ETHICS, REGULATION AND THE NEW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, PART I: ACCOUNTABILITY AND POWER

A generation ago, there was a major debate about the social and ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI). Interest in that debate waned from the late 1980s. However, both patterns of public risk perception and new technological developments suggest that it is time to re-open that debate. The important issues about AI arise in connection with the prospect of robotic and digital agent systems taking socially significant decisions autonomously. Now that this is possible, the key concerns are now about which decisions should be and which should not be delegated to machines, issues of regulation in the broad sense covering everything from consumer information through codes of professional ethics for designers to statutory controls, issues of design responsibility and problems of liability.     

CONSCIOUSLY WORKING AT THE UNCONSCIOUS LEVEL: PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY IN ACTION IN A TRAINING ENVIRONMENT

The author explores methods of working with residential child care foster care agencies in developing a psychotherapeutic culture. He suggests that such a culture can only be built on the firm foundations of clear organisational boundaries and task, but that such clarity is not sufficient. In addition, senior managers must have an understanding of unconscious processes and how they affect relationships between adults and children and between colleagues within the organisational hierarchy. The process requires a range of possible interventions including organisational consultancy, practice consultancy and staff support, specialist training and explorations of team processes.     

BARING LIFE AND LIFESTYLE IN THE NON-PLACE

In this paper I offer an intervention into two prevailing approaches to the non-place – those spaces of transit that include hotels, airports, theme parks, and refugee camps. The non-place is treated on the one hand as an apolitical space of hypermediated consumption and mobility while, on the other hand, it also figures as exemplary of the biopolitical regulation of life within a ‘contemporary camp’. I argue that the non-place must be read, not as spectacle or camp, but as housing a very specific politics of place wherein the logic of the camp and the spectacle collide. What is of interest to me is not so much the camp as the hidden space of modernity, but how it finds a willing alibi in the spectacular media saturated spaces of capital. Within the non-place, the forces of global corporate capital have found an amiable space to both invest (lifestyle) and reduce (bare life) human life to maximize and optimize its own power.     

THE SAFETY DANCE: CONFRONTING HARASSMENT, INTIMIDATION, AND VIOLENCE IN THE FIELD

This paper discusses how gender dynamics may put female researchers at risk of harassment or even violence from participants, research assistants, or bystanders when conducting fieldwork. Based on a review of the existing literature on fieldwork safety, as well as the authors' own experiences interviewing male participants, the authors argue that attention to protecting subjects of research has led the social science community to largely ignore the possibility that in some cases, researchers themselves may be at risk. The paper concludes with suggested strategies for increasing researcher safety during data collection, as well as a call for issues of fieldwork safety to be more openly discussed by supervisors, professors, advisors, and others who guide novice researchers through the fieldwork process.     

THE FUN GOD: SPORTS,RECREATION, LEISURE,AND AMUSEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

Twenty‐five Caribbean and Latin American nations were examined to determine the relationship between potential female headed families and other social indicators. Regression analysis reveals that women's labor market participation is associated with the proportion of families potentially headed by women. The share of girls in secondary school is also associated with the dependent variable. Social indicators of modernization and dependency were regressed on potential female‐headed households. Neither approach alone explains the formation of female‐headed families in the region.     

MODERN TIMES: RELIGION,CONSECRATION AND THE STATE IN BOURDIEU

Bourdieu held that the state in modernity has become the primary agent of consecration, ‘the legitimation and naturalization of social difference’, a function formerly performed largely by religion. After clarifying the role of ‘religion’ in Bourdieu's work, this paper brings two empirical issues into dialogue with his ideas: social fragmentation in late-modernity, and the relation between temporalization and social structures in medieval and early-modern charity. His view that religion is anachronistic, that it was left behind by modernization misses its continuing, even increasing, importance. He overemphasized the centrality and authority of the state in modernity and distinguished too sharply between pre-modern gifting and modern market relations. Once these limitations are mitigated, Bourdieu's analysis can be redirected to account for the importance of religion as an agent of consecration globally today.     

RURALIZING THE CITY: THE GREAT MIGRATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL REHABILITATION IN BALTIMORE,MARYLAND

This article examines the discursive and material presence of the “rural” in the “urban,” relating it to the historical and contemporary production of African American culture and identity. By using the case of the Great Migration, it discusses how African Americans negotiated and shaped their urban surroundings and formed individual and collective identities by drawing on their rural, southern histories. It then suggests the relevance of these broad historical processes to contemporary analyses and interventions in the urban environment of Baltimore, Maryland. This article challenges assumptions that obscure the agency of urban residents in the formation of identity and the establishment of community. It demonstrates ways in which the historical movement from rural South to urban North was accompanied by a range of cultural resources that have been adapted, discarded, or reconstructed.     

