scholarly journals Three Poems: ‘Charleena Chavon Lyles’, ‘Spotted Owl’, ‘Economics’

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-51
Author(s):  
Jen Vernon
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Spotted Owl ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Young Black Woman ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Chaste Tree

This collection of poems is based in working-class life through an intersectional lens on the west coast of the US. It includes a documentary poem to a young Black woman, Charleena Chavon Lyles, who has been elegized by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in Seattle. It draws on news articles and an obituary to support its truth claims and aims to counter the official police report and support the global, working class, BLM movement. ‘Spotted Owl’ is a poem that talks back to the opposition between loggers and the forest, in part from the point of view of an old growth tree. It highlights the intimate relationship between trees and owls and between blue- collar workers who directly work with natural resources and the environment. ‘Economics’ is about work beyond capitalism, through a focus on the relationship between bees and a chaste tree and the Irish word for labor, saothar. In sum, these poems address the lived experience of class through the author’s vantage at this place and time, from the US west coast.

The Liberal World Order and the Job-Offshoring Backlash—In Structuralist Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 20180026 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terutomo Ozawa
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Structural Change ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Analytical Model ◽  
Emerging Economies ◽  
World Order ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Costs ◽  
Current Wave ◽  
The Us

Many factors have contributed to the current wave of anti-globalization sentiments in the advanced world. This paper focuses on one of such factors, MNEs’ job-offshoring through their overseas networks of operation and its impact on the US working class. To this end, the “ladder of economic development a la Schumpeter” is presented as an analytical model from a structuralist point of view. Within this framework, the relations of innovation-driven structural change, transmigration of industries from more advanced to emerging economies at the hands of MNEs, and the globalization-afflicted working class and communities in the US are examined as closely intertwined, co-evolutionary phenomena. Four MNE-related sources of globalization angst and social costs are then discussed. The paper concludes with a much-needed analysis of the economic rationales for President Trump’s “if you sell here, produce here” jawboning on MNEs.

“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.

scholarly journals Deflecting Privilege: Class Identity and the Intergenerational Self

Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852098222
Author(s):  
Sam Friedman ◽  
Dave O’Brien ◽  
Ian McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Origin Stories ◽  
Class Privilege ◽  
Privileged Class

Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class? We address this question by drawing on 175 interviews with those working in professional and managerial occupations, 36 of whom are from middle-class backgrounds but identify as working class or long-range upwardly mobile. Our findings indicate that this misidentification is rooted in a self-understanding built on particular ‘origin stories’ which act to downplay interviewees’ own, fairly privileged, upbringings and instead forge affinities to working-class extended family histories. Yet while this ‘intergenerational self’ partially reflects the lived experience of multigenerational upward mobility, it also acts – we argue – as a means of deflecting and obscuring class privilege. By positioning themselves as ascending from humble origins, we show how these interviewees are able to tell an upward story of career success ‘against the odds’ that simultaneously casts their progression as unusually meritocratically legitimate while erasing the structural privileges that have shaped key moments in their trajectory.

scholarly journals From Substitutive to Supplementary: Institutional Interplay between Public and Occupational Sickness Benefits in Finland, 1947-2016

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-80
Author(s):  
Laura Järvi
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Sickness Benefit ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
Sickness Benefits ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Benefit System

In the context of the Finnish welfare state, this article examines the role of occupational welfare in the interplay between public and occupational sickness benefits from 1947 to 2016, to analyse how the two sickness benefits have interacted over time and the role occupational welfare has played in sickness provision. Previous research has noted that occupational benefits may support or compensate for the much-debated declining welfare state. Hence, it is important to acquire greater knowledge about the public-occupational interplay. The study uses in-depth individual-level analysis from a retrospective point of view, which has been rare in previous research, and examines the public-occupational interplay in the Finnish sickness benefit system from the first national collective agreements to 2016. Based on the reforms made to the public system, the article identifies and utilises six different phases of the Finnish sickness allowance system in the main analysis. The institutional development of sickness provision is investigated by analysing the compensation rate and benefit period, using metalworkers as a representative example of blue-collar workers. The results indicate that occupational benefits are strongly institutionalised in the Finnish sickness benefit system. The interplay between statutory and occupational sickness benefits has taken different forms over time, and occupational benefits have been re-negotiated as the statutory system has been reformed. The article provides valuable information on the historical development and relevance of occupational welfare, in terms of not only understanding its significance for individuals but also comprehending the logic of the interplay in the public-private mix of welfare provision.

scholarly journals Trade in Environmental Goods: A Review of the WTO Appellate Body's Ruling in US‒Countervailing Measures (China)

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHEL BREWSTER ◽  
CLAIRE BRUNEL ◽  
ANNA MARIA MAYDA
Keyword(s):  
Clean Energy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Economic Point ◽  
Environmental Goods ◽  
Appellate Body ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
The Us ◽  
Clean Energy Technology ◽  
Environmental Goals ◽  
Wto Appellate Body

AbstractIn this paper we claim that, in the WTO Appellate Body (AB)'s ruling in US‒Countervailing Measures (China), the AB decision has not put in question the practice of imposing countervailing duties (CVDs). While the US has formally ‘lost’ the case, a change in the procedures and tests used to motivate the CVD will allow the US to continue using this policy tool on the specified products. From an economic point of view, this is not welcome news since CVDs have the standard distortionary effects of tariffs and could go against environmental goals. From a political-economy point of view, the CVDs in this case appear driven by pressure of domestic manufacturers of clean energy technology and products.

