The weakest link and the commodification of subjectivity by the means of play

Abstract

This article considers the process of commodification (the extension of the realm of money, the spread of typically capitalist mechanisms like competition and consumption) as a cultural means of the reproduction of subjectivity. The particular aim is to highlight the psychic processes that are tempted by commodification. Thus, at the background of this essay, there is a psychoanalytical notion of the self that has been developed in an examination of subjectivity and play, a notion based especially on the thinking of D.W. Winnicott and Jessica Benjamin. These analysts see an ambivalent self‐destructiveness of the self reformulated in relation to the ‘potential space’ of play. In relation to this analysis, the influence of advanced capitalism on the self is discussed in some of its more competitive scenes of consumptions. The quiz show The Weakest Link, for example, is considered as a pale, commodified form of play. It is argued that the main seduction of the show is the dwindled and distorted potential space offered by its ultimate, destructive, and in the last analysis sado‐masochistic logic of exchange. In addition to The Weakest Link, a couple of relevant thematisations of commodified culture by contemporary Finnish literature are brought out. Moreover, the commodification of subjectivity by the means of play is loosely related to some general characterisations concerning the prevailing cultural situation (see Jameson 1999 and Rifkin, 2000).     

Universal Access to Affordable Housing? Interrogating an Elusive Development Goal

Abstract

Universal access to safe and secure housing has long been a central concern of the international development community. Since 2001, this aspiration has taken the form of global benchmarking embodied in the UN Millennium Development Goal 7–11 and its successor the Sustainable Development Goal 11. Despite these targets, hundreds of millions of households continue to be excluded from this basic human right. How might we understand the politics driving the disjuncture between rhetoric and reality? By historically examining the core policy documents, it is suggested that the self-actualising discourse of neoliberalism—in which the housing goals are framed—work to normalise a reality in which the commodification of basic survival needs and individualised self-help are seen as the only viable alternatives in realising decent shelter for all. Moreover, the construction and reconstruction of neoliberalism over the past 15 years has resulted in the increasingly explicit and central role of corporations in delivering housing justice.     

Entrepreneurialism,commodification and creative destruction: a model of post-modern community development

The desire to experience the countryside ideal is a growing trend among North American residents. Entrepreneurs have reacted to this by commodifying the countryside and its associated rural heritage. The result has been the creation of heritage shopping villages: centres of consumption providing postmodern consumers with tangible keepsakes of the past. While contributing to the accumulation of capital within the community, investment in commodification may lead to destruction of the rural idyll. The process by which this occurs is outlined in a stage model of community development. The model is then tested in the community of St. Jacobs, a picturesque village located in the heart of Ontario's Mennonite country. It is concluded that the model presented here may be a useful tool for geographers and planners interested in guiding the fate of communities whose development has occurred around the commodification of the rural tradition.     

Commodification,water infrastructure,and methodologies for counting water losses in South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article takes up the story of a numerical indicator of system water losses called Non-Revenue Water (NRW), which is becoming an important measure for benchmarking South African Water Service Authorities (WSAs). The aim of this paper is, in the first place, to document the adoption of NRW as a Performance Indicator (PI), showing how it reflects a shift in the domestic regulatory framework in South Africa and the assumed priorities of water managers in line with the dominant governmental rationality in the sector. However, in drawing this discussion towards the theme of commodification I also show that the NRW audit enables a new way of seeing and speaking about “public water,” while the story of its uptake tells us a something about the development of contemporary governmental norms, and the forms of the resistance that shape it. On the one hand then, the article links the enthusiasm for NRW auditing in South Africa to a wider movement in the development and usage of audits and indicators as technologies of government at a distance. On the other hand, and stepping to a higher level of abstraction, I argue that the uptake of NRW must be read in relation to a contested set of processes marked by struggles over the commodification of water, and which sometimes turns up in the numbers.     

The beautiful game and the proto‐aesthetics of the everyday

Abstract

This article provides a critique of the postmodernist notion that there has been of recent years a dissolution of the divide between aesthetics and practical activities, between Art and Life. It does so by considering the game of soccer from a phenomenological viewpoint, which shows that the game possesses intrinsically ‘aesthetic’ qualities. The conditions of possibility of such qualities are understood by introducing the idea of the ‘proto‐aesthetics’ of soccer and other mundane phenomena. By considering the proto‐aesthetics of the quotidian we argue that recent changes in the nature of practical life should not be regarded as due to ‘aestheticisation’ but rather as springing from processes of commodification.     

