I first met the jhupri labourers behind a row of parked buses. They were sprawled out on the backs of their rickshaw vans after a night of work: some were asleep, some smoking, some playing ludo. Rubel was seated on a van with others huddled around him. He wore a white panjabi (kurta) and a sparse beard, giving the impression he was both pious and not in fact a labourer. Unlike the rest of the group who were lean from carrying heavy sacks of vegetables, he was large, or ‘short and fat’ as others would later describe him. Foreigners were not an unfamiliar sight at the bazaar. Nearby offices and a five-star hotel meant visitors passed by on their way elsewhere. Some took photos of the colours and chaos. Foreign sisters from the Missionaries of Charity occasionally shopped here. An Italian priest had for decades visited weekly to help children with small ailments and injuries. Some of the group later claimed that ‘bad foreigners’ used the cheap hotels to meet sex workers, with Australians for some reason singled out as particularly guilty.

As the first foreigner to speak to the group there, Rubel saw it as an opportunity to preach. He gave a speech about Islam that I barely understood and the group found amusing. He then stated provocatively, ‘We are all BNP here. Do you have a problem with that?’ The claim of affiliation to the opposition BNP was an odd one. The election a few months previously in early 2014 had been highly controversial: the opposition had boycotted, the nation had seen widespread violence, and with the Awami League re-elected, public claims of loyalty to their rivals were risky. Whatever Rubel's motivations, the encounter was precisely the opportunity I had been looking for. For the past couple months I had been walking around the city, getting to know it better, looking for a route in to study local politics, somewhere to embed myself and normalise my presence on the pavements, in the bastis and bazaars of the city. Scattered across Dhaka at the time were shelters run by local NGOs to support people living on the streets.

Introduction

In the Kingdom of Thailand, known as Siam until 1939, the great Sanskrit epic of the Ramayana, or rather the Thai-language Ramakien, composed under King Phra Phutthayotfa Chulalok (King Rama I, 1737–1809, r. 1782–1809), is omnipresent. It is the national epic of the Southeast Asian kingdom, taught not only in schools but encountered also in picture books and manga. The epic is deeply embedded in the kingdom's history and culture of everyday life. King Ramkamhaeng (‘Rama, the Bold’, r. 1279–98) of Sukhothai, named after the epic's hero, is today remembered in official historiography not simply as a great king but also as a founding figure of the Thai nation as a cultural community through his invention of the Thai script. He is depicted on banknotes, and major public works are named after him, such as a university and a major thoroughfare in Bangkok. And according to a late seventeenth-century chronicle, the former capital was founded in 1350 as Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya. Its founder took the title Ramathibodi (‘Rama, the Mighty’, 1315–69, r. 1351–69) upon ascending to his throne and founded the Phra Ram temple in the capital in 1369, the year of his death.

Ayutthaya was destroyed in 1767 by an invading army from Burma. After a short intermezzo under the charismatic King Taksin (1734–82, r. 1767–82) ruling from Thonburi, the current capital and dynasty were founded by Taksin's former general, King Phra Phutthayotfa Chulalok. He added Ayutthaya to the city's full name and included Ramathibodi to his full royal title. In addition to having had a new version of the Ramakien written, he also had murals with scenes from the epic added to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, where the kingdom's palladium of the same name is enshrined. The national dance drama of Khon is also based on the epic and can be found recounted in children's literature today. The epic is furthermore the source of proverbs and placenames far from royal palaces, such as Huai Sukhrip, or Sukhrip's Brook, a stream located near the city of Chonburi, close to Bangkok.

This chapter paints the political and intellectual backdrop of Padua in the 1300s, which sets the stage for Alberti’s education. While Rolandino, Lovato, and Mussato were intellectual giants of a commune, Petrarch, Conversino, and Vergerio were literary giants at a court – that of Francesco Il Vecchio da Carrara, a patron of classical medals, art, and humanist educators and antiquarians. Accordingly, five factors made Padua a center of early humanism: independent university faculty, accession of classical rhetoric, Petrarch and his library, Carrara’s support for educators and antiquarians, and the city’s absorption by Venice, allowing unfettered education to gift Alberti a literary and visual universe.

China, as one of the world’s largest creditors, has recently faced numerous defaults on its loans by recipient states, bringing the issue of Chinese debt restructuring to the forefront. This case study unpacks this process, with a particular focus on Zambia, a country emblematic of the broader dynamics at play. The primary aim is to elucidate the mechanisms and negotiations employed by China, a major global creditor, in debt restructuring agreements with low-income countries, with an emphasis on its engagements in Africa. The case study starts with an analysis of the Zambia case, highlighting the negotiation tactics and terms of agreements between Zambia and China. This serves not only as a snapshot of China’s dealings with a specific country but also as a springboard for broader discussions. Subsequently, the case study broadens its scope to encompass China’s lending dynamics in the African continent. Furthermore, the case study establishes a global context by acknowledging China as the world’s largest official creditor. It critically questions China’s choice to remain outside the Paris Club and considers China’s inclination or aversion toward coordinated debt restructuring.

