Monthly Digest is a resource provided by Security in Context that provides a list of recent publications, calls, conferences and other items relevant to the critical global, security, and international political economy studies audience. In addition to new items, our digest may contain relatively recent entries, so please double check dates on any calls or conferences. All descriptions taken from their original sources unless otherwise indicated. If we’ve missed something, or you have items you’d like to contribute for future digests, please email us at: submissions@securityincontext.org
Books
The Synchronized Society
Time and Control From Broadcasting to the Internet
https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-synchronized-society/9781978820098
The Synchronized Society traces the history of the synchronous broadcast experience of the twentieth century and the transition to the asynchronous media that dominate today. Broadcasting grew out of the latent desire by nineteenth-century industrialists, political thinkers, and social reformers to tame an unruly society by controlling how people used their time. The idea manifested itself in the form of the broadcast schedule, a managed flow of information and entertainment that required audiences to be in a particular place – usually the home – at a particular time and helped to create “water cooler” moments, as audiences reflected on their shared media texts. Audiences began disconnecting from the broadcast schedule at the end of the twentieth century, but promoters of social media and television services still kept audiences under control, replacing the schedule with surveillance of media use. Author Randall Patnode offers compelling new insights into the intermingled roles of broadcasting and industrial/post-industrial work and how Americans spend their time.
Enhancing Water Security in the Middle East
MENA Water Security Task Force
Editors: Hussein A. Amery, Sinan Hatahet, Rawan Hammoud, and Mehmet Emin Cengiz
https://research.sharqforum.org/mena-water-security-task-force/#
This book is the product of the MENA Water Security task force organized by Al Sharq Strategic Research between March 2022 to February 2023.
This edited volume presents an examination of the MENA region’s water challenges, and it attempts to pay greater attention to opportunities related to enhancing water security. To address the pressing issue of water security in the MENA region, this book approaches the issue from a geographical perspective by dividing the region into basins and discussing the challenges faced by each basin separately.
With this approach in mind, the Nile River basin is analyzed by Dr. Mohammed Mahmoud, the Euphrates and Tiger basins are examined by Dr. Neda Zawahri, Dr. Mohammad Al- Saidi addresses the issue of desalination in the Arab Gulf countries, and Dr. Hilmi S. Salem explores potential solutions for the water conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. Finally, a cross-regional chapter by Dr. Marwa Daoudy provides a broad human security framework for this volume.
Water challenges in the Middle East and North Africa are too numerous to capture in one body of research. Dr. Amery provides an introductory chapter that provides an overview of the wide range of possible approaches for enhancing water security. Throughout our collaboration, we also discussed examining water insecurity in other parts of the region, such as Morocco, Iran, and Yemen.
We hope the insights and perspectives presented in this book will inspire further research and analysis on the themes discussed and contribute to a deeper understanding of the Middle East and North Africa security landscape. Through our research and discussions, we have highlighted the importance of addressing non-conventional security threats, such as the environment, climate change, and the water-food-energy nexus, and the potential for collaboration and innovative solutions to address these challenges. We encourage our colleagues in academia and think tanks to continue this important work and build on the foundation laid by this volume.
Contemporary International Criminal Law Issues
Contributions in Pursuit of Accountability for Africa and the World
Editors: Takeh B. K. Sendze, Adesola Adeboyejo, Howard Morrison, Sophia Ugwu
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-6265-555-3
This book critically analyzes diverse international criminal law (ICL) issues in light of recent developments in the international criminal justice system following the pursuit of accountability in Africa and around the world. It gives a scholarly analysis of issues pertaining to ICL and the pursuit of accountability in Africa by way of several topics including universal jurisdiction in Africa, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the legitimacy of the ICTR, the law of genocide committed against the Herero and Nama peoples, the African perspective on international co-operation in criminal matters, the Malabo Protocol, and whether an African Regional Court is a viable alternative to the ICC.
