“People in Stockholm are smarter than countryside folks” – Reproducing urban and rural imaginaries in film and life

This article explores the celebrated film The Hunters (Swedish title: Jägarna) within the context of the discourse of Internal Orientalism. By juxtaposing a contemporary Swedish film with historical accounts and contemporary news media, I demonstrate how the film reworks and (re)produces representations of the rural North (Norrland), constructing stereotypes enmeshed with familiar and global genre-specific stereotypes of a traditional and intransigent population positioned in rural areas and a modern and progressive population in urban areas. This paper shows how the representation in popular culture becomes enmeshed with the representation in news media and politics and how this helps obscure geography, gender, ethnicity and class by way of positioning representations of the middle class in urban spaces and white male working class in rural spaces, and by way of constructing class as a choice of lifestyle or culture.     

Men and Masculinities in International Development: ‘Men‐streaming’ Gender and Development?

The inclusion of men and masculinities in gender and development policies and practices has emerged in the last decade as a critical component for achieving gender equality and women's empowerment. This article analyses the contemporary character and progress towards ‘men‐streaming’ of gender and development, and argues that implicit in any action towards gender equality and working with men is the requirement to base action on a clear understanding of the politics of masculinities and the relational aspects of gender equity and equality.     

What's in the “old boys” network? Accessing social capital in gendered and racialized networks

Network processes have long been implicated in the reproduction of labor market inequality, but it remains unclear whether white male networks provide more social capital resources than female and minority networks. Analysis of nationally representative survey data reveals that people in white male networks receive twice as many job leads as people in female/minority networks. White male networks are also comprised of higher status connections than female/minority networks. The information and status benefits of membership in these old boy networks accrue to all respondents and not just white men. Furthermore, gender homophilous contacts offer greater job finding assistance than other contacts. The results specify how social capital flows through gendered and racialized networks.     

What's in a Name? Causes and Consequences of Labelling Minorities as “National” or “Migrant”: Roma in Italy and Spain

This article analyses how Roma are represented in official policy narratives in Italy and Spain by comparing the four cycles of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in the two countries. By tracing the representations that the Italian and Spanish governments hold (and make) about the Roma, I sketch out the different categories that EU‐ropean countries recur to as organizing principles to “other” underprivileged minorities. Based on the tailored‐approaches in which both Italy and Spain engage in framing Roma as either a “national” minority or not, I suggest that constructing or “producing” a minority in our imagined communities as characterized by national, cultural, social or migrant characteristics relies more on political expediency than on objective analytical categories.     

Does “buyer beware” work in migration? Contracting between brokers and migrants in Vietnam

This article is an attempt to open the lid a little of the “black box of migration” i.e. brokers. Analysing contracts between brokers and labour migrants, we identify four different forms of exploitation of migrants by brokers: expropriation of skill premium, risk shifting, over‐charging, and non‐refund of deposits. Opportunistic behaviour by brokers, as evidenced by such exploitation, is seen as a market failure that is explained by human attributes and transactional characteristics. Given the rigidities in the human attributes of the contracting parties and the nature of migration as a risky multi‐period transaction, proposals are made for non‐market interventions, which can lead to more equitable contracting.     

Does players’ identification affect trust and reciprocity in the lab?

Reputation mechanisms are mainly based on information sharing by traders about private trading experience. Each trader can therefore rely on his own past experience as a trader and on other traders’ past experience. The former is the direct component of the reputation mechanism and the latter the indirect component ( [Bolton et al., 2004a] and [Bolton et al., 2004b]). We design an experiment for isolating the direct component of the reputation system and studying its effect on the level of trust and reciprocity in a population where agents play both roles (trustor and trustee). Our experiment consists on three treatments of a finitely repeated investment game (Berg, Dickhaut, & McCabe, 1995). In the reference treatment there is no reputation mechanism at all, in treatment 1 trustees can build up a direct reputation, and in treatment two players can build up a direct reputation for both roles. We find that trustees’ direct reputation has a positive effect on reciprocity, but does not affect the average trust in the population. Trust is significantly higher only when players can build up a reputation in both roles. We show that the increase in trust is mainly linked to the formation of mutual trust-reciprocity relations.     

My Pride and Joy? Predicting Favoritism and Disfavoritism in Mother–Adult Child Relations

In this article, we compare predictors of mothers' differentiation among their adult children regarding emotional closeness, pride, conflict, and disappointment. We distinguish between predictors of relational (closeness, conflict) and evaluative (pride, disappointment) dimensions of favoritism and disfavoritism. Multilevel modeling using data collected from 381 older mothers regarding their relationships with 1,421 adult children indicated that adult children's similarity of values played the most prominent role in predicting mothers' favoritism and disfavoritism, followed by children's gender. Children's deviant behaviors in adulthood predicted both pride and disappointment but neither relational dimension. Contrary to expectations, the quantitative analysis indicated that children's normative adult achievements were poor predictors of both relational and evaluative dimensions of mothers' differentiation. Qualitative data shed additional light on mothers' evaluations by revealing that disappointment was shaped by children's achievements relative to their mothers' values and expectations, rather than by the achievement of specific societal, educational, career, and marital milestones.     

