Desperately Seeking Sameness

The Internet offers a plethora of venues for autobiographical self-representation: webcams, personal websites, blogs. There is much research on self-representation online, whereas very little research has focused on the consumption of online self-representation. This article focuses on the act of reading diary blogs. Who are the actual readers of a specific blog and what values do they place on the event of reading? What draws them to the diary site in the first place and what mechanisms make them return? To attempt to uncover the reading practices involved for readers of diary weblogs I have conducted an explorative web survey on “how/when/why we read weblogs” on four independent diary blog sites kept by women in their 30s. The consumption of these blogs seem to be severely circumscribed by notions of sameness: based on gender, age, place of living, race/ethnicity, educational level. Readers report being drawn to the diary blog for the rhythm of serial autobiographical consumption and the possibilities of identification. They report looking for “likeness” in the first place. The lure of identification might always have led readers to autobiographical writing. Yet, these diary weblog readers, who in the main self-identify as female, report feeling heightened senses of identification by the proximity in time between the scenes of production and the scenes of consumption and by the deferral of the notion of an ending. This article explores the discursive connections made between the serial, the longitudinal, the consistent, and the construction and consumption of recognizable female selves.     

Migrancy,Gender and Social Class in Domestic Labour and Social Care in Italy: An Intersectional Analysis of Demand

Since the 1980s, welfare provision in Italy has been dramatically transformed, due to demographic changes, changes in gender orders and, most importantly, the increased employment of migrants for domestic and care work. Drawing first on statistical data, I explore how the intersections of ‘migrancy’ and gender configure in the domestic-work and social-care sector in Italy. I conclude that, even though gender remains the most important stratifying factor in this field, migrancy is almost as important. I then explore the demand for domestic work and the different forms of care work through in-depth interviews with Neapolitan employers in Naples. I posit that the demand for housekeepers is a class-specific phenomenon related to a particular life-style, including the traditional gendered division of labour and a symbolic hierarchy of household tasks according to which certain jobs are deemed too ‘dirty’ for the ‘madams’, or female employers. The demand for childcarers, on the other hand, is more connected to Italian women's increasing labour participation and men's absence from caring responsibilities. However, here, too, social class is not irrelevant. It affects the demand for elderly care in a slightly different way: the availability of an inexpensive migrant labour force, combined with state subventions, has made it possible for families from lower social strata to employ home carers.     

Endangered Children: Experiencing and Surviving the State as Failed Parent and Grandparent

The state removes children from ‘failed’ parentsto give them a better experience of parenting. This articleexamines the role that the state plays as parent to young mothersin care and grandparent to their children, drawing on a small-scalestudy undertaken in western Canada using grounded theory methodology.The findings were bleak: the state as parent and grandparentalso fails these children. We consider why this is the caseand make suggestions for ways forward by critiquing the ideologyof familialism that underpins the state’s punitive approachto these young mothers and their children. We also call forpolicies and a practice that enable practitioners to addressstructural inequalities such as poverty and racism alongsidethe capacity to respond to the personal needs of the young womenand their children as young people with dignity and rights.     

Using Choice Experiments to Assess People''s Preferences for Railway Transports of Hazardous Materials

This article investigates whether the choice experiment approach can be used to assess people's preferences and the determinants of these preferences in order to estimate the costs and benefits of different configurations of the transport of hazardous materials by rail. Changes in the exposure to hazardous materials that people are subjected to are used rather than changes in accident risk. To the best knowledge of the author, this has not been done before in a study of people's preferences toward hazardous materials. A mail survey, carried out in two cities in Sweden, is used to obtain tentative estimates of the willingness to pay for a reduction in exposure as well as the willingness to accept an increase in exposure. Special attention is given to viability, since the complexity of the activity studied, transport of hazardous materials, and the method used pose particular challenges. The response rate and tests of validity and consistency indicate that this method can be applied. Moreover, the results suggest that studies of this kind may provide guidance on changes in the transport of hazardous materials, especially because policymakers may influence the attributes presented here. Referring to the exposure of hazardous materials highlights the importance of providing the respondents with adequate information regarding hazardous transports. An important finding is that the amount of background information may have some effect on the stated preferences.     

Settling into a new home as a teenager: About establishing social bonds in different types of foster families in Sweden

This paper provides a glimpse into young people's experiences and understandings of everyday life during their initial stages of placement in various types of foster families. The way family interactions strengthen or weaken the social bond between foster youth and foster family is focused upon. In this study the young people in kinship foster families reported the strongest social bonds to their foster families and the adolescents in traditional foster families the weakest. This is in line with previous research. However, youth in network foster families with whom they were not so close prior to placement also reported rather strong social bonds to the foster family, which is not well known. Including network foster families in the study sheds light on the importance of adolescents' active involvement and agency in choosing their foster family. Examples of family interactions which seem to be crucial in strengthening social bonds, also in traditional foster families, are e.g. fair treatment by other family members, mutual family activities, negotiating to find solutions, and, which is not so well known, humorous joking and laughing together.     

The role of environmental perceptions in migration decision-making: evidence from both migrants and non-migrants in five developing countries

Research has demonstrated that, in a variety of settings, environmental factors influence migration. Yet much of the existing work examines objective indicators of environmental conditions as opposed to the environmental perceptions of potential migrants. This paper examines migration decision-making and individual perceptions of different types of environmental change (sudden vs. gradual environmental events) with a focus on five developing countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda, Nicaragua, and Peru. The survey data include both migrants and non-migrants, with the results suggesting that individual perceptions of long-term (gradual) environmental events, such as droughts, lower the likelihood of internal migration. However, sudden-onset events, such as floods, increase movement. These findings substantially improve our understanding of perceptions as related to internal migration and also suggest that a more differentiated perspective is needed on environmental migration as a form of adaptation.     

Personal reflections on 30 years of social work development in China

ABSTRACT

China has developed modern social work over the past 30 years, introducing new theories and models of good practice that have been drawn from diverse parts of globe. It has also made extensive contributions to disaster interventions based on its engagement in numerous calamities that have affected the population in China, including the devastating Wenchuan earthquake of 2008. More recently, its dynamic leaders have supported the development of social work in other Asian countries. I have been privileged to have developed a long-standing relationship with China, its culture and its history for many decades, even before I became a social worker. My social work colleagues have honoured me by strengthening this interest by providing many opportunities to walk alongside them. This article considers my personal reflections on a profession’s development through momentous world events, and China rightly deserves to celebrate its 30 years of growth and development.