For ‘common struggles of migrants and locals’. Migrant activism and squatting in Athens

ABSTRACT

This article analysis the socio-political form of the migrant squats, and the socio-spatial interactions they foster and generate. Drawing on empirical research, it focuses on the Athenian context where, since September 2015, political groups belonging to the anti-authoritarian and Left-libertarian movement, occupied some empty buildings to host migrants in transit through the country. From a political perspective, the squats are interpreted here as strategies of struggle to gain access to the space of the city and they also constitute instances of migrant activism and resistance to the European border regime. Moreover, migrant occupations represent practices and sites for contesting citizenship, intended as a category of political status; as such, they exceed the limits of this category and move beyond the boundaries of the nation-state, originating practices of citizenship ‘from below’, while at the same time they produce subjectivities that choose to ‘opt out’ of citizenship as a legal status. This article is situated within the contextualisation of space and autonomy. Migrant squats are looked at from the angle of the ‘gaze of autonomy’, since they are aimed both at contesting citizenship as an exclusionary feature, and at revindicating the activists’ (both migrants and non) presence in the space of city.     

ʽYou’re not getting rid of usʼ. Performing acts of citizenship in times of emigration

This article uses academic literature on acts of citizenship and performative citizenship to investigate the contestation, protest, and resistance actions carried out by the Marea Granate collective in defence of the citizenship rights of Spanish citizens living abroad. Marea Granate (Maroon Wave) is a transnational network of young Spanish emigrants that emerged in 2013 as a result of the recent widespread emigration provoked by the economic crisis and austerity politics in Spain. Based on their shared identity as economic exiles and demanding the right to participate in Spanish political life to change the conditions that led them to emigrate, the members of this organization have been carrying out innovative, creative citizenship acts that are breaking conventions and causing ruptures in the Spanish citizenship regime. These ‘transformative acts of recovering’, the term used to refer to Marea Granate’s demands and struggles for citizenship, have proven to be capable of being a driving force for change and also reveal the fluid and contested nature of citizenship in the contexts of austerity and emigration.     

Social innovation driven by citizen-led digital innovation: technologies of citizenship and the war on unemployment in Flanders

ABSTRACT

Citizens’ participation in technology design is increasingly deployed as a means to tackle social issues and a technique of empowerment. Techniques of empowerment belong to a set of strategies and methods employed by governmental and nonprofit organizations to constitute active, participatory citizens. This contribution exposes the political rationalities underpinning emerging initiatives that perpetuate citizens’ subjection by deploying participation as their essential governing technology. It analyses an initiative developed by a Belgian nonprofit organization to involve citizens in the design and development of digital tools to tackle unemployment. Findings unveil the potential downsides of participatory practices of technology design for social innovation. Critical reflections invite practitioners to pay greater attention to their design and implementation towards making them truly empowering processes.     

Merleau-Ponty's Conception of Dialectics in Phenomenology of Perception

Although the fact that Merleau-Ponty has a dialectical approach in Phenomenology of Perception has been discussed in recent Anglophone readings, there has not been an explicit clarification as to how his varying usages of the term hang together. Given his repeated references to Hegel and to dialectics, coupled with the fact that dialectics are not part of the Husserlian phenomenology or Heideggerean existentialism from which Merleau-Ponty draws so much, the question of just what he does with the idea of dialectics presents itself. In this paper I argue that, in Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty saw Hegel as providing a model for the conception of rationality and meaning that must underpin the existentialist response to the problems bequeathed him by Husserlian phenomenology: namely, the problems of embodiment, perception and the constitution of the world. In connection with this, I suggest an interpretation of Merleau-Ponty's “existential dialectics” that focuses on his three principal uses of the term: 1) a “dialectic of objective thought,” 2) a set of existential-dialectical categories intended to capture the ontological structure of the “body-subject” as “being-in-the-world,” and 3) a dialectic at the cultural level concerning others and history.     

