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This article describes how papermaking emerged in medieval Europe displacing the traditional centers of the industry within the Muslim world. Ibn Marzūq al-Hafīd, a Muslim scholar, issued a fatwa on the permissibility of using European paper under Islamic law. The author contends the text illuminates Islam's evolving relationship with a developing Europe.

Investigates the demand for real cash balances based on the expected rate of inflation in Europe. Evaluation on the rate of return of gold and silver; Historical background of paper money; Changes in the monetary policy.

Does party competition affect political activism? This paper studies the decision of party supporters to join political campaigns. We present a framework that incorporates supporters' instrumental and expressive motives and illustrates that party competition can either increase or decrease party activism. To distinguish between these competing predictions, we implemented a field experiment with a European party during a national election. In a seemingly unrelated party survey, we randomly assigned 1,417 party supporters to true information that the canvassing activity of the main competitor party was exceptionally high. Using unobtrusive, real-time data on party supporters' canvassing behavior, we find that respondents exposed to the high-competition treatment are 30% less likely to go canvassing. To investigate the causal mechanism, we leverage additional survey evidence collected two months after the campaign. Consistent with affective accounts of political activism, we show that increased competition lowered party supporters' political self-efficacy, which plausibly led them to remain inactive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly debates over precarity are gaining unprecedented visibility across fields. From labor insecurity forming a growing dangerous class to the existential condition of vulnerability induced by millennial capitalism, precarity has become an object of both empirical study and theoretical reflection. While European social movements have been organizing and writing about precarity from the late 1970s to today, still, from the US perspective, the term precarity might be mistakenly taken as strictly a scholarly invention. "Precarious Writings" offers an important corrective to the ways that precarity has been taken up in anthropology and cognate disciplines, addressing the specific epistemological and political limitations of existing usages and returning the concept to its overlooked grassroots history in social movement struggles in southern Europe. By returning precarity to these activist roots, this paper makes the case for the recognition of social movements as knowledge producers as well as sources of theoretical insight and innovation in their own right. By failing to recognize precarity's development within contentious struggles, scholarly uses miss how the activist notion enables identity reformulations toward a kind of "precarity pride." That is, the politicization of insecurity has become a source for nurturing a fluid space of political creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The member states of the European Community (EC) have systems of taxing corporate income that were designed for nations, not for members of an economic union. This paper describes the problems of the present system, which is based on separate accounting and arm's length pricing, the advantages of one based on consolidation and formula apportionment such as that employed by the U.S. states (and Canadian provinces), the likely characteristics of such a system, the complications caused by income flows to and from the EC, and the implications of harmonization, for both EC member states and non-EC nations and for multinational corporations. It seems virtually certain that a harmonized EC system (like that of Canada) would exhibit far more uniformity than state corporate income taxes in the United States and, like some state taxes (but unlike the Canadian system), would involve consolidation of the activities of corporations characterized by high levels of common ownership and control. Finally, the paper speculates on the prospects for harmonization, given(a) that adoption of tax measures applicable to all member states requires the unanimous approval of all EC member states, but (b) as few as eight member states could harmonize their taxes through enhanced cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines hours worked in continental Europe and the United States from 1956 to 2003. The empirical work establishes two results. First, hours worked in Europe decline by almost 45 percent compared to the United States over this period. Second, this decline is almost entirely accounted for by the fact that Europe develops a much smaller market service sector than the United States. A simple model of time allocation is used to understand these patterns. I find that relative increases in taxes and technological catch-up can account for most of the differences between the European and American time allocations over this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been made of the space-transforming and space-defying characteristics of information and communications technologies. This focus tends to separate the spatial characteristics of these technologies from those of the Euclidean world; it also takes the spatial characteristics of the Euclidean world for granted. Yet anthropologists have shown that place making in any spatial context is a complicated process, always involving an entanglement of imagination, politics, and social relations. This paper, by focusing on the promotion of the development of information and communications technologies through the public sector in Europe, shows that these technologies have become as much a part of political place making as other transportation and communication technologies in the past. Using our ethnographic research on several European Union-funded projects based in Manchester, we argue that many of the perceived difficulties experienced in projects which envision these technologies as holding the potential for social change derive from a tension between "imagined communities" and "imagined networks" as two different forms of place making. The paper illustrates this tension by tracing the political, institutional, and social development of what we term an "imperative to connect," which constitutes a moral and social imperative as much as an economic one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on migration and crisis in Europe which is the death drive of capitalism. The authors say that migration has became a social force that challenges various organisations of power and control and it is the fact that causes capitalism. They mention that migration became important for motivating a mode of production and social reproduction.

