 Subjects -> SOCIOLOGY (Total: 553 journals)
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- Indigenous and decolonial futures: Indigenous Protected and Conserved
Areas as potential pathways of reconciliation
Authors: Justine Townsend, Robin Roth
Abstract: Crown governments, the conservation sector, academics, and some Indigenous governments, communities, and organizations are framing Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs)—a newly recognized form of Indigenous-led conservation in Canada—as advancing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Yet it is often unclear what is being, or could be, reconciled through IPCAs. While highly diverse, IPCAs are advanced by Indigenous Nations, governments, and communities who protect them, with or without partners, according to their Indigenous knowledge, legal, and governance systems. IPCAs may be expressions of “generative refusal,” visions of Indigenous futures, and commitments to uphold responsibilities to the lands, waters, and past and future generations. IPCAs refuse settler colonial ontologies including the expectation of ongoing white settler privilege, which relies on the continued appropriation of lands and resources. By examining the practical, relational, and systemic challenges Indigenous Nations advancing IPCAs encounter, we discuss opportunities for Crown governments and the conservation sector to cultivate decolonial responses. Indigenous Nations advancing IPCAs may face challenges with resource extraction, laws and legislation, financing, relationships and capacity, and jurisdiction and governance. We contend that IPCAs could be pathways of reconciliation if Crown governments and the conservation sector support IPCAs in ways consistent with the recommendations of Indigenous leaders. This requires dismantling the roadblocks arising from settler ontologies and institutions that impede IPCA establishment and ongoing stewardship. Thus, not only could Indigenous futures be advanced, we might also cultivate decolonial futures in which all peoples and species can thrive.
PubDate: 2023-12-07T00:00:00Z
- Editorial: Migration studies and the digital: datafication, implications
and methodological approaches
Authors: Lorella Viola, Machteld Venken, Jaap Verheul
PubDate: 2023-12-07T00:00:00Z
- Why a feminist ethics of care and socio-ecological justice lens matter for
global, interdisciplinary research on water security
Authors: Lata Narayanaswamy, Robert Ferritto, Marya Hillesland, Victoria Anker, Shivani Singhal, Rachael Marjorie Maysels, Amare Bantider, Katrina Charles, Cheryl Doss, Ashok Kumar, Anna Mdee, Sau-Mei Neo, Federico Pinzón, Bamlaku T. Mengistu
Abstract: In this conceptual analysis, we set out some of the negotiations and tensions that emerge when we try to build a shared understanding of water (in)security through the dual lenses of a feminist ethics of care and socio-ecological justice. We further reflect on how these theoretical lenses shape our work in practice—how do we actualise them in an international, interdisciplinary partnership' We actively seek to engage all our colleagues in how we understand the function of power and inequality in relation to the distribution of water resources and the ways in which intersectional inequalities shape access to, and availability of, water. We conclude that our international partnership will only add value to our understanding of water (in)security if we are able to identify not just how intersectional inequalities circumscribe differential access to water itself in a range of diverse contexts, but the ways socio-ecological justice and a feminist ethics of care are understood and in turn shape how we work together to achieve greater water security across diverse contexts.
PubDate: 2023-12-01T00:00:00Z
- The Global Compact on Refugees: inadequate substitute or useful
complement'
Authors: Emily E. Arnold-Fernández
Abstract: The Global Compact on Refugees is touted by its supporters as a soft law instrument that advances solutions for refugees in a way that complements the fundamental human rights protections afforded by the hard law Refugee Convention. In practice, however, the Global Compact appears to have replaced the Refugee Convention as the centerpiece of multilateral dialogue about states' actions vis-à-vis refugees. This paper argues that the substitution of the Global Compact for the Refugee Convention is problematic from a human rights perspective because the Global Compact makes very little provision for refugees' rights and interests, instead focusing on the rights and interests of states. The Compact thus exerts a gravitational pull that distances the forced displacement response sector from the objective of realizing refugees' human rights. To counter this, the paper suggests a need for increased attention and deeper investment in bolstering the use of human rights treaty mechanisms and processes to enforce refugees' human rights.
