One size fits all? The social construction of dis-employ-abled women

This article is based on an evaluation of a labour-market training programme for women with ‘mental health problems’ in a social workplace in Belgium. The research team explored the retrospective insider perspectives on the work aspirations of the women involved in the programme to identify critical dynamics in their high drop-out from the social workplace. The central findings provide evidence of a prevalent one-size-fits-all discourse in these practices wherein complex and interrelated processes of discrimination take place that are based on both disability and gender. The findings demonstrate that the social workplace functions as a male bastion, in which the oversized overalls that women are forced to wear are symbolically relevant. In conclusion, we discuss and challenge the dominance of the neo-liberal norm of economic productivity and employability.     

‘Is it a mosque?’ The Islamization of space explored through residents’ everyday ‘discursive assemblages’

This article examines the Islamization of suburban space in southeast England. Its microgeographies of racialization challenge binary either/or logic, favoured by ‘mosque conflict’ approaches and instead demonstrate how residents’ negotiations are channelled through everyday both/and logic rooted in multiplicity and indeterminacy. A key element in negotiations is the ‘sometimes quality’ of the ‘Islamic Centre’ that allows it to be both a ‘mosque’ and ‘not-a-mosque’. Moreover, each of the differently positioned residents shows uneven discursive capacities for identity, belonging and community in relation to the Islamization of suburban space, and each is afforded differential empowerment and capabilities under social discourses of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘tolerance’. In examining these microgeographies of racialization, this paper also extends representational accounts of lived experiences surrounding the Islamization of space by attending to affect, emotion and materiality. To do so, the notion of ‘discursive assemblage’ is developed.     

Becoming quixotic? A discussion on the discursive construction of disability and how this is maintained through social relations

Using an autoethnographic approach, this paper focuses upon interactions between ‘Paul’ (a pseudonym), whose symptoms associated with ‘severe learning difficulties’ are such that he is positioned on the low-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, his carers and others, in spaces taken for granted to be ‘public’ in both the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. This paper examines how social discourses relating to disability filter into social interactions, ultimately constructing the symptoms they purport to represent. This paper concludes by highlighting how interactions might be viewed as enabling rather than disabling, as producing spaces for thinking about the human condition.     

When police patrols matter. The effect of police proximity on citizens’ crime risk perception

Crime risk perception is known to be an important determinant of individual well-being. It is therefore crucial that we understand the factors affecting this perception so that governments can identify the (public) policies that might reduce it. Among such policies, public resources devoted to policing emerge as a key instrument not only for tackling criminal activity but also for impacting on citizens’ crime risk perception. In this framework, the aim of this study is to analyze both the individual and neighbourhood determinants of citizens’ crime risk perception in the City of Barcelona (Spain) focusing on the effect of police proximity and taking into account the spatial aspects of neighbourhood characteristics. After controlling for the possible problems of the endogeneity of police forces and crime risk perception and the potential sorting of individuals across neighbourhoods, the results indicate that crime risk perception is reduced when non-victims exogenously interact with police forces. Moreover, neighbourhood variables, such as proxies of social capital and the level of incivilities, together with individual characteristics have an impact on citizens’ crime risk perception.     

The social construction of a cultural disaster: New Labour’s millennium experience

This article presents the findings of an Arts and Humanities Research Board project on London’s Millennium Dome exposition in the year 2000. The Dome was generally considered to be a cultural disaster in the news media and public conversation. It became a political embarrassment for Britain’s New Labour government but did not prove damaging in the 2001 general election. The article does not dispute the media’s damnation of the Dome but questions its acuity. It also questions the managerialist perspective on the Dome’s ‘failure’ whilst taking into account claims regarding a managerial ‘turnaround’ and an ‘under-reported success’. Empirical evidence and theoretical analysis concerning the political economy of the Dome’s production, its representational meanings and visitor reception provide a more complex and multidimensional explanation. Corporate sponsorship played a key role in the cultural disaster and, in this particular case study, it exemplifies social democracy’s symbolic as well as material coalescence with neo-liberalism. A distinction is made between associative and deep sponsorship that is illustrated with examples from the Dome. A typology of generous and reflexive visiting is also formulated in order to analyse the visitor data.     

The Meta Co-production of Community Outcomes: Towards a Citizens’ Capabilities Approach

This article contributes to the growing amount of literature on co-production, focusing on co-production of public outcomes and taking the perspective of local government and public managers. A model for explaining the dynamics of outcomes’ creation at the community level is provided. The core argument of the article is that community outcomes result from a sum of peer production, co-production and inter-organizational collaboration processes promoted and activated at individual, organizational and network level across the public, third and private sectors. Institutional, managerial and organizational implications are discussed. The article argues that local government and public managers are asked to play new roles and to employ a new ethos grounded in a citizens capabilities’ approach.     

