Knowledge,power and the city since 1700

Between the mid-nineteenth century and the early twentieth century the trend of recorded violence in New Zealand broadly paralleled that of Britain. This review appraises critically two local interpretations of social attitudes and behaviour seen to be reflected in the colonial trend. Both provide 'frontier-type' theses in viewing disorder as a by-product of either colonial masculinity or the social atomization of migrants. Accordingly the decline in recorded violence is viewed as the outcome of either a local civilizing process or the emergence of social networks. However, the parallelism of the colonial and British trends suggest that there could be common processes at work. In this context, the nature of colonial violence, patterns of colonial litigiousness and the applicability of V. A. C. Gatrell's interpretation of the development of a disciplinary 'policeman-state' are considered. The need for further comparative research in both the colonial and British context is suggested, so as to test the extent to which the colonial experience of violence may be explained by 'frontier' and/or 'cultural fragment' explanations.     

Popular politics in composite monarchies: Barcelona artisans and the campaign for a papal bull against hoarding (1580–5)

During the 1580s, Barcelona master artisans participated in a campaign to secure a papal declaration against hoarding, believing this would bring down the excessively high prices of wheat and other goods in the city. However, only the king could request the papal decree, and opponents of the proposal among Catalonia's clergy and nobility tried to convince Philip II of Spain not to do so. The events surrounding the master artisans' campaign offer an exceptional look at the interaction between popular politics and the relations between central government and local elites in a composite monarchy. Divisions within the Catalan elite, as well as the monarchy's desire to foster close ties between ruler and subjects throughout its territories, offered ordinary people such as Barcelona artisans the possibility to become political actors.     

The Soviet 'wife-activist' down on the farm

Parties independent of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) were not formally permitted and non-party groups and movements needed the CPSU's approval to be allowed to form and survive. This was the situation up to Gorbachev's process of democratization. However, the CPSU had occasionally allowed the existence of social organizations which served the party and socialism and were perceived as ideologically non-threatening. One such was the 'movement of wives' ( dvizhenie zhen ) formed in the 1930s but not part of the party structure, but at best the wives could work within the boundaries of party policies. They tried to make daily life better for themselves, their husbands, children and the local community. Analyses have focused mainly on the movement as an urban phenomenon but they spread to farms and the rural sector. This article discusses their role in this context.     

A Qualitative Case Study on Recovery and Personal Growth in Korean Drug Addicts

ABSTRACT

In recent years, crimes related to drug smuggling and production have gradually increased in Korea. This qualitative case study explores the experiences of Koreans recovering from drug addiction and identifies specific details and mechanisms of recovery. For this purpose, participants were selected based on criteria such as engaging in social activities after recovery from addiction for 3 years or more. Next, one-on-one in-depth interviews were conducted with five voluntarily consenting participants. Data were analyzed using the within-/cross-case analysis suggested by Creswell. Substantial personal growth took place in the recovery process for drug addicts. Nineteen themes were identified as manifestations of personal growth through within-case analysis. Four common themes were then derived through cross-case analysis. These four common themes were “reconnection with reality,” “embracing the essence of one's own existence,” “reconstructing oneself in social relations,” and “self-love.” The study's results suggest that a recovery program needs to be developed wherein the program not only enables drug addicts to reflect on their current existence but also allows them to develop their specific coping skills. Future research should be broadened to consider the social support mechanism and viewpoints of people including family and local community members in close contact with drug addicts.     

'To live this poor life': Remembering the Hottentots Huisie squatter fishery,Cape Town,c.1934-c.1965

The paper provides a social history of a Cape Town squatter fishing settlement, Hottentots Huisie, drawn primarily from the oral histories of its inhabitants before their forced removal under apartheid Group Areas legislation in the mid 1960s. Such use of oral history has fallen into disfavour with South African social historians, increasingly suspicious of the 1980s orthodoxy that all underclass biography is reducible to the essences of 'community' and 'resistance'. The life histories of Hottentots Huisie's inhabitants defy such easy categorization. Family not 'community' sustained the fishing economy. The tenuous economic base of squatter families, however, produced a robust patriarchy seeking to maintain male control over the labour of women and children through monopolization of the folk biology of fishing and its cash rewards, backed up by violence. Second generation squatter girls, however, refused domestic indenture to fishermen by deserting Hottentots Huisie for the greater freedom and opportunity of Cape Town's urban economy, dooming the settlement to extinction regardless of forced removal. Similarly, squatter 'resistance' to bureaucrats and bosses can also best be characterized as 'everyday' and took the form of squatting and crayfish poaching whose aim was 'working the system to their minimum disadvantage'. Ironically, the act of forced removal created the surviving Hottentots Huisie 'community' of memory.     

