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De-Stalinisation and Insubordination in the Soviet Borderlands: Beria’s Attempted National Reform in Soviet Belarus
Get PDFThis article examines the response of regional elites in Soviet Belarus to the new nationalities policy introduced by Lavrentii Beria in his bid for power after Stalin’s death in 1953. The scenario, which had successfully played out in Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, was resisted by Belarus, where Russian First Secretary Nikolai Patolichev remained in post, despite Moscow’s orders. A key role in this was played by the republic’s regional secretaries. Their unwillingness to denounce their patron highlighted the emerging importance of regional networks and set an important precedent for the post-Stalin relationship between Moscow and the ethnic periphery.</p
The Cultural and Spiritual Aspects of Growing Edible Plants: testing for meaningfulness in Leeds, UK
No full textThe Strategy of Tension:Understanding State Labelling Processes and Double-Binds
Get PDFCriminologists can enhance their theoretical grasp of their subject through an understanding of contemporary political economy because this provides insights into politics, crime and state policy within and across nation-states. Understanding how this plays out is very much part of the “research agenda for global crime” (Hall and Scalia 2019). In this article, we present a comparative study of European statecraft during the Cold War and today, noting the parallels and contrasts in the construction and demonization of the “enemies of thewest.” We present detailed analysis of how a “strategy of tension”—by which we mean the use of violent criminal actions by state agents to engender a climate of fear that blames the violence on a dangerous “public enemy”—was enacted by the secret services of the United States and the United Kingdom, in alliance with the Italian government, between 1946 and 1980, alongside some more fragmentary evidence of the way in which contemporary policies are framed around the “War on Terror,” forming the contours of a contemporary“strategy of tension.
A health literacy intervention to increase parental confidence to manage childhood illness and navigate services
No full textThe Problem: In the UK there are upward trends in GP consultation rates and Emergency Department (ED) total attendances, for adults and children, particularly 0-4-year olds. Young children often present with self-limiting minor illness. ‘Unnecessary attendance’ has resource implications for services and can be stressful for children and families. Socio-economic deprivation is associated with high GP consultation and ED attendance rates. Parents report anxiety around decisions on how to manage childhood illness and when to seek medical attention.The Approach: We report an evaluation of health literacy resources implemented in Wessex to support parents to manage minor childhood illness and navigate services. These ‘Healthier Together’ resources consist of a website and paper handouts available in children’s centres or from GPs/health professionals. We conducted 18 semi-structured interviews including a section in which respondents were asked to ‘think aloud’ as they read and navigated the resources. Data were transcribed and subject to thematic analysis.The Findings: Parents appreciated advice on ‘what to do when’ in cases of minor illness. Some gave examples of things done differently and several anticipated future behaviourchange. Suggestions for improvement included a need to simplify information and website navigation due to heightened parental anxiety when children are ill. Parents felt it was important for health professionals who introduce health resources to communicate in an unrushed and reassuring way. A small number of parents stated they struggled to understand the resources and some refused to participate in the evaluation because they were not confident to discuss ‘medical matters’ or felt their English was not good enough. These participants exhibited characteristics of lower health literacy linked to socio-economicdisadvantage.The Consequences: Health literacy resources offer potential to increase parental confidence to manage minor childhood illness. To address health inequalities, any additional support needs of parents with lower health literacy (for whom standard resources may be insufficient) must be investigated and responded to.These findings have led to a planned second phase of work to develop a health literacy intervention specifically for socially disadvantaged parents and carers designed to develop their health literacy as an asset that can empower them to care for their children’s and family’s health. The planned work will also be outlined in this presentation
The contribution of rat studies to contemporary knowledge of Major Depressive Disorder: Results from citation analysis
Get PDFMajor Depressive disorder (MDD) is the most severe depression type and one of leading causes of morbidity worldwide. Animal models are widely used to understand MDD etiology, pathogenesis and treatment, but the efficacy of this research for patients has barely been systematically evaluated. Such evaluation is important given the resource consumption and ethical concerns incurred by animal use. We used the citation tracking facilities within Web of Science and Scopus to locate citations of original research papers on rats related to MDD published prior to 2013- to allow adequate time for citations- identified in PubMed and Scopus by relevant search terms. Resulting citations were thematically coded in eight categories, and descriptive statistics were calculated.178 publications describing relevant rat studies were identified. They were cited 8,712 times. More than half (4,633) of their citations were by other animal studies. 794 (less than 10%) were by human medical papers.Citation analysis indicates that rat model research has contributed very little to the contemporary clinical understanding of MDD. This suggests a misuse of limited funding hence supporting a change in allocation of Research & Development funds targeting this disorder maximizing benefits for patients
Book review: How To Be An Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
No full textThis book locates racism as a product of racist power and thus of policy. It draws on the author’s personal and professional experiences to challenge the reduction of racism to personal actions and rejects the possibility of being “not racist”. Instead, one may either uphold racist policy or actively challenge it; this he terms “antiracist”. Kendi’s consequentialist understanding of racism and his deontological conception of antiracism raises some significant tensions between values and actions. Nevertheless, this book provides a timely and incisive challenge to our conceptions both of racism and ourselves
Overtourism: Causes, implications and solutions
No full textExplores best practices, tools and methods to combat overtourismProvides a critical view of overtourism, questioning whether it is a real phenomenon or whether it is driven by media attentionIncludes case studies of mass tourism in areas of Scotland, France and UNESCO heritage site
