Urban “slums” and social mobility

Informal urban settlements determine the wellbeing of a large section of global humanity. Yet there has been little research on their role in facilitating social mobility. In theory such settlements may foster human progress by linking rural–urban migrants to the services, contacts and livelihoods concentrated in cities. The article uses longitudinal data for South Africa to explore the magnitude of social progression among people living within informal settlements compared with rural areas and formal urban areas. It finds that there may be some advantage from living in an informal settlement compared with a rural area, but the effect is not strong. The impact may be larger in the more prosperous Gauteng city‐region than in other urban regions.     

Flows and Cohesion: Balancing Capabilities Across an Expanded Union1

Until recently the flow of skilled workers to established centres from more peripheral regions was seen as a ‘brain drain’, implying a one‐way and permanent loss of skilled labour. However, increasing mobility and connectivity permits more complex traffic between more and less advanced locations. With the emergence of a global economy dependent on flows of material and intellectual capital, the notion of ‘brain circulation’ has gained prominence. Understanding the potential benefits of migration to both donor and recipient economies must move beyond financial remittance to social remittance. As connectivity increases, both become capacity‐building resources. This article discusses the impact of a combination of greater physical mobility and electronic connectivity on the dual objectives of social cohesion and technical leadership being pursued through the policies of the European Commission.     

Sightseeing Buses: Cruising,Timing and the Montage of Attractions

Abstract

This article focuses on spatial performances, modes of vision and touring practices enabled by sightseeing bus‐tours. Thereby, three aspects of the process by which these buses transform urban space into destination space are discussed. First, bus‐tours delineate, as they move, a unique geography of routes and stops, which is based on structured improvisation. Second, guiding practices of tour guides are crucial for assembling together a destination and their success depends on timing. Third, tourist experiences enabled by sightseeing bus‐tours involve a ‘cruise‐ship‐like’ style of movement and a mode of vision reminiscent of the ‘montage of coming attractions’ characteristic of film‐trailers. The article concludes by stressing the multiple spatial displacements involved in bus‐tour production of destination space.     

A Social Problems Framework for the Critical Appraisal of Automobility and Sustainable Systems Innovation

Over the past three decades, critical assessment of the automobile has evolved from a focus on the technical inadequacies of the internal combustion engine to a more comprehensive appraisal of the sociotechnical system for providing mobility. The following study charts the evolution of this discourse by focusing in particular on the way in which the Worldwatch Institute has interpreted the various problems of the motorcar during this timeframe. There are now indications that a more thoroughgoing systems view of automobile dependency is developing predicated upon three problem dimensions: fuel use, urban congestion and sedentary lifestyles. The analysis presents a social‐problems framework for beginning to conceptualize more sustainable modes of mobility in the post‐automobile era.     

Taming the road,tamed by the road: sense of road as place among Indigenous Bedouin in an ethnic frontier in Israel

ABSTRACT

We propose the concept ‘sense of road as place’ for an Indigenous group within an ethnic frontier, specifically in the case of the Israeli Bedouin. A road in this spatial context carries far greater meanings than elsewhere, particularly when also impacted by power relationships with the state. We reveal how Road 31 was/is subjectified by the Bedouin as a place prior to and after an upgrade. Initially they were able, through their Indigenous spatiality, to tame the road into their informal mobility and make it a place, but following the upgrade their informal mobility has been tamed into formal state-regulated mobility, making the road a non-place.     

Socio-economic re-structuring and employment: the case of minority ethnic groups

The consequences of major changes in employment, due to the decline of manufacturing and the growth of the service sector, have not been well-documented, nor theorized, in the sociology of ethnic relations, even in recent studies. For example, Blumer's classic argument that economic development adapts to 'race relations', rather than the reverse as predicted by the modernization school, has not been either empirically resolved or conceptually applied to the UK. By adapting data from the Labour Force Survey and the Census, the paper begins to fill this gap with a detailed account of three main minority ethnic groups, and a separate analysis of male and female employment. It is demonstrated that, contrary to assumptions that members of the minority ethnic groups suffered most from de-industrialization, they actually did rather well, and in some cases did better than the majority population. These findings are re-conceptualized as collective social mobility, as part of a review of a number of conceptual frameworks in the light of the data.     

Social mobility and personal satisfaction: evidence from ten countries

This paper examines survey data relating class mobility to satisfaction and dissatisfaction with seven different domains of everyday life among nationally representative samples of men and women living in ten industrialized nations. The evidence is set against competing pessimistic and optimistic accounts of the mobility experience found in earlier literature. Results show that individuals who move from working-class origins to middle-class destinations are no more likely to be systematically satisfied or dissatisfied with life than are the socially immobile or even those downwardly mobile from advantaged backgrounds into the working class. Indeed, in all nations, the overall association between class experience and satisfaction with life is both weak and uneven across the different life-domains. The study also serves to illustrate an important principle of research methodology more generally.     

Industrialization, class structure, and social mobility in postwar Japan

This study examines intergenerational class mobility in Japan using cross-national comparisons with Western nations and cross-temporal comparisons of five national surveys conducted in postwar Japan. Cross-national comparisons highlight the similarity in relative mobility pattern between Japan and Western nations and at the same time the Japanese distinctiveness in absolute mobility rates especially regarding the demographic character of the Japanese manual working class. The results of cross-temporal comparisons of mobility pattern report some systematic trends in total mobility, inflow and outflow rates, reflecting the Japanese experience of late but rapid industrialization. The pattern of association between class origin and class destination, however, was stable in postwar Japan. It is therefore the combination of distinctive absolute mobility rates and similar relative mobility rates that characterizes the Japanese mobility pattern in comparison with the Western experience. Furthermore, Japan's distinctive pattern of postwar social mobility is characterized by a combination of rapidly changing absolute mobility rates and comparatively stable relative mobility rates.     

Begging as work: a study of people with mobility difficulties in Accra, Ghana

Even though begging is illegal in Ghana, an increasing number of disabled people engage in it. Begging is not only abhorred by the law, but also regarded by many Ghanaians as stigmatizing and devaluing. Successive governments of the country and some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have made efforts either to reduce or eliminate begging. The attempts made have, however, been unsuccessful and the disabled beggars involved have returned to the streets of Accra. The question is why is it difficult to reduce begging in the research area. While poverty, mobility needs, lack of education and employable skills and employment avenues are factors that explain the decision to start begging, it also seems that the ways in which beggars justify their activities contribute to its perseverance. The study aims at sensitizing policy-makers and other stakeholders in attempts to find empowering alternatives to begging.     

西北地区已就业农村大学生的工作状况及困境分析——基于甘肃省农村大学生的个案分析

在大学生就业形势日益严峻的当下,分析已就业农村大学生这一特殊群体的生存状况,对农村大学生个体和农村社会文化、教育、经济的发展以及和谐社会的建构都有十分积极的意义。通过深度访谈已就业农村大学生的生存状况发现：国家政策的大力扶持对农村大学生实现代际阶层的社会流动具有决定作用;已就业农村大学生在工作中,应以积极的心态和自强不息的奋斗努力实现＂知识真正改变命运＂。