Migration,mobility and changing power relations: aspirations and praxis of Bangladeshi migrants

This article, based on empirical research in two villages in Bangladesh, examines the ways in which migration is not a mere response to poverty and family survival, but becomes an instrument to interrogate the power of the traditional elite and contribute to social and status mobility in the local context. By focusing on four key inter-related dimensions of place, work, consumption and marriage, and on the hierarchies embedded within different migrant destinations, it points to the ways in which migration strategies are related to mobility strategies, and contributes to refiguring class and gender identities. Religion and the construction of a modern Islamic identity, bearing simultaneously elements of materiality and spirituality, serve as a crucial mediating force in this process, bridging the gap between aspirations and praxis.     

Caste and the Desire for Belonging

Questions of power and competition have figured prominently in the expanding debate about Dalit assertion. This article moves beyond the rhetoric of caste wars to engage with the affective and emotional dimension of caste. The focus is on the urban environment, where caste unity is challenged by the centrifugal forces of urban living. The article demonstrates how Khatiks in Bhopal are reunited through a festival culture that straddles class differentiation, factional politics and generational gaps. The emerging formation signifies the continuing strength of caste sentiments in the city and demonstrates how Dalits create arenas for publicly declaring pride in their heritage both within and beyond the political arena.     

Diverse lifestyles and populations in the Xiaohe culture of the Lop Nur region,Xinjiang, China

The archaeological culture found in Xiaohe Cemetery (1980–1450 BC) is one of the early Bronze Age cultures in Xinjiang, northwestern China. The material assemblages from Xiaohe culture display features with both eastern and western influences. These east-west cultural and dietary interactions may be observed via the diet of the Xiaohe population. This paper examined the stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes of human and animal bones and human hairs from the Xiaohe Cemetery and compared with those of human bones from the Gumugou Cemetery, another Xiaohe culture site. The results indicate that the diets of the peoples from the Xiaohe culture varied significantly over different periods. The unified diets of the earlier periods reflect that an admixed population first settled in the Lop Nur region and primarily engaged in animal husbandry. In the later periods, the transformations in the human diets in this region reflect that new immigrants constantly relocated here and promoted population complexity over time. Moreover, this population occasionally produced small quantities of domesticated wheat and millet. The complex population and diversified economy of the Xiaohe culture were due to the expansion of the coeval cultures in the Eurasian steppe and eastern immigrants. Additionally, the millet cereal was probably mainly used for ritual practices rather than for staple food in the later periods.     

Global Agendas,Local Norms: Mobilizing around Unpaid Care and Domestic Work in Asia

This article explores the articulation and framing of unpaid care work and the mobilization around it at two spatial scales, the global and national. For the latter it focuses on three of the largest and most diverse countries in Asia — India, China and Indonesia. While the concept of unpaid care work has received considerable attention in international development discourse, it is rarely found in feminist mobilization and advocacy across these countries. The article asks why this issue remains largely excluded from women's political agendas. It also explores how it is framed when it is included. While most organizations recognize women's double burden and the importance of domestic labour, they do not consider ‘unpaid care work’ as a legitimate political issue around which to mobilize. Rather, it is framed, if at all, as part of other political agendas, such as the rights of the elderly (in China), the rights to social protection, especially childcare and maternity entitlements (in India), or the right to equal opportunities within marriage (in Indonesia). The study analyses the differences in framing, the conceptualization of gender equality embedded therein, and the implications for policy.     

Feminist Mobilization,Claims Making and Policy Change: An Introduction

More than two decades after the Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing, gender equality policies have not delivered in the ways envisaged. This special cluster of articles seeks to understand why. Women's mobilization and feminist activism was central to the Beijing process and the advocacy that followed, yet their influence on policy processes seems constrained in the current context of global political and economic changes. The articles in this cluster explore the negotiations between different actors, institutions and discourses — and the tensions and contradictions therein — as explanations for why certain domains of women's rights remain at the margins of political agendas and others receive more attention. Specifically, why have women's labour rights and the demands of the unpaid care economy failed to gain policy traction? The articles point to the importance of political practice, which includes the ‘framing’ of policy demands as compelling narratives, engagement with state entities and the forming and managing of alliances. There are trade‐offs inherent in each of these elements, for example, between transformative gender equality objectives and the pragmatic impulse to frame claims in less politically and socially threatening ways. Further, in a context of increasing globalization, mobilization is required at multiple levels — from the local to the transnational. The articles thus seek to deepen our understanding of how policy change for women's rights occurs.     

Microelectrode Investigations of the Visual System at the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology,Freiburg i.Br.: A Historical Account of the First 10 Years, 1951–1960

The history of the first ten years of neurophysiological science (1951–1960) at the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology in Freiburg i.Br. (Germany) is described by some of the participants. We describe the concepts of Richard Jung for the development of an experimental neurophysiology, the technical conditions which helped to realize these ideas, and the integration of the newly emerging German neurophysiological science into the international community, through the large number of foreign visitors. A short account is given of the young scientists working at the Freiburg laboratory during this period, their main lines of research, as well as the results of their studies.     

“Born to be a Stoway”: Inscriptions,Graffiti, and the Rupture of Space at the North Head Quarantine Station,Sydney

Quarantine was used by British colonial authorities and later by Australian governments to manage and control the introduction of infectious diseases. Facilities at North Head, Manly, New South Wales, were initially built as a specialist institution but as the need for mass quarantine declined over time, the site was used for other forms of social regulation and welfare. This paper explores an enduring tradition of memorialization, commemoration, and in some instances, resistance to the conditions of isolation and confinement found in the mark-making practices of people held at the Quarantine Station from the 1830s to the 1970s.     

Theorizing the Submerged State: The Politics of Private Schools in the United States

In this paper, I apply Mettler's concept of the “submerged state” to aid for children at private schools in the United States, including education vouchers, in‐kind aid, and property tax exemptions. All aid policies are “submerged” in that they help private organizations take on state functions but some are more submerged than others. Theoretically, this paper distinguishes between subcategories of submergence. Using policy data from 50 states and an original database of court challenges between 1912 and 2015, I employ probit regression with sample selection to evaluate the effect of submergence on successful court challenge. I find that more submerged policies are less likely to be successfully challenged than less submerged policies. Submerged policy design enables supporters to avoid legal as well as political challenge.