Organizing Working-Class Academics: A Collective History

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-178
Author(s):  
Allison Hurst ◽  
Tery Griffin ◽  
Alfred Vitale
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
New York ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
The Us ◽  
Working Class Studies ◽  
Key Questions

In 2008, the Association of Working-Class Academics was founded in upstate New York by three former members of the Working-Class/Poverty-Class Academics Listserv. The Association had three goals: advocate for WCAs, build organizations on campuses that would support both working-class college students and WCAs, and support scholarship on issues relevant to class and higher education. The Association grew from a small handful to more than 200 members located in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Germany. In 2015, it was formally merged with the Working-Class Studies Association, and continues there as a special section for WCSA members. This is our collective account of the organization, told through responses to four key questions. We hope this history will provide insight and lessons for anyone interested in building similar organizations.

Informality, Class Structure, and Class Identity in Contemporary Argentina

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Elbert
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Informal Workers ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
America Latina ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Los Grupos

The dynamics of peripheral capitalism in Latin America includes the employment or self-employment of a significant proportion of the working class under informal arrangements. The neoliberal transformations of the 1990s deepened this feature of Latin American labor markets, and it was not reversed during the period of economic growth that followed the collapse of neoliberalism. In this context, sociological debates have focused on the relationship between the formal and the informal fractions of the working class. Examination of the biographical and family linkages between formal and informal workers in Argentina and the effect of these connections on the patterns of class self-identification of individuals shows that lived experience across the informality boundary makes formal workers similar to informal workers in terms of class self-identification. This research provides preliminary evidence that the two kinds of workers belong to the same social class because of the fluidity of the boundary that separates them. Instead of a class cleavage, this boundary is better defined as the separation between fractions of the working class. La dinámica del capitalismo periférico en América Latina implica la informalidad laboral (sea entre trabajadores contratados o autónomos) de una sustancial parte de la clase obrera. Las transformaciones neoliberales de los años noventa profundizaron esta característica de los mercados de trabajo latinoamericanos, y el problema no se revirtió durante el período de crecimiento económico que siguió al colapso del neoliberalismo. En este contexto, los debates sociológicos se han centrado en la relación entre los grupos formales e informales de la clase obrera. Un análisis de los vínculos biográficos y familiares entre los trabajadores formales e informales en Argentina y el efecto de dichas conexiones en los patrones individuales de autoidentificación de clase muestra que la experiencia vivida en los límites de la informalidad hace que los trabajadores formales se consideren similares a los informales en términos de identificación de clase. Esta investigación brinda evidencia preliminar de que los dos tipos de trabajadores pertenecen a la misma clase social.

scholarly journals Competition, Product Proliferation, and Welfare: A Study of the US Smartphone Market

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Fan ◽  
Chenyu Yang
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Effect ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Oligopolistic Competition ◽  
Product Choice ◽  
The Us ◽  
Product Proliferation

This paper studies (1) whether, from a welfare point of view, oligopolistic competition leads to too few or too many products in a market, and (2) how a change in competition affects the number and the composition of product offerings. We address these two questions in the context of the US smartphone market. Our findings show that this market contains too few products and that a reduction in competition decreases both the number and variety of products. These results suggest that product choice adjustment may exacerbate the welfare effect of a merger. (JEL D43, G34, K21, L13, L41, L63)

scholarly journals ODYSSEUS’S UNEASE: THE POST-WAR CRISIS OF MASCULINITY IN MELVYN BRAGG’S THE SOLDIER’S RETURN AND A SON OF WAR

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Martín Alegre
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Men's Studies ◽  
La Paz ◽  
Men’S Studies ◽  
Return Home ◽  
Crisis Of Masculinity ◽  
Post War ◽  
Alter Ego

Abstract:Melvyn Bragg’s autobiographical novels The Soldier’s Return (1999) and A Son of War (2001) narrate the return home of a working-class English WWII veteran mainly from the point of view of his son Joe (Bragg’s alter ego). By reading this new Odysseus’ return in the light of the analysis of hegemonic patriarchal masculinity carried out in Men’s Studies, this article shows that the experience of the veteran’s return to peace is central for the re-articulation not only of his individuality as a man but also for the continuation of the patriarchal model in Western societies, even at the expense of class loyalties and, indeed, at the expense of women’s liberation.Keywords: Masculinity, patriarchy, fatherhood, hegemony, social class.Resumen:Las novelas autobiográficas de Melvyn Bragg The Soldier’s Return (1999) y A Son of War (2001) narran el regreso al hogar de un veterano inglés de clase obrera tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, principalmente desde el punto de vista de su hijo Joe (alter ego de Bragg). Gracias a la lectura del regreso de este nuevo Ulises, iluminada por el análisis de la masculinidad hegemónica patriarcal realizado por los Estudios de la Masculinidad, este artículo demuestra que la experiencia del retorno del veterano a la paz es crucial no sólo para la regeneración de su individualidad como hombre sino también para la continuidad del modelo patriarcal en Occidente, a costa incluso de lealtades de clase y, sin duda, de la liberación de la mujer.Palabras clave: Masculinidad, patriarcado, paternidad, hegemonía, clase social.

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