Immigrant Associations in the Metropolitan Area of Finland : Forms of Mobilisation, Participation and Representation

This study examines the role of immigrant associations in the societal and political integration of immigrants into Finnish society. The societal focus is on the ability of immigrant associations to mobilise their ethnic group members to participate in the socio-economic, cultural and political domains of Finnish society and in certain cases even beyond. The political integrative aims are the opportunities of immigrant associations to participate and represent the interests of their ethnic group in local and national policy making. This study focuses on associations in the Metropolitan Area of Finland, (Espoo, Helsinki and Vantaa).The qualitative research consisted of 71 interviews conducted with members of immigrant associations and civil servants. These interviews were mainly semi-structured, including some additional open-ended questions. Additional data consisted of documents, planning reports and of follow-up enquiries. -- In the analysis of the data I categorised thirty-two immigrant associations according to the activity forms and the description of the goals by the members. The four categories consisted of integrative, societal, ethno-cultural and transnational immigrant associations. Most of the immigrant associations belonged to the integrative category (15 of 32 associations). On the one hand the aims of these associations are to provide access for their ethnic group members into Finnish society, while on the other to strengthen the ethnic identity of their members by organising ethno-cultural activities. The societal associations only focused on activities with the objective of including immigrants into the Finnish labour market and educational system. The goal of ethno-cultural associations was to strengthen the ethnic identity of their ethnic group members. The transnational associations aimed at improving the living conditions of women and children in the members' country of origin. The possibilities for immigrant associations to mobilise their members depends partly on external financing. Subsidies have been allocated for societal activities in particular. There remains a risk of the crowding out of ethno-cultural activities: something which has already taken place in several European countries. Immigrant associations aim to strengthen the identity of immigrants mainly by organising social and ethno-cultural activities. Another important target was to provide peer support and therapy courses. Additionally, immigrant women's associations offer assistance to women who have encountered violence by providing counselling and in some cases access to shelter. The data showed that there is an ever growing need to pay heed to the well-being of women, children and elderly immigrants. The participation of immigrant associations in the municipalities' integrative issues takes place mainly through cooperative projects. Until the end of the 1990s there had not been much cooperation. The problem with the projects was that they had mainly been managed by civil servants, whereas members from immigrant associations had remained in a more passive position. Representation of immigrant associations in councils has been fairly weak. Immigrant associations are included in the multicultural councils of Espoo and Vantaa, but only in the planning stages. The municipality of Helsinki does not include immigrant associations due to the large number of organisations which causes problems in finding fair, democratic representation. At the national level, the ‘Advisory Board for Ethnic Relations’ – ETNO didn’t chose its members based on membership of ethnic associations, but based on belongingness to one of the larger language groups spoken by the foreign population in Finland. Since ETNO’s third period (2005-2007), the representatives of immigrant associations and ethnic minority groups have been chosen from proposed candidates. Key words: immigrant associations, integration, mobilisation, participation, representation, the Metropolitan area of Finland, immigrant (women), civil servants

Housing the skilled migrants in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area : International attractiveness of housing, neighbourhoods and the city region

The aim of this thesis is to examine the skilled migrants’ satisfaction with the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The examination is executed on three scales: housing, neighbourhoods and the city region. Specific focus is on the built environment and how it meets the needs of the migrants. The empirical data is formed of 25 semi-structured interviews with skilled migrants and additionally 5 expert interviews. Skilled and educated workforce is an increasingly important resource in the new economy, and cities are competing globally for talented workers. With aging population and a need to develop its innovational structure, the Helsinki Metropolitan Area needs migrant workforce. It has been stated that quality of place is a central factor for skilled migrants when choosing where to settle, and from this perspective their satisfaction with the region is significant. In housing, the skilled migrants found the price-quality ratio and the general sizes of apartments inadequate. The housing market is difficult for the migrants to approach, since they often do not speak Finnish and there are prejudices towards foreigners. The general quality of housing was rated well. On the neighbourhood level, the skilled migrants had settled in residential areas which are also preferred by the Finnish skilled workers. While the migrants showed suburban orientation in their settlement patterns, they were not concentrated in the suburban areas which host large shares of traditional immigrant groups. Migrants were usually satisfied with their neighbourhoods; however, part of the suburban dwellers were unsatisfied with the services and social life in their neighbourhoods. Considering the level of the city region, the most challenging feature for the skilled migrants was the social life. The migrants felt that the social environment is homogeneous and difficult to approach. The physical environment was generally rated well, the most appreciated features being public transportation, human scale of the Metropolitan Helsinki, cleanliness, and the urban nature. Urban culture and services were seen good for the city region’s size, but lacking in international comparison.

