Obligate Relationship Research Articles

Committed: Remembering Native Kinship in and beyond Institutions by Susan Burch (review)

Reviewed by: Committed: Remembering Native Kinship in and beyond Institutions by Susan Burch Brianna Theobald (bio) Committed: Remembering Native Kinship in and beyond Institutions by Susan Burch University of North Carolina Press, 2021 COMMITTED IS A SLIM VOLUME whose impact far surpasses its word count. On one level, Susan Burch tells a story known to historians of Native America and Indigenous studies scholars: Between 1902 and 1934, Bureau of Indian Affairs agents and other authorities arranged for the detainment of nearly four hundred Native Americans in a federal psychiatric asylum for Indians in Canton, South Dakota. In Burch's hands, however, this story reads differently. Burch decenters the institution and the individuals who ran it, instead focusing on the people who were involuntarily detained in Canton as well as their families and descendants. As the book's subtitle suggests, the history Committed tells is above all a story of kinship—how relatives cared for one another in the face of involuntary separation, how detained people enacted kinship within institutional walls, and how descendants maintained kinship obligations across generations and established new relationships in the process of honoring their ancestors' memory. Long singled out as the "only" institution of its kind, the Canton Asylum appears less exceptional in Burch's telling. When situated within the context of settler colonialism, Native American history, and individual lives, containment and institutionalization are not extraordinary but, to quote one chapter title, "Familiar." This reality is reflected in the book's structure and organization. Chapters one through four document Native individuals' and families' experiences with the Canton institution. As an institution intended to achieve the eugenic segregation of individuals deemed "defective," the Indian Asylum housed men, women, and occasionally children who were confined for reasons that extended beyond contemporary understandings of insanity. In the stories of individuals' varied paths to Canton, readers will recognize many struggles that characterized U.S.-Native relations in the early twentieth century: over sexuality, procreation, family, and conceptions of health, well-being, and healing. Similarly, the necessarily fragmented accounts of life within the institution reflect themes that also appear in scholarship on Indian boarding schools: surveillance, solitary confinement, involuntary servitude, sexualized violence, and death. Burch could perhaps make some connections between federal institutions even more explicit; an [End Page 150] endnote cites elders' recollections of having been threatened with transfer to Canton to ensure good behavior while attending boarding school. The book's final two chapters are especially original and powerful. Chapter 5 reiterates Canton's lack of singularity by tracing the trajectories of individuals' post-Canton lives—trajectories that reveal continuity with regard to confinement and institutionalization. After the death of her mother, Cora Winona Faribault, a child born at the Canton institution, lived in an orphanage, a boarding school, the homes of white families, and an institution for unwed mothers. When the Indian Asylum closed in 1934, some individuals were discharged and returned to their reservations, but most were transferred to a hospital in Washington, D.C., and some endured repeated transfers between federal institutions for the remainder of their lives. Unlike previous histories, this story does not end with the closure of a single institution; nor does it end with the deaths of those who were forced to live within that institution's walls. Chapter 6 demonstrates that the violence of incarceration echoes across generations. At the heart of this final chapter are the tribal historians and descendants who insist upon—to quote the chapter's one-word title—"Remembering," countering erasure through their presence, their stories, their artifacts, and their commemorations. This reviewer appreciates Burch's explicit engagement with the methodological and ethical questions that surround her project. Deeply rooted in both disability studies and Indigenous studies, Committed demands that scholars carefully consider which stories are told and how—and that scholars remain accountable for such decisions. The book begins with "A Note on Access," where Burch describes the steps she has taken to "cultivate access," including the use of "accessible language rather than technical terms to invite a wide range of readers" (xv). Readers may then be surprised to encounter terms like "transinstitutionalization" in the introduction, but such language is not found in the book's...

Transcriptome of Epibiont Saccharibacteria Nanosynbacter lyticus Strain TM7x During the Establishment of Symbiosis.