What is the force of forced migration? Diagnosis and critique of a conceptual relativization

Theory and Society - Theorizing of forced migration and refugees has been paralyzed by excessive reliance on migration theory. This article suggests the need to transfer conceptualizations of...     

The construction of ‘religions’ during field visits

ABSTRACT

Field visits to churches, mosques, temples or other buildings used by religious groups, are often valued by students of religious education as an opportunity to engage with the ‘reality’ of the subject: religions as they exist in the world. The Council of Europe text Signposts specifies field visits as an important contributor to the religious dimension of intercultural education, but also identifies issues that need to be addressed by researchers and teachers. During an excursion, students interact with representatives who are likely to represent their tradition in one particular way. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the representation of religion and religiosity is constructed during excursions by representatives and visitors. We have developed an analytical tool based on the interpretive approach and the theory of speech genres. Based on our analysis of documentation related to four field visits with students to places of worship, we suggest how the different speech genres in play during an excursion can help in promoting awareness of different levels of religion: individual, group and the whole tradition.     

The communal construction of the “outsider” in a Quaker community in Costa Rica

This paper attempts to capture the process of exclusion in a Quaker, rural farming community in the rain forest mountains of Costa Rica. The outsider is defined as a member of a close community, whose voice is not part of the communal dialogue. The silenced voice is investigated through the lives of four members — an authoritarian founding father in a community of the fraternal, an entrepreneur and his wife among the uncommercial, and an inarticulate man among the persuasive.     

The same everywhere? Exploring structural homologies of national social fields using the case of journalism

Pierre Bourdieu argued for the existence of general properties and even laws of social fields. In contrast to spaces of class relations and patterns of cultural lifestyles, however, almost no systematic comparative research exists on the homologies of national social fields of a more specialised nature. Also, the large majority of research is done on Western countries, raising concerns about the relevance of the concept for less differentiated societies. Using the field of journalism as a case, typical structures of 67 national fields (n = 27,567) are in this article investigated using a reverse approach: First, the subjective spaces of journalists' experienced constraints and imperatives in their jobs are sketched as a proxy for field structure using variants of multiple correspondence analysis, and second, the distribution of the social and professional properties of journalists are used to suggest capital structures. The results suggest great stability in the fundamental organising principles of fields of journalism around the world, although with considerable variation in their autonomy.     

The ‘Bakul Gendong’ as a communication strategy to reject the construction of a cement factory in Central Java

Since 2006, one of Indonesia’s biggest corporations operating in the cement industry has been trying to build a factory at Sukolilo village in Central Java, Indonesia. The potential for of environmental damage caused by mining and the construction of this new factory is the main source of conflict between the public and the giant corporation.The focus of this research was the communication strategy adopted by women in the community to reject the construction of the cement factory in Pati, Central Java, Indonesia. This research used a qualitative method through a case study approach. Interviews, observations, and literature studies were used as data collection techniques for in this research.We found that the practices of the “Bakul Gendong” communication strategy were effective in developing women’s awareness of environmental issues based on the values they believe in. Through the women peddlers, women’s awareness of the risk of environmental damage caused by the cement factories was successfully developed. They also created female farmers’ group named “Simbar Wareh” to strengthen cooperation between them and to better-organize their resistance. The women’s movement to resist the cement factory was also conducted by building a network, meeting authorities, demonstrating, displaying traditional symbols during celebrations such as the “Agustusan” (independence day celebration) and Kartinian (women’s day) as their sites of resistance. The local government and PT. Semen Gresik tended to use technical and economical communicative approaches, while the people mainly refer to local know how PT. Semen Gresik did not use the right communication strategy to understand the conflict that arose and how to handle it, until after 10 years of trying to build a factory in Sukolilo.     

The neoliberal mom: how a discursive coalition shapes low-income mothers’ labor market participation

Research has elucidated the conflict low-income mothers face when trying to comply with the imperatives of the neoliberalism and mothering discourses. Feminist scholars have argued that low-income mothers’ alternative conceptions of morality and behavior constitute an act of resistance to inferiorizing definitions embedded in these discourses. Drawing on this literature, I offer a new conceptualization of the seemingly contradictory discourses. Based on interviews with 48 low-income Israeli mothers, I suggest that the neoliberal ideology is not limited to the neoliberal discourse, which primarily measures the individual's commitment to the labor market, but rather has diffused into the mothering discourse, which sets the standards for good mothering. This diffusion constructs a discursive coalition of ‘neoliberal moms’, wherein the current hegemonic notion of good mothering and the neoliberal call for personal responsibility intersect and shape mothers’ perceptions and decision-making processes. Moreover, the neoliberal mom constructs an alternative morality: moral motherhood. Accordingly, the moral component of good mothering means taking personal responsibility to act in ways that promote one's children's future inclusion. I argue that the discursive coalition framework helps us to better understand mothers’ labor force entries and exits, and how these constitute a way of negotiating paths to social inclusion.     

