Authors:Paola Degani Abstract: In Western Europe, migrant women are very often employed in the area of domestic/care work. In Italy, their presence in this sector is very important, making them particularly susceptible to abuse and exploitation. Domestic/care workers are a gendered segment of labor migration still strongly divided along a gender binary through the sexual division of roles and labor, directly associated with the sphere of the welfare state. Migrant women in the caregiving and domestic sector are one of the least protected work groups under international and national labor legislation. For a long time, waged domestic work has not been regarded as “actual” work, as it revolves around natural tasks that women perform in the household. In Italy, the domestic work sector has recently responded to a law-decree to regulate the presence of migrant workers in areas where there is an important presence of severe exploitation. The Italian government, in May 2020, to relaunch a post-pandemic economy released a Decree titled “Emergence of employment relationships” to counteract undeclared migrant work. From the data published by the Ministry of the Interior, 85% of the total number of applications submitted involved domestic and care workers, while the remaining 15% regarded subordinate work, especially in agriculture. Evidence of widespread irregularity of foreign women employed in this sector emerged only in part. Currently, unprecedented attention as well as institutional interest have been given to severe exploitation in the labor market rather than to forced prostitution or other forms of heavy servitude to the detriment of foreigners (i.e., begging, forced criminal activities). Identification and assistance to migrants involved in severe labor exploitation however include an “extraordinary” number of young male adults which are receiving unprecedented attention. The article analyzes the effects of recent regularization of the domestic/care work and the outcome on migrant women during the critical COVID-19 pandemic period produced by this policy from a women's human rights perspective and on the ongoing debate on their protection from severe exploitation regime also in relation to the discourse on trafficking. In Italy the debate is of particularly interest even if it remains largely under-researched. PubDate: 2022-05-17T00:00:00Z
Authors:Sophie Pieternel de Bruin, Joost Knoop, Hans Visser, Hester Biemans Abstract: Decreasing yields due to water stress form a threat to rural livelihoods and can affect migration dynamics, especially in vulnerable regions that lack the capacity to adapt agriculture to water stress. But since migration is complex, non-linear and context-dependent, it is not feasible to predict the precise number of people that will migrate due to water stress. It is possible to map the different conditions that shape regional vulnerabilities and the number of people affected. This study presents a vulnerability approach to identify areas on the African continent where emigration associated with water stress is expected to be relatively high by 2050 under a middle-of-the-road scenario (SSP2) and compares the results with the 2010 situation. By utilizing among other indicators the water yield gap, the impact of water stress on rainfed agricultural crop yields is included, reflecting the impact of water stress on rural livelihoods depending on crop farming. The analysis was done on a water-province level, 393 in total. Clusters of potential emigration associated with the impacts of water stress on agriculture are projected for parts of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and regions of Angola. The regions where migration associated with water stress is expected to be relatively high by 2050 are approximately the same as those of 2010, although more people are projected to be living in these water-stressed regions. By developing this vulnerability approach, this manuscript enlarges the current insights regarding future clusters of water stress-related migration. PubDate: 2022-05-02T00:00:00Z
Authors:Irina Fehr, Conny Rijken Abstract: Nearly 4 million Syrian refugees, including more than 1.8 million Syrian children, fled to Turkey during the Syrian war, where they face many challenges to rebuild their lives. They are confronted with restrictions on their residence status and access to the labor market, limiting their formal employment opportunities. Poverty and labor exploitation are widespread consequences, and to make ends meet, children are driven into the workforce. In Turkey, child labor among Turkish nationals is also widespread as follows from the Turkish national child labor survey from 2019, creating a fertile ground for Syrian children to take up work. Although child labor among the Syrian refugee population is gaining increasing attention among scholars and humanitarian actors, knowledge about its extent or characteristics remains limited. Drawing on a survey conducted in late 2020, this paper contributes to a deeper and more numerically based understanding of the current situation of Syrian minor workers in Turkey. The quantitative results of our research are compared with the Turkish national child labor survey, highlighting the differences and commonalities between Syrian and Turkish children working in the country and looking into the impact of the lack of permanent residency on the prevalence of child labor. Our findings suggest that Syrian children enter the labor force at a younger age and have less access to education while working very long hours and earning low wages. The study thus demonstrates the specific vulnerabilities of Syrian children to labor exploitation. PubDate: 2022-04-26T00:00:00Z
