Precarious Homes: Encounters with the Benefit System

2018 ◽  
pp. 85-109
Author(s):  
Insa Lee Koch
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Single Mother ◽  
The Public ◽  
System P ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Family Home ◽  
Popular Language ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Benefit System

Chapter 3 looks at how so-called ‘single mothers’ engage the benefit system in their daily attempts to build and maintain family homes. In both policy terms and popular language, the ‘single mother’ is typically portrayed as a woman who corrupts both the immaculate trust of a mother to her child and the civic trust of a citizen to the public by bearing children in order to access public resources. By contrast, this chapter takes as its point of departure women’s own daily pursuits of family homes and the social relations that matter within them. It argues that the rules and logic of the benefit system come into conflict with women’s own expectations of what makes a good family home. By portraying women as needy individuals defined by their lack, means-tested benefits not only expose women to bureaucratic complexity but more substantively, penalize their reliance on fluid household arrangements that encompass friends, partners, grown-up children, and extended kin. While some women learn to ‘play the system’, their attempts to personalize the state also place them in an awkward and sometimes altogether illegal relationship with the law.

Long-Term Ecological Research Over the Long Term: A Historian’s Perspective

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ecological Science

There are many precedents for long-term research in the history of science. Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program’s current identity reflects significant change—intended and accidental, both consensual and conflictual—from research concerns that were prevalent in the 1980s. LTER program has pioneered modes of research organization and professional norms that are increasingly prominent in many areas of research and that belong to a significant transformation in the social relations of scientific research. The essays in this volume explore the impact of the LTER program, a generation after its founding, on both the practice of ecological science and the careers of scientists. The authors have applied the agenda of long- term scrutiny to their own careers as LTER researchers. They have recognized the LTER program as distinct, even perhaps unique, both in the ways that it creates knowledge and in the ways that it shapes careers. They have reflected on how they have taught (and were taught) in LTER settings, on how they interact with one another and with the public, and on how research in the LTER program has affected them “as persons.” A rationale for this volume is LTER’s distinctiveness. In many of the chapters, and in other general treatments of the LTER program, beginning with Callahan (1984), one finds a tone of defensiveness. Sometimes the concerns are explicit: authors (e.g., Stafford, Knapp, Lugo, Morris; Chapters 5, 22, 25, 33, respectively) bemoan colleagues who dismiss LTER as mere monitoring instead of serious science or who resent LTER’s independent funding stream. But more broadly, there is concern that various groups, ranging from other bioscientists to the public at large, may not appreciate the importance of long-term, site-specific environmental research. Accordingly, my hope here is to put LTER into several broader contexts. I do so in three ways. First, to mainstream LTER within the history of science, I show that the LTER program is not a new and odd way of doing science but rather exemplifies research agendas that have been recognized at least since the seventeenth century in the biosciences and beyond.

Social participation in the definition of budgetary instruments

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 737-755
Author(s):  
Luiz Antonio Felix Júnior ◽  
Wênyka Preston Leite Batista da Costa ◽  
Luciana Gondim de Almeida Guimarães ◽  
Glauber Ruan Barbosa Pereira ◽  
Walid Abbas El-Aouar
Keyword(s):  
Social Participation ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Definition Of

Purpose The participation of society is a valuable aspect of the governability of cities, for it strengthens the citizens’ collaborative component. Such participation, which is seen as social, is considered an essential element for the design of a smart city. This study aims to identify the factors that contribute to social participation in the definition of budgetary instruments’ planning. Design/methodology/approach Concerning the methodological instruments, this study is characterised by a quantitative and descriptive approach and uses a multivariate data analysis with a sample of 235 respondents. Findings The study’s findings identified a framework that portrays elements that collaborate with the social participation in the definition of the public administration’s budgetary instruments, which are considered as elements that are able to develop the role of the popular participation and are characterised by the definition of a smart city by enabling more assertiveness in society’s needs. Practical implications Identification of a framework that brings out elements that are able to develop the popular participation in the definition of budgetary instruments. Then, one scale of elements that contribute to social participation in the definition of the public administration’s budgetary instruments theoretically represented and statistically validated, thus contributing to the continuity of studies on social participation. Social implications Through studies on social participation in budgetary planning, it is possible to guarantee a better allocation of public resources through intelligent governability. Originality/value The research can bring theoretical elements about social participation in the definition of budget instruments for a statistical convergence through the perception of the sample.

