Supporting the Well-Being of People with Mobility Disabilities Through Social Work Practice

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this insight generating study was to explore the viewpoints of people with mobility disabilities (PWMD) about ways for social workers to promote their well-being through social work practice. A qualitative participant action style methodology encouraged PWMD to voice their concerns and recommendations. Eighteen PWMD were interviewed, including nine consumers and nine social workers. Participants indicated from their experiences that social workers commonly are not sufficiently cognizant of the personal goals, perspectives, and health potentials of PWMD. Overall, they suggested that the social work practice approach for people with disabilities should become more holistic and proactive. Their recommendations are consistent with current ideas about best practice in the social work and disabilities literature and they reinforce the importance of making these ideas more widely practiced.     

A Critical Review of Relocation Research Specific to Separation and Divorce

Relocation, as an issue in the context of family law, typically involves the proposed move of a separated or divorced parent with a child to a new residence a substantial distance away from the non-moving parent. Based on a comprehensive review of the empirical evidence, 11 studies that focused on relocation within the context of separation and divorce were located, retrieved and appraised based on a common standard for assessing the methodological quality of the studies. Results of the critical appraisal found that the majority of social science research studies on relocation are of poor quality. Overall, the project’s findings demonstrate the need to move away from oversimplified considerations for relocation and to embrace a more comprehensive approach to fully capture the various factors that are relevant when considering the strengths and limitations of relocation.     

Schulman's Urban Lesbian: A HoboSexual Pedestrian Rhetoric

The following article reads the protagonist in Sarah Schulman's Girls, Visions and Everything as not only lesbian, but as hobosexual—a concept representative of anti-capitalist practices in both sex and labor. The hobosexual is developed as an extension of the lesbian flâneur, as a concept that requires reading Schulman's urban lesbian at the intersection of class and sexuality. Lila Futuransky's sexual identity is suspended and complicated through an emphasis on her desire for queer mobility; her urban movements connect her to hobo history, but also expose the effects of capitalism that thwart her urban movement.     

Global walls and global movement: new destinations in Jewish migration, 1918–1939

Research often argues or implies that the First World War suddenly discontinued the age of Jewish mass migration and led to increased sedentarism. Indeed, the former main destinations like the USA drastically cut down on the arrival of East European Jews. This did not, however, result in the end of Jewish mass migration. This article will demonstrate that it rather led to manifold attempts to circumvent the newly introduced and increasingly exclusive measures, to a rising complexity of transnational movement patterns, and finally to the emergence of new destinations and Jewish communities all over the globe. This movement, however, was overshadowed and impacted by the almost global rise of xenophobia and fascism. Based on local histories, statistical and legal sources, as well as reports and communications by delegates of Jewish relief organizations, this article presents a social history of the intersection between global Jewish migration and politically motivated migration management. It leaves behind the focus on “departure” and “arrival” in Jewish migration history and elaborates on the relevance and dynamics of transmigration, the dominance of migrant networks and the complex relationship between national policies and migrants' agency.     

Incapsulating hands: on the (in)dependence of young adults in the UNHCR’s Maratane Refugee Camp

Drawing on research with a small group of young women and men in Maratane Refugee Camp, Mozambique, this paper argues that youth envisage themselves as incapsulated in the camp’s physical and ideological boundaries. It shows that the United Nations’ (UN) mandate of finding durable solutions to international problems is difficult to achieve when young people envisage themselves as reliant or dependent on the UN. It argues that greater attention needs to be given to the mentoring of young people within the UN system, so that they are equipped with viable and realistic life expectations and skills.     

