Attitudes to Employment of Professionally Qualified Refugees in the United Kingdom

This paper explores the attitudes to work and experiences seeking employment of professionally qualified refugees enrolled on a course to enhance their employability skills in Leeds, United Kingdom (UK). We analyse the results within the framework of conceptual models describing the transition of refugees into employment (which are essentially linear) and those that categorize refugees according to their resettlement styles based on their social features and the host society's response. Our data reinforce that these people are (initially at least) highly motivated to work, strongly identify with their profession and suffer considerable loss of self‐esteem as they are unable to secure appropriate employment. Attitudes to securing employment were often related to their length of time in the UK. Recent arrivals were more positive about returning to their profession, even if this meant retraining, developing skills and time spent in alternative employment. Many of those here for longer were resigned to retraining, and the worst cases felt despair and feelings of betrayal. Our work showed that many had poor job search strategies and a lack of knowledge of the culture and norms of their chosen profession. We argue that the generic support of statutory employment services or the voluntary sector is inappropriate and that there is a role for professional bodies to be more active in their engagement with these groups of people. The results suggest that conceptual models need to be more nuanced to capture the experiences of these refugees: attitudes to work can cycle from optimism to disillusionment, so a linear model will not capture the full complexity, and we also found evidence of shifting among categories of resettlement styles.     

Transforming sub-Saharan Africa

This article provides an analysis of my personal experience and research on the need for sub-Saharan African economic transformation. It contains relevant references to econometric modeling which are consistent with this analysis. After presenting the causes of African failures, ranging from the alleged role of slavery and colonization, to trade composition and relative decline, to present day problems of governance, low level of foreign investment in Africa, and mass unemployment, the article concludes with an agenda for the transformation of sub-Saharan Africa.     

Confidence intervals on p(y < x) for small sample sizes

When F = G^a, confidence intervals are derived and presented in graphs for p = P(Y < X), when X and Y are independent and the sample sizes are at most 25. Also, it is demonstrated via a monte carlo simulation that this is a robust procedure, when the distributions of X and Y differ by a location parameter.     

“Infiltrators” or Refugees? An Analysis of Israel's Policy Towards African Asylum-Seekers

This article adopts a genealogical approach in examining Israeli immigration policy by focusing on the situation confronting African asylum seekers who have been forced back into Egypt, detained and deported but who have not had their asylum claims properly assessed. Based on immigration policies formulated at the time of Israeli independence, whose principle objective was to secure a Jewish majority state, we argue that Israel's treatment of African asylum seekers as ‘infiltrators’/economic migrants stems from an insistence on maintaining immigration as a sovereign issue formally isolated from other policy domains. Such an approach is not only in violation of Israel's commitment to the Refugee Convention, it directly contributes to policies which are ineffective and unduly harsh.     

Turbulent Times: Bloody Sunday and the Civil Rights Movement

On 30 January 1972 in Derry Northern Ireland 13 men were shot dead by British soldiers. Bloody Sunday has come to be seen to be one of the key events in the recent history of the conflict in Northern Ireland. This article is an analysis of that event and its context through a range of theoretical ideas that seek to address the processes at work through the notion of movement or flow. Mobilizing a range of concepts from theorists such as Bakhtin, Deleuze and Guattari, Delanda, Serres and Virilio, the period is understood as one characterised by disruptive turbulence in the social field. As part of this reading use is made of a number of formulations from Complexity theory to address the open and dynamic nature of the forces involved. By considering the civil rights movement and the emergence of Free Derry as moments in an ongoing attempt to de‐code and de‐territorialize the founding terms of the Unionist statelet, the article argues that the potential for radical social change was drastically halted by Bloody Sunday.     

Protest Group Success: The Impact of Group Characteristics,Social Control,and Context

Abstract

In this study we test eight hypotheses about the relative control of protesters, third parties, and elements of the situation (movement context and confrontation) over two types of protest group success: goal achievement and recognition. A path analysis indicates that two sets of protester-controlled factors decisively affect protest group success: organization and beliefs and goals. Of the two, beliefs and goals is the more significant, although bureaucracy is very important for recognition. For the most part, the impact of protester-controlled factors is not due to the reaction of third parties; however, revolutionary activism, one factor in the realm of beliefs and goals, is a notable exception. Revolutionary activism's negative association with success is largely due to suppression by third parties.     

No place called home: the causes and social consequences of the UK housing ‘bubble’

This paper examines the key causes and social consequences of the much debated UK ‘housing bubble’ and its aftermath from a multidimensional sociological approach, as opposed to the economic perspective of many popular discussions. This is a phenomenon that has affected numerous economies in the first decade of the new millennium. The discussion is based on a comprehensive study that includes exhaustive analysis of secondary data, content and debate in the mass media and academia, primary data gathered from the monitoring of weblogs and forums debating housing issues, and case histories of individuals experiencing housing difficulties during this period. This paper is intended to provide a broad overview of the key findings and preliminary analysis of this ongoing study, and is informed by a perspective which considers secure and affordable housing to be an essential foundation of stable and cohesive societies, with its absence contributing to a range of social ills that negatively impact on both individual and collective well being. Overall, it is argued that we must return to viewing decent, affordable housing as an essential social resource, that provides the bedrock of stable individual, family and community life, while recognizing that its increasing treatment as a purely economic asset is a key contributor to our so‐called ‘broken society’.