Notes from the Editors, January 2018

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (8) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
The Editors

buy this issueThe recent rise of social reproduction theory represents one of the most remarkable attempts to extend historical materialism in our time. The Review of the Month in this issue, "Women, Nature, and Capital in the Industrial Revolution," is intended as a contribution to this rapidly growing body of work.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

2019 ◽  
pp. c2-68
Author(s):  
The Editors

buy this issue This special issue of Monthly Review honors the fiftieth anniversary this month of Margaret Benston's landmark "The Political Economy of Women's Liberation." The essay sparked a revolution in Marxian thought, the full implications of which are only now being perceived in contemporary social reproduction theory. We have reprinted Benson’s pieces together with contributions by Silvia Federici, Martha E. Gimenez, Selma James (interviewed by Ron Augustin), Leith Mullings, Marge Piercy, and Lise Vogel, all of whom have played leading roles since the 1970s in the development of feminist historical materialism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 121 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-336
Author(s):  
Wayne Usher ◽  
Brittany A. McCormack

PurposeThe Higher Degree Research (HDR) journey is known for its difficulties, complexities and challenges (Lees-Deutsch, 2020), with many students experiencing multi-faceted issues and concerns (Skopek et al., 2020). Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the relationships that exist between variables, vulnerability factors and doctorial capital of candidates (n = 532) studying at Australian universities (2019).Design/methodology/approachA quantitative cross-sectional correlational research design and Bronfenbrenner's socio – ecological framework (personal, home, university, community) was utilised to collect participants' (n = 532) descriptive statistics. Bourdieu's social reproduction theory was used as a lens to examine how experiences, across the PhD candidature, are influenced by several psychosocial factors and doctoral capital.FindingsFrom such a dual methodological approach, the findings from this study suggests that (1) age, (2) gender, (3) nationality, (4) financial/work status, (5) years of PhD and (6) attending postgraduate (PG) student events, go to significantly (p < 0.001) impact (positively and negatively) on students' experiences and correspondingly, impacts on their self-confidence, motivation and mental health and well-being status.Research limitations/implicationsResearch limitations are related to the recruitment of more doctoral students across more Australian universities. Further research is required from HDR supervisors, so as to “balance” the experiences of the PhD journey in higher education.Practical implicationsIn order to succeed in academia and HDR programs, students need to identify with and develop the “right kind of capital” to successfully navigate fields of social and scholarly play. Investigating how the participants perceive their social and scholarly habitus is seen as crucial in helping students to develop positive dispositions relevant to being a doctoral student.Social implicationsThe concept of doctoral capital and well-being, amongst Australian PhD students, is under researched and requires further investigation as a precursor to developing more specific policy designs aimed at providing heightened positive learning environments/HDR programs tailored to support doctoral students.Originality/valueWhilst reforms to improve PhD experiences are well established across the international literature (Geven et al., 2018; Skopek et al., 2020), evidence for Australia is largely missing. It is envisaged, that findings from this research will further assist in the development of quality policies that would go to provide effective services and support for doctoral students within Australian universities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-11
Author(s):  
Tyrone S. Pitsis ◽  
Sara L. Beckman ◽  
Martin Steinert ◽  
Luciano Oviedo ◽  
Bettina Maisch

This is an introduction to the special issue of California Management Review on Design Thinking (DT). This special issue joins the growing body of work exploring the idea of DT and whether DT makes a difference in terms enhancing or augmenting the impact of technology—and, as a result, innovation—in a positive way. We have chosen an interesting, relevant, and useful array of papers that provide different approaches, views, and interpretations of applied design thinking. These articles provide both management and scholarly readers with insights in how DT is used, as well as its impact and usefulness in a variety of contexts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Lombardozzi ◽  
Frederick Harry Pitts

Proponents recommend Universal Basic Income as a solution to a trifold crisis of work, wage and social democracy. Synthesising Marxian form analysis with Marxist-feminist social reproduction theory, this article suggests that these crises relate to historically specific capitalist social forms: labour, money and the state. These separate but interlocking crises of social form are temporary and contingent expressions of an underlying, permanent crisis of social reproduction. Mistaking the pervasive crisis of social reproduction in its totality for a temporary or contingent trifold crisis of work, wage or social democracy, Universal Basic Income proposals seek to solve it by moving through the same social forms through which they take effect, rather than confronting the social relations that constitute their antagonistic undertow and generate the crisis of social reproduction. The article considers two other solutions proposed to handle the deeper-rooted crisis with which Universal Basic Income grapples: Universal Basic Services and Universal Basic Infrastructure. Both propose non-monetary ways past the impasses of the Universal Basic Income, addressing much more directly the constrained basis of individual and collective reproduction that characterises capitalist social relations. But they retain a link with capitalist social forms of money and state that may serve to close rather than open the path to real alternatives. The article concludes that the contradictions these ‘abstract universals’ touch upon are best mediated through more bottom-up and struggle-based ‘concrete universals’ that address the manifold crises of work, wage and social democracy that undergird them. Such alternatives would leave open dynamic tensions around work and welfare in contemporary capitalism without promise of their incomplete resolution in the name of a false universality unattainable in a world characterised by antagonism, domination and crisis.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Obeimar B Herrera ◽  
Manuel Parra ◽  
Iris Livscovsky ◽  
Pedro Ramos ◽  
Daniela Gallardo

