Other News

Burkina Faso, which has been experiencing a political transition since October 2014 when former President Compaoré saw his attempts to remove term limits from the constitution fail and had to leave the country, is experiencing turmoil again, less than four weeks before scheduled elections to return the country to a constitutional order.

On 16 September, members of the Presidential Guard (RSP) disrupted the transition by kidnapping transition authorities, and attempting to impose their chief to lead the country. This was faced by massive resistance from the population, in the capital Ouagadougou but also in many towns and cities across the country.

PAIS PhD student Eloïse Bertrand provides analysis of this popular resistance on African Arguments.

You can read Eloïse's articule here: http://africanarguments.org/2015/09/21/popular-resistance-to-the-burkina-faso-coup-who-where-and-what-next-after-the-draft-deal/

How We Write: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blank Page is an open access collection from Punctum books.

Edited by Suzanne Conklin Akbari, it includes a piece by PAIS Professor Stuart Elden entitled 'Writing by Accumulation'.

The aim of the book is not to offer advice on how to write, but for academics to share stories of how they actually write, with techniques, rituals, frustrations and horror stories.

"The contributors range from graduate students and recent PhDs to senior scholars working in the fields of medieval studies, art history, English literature, poetics, early modern studies, musicology, and geography. All are engaged in academic writing, but some of the contributors also publish in other genres, includes poetry and fiction. Several contributors maintain a very active online presence, including blogs and websites; all are committed to strengthening the bonds of community, both in person and online, which helps to explain the effervescent sense of collegiality that pervades the volume, creating linkages across essays and extending outward into the wide world of writers and readers."

The book is free to download, but physical copies are available to buy. Punctum Books is a small, independent publisher that only produces open access material, and relies on sales and donations to enable projects such as this one.

PAIS PhD student Afif Pasuni has had a piece published on the Singapore elections by The Conversation.

Afif provides a commentary on why it was that Singapore’s ruling party, the PAP, managed to increase its share of votes in the recent election despite unpopular policies and spiralling inflation. The article looks at the role of Singapore’s 50^th anniversary celebrations and the death of Lee Kwan Yew in the PAP victory, but also considers the prospects for oppositional politics in Singapore’.

The article can be read here.

Associate Professor Vicki Squire (PAIS, Warwick), with Co-Is Dr Dallal Stevens (Law, Warwick), Professor Nick Vaughan-Williams (PAIS, Warwick), Dr Angeliki Dimitriadi (ELIAMEP, Athens), and Dr Maria Pisani (Malta), have been awarded over 150K for an ESRC Urgent Research project entitled 'Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by boat: Mapping and documenting migratory journeys and experiences.’

While migrant deaths en route to the European Union are by no means new, the level and intensity of recent tragedies is unprecedented. More than 1850 deaths were recorded January-May 2015, demanding swift action on the part of EU Member States. This project produces a timely and robust evidence base as grounds for informing policy interventions developed under emergency conditions across the Mediterranean. It does so by assessing the impact of such interventions on those that they affect most directly: migrants or refugees themselves. This project undertakes such an assessment by engaging the journeys and experiences of people migrating, asking:

• What are the impacts of policy interventions on migratory journeys and experiences across the Mediterranean?
• How do refugees or migrants negotiate complex and entwined migratory and regulatory dynamics?
• In what ways can policy be re-shaped to address migrant deaths at sea?

The project focuses on three EU island arrival points in Greece, Italy and Malta. Qualitative interview data, both textual and visual, is produced through an interdisciplinary participatory research approach. The project contributes: an interdisciplinary perspective on the legal and social implications of policy interventions in the region; a comparative perspective on migratory routes and methods of travel across the Mediterranean; a qualitative analysis of the journeys and experiences of refugees and migrants; and methodological insights into participatory research under emergency conditions.

Well done to Stephanie Ifayemi, PAIS student, who attained 4th place out of the top 10 in the 2015 Rare Rising Star Awards in recognition of her impressive achievements.

Now in its seventh year, Rare Rising Stars showcases the incredible achievements of the best black students in the UK.

Please click here to read about Stephanie's success.