Flows and Pauses in the Urban Logistics Landscape: The Municipal Regulation of Shipping Container Mobilities

Abstract

The mobilities turn has demonstrated the importance of the social, cultural and political implications of travel for a variety of modes, though largely focused on people and vehicles, not freight. The transport of goods by shipping container has become the predominant means of freight transport since the 1960s, shaping places from port cities to rural distribution centers. This paper uses two North American case studies to explore temporary immobilities or pauses in the flows of shipping containers, showing that the problems containers pose to the places they pass through are not a function of the objects themselves, but their state of mobility. Pauses are important as a category of mobility because of the consequences of regulations that attempt to eliminate or redirect them.

     

Globalizing the Nation-State: The Shipping Container and American Infrastructure

Abstract

This article focuses on the impact of the shipping container on the trucking and railroad infrastructures of the USA, and describes how global containerization and American transportation have mutually influenced each other. As the container moves not only over the ocean but also within national territories, its use represents a globalizing of the infrastructure, territory, and internal workings of the nation-state. The national scale, once dominant, gives way to a multiplicity of scalar relations. Yet because the container functions by using existing transportation infrastructures, it forms a network dependent on the systems and practices of the nation-state. Globalization in this case is not a top-down phenomenon whereby the global exerts its will upon other scales that can only react, but a more complex process in which a variety of scales and actors possess agency and power.     

Things visible and invisible: the Leather Archives and Museum

This paper explores the reasons underlying the relative absence of research on the leather/levi community in gay and lesbian studies and summarizes the history and special collections of Chicago's Leather Archives and Museum.     

Mobility and data: cycling the utopian Internet of Things

ABSTRACT

This article explores how cycling is currently considered in European policy documents related to transport aspects of the Internet of Things (IoT), what kind of representation of cycling can be imagined for utopian EC IoT policies documents, and how a combination of empirical policy analysis and a utopian approach could inform future policy and research. Debates around smart/intelligent/data mobilities and the IoT – including policy debates – tend to be dominated by motorized modes such as autonomous and networked cars. This article explores the implications of this for more sustainable and active modes such as cycling, both for current policies and for utopian thinking. It draws on literature concerned with utopian thinking, mobilities studies and critical data studies. The methodology combines a content analysis and a visual analysis of the EC policy documents with creating text and images for utopian future versions of these documents. The results show the heavy automotive focus of EC IoT policy documents and suggest an alternative bicycle-focussed IoT utopia. The conclusion facilitates a debate around utopian societies where smart cycling products, infrastructure, policy and funding facilitate sustainable, active and data-responsible mobility at scale. This challenges the current continuation of automobile cultures in smart mobility and IoT policy discourses, and the data and associated power asymmetries between cars and cycling that highlight the significance of this research.     

Global Food Markets and Their Local Alternatives: A Socio-Ecological Economic Perspective

Growing globalization has changed the relationship between the economic institution market and its social contexts. Local alternatives have developed, as some would argue, as a response to this globalization trend. This paper examines the seeming contradiction between globalization and local market developments by examining a recent model of emerging local, more socially embedded markets, namely CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture). It argues that CSAs, which directly link agricultural producers and consumers, exemplify the search for market alternatives that are re-embedded in their physical, social, and ethical context. Thereby important dimensions of market interaction such as reliance on local experts, social interaction, and spatial/temporal feedback functions can be recovered.     

Mobile Ideas: Tracking a Concept through Time and Space

Abstract

John Urry’s defining work on mobilities calls for research into the movement of people, ideas and information. This article identifies that as things stand the work of the ‘mobilities turn’ has tended to concentrate almost exclusively on the movement of people and information and has given far less attention to the mobility of ideas. In order to address this absence this article focuses upon one idea in particular, the Spime neologism, and attempts to understand its movement, the systems that enable it and the implications it creates. This article demonstrates the potential offered by the contemporary mediascape for tracking, tracing and visualising the mobility of ideas.     

Moving Beyond Salmon Bias: Mexican Return Migration and Health Selection

Despite having lower levels of education and limited access to health care services, Mexican immigrants report better health outcomes than U.S.-born individuals. Research suggests that the Mexican health advantage may be partially attributable to selective return migration among less healthy migrants—often referred to as “salmon bias.” Our study takes advantage of a rare opportunity to observe the health status of Mexican-origin males as they cross the Mexican border. To assess whether unhealthy migrants are disproportionately represented among those who return, we use data from two California-based studies: the California Health Interview Survey; and the Migrante Study, a survey that samples Mexican migrants entering and leaving the United States through Tijuana. We pool these data sources to look for evidence of health-related return migration. Results provide mixed support for salmon bias. Although migrants who report health limitations and frequent stress are more likely to return, we find little evidence that chronic conditions and self-reported health are associated with higher probabilities of return. Results also provide some indication that limited health care access increases the likelihood of return among the least healthy. This study provides new theoretical considerations of return migration and further elucidates the relationship between health and migration decisions.     