Authors:Noémi Gonda, José Pablo Prado Córdova, Frédéric Huybrechs, Gert T. Van Hecken Abstract: Authoritarian and populist regimes have used the coronavirus pandemic as another excuse to further push back on democracy. Through the lens of boundary-making, we discuss power processes in pandemic politics of three countries whose governments and power constellations rely on authoritarian and/or populist politics (Hungary, Nicaragua, and Guatemala). Our aim is to envision the conceptual and practical possibilities for breaking up the unhealthy love relationship amid pandemic politics, authoritarianism, and populism, and for ultimately dismantling all three. On the basis of secondary data, personal communications, and our lived experiences, we analyze pandemic politics in authoritarian and populist contexts, exploring their ambiguous and co-constitutive effects through three apparent contradictions. First, we discuss control, or the ways in which the framing of the pandemic by authoritarian and populist regimes as an emergency, a quasi-war situation, or an excuse for political opportunism entails an attempt to justify command-and-control policies upon public behavior, intimate daily life, and subject classification. However, these control measures also bring about contestation through self-quarantine calls, accountability-driven demands of epidemiological data, and/or counter-narratives. Second, we engage with the contradiction of knowledge, by pointing out how authoritarian knowledge politics regarding the pandemic are based on over-centralized decision-making processes, manipulation of epidemiological data, and the silencing of unauthorized voices. Simultaneously, these measures are challenged and resisted by counter-knowledge alternatives on pandemic data and the struggles for subaltern forms of knowledge that could make relevant contributions to public health. Third, we discuss the contradiction of subjectivation processes. Authoritarian regimes make extraordinary efforts to draw a line between those bodies and subjects that deserve state protection and those that do not. In this situation, multiple forms of exclusion intersect and are reinforced based on ethnic, political, national, and gender differences. The manipulation of emotions is crucial in these divisions, often creating “worthy” and “unworthy” subjects. This highlights interconnectedness among vulnerabilities and emphasizes how care and solidarity are important elements in defying authoritarian populism. Finally, we conclude by proposing strategies that would allow political ecology to support prospects of emancipation for social justice, desperately needed in a pandemic-prone foreseeable future. PubDate: 2022-04-19T00:00:00Z
Authors:Maria Grazia Giammarinaro Abstract: This paper discusses the notion of severe exploitation in relation to production and social reproduction, and argues that the existence of huge “edge populations” subject to severe exploitation, mainly involving migrants, is a structural component of global economies, and thus requires primarily not a criminal law but rather a human rights and social justice response. “Edge populations” are targeted for severe exploitation because of intersectional vulnerabilities. A gender perspective implies an analysis of how intersectional factors impact differently women's, men's and LGBTIQ+ lives; this study is however mostly based on women's experiences of severe exploitation and related vulnerabilities. Three sectors prone to severe exploitation have been analyzed, in which weak regulations, and deprivation of rights expose migrants, especially migrants in irregular situations including migrant women, to various forms of severe exploitation. Through an analysis of domestic work, agriculture and the sex industry, this paper highlights that, although in different degrees, a combination of vulnerability and agency, of coercion and negotiation, exists in most cases of severe exploitation. The study suggests that a notion of “gender intersectional exploitation” should be further explored. PubDate: 2022-04-14T00:00:00Z