VICTIMHOOD,IDENTITY, AND AGENCY IN THE EARLY PHASE OF THE TROUBLES IN NORTHERN IRELAND

This article explores the representation of victimhood in political discourse and the relation between victimhood, identity, and political agency. The empirical material is drawn from the early days of the Northern Ireland conflict and covers the debate on internment that was in operation from August 1971 until December 1975. Both those supporting and those opposing internment drew on images of victimhood—images that were vital in the construction of legitimacy and political agency. First, the rendering of detailed stories of individual suffering and victimhood produced compassion and empathy—features legitimising the different approaches. Second, the construction of victimhood involved mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, creating “we-them” dichotomies, producing “collectives of victimhood,” which in many cases worked as a platform from which political agency could be voiced. And third, the construction of victimhood produced political truths. The victim was given a particular status embodying a particular moral integrity to determine the truths about “what had really happened,” a status that made the victim a vital agent in the political battle for “the hearts and minds.” The article stresses the importance of studying the representation of victimhood within particular historical contexts and demonstrates the complex and ambiguous effects of the representations of victimhood in violent political conflicts. The examination shows that victimhood has both humanising and dehumanising effects and, depending on the contextual framework, victimhood can create confidence, empowerment, and agency, but also disempowerment and passivity.     

Tongue Sandwiches and Bagel Days: Sex,Food and Mind‐Body Dualism

The substantive content of our paper is that of mind‐body dualism, which we explore through food metaphors. However, our primary aim is to use these food metaphors to explore the difficulties in going beyond dualistic thinking. We do this by focusing on dualism as a learnt state of being. Accordingly, and using an analysis of pedagogies of the everyday that takes account of particular communities of practice, we seek to demonstrate the (re)production of dualistic frameworks in organizational life. Our conclusion returns to a political agenda that is concerned to go beyond the inevitable hierarchization implicit in dualistic construction. Here we present the case for the retention of the binary and we indicate the work that now needs to take place if we are interested in developing interpretations that express the fluidity of gendered identities.     

PRIME MINISTERS, PARTIES, AND THE PUBLIC: THE DYNAMICS OF GOVERNMENT POPULARITY IN GREAT BRITAIN

This article proposes and tests a model of British party supportbetween 1953 and 1987, including prime minister's popularity,economic fluctuations, and short-term noneconomic factors. Weargue that public evaluations of the prime minister (PM) havehad an increasingly important effect on relative party popularity("government lead"). We demonstrate that this enhanced linkbetween PM popularity and government lead began in the 1960s,well before the Thatcher era. We also attempt to demonstratethat noneconomic factors (wars, scandals, etc.) exert indirecteffects on government lead through voters' evaluations of theprime minister. The results of this test, however, are inconclusive.We discuss the implications of these findings for our understandingof British politics.     

THE GLOBAL VORTEX: SOCIAL WELFARE IN A NETWORKED WORLD

This paper examines the impact of economic globalization on the organization and delivery of social welfare services. Sennett's analysis of the modern networked organization is linked to psychodynamic theory in relation to the loss of ‘containment’ resulting from the demise of the post‐war welfare bureaucracies. This changing environment has generated an anxiety‐ridden and risk‐obsessed society that features surveillance, control and the gradual diminution of civil liberties. The impact of these changes on the ethics of professional social welfare practice has been profound. It is argued that public moral debate in the context of pluralist ethics is required not only for upholding a relational based social welfare practice, but also for preserving an open and compassionate democratic society. The paper concludes with a set of questions that provides a framework whereby practitioners can assess the extent to which different practice organizations support relational practice. This typology can be a tool to enable practitioners to exercise moral agency when making career choices in today's fluid organizational world.     

THE EAST END, THE WEST END, AND KING'S CROSS: ON CLUSTERING IN THE FOUR-PLAYER HOTELLING GAME

We study experimentally a standard four-player Hotelling location game with a uniform density of consumers and inelastic demand. The pure strategy Nash equilibrium configuration consists of two firms located at one quarter of the "linear city," and the other two at three quarters. We do not observe convergence to such an equilibrium. In our experimental data we find three clusters. Besides the direct proximity of the two equilibrium locations, this concerns the focal midpoint. Moreover, we observe that whereas this midpoint appears to become more notable over time, other focal points fade away. We explain how these observations are related to best-response dynamics, and to the fact that the players rely on best-responses in particular when they are close to the equilibrium configuration.     

