scholarly journals Food as a Biopower Means of Control: The Use of Food in Asylum Regimes

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-79
Author(s):  
Tally Amir ◽  
Anda Barak-Bianco

States struggle to maintain a facade of sovereignty against the large-scale migration of immigrants and asylum seekers, who are trying to find their way into the receiving societies. Increased borders control, reinforced socio-legal boundaries and detention facilities are some of the constant efforts' states employ to quell the immigration of asylum seekers and control their presence. Disciplinary power often appears in a centralized form, such as borders and immigration systems, but also in decentralized, dispersed forms, ranging from medical practices, media and market influences, as well as many others, which were termed by Foucault as biopower. This force - which in its broad meaning describes deliberate attempts to interfere with the essential human existence and manage all spheres of life - is defined by Foucault as a ‘political power [that] had assigned itself the task of administering life’. Biopower is employed to manage, regulate and govern lives, produce obedience, and subordinate individuals and communities to disciplinary practices. The control over lives should be understood comprehensively, so that includes ‘a life of the city…political life, economic life…’ as well as ‘the management of … money … information, communication, water, sheep, grain …’. Accordingly, we argue that food is a form of biopower, an apparatus utilized to control and govern asylum-seekers. We posit that the state uses food to monitor the individuals' well-being, the community life, and affect the social existence. In this article, “food” refers to the role sustenance plays in providing nutrition and reinforcing socio-cultural values.

Author(s):  
Michael Bennett

AbstractThis chapter draws on the author’s personal experience together with the findings from his qualitative research, to explore the cultural values driving problems of mental health and well-being among professional footballers. The study makes explicit the way in which players are expected to hide their experiences of being objectified—of being subject to gendered, racialised and other forms of dehumanisation—and denied a legitimate lived experience, an authentic heard voice. The chapter illustrates the importance in values-based practice of knowledge of values gained as in this instance by way of qualitative methods from the social sciences being used to fill out knowledge derived from individual personal experience.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Caroline Cheng

The 2011 Census shows 34,000 Chinese people living in Scotland, making Chinese the second largest minority group residing in Scotland. Among them, the asylum and refugee population continue to be largely invisible in the service delivery in Glasgow, which has been the only dispersal area in Scotland since 1999. Remarkably little research has been carried out on the UK Chinese migrant community in the literature, and this study proposed to fill the gap of finding out the wellbeing of this population. The researcher investigated the factors contributing to the wellbeing of twenty-five Chinese migrants, who are either asylum seekers or refugees in Glasgow as the first stage of a wellbeing study, adopting the concepts from the Wellbeing in Developing Countries framework (White, 2008). The Indicators of Integration (Strang & Ager 2008) and the Social Capital Theory (Putnam 1995) were used as reference points to explore the understanding of well-being and social connections. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to find out the core constructs of wellbeing from the Chinese peoples perspectives and thematic analysis was used in data analysis. The top five themes that emerged were childrens education, employment and financial independence, health care, freedom of speech and association, and support from own ethnic group.


Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Kwaku Kidido ◽  
Monica Lengoiboni

Building inclusive societies that reflect the needs of all categories of people within the social spectrum is critical to achieving sustainable development. This is reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which among things seek to ‘by 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex. This places enormous tasks on all governments especially in developing countries like Ghana to ensure that the youth are not left behind in access and control over land as a building block for economic empowerment. This task is particularly critical in view of the sheer numbers of the youth and yet economically marginalized underpinned by high levels of unemployment and underemployment. This case study investigates the youth land rights within the context of household landholdings and allocations dynamics. The study took place in the Techiman area in Ghana. The study sampled 455 youth and 138 household heads. The study revealed that household lands are important building block for majority of the youth in the Techiman area. It gives them a sense of security in the usage. However, the youth’s ability to depend on this source to kick start independence economic life is beset with land scarcity, non-allocation and accumulation by the lineage heads who have prerogative over household lands. The study underscores the need for social welfare scheme for the aged farmers so that they can timely release land to the younger ones without fearing for what to sustain them. There is also the need for government to create land banks to support the willing youth to engage in agriculture.