The impact of para-professional social workers and community health care workers in Côte d'Ivoire: Contributions to the protection and social support of vulnerable children in a resource poor country

BackgroundResearch indicates a disproportionate impact of HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan African countries, leading to many vulnerable families and children. Many of these communities have limited resources to support these vulnerable families, especially orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).Study aims and objectiveThis study set out to investigate how para-professional social workers and community health workers (PSWCHW) impact the provision of services and the psychosocial wellbeing and protection of vulnerable children in the community.MethodsThis quasi-experimental research study used data from an independent Save the Children program evaluation study in Côte d'Ivoire. We compared the health and psychosocial wellbeing of identified vulnerable children supported by para-professionals (n = 334) and children not receiving para-professional support (n = 213).FindingsSupport services and activities provided by PSWCHW included encouraging the children to be part of psychosocial support groups. Many of the children reported legal issues that ranged from getting a birth certificate issued to fighting or quarrelling with adults, disputes, public insults, beatings, and refusing to go to school. We found that the engagement of PSWCHW helped three out of four children go to school (compared to only one in four of the children without PSWCHW). PSWCHW also helped the children improve access to health care services.ConclusionsCommunities in sub-Saharan Africa should continue to consider the integrated utilization of para-professional social workers and community health care workers to support and improve psychosocial wellbeing of orphaned and vulnerable children which, in turn, enhances child protection services and access to healthcare.     

Boundaries are Made to be Crossed: The Magic and Politics of the Long-lasting Amazon/Andes Divide

The construction of Amazonia as a distinct entity, opposed to the Andes, results from processes associated with the expansion of Andean-centered state formations. Analysis of five short texts on the Amazon region, written in colonial and postcolonial Peru by a diversity of social actors, reveals a pervasive rhetoric of alterity whose content varies according to the particular objectives the authors had in mind. In all cases, however, the aim is the same, namely the imposition of boundaries of differentiation as justification for state integration, expressed in the commodification and symbolic consumption of the Amazonian Other. If the politics of boundary making consist in "peripheralizing" and "othering" the Amazon and its people, the magic of boundary making resides in the discursive sleight of hand through which contemporary agents conceal the fact that the Amazon has long ago been incorporated into the nation-state.     

‘I am not your nutter’: a personal reflection on commodification and comradeship in service user and survivor research

Abstract

This article offers some personal reflections from a mental health service user/survivor researcher working in English academia. It is a critical examination of what mainstream clinical mental health researchers and funders appear to need us to be, and what some in the service user and survivor movement perceive us to be. The discussion examines questions about commodification and public and patient involvement and contemporary challenges for service user and survivor research as a separate discipline operating within and beyond academia in England. The article concludes by exploring potential strategies for collaborative activism for service user and survivor researchers in academia based on the concepts of social capital and situated solidarity.     

Identity development,acculturation among Bowbazar Chinese community

ABSTRACT

The development of identity is a procedure of individual change that can take place along various spheres of social and cultural domains. The concept of identity is always remaining fundamental in the process of acculturation and adaptation. The prominence or value has been particularly given on Chinese community of Bowbazar which is an enclave community. The study aims to elucidate that the immigrant groups adjust to the host society by persistent identity development especially by adjusting and adapting to altered or homogenize identity which is most supported along with the integration strategies. The study has been conducted on the basis of qualitative approach as well as quantitative approach. Responses from the community revealed, that the Chinese community of Bowbazar Chinatown through ages is not only able to adapt ideals, values, and behaviors of host culture but also able to retain their ideals, values and beliefs of their own cultures of origin.     

Regional Features and the Socio-Demographic Development of the Jews of Podilia

ABSTRACT

This article examines how the Jewish national minority of Podilia – a historical-geographical region mainly in the central part of Ukraine – formed. Considerable attention is given to the demographic processes within the Jewish environment of the region and features of formation of the social characteristics of the Jewish population that manifested themselves in its resettlement, formation of localities, self-government, and professional employment. This article shows that one of the biggest Eastern European Jewish communities was formed in Podilia before the beginning of World War II. This community was represented by the largest Jewish subethnic group – Ashkenazim. The social features of the Jews of the region were determined by the fact that the Jewish population lived in small towns of the primarily agrarian region. In addition, during this period, its social structure and professional employment were determined by both national customs and traditions and the power policy.

