Talking about citizenship in New Zealand

Abstract

This paper fleshes out the rather sparse empirical literature on citizenship with data collected from seven focus groups involving a wide range of New Zealanders. Results indicate that the term “citizenship” is relatively unimportant to identity and belonging compared to “family” and “community”. Yet there is considerable agreement about the key elements of citizenship and what makes a “good citizen”. Knowledge about citizenship, however, is not evenly distributed or experienced in the same way by different groups of New Zealanders, with Maori participants offering notably more negative perspectives on citizenship, and benefit recipients most likely to feel like “second‐class citizens”. Against predictions, the findings further suggest that neo‐liberal reforms have not eliminated a belief in community spirit and collective solutions to social problems. Although New Zealanders do believe that individuals should be responsible for themselves, they also expect government to ensure the social and economic conditions that make this possible.     

Seeing flowers through the mist: how social workers in disability services retrospectively view their educational experiences related to case management in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This article is principally designed to examine social workers’ retrospective views on their past educational experiences with case management in disability services to supply a deficiency that very little literature attention has been paid to how prior professional education shape their case management practice. Using qualitative methods, 13 social workers selected by purposive sampling were invited to participate in in-depth interviews. The qualitative data were analysed to generate some themes. Three themes found are “from ‘rarely heard of it’ to ‘remember it being referred to’”; “buy a lottery ticket before starting a field placement”; and “Ambiguity”. These themes indicate that social work education related to case management was lagging behind, which may exacerbate social work’s polarisation and lead to social workers’ confusion about their professionality. As a result, an urgent need for greater knowledge of case management in university education and in-service training should be addressed in Hong Kong.     

Models of supranational policymaking and the reform of the EMU

Under what conditions do sovereign governments agree to create a common policy institution? And what model of supranational policymaking may be preferable? To answer these questions, we introduce a policy game of two interdependent countries with reciprocal negative externalities created by shocks to a socially relevant variable. Depending on national preferences over policy options and their outcomes, both countries incur welfare losses if governments pursue non-cooperative policy choices. Then we examine what kind of supranational policy regimes may be endorsed by both governments according to the Pareto criterion. Two regimes are “technocratic” (they do not take national preferences into account), two are “political” (they do). One political regime that we call “union” aggregates the national preferences additively. The thrust of our analysis is that the technocratic regimes are dominated by non-cooperation, so that the single alternative is between the union and non-cooperation. Yet an important point is that the union is the Pareto-dominant regime only within a limited range of asymmetry between countries’ preferences. This result has notable implications for the debate on the reform of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) facing the challenge of further integration of member countries. Application to the EMU case is assisted by numerical simulations based on empirical parameters drawn from qualified external sources, which show that aymmetries in national attitudes towards policies that “Europe wants” may jeopardize the creation of a union in alternative to non-cooperation.     

The more-than-human sensorium: sensory engagements with digital self-tracking technologies

In this article, we draw on findings from an empirical project involving talking to Australian women about their sensory and sensemaking engagements with digital health technologies. Adopting a new feminist materialist perspective, our analysis identified a series of relational connections, affective forces and agential capacities generated when our participants came together with digitized modes of self-tracking. The agential capacities engendered through and with these technologies included discovering and uncovering information, motivation, quantifying and automating data collection, distinguishing “false” bodily sensations from “real,” discerning patterns, and enhancing sensory capabilities. Working with these technologies, the women were able to access insights into their bodies, feel more in control of bodily activities by reflecting on this information and any patterns over time it revealed. The limitations of these sensory devices were also revealed in the women’s accounts. The devices sometimes closed off or challenged women’s sensory knowledge in ways they found less than useful or helpful, due to failings in the devices’ design or functionality. Our analysis, therefore, highlights the intra-action of enactments of human sensory responses as they engage with digital devices and digital data, including the ways in which these responses were extended, facilitated, or, in some cases, challenged.     

