Search Results (54)

Nuclear contamination challenges assumptions that harm can be contained through technological control, political borders, or bodily separation. Across the Asia-Pacific, radioactive exposure moves unevenly through racialised, gendered, and colonial histories, rendering some bodies more vulnerable to ecological violence than others. Nuclear regimes continue to depend upon theological logics of purity, sacrificial exclusion, and protected innocence. This article develops a spirituality of fermentation through Asian eco-feminist theology and the Korean practice of sakhim. Fermentation becomes a practice of sustaining wounded life through endurance, permeability, and communal care. From this spirituality of fermentation, I develop the concept of Vital Fluidity as an ethical and theological framework for understanding how life continues through shared vulnerability, where bodies, nourishment, and histories remain deeply entangled. The article contributes to intersectional debates in theology, religion, gender, and ecology by approaching contamination through relation rather than separation. Under nuclear conditions, ethical responsibility emerges through practices that hold grief, contamination, memory, and nourishment together within shared existence. Fermentation therefore becomes a practical theological model for living with nuclear bodies. Full article

This paper examines the artistic project Border Ghosts (2018–2025) as a practice of material translation through which migrant presences—excluded from institutional records along the Mexico–United States border—become perceptible in artistic form. Situated within necropolitical regimes that produce structural vulnerability, the study draws on the work of Achille Mbembe, Ariadna Estévez, and Avery Gordon to consider how spectrality operates not as metaphor, but as a mediated mode of presence. Through brief interviews and three-dimensional recordings of bodies, objects, and temporary dwellings using 3D scanning and printing, the project transforms fragmentary traces into sculptural configurations that make precarious lives perceptible within exhibition space. The case studies show that even minimal testimonies, often absent from formal archives, can persist as material traces within aesthetic circulation. Rather than proposing a solution to structural violence, Border Ghosts approaches artistic practice as a way of engaging absence, mediation, and incompletion. In doing so, the project reflects on the limits of institutional recognition and on the conditions under which marginal lives may be encountered. Full article

Considerations of gender have long been overlooked in legal discourses and public debates on asylum. In more recent years, the right-wing narrative has taken a strategic U-turn, instead misappropriating gendered concerns including gender-based violence for the purposes of promoting racialised border controls on the grounds of cultural incompatibilities, and by painting refugees as a threat to British values, economy and security. This paper calls out the hypocrisy of such femonationalist framings for overlooking the ways in which Western institutions sustain refugee women’s ongoing vulnerabilities. Drawing from qualitative interviews and focus groups with refugee women survivors of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), this paper examines the continuities of harm in the lives of women who have fled gender-based persecution to Britain. The paper critically maps the way prolonged state control during the asylum process perpetuates a sense of violence as ongoing, and its damaging implications on survivors striving to navigate life after flight. In doing so, the findings contribute new insights into established scholarship on asylum harms by illuminating the gendered consequences of violence of waiting, and refugee women’s subtle individual and collective strategies to struggle against violent continuums. Full article

(1) Background: Colombia hosts one of the world’s largest mixed-displacement crises, combining longstanding internal displacement with the influx of Venezuelan migrants. This case study examines how the Emergency Medical Team (EMT) Hospital Barco San Raffaele (HBSR) adapted its service-delivery model to respond simultaneously to internal displacement in the Colombian Pacific region and the Venezuelan refugee influx. Using the WHO EMT Surge Capacity Framework, the study analyses how health services were adapted across two concurrent displacement contexts. (2) Methods: A mixed-methods comparative case study was conducted using mission reports, epidemiological surveillance data, policy reports and institutional documents collected between November 2020 and May 2021. Data were analyzed through a thematic analysis structured around the four domains of the WHO EMT Surge Capacity Framework (Staff, Structure, Supplies and Systems), to examine how service adaptation was operationalized across different geographic, sociocultural and legal environments; (3) Results: EMT HBSR adapted staffing composition, supply chains, infrastructure, and operational systems across both settings. Its hybrid model, combining a hospital boat platform with mobile outreach teams, enabled continuity of primary care, mental, maternal and child health, and community-based services in geographically isolated and culturally diverse communities; (4) Conclusions: The findings illustrate how flexible EMT operational models can support the adaptation of health services, and reduce health access inequalities in displacement contexts characterized by high mobility, confinement and limited health system capacity. Mobile platforms, such as hospital boats, appear to be a viable strategy for ensuring continuity of care along migratory routes and in geographically isolated areas affected by protracted instability. Full article

