Zones Of Exclusion Research Articles

Inventraset assemblages: The spatial logic of informal street vending, transport and settlement

Urban informality remains a central challenge for those engaged in understanding and transforming global South cities. There have been calls to develop new conceptual language geared to this challenge and much debate around the degree to which it might be subsumed within global urban theory. We argue that theories of informal urbanism need to be grounded in an understanding of how it works to sustain livelihoods, moving beyond studies of informal settlement, street vending and transport to understand the synergies, interrelations and interdependencies between them. Informal vending and transport provide employment and produce cheap goods and mobility; informal settlement produces affordable housing in key locations with access and mobility. ‘Inventraset’ is a portmanteau concept that links informal vending, transport and settlement into a dynamic urban assemblage that is inventive, transgressive and settled. This model is demonstrated through an empirical study of the spatial logic of the inventraset triangle within the megacities of Manila and Jakarta. Here the informal is normal, whether displayed in the intensities of transit nodes and street markets or camouflaged within zones of exclusion. This is not an ‘informal city’ but one where informal street vending, transport and settlement are geared to formal spatial and governance structures in different ways in different neighbourhoods − an assemblage of informal/formal and of vending/transport/settlement without which the urban economy would collapse. This is a call not simply to rename the informal but to understand it as a mode of production that is more than the inverse of the formal.

Democracy and Inclusive Education Policy in Post-1994 South African Schools: Goal, Tension, and Struggle

Globally, the idea of inclusive democracy is synonymous with the participation, deliberation, and representation of citizens in the management of the affairs of nation-states. In the light of this global picture, South Africa's constitutional democracy and its inclusive education policy ensure the right to education for school-going children (from foundation, to the intermediate and senior phases). Unfortunately, the zones of exclusion (i.e. difficulties to exercise the right to education) have shown that in post-apartheid South African schools, inclusive education gains have not been enjoyed by the intended recipients-the learners. This means that despite the formalisation of inclusive education policies by the state, substantive inclusion (i.e. active participation, deliberative engagement, and participatory representation) remains a distant dream for many school-going children in South Africa. Against this backdrop, the authors show that formal inclusive policy in schools in South Africa is split between social changes on one hand, and political democracy on the other. Consequently, the authors support the call for a continual struggle by (or for) educable learners who fall within the zones of exclusion in post-1994 South Africa. Ultimately, the authors argue that the realisation of substantive inclusive education depends on the protests of the excluded, who struggle in the interstices of zones of exclusion that have created and deepened the gulf between the ideal and the achievement because democratic inclusive education is at a crossroad; it is extended and dragged in opposite directions in post-1994 South Africa schools.

PiS’s Biopolitical Sovereignty vis-à-vis Brussels’ ‘Gender Ideology’: The LGBTIQ Issue on the Eve of the 2023 Polish General Election

ABSTRACT On the eve of the 2023 Polish general election, the conflict between the incumbent PiS (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość – Law and Justice) party and the European Union on the LGBTIQ issue can be framed as a clash of two biopolitical projects – the EU’s (which follows democratic principles and refers to LGBTIQ rights as human rights) and Poland’s (which accepts the EU’s paradigm of human rights but tries to establish its own biopolitical vision of the LGBTIQ community) – that went through four stages. At each stage, PiS created new zones of biopolitical exclusion: normative, in a kind of ‘biopolitical conservatism’; spatial, as in the case of the establishment of ‘LGBT-free zones’; and legislative, such as issuing the Charters of Family Rights and opening court cases against the LGBTIQ community. The ‘battle’ between Brussels and Warsaw, which resulted in the adoption of the European Commission-Poland Partnership Agreement 2021-27, can be a demonstration of the power of the EU against illiberal backlashes. Yet this ‘war’ is hardly close to an end. Brussels’ criticism of PiS’s anti-LGBTIQ policy has not led the incumbent party to abandon its anti-LGBTIQ agenda during the election campaign but has rather brought nuance to it.

