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132. Journal of Public and International Affairs 2015
- Author:
- Joanna Hecht, Sam duPont, Cynthia Barmore, Natasha Geber, Abby McCartney, Emily A. Wiseman, Jordan Dantas, Stephanie Leutert, and Lauren Dunn
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
- Institution:
- School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
- Abstract:
- Cynthia Barmore builds on primary survey research conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina to offer new explanations of the constraints placed on farmers by an unreformed land system. Natasha Geber addresses an underexplored policy area, looking at Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in the Arctic and offering a perspective on the chances of international cooperation on Arctic issues. Abby McCartney pulls together two seemingly disparate policies, seeing an opportunity for New Jersey to expand its successful drug court program using provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Emily Wiseman looks at how women and girls still tend to be excluded from post-disaster relief efforts, even though almost all implementers understand that this exclusion exacerbates gender inequality and retards reconstruction. Jordan Dantas analyzes the drop in piracy off the Somali coast, and finds private sector success where military solutions failed. Stephanie Leutert offers a clear-eyed perspective on the divergent narratives about the Obama Administration’s deportation policies, and analyzes how those policies have impacted immigrant communities. Lauren Dunn looks at two programs for using mobile phones to provide basic banking services—a success and a failure—and offers lessons for how the regulatory environment and existing institutions must shape program design.
- Topic:
- Security, Gender Issues, Government, Immigration, Piracy, Women, Conflict, Rural, Drugs, Land Rights, Barack Obama, and Medicaid
- Political Geography:
- Russia, India, Haiti, North America, Somalia, Arctic, United States of America, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
133. Za'atari: Feral or Resilient City?
- Author:
- Charles Simpson
- Publication Date:
- 09-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Fletcher Security Review
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- In 2003, Dr. Richard Norton presented a gloomy picture of urbanization: “Imagine a great metropolis covering hundreds of square miles… a territory where the rule of law has long been replaced by near anarchy in which the only security available is that which is attained through brute power.” Norton is describing his vision of the “feral city,” a space where political, economic, and military stressors bring about a city’s decline, a concept that became a major concern of security thinkers over the next decade. Reading Norton’s descriptions, large urbanized refugee communities of the Syrian crisis appear especially vulnerable to feral relapse. However, despite superficial parallels to Norton’s description, field research presented in this article will argue that the 82,000-resident Za’atari Syrian refugee camp—perhaps the most grimly reported refugee camp in the region—stands significantly in contrast to the “feral city” model: rather than declining to a “feral” state, Za’atari’s residents and authorities have demonstrated incredible resilience while maintaining, strengthening, and innovating new governance mechanisms for achieving human security. A wider search for feral cities in Mogadishu and Syria suggests that this resilience to feral decline is more the rule than the exception for modern cities.
- Topic:
- Security, Development, Urbanization, and Syrian War
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Syria, Jordan, and Somalia
134. Hanging by a Thread: The ongoing threat to Somalia's remittance lifeline
- Author:
- Ben Murphy, Scott Paul, Anne-Marie Schryer-Roy, and Ed Pomfret
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Every year, the Somali diaspora sends home approximately $1.3bn. Remittances account for 25–45 percent of Somalia's economy and exceed the amount it receives in humanitarian aid, development aid and foreign direct investment combined. As Somali money transfer operators lose their bank accounts, Somali families are losing their only formal or transparent channel through which to send money. Somalia needs long-term support to build sustainable financial institutions, and urgent help to maintain its current remittance flows. This briefing reviews international efforts to facilitate remittances to Somalia and focuses on the US and the UK, where the threat to the Somali remittance system is most acute. It also looks at the uncertain future viability of the Somali remittance industry in Australia.
- Political Geography:
- Somalia
135. The Security Bazaar: Business Interests and Islamist Power in Civil War Somalia
- Author:
- Aisha Ahmad
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Many intractable civil wars take place in countries with large Muslim populations. In these protracted conflicts, Islamists are often just one of many actors fighting in a complex landscape of ethnic, tribal, and political violence. Yet, certain Islamist groups compete exceptionally well in these conflicts. Why do Islamists sometimes gain power out of civil war stalemates? Although much of the existing research points to either ethnic or religious motivations, I argue that there are also hard economic reasons behind the rise of Islamist power. In this article, I offer a micro-political economy model of Islamist success in civil war that highlights the role of an important, but often-overlooked, class: the local business community.
- Topic:
- Security and Islam
- Political Geography:
- Somalia
136. Magool: The Inimitable Nightingale of Somali Music
- Author:
- Bashir Goth
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- True to these seminal lines of Yusuf Xaji Adan Qabile, Magool has blossomed ever since, destined to enthrall the Somali-speaking peoples of the Horn of Africa and beyond with her captivating voice over the next forty-plus years…never to be silenced as long as a person who speaks Somali lives on the face of the earth.
