Search

Begin New Search Political Geography United States Journal Macalester International

1. Supporting America's Children and Adolescents

Author:
Jacquelynne S. Eccles
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Contemporary vulnerabilities that beset human beings around the world come in a variety of guises and affect diverse populations differently. Perhaps no category of people is as easily exposed as children to such injuries as the interconnected factors of poverty, disease, lack of education, physical violence, and family breakdown. To be sure, there is marked and continuous progress on a number of fronts, particularly in the reduction of mortality among the young. Yet many children and adolescents still suffer from a variety of risks to their well-being. Although not confronted with as many or as severe risks as children in the developing world, many children and adolescents in the United States are at high risk—higher than the risks faced by their counterparts in many other Western industrialized countries. Despite the fact that the United States ranks first in Gross Domestic Product, it is last among the industrial North in relative child poverty, adolescent birth rates, and securing children against gun violence. Furthermore, the United States has relatively high rates of low birth weight and infant mortality statistics as well as other indicators of poor health, such as obesity, asthma, and lack of physical fitness. For example, our country ranks 43rd among developed countries in infant mortality. Each of these risks is most pronounced among families living in poverty, many of whom are also members of racial and ethnic minority populations.
Topic:
Health
Political Geography:
United States

2. Immigration Status (Art Print)

Author:
Ruthann Godollei
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
While on our faculty seminar in the Netherlands we studied issues of immigration and human rights. Prior to our return to the United States, the Netherlands held general elections in which right-wing politicians, running on an anti-immigrant platform, gained additional seats in government. In our own country, anti-immigrant sentiments are again on the rise. A northern suburb of the Twin Cities passed an “English Only” ordinance that is not only unwelcoming, but anti-immigrant and racist at its core. Ignoring the First Amendment Right to Freedom of Religion, the former governor of our state has joined other right-wing pundits in declaring where mosques shall and shall not be built. Clearly some people are freer to practice their language, culture, and religion than others.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States and Netherlands

3. Editor's Note

Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
At its inception, Macalester College had a dual dream: on the one hand, to encourage students to cultivate their growth through rigorous study and critical self-reflection; on the other, to educate students for a condition of freedom, civic action, and a vocation of leadership. This dream was captured by the pioneering works and lives of Edward Duffield Neill and James Wallace, two of the College's most significant founders and builders. Thus, in its new Institute for Global Citizenship, Macalester keeps faith with the dream by creating with and for students, contexts conducive to a distinctive synthesis of intellectual intensity, self-monitoring, and preparation for public usefulness in a multicivilizational global milieu.
Political Geography:
United States

4. At the Intersection of Domestic Acts and Globalization: The Case of Irregular Migrants15

Author:
Federico Daniel Burlon
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Sixty-five percent of the Netherlands is below sea level: ten thousand miles of dykes, gates, and dams hold back the sea. As the water besieges the land, some politicians and scholars claim that immigrants are doing the same to the country. On the other side of the Atlantic, immigration to the United States also has been compared to a tide that must be contained. The fears surrounding immigration have been one of the focal points raised by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and by his successor, Ban Ki-moon. As a result of the dramatic increase of migration flows and the large number of irregular migrants worldwide, immigration has moved from low to high politics. Fuelled by a mentality that sees domestic security as threatened, the salience of irregular immigration is grounded in parallels drawn between the control of illegal immigration and the control of crime. According to Adam Crawford, the conflation of illegal immigration with crime has led Western governments to rule through the politics of fear of crime and insecurity. The impact of these policies on irregular immigrants illustrates what John Tomlinson calls the reflexive nature of globalization. An insightful avenue to take in order to explore globalization is the study of human mobility. Globalization has placed immigrants at the nexus of the increase in migration due to lower transportation costs, the development of the international human rights regime, and the enactment of increasingly restrictive immigration policies by developed countries. The interplay between these processes crystallizes in detention centers, and renders immigrants vulnerable to human rights violations. Studying globalization from a comparative perspective, this essay analyzes the impact of the International Human Rights Regime (IHRR) on American and Dutch immigration detention policies. In the last decades, detention has become the established way of dealing with irregular migrants. It lamentably obscures various essential examples of alternative legislation.
Topic:
Globalization, Human Rights, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Netherlands

5. Globalization and the Politicization of Muslim Women: Consequences for Domestic Violence in the Netherlands and the United States19

Author:
Mishal Khan
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Globalization as a theoretical lens guides us toward a greater understanding of some of the most turbulent transformations that are taking place in the world today. Anthony Giddens provides a compelling definition of this phenomenon, framing it as―the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa. Nothing demonstrates this more sharply than the impact of global events on those Muslim populations residing in what can be broadly defined as the―Western‖ world. This ironically termed―reverse colonization entails an unprecedented number of people from Muslim countries migrating to the Global North, laying the foundation for a myriad of challenging negotiations and novel circumstances. However, there are a number of concurrent transformations that are taking place within Muslim populations that have become the subject of increased scrutiny. The rise of radical Islam, the enhanced religiosity of Muslim youth, and the increased wearing of headscarves by women are all aspects of a global Islam that has attracted the widespread attention of policymakers, scholars, and ordinary citizens alike.
Topic:
Debt
Political Geography:
United States and Netherlands