Immigration and living arrangements: Moving beyond economic need versus acculturation

Prior research seeking to explain variation in extended family coresidence focused heavily on the potentially competing roles of cultural preferences and socioeconomic and demographic structural constraints. We focus on challenges associated with international immigration as an additional factor driving variation across groups. Using 2000 census data from Mexico and the United States, we compare the prevalence and age patterns of various types of extended family and non-kin living arrangements among Mexican-origin immigrants and nonimmigrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Additionally, we use the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the stability of extended family living arrangements among Mexican-origin immigrants and natives in the United States. We find that newly arrived immigrants to the United States display unique patterns in the composition and stability of their households relative to nonimmigrants in both Mexico and the United States. Recent immigrants are more likely to reside in an extended family or non-kin household, and among those living with relatives, recent immigrants are more likely to live with extended family from a similar generation (such as siblings and cousins). Further, these households experience high levels of turnover. The results suggest that the high levels of coresidence observed among recently arrived Mexican immigrants represent a departure from “traditional” household/family structures in Mexico and are related to the challenges associated with international migration.     

流迁老年人口研究:国外文献评述

目前国内老年人的流动与迁移行为较少被关注,有必要对这一问题重新加以认识。对国外相关文献进行检索与评述,从研究对象、主要研究内容、关注焦点、迁入地与迁出地、迁移原因、老年人流动迁移行为的经济后果等角度总结目前的国外文献研究成果,并提出对我国相关领域研究的借鉴意见。     

Older Women in the Homeless Shelter: Personal Perspectives and Practice Ideas

This article reports on the themes generated by interviews conducted with 10 women over the age of 50, currently homeless and residing in an overnight homeless shelter. In-depth interviews were conducted asking women to tell their stories, talk about their lives in the shelter, and speak about their needs, hopes, and dreams. Based on an analysis of these interviews, the following themes emerged and were presented: The System is Too Confusing, Chaos in the Shelter System, Women as Nurturers, and Fractured Families. Discussion of these themes was presented, and practice, administrative, and research implications were suggested.     

Flows and Cohesion: Balancing Capabilities Across an Expanded Union1

Until recently the flow of skilled workers to established centres from more peripheral regions was seen as a ‘brain drain’, implying a one‐way and permanent loss of skilled labour. However, increasing mobility and connectivity permits more complex traffic between more and less advanced locations. With the emergence of a global economy dependent on flows of material and intellectual capital, the notion of ‘brain circulation’ has gained prominence. Understanding the potential benefits of migration to both donor and recipient economies must move beyond financial remittance to social remittance. As connectivity increases, both become capacity‐building resources. This article discusses the impact of a combination of greater physical mobility and electronic connectivity on the dual objectives of social cohesion and technical leadership being pursued through the policies of the European Commission.     

全球化与中国人口

当今全球化已成为一种不可逆转的趋势 ,而且正在深刻地影响和改变着我们生存与发展的方方面面。从经济全球化、国际移民以及文化多元化等方面 ,讨论全球化对中国人口的机遇与挑战 ,也是前所未有的。全球化实际上为中国人口提供了一个更大的生存空间 ,一个更大的施展竞争力的舞台。全球化对中国人口最大的挑战 ,是如何提高现有的、未来的人口素质 ,把中国人口潜在的数量优势发挥出来 ,汇入全球化人力、人才竞争的时代。     

Moving beyond the household: Innovations in data collection on kinship

Across settings, it has been shown that the co-residential household is an insufficient measure of family structure and support. However, it continues to be the primary means of population data collection. To address this problem, we developed a new instrument, the Kinship Support Tree (KST), to collect kinship structure and support data on co-residential and non-residential kin and tested it on a sample of 462 single mothers and their children in a slum community in Nairobi, Kenya. This instrument is unique in four important ways: (1) it is not limited to the co-residential household; (2) it distinguishes potential from functional kin; (3) it incorporates multiple geospatial measures; and (4) it collects data on kin relationships specifically for children. In this paper, we describe the KST instrument, assess the data collected in comparison to data from household rosters, and consider the challenges and feasibility of administration of the KST.     

Moving,Making and Atmosphere: Routines of Home as Sites for Mundane Improvisation

In this article, we examine how everyday atmospheres of home are made, maintained and improvised through habitual routines of movement, and the implications of this for co-design for energy demand reduction. Drawing on our ethnography of how people experienced and constituted a sensory aesthetic of home, we analyse the example of lighting use in night-time routines. We propose seeing these routines as sites of the possible, where everyday making might be engaged for co-design. Thus suggesting refocusing ethnographic design research beyond what people do in their homes, towards how they move through and make the atmospheres of their homes.     