Excellent and gender equal? Academic motherhood and ‘gender blindness' in Norwegian academia

This article explores Norwegian female academics' experiences with academic motherhood in an organizational perspective. A main finding is that academia as an organization is greedy, uncertain, and has ‘blind spots' that reveal gender bias related to gender and parental status, especially mothers. By analysing the link between gendered organization of work and the legitimatizing of gender inequality, the article reveals ‘gender blindness' in the academic organization concerning gender and parental status. The article concludes that changes in academia — in line with academic capitalism — may indicate that the Norwegian model of work–life balance is under pressure. This article suggests that the organizational conditions for academic motherhood are important factors in order to understand the persistence of gender inequality.     

Does Country Context Matter? Sub‐Saharan and North African Immigrants’ Labour Market Outcomes in France and Spain

European debates on immigrant integration focus on employment because of its implications for assimilation. Although studies show that Sub‐Saharan African immigrants are most disadvantaged across Europe, cross‐national analyses do not examine labour force participation (LFP) or control for selection into the labour force before estimating employment, calling these results into question. Furthermore, studies rarely discuss visible minority status or gender making it unclear whether (1) country‐context matters for African LFP and employment and (2) visible minority status matters differently by gender. I use French and Spanish census data to determine whether Sub‐Saharan Africans are most disadvantaged in new and traditional receiving countries. My results indicate that country‐context matters, but previous employment findings likely reflect variation in LFP. Despite smaller penalties to migration characteristics in Spain, Sub‐Saharan African men are the only group significantly less likely to be employed in Spain, indicating that they experience unique barriers to job access.     

Having It All? Women in High Commitment Careers and Work–Life Balance in Norway

The question if, or how, women can 'have it all' — high commitment career, partner and children — is regularly debated in popular media internationally. Drawing on qualitative research, this article examines work–life balance (WLB) for women in high commitment careers as politicians and non‐executive directors on corporate boards in Norway. Norway is lauded as one of the most gender equal countries in the world and in theory at least it is therefore a highly enabling environment for women to combine career and family. The article considers the WLB challenges women politicians and directors encounter and what types of WLB support — national, workplace and household level — are important for them in order to mitigate the potential strain caused by work–family conflict. This article's contribution is in highlighting the competing and sometimes contradictory policies, practices and discourses at multiple levels that surround WLB and the gendered social expectations of women in Norway who apparently 'have it all'.     

Is it ‘just hair’ or is it ‘everything’? Embodiment and gender repression in policing

Police department policies often require women to engage in identificatory displays inconsistent with sex category expectations. Compliance, while potentially increasing acceptance within policing, may reflect a loss of agency in aesthetic choices that limits their ability to construct gender in both the professional and personal spheres. Some women may comply without experiencing negative consequences, while others may exhibit tacit or resistant compliance reflecting their loss of agency. Women's differential reactions in response to these policies may help explain how some women become the embodiment of mythic visions associated with the profession. Through greater acceptance related to this adaptation, these women may reinforce the hostile environment experienced by other women within policing thereby propagating the status quo. In‐depth interviews with female officers and background investigators illustrate the impact of one such policy, a restrictive haircut requirement for female recruits. The results reveal that women are split in their reactions to the policy; some women comply willingly and choose to become the embodiment of the symbolic vision of policing. Others struggle with compliance as the loss of agency impacts their embodied selves through silencing their bodies.     

Here or There? Shifting Meanings and Practices in Mother–Child Relationships across Time and Space

In this paper, I analyse the changes that mothers and children experience in their relationship due to the physical separations and reunions entailed by the international migration process. I argue that the different geographical configurations that migrant families take over time are the outcome of a negotiation of care responsibility and desired geographies of family life, and are accompanied by changing meanings and practices in intimate relationships: the location of care relationships is influenced by the relatives' capacity both to take part in family negotiations as well as to overcome the constraints imposed by policies. Time is relevant because it leads to shifting meanings and practices of transnational family life, as well as to the changing role of children in the family.     