高校学生大五人格特质与组织公民行为相关性研究

本研究以150名高校学生为研究对象,探讨了大学生尤其是学生干部大五人格与组织公民行为的关系。通过运用大五人格问卷和组织公民行为问卷进行问卷调查,采用SPSS17.0软件对数据进行处理分析。通过研究发现,学生干部所具备的不同的人格特质与他们所表现出的组织公民行为水平存在相关关系,其中高校学生的适应性与组织公民行为水平呈现显著负相关,社交性、利他性、道德感与组织公民行为成显著正相关。     

Global citizenship as a national project: the evolution of segye shimin in South Korean public discourse

The idea of global citizenship in contemporary South Korean public discourse has revolved mainly around a national endeavor to boost the county's stature and competitiveness amid economic globalization. Based on a review of two decades of published media references to segye shimin (‘global citizen’ in the Korean language), this article shows that the specific usages of segye shimin – mainly by elites from government, academia, and journalism – underscore how the ‘developmental citizenship’ that marked South Korea's past authoritarian military regimes has carried on since the transition to civilian-led democracy. In contrast with the burgeoning academic discourse on cosmopolitanism that focuses heavily on moral responsibilities to humanity and the planet, South Korea's discourse of global citizenship has been closely aligned with neoliberalism and filled with exhortations to the domestic population to overcome numerous perceived liabilities seen as impeding the country's advancement. While global citizenship discourse in South Korea has emphasized top-down national strategic imperatives, a bottom-up approach to cosmopolitanism is also emerging as the country gains confidence and the notion of segye shimin gradually gains traction across the wider society.     

加强公务员公民意识教育的思考

党的十七大报告第一次明确提出的加强公民意识教育的问题，是社会热点问题之一。公共意识教育的对象是全体公民，但重点对象是公务员。我国公务员公民意识教育中存在法治意识不强、道德意识滑坡、责任意识缺乏、平等意识缺失等问题，必须完善公务员公民意识教育的内容和途径。     

两种价值观对组织公民行为的预测及调节作用探析

以188名企业员工及其主管和同事为被试,运用问卷调查法和分层回归分析的统计方法考察了个人主义/集体主义(I/C)独立于组织公平感,对组织公民行为的预测作用,及I/C对公平感与组织公民行为之间关系的调节作用。结果发现:I/C对主管和同事评价的OCB都具有独立于公平感的预测作用,同时还可以调节程序公平与同事评价OCB之间的关系,集体主义价值观越强,则程序公平感与同事评价OCB之间的相关越弱。     

From Interactional Justice to Citizenship Behaviors: Role Enlargement or Role Discretion?

An organizational field study examined the mechanisms through which supervisors’ interactional justice influences employees’ individual-directed organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Although, previous research supports the relationship between interactional fairness and OCBs, the mechanisms of operation remain unclear. Separate frameworks, based on role enlargement and role discretion exist, with no prior attempts to compare them. In this study, I examine two competitive models, (a) a role enlargement model, using employees’ role definitions as a mediator and (b) a role discretion model, using employees’ role definitions as a moderator. The results, based on data collected from 141 employee-manager dyads in a work organization, confirm that role definitions moderate the relationships between interactional justice and OCBs. The findings are discussed to derive theoretical and practical implications and directions for future research.     

Ethnic Citizenship in the Slovenian State

This article presents some crucial and typical experiences of people who were erased from the Registry of Permanent Residents of the Republic of Slovenia in 1992. In the process of forming the new Slovenian state in 1991 (after the collapse of former Yugoslavia), the body of citizens was newly defined according to the principle of ius sanguinis. This means that ethnic Slovenians who until then were Yugoslav citizens automatically became Slovenian citizens. Permanent residents of Slovenia who ethnically originated in other republics of former Yugoslavia had to file an application to acquire Slovenian citizenship based on Article 40 of the Citizenship of the Republic of Slovenia Act. Approximately 0.9% of Slovenia's population (18,305 people) did not succeed in obtaining Slovenian citizenship because either they did not file an application or their application was rejected. These people were erased from the Registry of Permanent Residents by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on 26 February 1992. The Ministry carried out this secret erasure without any legal basis. The Aliens Act entered into force for the erased which then annulled all their previously acquired rights; legally and formally they were made equivalent to migrants who cross borders illegally. Thus, the people erased from the Registry of Permanent Residents were suddenly left without any rights: the right to a residence in Slovenia (in their homes with their families), the right to cross the state borders, and all other economic, social and political rights. The implementation of the erasure concerns the suspension of basic human rights, the annulment of the principles of a legal state and the production of redundant people. The author argues that the erasure from the Registry of Permanent Residents is constitutive of Slovenian citizenship: the erasure established certain power relations in society and a certain type of democracy.