neighboring Eritrea.The results obtained were compared with those available for other Eastern African ethno-linguistic groups and neighbor populations from Northern Africa and the Middle East.     

How many truths are there? Reconciliation and agonistic dialogue in the former Yugoslavia

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we offer a possible interpretation of reconciliation in the former Yugoslav area. In a conflicting past and not-reconciled region, it is presumed that the truth should be the main pillar of reconciliation. However, according to our empirical analysis of 146 reconciliation projects implemented in the period between 2002 and 2015, there are many interpretations of truths in the region which are opposed to each other. These interpretations are the result of different national political constructions, supported by the dominant structures of the societies in question. Accordingly, instead of insisting on a single factual truth, we propose the introduction of the ‘agonistic dialogue’ principle, where multiple truths would coexist, thus turning former war enemies into political adversaries in the post-conflict setting.     

Immigration in the Life Histories of Women Living in the United States-Mexico Border Region

Abstract

This paper focuses on the role that immigration plays in the lives of very low-income women living along the United States-Mexico border. Life here is distinct from that in any other part of the United States, due to the international, social, political, and economic interdependence that characterizes this region. Thus, from the perspective of migration as a social process, this “contact zone” can provide insight on migration issues that occur within a transborder context. Based on life history interviews and focus groups with women living in two adjoining border cities, Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, we observed the trajectories of women at two points of the migration course: (a) migration from the interior of Mexico to the northern border and (b) emigration across the international boundary to the United States. The study shows that although these women held expectations that migration would improve their lives and the lives of their families, their social and economic integration in the border region met with limited success.     

Changing consciousness: autoethnographic mapping in a dialog group

This article introduces a pedagogical tool for raising critical consciousness and nurturing resistance to discrimination. ‘Autoethnographic mapping,’ integrating guided cognitive mapping and autoethnographies, has been implemented for a decade now within the framework of a college course occasioning dialogue between Palestinian Arab and Jewish students in Israel. Participants using the tool in an extended encounter between students from groups embroiled in political conflict have begun to theorize the microgeogrpahies and stories of their everyday existence, gaining nuanced, non-standard insights into how conflict informs lives and selves. Employing the technique in the contact zone of guided encounters, students tend to re-inscribe identities upon a socio-political context, discovering the fluidity of belonging and destabilizing discursive structures. The paper outlines the course, sketches the tool and its theoretical underpinnings and describes some of the results it’s achieved through a spectrum of illustrative instances.