People,Productivity, and the Pentagon:

No abstract available for this article.     

Digitization,the Internet,and the Arts: eBay,Napster, SAG,and e-Books

Via four case studies we explore the extent to which digitization is transforming how people access and engage with the arts. The first case study is the online auction house eBay. We focus on a unique system whereby millions of users rate each other's integrity and reputations in a digital venue via a transparent system open to all users and visitors alike. The second case study examines the Screen Actors Guild strike against the advertising industry, which drew attention to the potential for and limitation of the replacement of human actors by digitized replicas. Third, we focus on e-books in the context of the prediction that most books, music and film entertainment will eventually be distributed electronically to the average household. The fourth case study analyzes the Napster debate over file sharing and duplication of online music. We focus on the ability of Napster to create a huge community of users sharing their own copies of digital music. From this point of view Napster represented a uniquely efficient and large-scale dream, a modern form of the cooperation and sharing of property envisaged by classical anarchist philosophers of the nineteenth century. On the other hand, and as always in anarchistic uprisings, another class claimed proprietary ownership in the material being shared and saw in Napster mostly collective theft on the part of ordinary citizens. Three of these four case studies centrally involve ordinary people using the digital media in creative and innovative ways. We conclude by arguing, against those who are skeptical about the transforming power of digitization, that even in the short time that it has been widely available digitization has so increased people's ability to interact creatively with products that this amounts to a qualitative change which, over the next few decades, is likely to develop so far as to justify the label revolution.     

Ede: Race,the Law,and I

In the context of the United States, interpellation is perhaps most visible, even tangible, in the arena of race and racism. Orna Guralnik tells us of Ede, a Nigerian immigrant suffering from depersonalization and struggling to be interpellated out of her postcolonial Blackness. This struggle manifests in the treatment relationship as Guralnik, experiencing her Whiteness, tracks their mutual run-in with racial interpellation at the nexus of class, ethnicity, money, and public power. In showing, also, how interpellation partners with dissociation, this vignette illuminates a dilemma found in many other domains of existence, including—perhaps especially—those central to this journal's focus, gender and sexuality.     

Value, knowledge, and the human equation:

conclusion As implied through the issues presented herein, firms must carefully align the value proposition of the IT function with that of the organization. We suggest that firms will increasingly migrate towards strategies and modes of operation that support the cus-tomization of products and services on a mass scale. A key ingredient in accomplish-ing this objective is the creation of an IT function that can deliver systems and technologies that are customized yet modular. Delivery of such systems depends largely on the adoption of processes and development of personnel who can rapidly adapt and configure IT to changes in business conditions. Failure to deliver these systems can result in unrealized corporate objectives and, in some cases, strategic drift.     

Flying the Flag: Identities,the Nation,and Sport

This article sets the scene for this special edition, which was originally inspired by the 2001 Brunel University Conference on "The Nation and Sport". The distinctive complexities to the interface of sport, nation and identities are illustrated. The notion that sport presents a problematic intervention into the concept of a nation and the reshaping of identities is investigated along with the imbalance in the depth of consideration from different academic disciplines. The import of anthems and emblems, through sporting usage, is discussed, and the related language of the subject matter, i.e. nation-state, patriotism, is explored. The potential for increased attention to the subject matter from anthropologists is illustrated and the need for multi-disciplinary approaches to sport, the nation and identity is mooted.     

Women,Poverty, and the Microenterprise: Context and Discourse

The article discusses the claims of success of microenterprise development programmes (MDPs) in poverty reduction and gender equality. It also deals with the broader theoretical and methodological issues related to the ways in which context and discourse interact in the assessment of anti‐poverty and gender equity strategies. MDPs are considered among the most viable strategies for helping women overcome poverty and promoting gender equity. However, there has been significant debate over these claims. The relationship between business ownership, poverty reduction and gender empowerment is still to be proved. The article presents the voices of women engaged in a microenterprise (ME) from a context‐informed and discourse analysis perspective, and considers the women's insights about ME as an anti‐poverty and gender empowerment strategy. The findings show a complex picture. On one hand, the new occupational status promises a tangible alternative to multiple personal, social and gender constraints. Additionally, women in the study perceived the ME as a space for self‐definition and as an outlet for expressing their oppressed identities. On the other hand, the findings seriously challenge the capacity of the MDP strategy to promote gender equity and combat poverty among low‐income women. Implications for research and policy are discussed.     

