Social attitudes in southern Spain to shape EU agricultural policy

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the most important European policies. Since its inception, the CAP has been reformed in response to high budgetary costs, international trade pressures and socio-economic changes. Despite the reforms, this policy did not always serve the best interests of farmers and provoked social criticisms. In anticipation of the post 2013 design, it is widely agreed that the forthcoming CAP should be more understandable to taxpayers. In this study, the social preferences towards the budgetary allocation of this policy, its equity, and its co-financing are investigated by means of the Choice experiment methodology to shed light on how to shape the future CAP to gain social legitimacy. Results reveal that the CAP post 2013 proposal is more in line with public preferences, although alternative measures are needed to tailor it effectively to regional needs.     

An Anthropology of ‘The Good Life’ in the Bolivian Plateau

This paper addresses my understanding of well-being as harmonious relations in the city of El Alto, Bolivia. My approach shows the complexity of issues emerging when dealing with social relations. First of all, I analyse a specific case study showing the moral obligation involved among household members. Then I attempt to provide an insight into other aspects of social life to realise that the same degree of moral duty can be found when people participate in religious festivities or social protests. Collaboration, unity and co-operation often coexist with conflicts and moral obligation. The paper argues that this picture of complex coexistence is rather different from the substantive freedom described by Sen (Development as freedom. Oxford University Press, 1999) in his capability approach. By taking Sen’s theoretical framework as a point of departure for this investigation, it aims to emphasise the value of ethnography and other qualitative methods to the study of well-being. In the field of well-being, social interaction may greatly affect people’s capabilities to choose the lives they have reason to value, obliging them to follow certain models based on shared values and preferences. The paper contributes to debates on this specific issue, trying to shed light on the picture emerging when engaging with ethnographic research.

Determinants of Well-being Among Legal and Illegal Immigrants: Evidence from South Italy

The pursuit of happiness and life satisfaction mobilises individuals to create a dynamic, unique, everyday reality for themselves. The literature has placed particular emphasis on the study of immigrants on the basis that migration is triggered by discrepancies between prior expectations and realisations post-migration. However, the relationship between happiness and illegal migration has received little attention. This study contributes to the current literature by analysing a sample of both illegal and legal immigrants to test the established socio-economic drivers of well-being for each group. Additionally, for the first time, the subjective well-being (SWB) of the respondents is measured in a continuous scale utilising the Visual Analogue Scale technique. Our findings demonstrate that illegal immigrants not only experience greater increases in SWB, but they also report higher levels. Finally, the income effect is positively correlated (although weak) with SWB for illegal immigrants only and family size is positively correlated with greater levels of SWB for their legal counterparts.     

Romanian approach to media portrayals of disability

There is a wide range of media representations of disability, but not just because of the societal stigma. They are a function of norms of journalism as well as biases among people with disabilities themselves. This article is a contribution to the issue of social representation of persons with disabilities from a Romanian perspective, which will help to witness the transformation of the general perception of persons with disabilities by seeing the evolution of the terms used to name disability in crucial years of the socio‐political development of Romania (1989, 1990 and 2003). The existence of different categories of representations will reveal the evolution of society, which switched from a culture of protection to a culture of promotion for people with disabilities.