6. The Commodification of Human Life: Human Trafficking in the Age of Globalization

Author:
Yanchuan Liu
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
This study seeks to answer three questions. First, to what extent does globalization contribute to the vulnerability of victims of cross-border human trafficking? Next, how have the United States and the Netherlands responded to this phenomenon, and why have the two governments responded in the way they did? Finally, as developed countries tighten their borders out of security concerns when economic inequality continues to attract migrants from developing regions, is there space for the convergence of the interests of destination countries and those of the migrants so that these individuals will have safe, legitimate alternatives to the irregular movement that leads to severe exploitation, such as Trafficking in Human Beings (THB)?
Political Geography:
United States and Netherlands

7. Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Twentieth Century

Author:
Juan Cole
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Iraq and Israel/Palestine may on the surface appear to be very different societies with little in common. Iraq has its Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and Shiites, and its modern history has been a struggle over monarchy, republicanism, and the one-party state. Israel and Palestine are Jewish, Sunni Arab, and Christian Arab, and their central struggle has been over the shape of the Zionist state and the question of Palestinian statelessness. Iraq is a hydrocarbon state, while Israel and Palestine have diverse economies. The two can fruitfully be viewed through the same prism in two ways, however. On a comparative level, they share much in common, being multi-ethnic states with a background in Ottoman and British colonial administrative practices. Their fragility and ethnic instability have driven both internal civil wars and wars with neighbors. They have also had an important impact upon one another. The rise of Zionism in the Middle East and the Arab rejection of it robbed Iraq of its vibrant and influential Jewish community, with fateful results. It also displaced thousands of Palestinians to Iraq and hundreds of thousands to neighboring Kuwait. Iraqi troops fought Israel, with Iraq supporting its Palestinian foes. The Palestinians of Kuwait were further displaced by the Gulf War, and those of Iraq had to flee to Jordan and Palestine after 2003. The Israel lobby in the United States was one important mover in fomenting the 2003 U.S. overthrow of the Iraqi government, which propelled Iraq into chaos.
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, Israel, Kuwait, Palestine, and Jordan

8. Difficult Dialogue: The Oslo Process in Israeli Perspective

Author:
Avraham Sela
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
The Oslo Accords seemed to represent the new post-Cold War/ post-Gulf War era, which ostensibly heralded the beginning of a “new world order” under American hegemony. The weakened Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Arab radical actors, such as Syria and Iraq; the belief that the American-led capitalist, market-oriented ideology had scored its final victory—best expressed by Francis Fukuyama's “End of History” thesis; Israel's vulnerability to Iraq's mediumrange missiles and to American financial pressures; and the perceived loss of Israel's status as a reliable U.S. ally in a tumultuous Middle East all seemed to have created ripe conditions for a historical breakthrough in the long-stalemated Arab-Israeli peace process.
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, Israel, Arabia, Syria, and Oslo

9. Somali Immigrants and Health Care: Neo-Liberal Globalization in the United States and Holland

Author:
Hye Won Hong
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Proper health care is important for everyone. According to Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family. It states that health care is an essential right for everyone regardless of their social, cultural, and economic status. However, recent studies have shown that providing proper health care has not been well addressed, especially with regard to immigrants.
Political Geography:
United States and Holland

10. Power, Morality, and Self-Interest: The United States and European Union Foreign Policy Impact on Human Rights in Colombia

Author:
Federico Segura Molina
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
This essay examines the impact of the foreign policy of the United States and the European Union (EU) on the human rights situation in Colombia. Not only was this project an essential component of the Macalester-Maastricht Globalization in Comparative Perspective Study Abroad Program, but a variety of factors also motivated my study: • Colombia is an anomaly in the study of foreign policy and human rights. As a region with uncommon political, economic, and social realities, Colombia is a country where two distinct approaches to foreign policy and human rights, those of the U.S. and EU, are simultaneously at work. Despite their significant ideological and philosophical differences, however, both the U.S. and the EU strongly support Colombia's administration and its national policies. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the human rights situation in Colombia and to create effective policies in the future, it is important to understand the unusual impact international action has had on national policy and the fate of human rights. It is imperative to reconcile these two different approaches to for-eign policy, as well as the myriad perspectives and accounts of the current human rights situation in Colombia. It is my desire to inspire reflection upon how past and current actions of the U.S. and the EU have ameliorated or deteriorated the human rights situation in Colombia. In addition, I hope to contribute to the search for a long-lasting solution to the political, economic, social, and ideologi-cal chaos that has wreaked havoc upon Colombian society. Finally, I have a strong personal connection to the topic. As a citizen of Colombia who is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Interna-tional Studies in the United States and the Netherlands, I have a deep interest in exploring the complex connections between Colom-bia, the United States, and the European Union.
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Colombia