‘Eyesight to the Blind’: Secular and Religious Dialogue in the ‘Devil's Music’

I adopt a dialogic approach to refute Paul Oliver’s claim that there is no challenge to the authority of the black Church or religion in the segregated ‘race records’ of the first half of the 20th century in the United States. I dismiss the claims of some black theologians that the presence of biblical imagery in the blues means that performers were essentially religious. I show that the dialogue between secular song and religious sermons on record involved mutual parody, satire, and polemic in a common speech genre. Attacks on the Church, its members, clergy, and doctrines were common. Recorded sermons spoke back in defense. Mikhail Bakhtin's concepts offer purchase on the relations between secular and religious recordings in an ongoing struggle for hegemony in black cultural production.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on ‘‘Relations Between Gambling and Alcohol Use’‘

It has long been recognized that gambling is an activity that is often combined with alcohol intake. Not only do the behaviors of drinking and gambling frequently co-occur, alcohol use disorders and pathological gambling are also commonly co-morbid conditions in both clinical and non-clinical samples. This article introduces a special issue of the Journal of Gambling Studies focusing on cutting edge findings on the relations between gambling and alcohol use behaviors and their associated disorders. We set the stage for the following series of six novel empirical papers and integrative commentary by reviewing the theoretical pathways through which alcohol use and gambling disorders may be linked. We conclude by describing some of the novel contributions of each of the empirical studies from within the context of these theoretical models.     

‘It's [the] Culture,Stupid!’ Why ‘Adding Culture’ is Unlikely to Make Any Serious Difference to International Developmentalism

What major difference adding an extra ingredient—‘culture’—may make to a standard concoction—‘international developmentalism’—depends in part on how friendly the concoction is to what is to be added—and (with apologies to Jan Nederveen Pieterse) stirred. Therefore any hopes for any cultural re-turn in development studies should not neglect their cognitive iconography and the obstacles this may pose to what is desired. Six strands in the iconography of international developmentalism are highlighted in this paper: its high doctrine/low scholarship character, appetite for single best-fitting regression-type modelling and die-hard positivism, reliance on lethal binaries that kill existential and practical concerns, disposition to ready-made solutions in search of problems to attach themselves to, and ‘no politics please we are experts’ stances.     

Holding a looking-glass to the ‘Movement’: A response to Worth and Abbott

This article explores the presence of US institutions of higher education in Eastern Europe as one facet of the neoliberal global environment. It draws on policy documents, institutional statistics, materials produced by interest groups and NGOs, official mission statements, press releases and media coverage, and personal narratives. The American University in Bulgaria is examined as a case of this wider phenomenon. Exclusively structuralist, critical analyses of such institutions can easily lead to conclusions of homogenization and dominance through the hegemony of ‘exporter’ education institutions and programs. Post-structural analysis—attuned to multiplicities of meanings, nuances of context, and complex interplays of power and knowledge claims—allow for more attention to the local dynamics, while human interpretation and agency may point the way to more hopeful roles for US institutions of higher education abroad. In turn, these roles may challenge the one-way deterministic flow of influence suggested by structuralist analyses.

Este artículo indaga la presencia de las instituciones de E.E.U.U. de educación superior en Europa oriental, como una faceta del medioambiente neoliberal global. Se sirve de documentos de política, estadística institucional, materiales producidos bajo grupos de interés y ONGs, declaraciones de emisiones oficiales sobre los objetivos, comunicados de prensa y cobertura de los medios y testimonios personales. Se ha examinado a la Universidad Americana en Bulgaria como un caso de este amplio fenómeno. Los análisis críticos de tales instituciones exclusivamente estructuralistas, pueden conducir fácilmente a unas conclusiones de homogenización y dominio a través de la hegemonía de instituciones de educación y programas ‘exportados’. Un análisis estructural a posteriori—adaptado a una multiplicidad de significados y matices de contexto, y las interacciones complejas de afirmaciones de poder y conocimiento—permite mayor atención a la dinámica local, mientras que la interpretación y la actividad humana pueden señalar el camino para que las instituciones de educación superior de los E.E.U.U., logren papeles más esperanzadores en el extranjero. A su vez, estos papeles pueden desafiar la corriente determinista de influencia de una sola vía, como lo sugiere el análisis estructural.