PubDate: 2023-11-28T00:00:00Z
- Editorial: Gender, violence and forced migration
Authors: Evangelia Tastsoglou, Jane Freedman
PubDate: 2023-11-27T00:00:00Z
- How freedom of movement infringes on the right to leave
Authors: Christina Oelgemöller
Abstract: This article contributes to discussions that problematize the recent proliferation of soft law instruments in relation to international migration. The Global Compact for Migration has placed soft norm instruments more formally on the agenda of plausible tools with which to regulate people's movement. I am contributing to these discussions by engaging with the question of how the amalgamation of soft and hard law contributes to and impacts on legal effects, using a postcolonial feminist lens. I do so by focusing on the interaction between freedom of movement and the right to leave in the ECOWAS area, drawing on original research material collected mainly in Abuja, Nigeria, but also in Senegal, Guinea, and The Gambia. It is argued that freedom of movement provisions, as they are promoted by the ECOWAS and largely funded by inter-governmental organizations and European donor countries, end up infringing the right to leave. In a first step, existing norms at international, continental, regional, and national level are discussed to prepare the ground to answer the question how such infringing is done. From this step, I conclude that the triple layers of legal instruments, political instruments, and programming are impairing the intent of the right to leave in the way that a politico-legal landscape is constructed within which programs operationalize freedom of movement. The next step then looks at freedom of movement programming at regional, national, and local levels by asking about the subjectivities that are created—for example the “potential migrant”; by shedding light on practices of resistance—for example in how national governments use diplomacy to disengage; and by highlighting how “home patch” talk renders those potential migrants leaving not just implausible but suspect. It is found that, in the legal and political context of West Africa, soft norms thrive. The GCM constitutes an unhelpful list of random contradictory approaches that orient ideas, policy initiatives, programs, and ultimately people, toward being fixed in place, rather than being able to leave and to move freely should they want to. This happens in-country when people have not yet begun to move.
PubDate: 2023-11-22T00:00:00Z
- Reviewing the reviews: the Global Compacts' added value in access to
asylum procedures and immigration detention
Authors: Idil Atak, Maja Grundler, Pauline Endres de Oliveira, Jurgen Bast, Elspeth Guild, Nicholas Maple, Kudakwashe Vanyoro, Janna Wessels, Jona Zyfi
Abstract: The Global Compact for Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees are based on binding international law instruments whose provisions they complement with “best practice” standards related to the treatment of refugees and other migrants. Although the Compacts are non-binding, they provide for review mechanisms to promote compliance with Compact standards. Such oversight is important to achieve progress in implementing the Compacts' commitments. Yet, the current top-down and State-led review process does not offer an efficient platform for identifying cases of non-adherence to Compact standards. This article uses a case study approach to highlight instances of non-compliance with Compact standards in Canada, South Africa, and the European Union. We use a functionalist method of comparison to analyze State practice in these three regions in relation to (i) use of immigration detention and (ii) access to the asylum procedure, with access to healthcare as a cross-cutting issue. The article discusses how the Compacts' review mechanisms could be improved and their added value in terms of their impact on domestic migration policies. It argues that both Compact review and implementation can be improved through increased civil society participation.
PubDate: 2023-11-22T00:00:00Z
- Current methodological approaches in studying the use of advanced digital
technologies in migration management
Authors: Lucia Nalbandian, Nick Dreher
Abstract: The use of technology in migration management has increased in recent years. As such, practitioners and scholars are increasingly interested in the real and potential use of advanced technologies in migration management. This paper offers an early review of academic and gray literature on the use of advanced digital technologies (ADTs) in migration management processes. The primary focus of this review is literature that discusses migration management technologies—ADTs used by institutional actors (governments, NGOs, transnational institutions). This paper is divided into four thematic areas, aimed at providing a summary of major trends in the literature, including research methodologies, types of technologies, purpose of technologies and the migrants impacted by the technologies explored. Based on the literature reviewed, we identify common themes and areas that merit further exploration and research. To close, we offer an early view into the current uses of advanced digital technologies that we have identified in our Migration Tech Tracker, an interactive tool that consolidates the information found in the literature review of the paper including the various uses of technology by the diverse range of actors in the migration sector. The paper leverages the information from the Tracker to both indicate where and how emerging technologies are being used to govern migrants and simultaneously to identify ADTs that are being analyzed, reported on and researched and those that remain underexplored.