PARTY IDENTIFICATION, STATUS, AND RACE IN THE SOUTH: 1952-1972

This article describes the redistributions in political partyidentifications that have taken place in the South in the lasttwenty years and analyzes the changing relationships betweenstatus, race, and party in the South compared to the rest ofthe nation.     

CHERRIES, LEMONS, AND THE FTC: MINIMUM QUALITY STANDARDS IN THE RETAIL USED AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

The FTC initially considered two forms of regulation in the used automobile market, requiring dealers to either certify or warrant the mechanical condition of each automobile sold. Since the regulation would have been imposed only on dealers and not on private sellers, its effectiveness was dependent on the magnitude of the induced shift of sales into the private market. Accordingly, this paper employs a gametheoretic model to examine the theoretical conditions under which society could be expected to benefit from either regulatory alternative. Among other things, it is concluded that a socially beneficial minimum quality standard may not exist in some situations.     

BEYOND BELIEF: ATHEISM,AGNOSTICISM, AND THEISTIC CERTAINTY IN THE UNITED STATES

Atheism, agnosticism, and undoubting belief in a one true god are pivotal issues distinguishing religious adherents. Shifts in the rates of atheism and agnosticism can influence the composition of religious markets. Demand side rational actor models and the new demographic approach to religious commitments emphasize the influence of life course dynamics on religious desires. I examine multiple predictors of different types of belief in God using data from the General Social Surveys. I employ ordinal logistic regression to test the effects of social status, gender, race, region and city size, family structure, and denominational affiliation on the odds of being an atheist, agnostic, doubting believer, or a consistent believer. I also examine trends in these belief configurations, and whether cohort variations might evidence a coming shift in the relative rates of belief and unbelief.     

THE IRRUPTION OF TRANCE IN CONTEMPORARY YORUBA THEATRE: THEATRE,WITCHCRAFT, AND SOCIAL FRAGMENTATION IN LAGOS,NIGERIA

The golden age of Yoruba folk opera, Yoruba travelling theatre, and Yoruba theatre is over and the brightly coloured trucks carrying the companies that cruised the Nigerian Federation up to the middle of the 1980s have certainly long since been dismantled. Although many actors, musicians, and directors have indeed moved from theatre to the flourishing home-video industry, a community of actors continues to present live performances that can be categorized as “neotraditional.” This genre of Yoruba theatre is undergoing a crisis in the context of an unrelenting economic recession in Nigeria that began in the early 1980s. This situation has released tensions that lead to a real and sadly all-too-justifiable sense of insecurity and to proliferating accounts of witchcraft attacks. The outcome has been a rise in violence manifested in the unleashing of the powers of witchcraft and enflaming relations between small rival groups hitherto unified under the sway of a salaried and—at least until the beginning of the 1980s—optimistic middle class. Yoruba neotraditional theatre that represents deities on stage that belong to “an invisible world” is playing with fire and, by conjuring up the powers of witchcraft, has in turn itself been bewitched.     

MONEY, INCOME, AND PRICES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: 1870–1913

This paper examines certain aspects of the operation of the gold standard and its effects on the United Kingdom in the period before World War I. Reduced-form tests and estimates of output and money-demand equations are presented. The major conclusions are (1) Prices and interest rates in the United Kingdom can be represented as being determined independently of the money stock and output in the United Kingdom; and (2) Evidence concerning Lucas's version of the natural-rate hypothesis indicates various inadequacies.     

INNOCENT VIOLENCE: SOCIAL EXCLUSION,IDENTITY, AND THE PRESS IN AN AFRICAN DEMOCRACY

The violent attacks on African immigrants and refugees in marginal settlements surrounding South Africa's largest cities in May 2008 occasioned a rush of mostly well-intentioned attempts by journalists, public intellectuals, and government officials to discover the causes and find the cures for the outbreak. This article interrogates the glosses of “xenophobia” and “social deprivation” that were all too quickly applied to explain the attacks in public representations of this sorry episode in South Africa's post-apartheid history. The account of the focal events is based on a thorough sifting of press reports; victims', perpetrators', and police testimonies; government and civil society spokespersons' interventions; and field research. Rather than providing a monovocal, hierarchical argument for one or another analysis emerging from the reportage, this article juxtaposes complex and conflicting local accounts, justifications, forces, and circumstances to provide an intriguing if ultimately at this early stage irresolvable image of these tragic events. The implications for South African social identities, institutions, and democratic order, however, are at the end all too clearly illuminated.