The Untouchable Soldier: Caste, Politics, and the Indian Army

Military establishments are omnipresent if not everywhere omnipotent. While these costly bureaucracies are the bane of finance ministers around the world, they do provide an important opportunity for comparative analysis. This paper examines a military system—the Indian one—through time, and attempts to demonstrate the changing relationship of that system to Indian politics and society in general, and to the low-caste communities of India in particular. We select the low-caste untouchables because they represent an extreme challenge to the integrative capacity of both political and social systems, and because they have recently been the subject of intensive political and academic concern.Stephen P. Cohen is Assistant Professor of Political Science in Asian Studies at the University of Illinois. Research for this paper was supported by a fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies in 1964–65.

Nature's Swiss Army Knives: Ovipositor Structure Mirrors Ecology in a Multitrophic Fig Wasp Community

Background: Resource partitioning is facilitated by adaptations along niche dimensions that range from morphology to behaviour. The exploitation of hidden resources may require specially adapted morphological or sensory tools for resource location and utilisation. Differences in tool diversity and complexity can determine not only how many species can utilize these hidden resources but also how they do so. Methodology and Principal Findings: The sclerotisation, gross morphology and ultrastructure of the ovipositors of a seven-member community of parasitic wasps comprising of gallers and parasitoids developing within the globular syconia (closed inflorescences) of Ficus racemosa (Moraceae) was investigated. These wasps also differ in their parasitism mode (external versus internal oviposition) and their timing of oviposition into the expanding syconium during its development. The number and diversity of sensilla, as well as ovipositor teeth, increased from internally ovipositing to externally ovipositing species and from gallers to parasitoids. The extent of sclerotisation of the ovipositor tip matched the force required to penetrate the syconium at the time of oviposition of each species. The internally ovipositing pollinator had only one type of sensillum and a single notch on the ovipositor tip. Externally ovipositing species had multiple sensilla types and teeth on their ovipositors. Chemosensilla were most concentrated at ovipositor tips while mechanoreceptors were more widely distributed, facilitating the precise location of hidden hosts in these wasps which lack larval host-seeking behaviour. Ovipositor traits of one parasitoid differed from those of its syntopic galler congeners and clustered with those of parasitoids within a different wasp subfamily. Thus ovipositor tools can show lability based on adaptive necessity, and are not constrained by phylogeny. Conclusions/Significance: Ovipositor structure mirrored the increasingly complex trophic ecology and requirements for host accessibility in this parasite community. Ovipositor structure could be a useful surrogate for predicting the biology of parasites in other communities.

The impacts of leadership in the quality of municipal public services: case study of a portuguese municipal council

[EN]The present research work, based on some of the components of the Common Assessment Framework, sets to analyse the influence held by leadership in specific factors that constitute the organisational climate, and also the impact that these factors have on the quality of municipal public services. For the purposes of this study, we propose Likert’s exploitative autocratic and participative leadership styles to explain the genesis, structure and workflow. As far as the organisational climate is concerned, the variables used are motivation, satisfaction, empowerment, conflict and stress. The main conclusions that arose was that a participative leader confers higher relevance to the quality of service, through motivation, satisfaction, empowerment and human resources positive results, than an exploitative autocratic leader. Performed contributions are based on the empiric research hereby presented, and new research guidelines are proposed. The research methodology used was qualitative, based on the case study.

Outputs from the Manchester Metropolitan University distance learning think tank event

An overview of, and the emergent themes from, the Manchester Metropolitan University distance learning think tank event which took place on 10th July 2014 and aimed to provide a forum to explore and discuss some of the key issues for colleagues across the university involved in planning, setting-up and delivering such programmes at MMU.

Poster: Outputs from the Manchester Metropolitan University online distance learning think tank event

Poster from the overview of, and the emergent themes from, the Manchester Metropolitan University distance learning think tank event which took place on 10th July 2014 and aimed to provide a forum to explore and discuss some of the key issues for colleagues across the university involved in planning, setting-up and delivering such programmes at MMU.

