The travels of an exotic bird: The transnational trajectories of Venezuela’s constitutional recognition of the value of unpaid work

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 328-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masaya Llavaneras Blanco
Keyword(s):  
Economic Value ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Tipping Point ◽  
Unpaid Work ◽  
Care Work ◽  
South American ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
Temporal Proximity ◽  
The World

The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) established a global norm to recognize the economic value of unpaid care work across the world. In 1999, Venezuela became the first of three South American countries to enshrine a similar norm with its Constitution in its Article 88. I argue that despite the temporal proximity of the two events and the global significance of the BPfA, the global norm only served partially as a tipping point for Venezuela. Taking an analytical framework that underscores the role of norm-takers, this article demonstrates that other, national, regional and transnational interactions led by national actors in national and regional arenas were as important as Beijing ‘95 for the development of Article 88.

scholarly journals Beyond the academic’s dilemma: Transdisciplinary and existential perspectives of re-enchantment

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rennie Naidoo
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Dialectical Tensions ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
Sustainable Future ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The University

The purpose of this article is to stimulate debate about the developing paradoxes and dilemmas facing the university academic. This article argues that academics are increasingly being steeped in an inauthentic existence due, at least partly to, egocentrism and sociocentrism. A modest transdisciplinary- existential analytical framework is applied as an intellectual method to reflect on the prevailing monological perspectives stifling the role of academics, in working towards building a more sustainable future. Using concepts such as the subject, facticity and transcendence, the article investigates the dialectical tensions between some of these monological perspectives and proposes avenues to create new possibilities to progress the role of the academic. The article argues that the multilogical perspectives of transdisciplinary thinking and the empowering perspectives of existential thinking can provide academics with the necessary conceptual tools to transcend egocentrism and sociocentrism. While it is likely that new contradictions will emerge as a result of this synthesis, open-minded academics are urged to ignite their imaginative powers and take up the challenge of creating and acting on new possibilities. A transdisciplinary-existential dialectical approach can provide a richer understanding of present dilemmas in academia and the world, and suggest more satisfying paths to a sustainable future.

scholarly journals Valuing Unpaid Care Work in Bhutan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jooyeoun Suh ◽  
Changa Dorji ◽  
Valerie Mercer-Blackman ◽  
Aimee Hampel-Milagrosa
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unpaid Work ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Gross National Happiness ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Societal Welfare ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
The Government

A growing body of scholarly literature has attempted to measure and value unpaid care work in various countries, but perhaps only the government statistical agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom have seriously undertaken periodic and systematic measures of the time spent on unpaid work at the national level, and partially incorporated those values into their gross domestic product(GDP). One country that has been ahead of its time on aspects of societal welfare measurement is Bhutan, which produces the Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index. However, until the first GNH Survey, in 2008, Bhutan did not have any sense of the size and distribution of unpaid work, despite its strong societal norms about the value of volunteering and community work. This paper is the first to estimate the value of unpaid care work in Bhutan. It shows the pros and cons of various approaches and their equivalent measures of unpaid care work as a share of GDP. As with similar studies on the topic, this paper also finds that women spend more than twice as much time as men performing unpaid care work, regardless of their income, age, residency, or number of people in the household. The paper also provides recommendations for improving the measurement of unpaid care work in Bhutan.

“A Few More or Less Make No Difference”

2018 ◽  
pp. 193-241
Author(s):  
Molly A. Warsh
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Scottish Highlands ◽  
Pliny The Elder ◽  
Private Correspondence ◽  
The World ◽  
Pearl Fishing ◽  
Heuristic Device ◽  
The City

This chapter considers how pearls’ subjective beauty, their complex and mysterious origins, and their powerful association with mastery of the seas allowed them to remain a powerful heuristic device for the expression of ideas about mutability, worth, and the nature of different places and peoples around the world. As empires moved to objectify profit and regulate the role of subjects in new ways, pearls continued to serve as a useful index (elenco in Spanish, a word Pliny the Elder employed to denote an elongated pearl but that, by the early seventeenth century, had come to stand for the very impulse to order and compartmentalize that the jewel provoked) of peoples’ highly independent and contingent calculations of worth. Through a consideration of crown-sponsored pearl-fishing interventions in the Scottish Highlands and along Swedish rivers close to the city of Gothenburg, this chapter traces how pearls continued to facilitate the expression of distinct approaches to resource husbandry at scales personal and imperial. The chapter further explores the late-seventeenth-century market for pearls in London and the jewel’s unstable political and economic value as expressed in private correspondence as well as in portraits of women and enslaved bodies whose value was considered impermanent and for purchase..

