Mexican Workers in the United States Labour Market: A Contemporary Dilemma

"Ever since the present political boundary separating Mexico and the United States was established in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and partially amended in 1853 by the Gadsden Purchase, there has been migration of Mexican citizens into the United States. In fact the border between the two nations was completely open until, with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, the Border Patrol was established and it became a felony to enter the United States illegally. No quota, however, was applied to immigration from Mexico until 1968. During that year legislation became effective which restricted total annual immigration from all Western Hemisphere nations to 120,000, with a maximum of 40,000 from any one country. Both these figures are regularly exceeded. In 1973, for instance, there were 173,123 legal immigrants from all Western Hemisphere nations, including 70,141 Mexicans. That the real flow exceeds the quotas is explained by the numerous exemptions allowed. With the exception of only three years since 1960, legal immigration from Mexico to the United States has exceeded that of every other nation in the world."

Regulation beyond government: Weber, Foucault and the liberal governance of media content

This paper steps back from the question of how regulation of digital media content occurs, and whether it can be effective, to consider the rationales that inform regulation, and the ethics and practices associated with content regulation. It will be argued that Max Weber's account of bureaucratic expertise remains relevant to such discussions, particularly insofar as it intersects with Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality, and contemporary applications of the notion of 'governing at a distance'. The nature of the challenges to media regulators presented by online environments, and by digital and social media, are considered in depth, but it is argued that the significance of regulatory innovations that respond to such challenges should not be underestimated, nor should the continuing national foundations of media regulation. It will also discuss the relevance of the concept of 'soft law' to contemporary regulatory practice.

Political feminism: Activist art in Australia in 2015

Brisbane-based artist and Founding Co-Director of LEVEL artist run initiative Courtney Coombs discusses feminist activist art practice in Australia. Recent discussions both in the art world and beyond have increased the profile and demystified the notion of feminism in the twenty-first century, and the term has once again become integrated into mainstream discussion internationally and in Australia. Now that pop music star Taylor Swift has declared herself a feminist, you could be persuaded that the 'f' word has finally become socially acceptable. However, while many artists have adopted the feminist label across the country, it often feels like feminism has become a lifestyle choice rather than a political one. When the badge is so readily worn by many, society can be fooled into thinking that there is no more work to be done. With the 'f' word once again acceptable while the 'p' word (patriarchy) remains so pass , how are artists responding to the changed conditions but continued imposition of what bell hooks has described as the 'imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy'?

Schoolman family papers, undated, 1889-1994

The Schoolman Papers reflect Dr. Albert P. and Mrs. Bertha Schoolmans' staunch dedication to Jewish education, Jewish causes, and Israel. Bertha Schoolman, a lifelong member of Hadassah, assisted thousands of Israeli youth as chairman of the Youth Aliyah Committee. Her diaries, photos, scrapbooks, and correspondence record her numerous visits to Israel on which she helped set up schools, met with Israeli dignitaries, and participated in Zionist Conferences and events. The collection includes a 1936 letter from Hadassah founder, Henrietta Szold, praising Mrs. Schoolman's work as well as a letter from the father of Anne Frank, thanking Mrs. Schoolman for naming a Youth Aliyah center the "Anne Frank Haven" after his later daughter.