Authors:Maria Hedlund Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is beneficial in many respects, but also has harmful effects that constitute risks for individuals and society. Dealing with AI risks is a future-oriented endeavor that needs to be approached in a forward-looking way. Forward-looking responsibility is about who should do what to remedy or prevent harm. With the ongoing EU policy process on AI development as a point of departure, the purpose of this article is to discuss distribution of forward-looking responsibility for AI development with respect to what the obligations entail in terms of burdens or assets for the responsible agents and for the development of AI. The analysis builds on the documents produced in the course of the EU process, with a particular focus on the early role of the European Parliament, the work of the High-Level Expert Group on AI, and the Commission's proposal for a regulation of AI, and problematises effects of forward-looking responsibility for the agents who are attributed forward-looking responsibility and for the development of AI. Three issues were studied: ethics by design, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and competition. Overall, the analysis of the EU policy process on AI shows that competition is the primary value, and that the perspective is technical and focused on short-term concerns. As for ethics by design, the question of which values should be built into the technology and how this should be settled remained an issue after the distribution of responsibility to designers and other technical experts. AGI never really was an issue in this policy process, and it was gradually phased out. Competition within the EU process on AI is a norm that frames how responsibility is approached, and gives rise to potential value conflicts. PubDate: 2022-04-12T00:00:00Z
Authors:Shingirai Nyakabawu Abstract: This study focuses on the challenges faced by Zimbabwean migrant entrepreneurs in South Africa involved in agro-processing, transport, logistics, information technology, transport, education, accounting, and remittances among others. These challenges stem from the limits that temporary residence permits. These include delays in the adjudication of residence permits renewals which threaten the viability of migrant-owned businesses, access to finance, conditions of the temporary protected statuses of Zimbabwean permits xenophobia, and their experience with affirmative action laws. Based on data gathered through interviews in Cape Town, this study concludes that migrant entrepreneurs remain in positions of vulnerability and contribute disproportionately to the economy of South Africa because of the limitation of residence visas. PubDate: 2022-04-07T00:00:00Z
Authors:Marnie Jane Thomson Abstract: In the global humanitarian realm, there is much discussion and concern for the burdens that states endure when it comes to refugee populations. The word “burden” appears in the Preamble of the 1951 Refugee Convention in reference to placing “unduly heavy burdens” on specific host countries and compels the international community to intervene in such situations. While there have been attempts to change the language from burden-sharing to responsibility-sharing, the emphasis on states assuming the “burden” of hosting and providing for refugee populations continues. Even as the 2018 Global Compact for Refugees has brought refugees into the discussions of an international response to refugee situations, the language and concerns about burden-sharing remain relatively unchanged. This is clearly demonstrated by the first ever Global Refugee Forum, which was held in December 2019, through its central theme of burden- and responsibility-sharing. In the forum, refugees advocated for their continued and increased inclusion, but while state delegations and humanitarian organizations acknowledged this as a benefit for all, their statements continued to assert their own concerns about their positions as the donor and host countries. This continued privileging of the state, even amidst the added language and practices of inclusion of all humanitarian actors, still renders invisible the burdens that refugees bear, many of which are exacerbated by the language and logic of burden-sharing applied to states. A prime example of this is Trump's anti-immigration policies and rhetoric, which demonstrate how state attempts to lighten their burden have far-reaching effects, including long-lasting everyday burdens for those who have already been resettled. Long-term ethnographic research in refugee camps and with resettled refugees provides empirical evidence to engage in the critical policy analysis and discourse analysis of burden-sharing in this piece. PubDate: 2022-04-06T00:00:00Z
Authors:Paolo De Stefani Abstract: The article discusses the role of “vulnerability” in the legal and political discourse of today's Europe as a dual-mode dispositive. On the one hand, “vulnerability” allows the legal formalism to incorporate the precarious subjects that the traditional language of “rights” risks to exclude. Compared with the human rights language, “vulnerability” better articulates the relationship between legal categories and rapidly changing social and ecological landscapes. The “vulnerability language” captures intersectionality. On the other hand, however, through examples taken from the EU normative production on irregular and mixed migrations, with a focus on refugee “screening” and reception and on managing identification and referral procedures of persons victims of human trafficking, this article shows that the assignment of an individual to a “vulnerable group” has the effect not only of expanding and intensifying their protection under normative human rights regimes, but also of accentuating some risks already inherent in human rights discourse, namely paternalism and essentialism. Paradoxically, a possible outcome can be fragmentation of rights protection frameworks, and exclusion. Vulnerable migrants may have to face additional challenges stemming from their inability (coupled with objective difficulty) to decodify communications and instructions concerning their status. Divergent ways of conceiving vulnerability, depending on subjective assessments, public policy standards, the legal framework, and the political agenda on welfare, contribute to neutralizing the potentially emancipatory impact of the vulnerability language. PubDate: 2022-04-04T00:00:00Z