To abolish the law of castes: merit,manhood and the problem of colour in the Puerto Rican liberal movement, 1873–92

Abstract

This article traces the involvement of three men of low social rank and partial African ancestry in the evolution of liberal politics in Puerto Rico during the final decades of Spanish colonial rule. In both literary and political writings Ramón Marín, Sotero Figueroa and Francisco Gonzalo Marín argued that social equality should be at the centre of colonial reforms. Yet they construed the question of equality as a matter of unfettered manhood – all men to be judged on their merit not on their rank – rather than as a politics of racial solidarity. Rather than characterize this emphasis as ‘silence’ on matters of race imposed by elite liberalism, this article seeks to understand this egalitarian variant of Puerto Rican liberalism on its own terms. It situates these authors within three overlapping contexts: a colonial state that was ambivalent about race; a liberal movement built on fragile alliances that included artisans and men of lower-middle status; and complex local systems of social acceptance and exclusion that shaped these writers' own identities as men in public and private.     

The destruction of liberty in French Guiana: law,identity and the meaning of legal space, 1794–1830

Abstract

This article examines the colonial legal culture of French Guiana from 1794 to 1830 during a period marked by dramatic historical rupture; slaves in the colony who were liberated by decree of the French legislature in 1794 were returned to slavery under Napoleon. People who managed to remain free in the nineteenth century endured humiliating legal handicaps as well as challenges to their free status. In Guiana during this period, a person's access to the ‘rights of man and citizen’ depended on intricate and ultimately fragile legal structures. The perils besetting Guiana's freed people during and after the French Revolution often arose from the highly adjustable character of legal space – the legal status of imperial territory in relation to domestic soil. This article draws on archival materials including notarial documents and trial records to reconstruct the role of law and legal discourse in mediating everyday life, familial relationships and social encounters on the French colonial frontier.     

Who says what to whom: Why messengers and citizen beliefs matter in social policy framing

Issue frames (i.e., the thematic slants that elites use to structure issue debates) have been shown to alter how citizens think about social policy issues. However, support for a social policy issue not only depends on how the issue is framed, but also on the source or “messenger” associated with the frame. For the most part, issue frames have been faceless and research has failed to consider how characteristics of the frame's messenger such as expertise and trustworthiness influence citizens. The present study examines the influence that gun control frames and their messengers have on a variety of dependent variables. The results show that source cues moderate the impact of the frames, even when controlling for other variables. Specifically, credible sources significantly augment the effects of a frame while spokespersons with a perceived bias tend to weaken the frame's arguments and impact. These results point toward a more complex framing theory: public support for social issues depends on how the issue is framed, as well as who presents the message.     

Political insecurity,social chaos,religious void and the rise of Protestantism in late nineteenth-century Korea

This study offers a systematic historical sociology of the genesis and initial expansion of Protestant Christianity in Korea, thereby bringing into sharper relief the determinant nexus of social and political circumstances that set the stage for the new religion's subsequent rise to prominence and power in South Korea. It is argued here that structural strains, such as dire poverty, a rigid status system, corrupted officialdom and an oppressive social system, as well as political instability, proved eminently favourable for the initial acceptance of Protestant Christianity in Korea. The article also shows how the prolonged decline of traditional religions served as another contextual factor that facilitated the early success of the imported faith in Korea. What this study confirms is that the early Protestant success in Korea was not solely due to the appeal of the doctrine, nor did it involve an 'intellectualist' conversion or an exclusivist change of religious affiliation, requiring the repudiation of traditionally held beliefs. The impressive initial growth of Protestantism in Korea rested heavily on, among other factors, minimizing the contradiction between the new doctrine and Korean values and reducing the conflict between the new religion and Korean traditional religions.     

Administrative into social control: The aliens police and foreign female servants in the Netherlands, 1918-40

This article has made it clear that the social control the Leiden aliens police were able to exert from 1918 onwards, both on aliens and Dutch citizens, was enabled by a combination of increased monitoring as well as the administrative power that went with it. More concretely, it was a logical consequence of the revolution in the migration regime that took place throughout the western world around the time of World War I. This case nuances the quite bleak picture of the attitude of the aliens police towards foreign female servants. Thus, it is argued that servants were not play-things in the hands of the local police, although their legal as well as discretionary powers were considerable. The combination of age, gender and social position made them a special category in the eyes of the police. Because they were young and female the police regarded them, on the one hand, as vulnerable. When this image dominated, policemen showed paternalistic behaviour and sometimes acted as surrogate parents. Their attitude is well captured by the concepts of 'bureaucratic paternalism' and 'caring power'. On the other hand, domestic servants could also be considered as a moral threat. Most of them having come from working-class backgrounds, they easily fitted the image of women of loose moral standing who could endanger the public morale of the Netherlands. This ambivalent image of foreign domestic servants explains the corresponding variation in the treatment of complaints.     