Can a Munro-Inspired Approach Transform the Lives of Looked after Children in England?

This discussion paper will examine the lessons from the Munro Review relevant for looked after children. Although the Munro Review focuses on child protection, we will argue that some of its key principles have relevance for understanding looked after childhoods. The Munro Review provides an analysis of the current state of the child protection system, challenging bureaucratised practice and arguing for a reclaiming of professional social work identity, knowledge and understanding. There are three key principles of the Munro Review that this paper will focus upon. The first two are the recognition that risk cannot be eradicated and the bureaucratisation of practice is an inadequate response to the demand for public accountability. The third principle is that ethical integrity lies at the heart of services for children in public care. The key message of this paper is that a Munro approach can transform looked after childhoods. However, the current ‘child protection’ model of social work in England may prevent this shift in social work practice.     

The evolving construction and conceptualisation of ‘disability’ in Bhutan

This study – a year-long ethnographic exploration of disability and education in Bhutan – finds that two dominant discourses around ‘disability’ are entering Bhutan simultaneously: the discourse of the medical model of disability and the discourse of the social or human rights model of disability. In this paper, I argue that these two discourses are especially exposed in the Bhutanese context to be opposing forces in shaping local conceptualisation and construction of ‘disability’. By examining the Bhutan case, it can be seen that these kinds of disparate and contentious exogenous constructions of ‘disability’ occur everywhere in the world and negotiate with local constructions of ‘disability’ uneasily. Understanding the interactions of disability discourses in the Bhutanese context can help to understand the interactions of disability discourses writ large.     

How was a national moving and handling people guideline intended to work? The underlying programme theory

In healthcare, moving and handling people (MHP) often cause musculoskeletal disorders. To prevent musculoskeletal disorders due to MHP, many national evidence-based guidelines have been developed. However, little is known about how these guidelines were intended to work, i.e. their ‘programme theory’, how implementation by intended users is influenced by contextual factors and mechanisms to produce outcomes. This paper identifies the programme theory of a national MHP guideline (MHPG) using thematic analysis of the MHPG document, three organisational planning documents, and interviews with MHPG developers. The analysis identified the intended users of the MHPG as health and safety managers and MHP coordinators. The programme theory comprised contextual factors, potentially hindering (e.g. budget constraints) or facilitating (e.g. changing demographics) implementation, being influenced by mechanisms mainly based on ethical (quality of care, evidence-based practices), and economic reasoning (reducing cost of MHP, return on investment) to reduce injuries caused by MHP – the intended outcome.     

The state and use of municipal tree inventories in Swedish municipalities – results from a national survey

Urban trees are an essential component of urban ecosystems, and management of this resource constitutes an essential element of urban open space management. However, municipal tree inventories in Sweden and elsewhere have received limited attention. It is unknown how common municipal tree inventories are in Sweden, factors governing whether a municipality has an inventory and what the inventories are used for. This study therefore sought to: Create an overview of the state of Swedish municipal tree inventories and determine how municipality size, green space budget and management organisation affect the presence and scope of municipal tree inventories. The research questions examined were: What is the current state of Swedish municipal tree inventories? and what affects the status of these municipal tree inventories? A survey with questions related to strategic and operational perspectives of municipal tree inventories, e.g. how they are conducted and used, together with questions relating to budget and potential use of consultants, was sent to all 290 Swedish municipalities. The response rate was 55.5%. The main findings were that municipality size affects whether a municipality has an urban tree inventory and that the municipal organisation form affects how inventories are used. The existence of an inventory also increased the probability of the municipality having a tree management plan. Based on these results we recommend further research related to strategic management perspectives of tree inventories.     

The money size illusion as a barometer of confidence? The case of high inflation in Israel

Israel has known a very high inflation rate and two currency changes in thepast five years. Coin size estimation by 97 subjects reveals a general tendency to underestimate sizes. The specific pattern of results suggests that coin size estimation is influenced by the subject's attitude towards the coin in question, that inflation and actual value of the coin are not the only determinants of that attitude, and that the attitude remains unchanged if the coin is removed from circulation.     

The Effect of a Family Policy Reform on Mother’s Pay: A Natural Experiment Approach

All parents in Norway with children aged one to three, who do not attend publicly subsidised day care, are entitled to a cash-for-care (CFC) subsidy. Studies have shown that the reform has reduced mothers labour supply. In this paper we analyse wage effects of the reform. We put forward a framework for evaluating reforms when reforms are uniformly and equally accessible nation-wide. First, running a simple Difference in differences (DD) analysis, results suggest that the CFC reform has reduced the mothers wages. However, after controlling for the age of the child effect, by running a triple difference approach, we no longer find any evidence of negative wage effects.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the authors name and to the heading of table A2.