Gold mines in Kyrgyzstan that are owned and operated by Chinese investors have experienced several problems in recent years, chief among them being labor disputes with local workers. These disputes mark a pattern of dysfunction in one of Kyrgyzstan’s most critical industries. They are further significant for a number of additional reasons. First, they shine a light on the realities of doing business in a controversial sector in a developing country. Second, they demonstrate labor issues from the host state side, specifically the difficulties of finding decent work for Kyrgyz laborers, and how certain industries may thereby engage in predatory practices. Third, they show the ineffectiveness of government intervention. This case study will expose readers to the causes of the problem and encourage them to critically assess the responses of various stakeholders to the disputes and the extent to which different fields and concepts of governance may be applicable in addressing the problems. These fields and concepts range from corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the “Green Silk Road.”

Chapter 14 provides an overview and critical analysis of the EU rules on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing. Section 14.2 discusses the Transfer of Funds Regulation, Section 14.3 the relevant rules of of the AMLD, and Section 14.4 the respective provisions of MiCA. Section 14.5 summarises the remaining challenges and Section 14.6 concludes.

In this chapter, the author sets out on his first-ever sting (with a Scottish group called Wolf Pack Hunters). He is called to give a witness statement at a local polic station and gets to know Oliver, who ultimately introduces him to COBRA.

Introduction

In Figure 9.1, we see a meme made by the Brazilian far-right portraying the president Jair Messias Bolsonaro (2019–2022) as a crusader. How to interpret the engagements with history embodied by images like this one?* Is it a traditional use of the past for a coherent ideological project, or is it something else? We believe that this image and, more broadly, Bolsonarist engagements with history reveal certain dimensions of contemporary historicity – by which we mean the articulation of the past, the present, and the future. In this chapter, we thus analyse how the populist movement embodied by Bolsonaro engages with history in a way that activates its heterogeneous political base. These engagements seem to be different from some aspects of modern chronosophies, such as their abandonment of synchronization and coherent presentation of a national history. Instead, the new Brazilian far-right populist historicity relies more on emotional attachment, a pragmatic and highly fragmented historical performance that, as we claim, is more akin to a historicity that we call ‘updatism’, meaning this historicity in which an empty and self-centred present is loosely and pragmatically related to the past, whereas the future is desired as a reserve for the linear expansion of an updating – and sometimes upgrading – present (see Araujo and Pereira 2019).

To demonstrate the affinity between ‘updatism’ and the specific Bolsonarist version of populism, this chapter is divided into three sections. First, we introduce the concept and the theory of updatism. Next, we characterize the populist dimensions of Bolsonarism – that is, the cultural and political movement represented by Jair Bolsonaro. Then we analyse the new Brazilian populism in its engagements with history, especially the performances of history by the three secretaries of culture of Bolsonaro's government and how the defactualization of reality gains momentum, creating the conditions of possibility for the past to be like a large wardrobe full of prêt-à-porter images and templates. Taken together, we can conclude that the affinities we see between Brazilian populism, or Bolsonarism, and updatist historicity are the following: both flourish in a communicational environment characterized by a shared and simulated reality that defies modern authorities and institutions; both tend to dissolve historical synchronization and thus lead to dispersion and agitation; and both have a more pragmatic engagement with historical content.

As the remnants of Picchi Hannan's gang failed to retake control at Kawran Bazaar, the more egregious aspects of his reign calmed. Kidnappings no longer plagued the business community and threatening demands for payment became less frequent. The severity of crossfire and widespread arrests made it clear that the ruling party and state would no longer patronise and tolerate the likes of Hannan. Those who wished to emulate him would face the same fate. The decline in such santrashis brought about a power vacuum, which for local leaders and cadres of the then ruling BNP represented an opportunity. As long as Hannan had been dominant, the various official wings of the ruling party had been largely sidelined locally, weak by comparison. Yet the condition of the party at the bazaar was still too fragile and politics too uncertain to take advantage. The years of fights and killings had taken their toll on the likes of Siddiq, and the resources of local leaders were depleted from violence and competition.

This power vacuum was prolonged by national politics, with an extended caretaker government in the period 2006–2008. It was widely alleged that during their term in office the BNP were attempting to have a favourable caretaker official in place for the 2006 election, prompting widespread protest. It furthermore seemed obvious to some that the democracy this system held together was one of the most corrupt on earth. In response, the military backed a new caretaker government in early 2007. Rather than calling a general election within ninety days as mandated, it extended its rule to almost two years in a failed attempt to bring radical reform and rid the country of political corruption. At Kawran Bazaar this was portrayed as a period of comparative calm, where businesses ran largely unimpeded and flagrant criminality and violence were minimised by the significant presence of security agencies in everyday life, which continued to arrest, imprison and allegedly ‘crossfire’ santrashi figures. Yet neither Hannan's death nor two years of a caretaker government cleaned Kawran Bazaar of crime and violence.