Seamen and the Nigerianization of Shipping in the Postcolonial Era

2014 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 124-141
Author(s):  
Lynn Schler
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Actual Impact ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Shipping Line ◽  
Postcolonial Africa ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article examines the impact that indigenization policies had on labor and on the cultures of work in postcolonial Nigeria. Scholars have studied indigenization in the context of nationalist politics, statecraft, and development in postcolonial Africa. However, we have little knowledge of how working classes experienced and interpreted indigenization schemes. Focusing on the indigenization of shipping, this article discusses both how Nigerian seamen anticipated the establishment of the Nigerian National Shipping Line and the actual impact of Nigerianization on their working lives. By taking a close look at changes in shipboard hierarchies, labor relations, and the culture of work on NNSL vessels, we can gain a deeper understanding of how broader political processes associated with decolonization and postindependence shaped working-class lives in postcolonial Nigeria.

“Scrap-Heap Storiesˮ: Oral Narratives of Labour and Loss in Scottish Mining and Manufacturing

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2-2018) ◽  
pp. 8-21
Author(s):  
Arthur McIvor
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Job Loss ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Oral Narratives ◽  
Industrial Work ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Plant Closures ◽  
The Impact

This article is an attempt to comprehend deindustrialisation and the impact of plant downsizing and closures in Scotland since the 1970s through listening to the voices of workers and reflecting on their ways of telling, whilst making some observations on how an oral history methodology can add to our understanding. It draws upon a rich bounty of oral history projects and collections undertaken in Scotland over recent decades. The lush description and often intense articulated emotion help us as academic “outsidersˮ to better understand how lives were profoundly affected by plant closures, getting us beyond statistical body counts and overly sentimentalised and nostalgic representations of industrial work to more nuanced understandings of the meanings and impacts of job loss. In recalling their lived experience of plant run-downs and closures, narrators are informing and interpreting; projecting a sense of self in the process and drawing meaning from their working lives. My argument here is that we need to listen attentively and learn from those who bore witness and try to make sense of these diverse, different and sometimes contradictory stories. We should take cognisance of silences and transgressing voices as well as dominant, hegemonic narratives if we are to deepen the conversation and understand the complex but profound impacts that deindustrialisation had on traditional working-class communities in Scotland, as well as elsewhere.

Conference reports

Urban History ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 73-90
Author(s):  
Martin Daunton
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Monthly Basis ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Slum Dwellers ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
House Building ◽  
First World

The opening lecture of the conference was on a Scottish theme to complement the Scottish venue. Professor JOHN BUTT (Strathclyde) spoke on ‘Working-class housing in the Scottish cities 1900–51’. He began with a fairly traditional picture of working-class housing, which seemed to suggest that it was almost synonymous with slum-dwelling. He also outlined the system of house-letting which operated in Glasgow at the turn of the century, and suggested the impact on the housing market. This system was based upon yearly lets expiring at one date for all but thebottom of the market, where monthly lets were the norm. The main agitation for a change in the letting system came from the mostly ‘respectable’ tenants who occupied yearly-let property, as opposed to the slum-dwellers who rented on a monthly basis. (Regular attenders at the Urban History Group conferences will remember that these themes were discussed in the paper presented by Nick Morgan and Martin Daunton to the Loughborough meeting in 1981; they will also form a major element in Dr Englander's forthcoming book on Landlord and Tenant in Urban Britain 1838–1918.) Professor Butt went on to argue that during the rent strikes of the First World War, it is possible to see a clear distinction between the ‘landlord class’ and the ‘employer class’, the latter not always supporting the view of the former. The final part of the lecture considered the provision of new housing for the working classes after 1918. Detailed figures were provided to support the contention that the building industry and building supplies trade in Scotland were incapable of meeting the demand for new housing from the public sector during the 1930s. He illustrated his argument with specific examples of corporation house-building in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh.

STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF RAISING THE RETIREMENT AGE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY IN RUSSIA AND EUROPE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Apenko ◽  
◽  
Olga Kiriliuk ◽  
Elena Legchilina ◽  
Tatiana Tsalko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Pension Reform ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
The Impact

The article presents the results of a study of the impact of pension reform in Russia on economic growth and quality of life in a digital economy, taking into account the experience of raising the retirement age in Europe. The aim of the study was to identify and analyze the impact of raising the retirement age on economic growth in the context of the development of digitalization in Russia and a comparative analysis with European countries. Results: the studies conducted allowed us to develop a system of indicators characterizing the impact of raising the retirement age on economic growth and the quality of life of the population in the context of digitalization. The authors found that raising the retirement age leads to a change in labor relations in Russia and Europe. The application of the proposed indicators can be used in the formation of a balanced state socio-economic policy in the field of institutional changes in the field of labor relations and raising the retirement age. The study was carried out under a grant from the RFBR № 19-010-00362 А.

