Spatial Barriers and the Formation of Global Art Cities: The Case of Tokyo

This paper addresses a neglected dimension of global cities research: how the idea of economic concentration, its surplus and consequent global influence can be applied to the art world. The research presented here relates to Tokyo as a well‐known example of a global city, advancing existing understandings of Tokyo from the neglected perspective of the arts. Based on qualitative and quantitative research by the author, including cultural and spatial mapping, interviews, ethnographic observations and visual documents, the findings confirm that the role of space and materiality is overlooked in global cities research. The results demonstrate the active contribution and intervention of spatial patterns in the formation of artistic activities. A number of Tokyo's spatial features have an inhibiting effect that shifts artistic activities underground, creating asymmetries in the constitution of symbolic meanings in the city and a failure to openly stimulate artistic practices. As a consequence, Tokyo's vivid art world remains invisible not only to outsiders but to Tokyo itself.     

Muslim Women's Challenges to Islamic Law The Case of Malaysia

The reform of Islam by women and especially the lessons this activism might contain for feminist praxis is a highly topical and important issue. This article outlines some of the lessons to be drawn from studying this area with a specific focus on the activism of some groups of Malaysian Muslim women aimed at the reform of Islam. Two different strategies for reform are explained and traced in their attempts to reform religious interpretation and the Islamic legal system, the Syar'iah. The aim of the article is to provoke dialogue over the relationship of Islam to women's rights, while highlighting the agency of Muslim women within an Islamic framework. Another aim is to contribute to the debate over what constitutes feminism and the need to subject the debate continuously to cross-cultural and international perspectives.     

Preventing and Combating Elder Mistreatment in Flanders (Belgium): General Overview

In Flanders, the state that comprises the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, the structural attention given to the problem of elder mistreatment has grown slowly throughout the last decade. Equivalent to the evolution in most other western countries, there is nevertheless still a great lack of scientific research, and several governments (federal, regional, supralocal, and local) are still very reluctant to provide sufficient means in order to prevent and combat elder mistreatment. This article aims to present a general overview of the current state of affairs in the regional state of Flanders to address elder mistreatment. More concretely, it will highlight the history of the Flemish Reporting Point for Elder Abuse, what its aims are, and what definition and typology of elder mistreatment it uses in its daily activities. Because of the importance of well-conducted scientific research and excellent academic support in order for policymakers and social services to deal efficiently with elder mistreatment, the lack of scientific research in Flanders also will be briefly highlighted.     

Systemic Barriers to the Employment of Social Workers in Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Agencies

Abstract

Literature suggests a low number of social workers employed in the field of alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment. This study shows that social workers with undergraduate degrees (BSWs) have higher rates of employment in AOD than bachelor's degree holders from other disciplines. Master's level social workers (MSWs), however, have a much lower involvement than their counterparts with counseling degrees. Six factors are inferred to partially explain MSWs' low involvement in the field: (1) low education requirements; (2) low pay; (3) absence of “social worker” positions; (4) competition among different disciplines; (5) lack of MSW interns; and (6) state certification requirement. Suggestions to increase the employment of social workers in the AOD field are offered.     

Response to Shaffer (1996): The Case for a 'Complex Systems' Conceptualisation of Addiction

This paper responds to some of the issues raised by Shaffer's (1996) paper, Understanding the Means and Objects of Addiction. The authors agree with, and in many respects support, the assertions made by Shaffer with respect to the conceptualisation of the problem of addiction. In particular, that it is the relationship of the addicted person with the object of their behaviour that defines addiction. However, it is argued that in addition to providing an operational definition for addiction, it is important to provide an explicit framework for the development of insight into the 'synergistic nature' of the multiple factors affecting the addiction process. That is, it is necessary to account for both the commonalities and the differences found across the spectrum of addictive behaviours. It is proposed that this might be provided by a 'complex systems' approach to the field of addiction.     

Restoring Law and (Racial) Order to the Old Dominion

In 2006, cities and counties across the USA began adopting ‘Illegal Immigration Relief Acts’ to relieve themselves of the economic and social burden that undocumented immigrants were allegedly presenting. By restricting the access of undocumented residents to housing, jobs and social services, local ordinances would encourage undocumented residents to ‘self-deport’ from the locality if not from the nation. Highly contentious, politically and juridically, local anti-illegal immigration laws have divided communities. Proponents maintain that such laws merely uphold the ‘rule of law’, while opponents see them as thinly veiled efforts to drive out Latin American residents, with immigration status serving as a proxy for race. A growing body of scholarship examines local anti-immigrant law and offers significant insights into the causes and undeniably racialized effects of these laws. Yet the issue of racism requires more scholarly attention. Critical race theory holds that all racisms are historically particular and must be examined as expressive of particular conjunctures. To that end, this essay develops a theoretically informed and historically grounded analysis of local anti-immigration law. It establishes local and national interests in local anti-immigrant law and explains how these interests converge. Through a case study of Prince William County (PWC), Virginia, I examine local anti-immigrant activism and connect them to larger political shifts in the contemporary USA. I argue that local white propertied interests converge with national conservative and federalist interests in the county's anti-illegal immigrant law. The essay seeks to demonstrate the value of bringing cultural studies methodology to bear on (local) immigration law.     

