scholarly journals Foreign report: Psychiatry in Israel

1988 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 273-275
Author(s):  
J. P. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
The State ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Mental Problems ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Psychiatric Problems

Seven years of ecstasy and agony have been enjoyed and endured in Israel, and from the calm of my sabbatical back in the UK, I welcome this opportunity to look in on Israeli psychiatry. The setting is a dramatic one. Israel's recent history is characterised by a hard-won statehood in 1948, massive waves of immigration, a clash of oriental and occidental cultures, and repeated wars. In the face of this rapid and traumatic change, Israelis have exhibited an exaggerated faith in the powers of the state. By denial of emotional and mental problems, a somewhat brittle stability has been achieved, not enhanced by almost uniformly negative attitudes to mental disorder. Understandably Israeli psychiatry has also been characterised by the fight for survival. The professional scene is made up of fierce, creative, one could almost say “true grit” individualists and powerful professional cliques. Israeli psychiatry was literally forged on the battlefields of the Independence War and has retained an Old Testament character of war-like struggle up until the present day. It is to the credit of Israeli psychiatrists that they have succeeded at the highest level in dealing with routine psychiatric problems alongside the awesome consequences of this continuous stress and trauma.

Raciolinguistic border-making and the elasticity of assessment and believeability in the UK citizenship process

Ethnicities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146879682097144
Author(s):  
Kamran Khan
Keyword(s):  
Language Testing ◽  
Family Reunification ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Requirement ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Multiple Assessment

Citizenship testing in the UK assesses the applicant’s knowledge of English and of life in the UK as part of a legal requirement. This testing is one part of the British citizenship process which also creates other forms of assessment for applicants that function as bordering techniques. This paper demonstrates how these non-test forms of assessment emerge, in some cases, before the citizenship test through pre-arrival language testing for non-EU spouses and family reunification. They also take place after the citizenship test through citizenship ceremonies and post-ceremony passport interviews. The data is drawn from a four year project examining the experiences of those experiencing the citizenship process. Using the notion of raciolinguistic perspectives and Derrida’s metaphor of the Shibboleth, I show how the individual may stand in the face of judgment in various forms through their interactions with the State. The multiple assessment points in the naturalisation process beyond the main test itself enforce the need for ‘believeability’ of the applicant who must submit themselves to be assessed – in some cases, repeatedly.

Shifting faces of the state: austerity, post-welfare and frontline work

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Rachel Humphris
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
The State ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Frontline Workers ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Uk

This chapter presents the position of frontline workers in the UK welfare state who are tasked with caring for new migrant families. The chapter is underpinned by a theoretical discussion of the ‘relational state’ and conceptualisation of ‘the frontline’. It emphasises the importance of integrating the intimate space of the home into debate on relational encounters. The chapter presents the notion of ‘everyday discretion’ to describe the situated decisions that frontline workers had to make in the face of ethical dilemmas. These areas of discretion and uncertainty allowed sentiment to overtake rights and created individualised and fragile relationships of care. These decisions drew on and were justified through frontline workers’ own life histories, cultural discourses and their own understanding of performing the ‘good citizen’ within a post-welfare state. This chapter acknowledges that frontline workers themselves have multiple ‘roles’, including being mothers, and may also have experiences of migration or marginalisation that shaped how they ‘make up’ the state for Romanian Roma mothers. This chapter identifies the unexplored issues of race, migration background and citizenship status in discussions of class in relation to home inspectors and examines institutional factors in the power dynamics of the domestic visit.

‘Justice and Right’: Biblical Ethics and the Regulation of Capitalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Walter Houston
Keyword(s):  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Near East ◽  
The State ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Ideal

The Hebrew expression in the Old Testament mishpat u-tsedaqa, conventionally translated ‘justice and righteousness’, has a particular application to the social responsibility of the king. The state, in the person of the king, is seen in the Old Testament as having an obligation to exercise its power on behalf of the most vulnerable. This may be illustrated by the widespread evidence from the ancient Near East of administrative and judicial action undertaken by kings to cancel debts, provide for the release of debt slaves, remit taxes, order the return of distrained property, and so forth. Although the impact of such measures would have been limited, and the tradition is attenuated in later levels of the text, the ideal of the state as the protector of the poor may be applied to the state’s relationship with the modern capitalist economy. It demands that the economy should be regulated to protect the most vulnerable against the impoverishment resulting from its transformation by globalized capitalism. The reality, however, especially in the UK and the US, is that the state colludes with capitalism to increase inequality and deepen poverty.