Rehabilitating unauthorised touch or why museum visitors touch the exhibits

In 2014 The Senses and Society published a special issue on “Sensory Museology.” Registering the emergence of this new multi-disciplinary field, the editor usefully observed that “its most salient trend has been the rehabilitation of touch.” Arguably, however, touch has only been rehabilitated as an area of study insofar as it is authorised by the museum. Scholars have rarely considered the propensity of visitors to touch museum exhibits when they do not have permission to do so. In this article I suggest that the academic emphasis on authorised forms of contact privileges the institution’s aims and perspective. Conversely, researching unauthorised touch places a higher degree of emphasis on the visitors’ motivations and responses, and has the capacity to bring dominant characterisations of the museum into question. I substantiate and work through these claims by drawing on interview-based research conducted at the British Museum, and by investigating why visitors touch the exhibits without permission, what they touch, and what experiences that encounter enables.     

New Labour, Work and the Family

New Labour has put support for the family at the core of its notion of the “strong community”. Across a range of policy areas the Labour government can be seen to be developing a direct and explicit family policy. But what kind of community is the government trying to shape by these policies? On the one hand, Labour appears to support the family as the basis of a more moral, dutiful and cohesive community. On the other hand, the government has given weight to policies that support social inclusion in the community through paid work. This paper examines whether there is a tension in Labour’s social policies between its emphasis on the importance of stable family life and the primacy given to paid work. Are critics like Ruth Levitas right when they argue that the government’s emphasis on paid work devalues, and is unsupportive of, unpaid work, especially caring for children and other family members? Alternatively, can this combination of communitarianisms—community as “stable family” and community as “paid work”—be seen to be marking out some “third way” on the family? We shall show that different aspects of the government’s family policies reflect different perspectives and policy agendas within New Labour and third‐way thinking more broadly. And while recognizing the tensions between work and the family, we shall suggest that they are often overstated and fail to give sufficient weight to the complementary aspects of Labour’s welfare reforms.     

A Study of the Development of Alcohol Use Disorder in Muslim Immigrant Workers in Korea

Abstract

This study examines the process by which Muslim immigrant workers, prohibited by their religion from drinking, develop alcohol use disorder when working in Korea. Participants were seven male immigrant workers who have lived in Korea for 6–10?years and all experienced a change in immigrant status, shifting from registered to unregistered. Utilizing grounded theory devised by Strauss and Corbin, 87 concepts, 24 subcategories, and 10 categories were derived as a result. By converting these categories into a paradigm model, participants moved through stages of “self-monitoring,” “confusion,” “self-despair,” and “daily collapse” as they developed alcohol use disorder, and began to take on an existence as drifters, not settling into life in Korea. Their “learning experiences of drinking to survive turning into experiences of causing social death” is considered a core category. The study’s results suggest that a rehabilitation program for immigrant workers needs to be developed wherein the program not only enables them to reflect on their current existence but also allows them to develop specific coping skills. Future research should be broadened to consider social support mechanisms and viewpoints of other people, including female immigrant workers, and local community members in close contact with Muslim immigrant workers.     

The Micro-Formation Mechanism of Trade Conflicts between Large Developing Countries: India’s Anti-dumping Action against China

Abstract

Employing Grossman and Helpman’s “protection for sale” model, this article uses data on anti-dumping actions from 1999 to 2009 to perform a quantitative analysis of factors influencing India’s determinations of anti-dumping duties against China, and reveals the micro-formation mechanism of economic conflicts between China and India. We find that the political power of India’s anti-dumping plaintiffs markedly increases the tariff level of its final determinations and that the relationship between the import penetration ratio and duty rates depends upon whether the plaintiffs are politically organized. Further, there is a significant positive correlation between India’s anti-dumping duty rates and its unfavorable trade balance with China. This indicates that in determining anti-dumping duties, Indian authorities are clearly influenced by the political clout of their domestic interest groups. They are also motivated by the desire to keep down China and gain the upper hand in the face-off between the “dragon and the elephant.”     

