Derechos humanos y reeducación en las prisiones : el derecho a la educación en el modelo 'good lives'

Monográfico con el título: "La educación en instituciones penitenciarias. Historia, políticas públicas y buenas prácticas".

ICOM 2010: half a century of changes and impasse

Half a century, from 1947 to 2010, is enough for us to take stock of the impact of the “ideology of Development” on Heritage. An ideology induced by UNESCO and by ICOM. What has changed and what is still in an impasse? What effects has this ideology had on Heritage? It is after making this assessment that we can better understand the extent to which the theme of this 22nd ICOM General Conference – Shangai 2010 is ultimately an obvious product of that influence.

Diversity and difference in the everyday lives of Ugandan street children: The significance of age and gender for understanding the use of space

Childhood is characterised by diversity and difference across and within societies. Street children have a unique relationship to the urban environment evident through their use of the city. The everyday geographies that street children produce are diversified through the spaces they frequent and the activities they engage in. Drawing on a range of children-centred qualitative methods, this article focuses on street children's use of urban space in Kampala, Uganda. The article demonstrates the importance of considering variables such as gender and age in the analysis of street children's socio-spatial experiences, which, to date, have rarely been considered in other accounts of street children's lives. In addition the article highlights the need for also including street children's individuality and agency into understanding their use of space. The article concludes by arguing for policies to be sensitive to the diversity that characterises street children's lives and calls for a more nuanced approach where policies are designed to accommodate street children's age and gender differences, and their individual needs, interests and abilities.

Brief and precarious lives: Infant mortality in contrasting sites from medieval and post-medieval England (AD 850-1859)

This study compares the infant mortality profiles of 128 infants from two urban and two rural cemetery sites in medieval England. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of urbanization and industrialization in terms of endogenous or exogenous causes of death. In order to undertake this analysis, two different methods of estimating gestational age from long bone lengths were used: a traditional regression method and a Bayesian method. The regression method tended to produce more marked peaks at 38 weeks, while the Bayesian method produced a broader range of ages and were more comparable with the expected "natural" mortality profiles. At all the sites, neonatal mortality (28-40 weeks) outweighed post-neonatal mortality (41-48 weeks) with rural Raunds Furnells in Northamptonshire, showing the highest number of neonatal deaths and post-medieval Spitalfields, London, showing a greater proportion of deaths due to exogenous or environmental factors. Of the four sites under study, Wharram Percy in Yorkshire showed the most convincing "natural" infant mortality profile, suggesting the inclusion of all births (i.e., stillbirths and unbaptised infants).

Diversity and difference in the everyday lives of Ugandan street children: The significance of age and gender for understanding the use of space

Childhood is characterised by diversity and difference across and within societies. Street children have a unique relationship to the urban environment evident through their use of the city. The everyday geographies that street children produce are diversified through the spaces they frequent and the activities they engage in. Drawing on a range of children-centred qualitative methods, this article focuses on street children's use of urban space in Kampala, Uganda. The article demonstrates the importance of considering variables such as gender and age in the analysis of street children's socio-spatial experiences, which, to date, have rarely been considered in other accounts of street children's lives. In addition the article highlights the need for also including street children's individuality and agency into understanding their use of space. The article concludes by arguing for policies to be sensitive to the diversity that characterises street children's lives and calls for a more nuanced approach where policies are designed to accommodate street children's age and gender differences, and their individual needs, interests and abilities.

Simulated global-mean sea level changes over the last half-millennium

Simulations of the last 500 yr carried out using the Third Hadley Centre Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere GCM (HadCM3) with anthropogenic and natural (solar and volcanic) forcings have been analyzed. Global-mean surface temperature change during the twentieth century is well reproduced. Simulated contributions to global-mean sea level rise during recent decades due to thermal expansion (the largest term) and to mass loss from glaciers and ice caps agree within uncertainties with observational estimates of these terms, but their sum falls short of the observed rate of sea level rise. This discrepancy has been discussed by previous authors; a completely satisfactory explanation of twentieth-century sea level rise is lacking. The model suggests that the apparent onset of sea level rise and glacier retreat during the first part of the nineteenth century was due to natural forcing. The rate of sea level rise was larger during the twentieth century than during the previous centuries because of anthropogenic forcing, but decreasing natural forcing during the second half of the twentieth century tended to offset the anthropogenic acceleration in the rate. Volcanic eruptions cause rapid falls in sea level, followed by recovery over several decades. The model shows substantially less decadal variability in sea level and its thermal expansion component than twentieth-century observations indicate, either because it does not generate sufficient ocean internal variability, or because the observational analyses overestimate the variability.

