Sending Granny to Chiang Mai: debating global outsourcing of care for the elderly

This article ties in with existing discussions on global care chains, family separation and the devaluation of social‐reproductive work. We explore the new trend of outsourcing care for the elderly to countries with lower wages. We base our analysis on the debate in the German press and supplement it with insights from ethnographic field observations in two care homes in Thailand. We identify a discourse of abandonment, which shows how outsourcing the care of the elderly unsettles the privilege of sedentarism that is often taken for granted in the Global North. Furthermore, the newspaper articles tend to villainize people who seek care for their loved ones abroad. We argue that both discourses foster a neoliberal rationale of individualized responsibility and obfuscate the deep systemic roots of the care crisis in the Global North. However, by extending the discussion on outsourcing care for the elderly beyond the dominant media discourses, we envisage a rich potential for provoking political debate on the revaluation of care.     

Consumers on a Mission to Force a Change in Public Policy: A Qualitative Study of the Ongoing Canadian Seafood Boycott1

Netnography (i.e., the online equivalent of ethnography) was used to analyze consumer boycott pledges submitted to an online boycott petition that was designed to recruit consumer participation in the contentious Canadian Seafood Boycott. The purpose was to investigate what motivates consumers to pledge boycott participation as well as to provide a preliminary understanding of boycott pledgees' psychographic makeup. The findings show that petition signatories are generally very angry about the Canadian Seal Hunt, pledge to boycott for a variety of objectives (instrumental, expressive, and punitive), abhor cruelty against animals, do not believe that it is acceptable to kill an animal for its fur, and worry about the environment in general. Many are very religious and quite a number believe that traditions that embrace animal cruelty need to be abolished. The findings further indicate that concern for animal welfare/rights has been moved into the mainstream.     

Private money,public scrutiny? Contrasting perspectives on remittances

Migrant remittances have received unprecedented attention over the past decade and scholars have interpreted remittance flows from a range of vantage points. In this article, we explore the meaning of remittances from three perspectives – (1) as an ingredient of terrorism and crime; (2) as a contribution to development; and (3) as an obstacle to integration. We explore these perspectives through an analysis of eight years of public debate in Norway and a review of the academic literature. Our analysis shows that remittances are open to public scrutiny, often within a strongly normative framework. Such public scrutiny is at odds with the private nature of remittances and affects migrants' everyday lives both structurally and emotionally. This scrutiny of remittances also suggests underlying assumptions about migrants' legitimate loyalties and belonging that fail to take adequate account of their multiple attachments.     

Board Activities and the Denationalization of Ownership – The Case of Sweden

This article investigates the effects of a denationalization of ownership on the activities of corporate boards. A simultaneous change in investors' identity on the Swedish stock exchange and the board activities of large Swedish firms was observed during the late 90s. Drawing on the heritage hypothesis we conjectured that there could be a relationship between increased international ownership and increased board activities on firm level. The results show that board activities in terms of range of activities and engagement in the decision process increased during the 90s. No relationship was found between change in ownership identity and board activities, instead the increase in activities seemed to be a general phenomenon, while ownership change was firm specific. To explain this result a hypothesis of legitimization seeking behaviour and indirect influence of denationalization, specific to the period in question, is formulated.