Reading a novel about a dying person and the people attending the dying, one can not only reflect upon the moral involvement between the literary characters depicted, but also upon the way in which the reader takes the position of a “bystander” in this scene. In two novels, The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy and The Big Ward by the Dutch author Jacoba van Velde, this moral involvement can be interpreted as a form of “compassion”. Martha Nussbaum’s concept of “compassionate imagination” offers a perspective on the way in which the reader can be involved in this literary depiction of the dying. However, the Aristotelian criteria that Nussbaum proposes for the rational judgement of compassion and her ambitions that literature can “raise society’s floor” by developing “compassionate imagination” in readers, are difficult to apply to these specific cases. In comparing both novels, it is exactly the differences between them – the historical context and social classes depicted - that bring to light a problematic presupposition in Nussbaum, namely the a-historical universality in the compassionate involvement. A re-interpretation of one of the Aristotelian criteria for compassion leaves room for a “compassionate imagination” not based on a rational judgement but on a sense of shared vulnerability that is precisely evoked by the literary depiction of the dying.
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Titel: The Exodus from the Netherlands or Brain Circulation: Push and Pull Factors of Remigration among Highly Educated Turkish Dutch Auteurs: Gürkan Çelik and Ton Notten In: European Review, 22 (3), 2014, pp. 403-413 The exodus from the Netherlands or brain circulation: Push and pull factors of remigration among highly educated Turkish-Dutch An increasing number of Turks, the Netherlands’ largest ethnic minority, are beginning to return to their country of origin, taking with them the education and skills they have acquired abroad, as the Netherlands faces challenges from economic difficulties, social tension and increasingly powerful right wing parties. At the same time Turkey’s political, social and economic conditions have been improving, making returning home even more appealing for Turkish migrants at large. This article gives explanations about the push and pull factors of return migration. The factors influencing return to one’s country of origin are “pulls”. It is assumed that remigration is more affected by positive developments in the country of origin than by negative developments in the country of residence. Civil society, business world and the Dutch government can develop policies to bind these capable people to the Netherlands, at least in the form of “brain circulation” so that they can serve as “bridge builders” between the two countries. Keywords Return migration, integration, Turkish-Dutch, Turkish migrants, brain circulation =============================================================================== SAMENVATTING De uittocht uit Nederland of breincirculatie: Push- en pull-factoren van remigratie onder hoogopgeleide Turkse Nederlanders. In Nederland zien we een lichte toename van het aantal Turken, de grootste etnische minderheidsgroep in Nederland, die terugkeren naar hun land van herkomst. Ze exporteren daarmee goede opleidingen en vaardigheden die ze in Nederland verwierven. De oorzaken: de economische neergang, sociale spanningen en de groeiende invloed van extreemrechtse partijen. Tegelijkertijd verbeteren in Turkije de politieke, sociale en economische omstandigheden die steeds meer aantrekkingskracht uitoefenen op immigranten in dat land. Dit artikel gaat in op de push- and pull-factoren voor remigranten. Pull-factoren beinvloeden iemands terugkeer naar zijn land van herkomst. Aangenomen wordt dat zo’n remigratie sterker wordt bevorderd door positieve ontwikkelingen in het land van herkomst dan door negatieve (push-factoren) in het land waar men op dat moment woont. De civil society, het bedrijfsleven en de Nederlandse overhead kunnen een beleid ontwikkelen dat verdienstelijke inwoners weet te behouden, hen op z’n minst kan inschakelen als bruggenbouwers en aldus kenniscirculatie mogelijk maakt tussen beide landen. Trefwoorden Retourmigratie, integratie, Turkse Nederlanders, Turkse migranten, kenniscirculatie, breincirculatie
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In this article we look at the various paths taken by transnational and domestic entrepreneurs based on their education and work experience. These act as catalysts for skills that allow migrant entrepreneurs to better position themselves in different markets. Differences in migrant entrepreneurs allow us to better understand the strategies employed and the consequences for society and the economy at both domestic and transnational levels. Earlier research has extensively analysed individual characteristics of migrant entrepreneurs and, to a much lesser extent, the geographical nature of their business activities.This article addresses this gap by looking at the geographical orientation of migrant entrepreneurs’ businesses. The research question is as follows: In what ways are transnational or domestic activities of Moroccan migrant entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Italy influenced by skills acquired in earlier experiences? We provide empirical evidence on the different paths leading to domestic and transnational activities using a micro-level perspective of the experiences collected in the narratives of first-generation Moroccan migrant entrepreneurs who have migrated to Milan or Amsterdam (N=70).Four different paths combining these two life experiences emerged from the interviews: #1 Job-based, #2 Education-driven, #3 Job-education merger, and #4 By chance (neither education nor work experience). The most relevant paths for migrant entrepreneurs seem to be the first (#1) and third (#3) paths. Furthermore, our findings show that transnationally oriented entrepreneurs have an extended business-oriented education and rely on skills learned, in contrast to domestically oriented entrepreneurs who become entrepreneurs ‘by chance’.
