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The movement of millions of ordinary people westward across the American continent was one of the great folk migrations of all time, stretching over two centuries and thousands of hard-traveled miles. Using a canvas as broad as the country itself, Gerald McFarland turns this journey into a resonant personal experience by retelling the stories of five generations of a single, real family—who are, in fact, his own pioneer ancestors. A Scattered People is a true-life saga that takes us from colonial settlements along the east coast to the California shore at the dawn of the twentieth century. Its cast is as rich as a historical novel’s: a born-again Christian farmer in eighteenth-century Co...
The shocking poignant story of eviction, expulsion, and the hard-scrabble fight for a home They are reviled. For centuries the Roma have wandered Europe; during the Holocaust half a million were killed. After World War II and during the Troubles, a wave of Irish Travellers moved to England to make a better, safer life. They found places to settle down – but then, as Occupy was taking over Wall Street and London, the vocal Dale Farm community in Essex was evicted from their land. Many did not leave quietly; they put up a legal and at times physical fight. Award-winning journalist Katharine Quarmby takes us into the heat of the battle, following the Sheridan, McCarthy, Burton and Townsley families before and after the eviction, from Dale Farm to Meriden and other trouble spots. Based on exclusive access over the course of seven years and rich historical research, No Place to Call Home is a stunning narrative of long-sought justice.
The eviction at Dale Farm in the UK in 2011 brought the conflicting issues relating to Gypsy and Traveller accommodation to the attention of the world's media. However, as the furore surrounding the eviction has died down, the very pressing issues of accommodation need, inequality of access to education, healthcare and employment, and exclusion from British (and European) society is still very much evident. This topical book examines and debates a range of themes facing Gypsies and Travellers in British society, including health, social policy, employment and education. It also looks at the dilemmas faced in representing disadvantaged minority groups in media and political discourse, theories on power, control and justice and the impact of European initiatives on inclusion. Gypsies and Travellers: Empowerment and inclusion in British society will be of interest to students, academics, policy makers, practitioners, those working in the media, police, education and health services, and of course to Gypsies and Travellers themselves.
Citizenship within our current international system signifies being fully human, or being worthy of fundamental human rights. For some vulnerable groups, however, this form of political membership is limited or missing entirely, and they face human rights challenges despite a prevalence of international human rights law. These protection gaps are central to hierarchies of personhood, or inequalities that render some people more "worthy" than others for protections and political membership. As a remedy, Lindsey N. Kingston proposes the ideal of "functioning citizenship," which requires an active and mutually-beneficial relationship between the state and the individual and necessitates the ope...
Revolting Subjects is a groundbreaking account of social abjection in contemporary Britain, exploring how particular groups of people are figured as revolting and how they in turn revolt against their abject subjectification. The book utilizes a number of high-profile and in-depth case studies - including 'chavs', asylum seekers, Gypsies and Travellers, and the 2011 London riots - to examine the ways in which individuals negotiate restrictive neoliberal ideologies of selfhood. In doing so, Tyler argues for a deeper psychosocial understanding of the role of representational forms in producing marginality, social exclusion and injustice, whilst also detailing how stigmatization and scapegoating are resisted through a variety of aesthetic and political strategies. Imaginative and original, Revolting Subjects introduces a range of new insights into neoliberal societies, and will be essential reading for those concerned about widening inequalities, growing social unrest and social justice in the wider global context.
The present book brings together a collection of key studies from many disciplines all focusing around the 'diaspora' issue. The readers will engage on a journey that spans continents, populations and time frames.
Exploring contemporary debates and developments in Roma-related research and forms of activism, this volume argues for taking up reflexivity as practice in these fields, and advocates a necessary renewal of research sites, methods, and epistemologies. The contributors gathered here – whose professional trajectories often lie at the confluence between activism, academia, and policy or development interventions – are exceptionally well placed to reflect on mainstream practices in all these fields, and, from their particular positions, envision a reimagining of these practices.
Interculturality has always been a part of the human condition, but in an era of accelerating globalization, intercultural issues have become crucial. Intercultural issues are approached in different ways by practitioners (e.g. governmental and non-governmental organisations) and researchers in diverse disciplines (mainly in universities). The aim of this book is to create a platform for dialogue between practitioners and researchers in concrete case studies to highlight the many different aspects that come into play under the umbrella of ‘interculturality’. It provides models of good practice for bringing together and synergizing intercultural practices and interculturality research within educational, social, and political projects. All contributions were first presented at the first Conference on Applied Interculturality Research at the University of Graz, Austria, 7–10 April 2010. cAIR aims to promote constructive intercultural communication and understanding, and to combat racism and xenophobia.
Over the past decade, interest in Gypsies, Roma and Travellers (GRT) has risen up the political and media agendas, but they remain relatively unknown. This topical book is the first to chart the history and contemporary developments in GRT community activism, and the community and voluntary organisations and coalitions which support it. Underpinned by radical community development and equality theories, it describes the communities' struggle for rights against a backdrop of intense intersectional discrimination across Europe, and critiques the ambivalent role of community development in fostering these campaigns. Much of it co-written by community activists, it is a vehicle for otherwise marginalised voices, and an essential resource and inspiration for practitioners, lecturers, researchers and members of GRT communities.
Has British literature finally surpassed Postmodernism and are we thus currently witnessing the emergence of a new era? Choosing specific forms of engagement with difference as a starting point, the present study traces recent developments in the field of the novel and illustrates in how far these new ways of dealing with difference may be characterised as "non-postmodern". Moreover, the analysis aims to demonstrate the renewed importance of modern(ist) strategies and their employment in contemporary British fiction. Case studies of six novels complement and illuminate these findings.