Re‐thinking Disability,Work and Welfare

There is a wealth of evidence that disabled people experience far higher levels of unemployment and underemployment than non‐disabled peers. Yet hitherto sociologists have paid scant attention to the structural causes of this issue. Drawing on a socio/political or social model of disability perspective this paper argues for a reconfiguration of the meaning of disability and work in order to address this problem. It is also suggested that such a strategy will make a significant contribution to the struggle for a fairer and equitable global society.     

Overwhelming Casualties: Medical Ethics in a Time of Terror

Codes of ethics and ethics guidelines define standards of professional conduct, and ways to prioritize or balance ethical principles when these appear to be in conflict. In 1991 an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars met at the University of Toronto to discuss these problems in a Workshop on Ethical Considerations in Scholarship and Science. A document, “The Toronto Resolution”; (TTR), was developed, providing twelve principles for incorporation into scientific and scholarly codes, with the object of ensuring that professionals in science recognize the potential consequences of their work in the broader social context. To examine the extent to which existing codes are consonant with The Toronto Resolution's 12 principles, a content analysis was conducted on the codes of 21 Ontario‐based scientific and scholarly organizations. Criteria used in the content analysis were standardized and determined to be reliable. Only a weak correspondence was found between the contents of the codes of the scientific and scholarly organizations surveyed here and the principles set out in TTR. In particular, guidelines on specific social issues such as environmental effects or conflict resolution are scarcely mentioned at all. This study encourages consideration of The Toronto Resolution by the ethics committees of scientific and scholarly associations, as codes are revised or as new interpretations of principles in the codes evolve.     

Employability,Poverty and the Spheres of Sociability – Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

Policymakers in the UK and beyond have sought to promote interventions to encourage social capital‐building among disadvantaged groups. One specific concern is that those with limited access to social capital/social network relationships will be at greater risk of experiencing both unemployment and poverty. By analyzing longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), we seek to identify significant relationships between poverty and the likelihood of entering employment, and different measures of ‘sociability’ and social isolation. Crucially, we discuss if and how measures of sociability/social isolation are associated with jobseekers' varying chances of exiting and re‐entering work and how this varies with their experience of poverty. These issues are important because if sociability impacts on the likelihood of entering employment from a state of worklessness, then policymakers need to understand how cycles of social and labour market exclusion are associated with the rates of entering employment in order to develop effective interventions to improve jobseekers' employability and combat poverty. Following an analysis of BHPS data, we identify lessons for policy for combating long‐term unemployment and promoting social inclusion.     

Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain

This paper examines the role of informal job search methods on the labour market outcomes of displaced workers. Informal job search methods could alleviate short-term labour market difficulties of displaced workers by providing information on job opportunities, allowing them to signal their productivity and may mitigate wage losses through better post-displacement job matching. However if displacement results from reductions in demand for specific sectors/skills, the use of informal job search methods may increase the risk of job instability. While informal job search methods are associated with lower wage losses, they lead to increased job instability and increased risk of subsequent job displacement.     

Remembrance of things not past

Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: the Ruins of Memory (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1991). Pp.xv + 216. £20 (hardback); £9.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 300 04 96 68 and 05 24 72.

Debórah Dwork, Children With a Star: Jewish Youth in Nazi Europe (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1991). Pp.xlvi + 354; illus. £19.95 (hardback); (paperback forthcoming). ISBN 0 300 05 0542 and 05 44 75.

Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust: Illegal Immigration to Israel (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Pp.xiii + 408; illus. £30. ISBN 019 506 3406.     

MAPPING CULTURAL/POLITICAL DEBATES IN LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

The theorization of postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism has generated a number of debates among Latinos in the US and among Latin American critics in particular. This article examines a number of writings published between 1989 and 1994 by Latin American critics focusing on the viability of seeing Latin America as postmodern. We argue that in the rush to accept First World theoretical frameworks, there has been much confusion and a collapsing of economic, political and cultural categories. Conflating market growth and shifts with social change and the availability of a plurality of consumer goods with the distribution of goods and services, some critics have been quick to label cultural production in Latin America as ‘postmodern’. What is needed is a delimitation of the categories used, an examination of the cultural debate in relation to other debates on development, social movements, democratization and alliance politics, as well as an examination of local intellectual debates within the global context of restructuring and transnational capital.