The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

Each ethnic enclave has its own idiosyncrasies, leading to disagreements as to the functions they serve for the migrants inhabiting them. However, three main functions may be identified across scho...

Ethnic enclaves transcending space Chinese international students’ social networks in a European University town

Religiosity and its others: lived Islam in West Africa and South India

This article discusses the findings of a participatory photography project that was conceptualized to help Hindu and Muslim students reimagine the religiously marked public spaces they inhabit in t...

Reimagining Religiously Segregated Spaces: Building Interfaith Sites Through Participatory Photography:

Principles of community development are vital for community practice and for social work practice in general. They are grounded in ethical standards and values, and we might notice that there is a consensus about their content. In general, we might say that there are following groups of principles of community development and community practice: holistic sustainable community development, development based on local resources and capacities, participation in community development, strengthening social capital and community relations, adhering to human rights and social justice and eliminating inequalities, inclusion, nurturing diversity and a culture of non-violence and community ownership and autonomy towards the surrounding environment. However, it is a challenge to pursue these principles in deprived communities. Deprived communities have specific dynamic both within its structures and also with its environment. These challenges are connected with the oppression of the community; they are related to oppressive relationships within the community and social disorganisation, reduced social cohesion and insufficient community participation and reduced sense of belonging to and experiencing the community. In this chapter, authors will elaborate more specifically these challenges and underpin the arguments with empirical data. Finally, authors suggest more specific principles of community development specifically referring to deprived communities. These principles demonstrate necessity to establish a balance between trust and change as crucial for leading development further.

Principles of Community Development and Challenges Facing Deprived Communities

This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a marginalised Muslim community called Marakkayars, living in Beemapalli, a coastal hamlet located in the Thiruvananthapuram district of southern Kerala. Based on insights from judicial discourse and ethnography of an event of spectacle state violence that occurred in Beemapalli in the year 2009, the article shows how the contesting discourses that emerged after the violence are entangled with a larger transformation that has taken place in the recent history of this locality—the shift from an ethnic enclave to a ghetto. The judicial discourse which justifies the police violence in Beemapalli and the counter narratives from the locality that vehemently oppose it give interesting insight into the confrontations between the state and a ghettoised community prior to and after the violence. The article also demonstrates how the relationship between the state agencies and ghettoised Marakkayar Muslims is saturated with...

Salah Punathil

Papers

From ethnic enclave to ghetto Violence and identity among Muslims in south Kerala