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This paper addresses the extraterritorial dimension of transnational corporations, focusing on the corporate accountability-deficit that characterizes the current International legal framework. The analysis looks at parent companies’ civil liability for environmental harm caused abroad. By introducing a selected number of foreign direct liability cases brought before European national courts, the paper investigates whether the binding environmental and human rights reporting obligations contained in Directive 2014/95/EU contribute to the determination of a parent company’s duty of care towards its overseas subsidiaries, and consequently establish their potential liability.
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This article compares two similar yet never compared cases of intra-European othering: Spain and the South Slavic region. Their common denominator is what I call the Periphery Problem: a hierarchical cultural difference between Europe’s symbolic centre (Western Europe) and its exotic peripheries. Using paradigmatic examples intertextually linked to Prosper Mérimée, this article focuses both on the centre (exemplified by Mérimée), and the peripheries’ recent responses to Mérimée through meta-images (your image of others’ image of you). The structural commonalities in characterization and the entanglements of internal and external images show that national characterization in Europe is profoundly a transnational phenomenon.
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In this chapter, we first summarise the findings from the country chapters on the multiple meanings of SA, documenting terms, translations and contrasting understandings between citizens and public officials. Second, we highlight how civil mobilisation tends to be cyclical over time and is often mediated by brokers. Strategies to spur stakeholders into action rely on a delicate balance of both collaboration and confrontation. Third, we examine the responses from authorities to SAIs, finding that reactions are uneven and that all civic innovators fear appropriation or co-optation by officials. Fourth, we assess overall outcomes of Arab SAIs and highlight that the transformative potential of SAIs exists especially at municipal level, if four conditions for success are present (trust, proximity, endorsement, evaluation). We also point out that the actual outcomes of SAIs in Arab societies have, so far, been limited due to design deficiencies (emphasising short-term objectives and limited context sensitivity) or because of officials’ resistance in active or passive forms. We characterise SAIs as a discursive action format that is best understood with a relational approach to power. In a final section, we formulate recommendations for activists, officials and donors on how to make SAIs more effective.
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In deze publicatie staan de verhalen van drie Poolse mannen in Den Haag centraal. De onderzoeker, Karijn Nijhoff, heeft zeer intensief deze mannen gevolgd en hun verhalen opgetekend. We lezen over aankomst, vertrek en terugkomst. We zien een grillig proces van werken en niet werken, klussen en diverse vormen van inkomensverwerving. De werkelijkheid heeft tinten wit, zwart en grijs. Integratie, een veel gebezigd woord in de wereld van bestuur en beleid, ziet er soms heel anders uit dan het geplande en gefaseerde proces op papier. There is also an English version of this report in this database: "Fluidity of bounderies".
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Integrated river basin management (IRBM) calls for participatory practices involving stakeholders along transnational river landscapes. Understanding the complex and diverse views regarding participation is a prerequisite for meaningful involvement of civil actors, especially in a transnational context. In a case study along the Lower Rhine river, we assessed and compared cognitive perceptions towards IRBM of citizen initiatives and nature organizations from Germany and the Netherlands and their previous experiences with participation processes.We found large differences between the four actor groups in motivations to participate as well as in levels of trust towards institutions. This study also showed different views on participation between the two countries with regard to the problem definition, nature images and the perceived relationships between government organisations on the one hand and citizen initiatives and nature organisations on the other hand.The findings suggest that views vary between citizen initiatives and nature organizations within a country and that cultural notions add to the complexity of transnational participation. In transnational participation processes, the varying views between actor groups should be taken into account, as well as the complexities among countries even within actor groups.
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In November 2019, scholars and practitioners from ten higher education institutions celebrated the launch of the iKudu project. This project, co-funded by Erasmus [1], focuses on capacity development for curriculum transformation through internationalisation and development of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) virtual exchange. Detailed plans for 2020 were discussed including a series of site visits and face-to-face training. However, the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the plans in ways that could not have been foreseen and new ways of thinking and doing came to the fore. Writing from an insider perspective as project partners, in this paper we draw from appreciative inquiry, using a metaphor of a mosaic as our identity, to first provide the background on the iKudu project before sharing the impact of the pandemic on the project’s adapted approach. We then discuss how alongside the focus of iKudu in the delivery of an internationalised and transformed curriculum using COIL, we have, by our very approach as project partners, adopted the principles of COIL exchange. A positive impact of the pandemic was that COIL offered a consciousness raising activity, which we suggest could be used more broadly in order to help academics think about international research practice partnerships, and, as in our situation, how internationalised and decolonised curriculum practices might be approached. 1. KA2 Erasmus+ Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices (capacity building in the field of Higher Education)
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A Manifesto The group of some 17 participants interrupted the UDHR text in real time, infusing it with inclusive terminology, queering its binary language and expanding its gaze to other lifebeings, making it a manifesto for a new world. The newly formulated Universal Declaration of Human and More-Than-Human Rights and Responsibility for a New World would be the manifesto for an alliance of those who insisted on an end to capitalist practices and their destructive effects on the planet.
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