Unequal foodwork: Situating the sociology of feeding within diet and nutrition disparities

Widespread inequities in diet and nutrition present a pressing public health problem. Sociologists working to illuminate the causes and contours of these inequities often center the role of family foodwork, or the multifaceted domestic labor that supports eating, including planning and preparing meals. Mounting sociological scholarship on foodwork considers how food's meanings are socially patterned to reflect broader social structures, ideologies and institutions that influence their manifestation and families' resources to enact them. Here, we present three core contributions from the sociology of foodwork that can advance essential transdisciplinary conversations around nutrition disparities as well as efforts to tackle these disparities. We lay out how (1) family foodwork is historically rooted in broader structures of capitalist exploitation and women's subordination, and today remains gendered through normative discourses equating “good” feeding with “good” mothering; (2) the moralization of foodwork is buttressed by an ideological context idealizing homecooked meals and lamenting foodwork's decline, and; (3) foodwork—and societal evaluations of it—are shaped and stratified by intersecting gendered, classed, and racial inequalities. After reviewing each contribution and its importance for addressing nutrition inequities, we conclude by advocating for a closer conversation across disciplines and highlighting important future directions for sociologists.     

Decolonial strategies in world politics: C.L.R. James and the writing and playing of cricket

Discussions of decolonizing world politics have flourished in international studies recently but few of these engage with popular culture, especially sports. In this paper, I address this gap and consider sports – specifically the sport of cricket – as a global phenomenon, useful for discussing key decolonizing strategies. This paper argues that cricket, as a form of popular culture, offers language and practices to critique oppressive sociopolitical norms and global hierarchies. It draws upon the cricket-writing of C.L.R. James, specifically his book Beyond a Boundary, as well as on the experiences of playing cricket to outline some decolonial strategies. These strategies include shifting perspectives on world politics, the role of biography and autobiography as critique, and the relevance of positionality in describing global processes and in the construction of knowledge. Overall, this paper claims that popular culture, especially those which are popular in the Global South, offers ways to rethink and rework relations between the powerful and less powerful. Cricket provides examples of ways in which these various decolonial strategies can be enacted in practice.     

TRADE COSTS AND JOB FLOWS: EVIDENCE FROM ESTABLISHMENT‐LEVEL DATA

Changes in the costs of trading inputs or final goods affect establishment‐level job flows. Using a longitudinal database containing the universe of manufacturing establishments in California from 1992 to 2004, we find that a decline in input or final‐good trade costs is associated with job destruction in the least productive establishments, job creation in the most productive establishments, and an increase in the death likelihood of the least productive establishments. The evidence is consistent with predictions of models of trade with heterogeneous firms. Additionally, the evidence shows that the effects of input trade costs on establishment‐level job flows are larger than the effects of final‐good trade costs. (JEL F14, F16)     

Examining the undisclosed margins: postcolonial intellectuals and subaltern voices

South African history and culture is etched with traces of subalterns that continue to struggle against silencing. The resistance struggle owed much to the efforts of ordinary South Africans, who bore the brunt of repression. The tactics of the apartheid government included structural repression, state violence and cultural suppression. To the extent that resistance was outlawed and severely punished, the struggle was a subaltern expression. Less well known is the fact that there were other sources of cultural repression: some disaffected beneficiaries of apartheid, who styled themselves as liberal intellectuals were quite reactionary in their responses to the resistance literature. Some relatively progressive intellectuals have also contributed (however unwittingly) to the marginalization of black writers, men and women. The women’s resistance poetry addresses political and gender activism, responses to the deaths in the struggle, the recognition of the need for imaginative strategies to prevail against apartheid, capitalism, patriarchy and neo-colonialism, as well as the need for self-reflection and self-criticism. The post-apartheid period has brought new and tougher challenges. The testimony given by women at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggests how women have been silenced by tradition, the brutality of the state and some of their comrades, fear of the consequences of being heard, and by the inherent shortcomings in the structure and process of the investigation. The condition of migrant subalterns in the post-apartheid state is investigated by examining the lives of women who have casual employment as domestic workers and live in makeshift housing in urban shack settlements. Most are sole supporters and caretakers of their households and struggle to make up the curbs in social services that have resulted from structural adjustment. Poorly paid and exploited by their employers, abandoned by the trade union movement and ignored by the local government, the fact that they and their dependents survive is a function of their capacity for labour, networking and creativity. From the methods and achievements of subaltern organizations, it appears that they have a pivotal role to play in improving the lives of subalterns.     

An application of ranked set sampling when observations from several distributions are to be included in the sample

ABSTRACT

In this article, we propose a method to estimate the common location and common scale parameters of several distributions using suitably defined ranked set sampling. Efficiency comparison of the obtained estimators with some of the standard estimators is made. Illustration of the results to real life data sets is also described.