The current research examines the relationship between the Israeli state and its migrant community in the United States. It argues that under conditions of accelerated globalization, the Israeli state has sought to reach out and re-territorialize its migrants' identities in order to strengthen their territory-based Israeli identity and, ultimately, return them to Israel. Focusing on the role played by cultural practices in the process of reterritorialization - which takes place in newly created extra-territorial spaces - it argues that a new type of transnational contract, namely diasporic citizenship has emerged that defines the relationship between the state and its citizens abroad. Cultural practices from above (state-produced) re-assert migrants' identities as national subjects and include them in the expanding incorporation regime of the Israeli state. At the same time, cultural practices from below (migrants'-produced) have been instrumental in their quest to (re)- imagine themselves as part of a trans-territorial Israeli nation. The research uses the Israel Independence Day Festival in Los Angeles to examine the extent to which it has become an extra-territorial space where state officials and migrants negotiate their often conflicting notions of Israeli culture, identity, and citizenship. It is this continuous process of negotiation, the research concludes that (re)-produces new types of affiliations between the state and its subjects overseas

This study of the Tri-Border Area of Latin America demonstrates the region is highly vulnerable to the penetration and development of illegal interests, and thus it is also vulnerable to terrorism. The Tri-Border Area is bounded by Puerto Iguazu, Argentina; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay; and Foz do Iguazu, Brazil. It has always been considered fertile ground for terrorists groups. Illicit activities are common, generating annually billions of dollars in money laundering, arms and drug trafficking, money and document forgery, and electronic media counterfeiting. This area offer terrorists potential financial sources, access to illegal arms and advanced technology, ease of movement and concealment, and a population in which to recruit new members. While the Tri- Border Area is not a major center of gravity in the Global War on Terrorism, compared to other centers of terrorist operations like the Near East or Europe, it has an important position in the strategy to combat international terrorism.

Providing an improved basis for articulating the nature of transnational television and its potentials for improving relations among nations, is the central focus of this study. We are motivated to research this subject because we believe the existing perspectives on it need to be revised in line with present day reality. Our point of departure is the thorny issue of "cultural imperialism." In re-evaluating this issue, some fundamental questions are raised to determine whether past perspectives fit present day realities. Using the elite theory of power in various societies, aided by Johan Galtung's model of a global communication in "four worlds," we see a pattern of global television that suggests commonalities in underlying reasons for their establishment in various countries. In both developed and developing countries. We acknowledge with the support of a literature and data existence of a global systemic domination by the technology rich nations over the technology poor ones. But there are also substantial evidence to prove that some of the poorer nations exercise some degree of autonomy. That makes more difficult to try to explain "cultural imperialism" simply as a relationship that sees developed and developing nations as simply a dominant/subordinate association. Through a strategy of originating intent we are able to show that the elite in various societies acquire television mainly to satisfy either their political, economic or social interests.

This thesis examines the social mediation of a transnational educational programme, namely the University of London’s International (External) Undergraduate Laws Programme. The thesis explores the lived experiences of a variety of stakeholders – university academics, frontline teaching staff and students - in the context of historical legacy and current development. The University of London’s International (External) programmes is one of the oldest forms of distance education, and the Undergraduate Laws Programme is the second largest subscribed programme and represent the fundamental academic legal education for the legal profession in numerous countries. With the separation of teaching, assessment and award as the distinguishing feature consequential to the origins of the University of London its legacy results in multitude stakeholders with vested interests in each aspect. The thesis seeks to understand the motivations behind and implications resulting from the various stakeholders’ experiences through an analysis of their narratives gleaned from interviews and data recorded from observations. Is there a distinct identity and culture within each group of stakeholders which has developed through the evolution of the programme? Can a pattern or theory of teaching and learning unique to the programme be identified and if so, what kind of impact has that had on legal education? The possibility of identifying existing and/or emerging communities of practice within and across each group of stakeholders is a recurring theme discussed on the basis that the theory of situated learning within a community of practice is a form of active learning; an objective which the University of London has sought to actively achieve since 2005. By building an ethnography of the various stakeholders, the thesis explores a formerly under researched aspect of undergraduate legal education and acts as a prompt for future areas of research in the areas of legal and distance education.