Do ‘his’ education and class matter? The changing effect of the husband on women's labour‐market transitions in Italy and Britain

A new stream of sociological and demographic theory emphasizes individualization as the key process in late modernity. As maintained by Hakim ( 2000 ), women also have increasingly become agents of their own biographies, less influenced by the social class and the family. In this study, I intend to contribute to this debate by analysing how, in Italy and Britain, women's movements between employment and housework are linked to their husband's education and class, and how this link has changed across cohorts. Using discrete‐time event‐history modelling on the BHPS and ILFI, my findings show that in both countries, if the woman's educational and labour‐market profile is controlled for, the husband's occupation and education have lost importance. Yet, although based more on ‘her’ than ‘his’ profile, divisions along ‘classic’ lines are still evident and not context‐free, and they assume different forms in the two countries with distinctive institutional and cultural settings. In ‘liberal’ Britain, women's labour‐market participation responds more to motherhood and class than to education, while in ‘familistic’ Italy education seems more important, which suggests the existence of returns over and above strictly human capital/economic ones.     

Irregular Migration and Informal Economy in Southern and Central‐Eastern Europe: Breaking the Vicious Cycle?

The flexible and cheap labour that European “post‐industrial” economies are in need of is often facilitated by undeclared labour. The undocumented migrant, from his/her part, relatively easily finds work that suits his ‐‐ at least initial ‐‐ plans. What lies behind this nexus between irregular migration and informal economy? To what extent can this nexus be attributed to the structural features of the so‐called “secondary”, as opposed to “primary”, labour market? And how does migration policy correlate with this economic context and lead to the entrapment of migrants in irregularity? Finally, can this vicious cycle of interests and life‐strategies be broken and what does the experience of the migrants indicate in this respect? This paper addresses these questions via an exploration of the grounds upon which irregular migration and the shadow economy complement each other in southern Europe (SE) and central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (two regions at different points in the migration cycle). In doing so, the dynamic character of the nexus between informal economy and irregular migration will come to the fore, and the abstract identity of the “average” undocumented migrant will be deconstructed.     

What's in a name? Language ideology and social differentiation in a Swedish print‐mediated debate1

This paper investigates a recent print‐mediated discussion about linguistic phenomena that are perceived by many commentators to be ‘deviant’ from ‘standard Swedish.’ The aim of the paper is to illustrate how this language debate is built on two closely entwined discursive processes: a struggle to define the name, meaning, and value of a specific linguistic phenomenon; and the indexical processes through which such a phenomenon is bound up with a multifaceted image of its purported speakers, in which gender is imbricated in age and ethnicity. Essentially, the argument is that the metalinguistic pronouncements in this debate are ultimately the outer manifestation of deeper social concerns about what it means to be a ‘non‐Swedish’ young man.     

‘Who's Got the Look?’ Emotional,Aesthetic and Sexualized Labour in Interactive Services

This article examines sexualized work and, more particularly, how and why, at the organizational level in interactive services, employees become sexualized labour. In doing so it assesses the thin line between selling a service and selling sexuality. The analysis revisits existing literature on emotional labour, organizational aesthetics and workplace sexuality, noting the common concern in this literature with employee's appearance or looks. The article argues that the current conceptualization of interactive services and sexualized work is partial and blunt; either because it does not adequately incorporate employee corporeality or because it fails to distinguish between the different forms of sexualized work. A better conceptualization is achieved by incorporating aesthetic labour into the analysis, demonstrating how it is extended to sexualized labour employees to have a particular corporate look. From this analysis it is argued that a conceptual double shift is to be needed to understand sexualised labour, firstly, from emotional to aesthetic and sexualized labour and secondly, from an employee sexuality that is sanctioned and subscribed to by management to that which management strategically prescribes.     

‘Why isn’t it solved?’: Factors affecting improvements in housing outcomes in remote Indigenous communities in Australia

A range of factors has affected the design and construction of Indigenous housing in remote areas of Australia in recent times, including: socio-demographic issues; culture and design; consultation processes; the costs of remoteness; and procurement and delivery processes. Their implications for appropriate design and construction of remote Indigenous housing are analysed in this paper. Most significantly, these factors cannot be separated from cost because the need to spread available funds broadly to build the largest number of houses at the best price affects design and construction quality, and these are often neglected in the short-term budgeting within this process.     

Double‐edged swords? Collective identity and solidarity in the environment movement1

Perhaps by virtue of its theoretical slipperiness, collective identity is often hailed as an important feature of social movements for the role it plays in unifying activists and organizations, and so helping them to develop shared concerns and engage in collective action. However, this paper argues that collective identity is the result of group rather than movement level processes, and although it can unite activists within a single movement organization, it is not always beneficial for the broader social movement. Although movements consist of networks of activists and organizations that have a broad shared concern, differing collective identities within the movement can actually be quite divisive. Based on case studies of three organizations in the environmental movement, this paper shows that activists who are most committed to an organization with an encompassing collective identity develop a strong sense of solidarity with other activists similarly committed to that organization. The resultant solidarity leads to the construction of a 'we-them' dichotomy between organizations within the same movement, increasing the chances of hostility between organizations and factions within the movement.