By Elizabeth Bishop. A photograph near the bottom of the wall caught my attention at the Habib Achour exhibit in the Kerkennah branch of the Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (UGTT, General Union of Tunisian Workers). A caption provides the information that the black-and-white photograph was taken on 26 January 1978.
By Diana Ayeh. When I first came to Houndé in 2016, the town of 150,000 inhabitants in southwestern Burkina Faso already had a certain gold-rush atmosphere. Not only was the landscape in and around Houndé marked with indications for future extraction, the construction of the first industrial gold mine in the urban municipality was also accompanied by the arrival of new actors and ideas that made extraction feasible.
By André Weißenfels. Upward social mobility through education is a promise that has captured the minds of generations all across the globe. It has motivated and continues to motivate people to plan their lives around formal education and to strive for degrees in the hope these might offer a desirable future. But what if the promise turns out to be false?
By Marko Demantowsky (History, University of Vienna, Austria). You read it everywhere. Everyone talks about it, always as a value in itself. We are all haunted by it, not least at universities, not least in the humanities, by the ubiquitous requirement to be innovative.
ماركو ديمانتوفسكي (التاريخ، جامعة فيينا، النمسا) تقرؤونها في كلّ مكان. يتحدّث عنها الجميع، كقيمة في حدّ ذاتها على الدوام. تطاردنا جميعًا، لا سيّما في الجامعات، ولا سيّما في الإنسانيات، مُطالِبَةً بالمطلب كلّي الحضور أن نكون مجدِّدين. فالمشاريع التي لا تقتضي التجديد لن تحلّ عليها نعمة التمويل في نظام أكاديمي منتفخ ونحيل في آنٍ معًا.
By Malak Labib. In January 2021, the Egyptian government decided on the liquidation of the Egyptian Iron and Steel Company, one of the country’s oldest public-sector enterprises. While officials pointed to the company’s accumulated losses and its deteriorating production capacity, the decision was met with wide opposition.
By Bashshar Haydar (Philosophy, American University of Beirut, Lebanon). It is not uncommon for people working in the humanities to feel the need to demonstrate the significance or, even, the relevance of their disciplines. There is not a matching pressure in the fields of natural sciences, whether applied or theoretical.
بشار حيدر (فلسفة، الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت، لبنان). ليس من غير المألوف أن يشعر العاملون في الإنسانيات بالحاجة إلى تبيان أنَّ لفروعهم أهميتها، أو حتى أنّها ذات صلة. ما من ضغط مماثل في مجالات العلوم الطبيعية سواء التطبيقية أو النظرية. ونادرًا ما يُشَكَّك في حكمة استثمار رأس المال البشري والمادي في التخصصات الأخيرة.
By André Weißenfels. In the south of Tunis, around 450 Tunisians work at an offshore French electronics factory. Even though the majority of them work on the shop floor and have what is traditionally called “working class” jobs, they consider themselves to be middle class.
By Markus Heckel | In my field of research, which combines Economics and Japanese Studies (trained at the University of Bonn), it soon became clear that eventually I would have to deal with cross-country comparisons.
TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research is a platform for scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are interested in transregional exchange and research on current issues. TRAFO is the blog of the Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin) and the Max Weber Stiftung – Deutsche Geisteswissenschaftliche Institute im Ausland (Bonn).
ISSN: 2199-2134
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