The Anthropology of Empty Spaces

We would like to tell an anthropologic story about how we see reality and how we feel about it, with no intention to generalize our reflections. Our version of anthropology is intentionally self-reflexive and self-reflective. This text is a narrative study of the feelings of anthropologists out in the field. The anthropologic frame of mind is a certain openness of the mind of the researcher/observer of social reality (Czarniawska-Joerges 1992). On the one hand, it means the openness to new realities and meanings, and on the other, a constant need to problematize, a refusal to take anything for granted, to treat things as obvious and familiar. The researcher makes use of her or his curiosity, the ability to be surprised by what she or he observes, even if it is just the everyday world. Our explorations concern an experience of space. It aims at investigating the space not belonging to anyone. While anthropologically moving around different organizations, we suddenly realized that we were part of stories of the space we were moving in. Areas of poetic emptiness can be experienced, often in the physical sense, on the boundaries and inside of organizations.     

‘Scarred’ young entrepreneurs. Exploring young adults’ transition from former unemployment to self-employment

The recent increase in youth unemployment has major implications for the current and future development of European labour markets. Previous studies reveal the long lasting ‘scarring effects’ of early unemployment experience on later career prospects, including a higher probability of future unemployment or social exclusion. Self-employment is often advocated as a potential remedy for unemployment in general and youth unemployment in particular. In this study, we investigate the individual-level factors that lead young people with the ‘scar’ of previous unemployment to engage in self-employment. Based on a recent survey among young adults in eleven European countries, we show that previous unemployment has a significant moderating effect on other individual-level characteristics usually associated with a higher likelihood of being self-employed. While the overall propensity of self-employment is not affected by unemployment experience, the reasons for becoming one’s own boss differ considerably between those young adults who have and those who have not experienced unemployment in the past.     

The relationship between: occupational status,biological condition and androgen hormone level among Polish adult men: the Wroclaw Male Study

Population health and its determinants are one of the major challenges to social and economic policy. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between occupational activity and biological condition in adult working Polish men. The participants of the study were 300 men (30–65 years), healthy inhabitants of the city of Wroclaw, Poland. Seventeen measures of biological condition were examined. The subjects were divided into three different occupational groups: professionals, soldiers and skilled workers. A comparison of biological age profiles of three occupational groups showed that in the majority of characteristics, professionals had the youngest biological age, whereas skilled workers had the highest biological age. The results for soldiers were not as unambiguous, but biological parameters were generally closer to those for professionals. Inborn biological predispositions and long-term impact of the working environment can influence on the biological condition of various professional groups. Knowledge of the determinants of biological condition might result in efficient use of predisposition to work or may be of help in extending their time of work ability.     

Guiding the Next Generation of NIH Investigators in Responsible Conduct of Research: The Role of the Mentor

National Institutes of Health (NIH) K award recipients and their mentors were surveyed to investigate the role of the mentor. We found that a majority of mentors provided guidance in responsible research conduct (RCR), and that most of these relationships were deemed helpful. Mentors also responded that they played a greater importance in RCR training of their mentees than the mentees reported. Our results suggest both mentors and mentees report that mentors ideally should play a more important role in RCR training than was actually the case. For conflicting interests, subjects' protection, and misconduct, approximately 50% of K recipients found the mentor to be not at all important or only somewhat important for these areas of RCR training. We conclude the mentor's role is important but not optimal based on the results of our study cohort.     

Supervision in der Ausbildung von Musikerzieher/innen

Supervision in education of music teachers Supervision can make an essential contribution to the teacher training in both phases. The students can consider themselves critically in a censorship free space, and basing on a criticalhermeneutic analysis of their choice of career, they can find their strong and weak points and thus set their main emphasis during their studies. Especially when starting in their job supervision can be helpful to develop their professional identity. Additionally students get to know a model of life-long learning in order to manage 40 years of professional life.     

Mobilities and Utopias: a critical reorientation

ABSTRACT

What does utopian thinking have to offer students and scholars of mobility? Could ‘mobile utopias’ assist us in envisioning futures – including those of mobility – differently? Do utopias provide a unique opportunity to examine the relationship between mobile societies and lives and the environments against which these are formed? By providing different ways of reading and arguing within different theoretical frameworks and doing so in relation to the contexts their contributions engage, the articles included in this special issue explore the limits of what the mobile utopias of the future might be, their social and spatial dimensions, and their totalizing, fragmentary, or, personal definitions. As a whole, the issue contributes to the intellectual project of how to turn utopia into a method, as Levitas, Jameson, Harvey, and others have long encouraged us to do. With a few exceptions, utopias have not received the attention they deserve from mobilities scholars. Our aim in putting together this special issue is to redress this balance and invite further reflection on what utopian thinking might offer current debates in mobilities scholarship. This Introduction draws connections across approaches, foci, methods, geographies, and sources, including those deployed in the issue’s six articles, in the interest of excavating possible hopeful orientations through critique. Central to this is the recognition of the significance of critiquing the images of mobility which circulate widely (think of drones) and of the necessity to listen attentively to voices overlooked by mobility futures which stand far removed from the reactions and feelings of people in their everyday worlds. Ours is an invitation both to pay close attention to what utopian thinking does – rather than what utopia is – and to help us carve out a new intellectual space where to reflect on the how, when and where mobilities and utopias meet, now, but also in the past, and in the future.     

End‐of‐Day Price Manipulation and M&As

Based on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) from over 45 countries from 2003 to 2014, we show that the presence of end‐of‐day (EOD) target price manipulation prior to M&As increases the probability of an M&A deal withdrawal, and decreases the premium paid. More detailed exchange trading rules that govern manipulation across countries and over time lower the probability of withdrawal, mitigate the negative impact of EOD manipulation on withdrawal and raise premiums paid. Finally, while there are fewer cases of acquirer price manipulations prior to M&As, the data indicates positive acquirer price manipulation in share M&As and increases the probability of deal withdrawal.     

The relation of sensitivity to provocation and frustration to direct aggression: the mediating role of beliefs about aggression / La relación entre la sensibilidad a la provocación y a la frustración y la agresión directa: el papel mediador de las creencias sobre la agresión

Previous research has suggested that sensitivity to provocation and frustration differently predict aggressive behaviour. In the study reported in this paper, two potential mediators of the relationships among both sensitivities and self-reported aggression were examined, namely instrumental and expressive beliefs about aggression. A sample of 318 participants (52% men) took part in the study. Structural Equation Modeling demonstrated that sensitivity to provocation was related to both types of beliefs about aggression, whereas sensitivity to frustration was associated with expressive beliefs. However, only instrumental beliefs mediated the relationship between sensitivity to provocation and both physical and verbal aggression. Analysed variables predicted 46% of the variance in physical aggression and 11% of the variance in verbal aggression. Additionally, men reported higher physical aggression and endorsed more instrumental beliefs than women. Implications for understanding emotional and cognitive mechanisms involved in regulation of aggression are discussed.