Book Reviews

Indonesia: the making of a culture. James J. Fox (ed.). 286pp, maps, figures, tables, bibliographies. (Vol. 1 in Indonesia: Australian Perspectives. James J. Fox, Ross Garnaut, Peter McCawley, J.A.C. Mackie (eds).) Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. 1980. $10.

Mekeo: inequality and ambivalence in a village society. Epeli Hau’ofa. x, 3 39pp., maps, figures, tables, plates, appendices, glossary, bibliography, index. Canberra: Australian National University Press. 1981. $19.50.

Tribal communities in rural areas. Elspeth Young, xxiii, 230pp., maps, figures, tables, bibliography. (The Aboriginal Component in the Australian Economy, no. 1.) Canberra: Development Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. 1981. $9.

Women in India and Nepal. Michael Allen and S.N. Mukerjee (eds). xiii, 286pp., figures, bibliographies, index. Canberra: The Australian National University (Monographs on South Asia no. 8). 1982. $10.     

The struggle for ‘our streets’: the digital and physical spatial politics of the Ferguson Movement

ABSTRACT

The Ferguson Movement of 2014 and 2015 reached national salience immediately following the murder of Michael Brown, after residents took to social media platforms to report from what many activists called ‘ground zero.’ Some popular and scholarly conversations have couched the movement largely through its online manifestations; this study, however, places the movement within the intersections of digital and physical space as well as the broader political context of St. Louis. Triangulating data from 21 unstructured interviews with local activists in St. Louis, Missouri with GIS and digital media analysis, we illustrate how activists in the Ferguson Movement organized within St. Louis’ physical space and challenged popular arguments about resistance in digital space. Consequently, we argue that social movements’ placeness remain important despite recent emphases on digital media.     

Global Restructuring,Transmigration and Mexican Rural Women Who Stay Behind: Accommodating,Contesting and Transcending Ideologies

In a time when globalization has escalated the migration of groups of people there is still little known of the families and communities that stay behind. Based on over five years of ethnographic research with campesinas (rural Mexican women) in a highly migratory part of Central Mexico, this article examines the manner in which campesinas who stay behind as their husbands migrate are implicated in global processes. As a result of the movement of spouses to and from the United States new ideas, capital, bodies, and information are introduced that alter the roles and perspectives of women who stay behind. From a gendered glocal framework that links global and local processes and considers power relations stretched across various spaces and amongst gender relations, the author examines how women learn to accommodate, contest, and transcend their transmigrant state and changing ideologies. Women's integration in a non-governmental organization, reliance on family networks and cultural traditions, among others, help maintain their integrity and wholeness as single mothers, group leaders, and community participants.     

Narratives of race and nation: Everyday whiteness in Australia

Australia's history as a white nation has been riddled with not only mis-treatment of the ‘other’, but in more recent times of a type of invisibility of the ‘other’ that has disabled many within this nation from recognising the continuation of practices and policies of racial discrimination. This paper presents the findings from research conducted over 2001–03 during the ‘boat people’ crisis in Australia, when a number of everyday individuals volunteered time to assist refugees. It goes on to argue that while the policies of Multiculturalism of the 1970s had attempted to create a more inclusive society and had for the participants in this research transformed into nation-defining narrative, its failure to incorporate everyday people in its inception and continuation was productive of a blind spot in relation to racial treatment because most could believe all was well in this arena.     

The Influence of Water Access in Subjective Well-Being: Some Evidence in Yucatan, Mexico

The literature on happiness or subjective well-being has explored the determinants of happiness without taking into consideration the role that water plays. In this paper we attempt to draw attention to water in subjective well-being studies. Approximately one hundred million people do not have access to water. A lack of clean water causes diseases such as diarrhea and cholera, responsible for around 5% of the total deaths in the world. Access to water should therefore be a necessary asset in life. In order to consider access to water, we estimate its influence on subjective well-being using data from rural Yucatan, Mexico. Residents in Yucatan suffer from low quality access to water and there are also imperfections in the management of the service, such as water cuts. We estimate the influence of water on subjective well-being, finding a positive and significant relationship. In a second stage of the research, we relate water access variables to subjective well-being, the health and the water domain of life, finding significant results. These results make it possible to formulate political measures concerning access to water and happiness maximization. We demonstrate that access to water is important for well-being in Yucatan and might be important in many other places; we therefore encourage future research to contemplate water satisfaction and water variables in their analysis.     