scholarly journals Mutating faces of the state? Austerity, migration and faith-based volunteers in a UK downscaled urban context

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Humphris
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
The Face ◽  
Intimate Relations ◽  
The Uk

This article explores how austerity combined with the UK Government’s expressed aim of creating a hostile environment, reshaped policy and practice towards new migrants in a downscaled urban area. There is an assumption that volunteers come to govern in zones the state has ceded or abandoned. However, how volunteers come to undertake these roles, their discretionary power and the consequences for state theory have not been fully explored. Drawing on 73 interviews with local state actors and volunteers and in-depth participant observation over 14 months with more than 200 new migrants, this article argues volunteers become the ‘face of the state’ for new migrants with direct effects. Volunteers have wide discretionary power and negotiate uncertainty by falling back on religious values and local narratives of migration forging new practices of governance. This article makes two contributions to theorising the state. First, the economic position of a city and narratives of place shapes who gains legal status and state membership, adding to literature on the relationship between civil society and the state in neoliberal contexts. Second, seemingly mundane actions and intimate relations have immediate implications for political membership. This represents a system of governance that relies on assessments of behaviours in new migrants’ everyday lives rather than rights or entitlements. This article unpacks these assessments and explores the consequences for volunteers and new migrants alike.

From the “Judicialization of Politics” to the “Politicization of Justice” in the UK and Switzerland

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-135
Author(s):  
Lucia Della Torre
Keyword(s):  
General Rule ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specific Field ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
Judicialization Of Politics ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Migration Law

Not very long ago, scholars saw it fit to name a new and quite widespread phenomenon they had observed developing over the years as the “judicialization” of politics, meaning by it the expanding control of the judiciary at the expenses of the other powers of the State. Things seem yet to have begun to change, especially in Migration Law. Generally quite a marginal branch of the State's corpus iuris, this latter has already lent itself to different forms of experimentations which then, spilling over into other legislative disciplines, end up by becoming the new general rule. The new interaction between the judiciary and the executive in this specific field as it is unfolding in such countries as the UK and Switzerland may prove to be yet another example of these dynamics.

Making a Right Tit of Myself: Subverting the Trajectory of Mastectomy: Soma, Psyche, Techné

Somatechnics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Fiona K. O'Neill
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Cancer Survivors ◽  
Breast Cancer Survivors ◽  
Personal Narrative ◽  
Abrupt Transition ◽  
The Face ◽  
Rapid Transition ◽  
Return Journey ◽  
The Uk

In the UK, when one is suspected of having breast cancer there is usually a rapid transition from being diagnosed, to being told you require treatment, to this being effected. Hence, there is a sense of an abrupt transition from ‘normal’ embodiment through somatechnic engagement; from normality, to failure and otherness. The return journey to ‘embodied normality’, if indeed there can be one, is the focus of this paper; specifically the durée and trajectory of such normalisation. I offer a personal narrative from encountering these ‘normalising interventions’, supported by the narratives of other ‘breast cancer survivors’. Indeed, I havechosento become acquainted with my altered/novel embodiment, rather than the symmetrisation of prosthetication, to ‘wear my scars’,and thus subvert the trajectory of mastectomy. I broach and brook various encounters with failure by having, being and doing a body otherwise; exploring, mastering and re-capacitating my embodiment, finding the virtuosity of failure and subversion. To challenge the durée of ‘normalisation’ I have engaged in somatic movement practices which allow actual capacities of embodiment to be realised; thorough kinaesthetic praxis and expression. This paper asks is it soma, psyche or techné that has failed me, or have I failed them? What mimetic chimera ‘should’ I become? What choices do we have in the face of failure? What subversions can be allowed? How subtle must one be? What referent shall I choose? What might one assimilate? Will mimesis get me in the end? What capacities can one find? How shall I belong? Where / wear is my fidelity? The hope here is to address the intra-personal phenomenological character and the inter-corporeal socio-ethico-political aspects that this body of failure engenders, as one amongst many.

