State and Regional Professional Associations—the Case of the CSA and the PSA

The CSA and the PSA share several critical challenges including maintaining a stable membership, providing opportunities for students to present their work while at the same time maintaining their position as an organization of professional sociologists, meeting the needs of a diverse membership and balancing the teaching and research needs of this diverse membership. The need is for the CSA and the PSA to work together to form an even closer partnership.     

Women and the Environment

Cleaning-up the environment, the Sewage Disposal Factory in Luzhi Town in suburban Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, centralizes sewage control for the local economic and technological development zone.     

Closing the Gap? Gender and the Global Compacts for Migration and Refugees

Migrant women's organizations, UN Women, and civil society advocacy networks have mobilized to call for greater gender‐responsiveness in migration governance. The development of the Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees presented an important opportunity to continue enhancing the international framework for protecting the rights of women and men on the move. This article asks: How has gender been understood/invoked during proceedings leading up to their adoption? In what ways is it incorporated in the resulting compacts and their operationalization? What are the gains and missed opportunities for gender‐responsiveness? Drawing on data gathered through participant observation in the global compact on migration preparatory meetings and member state negotiations in Geneva and New York, and policy analysis of the drafts of both compacts, this paper aims to determine the extent to which the compacts, and the plans to operationalize them, serve to widen or close the gender gap.     

Empowerment,expectations, and the psychological contract—managing the dilemmas and gaining the advantages

Empowerment, participation, self-managing work teams, employee ownership and profit sharing are but a few of the many current forms of employee involvement in workplace decision making. Few theorists or practicing managers question the concept of employee involvement or its potential benefits. However, most employers realize that the degree of involvement varies with the organizational situation, the persons involved and the nature of work. Empowerment creates a dilemma. Empowering employees results in creating beliefs about entitlements that must be unfulfilled eventually. Unfulfilled beliefs about entitlements may constitute a breach of the psychological contract between employer and employee. A breach of the psychological contract may result in employee behavior that is counterproductive in terms of organizational goals.     

Dangjia Village Blends the Old and the New

DANGJIA Village is located nine kilometers north of Hancheng City, Shaanxi Province. The building complex in this village is Oriental in style, and the customs here show the development of Chinese traditional culture. Dangjia Village was established in 1331 A.D. Residents of the village had two family names—Dang and Jia. The descendants of Dang and Jia lived,     

Taking and giving: the case of the JDC and OZE in Lithuania 1919–26

This article examines the conditions that facilitated the activity of the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in Lithuania during the early 1920s. In particular, it discusses the interaction between the JDC and the Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jews (OZE). It demonstrates that, unlike in other countries, the JDC's involvement in Lithuania went beyond the conventional development of policies and controlling budgets. The JDC practically took over the health section of the Lithuanian Jewish National Council and implemented its own policies. This step was possible due to the unique political situation of Jews in Lithuania and the fact that the OZE centre in Vilna was detached from the rest of that organisation's activists. This study demonstrates the importance of close analysis of specific localities when dealing with the history of philanthropy and the politics of taking and giving in Eastern Europe during the interwar era.     

Business and human rights governance and democratic legitimacy: the UN “Protect,Respect and Remedy” Framework and the Guiding Principles

Global Corporate Social Responsibility schemes have assumed an authoritative role in today's diversifying global business and human rights governance regime, yet scholarship has paid scant attention to their democratic credentials. This article analyzes the democratic legitimacy of the UN “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework and the corresponding Guiding Principles, as developed by the former UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, Professor Ruggie. Applying De Búrca's democracy striving approach, the article provides insights into how the design and actual performance of the six year mandate of the Special Representative meet the democratic ideal of equality, participation and accountability. The findings hold that, to guarantee the continuant striving for the fullest and equal participation of all stakeholders, further steps are warranted to ensure that individuals from the Global South can equally and meaningfully partake in the implementation process of the Guiding Principles and contest their authority if deeming them to fail to meet the normative expectations of the people.     