Pilgrimage as a Lifestyle : A Contemporary Greek Nunnery as a Pilgrimage Site

The aim of this research is to present, interpret and analyze the phenomenon of pilgrimage in a contemporary, suburban Greek nunnery, and to elucidate the different functions that the present-day convent has for its pilgrims. The scope of the study is limited to a case nunnery, the convent of the Dormition of the Virgin, which is situated in Northern Greece. The main corpus of data utilized for this work consists of 25 interviews and field diary material, which was collected in the convent mainly during the academic year 2002-2003 and summer 2005 by means of participant observation and unstructured thematic interviewing. It must be noted that most Greek nunneries are not really communities of hermits but institutions that operate in complex interaction with the surrounding society. Thus, the main interest in this study is in the interaction between pilgrims and nuns. Pilgrimage is seen here as a significant and concrete form of interaction, which in fact makes the contemporary nunneries dynamic scenes of religious, social and sometimes even political life. The focus of the analysis is on the pilgrims’ experiences, reflected upon on the levels of the individual, the Church institution, and society in general. This study shows that pilgrimage in a suburban nunnery, such as the convent of the Dormition, can be seen as part of everyday religiosity. Many pilgrims visit the convent regularly and the visitation is a lifestyle the pilgrims have chosen and wish to maintain. Pilgrimage to a contemporary Greek nunnery should not be ennobled, but seen as part of a popular religious sentiment. The visits offer pilgrims various tools for reflecting on their personal life situations and on questions of identity. For them the full round of liturgical worship is a very good reason for going to the convent, and many see it as a way of maintaining their faith and of feeling close to God. Despite cultural developments such as secularization and globalization, pilgrims are quite loyal to the convent they visit. It represents the positive values of ‘Greekness’ and therefore they also trust the nuns’ approach to various matters, both personal and political. The coalition of Orthodoxy and nationalism is also visible in their attitudes towards the convent, which they see as a guardian of Hellenism and as nurturing Greek values both now and in the future.

Constructing Ethical Patterns in Times of Globalization : Hans Küng's Global Ethic Project and Beyond

The purpose of this study is to evaluate contemporary philosophical models for global ethics in light of the Catholic theologian Hans Küng s Global Ethic Project (Projekt Weltethos). Küng s project starts with the motto, No survival without world ethos. No global peace without peace between religions. I will use the philosophically multidimensional potential of Projekt Weltethos in terms of its possible philosophical interpretations to evaluate the general discussion of global ethics within political philosophy today. This is important in its own right, but also because through it, opportunities will emerge to articulate Küng s relatively general argument in a way that leaves less room for mutually contradictory concretizations of what global ethics ultimately should be like. The most important question in this study is the problem of religious and ideological exclusivism and its relation to the ethically consistent articulation of global ethics. I will first explore the question of the role of religion as the basis for ethics in general and what Küng may mean by his claim that only the unconditional can oblige unconditionally. I will reconstruct two different overall philosophical interpretations of the relationship between religious faith and human rationality, each having two different sub-divisions: a liberal interpretation amounts to either a Kantian-Scheiermacherian or a Jaspersian view, whereas what I call postliberal interpretation amounts to either an Aristotelian-Thomistic or an Augustinian view. Thereafter, I will further clarify how Küng views the nature of ethics beyond the question of its principal foundation in religious faith: Küng searches for a middle way between consequentialist and non-consequentialist ethics, a way in which the latter dimension has the final stake. I will then set out to concretize further this more or less general notion of the theoretical potential of Projekt Weltethos in terms of certain precise philosophico-political models. I categorize these models according to their liberal or postliberal orientation. The liberal concretization leads me to consider a wide spectrum of post-Kantian and post-Hegelian models from Rawls to Derrida, while the alternative concretization opens up my ultimate argument in favor of a postliberal type of modus vivendi. I will suggest that the only theoretically and practically plausible way to promote global ethics, in itself a major imperative today, is the recognition of a fundamental and necessary contest between mutually exclusive ideologies in the public sphere. On this basis I will proceed to my postliberal proposal, namely, that a constructive and peaceful encountering of exclusive difference as an ethical vantage point for an intercultural and inter-religious peace dialogue is the most acute challenge for global ethics today.