This paper examines the likely impact of a proposed formula apportionment system for corporation taxes in the European Union on the inbound investment of US multinational companies. We pay attention to tax planning strategies that may be employed by US multinationals and investigate whether effective tax rates in Europe of US companies differ from those of European companies. The proposal is for an optional system: we estimate the extent to which both European and US companies would be likely to choose it taking into account their existing structures and future investment incentives. The relative position of US and European companies depends crucially on the taxation of foreign passive income. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the emissions trading literature and the other sources of information and data on the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in Europe. The author identifies some of the most interesting emerging trends and articles in the emissions trading literature including those that are useful in the profession and provide some general insights on emissions. He further discusses survey that he conducted in July 2008 on 52 research practitioners in the emission.

As in many other regions of the world, fisheries in Europe are generally considered to be overexploited, largely as a consequence of excessive levels of fishing capacity. This has manifested itself in terms of depleted stocks of key species and poor economic performance of the industry. In this paper, the level of excess capacity in the Scottish fleet is examined using a variant of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach that takes into account the additional costs of increasing fishing effort to achieve 'full utilisation.' Given the estimate of full capacity production of each vessel, the fleet size and structure that is sufficient to take the current catch level is derived using an industry restructuring model. The economic benefits to the industry and employment impacts of achieving this capacity reduction are estimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs stochastic frontier cost and profit models to estimate the efficiency of multi-billion dollar European and U.S. banks. Empirical results suggest that both large European and U.S. banks have decreasing (increasing) cost (profit) returns to scale. Also, large banks in Europe and the United States similarly exhibit increasing returns to scale and decreasing (increasing) scope economies for the cost (profit) model. However, large U.S. banks have higher average profit efficiency than European banks on average. We conclude potential efficiency gains are possible via geographic expansion of large European and U.S. banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on a paper by Sue Colledge and colleagues that utilized archaeobotanical data from aceramic sites in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe to elucidate the spread of agriculture. Level of evidence; Integrity and comparability of the facts; Level of interpretation; Discussion of weed taxa; Significance of sampling error; Ontology of agriculture and the role of domesticates.

Drawing on more than 20 years of anthropological and historical research in northern Portugal, this article explores the temporal dimensions of women's and men's lives in rural agricultural societies. The first part critically evaluates the process by which lives are reconstructed in time using both written and ethnographic records, looking particularly at methods of transcription, translation, and transformation. The second part explores how a multiplicity of records can be used to construct a narrative about culturally meaningful turning points in the lives of men and women. Three topics that are meaningful in the ethnographic and historical context of northern Portugal are explored: migration, marriage and family formation, and inheritance. The paper compares differences in the sequencing of these events in the lives of men and women and in the synchrony or asynchrony of personal time in relation to family time. Whenever relevant, the data on Portugal are compared with those from other parts of Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new evidence on the relationship between relative price variability and inflation. The model uses a consistently defined data set for nine European countries. It benefits from the inclusion and testing of the effects of macroeconomic variables and the incorporation into the measures of inflation and dispersion adjustments for timeliness, appropriate formulas, and proximity. The general findings of an effect on relative price variability by the macroeconomic environment and negative coefficients on unexpected inflation are supported by their occurrence in models estimated by seemingly unrelated regression and a robust systems estimator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review essay explores the potential of a European perspective on the history of epidemics and pandemics over the last three centuries. To this end, it follows Benoît Majerus' proposal to distinguish four different "European" perspectives on the history of medicine. Europe is simultaneously an imaginary, geographical, imperial, and integrative space. As an imaginary space (1), "European" ideas about pandemics reveal a specific conception of public health and the state; as a geographical space (2), many historical case studies examined the development of comparable "European" practices at the national level; as an imperial space (3), it is necessary to provincialize Europe and ask about knowledge production and practices in non-European countries; and as an integrative space (4), European responses to pandemics and epidemics represent a neglected but important aspect of European integration. This essay can only suggest that the European perspective is an interesting analytical category for both the history of pandemics and the history of "Europe." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to test for price linkages among European (France, Germany, and U.K.) and U.S. prices of whole fresh cod and frozen cod fillets. In testing for a cointegrated system, we use both the two-stage Engle-Granger and Johansen procedures. Short-run price dynamics are measured using an error-correction model. Based on monthly import price observations from 1980 to 1992, the empirical results show no long-run price relationships for fresh cod between European and U.S. markets, but we do measure long-run price linkages for frozen cod fillets. Within Europe the markets for both fresh and frozen cod product are well integrated. The U.S. fresh cod market is distinct and separate from European markets, while the U.S. frozen cod market shows no short-run links to European markets. There is weak evidence for a long-run international market in frozen cod fillets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the author's comments on an anthropological research by Wil Roebroeks, Nicholas Conard and Thijs van Kolfschoten dealing with Paleolithic settlement of northern Europe. The author appreciates the paper saying that the researchers have presented an interesting review and highlighted certain significant points.

