What’s on the Line?: Exploring the Significance of Gendered Everyday Resistance Within the Transnational Call Center Workplace

Abstract

Recent efforts on the part of International Political Economy (IPE) scholars to place an emphasis on the importance of everyday spaces and actors in analyses of the global political economy have largely tended to overlook the significance of gender. However, gender and other intersecting factors serve to inform everyday actions, which—as ‘everyday IPE’ scholars suggest—impact the international. Therefore I present a feminist everyday politics of the global economy (or FEPGE) approach that aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between gender, everyday actions (in particular, resistance), and the international. Drawing on data from interviews with former transnational call center workers in Ontario, Canada, this approach is used to explore the significance of gendered everyday acts of worker resistance. I argue that along with the ‘feminization of labor’ within the industry, it may also be necessary to discuss the ‘feminization of resistance’.     

Troubling the Fields: Choice,Consent, and Coercion of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers

This article brings a new, theoretically minded approach to weighing the relative utilities and harms of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) without dismissing the agency of SAWP enrollees or arriving at an abolitionist argument to end Temporary Migrant Worker (TMW) programmes in Canada. Building on the anti‐trafficking debate within feminist migration studies, we evaluate the availability and exercise of consent, choice, and coercion among SAWP workers. We draw on extensive documentation by scholars across disciplines to contextualize the SAWP within a socio‐economic history that engendered and continues to legitimize the “success” of the programme in both Mexico (the largest sending state) and Ontario (the largest provincial recipient of workers). Our analysis suggests that, while grievous, the SAWP's structural injustice ought not to preclude individuals from migrating and earning wages. The article concludes with recommendations to create a fairer avenue for Mexican workers into, through, and out of the SAWP.     

Social Effects of Movement Synchrony: Increased Infant Helpfulness only Transfers to Affiliates of Synchronously Moving Partners

Interpersonal synchrony increases cooperation among adults, children, and infants. We tested whether increased infant helpfulness transfers to individuals uninvolved in the movement, but shown to be affiliates of a synchronously moving partner. Initially, 14‐month‐old infants (N = 48) watched a live skit by Experimenters 1 and 2 that either demonstrated affiliation or individuality. Infants in both groups were then randomly assigned to be bounced to music either synchronously or asynchronously with Experimenter 1. Infant instrumental helpfulness toward Experimenter 2 was then measured. If the two experimenters were affiliates, infants from the synchronous movement condition were significantly more helpful toward Experimenter 2 than infants from the asynchronous movement condition. However, if the two experimenters were not affiliated, synchrony effects on prosociality did not transfer to Experimenter 2. These results show the importance of musical synchrony for social interaction and suggest that infants may use an understanding of third‐party social relationships when directing their own social behaviors.     

More than ‘information provider’ and ‘counselor’: Constructing and negotiating roles and identities of nurses in genetic counseling sessions

This paper contributes to research on genetic counseling by exploring the complexity of this activity from the angle of identity construction. We argue that an analysis of the processes through which healthcare providers construct and negotiate their roles and identities in these encounters may contribute to a better understanding of the complexities of genetic counseling. Drawing on more than 150 video‐recorded genetic counseling encounters between nurses and clients in Hong Kong, we illustrate that the discursive processes involved in the construction of the nurses' identities are complex, overlapping and at times contradictory as the nurses respond to the (sometimes) competing norms and expectations of their institution, their clients and their own. They manage to solve these tensions by drawing on the roles traditionally assigned to nurses in these encounters such as information provider and counselor, as well as creating the new roles of co‐decision maker and cultural broker/mediator.     

Coping and Psychological Distress Among Genderqueer Individuals: The Moderating Effect of Social Support

This study examined the relationships between social support, coping, depression, and anxiety in a sample of genderqueer individuals (n = 64). Genderqueer is a label used within the broader transgender community and is defined as a gender identity that is outside the binary construct of male and female. Findings indicate that 53% (n = 34) of participants reported clinical levels of depression and 39% (n = 25) reported clinical levels of anxiety. There was a direct relationship between social support and depression and anxiety, indicating that more social support is associated with less depression and anxiety when statistically excluding coping factors. In addition, more facilitative coping (e.g., seeking help) was related to less anxiety, whereas more avoidant coping (e.g., avoiding emotions) was related to more anxiety and depression. There was a significant interaction between social support and coping factors when predicting anxiety, such that individuals who reported higher social support used more facilitative coping which was associated with less anxiety and those who reported less social support used more avoidant coping which was associated with more anxiety. Clinical implications for working with genderqueer-identified clients are discussed.     

Educational expectations and the rise in women’s post-secondary attainments

This study examines the gender difference in educational expectations among black, white, and Hispanic high school seniors in 1972 and 1992. We link gender-related changes in expectations to students’ perceived parental encouragement for higher education and access to college-preparatory coursework, and then examine the influence of expectations on subsequent educational attainments. In contrast to 1972, girls in 1992 perceived their parents to be equally or more encouraging of their pursuit of higher education than did boys, and girls were more likely to be enrolled in college preparatory coursework. The changes were most dramatic among white students, and the rise in expectations among high school girls independently contributes to their recent advances in higher education.     

Dysfunctional Career Thoughts and Perceived Quality of Parental Relationships in Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is known to cause significant difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Empirical research in career development has demonstrated that close, supportive relationships are associated with positive vocational behaviors (Kenny et al., 2018). We examined dysfunctional career thoughts and perceived quality of parental relationships in high school students with ADHD. One hundred two adolescents (76 boys, 26 girls) with ADHD responded to measures of career thoughts and interpersonal relationship quality. Preliminary exploratory analysis, using multiple linear regression, showed that male participants' dysfunctional career thoughts were statistically significantly related to their relationships with their mothers. For female participants, relationships with fathers represented an area for further exploration. Results suggest that career professionals can enhance positive outcomes of decision-making and problem-solving issues in adolescence with additional focus on relational interventions. Future research should incorporate the influence of gender and race/ethnicity on crucial relationships and focus on paternal relationships using cognitive information processing–based interventions with this population.     

“It's Just a Lot of Work”: Adolescents’ Self‐Presentation Norms and Practices on Facebook and Instagram

We explored adolescents’ (12‐ to 18‐year‐olds; n = 51) awareness of their audience and subsequent self‐presentation practices on Facebook and Instagram through focus group discussions. Findings suggest that teens, who are developmentally able to perceive a situation from the third‐person perspective and who value peer approval, purposefully share content to appear interesting, well liked, and attractive. Some teens invested great effort into posting by these norms, even asking their friends to help; however, this was more common among girls. Older teens especially discussed taking the perspective of their audience when deciding what to post, which is consistent with the finding that perspective taking continues to develop throughout adolescence. These findings suggest that perspective taking skills and need for peer approval influence self‐presentation online.     

Multinational Enterprises: Leveraging a Corporate International Entrepreneurship Lens for New Insights Into Subsidiary Initiatives

Corporate entrepreneurship has long been acknowledged as critical to multinational enterprises (MNEs), with dispersed entrepreneurial efforts involving subsidiary initiatives becoming increasingly relied upon. Yet despite the global context in which MNEs operate, the conversation has not fully embraced the extent to which many of its entrepreneurial activities overlap with internationalization. In this paper, we identify a set of opportunity phenotypes for subsidiary initiatives based on their market focus as well as the knowledge and capabilities leveraged to identify and exploit the opportunity. The recursive relationship between opportunities and dynamic capabilities is then discussed, with an emphasis on building a research agenda for corporate international entrepreneurship.