Imagination and diversity in the philosophy of Hobbes

This dissertation is a study of some aspects of theoretical philosophy of the early modern thinker Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). The focal point of the work is Hobbes s conception of imagination, which is discussed from both a systematic and a historical point of view, as well as in the light of contemporary scholarship. I argue that though there are significant similarities between the view of Hobbes and that of his predecessors, he gives a novel theory of imagination, which clarifies not only early modern discussions on human nature, knowledge, science, and literary criticism, but above all his own versatile philosophy. The prologue of the dissertation introduces methodological principles and gives critical remarks on the standard view of Hobbes. In Chapter II, I discuss the prominent theories of imagination before Hobbes and link them to his account. I argue that though Hobbes adopted the Aristotelian framework, his view is not reduced to it, as he borrows from various sources, for instance, from the Stoics and from Renaissance thought. Chapters III and IV form the psychological part of the work. In the Chapter III I argue that imagination, not sense, is central in the basic cognitive operations of the mind and that imagination has a decisive role in Hobbes s theory of motivation. The Chapter IV concentrates on various questions of Hobbes s philosophy of language. The chapter ends with a defence of a less naturalistic reading of Hobbes s theory of human nature. Chapters V and VI form the epistemological part of the work. I suggest, contrary to what has been recently claimed, that though Hobbes s ideas of good literary style do have a point of contact with his philosophy (e.g. the psychology of creative process), his ideas in the field are independent of his project of demonstrative political science. Instead I argue that the novelty of his major political work, Leviathan (1651), is based on a new theory of knowledge which he continued to develop in the post-Leviathan works. Chapter VII seeks to connect the more theoretical conclusions of Chapters V and VI to Hobbes's idea(l) of science as well as to his philosophical practice. On the basis of Hobbes s own writings as well as some historical examinations, I argue that method is not an apt way to conceptualise Hobbes s philosophical practice. Contemporary readings of Hobbes s theory of science are critically discussed and the chapter ends with an analysis of Hobbes s actual argumentation. In addition to the concluding remarks, the epilogue suggest three things: first, imagination is central when trying to understand Hobbes s versatile philosophy; second, that it is misleading to depict Hobbes as a simple materialist, mechanist, and empiricist; and, third, that in terms of imagination his influence on early modern thought has not been fully appreciated.

Globalization and the Political : in the Borderlands with the Zapatista Movement

This study explores the meaning, content and significance of the political as manifest in the Mexican Zapatista movement as historically and geopolitically situated struggle. The case study undertakes a critical analysis of the development, organization, practice and discourse of the movement by drawing on fieldwork experiences, interviews, discussions, documents, films and other material produced by the movement, and the critical engagement with the research of others, especially in Latin America and Mexico. The dissertation poses the need to reconsider what constitutes and what we understand by the political , related particularly to the challenges provided by the critical globalization literature, decolonization and the study of social movements. The analysis encompasses several inter-related levels: the theoretical knowledge regarding the conceptualization of the political; the methodological level, regarding how such research can and should be conducted and knowledge claims formulated given the inescapable context and effects of global power relations; and the substantive level of adding specific information and analytical insights to existing knowledge of the Zapatista movement. As a result of conceptualization of a range of practices and processes, distinct understandings of the political can be underlined. Firstly, the conception of the indigenous and the struggles as indigenous movements as specifically political, not just a cultural or ethnic identity or a static quality but rather, an active consciousness integrally linked both to a longer history of oppression and as political articulation in the concrete context and lived experience of contemporary struggle. Secondly, the practice of autonomy as central to an understanding of the political in the context of the Zapatista struggle as a practical response to the situation of oppression, counter-insurgency, siege and conflict in Chiapas, as well as a positively informed mode of political self-understanding, expression and practice in its own right. Thirdly, the notion of geopolitical positioning as important to understanding of the political that encompasses the historicity of specific context and the power relations which shape that context, developed in two different ways: in regard to the positioning of the researcher and knowledge production with and about the Zapatistas, and in regard to the practice and knowledge of the Zapatistas as a decolonizing force in their encounters, interaction and relations with others, especially the global civil society. Finally, the role of silence, absence, invisibility, revelation and hiding in political practice as a deliberate strategy in response to oppressive power. -