Zones of educational exclusion of out-of-school youth

This study provides new evidence on bottlenecks of progression across six zones of exclusion from primary to secondary education for out-of-school youth of five poorer countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Senegal) using the recent out-of-school assessment from PISA-D. We also investigate whether these barriers have gendered dimensions and which policies can boost progression. We find that barriers have differential impacts across exclusion zones, with low parental education and involvement in education and local language being leading determinants, and some of these barriers having a larger impact on girls. We also find that policies linking financial support to attendance, raising teaching quality and tackling discrimination push up youth cohorts to top zones of exclusion, thereby allowing them to gain more education.

Transforming Zones of Exclusion to Zones of Inclusion? Local-Level UN Peacekeeping Deployments and Educational Attainment

Abstract Higher educational attainment levels are associated with better public health outcomes, lower levels of income inequality, more participation in democratic instructions, and safer communities. Promoting education in war-torn societies can have an immediate impact in mitigating violence and play a significant role in preventing conflict recurrence. This study investigates UN peacekeeping missions’ role in this process, positing that UN deployments to locations experiencing armed conflict lead to higher levels of educational attainment by increasing local stability, incentivizing individuals to return to school while also making renewed investment worthwhile. Testing this logic using new data on local-level educational attainment across Africa from 2000 to 2014, this study finds that conflict zones where the UN maintained peacekeeping deployments saw an increase in educational attainment when compared to those that did not, a finding corroborated by coarsened exact matching. Maintaining a modest number of UN forces is shown to increase female attainment by at least 4.89 percent and reduce gender disparity by 5.13 percent, revealing the critical role UN peacekeeping plays in restoring education in the shadow of political violence.

Production, purification, and process optimization of intracellular pigment from novel psychrotolerant Paenibacillus sp. BPW19

A pink pigment-producing bacterial strain was isolated from wastewater and identified as Paenibacillus sp. BPW19. The motile bacterial strain was Gram-positive, acid fermenting, glucose, sucrose utilizing and rod-shaped with an average cell length of 1.55 μm as studied under the Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope. Even though being psychrotolerant, the cell growth condition of BPW19 was optimized as 25 ºC along with pH 8, and 2.25% inoculum concentration considering the operational ease of the production. Sonication assisted solvent extraction produced 5.41% crude pigment which showed zones of exclusion against gram-negative strains Escherichia coli DH5α, Enterobacter sp. EtK3, and Klebsiella sp. SHC1. Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry analysis of the crude pigment exhibited the dominant presence of major compounds as dotriacontane; 3,7 dimethyl 7 octanal; 1-eicosene and erucic acid. While column chromatography (ethanol:chloroform in 1:4 (v/v) ratio) purified pigment was identified as erucic acid using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance with a net yield of 3.06%.

Qatar, the Coronavirus, and Cordons Sanitaires: Migrant Workers and the Use of Public Health Measures to Define the Nation.

This article looks at the use of public health strategies to define political membership in the nation. I examine the use of the cordon sanitaire to mitigate the novel coronavirus in Qatar. I argue that it acts primarily as a boundary to map out zones of political exclusion, splitting those who are entitled to protection from disease from those who are not. Through an analysis of the logic, application, and history of the cordon sanitaire in Qatar and elsewhere, I argue that it is only a more explicit example of the ways that governments have applied public health measures such that they apportion exposure to COVID-19, protecting some while mandating exposure for others. Exposure, or protection from it, has become a means to spatialize power and territorialize the national imaginary, separating full members from those who are excluded and reduced to their economic function.

