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Britain and the Iraq War
No full textThe invasion of Iraq commenced on 18 March 2003, with the bombing of Iraqi targets by the US, the UK, Australia, Poland, Spain, Italy and Denmark. However, this Bibliography covers the period from the summer of 2001 to July 2016, when the Report (the Chilcot Report) of the UK’s Iran Inquiry was finally published, and also presents some more recent scholarly reflections. The Chilcot Report itself considered the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, when UK forces left Southern Iraq. This Bibliography therefore starts with the Chilcot Report, with key references, and some scholarly reflections on its significance. As will be explained, the Report is a treasure trove of documents and analysis, and turned out to be much more hard-hitting than had been anticipated. Second, attention is drawn to two key major works of reference: the 2005 journal article by Gerry Simson, and the 2010 monograph by Marc Weller. Prior to March 2003, it had been widely anticipated that there would be military action against Iraq by the US and its allies, but that such action would be motivated by the “Bush doctrine” of pre-emptive action, namely the use of force, announced by President Bush on 1 June 2002. So the third section pays attention to the pre-2003 scholarly literature to this effect, including a Symposium which went to press just as the military action commenced. To the surprise of almost all commentators, the US and UK, despite having failed to secure authorisation from the UN Security Council, did advance a legal justification, which was in itself a relief for supporters of the UN and the international rule of law. But the US and UK did not rely on pre-emptive self-defence, but rather on the argument that the authorisation of use of force (“all necessary means”), in UN Security Council Resolution 678 of 29 November 1990 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, had been revived, or was still operative, despite UNSC Resolution 687 of 3 April 1991 on the ceasefire. The fourth section reviews the relevant literature. Finally, references are given for some of the more significant literature on the consequences of the invasion. The majority of scholars have concluded the invasion and its incompetent follow-up are a direct cause of the rise of Daesh (“Islamic State”), the continued turmoil in Iraq, and the ongoing conflict in Syria. Attention then turns to violations of the International Law of Armed Conflict and International Human Rights Law, and finally to the longer term consequences of the invasion
Locating the Mediterranean: connections and separations across space and time
Get PDFBook synopsis: Until today, anthropological studies of locality have taken primary interest in local subjects leading local lives in local communities. Through a shift of conceptual emphasis from locality to location, the present volume departs from previous preoccupations with identity and belonging. Instead, Locating the Mediterranean brings together ethnographic examinations of processes that make locations and render them meaningful. In doing so, it stimulates debates on the interplay between location and region-making in history as well as anthropology.
The volume’s deeply empirical contributions illustrate how historical, material, legal, religious, economic, political, and social connections and separations shape the experience of being located in the geographical space commonly known as the Mediterranean region. Drawing from research in Melilla, Lampedusa, Istanbul, Nefpaktos/Lepanto, Tunisia, Beirut, Marseille, and elsewhere, the volume articulates location through the overlapping and incorporation of multiple social and historical processes.
Individual contributions are linked by the pursuit to rethink the conceptual frames deployed to study the Mediterranean region. Together, the volume’s chapters challenge strict geopolitical renderings of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and suggest how the ‘Mediterranean’ can function as a meaningful anthropological and historical category if the notion of ‘location’ is reinvigorated and conceptualised anew
Kitsch, Schlock and Camp
Get PDFSchlock horror is excessive, gore-filled, aiming for great effects and intense emotions. It might harbor pretentions to deadly seriousness, but cannot achieve its aim. It usually fails, because something rings untrue, too silly, be it the acting, the scriptwriting, the sets, the too-bright red blood. Schlocky horror has long been a part of the genre, but its presence waxes and wanes across time, according to technological demands within the culture industry or vagaries of fashion. Reversals occur. Artworks that were designed more or less earnestly might come to be seen as schlocky, while artworks designed to become cult objects of bad taste might find themselves elevated into the zone of high art. Any consideration of schlock benefits from an assessment of the longer history of its associated (anti)-aesthetic terms: kitsch and camp – in order to discern how various cultural critics have derived social and political and other meaning from what are often disdained productions
The Inextinguishable
No full textJackson and Leslie’s collaborative publication The Inextinguishable is an ongoing exploration of milk, long associated with Golden Vein. Milk is a primal fluid, identified with care – yet it’s sensational qualities are captured by science in bio-political skeins of big data analysis in Ireland and internationally to make it one of the most technologized fluids on the planet.
Please email [email protected] with subject line ‘Subscribe to The Inextinguishable’ to request a free copy including full name and postal address
A Somers Town Companion
No full textThe uncertainty of the pandemic has become an everyday state of being. Seeking comfort has taken many forms – we may turn to the solace of a book, listen to music, or a podcast. As we journey through these unprecedented times, we have looked to the potential of companionship, envisaged as standing side by side. In the meantime… acts not as a guide or map, but instead runs parallel to the public.