From Habits to Social Structures : Pragmatism and Contemporary Social Theory

Pragmatism has sometimes been taken as a catchphrase for epistemological stances in which anything goes. However, other authors argue that the real novelty and contribution of this tradition has to do with its view of action as the context in which all things human take place. Thus, it is action rather than, for example, discourses that should be our starting point in social theory. The introductory section of the book situates pragmatism (especially the ideas of G. H. Mead and John Dewey) within the field and tradition of social theory. This introductory also contextualizes the main core of the book which consists of four chapters. Two of these chapters have been published as articles in scientific journals and one in an edited book. All of them discuss the core problem of social theory: how is action related to social structures (and vice versa)? The argument is that habitual action is the explanation for the emergence of social structures from our action. Action produces structures and social reproduction takes place when action is habitualized; that is, when we develop social dispositions to act in a certain manner in familiar environments. This also means that even though the physical environment is the same for all of us, our habits structure it into different kinds of action possibilities. Each chapter highlights these general insights from different angles. Practice theory has gained momentum in recent years and it has many commonalities with pragmatism because both highlight the situated and corporeal character of human activity. One famous proponent of practice theory is Margaret Archer who has argued that the pragmatism of G. H. Mead leads to an oversocialized conception of selfhood. Mead does indeed present a socialized view of selfhood but this is a meta-sociological argument rather than a substantial sociological claim. Accordingly, one can argue that in this general sense intersubjectivity precedes subjectivity and not the other way around. Such a view does not indicate that our social relation would necessarily "colonize" individual action because there is a place for internal conversations (in Archer s terminology); it is especially in those phases of action where it meets obstacles due to the changes of the environment. The second issue discussed has the background assumption that social structures can fruitfully be conceptualized as institutions. A general classification of different institution theories is presented and it is argued that there is a need for a habitual theory of institutions due to the problems associated with these other theories. So-called habitual institutionalism accounts for institutions in terms of established and prevalent social dispositions that structure our social interactions. The germs of this institution theory can be found in the work of Thorstein Veblen. Since Veblen s times, these ideas have been discussed for example, by the economist Geoffrey M. Hodgson. His ideas on the evolution of institutions are presented but a critical stance is taken towards his tendency of defining institutions with the help of rules because rules are not always present in institutions. Accordingly, habitual action is the most basic but by no means the only aspect of institutional reproduction. The third chapter deals with theme of action and structures in the context of Pierre Bourdieu s thought. Bourdieu s term habitus refers to a system of dispositions which structure social fields. It is argued that habits come close to the concept of habitus in the sense that the latter consists of particular kinds of habits; those that are related to the reproduction of socioeconomic positions. Habits are thus constituents of a general theory of societal reproduction whereas habitus is a systematic combination of socioeconomic habits. The fourth theme relates to issues of social change and development. The capabilities approach has been associated with the name of Amartya Sen, for example, and it underscores problems inhering in economistic ways of evaluating social development. However, Sen s argument has some theoretical problems. For example, his theory cannot adequately confront the problem of relativism. In addition, Sen s discussion lacks also a theory of the role of the public. With the help of arguments derived from pragmatism, one gets an action-based, socially constituted view of freedom in which the role of the public is essential. In general, it is argued that a socially constituted view of agency does not necessarily to lead to pessimistic conclusions about the freedom of action.

