Enacting the Millennium Development Goals: Political Technologies of Calculation and the Counter-calculation of Poverty in Namibia

Abstract

This paper advances that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) act as a governmentality that brings with them assemblages of international and national policies and practices of poverty reduction. These assemblages are characterized by neoliberal rationalities that shape relationships and practices with and of the poor themselves by repositioning and deploying the values and norms of the market as the principal means for the establishment of development aid partnerships. Such rationalities, we argue, are exercised through political technologies that make visible and operable certain governing schemes such as calculative practices. Drawing on extensive interview, policy, programme, and archival documents, the paper advances the argument that the MDGs and the national development plan for Namibia, Vision 2030, shape ideas of poverty reduction through political technologies of calculation and via multi-scale partnership arrangements. These technologies emerge from diverse elements, subsume the shaping of social and political spaces, and have diverse effects on the lives of the poor. Our analysis also highlights an approach to poverty reduction in Namibia, that of BIG, a Basic Income Grant scheme. We view BIG as a potential counter-calculation of poverty, and counter-partnership to poverty reduction efforts, which can develop into a more socially just and sustainable means to reduce poverty and lead to an overturn of contemporary neoliberal assemblages of poverty reduction.     

Differential Developmental Profiles of Adolescents Using Sexually Explicit Internet Material

This study used a person-centered approach to examine whether different developmental trajectories of boys’ and girls’ use of sexually explicit Internet material (SEIM) exist, which factors predict these trajectories, and whether sexual behavior develops differently for adolescents in these trajectories. A combination of latent class growth analysis on SEIM use and latent growth curve analysis on sexual behavior was used on four-wave longitudinal data of 787 eighth through tenth grade Dutch adolescents. Among boys, four SEIM use trajectories were identified, which were labeled Nonuse/Infrequent Use, Strongly Increasing Use, Occasional Use, and Decreasing Use. Among girls, a large Stable Nonuse/Infrequent Use and smaller Strongly Increasing Use and Stable Occasional Use trajectories were distinguished. Higher initial levels and/or stronger increases in SEIM use were predicted by demographic, social contextual, personal, and media use characteristics, including a stronger sexual interest, a higher degree of perceived realism regarding sexualized Internet content, and more permissive sexual attitudes. Moreover, initial levels of and, to some extent, developmental changes in sexual behavior varied for boys and girls in the different SEIM use trajectories. Whereas some adolescents showed concurrent low levels, or parallel strong increases in SEIM use and sexual behavior, a subgroup of boys decreased their SEIM use while increasing their sexual behavior.     

Trends in cardiovascular diseases and associated risks in sub-Saharan Africa: a review of the evidence for Ghana,Nigeria, South Africa,Sudan and Tanzania

Background: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries are facing an epidemiological shift from infectious disease to chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). CVDs incidence in SSA are frequently attributed to the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and overweight/obesity. Nevertheless, some researchers contend that CVDs are not a priority public health problem in SSA.

Method: This paper systematically reviews the evidence on CVDs and their relation with hypertension, diabetes mellitus and obesity/overweight in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan and Tanzania. The publication’s content was analyzed qualitatively using the directed content analysis method and the results were presented in a tabular format.

Result: The paper illustrates the rising prevalence of CVDs as well as the three related risk conditions in the selected SSA countries.

Conclusion: The review indicates a poor health system response to the increasing risk of CVDs in SSA. The conditions and major drivers that contribute to this underlying increasing trend need to be further studied.     

After the ‘APIcalypse’: social media platforms and their fight against critical scholarly research

ABSTRACT

In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica controversy, social media platform providers such as Facebook and Twitter have severely restricted access to platform data via their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This has had a particularly critical effect on the ability of social media researchers to investigate phenomena such as abuse, hate speech, trolling, and disinformation campaigns, and to hold the platforms to account for the role that their affordances and policies might play in facilitating such dysfunction. Alternative data access frameworks, such as Facebook’s partnership with the controversial Social Science One initiative, represent an insufficient replacement for fully functional APIs, and the platform providers’ actions in responding to the Cambridge Analytica scandal raise suspicions that they have instrumentalised it to actively frustrate critical, independent, public interest scrutiny by scholars. Building on a critical review of Facebook’s public statements through its own platforms and the mainstream media, and of the scholarly responses these have drawn, this article outlines the societal implications of the ‘APIcalypse’, and reviews potential options for scholars in responding to it.     

Economic and Psychological Benefits from Employment: the experiences and perspectives of mothers of disabled children

This qualitative research explores the perspectives and experiences of employed mothers of disabled children particularly with respect to the potential benefits of employment. Forty families with at least one disabled child, representing a variety of family structures and work situations, participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings of this study clearly illustrate that the economic, psychological and social benefits for mothers of disabled children from participation in paid work are strikingly similar to those for employed mothers of non-disabled children. This suggests that the low level of labour force participation of mothers of disabled children in comparison with other mothers is most likely a consequence of the inherent ideological and structural barriers these women face, rather than their qualitatively differing needs. Streamlining of the benefits system, integration both within and between health, education and social services, increased flexibility in the workplace, and dialogue and co-ordination between all of these elements, may go some way to providing the support these mothers need.     

May–December Lesbian Relationships: Power Storms or Blue Skies?

SUMMARY

What are the implications when there is considerable difference in the ages of partners in a lesbian couple? May–December lesbian relationships are those where partners are at least 10 years apart in age, and where both partners are over 30. These relationships have been either neglected or valorized in the psychological literature. Differences in socially ascribed power, women's socialization against acknowledging power, the value the lesbian community places on egalitarianism, and the interaction of other privileges, combine to impact these couples. The fluid nature of power dynamics in May–December lesbian relationships is highlighted and explored. Finally, ways that age-variant lesbian couples can navigate these power differentials in healthy ways are addressed.     

Home‐based Telework,Gender, and the Synchronization of Work and Family: Perspectives of Teleworkers and their Co‐residents

This article explores the relationship between work–family roles and boundaries, and gender, among home‐based teleworkers and their families. Previous literature suggests two alternative models of the implications of home‐based work for gendered experiences of work and family: the new opportunities for flexibility model and the exploitation model. Drawing on the findings of a qualitative study of home‐based workers and their co‐residents, we argue that these models are not mutually exclusive. We explore the gendered processes whereby teleworking can simultaneously enhance work–life balance while perpetuating traditional work and family roles.