Authors:Frieda Fein, Jamon Van Den Hoek Abstract: By the end of 2020, 20.7 million refugees worldwide were under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Despite the intended role of refugee camps as sanctuaries for people fleeing conflict and persecution, recent empirical research has shown that many refugees continue to experience conflict even after settling in camps. Measuring refugee exposure to conflict, especially recurrent conflict, is important for the design and evaluation of refugee settlement and asylum policies, refugee-host relationships, as well as refugee security and protection. However, existing research is either nationally aggregated or highly localized at a small number of refugee camps and does not consider changes in conflict incidence following refugee arrivals, leaving uncertainty around near-camp conflict dynamics across refugee hosting countries. To address these gaps, we measured conflict event proximity, frequency, and trends around refugee and non-refugee settlements in all refugee-hosting countries in Africa over a 24-year period (1997–2020). We used georeferenced data on 1,543 refugee camps from UNHCR and conflict event data from the Armed Conflict Location Event Database (ACLED), and compared localized conflict incidence at refugee camps to 4,003 non-refugee settlements from the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). Our results show that 52% of all refugee camps and 94% of urban refugee camps were within 10 km of at least one armed conflict event after camp establishment. Conversely, only 82% of urban settlements without refugee camps were within 10 km of a conflict event, suggesting that urban refugee camps are subject to nearby conflict at a disproportionately higher rate compared to both rural refugee camps and non-refugee settlements. We also find that conflict events moved an average of 11.2 km closer to refugee camps after camp establishment, indicating a general encroachment of conflict upon camps. Such persistent and widespread conflict challenges the security of camps and the protections afforded to refugees, and merits increased attention from host countries and humanitarian actors. PubDate: 2022-03-28T00:00:00Z
Authors:Lyla Mehta, D. Parthasarathy, Justin Pickard, Shilpi Srivastava Abstract: In this paper, we use a political ecology lens to look at how COVID-19 adds to a set of existing uncertainties and challenges faced by vulnerable people in the marginal environments of coastal India. Over the last few decades, local people have been systematically dispossessed from resource commons in the name of industrial, urban and infrastructure development or conservation efforts, leading to livelihood loss. We build on our current research in the TAPESTRY (https://tapestry-project.org/) project in coastal Kutch and Mumbai to demonstrate how the pandemic has laid bare structural inequalities and unequal access to public goods and natural resources. The impacts of COVID-19 have intersected with ongoing food, water and climate crises in these marginal environments, threatening already fragile livelihoods, and compounding uncertainties and vulnerabilities. Extreme weather events such as cyclones, droughts, heatwaves and floods in the last couple of decades have also compounded the problems faced in these regions, affecting seasonal migration patterns. We demonstrate how responses from “above” have been inadequate, failing to address problems, or arriving too late. Authoritarian leaders have used the pandemic to “other” and victimise certain groups and polarise society along religious lines. Lockdowns and covid restrictions have been used to surreptitiously complete environmentally destructive infrastructure projects, while avoiding resistance and opposition from affected local communities, who have also been subject to increased surveillance and restrictions on movement. While state responses have often been unpredictable and inadequate, there has been an outburst of local forms of mutual aid, solidarity, and civic action. There are also many examples of resilience at the local level, especially amongst communities that have largely relied on subsistence production. Despite the acute suffering, COVID-19 has also prompted civic groups, activists, and local communities to reflect on the possibilities for reimagining transformative pathways towards just and sustainable futures. PubDate: 2022-03-18T00:00:00Z
