State Responses and Migrant Experiences with Human Smuggling: A Reality Check

Using Bigo's (2002) notion of “the governmentality of unease” this article reveals a shift in popular discourse around human smuggling in Western Europe and Canada since the 1990s towards increasing criminalization. To analyze this process of criminalization we have identified three recurring elements: boat arrivals; high fees and “bogus” asylum seekers; and the involvement of organized crime. The finding that smugglers today are generally perceived as “evil criminals” who undermine states' ability to manage migration and who need to be punished is contrasted with data derived from interviews with smuggled migrants in the Netherlands and Canada that offer an alternative, more socially embedded understanding of human smuggling. We posit that this reality check and a more nuanced understanding of human smuggling are needed for the protection of international migrants.     

The Disappearing Body

Although Chile was the first country in Latin America to report cases of anorexia nervosa in 1982, the issue had already gained notoriety during the 1970s, the decade when North American policies and the United States capitalist economy began to infiltrate Chilean society. The category of eating disorders, which may be manifested in a variety of diseases (such as anorexia, bulimia, and compulsory overeating), has only recently become the focus of Chilean literature and, in turn, literary criticism, which has primarily focused on the metaphorical interpretations of these illnesses. One novel that treats the multifaceted manifestations of eating disorders, not merely the metaphorical representations, is Marcela Serrano's Antigua vida mía (1995). The societal demands of unhealthy body images have been the concern of feminist criticism such as Susan Bordo's Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (1993). In Marcela Serrano's novel the treatment of eating disorders reflects the evolving expectations on women in contemporary Chilean culture. Through the application of Bordo's analysis of the cultural pressures and significances of body expectations, this article delves into the various manifestations of unhealthy eating practices in Serrano's Antigua vida mía and reveals the self-destructive and self-isolating consequences of an often-occulted illness while also recognizing that by treating body image and illness, the author engages in a cultural discourse regarding the expectations and repercussions of cultural demands.     

Gods from north‐eastern and north‐western Arabia in cuneiform texts from the First Sealand Dynasty,and a cuneiform inscription from Tell en‐Naṣbeh,c.1500 BC

A cuneiform archive in the Schøyen collection dated around 1500 BC, mainly in the reign of Ayadaragalama, a king of the First Sealand Dynasty in Babylonia, was published in 2009. The claim of that king to be ‘king of the world’ is assessed, with implications of finding an abbreviated version of his name inscribed on a broken bronze circlet from Tell en‐Na?beh in Palestine. Use of two divine names Anzak and Yau in personal names in the archive may be related to contacts between the Sealand king and Dilmun/Bahrain on the one hand, and ancient Midian on the other.     

The Regional Economic Impact of an Earthquake: Direct and Indirect Effects of Electricity Lifeline Disruptions

This paper develops a methodology to estimate the regional economic impacts of electricity lifeline disruptions caused by a catastrophic earthquake. The methodology is based on specially designed input-output and linear programming models. A simulation of a major earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone near Memphis, Tennessee, indicates the potential production loss over the recovery period could amount to as much as 7 percent of gross regional product. Reallocation of scarce electricity across sectors could reduce the impacts substantially. Additionally, an improved restoration pattern of electricity transmission substations across subareas could reduce losses even more.