Learning to smell: on the shifting modalities of experience

ABSTRACT

How can one learn to perceive? The study of an expert training shows how olfactory learning combines two operations and modalities of experience: firstly, it rests upon doubt and the questioning of perception to turn its undisputable evidence into a changing plurality. Secondly, perception is reconstructed and stabilized according to a set of chosen constraints, thanks to a perpetual control and reworking of the inadequate perceptions.

This analysis brings us to reconsider the interpretation of the notion of “attention”. Trainees focusing on their perception do not make it more salient, precise and detailed, as per the representational interpretation of perception. They question it. In so doing, they foster a surge of “shades” and make it plural and variable. Attention denotes here a process of perceptual destabilization, through doubt.

Additionally, in the cases studied, the reflexivity that enables learning shows deconstructive aspects: through doubt, the surrounding world turns from self-evident to changing and plural. This does not fit the usual constructive character of reflexivity, as in “mind-” or “self-building” processes, for instance. At the core of the learning process, the shifting modalities of perception seem to open the door to a larger variety of understandings of reflexivity and their correlative selves.     

Brokering Interests: The Use of Market-Based Policies by Interest Groups

Objective. This article begins the process of broadly evaluating the role of nongovernmental actors in regulatory markets by specifically examining environmental groups’ use of the sulfur dioxide (SO2) market established by Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. This research posits that the use of nonexclusionary markets in environmental quality regulation allows interest groups a nonpareil opportunity to seek to directly affect policy outcomes. Methods. This article uses two forms of analysis. The first part of the article provides a qualitative analysis of the motives of interest groups that use incentive‐based policies in an attempt to achieve their desired policy outcomes. The last section of the article uses empirical data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Allowance Tracking System to evaluate interest groups’ use of market‐based policies. Results. The use of market‐based mechanisms in public policies offers interest groups a new form of participation in the policy process, yet it seems that only “new” groups are willing to enter the market. Further, I find that though the participating groups may not be able to affect the relative price of allowances (as they claim they will), they nonetheless are able to reduce the absolute number of allowances available. Finally, using market‐based policies to achieve their preferred outcomes may be a “rational” decision for groups in that the “return” on their investment may indeed be quite high. Conclusions. One aspect of pollution markets is clear—they do create an interesting new mechanism of public activism for groups that wish to protect the environment but do not want to “lobby or litigate.” By purchasing pollution allowances groups attempt to directly affect environmental policy outputs without entering the policy cycle as it has been previously understood. As market‐based policies are employed more broadly, opportunities accorded to environmental groups for active involvement in seeking to limit ambient pollutants, as well as the groups’ potential impact, may only expand.     

A Qualitative Case Study on Recovery and Personal Growth in Korean Drug Addicts

ABSTRACT

In recent years, crimes related to drug smuggling and production have gradually increased in Korea. This qualitative case study explores the experiences of Koreans recovering from drug addiction and identifies specific details and mechanisms of recovery. For this purpose, participants were selected based on criteria such as engaging in social activities after recovery from addiction for 3 years or more. Next, one-on-one in-depth interviews were conducted with five voluntarily consenting participants. Data were analyzed using the within-/cross-case analysis suggested by Creswell. Substantial personal growth took place in the recovery process for drug addicts. Nineteen themes were identified as manifestations of personal growth through within-case analysis. Four common themes were then derived through cross-case analysis. These four common themes were “reconnection with reality,” “embracing the essence of one's own existence,” “reconstructing oneself in social relations,” and “self-love.” The study's results suggest that a recovery program needs to be developed wherein the program not only enables drug addicts to reflect on their current existence but also allows them to develop their specific coping skills. Future research should be broadened to consider the social support mechanism and viewpoints of people including family and local community members in close contact with drug addicts.     