Psychological Distress Experienced by Parents of Young Children With Congenital Heart Defects: A Comprehensive Review of Literature

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the existing research on the psychological distress experienced by parents whose young children (between the ages of 0 and 5 years old) have a congenital heart defect (CHD). A more detailed understanding of the distress experienced by these parents, including stress associated with the child's age, the severity of the child's diagnosis, and parent characteristics, is vital as it would allow for more targeted and individualized support for this population to enhance parental coping strategies and increase the likelihood of more positive parent–child interactions. This review of 25 studies contributes to the parenting stress literature by focusing on parents of young children and categorizing studies by publication characteristics, research methodology, and findings. The research clearly demonstrates that parents report a great deal of stress throughout the continuum of their child's health care experience. Recommendations for future research and practice implications, such as developing a stress vulnerability model specific to parenting children with CHD, clarifying the role between interdisciplinary team members regarding provision of psychosocial support to parents, and referring parents to specific community-based ongoing social support services, are presented.     

Social Support for Mothers of Children With Disabilities in China

ABSTRACT.

This article analyzes the gendered parenting experiences of mothers of children with disabilities in China. These mothers struggle to meet their children's needs, including daily care, financial security, and child development. In the context of China's social welfare development, are social services responding to their needs, so that mothers can share responsibility for the needs of their children with disabilities? The research analyzed qualitative data about 6 case-study children in rural and urban China. The data were derived from observation and interviews with their parents and other family and community members. The analysis revealed that the capacity of the mother, community, and local social services had an impact on the rights of the children and mothers. They experienced social discrimination, insufficient social support, and local failure to implement central policy social services and income support. These findings are consistent with international research about disability rights. They reinforce the importance of economic redistribution to enable local implementation of the national disability rights policies, rather than merely relying on ephemeral concepts of cultural change. Further research about the comparative impact of economic and social change in China on mothers and children with disabilities would extend these findings.     

Introducing Sensory Studies

ABSTRACT

Color serves a variety of purposes in society from identifying groups to conveying symbolic meanings to providing aesthetic pleasure. More subtle effects of color can be found in the environments that human communities construct around themselves. At Doon School, an elite boys' boarding school in northern India, color is intimately associated with the students' activities, social relationships and sensory experiences. It defines their status and shapes their everyday lives. The uses of color at the school are consistent with a wider social aesthetic emphasizing restraint, logical thought and the training and presentation of the body. Many of these values can be seen to have their origins in the school's colonial history and postcolonial aspirations.     

Social Workers and Policy- Practice: The Role of Social and Professional Values

ABSTRACT

Although policy practice is regarded as an essential component of social work, the actual involvement of social workers in policy practice is apparently very limited. This article presents the findings of a study that seeks to explore the role of social and professional values in support by social workers in Israel for engagement in policy practice and their actual involvement in this type of practice. The findings indicate that socioeconomic orientations and professional values have an impact on social worker's perception of policy practice and the degree to which they are actually involved in the social welfare policy process. In particular, it was found that attitudes toward social justice played a major role in the social worker's perceptions of, and involvement in, policy practice.     

Moving Toward Spiritual Competency

Abstract

In spite of growing interest in spirituality and religion, and the prominent position given to religion in social work's educational policies and ethical standards, no studies have explored the profession's level of spiritual sensitivity. Accordingly, we examined the visibility of faith groups and their characterizations in 71 influential social work textbooks. This study found that faith groups, in contrast to a number of comparison groups, were essentially invisible as populations worthy of students' direct attention. Further, when faith groups were discussed, they tended to be characterized in a biased, spiritually insensitive manner. To move toward spiritual competency, social work must increase the amount of material devoted to faith groups and ensure that they are depicted in a manner that is consistent with their worldviews.     

Assessing Child Welfare Agency Practices and Attitudes that Affect Father Engagement

ABSTRACT

The importance of fathers' involvement in their children's lives is irrefutable. Supportive, warm, and positive involvement of fathers leads to children being well-adjusted. Indeed, involved fathers positively influence their children's cognitive ability, social behavior, psychological well-being, and educational achievement. For children in foster care, when fathers are involved they have significantly shorter stays in foster care than those whose fathers are not involved. For parents to demonstrate fitness to parent they must show the successful completion of goals specified in a case plan that promotes safety and permanence of their child. This cross-sectional study investigated how fathers' perception of social workers' attitude and practice skills was associated with fathers' understanding and confidence with regard to completing the case plan goals. A purposive sample of 56 child welfare-involved fathers completed the Child Welfare Father Involvement Questionnaire. The findings indicated that the more positive fathers perceived social workers' attitude and skills, the greater their understanding about the case plan goals and greater confidence to complete case plan goals. The results were statistically significant. These results have implications for child welfare training to build the social worker-client relationship in a compassionate manner while maintaining a rigorous assessment and monitoring of fathers' parenting capabilities.     

