Focusing on Focusing Events: Event Selection,Media Coverage,and the Dynamics of Contentious Meaning‐Making

Despite the prevalent assumption among scholars of social movements and contentious politics that transformative contentious events are also the focus of public attention and discussion, there has been little attempt to substantiate this. After making a case for why to focus on focusing events and suggesting that these events should be thought of as products of a dialogical contentious meaning‐making process, we develop a coverage attribute‐based method for identifying focusing events. For illustrative purposes, we apply our method to the coverage of contentious events during the “first” intifada by Israeli‐Jewish, Jewish settler, and Palestinian newspapers. Findings from analyses of 11,868 news items reveal that newspapers are likely to strategically quiet contentious events that are strategically amplified by newspapers affiliated with opposing or targeted parties, and vice versa, depending on their interpretation of these events as political opportunities or threats. Analyses of variations across and within contending parties reveal the role of structure and agency in the dialogical seesaw‐like dynamics of contentious meaning‐making.     

Unreasonable adjustments: the additional unpaid labour of academics with disabilities

Abstract

Two recent contributions to this section have drawn attention to the barriers which academics with disabilities have to navigate in academia where ableism “is endemic” (Brown and Leigh, 2018 Brown, N & Leigh, J (2018) Abelism in academia? Where are the disabled and ill academics. Disability & Society, 33 (6): 985–989.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 4). Hannam-Swain (2018 Hannam-Swain, S (2018) The additional labour of a disabled PhD student. Disability & Society, 33 (1): 138–142.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) highlighted the additional intellectual, emotional and physical labour required of her as a disabled PhD student, and Brown and Leigh (2018 Brown, N & Leigh, J (2018) Abelism in academia? Where are the disabled and ill academics. Disability & Society, 33 (6): 985–989.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) queried “where are all the disabled and ill academics?” However, Brown and Leigh primarily focus on those with invisible “conditions” and the dilemmas raised by disclosure in a context where such conditions negate academic status and credibility. In contrast, since my “disability” is visible, I do not share the dilemma/“luxury” of secrecy. My presence announces my status before me, and this negates my personhood altogether in academic settings. It also places a burden of additional unpaid labour upon me which has significant mental health and career impacts as well as violating principles of equality.     

Negotiated identities: Male migration and left-behind wives in India

This paper examines the impact of husbands’ migration on the lives of women left behind. Using data from the India Human Development Survey 2005, we focus on two dimensions of women’s lives: women’s autonomy and control over their lives; and women’s labour force participation. Results suggest that household structure forms the key mediating factor through which husbands’ absence affects women. Women not residing in extended families are faced with both higher levels of responsibilities and greater autonomy, while women who live in extended households do not experience these demands or benefits.     

Is demography destiny? The role of structural and demographic factors in Australis past and future labour supply

Following the release of the Intergenerational Report, the Australian Treasury identified the levers to address the economic effects of demographic ageing as ‘the three Ps’: population, participation and productivity. To date, the first ‘P’, population, has been treated as an exogenous factor, with the common view being that there is very little that the government can do to supplant demographic ageing. Focusing upon labour supply, this paper shows how variation in Australia’s underlying demography can significantly alter Australia’s future labour supply. Although governments cannot redirect the cohort flow component of population ageing, much can be achieved in promoting growth of the labour supply by maintaining or increasing fertility (in the longer term), or increasing targeted migration (in the short to medium term). This paper also decomposes the relative role of cohort flow, changing demography and changing labour force participation on the growth of the labour supply over the past 20 years. Over this period, the entry of the baby boom generation (cohort flow) and increased labour force participation of women accounted for almost all of the growth in the labour force. Changing demography had very little effect. However, Australias future labour supply will not include a large increase in cohort flow (as caused by the baby boomers) or a very large increase in female labour force participation. Regardless of the assumptions used, labour supply growth will be considerably lower in the next and subsequent 20 years, when compared to the previous 20.     

对马克思主义劳动价值论的研究和认识应当与时俱进 ——兼谈社会主义财富论

马克思的劳动价值论是在对工业化初期的资本主义英国进行批判分析过程中建立起来的,同我们的社会主义现实生活之间存在着严重的脱节甚至抵触.深化对马克思主义劳动价值论的研究和认识,应不拘泥于理论教条,而应当与时俱进,进行理论创新,建立符合客观实际的社会主义财富论,这不会导致对整个马克思经济学的否定.     

