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New article: Rhetoric and Ideology in Egypt’s Wasatiyya Movement
28 June 2010
Fafo-researcher Jacob Høigilt has published the article
"Rhetoric and Ideology in Egypt’s Wasatiyya Movement" in Arabica, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 57 2010. Islamic centrism (wasaṭiyya) is commonly presented as an open-minded and dialogue-oriented
form of Islamism. In his article Høigilt questions that view by analyzing texts written by two prominent
centrists: Muḥammad 'Ammāra and Fahmī Huwaydī. Focusing on rhetorical techniques, he argues that their texts are characterized by aggressive polemics not conducive to pluralist
public debate.
 More about the article Rhetoric and Ideology in Egypt’s Wasatiyya Movement |
  Vulnerability in rural areas and children's mobility in Senegal
June 2010
Fafo-researcher Anne Kielland's work was presented Wednesday 23 June at a large workshop in Dakar. The workshop was opened by Senegal's family minister, the World Bank Country Director and UNICEF's local representative, and it received broad media coverage. The research, financed by the World Bank trust fund TFESSD, especially deals with the rural vulnerability to climate change and looks at the children's roles in families' management of risks and shocks. A final report in English is forthcoming.
Download Kielland's presentation (in French): Mobilité des enfants et vulnérabilité rurale au Sénégal
Media coverage: French People Daily * Agence de Presse Sénégalaise * Sud Quotidien Online * More articles from the press
Photos: Anne Kielland. Senegal's family minister interviewed by the press |
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24 June 2010
Fafo's managing director May-Len Skilbrei has together with Christine M. Jacobsen, Oslo University, published an article on reproachable victims in Ethnos, vol 75, issue 2. The article investigates how the concept of victimhood is constructed within debates on transnational prostitution and trafficking, and how representations of victimhood intersect with representations of the person/self, class, ethnicity, gender and nationality. Using research findings based on observation and interviews with women from post-Soviet societies involved in prostitution in Norway, Jacobsen and Skilbrei discuss how the women embrace, resist or rework dominant representations of migrant prostitution and attendant notions of victimhood, as well as how they relate to multiple notions of the person/self, femininity and nation through their handling of the stigma of prostitution.
More about the article 'Reproachable Victims'? Representations and Self-representations of Russian Women Involved in Transnational Prostitution |
Socio-economic impacts of mobile phones in Haiti
June 2010
Fafo-researcher Tewodros Aragie Kebede has together with researchers from BearingPoint, France, looked at how mobile technology can be an important factor for development in Haiti. The findings show that mobile telephony has a positive effect on economic growth in poor countries like Haiti. The researchers have published the article «La téléphonie mobile facteur de développement?» in L'Expansion Management Review, and the results are also summarized in the Proparco newsletter coverage.
Proparco newsletter coverage
Fafo presentation of the main findings 26 May 2010 |
New opinion poll on the West Bank and Gaza
 22 June 2010
The polls show that palestinians are are greatly in favor of new legislative elections this year but only if held in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and that Hamas have lost a lot of the support they gained after the Gaza-war. The poll also finds that a larger share of the population favor a halt in rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel today than a year ago. Seven in ten think that Palestinians should resist Israel by putting more weight on civil, non-violent means.
The polls have gained considerble coverage in Middle-East media.
Read more on the poll results and the media coverage. |
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18 June 2010
Fafo-researcher Henriette Lunde has published a new report on young Haitian labour migrants. Haitian youth growing up in rural areas are faced with few opportunities for social mobility in their local communities, and many are pushed to search for employment elsewhere, either in Haiti itself or across the border in the Dominican Republic which has a high demand for cheap, manual labour. Cross-border migration offers opportunities, but it also involves a high level of risk. This report is based on interviews with experienced and potential youth migrants.
Download the report Young Haitian Labour Migrants
Read more about Young Haitian Labour Migrants |
 New article on political economies of peacekeeping and sex tourism
June 2010
Fafo-researcher Kathleen M. Jennings has published the article "Unintended Consequences of Intimacy: Political Economies of Peacekeeping and Sex Tourism" in International Peacekeeping, Vol 17, Issue 2. The article assess whether peacekeeping economies are disposed to become sex tourism economies. It argues that, like sex tourism economies, peacekeeping economies are to a greater or lesser degree dependent on the exploitation of women's and girls' sexual labour. It argues that the UN's position as a political, humanitarian and development actor gives it a special responsibility to prevent this happening.
Read more at International Peacekeeping |
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15 June 2010
Fafo's Deputy Managing Director Mark B. Taylor has together with Robert C. Thompson
and Anita Ramasastry published the report Overcoming Obstacles to Justice. Around the world, victims and lawyers are turning to the courts in order to hold businesses to account for involvement in serious human rights abuses. The scarcity of successful cases attests to the fact that the courts have little experience with such issues. This report maps out the obstacles to effective remedy facing victims of business-related human rights abuses and offers suggestions about an agenda for legal reform.
Download the report Overcoming Obstacles to Justice
Read more about Overcoming Obstacles to Justice |
   New scientifc articles by Fafo-researchers
June 2010
Liv Elin Torheim is one of the authors of a new article in Public Health Nutrition, April 1: "Endemic goitre and excessive iodine in urine and drinking water among Saharawi refugee children". Their conclusions are that the children are suffering from endemic goitre and high UIC caused probably by an excessive intake of iodine. The excessive iodine intakes probably originate from drinking water and milk.
Jon Pedersen has together with Tor A. Benjaminsen written the book chapter "Food Security and Pastoralism
in the Northern Sahel" in Human Ecology. Contemporary Research and Practice publsihed at SpringerLink. They find that both rich and poor
nomads appear to weather the dry season well. When food security is measured by
anthropometric status of the children, the children of pastoralists were found to be
better nourished than the children of sedentary farmers, and the children of sedentarized
nomads seemed to be the worst off.