Saccharibacteria Nanosynbacter lyticus strain TM7x is a member of the broadly distributed candidate phylum radiation. These bacteria have ultrasmall cell sizes, have reduced genomes, and live as epibionts on the surfaces of other bacteria. The mechanisms by which they establish and maintain this relationship are not yet fully understood. The transcriptomes of the epibiont TM7x and its host bacteria Schaalia odontolytica strain XH001 were captured across the establishment of symbiosis during both the initial interaction and stable symbiosis. The results showed a dynamic interaction with large shifts in gene expression for both species between the initial encounter and stable symbiosis, notably in transporter genes. During stable symbiosis, the host XH001 showed higher gene expression for peptidoglycan biosynthesis, mannosylation, cell cycle and stress-related genes, whereas it showed lower expression of chromosomal partitioning genes. This was consistent with the elongated cell shape seen in XH001 infected with TM7x and our discovery that infection resulted in thickened cell walls. Within TM7x, increased pili, type IV effector genes, and arginine catabolism/biosynthesis gene expression during stable symbiosis implied a key role for these functions in the interaction. Consistent with its survival and persistence in the human microbiome as an obligate epibiont with reduced de novo biosynthetic capacities, TM7x also showed higher levels of energy production and peptidoglycan biosynthesis, but lower expression of stress-related genes, during stable symbiosis. These results imply that TM7x and its host bacteria keep a delicate balance in order to sustain an episymbiotic lifestyle. IMPORTANCE Nanosynbacter lyticus type strain TM7x is the first cultivated member of the Saccharibacteria and the candidate phyla radiation (CPR). It was discovered to be ultrasmall in cell size with a highly reduced genome that establishes an obligate epibiotic relationship with its host bacterium. The CPR is a large, monophyletic radiation of bacteria with reduced genomes that includes Saccharibacteria. The vast majority of the CPR have yet to be cultivated, and our insights into these unique organisms to date have been derived from only a few Saccharibacteria species. Being obligate parasites, it is unknown how these ultrasmall Saccharibacteria, which are missing many de novo biosynthetic pathways, are maintained at a high prevalence within the human microbiome as well as in the environment.

Detainee Transfers and the Principle of Non-refoulement in Relation to ‘Non-belligerent Supporting States’ in Non-international Armed Conflicts

Abstract In the past 20 years, many States have purposefully shifted away from taking detainees in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) and have instead relied on partner forces—both State and non-State actors—to take responsibility for any NIAC detainees. The question this article seeks to address is to what extent ‘non-belligerent supporting States’ have obligations to ensure that detainee transfers by partners comport with the principle of non-refoulement, by which a person may not be transferred if they are at a real (or substantial) risk of a violation of their fundamental rights. The authors explore several legal approaches to better understand how a non-belligerent supporting State may incur legal obligations in relation to detainee transfers through the support it provides. The article first examines how support triggers belligerent status (and thus belligerent obligations) under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and tackles to what extent non-belligerent supporting States may incur legal obligations under IHL more generally, noting the gap between the rules of International Armed Conflict and NIACs in this respect. Secondly, specific obligations non-belligerent States may incur with respect to the principle of non-refoulement in relation to detainee transfers by a belligerent party during a NIAC are identified. Finally, the authors examine three categories of support—logistics/transportation support, intelligence sharing, and belligerent-party-to-non-belligerent-party detainee transfers—to demonstrate how varying degrees of support by non-belligerent States in the context of a NIAC could trigger the obligations to ensure respect of the prohibition against non-refoulement by belligerent partners through the auspices of Common Article 1. The article concludes that while Common Article 1 obligations indeed arise in these scenarios, the scope of the external or positive obligations of Common Article 1 are still unsettled under IHL and thus require further development to create a common understanding of the international legal obligations to avoid the violation of the principle of non-refoulement by partner forces.

