Effects of mothers’ deaths on children’s schooling in Matlab subdistrict,Bangladesh

This quantitative analysis examines evidence for the impacts of mothers’ death on the schooling of their left-behind children (ages 6–17 years) in the Matlab Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) area of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. The analysis compared the completed levels of primary and junior secondary schooling in 2005 (respectively Class 1 among ages 6–17, Class 5 among ages 12–17 and Class 7 among ages 15–17) of children whose mothers had died during 1982–2005 (from maternal and/or nonmaternal causes, and any cause) with the completed schooling of children of surviving mothers in 2005. The results, after controlling for selected socioeconomic variables, indicate that children whose mothers had died had lower completion of schooling levels, and that those children from poorer households fared worst.     

The Mediation and Remediation of Disaster: Hurricanes Katrina and Felix in/and the New Media Environment

Hurricanes Katrina and Felix made landfall in 2005 and 2007 on the Gulf Coast of the US and the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua respectively. Despite many economic, political and cultural differences between these two sites, they share a number of interesting similarities. Their inhabitants are subject to similar modes of racialized Othering and internal colonialism, and both places have vital links with the transnational cultural consciousness that Gilroy referred to as the Black Atlantic. Katrina and Felix also occurred at a time when centralized forms of media are increasingly perceived to be in crisis. This crisis is creating new spaces for the development of alternative ways of knowing, watching and making media. This paper draws on recent literature on decolonization by Mignolo, Escobar, Quijano and others to explore the prospects for decolonizing energies within the new media environment and a context of devastation wrought by neoliberalism and disaster. This research examines disasters in/and the new media environment, and suggests that activists should understand the distinctions between mainstream (or corporate) and alternative media, between top‐down and grassroots media, and between “old” and “new” media, in relational and non‐categorical rather than absolute terms. These media realms should be engaged from an awareness of how they interact with and impact upon one another. This research also suggests that disasters must be understood as ongoing and open‐ended events embedded within historical, social, cultural, economic and political processes and systems. Media, policymaking and emergency management practices that are informed by an awareness of this complex embedding, and which are therefore able to take a long‐term view of the unfolding of disasters, will be best equipped to engage effectively, and in democratically responsive ways, with disasters and in particular with the needs of those populations most vulnerable to their impacts.     

Women's Gift‐Fish and Sociality in the Torres Strait,Australia

This paper argues that women's everyday practice of sharing fish at Warraber Island (Torres Strait) can be understood as a form of moral transaction. Gift‐fish are shown to be ‘socially entangled’, a fundamental mode of expressing kin relatedness as well as providing an indication of the current state of such relations. Fish distribution is portrayed locally as both an instance of generosity and of obligation, demonstrating a person's desire to engage in socially valued behaviour or correct their past failings. Importantly, I suggest that fish‐giving (and receiving) has a distinctly generational character, carrying different emphases across one's life‐span. The paper reflects on the tensions involved in strategic efforts by women to reconcile their limited capacity to meet expectations from a wide range of kin and neighbours, while affirming idealised visions of communally shared moral values.     

Evaluating the Temporal and Spatial Heterogeneity of the European Convergence Process, 1980–1999*

Abstract. In this paper, we suggest a framework that allows testing simultaneously for temporal heterogeneity, spatial heterogeneity, and spatial autocorrelation in β‐convergence models. Based on a sample of 145 European regions over the 1980–1999 period, we estimate a Seemingly Unrelated Regression Model with spatial regimes and spatial autocorrelation for two sub‐periods: 1980–1989 and 1989–1999. The assumption of temporal independence between the two periods is rejected, and the estimation results point to the presence of spatial error autocorrelation in both sub‐periods and spatial instability in the second sub‐period, indicating the formation of a convergence club between the peripheral regions of the European Union.     

Introduction: The Future of Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship

In her Introduction to this issue of International Affairs devoted to the future of Europe and the transatlantic relationship, Julie Smith highlights the challenges facing the West's major organizations—the European Union and NATO. The Convention on the Future of Europe, enlargement of both NATO and the EU, the euro debate, and the tensions in the transatlantic relationship are discussed in the context of the articles in these pages.     

Workfare–Warfare: Neoliberalism, "Active" Welfare and the New American Way of War

Abstract:  In recent decades, welfare reform in the USA has increasingly been based on a political imperative to reduce the number of people on welfare. This has in large part taken place through the establishment of a "workfare" state, in which the receipt of state benefits requires a paid labor input. Designed to reduce expenditure on civil social services, welfare-to-work programs have been introduced. At the same time, the restructuring of US defense provision has seen the "military–industrial complex" emerge as a key beneficiary of state expenditure. Both of these trends can be characterized, this paper argues, as manifestations of neoliberal thinking—whether in the form of the "workfarism" that is undertaken to bolster the US economy, or the "defense transformation" that has been intended to enhance US war-making capacity. While these two aspects have been analyzed in detail independently, the aim of this paper is to probe the similarities, connections and overlaps between the workfare state and the recent American emphasis on high-technology warfare—the so-called "Revolution in Military Affairs"—and "defense transformation". There are, the paper argues, strong homologies to be drawn between the restructuring of the American defense and welfare infrastructures. Furthermore there are also instances where warfare and welfare are being melded together into a hybrid form "workfare–warfare", in which military service is increasingly positioned as a means of gaining welfare and, conversely, traditionally military industries are becoming involved in the area of welfare provision. The result, it is argued, is an emergent form of workfare–warfare state in the USA.     

Wild Globalization: The Biopolitics of Climate Change and Global Capitalism on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast

Abstract: This article explores the value of Deleuzoguattarian approaches for understanding the entangled relationships between globalization, climate change, capitalism and indigenous peoples. Drawing on Brett Neilson's concept of wild globalization, it analyzes the biopolitics of climate change and capitalism as they are experienced on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast. A focus on the heterogeneous economies and ecologies of the Miskito Keys and their destruction by Hurricane Felix reveals the destabilizing forces immanent to capitalism itself. Thinking about climate change not as a transcendent teleological megahazard, but as a Body without Organs, might enable us to be schizophrenic rather than paranoid about climate change.     

“Terms of Engagement,” A WAC Drama in Multiple Acts and Scenes: Acts Three Through Five and a Call for Public Discussion

After plans for a potential partnership with Rio Tinto fell apart, the World Archaeological Congress applied for funds from the transnational mining corporation for the purpose of developing a policy on external engagement. This cautionary tale recounts the work that took place in 2007?C2008 as part of this project, some of the discussions that ensued, and a turn of events that delayed the ongoing process. In this paper the draft ??Principles to Guide External Engagement?? and ??Outline of a Process for Engagement?? (Appendices) are presented in the context of their formation, with an open call for further comment and discussion.