PubDate: 2023-11-14T00:00:00Z
- Participatory video as a tool for co-management in coastal communities: a
case study from Madagascar
Authors: Amber Lucy Carter, Symphorien Nihala Maniry Soa, Jessica Arnull, Paul Antion, Alexander W. Tudhope, A. Meriwether W. Wilson
Abstract: Here we examine participatory video (supporting a group to make a film around a specific issue) as a tool to facilitate input of local knowledge and empower communities in stewardship over their local marine resources. We draw from the “Voices of the Vezo” project, where researchers collaborated with a co-management partner organization and local youth to create participatory videos in traditional Vezo fishing communities in southwest Madagascar. The project focused on documenting and sharing local knowledge on shifting social-ecological conditions. Four communities participated in the project with 90 people interviewed and seven short films (7–15 min) created. The films were shared in the communities at public cinema nights and made widely available online. This paper describes the Voices of the Vezo project's process and outputs, examines participatory video's potential as a tool for community co-management, and outlines practical challenges and recommendations for implementing a participatory video project. We found videography to be a powerful tool for synthesizing local knowledge of shifting social and ecological conditions, especially where written records are scarce. We also identified specific examples where gathering and sharing community perceptions of marine ecosystem decline could foster discussion and action toward locally driven management interventions. Youth participants in the Voices of the Vezo project reported gaining knowledge and motivation to address marine management issues, indicating the potential for participatory video processes to cultivate local leadership. Finally, for participatory video practitioners, we found important practical considerations to help minimize biases when supporting communities with a participatory video process.
PubDate: 2023-11-09T00:00:00Z
- “When a bad thing happens…you are better only when you are home:”
alienation and mental health challenges experienced by Congolese and
Somali migrants in Johannesburg, South Africa
Authors: Rebecca Walker, Dostin Lakika, Tackson Makandwa, Clayton Boeyink
Abstract: This article explores the link between migration and alienation and its impact on the mental health and wellbeing of Congolese and Somali asylum seekers and refugees—two of the largest populations of displaced migrants in South Africa. Drawing on ethnographic research in Johannesburg, we highlight the various ways alienation is both imposed upon and experienced by migrants and argue that systemic disintegration, or acts of alienation, can be seen as deliberate and active policies and practices that are instrumental in excluding asylum seekers and refugees from everyday life. The experiences of marginalization and othering narrated by Congolese and Somali migrants highlight ways in which alienation and disintegration from critical social connections including family, community, and familiar contexts fundamentally impact wellbeing and mental health as well as strategies of care-seeking, and other forms of relational resilience. While conceptualizations and metrics of integration may in some ways capture the fallout of disintegration, such as access to livelihoods, housing, education, and healthcare, we suggest that this does not adequately assess the profound damage by acts of alienation on crucial relationships. The alienated psyche of innumerable migrants in South Africa results in the feeling that “when a bad thing happens…you are better only when you are home.” This pain, or feelings of alienation, we argue, are a crucial aspect to our understanding of alienation and in turn, highlight the importance of alienation as an apt analytical tool through which experiences of asylum-seeking in South Africa can be understood.
PubDate: 2023-11-09T00:00:00Z
- Internet perceptions among older adults in
Sweden|Introduction|Method|Results|Discussion
Authors: Annika Bergström
Abstract: IntroductionThe digital inequality is still present after decades of development and diffusion of digital media. Age is one of the most important factors predicting access, use, skills, and outcomes, which is somewhat paradoxical as information and communication technologies can create opportunities for older adults to sustain independent living. To increase understanding of older adults' online engagement, this study focuses on perceptions of the internet usage and how it can be a useful tool in everyday life.MethodA representative survey (n = 841).ResultsAnalyses point to decreasing support for the internet with increasing age - also within the group of 66 to 85 years old. There are significant correlations between perceptions and internet experience, whereas sociodemographic factors have weak explanatory power. Interestingly, large shares of older adults do not have any opinion of the internet, which could partly explain the persistence of the digital divide and difficulties to increase digital literacy.DiscussionOnline experience and level of anxiety overrule socio-demographics in explanatory power to perceptions. The internet is perceived useful, but also interferes with common habits, the view of digital technology in everyday life and computer anxiety. The findings could affect policy implementation, where it would be useful to implement the idea of the Internet and create an awareness that might precede an intention to advance one's use.