Krakatoa lives: The effect of volcanic eruptions on ocean heat content and thermal expansion

A suite of climate model experiments indicates that 20th Century increases in ocean heat content and sea-level ( via thermal expansion) were substantially reduced by the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The volcanically-induced cooling of the ocean surface is subducted into deeper ocean layers, where it persists for decades. Temporary reductions in ocean heat content associated with the comparable eruptions of El Chichon ( 1982) and Pinatubo ( 1991) were much shorter lived because they occurred relative to a non-stationary background of large, anthropogenically-forced ocean warming. Our results suggest that inclusion of the effects of Krakatoa ( and perhaps even earlier eruptions) is important for reliable simulation of 20th century ocean heat uptake and thermal expansion. Inter-model differences in the oceanic thermal response to Krakatoa are large and arise from differences in external forcing, model physics, and experimental design. Systematic experimentation is required to quantify the relative importance of these factors. The next generation of historical forcing experiments may require more careful treatment of pre-industrial volcanic aerosol loadings.

‘We are managing our own lives...’: life transitions and care in sibling-headed households affected by AIDS in Tanzania and Uganda

This paper explores the ways that young people express their agency and negotiate complex lifecourse transitions according to gender, age and inter- and intra-generational norms in sibling-headed households affected by AIDS in East Africa. Based on findings from a qualitative and participatory pilot study in Tanzania and Uganda, I examine young people's socio-spatial and temporal experiences of heading the household and caring for their siblings following their parent's/relative's death. Key dimensions of young people's caring pathways and life transitions are discussed: transitions into sibling care; the ways young people manage changing roles within the family; and the ways that young people are positioned and seek to position themselves within the community. The research reveals the relational and embodied nature of young people's life transitions over time and space. By living together independently, young people constantly reproduce and reconfigure gendered, inter- and intra-generational norms of ‘the family’, transgressing the boundaries of ‘childhood’, ‘youth’ and ‘adulthood’. Although young people take on ‘adult’ responsibilities and demonstrate their competencies in ‘managing their own lives’, this does not necessarily translate into more equal power relations with adults in the community. The research reveals the marginal ‘in-between’ place that young people occupy between local and global discourses of ‘childhood’ and ‘youth’ that construct them as ‘deviant’. Although young people adopt a range of strategies to resist marginalisation and harassment, I argue that constraints of poverty, unequal gender and generational power relations and the emotional impacts of sibling care, stigmatisation and exclusion can undermine their ability to exert agency and control over their sexual relationships, schooling, livelihood strategies and future lifecourse transitions.

"Racism in a Melting Pot...?" Trinidadian mid-life transnational migrants' views on race and colour-class on return to their homes of descent

This paper deals with second-generation, one-and-a-half generation and ‘‘prolonged sojourner” Trinidadian transnational migrants, who have decided to ‘return’ to the birthplace of their parents. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, the paper considers both the positive and critical things that these youthful transnational migrants report about returning to, and living in, this multi-ethnic plural society and the salience of racial and colour-class stratification as part of their return migration experiences. Our qualitative analysis is based on the narratives provided by these youthful returnees, as relayed ‘‘in their own words”, presenting critical reflections on racism, racial identities and experiences as transnational Trinidadians. It is clear that it is contexts such as contemporary working environments, family and community that act as the reference points for the adaptation ‘‘back home” of this strongly middle-class cohort. We accordingly encounter a diverse, sometimes contesting set of racial issues that emerge as salient concerns for these returnees. The consensus is that matters racial remain as formidable legacies in the hierarchical stratification of Trinidadian society for a sizeable number. Many of our respondents reported the positive aspects of racial affirmation on return. But for another sub-set, the fact that multi-ethnic and multi-cultural mixing are proudly embraced in Trinidad meant that it was felt that return experiences were not overly hindered, or blighted by obstacles of race and colour-class. For these returnees, Trinidad and Tobago is seen as representing a 21st century ‘‘Melting Pot”. But for others the continued existence of racial divisions within society – between ethnic groups and among those of different skin shades – was lamented. In the views of these respondents, too much racial power is still ascribed to ‘near-whiteness’. But for the most part, the returnees felt that where race played a part in their new lives, this generally served to advantage them. However, although the situation in Trinidad appears to have been moderated by assumptions that it remains a racial ‘Melting Pot’, the analysis strongly suggests that the colour-class system of stratification is still playing an essential role, along with racial stereotyping in society at large.