Hands: Visible and Invisible

Theoretical work in linguistics, mathematics, and physics has created changes in academic problem formulation. This meta-analysis presents the nature of the new academic environment using precepts from New Historicism to suggest connections with the New Economy. The marketplace is often the court of last appeal in conflict resolution. This can be as basic as determining a fair price for a goose in a farmers' market to the disposition of pension funds in an international merger. Economist Lawrence Summers provides insights into theory and practice. Game theory leads from John Nash's equilibrium point to modeling in economics. A University of Chicago economist discusses the application of market reforms to Chile. He worked with Chilean economists called The Chicago Boys. A call for unification, which includes economics, follows.     

Documenting Inadequate Care in the Nursing Home:

An undercover agent describes his experiences as a nurse's aide gathering evidence that was ultimately used in the prosecution of a corporate entity responsible for the deaths of two Philadelphia nursing home residents.     

Old-Age Homes and Services

Summary

Although generational co-residence continues to be the dominant form of housing and care for Indian elders and only 1% live in old-age homes, the numbers and types of these homes are growing. This article describes a recent study of 48 old-age homes in different parts of India, approximately 12%-15% of all homes. They included the more traditional free homes for the aged poor who have no family to care for them and the more recent for-pay homes for the middle-class. A small number of day-care centers, also a new phenomenon, were investigated. Two- to three-hour structured interviews were conducted with managers, supervisors, and trustees, augmented by a checklist of environmental and neighborhood features. Most homes house small numbers of residents, have common spaces for dining, TV and prayer, have access to medical care and transportation, provide meals and some assistance with activities of daily living, and are open to all castes. All are run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), only one-third with any government assistance. Free homes tend to be bigger and older, serve non-aged clients, have less privacy and emphasize occupational therapy and income-generating activities, and are more like board-and-care homes. For-pay homes have more privacy and western-style amenities, focus on local community outreach and provide fewer meals. The gradual increase of all old-age homes has given rise to debates about their appropriate roles in Indian society and about their quality. Government grants to NGOs for homes and day-care centers (often considered more appropriate support for elders) are limited. With the National Policy on Older Persons looking to NGOs and village councils to be the primary sources of non-familial aged care, several ways to build their capacity are suggested.     

Anne Clifford and Samuel Pepys: Diaries and Homes

ABSTRACT

This article examines the diaries of two great English characters of the seventeenth century, Lady Anne Clifford (1590–1676) and Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), in order to explore their representation of houses and ideas of home. Taking these two texts as case studies, it explores the significance of houses in relation to family history and personal advancement, as well as their function as places of self-fulfillment. Contrasts of gender and class play an important part in the analysis, which concludes with an emphasis on rhetorical houses and the nature of diaries as textual homes replete with recorded memories.     

Britain's Colonial Emergencies and the Invisible Nationalists

Abstract From the perspective of imperial propaganda Britain's colonial emergencies of the forties and fifties have straightforward, even self-evident explanations. In the case of Malaya the state of emergency declared in June 1948 was a response to an international communist plot designed to seize power. In Kenya, an underground conspiracy of tribal extremists necessitated the implementation of emergency powers in October 1952 and the intervention of the British military. In British Guiana, the October 1953 state of emergency was essential to prevent a communist-inspired reign of terror and sabotage.¹
More objective researchers and journalists have questioned the familiar justification for Britain's colonial emergencies.² However, controversy persists, not simply about the interpretation of these events but about the basic facts.³ This is not surprising, because a study of the available files in the Public Records Office shows that the relationship between the colonial emergencies and their purported causes is far from straightforward. While imperial propaganda projected a sense of single-minded clarity, behind the scenes the leading experts of the Colonial Office were uncertain and deeply disturbed by events that they did not entirely comprehend. Nevertheless, despite their lack of a clear understanding of the situation in the affected colonies, the Colonial administration fully supported a military response. Indeed a study of the emergencies in Malaya, Kenya and British Guiana reveals a common pattern in the response of the British government and helps to place each of these conflicts in a wider perspective.     

Invisible Mediators of Action: Classification and the Ubiquity of Standards

This article is a methodological think piece about the ways in which classifications (and standards) impinge in myriad ways on our daily lives. We argue that although they are frequently invisible to us, they are highly political and ethically charged. We suggest 4 principles garnered from our own research and that of others that can together be used to give a picture of their scope and reach: recognizing their ubiquity, analyzing their material texture, examining ways in which they reconfigure our understanding of the past, and exploring their practical politics. Together, the principles suggest a "reverse engineering" of classification systems to reveal the multitude of local political and social struggles and compromises that go into the constitution of a "universal" classification.     

British Expatriate Belongings: Mobile Homes and Transnational Homing

ABSTRACT

This article explores the mobile homes and transnational homing of British expatriates in Dubai. In the article, I analyze ordinary domestic objects that play a special role in the homemaking practices of their expatriate owners, drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic research including participant observation and home-based interviews. I argue that thinking about belonging through belongings is productive because it is empirically and theoretically attentive to the way in which the home is experienced simultaneously as both a material and immaterial, lived and imagined, localized and (trans)national space of belonging. Furthermore, the homes of expatriates make explicit the fluidity and multiplicity of home as process. This article focuses on three things found in British expatriate homes in Dubai: a painting, a plastic bowl, and a DVD.     

