Between inequality and difference: the creole world in the twenty‐first century

A major theme in contemporary social theory is the questioning and destabilization of boundaries – self/other, culture/nature and gender being the most obvious areas. Not least for this reason, creole identities, ostensibly premised on openness and mixing, deserve renewed attention. Although the term creolization, as borrowed from linguistics, is sometimes used in a broad comparative sense, the creole world refers to the outcome of a particular historical experience, namely that of displacement, slavery, emancipation and its aftermath reverberating into the present. Key terms are uprootedness, cultural mixing and creole languages existing in diglossic situations with metropolitan ones. Creole intellectuals in the Caribbean have celebrated the cultural creativity characteristic of these societies but have been criticized for ignoring class, racism and gender issues. By embracing the egalitarianism and openness of creoledom, they have become vulnerable to criticism of being handmaidens of neoliberalism or neocolonialism. Controversies over creole identity are related to fundamental questions in anthropology. Drawing on material mainly from the Indian Ocean region, in this article I attempt to create a dialogue between debates over creole identity and theoretical questions raised in social and cultural theory concerning the relationship between cultural difference and social inequality.     

HEALTH AND AMENITY EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING

This study shows that climate change would probably reduce mortality in the United States by about 40,000 per year, assuming a 4.5° warmer climate—the IPCC best estimate of temperature change with a doubling of carbon dioxide. Benefits would extend to lower medical costs nationwide. Measuring willingness to pay by wage rates shows that people prefer warm climates and would be willing to give up between $30 billion and $100 billion annually for a 4.5° increase in temperatures. ( JEL Q25, J17, J31)     

The Cost of Hope

Summary A conversation with a woman, recently widowed, living in a poorblack community of London, reveals the difficulty in merelysurviving that she, her family and families like her own presentlyare experiencing. Her concers are with housing, schools, healthcare for herself and her children, ageing when one lives inpoverty, and perhaps most significantly, her gradual loss ofhope that anything can be done to improve her circumstances.The study reported has been done on one single family; it isnot a composite of several families, although clearly, the lifeof this one woman is most representative of families livingwhere she lives.     

A Bedroom for Sheila Cooperton

Summary A series of interviews with a young West Indian girl livingin London reveals the profound effect of housing conditions,and the architecture of poverty generally, on the psychologicaldevelopment of the adolescent. In the reported interviews, whichhave been reconstructed, one begins to appreciate how not havingsomething as simple as one's own bedroom may influence a child'sfeelings about sexuality, sex role distinctions, family, intimacyand the emergence of her very identity. Most significantly,perhaps, is the fact that the child herself (her name has beenchanged) recognizes the relationship between environmental deprivationand the substance of conscious and unconscious materials.     

A SYSTEMATIC STRATEGY FOR OPTIMIZING MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS

A manufacturing optimization strategy is developed and demonstrated, which combines an asset utilization model and a process optimization framework with multivariate statistical analysis in a systematic manner to focus and drive process improvement activities. Although this manufacturing strategy is broadly applicable, the approach is discussed with respect to a polymer sheet manufacturing operation. The asset utilization (AU) model demonstrates that efficient equipment utilization can be monitored quantitatively and improvement opportunities identified so that the greatest benefit to the operation can be obtained. The process optimization framework, comprised of three parallel activities and a designed experiment, establishes the process-product relationship. The overall strategy of predictive model development provided from the parallel activities comprising the optimization framework is to synthesize a model based on existing data, both qualitative and quantitative, using canonical discriminant analysis, to identify main effect variables affecting the principal efficiency constraints identified using AU, operator knowledge and order-of-magni-tude calculations are then employed to refine this model using designed experiments, where appropriate, to facilitate the development of a quantitative, proactive optimization strategy for eliminating the constraints. Most importantly, this overall strategy plays a significant role in demonstrating, and facilitating employee acceptance, that the manufacturing operation has evolved from an experienced-based process to one based on quantifiable science.     

A TUTORIAL ON BOTTLENECK DYNAMICS: A HEURISTIC SCHEDULING METHODOLOGY

We give a tutorial on bottleneck dynamics. Bottleneck dynamics is a scheduling framework that uses approximate dual resource prices to make decentralized decisions. The basic idea is to establish a price for a resource as a function of the set of jobs that need to be processed by the resource. Tasks are then sequenced according to a cost/benefit ratio. Starting with one resource sequencing problems, we describe how priorities for jobs can be developed and how they translate into resource prices. We then describe how resource prices can be approximated in a multiresource situation and how lead times which are critical for these approximations can be accurately computed. We also describe a number of studies that have shown bottleneck dynamics to be an effective approach in several different problem areas.     

MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF ANSWERING MACHINES

Answering machines have become one of the major challenges toobtaining high response rates in telephone surveys. This articlepresents some data that may be helpful in answering two questionsthat frequently arise: (1) What are the chances that additionalcalls to a household known to use an answering machine willresult in a completed interview? (2) When is the best time tocall, in order to minimize the chances of encountering an answeringmachine? The data used to analyze these questions are basedon the calling records of the 1990 California Disability Survey,a large random-digit dialing survey that generated about 330,000calls and completed interviews at over 24,000 house holds. Thislarge number of calls is interesting not only in absolute termsbut because of the high number of callbacks that they represent,designed to bring the response rate up over 80 percent. Therecords of calls analyzed here, consequently, can show convincinglywhat really happens when 10, 20, 30, or even more callbacksare attempted. Such opportunities are rare. Researchers cantake advantage of these results to generate more informed callingstrategies and consequently improve response rates in theirsurveys.