Background/Objectives: Abortion legislation represents a complex intersection of medical practice, ethical considerations, and legal frameworks that demonstrate significant legal heterogeneity across Europe. This study undertakes a comprehensive comparative assessment of the statutory schemes governing abortion across the European continent, examining gestational limits, exceptional circumstances, and regulatory requirements. Methods: A comparative legal analysis was conducted across 31 European jurisdictions. Primary legislative instruments were identified and authenticated through official governmental sources, parliamentary databases, and legal repositories to ensure analysis of current consolidated legislation. Data extraction focused on gestational limits, exceptional circumstances, procedural requirements, and constitutional provisions to categorize jurisdictions into regulatory models. Additionally, a structured literature search was performed in PubMed and Scopus (2015–2025) using the keywords “abortion,” “law,” and “Europe.” From 297 screened records, 30 articles were selected to contextualize legislative evolution and scholarly discourse. Results: The comparative analysis identified substantial heterogeneity in European abortion legislation, revealing four distinct regulatory models. Most jurisdictions establish a legal limit for elective abortion of approximately 12 weeks of gestation, with variations ranging from 10 weeks to 24 weeks. Exceptions to gestational limits are widely recognized for maternal life-threatening conditions, severe fetal anomalies and pregnancies resulting from sexual violence. Conclusions: European abortion legislation reflects persistent regulatory pluralism rather than convergence toward a unified model. While commonality exists regarding early gestational limits for elective abortion, significant variation remains in exceptional circumstances, procedural requirements, and underlying regulatory philosophies. This heterogeneity impacts healthcare provision, cross-border reproductive care, and medico-legal practice. The identified regulatory models illustrate diverse balances between reproductive autonomy and state interests. Future research should examine the practical consequences of these diverse schemes on health outcomes and cross-border patient mobility. Full article

De-globalisation is reshaping the conditions under which religion is governed, mobilised, and contested. This article proposes a framework for analysing religion in this emerging conjuncture. It interprets de-globalisation not as the erosion of transnational connectivity, but as a politically driven re-bordering of global flows; that is, the selective reassertion of state sovereignty, national prioritisation, and domestic jurisdiction in domains that were previously managed through, or legitimated by, multilateral norms and institutions. By restoring the state as a central architect of borders and hierarchies, de-globalisation reconfigures the religion–society nexus worldwide. The article contends how sovereignty-forward programmes unsettle core markers of globalisation, including multilateral rulemaking, predictable mobility regimes, and cosmopolitan rights vocabularies. It then revisits discussions on secularisation, rational choice perspectives, and religiously framed violence, specifying what these approaches illuminate—and where they require retooling—when authority, legality, and mobility are re-territorialised. Finally, it identifies three interconnected research fronts—statecraft and nationalism, majority–minority relations, and migration and diaspora—and formulates guiding questions for comparative research across regions and regime types. Collectively, these strands constitute an agenda for elucidating religion’s renewed salience in the de-globalising present. Full article

Background: Cigarette burns represent a well-established forensic indicator of inflicted injury, frequently encountered in cases of domestic violence. Clinical significance: Their morphological consistency and anatomical distribution offer valuable elements for differentiating between intentional and accidental trauma. Case Presentation: In this study, we report the case of a 40-year-old woman who presented with multiple cutaneous lesions attributed to repeated assaults by her intimate partner. The forensic medical examination revealed five discrete scars characterized by sharply demarcated borders, circular to oval shapes, and dimensions ranging from 0.7 to 1.5 cm. These lesions were anatomically located in regions not typically accessible for self-infliction. To reinforce the diagnostic interpretation and assess reproducibility, a controlled experimental protocol was conducted using porcine skin matrices. Cigarette burns were recreated under variable conditions of contact pressure and exposure duration. The lesions produced on the biological substrate exhibited morphological features consistent with those observed in the patient, suggesting compatibility with cigarette-induced thermal injury. Conclusions: These findings provide circumstantial support for the forensic interpretation but must be considered within the limitations of the experimental model. This integrated approach underscores the relevance of combining clinical forensic documentation with experimental validation to support medico-legal conclusions in cases of suspected interpersonal violence. Full article