2000 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Smith

A Foucauldian analysis of discourse and power relations suggests that law and the juridical field have lost their pre-eminent role in government via the delegated exercise of sovereign power. According to Foucault, the government of a population is achieved through the wide dispersal of technologies of power which are relatively invisible and which function in discursive sites and practices throughout the social fabric. Expert knowledge occupies a privileged position in government and its essentially discretionary and norm-governed judgements infiltrate and colonise previous sites of power. This paper sets out to challenge a Foucauldian view that principled law has ceded its power and authority to the disciplinary sciences and their expert practitioners. It argues, with particular reference to case law on sterilisation and caesarean sections, that law and the juridical field operate to manipulate and control expert knowledge to their own ends. In so doing, law continually exercises and re-affirms its power as part of the sovereign state. Far from acting, as Foucault suggests, to provide a legitimating gloss on the subversive operations of technologies of power, law turns the tables and itself operates a form of surveillance over the norm-governed exercise of expert knowledge.


Author(s):  
Femsy Kour

In Lirang Islands border the fisherman was interact with Republic of Timor Leste Democratic because of difficult accessibility. Therefore, management and development of small islands were needed which fit with its potential, characteristic, and problems. The aim of this research were to analyze economic condition of Lirangs people using fishing rate analysis; to analyze policy of border and formalize the strategic of development Lirangs Island using public policy analysiss and SWOT Analysis. Commonly, Lirangs fisherman has fishing rate above 1 and it showed that they have well-being level to fulfill their need. A vew policies that support the development of Lirangs island as small island were: to improve their autonomy from fishing facilities and infrastructure (market, dock/jetty, base of landing base, ice factory, cold storage and water) and training for fisherman through founding, to improve their skills and control the technology; to improve the social and economic collaboration with Repubic of Timor Leste Democratic.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 865-869
Author(s):  
A. D. Zharkov ◽  
A. V. Dolosa ◽  
N. I. Anufrieva ◽  
D. V. Tsarev ◽  
A. P. Efremenko

Purpose of the study: The article is devoted to the analysis of the possibilities of reconstruction of socio-cultural activities in the direction of solving social problems through the involvement of various groups of people in a variety of mass cultural services. The main focus of this analysis is a differentiated approach to working with various age groups that have their own pressing social problems. The authors consider ways to solve the most acute social problems of Russian society, which are directly related to the social well-being and physical self-preservation of the majority of Russian citizens. Methodology: As a first step in solving this problem, it is necessary to study the traditional spiritual values of the Russian people, which formed the basis of their mentality and cultural identity. Knowledge of the spiritual life of the inhabitants of Russia should be drawn, first of all, from historical sources, as well as modern socio-cultural practices. Spiritual values of contemporaries are explored both by traditional methods of testing, interviewing, observing and analyzing mathematical-statistical data, as well as new methods. For example, reflexive methods are used as the main tool for studying A. Heger’s relevant values. The work also utilized M. Smirnova’s methods and psychometric research results. Main Findings: The main results of the research are the determination of reference points for further improvement of skills and increasing the level of professionalism in the work of specialists in the social and cultural sphere in a broad social context. The main reference point is the mastery of social scientific knowledge and social technologies of working with the population as the main content of the training of personnel of modern social and cultural activities demanded by society. Applications of this study: The results of the study are useful in the development of educational programs for training specialists in the socio-cultural sphere, the system of advanced training and retraining. The revealed new spiritual and value orientations necessitate the search for new organizational and pedagogical technologies of social and cultural activities, the study which is an important research problem of today. Novelty/Originality of this study: The novelty of the research lies in identifying ways to solve social problems, in particular, further rapprochement of socio-cultural activities and social work, where the main common interests of relevant specialists are to support members of society in acquiring life meanings and cultural values in everyday life, the absence of which generates the majority emerging social problems.


1970 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose Ryan

The celebration of one hundred years of women's suffrage in New Zealand in 1993 has provided a welcome opportunity to undertake something of a "stock-take" of many aspects of women's participation in the social and economic life of New Zealand. Participation in the paid workforce is one of the most important of these, given the centrality of employment and work to social identity and economic well-being. The current re-assessment has, however, raised more questions than it has answered, given the rapidly changing social and economic environment in which women work. This includes the restructuring of the economy, the growth of the service sector, social policy changes in health and education, and the greater emphasis on market regulation of many areas previously subject to legislative regulation.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. e053235
Author(s):  
Lisa S van Tol ◽  
Hanneke J A Smaling ◽  
Janneke M Groothuijse ◽  
Arno J Doornebosch ◽  
Sarah I M Janus ◽  
...  

