Gender,work, and childcare in Kazakhstan,Mongolia, and Russia

The current study seeks to understand the nature of gender relations within a post‐Soviet welfare model in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. On the basis of the analysis of key labour market indicators, parental leave, and childcare policies, it finds that the welfare models in the three countries are hybrid, and neither authoritarianism in Kazakhstan and Russia nor democracy in Mongolia lead to substantive gender equality outcomes. Persistent gender inequality in these countries is underpinned by the neo‐liberal approach to welfare provision, conservative social norms, and limited agency of civil society to influence the policy agenda. Nonetheless, these states have distributed to the population with an emphasis on working mothers, and this policy choice has been driven by economic, demographic, and political considerations, which ultimately serve to support, rather than transform, the patriarchal power structure in these societies.     

Everything for the Children: Orphans Growing Up in Informal Adoptive Families in China

Most orphaned children in China are cared for by their extended families or become state wards under the guardianship of child welfare institutions. Some exceptions are children who are found and cared for by families in the community, without a formalized adoption or foster relationship. In some locations, institutions now accept guardianship for these children and support the informal adoptive family to continue to care for them. This article examines the outcomes for these children as they became young adults by comparing these 12 children raised within the system as they approach or have approached young adulthood (now aged 16–40 years-old). Some of the participants were either informally adopted or lived in institutional care. The results of this study found that the family environment was more conducive to the young people’s wellbeing as they approached or entered adulthood. The participants raised in informal care appeared to be treated similar to the biological children in these families. When the institution formalized the state guardianship responsibility, it also meant the families had state resources for support to protect the children’s rights to economic security, education, health care, and social participation. This practice by the institution supported the addition of informal adoption, as one step closer to permanency than foster care. Future implications include considering this option to help promote the family system assisting these children, families, and the state.     

The Effects of Neighborhood Variables on Needs of Social Care: A Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Senior Residents in China

Community-based elder care has become a dominant model in the world. However, the role of community-level factors in helping or hindering the individuals concerned in obtaining the needed care has not received much attention. This research aims to investigate how community-level factors, including neighborhood disadvantage, residential instability, and social service environment affect the need for instrumental, medical, and emotional services of Chinese senior residents. Employing the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the results show that instrumental activities of daily living impairment contributed significantly to the need for instrumental, medical and emotional services. Living alone was found to be associated with the need for medical and emotional services. Objective socioeconomic status was only significantly related to the need for medical care. The type of urban community was positively associated with the need for instrumental services and was negatively related to the need for medical care. Residential instability was positively associated with of the need for instrumental services and medical care. Social service environments had heterogeneous effects on the need for social services. However, neighborhood disadvantage had no significant impact on the need for social services. Implications for future research and policy reform were also discussed.     

新社会运动与德国绿党的形成

绿党是西欧当代政治格局中具有鲜明个性和富有政治影响力的新型政党。德国绿党是在一系列新社会运动中崛起和发展起来的,它在德国政治舞台上刮起了一股“绿党”旋风,但由于其组织上的派别林立,政治纲领的理想化和过于激进,曾使绿党陷于被动的境地。深入思考新社会运动对德国绿党的影响将给我们有益的启示。     

Pussy grabs back: bestialized sexual politics and intersectional failure in protest posters for the 2017 women’s march

The women’s march on Washington on January 21 2017 and its more than 600 sister marches across the world was characterized by its distinctly feline theme. Most notable were the pink pussy hats and a multitude of signs that played on the historical association between women and cats to resist the crude remarks made by US presidential nominee Donald Trump who bragged of grabbing women “by the pussy.” This article explores this feline counterframing from a vegan feminist perspective. A content analysis was performed on photographs that were published in Why I March (2017) and uploaded to the Women’s March on Washington Archives Project, the Georgia State University Women’s Marches 2017 Collection, and Instagram in Spring 2017. Results illustrate the persistent role that animality plays in feminist politics, but they also point to a critical intersectional failure exhibited by an ultimately anthropocentric collective.     

权利视角下工时制度演进的历史回顾

工时制度历经数百余年的演进过程,从超越人体极限的十几个小时至现代社会适度工作时间的实现,各种权利思想扮演了重要角色。伴随启蒙运动中普遍性权利的觉醒,部分人权思想如平等、自由为后来工时制度演变起到了启蒙作用,启蒙运动后社会权的进一步发展则使劳动者实现了向社会人地位的转变。资本主义的发展使劳动时间的价值凸显并且劳动时间不断被延长,伴随着劳动者地位的改善及工人阶级权利意识的觉醒,工人发起缩短工时的罢工运动并成为工时制度演变的直接推动力。适度性是工时制度所追求的目标,伴随着各方的博弈,工时演变的最终结果是实现了各方的适度性,推动了社会的发展。     

论弱势群体的社会法保护

弱势群体的大量存在引发一系列的社会问题,成为构建和谐社会的一大障碍。社会法作为兼具公法与私法双重属性的第三法域,可以为弱势群体提供最佳的保护。我国保护弱势群体的法律制度还不健全,对弱势群体的保护仍存在不足,应进一步完善社会法,向弱势群体倾斜,保障和促进弱势群体享有劳动权、社会保障权、结社权等各项基本人权。     

Aged women,witchcraft, and social relations among the Igbo in South-Eastern Nigeria

Belief in the existence of witchcraft has remained a social phenomenon in Igbo society, especially with aged women who are often labeled witches. This study is exploratory and explains the implication of labeling an aged woman a witch and social relations in Igbo society in South-Eastern Nigeria. Twenty interviews were conducted with aged women who are victims of the witchcraft label and their relatives using qualitative methods of data collection, key informant interviews, and in-depth interviews. Data collected were analyzed using ethnographic content analysis. Findings reveal different social views attached to witchcraft and how it relates to aged women.     

“But we still try”: affective labor in the corporate mommy blog

This article studies three “mommy blogs,” online platforms catering to (in these cases) American mothers of various sub-demographics, through an affective labor framework. Using digital labor and Althusserian subject formation to inform my reading of the common rhetorical gestures made in these blogs, I ask how they conceive of their readership and contributors. I argue that mommy blogs should be understood as sites of digital labor because of the ways in which their publishing conditions and rhetorics establish labored expectations of the “mommy” subject. Contestations of the nature of affective labor in motherhood are reflected by anxieties around digital labor, which play out via ideological conflicts that manifest rhetorically in the blogs under discussion. This analysis is informed by affect theory, Althusser and Butler’s work on subject formation, and the existing feminist literature on digital labor and the mommy blog.     

民族历史构建与现实社会因素(续)

保安族在50年代被正式识别为一个民族,对其族源曾有多种观点。但是在建国50年后,保安族的历史和族源观被再次重构,这个过程既反映了现实民族关系对历史书写的映射,也反映了民族精英在历史重构中的能动性。对保安族的这个实例的分析可以帮助我们更深刻地认识现实社会因素能够如何影响民族历史的构建,这个案例所反映出来的族群历史建构模式对于研究我国的"民族历史建构和族群群体的认同结构也颇具启发意义。