Quantitative Storytelling in the Making of a Composite Indicator

The reasons for and against composite indicators are briefly reviewed, as well as the available theories for their construction. After noting the strong normative dimension of these measures—which ultimately aim to ‘tell a story’, e.g. to promote the social discovery of a particular phenomenon, we inquire whether a less partisan use of a composite indicator can be proposed by allowing more latitude in the framing of its construction. We thus explore whether a composite indicator can be built to tell ‘more than one story’ and test this in practical contexts. These include measures used in convergence analysis in the field of cohesion policies and a recent case involving the World Bank’s Doing Business Index. Our experiments are built to imagine different constituencies and stakeholders who agree on the use of evidence and of statistical information while differing on the interpretation of what is relevant and vital.

     

Opting out of workers’ compensation: Non-subscription in Texas and its effects

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - Texas is the only state that does not mandate that employers carry workers’ compensation (WC) insurance coverage. In place of traditional WC, companies can...     

Business Collaboration within the Nazi War Machine: Corporations and the State in the Austrian Semiperiphery

The military strength of German National Socialism was based on the collaboration of large corporations with the Nazi state. Business provided capital, loans, taxes, managerial expertise and production for war industries. I elaborate four ideal‐typical modes of business collaboration. Each mode is illustrated by a case study of a German corporation that acquires an Austrian firm: Krupp (traditional mode); the Reichswerke state conglomerate (coercive); Deutsche Bank (managerial nationalist); and IG Farben (competitive investment mode). The first and the last modes occurred when the state was highly dependent on large businesses for the economic requisites of war. The acquired firms in the Austrian semiperiphery contributed to Nazi war mobilization, as they exploited labor and resources from the peripheral regions of southeastern Europe. Patterns of the state's resource dependency on business led to bargaining interactions between state and business, over time shaping the mix between state and private ownership of war industry.     

Participatory Art as a Social Practice of Commoning to Reinvent the Right to the City

The right to the city is a concept that helps rethink spatial–social dynamics, which has recently reinvigorated the field of organization studies. Following Lefebvre and considering the failure of both the market and the state, other scholars pinpoint the need to rethink social–spatial and geographical–historical relations. They do so by theorizing the city as a host for urban commons. Collective and non-commodified, these spatial–social experiences need to be constantly reproduced and preserved through commoning practices in the struggle against spatial injustice. A case study shows that a civil society organization (CSO) uses participatory art to (re)produce urban commons at the level of a local community and to redress partially spatial injustice. We theorize participatory art-making as a social practice of commoning, i.e., a process of organizing for the commons—collective art-based activities to serve a community—and of the common—to (re)produce a community while performing them. Such commoning practices are not only about sharing urban resources but also about using and experiencing differently urban spaces. By making participatory artworks in public spaces and co-designing street furniture with residents of poor areas, TDA helps to better cope with the tensions between residents and local authorities and between amateurs and professional artists. By negotiating the long-term implementation of these creative artworks in the public space with public authorities, TDA has fostered the empowerment of inhabitants as they have experienced citizens’ reappropriation of some public spaces in Marseille.     

The practice of principles: an examination of CED groups in Vancouver, BC

The community economic development (CED) framework has its rootsat the margins of society but has gained a broader interest.This paper examines some key principles associated with theCED framework. Interviews with practitioners within three CEDorganizations in Vancouver resulted in themes that link CEDas a strategy for sustaining a broader vision of the organizations.CED ventures provide opportunities that enhance the connectionfor marginalized peoples to participate in local community organizations.Yet, there are challenges around delivering services withinan alternative framework operationalized within a market-basedparadigm. Nevertheless, CED initiatives can have far reachingimpacts beyond the individual and the organization. Indeed,CED is about networks of communities within communities.     

Child learning and family mealtime environment,parenting style and family functioning among preschoolers in Hong Kong

A two-wave longitudinal study on 470 parent–child dyads examined the impact of family mealtime environment, parenting style and family functioning on preschoolers’ (three to six years old) learning. Measures included parent report on parenting style, family functioning, family meal frequency, mealtime television, feeding practice, teacher/parent report of academic competence and individual assessment of preschoolers’ preschool concepts. Family mealtime environment variables were associated with pre-schoolers’ learning, in addition to parenting style and family functioning, after controlling for family income and wave 1 preschoolers’ learning. The results highlighted the importance of family mealtime environment on preschoolers’ learning.     