Violence is an emerging social determinant of health in Latin America; however, empirical evidence from Peru remains limited. This study examined the association between crime rates and the prevalence of obesity and high blood pressure in Peru from 2019 to 2023. Using a repeated cross-sectional design with department–year aggregates, we analyzed nationally representative data from the Demographic and Family Health Survey, adjusting for sociodemographic, mental health, and geographic factors. Regional statistics on crime were incorporated into the analysis. The findings revealed a significant association between higher levels of crime and increased prevalence of self-reported high blood pressure and obesity. The association with obesity was particularly pronounced in border regions such as Tumbes, Madre de Dios, and Callao, where criminal activity is more prevalent. The findings indicate that prolonged exposure to violence may negatively impact biological stress responses, limit physical activity, and encourage the emergence of detrimental behaviors, consequently increasing the cardiometabolic risk burden in affected populations. Full article

Political rhetoric on immigration has increasingly framed it as a threat to public safety—fueling aggressive immigration enforcement strategies, including the expanded use of federal agents, mass deportations, and strict border controls. In particular, the immigration-crime narrative has been built on four key themes or “pillars,” which suggest that immigration (1) increases crime, (2) fuels gang violence, (3) is responsible for drug problems, and (4) requires mass deportation and strict border control policies to combat these issues and reduce crime. Using data from a 2025 Lucid survey and a review of existing literature, this article provides a clear and focused summary describing the extent to which these four claims of the immigration-crime narrative are supported by (1) public opinion and (2) findings from scientific research. As we highlight in the following sections, all four of these “pillars” of the immigration-crime narrative are in fact myths with no consistent empirical support. Full article

This article interrogates “enforced silence” in higher education as an active, racialised technology of governance that manages speech, polices dissent, and narrows the horizons of legitimate knowledge. Bringing scholarship on institutional racism, decoloniality, and academic freedom into dialogue with analyses of scholasticide, the systematic destruction of education and intellectual life in Palestine, the paper argues that neutrality and professionalism function as administrative veneers that protect institutional reputation while disciplining racialised scholars and erasing Palestinian epistemologies. Palestine operates here as both an acute site of violence and a diagnostic mirror that illuminates a transnational repertoire of epistemic governance: censorship, securitisation, campus injunctions, and weaponised definitions that chill debate and criminalise solidarity. The article extends the concept of scholasticide beyond material destruction to include ideological and institutional assaults on dissent and critical thought, demonstrating how marketised, securitised universities reproduce racial regimes while disavowing complicity. Against this architecture, the paper advances a praxis-oriented framework drawing on critical pedagogy and the Palestinian ethic of Sumud to envision universities as sites of freedom rather than corporate neutrality. It sets out concrete strategies for scholars and institutions, including protections for dissent, refusal of censorious definitions, divestment from complicit partnerships, cross-border classrooms, and recognition of emotional–political labour, to convert witness into transformative action. The article concludes by insisting that academic responsibility is irreducibly collective: education must commit to liberation, not serve domination. Full article

Migration between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has long reflected Hispaniola’s intertwined histories of grievances, distrust, inequality, and interdependence. Under President Luis Abinader (2020–2025), this relationship gained renewed political significance as regional instability and Haiti’s institutional collapse made migration a central concern of governance. This study examines the Dominican state’s discourse on Haitian migration through a combination of historiographical interpretation and discourse-historical frame analysis. Using the diagnostic–prognostic–motivational triad, this analysis examines 26 official statements, legal documents, and media articles to trace how notions of order, security, and humanitarian responsibility have structured migration policy during this period. The findings identify four interrelated logics—securitisation, nativism, racialisation, and statelessness—that shape how migration is problematised and managed. While overtly xenophobic or racist language has largely disappeared from official discourse, older anti-Haitian hierarchies persist beneath a technocratic and humanitarian surface. Deportations, biometric border management, mass detentions, violence, and preferential bureaucratic practices are presented as neutral governance, even as they disproportionately and unlawfully affect darker-skinned citizens and migrants of Haitian descent. The analysis suggests that Dominican migration governance represents neither rupture nor continuity, but rather a rearticulation of narratives of security, sovereignty, and national identity in a context of contemporary securitising issues in Haiti. Full article