The Biopolitics of Gender

This dissertation inquires into the relationship between gender and biopolitics. Biopolitics, according to Michel Foucault, is the mode of politics that is situated and exercised at the level of life. The dissertation claims that gender is a technology of biopower specific to the optimisation of the sexual reproduction of human life, deployed through the scientific and governmental problematisation of declining fertility rates in the mid-twentieth century. Just as Michel Foucault claimed that sexuality became a scientific and political discourse in the nineteenth century, gender has also since emerged in these fields. In this dissertation, gender is treated as neither a representation of sex nor a cultural construct or category of identity. Rather, a genealogy of gender as an apparatus of biopower in conducted. It demonstrates how scientific and theoretical developments in the twentieth century marshalled gender into the sex/sexuality apparatus as a new technology of liberal biopower. Gender, I argue, has become necessary for the Western liberal order to recapture and re-optimise the life-producing functions of sex that reproduce the very object of biopolitics: life. The concept of the life function is introduced to analyse the life-producing violence of the sex/sexuality/gender apparatus. To do this, the thesis rereads the work of Michel Foucault through Gilles Deleuze for a deeper grasp of the material strategies of biopower and how it produces categories of difference and divides population according to them. The work of Judith Butler, in turn, is used as a foil against which to rearticulate the question of how to examine gender genealogically and biopolitically. The dissertation then executes a genealogy of gender, tracing the changing rationalities of sex/sexuality/gender from early feminist thought, through mid-twentieth century sexological, feminist, and demographic research, to current EU policy. According to this genealogy, in the mid-twentieth century demographers perceived that sexuality/sex, which Foucault observed as the life-producing biopolitical apparatus, was no longer sufficiently disciplining human bodies to reproduce. The life function was escaping the grasp of biopower. The analysis demonstrates how gender theory was taken up as a means of reterritorialising the life function: nature would be disciplined to reproduce by controlling culture. The crucial theoretical and genealogical argument of the thesis, that gender is a discourse with biopolitical foundations and a technology of biopower, radically challenges the premises of gender theory and feminist politics, as well as the emancipatory potential often granted to the gender concept. The project asks what gender means, what biopolitical function it performs, and what is at stake for feminist politics when it engages with it. In so doing, it identifies biopolitics and the problem of life as possibly the most urgent arena for feminist politics today.

Sobre el embrión humano y la cuestión de la personeidad : un argumento de Luigi Ferrajoli y su discusión

Resumen: El texto analiza las afirmaciones defendidas sobre el estatuto entitativo del embrión y de la solución ética a la cuestión de la legitimidad del aborto provocado, en un trabajo del jurista y pensador italiano, Luigi Ferrajoli, defensor de lo que puede denominarse el bioderecho “liberal”, con una posición decisivamente tomada en favor de la eticidad del aborto. Se advierte que cada uno de sus argumentos parte de una premisa: considerar las afirmaciones de la Iglesia Católica como inexorablemente erróneas, especialmente en lo atinente a la relación entre moral y derecho. La consecuencia más grave de este tipo de argumentación es la deriva anti-humanista del pensamiento contemporáneo con la consiguiente pérdida de toda racionalidad lógica.

La idea de “Nación” en el lenguaje político hispanoamericano, 1808-1814 : los límites monárquicos de la imaginación liberal

Resumen: Este trabajo aborda el concepto de Nación y otros relacionados con la noción de soberanía en el lenguaje político hispanoamericano para el período 1808-1814. Se analizan algunos trabajos que dan cuenta de los diversos significados asociados a este concepto en los procesos revolucionarios americano y español. Las distintas concepciones sostenidas por los actores sociales del período señalado se vinculan luego en perspectiva con su posible derivación como proyección de la Nación en la cultura constituyente de Cádiz.

A regulação política da sexualidade no âmbito da família por saberes e instituições médicas brasileiras : 1838-1940

Esta tese tem como objeto a regulação política da sexualidade no âmbito da família por saberes e instituições médicas brasileiras (1838-1940). Orienta-se pelo interesse em analisar continuidades e descontinuidades na construção de objetos, estratégias e táticas políticas direcionados para a regulação higiênica e eugênica do casamento e da sexualidade infantil. De inspiração foucaultiana, inscreve-se no campo da história dos saberes e está subsidiada por um conjunto heterogêneo de documentos (teses, artigos de periódicos, livros, anais etc.) circunscritos, majoritariamente, ao campo da medicina. Analisa a constituição de uma defesa higiênica dos casamentos no pensamento médico novecentista, voltada para remanejamentos das figuras de esposa e marido na nova configuração de família que começava a se esboçar no Brasil, contrastando-a com a regulação católica da moral sexual colonial. Em seguida, descreve a visibilidade higiênica que a medicina dará a infância no século XIX, problematizando especificamente o interesse pelo tema da masturbação, que articula simultaneamente a família, centrada na figura da mãe, e a escola na convocação de zelar pela criança. Partindo das contradições sociais que se apresentaram na construção do projeto liberal nacional a partir da década de 1870, discute a apropriação do discurso da degenerescência pelo saber médico-psiquiátrico brasileiro, que propiciou uma leitura da brasilidade marcada pelo excesso sexual e pela condição degenerada da miscigenação, a fim de pensar as condições de possibilidade para a emergência do projeto de eugenia matrimonial institucionalizado nas primeiras décadas do século XX e toma como táticas a campanha pela compulsoriedade do exame pré-nupcial, o combate aos casamentos consanguíneos, o controle do contágio venéreo e o aconselhamento sexual dos casais. Analisa a campanha de educação sexual, cuja pretensão de instituir uma sciencia sexual no Brasil, de legitimidade controversa, tinha como horizonte viabilizar uma profilaxia sexual que mitigasse a produção da criminalidade, das perversões sexuais e das doenças nervosas, bem como os desajustes familiares, a partir da fabricação de um novo objeto, qual seja, a sexualidade infantil, no qual incidirá uma nova pedagogia. Nesse particular, aponta particularidades discursivas da difusão das idéias freudianas entre higienistas brasileiros. Finalmente, sinaliza a constituição da higiene mental da criança como um novo domínio para a psiquiatria brasileira, que tomou a intensa circulação afetiva intrafamiliar como ponto de ancoragem para um projeto de normalização social, ainda centrado na eugenia, mas já atravessado por uma psicologia da adaptação.