I have examined cross-section evidence on differential fertility in Israel, focusing on the relation between education and fertility. The interpretation of this relation as reflecting the relation between education and the cost of women's time and the relation between cost of time and the "price" of children is helpful in understanding some of the phenomena; what is left unexplained is the large decline in fertility at the bottom of the education ladder.
This sharp decline may be dominated by informational and cultural differences concerning family planning, of the sort suggested by sociologists (see, e.g., the evidence presented by Bachi and Matras [1962], Matras and Auerbach [1962], and Peled [1969]). Several pieces of evidence are consistent with a view that most of the cross-section and time-series variation in fertility reflects differential movement to a low level of fertility where the long-term optima do not vary much. (Thus, see the very flat curve relating fertility to education among couples of European origin married in Israel.)
Even if such a view were to be accepted, the need for explaining the mechanisms of transition remains. The possibilities of the simple cost-of-time hypothesis are far from exhausted in this paper: a more explicit treatment of the cost of time (see Gronau's paper in this Supplement), a more satisfactory treatment of husbands' lifetime or permanent income, and a fertility variable that takes timing and survival into account are some of the more immediate needs. What seems to be quite important is a simultaneous examination of several aspects of behavior.
In the specific Israeli context, I regard as the main challenge the understanding of the differentials between those born in Europe-America, Asia-Africa, and Israel and the linking of the cross section to the changes over time. The unexplained differences between these groups are partly a result of measurement problems of the economic variables. Better u... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians of medicine and generation have long demonstrated how the female body was conceptualized as a site of secrecy in early modern Europe. This essay explores one oft-overlooked organ of the female body—the placenta, which was considered by early modern anatomists to be a particularly challenging secret to uncover. Anatomists who investigated this organ discovered that it was largely absent from the ancients' accounts of their knowledge of generation, and their own studies of its structure and function revealed a complexity difficult to understand. Through an analysis of anatomical treatises and midwifery guides, this essay investigates how textual and visual knowledge about the placenta was produced and shared by anatomists, medical practitioners, and female midwives. It argues that the secrets of the placenta presented a lucrative opportunity for anatomists to expand their intellectual and financial riches. The study provides fresh insights for historians of science, medicine, and gender and new perspectives on the history of reproduction and embryology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Replies to various comments regarding a paper that utilized archaeobotanical data from aceramic sites in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe to elucidate the spread of agriculture. Differences between the study of domestication from a botanical and zoological perspective; Differences in the method of recovery and processing of samples and the possible correlation with taxon variability; Quality of the plant material; Issue of phasing and chronology; Use of model of population movement to account for the initial spread of agriculture.

Comments on a paper by Sue Colledge and colleagues that utilized archaeobotanical assemblages from aceramic sites in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe to elucidate the debate about how agriculture spread into and across Europe during the early Neolithic. Value of including weedy taxa in the analysis; Discussion of the possible significance of the contrasts between the domestic and especially the weed floras of the southern Levant-Aegean and the northern Levant-Anatolian routes.

