This chapter explores bioprecarity and racifying science in the context of eugenicist practices in Sweden in the early to mid-twentieth century related to the indigenous Sámis’ treatment by Swedish race biologists. It does so through a dialogue between an academic and a Sámi artist and her body-centred artwork, in this case photographs. Sámis, like many indigenous people or people who at different points in history and across diverse countries/cultures, have been deemed inferior and subjected to racist scientific research, such as the measuring of their bodies for eugenicist purposes and the taking of naked pictures of even small school children. Here the body becomes an object of the colonizing gaze. That gaze produces bioprecarity through not only refusing the bodily integrity, autonomy and agency of those who are thus objectified, but also through gesturing towards the notion that some bodies occupy different orders from others. The artist’s work was concerned with reappropriating the body of those rendered precarious by eugenicist biopolitics.

The chapter focuses on the development of the concept from the expansive UNESCO notion of lifelong education (LLE) to the more economic oriented one of lifelong learning (LLL) as propounded by the OECD and EU. It concludes by arguing for the broadening of the concept of LLL if it is to contribute to the realisation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the idea of education as a public good.

This chapter examines Filipino migration to Ireland through the lens of the care industry, informed by the experiences of migrants in a range of occupations and with varied legal statuses. It draws on semi-structured interviews with migrant domestic and care workers, observations of the Domestic Workers Action Group and the work conducted by the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland in this sector. Filipinos in Ireland have often been heralded as an example of successful integration, the example of those in the nursing profession often being cited. This assumption obscures the reality of a large number of Filipinos, working as domestic workers, childminders, cleaners and carers; they often find themselves trapped in the labour market, unable to progress as a consequence of discrimination and often exposed to the exploitation and isolation of low-paid caring occupations. Exclusionary labour migration and family reunification policies have resulted in many remaining undocumented in the state, adding another layer of vulnerability to many of them. This chapter also explores the coping strategies found by the community to overcome some of these structural barriers: these range from community-led initiatives to mechanisms to circumvent discrimination and control.

In this chapter we analyse the biases that are visible in the media attention towards certain places, especially Tadmor-Palmyra and demonstrate how narratives have been selectively manipulated to tell very particular stories about the conflicts in Syria and Iraq and their impacts on cultural heritage. Looking in depth at some of the media narratives and the imagery that accompanies them reveals that some of those narratives are driven by wider geopolitical agendas and propaganda machines. Overall, there is a general lack of care being paid to the people affected in these conflicts and, by extension, how heritage reconstruction might support those people as they work towards healing.

Chapter 6 carries forward some of Mitchell’s and Epstein’s ideas of networks. The approach extends the network studies method to social mobility, looking at how elites emerge, participate in interlocking directorates, generate convivial subjectivities and sustain long-term friendships. Raised on that basis are further arguments about the importance of elite friendship for the constituting of openness and public trust in postcolonial states. An account is given of a public occasion, the funeral of a prominent cosmopolitan among Botswana’s national elite, Richard Mannathoko, to reveal the actual practice observed among elites. Very broadly, the ethnography seeks through a particular case to illuminate the changeable force that public cosmopolitanism has in civic culture in postcolonial Africa. In part, the agenda is set in opposition to a toxic version of Afro-pessimism that finds Africa doomed by the kleptomania of elites, ungovernable because of the self-seeking of Big Men, and inevitably victimized by liberators who reveal themselves to be tyrants. Against that, the facts show that Botswana does have its share of wider postcolonial conflicts and predicaments, but concern for the public good is forceful. Good governance continues to be advanced through the deliberately developed and well-sustained political structures and practices of a strong state.

This chapter introduces the three major case studies in the book – Aleppo, Mosul and Tadmor-Palmyra – and examines the narratives we have created about destruction relating to these places, both in the deeper past and the present. I show that some of our narratives around destruction and change in the past relating to Aleppo and Mosul often do not take full account of the impact these would have had on those living with those changes. Instead, we seem to hide those impacts behind an emphasis on continuity and longevity. In the case of Tadmor-Palmyra, however, we see a rather different situation where the trope of destruction seems to have stuck to the city, even when the archaeological evidence seems to point to other kinds of change. In the accounts of what happened to Mosul, Aleppo and Tadmor-Palmyra from 2011 onwards, I tease out the different trajectories of the conflicts in these places and the modes and motivations for cultural heritage destruction. These add nuance to the kinds of ‘bad guys v good guys’ narratives that we often see in the media and instead show the complexity of what happened to the people and cultural heritage of these places.

This chapter employs Foucault’s understanding ofdiscourse, as suggested in the introduction, toanalyse how media in Britain as a system ofknowledge, engages with Islam. The British press isunderstood here as one method for managing andproducing Muslims, in a political, sociological,ideological, and imaginative manner. As aconsequence, these statements constitute how Muslimsand Islam are perceived and can transform theiraudience’s understanding of Muslims and Islam inaccordance with the presupposed system ofknowledge.

This chapter is an opportunity to explore some of the potential reasons behind the knee-jerk responses to demands for reconstruction that may be rooted in misplaced assumptions around the fixedness and unchanging nature of our built environment. I argue that reconstructions that leave no space for demonstrating that change has happened may be akin to zombies. By refusing to acknowledge change, however painful, such projects may, albeit unwittingly, be entrenching trauma responses and feeding into repressed memories. The author proposes instead that we take a two-pronged approach. First, we need to pay more attention to the research into PTSD and traumatic memory to help us find solutions that are grounded in proven practices of reiy from trauma. Second, the author offers the metaphor of ghosts to give us the conceptual space in which to pause, reflect and process before moving headlong into solutions that may do more harm than good.