‘We’re Civil Servants’: The Status of Trauma-Informed Care in the Community

ABSTRACT

Trauma-informed care (TIC) in social service organizations means that the organizations operate with the understanding that everyone involved has possibly experienced trauma in their lifetime. This qualitative study examined local service organizations’ usage of the 5 main principles of TIC: safety, trustworthiness, collaboration, empowerment, and choice (as developed by Fallot & Harris, 2006). Ten focus groups (n = 69) and 6 individual interviews (n = 6) with employees from administration through management were interviewed such that almost all facets of each agency were represented. The participants were asked about their agencies’ policies and practices for utilizing the 5 principles of TIC. The results suggest that the vast majority of organizations in this study implemented many of the principles of TIC with clients, though they had not labeled their practices as “trauma-informed.” However, although clients were receiving TIC, some of the principles were neglected as they pertain to staff, such as choice and empowerment. The findings of this study suggest that agencies are unaware of the relevance of TIC as it relates to staff. It is recommended that future research examine whether the use of TIC in agencies prevents “burnout,” high turnover rates, and vicarious traumatization of staff.     

Three stories,two visions: the West and the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway in Canadian culture

Many now think the Canadian nation-state is entering a phase in its development that can be described as “postmodern” (Porter, 1995, pp. 91–106). Throughout the 1990s we have heard much talk of “asymmetrical federalism,” “bilateral federalism,” “successor states” and Quebec/ROC (Rest of Canada) polarities (Watts, 1991, pp. 1–7). In this time of constitutional and political ferment, commentators postulated the existence of as many as “seven incipient nations” within the borders of the present Canadian polity (Mahler and March, 1991, p. 16). There are resonances here within the field of literary criticism. Linda Hutcheon and Marion Richmond’s Other Solitudes: Canadian Multicultural Fictions (1990) highlight factors of paradox, contradiction, and extreme irony in the Canadian situation, factors they see as central to the postmodern world view. This paper examines two works of Canadian popular culture analyzed against E. J. Pratt’s Towards the Last Spike (1952) in an effort to suggest that a postmodern style may have something to offer our sociopolitical debate. The television dramatization of Pierre Berton’s two-volume work on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, The National Dream (1974), and the Canada Day Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) special “Murray McLauchlan’s Floating Over Canada” represent, with Pratt, two differing visions of Canada. The McLauchlan effort, I hope to show, when set against Berton and Pratt, represents an implied postmodern critique of modernism’s romantic faith in technological efficiency and cultural tradition. McLaughlan’s antiintentionalism and playfulness, I argue, offer a useful way to represent some of our present dilemmas and may even provide reasons for optimism about problems that have plagued Canadians for years.     

Xun Zi’s Image across the Qin-Han Period: Three Types of Discourse on a “Great Confucian” and Their Significance in Intellectual History

Abstract

This article scrutinizes three texts about Xun Zi written during the Qin-Han period: the final part of “The Questions of Yao” in the Xunzi, a rebuttal by one of Xun Zi’s disciples of the idea that Xun Zi was inferior to Confucius; “Mencius and Xun Zi” by Sima Qian in his Records of the Grand Historian; and the Annotated Book of the Xunzi by Liu Xiang. We explore the images of Xun Zi as a great Confucian (大儒) that emerge from these texts, as well as their authors’ motives for writing. These texts are understood within three contexts: first, the self-identification of a Confucian; second, the dispute between Confucianism and Daoism; and lastly, the distinction between the classics and the annals and biographies. Due to their different discourse environments, Xun Zi’s great Confucian image project a different significance in each: in one, he is a model of action who can act in accordance with perfected morality; in another, he is a model of “private words,” who can counter the philosophers of his day and become the teacher of kings; and finally, he is a model of “official learning,” able to use his knowledge of the classics in practical statecraft and elucidate the kingly Way. Overall, these three texts represent three types of discourse on a great Confucian. At the same time, they also exhibit their writers’ consciousness of their times and their views of the genealogy of daotong, or transmission of the Way; hence their significance for intellectual history.     