Refugees are being empowered by their access to and use of information, enabled by information communication services and technologies and public libraries. Drawing on the work of various LIS scholars and recent media coverage and reports, this article presents a detailed literature review on the intersections of refugees, human rights, information, and public libraries to help consolidate and condense the research on these interrelated subjects. It examines the critical roles played by information in refugees' lives, including how information communication technologies, services, and public libraries help facilitate refugees' human right to information and, by extension, assist them in adapting to and better understanding unfamiliar information landscapes, building information and personal resilience, forging social trust, and transitioning into new communities. It is hoped this article can contribute to continued collective attention and coordinated collaboration to help address and alleviate this current refugee crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We explore the influence that different dimensions of early life health, such as the experience of epilepsy or a significant mental, physical, or general health problem, have on numerous lifetime labor market outcomes and patterns of life cycle employment. The data we use include over 81,000 males and females from the 29 countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. Our results show that for men, all four dimensions of early life health impose a penalty for nearly all the lifetime labor market outcomes we consider, but those with childhood mental health problems tend to do worst. These penalties are often only somewhat larger than those of men with epilepsy but more than twice and five times larger than those with, respectively, poor general or adverse physical health during childhood. Women appear less affected by adverse early life health, although we find evidence of similar employment penalties for those with epilepsy and poor general health during childhood. Our life cycle analysis is consistent but provides more insight into the timing of reduced employment and full-time employment, thereby extending earlier studies in this literature. Overall, our results highlight the potential lifetime work gains for public health policies that help to prevent or comprehensively treat poor general health, mental health problems, or epilepsy during childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on a paper by Sue Colledge, James Connolly and Stephen Shennan that determined a regionally distinctive composition of archaeobotanical assemblages from aceramic sites in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe through multivariate analysis. Authors' claim that crop packages of the type identified can be equated with the movement of actual colonizing farmers rather than with cultural diffusion amongst hunter-gatherer; Population movement as significant factor in prehistory.

Comments on a paper by Sue Colledge and colleagues which reviewed archaeobotanical assemblages from aceramic sites in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe in close connection with C dates and reintroduced archaeobotanical information into the debate about the cultural and demographic processes underlying the spread of agriculture. Results and discussion on weeds; Reduction of weed taxon diversity with the transport of crop packages; Usefulness of multivariate analysis for investigating the temporal and spatial patterning of archaeological data.

Comments on a paper by Ron Pinhasi and Mark Pluciennik which examines the potential contribution of archaeological human skeletal material, in particular craniometric data, to interpretations of the nature of the transition to farming in Europe. Presentation of multivariate data in the relatively direct format of principal-component plots; Separation between Mesolithic and Neolithic groups; Founder effects expected from separate maritime colonization events to Cyprus and the northern Mediterranean.

Comments on a paper by Sue Colledge and colleagues that utilized archaeobotanical assemblages from aceramic sites in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe to elucidate the question of the spread of agriculture. Utilization of correspondence analysis to examine the actual distribution in time and space of the crops, their precursors, and weed assemblages; Effect of variability in recovery methods on the presence or absence of some species; Assignment of botanical materials to a specific phase on the basis of calibrated radiocarbon dates rather than the associated material culture that defines the phase.

The author comments on the study conducted by an anthropologist which evaluates the Middle and Upper Paleolithic archaeological records in Europe. He stresses that though he agrees with the researcher's interpretation of the Middle-to-Upper-Paleolithic transition in Europe, he argues that there are more kinds or levels of symbolic behavior than what was mentioned in the paper and emphasizes that the origins of language are as important to understand as the origins of symbolic culture. Furthermore, he acknowledges the researchers interest in studying the evolution of human culture and have encouraged archaeologists to perform studies in this field to benefit archaeology.

The article presents the author's comment on the environments exploited by the Paleolithic occupants of the Northern Europe during the Middle Pleistocene. The archaeological material that can be related to the contemporary climate and landscape have revealed that a much wider range of environments was exploited by the Paleolithic occupants. The author says that anthropologist David Gamble considers the environment as a dominant factor in the choice of settlement.

The article focuses on the papers of American artist and author Suzi Gablik at the Archives of American Art within the Smithsonian Institution. The author explains how Gabik became involved with Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte, explores the journals Gabik kept while abroad in Europe, and discusses her advocacy for social responsibility in art.

