Stereoscopic visions: reading colonial and contemporary African photography

This piece argues for the importance of critical engagements with photographs in order to explore and rethink the past, to reflect on the present and to imagine the future. It provides a brief overview of the articles that constitute the first part of the Social Dynamics special issue on photography in Africa, a collection that contributes to the growing body of scholarship that deepens our understandings of the significance of photography on the continent.     

Improving wheelchair prescription: an analysis of user needs and existing tools

Wheelchair users experience many situations that affect the stability and associated performance of their wheelchair. Stability is affected by user characteristics and abilities, environmental features and conditions, and wheelchair modification and accessories. Wheelchair prescribers need effective tools and methods to provide quantitative evaluation and prediction of the behavior of the user-wheelchair system in a variety of static and dynamic situations. Such information is very important to guide efficient management of associated risks and adjust chairs accordingly. This project involves a user-centered approach for design and evaluation of a load cell based wheelchair stability assessment system (Wheel-SAS). Here, the current methods for assessing stability are described, and their shortcomings explained. The user-centered design approach being applied to the development of the associated Wheel-SAS hardware and software is described. Future work including semi-structured interviews and an online survey with wheelchair prescribers and associated healthcare professionals for deriving user requirements and a design specification for a load cell system for measuring dynamic wheelchair stability are detailed.     

Indigenous Psychology: Grounding Science in Culture,Why and How?

My agenda is to ground psychological science in culture by using complex rather than overly simple models of culture and using indigenous categories as criteria of a translation test to determine the adequacy of scientific models of culture. I first explore the compatibility between Chinese indigenous categories and complex models of culture, by casting in the theoretical framework of symmetry and symmetry breaking (Bolender, 2010) a series of translations performed on Fiske's (1991) relational models theory. Next, I show how the dimensional approach to culture, prevalent in mainstream psychology, fails the translation test. Ethical implications of this analysis for cross cultural psychology are discussed.     

The social adjustment of children of low intelligence: Part III 1

This article examines the dilemmas faced by undocumented immigrants within the criminal justice system vis-à-vis the immigrant detention center and the resulting implications for social work. It explores the new realities for undocumented immigrants in the United States, including an explanation of state policies that have led to the criminalization of immigrants. The criminal justice and homeland security responses to undocumented immigrants, including the trend toward the privatization of immigration detention centers are analyzed. Finally, the implications of these trends for social work practice are discussed.     

Compulsory income management: Combatting or compounding the underlying causes of homelessness?

Compulsory Income Management (CIM) is a form of conditional welfare that involves the mandatory quarantining of a portion of welfare recipients’ social security payments. Quarantined funds are accessible via a government-issued debit card, with restrictions surrounding where and on what funds can be spent. Official justifications of CIM have framed these policies as attempts to combat substance abuse and gambling problems, and to thus secure better outcomes for welfare recipients and their families. Central to this narrative has been the argument that welfare quarantining will ensure more money is spent on ‘essentials’, including accommodation. No existing studies, however, have specifically interrogated the impacts of CIM on housing security. This article responds to this gap in the literature by reviewing existing research concerning CIM's impacts and locating this research within broader debates regarding the causes of homelessness and the efficacy of individualised policy interventions. In doing so, it highlights CIM's potential to exacerbate housing insecurity not only through technical issues such as rental transfer failures, but also by contributing to underlying stressors such as economic disadvantage; relationship difficulties, poor health and addiction; and social stigma. The article concludes that – far from addressing the structural causes of homelessness – CIM has enflamed them.     

Patterns of Autonomic Arousal in Imaginal Situations of Winning and Losing in Problem Gambling

AIMS: To examine changes in skin conductance level (SCL), for problem gamblers in response to personally relevant imaginal tasks, representing winning or losing. SETTING, DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS AND MEASUREMENTS: SCL and subjective arousal were compared for problem poker machine gamblers (n = 13) and a control group (n = 20). Participants were asked to describe a situation in which they had (a) won and (b) lost during a period of gambling. Before and during the task, recordings of SCL were taken. FINDINGS: There were significant differences between responses of problem and social gamblers. A significant interaction indicated that social gamblers became more aroused in reaction to winning than losing, whereas problem gamblers became equally aroused in response to both tasks. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that it may be responses to losing, rather than winning that are paramount to the development and maintenance of problem gambling.     

Many a slip between cup and lip. Process evaluation of a program to promote and support evidence-based public health practice

The main aims of this study are to document whether an intervention for promoting evidence-based public health practice had been delivered as intended and to explore the reasons for its lack of impact. Process data from the implementation of the program and data from interviews with 40 public health physicians are analyzed. Although they expressed satisfaction with the service, the doctors experienced the program as rather irrelevant for their daily work. They did not perceive that they dealt with many issues relevant for the use of research information, and if they did, referring to research would not make any difference to the way others perceived their advice. There is a need to develop more overlying strategies for integrating evidence into decision making than addressing the individual level.