IEE Publications

Read about new publications from our IEE members

Books

The doctoral thesis of former IEE PhD student Diotima Chattoraj is now available in print:

Displacement among Sri Lankan Tamil Migrants: The Diasporic Search for Home in the Aftermath of War

This book focuses on the concept of ‘home’ or ‘place of origin’ (expressed in Tamil as ‘Ur’) and its various dimensions, in turn related to issues of belonging, attachment, detachment, and commonality among the war-affected population in the post-war era of Sri Lanka. Little research has been undertaken on displacement and forced migration since the end of the war, and so this book provides new insight into the intersections between externally and internally displaced people and notions of home in relation to gender, age, caste and class. It excavates the roots of the problem of not being able to return due to combinations of uncertainty, unemployment, and the loss of people and property. The author shows that notions of ‘home’ vary considerably depending on multiple variables, and this is particularly pronounced between the different generations. The book also confronts how the migration from Sri Lanka over the border to India has brought on discernible changes to the lives of women in particular, in transforming their identities in multiple re-invented cultural manifestations, and cultivating a new kind of attachment towards their new homes. Interdisciplinary in tenor, this book will be of interest to scholars in development studies with a focus on South Asia, as well as graduate students and researchers in the fields of migration, conflict studies, Sri Lanka studies, and sociology. It may also have an impact on policymakers owing to its comprehensive, empirically-based analysis of the consequences of the Sri Lankan civil war for Tamils.

Please find more information here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4769-4#about

Journal Articles

A new journal article by IEE member Dr. Raffael Beier was published in "sub/urban":

Ganz gewöhnliche Viertel - Stigma und Realitäten in Casablancas Slum Er-Rhamna

Slums gelten als das Symbol der vermeintlich unterentwickelten und unkontrolliert wachsenden Megastädte des Globalen Südens. Die damit einhergehende Stigmatisierung von Slums hat nicht nur alltägliche Folgen für die Bewohner*innen, sondern hat spätestens im Zuge der Millennium-Entwicklungsziele auch zu einer Renaissance von Massenwohnungsbauprojekten, Verdrängungen und Umsiedlungen an den Stadtrand geführt. In Bezug auf Marokko zeigt der Artikel, inwieweit ein global verbreitetes, negatives Bild von Slums zu repressiven Wohnungspolitiken geführt hat. Aufbauend auf einer Haushaltsbefragung und qualitativen Interviews in einem sogenannten Slum in Casablanca dekonstruiert der Artikel bestehende Slum-Stigmata und zeigt, dass sich Slums nicht zwingend strukturell von anderen, gewöhnlichen Vierteln unterscheiden und maßgeblich durch Heterogenität gekennzeichnet sind. Als Konsequenz plädiert der Artikel dafür, Slums – analog zu Jennifer Robinsons Konzept der ordinary cities – als gewöhnliche Viertel zu bezeichnen und somit eine postkoloniale, empirisch-fundierte und vergleichend-analytische Sichtweise einzunehmen.

In: sub\urban. zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung, 8(3), S. 73–96. doi: 10.36900/suburban.v8i3.592. (full text via open access)

Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Löwenstein and Dr. Elkhan R. Sadik-Zada, together with Andrea Gatto, published an article in the journal "Data in Brief":

An extensive data set on energy, economy, environmental pollution and institutional quality in the petroleum-reliant developing and transition economies

Petroleum-reliant developing and transition economies account for 15–20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This group of countries have a disproportionately high share of oil and natural gas in their energy mix and a relatively high carbon footprint over their petroleum value chains. The present data set is an extensive compilation of the essential indicators related to economy, energy, environmental pollution, and institutional quality of 37 oil and gas producing developing and transition economies in the time interval spanning between 1989 and 2019. The data set can serve as a basis for the macroeconomic analysis of energy, environment, social and institutional issues in this group of countries and draft further industry explorations as well as sustainable development policy analyses and recommendations. Furthermore, based on the mentioned data series, we propose three novel indexes – i.e. Energy Sector Development Indexes I, II, and III. Those indexes are developed in the context of fossil fuel abundant settings. Despite focusing on the fossil fuel abundant settings, the Energy Sector Development Indexes could be expanded for petroleum and coal scarce countries as well.

in: Data in Brief, Volume 35, April 2021, 106766 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2021.106766

A new journal article by IEE member Dr. Raffael Beier was published in the "International Journal of Urban and Regional Research":

From Visible Informality to Splintered Informalities. Reflections on the Production of ‘Formality’ in a Moroccan Housing Programme

Increasingly, scholarly works challenge the formal/informal dichotomy, stressing the multiple political practices of producing informality which go beyond state incapacity. In contrast, this article addresses a lack of research concerning the production of ‘formal’ urban space through state‐led housing programmes. Deconstructing simplistic notions of state intentionality and incapacity, the article zooms in on competing interests and diverse resources, as well as the shifting power relations between multiple private, semi‐public and public actors which shape the production of ‘formality’. Focusing on a shantytown resettlement programme in Casablanca, the article differentiates between visible informality and splintered informalities. The former relates to the prevailing clear‐cut and stereotypical dichotomy between formal and informal urban space which underpins the state's objective of eliminating the visible informality attached to Morocco's shantytowns. The latter is the result of a messy process of ensuring housing affordability through the so‐called third‐party scheme—a sites‐and‐services project based on small‐scale private investment and land speculation—once this objective is achieved. Characterized by heterogeneous actor constellations, opportunism and flexible regulatory practices, the scheme has not only capitalized but also individualized urban space. Instead of building new formal housing, the scheme has produced splintered informalities and created new uncertainties and arbitrariness beyond the control of a single actor.

in: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, online first: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13001

IEE member Dr. Elkhan Richard Sadik-Zada, together with Andrea Gatto, published a new journal article in Socio-Economic Planning Sciences:

The puzzle of greenhouse gas footprints of oil abundance

The present inquiry lays a groundwork for the analysis of the net greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of oil in the oil-abundant settings. To address the research question, the study puts forward a three-sector decision model, which provides a common ground for the assessment of the interaction of the structuralist and institutional factors influencing environmental pollution in the oil-reliant economies. The study shows that fossil-fuel abundance triggers forces, which induce diametrically opposed effects concerning atmospheric pollution. These are the rising carbon-intensive oil extraction and processing and fossil-fueled power generation versus shrinkage of the carbon-intensive manufacturing and growth of the low-carbon tertiarization. The theoretical analysis enables compartmentalization of the essential factors, which determine GHG emissions in the respective countries. To assess the significance of the proposed theoretical framework, the study employs multivariate panel co-integration techniques and two-stage fixed effects estimations for a dataset of 38 oil-producing countries for the time period between 1960 and 2018. In contrast to the existing literature, this study drives apart from the black box approaches that employ just one omnibus variable, per capita income.

in: Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Volume 75, 2021, 100936
(URL providing 50 days' free access to the article: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1c~t18f9Ytaig)

Online Articles

On 28 January 2021, our PhD Student Darina Pellowska published an article on the CHA (Centre for Humanitarian Action) blog (in German):

Lokalisierung nach COVID-19 und Black Lives Matter"

Trotz der Impulse aus der COVID-19-Response und der Black Lives Matter Bewegung geht die Lokalisierung der humanitären Hilfe weiterhin schleppend voran. Dieser Blog zeigt auf, wie agiles Management und eine Netzwerkperspektive helfen können, etablierte Governancestrukturen im humanitären Projektmanagement aufzubrechen und alle relevanten Akteursgruppen einzubinden.

Link: https://www.chaberlin.org/blog/lokalisierung-nach-covid-19-und-black-lives-matter/