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Bunker Mentalities: The Shifting Imaginaries of Albania’s Fortified Landscape
No full textBetween 1967 and 1986, the Albanian government built an estimated 750,000 small and medium-sized military bunkers for defense purposes. These concrete constructions were spread across the country’s territory, with many concentrated along borders and beaches, in cities, and near key industries, strategic points, and transportation infrastructure. Long symbols of the communist regime, after it collapsed in 1991, the bunkers lost their purpose. As a result, both the narratives surrounding bunkers and their actual uses experienced significant transformations. Originally designed to control borders and instill fear in the population, bunkers have since been abandoned, destroyed, and graffitied, as might be expected. More notably, local entrepreneurs have transformed some bunkers into hotels or restaurants, while the state and non-profit organizations have turned others into commemorative sites that respectively glorify or expose the communist regime’s undertakings. Our ethnographic research into the discursive and material shifts to Albania’s fortified landscape, based on several field trips, interviews and investigations carried out between 2007 and 2017, identifies four contemporary “bunker mentalities” in Albania: indifference, derision, commodification, and commemoration
Borders and Sustainability in the Anthropocene
No full textIN BRIEF
Climate change is a global issue that requires global cooperation.
Despite this, contemporary international approaches to the climate crisis do the reverse by attempting to carve solutions into projects undertaken by nations within territorial boundaries.
Public policy needs to work through existing international bodies and empower them to address the global crisi
Healthy Neuroticism, Daily Physical Activity, and Daily Stress in Older Adults
No full textPeople are typically less physically active when experiencing stress, an unavoidable aspect of life. Since physical activity has been associated with health benefits, it is important to understand what influences physical activity during stress. Research has demonstrated that individuals who are high in conscientiousness are more physically active; however, studies that have examined physical activity among people high in neuroticism have yielded mixed findings. Healthy neuroticism, a term used to describe individuals high in conscientiousness and neuroticism, may explain these mixed results. While individuals low in conscientiousness and high in neuroticism may become overwhelmed, stress may motivate people high in healthy neuroticism to be physically active as an investment in their future. We assessed older adults’ (N = 60; Mage = 70.72; 76.70% cisgender women) personality at baseline as well as daily physical activity and daily stress over 14 days. Regression analyses investigated whether daily stress predicted daily physical activity and whether healthy neuroticism moderated the physical activity-stress association. Ultimately, this study found that daily stress did not predict daily physical activity; as stress increased, individuals higher in conscientiousness were less physically active, while individuals lower in conscientiousness were more active. These findings were inconsistent with our predictions and previous research. Consequently, we propose future research directions and potential explanations for these unforeseen findings
“A barbaric, elemental force”: The Liminal Role of the Eastern European Modern Girl in Western Culture
No full textThe Modern Girl was a feminine archetype that emerged in the early 1900s, challenging traditional gender roles and redefining racial boundaries. Particularly revealing of these dynamics is the case of the Eastern European Modern Girl, a figure who was characterized by her barbaric, primitive origins and ‘off-White’ racial status. This article seeks to investigate the construction of femininity and Whiteness in the interwar era through a comparative discourse analysis of two quintessential Modern Girls: Hollywood stars Pola Negri and Gilda Gray. It examines the ways in which each starlet’s ethnicity has been used to situate her as an exotic, racial Other. However, while Eastern European women were often exoticized and Othered, they could also be ideologically ‘Whitened’ through juxtaposition with members of more visibly racialized groups. This paper examines the ways in which Eastern European Modern Girls negotiated this unique position within the boundaries of femininity and, in doing so, argues that the social construction of Whiteness is fundamentally a relational process
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Arc of Crisis and the Origin of U.S. Involvement in Afghanistan
No full textZbigniew Brzezinski misrepresented Soviet motivations in their Afghan invasion to pursue his own geo-political agenda in the “arc of crisis” region that became a primary focus for the shift in strategic planning during the Carter administration. Based on State Department documents released in December 2018, in addition to former Soviet-era primary sources from the Cold War International History Project, the article describes how Brzezinski misread Soviet intentions and facilitated a response that later metastasized into something the U.S. could not control once the Reagan administration continued Carter’s arming of the most radical elements of the Afghan rebellion. Despite Brzezinski’s efforts to increase the U.S. footprint in the Middle East having such a consequential impact on American foreign policy during the past 40 years, scholars are only beginning to understand the full weight of these moves during the final years of the Carter administration