scholarly journals Make development great again? Accumulation regimes, spaces of sovereign exception and the elite development paradigm of China's Belt and Road Initiative

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Uneven And Combined Development ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Development Paradigm ◽  
Do So

AbstractThis article studies what I describe as “state-coordinated investment partnerships,” an investment modality central to the deployment of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). These partnerships bring together state and business actors to export overcapacity and address infrastructural demands in underdeveloped markets. To do so, they require accumulation and sovereignty regimes that mirror, in contingent ways, similar social arrangements within China. The superposition of such regimes and the interests and social imaginaries of local actors produces forms of uneven and combined development and shapes the contours of the BRI's emerging developmental and geoeconomic footprints. The BRI exports also an elite development paradigm which promotes urbanization, connectivity and economic growth over participatory approaches. This paradigm projects a depoliticized version of China's present into the BRI's future to justify social and environmental dislocations, and shields Chinese firms from civil society scrutiny. My analysis rejects this elite perspective and favors a labor-centric approach that unearths the social foundations of the BRI. From this perspective, despite relevant differences in format, the BRI's quintessential investment modality is closely aligned to a contemporary global current of public-private partnerships endeavored to mobilize public resources and state power for the expansion of capitalist social relations.

scholarly journals Public Services between the Citizen’s Need and the Possibilities of the Administration

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Adriana Grigorescu
Keyword(s):  
Public Services ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Financial Strength ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Services Of General Interest

Abstract This paper aims at the balance between the citizen and the public authorities with public services as an interface. Public services place themselves at the crossroads of many elements such as: needs of the citizen, social need, public will, public resources, private availability, and civic sense. Without claiming to have identified all factors that converge to defining / structuring the public services (PS) / services of general interest (SGI), the paper tried to highlight some of the most important. The social need is covered at the macro level and it represents what society - as a whole - needs. Citizens’ needs are more specific, individualized and custom-designed, rundown by gender, age, education, social condition, financial strength, religion, living environment etc. The public will is an expression of what the Administration encompasses in mid- and long-term national strategies and addresses in detail the PS / SGI in sectorial policies where responsibility is assumed. Public resources include in our assessment all resources at the disposal of the Administration at some point. Private availability can be expressed through various forms such as public-private partnerships, development of complementary private sponsorships, donations etc. A balanced public service can also benefit of citizens’ civic sense. Even if they are completely satisfied with the services at hand they understand that it would be without sense to unnecessary ask for them just only because it’s free.

scholarly journals From Mediation to Mediatisation: the Migration Issue

Monitor ISH ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
Karmen Medica
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Media

The interaction between media and migrants is an integral part of the everyday social context at all levels of modern society, institutional and non-institutional alike. Such dynamism promotes a wide range of social changes and processes. These processes have recently come to be marked by a transition from mediation to mediatisation. While mediation is simply a transfer or transmission of communication by the media, mediatisation involves the active impact of the media on communication in the social and cultural contexts within which this impact can be understood and interpreted. Mediatisation refers to the broader (meta)changes of the media and forms of communication, which in turn cause changes in daily life and in personal and collective identities, as well as in social relations and in society as a whole. Mediatisation is increasingly changing the relationship between the media and society. In the context of the EU, the reporting on migrants tends to be depersonalised. This encourages generalisation, which in its turn reinforces stereotypes and fails to convey a realistic picture of the situation. Another problem identified is the lack of distinctly profiled individuals who could function as representatives of the migrant communities. Moreover, both media and journalists often neglect information coming from direct immigrant sources. The result of this vicious circle is confirmed by the general opinion that migrants typically appear only in cases diverging from the standard, with a strong emphasis on sensational presentation. The integration of migrant communities largely depends on how much they are recognised, identified and found attractive at least by a part of the public. Changes in the form and means of communication further change the forms of grouping and forms of social power. The changes in dealing with migrant issues become evident at three levels: in the media, in politics, and in everyday life.

scholarly journals Against Commodification: The University, Cognitive Capitalism and Emergent Technologies

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hall ◽  
Bernd Stahl
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Affective Computing ◽  
Connection To Nature ◽  
The Public ◽  
Emergent Technologies ◽  
The Social ◽  
University Life ◽  
Social Factory ◽  
The University ◽  
Labour Power

