When Machiavelli breaks across borders: child protection and disability rights in the face of neoliberal and global social work

Presentation (2020, June)

A neoliberal and globally organized social work is the focus of this presentation, which discusses the very first results of an transnational research project on cross-border child protection and ... [more ▼]

A neoliberal and globally organized social work is the focus of this presentation, which discusses the very first results of an transnational research project on cross-border child protection and disability rights in the Greater Region including Belgium, Germany, France and Luxembourg (EUR&QUA) According to UN Conventions (UNCRC, 1990 and UNCRPD, 2006), States Parties shall ensure and promote the full realisation of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all children and persons with disabilities. Essentially, the Conventions call upon States Parties to take legislative, administrative and other measures to implement the rights recognised in both Conventions. Such imperatives seem to contradict a neoliberal social policy, which is oriented towards restraint in market intervention, strict austerity and cost reduction, and individualisation of social problems (Cummins, 2018). Actually, initial research results suggest that cross-border social work care for children and their families is not always sufficient. Crossing the border often means breaking off helping relations in the home country and there is hardly any professional exchange between social work providers involved. As a result, a return to the original life context desired by the clients seems hardly feasible (EUR&QUA 2019). Furthermore, practitioners expressed concern that diagnoses and support needs were formulated with a targeted focus on care in a neighbouring country. The research also identified cases that were not in line with the Brussels-II-Treaty on cross-border custody procedures. Some results may be derived less from optimal child protection and disability rights than from neo-liberalism, managerialism and austerity. In order to counter this development, social work needs something like Machiavellian competences (Kusiak, 2018; Drouard, 2008), which consist of critically illuminating a dominant ideology, conducting empirical research and acquiring the corresponding strategic knowledge. To this end, the research project aims to establish a Master's programme to empower future social worker in cross-boarder protection tasks. [less ▲]

When numbers act as attentional cues: behavioral and fMRI investigations

Poster (2011, February 11)

When One Religious Extremism Unmasks Another: Reflections on Europe’s States of Emergency as a Legacy of Ordo-Liberal De-hermeneuticisation

in New Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Journal of Central and East European Politics and International Relations (2016), 24(1), 79-101

This intervention explores the extent to which the technocratic de-hermeneutisation of European political economical thinking, of which the ordoliberal economic principles of the Freiburg school in ... [more ▼]

This intervention explores the extent to which the technocratic de-hermeneutisation of European political economical thinking, of which the ordoliberal economic principles of the Freiburg school in Economics are a key ingredient - may be contributing to the social conditions under which religious radicalisation typically takes place, or may at least be failing to provide significant responses on the basis of which religious radicalisation can be countered. [less ▲]

When Redistribution Leads to Regressive Taxation

in Journal of Public Economic Theory (2007), 9(4), 589-606

We introduce labor contracts in a framework of optimal redistribution: firms have some local market power and try to discriminate among heterogeneous workers. In this setting we show that if the firms ... [more ▼]

We introduce labor contracts in a framework of optimal redistribution: firms have some local market power and try to discriminate among heterogeneous workers. In this setting we show that if the firms have perfect information, i.e., they perfectly discriminate against workers and take all the surplus, the best tax function is flat. If firms have imperfect information, i.e., if they offer incentive contracts, then (under some assumptions) the best redistributive taxation is regressive. [less ▲]

When solidarity melts into air: Philippines-born women migrants in Australia

Book published by Bloomsbury Academic (in press)

This chapter looks at the (mis)recognition of the symbolic violence engendered by intra-ethnic women's solidarity in the context of international sexual division of labor. In particular I focus on the ... [more ▼]

This chapter looks at the (mis)recognition of the symbolic violence engendered by intra-ethnic women's solidarity in the context of international sexual division of labor. In particular I focus on the publications of Philippines-born women migrant's organisations. The chapter interrogates the violence of documenting the struggle against racialist and elitist marginalisation of migrant women in the context of multicultural Australia. [less ▲]

When Text Authors Lived Using Undated Citations

in Lamas, David; Buitelaar, Paul (Eds.) Multidisciplinary Information Retrieval (2014)

When the Foundations of Life have been Upset… An Integrated Clinical and Experimental Study with Refugees and Asylum Seekers

in Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (2013), 15(2), 53-62

Aim Recent research results in clinical psychology, health psychology and neurobiology underline the relationship between dissociative states, complex posttraumatic syndromes and borderline functioning ... [more ▼]

