‘My dad hangs out of helicopter doors and takes pictures of oil platforms': Children's accounts of parental work in the oil and gas industry

Against the backdrop of the acceleration in pace of work and family life over the last decade, and the accompanying intensification of the work-family debate, this paper argues for the need to include children as stakeholders in the work-family debate. The ethnographic study on which this paper is based brings together children, family, work and community to explore interrelationships between workplace change, parental employment and family life in the oil and gas industry in Scotland. This paper focuses specifically on children's accounts of parental work and the work-family interface. Children, aged 8-12, were seen in schools and at home. Eight focus groups were conducted in two primary schools with 33 children. Nineteen of the families of these children participated in follow-up home interviews, in which 21 focus group children and a further 21 children (siblings, cousins and friends) were seen at home. Multiple methods were used: pictures and photographs of 'work', drawings, a poem, vignettes, word games, and a 'life mode technique'. The paper discusses children's concepts of 'work'; children's knowledge of parental work and the oil industry; children's perceptions of the impact of work on their parents; children's accounts of the effects of parental work on them and the importance of 'family time'; children's own work aspirations; and children's views and values about involvement, communication and decision making regarding parental work. Similarities and differences between children's accounts are highlighted. Sobre el telón de fondo del aumento de paso del trabajo y de la vida familiar en esta última década, y la intensificación del debate 'trabajo/familia' que lo acompaña, este artículo aboga por lo necesidad de incluir a los niños como partes interesadas en tal debate. El estudio etnográfico sobre el cual se basa este artiículo reune a los niños, la familia, el trabajo y la comunidad para explorar las interrelaciones entre el cambio de lugar del trabajo, el empleo de los padres y la vida familiar en la industria petrolera y del gas natural en Escocia. Este artículo se centra específicamente en las cuentas de unos niños del trabajo de los padres y de la interrelación entre el trabajo y la familia. Se entrevistaron a unos niños de 8—12 anos de edad en la escuela y en casa. Se realizaron ocho grupos de enfoque con 33 niños en dos escuelas de estudios primarios. De las familias de estos niños, 19 participaron en entrevistas de seguimiento, en las cuales 21 niños de los grupos de enfoque y 21 niños más (hermanos, primos y amigos,) fueron entrevistados en casa. Se emplearon múltiples métodos: ilustraciones y fotografías de ‘trabajo', dibujos, un poema, estampas, juegos con palabras y una ‘técnica modo de vida'. El artículo trata de los conceptos de los niños del trabajo; los conocimientos de los niños del trabajo de los padres y de la industria petrolera; las percepciones de los niños del efecto del trabajo en sus padres; las cuentas de los niños de los efectos del trabajo de los padres en los mismos niños y de la importancia del ‘tiempo para la familia'; las propias aspiraciones del los niños acerca del trabajo; y los puntos de vista y los valores de los niños sobre la participación, la comunicación y la toma de decisiones acerca del trabajo de los padres. Se ponen del relieve los elementos en común y las diferencias entre las cuentas de los niños.     

The changing experience of researching family and intimate relationships

A small-scale study to explore the possibility of obtaining information about small companies' charitable giving through telephone interviews provided challenges on three research design issues: selecting a target sample, telephone interviewing, and sensitive research topics. This article explores the general lessons derived from the study. First, it considers suitable sampling frames for identifying and contacing small companies. Second, it discusses the consequences for response rates of the telephone warfare between telemarketers and small companies. Third, it reviews what contributes to the sensitivity of research topics and ways of overcoming this.     