Abdullah Quilliam

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Siddique Seddon
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Political Influences ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
Class Struggles ◽  
Legal Advisor ◽  
Shed Light

This chapter explores the religious and political influences that shaped Abdullah Quilliam’s Muslim missionary activities, philanthropic work and scholarly writings in an attempt to shed light on his particular political convictions as manifest through his unique religiopolitical endeavors. It focuses especially on Quilliam’s Methodist upbringing in Liverpool and his support of the working classes. It argues that Quilliam’s religious and political activism, although primarily inspired by his conversion to Islam, was also shaped and influenced by the then newly emerging proletariat, revolutionary socialism. Quilliam’s continued commitment to the burgeoning working-class trades union movement, both as a leading member representative and legal advisor, coupled with his reputation as the "poor man’s lawyer" because of his frequent fee-free representations for the impoverished, demonstrates his empathetic proximity to working-class struggles.

scholarly journals Rijeka as a socialist port: Insights from Jugolinija's early years, 1947-1960

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-208
Author(s):  
Brigitte Le Normand
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Foreign Currency ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
Privileged Access ◽  
Shipping Line ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

To understand the distinctiveness of ports under state socialism, it is necessary to shift the focus from the built environment to flows of people, goods, knowledge and capital. In so doing, this article examines the operation of Yugoslavia's main shipping line, Jugolinija, from its inception in 1947 until 1960. This enterprise was based in the port of Rijeka, with both firm and port experiencing rapid growth during this period. The impact of state socialism can be seen in the primacy of the political over the profitability of the firm, with Jugolinija used to advance Yugoslavia's foreign trade and foreign policy, its interests being subordinated to the project of building self-managed socialism. It can also be seen in the unique challenges posed by having to operate at the intersection of the global market and a highly regulated economy – a situation that also created opportunities for the firm as a whole, as well as for its employees, who had access to foreign currency, travel and knowledge of the world. Jugolinija's privileged access to the world in what was still very much a closed society also created opportunities for ‘leaks’ of personnel and goods. Finally, socialist ideology left its imprint on Jugolinija's operations and shaped the ways in which its employees understood their work and the place of the firm within the Yugoslav economy. While it is tempting to see state socialism as ‘getting in the way’ of Jugolinija's business, in actuality the firm was remarkably successful both at operating within the Yugoslav socialist state framework, and capitalizing on the opportunities provided by access to the global market. Jugolinija's employees, in turn, profited from the mobility that came with working for the firm, sometimes at the expense of the enterprise and the state.

Age and gentrification in Berlin: urban ageing policy and the experiences of disadvantaged older people

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith Dale ◽  
Josefine Heusinger ◽  
Birgit Wolter
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Urban Transformation ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Socially Disadvantaged ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods ◽  
Everyday Experiences ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Chapter 5 examines the impact of gentrification processes in Berlin, Germany, on the distribution of older people across the city as well as the everyday experiences of ageing in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The chapter concludes with an overview of developments in the context of political processes, where urban transformation driven by economic interests generates growing conflict and contradiction with the needs of an ageing and increasingly less affluent population.

Anthropology, Class and the ‘Big Heads’: An Ethnography of Distinctions between ‘Rough’ and ‘Posh’ amongst Women Workers in the UK Pottery Industry

2005 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 710-728 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hart
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Pottery Industry ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Global Corporation ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Sociological Studies ◽  
The Way

In the context of the take-over by a global corporation (Royal Doulton) of a family-owned and run pottery factory in Longton Stoke-on-Trent, known as ‘Beswick’, and the subsequent re-structuring of production, this paper explores the way in which women pottery workers make social distinctions between the ‘rough’ and ‘posh’, ‘proper paintresses’ and ‘big heads’ which cut into and across abstract sociological notions of class. Drawing on ethnographic data I show that for these working class women, class as lived is inherently ambiguous and contradictory and reveal the ways in which class is gendered. I build on historical and sociological studies of the pottery industry, and anthropological and related debates on class, as well as Frankenberg's study of a Welsh village, to develop my argument and draw analogies between factory and village at a number of levels. My findings support the view that class is best understood not as an abstract generalising category, but in the local and specific contexts of women's working lives. I was the first one in our family to go in decorating end and they thought I was a bit stuck-up. My sister was in clay end as a cup-handler and I had used to walk off factory without her, or wait for her to leave before I left, though she said, ‘If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have anything to paint!’ They were much freer in the clay end – had more to do with men – we thought we were one up. 1

‘A man’s work was a man’s life’

Bread Winner ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 62-85
Author(s):  
Emma Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Child Labour ◽  
Young Age ◽  
Male Identity ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Legislative Framework ◽  
Over Time

This chapter reveals the significance for work to male identity. Here, it shows how the centrality of work dominates men's autobiographies. Work was the key feature of a man's life and it was very often the motif by which male writers structured the story of their life. For most working-class men, work was equated with manhood — ‘I was a man and I knew it’. The chapter goes on to discuss how many Victorian children commenced their working lives at a considerably young age, particularly early in the reign when the place of children in the labour market was much more loosely regulated. Furthermore, to a far greater extent than girls, boys' experiences of work were shaped by the legislative framework as child labour laws became increasingly restrictive over time. This changing legal framework for child labour is clearly visible in the male autobiographies.

scholarly journals Measuring the availability of “good jobs” in the United States for working-class men during the Great Recession and recovery

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Dill ◽  
Robert Francis
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Food Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
Job Quality ◽  
Full Time ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Predicted Probability ◽  
Time Work ◽  
The Impact

In this study, we use the 2004, 2008, and 2014 panels of the Survey for Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to measure the impact of the Great Recession and recovery on the availability of “good jobs” for men without a college degree. We define “good jobs” using a cluster of job quality measures, including wage thresholds of at least $15, $20, or $25 per hour, employer-based health insurance, full-time work hours, and protection from layoff. We find that the Great Recession and aftermath (2008-2015) resulted in a 1-10% reduced probability of being in a “good job” across most industries, with especially large losses in manufacturing, retail, transportation, and food service (compared to 2004-2007). In the 2014 panel, there is only a slight post-recession recovery in the predicted probability of being in a “good job,” and the probability of being in a “good job” remains well below 2004 levels. Although the probability of being on layoff from a “good jobs” does decrease substantially in the 2014 cohort as compared to the rate of layoff during the Great Recession, our clustered measure of job quality shows that access to “good jobs” remains limited for most working-class men and that the recovery from the Recession has largely not reached the working-class.

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