Opieka konsularna nad polskimi emigrantami sezonowymi na Łotwie w latach 1928–1939

The interwar Polish state was plagued by many social and economic problems. Among them were unemployment and poverty. The problem of surplus of labor in the Polish countryside coincided with the dynamic development of agriculture in the Latvian state. As a result, thousands of Polish farmers went to Latvia to work in local agriculture. Emigration from Poland to Latvia was seasonal. In the years 1928-1939, over 100,000 Poles passed through Latvian agriculture. The Polish consulates in Riga and Daugavpils took care of these emigrants. These consulates could not complain about the lack of work. In particular, related obligations were imposed on the Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Riga, which looked after the largest number of Polish economic emigrants. Consulates defended the interests of emigrants in situations of disputes with Latvian employers. A characteristic feature of Polish seasonal emigration to Latvia was that it mainly consisted of rural youth who had never left their hometown before. This required the Polish authorities to pay special attention to the issue of caring for these people. Therefore, consular offices tried to take care of the image of emigrants and influence their behavior as well as moral and national attitudes.

All essential endosymbionts of the ciliate Euplotes are cyclically replaced

Symbiotic systems vary in the degree to which the partners are bound to each other1. At one extreme, there are intracellular endosymbionts in mutually obligate relationships with their host, often interpreted as mutualistic. The symbiosis between the betaproteobacterium Polynucleobacter and the ciliate Euplotes (clade B) challenges this view2: although freshwater Euplotes species long ago became dependent on endosymbionts, the many extant Polynucleobacter lineages they harbour arose recently and in parallel from different free-living ancestors2. The host requires the endosymbionts for reproduction and survival3, but each newly established symbiont is ultimately driven to extinction in a cycle of establishment, degeneration, and replacement. Similar replacement events have been observed in sap-feeding insects4-6, a model for bacteria-eukaryote symbioses7, but usually only affect a small subset of the host populations. Most insects retain an ancient coevolving symbiont, suggesting that long-term mutualism and permanent integration remain the rule and symbiont turnovers are mere evolutionary side-stories. Here we show that this is not the case for Euplotes. We examined all known essential Euplotes symbionts and found that none are ancient or coevolving; rather, all are recently established and continuously replaced over relatively short evolutionary time spans, making the symbiosis ancient for the host but not for any bacterial lineage.

PERSONAL NON-PROPERTY RELATIONSHIPS OF THE STEP-FATHER AND STEPSON: IN SEARCH OF LEGAL ENTITIES

The problem of personal non-property relations that arise in a consolidated or remarried family with the participation of a stepfather/stepmother and a stepson/stepdaughter is rarely studied in the legal literature. Schematic approaches have been adopted in Russian familistics, suggesting the legal imposition of legal rights and obligations on the stepfather, by analogy with legal parents. In the Kazakh science of family law, this problem is not even touched upon. Turning to it, the authors of the article seek to substantiate the appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches to its study. Turning to it, the authors of the article seek to substantiate the appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches to its study. The original author's idea is based on the fact that personal non-property rights and obligations in family law do not arise either from parents or other family members "on their own". The grounds for this are named only by the law, establishing for this purpose the rules for recognition by parents. The current legislation of Russia and Kazakhstan does not provide for other grounds, except for the recognition of persons as parents by law, for establishing legal rights and obligations in relation to a child. Scientific attempts to legally impose legal rights and obligations on the stepfather are not consistent with this legislative maxim and contradict it. This author's judgment serves as a methodological guideline for future research on personal non-property relations between a stepfather and stepson, prejudging the involvement of other legal tools in its scientific description, which is based on dispositive regulation. Such are conciliatory and voluntary acts with the participation of the stepfather and the legal parents of the child, whose personal non-property rights and obligations in relation to the child do not cease after the breakup of their marriage. This approach does not eliminate the relationship between the stepfather and stepson of the non-resident parent from the study and does not raise the problem of the competition of the rights of these persons in relations with the child.

