Counter-narratives of coping and becoming: Karen refugee women’s inside/outside figured worlds

The purpose of our research is to understand the socially and culturally constructed architecture within which refugee women produce and negotiate identity. This ethnographic case study discusses findings from data collected through participant observation and informal interviews in two refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. As Karen refugee women described their positionality within and negotiation between the socially constructed Inside and Outside Figured Worlds of the refugee camp, they depict the negotiation of a hybrid Third Space. Created at the intersection of the refugee camp structures that dominate individual agency and the discourses of gender and displacement that influence the social practices of women, this third space is characterized by the response strategies Karen women engage to support individual, family, and community health. Within the transformational spaces that refugee women constructed, the processes of coping and becoming reflected the relationship between structure and agency. Within these intersections a woman could express her resistance to a system that in its design represented a majority she was not a part of. As Karen refugee women moved to redesign their position within these systems, shifts in meaning of cultural norms resulted, inclusive of those that influence or define the role of women.     

Negotiations of Irish identity in the wake of terrorism: the case of the Irish in Birmingham 1973–74

This article explores the Irish migrant experience in Birmingham during and in the wake of terrorist campaigns carried out in Britain between 1969 and 1975 and attributed to the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Beginning with a discussion of the competencies with which Irishness was associated at the close of the 1960s in England, many of which were hinged on a notion of the Irish predisposition towards violence, the article continues on to take the political, cultural and religious “temperature” of the Irish community in Birmingham between 1969 and 1975, and follows on with a discussion of the specific strategies sought out by Irish immigrants to come to terms with the effect of events such as the “Birmingham Bombings” on their daily lives. Principle findings that emerge from the study indicate that IRA terrorism forced the Irish in Birmingham to engage with and adopt a number of distinct linguistic and cultural strategies in the post-1974 period, the cultivation of which indefinitely altered their relationship with Ireland as “home”, their visibility in the public British sphere and their associational patterns and practices within the migrant enclave.     

Exploring Collaborative Civic Leadership Among Young Tunisians: Inviting Despair,Creating Hope

This article explores how civically engaged youth in Tunisia are approaching collaboration with noncivically engaged youth to promote greater levels of civic participation. This article is based on qualitative research conducted in Tunis, Tunisia during the summer of 2015 with 16 youth, all under the age of 35. This article will explore youth attitudes regarding civic engagement and barriers to participation in postauthoritarian Tunisia. This article also explores how civically engaged youth utilize informal social spaces such as coffee shops, universities, and social media sites to stir a sense of hope and pride in activism. This research provides a rich snapshot of civically and noncivically engaged youth who comprise 51% of Tunisia's population and led the 2011 revolution that burgeoned the so‐called Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East. These findings bring into question labels such as “politically inactive” and “potential ISIS fighters” that are employed in the dominant narrative on Tunisian youth. Finally, this research suggests that Tunisian youth wield powerful leadership skills that will continue to play a critical role in the transformation of civic and social norms.     

THE SHIFTING DEMAND FOR HOUSING BY AMERICAN RENTERS AND ITS IMPACT ON HOUSEHOLD BUDGETS: 1940–2010*

From 1940 to 1960 across 20 large U.S. cities, rental housing's price fell, renters’ incomes rose, rent's share in household budgets fell, and, as expected, renters’ real housing consumption increased. From 1970 to 2010, rental housing's price increased, renters’ incomes decreased, but, unexpectedly, renters’ real housing consumption increased. We find neither demographics nor housing supply factors account for the anomalous post‐1970 increase in renters’ housing consumption. We conclude that after 1970 there was a nationwide increase in renters’ preferences for housing consumption. With incomes falling, renters increased housing consumption by decreasing consumption of other necessities including food, clothing, and transportation.     

Entangled Histories: Translocal Textile Trades in Eastern Africa,c. 800 CE to the Early Twentieth Century

In the recent efflorescence of studies on ‘global’ textile trades, eastern Africa has been mostly conspicuous for its absence. This special volume of Textile History seeks to redress this situation by mapping many of the major historic textile trades of this vast area, and demonstrating their importance to the global story. The introduction provides the rationale for the volume, positions the textile trades of eastern Africa over the longue durée and connects them to wider geographical and conceptual frameworks, and presents its five essays, contextualising them within the unfolding history of the western Indian Ocean and its several ‘cloth zones’, while elucidating their potential contributions to the field.     

Framing Food Policy: The Case of Raw Milk

Policies governing the sale of raw milk—making the sales of raw milk more permissive—are gaining traction on the legislative agendas of dozens of states. This paper examines one contributor to this movement on the policy agenda: the role of competitive framing. By combining theoretical approaches from policy studies and political psychology theories of competitive framing, we offer evidence supporting the recent relative success of raw milk activists in several state legislatures. Using an Internet survey‐based experiment with a sample size of 1,630 respondents from seven Midwestern states, we show that a frame emphasizing consumer choice and food freedom is more effective than the frame that dominates among the policy establishment, that emphasizing public health risks. This is true in both one‐sided and competitive framing contexts. We further show that those previously aware of this issue were less influenced by the public health frame than those naïve to the issue. Our results suggest that the pro‐raw milk movement may be making strides on the state policy agenda because their frames are more resonant among the public. We also highlight the advantages gained from considering psychological and policy processes simultaneously to understand policy change.     

‘A Terrific Ogre’: The Role of the Devil in Victorian Popular Belief

The Devil played a vital role in Victorian popular belief. He was a multifaceted figure who could be humorous or terrifying, depending on the occasion. While he struggled for space with an array of supernatural figures, the Devil managed to maintain a presence in a wide variety of supernatural narratives and beliefs.