Building Universal Socio-cultural Indicators for Standardizing the Safeguarding of Citizens’ Rights in Smart Cities

This research explores the opportunity to use standards as recommender instruments for designing urban policy. Standards are soft regulatory mechanisms that can be used for monitoring and safeguarding. More precisely, we explore the potential use of social standards for centering the focus of the smart cities initiative back to the citizens, and establishing a citizen-centered approach. This is in contrast to the industrial drive and technological emphasis which currently dominates. Accordingly, we present a set of novel citizenship indicators which serve as the basis for the social standardization of smart cities, something which is not now taking place, in order to ensure and safeguard the basic social urban rights of citizens. The juridical basis and well-established points of reference for building indicators for citizens’ rights in the city are two International Charters. These are the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, and the Global Charter-Agenda for Human Rights in the City. In this paper, we start by comparing and analyzing the rights contained in each of the two Charters, and elaborating indicators for measuring the promotion and protection of these rights. The elaboration of indicators has been based on different criteria and under the common premise of universal existence of feeding data, which is the most recurrent problem when building indicators meant to be global. Next, at the request of the International Standards Organization (ISO), we select the most relevant socio-cultural indicators for the Global Charter Agenda, which will be introduced in the on-going revision of the smart cities and communities standard ISO 37120:2014 Sustainable development of communities—Indicators for city services and quality of life. This will make ISO 37120 a more beneficial social standard for monitoring and safeguarding citizens’ rights in the smart city.     

Patterns of im/mobility,conflict and the re/making of identity narratives*

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the interrelationship between patterns of im/mobility on the one hand and the reconstitution of social collective identities and the related emergence or settlement of conflicts on the other. The main arguments are (1) that the im/mobility of a social or cultural group has major impact on how identity narratives, a sense of belonging and relationships to ‘others’ are shaped, and vice versa, and (2) that these dynamics are closely interlinked with mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion between groups and power structures that involve a broad variety of actors. Mainly looking at patterns of internal mobility such as ‘traditional’ or strategic mobilities and mobilities enforced by crisis, conflict or governmental programmes and regimes, the contribution provides the conceptual background for a special issue that aims to go beyond currently predominant issues of transnational migration. Established or emerging dynamics of (non-)integration and belonging, caused by im/mobility, are analysed on a cultural and political level, which involves questions of representation, indigeneity/autochthony, political rights and access to land and other resources. Conflict situations in contexts of mobility involve changes in the social understanding and renegotiation, reconstruction or reproduction of group identities and narratives with reference to certain socio-political and historical patterns. The legitimation of rights and access to various forms of citizenship and mobility need to be understood against the backdrop of emerging or established mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion between groups, which trigger or settle conflicts and make social identities to be constantly renegotiated.     

Interpreting conflict and integration through the reciprocity lens: mobility and settlement in a historical perspective on the Sierra Leonean coast

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Sierra Leone has witnessed intense population movements. During the civil war (1991–2002), many populations fled the fighting zones of the interior to take refuge on the coast. Since the conflict ended, new populations have reached the coastal area with the hope of accessing economic opportunities in the fishing business. Mobility, along with changing sociopolitical and economic conditions, has generated conflict between immigrants and Sherbro populations, who consider themselves autochthonous and deny migrants the freedom to access political and land rights. The paper argues that present dynamics of conflicts are rooted in long-term patterns of settlement and relationships of reciprocity between groups. Relations between migrants and local populations are grounded in a sociocultural idiom that implies the institutionalization of practices of reciprocity between local inhabitants (hosts) and later settlers (strangers). The host/stranger reciprocity system is an emic model of cultural action embedded in historical and power relations between groups. It implies the progressive integration of strangers into the host society. This paper highlights how, in a situation of conflict, long-established social relationships between groups are reevaluated with reference to norms of integration and reciprocity. The paper draws on Sherbro oral traditions to show how social memories about interethnic relations are reframed with reference to values and expectations of reciprocity, in order to explain the recent conflict that opposes Sherbros to immigrants. Sherbros use oral traditions to interpret these tensions in a long-term perspective, thereby expressing their own view on settlement, conflict and integration.     

Benefits and costs associated with mutual-help community-based recovery homes: The Oxford House model

We used data from a randomized controlled study of Oxford House (OH), a self-run, self-supporting recovery home, to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the program. Following substance abuse treatment, individuals that were assigned to an OH condition (n = 68) were compared to individuals assigned to a usual care condition (n = 61). Economic cost measures were derived from length of stay at an Oxford House residence, and derived from self-reported measures of inpatient and outpatient treatment utilization. Economic benefit measures were derived from self-reported information on monthly income, days participating in illegal activities, binary responses of alcohol and drug use, and incarceration. Results suggest that OH compared quite favorably to usual care: the net benefit of an OH stay was estimated to be roughly $29,000 per person on average. Bootstrapped standard errors suggested that the net benefit was statistically significant. Costs were incrementally higher under OH, but the benefits in terms of reduced illegal activity, incarceration and substance use substantially outweighed the costs. The positive net benefit for Oxford House is primarily driven by a large difference in illegal activity between OH and usual care participants. Using sensitivity analyses, under more conservative assumptions we still arrived at a net benefit favorable to OH of $17,830 per person.