The Role of ICT in Supporting Transnational Diaspora Entrepreneurship

2013 ◽  
pp. 148-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leona Achtenhagen ◽  
Bengt Henoch ◽  
Quang Luong
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Vital Part ◽  
The World ◽  
Relevant Context ◽  
Migrant Entrepreneurs ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities

Millions of people around the world live in other countries than their countries of origin. In many developing countries, remittances sent home by migrants are a vital part of the economy. Transnational entrepreneurial activities by migrant entrepreneurs, also called diaspora entrepreneurs, involving resources from both the home and the host countries, can contribute to socio-economic value creation of both countries. ICT solutions can play an important role in facilitating and supporting such entrepreneurial activities. This chapter outlines the relevant context of migration, remittances, transnational diaspora entrepreneurship, and innovation systems, and discusses prerequisites and challenges of such ICT solutions.

On the question of cheap care: Regarding A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things by Raj Patel and Jason W Moore

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-207
Author(s):  
Kathleen Lynch ◽  
Mags Crean
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Nature And Society

One of the most engaging claims of Patel and Moore’s book is that abstract ideas have played a powerful role legitimating the exploitation of swathes of humanity, through distinguishing ontologically and epistemologically between nature and society. As most women, and indigenous people, were defined as part of nature, their labours and lives, including their care labour, were deemed to be part of nature and thereby legitimately exploitable. The authors claim that the cheapening of care arose from the separation of spheres between care work and paid work, between home and the economy, arising from the development of enclosures and the demise of the commons. What the book does not address, however, is how the exploitation of women’s domestic and care labour was not only beneficial to capitalism: men of all classes were and are beneficiaries of women’s unpaid care labour. The authors also suggest that the primary purpose of caring is to reproduce people for capitalism. But caring is not undertaken simply at the behest of capitalism. Nurturing and caring for others are defining features of humanity given the lengthy dependency of humans at birth and at times of vulnerability. The logic of care is very different to market logic.

scholarly journals Seeking Resilience: The Care Capacity Goals of Family Carers and the Role of Technology in Achieving Them

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myles Leslie ◽  
Robin Patricia Gray ◽  
Jacquie Eales ◽  
Janet Fast ◽  
Andrew Magnaye ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Care Quality ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Family Carers ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
Health And Social Care

Abstract Background As global populations age, governments have come to rely heavily on family carers (FCs) to care for older adults and reduce the demands made of formal health and social care systems. Under increasing pressure, sustainability of FC’s unpaid care work has become a pressing issue. This paper explores FCs’ care-related work goals, and describes how those goals do, or do not, link to technology. Methods We employed a sequential mixed-method approach using focus groups followed by an online survey about FCs’ goals. We held 10 focus groups and recruited 25 FCs through a mix of convenience and snowball sampling strategies. Carer organizations helped us recruit 599 FCs from across Canada to complete an online survey. Participants’ responses to an open-ended question in the survey were included in our qualitative analysis. An inductive approach was employed using qualitative thematic content analysis methods to examine and interpret the resulting data. We used NVIVO 12 software for data analysis. Results We identified two care quality improvement goals of FCs providing care to older adults: enhancing and safeguarding their caregiving capacity. To enhance their capacity to care, FCs sought: 1) foreknowledge about their care recipients’ changing condition, and 2) improved navigation of existing support systems. To safeguard their own wellbeing, and so to preserve their capacity to care, FCs sought to develop coping strategies as well as opportunities for mentorship and socialization. Conclusions We conclude that a paradigm shift is needed to reframe caregiving from a current deficit frame focused on failures and limitations (burden of care) towards a more empowering frame (sustainability and resiliency). The fact that FCs are seeking strategies to enhance and safeguard their capacities to provide care means they are approaching their unpaid care work from the perspective of resilience. Their goals and technology suggestions imply a shift from understanding care as a source of ‘burden’ towards a more ‘resilient’ and ‘sustainable’ model of caregiving. Our case study findings show that technology can assist in fostering this resiliency but that it may well be limited to the role of an intermediary that connects FCs to information, supports and peers.