Commodities,merchants, and refugees: inter‐Asian circulations and Afghan mobility

This article consists of an analysis of ethnographic material on Afghan trading networks involved in both the export of commodities from China to a variety of settings across Eurasia and the movement of ‘refugees’ from Afghanistan to Europe. Much recent work on trading networks has deployed the concept of trust to understand the functioning of such social formations. By contrast, in this article I assess the durability of Afghan networks in three ways. First, recognition of how they are polycentric and multi‐nodal. Second, how they are successful in transforming their collective aims and projects in changing shifting political and economic circumstances. Third, how they are made up of individuals able to switch their statuses and activities within trading networks over time. Furthermore, I argue that a focus on the precise ways in which traders entrust capital, people and commodities to one another, reveals the extent to which social and commercial relationships inside trading networks are frequently impermanent and pregnant with concerns about mistrust and contingency. Recognition of this suggests that scholars should focus on practices of entrustment rather than abstract notions of trust in their analyses of trading networks per se, as well as seek to understand the ways in which these practices enable actors to handle and address questions of contingency.     

Neoconservatism and the Canadian pro-family movement*

Le mouvement pro-famille est né au Canada en 1983 grǎce à une campagne d'organisation autour de plusieurs thèmes symboliques liés à la défense de la famille traditionnelle et des valeurs morales conservatrices. Le mouvement s'est limité dans un premier temps à des sorties de caractère rhétorique contre le féminisme, les droits des homosexuels, l'éducation sexuelle, le divorce sans culpabilité et l'avortement. Cependant, depuis 1987, il s'associe de plus en plus activement aux thèmes politiques du néo-conservatisme. S'appuyant sur les données recueillies en 1986 et 1987 à l'aide d'un questionnaire envoyé par la poste à un échantillon national de 812 membres d'expression anglaise, l'auteur de cette communication avance des hypothèses quant à la probabilité que le mouvement réussisse à entraǐner une mobilisation autour de revendications touchant la fiscalité et les réductions des services sociaux. Les données sont examinées sous l'angle de la relation entre l'idéologie d'un mouvement social et l'héritage culturel de ses membres ordinaires. The pro-family movement organized in Canada in 1983 around a number of symbolic issues related to a defence of the traditional family and conservative moral values. In its nascent years, it restricted its efforts to rhetorical attacks against feminism, gay rights, sex education, no-fault divorce, and abortion. Since 1987, however, it has increasingly promoted a neoconservative agenda. On the basis of data collected in 1986–87 in a mail-out survey of the national (Anglophone) membership (N=812), this paper speculates about the movement's likelihood of mobilizing support around fiscal issues and social service cutbacks. These data are discussed with reference to questions about the relationship between social movement ideology and the experiences and cultural heritage of rank-and-file supporters.     

'The State': A Comment on Abrams, Denis and Sayer

Abstract This paper answers the question,‘what is the state?’as posed in Abrams (1988) and Denis (1989), by examining Sayer's (1987) realist reconception of ‘relations of production’ and their ‘ideal superstructures’. It suggests that Sayer's alternative to ‘traditional’ marxism warrants a reappraisal of the relationship between Marx and Foucault. It concludes that ‘civil society’ and ‘the state’ are Janus-faces of production relations, generated by Foucault's ‘disciplinary practices’.     

Introduction to the special issue: after trust

‘Trust’ has long been seen as critical to the success and durability of trading networks, and conceptualized as a positive moral sentiment that is embedded in shared kinship, ethnicity or friendship, or in shared frameworks of morality. Other recent studies of business communities suggest that the ability to work in settings characterized by pervasive mistrust is a key factor in the development of commercial acumen and a determinant of success. Here, the authors argue that a focus on trust and mistrust, and an underlying concern with ethics and morality, can obscure equally critical factors that inform the durability of trading networks. They offer ethnographic accounts of different inter‐Asian trading networks active in the city of Yiwu, which is one of China's most dynamic and diverse ‘international trade cities’. Yiwu is home to the largest wholesale market of small commodities in the world, and attracts traders and merchants from across the planet; more than 12,000 foreign traders are also resident in the city. The authors of the articles presented here analyse the durability of these networks in relation to broader geopolitical processes and contexts. They argue that success often depends on the ability to negotiate geopolitical shifts and the fault lines of political identity. They trace traders’ efforts to create institutions that allow them to withstand geopolitical transformations. They also document the ability of trading networks to operate flexibly across different social fields, showing that resilience often depends on the ability to navigate and profit from shifting relations between economic, political and familial domains.