Further discussed are other aspects of ICL, such as prosecuting sexual and gender-based crimes at the ICC, sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated against men, guilty pleas within ICL and slavery within international criminal justice. With this, the book also refers to the jurisprudence of several international courts and tribunals including the ICTR, the ICTY, the SCSL, the ICC, the ECCC, the KSC, and the STL. This timely contributed volume updates international criminal law experts, practitioners, academics, human rights activists and other stakeholders on contemporary developments in ICL and provides recommendations that address accountability for mass atrocity crimes and ideas for strategic ICL litigation at the national, international, regional and sub-regional levels. It will prompt constructive exchanges on what can be improved in prosecuting mass atrocity crimes around the world.
Takeh B.K. Sendze is an Advocate and Legal Officer with the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in Arusha, Tanzania.
Adesola Adeboyejo is a Trial Lawyer at the International Criminal Court.
Sir Howard Morrison QC is a former International Judge and an Associate Tenant at Doughty Street Chambers in London, United Kingdom.
Sophia Ugwu is a Solicitor and Advocate who founded the Centre for African Justice, Peace and Human Rights in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Migrants and Refugees in Southern Europe beyond the News Stories
Photographs, Hate, and Journalists' Perceptions
EDITED BY CARLOS ARCILA CALDERÓN AND ANDREAS VEGLIS - CONTRIBUTIONS BY JAVIER J. AMORES; CARLOS ARCILA CALDERÓN; DAVID BLANCO-HERRERO; DIEGO GARUSI; ANGELIKI KONSTANTINIDOU; MARIA MATSIOLA; MARTIN OLLER ALONSO; NIKOS S. PANAGIOTOU; PATRICIA SÁNCHEZ-HOLGADO; THEODORA SARIDOU; MIKOLAJ STANEK; ANDREAS VEGLIS AND FRANCESCA ALICE VIANELLO
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666903614
In this book, contributors analyze the knowledge about human mobility, its interaction with news and social media, and the way this impacts the attitudes of local societies and the integration of immigrants. After a general contextualization of migration dynamics in Southern Europe and its impact during the 21st Century, the central chapters of the book offer the results of three scientific studies conducted in Spain, Italy, and Greece about the representation of migration in news media and social platforms. These studies consist of an analysis of the frames used in news photographs about migrants and refugees in relevant news outlets; a computational study of online hate speech in social media based on racism and xenophobia; and a comprehensive qualitative evaluation of the perceptions that journalists specializing in migration may have about the interconnection between migration and journalism. Scholars of communication, migration studies, and journalism will find this book of particular interest.
Articles
Hegemony, Democracy, and the Legacy of the Iraq War.
By Sean L. Yom
https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/03/hegemony-democracy-and-the-legacy-of-the-iraq-war/
Foreign Policy Research Institute
- The Iraq War destroyed America’s credibility as a promoter of democracy and liberalism in the Middle East.
- Revolutionary uprisings for democratic change continue to roil the Middle East, but none desire official sponsorship or support from the United States given its bloodstained legacy in Iraq.
Editor’s Note: FPRI is publishing a collection of essays to mark the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. The articles analyze the war’s impact on US influence in the Middle East, America’s global standing, and US democracy promotion efforts. In addition, our authors explore the legacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and argue that the inability of American officials to understand Iraqi politics was perhaps the most important intelligence failure of the entire war effort.
Indigenous Peoples In Brazil: A Reflection On Political Resistance And A Luminous Struggle
By Eliel Benites and Matheus de Carvalho Hernandez
Eliel Benites is the Director and Professor of the Intercultural Indigenous Faculty of UFGD
Matheus de Carvalho Hernandez is a Professor of International Relations and Master in Borders and Human Rights and the Head of the Office of International Affairs at UFGD
Brazilian indigenous people are in desperate need. Suffering from a lack of food, medical care, education, and access to public services, they are victims of the justice system's racism and their lands have been devastated by vested interests. They face a formidable challenge in confronting influential reactionary groups who have convenient connections to those in power.
