scholarly journals Border Struggles, Political Unity, and the Transformative Power of the Local: US Sanctuary Cities and Spain’s Cities of Refuge

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Nancy A Wonders ◽  
Cristina Fernández-Bessa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
Scaling Down ◽  
City Of Refuge ◽  
Migration Politics

This article draws on theoretical insights about bordering and citizenship as strategies for socially constructing difference and the scholarship on scalar challenges underlying contemporary bordering to analyze sanctuary cities in the United States and cities of refuge in Spain. We argue that these initiatives challenge and resist restrictive national migration policies from below, at the local level, with attention to their implications at the global scale. Such policies have the potential to create meaningful social change by 1) amplifying and producing political unity across socially constructed differences and 2) “scaling down” migration politics from the national to the local level and, simultaneously, “jumping scale” via reliance on human rights framings. We conclude that sanctuary city and city-of-refuge designations are not merely symbolic; instead, these designations can be conceived of as locally based, global repertoires of action that make positive contributions in pursuit of social justice.

Making Meaning of Race and Racialization in the Lives of Five International Graduate Students

2016 ◽  
pp. 59-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashlee Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Students ◽  
Student Mobility ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
International Graduate ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Race And Racialization

The author examines the ways in which race and privilege operate on a global scale through the experiences of international students studying in the United States. Specifically, the researcher explores how meanings attached to terms such as “Black” and “White” shift but do not collapse when making sense of students' experiences with race and racial classification in both the U.S. and in the contexts of their home countries. The researcher provides insight into international students' experiences with and understandings of race in both their home countries and in the United States within the broader context of student mobility. Furthermore, student narratives promote an understanding of the ways in which race is socially constructed, historically constituted, and geographically situated. Finally, the study will reveal the dominance of a reductionist “Black and White” portrayal of race in U.S. racial discourse and the ways in which that discourse is damaging to international students.

scholarly journals Underneath Kyoto: Emerging Subnational Government Initiatives and Incipient Issue-Bundling Opportunities in China and the United States

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Koehn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Stress Reduction ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Stabilization Policies

At present, progress in mitigating global GHG emissions is impeded by political stalemate at the national level in the United States and the People's Republic of China. Through the conceptual lenses of multilevel governance and framing politics, the article analyzes emerging policy initiatives among subnational governments in both countries. Effective subnational emission-mitigating action requires framing climatic-stabilization policies in terms of local co-benefits associated with environmental protection, health promotion, and economic advantage. In an impressive group of US states and cities, and increasingly at the local level in China, public concerns about air pollution, consumption and waste management, traffic congestion, health threats, the ability to attract tourists, and/or diminishing resources are legitimizing policy developments that carry the co-benefit of controlling GHG emissions. A co-benefits framing strategy that links individual and community concerns for morbidity, mortality, stress reduction, and healthy human development for all with GHG-emission limitation/reduction is especially likely to resonate powerfully at the subnational level throughout China and the United States.

New Mayors: France and the United States

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (x) ◽  
pp. 263-275
Author(s):  
Richard Balme ◽  
Jeanne Becquart-Leclercq ◽  
Terry N. Clark ◽  
Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot ◽  
Jean-Yves Nevers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socialist Government ◽  
The University ◽  
The City ◽  
Significant Support ◽  
The Welfare State

In 1983 we organized a conference on “Questioning the Welfare State and the Rise of the City” at the University of Paris, Nanterre. About a hundred persons attended, including many French social scientists and political activists. Significant support came from the new French Socialist government. Yet with Socialism in power since 1981, it was clear that the old Socialist ideas were being questioned inside and outside the Party and government—especially in the important decentralization reforms. There was eager interest in better ways to deliver welfare state services at the local level.

What's the Buzz? The Neuroscience and the Treatment of Tinnitus

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Henton ◽  
Thanos Tzounopoulos
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Current Treatment ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Current State ◽  
Acquired Hearing Loss ◽  
Neurophysiological Mechanisms ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

Tinnitus is a pervasive public health issue that affects approximately 15% of the United States population. Similar estimates have also been shown on a global scale, with similar prevalence found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The severity of tinnitus is heterogeneous, ranging from mildly bothersome to extremely disruptive. In the United States, approximately 10-20% of individuals who experience tinnitus report symptoms that severely reduce their quality of life. Due to the huge personal and societal burden, in the last twenty years a concerted effort on basic and clinical research has significantly advanced our understanding and treatment of this disorder. Yet, neither full understanding, nor cure exists. We know that tinnitus is the persistent involuntary phantom percept of internally-generated non-verbal noises and tones, which in most cases is initiated, by acquired hearing loss and maintained only when this loss is coupled with distinct neuronal changes in auditory and extra-auditory brain networks. Yet, the exact mechanisms and patterns of neural activity that are necessary and sufficient for the perceptual generation and maintenance of tinnitus remain incompletely understood. Combinations of animal model and human research will be essential in filling these gaps. Nevertheless, the existing progress in investigating the neurophysiological mechanisms has improved current treatment and highlighted novel targets for drug development and clinical trials. The aim of this review is to thoroughly discuss the current state of human and animal tinnitus research, outline current challenges, and highlight new and exciting research opportunities.