Review: The Materiality of Architecture and Metamorphism: Material Change in Architecture

Review: <i>The Materiality of Architecture</i> and <i>Metamorphism: Material Change in Architecture</i>

Hutcheson in the History of Rights

Francis Hutcheson's An Inquiry Into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, published in 1725, arguably contains the first broadly utilitarian theory of rights ever formulated. In this essay, I argue that, despite its subtlety, there are crucial lacunae in Hutcheson's theory. One of the most important, which Mill seeks to repair, is that his theory of rights lacks a conceptually necessary companion, namely, a corollary account of obligation. Hutcheson has no theory of fully deontic obligations, much less an account of the relational obligations that, as Hohfeld famously argued, are the conceptually necessary correlates of claim rights of the kind Hutcheson wishes to theorise. Like Hume, Hutcheson subversively redefines ‘obligation’ as a motive of self-interest or the approval of morally good motives by moral sense (Hume's ‘natural obligation’ and ‘moral obligation’, respectively). This leaves Hutcheson without any account of the obligations that are the necessary correlates of claim rights. Mill does significantly better on this score but ends up giving a pragmatic ‘reason of the wrong kind’ for rights and obligations. Hutcheson thus begins a line of thought shown by him to have been powerless to ground rights without independent deontic premises from the start.

Perception Of Physical Therapist Of Lahore Regarding Ethical Issues In Clinical Practice; A Cross Sectional Study

Ethics are broad range of thinking about expressional interdependence behaviors of human being and about situational balance between right and wrong as moral duty. Objective: The purpose of this study was to figure out ethical issues in clinical practice of physical therapy practice. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted at various clinical setups in Lahore enrolling practicing physical therapists via non-probability convenience sampling technique. A sample of 249 physical therapists was extracted using sample size calculator (Confidence interval 95%). Participants were selected on the basis of inclusion criteria and responses were recorded using self-structured questionnaire whose content validity was assessed using Lynn, M.R (1986) method. The questionnaire consisted of set of opinions regarding multidimensional aspects of ethics in patient care. The data was analyzed by SPSS version 20. The analysis was based on descriptive statistics such as frequency percentages and measures of central tendency and standard deviation. The multiple responses were calculated regarding collective opinions. Results: Demographics of the participants were expressed in frequency and percentages. The results showed that professional ethics were learned by 174(70.7%) respondents during physical therapy course, by 38 (15.4%) via internet and by 34(13.8%) by other sources. On average, most of the responses regarding awareness, obligation and inter-professional relationship were reported as moderate to minimum. Conclusions: The study concluded that perception and opinions of physical therapists regarding ethical issues garnered only moderate to minimum concern about clinical practice. However, they identified a huge gap and lack of coordination with other health professional in clinical facility.

Avoiding Hardship, Deflecting Conflict: From Fostering to Reluctant Relatives among World-Connected Bamiléké Families (Cameroon)

In 1982, Esther Goody demonstrated the importance of child fostering for social reproduction. Why, in the 2010s and 2020s, does the idea of child fostering remain a valorized expression of “African solidarity” when so many Bamiléké simultaneously retreat—even recoil—from engaging in this practice? Bamiléké parents replace fostering, once praised for promoting resilience, with concerted cultivation. This contribution explores how changes in kinship and class formation contribute to the decline of child fostering among transnationally-connected middle-class Bamiléké in Cameroon and in several of its international diasporas. It presents two contrasting emic ideals regarding the who and the how of good parenting, employing sharply distinct notions of kinscription—or which kin should be responsible for which aspects of childrearing—and of the role of hardship in child development. Three further case stories, from the perspectives of fostered children and foster parents, illustrate exemplars that influence new norms and debates regarding child fostering, kinship obligations, and good parenting that emerged during the early 21st century. The multiplicity of ideas regarding responsible parenthood generates conflict, which many Bamiléké parents seek to avoid by becoming reluctant relatives. New orientations toward parenting demonstrate that parenting and parenthood reflect and contribute to social inequality.

