Forecasting the market demand for waste paper

In a recent article in this journal, Livesey and Barcena supplied an interesting but necessarily superficial analysis of the market for waste paper. Their essential conclusion was that, faced with future shortages, and hence increased prices of wood pulp, the paper and board industry would be forced to rely more heavily on secondary fibre. In turn, they felt that ‘in order to ensure an adequate supply of waste paper, governments may need to exert a greater degree of influence over the market than they do at present’.This paper seeks to provide a more rigorous analysis of the ‘waste paper problem’ in terms of future demand and fluctuations in that demand. It also corrects some misconceptions in the paper by Livesey and Barcena as to the likely sources of future supply and the economics of securing those supplies.     

JOHANNESBURG INTERIORS

Almost two decades into the post-apartheid era, inner-city Johannesburg – like much of South Africa – remains structured by deeply ingrained forms of physical and imaginative segregation. Building on architect Sarah Calburn's suggestion that one way to address these divisions would be to make the city's external or outside spaces feel more like domestic interiors as well as on the calls of writer Njabulo Ndebele for new forms of public intimacy, this article explores three distinct artistic projects that each attempt to push beyond segregation by opening up private homes for public perusal and/or making public space more intimate and home-like: Kgebetli Moele's novel Room 207, Christoph Gurk's performance art collection X Homes Johannesburg and Terry Kurgan's public photography/digital media experiment Hotel Yeoville. Working with concepts of home, hotels and hospitality, it theorizes the modes of ‘intimate exposure’ these projects enact as forms of hospitality or Derridean ‘hos(ti)pitality’ potentially capable of welcoming diverse groups into a shared public space while at the same time foregrounding inequalities in need of redress. While the role of artistic projects in shaping culture should not be overemphasized, the article also underscores how such works have emerged in contemporary South Africa as vibrant ways of thinking in public and thinking the public.     

The Native in the Garden: Floral Politics and Cultural Entrepreneurs

Although sociological research has examined how state symbolism binds citizens together and creates allegiance, little attention has been paid to how such symbols are selected. We investigate the adoption of state flowers in the United States. Seemingly unproblematic processes surrounding the selection of floral emblems can, under certain circumstances, involve heated symbolic politics. The default option of selecting a native flower, naturalizing the state, can be overcome by materialist or cultural interests that invest cultivated flowers with symbolic potency. In-depth case studies of three states where battles were waged over the state flower reveal that the battle lines were material and symbolic, demonstrating that apparently “authentic” representations of nature can be trumped by factional and subcultural interests.

Expert Companions? Constructing a Pedagogy for Supervising Honours Students

There is a substantial body of knowledge that describes and analyses supervision of higher degree research students. However, the literature is relatively silent on the question of appropriate pedagogy for the supervision of honours students. Using a sample of social work students who completed their studies during the period 2005–2010, the authors set out to gain some preliminary knowledge of the appropriate pedagogy for the supervision of honours students. The findings reveal that most honours students constructed their supervisors as being expert companions, and provide some support for a social work model of academic supervision.     

Rescue Fantasies in Child Therapy: Countertransference/Transference Enactments

When the focus of the child treatment is on the therapist being a good object, this can accentuate a possible countertransference difficulty of the therapist becoming the protector of the child from the bad object. This countertransference can often resonate with rescue fantasies in the child. This paper will explore the topic of rescue fantasies in child treatment, while addressing the issue of coinciding fantasies existing unconsciously in both the therapist and child, leading to their enactment. A case of a nine-year old boy is presented which demonstrates how interpretation and resolution of rescue fantasies can lead to a deepening of the treatment.     

New Zealand Vietnam Veterans’ Family Programme,Nga Whanau a Tu (Families of War): Development and Outcome

This article reviews recent research concerned with the association between combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and interpersonal functioning, before describing the development of a pilot program established to provide mental health services for Vietnam veteran family members. The results of a brief program evaluation are also presented. Sixty clients provided posttreatment and six-month follow-up data on a variety of outcome measures which were compared with independent ratings returned by 33 therapists. On average, clients reported that counselling had been beneficial and indicated satisfaction with services received. However, at posttest, therapists indicated that approximately 50% of clients were in need of continued treatment. There was a decrease in satisfaction with services over the posttest-follow-up period, but no change on most measures of psychotherapy outcome.     

“The right to lead”: Navajo language,dis‐citizenship,and Diné presidential politics

This article examines the 2014 Navajo Nation presidential primary election and language debate as a window into the politics of Navajo heritage language and identity. Using Facebook posts written in response to a videotaped hearing testing the fluency of one of the candidates that subsequently went viral, we analyse social citizenship and stigmatized language identities through the lens of critical Diné (Navajo) language consciousness. Focusing on generational differences between speaker groups that undergirded this debate, we analyse (a) the fluency test itself and (b) online and ethnographic responses to the fluency test. Using discourse analysis of Facebook posts of both heritage language and new Navajo speakers, we show how new speakers in particular express investment in their language and Diné cultural continuity and, through their emphasis on the heterogeneity of contemporary Diné communicative practices, offer an alternative template for ways to move forward in Diné language reclamation efforts.     

Human Development Over Time: An Empirical Comparison of a Dynamic Index and the Standard HDI

Social Indicators Research - This research uses panel data to explore inferences about human development associated with two different formulations of the Human Development Index (HDI). The first...     

Connecting older grandmothers raising grandchildren with community resources improves family resiliency,social support,and caregiver self-efficacy

Custodial grandparenting can be especially challenging for older grandmothers facing age specific issues. Kinship navigator programs are social service delivery programs intended to inform grandparents and other relatives raising children about available resources and services, provide information specific to their individual needs, and help families navigate service systems. Our study utilizes self-report data from one kinship navigator federal demonstration project, which used a randomized control trial, to examine demographic characteristics for grandmothers under and over 55 years of age, whether grandmother caregivers (≥55 years) improve family resilience, social support, and caregiver self-efficacy, and which interventions improved outcomes for grandmothers (≥55 years). Each participant was randomly assigned to one of four groups: Usual Care (traditional child welfare services), Standard Care (family support and case management), Peer-to-Peer Care Only, and Full Kin Tech Care (peer navigators with computer access and interdisciplinary team). Thirty-nine percent of grandmothers (55-75 years) were mostly living in poverty, predominantly Caucasian, with 36% identifying as African American/Black, with at least one to two children at home. Repeated-measures ANOVAs for each subscale showed statistically significant within- and between-group differences for Family Functioning, Social Supports, Concrete Supports, Child Development, and Nurturing and Attachment, with the exception of Usual Care, which showed a decline in protective factors consistently across subscales. Future research with kinship families could qualitatively examine the experiences for older women in navigator programs and replication of kinship navigator programs could build capacity in data collection and maintenance systems to gain better perspective about how systems of care impact families.