Book reviews

Jan Lundberg is founder of the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium and president of the Fossil Fuels Policy Action Institute. He formerly published theLundberg Letter, an oil industry newsletter based in Los Angeles.     

Being responsible and responsible beings: children's understanding of responsibility

Responsibility is a key concept in policy and public debate about the lives of children and families. On the one hand, parents are assumed to take responsibility for children's well‐being; on the other, children and young people are blamed and frequently punished for “irresponsible” or anti‐social behaviour. The article deconstructs the concept of responsibility from children's perspectives. Data are taken from a pilot study of 29 children aged nine and 10 in the East Midlands, England. In‐depth interviews revealed that children assume a series of responsibilities in the home and that these are understood as an inevitable and “normal” part of daily life. Children also described the basis of “being responsible” as underscored by two core values (honesty and fairness) and indicated that responsibility was a crucial part of their moral worlds. These moral understandings were, however, malleable. They were particularly mediated by the child‐parent relationship and were constantly being negotiated and renegotiated in the home.     

Patterns of Intergenerational Transfers in Southeast Asia

This article explores motivations for intergenerational exchanges of time and money using data from Indonesia. The extent of exchange and underlying motivations differ across families but substantial evidence supports the theory that transfers within families serve as insurance for family members. The results also suggest that between some parents and children money is exchanged for time. Additionally, some evidence is consistent with the idea that parents pay for their children's education partly as a loan that is later repaid. The authors compare their results to those that they obtained previously for Malaysia using similar data and methods. The findings regarding motivations for transfers are remarkably similar across the two countries.     

The effect of gender on arbitration decisions

The effect of grievant’s and arbitrator’s gender on arbitration decisions is investigated using 169 arbitration cases fromLabor Arbitration Awards. Three hypotheses were tested: (1) arbitrators treat female grievants less severely than male grievants; (2) female arbitrators render less severe judgments than their male counterparts; and (3) arbitrator’s gender and grievant’s gender interact so that female arbitrators will treat female grievants more favorably than male arbitrators and male arbitrators will treat male grievants more favorably than female arbitrators. The empirical findings supported none of these hypotheses and the authors conclude that the arbitration process is free of gender bias.     

Envisioning Power in Mexico: Legitimacy, Crisis, and the Practice of Patrimony

Abstract In his early work, Eric R. Wolf made provocative arguments about the genealogy of power in Mexico. Yet once he broadened his interests to peasant studies and the history of capitalism, he never returned to make a sustained examination of power in Mexico. This article extends Wolf's insights into an analysis of the current political and economic situation in Mexico. I focus on the practice of categorizing objects as the inalienable property of a given collective, such as a city, region, institution, or nation. These possessions – often referred to as patrimonio (patrimony) – are understood to have been handed down from prior generations and intended to be handed down in turn to future generations. I look at this mode of characterizing property in the areas of subsoil resources, collectively held land, and "cultural properties."     

Development and Social Problems: The Impact of the Offshore Oil Industry on Suicide and Homicide Rates1

Abstract There are few studies in the literature concerning economic development that examine the impact of offshore oil and gas extraction on communities and even fewer that use annual data, examine more than one community and account for the degree of involvement of the community in the oil industry. This study rectifies these problems. The results support hypotheses derived from social disorganization and relative deprivation theories by demonstrating that higher levels of and rapid changes in development are associated with higher homicide and suicide rates, especially in communities that are more involved in resource extraction. The utility of the methods and the implications of the results for theory and future research are discussed.     

Expertise and forms of knowledge in the government of families

This paper examines the relationship between the state and the individual in relation to an aspect of mundane family life – the feeding of babies and young children. The nutritional status of children has long been a matter of national concern and infant feeding is an aspect of family life that has been subjected to substantial state intervention. It exemplifies the imposition upon women the ‘biologico‐moral responsibility’ for the welfare of children ( Foucault, 1991b ). The state's attempts to influence mothers’ feeding practices operate largely through education and persuasion. Through an elaborate state‐sponsored apparatus, a strongly medicalised expert discourse is disseminated to mothers. This discourse warns mothers of the risks of certain feeding practices and the benefits of others. It constrains mothers through a series of ‘quiet coercions’ ( Foucault, 1991c ) which seek to render them self‐regulating subjects. Using data from a longitudinal interview study, this paper explores how mothers who are made responsible in these medical discourses around child nutrition, engage with, resist and refuse expert advice. It examines, in particular, the rhetorical strategies which mothers use to defend themselves against the charges of maternal irresponsibility that arise when their practices do not conform to expert medical recommendations.