Certainly, when reading this sad description, the reader may think of the inhumane situation of the Yanomami, which Brazil and the world have been watching in horror since the beginning of 2023. Regrettably, the Yanomami predicament represents merely the most apparent manifestation of a pervasive structural challenge confronting the majority of Brazil's indigenous populations. It is crucial to note that when we use the term "Brazilian indigenous peoples," we do so deliberately to underscore the fact that there are indigenous communities facing similar adversities to the Yanomami, and who are dispersed throughout Brazil, not solely confined to the Amazon region, which has historically received greater global scrutiny.
Destructive plasticity and the microbial geopolitics of childhood malnutrition
By Gittu Du Plessis
Review of International Studies. Published by Cambridge University Press on Behalf of the British International Studies Association.
Engaging Catherine Malabou's philosophical work on biological plasticity, this article combines microbiological and geopolitical analysis of the deadliest manifestations of childhood malnutrition. At the scale of microbiology, childhood malnutrition is a devastating condition and a mystery to which it seems microbiomes – the ecosystems of microbes in the gut – hold a key. At the scale of geopolitics, childhood malnutrition is a calamity generated by racial capitalism, poverty, and underdevelopment. What should we do with the plasticity that makes us? Malabou asks. Engaging philosophically with the plastic materiality of microbiomes in childhood malnutrition, the article focuses on destructive plasticity as an ontological alternative to what science on malnutrition pursues as a problem of causality. This leads to an argument that medicine, as well as humanitarian, security, and development interventions, must reckon with the destructive plasticity of what is in essence a political disease of annihilation. The article ends by speculating on resistance via the biological act of nurturing.
Water, Oil and Iraq’s Climate Future
Forthcoming in MER issue 306 "The State of Iraq—20 Years After the Invasion"
By Zeinab Shuker 03.29.2023
https://merip.org/2023/03/water-oil-and-iraqs-climate-future/
Middle East Research and Information Project: Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971
Iraq’s ecological devastation was set in motion years before the 2003 invasion. For 40 years, the Iraqi state has lurched from crisis to crisis as wars and domestic conflicts have devastated the country’s infrastructure and institutions. The Iran-Iraq war was followed by 13 years of punishing economic sanctions, which began in the 1990s. The 2003 Anglo-US invasion of Iraq has left the state, 20 years later, in political and economic disarray.
These shocks have taken tolls on the environment by displacing water resources, eroding infrastructure that could mitigate climate damage and enabling the unfettered extraction of oil. They have rendered Iraq—a country that has always faced occasions of extreme heat and aridity—among the more vulnerable countries in the Middle East to climate change.
Conferences
Iraq 2023: Twenty Years On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnyAc0hRQVU
The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, in partnership with George
Mason University’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Program, and the Arab Studies Institute are proud to host a conference marking the 20-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Panels will explore the invasion’s economic and geopolitical impact, as well as how it has been addressed within Iraqi arts and culture. The conference will also feature a showing of the 2004 documentary About Baghdad, the first film made about Iraq after the fall of the Ba’ath regime in July 2003. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the film’s directors.
Lectures/Webinars
The 2023 Sapphire Series: Session 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmPomVTx_5I
The 2023 ISA Annual Convention theme is Real Struggles, High Stakes: Cooperation, Contention, and Creativity. With our return to a fully in-person Convention format, we're bringing the Sapphire Series—three panels that showcase that theme in action—online this year. As the Annual Convention's premiere program, the Sapphire Series brings the IR community into conversations of immediate and wide-reaching relevance in the discipline.
CHAIR: Lauren Wilcox.
PANELISTS: Oumar Ba, Zaynab El Bernoussi, May Darwich, Matthew Hoffmann, Abe Newman, Swati Srivastava, Manuela Picq.
FEATURING: ISA President Deborah Avant.
Kevin Funk's Rooted Globalism: Book Launch & Discussion
Kevin Funk, author (Columbia University)
Alejandro Velasco, discussant (New York University)
Jessica Stites Mor, discussant (University of British Columbia, Okanagan)
Sebastián Sclofsky, moderator (California State University, Stanislaus)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKldg21GOjk
Moderator Sebastián Sclofsky discusses Kevin Funk's latest book, "Rooted Globalism: Arab–Latin American Business Elites And The Politics Of Global Imaginaries," with author Kevin Funk and discussants Alejandro Velasco and Jessica Stites Mor.
