Victims, Violence and Voice: Transitional Justice, Oral History and Dealing with the Past

Transitional justice is concerned with the legal and social processes established to deal with the legacy of violence in post-conflict and post-authoritarian contexts. These processes are essentially “creatures of law” – they are established by statute, their work is molded and shaped by lawyers, and their outcomes are benchmarked against what is or is not acceptable in domestic and international law. Concerns have mounted in recent years about the dominance of legalism within the field and the instrumentalization of those most directly affected by past violence. A commonly prescribed – but as yet largely empirically untested – corrective is that transitional justice theory and practice must become more open to interdisciplinary insights and perspectives. The interview – in different guises, contexts and settings – is at the heart of most transitional justice processes. As a historian now working in a School of Law I reflect in this article on the theoretical and practical intersections between law, history, and the interview. Drawing on more than 200 interviews concerning the Northern Ireland conflict and six other international case studies I concentrate in particular on interview-based initiatives that purport to be “victim-centered”. Having identified three interrelated risks - the manipulation of victim voice by vested interests, the affording of authority to particular voices, and the reification or “freezing” of identity - and having related these to the constraints of legal mechanisms and a wider failure to manage victims’ expectations, I argue that a greater familiarity with oral history theory and praxis can usefully illuminate the tensions between legal and historical approaches to engaging voice, and ultimately offer guidance to the shared challenge of victim-centered transitional justice.

Comet 322P/SOHO 1: An asteroid with the smallest perihelion distance?

We observed comet 322P/SOHO 1 (P/1999 R1) from the ground and with the Spitzer Space Telescope when it was between 2.2 and 1.2 AU from the Sun. These are the first observations of any SOHO-discovered periodic comet by a non-solar observatory, and allow us to investigate its behavior under typical cometary circumstances. 322P appeared inactive in all images. Its lightcurve suggests a rotation period of 2.8+/-0.3 hr and has an amplitude greater than ~0.3 mag, implying a density of at least 1000 kg m$^{-3}$, considerably higher than that of any known comet. It has average colors of g'-r' = 0.52+/-0.04 and r'-i' = 0.04+/-0.09. We converted these to Johnson colors and found that the V-R color is consistent with average cometary colors, but R-I is somewhat bluer; these colors are most similar to V- and Q-type asteroids. Modeling of the optical and IR photometry suggests it has a diameter of 150-320 m and a geometric albedo of 0.09-0.42, with diameter and albedo inversely related. Our upper limits to any undetected coma are still consistent with a sublimation lifetime shorter than the typical dynamical lifetimes for Jupiter Family Comets. These results suggest that it may be of asteroidal origin and only active in the SOHO fields of view via processes different from the volatile-driven activity of traditional comets. If so, it has the smallest perihelion distance of any known asteroid.

Various Joyful Encounters with the Dystopias of Affective Capitalism

This article contends that what appear to be the dystopic conditions of affective capitalism are just as likely to be felt in various joyful encounters as they are in atmospheres of fear associated with post 9/11 securitization. Moreover, rather than grasping these joyful encounters with capitalism as an ideological trick working directly on cognitive systems of belief, they are approached here by way of a repressive affective relation a population establishes between politicized sensory environments and what Deleuze and Guattari (1994) call a brain-becoming-subject. This is a radical relationality (Protevi, 2010) understood in this context as a mostly nonconscious brain-somatic process of subjectification occurring in contagious sensory environments populations become politically situated in. The joyful encounter is not therefore merely an ideological manipulation of belief, but following Gabriel Tarde (as developed in Sampson, 2012), belief is always the object of desire. The discussion starts by comparing recent efforts by Facebook to manipulate mass emotional contagion to a Huxleyesque control through appeals to joy. Attention is then turned toward further manifestations of affective capitalism; beginning with the so-called emotional turn in the neurosciences, which has greatly influenced marketing strategies intended to unconsciously influence consumer mood (and choice), and ending with a further comparison between encounters with Nazi joy in the 1930s (Protevi, 2010) and the recent spreading of right wing populism similarly loaded with political affect. Indeed, the dystopian presence of a repressive political affect in all of these examples prompts an initial question concerning what can be done to a brain so that it involuntarily conforms to the joyful encounter. That is to say, what can affect theory say about an apparent brain-somatic vulnerability to affective suggestibility and a tendency toward mass repression? However, the paper goes on to frame a second (and perhaps more significant) question concerning what can a brain do. Through the work of John Protevi (in Hauptmann and Neidich (eds.), 2010: 168-183), Catherine Malabou (2009) and Christian Borch (2005), the article discusses how affect theory can conceive of a brain-somatic relation to sensory environments that might be freed from its coincidence with capitalism. This second question not only leads to a different kind of illusion to that understood as a product of an ideological trick, but also abnegates a model of the brain which limits subjectivity in the making to a phenomenological inner self or Being in the world.