Stuart Hall and the Freedom of Diaspora

Stuart Hall and the Freedom of Diaspora

Дискурс об идентичности как способ осмысления городского пространства

В статье формулируется круг проблем, связанных как с современной философией города, так и с исследованиями семантического пространства урбанизированной среды. Обобщаются разнонаправленные интенции авторов настоящего выпуска, объединенные поиском специфических соотношений между процессами идентификации и формированием пространственно-территориальных «полей». Данный исследовательский ракурс ориентирует нас на изучение городской среды XXI века, в том числе и с использованием методологии описания пространства в городе как «зон культурного отчуждения» (зоны закрытого доступа, зоны общего доступа, депрессивные зоны, торговые кварталы, промышленные зоны, места туристической привлекательности, сакральные места, места топоса власти, руины, музейные кварталы, спальные районы этнические и социальные гетто, маргинализированные территории и иные географически изолированные пространства) в их корреляции с городскими культурными топосами. Современные мета-города как огромные публичные пространства создают необходимость дискурса об идентичности и идентификации места в рамках Philosophy of the City, что подразумевает изучение не только взаимодействия человека с материальными объектами, но и с сетями и субъектами социальной реальности. «Пересборка» урбанистических пространств, согласно акторно-сетевой теории, рассматривается в контексте переосмысления ответов на вопросы о городских идентичностях. В центре внимания авторов статей выпуска, посвящённого границам идентичности и пространственным границам в городе, оказались культурные и социальные практики, которые трансформируют территориальные барьеры, удаляют старые и способствуют появлению новых. Между этим современным явлением и историческими процессами, предшествующими ему, существует связь: в статье приведены примеры такого обращения к опыту прошлого. Среди подходов к данной теме представлены исследования литературно-художественной топологии, где поиски идентичности также происходят при условии конструирования или преодоления границ. Прослеживаются пути культурной самоидентификации, в том числе через язык и пограничные области языковой культуры.

James Byrne Shehzar DojaI Am a Rohingya: Poetry from the Camps and Beyond

runs through the city, he must turn to illegal refugees for manpower, through his best friend, Keong, the “middleman.” Unlike the “dark-skinned and foreign” migrants from Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Nepal, the Rohingya refugees fled persecution by the Burmese state and are smuggled into Malaysia. They are exploited and brutalized simply because they didn’t have “refugee papers.” During negotiations with a “labor contractor,” Ah Hock commits a crime of passion, fueled by his frustration with poverty , racism, and corruption, that leads to his imprisonment. “Customs officers see a big lorry loaded with sacks of rice or cages of live chickens, of course they know what’s underneath all that, . . . but pay them enough and they won’t bother.” As Su-min observes, corruption was a two-way thing, and the victims didn’t even know they were victims. In fact, “you could say that the victim becomes not only the enabler of corruption but the perpetrator.” It is in this sense that Tash Aw’s new book can be read as both a thrilling personal story and a political allegory. Yang Jing Nanjing Normal University James Byrne & Shehzar Doja, eds. I Am a Rohingya: Poetry from the Camps and Beyond Todmorden, United Kingdom. Arc. 2019. 83 pages. This important book is the first Englishlanguage anthology of poetry written by Rohingya poets, and these vital poems command our attention, memorializing people and places while speaking back to politically orchestrated genocidal dispossessions (see WLT, Spring 2019, 26–31). Refugee poets contributing to this exemplary book include students, school teachers, journalists , folk singers, editors, and translators; tellingly, many use a pseudonym, and “only basic information is given to protect poets’ safety.” Written predominantly from within the world’s largest refugee camp, the socalled Cox’s Bazaar, these catalyzing works arguably constitute some of the most consequential poetry being written today. A moral onus lies with readers: These poems emphatically ask that we each read empathetically while listening closely. Demonstrating a collective and courageous refusal to acquiesce or be silenced, I Am a Rohingya instead chooses to “shout for justice” while challenging readers: “Am I not a human being?” Ro Anamul Hasan wonders. Co-editor James Byrne reminds us that “[t]he Rohingya are, without doubt, one of the most persecuted people who live on our shared earth. And they are speaking to you now,” stateless, from within dehumanized zones of forced exclusion. These poems speak harrowingly of profoundest loss, suffering, precarity but also of nostalgia; despite the ongoing pogroms, many texts in this book speak of their poets’ yearning to be included as sovereign citizens within the Burmese state. In the interview that concludes I Am a Rohingya, poet and activist Mayyu Ali asserts, “We love our motherland like others do. Historically, geographically, ancestrally , we belong there.” At the “apex of inhumanity,” beyond the Burmese government ’s monstrous ideological violence, this poet quietly wishes for experiences that many of us may take for granted: “Just to feel once the full meaning of freedom, / My heart wishes / Just to walk once around my own world.” Amid the brutalities, this poet’s wistful reflection echoes throughout other works in the anthology, and indeed in the absence of a coordinated global condemnation of the Burmese military’s recent exterminatory displacements of Rohingya people, these poems are feats of resolute fearlessness. As Ali asserts, heartrendingly, “If we don’t have the support from inside Myanmar or from the international community, we will have to find hope within ourselves.” Other contributors to the book may agree, for “[w]hen love is this pure it holds onto hope.” But beyond these avowals , those surviving the murderous persecutions are “transformed into the living dead.” Of course, many poems in this book centralize trauma, and bearing witness remains the anthology’s energizing logic; as Yar Tin understands in “Too Much Bitterness,” surviving barbarism takes a toll that poetry simply cannot assuage: “To make rhymes out of gunshots, / To make poetry out of death and destruction, / This heart of mine is not skilled enough.” For readers, a challenge remains: In which pragmatic and empowering ways are our hearts skilled enough to meaningfully intervene? So many of the shocking accounts located in...