Research ethics and clinical trials: Fostering collaboration with research participants

Accountability in research is a concept that applies to researchers and study participants alike. Human subjects play an active part in the success or failure of a clinical trial by virtue of their understanding of a study's goals expectations of personal gain, and adherence to study design. Trials must be designed to address patient concerns, offer an improved consent process, and move beyond our narrow conception of “patient rights.”; Problems with protocol adherence may be reduced by conceptualizing clinical research as an endeavor with mutual accountability within a relational ethic.     

Attitudes towards reproductive technologies for humans

Abstract

The aim of this exploratory study was to measure attitudes towards various applications of real and hypothetical reproductive technologies for humans, including prenatal gender selection. A total of 121 undergraduate university students completed a questionnaire measuring knowledge, interest, trust, risks and benefits, and attitudes towards reproductive technologies for humans. An exploratory factor analysis showed that participants rated the use of these technologies as unacceptable if it was for personal enhancement but acceptable for “medically useful” applications. Participants also reported not having a gender preference for their (hypothetical) unborn child, were they to use prenatal gender selection, an application very few approved of. Results failed to support a general desire to use prenatal gender selection or to hypothetically favour one gender over the other. Attitudes towards reproductive technologies cannot be simply summarised in a “pro or against” manner as they heavily depend on the context.     

From fun to fraught: marketing to kids and regulating “risky foods” in Canada

ABSTRACT

In an era of industrialized food production, ultra-processed foods, “Big Food” marketing, and growing obesity rates, food has come to be framed as an object of risk – and as an object of regulation. Such reframing has fascinating implications related to issues of responsibility and decision making, especially when it comes to children’s food. This article probes the relationship between representation, regulation and “risky” consumption with respect to children’s food. I examine how child-targeted foods become framed as “risky” and what counts as “risky” food messaging under Health Canada’s commitment to restrict the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. Detailing the tension between food as a risk object and food as a child object, I suggest how issues of semantic provisioning and the politics of the unseen work to complicate and destabilize the (seemingly) straightforward process of prohibiting unhealthy food marketing to children.     

“A stitch in time”: group work during the covid-19 scare in the Nicobar Islands,India

ABSTRACT

When India suddenly went into its first coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown in March 2020, several members of a historically isolated indigenous community in the eastern Indian ocean- the Nicobarese, began to panic. Their leaders came together and formed a group to boost community solidarity and helped the vulnerable indigenes to safely navigate through the crisis. In these uncertain times of Covid-19, when the “modern” world appears more fissured than ever, leaving its “others” to fend for themselves; the Nicobarese’s group has set an example for everyone to follow.     

Creating a Safer Society

In some fields of policy Britain tends to follow the Americans. Will crime prove to be one of them? This chapter begins with an exploration of the sources of American influence, and an account of the disastrous course their penal policies have taken. Thereafter attention focuses on the United Kingdom. It is argued that public concern about crime must be taken seriously. Some have called for a “remoralization” of the debate—more “condemnation”, less “understanding”. But if our aim is to reduce crime, its economic and social context must first be understood; then changed. Delinquency is only one of several responses which people may make to prolonged hardship and frustration; and not necessarily the most destructive. Drawing on experience in many parts of the country, a programme of action to improve people’s safety is proposed. Starting with procedures for consulting and involving people—including those who appear to be the source of trouble—a local strategy is outlined to improve opportunities for making an honest living, to stabilize and strengthen communities, to provide better support for the victims of crime and for the most vulnerable families, and better opportunities for ex-offenders. Police and penal services have an important job to do as mobilizers and managers of a society’s responses to crime. But, in a country where only 3 per cent of offences lead to a conviction in court, these services cannot do much to prevent it.