Abstract In recent decades, most multilateral organizations and other agents of change have used the theoretical approach of sustainable livelihoods to guide their work. This approach has been criticized in recent years for promoting a short-term materialist focus in development projects, thus limiting its practical usefulness and feasibility. Due to the necessity for renewed proposals, a group of community cargos and researchers have developed a long-term comparative retrospective study that goes beyond the conventional approach. It provides a framework with a broader theoretical scope and applied utility grounded on local self-management: lifeways and territorial innovation. Our constructivist approach, based on Bourdieu´s Social Reproduction theory, is aimed at promoting and triggering a sense of territoriality within the communities and further onto the more extensive territory. Since the work was developed along with people from rural communities, we utilized the concept of Social Learning as to enrich the former theoretical principle.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Lisa Okta Wulandari ◽  
Dewi Haryani Susilastuti

In America, the definition of marriage has changed. The Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage. As the growth of LGBT people slowly continues, and they keep struggle and fight for their equality, heterosexuals might feel threatened. This study aims to know how the same-sex relationship challenges the hegemony of heteronormativity and whether or not the gender norm has been shifted as proof. This study uses Jenny's Wedding (2015). It focuses on gender position, role, and responsibility in heteronormativity and homosexuality. This study uses the sociological approach and gender theory, to see the relation between heteronormativity and the individuals also Pierre Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory to see the shifting of gender norm. The finding shows that heteronormativity is used as the standard to judge, stereotype, expect things, and make assumptions. The recognition and support from society towards LGBT people and their coming out give challenges for the existenceof heterosexuals. Therefore, the contact of heteronormativity and homosexuality makes the heteronormativity no longer pure. When homosexuality affects gender norm, there must be changes in the gender norm itself.Keywords: gender; hegemony; heteronormativity; homosexuality; same-sex relationship


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Drott

This article interrogates music’s role in the work of social reproduction by bringing into dialogue two seemingly antithetical approaches to thinking music’s relation to the social. One is historical materialism; the other is work informed by the “practice turn” in music sociology, exemplified by Tia DeNora’s studies of music as a “technology of the self.” By taking seriously the proposition that under certain conditions music may itself function as a technology, and by reframing this proposition along materialist lines, this article aims to shed light on the changing functions music has come to assume in late neoliberalism. In particular, new modalities of digital distribution like streaming, by simultaneously driving down the cost of music and normalizing its therapeutic, prosthetic, and self-regulatory uses, increasingly cast it as a cheap resource that can be harnessed to replenish the cognitive, affective, and/or communicative energies strained by the current crisis of social reproduction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-65
Author(s):  
Elena Louisa Lange

The plausibility of “gendered exploitation” as a sine qua non of capitalism, as articulated by both classic Marxist–feminism since the 1970s and more recently by authors of social reproduction theory, stands or falls with the evaluation of Marx's theory of value. From the standpoint of both Marx's monetary theory of value and the problem of quantification, the use of “women's oppression” in capitalist social reproduction appears to be questionable. This also necessitates a deeper analysis of the use of “gender” in the wider field of pertinent Marxist–feminist literature. Arguments for “gendered exploitation” often hinge on unsound premises that introduce a naturalizing view of social relations. Analogous to Barbara and Karen Fields' intervention against “Racecraft,” the term “Gendercraft” may represent this argumentative move. The notion of gender as the site of specifically capitalist exploitation is thus challenged and countered with a new emphasis on struggles against the wage relation as the site of anticapitalist resistance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (8) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bellamy Foster ◽  
Brett Clark

Examining the historical specificity of women's lives and labor in England during the Industrial Revolution allows us to better analyze the assumptions regarding gender, family, and work that informed the writings of Marx and Engels—and ultimately to understand how capital as a system threatens the social and ecological bases of human life.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


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