Drug Use and Youth Consumption in West Germany During the 1960s

This article examines the contested meanings of consumption and drug use in Germany during the 1960s. Arguing for an anthropological view of drug consumption, it investigates how youth drug use emerged during a period in which the meaning of consumption and consumerism were undergoing a fundamental change. In Germany during the 1960s, drug consumption was conceived of as part of a larger consumer revolution, both by youth protection advocates and youths themselves, although in a contradictory manner. While proponents of drug control saw drug use as the irrational outcome of rampant consumerism that threatened basic social values, young cultural radicals believed that certain forms of drug consumption could free individuals from the stifling conformity of enforced, coercive consumerism. The article argues that placing drug use in a special category away from “normal” consumerism obfuscates more than it clarifies and challenges scholars to understand drug consumption, consumers, and the production of meaning within specific historical and cultural contexts.     

Islands of Encounter: A Reflection on the Place of Psychoanalysis

What is an encounter? What is an island? How can discourses on islands speak to our understanding of the place of practice and the placing of affect in the psychoanalytic encounter? Using notions of the island in philosophy and Caribbean Studies, this essay offers a brief reflection on the psychoanalytic encounter as an islanded field of interaction. The psychoanalytic frame islands analyst and analysand, setting the experience in the consulting room off as different from other forms of social interaction. But this is a dyadic island in an archipelago of relations, where overlapping and interlapping waves of relation keep shifting the frame.     

The effect of local livestock population changes on auction market viability—a spatial analysis

This paper examines the relationship between auction market closures over the period 1980–2000 and livestock population changes, as recorded in the agricultural and horticultural census. Auction market locations and census data were collated within a Geographical Information System and changes in livestock populations examined by region and by market catchment. Regionally, auction market closures during the 1980s were significantly associated with concurrent reductions in cattle numbers, with market reductions following loss of cattle in eastern lowland areas. No such association with livestock numbers was found during the 1990s. Within these agricultural regions, individual market closures were not associated with changes in local livestock numbers within their catchments. Thus, the historical evidence suggests that whilst a substantial loss of livestock within a region puts pressure on its network of auction markets, the viability of individual markets within the region is decided by other factors. Such factors include the capital costs of modernising market facilities and meeting new regulatory requirements, the effect of unpaid debt on market cashflow, and the market's ability to diversify into other areas of business. The recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease may lead to further market closures, both directly as a result of livestock culls and indirectly as farmers continue to use alternative marketing channels developed when auction markets were closed during the outbreak.     

Occupational overuse syndrome and the effects of psychosocial stressors on keyboard users in the newspaper industry

There is continuing concern about the incidence of occupational overuse syndrome (OOS) among workers using keyboards. Following results from research showing positive correlations between psychosocial factors in the workplace and the incidence of OOS symptoms, it was hypothesizcd that differences in rates of pain reporting by keyboard workers are related to job stress caused by different levels in thc quality of the psychosocial work environment. An interaction between autonomy and the impact of work pressure on pain reporting was also predicted. Data were used from a sample of 550 keyboard users in several different types of job, working in eight different newspaper offices of the same newspaper company. The results confirmed the hypotheses. Post hoc analysis showed that there were important differences between the types of stressors that predicted the reporting of pain between offices, and those that predicted pain reporting between types of job. These results confirm the importance of considering psychosocial factors in work and workplace design in connection with the prevention of OOS. Conclusions are also drawn about the situation specificity of such empirical research, and the need for more theoretical work in the search for the aetiology of OOS.     

Asymptotic calculations of functions of expected values and covariances of order statistics

Suppose m and V are respectively the vector of expected values and the covariance matrix of the order statistics of a sample of size n from a continuous distribution F. A method is presented to calculate asymptotic values of functions of m and V ^–1, for distributions F which are sufficiently regular. Values are given for the normal, logistic, and extreme-value distributions; also, for completeness, for the uniform and exponential distributions, although for these other methods must be used.     

Jane's Jealousy: A Narrative Analysis of Emotion Experience in Its Social Context

This article provides a narrative analysis of one written account of jealousy. The analysis assumes the importance of cultural, historical, and social context in making sense of the experience of jealousy. Our analysis was organized around the positioning triad of story line, positioning, and social acts. We were particularly guided by a structural Labovian (1972) approach to the basic story line. The story we examined was chosen for its useful illustration of three subject positions: victim, avenger, and outsider. The analysis highlights the way in which jealousy is constituted through a sequential unfolding of events that are made meaningful within the context of local mores, adolescent romance, and revenge.     

On considering the unintended impact of evaluation: reactive distortions in program goals and activities

The relationship between program planning and evaluation can be viewed as bidirectional; that is, evaluation methods, procedures, instruments, and criteria not only are determined by, but also influence, program goals and activities. Within the human services context, several factors or sources of reactivity between evaluation and program planning can be identified. These involve (a) quantification of goals and activities, (b) preferences by different audiences for various kinds of evaluation data, (c) values and evaluation criteria, and (d) evaluation requirements and resource availability. Effects of these reactive features are discussed and illustrated with examples drawn from mental health evaluation and accountability practices. It is argued that for evaluation to be a credible and useful practice, evaluators should plan their efforts and assess their own effectiveness within the larger context of human service systems.