Authors:Giorgio Fagiolo Abstract: In this article, the author studies epidemic diffusion in a spatial compartmental model, where individuals are initially connected in a social or geographical network. As the virus spreads in the network, the structure of interactions between people may endogenously change over time, due to quarantining measures and/or spatial-distancing (SD) policies. The author explores via simulations the dynamic properties of the coevolutionary process linking disease diffusion and network properties. Results suggest that, in order to predict how epidemic phenomena evolve in networked populations, it is not enough to focus on the properties of initial interaction structures. Indeed, the coevolution of network structures and compartment shares strongly shape the process of epidemic diffusion, especially in terms of its speed. Furthermore, the author shows that the timing and features of SD policies may dramatically influence their effectiveness. PubDate: 2022-03-04T00:00:00Z
Authors:Christian Balkenius, Birger Johansson Abstract: Life-likeness is a property that can be used both to deceive people that a robot is more intelligent than it is or to facilitate the natural communication with humans. Over the years, different criteria have guided the design of intelligent systems, ranging from attempts to produce human-like language to trying to make a robot look like an actual human. We outline some relevant historical developments that all rely on different forms of mimicry of human life or intelligence. Many such approaches have been to some extent successful. However, we want to argue that there are ways to exploit aspects of life-likeness without deception. A life-like robot has advantages in communicating with humans, not because we believe it to be alive, but rather because we react instinctively to certain aspects of life-like behavior as this can make a robot easier to understand and allows us to better predict its actions. Although there may be reasons for trying to design robots that look exactly like humans for specific research purposes, we argue that it is subtle behavioral cues that are important for understandable robots rather than life-likeness in itself. To this end, we are developing a humanoid robot that will be able to show human-like movements while still looking decidedly robotic, thus exploiting the our ability to understand the behaviors of other people based on their movements. PubDate: 2022-02-22T00:00:00Z
Authors:Mark Colley, Stefanos Mytilineos, Marcel Walch, Jan Gugenheimer, Enrico Rukzio Abstract: Automated trucks for long-distance journeys seem within reach. With such automation, no human driver could be available. However, the last mile of the delivery is likely to involve humans. Therefore, either a human driver should still be present, or construction site workers must interact with the automated truck. While automated trucks capable of dealing with various construction sites could be feasible, the development could be costly and time-consuming. To define cooperative solutions for automated deliveries incorporating interaction between automated trucks and humans, a workshop with truck drivers (N = 7) was conducted. Based on this workshop, a model of the delivery process, including communication needs, is proposed. Requirements addressing the issues for highly automated delivery are derived from this process. PubDate: 2022-02-18T00:00:00Z
Authors:Punyashlok Dash, Carman Neustaedter, Brennan Jones, Carolyn Yip Abstract: In the coming years, emergency calling services in North America will begin to incorporate new modalities for reporting emergencies, including video-based calling and picture sharing. The challenge is that we know little of how future call-taking systems should be designed to support emergency calls with rich multimedia and what benefits or challenges they might bring. We have conducted three studies, along with design work, as part of our research to address this problem. First, we conducted observations and contextual interviews within three emergency response call centers to investigate call taking practices and reactions to the incorporation of rich multimedia in emergency call taking practices. Following this, we created user interface design mock-ups and conducted two additional studies with call takers. One involved low-fidelity designs and one involved the use of a medium-fidelity digital prototype. Across the studies, our results show that 9-1-1 call takers will need a next generation interface that supports multimedia, including video calling, as part of calls. Yet user interfaces will need to be different from commercial video conferencing applications that are commonplace today. Design features for 9-1-1 systems must focus on supporting camera work and the capture of emergency scenes; situational awareness of incidents across call takers, including current and historical media associated with them; and, the regulation of media flow to balance privacy concerns and the viewing of potentially traumatic visuals. PubDate: 2022-02-16T00:00:00Z
