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Euro elections 2014: You tell us (05/03/14) part two
Young bloggers from across the EU tell us what's on their minds. Leading this week are the issues of minority rights, Ukraine and the euro.Creating radically democratic solutions to the financial...
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The lumpen commentariat
We may have acquired the right to speak freely, but what good does it do if nobody’s listening?Flickr/kempedmondsWe are, as internet commentator Clay Shirky puts it, collective witnesses to ‘the...
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Sri Lanka: women in conflict
What happened to the aspirations of Tamil women in the national liberation struggle which lasted nearly 30 years? Rahila Gupta covered the conflict in the mid-80s, and reflects on the situation today...
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Feminist peacebuilding - a courageous intelligence
There are patriarchal reasons why women are disproportionately made to suffer in wars. It should not be surprising that women are disproportionately active in resisting and challenging violence, wars...
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CSW weather vane: fault lines and prospects for women's human rights
As battles over women’s human rights rage on around the world, governments prepare to gather in New York next week to set some definitive agreements at the UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women...
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US: why Women's History Month?
Every generation of little girls and women needs to learn its past so that it can imagine a future in which gender equality is the norm and not the exception. As part of openDemocracy's International...
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Martha Nussbaum, empathy, and the moral imagination
The emphasis in Martha Nussbaum’s work on the importance of the emotions in moral philosophy also posits that story-telling plays a central role in expanding our empathy and as such is a necessary part...
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Contesting patriarchy-as-governance: lessons from youth-led activism
Youth-led mobilisation has mocked and exposed patriarchal power by unmasking its politics of social control. Are we on the threshold of a new politics of gender creating cross-gender alliances around...
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How I learned to let go and be myself
I was bullied in school for not fitting in, while at home my father abused alcohol to cope with his pain. I learned there is something wrong with some people. To avoid this trap of authority, we must...
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The case for treating migrants well is about much more than the economy
The government has been hiding evidence that immigration costs jobs. It doesn't, but those who want to defend migrants shouldn't be distracted by such arguments - the case for allowing people to move...
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The toll of rape and the lack of conviction
Why do so few rape cases lead to the alleged perpetrator being charged? A Bureau of Investigative Journalism analysis highlights how the police focus on the "consent" of the victim rather than her...
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Civil war, secession and the body politic
Working with young people is important in any society. The recent story of an unusual Chechen initiative demonstrates why functional governance has so spectacularly failed to take root during the last...
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Dagestan: Russia’s hottest spot
Asked to name Russia’s most troublesome region, most people would plump for Chechnya. But its neighbour Dagestan is now officially the most dangerous part of the Federations.In this republic of three...
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Turning the Tanker
Good-bye BBC 3! For David Elstein this signals not the end of civilisation but the inevitable consequences of cuts and changes – and speaks to how the new D-G is dealing with his Trustees.Shock,...
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Ukraine, Nigeria, Egypt, Syria, Somalia, North Korea: Do we deserve to be happy?
Our Sunday Comics columnist on Mardi Gras 2014 and his experience - rather than pursuit - of happinessThere is a lot of misery out there. I cannot read the Real News section of the print newspapers I...
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Insider knowledge
While the literal meaning of utopia is ‘no place’, an OU-topia could be almost any place. Even when physically isolated, an Open University student, engaged in studying, could be part of a ‘public’,...
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Public engagement, a social priority?
Living in a perpetual state of fear, people prefer to isolate themselves from what they perceive as the “ineffective” mechanisms of public participation; creating and perpetuating a negative vicious...
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The democratic potential of activist performance
One could hardly imagine a better illustration than Putin’s regime for the idea that the Presidency is itself a performative performance, ritualized but only too brutally effective, in contrast with...
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Raymond Williams and 'The emerging landscape of thought and practice'
The potential for this project to tap into the many and diverse informal ‘education-for-social-purpose’ groups and activities could extend ‘back to the future’ readings and reflections, making the...
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Science outreach in schools
There were so many questions that I had to stop taking them so that the children could finish school on time.“Someone who invents things.” “Someone who does experiments.” “A Hard worker.” ‘A man.”...
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