The informal faces of the (neo-)ghetto: State confinement, formalization and multidimensional informalities in Italy’s Roma camps

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 545-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella Clough Marinaro
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Urban Marginality

This article extends Wacquant’s theorization of how state institutions confine, control and punish racialized poor groups, arguing that a central modality for managing urban marginality occurs through institutional generation of and participation in spheres of informality. Focusing on Italy’s segregation of Roma in ‘neo-ghettos’, this study explores how Roma’s confinement has been produced and modulated through contradictory policies, their ambiguous implementation by meso-level actors, and Roma’s micro-level navigation of ensuing arrangements. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Rome, it traces how ambivalent formalization drives have bifurcated the city’s very diverse Roma populations into two main sociospatial configurations, surveillance-intensive ‘villages’ and unauthorized micro-encampments, producing intertwined informalities in housing and employment that reinforce power inequalities despite Roma’s attempts to exert some agency and autonomy through building social capital within and beyond their communities. Variable informalities thus emerge as a core dimension through which resources and constraints are selectively apportioned as techniques of governmentality implemented by different institutions and actors.

Bridging Levels of Public Administration: How Macro Shapes Meso and Micro

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alasdair Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
American History ◽  
The State ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Relationship

Scholars in public administration now recognize three levels of analysis: macro, meso, and micro. But there is uncertainty about the relationship between levels and concern about a “schism” in research. However, linkages between levels can be demonstrated easily. At the macro-level, leaders develop an overall strategy for pursuing national priorities, which determines the broad architecture of the state. Institutions must be built, renovated, or managed to give effect to these strategies: This is the meso-level of public administration. Overall, strategies also shape the micro-level relationship between people who rule and people who are ruled. This is done by categorizing people—as subjects or citizens, for example—and by redefining categories. Macro-level strategies evolve, with consequences for the agenda at the meso- and micro-levels. Experience at lower levels also shapes strategy at the macro-level. The interaction among levels is illustrated by comparison of three eras in modern American history.

scholarly journals When Laws are Not Enough: Violence against Women and Bureaucratic Practice in Nicaragua

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Neumann
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Women Victims ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Representative Bureaucracy ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Feminist Organizations ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
Depth Interviews

Despite the passage of numerous laws in Latin America, impunity in domestic violence cases remains a serious concern throughout the region. This article draws on feminist theories of the state to analyze how the routine practices of low-level state bureaucrats impact women's experiences navigating legal institutions in urban Nicaragua. Drawing on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, I show how, contrary to theories of representative bureaucracy, the increased presence of women officials within state institutions does not improve most women's treatment by police or prosecutors. Rather, only when women have access to specific forms of social capital are their cases granted legitimacy by state actors. This article illustrates the routine practices by which gendered governance operates, as well as how feminist organizations disrupt patterns of bureaucratic indifference by assuming the banner of legitimacy that is rarely afforded to women victims themselves. These findings raise critical questions about the efficacy of traditional legal and bureaucratic strategies for eliminating violence against women, and suggest that one key alternative is to strengthen the capacities of civil society organizations that provide accompaniment to women victims.

scholarly journals Two Sides of the Coin: The Link Between Relational Exclusion and Socioeconomic Exclusion

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verónica De Miguel-Luken ◽  
Livia García‐Faroldi
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Network Size ◽  
Occupational Prestige ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Economic Deprivation ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Individual

Social capital, derived from the individual embeddedness in a net of personal relationships that gives access to a pool of potential resources, is crucial in understanding how some people experience a higher risk of falling into social exclusion. In this article, we related some compositional and structural factors of egocentered networks to various measures on economic deprivation and social exclusion. We considered different explanatory dimensions: ego’s sociodemographic characteristics and ego’s social capital. Social capital was measured both in terms of expressive and instrumental support, and took into account network size, strong ties density, and alters’ average job prestige, differentiating between inherited and achieved capital, a distinction that has deserved little attention so far. We used data from the Spanish General Social Survey 2013 (N = 5,094), a nationally representative database not applied for similar purposes up to the present. Results show how economic deprivation and social exclusion are associated with ascribed and achieved characteristics, both at the micro level (individual) and the meso level (network). At the micro level, women, immigrants, young people, less‐educated people, the unemployed, and those who do not trust others have higher estimated values on the variables with regards to social disadvantage. At the meso level, social exclusion is associated with lower occupational prestige of achieved relationships, fewer contacts for obtaining economic or medical help (but more contacts for childcare) and smaller non‐kin core discussion networks. In a familistic society with a limited welfare system, results help to disentangle the level of dependence people have on their own social resources.

scholarly journals Young Children’s Belonging in Finnish Educational Settings: an Intersectional Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Maija Puroila ◽  
Jaana Juutinen ◽  
Elina Viljamaa ◽  
Riikka Sirkko ◽  
Taina Kyrönlampi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policy ◽  
Educational Programs ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Educational Settings ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Positional Power ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Similarities And Differences

AbstractThe study draws on a relational and intersectional approach to young children’s belonging in Finnish educational settings. Belonging is conceptualized as a multilevel, dynamic, and relationally constructed phenomenon. The aim of the study is to explore how children’s belonging is shaped in the intersections between macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of young children’s education in Finland. The data consist of educational policy documents and ethnographic material generated in educational programs for children aged birth to 8 years. A situational mapping framework is used to analyze and interpret the data across and within systems levels (macro-level; meso-level; and micro-level). The findings show that the landscape in which children’s belonging is shaped and the intersections across and within the levels are characterized by the tensions between similarities and differences, majority and minorities, continuity and change, authority and agency. Language used, practices enacted, and positional power emerge as the (re)sources through which children’s (un)belonging is actively produced.