婚姻市场、农业剩余与光棍分布--一个理解农村光棍问题的中观机制

在婚姻市场渗透下,中西部农村家庭继替具有市场参与性特征：婚姻市场竞争过程形塑出以竞争力为指标的婚姻梯队序列,在优势梯队实现的家庭继替具有向上社会流动的特征,梯队末端则呈现为底层沦陷;农村男性青年在婚姻梯队序列所处的位置取决于其家庭的资源积聚方式、能力和分配方式。调查发现末端梯队集中分布于农业剩余稀薄村庄,其内在机理是农业剩余稀薄通过形塑家庭劳动力的不合理配置与以年轻人为主体的资源积聚方式和向家庭日常生活基本需要进行倾斜的资源分配方式削弱了男性青年的婚姻市场竞争力,其现象表征是扎堆分布的光棍。     

Protesting the police: anti-police brutality claims as a predictor of police repression of protest

Police face a unique dilemma when policing protests that explicitly target them, such as the anti-police brutality protests that have swept the United States recently. Because extant research finds that police response to protests is largely a function of the threat – and especially the threat to police – posed by a protest, police may repress these protests more than other protests, as they may constitute a challenge to their legitimacy as a profession. Other research suggests police agencies are strongly motivated by reputational concerns, suggesting they may treat these protests with special caution to avoid further public scrutiny. Using data on over 7,000 protests events in New York over a 35-year period from 1960 to 1995, I test these competing hypotheses and find that police respond to protests making anti-police brutality claims much more aggressively than other protests, after controlling for indicators of threat and weakness used in previous studies. Police are about twice as likely to show up to anti-police brutality protests compared with otherwise similar protests making other claims and, once there, they intervene (either make arrests, use force or violence against protesters, or both) at nearly half of these protests, compared to about one in three protests making other claims.     

‘A city is not a company,a flat is not a commodity’: urban movements and defenders of tenants’ rights in Poland

This article describes urban and tenant movements that have been created in Poland in response to the commercialization of urban space and the complete commodification of the right to housing. On the one hand, spatial segregation in Polish cities was fully approved by the state; on the other hand, it became a source of income for new owners of acquired buildings, who often used criminal methods to intimidate tenants. Brutal evictions encountered social resistance from the emerging tenant movement, non-institutionalized left-wing communities and endangered tenants, who were often pensioners and members of the lower classes. The author mentions undertaken and possible methods of social self-defence such as eviction blockades and rent strikes. He also raises the question of whether urban movements can become part of a broader social movement for systemic change.     

Exploring experiences of heterosexism and coping strategies among lesbian,gay, bisexual,and transgender persons in Swaziland

Social, cultural, and institutional processes which see heterosexuality as natural and universal discriminate against individuals who differ from this norm. This article draws on interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Swaziland to provide an enhanced understanding of the ways in which heterosexism operates in practice and impacts the sexual rights of LGBT communities in Swaziland, where same-sex practices are criminalised. These narratives show the importance of solidarity and activism in coping strategies to challenge social exclusion, improve lives, and advocate for social changes. These strategies include reframing, navigating interpersonal relationships, and advocacy. We consider key lessons that emerge from our research for policy, programmes, and activism in Swaziland, as well as other low- and middle-income contexts.     

Techno-Wizardry and movie magic: the trace of labour (or lack thereof) in 3D digital animation

ABSTRACT

This paper will argue that 3D digital animation, unlike its 2D and stop-motion counterparts, currently lacks recognisable self-reflexive aesthetic devices through which the trace of animators’ labour can be made visible. It will open with a brief history of how animation has previously shown its workings; from the pencil-wielding hand of Émile Cohl to the opening seconds of South Park, plus the intentional and unintentional smears and multiples visible on animation cells. These devices will then be discussed in relation to Marx’s analysis of the commodity in Capital Vol. 1, and how the process of fetishisation is momentarily disrupted by imperfections in the object which have been caused by production errors. These faults reconnect the object to its producer through the trace of (imperfect) labour which remains visible on the surface. In animation, similar (albeit consciously made) ‘errors’ connect the perceptive viewer directly to the work of 2D or stop-motion animators. This paper will argue the need for an equivalent to emerge in 3D digital animation, as well as highlighting some contemporary animators testing and subverting the limits of 3D and sketching some possible ways these might encourage further formal innovations.