My own flesh and blood: stratified parental compassion and law in Korean slavery

This article examines the relationship between human emotions and slavery in Chos?n Korea (1392–1910) by examining legislative processes as well as private practices concerning the status of the offspring of a yangban man and his slave-status concubine. The legislative discussions and decisions on the topic at the royal court often subscribed to the notion that these children were also the yangban’s ‘flesh and blood’ and called for compassion, a Confucian emotional norm expected of parents. When yangban fathers manumitted their slave-status children, they recorded their feelings in the same affective language expressed in the legal discourses. Yet, because slaves were among the yangban’s most valuable possessions and yangban elites regarded the maintenance of social hierarchy as the key for social order, legal paths for manumission were narrowly defined and emotional norms did not always dictate parents’ actions. By investigating the larger legal framework related to slave-status children of yangban elites alongside specific cases, this study seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the historical impact and practices of emotional politics in relation to slavery. It finds that the yangban fathers’ very primordial human emotion towards their own children was stratified by social and economic conditions and selectively applied.     

Preparing Social Work Students to Work with Grandparents in Kinship Care

Summary

Grandparents in kinship care represent an expanding population of older adults assuming primary parenting responsibilities for their grandchildren at a time when many grandparents may also be experiencing developmental changes accompanying their own aging process. Research documents a lack of social workers prepared to respond to the needs of an aging population in general, and grandparents in kinship care in particular, as curricular content on this population has been limited in undergraduate and graduate social work programs. This article describes an infusion model proposed for an undergraduate social work program's GeroRich Project designed to introduce content on an aging population in four foundation courses to expand students' knowledge of older adults and grandparents as kinship care providers.     

Distinctive alcohol cultural practices amongst Niuean men living in Auckland,New Zealand

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe some of the distinctive cultural practices evident in Niuean men's drinking behaviours. The paper is also intended to illustrate that alcohol is an integral aspect of the Niuean culture and part of the system of cultural exchange. Alcohol has become an integral component of Niuean cultural rituals to the extent that celebrations and festivals are thought to be incomplete if alcohol is not present. Alcohol is used as a tool for expressing cultural values such as fakaalofa (gifting), generosity, respect, status and host obligations. Finally, alcohol is used as a symbol of ‘being Niuean’ and being a ‘real’ Niuean man. This paper will describe how practices specific to Niuean men such as drinking the ‘Niuean way’ and kalaga are symbols that help to reinforce men's cultural identity, enhancing their feeling of communal identity. It is important to emphasize that it is difficult to divorce the ‘cultural’ components of Niuean men's drinking styles from their drinking and behaviour more generally. Culture shapes people's values and behaviours. Although this paper points to some of the specific and distinctively ‘cultural’ aspects of Niuean drinking, we must recognize that all of the participants’ drinking behaviours and attitudes are likely to have been shaped by their cultural and social context. Furthermore, this paper provides only a brief snapshot of how culture and alcohol are intertwined for Niuean men. Educational programmes and host responsibility guidelines need to be culturally appropriate to suit the needs of the Niuean community. Further work is needed to elucidate this complex topic.     

Touching Consumers,engaging the Senses in Consumption

ABSTRACT

For years, the Campbell's Soup Company advertised their brand of soup through a message of “Mmm, Mmm, Good.” This slogan reached mass audiences primarily through visual and auditory media messages of television and print. Campbell's recently switched to a new form of advertising to consumers through an IAd application. The format works through Apple iPhones by first showing an interactive ad teaser, “You're getting warmer,” then when clicked through asks consumers to download cooking applications individually to their iPhones. This shift represents a change in appealing to consumers' senses and social sensibilities. The former media approach appealed to a rational social sensibility and mass audiences of eating soup at home as an enjoyment shared with others. The latter iAd slogan and iPhones media approach appeals to a more tactile sense and individualistic sensibility. This article explores the particular confluence of social, sensory, and media factors that intersect with a marketed food brand, and discusses its implications for the way manufacturers mix and blend new sensory messages and mobile media channels to appeal to a new sensibility in people's changing eating habits.