scholarly journals Challenges to the validity of topic reconstruction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Held ◽  
Grit Laudel ◽  
Jochen Gläser
Keyword(s):  
Data Model ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Data Models ◽  
Bibliographic Coupling ◽  
Parameter Setting ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Resolution Level ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Model Algorithm

AbstractIn this paper we utilize an opportunity to construct ground truths for topics in the field of atomic, molecular and optical physics. Our research questions in this paper focus on (i) how to construct a ground truth for topics and (ii) the suitability of common algorithms applied to bibliometric networks to reconstruct these topics. We use the ground truths to test two data models (direct citation and bibliographic coupling) with two algorithms (the Leiden algorithm and the Infomap algorithm). Our results are discomforting: none of the four combinations leads to a consistent reconstruction of the ground truths. No combination of data model and algorithm simultaneously reconstructs all micro-level topics at any resolution level. Meso-level topics are not reconstructed at all. This suggests (a) that we are currently unable to predict which combination of data model, algorithm and parameter setting will adequately reconstruct which (types of) topics, and (b) that a combination of several data models, algorithms and parameter settings appears to be necessary to reconstruct all or most topics in a set of papers.

The prospects for pluralism in contract theory

Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Zhong Xing Tan
Keyword(s):  
Contract Theory ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Specific Performance ◽  
Micro Level

Abstract This paper explores the promise of pluralism in the realm of contract law. I begin by identifying and rejecting conceptual strategies adopted by monistic and dualistic approaches. Turning towards pluralism, I evaluate three versions in contemporary literature: pluralism across contracting spheres and types, pluralism through consensus and convergence, and pluralism through localised values-balancing and practical reasoning. I suggest embracing some pluralism about contract pluralism, by using these models to construct a framework of ‘meta-pluralism’, where at the macro-level, we are concerned with plural spheres of contracting activity; at the meso-level, a variety of trans-substantive interpretive concepts that receive some measure of juristic consensus; and at the micro-level, practical reasoning through particularistic analysis of case-specific considerations. I illustrate the meta-pluralistic framework through a case study on the varieties of specific performance, and explain how the proposed pluralistic framework enriches our understanding of the nature of contract.

scholarly journals Situační analýza a role diskurzů v sociálněvědním výzkumu

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-52
Author(s):  
Markéta Košatková
Keyword(s):  
Social Reality ◽  
Situational Analysis ◽  
Situation Analysis ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Social Organizations ◽  
Collective Actors ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Insight Into

The article introduces situation analysis (cf. Clarke 2005) as an epistemologicalontological basis for science freed of the positivistic paradigm. Situation analysis in a broader perspective dives into present discourses as well as discourses that have been concealed. At the meso-level, the analysis offers insight into social and discursive arenas formed by collective actors, key material elements, social organizations and institutions. At the micro-level it is aimed at the position of individual actors in a situation. Situational analysis provides multidimensional research resonating marginalized discourses and supports the everydayness of knowledge in a socially engaged, emic research of social reality. The focus on language constructions in the humanities allows for the re-definition of one’s own entities, formulas, and rules. Their (im)possible transgression is a necessary response to the accelerated and diverse shape of the recent globalized and particularized society.

scholarly journals Performance-Based Evaluation Metrics: Influence at the Macro, Meso, and Micro Level

2022 ◽  
pp. 173-201
Author(s):  
Gustaf Nelhans
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Bibliometric Indicators ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Performance Based Funding ◽  
National Performance ◽  
Representational Model ◽  
The Common ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Performance Based Evaluation

AbstractThis chapter aims to critically engage with the performative nature of bibliometric indicators and explores how they influence scholarly practice at the macro, meso, and individual levels. It begins with a comparison between two national performance-based funding systems in Sweden and Norway at the macro level, within universities at the meso level, down to the micro level where individual researchers must relate these incentives to knowledge building within their specialty. I argue that the common-sense “representational model of bibliometric indicators” is questionable in practice, since it cannot capture the qualities of research in any unambiguous way. Furthermore, a performative notion on scientometric indicators needs to be developed that takes into account the variability and uncertainty of the aspects of research that is to be evaluated.

scholarly journals Living in precarity: Ethnography of everyday struggles of single mothers in Lithuania

Sociologija ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-83
Author(s):  
Laura Lapinske
Keyword(s):  
Single Mothers ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Life Strategies ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Everyday Living

This paper presents challenges and life strategies of highly educated single mothers in Lithuania. My ethnography traces the impact on strategies of remaining in a country where exit strategies - alcoholism, suicide, emigration - prevail and seem as an ?easier? option. It is a study concerned with the relationship between precarity, single motherhood, social reproduction and everyday living. I focus on precarious living conditions, social isolation and stigmatization, unappreciated and highly gendered care-work. Based on collaborative ethnographic fieldwork material, the paper presents the micro-level attempts to negotiate what it means to be a lone care-taker, to revalorize and challenge the hegemonic narratives of individual strength and success.

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