Invisible republics and secret histories: A politics of music

Abstract

How does music ‐ or any cultural artefact ‐ assume significance for those who encounter it? Why does one sound or image come to matter, while others are overlooked or forgotten? The answer is not to be found in the sounds alone, but in the context and conditions in which they are heard. This article explores this argument by considering the case of The Anthology of American Folk Music, a set of recordings from the 1920s and 1930s, which has exercised an extraordinary power over popular music since its release in 1952. Using the arguments expounded by Robert Cantwell and Greil Marcus, and pointing to the uses of music in establishing national identities and mobilising social movements, the article argues for an understanding of music's significance that links social experience, aesthetic pleasure and political values.     

Pointing to Visible and Invisible Targets

We investigated how the visibility of targets influenced the type of point used to provide directions. In Study 1, we asked 605 passersby in three localities for directions to well-known local landmarks. When that landmark was in plain view behind the requester, most respondents pointed with their index fingers, and few respondents pointed more than once. In contrast, when the landmark was not in view, respondents pointed initially with their index fingers, but often elaborated with a whole-hand point. In Study 2, we covertly filmed the responses from 157 passersby we approached for directions, capturing both verbal and gestural responses. As in Study 1, few respondents produced more than one gesture when the target was in plain view and initial points were most likely to be index finger points. Thus, in a Western geographical context in which pointing with the index finger is the dominant form of pointing, a slight change in circumstances elicited a preference for pointing with the whole hand when it was the second or third manual gesture in a sequence.     

Selective Campaigning for Foster Homes: An Empirical View

Experts on child welfare agree that it is vastly more desirable to care for children separated from natural parents in foster homes than in institutions. However, a shortage of foster homes has been a perennial problem in virtually every community in which they are needed. It would appear that, to the extent to which potential foster parents do exist in a community, this shortage could be attributed to inadequate and/or misdirected publicity.     

无形城市时代城市社会生活特征探析

无形城市是在“后”之时代和全球地域空间这样的时空背景下涌现的新城市形态,它以高流动性和不确定性为主要特征。这种特征成就了特定的城市社会群体,也使得城市社会生活呈现出极具时代感的特征。城市社会心理体现了个性的张扬和自由的释放;城市生活方式因讲究格调和充分享受闲暇而得到提升;城市居民的交往方式既处在一个平等开放的互动平台之上,但也处在互动深度遭受质疑的困境之中。     

Documenting the quick and the dead: a study of suicide case files in a coroner's office

In keeping with recent critiques of literature on the body and the life course, the argument of this paper is that social identities can, to a certain extent, be constructed post‐mortem and in the absence of a living body. The authors make this case with reference to a sociological autopsy study of a hundred suicide case files in a coroner's office in a medium‐sized British city. The research draws on ethnographic approaches to the study of documents. There is discussion of some of the diverse artefacts in the coroners' files: medical reports, witness statements and suicide notes. The identity work revealed in these sources is as much about the living as the dead and is especially bound up in the process of avoiding blame.     

The Smart-Seller Challenge: Exploring the Determinants of Privatizing Public Nursing Homes

This study investigates the determinants of local governments'decisions to privatize public nursing homes. According to theOnline Survey, Certification, and Reporting (OSCAR) 2004 data,more than 100 counties in the United States have recently divestedtheir nursing facilities through change of ownership to nonprofitor for profit or through termination. The theoretical modelused in this study proposes four broad categories of antecedentsof the privatization decision: market failure, government failure,and monetary and institutional factors. County governments areviewed as rational actors, affected by a range of external andinternal pressures and striving to maximize the attainment oftheir complex missions. The data used in this study come fromthe OSCAR 2004 file and several other sources. Using logisticregression analysis, the baseline (1998–2000) measuresof all independent variables for 622 county-owned homes wereregressed on the dummy dependent variable, indicating whetherthe nursing home was privatized by 2003 or not. Quantitativeanalysis was supplemented with two exploratory case studies.Local market competition, occupancy level, condition of thephysical plant, staffing, the prevalence of privatization inthe neighboring counties, and the proportion of elderly in thecounty were found to be significantly associated with the likelihoodof nursing home divestment. The analysis supports the idea ofa complex framework of managerial decision making: countiesappear to be smart sellers by divesting when occupancy declines,when the physical environment deteriorates, and when privatemarkets are relatively more competitive. They are also foundto be smart owners by sustaining public ownership of thrivingpublic facilities surrounded by failing private markets.     

Documenting community-level outcomes. Lessons from drinking and driving

Alcohol-related crashes cluster on Friday and Saturday evenings. One objective of this study was to contrast the demographic characteristics of operators who drive at these times with those who do not, through the comparison of data from two of the most widely used methods for gathering information on drinking and driving: Random Digit Dialing Telephone Surveys and Roadside Voluntary Breath Test Surveys. Roadside surveys set up at locations where alcohol-related crashes occur provide a better sample of those drivers most at risk of crash involvement. Telephone surveys, because they do not generally measure the exposure of drivers both in the location of driving and the number of miles driven, are less suited to identifying the drivers at risk. However, they highlight the large number of individuals who drive during high-risk times but avoid high-risk locations.