Working with the complexities of adolescent mental health problems: applying Time‐limited Adolescent Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (TAPP)

This article discusses the application in a CAMHS setting of a distinctive intervention for adolescent mental health difficulties, Time‐limited Adolescent Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (TAPP). TAPP has been developed specifically for working with adolescents and the characteristic developmental and psychosocial complexities they present to mental health services. It is widely recognised that supporting the developmental process in adolescence is central to therapeutic interventions and the therapeutic aim of TAPP is to enable recovery of the capacity to meet developmental challenges. The key factors of TAPP are described, including the formulation and working with a developmental focus, the therapeutic stance, working with transference and counter‐transference, working with time limits, and the emphasis on engagement of adolescents in therapy in TAPP. The experiences of introducing and developing TAPP in the CAMHS service are discussed with two brief and one extended case examples and this leads to a discussion of the kinds of outcomes achieved. It is concluded that TAPP is a key and relevant intervention for adolescents in complex and vulnerable situations; further work will be undertaken to continue its application in these settings and to formally assess outcomes.

‘Running with the Fox and Hunting with the Hounds’: Social Work Tutors' Experiences of Managing Failing Social Work Students in Practice Learning Settings

The paper explores the issues raised by social work students failing in practice learning settings from the perspective of university tutors, by drawing on existing literature in this area from social work and nursing, as well as findings from a small‐scale empirical qualitative study. The qualitative study was influenced by practitioner‐researcher and practice‐near paradigms; and is based on interviews with twelve social work tutors in England. The findings reveal that tutors are able to articulate the important tasks and functions of their roles when issues of failing students in practice learning settings arise, although the process can be challenging. The challenges include: supporting practice educator and student, concerns about other tutors’ practices, the difficulties in promoting appropriate professional standards and values within higher education contexts and frustrations with practice educators and placements. Only a third of the respondents (four) however, articulated their gate keeping roles and responsibilities although this was not without its difficulties. Given the current reforms in social work education in England at this present time, with greater emphasis on threshold standards at entry level, and at key stages throughout the programme of study, the research is timely in terms of the critical consideration of the tutor role and challenges inherent in promoting appropriate standards.

Entomofauna associated with the olive tree in southern Portugal

Since 2004 several studies have been carried out in order to identify the main insect species that usually inhabiting the olive ecosystem. The field trials have taken place in two olive groves, one situated in Olhão and the other one in Loulé, both in Algarve and also under Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The sampling techniques used differ according to their purpose (sticky traps, pheromone traps, pitfall traps and samples of aerial parts of the trees such as inflorescences, leaves, fruits and branches). Results showed that the main insect pests of olive tree in southern Portugal were the olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae Gmelin (Diptera: Tephritidae) and the olive moth Prays oleae Bernard (Lepidoptera: Hyponeumetidae). Other insect pests were also found in our olive groves namely the olive psyllid Euphyllura olivina Costa (Homoptera: Psyllidae), the olive dark beetle Phloeotribus scarabaeoides Bernard (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), the mediterranean black scale Saissetia oleae (Olivier) (Homoptera: Coccidae) and the olive thrip Liothripes oleae Costa (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae). Concerning the auxiliary insects that were found in our olives groves they belong to the following orders and families: Diptera (Syrphidae), Coleoptera (Carabidae, Coccinelidae and Staphylinidae), Hemiptera (Anthocoridae and Miridae), Neuroptera (Chrysopidae) and Hymenoptera (Braconidae, Encyrtidae, Eulophidae, Formicidae and Trichogrammatidae).

Medium-term prospects for portuguese agriculture under health check Proposals: a quantitative analysis with the CAPRI modelling system

The challenges of Common Agricultural Policy are driven by internal and external factors, such as the budgetary constraints, the budget reform, the globalization and the world financial crisis. According to this work results, CAP will continue its evolution from a sectorial to a territorial approach, with a slow re-balance of its two pillars. The Portuguese agriculture will slowly adjust itself to the disappearance of prices and markets policy and the reinforcement of rural development policy. As in the past, agriculture will accommodate the reform effects and adjust to a new framework without sudden brakes or disclosers.

Teaching Information Literacy with the Lerninformationssystem

A German university has developed a learning information system to improve information literacy among German students. An online tutorial based on this Lerninformationssystem has been developed. The structure of this learning information system is described, an online tutorial based on it is illustrated, and the different learning styles that it supports are indicated.