PubDate: 2023-11-06T00:00:00Z
- Water, power, homeland: restoring and re-storying the Eklutna River
Authors: Beth Rose Middleton Manning
Abstract: Beginning in 1929, the Eklutna River in Southcentral Alaska was largely de-watered for hydropower production without the consent of the Eklutna Dena'ina. The hydropower projects were implemented in two waves—first in 1929 by a private developer and then in 1951 by the Bureau of Reclamation. In 1991, a Fish and Wildlife Agreement between the utilities, the State of Alaska, and federal agencies called for study of the impacts of the hydroelectric projects on fish and wildlife, and development of a mitigation plan by 2024. This paper examines the process and partners involved in advocating for restoration of the Eklutna, building on the documented importance of tribal leadership in dam removals, and centering three factors that are underrepresented in the current analyses of alternative management approaches to the Eklutna: the context of the Eklutna as a Dena'ina place; the egregious and ongoing Indigenous environmental injustice of seizing Eklutna water; and the praxis of Dena'ina-led efforts to find a balance of uses of this highly valued Dena'ina watershed.
PubDate: 2023-11-02T00:00:00Z
- The effects of climate change on gender roles among agro-pastoral farmers
in Nabilatuk district, Karamoja subregion, North Eastern Uganda
Authors: Mukisa Ayub, Florence Kyoheirwe Muhanguzi, Brenda Boonabaana
Abstract: This study examines the effects of climate change on gender roles among agro-pastoral farmers in Nabilatuk District, Karamoja subregion, in North Eastern Uganda. Data were collected from 10 focus group discussions, 10 key informant interviews, and observations. Atlas Ti 7.5.18 software was used to analyze the data. Findings indicate that climate change has disrupted traditional gender roles among men and women in Karamoja. Because of this, men have been forced to shift from pastoralism to crop farming. Additionally, some men have taken on reproductive roles that were formerly female-dominated. Women, on the other hand, have taken on petty trade in trading centers, which was formerly only a men's pursuit. This has come as an increased workload for women, leaving them even more vulnerable. This shift brings into question the notion of the stability of gender roles and how this affects the agricultural productivity of both men and women. Conclusively, there is a need for the adaptation of gender-sensitive strategies that can reduce the work burden of women.
PubDate: 2023-10-19T00:00:00Z
- Unbundling water and land rights in Kilifi County, Kenya: a gender
perspective
Authors: Marya Hillesland, Cheryl R. Doss, Mercy Mutua, Nadia Guettou Djurfeldt, Eileen Nchanji, Jennifer Twyman, Marina Korzenevica
Abstract: Feminist scholars and activists have drawn attention to the importance of women's land rights, and studies focused on irrigation have explored the gendered relationships between land and water rights. Yet little of this work has focused on the relationship between land and water rights for domestic and productive purposes more broadly. Within rural communities, women and men have different rights to both land and water. We explore these interconnected relationships using community profiles, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews from two communities as well as survey data collected from multiple adult members of rural households in Kilifi County, Kenya. Using a bundle of rights framework, we find that few individuals hold the complete bundle of rights over water, and the extent to which the rights are acknowledged by others and enforceable varies by the land-water tenure system. The full bundle of rights to water is most likely to be complete and most robust for men who have private water points on household land they hold. Even then, other people may assert claims to water at the water point, although these claims may involve negotiation or payment. Many water rights across the land-tenure systems are shared with others rather than being held by one individual. As such, the ability to negotiate water access is particularly important. The duration of the rights, or the length of time for which the rights are held, is embedded in social relations and exchange, particularly on others' household land. Women more than men seem to maintain a complicated set of social networks that allow them to negotiate for water from other women who manage the water transactions. The process of negotiation needs to be re-articulated each time. Thus, the duration of these rights to water depends on the ongoing relationships.
