Weekend

This weekend I again went to the mall on Saturday and had coffee followed by a Philly cheese steak. But, I did not see Rawlings this time. I had a bigger cheese steak with more cheese and hot stuff this time, however. Today I got to church on time due to getting a ride with a fellow worshipper. I then went to the office. For lunch I walked down to the night market to get some spicy chicken wings and plantains from Meluvs. Then it started to rain so I walked as fast as I could. I still got a little bit wet, but not soaked. I did not think there could be much water left in the air since last night it poured heavily for hours on end. As it was it did not rain very long or very hard by Ghanaian standards this afternoon.

List of my articles dealing with Crimean Tatars on the Internet

"The Deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the Context of Settler Colonialism," International Crimes and History, 2016, Issue: 16.

"Soviet Ethnic Cleansing of the Crimean Tatars," International Crimes and History, 2015, Issue: 15.

“Colonialism in one Country: The Deported Peoples of theUSSR as an Example of Internal Colonialism,” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion , vol. 5,  no. 7, May 2014.

“Kirim Tatarlina Karşi Dűzmce Vatana Ihanet Suçlaamari [TheFalse Charges of Treason against the Crimean Tatars] trans. Selami Kaçamak, Emel, no. 230,  January-March 2010.

“Ethnic Erasure: The Role of Border Changes in Soviet EthnicCleansing and Return Migration” in Eero Medijainen and Olaf Mertelsmann, eds., Border Changes in 20^th Century Europe, vol. 1 Tartu Studies in Contemporary History (Berlin, Germany: Lit-Verlag, 2010).

“Loss, Retention, and Reacquisition of Social Capital bySpecial Settlers in the USSR,1941-1961” in Cynthia Buckley, Blair Ruble, and Erin Trouth Hofmann, eds., Migration, Homeland and Belonging in Eurasia (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center and Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2008).

“A Caste of Helot Labourers: Special Settlers and theCultivation of Cotton in Soviet Central Asia: 1944-1956” in Deniz Kandiyoti, ed., The Cotton Sector in Central Asia: Economic Policy and Development Challenges, (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2007).

“Socialist Racism: Ethnic Cleansing and Racial Exclusion inthe USSR and Israel,” Human Rights Review, vol. 7, no. 3, April-June 2006. 

“The Deportation and Fate of the Crimean Tatars,” presented at the 5th Annual Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Columbia University, NY, 13-15 April 2000.

Today (18-05-16)

Today I gave my last exam of the semester at 7:30 am. That meant I had to be at the university at 7:00 am. Which meant that I had to leave my flat at 6:00 am. To do that I had to get up at 5:00 am. Fortunately, I don't have to do that again at least for a couple of months. But, of course all day today I have been feeling like a zombie because I only got six hours of sleep insteard of the eight I usually get on week nights. My brain is certainly not up to doing any marking of final exams today. Tomorrow I will try and plow through as many of the 52 scripts as possible.

Remember

18 May 1944

Tomorrow is the 72nd anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars from their ancestral homeland to Uzbekistan and the Urals. This year the 18th of May comes just a few short days after Jamala's victory for Ukraine in the Eurovision song contest with her song 1944 about the event. In many ways the Soviet treatment of the Crimean Tatars and the Crimean peninsula resembled better known cases of settler colonialism in the Americas, Africa, Australia, and the Middle East. You can find my article, "The Deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the Context of Settler Colonialism," International Crimes and History, 2015, Issue: 16, here. Feel free to leave any comments about the article here.

Saturday at the mall (Rawlings sighting)

This weekend I was at the Accra Mall. I wanted to try the new Pizza Hut but the line was too long. I did try the new coffee shop and the new Philly cheese steak place, however. In between drinking a huge mug of Sumatran coffee and eating a cheese steak I saw J.J. Rawlings. Or at least somebody who looked almost identical to him. I was outside the mall and had just finished talking to my mother on the phone when I saw him leave the mall. He did not have any visible entourage which I found interesting. At any rate I have never been physically closer to such an historically important figure in my life. Assuming that is of course it actually was Rawlings and not a look a like.

Afro-Optimism

Somedays things look good. Today is one of those days. It didn't start out that way. But, it has evolved in that direction at least since noon. So this Friday the 13th is looking pretty lucky for me. If you want to make it even better you can put some suggestions for where to look for research grants in the comments of the previous post. So far nobody has left any recommendations of places that offer funding for academic research by scholars in Africa. However, given today's trajectory I have hope that somebody might in the next couple of days. Africa has always been the continent of eternal optimism.

End of Semester

The semester is rapidly coming to an end. I gave one final exam on Monday and have almost finished grading the exams. I have five left. My other final exam is next week. It is a larger class but grading might go faster because it is more closely related to my research fields.

As always I am on the look out for small research grants. Even a few hundred dollars helps a lot in the "Third World." So if you have any suggestions of where to apply for funds to study the type of things I write about please leave them in the comments. If you are not sure about what I write about then go see this site and scroll down. There you can see a number of my published works. My latest journal article of course is not available there. But, can be found here if you have access through a university or other institution. Needless to say acquiring primary and even secondary sources is much more difficult here in Ghana than it would be if I worked at a North American or European university in large part due to a lack of research funds.

Publication from 2014 now available online

I have a short article on Kyrgyz national identity in Civitis: Journal of Citizenship Studies that is now available online here. Feel free to leave feedback in the comments below.

Saturday Morning

This morning I had to get up early to get my final exams for Monday printed off. Despite leaving the house before eight I still did not manage to avoid the fruit vendors who have taken to knocking on my door at 6:30 am. I refuse to buy anything that early in the morning. So now that I have gotten my first exam copied I don't intend to do any more work for the rest of the day.

This Week

This week I got my final exam questions typed up and approved by the Head of the Department. I also submitted my article from The Russian Review last month for an award here at the university. Finally, I sent an abstract and grant application off for a conference in Hanoi next March. Next week final exams start.

Monday again

As far as I can tell this blog has three human readers left. That is undoubtedly more than my academic writing garners. But, still only a quarter as many readers as I had a decade ago or a 75% decline. Maybe it is because I have been in one place too long now. Out of the nearly 13 years this blog has lived a little less than one was in London but blogging was very light. Then I spent a year in northern Virginia followed by two years in Arizona, three and a half in Kyrgyzstan, and now five and a half in Ghana. So the African phase has been by far the longest. However, for better or worse it does not look like I will be moving anytime soon. So maybe I am no longer a man on the move.

Labour Day Weekend

Well moving this blog to a personal journal of my daily life in Ghana seems to have greatly reduced my already microscopic readership. At this point it doesn't really matter, however. There isn't much left of the blogging world period. Certainly very few individual blogs have continued to exist for nearly 12 years.

This Labour Day weekend I deliberately avoided doing any work. I don't do that often. I have been thinking today about actually doing this project next semester. I am not sure if I could get enough contributers together to make a go of it. But, if anybody is interested let me know.