This paper investigates how four specific emergent technologies, namely affective computing, augmented reality, cloud-based systems, and human machine symbiosis, demonstrate how technological innovation nurtured inside the University is commodified and fetishised under cognitive capitalism or immaterial labour, and how it thereby further enables capital to reproduce itself across the social factory. Marx’s critique of technologies, through their connection to nature, production, social relations and mental conceptions, and in direct relation to the labour process, demonstrates how capital utilises emergent technologies to incorporate labour further into its self-valorisation process as labour-power. The University life-world that includes research and development is a critical domain in which to site Marx's structural technological critique, and it is argued that this enables a critique of the public development and deployment of these technologies to reveal them as a fetishised force of production, in order to re-politicise activity between students, teachers and the public.

scholarly journals In Waze We Trust: Algorithmic Governance of the Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 153-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenja Van der Graaf
Keyword(s):  
Urban Ecosystem ◽  
Market Structures ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Public Organisations ◽  
Dynamic Domain ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Public Oversight

This article explores the current ‘place’ of e-government in realizing public value in the context of what seems to be an emerging platform urbanism. It highlights a complex platform-based urban ecosystem encompassing private and public organisations and citizens. This ‘mainstreaming’ of e-government practices puts demands on cities and governments to reconsider their own role in ‘city making’ so as to achieve meaningful public oversight. The point of departure is the operationalization of this ‘place’ by conceptualizing participation and (multi-sided) platformisation as a framework to draw attention to the dynamic domain of e-governance where shifts can be seen in market structures, infrastructures, and changing forms of governance, and which may challenge the public interest. This is illustrated by an exploration of the social traffic and navigation application Waze.

Media and Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 416-432
Author(s):  
Thomas Olesen
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media System ◽  
Professional Authority ◽  
System P ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Public Sphere

The chapter’s premise is the social contract between media and democracy, which features strongly in the professional values of Danish journalists. Media have become so central to the political process that many refer to a mediatization of politics. At the same time, research points to a crisis of journalism with declining readership, trust, and professional authority. These challenges have been set in motion at least partly by new media consumption and production patterns. The crisis of journalism prompts two questions: is it reversing the process of mediatization, and does it erode journalism’s role as democratic watchdogs in Denmark? The chapter shows that the crisis of journalism must be considered in a comparative perspective and that the Danish media system demonstrates a degree of resilience to it. It also notes, however, that traditional media have indeed lost their privileged position as organizers of the public sphere. Rather than seeing a reversal of mediatization, it makes more sense to speak of a mediatization 2.0, and rather than identifying an erosion of the media’s watchdog role, it is more accurate to say that they now share it with a host of other agents in the current hybridized media system.

scholarly journals If You See Something, Say Something: Lateral Surveillance and the Uses of Responsibility

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 235-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Reeves
Keyword(s):  
Community Based ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Neighborhood Watch ◽  
The Public ◽  
Community Based Programs ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Point Of Departure

The US Department of Homeland Security’s new “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign displays a renewed drive to redistribute surveillance responsibilities to the public. Using this campaign as its point of departure, this article examines the relationship between conditions of sovereign governance and public lateral surveillance campaigns. As the police and other sovereign institutions have receded from their traditional public responsibilities, many surveillance functions have been assumed by the lay population via neighborhood watch and other community-based programs. Comparing this development with the policing functions of lateral surveillance during the Norman Conquest, this article provides a historically grounded analysis of the potential for this responsibilization to fracture the social by transforming communal bonds into technologies of surveillance power.

scholarly journals A public practical theological theory for religious education of secularised youth

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Religious Education ◽  
Practical Theology ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Anthony Giddens ◽  
Reflection Theory ◽  
Practical Theological ◽  
Point Of Departure

In the postmodern world young people no longer accept the values advocated by the institutionalised church as unquestionably relevant to their lives, one of the reasons for this being that the supremacy of the Christian faith has given way to a secularised society. Public practical theology includes the public as one of its audiences. In this paper the point of departure is a reflection-theory and not the praxis as such. This theory focuses on everyday concerns and issues in order to facilitate a dialogue between theology and the social sciences. The article aims to reflect on the enhancement of the experience of transcendence in the everydayness of the present-day youth. It argues that the agency theories of Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu can provide a theoretical basis and method for public religious education.

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