Using E-Health Programs to Overcome Barriers to the Effective Treatment of Mental Health and Addiction Problems

E-Health programs for mental illness and addictive behaviors have recently emerged as potentially useful self-help resources. Health care professionals will soon have the option of referring clients to free-to-end-user online, expert-moderated e-health programs as complementary means of assisting clients. Such programs will have significant implications for developing improved stepped models of care. This article describes various e-health programs and lessons learned related to access, promotion, user demographics, and patterns of use. In addition, validation procedures, effectiveness and attrition rates, fitting and tailoring, and qualitative analyses of social networks are described. It is difficult to validate e-health programs that are completely anonymous and do not require registration, personal interaction, or membership fees. As competition emerges in the budding e-health industry, best practice guidelines will need to be developed for collecting data and evaluating the utility of these programs.     

Equal Learning Does Not Result in Equal Remembering: The Importance of Post‐Encoding Processes

Explanations of variability in long‐term recall typically appeal to encoding and/or retrieval processes. However, for well over a century, it has been apparent that for memory traces to be stored successfully, they must undergo a post‐encoding process of stabilization and integration. Variability in post‐encoding processes is thus a potential source of age‐related and individual variance in long‐term recall. We examined post‐encoding variability in each of two experiments. In each experiment, 20‐month‐old infants were exposed to novel three‐step sequences in each of three encoding conditions: watch only, imitate, and learn to criterion. They were tested for recall after 15 min (as a measure of the success of encoding) and either weeks (1, 2, or 3: Experiment 1) or days (1, 2, or 4: Experiment 2) later. In each experiment, differential relative levels of performance among the conditions were observed at the two tests. The results implicate post‐encoding processes are a source of variance in long‐term recall.     

The Co-production of a Community: Engaging Citizens in Derelict Neighbourhoods

In order to deal with “wicked problems” like inequality and social exclusion, one needs the support of committed citizens (Brandsen et al. in Manufactured civil society: practices, principles and effects, Palgrave, London, 2014). A promising setting to examine to what extent this is the case is that of community development projects in derelict neighbourhoods where the largest representation of ‘marginalised’ citizens can often be found (Head in Community development: theory and method of planned change, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1979; Needham in Personal co-production, 2009). In this article, we examine to what extent citizens are actually involved in local co-productive community development projects (in the city of Ghent, Belgium), and how professional field workers influence this engagement. We focus on three different potential effects of co-productive community development (inclusion and empowerment of citizen co-producers and the equity in the benefits they receive), and whether professional support can influence these effects. We find that co-production in community development projects may lead to more inclusion, empowerment and equity. Moreover, it is posited that the presence of professionals in their different roles does have a positive impact on co-productive community development.     

城市社区公共空间构筑与基层社会的动员整合——基于上海市G社区的案例分析

城市社区公共空间既是一种物理空间,又是一种制度与文化空间。上海G社区探索楼道公共客厅与楼道居民自治,通过楼道公共空间的拓展与构筑,增强居民归属感,构建居民交流、共商机制,改善社区认同,让社区从一个生活的共同体演变成一种信念的共同体,维护了社区的和谐和稳定,推进基层社会的动员整合。这种社区自治性的成长不仅是社会力量内部整合的基础,也构成了社区共治的基础。由此,未来社区治理的方向是如何建立起社区事务协商参与的多级公共空间,形成共治、自治衔接的有效机制,从而真正实现基层社区国家与社会良性互动、政府行政管理与居民群众自治相衔接的基层社会管理的新格局。     

The Rational Kitchen in the Interwar Period in Belgium: Discourses and Realities

Modernist architects introduced the rational kitchen to Belgium from 1930 onwards. The influence of the CIAM (Congrés Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne/International Congresses of Modern Architecture) discourse on the rational minimum dwelling was clearly visible, in architects' journals as well as in women's magazines. The most important Belgian contribution to the further development of the rational kitchen was the CUBEX kitchen, a design by Louis-Herman De Koninck of standardized cupboard items that could be combined in different ways. This system was to become a huge commercial success, and has been installed in thousands of Belgian kitchens, before as well as after the Second World War. The reception of the architects' discourse on the rational kitchen, however, was different among the different social strata. Whereas bourgeois and middle-class women in general applauded the new ideas about kitchen design and the appliances that went with it, the climate among rural and working-class women was far less receptive. Magazines aimed at these strata of women almost ignored the matter, or confined themselves to a few offhand suggestions as to the facilitation of household tasks by special techniques or tools. Consistently, the workmen's housing built between 1925 and 1940 did not apply the rational kitchen, the argument being that a limited budget did not allow for it. New housing for the middle classes and the bourgeois apartments, on the other hand, were the contexts where rational kitchens were most successfully applied.     