Understanding Children’s Perspectives on the Definitions and Importance of Play

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dayna Goldfarb
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
The United States ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Normative Beliefs ◽  
Children’S Perspectives ◽  
Societal Values ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Children’S Agency ◽  
Canadian City

Ideas about children and play are socially constructed by hegemonic societal values, beliefs, and institutions. Research engages with children’s play in ways that are constructed and reinforced by adults. Therefore, it is important to deconstruct dominant discourses about play because they are used to maintain adult-dominated power stratification and enforce normative beliefs. This study aims to understand how children define, conceptualize, and operationalize play in ways that may diverge from adult assumptions. Focusing on 6-9 year olds in a mid-sized Canadian city, it makes an important contribution to the field, which is overwhelming based on studies conducted in the United States. This study uses a drawing analysis to elicit children’s perspectives, which are frequently ignored in adult-centric research. Five to ten children will be recruited from an afterschool program. The children will draw pictures of themselves playing and be interviewed about their drawings. The results will be interpreted within the paradigms of the new sociology of childhood and playwork. These theories acknowledge the socially constructed nature of children and play, engage with children’s agency, and address the power dynamics that govern adult-child relations. This study does not aim to make predictable or generalizable findings. Instead, this study focuses on eliciting and expressing the opinions and worldviews of the children who participate. Expected results are that children conceptualize play in non-traditional ways that adults do not consider.

Celebrity and Presidential Targets

Stalking ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert T. M. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Celebrity Status ◽  
The Status ◽  
Unique Factor ◽  
The Mind

Celebrities have become targets of potentially violent stalkers who instill fear by their relentless pursuit and, in some reported cases, threatened risk of violence. Celebrity stalking may evolve to planned, often violent attacks on intentionally selected targets. The causes of these incidents are complex, and frequently involve delusional obsessions concerning a contrived relationship between the target and stalker. Similar dynamics can be at play for presidential stalkers. Becoming the focus of someone’s delusional obsession is a risk for anyone living in the public eye. Planned attacks by stalkers, however, are not confined to internationally prominent public officials and celebrities. Some of the same themes emerge on a more local level when public figures become the object of pursuit. Celebrity and presidential stalkers often do not neatly fit any of the typologies that have evolved to codify our understanding of the motivation and special characteristics of stalking. Clinicians are often unaware of a “zone of risk” that extends beyond the delusional love object and can lead to the injury of others in addition to the attempted or accomplished homicide of a celebrity or presidential target. Most people can resist the temptation to intrude on a celebrity’s privacy—celebrity stalkers do not. This chapter explores celebrity status, as seen by the public and in the mind of the would-be assailant, as a unique factor in stalking cases that raises issues of clinical relevance and unique typologies. Special attention is given to the behaviors and motivations of individuals who have stalked the presidents of the United States. Many celebrities become targets of stalkers who relentlessly pursue and frighten them and who, in some cases, threaten violence. Though each case of celebrity stalking is unique and complex, such incidents frequently involve delusional obsessions concerning the contrived relationship between the stalker and victim. Stalking is not confined solely to well-known figures, of course. However, it is the very nature of celebrity—the status and the visibility—that attracts the benign (if voyeuristic) attention of an adoring public and the ominous interest of the stalker. Obsessional following of celebrities is not a new phenomenon in the United States.

Race and Space

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-41
Author(s):  
Jodi Rios
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
Policies And Practices

This chapter traces the ways by which culture is used to produce, police, study, and represent blackness specifically in conjunction with racialized metropolitan space in the United States—the cultural politics of race and space. Cultural politics is the scaffold for modes of informal disciplining, and it establishes the conditions of possibility for formal policing. The chapter then outlines some of the contours of the cultural politics of race and space that are important for understanding the practices and phenomena in North St. Louis County. Because scholarship produces powerful discourses that reveal, obscure, and sanction violence in and through space, it also considers the ways in which culture, race, and space have been historically conflated in different spaces of scholarship. Ultimately, North County stands as a prime example of how blackness-as-risk has been deployed at a local level through cultural politics in order to differentiate and police bodies and space for profit through racist and “race-neutral” policies and practices.

Life Without Parole Sentencing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Seeds
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Life Without Parole ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State And Local

Life without parole sentencing refers to laws, policies, and practices concerning lifetime prison sentences that also preclude release by parole. While sentences to imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole have existed for more than a century in the United States, over the past four decades the penalty has emerged as a prominent element of U.S. punishment, routinely put to use by penal professionals and featured regularly in public discourse. As use of the death penalty diminishes in the United States, life without parole serves as the ultimate punishment in more and more U.S. jurisdictions. The scope with which states apply life without parole varies, however, and some states have authorized the punishment even for nonviolent offenses. More than a punishment serving purposes of retribution, crime control, and public safety, and beyond the symbolic functions of life without parole sentencing in U.S. culture and politics, life without parole is a lived experience for more than 50,000 prisoners in the United States. Life without parole’s increasing significance in the United States points to the need for further research on the subject—including studies that directly focus on how race and racial prejudice factor in life without parole sentencing, studies that investigate the proximate causes of life without parole sentences at the state and local level, and studies that examine the similarities and differences between life without parole, the death penalty, and de facto forms of imprisonment until death.

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