A monarquia portuguesa na obra de Alexandre Herculano

A pesquisa A Monarquia Portuguesa na Obra de Alexandre Herculano analisa a construção do modelo ideal de monarca por Alexandre Herculano, com especial ênfase na produção histórica em que os monarcas portugueses foram retratados com maior riqueza de detalhes e analisados de forma mais criteriosa. A pesquisa se dá a partir da conjuntura histórica portuguesa marcada pelo estabelecimento do Estado Liberal e pelos debates entre os diferentes grupos políticos em que a participação dos intelectuais é um ponto relevante. No tocante a Alexandre Herculano, o envolvimento do autor em diversas polêmicas e articulações políticas é uma evidência da importância e da atuação da intelligentsia na sociedade portuguesa do século XIX. Ao lado da conjuntura histórica na qual a obra de Herculano foi produzida, o universo conceitual forjado pelo autor com fundamento nos pressupostos teóricos e políticos também foi contemplado, pois o modelo de monarca construído pelo autor foi elaborado a partir deste universo conceitual que, conforme os pressupostos teóricos empregados nesta pesquisa atuam e interferem nos debates contemporâneos à obra.

O divisor de águas da política imperial: D. Pedro II, a conciliação e o Marquês de Paraná (1853-1856)

A Conciliação política foi um tema muito altercado no meado do Oitocentos no Segundo Reinado brasileiro. Este debate fora intensamente travado entre os principais partidos imperiais, Liberal e Conservador, que se alternavam no poder ao longo de quase 50 anos de comando do imperador D. Pedro II. Sobre seu governo, considerado por Joaquim Nabuco como a Grande Era Brasileira, é que este autor legou à historiografia posterior a sua obra máxima: Um Estadista do Império. Nossa dissertação parte da seguinte premissa: D. Pedro II no desejo de reinar, governar e administrar, acima dos partidos, encetou o seu Pensamento Augusto, isto é, a Conciliação. Os liberais acusavam a Conciliação de esvaziar suas propostas ao serem implementadas pelos conservadores. Estes que se encontravam no poder desde 1848, liderados pelos saquaremas, rechaçaram completamente tal ideia, pois entendiam que esta política patrocinada pela Coroa poderia enfraquecer seu partido. O Receio virou realidade, mediante algumas das medidas tomadas pelo Gabinete, pois para tal empreendimento, de compor um ministério com políticos liberais e conservadores, a Coroa contou com Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquês de Paraná, para chefiar o primeiro gabinete conciliatório da história do Segundo Reinado enfrentando várias resistências, principalmente entre os referidos saquaremas. O sucesso do gabinete creditou-se à força, tato e prudência do Marquês e, principalmente, ao pensamento do Imperador. A partir daí a história política do Segundo Reinado tomou novas feições.