This study investigates the evacuation of 60,000 French and Belgian children to Switzerland between 1940 and 1945. This humanitarian action was initially implemented by a coalition of Swiss charities but because of its growing popularity and increasing scope, the Swiss Red Cross joined the efforts in 1942. Despite the devastation, food scarcities and logistical limitations of the Second World War, these children were successfully fed, clothed and housed in Swiss households for three-month periods before they returned home. Given the massive diplomatic and material challenges, it is surprising that such a large transnational evacuation for vulnerable, foreign children was generally effective. By evaluating both how these evacuations were conducted and why participating governments sought to support or prohibit their implementation, this thesis reveals new information that challenges the standard narratives of the wartime actions of the Allies, Nazi Germany and Switzerland. Britain and America’s role in the evacuation does not support their reputation as righteous victors, but as bickering governments strategizing to strengthen their post-war political position in Europe. Nazi Germany’s authorization of the evacuation deepens our knowledge by demonstrating how “humanitarian” operations were circuitously manipulated as a way to increase Nazi control. The noteworthy hospitality of Swiss citizens significantly diverged from the strict immigration policies imposed by their government, a finding which both challenges and reinforces the controversy surrounding Switzerland’s prohibitive, internationally-condemned refugee policies. Overall, this thesis recasts each participant in a new light by questioning the motivations of governments at war, the value of children in war, and the logistics of wartime humanitarian operations.

After World War II East and West Germans alike contributed to the maintenance and dismantling of European colonialism, whether by means of direct participation or state policy. At the same time, Germans in both states fashioned a variety of narratives about Germany's own colonial period, selectively including and interpreting facts in order to support sweeping pronouncements on Germany's past, present, and future. In this regard Germans were not unique, as other Europeans after 1945 likewise struggled to find their way in a rapidly decolonizing world and to make sense of the history that had led them to this point. Yet, unlike other Europeans, Germans had been without a colonial empire of their own since World War I. In West and East Germany colonialism permeated political culture. German politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, and workers dealt with colonialism, its decline, and its aftermath on a regular basis. Colonies were objects of foreign policy-making; decolonization provided an important context for political and economic developments within, between, and beyond both German states; and Germany's colonial past offered redemption and reproach to those willing to find them there. These and other encounters with colonialism dot the historical record, appearing in government archives, political pamphlets, and popular culture ranging from periodicals to film and television. Colonialism's continued relevance for Germans--and indeed the continued relevance of Germans in Europe's waning overseas empires--naturally invites one to compare and contrast the German experience with that in France, or the United Kingdom. However, it also points to the importance such similarities or differences had for Germans. Colonialism certainly helped forge connections between Germans and non-Germans across Europe, Africa, and elsewhere, but more importantly it provided a language for defining Germans' relationships with the rest of the world, not to mention with each other.

This thesis explores the connection between legal history and social history through an analysis of commercial, property and criminal laws, and their practical operation, in Nevada County, California from 1849 to 1860 and the Gympie region, Queensland from 1867 to 1880. By explaining the operation of a broad range of laws in a local context, this thesis seeks to provide a more complete picture of the operation of law in each community and identify the ways in which the law influenced social, political and economic life. The history of law cannot be separate from its social, economic, geographic, and political context. Each of these factors influenced both the text of the laws, and their practical application. In the Gympie region and Nevada County, the law had the effect of, in various guises, safeguarding private property, promoting short term productivity, and enforcing public morality. This was often at the expense of individual autonomy, the physical environment and the rights of minority groups. This was not a result of the operation of one dominant force in the lawmaking process. Instead, government regulation, government inactivity, informal customs, and judicial lawmaking worked together to create a legal order on either side of the Pacific. The comparison reveals that the same pattern of tensions gave the legal regime in each region a substantially similar shape. At another level, this thesis demonstrates that two regions, although on different continents and separated by a 20 year time gap, were nevertheless linked across time and space. By comparing the regions, this thesis demonstrates the possibilities of a more international legal history. While there were certainly differences between each region, these differences should not obscure the substantial similarities, and the fact that an analysis of these similarities illuminates the shared influences between the regions. By conceiving of legal regimes as being shaped by shifting patterns tensions, defining the pattern of those tensions, and then connecting those patterns across national borders it is possible to write a more complex, interesting, and transnational version of legal history.

