The struggle for Via Bologna street market: crisis,racial denial and speaking back to power in Naples Italy

This paper is based on ethnographic research conducted with migrant and Italian street vendors in Naples, southern Italy, in 2012. It tells the story of Via Bologna market which was nearly closed down by the City Hall at the time. Naples is a city where issues of poverty and unemployment pre‐date and have been exacerbated by manifold narratives of crisis now unfolding across Europe regarding the economy, political legitimacy, security and migration. Street markets have always been an important and visible economic survival strategy for both Neapolitans and migrants there. This article shows how the Via Bologna street vendors appropriated and adapted discourses about crisis to form their own cosmopolitan social movement that halted the closure of the market. It argues that, in the age of globalized migration, the multilingual nature of such collective action is central to understanding social struggles that must be organized between marginalized groups of people divided by race, religion, politics and legal status. This, frequently ambiguous, transcultural solidarity speaks back against a mainstream post‐racial discourse – often articulated by the Neapolitan street vendors at the market – that would reduce the complexity of such collective action to questions of poverty and class struggle.     

‘Here and There’: Children and Youth’s Perspectives of Borders in Mexico–United States Migration

This article explores children’s perspectives regarding migration and family separation on both sides of the Mexico‐U.S. border. ‘Transnational care constellations’¹ that connect separated siblings allow children to imagine the other side of the border and to explore their thoughts and perspectives through the lenses of inequality, as well as through a sense of belonging and family. This article presents ethnographic data of families that capture the dynamism of families that are both ‘here and there’ as children assemble their ideas and narratives of how transnational lives exist.     

Assumptions,conjectures, and other miracles: The application of evaluative thinking to theory of change models in community development

Unexamined and unjustified assumptions are the Achilles’ heel of development programs. In this paper, we describe an evaluation capacity building (ECB) approach designed to help community development practitioners work more effectively with assumptions through the intentional infusion of evaluative thinking (ET) into the program planning, monitoring, and evaluation process. We focus specifically on one component of our ET promotion approach involving the creation and analysis of theory of change (ToC) models. We describe our recent efforts to pilot this ET ECB approach with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Ethiopia and Zambia. The use of ToC models, plus the addition of ET, is a way to encourage individual and organizational learning and adaptive management that supports more reflective and responsive programming.     

A transient presence: black visitors and sojourners in Imperial Germany, 1884–1914

The onset of German colonial rule in Africa brought increasing numbers of black men and women to Germany. Pre-1914 the vast majority of these Africans can best be described as visitors or sojourners and the black population as a whole was a transient one. This makes recovering their presence in the archival record exceptionally difficult and it is not surprising that the existing historiography is dominated by biographies of well-documented lives. Through utilising a number of recently digitised archival materials, particularly the Hamburg Passenger Lists, this article draws upon a database with information on 1094 individuals from sub-Saharan Africa who spent time in Germany over the period 1884–1914 in order to widen our understanding of the black presence as a whole. It offers new insights and detail into the composition and character of this fluid population – where visitors came from, why they came to Germany, their age on arrival – as well as more accurate information on the temporal and spatial distribution of African visitors.     

The Reception Given to Sadhu Sundar Singh,the Itinerant Indian Christian ‘Mystic’, in Interwar Britain

In 1920 and 1922, an Indian Christian called Sadhu Sundar Singh toured Britain. Widely renowned in the global Christian community in the interwar period, Singh was notorious for certain stories of miracles, for his appearance and for the ways in which he epitomised Eastern Christianity. Using Singh’s correspondence and a range of newspapers, this article argues that British audiences were attracted to Singh because of his appearance and ethnicity and because he conformed to stereotypes of essentialised Indian spirituality despite his Christian faith. It argues that the reception to Singh in Britain must be understood in relation to the perpetuation of Orientalist understandings of Indians and Indian religions in the interwar period.     

Insecure times? Workers' perceived job and labor market security in 23 OECD countries

By examining the association between employees' perceptions of job security and central labor market policies and characteristics, this paper seeks to understand the mechanisms through which institutions generate confidence and positive expectations among individuals regarding their economic future. The analyses distinguish between different facets of perceived job security and different institutional mechanisms. My multilevel analyses of a data set that contains information on 12,431 individuals and 23 countries show that some labor market policies and characteristics are more likely than others to provide workers with subjective security. Unemployment assistance in particular is an effective means of reducing workers' worries about job loss. Dismissal protection, by contrast, only unleashes its psychologically protective effects under certain conditions. The paper's main conclusion is that the effectiveness of policies varies and that different types of labor market institutions serve as complements rather than as substitutes.     

Icons,Itinerary, and Identity: Associations of Boundary and Mobility within the Contemporary US Passport

Regulatory shifts in US border policy set in motion through implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative are concurrent with recent formal and functional changes to the US passport. This article examines these modifications interweaving themes of boundary, mobility, and identity. The study focuses on the tripartite means by which the state employs the passport: as the primary affixer of national identity; as a mediator of contact and mobility across national boundaries; and as a mode for the projection of a certain territorial discourse to its citizenry and ‘others.’ These concepts are developed through an analysis of the narrative and iconic representations contained within the new book itself; material sources from government archives; as well as discussions and interviews with US State Department functionaries closely associated with the design and distribution of the new e-passport. Through the latter examination, a view is afforded into the process by which key state documents are crafted and an inherent tension revealed within an agency charged with establishing a particular unifying ‘brand’ for the preeminent instrument of national identification, whilst dutifully acknowledging the diverse constituency of a nation that historically fashions itself as one constructed from the many. In conclusion, the study suggests that the new passport is the handiwork of a plethora of state actors and a servant of many masters, for it is not only a facilitator of mobility and a vouchsafe for the identity of the bearer, but also, a tiny but significant piece of US property, itself an agent of border maintenance and boundary construction that enables the state to lay claim to its citizenry.     

Towards a Society for All Ages

Summary

Any social action plan, scheme, or program for welfare or intervention can be formulated only on the basis of data generated by research findings. Empirical data forms the backbone of the formulation of policy. This paper outlines the summary of the Indian research effort in the area of aging. An examination of the research trends shows both strengths and weaknesses. The generation of large and varied pieces of data across disciplines is a strength, while the absence of methodological rigor, integration of research effort, and the building of theory are the lacunae. The needs of the elderly, elder-care issues, State vs. family care, elder abuse, interventional and action plan research are some areas that need accentuation. Documentation of data, creation of databases, and a national body for overseeing research are requirements that cannot be delayed any longer.     

Media and the Intersectional Other

This article presents the findings of an intersectional study on migrant women on German television. Besides content and textual analyses, we conducted focus groups with audiences and interviews with migrant media workers. As the representation of Others was explored through the nodes of production, consumption, and identity, a complicated intersectional practice emerged. We found the televised representations of migrant women to be dominated by (often veiled) women as signifiers of non-integration but also by instances when gendered ethnicity was used as a marketable attribute. The audiences and producers employed various distancing strategies: they criticized specific programs for blatant stereotyping as much as didactic counter-stereotyping while downplaying systemic shortfalls of the coverage. These distancing strategies were intensified by the acceptance of individualized ideologies of success and commodified logics of media production. Ultimately, class appeared as the central demarcating category. On German television a problematic class distinction was articulated through ethnic and gender difference. Female migrants were often “othered” as lower-class. This class discourse absolved middle-class viewers and media workers from engaging in the systemic struggles over female/migrant identities, thus undermining the potential for gender and migrant solidarity and for the dynamic creation of cultural citizenship as a mode of belonging.