ObjectivesNursing homes are hit relatively hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Dutch long-term care (LTC) organisations installed outbreak teams (OTs) to coordinate COVID-19 infection prevention and control. LTC organisations and relevant national policy organisations expressed the need to share experiences from these OTs that can be applied directly in COVID-19 policy. The aim of the ‘COVID-19 management in nursing homes by outbreak teams’ (MINUTES) study is to describe the challenges, responses and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Dutch nursing homes. In this first article, we describe the MINUTES Study and present data characteristics.DesignThis large-scale multicentre study has a qualitative design using manifest content analysis. The participating organisations shared their OT minutes and other meeting documents on a weekly basis. Data from week 16 (April) to week 53 (December) 2020 included the first two waves of COVID-19.SettingNational study with 41 large Dutch LTC organisations.ParticipantsThe LTC organisations represented 563 nursing home locations and almost 43 000 residents.ResultsAt least 36 of the 41 organisations had one or more SARS-CoV-2 infections among their residents. Most OTs were composed of management, medical staff, support services staff, policy advisors and communication specialists. Topics that emerged from the documents were: crisis management, isolation of residents, personal protective equipment and hygiene, staff, residents’ well-being, visitor policies, testing and vaccination.ConclusionsOT meeting minutes are a valuable data source to monitor the impact of and responses to COVID-19 in nursing homes. Depending on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, data collection and analysis will continue until November 2021. The results are used directly in national and organisational COVID-19 policy.


2020 ◽  
pp. 18-26
Author(s):  
Julija V. Аndreeva ◽  

The article analyses the most relevant aspects of Arctic research, which are gaining momentum in recent years. The most dynamic thematic ar- eas include the humanitarian issues of the development of the Russian North. The research focuses on the assessment of the peculiarities of the formation and reproduction of human capital in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation the development of the creative and intellectual potential of Russian polar cities. The author notes that research into the social well-being of the population of the Rus- sian Northern regions has become an important direction of research work carried out over the past decades. In studies of the social well-being of the inhabitant of the Arctic region, the authors problematize the key “zones of disadvantage” in the system of assessing the population, and, first of all, the issues of protection from those social dangers that the population find for itself. Summarizing the state of the Arctic research, the author proposes to move away from overly localized coverage of Arctic problems. Large-scale sociological works, which, in our opin- ion, have a certain substantial scientific potential, provided that they are fully implemented, it seems, are now at the stage of their theoretical conceptualization and methodological search.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 923-936
Author(s):  
A.V. Minakov ◽  

At the present stage, the problem of socio-economic differentiation of the country's population is becoming quite significant, which is even more aggravated in the context of macroeconomic instability. The crisis and tension in relations with Western countries have a negative impact on the social structure of the population through a negative impact on the country's economy, exacerbating the processes of differentiation, while sustainable development presupposes the achievement of the general welfare of citizens. The main purpose of the article is to study the level of well-being of the population and its differentiation. This goal setting dictates the need to develop not only theoretical approaches to understanding the categories of «welfare» and «socio-economic differentiation of the population», but also in practice - to understand the current situation at the present stage. The study used the comparative method (for comparing macroeconomic indicators), analytical, method of economic and statistical analysis (use of statistical data) and some others. The main result of the study is the substantiation of theoretical approaches to changes in the level of well-being of the population, taking place against the background of large-scale processes of globalization and the existing instability of economic relations both within the country and between states, which leads to imbalances in society and aggravated differentiation of the population by income, which can cause social tension in Russia. The socio-economic development of the country is, first of all, a factor influencing the standard of living of Russians. Through negative crisis moments, the stratification of society occurs, which leads to a decrease in the quality of life. An analysis of the level of well-being of the population is necessary in parallel with the study of indicators reflecting this level, in order to be able to track the depth of the process of differentiation of the population in relation to income.


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