Discussing Borders Escaping Traps

We live in strange times. Old borders are vanishing just before our astonished eyes, while new ones are rapidly emerging. Nearly three decades after the publication of Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man, the zeitgeist that predicted a bright future for mankind to a large extent turned out to be rather more of a dystopia. Crises in and outside Europe multiplied the number of border controls, triggered the construction of walls and fences and widened ideological gaps. The book Discussing Borders, Escaping Traps is a transdisciplinary and transspatial approach to investigating these vanishing, emerging and changing material and immaterial borders. It is the result of a two-year project by AreaS, a research group in area studies located at Østfold University College in Norway, and by AreaS’ partners.

Throughout history, alliances have taken many different forms and they have been difficult to understand in their totality. As we now experience an unprecedented pandemic, which highlights the need for both external alliances between states and internal alliances between governments and populations, understanding alliances is more than ever critical to apprehend an open and interactive world that knows no borders and in which challenges imposed on humans are global. The book “Living Alliances, Leaving Alliances” is an interdisciplinary approach to investigating past, present and future alliances on an interpersonal, subnational, international and transnational level. It is the result of a two-year project by AreaS, a research group in area studies located at the Østfold University College in Norway.

Big Data permeates all aspects of modern life, and while there is no shortage of potential benefits resulting from this, author Henrik Skaug Sætra argues that we must also understand the threats Big Data poses to liberty. The issues discussed in Big Data’s Threat to Liberty: Surveillance, Nudging, and the Curation of Information are related to how we are constantly under surveillance. Data is gathered from our homes, our cars, our smartphones, various devices around the house, and public sources such as facial recognition enabled camera surveillance and various websites and social networks. Furthermore, the information gathered is used to influence our actions. Detailed personality profiles are utilized in order to make us purchase products and services, or pay our taxes, through tailor-made nudges aimed at irrational and subconscious mechanisms, and delivered with a level of precision only possible with Big Data-driven algorithmic curation of data. Finally, the information we receive through various media is curated by algorithms, and even people are curated in order to satisfy our desires. By providing us with what the algorithm believes we want, we are spared from the exposure of unpleasant information, and even unpleasant people. The ideological landscapes we traverse are thus characterized by conformity, and a concomitant tyranny of popular opinion becomes ever more coercive as this occurs. The question is: How does being constantly watched, manipulated, and having our world-views shaped as just described affect our freedom? In this book it is argued that Big Data’s threat to individual liberty is routinely misunderstood and underappreciated due to (a) vagueness resulting from the concept of liberty being used without it being defined, or (b) the use of definitions based on flawed understandings of what liberty is. In this new and unique contribution to the ethics of Big Data and artificial intelligence, both these challenges are thoroughly addressed. Explanation of key Big Data–related technologies and how they affect modern society, including explanation of surveillance technologies and nudging algorithms, and how Big Data, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence algorithms are used to tailor and mold opinion Conceptualization of the term liberty, making the concept tangible, as a clear understanding of various forms of liberty enables a proper debate about the effects of technology on liberty, and a debate about what sort of liberty we value A thorough technical explanation of how Big Data influences individuals by way of surveillance that allows for detailed personality profiles, nudging, and the algorithmic curation of information

Wisaijorn explores how the concepts of space and temporality in traditional geopolitics have influenced the understanding of the Thai-Lao border since Laos became independent in 1954. Arguing that a state-centric conceptualisation of the Thailand-Laos border falls into both a territorial and temporal trap, Wisaijorn contests that privileging a theoretical border silences the voices of people on the ground. In doing so, he expands the concept of a temporal trap with the addition of a temporal dimension – analysing how the state claims a monopoly not only on a geography, but also a history. Rooted in orientalism, colonialism and the expediencies of the Cold War, the border operates in the interest of elites and ignores the lived reality of peoples on the ground. By bringing these voices back into the discussion, Wisaijorn presents a more complex framework, which reveals a human dimension missing not only from this particular case, but more broadly from the conceptions of borders within International Relations theory. A fascinating case study for scholars with an interest in mainland Southeast Asia, which also makes a valuable theoretical contribution to International relations discourse.

Written by two experts who have dedicated their careers to quality improvement, Escape the Improvement Trap: Five Ingredients Missing in Most Improvement Recipes separates itself from other improvement books by looking at why most companies rarely achieve anything more than an average level of improvement maturity. They identify five critical ingredients required for successful improvement: 1. A meaningful business value proposition and strategy that drives key improvement actions 2. An engaging environment where people can do their best work 3. A focus on meaningful metrics while avoiding irrelevant details 4. Process improvement efforts that maximize cross-functional process performance and foster deeper process understanding, innovation, and execution of best work practices 5. An executive mindset that focuses on customer value, people development, process performance, and business improvement outcomes, not solely on savings The authors consider a variety of situations at Independence Enterprise, a fictional company, based on their own very real experiences. They elaborate on the principles that should come into play, look at what Independence Enterprise is doing right and wrong, and suggest deployment actions to help you apply the principles to your own organization.

There is new movement in the discussion about self-determination and statehood. The contested declaration of independence by Kosovo and Russia’s recognition of the purported independence of Abkhasia and South Ossetia have caused significant controversy. These developments may well put an end to the attempt by governments to keep in place the highly restricted doctrine of self-determination that has previously only been made available in the colonial context. This monograph argues that classical self-determination, narrowly conceived in the colonial context. cannot contribute to the resolution of the presently ongoing self-determination conflicts around the world. However, this study finds that over the past few years a new practice of addressing self-determination conflicts has emerged. This practice significantly extends our understanding of the legal right to self-determination and of the means that can be brought to bear in terminating secessionist conflicts.

Escape from the Staple Trap is a powerful critique of the dominant trend in Canadian political economy since the 1970s.

The world economy is caught in a money trap. Existing monetary arrangements meet the needs neither of the ageing societies of the West nor of younger emerging economies. This in-depth analysis explains how the world got into the grip of global finance - and how it can escape, with a growing demand for reform.