Spatial interaction and security: a review and case study of the Syrian refugee crisis

ABSTRACT

Sir Alan Wilson's ideas have been highly influential in the modelling of phenomena including migration, transport and economics. Latterly, research has explored the application of similar ideas to new problems at larger scales. Many of these studies relate to global challenges with significant policy implications. Here, we present an example in the form of original empirical work concerning forced migration associated with the current Syrian refugee crisis. We employ a spatial interaction framework to examine the flows of migrants fleeing Syria and the characteristics which influence their choice of destination country. In line with the broader literature, we find that shorter distances, economic prosperity, and cultural similarity (e.g. shared language) attract forced migrants, as does the probability of being granted asylum; a finding with potential implications for policy. Contrary to expectation, we find little influence for levels of security in potential host nations (e.g. absence of terrorism).     

Troubling meanings of family and competing moral imperatives in the family lives of young people with a parent who is at the end of life

ABSTRACT

This article draws on a narrative study of young people with a parent who is at the end of life to examine how family lives are troubled by life-limiting parental illness. Young people struggled to reconcile the physical and emotional absence of family members with meanings of ‘family’; the extent to which young people could rely on family to ‘be there’ in these troubling circumstances was of practical, emotional and moral significance. Our discussion is situated in the context of an English end of life care policy predicated on the ideal of a good death as one that takes place at home accompanied by family members. We explore how the shift away from family as a site for nurturing children towards family as a space to care for the dying is experienced by young people, and consider how these competing moral imperatives are negotiated through relational practices of care.     

From excess to encompassment: Repetition,recantation, and the trashing of time in Swedish Christianities

ABSTRACT

I explore the conversion of a Swedish Pentecostal Prosperity preacher to the Roman Catholic Church in order to examine questions of analytical perspective, temporal scale, and ethical discernment in the operation of religiously charged forms of repetition. The paper juxtaposes neo-Pentecostal with Roman Catholic understandings of temporality through tracing the ideological movements of Pastor Ulf Ekman over the past three decades, summarizing these understandings as based around tropes of ‘excess’ and ‘encompassment’ respectively. In exploring repetition as both theoretical category and ethnographic object of observation, I distinguish between actively marked repetition and the merely repetitious, while also drawing distinctions between continuity and the iterative, oscillatory character of repetitive actions.     

Number estimation in vertebrate samples

Methods of quantifying bone samples are discussed and the minimum numbers approach criticized. A technique based upon number estimation of game populations is put forward, and some of the practical difficulties of this method are examined. Consideration is given to the underlying statistical assumptions involved in quantified analysis of bone samples, and a method of calculating confidence limits for death population numbers proposed.     

Sport as politics and history: the 25th SEA Games in Laos (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Like the recent World Cup in South Africa and the Beijing 2008 Olympics, December 2009's Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Laos were embraced by the state as evidence of national achievement and progress. Yet, just like these much larger global sporting events, a range of controversies threatened to turn the pride of the Games into embarrassment. Of particular concern was the fact that, despite significantly reducing the size of the Games, Laos — one of the smallest and poorest countries in Southeast Asia — depended greatly on foreign help to conduct them, especially from China. The ultimate success of the SEA Games in Laos reinforced the power of sport to consolidate nationalism, despite the paradox in Laos of nationalism emerging from a complex mix of autonomy and dependence.