Automated violence detection in images presents a technical and scientific challenge that demands specialized methods to enhance classification systems. This study introduces an approach for automatically identifying relevant samples to improve the performance of neural network models, specifically DenseNet121, with a focus on violence classification in images. The proposed methodology begins with an initial training phase using a balanced dataset (DS1, 6000 images). Based on the model’s output scores ($ou{t}_N$), three confidence levels are defined: Safe ($ou{t}_N\ge 0.9+\sigma$ or $ou{t}_N\le 0.1-\sigma$), Border ($0.5-\sigma \le ou{t}_N\le 0.5+\sigma$), and Average ($0.4-\sigma \le ou{t}_N\le 0.6+\sigma$). These levels correspond to scenarios with low, moderate, and high prediction error probabilities, respectively, where $\sigma$ is an adjustable threshold. The Border subset exhibits symmetry around the decision boundary ($ou{t}_N=0.5$), capturing maximally uncertain samples, while the Safe regions reflect functional asymmetries in high-confidence predictions. Subsequently, these thresholds are applied to a second dataset (DS2, 5600 images) to extract specialized subsets for retraining ($D{S}_{Safe}$, $D{S}_{Border}$, and $D{S}_{Average}$). Finally, the model is evaluated using an independent test set ($D{S}_{test}$, 4400 images), ensuring complete data isolation. The experimental results demonstrate that the confidence-based subsets offer competitive performance despite using significantly fewer samples. The Average subset achieved an F1-Score of 0.89 and a g-mean of 0.93 using only 20% of the data, making it a promising alternative for efficient training. These findings highlight that strategic sample selection based on confidence thresholds enables effective training with reduced data, offering a practical balance between performance and efficiency when symmetric uncertainty modeling is exploited. Full article

Small news media organizations are increasingly reshaping the news media system in Latin America. They are stepping into the role of watchdogs by investigating issues such as corruption scandals that larger outlets sometimes overlook. However, this journalistic work exposes both journalists and their organizations to a range of security threats, including physical violence, legal pressure, and digital attacks. In response, these outlets have developed coping strategies to manage and mitigate such risks. This article presents an exploratory study of the approaches adopted to protect information and data, ensure the safety and well-being of journalists, and maintain organizational continuity. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with leaders of award-winning news organizations for their investigative reporting, the study examines a shift from a competitive newsroom model to a collaborative approach in which information is shared—sometimes across borders—to support investigative reporting and strengthen security practices. We identify strategies implemented by small news organizations to safeguard their journalistic work and propose an integrative model of news safety encompassing the following three areas of security: physical, legal, and digital. This study contributes to the development of the newsafety framework and sheds light on safety practices that support media freedom. Full article

This article focuses on the story of a pirogue shipwreck that occurred in early September 2024, less than two miles from the coast of Mbour, about 90 km south of Dakar. It traces an ethnographic account of that tragic event through the lenses of different voices, standpoints, and testimonies from the survivors, the relatives and friends of the victims, and those involved in the organization of both the aborted ocean crossing and the rescue operations in various ways. By situating this extreme story of “potential migrants” among other accounts of migrants who disappeared at sea and of missing pirogues, the focus shifts to the different weights and possibilities of movement when dealing with disappearance and death, the unknown and known facts, addressing that which remains unknown even within this unambiguous and tragic event. Faced with the dense plot of ties at the core of that failed escape, we suggest that the reasons for the shipwreck are excess demand and solidarity, in terms of the impossibility of denying passage onboard the boat to friends, relatives, and neighbors. “On est ensemble” is therefore a way to recognize that there is no clear distinction or distance between captain and passengers, survivors and the dead, or victims and spectators, since in Mbour, everyone perfectly understands both the reasons and the risks, and the reason for the risks, of any illegal attempt to cross sea and land borders towards Europe. Full article

Creole writer Sidonie de la Houssaye (1820–1894) registered the threat of anglophone dominance after the Civil War on behalf of a host of characters drawn from the geographies and ideologies in and around her home in Louisiana. Her little-known literary tales depict the period as a cultural and linguistic border zone. In addition to the texture of Louisiana French and Creole heritage, the tales depict the vexed social dynamics of prejudice and fragility. In the context of this special issue on good and evil, the poorly known children’s tales offer insight into these pernicious tensions that persisted under the surface of moral victory after the Civil War. La Houssaye’s lessons for children take up the moral panic of a Louisiana reckoning with its legacies of racial violence and cultural erasure. This article argues that morality in these tales takes shape in interpersonal practices that can be learned to heal social ills. What I have called La Houssaye’s “ethics of social life” relies on education rather than condemnation to redefine human bonds. If a broader lesson emerges from the stories taken together, it suggests that structural change is slow to heal cultural wounds. We must ourselves be the agents of a healthier community. Full article