Other News

On the anniversary of the 7/7 terror attacks in London, Dr. Charlotte Heath-Kelly writes on how it changed the way Britain mourns victims of terrorism, for The Conversation.

Tucked into the south-east corner of Hyde Park in London, 52 stainless steel pillars have stood since July 7, 2009. These make up the official memorial for the victims of the London bombings of 2005 – an unobtrusive testament of which many people are unaware. Each pillar purposefully contains slight individual characteristics to symbolise the individuality of each life lost on the London transport network during 7/7.

Compared to the gaping wounds that tear into the earth at Ground Zero, in the form of Michael Arad’s Reflecting Absence design, the British might consider their memorial reaction to the London bombings as understated.

We might contemplate London’s memorial in the context of British historical familiarity with political violence and a steadfast determination to just get on with it, with little fuss. We might think the memorial represents a continuity of historical approach when dealing with bombings, while also remaining respectfully apolitical in its simple, victim-oriented design.

But on many of these points, we would be wrong. The 7/7 pillars actually represent a dramatic shift in British memorial culture.

You can read the rest of the article on The Conversation website.

Rune Møller Stahl, a visiting PAIS PhD student, has written an extended article for the Jacobin Magazine on the results of the recent General Election in Denmark and its implications for the Danish left. The full article can be found here under the title of 'Denmark's Nativist Threat': https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/denmark-election-right-peoples-party/

Rune Møller Stahl, a visiting PAIS PhD student, appeared live on TV2 News in Denmark to discuss the Greek referendum on whether to accept the terms of the international bailout. Rune was asked about what the result of the referendum might mean for the ability of the Troika to see its programme of austerity implemented in Greece and also for the ability of the Syriza Government to keep the country in the Eurozone in the event of a default.

The Leverhulme Trust has recently funded the Project on Indeterminate and Changing Environments: Law, the Anthropocene, and the World (the ICE LAW Project). The project will be coordinated by IBRU: Durham University’s Centre for Borders Research (https://www.dur.ac.uk/ibru/) with the support of the UArctic Thematic Network on Arctic Law. It will be led by Philip Steinberg (https://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/staff/geogstaffhidden/?id=11830/). Stuart Elden from PAIS will be leading the subproject on territory.

The ICE LAW Project will query how human interactions with the geophysical environment of the world’s frozen regions challenge Western normative principles of state power and legal authority that assume an idealized binary between land and water. Six subprojects led by ten scholars (representing seven institutions in six countries) will investigate how normative principles of state territory are challenged by the dynamic nature of geophysics. Subprojects will explore how complex geophysical processes and changes are encountered through regulations and practices of territory, resource use, law, mobility, and migration, including a focus on local and indigenous perspectives.

Over the next three years, beginning in January 2016, each subproject will be a holding a number of workshops, there will be larger conferences as well as sessions at the 2017 International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS) in Umeå, Sweden. The plan of action follows directly from the Workshop on the Ice-Land-Water Interface [http://icelawproject.org/news-events/news-and-events/] held in June 2014 in Durham.

In a recent commentary article for The Conversation, Dr André Broome explains the political and economic consequences of Greece defaulting on its IMF loan after missing its scheduled repayment on June 30. As Dr Broome points out, this is the first time an advanced economy has ever defaulted on its financial obligations to the IMF, and will make it difficult, if not impossible, for Greece to continue to cooperate with its international creditors regardless of the result of its bailout referedum on July 5.

The commentary article is available to view at: https://theconversation.com/nine-things-to-know-about-greeces-imf-debt-default-44097

Other recent commentary by Dr Broome on the crisis in Greece includes:

‘Five Things You Need to Know About the IMF’s Stance on Greece’ (https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-imfs-stance-on-greece-43936)

‘The EU’s Deal on Greece Shows that Europe Remains Wedded to the Politics of Austerity' (http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/02/23/the-eus-deal-on-greece-shows-that-europe-remains-wedded-to-the-politics-of-austerity/)