The growing accessibility to the global community has allowed historically marginalized groups the opportunity to assert their positions on a global stage. The difficulty of States to enforce necessary protections of land and representation has allowed the entrance of new powerful international organizations with expansive networks to play a role in domestic policies. The largest indigenous group in Panama, the Ngöbe, has suffered from poor unification and political organization, weakening their position vis-à-vis the State. Recently, under the perceived threat of a large development project, the hydroelectric dam Chan 75, some Ngöbe groups have been able to make connections to bring awareness to their conflicts by appealing to distant sympathizers through international networks. These linkages are limited in their ability to force a change in national policy; however, these efforts are not in vain. The outcomes of the continuous negotiations that occur in the space of the physical development site are continuously changing to create the opportunity for the greater participation of the Ngöbe, who benefit from the leverage provided by international norms and vigilance.

The last quarter of the nineteenth century is often referred to as the “Golden Age” of railroad building. More track was laid in this period in North America than in any other period. The building of railroads was considered synonymous with nation building and economic progress. Railway workers were the single largest occupational group in the period and among the first workers to be employed by large-scale, corporately owned and bureaucratically managed organizations. While there is a rich historiography regarding the institutional and everyday lives of railway workers and the corporations that employed them, the unit of analysis has been primarily bounded by the nation. These national narratives leave out the north-south connections created by railroads that cut across geo-political boundaries and thus dramatically increasing the flows of people, goods and services between nations on the North American continent. Does the story change if viewed from a continental rather than national perspective? Railroad Crossings tells the story of the people and places along the route of the Grand Trunk Railroad of Canada between Montreal, Quebec and Portland, Maine and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (and later of the Southern Pacific) between Benson, Arizona and Guaymas, Sonora. The study first takes a comparative view of the cross-border railroad development followed by a consideration of emerging patterns and practices that suggest a broader continental continuity. The evidence demonstrates that this broader continental continuity flows from the application of a certain “railroad logic” or the impact of the essence of railroad operations that for reasons of safety and efficiency required the broad standardization of operating procedures that in many ways rendered place irrelevant.

This research focuses on the contexts of Korean women professional golfers’ transnational migration, and the ways that US and Korean media represent those athletes. A theoretical framework informed by sociology of sport, postcolonial and transnational feminist studies was employed to illustrate the contexts of the women’s golf migration, and to investigate how transnational Korean women professional golfers are represented in both US and Korean media from 1998 to 2009. Elite discourses—941 media texts from both nations together with government/institutional documents—were collected, Korean texts were translated into English, and document analysis, critical discourse analysis and intersectional analysis were employed. The results illustrate that globalization and neoliberal capitalism, patriarchy, and colonial and imperial history all help to shape the women golfers’ transnational migration paths. The complex contexts also shape the media representations of the women golfers in the two nation-states. In US media, the Korean women golfers are constructed as a racialized and gendered Other within the context of Orientalism, and selective knowledge production in the media maintains and ensures global White supremacy. In Korean media, the women golfers are portrayed as winners under hypermasculine Western forms of globalization and neoliberal reformation of the world order but, at the same time, as keepers and performers of Korean traditional Confucian values. Further, Korean media explain the women’s transnational success as a result of following traditional Korean values and norms; therefore, the women are represented as proud symbols of Korean nationalism and ideal models of productive female subjects in neoliberal globalization. In sum, the Korean women professional golfers are taken up by media in both nation-states as an effective discursive contact zone for making sense of the changing power dynamics of race, gender, and nation under a period of rapid changes of world order.