Grandmothers Offering Regular Auxiliary Care for Their Grandchildren: An Expression of Generativity in Later Life?

The study explores the meaning that grandmothers who offer regular childcare attach to that experience and the extent to which the notion of generativity might explain the meaning of the experience of caring for a grandchild. Twenty-four Spanish grandmothers aged 60 and over who provided at least 12 hours a week of childcare were interviewed. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and qualitatively analyzed. The results suggest that grandmothers regard their childcare input as being part of their parental duty of helping in times of need. A range of consequences of caregiving were mentioned, generally positive and satisfactory. Our participants apparently began their caregiving task as an expression of parental generativity, although rewards associated with childcare are linked to grandparental generativity.     

A comparison of three physical activity programs for health and fitness tested with older women: Benefits of aerobic activity,aqua fitness,and strength training

ABSTRACT

Inactivity has been associated with decreased quality of life of older people, and many physical activity programs are encouraged. However, the heterogeneity of the different exercise programs available is well recognized. The objective was to compare three physical activity programs (strength training, aqua fitness, and aerobic exercise) to discern the differences in the benefits achieved by each of them in older women over a period of 6 months. For that, a double-blind randomized trial sorted 347 women over 50 years old into three groups of exercise programs; they completed three sessions of evaluation that included the measurement of weight and body mass index and used the Senior Fitness Test (SFT) and SF-12 questionnaire. A t-test for related samples compared the evolution of each group, and ANOVA statistic was used to compare the effect of the different exercise programs. The results showed that women should consider performing aerobic activity up to age 60. After that age, aerobic activity or strength training can provide greater benefits.     

Devolution in the U.S. Welfare Reform: Divergence and Degradation in State Benefits

The Journal of Economic Inequality - The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996 devolved responsibility for the design of welfare programs...     

A newsboy problem with an emergency order under a general backorder rate function

In this paper, a generalization is presented of the newsboy problem where an emergency lot can be ordered to provide for a certain fraction of shortage. This fraction is described by a general backorder rate function which is non-increasing with respect to the unsatisfied demand. An exponential distribution for the demand during the selling season is assumed. An expression is obtained in a closed form for the optimal lot size and the maximum expected profit. A general sensitivity analysis of the optimal policy with respect to the backorder rate function and the parameters of the inventory system is developed. When the backorder rate function is described by some particular functions, its behavior is analyzed with respect to changes in the parameters. To illustrate the theoretical results, some numerical examples are also given.     

Organizational structure and success of international joint ventures in emerging economies: the case of Spanish–Moroccan SMEs

One of the most common ways in which SMEs internationalize their business is through the creation of joint ventures; nevertheless, many of these fail. To avoid this risk, it is important to identify the factors that favour the continuity of such enterprises. The aim of this paper is to analyse the factors related to organizational structure that determine the success of international joint ventures between SMEs in emerging economies, taking as the particular area of study the question of joint ventures between Spanish and Moroccan firms, located in Morocco. The research hypotheses were tested using a linear regression model applied to a sample of 210 international joint ventures. The results obtained from a structured survey show that, with respect to the success of the partnership, significant factors include the existence of majority ownership by the foreign partner, management by a local CEO and the effort made by each party to adapt to the management style of the other. This research contributes to the knowledge of the main factors related to the organizational structure of joint ventures that influence the level of success achieved. The value provided by this research lies in the breadth of the sample examined, in its focus on a very common type of partnership between SMEs, on which very little has been previously studied, and in the fact that the results obtained are extensible to other realities, such as partnerships between European companies and those from countries with similar characteristics (located in Africa or in countries where an Arab culture prevails).