“Living Ghosts” during the Nanjing Decade

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Y. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Urban Poor ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Academic Sociology

This chapter underscores how Nationalist (GMD) assumptions about poor relief drew on the intellectual discourses that had developed in the previous decades. It begins with an overview of the intersections between academic sociology and the GMD government's relief agenda, before turning to the specific contours of changes in Beijing and Shanghai. The chapter also returns to the fate of the straw hut dwellers, picking up the narrative from the previous chapter. Here, efforts to reform poor relief tried to classify and organize the recipients of aid into discrete categories, but often failed to recognize poverty as a continuum of misery, difficult to compartmentalize. For the urban poor of Beijing and Shanghai, the GMD's decade in power would mean an uneasy combination of charity and coercion, help and punishment.

The will to give: charitable bequests, inter vivos gifts and community building in the Dutch Republic, c. 1600–1800

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELISE VAN NEDERVEEN MEERKERK
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Charitable Giving ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
The Will ◽  
Charitable Bequests

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of different social groups in early modern Dutch towns in organising and financing poor relief. Examining both the income structure of Dutch urban poor relief organisations and voluntary donations and bequests by citizens reveals what motivations lay behind their involvement, and how and why these changed over time. In the seventeenth century, ‘middle groups’ donated more often and higher mean amounts, reflecting their efforts to contribute to urban community building. In the eighteenth century, the elite became relatively more involved in charitable giving. Also, the urge to give to one's own religious group seems to have increased in this period.

Guilty of Indigence

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Y. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Urban Poor ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Social Parasites ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
National Conversation ◽  
Social Upheaval ◽  
Lasting Influence

In the early twentieth century, a time of political fragmentation and social upheaval in China, poverty became the focus of an anguished national conversation about the future of the country. Investigating the lives of the urban poor in China during this critical era, this book examines the solutions implemented by a nation attempting to deal with “society's most fundamental problem.” Interweaving analysis of shifting social viewpoints, the evolution of poor relief institutions, and the lived experiences of the urban poor, the book explores the development of Chinese attitudes toward urban poverty and of policies intended for its alleviation. The book concentrates on Beijing and Shanghai, two of China's most important cities, and considers how various interventions carried a lasting influence. The advent of the workhouse, the denigration of the nonworking poor as “social parasites,” efforts to police homelessness and vagrancy—all had significant impact on the lives of people struggling to survive. The book provides a crucially needed historical lens for understanding how beliefs about poverty intersected with shattering historical events, producing new welfare policies and institutions for the benefit of some, but to the detriment of others. Drawing on vast archival material, the book deepens the historical perspective on poverty in China and reveals critical lessons about a still-pervasive social issue.

Poor Relief, Charity, and Self-Help in Crisis Times, 1834–69

2018 ◽  
pp. 37-74
Author(s):  
George R. Boyer
Keyword(s):  
Urban Poor ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Central Administration ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Friendly Societies ◽  
The Unemployed

This chapter traces the roles played by the Poor Law, charity, and self-help from 1834 to 1870. Workers responded to the reduced availability of outdoor relief after 1834 by increasing their saving and joining friendly societies, but few were able to save more than a small amount, which was exhausted by spells of unemployment or sickness lasting more than a few weeks. As a result, many households continued to apply for poor relief during downturns, and urban Poor Law unions continued to provide outdoor relief to the unemployed despite pressure not to from the central administration. Unions proved unable to cope financially with the sharp increases in demand for relief during crises, and by the 1860s many were convinced that the system required a radical restructuring.

Poor Relief in England, 1350–1600

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Keniston McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
Poor Relief

Somethin’ about Scandinavia: Danish Shorts on the Post-war International Scene

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Claire Thomson
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Collaboration ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
The Third ◽  
Animated Film ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Post War ◽  
Nordic Cooperation

Building on the picture of post-war Anglo-Danish documentary collaboration established in the previous chapter, this chapter examines three cases of international collaboration in which Dansk Kulturfilm and Ministeriernes Filmudvalg were involved in the late 1940s and 1950s. They Guide You Across (Ingolf Boisen, 1949) was commissioned to showcase Scandinavian cooperation in the realm of aviation (SAS) and was adopted by the newly-established United Nations Film Board. The complexities of this film’s production, funding and distribution are illustrative of the activities of the UN Film Board in its first years of operation. The second case study considers Alle mine Skibe (All My Ships, Theodor Christensen, 1951) as an example of a film commissioned and funded under the auspices of the Marshall Plan. This US initiative sponsored informational films across Europe, emphasising national solutions to post-war reconstruction. The third case study, Bent Barfod’s animated film Noget om Norden (Somethin’ about Scandinavia, 1956) explains Nordic cooperation for an international audience, but ironically exposed some gaps in inter-Nordic collaboration in the realm of film.

Capitalising upon Globalisation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Webber
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Development ◽  
Macroeconomic Policy ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Gordon Brown ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
At Home

Having mapped out in the previous chapter, New Labour’s often contradictory and even ‘politically-convenient’ understanding of globalisation, chapter 3 offers analysis of three key areas of domestic policy that Gordon Brown would later transpose to the realm of international development: (i) macroeconomic policy, (ii) business, and (iii) welfare. Since, according to Brown at least, globalisation had resulted in a blurring of the previously distinct spheres of domestic and foreign policy, it made sense for those strategies and policy decisions designed for consumption at home to be transposed abroad. The focus of this chapter is the design of these three areas of domestic policy; the unmistakeable imprint of Brown in these areas and their place in building of New Labour’s political economy. Strikingly, Brown’s hand in these policies and the themes that underpinned them would again reappear in the international development policies explored in much greater detail later in the book.

McCallum, Poor Relief and the Church in Scotland

2019 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-313
Author(s):  
Neil Mcintyre
Keyword(s):  
Poor Relief ◽  
The Church
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