Moving People and Knowledge: Scientific Mobility in the European Union1

This paper considers the relationship between highly skilled scientific migration (HSM) and the transfer of knowledge within the European Union (EU). To understand these processes we need to conceptualize the phenomenon and then develop appropriate operational tools. HSM engages two key concepts: (1) the concept of skill or knowledge; and (2) the concept of migration. nalysing the impact of HSM requires an understanding of who is moving (and the quality of their skills) and the nature of their migration. This might include consideration of the direction of flows; their frequency, duration, and permanency; and the propensity to return. In order to evaluate the impact of these processes on the regions concerned and develop appropriate policy responses, we need to examine the relationship between scientific mobility and the transfer of knowledge. Much existing literature focuses on the size and direction of migratory flows assuming a clear correlation between human mobility and the transfer of knowledge to identify the “winning” and “losing” regions. More recent work emphasizing “circulation”. questions these assumptions and suggests that flows may not be unidirectional, homogenous, or permanent and may be mitigated by certain “compensatory” mechanisms This article considers some of the issues raised in the literature and the ways in which the variables identified may interact to shape these relationships with important implications for sending and receiving countries and individual scientists. This article does not endeavour to present new conclusions. Drawing on a pilot project concerned with the mobility of Italian scientists, it begins to map out a research agenda capable of informing a new study of scientific migration in the context of EU enlargement that may potentially inform other research in this field.     

Mobile sociology1

This article seeks to develop a manifesto for a sociology concerned with the diverse mobilities of peoples, objects, images, information, and wastes; and of the complex interdependencies between, and social consequences of, such diverse mobilities. A number of key concepts relevant for such a sociology are elaborated: 'gamekeeping', networks, fluids, scapes, flows, complexity and iteration. The article concludes by suggesting that a 'global civil society' might constitute the social base of a sociology of mobilities as we move into the twenty-first century.     

Recombinant Family Formation Strategies1

Abstract In contrast to the 'modernization' model of demographic change, popularized by the publications of the European Fertility Project, this paper sets the revolution in family life in an historical perspective. First, I briefly consider the creation of a distinctly north-west European system of production and reproduction; second, I discuss how this regime led to the emergence of a revolutionary solution to the population/resources squeeze in early modern England; third, I consider how it came to be severely dis-equilibrated in the period of industrialization, urbanization and improvements in life-expectation which became generalized in the age of the Industrial Revolution; and, fourth, I propose that the re-equilibration that we celebrate within the rubric of the Demographic Transition can perhaps be more effectively understood as both an innovation and an adjustment which occurred in response to the historical ruptures - demographic and economic, cultural and political - engendered by the twin processes of material change and state formation.     

Embodying the environment in everyday life practices1

This paper suggests ways in which ‘the environment’ needs to be reconfigured so that it better resonates with how people are experiencing politics, nature and everyday life. Through empirical research on environmental concerns and everyday practices, this paper sketches a framework through which the values associated with contemporary environmentalism might be developed in a more reflexive relationship to wider transformations in society. In particular, the research critically evaluates the standard storyline of a ‘global nature’ under threat and in need of collective action by a global imagined community. In contrast to rhetorics of the global environment, this paper explores ways in which the environment is being embodied, valued and experienced in an array of social practices. The paper further outlines the significance of such embodied practices as significant yet undervalued points of connection for wider, global environmental issues.     

Calling for accounts: numbers, monsters and membership1

This article questions how accounts are marked. In asking why some accounts ‘pass muster’ and others fail, the analysis brings into focus the extent to which membership work helps hold the social and the technical apart. The analysis contrasts a long insistence on narrative forms of interaction as defining conditions of co‐presence with numerical regimes in which there is an implicit deletion of social contact under fashionable slogans like ‘action at a distance’. Taking numbers to act as ‘bearers of culture’, the paper contests the idea that numerical forms of accountability delete the membership work traditionally associated with narrative forms of account. Attending closely to ‘occasions’ in which it is appropriate for members to deploy numerical accounts rather than verbal accounts, the argument challenges the idea that a face to face negotiation of social order has been superceded by a pervasive use of perfonnance targets. The article begins by exploring how ‘calls to account’ are created by a reporting of adverse budget variatices within organizations. Using an extended example to consider how such ‘gaps’ affect a manager's conduct towards a spouse who is sick, the analysis shows how the use of numbers becomes crucial to sustaining one's affiliation across a range of memberships. As illustrated, the rehabilitation of numerical artefacts into conceptions of the social greatly expands possibilities for interaction beyond that anticipated by the sociological ideal of ‘co‐presence’.     

Punishment and pleasure: women, food and the imprisoned body1

Food assumes enormous importance in prison: for many prisoners it conditions their life in custody and, in many respects, is symbolic of the prison experience. This article explores the complex relationship between gender, food and imprisonment through an analysis of data obtained from in‐depth interviews and group discussions conducted in three women's prisons in England. The findings indicate that, in prison, where control is taken away as the prisoner and her body become the objects of external forces, food is experienced not only as part of the disciplinary machinery, but also as a powerful source of pleasure, resistance and rebellion. The implications of such findings for health promotion in the prison context are discussed. Here, the pleasures and consolations of food may well constitute a redefinition of what it is to be healthy in this context, one that challenges the dominant meaning constructed in current health promotional discourse.     