Without predetermining the narrative that the programme will explore, we wish to leave space for the fluidity of storytelling, rather than appropriating this knowledge or experience as our own. We have invited contributors to contemplate small moments of exchange that speak to moments missed and moments that have remained in the area between Somers Town in North West London and neighbouring Camden Art Centre.
In the meantime… is a directory, an interactive PDF and a collection of sound recordings
Infants expect agents to minimize the collective cost of collaborative actions
Get PDFThis paper argues that human infants address the challenges of optimizing, recognizing, and interpreting collaborative behaviors by assessing their collective efficiency. This hypothesis was tested by using a looking-time study. Fourteen-month-olds (N = 32) were familiarized with agents performing a collaborative action in computer animations. During the test phase, the looking times were measured while the agents acted with various efficiency parameters. In the critical condition, the agents’ actions were individually efficient, but their combination was either collectively efficient or inefficient. Infants looked longer at test events that violated expectations of collective efficiency (p = .006, d = 0.79). Thus, preverbal infants apply expectations of collective efficiency to actions involving multiple agents
The political economy of industrial strategy in the UK: Craig Berry and Julie Froud in discussion with Suzanne J. Konzelmann and Scott Lavery
Get PDFRelationship between working conditions and psychological distress experienced by junior doctors in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional survey study
Get PDFObjectives This paper explored the self-reported prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress among junior doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reports the association between working conditions and psychological distress experienced by junior doctors.
Design A cross-sectional online survey study was conducted, using the 21-item Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale and Health and Safety Executive scale to measure psychological well-being and working cultures of junior doctors.
Setting The National Health Service in the UK.
Participants A sample of 456 UK junior doctors was recruited online during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 to January 2021.
Results Junior doctors reported poor mental health, with over 40% scoring extremely severely depressed (45.2%), anxious (63.2%) and stressed (40.2%). Both gender and ethnicity were found to have a significant influence on levels of anxiety. Hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis outlined the specific working conditions which significantly predicted depression (increased demands (β=0.101), relationships (β=0.27), unsupportive manager (β=−0.111)), anxiety (relationships (β=0.31), change (β=0.18), demands (β=0.179)) and stress (relationships (β=0.18), demands (β=0.28), role (β=0.11)).
Conclusions The findings illustrate the importance of working conditions for junior doctors’ mental health, as they were significant predictors for depression, anxiety and stress. Therefore, if the mental health of junior doctors is to be improved, it is important that changes or interventions specifically target the working environment rather than factors within the individual clinician
Procedural justice in the courts
No full textIn this review Dr Amy Kirby and Professor Jessica Jacobson from the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research (ICPR) at Birkbeck, University of London, examine ‘procedural justice’ in the courts. Procedural justice concerns the treatment of members of the public by those in positions of power within the criminal justice system, such as police officers, prison officers and court officials. According to procedural justice theory, members of the public who experience fair decision-making and considerate and inclusive treatment are more likely to accept the outcomes of the criminal justice processes in which they are involved and to regard the justice system as legitimate.
This review covers a wide range of issues including:
• What procedural justice means
• Why procedural justice matters
• The limitations of procedural justice
• Emerging evidence on procedural justice in the courts
• Practical steps for enhancing procedural justice in the courts, based on real-life examples from our own research
Home and the city
No full textThis chapter develops a critical geography of urban homes and the city as home. Building on Chapter 3’s focus on home on a domestic scale, encompassing home, housing, and households and the normative values of ‘homeliness’ often attributed to suburban homes, we consider homemaking in the city. We explore urban politics and processes that shape urban homes and homemaking; the ways in which cities and urban life can be understood in relation to the homes and domestic life within them; and the idea of the city itself as home. Following Blunt and Sheringham (2019), we argue that the study of home should extend beyond the domestic dwelling and/or interior to consider the context in which urban homes are located – including housing estates, streets, neighbourhoods, and the wider city – and that the study of home is crucial to understand what it means to live in the city. Whilst we refer to examples of urban homes throughout the book, this chapter focuses on the ways in which the material and imaginative geographies of home and the city have been understood and experienced in relation to each other. Throughout the chapter we address the intersections of identity and power and the multi-scalarity of home through the mutually constitutive relationships between home on urban and domestic scales. We do so by exploring ‘urban domesticities’ (homemaking and ‘unmaking’ [Baxter and Brickell 2014] in the city), ‘domestic urbanism’ (the city as home), and the ‘home-city geographies’ that connect the two (Blunt and Sheringham 2019; see Box 4.1 on urban rooms with a view). Reflecting the ways in which urban homes and the ability to feel at home in the city are shaped by migrations and other mobilities, we also explore the ways in which home and the city – and urban dwelling and mobility – are intertwined (see Chapter 6 for more on home, migration, and diaspora)
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