PubDate: 2023-10-19T00:00:00Z
- The black book on Turin's pre-removal detention center (CPR). When legal
turns political
Authors: Maurizio Veglio
Abstract: The paper describes how NGOs, lawyers' associations and civil society reacted to the suicide of a young man from Guinea while detained in Turin's Pre-Removal Detention Centre (CPR), where migrants are detained for the sole purpose of deportation. Deprivation of freedom without any criminal record entails a legal scandal, something that challenges the rule of law: the limitation of freedom is reserved to non-EU citizens who now come under the jurisdiction of lay judges (Justice of the Peace), despite decisions on personal freedom are exclusively handled by full professional judges. Furthermore, the legal ground for the detention of undocumented migrants is surprisingly fragile and fragmentary, often resorting to mere ministerial circulars where a law should be mandatory. Defying almost 25 years of indifference, silent acceptance and ignorance, the network of activists launched a campaign to shut the CPR down, publishing the Black Book on Turin's CPR and raising the public attention against the segregation of migrants through individual accounts and lived experiences.
PubDate: 2023-10-13T00:00:00Z
- Informal agreements and quasi-legal mechanisms in EU-Africa cooperation on
migration: how the EU takes advantage of the GCM commitments
Authors: Eleonora Frasca
Abstract: Soft law plays an increasing role in EU external migration law, particularly in the context of EU-Africa cooperation on migration. A legal-analytical inquiry into the formats and functions of soft law, based on the example of EU-Africa cooperation on migration, reveals that the EU preference for soft law is functional to achieve the EU's own migration objectives in Africa, namely preventing and containing irregular migration, rather than facilitating mobility, as envisaged in the UN Global Compact for Migration. This article presents and discusses the formats of soft law in EU-Africa cooperation, distinguishing between informal agreements and quasi-legal mechanisms for cooperation, and their respective para-law and pre-law functions. It then suggests that while informal agreements set the broad objectives of international cooperation and prepare the ground for legal changes in third countries, quasi-legal mechanisms for cooperation guarantee their implementation. Their combined effects ignite broader processes of domestic reforms in the African States through a technique of legal influence.
PubDate: 2023-10-12T00:00:00Z
- Towards a critical realist approach to the dark side of digital
transformation
Authors: Jamie Wheaton, David Kreps
Abstract: The Dark Side of Information Systems (IS) is a school of thought which explores the detrimental consequences that can arise from IS phenomena such as digital transformation (DT). Critical Realism (CR), meanwhile, is a philosophical approach which can lend a deeper understanding of dark phenomena thanks to its emphasis upon the role of deep-lying, generative mechanisms. However, as our paper demonstrates, the extant research base applying a CR approach in the exploration of dark phenomena in general is small with respect to examining the potential dark consequences of DT. Our paper therefore introduces the CR philosophical approach to the research of dark phenomena, through a case study of the digital transformation of Britain's land-based betting industry. This example highlights how a CR approach unearthed a generative mechanism formed by the productivity of digital platform-based forms of gambling. Whilst platforms provide novel gambling markets and ease-of-access which may be seen positively by the consumer, our example shows that the generative mechanism formed by the productivity of platform gambling gives rise to the continuous exploitation of staff and customers alike in addition to the continuous accumulation of capital by operator. We demonstrate that, as opposed to specific, pre-identified dark phenomena such as addiction or technostress, dark phenomena caused by generative mechanisms may be unknown, perceived positively or differently over time. A CR approach can facilitate a deeper understanding of how these generative mechanisms and subsequent dark phenomena emerge and evolve, and promote wiser approaches to DT.
