This study is an exploration of an institutionalised world that refugees inhabit in today’s Europe. It argues that the institutional system that organises the reception of refugees and their settlement in a receiving country is based on historically and politically contingent constructions of “a refugee”. The research was conducted in the Czech Republic – an emerging country of immigration and asylum at the semiperiphery of the European Union. It draws on qualitative empirical data generated in interviews and participant observations among state officials, intergovernmental and nongovernmental workers, asylum seekers and refugees from Armenia, Belarus and Chechnya. The thesis brings together the key actors that shape the construction of “a refugee” and examines the key sites of the refugee system where this construction takes place: asylum and immigration legislation, refugee determination process, refugee camps and nongovernmental spaces of assistance and public representation of refugees. “A refugee” is analysed as an idealised concept that underlies asylum policymaking; as an object of governance that shapes institutional practices; and as a lived and performed gendered experience that forms and transforms identities. The dominant view of refugees as people of little or no choice is challenged by presenting them as knowledgeable actors who act strategically in an unevenly contoured terrain of the refugee system. Also the view of institutions as operating in a consistent and unified manner is questioned. Their actions are described as often contradictory and dissenting voices are incorporated into the analysis. Moreover, the institutions of the refugee system are presented as tied together by mutually constitutive relationships in the context of unequal power relations.

<p> The Failure of Mehdi Bazargan How the Revolutionary Council, the Clerical Oligarchy, and United States Foreign Policy Undermined the Liberal Democracy of Iran in 1979 The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the downfall of Mehdi Bazargan and the Provisional Government is due less to the deliberate manipulations of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as depicted in popular narratives, than to both the conflicts between rival power centers in the government, foreign influence, and Bazargan&rsquo;s administrative mismanagement, poor leadership skills, and failure to successfully project his own vision. </p><p> The conclusions of this thesis were reached based on leading secondary sources from both Western and Iranian writers, as well as the extensive use of contemporary news sources, revealed internal Iranian government communiques, and archived interviews with principle actors. </p><p> The thesis identifies the rival power centers at conflict in Iran during the Provisional Government Era from February &mdash; November 1979 as Bazargan&rsquo;s Provisional Government, the Revolutionary Council, Ayatollah Khomeini&rsquo;s evolving concentration of power, and U.S. foreign policy. Chapter one describes the oppositional background of Bazargan, illuminates his own vision for Islamic government, and introduces his deliberate methodology for instituting revolution. </p><p> Chapter two explains the rival power centers at play during the Provisional Government Era. The Provisional Government is depicted as Bazargan&rsquo;s main source of support, the legal administrators of the transitional government, and as such, it represents his vision. The Revolutionary Council, dominated by clerics loyal to Khomeini, referred to as the clerical oligarchy, represent diverging agendas within the clerical leadership who operated in Khomeini&rsquo;s name but often without his explicit consent. The clerics within the Revolutionary Council exerted their greatest usurpation of Bazargan&rsquo;s legal authority through their control over the extralegal revolutionary committees and the judiciary, circumventing his ability to provide state-controlled security and enact state-sanctioned justice. Khomeini lacked consolidated control in the early months of the Provisional Government Era, instead relying on the infighting between the government and the Revolutionary Council, and allowing for the popular momentum of the revolution to guide his political moves, but ultimately exercised decisive action to consolidate all political authority. Finally, the thesis argues that U.S. foreign policy had been to support the Provisional Government through intelligence-sharing, hoping that by supporting the liberal democratic stream of power they could offset the radical religious stream and undermine Khomeini&rsquo;s personal influence. </p><p> Chapter three reveals how Bazargan chose to react to the challenges each rival power center presented. Despite the momentum of the popular revolution, Bazargan insisted in moderating the tone and progress of change, ignoring how ineffective his methods were in effecting positive change.</p>

Isang Yun employed several contrasting methods to achieve the combination of two different musical worlds, Eastern and Western, in his Tänzerische Fantasie für Großes Orchester, Muak. In presenting Eastern elements, he adopts Taoism as his musical philosophy, describes the Korean traditional dance motion Chun-Aeng-Mu (Dance of the Oriole), and applies Korean traditional performance practice in the use of Western instruments. Showing the influence of aspects of Western music, he employs a musical form similar to that of the Baroque Concerto Grosso, evokes Igor Stravinsky’s rhythmic mood and tension from Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), and even uses his own compositional technique Hauptklangtechnik within the format of Western orchestration. In its analysis of Muak, this research project addresses how Korean performance practice can be applied to the modern Western symphony orchestra. This research project also provides insights regarding the sounds of instruments in the Korean tradition and explains how it is possible to create those sounds with modern instruments in order to make Yun’s dream sounds possible. This study provides several examples and describes various performance techniques that appear in Korean traditional music. It provides indications to orchestras and conductors, assisting them to arrive at effective basic performance ideas for the performance of Muak.

