The Development of Social Insurance in Iran: Technical-Financial Conditions and Political Rationales, 1941–1960

This text brings the case of Iranian social insurance (SI) to bear on the processes shaping Iranian politics from 1941 to 1960. It holds that the political needs of upper class rule (1941–51) and of the early autocratic regime (1953–1960) helped to shape SI's nature, extent, and limits. A key objective was to propagandistically use a minimal version of SI to try undermining communist and workers' trade unionist agitation. Iranian SI had two rationales. Although a few workers demanded SI measures during the Constitutional Revolution, the first SI program (1922, 1931, 1933) covered government employees, i.e. was a function of state-building. This paper focuses on a second program, targeting non-government workers. Starting in 1936 (1943, 1949), it was meant to tackle the social and political challenges posed by a nascent industrial working class. However, throughout the 1940s, workers' SI laws remained a dead letter, and the first integrated SI bureaucracy (1953), although ensuring 180,000 people, was in reality quite inefficient.     

Stigmatized ethnicity, public health, and globalization

The prejudicial linking of infection with ethnic minority status has a long-established history, but in some ways this association may have intensified under the contemporary circumstances of the "new public health" and globalization. This study analyzes this conflation of ethnicity and disease victimization by considering the stigmatization process that occurred during the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Toronto. The attribution of stigma during the SARS outbreak occurred in multiple and overlapping ways informed by: (i) the depiction of images of individuals donning respiratory masks; (ii) employment status in the health sector; and (iii) Asian-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian ethnicity. In turn, stigmatization during the SARS crisis facilitated a moral panic of sorts in which racism at a cultural level was expressed and rationalized on the basis of a rhetoric of the new public health and anti-globalization sentiments. With the former, an emphasis on individualized self-protection, in the health sense, justified the generalized avoidance of those stigmatized. In relation to the latter, in the post-9/11 era, avoidance of the stigmatized other was legitimized on the basis of perceiving the SARS threat as a consequence of the mixing of different people predicated by economic and cultural globalization.     

Ethno‐religious ‘unmixing’ of ‘Turkey’: 6–7 September riots as a case in Turkish nationalism*

Abstract. This article examines the structural and ideological factors that paved the way for the eruption of violence against non‐Muslims in Turkey on 6 September 1955. I argue that the conventional explanations that treat this instance of collective violence either as spontaneous rioting caused by over‐excited masses or as a government conspiracy that eventually got out of control are insufficient in that they fail to answer how and why so many people participated in these riots when we know that nothing on this scale ever took place in the history of the republic. In order to adequately understand the dynamics behind these riots one first needs to situate them in the broader historical context of the emergence, development and crystallisation of Turkish nationalism and national identity that marked the non‐Muslim citizens of the republic as the ‘others’ and potential enemies of the real Turkish nation. This historical analysis constitutes the first part of the article. Since ethno‐national riots do not always occur whenever there are conflicting identities, one also needs to explain the processes through which ethno‐national identities become radicalized and polarized. Thus, in the second part of the article, I focus on the economic, political and social conditions of the post‐single‐party era (post‐1950) that helped to radicalise the sentiments of the growing urban populace against the non‐Muslim ‘others’. I argue that it was the socio‐economic, ideological and political transformations of the Democrat Party era that made it possible for ethnic entrepreneurs and state provocateurs to mobilise the masses against a fictitious enemy.     

Adopting a Strength‐based,Indigenous‐focused Approach to Studying Kuwait Post‐traumatic Stress

Research design can be elegant but rarely does good research embarking on a new and complex area travel in a straight line. This article briefly describes the winding journey of three investigators, two Kuwaitis, a sociologist and the other asocial work researcher, and one American psychologist. Their goal was to tale the emotional pulse of Kuwait in the shadows of fifteen years of Iraq‐induced trauma. Along the way they adopt an indigenous focus that lead them to invent a measure of Raha (wellbeing) especially suited for studying Kuwaitis. The latter portion of the paper describes the procedures and results of the development of the Kuwaiti Raha Scale, ending with a discussion of the implications for international research in the social sciences. This study was funded by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science (KFAS).     

Change from within: Shia Seminarians' Responses to Contemporary Religious and Social Challenges

This article demonstrates how some contemporary scholars, operating from within the traditional Shiʿi establishment, have paved the way for new interpretations of Islam in general and Shiʿism in particular. To do so, the article focuses on three specific themes: the notion of the (im)purity of non-Muslims, rulings on apostasy and precepts related to women's rights. Following a brief explanation of the history of Shiʿism, the article addresses each of three aforementioned themes in turn. In each section, the article explains how the relevant theme was approached by earlier religious scholars, and how it has been treated differently by some contemporary reformist Shiʿi clerics. While not claiming the trends of thought instigated by some contemporary ʿulamāʾ are entirely homogeneous with liberal ideas about human rights, this article provides examples of Shiʿi legal standpoints being reformed to meet the challenges of the contemporary world.     

A Study of Biodeterioration and Chromatic Alterations of Painted and Gilded Mummy Cartonnage at the Saqqara Museum Storeroom,Egypt

Microbial biofilms have developed on the surfaces and within the painted and gilded layers of mummy cartonnage at the Saqqara museum storeroom in Giza, Egypt. SEM–EDX, XRD and FT–IR–ATR techniques were applied to analyse the coloured and gilded materials, ground layer, textile support and binder used for the cartonnage. Aspergillus niger (24.8%), Penicillium chrysogenum (21.5%) and a novel cartonnage‐biodegrading bacterium, Bacillus sonorensis (23.7%), were the most abundant microbes growing over the cartonnage surface. In addition, Aspergillus tamari (15.4%), A. fumigates (8.1%) and Fusarium solani (6.5%) were identified. The pigments comprised Egyptian blue (cuprorivaite), cinnabar (red), orpiment (yellow) and green pigment made from a mixture of cuprorivaite and orpiment. Gold leaf was used for the gilded layer, calcium carbonate and gypsum comprised the ground layer, gum arabic was the binding medium and the fibre base was a fine linen textile. Microbial colonization tests were performed on aged cartonnage replica samples made from linen and pigments of similar composition to ancient pigments found in the cartonnage. Each sample was inoculated separately with A. niger, P. chrysogenum and B. sonorensis. Yellow orpiment samples were the exception, as no colour change was detected after colonization by the examined micro‐organisms.     

Recent Investigations on Holocene Occupations in Northeastern Algeria: The Contribution of Kef en-Naga

The discovery of Kef en-Naga site, an open-air human occupation in northeastern Algeria, was favored by a sandstone quarrying where work truncated much of the archaeological sequence on its cross-section. A multidisciplinary rescue excavation conducted on this site provided, for the first time in the region, the evidence of superimposition of two stratigraphic levels (lower and upper) of sandy clay deposits formed in humid paleoenvironmental conditions. Besides, XRD analysis show that a large amount of hematite (Fe₂O₃) is localized at the lower level of the stratigraphic section, where iron is found in oxide form due to the moisture. As for rock magnetic property characterization analysis, the various magnetic parameters have strong values in the upper level, and the grains are small-sized. However, various magnetic parameters are lower at the lower level and the magnetic grain concentration is reduced. Although the site is lacking faunal and carpological remains, thereby depriving us of reliable dates, the two stratigraphic levels are correlated to the Holocene according to archaeological and paleoenvironmental considerations. The lower level likely corresponding to an early Epipaleolithic culture marked by the production of microliths using a microburin blow technique, while the upper level is related to a subsequent Epipaleolithic phase, characterized by the disappearance of microburin blow technique, the dominance of an industry on flakes and the existence of pressure debitage.