Theorizing the institution: foundations,duality, and data

Although a central construct for sociologists, the concept of institution continues to elude clear and full specification. One reason for this lack of clarity is that about 50 years ago empirical researchers in the field of sociology turned their gaze downward, away from macro-sociological constructs in order to focus their attention on middle-range empirical projects. It took almost 20 years for the concept of the institution to work its back onto the empirical research agenda of mainstream sociologists. The new institutional project in organizational sociology led the way. Since then, scholars in this tradition have achieved a great deal but there is still much more to accomplish. Here, future directions for research are considered by reviewing how the concept of the institution has come to be treated by mainstream philosophers, sociologists of science and technology studies, and social network theorists.

---

Internal communication: Definition,parameters, and the future

As an organizational function, internal communication is gaining in importance, meriting a special issue on the topic. This importance is evident in many recent efforts among practitioners in Europe and the US to seek recognition of this field as an independent domain. Scholarship on internal communication has not kept pace with these initiatives. This introduction to the special issue addresses several key issues related to this topic and presents findings from a Delphi study of the leaders of European associations on internal communication. Results of the study are fuzzy: respondents see internal communication as interdisciplinary management function integrating elements of human resources management, communication and marketing, but at the same time they see it primarily as a part of the organization's communication function that is simultaneously managerial and technical. However, they contend that internal communication is an independent research field.     

Beyond the Myths: Equality, Impartiality, and Justice

Violence against women is as much a matter of equality as it is an offence against human dignity and a violation of human rights. As the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly recognized, eliminating myths and stereotypes from the law constitutes an important part of remedying the law's historically inadequate response to violence against women. The author explores how the concepts of impartiality, equality, and justice shed light on the ways in which myths and stereotypes distort the truth-finding process and perpetuate discrimination. Looking toward the future, further equality-informed legislative amendments, judicial education, and international norms, such as those set out in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979), will provide key means of ensuring that myths and stereotypes are fully and permanently eradicated from the law. The goals of equality and justice for all require nothing less.     

Birthing,Nativity, and Maternal Depression: Australia and the United States,

This study analyzes two birth cohort surveys, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children and Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, to examine variation in maternal depression by nativity, duration of residence, age at migration, and English proficiency in Australia and the United States. Both countries have long immigrant traditions and a common language. The results demonstrate that US immigrant mothers are significantly less depressed than native‐born mothers, but maternal depression does not differ by nativity in Australia. Moreover, the association between duration of residence and maternal depression is not linear: Recent arrivals and long‐term residents exhibit the highest depression levels. Lack of English proficiency exacerbates maternal depression in Australia, but protects against depression in the United States. Differences in immigration regimes and welfare systems likely contribute to the differing salience of nativity for maternal depression.     

Mum's the Word: Intersubjectivity,Alterity, and the Maternal Subject

Where motherhood and ethics are brought together, it is usually under the rubric of an “ethic of care,” with the mother-child relationship figured as a paradigmatic example of such an ethic. In this article I make use of Levinas' account of ethics as first philosophy to flesh out a notion of “maternal alterity” as an alternative to a maternal ethics based on the various complex mental and emotional tasks that make up care. This represents an attempt to recuperate something for the mother out of her often bewildering encounter with the enigmatic otherness of her child. Situating Levinas alongside a dialogue between Jessica Benjamin and Judith Butler on intersubjectivity, I attempt to disentangle maternal subjectivity from the developing subjectivity of the child and offer an account of the maternal subject as an ethical subject situated, perhaps, “otherwise” to a discourse of care.     