This study shows that after the 1940s, the Jewish community in Podilia changed. The Jews suffered from the Holocaust, which forever changed the social characteristics of the Jewish population of Podilia.

Active anti-Jewish policy during the postwar totalitarian regime, latent antisemitism during the “thaw,” and the authoritarian conservative regime in the USSR from 1964 to the mid 1980s, caused significant changes in the demographic processes of the Jewish population of the region. From the 1940s to the 1980s, the Jewish population of Podilia steadily decreased. The Jewish community before the end of the 1980s noticeably lost its influence in the region, but remained the largest ethnic community there, after Russians.     

Reclaiming the aesthetic of women: de-colonizing land ownership

ABSTRACT

This paper engages with the study of the aesthetic as an embodied form and offers a critique of the study of value and commodification that emerges in the global spatial imagination. I explore the neglected interrelationship between cultural-spatial reconstruction and land ownership as a sign of livelihood by way of a critique of development and through an investigation of the multiple traces of colonialism in Indonesia in contemporary times, after the massacres. First, land is taken from communities to be used for state and corporate industrialization, and then aesthetic acts of resistance and remembrance by members of these communities, via artistic productions and protest, are commoditized as touristic attractions by the state as a form of nationalism and fetishism of the indigenous, and by corporations as a form of corporate cultural responsibility. This new method of capitalist inclusion of the survivor in a globalized project of aestheticizing space is a neoliberal tactic in which the commoditized reappearance of the aesthetic creations of the marginalized is not, in fact, a sign of inclusion but rather of further displacement. My study follows the focus of this special issue to analyse cultural production within the complexity of multiple and converging colonial forms in historical and contemporary contexts considering the relationality, contradictions and incommensurabilities generated within converging structures of colonial and racialized violence. I locate the ways in which artistic projects within this schema may be used as acts of resistance but also possibly co-optation/ domination. Aesthetic creations intended as means of archiving may also bring insurrections into the paradigm of globalization and to its attention. This paper is an attempt to look at how the creative urge negates and also creates the possibility of resistance, inviting us to urgently rethink aesthetic projects and their representation through a genealogy of global participation.     

Exploring the Potential of Social Network Analysis in Asset-based Community Development Practice and Research

Abstract

Strengths-based practice appears to be a popular approach to social work practice. Increasingly, it has become the approach of choice in community work, with the “asset-based community development” model being utilised both in Australia and internationally. However, asset-based community development has been criticised for its lack of an evidence base, lack of theoretical depth, and its lack of consideration of the macro level causes of disempowerment. While concepts of networks are central to asset-based community development, social network theory and analysis have rarely been utilised in a comprehensive manner in asset-based community development practice or research. This article contends that asset-based community development practice can benefit from the integration of key concepts from social network theory. Similarly, it is proposed that social network analysis holds promise as an appropriate methodology in terms of understanding the efficacy of asset-based community development projects.     

The Privatization of Social Services from Public to Sectarian

ABSTRACT

This article explores the privatization of social services from public to sectarian points of view while examining the implications of the Charitable Choice movement on the gay and lesbian community. The history of this movement is explored from a developmental perspective outlining the socioeconomic makeup of gays and lesbians, the societal perceptions and mythology of the economic status of homosexuals, and actual figures related to the number of gays and lesbians who rely on publicly supported social service providers. The article explores the history as well as the positive and negative aspects this type of privatization movement involves. Finally, a comprehensive assessment of the effects of this movement on the gay and lesbian community is presented and future recommendations will be made.     