Mapping inequality in access to meaningful learning in secondary education in Ethiopia: implications for sustainable development

ABSTRACTThe rapid expansion of primary education in Ethiopia has enabled most children to attend primary education—or at least to start schooling. This expansion, however, is largely “symbolic” rather than “substantive” where “substantive” refers to access that generates meaningful learning. The article explores spatial inequality in access to meaningful learning in secondary education in Ethiopia with a particular focus on the Amhara region, and addresses the question: Is substantive learning equitably distributed? To operationalise this question, “access-to-learning” is conceptualised using a new method of constructing a learning-oriented measure of educational quality that combines grade survival (access) and test score (quality). Moreover, the “zones of exclusion” framework has been used to see the systematic loss of students from the education system at different points in time. Using GIS tools, the extent of spatial inequality in access-to-learning was determined by mapping the proportion of students who achieved the required level of performance, and geographical variation in the distribution of inequality factors. The paper concludes with implications for educational policy and planning and recommendations for further research.

Overlapping zones of exclusion: carbon markets, corporate hydropower enclaves and timber extraction in Cambodia

ABSTRACTThis contribution looks at the interplay of different logics of governing the environment, resources and people in Cambodia that materialise in overlapping zones of exclusion, thereby co-producing new relations of resource control in a complex frontier constellation: a frontier for water, forest and carbon commodities and also for state control. Focusing on three Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) hydropower dams, the paper analyses a partly unintentional, but significantly consequential coalescence of distinct spaces of governing located in the Cardamom Mountains: a forest conservation zone, the CDM technological zone, an enclaved corporate hydropower zone and a semi-official timber logging zone. While the CDM element has exposed the projects internationally, it has obscured several problematic aspects and dynamics of resource politics connected to the dams that are revealed in this paper. These include the vulnerabilisation of local fisher communities, incarceral labour practices on the dams’ construction sites and accelerated logging in the conservation zone. The paper also shows how the interaction of the studied zones takes place through their distinct mechanisms of exclusion with the effects of more centralised resource control and the bracketing of the associated dispossessions.

An Introduction to Russian and International Studies of Cultural Exclusion Zones

This overview presents the most authoritative publications, theories and reflections of contemporary philosophers, culturologists and sociologists working on the study of cultural exclusion zones. There is a short introduction module, in which we have endeavoured to collate and highlight on the principal themes, terms, concepts and technical vocabulary developed to describe the specific phenomena of cultural exclusion zones. It is not intended as an exhaustive review of all aspects of the large agglomeration of themes related to Cultural Exclusion studies, but focuses in particular on materials from the international “Mechanisms of Formation Zones of Cultural Exclusion and Frontier Areas” conferences (St. Petersburg, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017), some of which have also been selected for this edition of Rivista di Estetica. In this introduction we will present a selection of trends and individuals relating to the Russian and international interdisciplinary research project directed by the Centre for Cultural Exclusion and Frontier Zones of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the St. Petersburg State University as institutions, and by Sergey Troitskiy as theorist and visionary.In the following review we put forth the reflections of contemporary scientists on the phenomena of exclusion and re-actualization in conjunction with historical processes, along with an analysis of the origins and current state of the problem, and suggest ways to overcome cultural exclusion between various socio-demographic, national and socio-professional groups, as well as the social experience of separation from existing cultural values and norms through the development of a community’s cultural identity. The ideas reviewed propose various approaches to analysing the functional mechanisms of cultural exclusion, such as ontological, sociological, and humanitarian.