The Newer Granites of the Eastern Grampians form a distinctive suite of predominantly pink biotite granites, although white hornblende-bearing granites are also found. All of the plutons in the study area are composite bodies, although internal boundaries are rarely seen. They have been emplaced by stoping at crustal levels between 4.6 km, and are all currently exposed close to their roof zones. Biotite is the only mineral to show significant compositional variation, and does so in response to increasing subsolidus interaction with the fluid phase. All the pink granites are highly oxidised, and equilibrated at an fO2 of approximately 10-18 bars and temperature less than 400o C. The pink granites are highly chemically evolved, with marked enrichment in K, Si, Rb and HFS elements. The evolution of the fluid phase has played a dominant role in their geochemical evolution. The pink granites represent limited partial melts of depleted granulite, whereas the white (hornblende-bearing) granites have evolved from a melt of gabbroic lower crustal material. The granites were all emplaced between 419 and 404 Ma, and represent the transition between late, subduction-generated high-K magmas to melts generated by volatile degassing and heat focussing of a mantle source at pre-Caledonian basement lineaments.

No description available.

Thesis advisor: Peter Skerry / The post-communist political shift to liberal democracies in Eastern Europe has given new hope to Romani communities scattered across the region. However, plagued by a history entangled with episodes of slavery, persecution, and extermination, many Roma remain wary about this transition, lacking faith that it truly extends beyond a nominal domain. This paper first offers a critical exploration into unpacking Roma culture – specifically their material disadvantage and discrimination – from both an abstract and realist perspective. By properly understanding the relationship between their experience with poverty and desires for cultural autonomy, forming a rational, multi-level plan to intervene becomes more accessible. Ultimately, this leads to a series of policy interventions, particularly in the realm of primary and secondary education. Looking closely at this one area of the Roma experience with non-Roma institutions could provide key insights into their interaction with other overlapping exchanges, help to break down the centuries-old legacy of distrust and antagonism between the two sides, and promote a healthier environment for cooperation. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Scholar of the College. / Discipline: International Studies.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

This thesis is a rigorous academic study of a museum which has previously not been subject to theoretical examination: that is, the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków, Poland. It analyses the relationship between the museum’s permanent exhibition, Traces of Memory, and the broader museum from its establishment in 2004 until the end of the research period for the thesis, 2011. Through a case study methodology and detailed analysis of the resulting observations, conducted by the ultimate participant observer – a former director of the museum – and informed by extensive bibliographic research, the thesis provides a unique contribution to knowledge in the fields of museum studies, Polish-Jewish relations and Jewish cultural studies. Through a close, micro-level reading of Traces of Memory and the Galicia Jewish Museum, and with a concluding that chapter draws together the threads of the thesis – considering them in relation to the broader contexts of the Kazimierz Jewish quarter in Kraków and the European Jewish Space – the thesis provides a Jewish museum contribution to the discipline of ‘new museology’, and finds that the Galicia Jewish Museum can be seen as the embodiment of what a ‘new museum’ might be within the defined context of an east European, Jewish framework.

This thesis examines daily life in the city of Prague during the First World War and in its immediate aftermath. Its aim is twofold: to explore the impact of the war on urban space and to analyse the relationship of Prague’s inhabitants to the Austro-Hungarian and then Czechoslovak state. To this end, both the mobilization for the war effort and the crisis of legitimacy experienced by the state are investigated. The two elements are connected: it is precisely because of the great sacrifices made by Praguers during the conflict that the Empire lost the trust of its citizens. Food shortages also constitute a major feature of the war experience and the inappropriate management of supply by the state played a large role in its final collapse. The study goes beyond Czechoslovak independence on 28 October 1918 to fully grasp the continuities between the two polities and the consequences of the war on this transitional period. Beyond the official national revolution, the revolutionary spirit in Prague around the time of regime change reveals the interplay between national and social motives, making it part of a broader European revolutionary movement at the time.

No description available.