Women,work, and family in the Czech Republic—and comparisons with the West

What are the work-family experiences of Czech women, and to what extent are there similarities and differences with women in the West? Drawing on a cross-national survey and other findings, this paper points out that unlike the extensive part-time employment of many Western European women, most Czech women in the post-Communist era have continued to combine full-time employment with family roles. Maternity and parental leaves, kindergartens, and other policies have been important supports. It is argued that employment and economic independence remain important to Czech women, and although gender differentiation in women's domestic activities and men's preponderance in upper-level jobs in the economy and government is recognized, Western attributions of patriarchy have been resisted. Since family life is highly valued, many have seen women as advantaged in their greater family involvement and integration of both family and employment roles. Rather than opposition between men and women, Czechs generally point to partnership and overall social equality. During Communism Czechs learned that ‘time at work’ does not equal productivity, and women practiced an informal flextime to aid work-family integration. This ‘self-management’ of work time and of work and family activities is cited as a component of Czech women‘s sense of efficacy and gender equality. An interesting question for the post-Communist success of Czech women and work organizations is whether women's interest in self-management will be met by the support of managers and of workplace cultures and structures.     

A Bionian Approach to the Body and the Feminine in Cammell and Roeg’s Performance

ABSTRACT

This psychoanalytic study of Performance (directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970) explores the importance of the bodily, sensorial, and material aspects of a pivotal moment in the development of the protagonist’s sexual identity and considers how this moment has been conceived as being dependent on a certain containing function that is performed by a female character. Drawing on Bionian and post-Bionian theory, the article proposes that this containing function is fundamentally feminine. The feminine function of Bion’s concept of container is one that has been discussed especially in the theorization of the roles performed by the mother and the analyst. This article aims to investigate the importance of the bodily and the feminine aspects of the container as part of a psychoanalytic conceptualization of psychical growth as they present themselves in this film.     

The Needle and the Damage Done: Research, Action Research, and the Organizational and Social Construction of Health in the “Information Society”

This paper critically reviews the actionresearch paradigm that has evolved over the last 50years within and outside The Tavistock Insitute, withreference to radical shifts in the social construction of medicine and health that are occurring as aresult of the transition toward the informationsociety. The medical domain has been chosen as anappropriate space within which to review the actionresearch paradigm because it bridges both the past andfuture of the Institute. The paper firstly considers theoriginal conception of action research andsociotechnical systems, and the role of consultants, in relation to Foucualt's analysis of powerrelations, social control, and dividingpractices. It then describes and analyzes recentdevelopments in the field of medicine and healthcareservice provision that, on the one hand, offer opportunities forincreased self-management and control by consumers overphysical, social, and emotional self-hoodand on the other could lead to further socialsurveillance and the domination and subjectification of theindividual. Drawing on recent work using innovativemodels of action research in the field of HIV/AIDS, thepaper concludes by discussing ways in which action research could harness developments ininformation and communication technologies to maximizeindividual and collective engagement in new forms oforganizational and social relations.     

Why the hyphen? Individual and collective memories of Italianness in the United States at the intersection of class and generation

This three-generation oral history study offers insight into why descendants of Italian migrants to the United States still choose hyphenated identities today. The research project shows how the meaning of Italianness shifts among the interviewees depending on class affiliation: among the middle-class offspring the use of the hyphen can be understood mainly as a reaction to the experienced pressure to give in to Anglo conformity. Among the blue-collar, urban progeny, Italianness expresses itself as a combination of an experienced ethnic environment on the one hand and a symbolic ethnicity on the other.     

A Treaty with the Macassans? Burrumarra and the Dholtji Ideal

Is there evidence for the enactment of treaties between Aborigines (Yolngu) in north-east Arnhem Land and Macassan trepang fishermen in the days preceding British settlement in northern Australia? In this paper, I examine David Burrumarra's claim that ceremonies linked to a Dreaming Macassan (Birrinydji) united Yolngu and the very earliest ‘Macassan’ visitors, the Bayini and Wurrumala. Could these partnerships be considered treaties? To answer this question, I examine the societal collapse and dispersal of Burrumarra's Warramiri clan at Dholtji in the 1800s as a consequence of the Macassan encounter. For Burrumarra, the memory of a former ‘golden age’ of partnership was instrumental in facilitating clan resurgence at a new locale, Elcho Island, in the mid- to late nineteenth century. The Yolngu vision of intercultural diplomacy is based on the notion of these original ‘treaties’. It mirrors the fundamental principle of intermarrying moieties, bringing together the very best from both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal worlds, and is as relevant today as during the heyday of the trepangers.     

Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Using Dynamic Systems Theory to Understand “Stress and Coping” and “Trauma and Resilience”

Although research is beginning to capture the complex interactions of biopsychosocial variables operating within experiences of stressors and trauma, the bodies of research have remained largely separate and limited. This study describes a scaffold of factors and pathways based on principles from dynamic systems theories (DST) to organize the literatures on stress and coping and trauma and resilience. As a process model, DST provides the language to understand both impact and response to stressors and trauma: not as a list of symptoms but as interactive processes within persons and between persons and their surroundings.     

The beautiful game and the proto‐aesthetics of the everyday

Abstract

This article provides a critique of the postmodernist notion that there has been of recent years a dissolution of the divide between aesthetics and practical activities, between Art and Life. It does so by considering the game of soccer from a phenomenological viewpoint, which shows that the game possesses intrinsically ‘aesthetic’ qualities. The conditions of possibility of such qualities are understood by introducing the idea of the ‘proto‐aesthetics’ of soccer and other mundane phenomena. By considering the proto‐aesthetics of the quotidian we argue that recent changes in the nature of practical life should not be regarded as due to ‘aestheticisation’ but rather as springing from processes of commodification.     

On Women Writers and the Women Literature in the New Period

Avital new force in China's literature circle is the group of women writers who have come into prominence during the "new period," the years since 1978 when China entered a period of reform. These women writers brought their talents of creation into play and have made remarkable achievements. There are five generations of fine women writers. The first generation includes Bing Xin, a founding member of the New Cultural Movement, around the time of the May 4th Movement in     

Austerity plan announcements and the impact on the employees’ wellbeing

This study investigates the impact of austerity plan announcements on employees’ wellbeing. We exploit the unexpected announcement of a drastic wage cut (25%) related to public sector employees in Romania. Using data from the Eurobarometer Surveys and the European Quality of Life Survey, we employ a difference-in-difference research design combined with matching, based on entropy balancing, to identify the causal effects. Our results reveal that the mere announcement of austerity measures leads to an overall drop in life satisfaction among those working in the public sector. We also show that men, and especially married individuals, are most affected by the substantial wage cut announcement. Contrary to previous research, we find that public sector employees with higher levels of education are more likely to be affected by this policy communication compared to those with only secondary or primary levels of education. Our results also suggest that the negative effect of the announcement is not persisting over time.     

What does the public want from agriculture and the countryside? A review of evidence and methods

Multifunctional agriculture attempts to establish a new balance between traditional commodity support and payment for the production of non-market goods and services that are increasingly demanded by the public. Supplying non-market goods presents particular problems for optimal policy design, not least the elicitation of consumer demand for those goods. The resulting configuration of support policy has potentially enormous implications for rural areas and yet surprisingly little is known about how the public would prefer public support to be allocated. This seems to have more to do with the political expediency than true public preferences. We review the evidence of consumer demand for non-market goods and consider the methodologies used for eliciting public preferences regarding the policy tradeoffs that are likely to characterise the agri-industry reform debate.     

Aging cartilage and osteoarthritis--what's the link?

Cartilage aging can contribute to the development of osteoarthritis (OA), the most common cause of chronic pain and disability in older adults. Articular cartilage is a unique tissue from the perspective of aging in that the cells (chondrocytes) and the majority of the extracellular matrix proteins experience little turnover, resulting in a tissue that must withstand years of use and can also accumulate years of aging-associated changes. Accumulation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) occurs in cartilage, and the potential role of AGEs in the development of OA is being investigated. An age-associated reduction in growth factor signaling and an increase in oxidative stress may also play an important role in the age-OA connection. Further elucidation of mechanisms that affect chondrocyte function with aging should lead to novel interventions designed to slow the aging process in cartilage with the goal of preventing age-associated OA.