本文探讨了美国高等教育机构作为全球新自由主义环境的一个侧面在东欧的存在。本文根据政策文件、机构统计数据、利益团体和非政府组织提供的资料、正式使命声明、新闻稿和媒体报道,以及个人记述写成,以位于保加利亚的美利坚大学作为这一更广泛现象的个案进行了考察。作为一种完全的结构主义,对这些机构的批判性分析很容易得出通过“出口”教育机构和各种项目的霸权实现同质化、获取支配力的结论。后结构主义分析——切合多重意义,语境的微妙变化,以及权力与知识的宣称之间复杂的相互作用——使人们更多地关注当地的动力学,而人的解释及动因可能为海外美国高等教育机构发挥更加充满希望的作用指明方向。反过来,这些角色可能挑战结构主义分析所提出的影响流的单向决定性。     

From ‘temporary migrants’ to ‘permanent residents’: Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States

Literature on international migration from India in the past has focused on the formation and development of ‘Indian diasporas’; that is, Indians who have moved to various parts of the world and maintain socio-economic, cultural and political lives in India as well as other countries. However, little attention has been paid toward ‘temporary migrants’ who have migrated to different countries with a temporary visa and in the course of time extended their visas to become ‘permanent residents’. Temporary migration from India has become a common trend over the last two decades, especially since the acceleration of globalisation and the developments in the fields of information and communication technologies. Although it is argued that this type of migration took place in the past – for instance, Indians migrated to British, French, Dutch and Portuguese colonies during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries as indentured labourers for a period of three to five years and later extended their stays – what is new about the current trend is the new state policies of different host countries and the socio-economic and cultural background of the immigrants. This paper is an exploratory study of this contemporary phenomena of movement from ‘temporary migrant’ to ‘permanent resident’, a phenomena which has not been given much attention by academicians and policy makers in India. The present paper outlines this trend with an illustration of Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States.     

‘Ties that Bind’: A Transactional Approach to Social Capital

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a renewed interest in the concept of social capital. However, much confusion still exists about the exact meaning of social capital. Thus, to create a foundation for future studies on social capital, this article develops a conceptual and theoretical framework to depict the stocks and flows of social capital. As such, it defines social capital formation in transactional terms so as to exploit fully the capital analogy used to characterise social capital and to place the concept of social capital on par with fixed, financial and human capital.     

实习平台：当今教学中的‘‘软肋’’

社会工作实习在社会工作专业教育中具有特别重要的地位，因为社会工作专业是一门十分注重直接为人们提供服务的专业。学生必须亲自参加社会工作的实践活动，增进专业意识、专业价值观和应变与成长的能力，才能成为合格的社会工作专业人才。然而，在当前中国社工教育的现实情境中，实习却是一大“软肋”。     

Reframing Tri Hita Karana: From ‘Balinese Culture’ to Politics

This article takes issue with the uncritical way in which claims of ‘culture’, ‘tradition’ or ‘local knowledge’ are used in science and policymaking around the Balinese irrigators' association (subak). The growing problems of Balinese irrigated agriculture are increasingly framed in ‘cultural’ ways that are not neutral: such accounts of irrigated agriculture in relation to Balinese culture deeply influence the world of policymaking. In this article we discuss the emergence of Tri Hita Karana (THK; ‘the three causes of well-being’) as an ideology, scientific concept and policy concept in irrigated agriculture and the subak domain. We argue that this ideological concept is not simply ‘local wisdom’, ‘tradition’ or ‘culture’ but requires critical scientific scrutiny as part of wider processes of socio-political change. How is it mobilised? What does its growing popularity mean for our knowledge of Balinese irrigated agriculture, of policy processes directed at the subak and of the workings of policies in real-life contexts?     

Concept of ‘personality disorder’ and its relationship to social work

Abstract

Inherently difficult to define and apply in a valid and reliable way, the concept of ‘personality disorder’ is, nonetheless, a very important psychological construct in the assessment and treatment of clients. This paper discusses the nature and limitations of personality disorder diagnoses. It also refers to data suggesting a paucity of formal training and research on personality disorders, and mental health in general, within Australian social work. The authors call for greater research, analysis and debate by social work educators and the profession on these issues.     