The Impact of Imports and Exports on a Country’s Quality of Life

This paper is a sequel to Sirgy et al. (Social Ind. Res. 68(3) (2004) 251), “The Impact of Globalization on a Country’s Quality of Life: Toward an Integrated Model” published in Social Indicators Research. That paper conceptualized globalization in terms of the free flow of four major components: (1) goods and services, (2) people, (3) capital, and (4) information. The current paper focuses on the free flow of goods and services, one of the four major components of globalization. Specifically, we (1) articulate the trade globalization construct, (2) show the complex mediating effects between trade globalization and QOL, and (3) describe under what conditions these positive vs. negative QOL effects are likely to occur. We develop a set of theoretical propositions to capture these mediating and moderating effects. Based on the theoretical model, we suggest the following public policy recommendations: (1) Encourage exporting firms not to outsource jobs. (2) Encourage firms to export more products in ways that can enhance their production efficiency. (3) Discourage firms from exporting culturally sensitive (and possibly offensive) products to culturally distant countries. (4) Encourage firms to export more products with potential for technology transfer. (5) Encourage firms in industries with a significant comparative advantage to increase exports. (6) Encourage imports of products that do not compete with high employment domestic industries where workers cannot easily transition to more productive employment. (7) Impose trade barriers as short-term solution to help␣threatened industries while helping those industries retool to become more competitive. (8)␣Assist displaced workers by re-training them to shift to industries with comparative advantage.     

Forbidding Ethnicities in French Sociological Thought: The Difficult Circulation of Knowledge and Ideas

Even a cursory glance at sociologies of ethnic relations indicates they vary from one location to another, cross over, and change over time. Yet in France, the development of the field is laborious, and externally fashioned problematics are viewed suspiciously and often rejected, creating a void that this article seeks to elucidate. A brief comparison of sociologies of ethnic and ‘race’ relations points to their different trajectories, corpuses, and ‘oversights’. Moving on to France, where the field has been immobilised, I identify the symbolic and material structures that prevented its development from within and halted the flow of concepts and paradigms from without. Opposition to the field entails a complex interplay between the Republic, colonialism, universalism and antiracism, which produces a double erasure that can be observed upstream and downstream. The sociology of ethnic relations now stands out as a variable shaped by social relations that inform the production, reception, circulation, and transformation of knowledge in the world system.     

我国人力资本流失与经济安全分析

随着全球化的发展,国家经济安全问题引起人们的广泛关注。本文认为,在全球化和知识经济时代,我国出现的人力资本大量流失现象同样对国家的经济安全构成威胁。因此,研究经济安全问题,还应高度重视人力资本安全问题。论文首先评估了我国当前人力资本的流失状况,接着重点分析了人力资本流失给我国国民经济发展带来的种种负面效应,最后提出我国政府应尽快建立人力资本安全保障体系。     

When People Stay and Things Make Their Way: Airports,Mobilities and Materialities of a Transnational Landscape

Abstract

This article explores different meanings of mobility and place by examining the interweaving of people, things and airports in Guinea-Bissau and Portugal. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two airports – of departure and arrival of this migratory route – I look at the practices of sending and receiving objects by migrants in Lisbon and their kin in Bissau. The transnational yet grounded setting helps to provide a better understanding of the complexity associated with different forms of mobility – including corporeal, imagined and desired – and their key role in socially and relationally constructing a lived airport space, as well as wider social landscapes. Bringing in evidence from a less-explored setting – a small airport in a West African country – will particularly challenge some of the assumptions that tend to associate mobility with ‘modernity’ and fixity with ‘tradition’. It will show how people in Guinea-Bissau are, as much as migrants abroad, dynamically involved in global practices of movement – materialised in trading and reciprocating objects between two continents – through local performances of mobility that do not necessarily involve corporeal travel across borders.     

Different Things Make Different People Happy: Examining Social Capital and Subjective Well-Being by Gender and Parental Status

This paper addresses a number of key challenges in current subjective well-being (SWB) research: A new wave of studies should take into account that different things may make different people happy, thus going beyond a unitary ‘happiness formula’. Furthermore, empirical results need to be connected to broader theoretical narratives. Using a re-examination of the social context of well-being as its case study, this article therefore resorts to sociological theory and fills a gap by investigating how social capital is correlated in different ways with the SWB of men, women, parents, and non-parents. Ordered logit and OLS regression analyses systematically examine slope heterogeneity using UK data from the European Social Survey. It turns out that civic engagement is not at all associated with higher life satisfaction for mothers, while the relationship is positive for men and strongest for childless women. Moreover, informal socialising is positively and more strongly associated with life satisfaction among women, although only when OLS is used. In sum, the social context of well-being varies considerably by gender and parental status. Mothers do not seem to benefit from formal social capital, indicating a “motherhood penalty” (see Correll et al., Am J Sociol 112(5):1297–1338 in 2007) regarding the psychological rewards usually associated with volunteering. Given the high levels of formal social capital among mothers, the findings also highlight the importance of the homo sociologicus concept. Consequently, SWB research can be successfully used to provide new insights into long-standing interdisciplinary theory debates such as the one on homo economicus versus homo sociologicus.