Since the 1950s, life expectancy in Europe and the United States has improved at a steady pace, driven mostly by gains at older ages. However, these lives are punctuated by more chronic disease than ever before, contributing to substantial morbidity and disability. Using the Future Elderly Model, we simulate longevity and disability over the remaining lifetime for cohorts of older Europeans and Americans. We see that investment in both treatment and prevention for cancer, diabetes, and heart disease show tremendous promise for breaking Europe and the United States out of the expensive equilibrium we now find ourselves in as a result of demographic gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of a pecked pebble from the Middle Paleolithic recovered more than 30 years ago in Axlor rockshelter in the Spanish Basque Country. At the time of the discovery, the piece was described as being deliberately modified, but since then it has been either ignored or described only as problematic evidence of Neanderthal symbolic behavior. In this work, we provide a new description and additional documentation of the piece, and we discuss its anthropic nature and the possibility that its meaning can be related to the small but credible record of graphic behavior known for early hominin groups prior to the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. The linear design theme of the Axlor piece is similar to that of other items made by European Neanderthals. These artifacts confirm the capability of pre-Homo sapiens sapiens humans to create and use portable "art." This tradition is evidence of the emergence of "behavioral modernity" among late Neanderthals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the stratigraphic sequence of El Palomar Rockshelter, paying special attention to the levels associated with the Gravettian. The preliminary techno-typological study of the lithic collections of these Early Upper Paleolithic levels reveals a large number of splintered pieces that have previously been linked to two different activities--bipolar flintknapping and the use of intermediate tools (wedges) for working hard materials such as bone, wood, and antler. An experiment was carried out to determine the different characteristics resulting from each process, with special emphasis on macroscopic traces. All the main bipolar knapping features identified in this experimental program were also present in the splintered pieces from El Palomar, thus providing proof that the use of the bipolar knapping method was routine during this period. The implications of the use of this knapping method in El Palomar are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early development of their discipline anthropologists have attempted to develop theoretical models that elucidate the complexities of human "being" through a scientific comparison of differences. In recent decades, however, faced with critiques of the supposed white/male/European standpoint of anthropology and accusations of complicity with Western colonial hegemony, many practitioners have become uncertain about the comparative nature of their discipline, seeking sanctuary in less controversial cultural relativity and a focus on specific ethnographic description. This (partly self-imposed) limitation is based, to some extent, upon two false assumptions: that the theories applied to research on social behaviour can be accurately described as "European" and that it is possible for anthropologists to sustain ethnocentric perspectives while engaging in the process of long-term fieldwork, participant observation, and in-depth analysis. The multicultural nature of scientific development is particularly demonstrable in anthropology, where the methodologies employed in ethnographic research have always entailed a dynamic cross-cultural exchange and synthesis of theories and knowledges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the complex relationship between science and empire in Europe. Modification of imperial institutions; Stimulation of important responses and refinements; Generation of professional geologists.

The article provides information about a workshop on the earliest occupation of Europe that took place in France during November 19-20, 1993. The workshop critically reviewed the evidence concerning the earliest occupation of European regions from Great Britain to the Russian plains and from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. The workshop focused on four themes: chronology, environment, industries and subsistence. In the session dealing with the stone industries, chaired by Gerhard Bosinski, the artefactual character of some of the early assemblages was commented upon time and again. A detailed evaluation of artefactual and chronological especially biostratigraphical-evidence for the earliest occupation of Europe led to stress the differences between the evidence from before and after about 500,000 years B.P. The workshop concluded that although most regions have yielded sites with horizontal and vertical co-occurrence of artifacts and bones, very rarely could these be translated into meaningful behavioral scenarios.

This article proposes classical business cycle turning points for the G7 and a number of European countries based on industrial production. This enables us to examine the international nature of cyclical movements free from arbitrary assumptions about the trend. In particular, we show that cyclical asymmetry is common, with slopes during declines being generally larger in magnitude than during expansions. A binary measure of association for expansion and contraction regimes indicates a core group of European countries related to each other and apparently linked to the United States and Japan through Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the changes in the demography of Europe. Relation between poor nutrition and high mortality rates; Demographic disasters due to food shortages; Impact of improvements in medical knowledge; Policy measures designed to control the spread of infectious diseases; Outcomes of industrial revolution.