In "Rooted Globalism," Kevin Funk unpacks the production of identities and imaginaries within the urban-based, Arab-descendant elite classes of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Based on extensive fieldwork, Funk illuminates how these elites navigate their Arab ancestry, Latin American host cultures, and roles as protagonists of globalization. With the term "rooted globalism," Funk captures the emergence of classed intersectional identities that are simultaneously local, national, transnational, and global. Focusing on an oft-ignored axis of South-South relations (between Latin America and the Arab world), "Rooted Globalism" provides detailed analysis of the identities, worldviews, and motivations of this group and ultimately reveals that rather than obliterating national identities, global capitalism relies on them. To address these claims, this event brings Funk into conversation with scholars whose work reflects on South-South relations, Arab-Latin American exchanges, critical political economy, and elite power and inequality.
Job Openings
Quincy Institute
Program Assistant
WASHINGTON, D.C. /RESEARCH – SPECIAL ASSISTANT /FULL-TIME/ ON-SITE
The Quincy Institute (QI) seeks a program assistant for a project to develop and promulgate a positive and compelling alternative vision to the current international “rules-based order” and the hegemonic arrangements that come with it. The goal is to define a new structure that advances US national interests and renders peaceful coexistence possible within a multipolar world. This requires a redefined intellectual framework and revised rules of the road, which the project seeks to provide.
This position will report to the Executive Vice President and will be responsible for various administrative tasks including event planning and management, research, writing, interviews, and consultation with external experts.
The program assistant position requires a B.A. degree.
Qualified candidates should submit a cover letter, resume, and a non-academic writing sample.
Application deadline is April 15. The duration of this position is for one year but can be extended. This position is based in Washington D.C.
Responsibilities
- The candidate will be able to demonstrate a keen interest in the foreign policy work of the Quincy Institute and an interest in working in a dynamic and ambitious environment.
- Assist with general administrative work for the Quincy Institute.
- As needed, the candidate will also provide research support to other Quincy Institute staff.
- The candidate will closely follow the daily and weekly news cycle, tracking issues of relevance to ongoing research.
Podcasts
The Dig Presents: A Garden in Cairo
31 Mar 2023
It started with a few cones and a cryptic sign.
Produced by Omar Etman. Edited by Liza Yeager, Mitchell Johnson, and Daniel Denvir.
Special thanks to Alan Dean, Alex Lewis, and Nihal El Aasar.
The Dig Presents is a monthly series that features original documentary reporting, personal narrative, and other sonic experiments from a wide range of contributors.
Produced and edited by Liza Yeager and Mitchell Johnson. If you’re interested in pitching a story to The Dig Presents, email thedigpresents@gmail.com.
Zapatista Stories for Dreaming An-Other World: A Conversation with Margaret Cerullo
From the Security in Context Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2GBhFRMQvc
Anita Fuentes interviews professor Margaret Cerullo, a professor of Sociology and Feminist Studies at Hampshire College and a member of the Lightning Collective, which put together the book “Zapatista Stories for Dreaming An-Other World by Subcomandante Marcos.”
In this gorgeous collection of allegorical stories, Subcomandante Marcos, idiosyncratic spokesperson of the Zapatistas, has provided “an accidental archive” of a revolutionary group’s struggle against neoliberalism. For thirty years, the Zapatistas have influenced and inspired movements worldwide, showing that another world is possible. They have infused left politics with a distinct imaginary—and an imaginative, literary, or poetic dimension—organizing horizontally, outside and against the state, and with a profound respect for difference as a source of political insight, not division. With commentaries that illuminate their historical, political, and literary contexts and an introduction by the translators, this timeless, elegiac volume is perfect for lovers of literature and lovers of revolution.
This interview is featured in our latest episode of the Security in Context podcast.
More
Pedagogy
VIDEO - The US National Security State
September Monthly Digest 2023
August Monthly Digest 2023