The Mobility of Elderly Residents Living in Suburban Territories

Abstract

Many authors have observed die elders' unanimous aspirations to age in place. Such residential aspirations echo theoretical concepts such as “environmental-fit.” Aging residents adapt to their residential environment according to their autonomy level, their financial and social resources, as well as the meanings they invest in both residential situations and lifestyle (Lord, 2004; Wagnild, 2001). Therefore, the suburbs constitute a challenge for aging residents' intentions to remain in their home for as long as possible. These low-density environments encourage car dependency for almost every daily activity. In that regard, many studies have investigated the daily mobility patterns of elders living in such areas. However, most of them have focused on aspects linked to transportation and driving security (Rosenbloom, 2003). In this context, with a socio-anthropological (in-depth interviews) method, the elders' daily mobility is explored in a complex layering of issues. Two interdisciplinary qualitative researches on the daily and residential mobility of elderly suburbanites have been used: a group living in Quebec City's Post-War suburbs in Canada (n = 56) and another in Marseille's periurban suburbs in France (n = 36). The results show that we must investigate beyond the elders' “emotional attachment”to their “home” in order to explain the everyday tensions underlying accessibility and daily mobility. Aging in a single-family house is more than a deliberate choice. Moving away from one's neighborhood is considered a last resort alternative by the majority. Instead, the elderly from both milieus will adapt their lifestyles to the environment by redesigning their daily activities and their mobility practices in order to age in place. Therefore, adapting daily mobility practices to social interactions and social representations all become a sine qua nonecondition.     

The journey of Central American women migrants: engendering the mobile commons

ABSTRACT

This article delves into the concept of the ‘mobile commons’ which is articulated within the Autonomy of Migration (AoM) approach. The AoM literature focuses on migrant agency by advocating that migrants practice ‘escape’ and ‘invisibility’. However, drawing on the stories of women migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central American (NTCA) (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras) travelling through Mexico, this article aims to engender and thereby trouble the concept of the mobile commons by questioning several taken-for-granted assumptions that are based on gender-neutral knowledge and dichotomous ways of thinking. Using women’s experiences to question the assumptions made with respect to ‘migrant knowledge’, I show that the knowledge among women migrants from the NTCA is influenced by gendered power imbalances that place women in subordinate positions. The analysis will first focus on explaining the mobile commons as a theoretical concept. Following this, I discuss how conceptualizing the mobile commons through a feminist perspective challenges the ideas of invisible knowledge and trust often integral to the ways in which the concept of the mobile commons is used. Finally, I outline the survival strategies that migrant women may use given their own knowledge of the migration context in Mexico, and reflect on what this means for the scholarly understanding of the ‘mobile commons’.     

Family involved or left behind in migration? A family-centred perspective towards Estonia-Finland cross-border commuting

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to find out how the active cross-border mobility of one family member changes the communication patterns inside the family and how it impacts those who stay behind. Concentrating on the case study of Estonian men working in Finland, this paper examines how families are maintaining relationships with people close to them and what kind of new practices are created to overcome the geographical distance. The importance of both active real-life and mediated communication, media usage, and social-media practices, but also new travelling practices are stressed. The perspectives of both the mobile members of the family and those who stay behind are covered with a focus on how all family members are involved in the migration processes. The fieldwork demonstrates that the mobility of one member of the family can influence the partner and children to take a more active position in maintaining communication during the period of working abroad. Through media usage and international visits, the partner and children gain a special kind of transnational lifestyle.     

Bangkok flooded: re(assembling) disaster mobility

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates mobility options and practices of irregular migrant workers and international urban refugees during the 2011 flood in Bangkok, Thailand. Contributing to debates on disaster mobility and climate change induced displacement, the paper explores how citizenship and racialized differences unfolded during the flood event and how such differences had (de)mobilising effects for specific subgroups of Bangkok’s irregular population. Drawing on the concepts of assemblage and affect the paper proposes to perceive of race as emergent within concrete interactions between bodies, rather than a pre-given social category or a purely discursive trope. From this perspective the body itself may become a repository to subvert or manipulate racialized perceptions. The paper argues that approaching race as an emerging assemblage helps to shed light both on the demobilising effects race had on people’s mobility as well as on the fleeting moments of generosity and care between people that proliferated alongside such demobilisations.     

Dynamics of precarity among ‘new migrants’: exploring the worker–capital relation through mobilities and mobility power

ABSTRACT

This article conceptualises the role of mobilities within precarious working and living conditions, drawing on qualitative analysis of interviews (n = 52) and a policy seminar (n = 50) in North-East England. It focuses on refugees, asylum seekers, and Eastern European EU migrants, as policy-constructed groups that have been identified as disproportionately concentrated in precarious work. The article develops three ‘dynamics of precarity’, defined as ‘surplus’, ‘rooted’, and ‘hyper-flexible’, to conceptualise distinct ways of moving that represent significant variations in the form that precarity takes. The article concludes that understanding precarity through mobilities can identify points of connection among today’s increasingly heterogeneous working class.