Authors:Anna C. Rédei Abstract: Humans have an inquiring mind. Throughout history, one may find documentation that shows on human curiosity, and our drive to stretch boundaries to satisfy it. Thus, this is not something that characterizes our time in any particular way. Sources, for instance, from the 13th century can serve as good examples that support such an assumption. Mary Shelley’s novel from the 19th century, “Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus,” might perhaps be the most known commentary to that boundary stretching, which continues in a slightly new form in the ongoing debate and the popular culture within the scientific community. Shelley’s narrative about the scientist Frankenstein and his Creature has continued to interest the audience. Through adaptations to film, the story has reached many new generations of cinema goers. However, new interpretations have altered some aspects the original message. Shelley’s conception of the monstrous was more complex than today when parts of the narrative have been downplayed and others have been upscaled. PubDate: 2022-02-15T00:00:00Z
Authors:Mengqian Ye, Nan Lian, Jennifer Lai Abstract: This paper investigates whether domestic migration of households in urban China has any impact on their risks of being defrauded. By utilizing the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2015, we find that domestic migration is significantly positively related to households’ risk of being defrauded. After controlling the corresponding individual and household characteristics, the result indicates that the probability of being defrauded with any losses and the amount of money being defrauded of migrant households in urban areas increased significantly by 0.98 and 7.43% compared to local urban households, respectively. This positive relationship between the risk of being defrauded and migration status of households is mainly concentrated in eastern China and highly educated households. Besides, the baseline results remain robust when we perform robustness checks, including the IV estimation which tackles the potential endogeneity of the migration status of the household head. Furthermore, we find that migrant households with fewer local social networks or less satisfaction of the current level of social security tend to be defrauded more intensively. The findings call for reflections on policies of domestic migration and urbanization and their unintentional consequences of social integration and security. PubDate: 2022-02-03T00:00:00Z
Authors:Paul Kadetz, Michael Stanley-Baker Abstract: In the fifteen year period from 1964–1979, The People’s Republic of China engaged in an unprecedented number of domestic and international health campaigns that were utilized for China’s entrance onto the world stage. From Mao Zedong’s vision of a new form of medicine via the unification of Chinese medicines and biomedicine to the adoption of a Chinese model of healthcare integration and primary healthcare by the World Health Organization in the Declaration of Alma Ata, the PRC entered the world stage through its health exports and its distinctive adaptation of modernity to serve domestic, and often foreign policy goals. These exports include Sino-African health diplomacy; the globalization of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and in particular the global utilization and scientific recognition of the antimalarial artemisinin derived from the Chinese herb Qinghao; and a model of primary and rural universal healthcare utilizing community health workers that garnered multilateral support. However, the face of benevolence displayed on the world stage was often contradicted by what was occurring domestically, behind the scenes, with the marked state enforcement of many of these same health campaigns in front of the backdrop of the cultural revolution. This paper examines if, and how, the West may have orientalized and romanticized China’s healthcare exports. Furthermore, we analyze the World Health Organization’s adoption and global promotion of a model for universal healthcare using healthcare integration that was only able to be achieved through the often brutal enforcement of the state, whilst rejecting grass-roots movements enacted during the same period, such as the practitioner-led integration of Ayurvedic medicine in India. PubDate: 2022-02-03T00:00:00Z
Authors:Benjamin Nanchen, Randolf Ramseyer, Sandra Grèzes, Mélanie Wyer, Alain Gervaix, Dominic Juon, Emmanuel Fragnière Abstract: Worldwide, more than one billion people live with disabilities. People with disabilities (PWD) have needs in terms of autonomy, social participation and inclusion. Mobility is one condition for them to be included in society and participate in social life. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) can be part of the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) that enables us to rethink the policy of mobility. However, the way these new autonomous mobility services are designed could exclude PWD. To prevent that, universal design principles and inclusive design could help policymakers and public transport companies design new means of transport that are accessible to all. However, perceptions of PWD regarding MaaS in general and AVs are not well documented. This article presents qualitative research about these perceptions. Eight semi-directive interviews were thus carried out on the subject. Based on these findings, we developed an integrative model to accompany and orchestrate such AV design developments. This integrative model will help policymakers and public transport companies rethink mobility concepts while incorporating AVs and make them accessible to ensure the social inclusion of PWD. PubDate: 2022-01-26T00:00:00Z
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