scholarly journals The Role of ICT in Supporting Transnational Diaspora Entrepreneurship

Economics ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 1442-1459
Author(s):  
Leona Achtenhagen ◽  
Bengt Henoch ◽  
Quang Luong
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Vital Part ◽  
The World ◽  
Relevant Context ◽  
Migrant Entrepreneurs ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities

Millions of people around the world live in other countries than their countries of origin. In many developing countries, remittances sent home by migrants are a vital part of the economy. Transnational entrepreneurial activities by migrant entrepreneurs, also called diaspora entrepreneurs, involving resources from both the home and the host countries, can contribute to socio-economic value creation of both countries. ICT solutions can play an important role in facilitating and supporting such entrepreneurial activities. This chapter outlines the relevant context of migration, remittances, transnational diaspora entrepreneurship, and innovation systems, and discusses prerequisites and challenges of such ICT solutions.

scholarly journals Reducing and Redistributing Unpaid Work

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (225) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristian Alonso ◽  
Mariya Brussevich ◽  
Era Dabla-Norris ◽  
Yuko Kinoshita ◽  
Kalpana Kochhar
Keyword(s):  
The Elderly ◽  
Unpaid Work ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Household Chores ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Family Friendly ◽  
Recent Trends

Unpaid work, such as caring for children, the elderly, and household chores represents a significant share of economic activity but is not counted as part of GDP. Women disproportionately shoulder the burden of unpaid work: on average, women do two more hours of unpaid work per day than men, with large differences across countries. While much unpaid care work is done entirely by choice, constraints imposed by cultural norms, labor market features or lack of public services, infrastructure, and family-friendly policies matter. This undermines female labor force participation and lowers economy-wide productivity. In this paper, we examine recent trends in unpaid work around the world using aggregate and individual-level data, explore potential drivers, and identify policies that can help reduce and redistribute unpaid work across genders. Conservative model-based estimates suggest that the gains from these policies could amount to up to 4 percent of GDP.

scholarly journals Configurations of Care Work: Paid and Unpaid Elder Care in Italy and the Netherlands

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Glucksmann ◽  
Dawn Lyon
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Family Care ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
Unpaid Work ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
Paid And Unpaid Work

Most current sociological approaches to work recognise that the same activity may be undertaken within a variety of socio-economic forms - formal or informal, linked with the private market, public state or not-for-profit sectors. This article takes care of the elderly as an exemplary case for probing some of the linkages between paid and unpaid work. We attempt to unravel the interconnections between forms of care work undertaken in different socio-economic conditions in two settings, the Netherlands and Italy. The research is part of a broader programme concerned with differing interconnections and overlaps between work activities. In this article, we are concerned with: 1) how paid and unpaid care work map on to four ‘institutional’ modes of provision - by the state, family, market, and voluntary sector; and 2) with the configurations that emerge from the combination of different forms of paid and unpaid work undertaken through the different institutions. Despite the centrality of family-based informal care by women in both countries, we argue that the overall configurations of care are in fact quite distinct. In the Netherlands, state-funded care services operate to shape and anchor the centrality of family as the main provider. In this configuration, unpaid familial labour is sustained by voluntary sector state-funded provision. In Italy, by contrast, there is significant recourse to informal market-based services in the form of individual migrant carers, in a context of limited public provision. In this configuration, the state indirectly supports market solutions, sustaining the continuity of family care as an ideal and as a practice.

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