O gênero militar parte: aplicações para o ensino acadêmico de língua portuguesa

Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar o gênero textual parte e suas implicações para o ensino. Para isso, fizemos uma descrição do gênero, tendo por base a perspectiva de Mikhail Bakhtin de análise do discurso em um diálogo com a perspectiva de análise do discurso de Patrick Charaudeau. A parte segundo as Instruções Gerais para a Correspondência, as Publicações e os Atos Administrativos no âmbito do Exército (IG 10-42), é a correspondência que tramita no âmbito de uma OM, por meio da qual o militar se comunica com um de seus pares ou superior hierárquico, em objeto de serviço, podendo ser utilizado suporte eletrônico (...), ou ser substituída por mensagem eletrônica, sempre que houver meios físicos adequados. (BRASIL, 2002, p. 18). Portanto, ele é um documento oficial de circulação interna que exige uma linguagem formal para relatar, solicitar ou informar algo a alguma autoridade, dentre outras possibilidades, ou seja, o propósito comunicativo da parte, de maneira genérica, é relatar uma ocorrência, solicitar algum direito, informar dados necessários para a confecção de algum outro documento etc. Por estar inserido no domínio discursivo militar, em que as formas padronizadas orientam a produção dos gêneros que neles estão circunscritos, deve seguir regras para a sua escrita. Por essa razão, o ensino da parte está presente no currículo da Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras, que forma o oficial combatente de carreira do Exército Brasileiro em bacharel em Ciências Militares. Dessa forma, apresentamos neste trabalho uma proposta para o ensino do gênero, tendo como aporte teórico as sequências didáticas postuladas pela Escola de Genebra. Apesar de essa Escola trazer uma proposta didática para o ensino de gêneros no ensino fundamental, observamos que a teoria é adequada ao ensino de um gênero em qualquer nível de escolaridade àquele que está sendo inserido em um domínio discursivo

Systematic liquidity: commonality and inter-temporal variation in the Portuguese stock market

[EN] The aim of this paper is to study systematic liquidity at the Euronext Lisbon Stock Exchange. The motivation for this research is provided by the growing interest in financial literature about stock liquidity and the implications of commonality in liquidity for asset pricing since it could represent a source of non-diversifiable risk. Namely, it is analysed whether there exist common factors that drive the variation in individual stock liquidity and the causes of the inter-temporal variation of aggregate liquidity. Monthly data for the period between January 1988 and December 2011 is used to compute some of the most used proxies for liquidity: bid-ask spreads, turnover rate, trading volume, proportion of zero returns and the illiquidity ratio. Following Chordia et al. (2000) methodology, some evidence of commonality in liquidity is found in the Portuguese stock market when the proportion of zero returns is used as a measure of liquidity. In relation to the factors that drive the inter-temporal variation of the Portuguese stock market liquidity, the results obtained within a VAR framework suggest that changes in real economy activity, monetary policy (proxied by changes in monetary aggregate M1) and stock market returns play an important role as determinants of commonality in liquidity.

A estranha nação de Moacyr Scliar: a ficcionalização de lugares, identidades e imaginários judaicos e brasileiros

Esta tese trata da ficcionalização das questões de identidades, lugares e imaginários judaicos e brasileiros nos romances contos e novelas de temática judaica escritos pelo gaúcho Moacyr Scliar. Na introdução, apresento os objetivos e pressupostos gerais do trabalho, bem como proponho uma divisão da obra em questão em duas fases. No primeiro capítulo, analiso os romances A Guerra no Bom Fim (1972) e O Exército de um Homem Só (1973), sob o ponto de vista da testagem de lugares judaicos clássicos enquanto fontes de inspiração para a resolução dos dilemas que emergem na diáspora brasileira e o início de um processo de dotação de legitimidade ao viver judaico na diáspora sul-americana. No segundo capítulo, analiso o conto A Balada do Falso Messias (1976) e o romance Os Voluntários (1979), sob o ponto de vista da tematização do Messianismo, do Sionismo e do papel que Jerusalém exerce no imaginário judaico moderno e de sua adequação ou não para alimentar o imaginário judaico na contemporaneidade. No terceiro capítulo, trato da ficcionalização das construções identitárias das personagens judias da primeira fase da obra scliariana (1972 a 1980), sob o ponto de vista das noções de hibridismo, aculturação e assimilação. Neste capítulo, analiso as personagens centrais dos romances A Guerra no Bom Fim, O Exército de um Homem Só, Os Deuses de Raquel (1975), (O Ciclo das Águas) (1975), Os Voluntários e O Centauro no Jardim (1980). No quarto capítulo, analiso o romance A Estranha Nação de Rafael Mendes (1983), tentando demonstrar que esta narrativa representa um divisor de águas na obra do autor, por tematizar as raízes judaicas da cultura brasileira através dos marranos, cristãos-novos e cripto-judeus que aqui aportaram com os portugueses em 1500. No quinto e último capítulo, analiso os romances da Segunda fase scliariana: Cenas da Vida Minúscula (1991), A Majestade do Xingu (1997) e A Mulher que Escreveu a Bíblia (1999). Neste capítulo, tento demonstrar que nestas narrativas dá-se o início de uma tentativa de construção de um imaginário judaico-brasileiro próprio, formado por uma fusão de motivos tipicamente brasileiros e outros especificamente judaicos, o que seria o corolário do já mencionado processo de dotação de legitimidade e viabilidade da diáspora judaico-brasileira frente à concretude e a reificação do Israel moderno. Na conclusão, teço algumas considerações sobre o todo do trabalho e levanto algumas questões relativas à construções de imaginários coletivos nas diásporas judaicas, mais especificamente na brasileira