Assessment of the evidence in the decision – making process during judicial investigation

The criminal process manifests a staged character, and each of the phases of the process aims at solving certain issues and ends with the adoption of appropriate solutions. The assessment of the evidence at the stage of filing the criminal case shows interest, as this lays the foundations of the activity of the judicial body for the next stage. The judicial inquiry is the central part of the trial in the first instance. During the judicial investigation, the parties may administer evidence and the judicial body has a number of obligations in relation to the assessment of evidence. In order to find out the truth in the criminal case, the judicial body will assess all the evidence in the case.

At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. by Tamika Y. Nunley

Reviewed by: At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. by Tamika Y. Nunley Elizabeth Wood At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. By Tamika Y. Nunley. The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. xvi, 254. Paper, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-6222-0; cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-6221-3.) Scholars studying African American women before the Civil War have long documented their resistance to slavery and racism but have found it more difficult to elucidate their intimate and interior worlds. In this first study of African American women living in Washington, D.C., from the city's founding through the Civil War, Tamika Y. Nunley draws on a rich body of evidence to reveal clues about how they envisioned their lives beyond slavery and circumscribed freedom. Nunley uses the concept of self-making to examine ways these individuals sought to "define and preserve a sense of self in a society that supported a narrow definition of what it meant to be a black woman" (p. 2). [End Page 378] She argues that navigation was critical to processes of self-making, as women made calculated as well as improvised choices to traverse the sometimes vast physical and ideological distances between their circumstances and their imagined selves. African American women did not achieve equality, even after emancipation, but Nunley demonstrates how their ceaseless claims to liberty in the nation's capital challenge what we know about enslaved women's resistance and laid the foundations for continued self-fashioning and activism after the Civil War. Nunley uncovers an impressive array of women's experiences as she carefully examines federal and municipal records, financial transactions, newspaper articles and advertisements, diaries and private correspondence, and even the words of Black schoolgirls. Though the city was founded to govern a nation shaped by the highest ideals of liberty, African American women's labor was crucial to Washington's early growth; and the nature of urban slavery there, along with a burgeoning slave market, created immense unpredictability through kidnapping, sale, and hiring practices. Nevertheless, enslaved women made the District of Columbia contested terrain as they "carved out pathways of escape" and asserted their identities through practices such as self-naming (p. 42). Other women turned to the courts to pursue their visions of freedom, demonstrating their understandings of kin and community, even as navigating the courts became increasingly complicated. Free African American communities emphasized educating girls to understand moral virtue as a weapon against stereotypes assigned to Black women and as an "expression of racial progress" (p. 106). Outside the middling classes, women turned to economic self-making in the street by more openly engaging in prostitution and leisure culture during the chaos of the Civil War—a practice both lucrative and perilous. Throughout, Nunley reminds readers that claiming liberty was no easy feat, even as emancipation laws were passed, but that Black women articulated their understanding of rights as they transitioned from enslavement to citizenship. Nunley provides nuance and correction to existing scholarship on antebellum Black women and girls. She carefully outlines the parameters of enslavement in the district and cautions us not to overstate the flexibility of urban slavery, since Black women's work as domestics placed them in the intimate spaces of white control. Nunley challenges the understanding that kin obligations prevented enslaved women from taking flight by showing how networks of relatives and friends inspired and facilitated running away. Her chapter on education for African American girls in a slaveholding city adds to a growing body of work on antebellum Black childhood and demonstrates an early community commitment to racial uplift that both shaped girls' self-understandings and prepared them for white hostility to their achievement. Finally, Nunley emphasizes that just as restrictive laws could have limited scope, so could beneficial ones. In the face of enormous obstacles, African American women claimed citizenship and challenged "the notion that liberty stopped at legal emancipation" by growing their institutions and building new ones dedicated to the expansion of freedom (p. 187). At the Threshold...