PubDate: 2023-10-06T00:00:00Z
- Living in a hot city: thermal justice through green open space provision
Authors: Rifda Ufaira, Sulfikar Amir, Galuh Syahbana Indraprahasta, Anindrya Nastiti
Abstract: Jakarta's environmental problems, the increasing temperature, and the intensifying urban heat island effect (UHIE) add weight to the deteriorating quality of life in the city. Nevertheless, chronic exposure to heat, especially experienced by inhabitants in tropical cities, receives less attention. It is often seen as a low-onset event that requires no immediate action and is not as noticeable and apparent as other heat events, such as heat waves. This slow onset environmental hazard disproportionately affects the population in the lower socio-economic condition. With their low access to cooling infrastructure, the disadvantaged people of Jakarta live and work in an environment prone to extreme heat exposure. Poor urban planning and design contribute to the intensifying urban heat in Jakarta and exacerbate the impacts of heat by providing mitigating and managing urban heat in the city. Using the Multiple Stream Framework (MSF) lenses, we analyse how and why the issue of urban heat is currently being prioritized in Jakarta and how the provision of green open space contributes to thermal justice in Jakarta. The issue is examined by analyzing urban planning policy through government strategy documents and interviews with key stakeholders. The findings reveal that while there is a growing awareness of urban heat issues in Jakarta, they are often overshadowed by other strategic issues in the policy arena. The research underscores the significance of incorporating urban heat issues into urban policy agendas and promoting equitable distribution of green open space in Jakarta.
PubDate: 2023-10-03T00:00:00Z
- The politics of soft law: progress and pitfall of the global compact for
safe, orderly, and regular migration
Authors: Vincent Chetail
Abstract: The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) epitomizes the potential and the limits of soft law in promoting global migration governance. While being a catalyst of multilateralism, the use of soft law remains highly ambiguous and must thus be approached with caution. At the same time, the GCM operates as a counter-narrative to populism insofar as it proposes a collaborative framework to develop global migration governance. Yet, its implementation record remains disappointing, and the last review carried out within the UN General Assembly signals a return of realpolitik. This calls for a vigilant plea toward a principled implementation of the GCM with due regard to the commitments of states contained therein, as well as to their legal duties under international law. Following this stance, soft law and hard law are not mutually exclusive, but rather mutually reinforcing, provided they are implemented in a cogent and integrated way. The GCM can make a difference on the ground if, and only if, it works in tandem with legally binding norms and instruments. If not, it may eventually become nothing else than a mere smokescreen, if not a masquerade, for the patent violations of migrants' rights.
PubDate: 2023-09-29T00:00:00Z
- Migrant-focused inequity, distrust and an erosion of care within Sweden's
healthcare and media discourses during COVID-19
Authors: Michael Strange, Tina Askanius
Abstract: Despite initial suggestions that the COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone equally, it quickly became clear that some were much worse affected than others. Marginalization—including poverty, substandard accommodation, precarious or no employment, reduced access to healthcare and other key public goods—was clearly correlated with higher rates of both contagion and fatality. For Sweden, COVID-19 inequality could be seen along clear racial and socio-economic lines, with some of the first high death rates seen amongst Somali communities, where individuals had contracted the virus through unsafe employment as taxi drivers transporting wealthier Swedes home from their winter holidays. At the same time, actors on the extra parliamentarian far-right in Sweden were quick to blame the country's relatively high per-capita fatality rate on persons born outside Sweden working in the healthcare and care home sector. Media frames affirming racial stereotypes grounded in cultural racism circulated across the ecosystem of alternative media in the country. In both healthcare and the media, we see growing forms of exclusion disproportionately affecting migrants. Such intertwined exclusions in Sweden, as the article argues, are a sign of a wider disintegration of Swedish society in which individuals lose trust in both the core institutions as well as across different parts of society. Drawing on Davina Cooper's understanding of the relationship between the state and other public institutions with individuals as based on “touch,” the article explores how exclusionary practices impact this relationship. Our key argument is that, whilst ostensibly such practices often most materially hurt minority groups (e.g., migrants), they are indicative of—and accelerate—a broader disintegration of society through undermining a logic of “care” necessary to sustain social bonds.
PubDate: 2023-09-29T00:00:00Z
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