Home-Making: Supports and Barriers to the Process of Home

The process of home-making changes over a lifetime. For many, including newly resettled homeless people, the home-making process is difficult, challenging, and sometimes unsuccessful. This paper draws on research concerning the experiences of homeless individuals and families in New York and studies of single homeless adults in London and Dublin. It argues that there are supports and barriers to the home process, which include social, physical, environmental, financial, and practical factors. Central conclusions are that home does not arrive with a roof over a person’s head, but rather that home-making is a complex social psychological process. Developing supports to home-making may offer tangible ways to enable this process to flourish.     

Home-Making: Supports and Barriers to the Process of Home

The process of home-making changes over a lifetime. For many, including newly resettled homeless people, the home-making process is difficult, challenging, and sometimes unsuccessful. This paper draws on research concerning the experiences of homeless individuals and families in New York and studies of single homeless adults in London and Dublin. It argues that there are supports and barriers to the home process, which include social, physical, environmental, financial, and practical factors. Central conclusions are that home does not arrive with a roof over a person's head, but rather that home-making is a complex social psychological process. Developing supports to home-making may offer tangible ways to enable this process to flourish.     

State-Corporate Relationships in an Era of Shifting Regime: The Case of Corporate Law Reform in Israel

Different aspects of the relationship between state and economy have traditionally been examined, yet corporate governance and specifically corporate law have received less attention. This article focuses on the legislation of the new corporate law in Israel at the end of the 1990s, which took place during regime transformation from an interventionist state to a regulatory state. The article makes specific reference to three disputes: the lifting of the corporate veil, the separation of the positions of chairman of the board and chief executive officer, and the obligation of private firms to disclose financial reports. This article suggests that despite the transformation of the regime, state actors have continuously been involved via corporate law in the governance of corporations and their relationship with the environment. However, corporate law enables corporations to constrain state power and the state's influence on property rights.     

Social Studies Needs (New) White People: The Case for Including Allies in the Curriculum

In this conceptual article we consider the pedagogical possibilities and pitfalls of incorporating White ally figures in history and social studies curricula. Drawing on the burgeoning scholarship on race and the social studies and literature on alternative racial orientations, such as allies, antiracists, and abolitionists, we contend that educators can use White-ally pedagogy to offer White students, in particular, examples of an antiracist White racial identity. We close with guidelines to provide social studies educators and teacher educators with a starting point for effectively introducing White allies into the social studies.     

Barriers to disclosing child sexual abuse (CSA) in ethnic minority communities: A review of the literature and implications for practice in Australia

Research on child sexual abuse (CSA) among ethnic minority communities in Australia is essentially absent. To begin to address the gap, a systematic literature review was conducted; which necessarily borrowed from overseas to help inform the national context. A wide array of barriers to disclosure were identified, suggesting that this is a fundamental issue for ethnic minorities. The most significant of these barriers appears to be the need to protect family name. This also leads to non-supportive and protective responses from non-offending mothers, however this experience (although more intense) is shared with the Western mainstream. In comparison, fear of stigmatising their whole community is a unique barrier and highlights that racism is a significant and additional burden. The findings suggest that service worker training in Australia is critical for informing professionals of: the importance of family reputation for collectivist groups; the importance of responding supportively and protectively to child victims who have disclosed to them first; the cross-cultural complexities that surround construals of ‘child safety’; educating non-offending mothers about the importance of at least believing their child's disclosure (associated with mediating mental illness among victims, but also culturally appropriate because it acknowledges the protective role of family cohesion in collectivist cultures and the high motivation to avoid social exclusion – the most common reprisal for shaming the family name); exploring acculturation as a possible predictor of disclosure; and the risk of racism being overlooked or minimised. Overall, it is argued that practice informed by a well-developed national research agenda is critical.     

The Career Path Tournament: Developing Awareness of Sociological Barriers to Career Advancement

The author of this article presents the Career Path Tournament, a game for heightening participants' awareness of sociological factors (e.g., race, gender, and discrimination in hiring) influencing career advancement and of the need to anticipate and cope with these factors. The game, which is based on Rosenbaum's (1976, 1981, 1984) Tournament Model, is intended for junior high, high school, and college students in a classroom setting. Undergraduate participants' (N = 74) quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the game are presented as evidence that the game raised awareness of sociological barriers and provided participants with helpful suggestions for adaptively coping with these barriers.