Gender and Caste: The Politics of Embodied Spatial Negotiations in Rural Odisha, India

Drawing from fieldwork on frontline health workers in villages in the state of Odisha, India, this paper critically interrogates the complex ways in which frontline health workers negotiate between their intersecting gender and caste identities and their roles as modern professionals at the village level. It argues that the embodied identities of these frontline health workers become crucial in shaping other villagers’ views on their labour. Frontline health workers from caste Hindu communities often claim that the spatial demarcation between public and private becomes a way out in resolving the conflicting demands posed by their professional roles and kinship obligations regarding caste practices. However, contrary to this claim, this article argues that such a neat demarcation of space remains unsettled in practice.

Emerging Adults’ Discursive Construction of Work/Partnership Boundary Strategies

During emerging adulthood, a central work/life challenge is the simultaneous negotiation of work and romantic involvements. The present study employed Relational Dialectics Theory 2.0 (RDT 2.0) to examine college-enrolled emerging adults’ communicative sensemaking about work/partnership boundary strategies. Interviews with 28 emerging adults were analyzed using contrapuntal analysis. Segmentation strategies – such as limiting or compartmentalizing relational obligations – were constructed both as pragmatic means to advance individualistic pursuits, and as a form of temporary sacrifice for long-term relational viability. Integration strategies were rendered meaningful through the lens of enrichment, whereby the “right” romantic partner enables individuals’ occupational development and ideal worker performance.

Legal relations arising when concluding public agreements: types and legal nature

The article is devoted to the definition of the nature of legal relations that develop during the conclusion of public contracts. The author examines these legal relationships and reveals absolute and relative legal relationships that arise when concluding public contracts. The meaning and legal consequences of the obligation to conclude them are determined. The judgments expressed in science, according to which, prior to the commencement of the procedure for concluding a public contract between a person engaged in entrepreneurial or other income-generating activities, and the other party, there is an absolute obligation are critically evaluated. The inadmissibility of the idea that the abovementioned person does not have an obligation to conclude a public contract at all, and the action of article 426 of the Civil Code should be qualified as a reflexive action of law, is recognized as unacceptable. It is proved that the obligation relationship certainly arises within the framework of the construction of a public contract, but not from the moment the obligation arises to conclude it, but from the moment of the onset of a special legal fact the appeal of a specific consumer.

Dark tourism intentions: moderating effect of xenophobia

ABSTRACT This study examines the determinants of visitors’ intentions to visit places associated with death, sufferings and violence. The relationships of dark tourism intention with each of its determinants were tested for the moderating impact of xenophobia. The study utilizes survey of 581 visitors of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, India. The findings of SmartPLS (v.3.2.8) suggested that commemoration, knowledge, curiosity and social obligation significantly influenced dark tourism intentions. The moderating impact of xenophobia was significant on commemoration and social obligation relationship with dark tourism intentions. Nevertheless, xenophobia did not play any role in affecting the relationship of either curiosity or knowledge with dark tourism intentions. The study concludes with several implications, limitations and future scope of research.

Improving the Efficiency of State Support for Agricultural Producers: Legal Issues

The article discusses the measures of state support for agricultural producers, among which a special place is occupied by subsidies provided in various areas. Based on the analysis of judicial practice, the difficulties of a legal nature that farmers, agricultural organizations, agricultural consumer cooperatives face when receiving such support are revealed. Firstly, regional legislation provides for the return of a subsidy not only because of its misuse, but also in case of violation of related obligations that have an indirect impact on the creation and functioning of agricultural producers (violation of the terms of spending, provision of false information when receiving a grant, etc.). It is proposed in the regional regulatory legal acts for non-compliance with the obligations associated with the intended use that arise in connection with the receipt of a subsidy by an agricultural producer, to replace such a measure of responsibility as the return of grant funds for penalties. Secondly, in the event of an unlawful refusal of the regional Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation to issue a subsidy. It is proposed to recognize such a subsidy as a loss in the form of lost profits in order to recover it in a civil law order and to make appropriate changes to Art. 78 of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation. The solution of the identified problems will contribute to the development of sectors and sub-sectors of agriculture, will positively affect the food security of the Russian Federation.