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Somalia
137. Young Somali Women's Individual and Collective Understanding of Cultural and Religious Identity through Narrative Participatory Photography
- Author:
- Ruth M. Smith
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- Dumarka Soomaaliyeed Voices Unveiled (DSVU) is a narrative participatory photography project that engaged young Somali women in photography and storytelling to create an exhibit exploring participants' experiences of being Muslim Somali women in the diaspora. This method was developed by participants throughout the course of the project and has roots in participatory action research methodology as well as other arts initiatives within the Somali diaspora. This article will define narrative participatory photography and offer a framework for future arts-based research initiatives within the diaspora. I will situate this project among other arts initiatives in the Somali diaspora as important sites for the research of Somali experiences of diasporic identity. Finally, a photo-essay of selected work from the exhibit offers an example of this methodology at work and presents the way in which this research study engages cultural and religious identity amongst young Somali women in the diaspora.
- Political Geography:
- Somalia
138. Disclaiming the Diaspora: Somali Forced Migrants in Cairo and "the Other Abroad"
- Author:
- Faduma Abukar Mursal
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- The concept of diaspora has attracted much attention in the scholarly debate on migration, and has also entered into public discourse, even being appropriated by migrants themselves. For instance, the term diasborada is now part of the Somali vocabulary, referring not only to a named phenomenon integral to Somali realities but to a particular group of people. It refers specifically to Somali migrants who have mobilized themselves as a political formation under the label “diaspora” to negotiate their role as agents of social change. Further, claims of Somali migrants have gained recognition in Somalia, where people apply this social category to them. This process of claim making and recognition of the diaspora is pervaded with a seemingly universalist discourse which addresses all migrants outside a “homeland.” Yet, naming and claim making processes are situated within power relations, which involve ways of silencing some migrants and making them invisible and which, therefore, require careful attention. The statement quoted above, made by Hassan, a Somali refugee who has been living in Cairo for the last few years, is an example of voice who resist the discourse of “diaspora.” Although Hassan lives outside of Somalia, he denies being a member of the so-called diaspora, a term that he associates more specifically with Somali migrants living in the global North, that is, in “the other abroad.” Drawing on four months of ethnographic fieldwork among Somali forced migrants in Cairo in 2013, this paper illustrates one way in which the term of diaspora is used by forced migrants and analyzes the meaning it takes in a particular setting. The next section presents briefly ways in which the concept of diaspora has been framed in scholarly discussions, emphasizing the recent trend of conceptualizing the diaspora as a political project. In line with Kleist's (2008a) suggestion that diaspora is a “concept of a political nature that might be at once claimed by and attributed to different groups and subjects” (2008a:307, emphasis in original), this paper explores the construction of the category of diaspora from the perspective of forced migrants. Following that, a brief history of Somali migration to Egypt is provided as a backdrop for presenting varying profiles of Somali migrants living in Cairo today. In this old and densely populated city, the figure of the forced migrant is constructed as the opposite of the “Somali Westerner”—that is, the Somali who has acquired citizenship in a western country. The third section of the paper shows how Somali forced migrants in Cairo earns a living and which solidarity networks they are part of. This will help to explain why Somali forced migrants contrast the precarious conditions of their lives with those of Somali Westerners. The last section explores the ways in which my informants in Cairo, in their everyday practices and encounters with Somali Westerners, refuse to apply the term “diaspora” to themselves. Indeed, the informants established a distinction between them as Somali forced migrants and the diaspora, that are Somali Westerners who are associated with mobility, economic, and social agency. Disavowing any connection to the category of diaspora allows them to exclude themselves from public discourse mobilizing the “diaspora” as part of the country's economic development. Moreover, this distinction allows them to address the Somali state and present themselves as particular group of citizens who have particular needs, for example the improvement of life conditions in Egypt and the negotiation of the conditions for return.
- Political Geography:
- Egypt and Somalia
139. Local Universities and Employment Opportunities in Somaliland
- Author:
- Abdirahaman dan Mohamoud
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- Every year, a series of graduation ceremonies are organized at the local institutions of higher learning in Somaliland, where hundreds of new graduates emerge from the local universities. The main fields of study at the universities often overlap. Business administration, management, education, law, economics, ICT, and, to a lesser extent, medicine and engineering are the largest concentration areas.
- Political Geography:
- Somalia
140. Developing a Somali Dictionary Application
- Author:
- Nick Thieberger and Nadia Faragaab
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- New technologies offer access to unprecedented amounts of information and, while the equitable cost of access has been a major problem for distribution of such information, which is now changing. Mobile devices are becoming cheaper so more people from a wider range of backgrounds and speaking a wider range of languages are using the Internet. Support for the many less commonly spoken languages of the world has become a focus in the academic discipline of linguistics. This includes developing a presence for these languages on the web and in mobile devices. This brief report discusses one such example: the Somali-English Dictionary application (app), released in June 2014 by a Melbourne, Australia, team headed by the Somali artist Nadia Faragaab.
- Political Geography:
- Australia, Somalia, and Melbourne