Stress regimes in the northwest of Iran from stress inversion of earthquake focal mechanisms

Northwestern Iran is one of the seismically active regions with a high seismic risk in the world. This area is a part of the complex tectonic system due to the interaction between Arabia, Anatolia and Eurasia. The purpose of this study is to deduce the stress regimes in the northwestern Iran and surrounding regions from stress inversion of earthquake focal mechanisms. We compile 92 focal mechanisms data from the Global CMT catalogue and other sources and also determine the focal mechanisms of 14 earthquakes applying the moment tensor inversion. We divide the studied region into 9 zones using similarity of the horizontal GPS velocities and existing focal mechanisms. We implement two stress inversion methods, Multiple Inverse Method and Iterative Joint Inversion Method, which provide comparable results in terms of orientations of maximum horizontal stress axes SHmax. The similar results of the two methods should make us more confident about the interpretations. We consider zones of exclusion surrounding all the earthquakes according to independent focal mechanisms hypothesis. The hypothesis says that the inversion should involve events that are far enough from each other in order that any previous event doesn't affect the stress field near the earthquake under consideration. Accordingly we deal with the matter by considering zones of exclusion around all the events. The result of exclusion is only significant for eastern Anatolia. The stress regime in this region changes from oblique to strike slip faulting because of the exclusion. In eastern Anatolia, the direction of maximum horizontal stress is nearly north-south. The direction alters to east-west in Talesh region. Errors of σ1 are lower in all zones comparing with errors of σ2 and σ3 and there is a trade-off between data resolution and covariance of the model. The results substantiate the strike-slip and thrust faulting stress regimes in the northwest of Iran.

Postcards From the Edge of Europe: Immigrant Landscapes and the Creation of Greektopia, Heterotopia, and Atopia in Lesvos, Greece

The island of Lesvos is composed of landscapes that have been influenced since antiquity and has been used by its inhabitants for many centuries. Now, in the wake of the civil war in Syria, social unrest in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and harsh economic and civil strife in northern Africa, more and more nonindigenous people and cultures occupy the island. Social and intercultural relations between the indigenous Greeks and non-Greeks are marked by tension and conflict as they compete for access to the island’s limited resources during this time of fiscal crisis in Greece. This postcard from two sociologists documents the struggle for space, albeit temporary, on an island where the quest for public space has led to contested landscapes of refuge and the creation or maintenance of Greektopias, or zones of exclusion.

Fostering Community-Based Resilience in Zones of Exclusion: Irregular Migration and National Security at the Forefront of Global Protection Against Human-Induced Terrorist Disasters

ABSTRACTIrregular migration of people has increased drastically around the globe due to civil unrest, economic instability, genocide, and a host of other reasons. When irregular migration and radical jihadi/terrorist infiltration of refugee streams and communities occurs, a host of security concerns manifest as local communities undergo dramatic transformations. The large influx of refugees in existing European communities in the context of the European refugee humanitarian crisis of 2015–2016 serves to destabilize existing migrant communities in destination countries such as France and Belgium. This article bridges the gap in the current understanding of security threats posed by (a) foreign radicalized individuals and groups that intermingle and become part of refugee flows, and (b) along with homegrown terrorists (or returning radicalized individuals) who reside in well-established exclusionary zones in parts of cities throughout Europe to facilitate such incidents as the Charlie Hebdo, Paris terror attacks, and terror attacks on Brussels. Finally, this article provides the foundation of a conceptual framework for promoting community-based resilience to enhance protection from human-induced terrorist disasters that can help resist radicalization and increase safety in a borderless society following human-induced terror disasters.

A Method of Cultural Transformations Mapping

The article is devoted to a method of cultural transformations mapping, which may be used in studying the zones of cultural exclusion and the processes arising on the “edges” of cultural paradigms (actualization — deactualization — reactualization). The article reveals the meaning of the terms “actual”, “deactualization”, “reactualization”, used for description of cultural phenomena within the mapping method. This method gives an opportunity to work with specific factual data, creating a “cultural transformations map”. Due to this mapping, looking similar to tabulation, it is possible to visualize the criteria of the transformations during cultural paradigms changes. The article provides a brief description of using the mapping method by the example of the study called “The transformation of advertising poster in the first thirty years of the twentieth century”, where the formation and development of Russian advertising poster was presented as changes in cultural paradigms fitting into the scheme of “actualization — deactualization — reactualization”. The article describes a number of procedures used in the mapping method: definition of the periods in research (“pre-avant-garde”, “avant-garde”, “post-avant-garde”), selection of the material and its analysis, introduction of certain criteria for the paradigms comparison, and tabulation of the results. The article also emphasizes the problematic points that need to be considered while using the cultural transformations mapping method.