Of Cockroaches and Symbionts: Recent Advances in the Characterization of the Relationship between Blattella germanica and Its Dual Symbiotic System.

Mutualistic stable symbioses are widespread in all groups of eukaryotes, especially in insects, where symbionts have played an essential role in their evolution. Many insects live in obligate relationship with different ecto- and endosymbiotic bacteria, which are needed to maintain their hosts’ fitness in their natural environment, to the point of even relying on them for survival. The case of cockroaches (Blattodea) is paradigmatic, as both symbiotic systems coexist in the same organism in two separated compartments: an intracellular endosymbiont (Blattabacterium) inside bacteriocytes located in the fat body, and a rich and complex microbiota in the hindgut. The German cockroach Blattella germanica is a good model for the study of symbiotic interactions, as it can be maintained in the laboratory in controlled populations, allowing the perturbations of the two symbiotic systems in order to study the communication and integration of the tripartite organization of the host–endosymbiont–microbiota, and to evaluate the role of symbiotic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in host control over their symbionts. The importance of cockroaches as reservoirs and transmission vectors of antibiotic resistance sequences, and their putative interest to search for AMPs to deal with the problem, is also discussed.

Unplanned links, unanticipated outcomes: Urban refugees in Halba (Lebanon)

Much of the literature covering forced population displacement has neglected spatial implications, dealing with place as mere context. Building on a case study of the city of Halba (Lebanon) where it maps a process of contingent encounters through which disparate resources, individuals, and groups are stitched together to generate large-scale housing projects that shelter refugees, this paper demonstrates the importance of studying displacement through a grounded reading of the spatial transformations it implicates. The paper maps multiple private and public actors who exploit cracks and connect seemingly disparate material flows (e.g., humanitarian aid, public housing subsidies) and institutional systems (e.g., humanitarian, public, private, religious) in ways that catalyze and accelerate the production of housing in order to derive profit from the opportunities afforded by the refugee crisis. Thus, developers, buyers, residents, brokers, public agents, and other actors all support a flow of informal profitable exchanges that are far from seamless economic transactions, mixing instead capitalist profiteering with human solidarity, religious morality, or kinship obligations that all buttress the possibility of these encounters and their materialization into new configurations of urban quarters. The arrangements formed through these processes, the paper shows, are strongly reflective of existing social hierarchies and inequalities.

NOTES ON THE ASSIGNMENT OF CONTRACT IN THE NEW ROMANIAN CIVIL CODE

Reduced to its basic functioning, the legal operation of assignment of contract implies a global transfer of the contractual position of one party, assignor, from a contract concluded with the ceded contractor, to a third party, assignee. If the legal operation as such does not seem to raise complications, it was an object of dispute in Romanian civil law even before the New Romanian Civil Code in force since 2011, considering the personal nature of the obligation relationship, especially with regard to the passive element of the obligation. Considering the debates around this topic in the legal doctrine of the Romanian Civil Code of 1864 and following certain arguments advanced in French civil law, the New Romanian Civil Code explicitly recognizes the assignment of contract as a distinct legal figure with specific effects in Articles 1315-1320. This article intends to analyse the legal regime of the assignment of contract, from the debates in the legal doctrine around this topic in both Romanian and other legal systems to the specific legal provisions which address the assignment of contract, starting with the notion of assignment of contract, the form of the assignment, the moment in which the assignment occurs, the effects the transfer has on the assignor, the legal exceptions which can be formulated by the ceded contractor and the warranty obligations of the assignor.