Marina Manuela de Paoli is one of the authors of the article "Breastfeeding perceptions in communities in Mangochi district in Malawi" in Acta Pædiatrica, Volume 99 Issue 3. The findings illustrate the positive impact health workers can have, as well as the need to raise awareness of the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding among both health workers and mothers. Furthermore, continued counselling of mothers on how to deal with stressful infant behaviour such as crying may assist to prolong exclusive breastfeeding. |
  Research on vocational training in Norway
May 2010
Fafo-researchers Anna Hagen and Marianne Dæhlen have made a compilation of Norwegian research on academic and vocational training, commissioned by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. The report is a critical literature review around the following: economic and social benefits of vocational education and training, work-related mobility and migration, transitions in education and from education to employment, efficiency and quality assurance. These national reports are prepared in cooperation with ReferNet, a network for documentation and expertise coordinated by Cedefop, the EU center for development of vocational education and training.
Download the report National Research Report (NRR) Norway 2009 |
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May 2010
The Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre (Noref) invites to a breakfast seminar with the writer on Israel-related strategic issues Yossi Alpher and Dr. Ghassan Khatib at Birzeit University. They are editors of the popular website www.bitterlemons.org and engage in stimulating and thought-provoking debate in one of the last spaces of political dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. The seminar takes place at 2 June, 09.00–11.00 at Noref in Borggata 2B, Oslo.
More information on the seminar Israel - Palestine: A chance for a peace process? |
Fafo Seminar: Globalization and Development in China
May 2010
Fafo invites to a seminar with the Chinese Professor Zhang Boli, the Academic Dean or Principal for the Party School of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The Party School has its own educational system at university level, educating leaders for the Chinese state administration on both central and local levels. The seminar will give insight into how one of the most influential Chinese policy development institutions is reflecting on China’s place in the world. Comments by Professor Arne Jon Isachsen, BI Norwegian School of Management. The seminar takes place at Fafo 1 June 09:00-11:00.
Registration
More information about the seminar Globalization and Development in China |
 
May 2010
The Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre (Noref) invites to a breakfast seminar with Research Fellow Didier Péclard (Swisspeace, Bern) and Emeritus Professor of Political Science Martin Doornbos (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague). The seminar takes place at 26 May, 09.00–11.00 at Noref in Borggata 2B, Oslo.
More information on the seminar Negotiating Statehood |
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May 2010
Under the auspices of the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research in Norway, Fafo's director May-Len Skilbrei invites to the conference Transnational/Global Feminism: Issues, Contestations, Challenges. The conference takes place 25 and 26 May at the University of Bergen.
More information about the conference Transnational/Global Feminism: Issues, Contestations, Challenges |
 Fafo breakfast seminar on UNITAID and the Millennium Development Goals
May 2010
UNITAID’s mission is to contribute to scaling up access to treatment for hiv/aids, malaria and tuberculosis, primarily for people in low-income countries, by leveraging price reductions for quality diagnostics and medicines and accelerating the pace at which these are made available. Fafo invites to a breakfast seminar May 21st 2010, where four French lecturers will focus on how UNITAID contribute to the achievement of these goals. The seminar takes place at Fafo 08.30-09.45, in
Borggata 2B Oslo
Read more about the seminar UNITAID - Global Solidarity contribution to
reach
the Millenium Development Goals
Registration by May 20 |
 Fafo Seminar with René Lemarchand
The Great Lakes of Central Africa: random thoughts on an endless crisis
May 2010
As the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and its repercussions in the Great Lakes Region continues Fafo will host a seminar with Professor Rene Lemachand (University of Florida) on 11 May. Professor Lemarchand is ranked among the top Africanist political scientists of his generation, and as demonstrated in his latest book The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa his in-depth knowledge of the region is immense. Professor Lemarchand will address current issues in his lecture as well as focus on the historical and social forces behind the cycles of bloodshed in Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC.
Registration (by 10 May)
More about the seminar |
 Taking Trafficking to Court
April 2010
Fafo’s managing director May-Len Skilbrei has published the article "Taking Trafficking to Court" in the journal Women & Criminal Justice. The article analyzes the cases of sex trafficking that has reached Norwegian courts thus far. The challenge in these cases has been to draw the boundary between human trafficking and pimping and procurement, and to give content to concepts such as “vulnerability” and “exploitation”. In the last year, we have seen a strong increase in such court cases, and a shift in how the cases are handled. Controversial issues such as prostitution, force and victimhood are laid aside, and the prosecutor and judges are instead reproducing the procedures from previous cases.
Read more about the article "Taking Trafficking to Court" |
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April 2010
Fafo-researcher Heidi Gautun has together with Kåre Hagen published the article "How do middle-aged employees combine work with caring for elderly parents?" i Community Work & Family. The article presents findings from a representative survey conducted in Norway in 2007, that shows that seven out of ten are both employed and caring for their elderly parents, out of these 57 percent have experienced difficult situations in coping with both. The most preferable arrangement is flexible working hours.
Read more and download "How do middle-aged employees combine work with caring for elderly parents?" |
Darfur between war and peace
April 2010
Fafo-researcher Jacob Høigilt has published the article Darfur between war and peace at The Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre (Noref). The article deals with the framework peace agreement between the Khartoum regime and the Darfur-based Justice and Equality (JEM) rebel movement that was sealed in Qatar in late February. This outcome carries important implications for the future of Darfur, Sudan and the wider region.
Read more and download the article Darfur between war and peace from Noref |
New Fafo-report: 
New Fafo-report: 
Noref Breakfast Seminar: 
Middle-aged employees with elderly parents