A Short Life of Kierkegaard

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Lowrie ◽  
Alastair Hannay
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
The State ◽  
Young Girl ◽  
Love Affair ◽  
Short Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Thought ◽  
Hans Christian Andersen

A small, insignificant-looking intellectual with absurdly long legs, Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was a veritable Hans Christian Andersen caricature of a man. A strange combination of witty cosmopolite and melancholy introvert, he spent years writing under a series of fantastical pseudonyms, lavishing all the splendor of his mind on a seldom-appreciative world. He had a tragic love affair with a young girl, was dominated by an unforgettable Old Testament father, fought a sensational literary duel with a popular satiric magazine, and died in the midst of a violent quarrel with the state church for which he had once studied theology. Yet this iconoclast produced a number of brilliant books that have profoundly influenced modern thought. This classic biography presents a charming and warmly appreciative introduction to the life and work of the great Danish writer. It tells the story of Kierkegaard's emotionally turbulent life with a keen sense of drama and an acute understanding of how his life shaped his thought. The result is a wonderfully informative and entertaining portrait of one of the most important thinkers of the past two centuries.

Yu.F. Samarin’s Model of the National State: Between Archaic and Modern

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 149-155
Author(s):  
Alexey B. Panchenko
Keyword(s):  
Rural Community ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
The State ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
National State ◽  
Basic Model ◽  
The Face ◽  
Identical Position ◽  
Ethnocultural Community ◽  
Communicative Space

Yu. F. Samarin’s works are traditionally viewed through the prism of his affiliation with Slavophilism. His view of the state is opposed to the idea of the complex empire based on unequal interaction of the central power with the elite of national districts. At the same time it was important for Samarin to see the nation not as an ethnocultural community, but as classless community of equal citizens, who were in identical position in the face of the emperor. Samarin’s attitude to religion and nationality had pragmatic character and were understood as means for the creation of the uniform communicative space inside the state. This position for the most part conformed with the framework of the national state basic model, however there still existed one fundamental difference. Samarin considered not an individual, but the rural community that owned the land, to be the basic unit of the national state. As the result the model of national state was viewed as the synthesis of modernistic (classlessness, pragmatism, equality) and archaic (communality) features.

The Prophetic Voice of the Church in a Democratic South Africa – A Theological Reflection

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lufuluvhi Maria Mudimeli
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
The State ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Prophetic Voice ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

This article is a reflection on the role and contribution of the church in a democratic South Africa. The involvement of the church in the struggle against apartheid is revisited briefly. The church has played a pivotal and prominent role in bringing about democracy by being a prophetic voice that could not be silenced even in the face of death. It is in this time of democracy when real transformation is needed to take its course in a realistic way, where the presence of the church has probably been latent and where it has assumed an observer status. A look is taken at the dilemmas facing the church. The church should not be bound and taken captive by any form of loyalty to any political organisation at the expense of the poor and the voiceless. A need for cooperation and partnership between the church and the state is crucial at this time. This paper strives to address the role of the church as a prophetic voice in a democratic South Africa. Radical economic transformation, inequality, corruption, and moral decadence—all these challenges hold the potential to thwart our young democracy and its ideals. Black liberation theology concepts are employed to explore how the church can become prophetically relevant in democracy. Suggestions are made about how the church and the state can best form partnerships. In avoiding taking only a critical stance, the church could fulfil its mandate “in season and out of season” and continue to be a prophetic voice on behalf of ordinary South Africans.

Party Standstill in an Era of Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
External Environment ◽  
The State ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Significant Modification ◽  
Interest Management ◽  
The Face ◽  
Short Run

Chapter 5 discusses the premises of the emergence of the cartel party with the parties’ resilience to any significant modification in the face of the cultural, societal, and political changes of the 1970s–1980s. Parties kept and even increased their hold on institutions and society. They adopted an entropic strategy to counteract challenges coming from a changing external environment. A new gulf with public opinion opened up, since parties demonstrated greater ease with state-centred activities for interest-management through collusive practices in the para-governmental sector, rather than with new social and political options. The emergence of two sets of alternatives, the greens and the populist extreme right, did not produce, in the short run, any impact on intra-party life. The chapter argues that the roots of cartelization reside mainly in the necessitated interpenetration with the state, rather than on inter-party collusion. This move has caught parties in a legitimacy trap.

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