The contribution of the intervention in social networks and community social work at the local level to social and human development

ABSTRACT

The primary task of community social work is building social networks by reinforcing people's resources and those of the different environmental and social contexts from three dimensions: personal development, social development and organisational development. The new information technologies today establish a relationship of communication with local communities and citizens that promotes proximity to social networks. Social intervention is supported by a set of methods from human geography that can be used as tools to create maps of the territory and the networks for planning, diagnosing and classifying the management of community network intervention. In this discussion we set out to analyse the contribution of the intervention in social networks as a means of achieving a new configuration of social networks at the local level. This information is obtained from semi-structured interviews with social workers and other professionals in the social sphere in municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants in the Madrid region (Spain). The research results show that intervention in social networks locally multiplies the opportunities to enhance the quality of people's social relationships, thus expanding their social support by strengthening their bonds, their personal network and support systems; secondly, it increases empowerment to facilitate a type of intervention to strengthen human potential and to gain autonomy and full citizenship.     

Some obstacles to the effective investigation and registration of children at risk—issues gleaned from a worker's perspective

Abstract

This paper describes a woman who is both damaged and damaging. The mental disorder/disturbance felt by this woman generates levels of anxiety that she cannot contain, and this anxiety is passed onto the others who constitute her community. For community care to work it must be possible within the community system to identify, think about and manage the anxieties generated by such mental disturbance. The new legislation of community care may encourage us to ignore the reality of mental illness and issues of power, conflict and pain, and their underlying anxieties. Current examples are given of the acute anxieties felt by many workers in the field which, if uncontained, lead to defensive anti-task strategies. When disturbance is projected and disowned it is put out of mind and may then be passed between parts of the system. Even though it may no longer be possible, except as a short term measure, to put the mentally ill out of sight in mental hospitals, the mental disturbance and those in whom it is located may still be marginalised. The paper proposes a model of community care which encompasses mental illness, professional workers and the community. These three elements are seen as the corners of a triangular space which theoretically becomes the container of mentally disturbing anxieties and within which these anxieties can be addressed, thought about and managed

It is argued that this model could enable workers to foresee some difficulties and to address others in a manner that would lead to greater containment and more effective management of mental illness in the community     

Program Design and Planning Strategies in the Delivery of Culturally Competent Health and Mental Health Prevention and Treatment Services to Latino Communities

SUMMARY

It is important that the delivery of health and mental health prevention and treatment services within Latino communities be culturally sensitive. This article outlines several ways in which agencies can develop programs that can meet the needs of Latino communities. The most important aspect of the provision of health prevention and treatment services is that the organization integrates itself into the community through outreach, recruitment, and inclusion in decision-making. In addition, the organization needs to be structured so communication and participation from the community and health professionals are open and mixed. Otherwise, the likelihood of success of the provision of services in the community will be diminished.     

Socially disabled: the fight disabled people face against loneliness and stress

Abstract

In 2018, the United Kingdom appointed its first Minister for Loneliness. This article discusses some of the barriers which may contribute to why disabled people were found to be one of the largest groups affected by loneliness. Utilizing ethnographic examples supported by facts, the article demonstrates how even when seeking to fight loneliness, and to reduce the stressors of everyday life, disabled people are often at a disadvantage, or excluded. The article raises questions concerning self-social exclusion and discusses recommended avenues for further research.     

Place Attachment and Community Development

ABSTRACT

Place attachment is a multidimensional concept about bonds people have for the places with which they interact. We are intrigued by its implications and potential influences on community development, particularly when explored from a community-oriented view. We use the case of Sunnyslope (a place within the Phoenix, Arizona municipal boundary) and a community development assessment conducted with stakeholders there. This community has survived through the decades, despite being subsumed into one of the largest cities in the United States. From 27 stakeholder interviews, we uncovered deep attachments to Sunnyslope that appear to have an interaction effect with social community capacity.     

Perspectives on How Social Business Can Engender Work Identity Among People with Mental Illness

ABSTRACT

Social businesses use market strategies to advance the employment and economic situation of people with mental illness who have experienced high levels of social marginalization. They have the potential to achieve these goals by fostering the work identity of the workers within the business, and to themselves acquire an identity as a viable commercial entity that contributes to the prosperity and social fabric of the local community. This study used in-depth case study methods enhanced by comparisons with international social businesses to understand the processes by which social businesses influence work identity. Six business processes that are salient to the development of a strong work identity were identified. Eight propositions for how work identity can be supported by social businesses are offered. The propositions may be useful as a guide for the development of social businesses that are organized and implemented to positively develop work identity, regardless of the nature of the business model.