Immigrant dislocated identities:Rachid Nini’s Diario de un ilegal

This article describes the process through which the subjectivity of the illegal immigrant is deconstructed and later reconstructed, as revealed by the Moroccan journalist and intellectual Rachid Nini in his book Diario de un ilegal/Diary of an Illegal Immigrant (2002), an account of the author's perils as an illegal immigrant in Spain. The analysis focuses firstly on the narrative form that Nini employs to give an account of his story, and secondly on the spatial displacement to which the subject and his subjectivity are exposed, which leads to the obliteration of his identity. The abrupt changes that the subject faces in a new location are paramount and impel him to a constant quest for self-definition and of negotiation with the new Other. Thus, the privileges that Nini enjoyed while in Morocco, those of a male journalist, poet, translator and intellectual with a university degree, disappear altogether once his plane has landed on the Canary Islands. In this new location, the place of origin and/or race are now what define his identity; he is now simply a moro - a Moor - he is not considered as an individual but, as will be shown, as a member of a homogenizing category which resists definition. The article finishes by addressing how Nini, in his quest to destroy homogenizing stereotypes, employs other stereotypes as though this were the only escape from the schizophrenic state the illegal immigrant identity had been forced into.

Die Sprache des Wahnsinns. Harald Kaas und sein Erzählband ‘Uhren und Meere’:Harald Kaas and his short story collection 'watches and seas'

This essay examines the only book published by the late Harald Kaas. His collection of short stories Uhren und Meere (1979), dealing with depictions of psycho-pathological states of mind, gained Kaas a short-lived notoriety as he himself was a certified schizophrenic possessing first-hand experience of psychiatric treatment. This essay sets out to investigate whether or to what extent the stories in Uhren und Meere can be understood as a document of the language of madness. It concludes that despite the biographical dimension of his schizophrenic experience, Kaas’s texts fail to voice an as it were unadulterated language of madness. However, when read in conjunction with his quasi-poetological interview statements, it is possible to determine the very nature of madness as a collapse of a logical system of language. Meaning that language cannot actively be used to express madness, while at the same time madness can express itself in a language that we necessarily fail to understand. The language of madness manifests itself as the madness of language.

Tacit vs. overt collusion firm asymmetries and numbers:what's the evidence?

It is conventional wisdom that collusion is more likely the fewer firms there are in a market and the more symmetric they are. This is often theoretically justified in terms of a repeated non-cooperative game. Although that model fits more easily with tacit than overt collusion, the impression sometimes given is that ‘one model fits all’. Moreover, the empirical literature offers few stylized facts on the most simple of questions—how few are few and how symmetric is symmetric? This paper attempts to fill this gap while also exploring the interface of tacit and overt collusion, albeit in an indirect way. First, it identifies the empirical model of tacit collusion that the European Commission appears to have employed in coordinated effects merger cases—apparently only fairly symmetric duopolies fit the bill. Second, it shows that, intriguingly, the same story emerges from the quite different experimental literature on tacit collusion. This offers a stark contrast with the findings for a sample of prosecuted cartels; on average, these involve six members (often more) and size asymmetries among members are often considerable. The indirect nature of this ‘evidence’ cautions against definitive conclusions; nevertheless, the contrast offers little comfort for those who believe that the same model does, more or less, fit all.