‘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.     

对农民工政治参与现状的思考

农民工阶层的政治参与是我国民主政治建设的重要内容,但却面临着农民工参与意识薄弱、缺乏相关的组织保障和制度保障等诸多实际问题。提高农民工的素质并完善相关制度,对于社会主义民主政治建设,特别是社会主义和谐社会的构建具有重要意义。     

全球化、现代化与东南亚少数民族的边缘化

在东南亚,现代化与全球化的矛盾运动产生于二者的不同步,这在该地区的少数民族身上表现得特别明显,这些弱势群体的边缘化进一步加剧,而其边缘地位是落后的居住空间和低下的社会层级所决定的,同时也是经济与社会发展相脱离的结果。东南亚少数民族对现代化与全球化的双重抗拒,越来越以捍卫民族文化为其动力。     

Where the Margins Meet: A Demographic Assessment of Transgender Inmates in Men’s Prisons

Drawing on official data and original interview data on 315 transgender inmates in California prisons for men, this research provides the first empirical portrayal of a prison population in California that is unique by virtue of being both transgender and incarcerated. Situated at the nexus of intersecting marginalities, transgender inmates fare far worse on standard demographic and health measures than their non‐transgender counterparts in the US population, the California population, the US prison population, and the California prison population. With the possible exceptions of partnership status and educational attainment, these factors combine to reveal that transgender inmates are marginalized in heretofore undocumented ways. At a time in which an evidence‐based approach to corrections is increasingly embraced by corrections officials in the US, this article provides the first systematic profile of transgender prisoners. It reveals they can be regarded as a special population that, from a policy point of view, raises what Minow calls “the dilemma of difference”.     

性别政治下的女性发展边缘化

两性之间的政治反映到人的发展领域,表现为女性发展的边缘化。女性发展的边缘化以显性的、隐性的、反向的三种形式表现出来。隐性的和反向的形式日益成为更主要的形式,成为阻碍女性发展的“玻璃天花板”。     

Development for all? State schemes,security, and marginalization in Kashgar,Xinjiang

ABSTRACT

The past decade of development schemes has been experienced very differently by various groups within the city of Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. The recent exacerbation of social inequalities, stratification, and tensions in Kashgar is a structural consequence of two phases of government policies: an accelerated formalization of the economy and remodelling of the city-scape as part of modernistic development implemented before 2014, followed by a phase of strong securitization. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork between 2009 and 2017, this paper analyzes the situation, reactions, and strategies of different groups of Uyghur residents of Kashgar to cope with the changing socio-economic and political environment.     

Intravenous Drug Use and HIV in Estonia: Socio-Economic Integration and Development of Indicators Regarding the Right to Health for its Russian-Speaking Population

This article seeks to highlight some potential indicators and benchmarks for the right to health under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ratified by Estonia. These potential key indicators, as part of a human rights based approach to health indicators being developed by the UN Special Rapporteur, are argued to be particularly important in the context of the exceptionally high HIV rates among the Russian speaking population in Estonia. The historical emergence of the HIV epidemic in Estonia is traced, comparing its development with the situations in Latvia and Lithuania. This article describes the current extent of the HIV epidemic in Estonia which is the country with the highest reported number of HIV infections per capita in Europe, a number impacting in an extremely disproportionate fashion on its Russian-speaking population, particularly in North-Eastern Estonia. Understanding of the HIV epidemic in Estonia cannot exclude the social contextual factors of the social marginalization of many among the Russian-speaking population, the ‹alien’ status of those without citizenship of Estonia or any other State, and other failures of Estonian State policy with regard to intravenous drug use and HIV in the recent past. HIV among the prison population is also examined as disproportionately impacting upon Russian-speaking prisoners. It is argued that the language and logic of the Estonian State Integration Programme, as well as Estonia’s Second Report on the implementation of the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (2004) which refer to its Russian-speaking citizens as ‹non-Estonians’ is discrimination based on ethnic origin. In order to develop a system of State accountability in relation to the right to health, candidate indicators and benchmarks are proposed as structural, process and outcome indicators relevant to Estonia regarding the right to health and HIV, intravenous drug use, socio-economic integration and its Russian-speaking population. Dr. Paul Downes is Director of the Educational Disadvantage Centre, St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, Ireland.     

Asakusa ‘Newtown’: the transformation of outcaste space in early modern Edo/modern Tokyo

This paper examines the historical transformation of urban outcaste areas into commoner neighbourhoods in early modern/modern Japan. Focusing on Tokyo's largest early modern outcaste community, an Asakusa area referred to as Shinchō (literally ‘Newtown’), the paper argues that a combination of factors, namely the historical processes of urbanization, status group consolidation, labour specialization, capital accumulation, and inter-status group network creation, created an elite stratum of neighbourhood residents who were reasonably well-integrated into the broader social and economic landscape of Edo by the late Tokugawa period. This movement towards desegregation in turn laid important foundations for the later administrative and conceptual incorporation of the Shinchō area into the broader metropolitan area. Wide-ranging entrepreneurial activities by members of this elite class in the early Meiji period further built on and propelled these changes although they also facilitated their eventual exodus from the community. Proto-capitalist development, however, while clearly capable of inducing an emancipatory effect for some key elites figures and while enabling the neighbourhood itself to become more closely identified with an emerging working class Asakusa, also worked to create a substratum of people subjected to a compounded form of discrimination that took place along both traditional status and newly emerging modern capitalistic lines.     

马克思主义哲学的发展呼唤批判精神

当代世界形势的飞速发展及中国特色社会主义建设的伟大实践,对马克思主义哲学的发展来说,既是机遇也是挑战,马克思主义哲学内蕴的批判精神是其永葆活力的源泉。消除人们的心理障碍,营造一个自由民主的社会环境,鼓励知识分子勇于担当批判的重任,才能使马克思主义哲学获得健康发展。     

知识分子的边缘化和晚清小说队伍的嬗变

穿梭于封建"道统"和"政统"之间的知识分子,因为国家的衰朽和社会的动荡,趋向社会边缘化.科举的废止,打破了知识分子赖以支撑信仰的工具性循环;心灵的煎熬和变异,表露为浓郁的社会沉思和人生悲叹.异域文明的输入,解构了"道统"话语的桎梏;中西文明的对比,为广大知识分子提供了返观自身的时代命题.边缘化的生存境遇,造就了晚清小说的繁荣,也改变了知识分子社会诉求的既定轨迹.晚清小说以其鲜明的时代表征,书写着一代知识分子痛苦灵魂的锐变过程和图谋富强的普泛心路.