Quotas as a ‘fast track’ to equal representation for women

Recent years have witnessed the rapid diffusion of electoral gender quotas. Today, about fourty countries around the world have introduced gender quotas for parliamentary elections, either by constitutional amendment or electoral law. Also, quotas for public election have been laid down in major political parties' statutes in more than fifty countries. This article, which is based on the first worldwide overview of the use of quotas, presents general trends in quota adoption. It identifies two discourses: the incremental track versus the fast track to women's parliamentary representation, and argues that the Scandinavian countries – which represent the incremental track – may no longer be a valid model for ways to improve women's representation. The article also analyses the implementation process, and concludes that, without specifications of quota provisions that match the electoral system in question, and rules about the rank order of candidates as well as sanctions for non-compliance, quota provisions may be merely symbolic.     

Contested Concepts in Violence Against Women: ‘Intimate’, ‘Domestic’ or ‘Torture’?

Abstract

Ritualistic, overwhelmingly violent bikie gang or cult-inflicted abuse of women, entrenched by co-opting third party cult or gang members, has been referred to as ‘domestic violence’, ‘intimate violence’ or ‘intimate partner violence’. The present article questions the aptitude of these terms to convey the realities of this violence, in light of the experiences of women attending a South Australian domestic violence service, all of whom were escaping violent partners who were members or associates of bikie gangs and cults. The paper asks, ‘is torture an appropriate term for such violence?’ and discusses the impact of social, legal, organisational and human rights parallel states that collaborate to make it almost impossible for these women to escape this violence and make it difficult for social workers to work effectively with them. The paper concludes that the State needs to adopt a human rights rather than legal focus when addressing the issue of violence against women.     

Writing ‘Conflict’: Whispers as a ‘Restorative’ Narrative

Abstract

This paper examines contemporary Kenyan popular fiction as a site of cultural production, where the contradictions of African modernity are played out. The paper focuses on one of Kenya's oldest popular fiction columns, Whispers, published in local newspapers since 1983. Constructed around a Kenyan family, which is deployed as an allegorical trope to read modern Kenya, the paper explores how the column introduces us to the anxieties that define life in contemporary Kenya. Although the narrative comprises many thematic concerns, reference is particularly made to the restive masculinity threatened by social change. The paper also provides a discussion of the constant ‘backward glance’, an attempt to look for stability in the past, part of the society's relentless search for models that could help Kenyans make sense of an uncertain present, and an even more doubtful future. The paper also engages with the narrative mode of this fiction, examining how humour, satire and parody deceptively make light of what are important issues affecting society.     

Changing Attitudes to ‘Passing For White’ in an Urban Coloured Community

The paper suggests a framework for the comparative study of the situations in South Africa and Northern Ireland. It builds on John Rex's view of a race relations situation and compares both the overt practices of discrimination and also the inner perceptions and interpretations of the participants. One aim is to establish, for these two areas, whether the decisive causes of the intractable character of the conflicts lie in the economic and political conditions which obtain or in the way these situations are perceived and understood by the groups in them. Another aim is to suggest how the differences between South Africa and Northern Ireland ‐ in both the practice of inequality and also in the racist or sectarian ideology used to justify it ‐ might or might not make for a peaceful resolution of the conflicts.     

‘Indigenous Rights’ or ‘Racial Privileges’: The Rhetoric of ‘Race’ in New Zealand Politics

The New Zealand parliamentary election campaign of 2005 was marked by a significant break in the consensus between the two major political parties, Labour and National, in the area of Maori affairs: a consensus that had previously been articulated in terms of a shared commitment to ‘biculturalism’ and the Treaty of Waitangi. In January 2004, the National Party launched an attack on government policies, describing them as giving unfair privileges to Maori based purely on ‘race’. The present paper examines the National Party's adoption of the rhetoric of ‘race’ and the conceptual, political and ideological considerations behind it. It also examines attitudinal, social policy and socioeconomic factors to explain the widespread acceptability of this rhetoric among the New Zealand public. These events are considered within the context of a growing academic and political critique of ‘culturalism’ in New Zealand social policy and social science.     

敢露‘庐山真面目’

苏东坡曾有诗云：“不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中。”照此意推论，一个人是很难看到自己的缺点与不足的。笔者反其意而论之，入为什么不能主动暴露自己的“庐山真面目”，而让别人了解一下真实的“我”呢？最近，笔者读过一位日本学者写的交际心理学方面的书，颇受启发。书中日：让人家看到自己的缺点或弱点，人家才会觉得你真实可信，不存虚假，从而产生亲近感。反之，如果人们不了解你的真实个性，即没有看到一个包含有缺点与弱点的你，反而会对你放心不下，对你产生戒备和警惕，从而不敢亲近你。这真是洞察人心的至理名言。我想，现实…