Aim Recent research results in clinical psychology, health psychology and neurobiology underline the relationship between dissociative states, complex posttraumatic syndromes and borderline functioning [11]. Our study is meant to investigate the traumatic hypothesis of borderline functioning and to develop appropriate psychotherapeutic measures based on artistic mediations. Material and Methods.To estimate the effect of traumatic events, from the beginning of life up to recent stressors, linked to natural catastrophes, war, political persecution and migration, we undertook an integrated clinical and experimental study with a sample of 73 refugees and asylum seekers. In a second stage, those who suffered from PTSD or complex post-traumatic states were offered to attend arts psychotherapeutic sessions.. To investigate the personality functioning at the structural level, we used a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology, combining a semi-structured biographical interview, a projective test, i.e. the Sentences Completion Test, for which we developed a new manner of interpretation , and psychometric scales, i.e. the HADS and the Index of Wellbeing . Furthermore, we analysed the artistic production (pictures, stories written under musical induction) with the help of rating scales constructed in the phenomenological and structural tradition. Results. With the help of non parametric multidimensional statistics, we extracted two profiles of personality functioning, linked either to repeated breaks, negligence and maltreatment from the beginning of life, or either to a recent external catastrophe, interrupting a continuous life course. Through the evaluation of the arts therapeutic sessions, we could note the first signs of resumption of the blocked process of subjectivation. Discussion.The results of the study support the traumatogenic hypothesis of borderline functioning, as well as current clinical considerations concerning the defensive role of dissociation in complex posttraumatic states. Conclusion. The study opens tracks for future research concerning an in depth investigation of the arts therapeutic process with traumatized people. [less ▲]

When Time Breaks: The Hiatus of Refugee Status

E-print/Working paper (2018)

“In the first place, we don’t like to be called ‘refugees.’ We ourselves call one another ‘newcomers’ or ‘immigrants.’” Already here, in the first sentence of Arendt’s essay “We Refugees,” does the hiatus ... [more ▼]

“In the first place, we don’t like to be called ‘refugees.’ We ourselves call one another ‘newcomers’ or ‘immigrants.’” Already here, in the first sentence of Arendt’s essay “We Refugees,” does the hiatus of refugee status become manifest. A divide already opens up between different habits of reference. Refugees refer to themselves in one way, non-refugees refer to them in another, and so does the projected or desired possibility of one world in which both refugees and non-refugees might find accommodation, split into two very different realities. Consciousness of the split is of course solely that of the refugees, at first. Initially, the hiatus is theirs only. Others – non-refugees – remain soundly oblivious to this fundamental split until such time as it brutally breaks into their world too, for instance, when the corpse of a four-year old child washes up on a beach, and washes up on every doorstep in a succession of media waves. And then the hiatus is suddenly everywhere and no one remains exempted. As the last sentence of Arendt’s essay contends forcefully, the split begins with the refugee status of some, but it ends with the bigger split of a world that begins to falter and fall apart: “The comity of European peoples went to pieces when, and because, it allowed its weakest member to be excluded and persecuted.” The comity of European peoples show all signs of going to pieces again today. When the comity of peoples goes to pieces, it is not only common space that cracks up, but also common time, the common time that warrants common space according to Kant’s Schematismuslehre. It is ultimately this breaking of time – the hiatus of time – that Arendt thematises elsewhere with reference to “the desolate aimless wanderings of Israeli tribes in the wilderness and the dangers which befell Aeneas before he reached the Italian shore.” “[T]his hiatus,” she continues, obviously creeps into all time speculations which deviate from the currently accepted notion of time as a continuous flow.” (Arendt On Revolution, 205). This text is also a supplementary discussion of my reviews of two recent monographs on Arendt. See: RECENT ARENDT SCHOLARSHIP: Review of The Wandering Thought of Hannah Arendt by Hans Jörg Sigwart, Palgrave MacMillan, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-137-48214-3, 147 pages (abbreviated as WT below), and Rightlessness in an Age of Rights. Hannah Arendt and the Contemporary Struggles of Migrants by Ayten Gündoğdu, New York: Oxford University Press: 2015, 298 pages, forthcoming in Constellations. [less ▲]

When versus what: How time and valence of contextual descriptions modulate affective ERP components in response to facial expressions

Poster (2018, March)

When will smart antennas be ready for the market? Part I

in EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications & Networking (2005), 22(2), 87-92