Although children have proliferated in Spain's cinema since its inception, nowhere are they privileged and complicated in quite the same way as in the films of the 1970s and early 1980s, a period of radical political and cultural change for the nation as it emerged from almost four decades of repressive dictatorship under the rule of General Francisco Franco. In Inhabiting the In-Between: Childhood and Cinema in Spain's Long Transition, Sarah Thomas analyses the cinematic child within this complex historical conjuncture of a nation looking back on decades of authoritarian rule and forward to an uncertain future. Examining films from several genres by four key directors of the Transition - Carlos Saura, Antonio Mercero, Víctor Erice, and Jaime de Armiñán - Thomas explores how the child is represented as both subject and object, and self and other, and consistently cast in a position between categories or binary poles. She demonstrates how the cinematic child that materializes in this period is a fundamentally shifting, oscillating, ambivalent figure that points toward the impossibility of fully comprehending the historical past and the figure of the other, while inviting an ethical engagement with each.

In recent years there has been growing interest in the experiences of young people seeking asylum in Europe. While the significance of the role of age is recognized, both youth transitions and trajectories beyond the age of eighteen are still largely unexplored, the role and impact of mobility predominantly centering on experiences of movement from country of origin to country of settlement. Inhabiting Borders, Routes Home contends that in considering migration and settlement experiences of young refugees it is also important to consider the role of their mobility through age and transitions in the country of settlement. Based on narrative research with young refugees, this book explores how migration journeys are intertwined with life course journeys and transitions into adulthood, shedding light on the manner in which gender intersects with age in experiences of migration and settlement, with close attention to the processes by which 'home' is understood and constructed. Through the concept of 'home' the book draws together and reflects on interconnections between integration in areas such as education or housing and experiences of social networks. Examining experiences of the asylum process and the manner in which they are interwoven within a wider narrative of home both within and beyond, Inhabiting Borders, Routes Home will be of interest to social scientists working in the areas of migration, asylum, intersectionality and the life course.

This book draws together debates from two burgeoning fields, liminality and informality studies, to analyze how dynamics of rule-bending take shape in Rome today. Adopting a multiscalar and transdisciplinary approach, it unpacks how gaps and contradictions in institutional rulemaking and application force many residents into protracted liminal states marked by intense vulnerability. By merging a political economy lens with ethnographic research in informal housing, illegal moneylending, unauthorized street-vending and waste collection, the author shows that informalities are not marginal or anomalous conditions, but an integral element of the city’s governance logics. Multiple actors together construct the local cultural norms, conventions and moral economies through which rule-negotiation occurs. However, these practices are ultimately unable to reconfigure historically rooted power dynamics and hierarchies. In fact, they often aggravate weak urbanites’ difficulties in accessing rights and services. A study that challenges assumptions that informalities are predominantly features of developing economies or limited to specific groups and sectors, this volume’s critical approach and innovative methodology will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology interested in social theory, urban studies and liminality.

This is the first collection of critical essays on the works of Dominican American author Julia Alvarez. A prolific writer of nearly two dozen books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and children's literature, Alvarez has garnered numerous international accolades, including the impressive F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. She was one of only ten poets invited to write for President Obama's inauguration in 2009, and her In the Time of the Butterflies was selected as a National Endowment for the Arts "Big Read," putting her in the company of Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, and Harper Lee. Yet, despite Alvarez's commercial success and flourishing critical reputation, much of the published scholarship has focused on her two best-known novels—In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. Moving beyond Alvarez's more recognizable work, the contributors here approach her wider canon from different points of access and with diverging critical tools. This enriches current discussions on the construction of selves in life writing, and nonfiction more generally, and furthers our understanding of these selves as particular kinds of participants in the creation of nation and place. In addition, this book provides fresh insight for transnational feminist studies and makes a meaningful contribution to the broader study of the gendered diaspora, as it positions Alvarez scholarship in a global context.

A description of the structural and functional adaptations of the key organs such as skin, kidneys, bladder, lungs and ovaries, with special emphasis placed on physiological adaptations: water, electrolyte, nitrogen, and thermal balance and their endocrine control. One whole chapter devoted to ecological aspects covers such exciting topics as development and metamorphosis, larval competition for food resources, and reproductive strategies.