Mindfulness in parenting adolescents:love breeds love,hate breeds hate

ABSTRACT

After several years of intensive parental skills training for parents of adolescents, extra topics were arising that were not covered in the program’s curriculum. Stress, uncertainness, and strong emotions in dealing with adolescents and how to make positive contact were important issues that parents were still concerned about when leaving the group. This article describes the experiences of how extramindful parenting group training was used after the formal parenting skills training group ended. Parents were then learning to listen to the child with full attention, emotional awareness of the self and child, self-regulation in the parenting relationship, and self-compassion.     

Preference and choice

A theory of preference and choice based on that of von Wright is developed whereby the choice of a state of affairs is determined by preferences between pairs of them. The method used is letting preferences eliminate states of affairs from the choice set according to axiomatized rules. Formal properties of extensions of von Wright's preference logic are investigated.     

Writing After the Genocide: Lessons from Srebrenica and the Meaning of Community After Violence

Abstract

This essay explores four themes that run as a thread through recent writings about the genocide in Srebrenica and its aftermath: systemic and premeditated character of violence used by the Bosnian Serb forces during the war, which still echoes in politics of Republic Srpska; delicate politics of witnessing and identification which draws Srebrenica's survivors into the courts but also into the past; layered yet often self-serving interests circling around Srebrenica and annual commemorations in Poto?ari; and changing, multiple and, at times, conflicting understandings of “community” since the war. The essay draws on four books—Sarah Wagner's To Know Where He Lies, Hariz Halilovich's Places of Pain, Robert Donia's Radovan Karad?i?: Architect of the Bosnian Genocide, and Lara Nettelfield and Sarah Wagner's Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide.     

US Neoconservative Support and Policy Activism for Bosnia, 1992–1995: Correcting the Record

Abstract

The aim of this article is to trace neoconservative thought in the US and policy activism on the role of the US in Bosnia during the 1992–1995 genocide. This paper argues that, on the issue of intervention in Bosnia, neoconservatives in the US comprised two camps. Neoconservative former government officials were early and consistent advocates of an assertive US intervention in Bosnia. However, the neoconservative academics were a heterogeneous group divided over the question of US intervention. Yet, both the former government officials and several academics came together in supporting President Bill Clinton's decision to deploy US troops to enforce the Dayton Peace Accords. While sharply criticized in the Muslim world for their Middle East policies, neoconservative advocacy for Bosnia and Bosnian Muslims during 1992–1995 has been largely overlooked. Analysing neoconservatives’ activism on Bosnia provides for a more nuanced understanding of the US neoconservative foreign policy legacy.     

Commemorating Srebrenica: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

The aim of this Special Issue is to commemorate the genocide victims in Bosnia on the occasion of 20th anniversary of the capture of UN safe area of Srebrenica in July 1995. Recognized as the worst atrocity in Europe since 1945, the horrors of Srebrenica reverberate far beyond Bosnia with commemorations held across the globe from Canada to Australia. While there has been a growing literature on this subject over the last two decades, this Special Issue seeks to make a scholarly contribution to the study of genocide by bringing together works on understudied aspects of this period in Bosnian and European history.     

Migration,Precarization and the Democratic Deficit in Global Governance

This article attempts to provide a critical understanding of the dual signification of “precarity”. It explores what “precarity” as a concept may potentially offer to studies of the changing contemporary political economy of migration. It discusses shifting trends in global migration and point to tendencies for a possible convergence between “South” and “North”, “East” and “West”. Based on a review of current advances in research, it discusses, with reference to the classical work of Karl Polanyi, the potential for a contemporary “countermovement” which would challenge the precarity of migrants. Bringing forward the issue of the “space for civil society” the article addresses a still lingering democratic deficit in the global governance of migration.

Policy Implications

The article is relevant to policymakers, trade unions and civil society organizations. It contributes to the understanding of policy making processes in emerging multilevel global governance and focuses on issues of precarization, migration, and the implementation and accountability of human, migrant and labour rights.     

Roman emperors and identity constructions in modern Serbia

Drawing from the constructivist approach to heritage that defines it as a reflection of contemporary social circumstances, we attempt to outline the key agencies and processes shaping the reception of the Roman heritage in contemporary Serbia. Our case study points to the process of creation of the main narrative of Roman heritage in the country as Serbia – homeland of the Roman Emperors and to its role in the construction and promotion of social ideologies and identities. Analysis of the increasing popularisation of the legacy of the Roman past in public discourse presents considerable opportunities for questioning the social reality reflected by the reception of Roman heritage in Serbian context.     

‘We can’t just put any belly-dancer into the program’: cultural activism as boundary work in the city of Bratislava

Festivals are an increasingly more popular form of contemporary cultural activism. Countering prejudice through arts, using culture as a tool of communication, and creating an opportunity for marginalised groups to participate in public life, they represent a specific and novel means of civic activism. In this paper, I introduce a case study of the multicultural festival [fjú?n], aiming to enhance the public visibility of ‘new minorities’ and bring attention to the ethnic and cultural diversity in the city of Bratislava, Slovakia. Building on a festival ethnography and drawing on the perspective of boundary work [Jaworsky, B. Nadya. 2016. The Boundaries of Belonging: Online Work of Immigration-related Social Movement Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan], I show how the festival organisers work towards crossing and blurring symbolic boundaries in society. I offer a close interpretive reading of their attempts at capturing public places and cultivating a diverse language-scape, while showing how they simultaneously maintain, solidify, or even inscribe new boundaries. I conclude by raising critical points about the potential of activist cultural festivals to shift symbolic boundaries in the long run and serve as tools of social inclusion.