Comments on Peter Rowley-Conwy's paper which suggests a reconsideration of agricultural origin in Great Britain, Ireland, and southern Scandinavia. Ideological and subsistence dynamics and the current interpretations of their correlation that have achieved axiomatic status in postprocessual views of the transition in north-western Europe; Theoretical and interpretative postulates and available data on palaeoeconomy, palaeodiet, and cultural continuum in northwestern Europe; Economy and material culture.

Comments on Ron Pinhasi and Mark Pluciennik's paper which examines the potential contribution of archaeological human skeletal material to interpretations of the nature of the transition to farming in Europe. Researchers' argument that in south-eastern Europe the introduction of farming is related to colonization from Central Anatolia; Level of biological admixture; Artifactual material associated with the human remains; Use of late Early or even Middle Neolithic samples; Notion that the Mesolithic and early Neolithic populations of Iberia were genetically distinct.

Comments on a paper by Ron Pinhasi and Mark Pluciennik which examines the potential contribution of archaeological human skeletal material, in particular cranial measurements, to interpretations of the nature of the transition to farming in Europe. Distinctive status of the PPNB Abu Hureyra sample; Sexual dimorphism problem; Mesolithic and Neolithic specimens.

Comments on a paper by Ron Pinhasi and Mark Pluciennik which examines the potential contribution of archaeological human skeletal material to interpretations of the nature of the transition to farming in Europe. Craniometric data; Weakness of the approach; Ambiguity of genetic patterns relating to the identification of generating processes and the existence of contradictory patterns in historical perspective; Involvement of several different regional processes in the spread of Neolithic.

Comments on a paper by Sue Colledge and colleagues that utilized archaeobotanical data from aceramic sites in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe to elucidate the origin and spread of farming. Neolithic way of life; Unevenness of the evidence on origins and diffusion; Identification of vegetational signatures on the basis of similar patterns of taxon presence; Comparison of the Central Anatolian assemblages with the PPNB sites of the Levant.

Migration debates have emphasized migrants' (in)ability to integrate into European societies. Accordingly, historians have viewed the mass post-1945 postcolonial and labor migration as a European story, a unidirectional path whose consequences manifested within host country borders. Such has been the portrayal of Turkish migrants, who came to West Germany as guest workers in 1961 and now constitute Germany's largest ethnic minority. This article complicates this narrative with a transnational approach. It argues that Turkish guest worker families were highly mobile border crossers who traveled throughout Western Europe and took annual vacations to their homeland. These seasonal remigrations, undertaken by virtually every family, entailed a treacherous three-day car ride across Central Europe and the Balkans at the height of the cold war. The drive traversed an international highway (Europastraße 5) extending from West Germany to Turkey through neutral Austria, socialist Yugoslavia, and communist Bulgaria. Migrants' unsavory experiences on this highway confirmed their perceptions of East/West divides and demonstrated the Iron Curtain's porosity. Moreover, the cars and "Western" consumer goods they transported reshaped their identities, fueling the development of the derogatory moniker Almancı , a Turkish term connoting emigrants' cultural estrangement and "Germanization." The notion that a migrant could become German demonstrates that those in the homeland could intervene from afar in debates about German identity amid rising xenophobia: although many derided Turks as unable to integrate, they had integrated enough to be considered "Germanized" and to encounter difficulties reintegrating into Turkey. This mundane act of vacation travel carried international, national, and personal implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protecting the dignity and human rights of prisoners poses difficult challenges. Degradation is a hallmark of all punishment and especially of imprisonment. Prisons as total institutions entail distinctive power relations between staff and inmates that increase risks of violations of prisoners' dignity. Protection of human dignity is complicated by difficulties in defining the term: the sense of personal dignity experienced subjectively by the individual may be at odds with social dignity recognized by others. Respect or denial of human dignity is strongly felt by prisoners; the struggle for recognition is arduous and never-ending. This is illustrated by the relative successes of the prisoners' rights movement in American courts between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s, followed for two decades by a decline in dignity-based judicial decisions on prisoners' rights and, since the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Plata , 563 U.S. 493 (2011), by a timid hope for a "second coming of dignity." Expansions in protection of prisoners' dignity in Europe came later, in the 1980s, increased significantly through the 2010s, and more recently face new challenges from recalcitrant governments and more cautious judges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]