Verflochtene Mobilitäten und ihr Management. Mobilitätspraktiken von Expatriate-Managern und ihren <Emphasis Type="Italic">‚trailing spouses‘</Emphasis> im Auslandseinsatz

This article analyzes forms and enabling practices of expatriate mobility, i. e. the mobility of managers and skilled professionals assigned to a foreign subsidiary of their company. We will show that (1) expatriate mobility has to be conceived of as complex entangled mobilities that add up to a hyper-mobility, and (2) that this hyper-mobility inevitably depends on the active mobility work of the expatriates’ ‘trailing spouses’. Thus, it becomes clear that the mobility management on which expatriate mobility depends is highly gendered. By focusing on the specifics of expatriate mobility, the article also opens up new theoretical perspectives for mobility research in general.     

The SLA DBIO 100 Poll: 100 Journals Voted by SLA’s BioMedical and Life Sciences Division as the Most Influential over the Last 100 Years

Abstract

An expert opinion poll of the members of the BioMedical and Life Sciences Division (DBIO) of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), conducted on the occasion of the SLA's Centennial (Washington, DC, June 14–17, 2009), identified 100 journals across three major categories (Clinical Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, Journals Primarily Reporting Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Journals of Natural History) as the most influential over the last 100 years. The Top Ten, containing winners from all three of these groups, were also named, as were a “Journal” and a “Publisher” of the Centennial.”     

Performing “in the red”: transformations and tensions in repertoires of contention during the 2012 Quebec student strike

The longest and largest student strike in Canadian history began in Quebec in the spring of 2012 in resistance to proposed tuition hikes and the increasing privatization of education and public services that this signaled. The symbol of the student movement, the red square (denoting ‘squarely in the red’ or ‘squarely in debt’) quickly went ‘viral’. At its height, an estimated 300,000 students were striking – nearly 75% of Quebec’s post-secondary student population; on May 22nd some 500,000 people marched in support. The strike continued for six months, ending only after the government was overturned and a new government cancelled the tuition increase. The redeployment of local protest repertoires, including traditional tactics such as picket lines combined with inclusive and creative tactics popularized in alter-globalization movements. Formal student associations combined with various ad hoc coalitions and organizations, as well as communitarian groups, in an uneasy alliance to create a mass mobilization that some commentators dubbed Québec’s ‘Maple Spring’. This article documents the transformation of what Tilly has called ‘repertoires of contention’ within the context of the Quebec student movement. In so doing, it highlights some of the principle debates concerning social values and distributions of agency that resurfaced in connection with the diverse tactics that formed the ‘new’ combinational repertoire.     

Spinning off the developmental cycle: Comments on the utility of a concept in the light of data from Matatiele,Transkei

Recent interest in the effects of labour migration on life in rural labour exporting communities in southern Africa has focused attention on the cyclical sequences of household development as a prism through which to view the links between wages and rural resources. This paper shows that the idea has, at times, been applied inappropriately. The result has been reduced concern with a classical class analysis. One should not however lose sight of such an important perspective.

A focus on the different forms of land tenure obtainingin the Matatiele district of the Transkei is linked with a consideration of a set of personal and household life‐historical sequences. These sequences are shown to be constrained by the material conditions of their existence at different phases of the cycle. A class analysis is thus seen as a necessary underpinning for any analysis using the developmental cycle perspective.     

Notes

The Articulation of Modes of Production — essays from Economy and Society edited by Harold Wolpe. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. (R16.05)     

An analysis of 12-step programs for substance abusers from a developmental perspective

Twelve-step programs are increasingly recognized as important resources and treatment adjuncts for recovering alcohol and other drug abusers. It is therefore important that social workers and other clinicians understand the therapeutic value of these programs to the recovery process. This paper explores 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous in light of Margaret Mahler's conceptualization of the separation-individuation process that leads to object constancy and healthy object relations.Based in part on a paper presented at the XVI Annual Symposium on Social Work with Groups, Hartford, Conn. October 29, 1994.     

A new approach to solve open-partition problems

A partition problem in one-dimensional space is to seek a partition of a set of numbers that maximizes a given objective function. In some partition problems, the partition size, i.e., the number of nonempty parts in a partition, is fixed; while in others, the size can vary arbitrarily. We call the former the size-partition problem and the latter the open-partition problem. In general, it is much harder to solve open problems since the objective functions depend on size. In this paper, we propose a new approach by allowing empty parts and transform the open problem into a size problem allowing empty parts, called a relaxed-size problem. While the sortability theory has been established in the literature as a powerful tool to attack size partition problems, we develop the sortability theory for relaxed-size problems as a medium to solve open problems.     

Dependence of F Ratios Sharing a Common Denominator Mean Square

Much has changed since the widespread introduction of statistics courses into the university curriculum, but the way introductory statistics courses are taught has not kept up with these changes. This article discusses the changes, and the way the introductory syllabus should change to reflect them. In particular, seven ideas are discussed that every student who takes elementary statistics should learn and understand in order to be an educated citizen. Misunderstanding these topics leads to cynicism among the public at best, and misuse of study results by policy-makers, physicians, and others at worst.     

Perceived benefits and psychosocial outcomes of a brief existential family intervention for cancer patients/survivors

This study assessed a range of benefits from participation in a brief existential intervention consisting of a semi-structured videotaped interview with cancer patients and their families designed to illuminate a life legacy for the family (the Life Tape Project [LTP]). Results indicated the majority reported intervention-specific benefits, especially in the areas of symbolic immortality (passing on personal values and philosophy), self-reflection and growth, and improved family cohesion and communication. Participants, particularly those who had perceived their cancer as a threat of death, serious injury, or threat to their physical integrity, and responded with intense fear or helplessness, also reported more general reductions in mood disturbance, improvements in aspects of well-being (including overall quality of life), satisfaction with the understanding they received, and enhanced cancer-related posttraumatic growth. In short, the LTP is a brief, inexpensive, existential intervention that can yield broad positive psychosocial changes for a majority of participants.