From cathedral to supermarket: mourning, silence and solidarity1

Where do mobile, individualistic members of modem Britain spontaneously congregate, eg, for public mourning, atid what does this tell us about the construction of solidarity and a sense of society? Where flowers were laid atid books of condoletice provided after the death of Princess Diana in 1997 provides a case study. A survey of 147 cities, towns and villages found that churches were important in cities and villages, but elsewhere, town halls, war memorials, shops and public buildings provided the magnets to bring people together. The role of war memorials and supermarkets is then examined in an analysis of the 1995 revival of the 11th November silence for the war dead. This indicates a) the payoff for companies in showing that they care, b) the impori;ance of practical logistics of space and time. In a plural and secular society, ritual ‘words against death’ become ‘silences against death.’ These congregations of contemporary nomads may not be full‐blown Durkheimian rites, but they are a representation of existing society at the same time as representing popular hope for a better society.     

We've been framed: visualising methodology1

This paper explores the reasons why video, and other visual representations have been largely ignored in sociology, whilst the possibilities of video as an empirical source have been sidelined by cultural studies. Discussions of methodology have raised doubts about notions such as objectivity and scientific knowledge, and about the power relationships involved in the research and writing processes, and techniques that one might employ in order to avoid such problems have been suggested. Yet the aims of such techniques are misguided if they serve only to further legitimate the 'truth' of the research itself. In this context I explore some of the possibilities of visual methods, such as video and photography, whilst also examining some of the ethical issues raised by them. In this respect, the paper explores the notion of a 'queer methodology'. This approach is indebted to the legacy of its predecessor, feminist methodology, but departs from this in several important ways. I will explore these differences and examine the possibility that a place for the visual within sociology is an inherently queer conception.     

Housing and Property Restitution and IDP Return in Kosovo1

La création de la Direction des logements et des biens (DLB) et de la Commission des demandes de dédommagement (CDD) au Kosovo reflète un intérêt croissant de la part de la communauté internationale pour le rétablissement des droits sur les logements et les biens au lendemain du conflit. En quelque trois années de fonctionnement, ces institutions ont réussi àétablir les droits de propriété concernant la quasi-totalité des 30.000 habitations dont la propriétéétait contestée. La DLB et la CDD font aujourd'hui figure d'exemple pour de nombreuses autres régions ayant traversé une période de conflit. Si l'efficacité de ces institutions est louable, l'un des objectifs initiaux essentiels - le retour des personnes déplacées dans leur lieu d'origine - a dans une large mesure été laissé de côté. L'auteur met surtout l'accent sur deux échecs distincts de la communauté internationale concernant le fonctionnement de la DLB/CDD et de leurs effets possibles sur les retours: un manque de coordination entre les deux institutions d'une part et les autres organismes œuvrant dans le domaine des retours d'autre part, et l'isolement des décisions concernant le droit à la propriété par rapport à d'autres aspects d'une culture de respect du droit à la propriété au Kosovo.     

The internalization of autonomous nature into society1

There is presently much theoretical discourse claiming that nature is being socially constructed or even abolished. Some authors celebrate this development and others lament it. Still others bracket nature's dynamics out of the analysis. The present paper critically assesses these theories and methodologies concerning relations between social practices and processes of nature. It then develops an alternative argument. The expansion of society into wilderness areas has brought new disturbances of nature into society. Pristine nature has been replaced by socially encompassed primal nature, which retains its capacity for independent dynamics that affect social constructions. Moreover, nature remains embedded in technology and so does its potential to escape control. These hybrids constructed by humans and nonhumans recombine processes and materials of nature. Now that this recombinant nature has been integrated into society and new primal dynamics of nature have been internalised, there is increasing reason to incorporate the forces of nature into sociological analysis.     

Morocco's Migration Experience: A Transitional Perspective1

Using a ‘transitional’ perspective on migration, which combines three theoretical approaches on dynamic development‐migration linkages, this paper interprets the evolution of migration within, from, and to Morocco over the twentieth century. Colonization and the incorporation of rural areas, along with a certain level of socio‐economic development, have spurred internal and international wage labour migration both within Morocco and from Morocco to Europe. Migration seems to be the result of development rather than the lack of development. Populations from highly marginalized regions were less likely to participate in migration than populations from the three, moderately enclosed “migration belts” which had established traditions of pre‐modern, largely circular migration. At the onset of large‐scale emigration in the 1960s, the spatial patterns of labour migration were significantly infuenced by colonial bonds with Spain and France, selective labour recruitment, and Moroccan selective passport issuance policies. However, the influence of such policies rapidly decreased due to the effects of migration‐facilitating networks. Increasingly restrictive policies coincided with a growing reliance on family migration, permanent settlement, undocumented migration, and the exploration of new migration itineraries, and had no success in reducing migration levels.Alongside patterns of decentralizing internal migration, a spatial diffusion of international out‐migration has expanded beyond the historical migration belts in response to new labour opportunities in southern Europe. Persistent demand for migrant labour, along with demographic factors and increasing aspirations, suggest that migration over formally closed borders is likely to remain high in the near future. However, in the longer term, out‐migration might decrease and Morocco could increasingly develop into a migration destination for migrants from sub‐Saharan Africa, a transition process which may already have een set in motion.     

Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society1

This article aims at proposing some elements for a grounded theory of the network society. The network society is the social structure characteristic of the Information Age, as tentatively identified by empirical, cross-cultural investigation. It permeates most societies in the world, in various cultural and institutional manifestations, as the industrial society characterized the social structure of both capitalism and statism for most of the twentieth century.
Social structures are organized around relationships of production/consumption, power, and experience, whose spatio-temporal configurations constitute cultures. They are enacted, reproduced, and ultimately transformed by social actors, rooted in the social structure, yet freely engaging in conflictive social practices, with unpredictable outcomes. A fundamental feature of social structure in the Information Age is its reliance on networks as the key feature of social morphology. While networks are old forms of social organization, they are now empowered by new information/communication technologies, so that they become able to cope at the same time with flexible decentralization, and with focused decision-making. The article examines the specific interaction between network morphology and relationships of production/consumption, power, experience, and culture, in the historical making of the emerging social structure at the turn of the Millennium.