To protect and to support: How citizenship and self-determination are legally constructed and managed in practice for people living with dementia in Sweden.

Since living with dementia implies increasing difficulties in taking charge of rights due to cognitive as well as communicative impairments, many people with dementia are vulnerable and in need of support in order to realize full citizenship. In Sweden, all adults right to self-determination is strongly emphasized in law, regulations, and policies. Further, and in contrast to the situation in many other countries, people living with dementia cannot be declared as incompetent of making decisions concerning social care and their right to self-determination cannot legally be taken away. The article shows that in the Swedish welfare system, the focus is more on protecting the self-determination of citizens than on supporting people in making decisions and exercising citizenship. Subsequently, this causes legally constructed zones of inclusion and exclusion. This article examines and problematizes how different institutional contexts, legal constructions, norms, and practices in Sweden affect the management of issues concerning guardianship, supported decision-making and self-determination, and outline the implications for people living with dementia.

Shaping pedestrian movement through playful interventions in security planning: what do field surveys suggest?

The control and shaping of pedestrian movement recurs as an aspect of security planning for crowded spaces. Using the concepts of triangulation, performance and flow, this paper presents a series of experiments designed to shape pedestrian movement patterns in public spaces in different spatial and operation contexts, by eliciting noticeable behaviours and disrupting routine use of space. The hypothesis investigated is that playful, non-obstructive interventions foster a positive social experience yet can be used to shape pedestrian movement. The interventions examined were around the themes of floor marking and mirrors. Analysis demonstrated that the interventions were able to create zones of attraction and exclusion, engage people’s curiosity and elicit playful actions. Habituation, goal-directed behaviour and the influence of increased cognitive load at personal level were all important factors responsible for reducing the level of engagement with an intervention. The results suggest that increased understanding between environmental and interpersonal stimuli and behavioural responses can provide guidance in using socially acceptable design interventions to influence use of space in different operational contexts, contributing to sustainable security.

Neoliberalism’s War Against the Radical Imagination

Democracy is on life support in the United States. Throughout the social order, the forces of predatory capitalism are on the march. Their ideological and material traces are visible everywhere — in the dismantling of the welfare state, the increasing role of corporate money in politics, the assault on unions, the expansion of the corporatesu rveillance- mi litary state, widening inequalities in wealth and income, the defunding of higher education, the privatization of public education, and the war on women’s reproductive rights. As Marxist geographer David Harvey, political theorist Wendy Brown, and others have observed, neoliberalism’s permeation is achieved through various guises that collectively function to undercut public faith in the defining institutions of democracy. As market mentalities and moralities tighten their grip on all aspects of society, public institutions and public spheres are first downsized, then eradicated. When these important sites of democratic expression — fr om public universities to community health care centers — va nish, what follows is a serious erosion of the discourses of justice, equality, public values, and the common good. Moreover, as literary critic Stefan Collini has argued, under the regime of neoliberalism, the “social self” has been transformed into the “disembedded individual,” just as the notion of the university as a public good is now repudiated by the privatizing and atomistic values at the heart of a hyper- ma rket- dr iven society. We live in a society that appears to embrace the vocabulary of “choice,” which is ultimately rooted in a denial of reality. In fact, most people experience daily an increasing limitation of choices, as they bear the heavy burden of massive inequality, social disparities, the irresponsible concentration of power in relatively few hands, a racist justice and penal system, the conversion of schools into detention centers, and a pervasive culture of violence and cruelty — al l of which portends a growing machinery of social death, especially for those disadvantaged by a ruthless capitalist economy. Renowned economi st Joseph Stiglitz is one of many public intellectuals who have repeatedly alerted Americans to the impending costs of gross social inequality. Inequality is not simply about disproportionate amounts of wealth and income in fewer hands, it is also about the monopolization of power by the financial and corporate elite.