Tightening the net: children, community, and control

The recent move to revitalize social democracy in the UK under the New Labour government, explored by Giddens as 'the Third Way', embraces many of Etzioni's ideas on communitarianism. The principles that emerge from these political philosophies, such as the involvement of local communities in policy consultations and implementation, have largely been welcomed as a reflection of the aim of revitalizing civic society in the context of a range of social policies. It is argued, however, that for children, contrary to this general trend, many of these policies represent attempts to increase the social control of children. Their effect has been to restrict children's agency and their rights, rather than to increase their participation as citizens, and thus,in spite of the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children continue to be marginalized.     

Beyond the Myths: Equality,Impartiality, and Justice

Violence against women is as much a matter of equality as it is an offence against human dignity and a violation of human rights. As the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly recognized, eliminating myths and stereotypes from the law constitutes an important part of remedying the law’s historically inadequate response to violence against women. The author explores how the concepts of impartiality, equality, and justice shed light on the ways in which myths and stereotypes distort the truth-finding process and perpetuate discrimination. Looking toward the future, further equality-informed legislative amendments, judicial education, and international norms, such as those set out in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979), will provide key means of ensuring that myths and stereotypes are fully and permanently eradicatedfrom the law. The goals of equality and justice for all require nothing less.     

Globalization,Plague and the Local Community: Healthcare Capacity,Politics, and the Microbe War

Abstract

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is the first major international epidemic of the twenty-first century. In a few short months it spread to every continent, infected 8,096 people, and claimed the lives of 774. It hit older persons particularly hard; it killed 50 percent of the infected of that age category.

The rate of plague's spread from one country to another has greatly increased as the globalization of the world's economy has produced rapid daily transportation of people, products, plants, animals, and, of course, microbes. Each day cities are at risk for the invasion of deadly infectious diseases. While international expert agencies such as the World Health Organization stand by to help fight outbreaks, ultimately, plagues are fought in the local community.

I discuss two theses: (1) To successfully contain and fight a major epidemic the capacity of the community's health care system must be enhanced by its functional linkages to external expert and bridging organizations and systems of organizations; and (2) that the extent to which a community's health care system can draw on external expert and bridging organizations and systems is a function of the degree to which the political state in which the community is embedded facilitates for fails to facilitate) those linkages.

My focus is on Hong Kong and the cities of the People's Republic of China; they were at the epicenter of the SARS outbreak, and it was from them that the contagion spread to other countries. Findings show that plagues are not only matters of biology and health, but also matters of politics, power, and international relations.     

Acid House and Thatcherism: noise, the mob, and the English countryside

This paper examines why the late 1980s youth subculture Acid House provoked a moral panic of the scale and intensity that it did. The subculture is conceived as presenting a disruptive presence to Thatcherism as an hegemonic project. The terms under which this occurred are examined through the themes of noise, the mob, and the disruption of bureaucratic authority. The presence of Acid House within the English countryside, and in particular the Home Counties, is situated as enhancing the problematic status of the subculture. The scale of measures taken against Acid House is related to Thatcherism's 'authoritarian populism'. Acid House is located in terms of a history of similar forms of popular cultural activity. The coverage of Acid House in The Sun and The Daily Mail, and the parliamentary debate around the second reading of the Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act, are drawn upon throughout.     

Privacy and privilege: Patients', professionals', and the public's rights

Conflict between the individual's right to privacy and the public's right to know is increasing as insurance companies and other third parties are demanding more information about patients and clients and data banks are storing it for retrieval and later use. Social workers are ethically bound to protect the privacy of their relationships with patients and clients and the confidentiality of their communications. But there are situations in which the obligation to society is deemed greater than the individual's right to privacy, and even in states in which their patients' and clients' communications are granted privilege by law, the social worker can be required by law to divulge confidential information or risk being held in contempt of court. This paper will discuss the individual's right to privacy, privilege and its exceptions, and present examples of court decisions related to these issues.