In (re)claiming freedom from abuse, survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) may need to reach out to various system entities for assistance including domestic violence shelters, legal aid, courts, law enforcement, homeless shelters, among others. The current study uses qualitative data to visualize the multi-part system of care for IPV survivors in a large, southeastern county. Interviews were conducted with community providers and practitioners (e.g., law enforcement, legal aid, health provider staff, prosecutorial staff, DV shelter and social service staff). Focus group and interview data were obtained from IPV survivors who have navigated the system. Furthermore, public and internal documents were compiled and analyzed. Analyzing the data involved triangulation among data sources to identify connection points among (and within) the system entities to develop a diagram that maps how IPV survivors navigate its components (e.g., the process of obtaining domestic violence shelter services, the process of obtaining restraining orders). Several iterations of the diagram were presented to participants for feedback resulting in the final figure. The value of mapping these data include (a) helping providers/practitioners identify gaps in service provision, (b) allowing survivors to identify their position in the system, and (c) more clearly explicating the dynamics of both help-seeking and help-giving in the context of IPV. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org (c) 2026 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]
In Los detectives salvajes, the novel that first brought Roberto Bola & ntilde;o international recognition, one of the novel's characters, Maria Font, expresses her distaste for the name of the fictional poetic movement that is central to much of what happens in the novel. She suggests that instead of realismo visceral a better name for the movement would have been Secci & oacute;n SurrealistaMexicana. Maria thereby asserts a similarity between the 1920's French literary/artistic avant-garde movement called Surrealism and realismo visceral. Her assertion is born out by the fact that Bola & ntilde;o based the fictional realismo visceral on infrarrealismo, a poetic movement in 1970s Mexico that he cofounded and which had much in common with Surrealism. It is not surprising therefore that we should find traces of Surrealism in Los detectives salvajes. The Surrealists were fascinated by what they called the marvelous as well as by its close relative the supernatural. Andr & eacute; Breton declared in his Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) that "only the marvelous is beautiful." The Surrealists found examples of the marvelous in the work of the 19th-century poets Lautr & eacute;amont and Rimbaud as well as in the trouvaille or chance encounter. These and other manifestations of the marvelous/supernatural, people and events that transcend conventional reality and the limits of a rational understanding of the world are a recurring motif in Los detectives salvajes.
In the history of relationships between Italy and the American continent, the second half of the 19th century is undoubtedly characterized by the great migration that brought millions of Italian workers beyond the Atlantic. Their favorite destinations were the United States of America, Argentina and Brazil, but they also directed to some other places, such as Guatemala, Colombia or Chile; we have in mind some less numerous groups, but not in the least insignificant. In the context of this enormous human migration, Mexico seems to represent a separate case, almost an exception in the general panorama, given the fact that the number of Italian emigrants to that country was always small, not comparable with what happens in other places. However, this does not mean the lack of interest of the Italians towards Mexico; on the contrary, this is obvious in a significant number of travelers who went there during the 20th century, who upon returning wrote books, travel diaries, reports, in a word a vast production that will be presented in panoramic form in this study. Research in archives and libraries has allowed us to rescue and bring together almost forty authors, who can be organized into six periods, each with its peculiar characteristics. In my essay I want to trace the general coordinates of this corpus and indicate the evolution of travel writing about Mexico during the 20th century in Italy.
Mega disasters, such as Typhoon Haiyan that struck the Philippines in 2013, have expanded world militaries' roster of duties to include battling the elements. Although militaries in their national jurisdictions have long been helping rescue distraught publics from cataclysmic events, they always have been the last line of defense. Mega disasters of today, however, have catapulted them into the role of first responders. In this role, they are now needed within and beyond national jurisdictions, as disasters-stricken nations increasingly find themselves outmatched by the magnitude of the calamities they face. Deploying an emerging approach that views climate change as a threat to national security, this paper examines how climate-induced mega disasters have had a degenerative impact on global defense establishments, leaving them increasingly inadequate to combat the ever-intensifying ferocity of the elements. The empirical focus of this study is on Typhoon Haiyan, which in 2013 ranked the world's most potent meteorological event. The paper accounts for Haiyan's implications for global and national security regimes, particularly the changing role of world militaries. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org (c) 2026 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]
