What Does It Mean to Eat Right?

Food Fights ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 124-142
Author(s):  
Charlotte Biltekoff

Over the course of their lifetimes, Americans will be given a vast array of changing and sometimes contradictory advice about what constitutes healthy eating and drinking. Charlotte Biltekoff looks at the history of nutrition science to argue that the reason for the changing advice has less to do with science per se, and more to do with the fact that what constitutes “eating right” is a product of social values that are determined by the dominant classes. These classes define their own eating habits as healthy and the mark of good citizenship, thereby condemning those (historically immigrants and the poor) to second-class status.

Author(s):  
Dimitri Gugushvili ◽  
Tijs Laenen

Abstract Over two decades ago, Korpi and Palme (1998) published one of the most influential papers in the history of social policy discipline, in which they put forward a “paradox of redistribution”: the more countries target welfare resources exclusively at the poor, the less redistribution is actually achieved and the less income inequality and poverty are reduced. The current paper provides a state-of-the-art review of empirical research into that paradox. More specifically, we break down the paradox into seven core assumptions, which together form a causal chain running from institutional design to redistributive outcomes. For each causal assumption, we offer a comprehensive and critical review of the relevant empirical literature, also including a broader range of studies that do not aim to address Korpi and Palme’s paradox per se, but are nevertheless informative about it.


1980 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franco Amatori

Those who in the past twenty years have examined the historiography of industrial Italy cannot help but recognize its “backwardness” when compared to similar studies in other countries, particularly those of American entrepreneurial history. Various reasons have been given to justify this “backwardness,” such as the excessive humanistic tradition of Italian historical studies, the relatively scarce statistical data available on Italian industry, and the poor condition of industrial archives. But, above all, it has been observed that “enterprise,” “entrepreneurs,” and “entrepreneurship” are concepts not especially sympathetic to Italian historiographical culture. First, there is an ideological suspicion, which suggests that to investigate these topics implies per se a favorable attitude. Second, there is a diffuse conviction according to which it is necessary to utilize explanations other than free initiative, and, particularly to stress the role of the State, in order to understand Italian economic development.


2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110323
Author(s):  
Kristina Popova

The article addresses the production of reproducibility as a topic that has become acutely relevant in the recent discussions on the replication crisis in science. It brings the ethnomethodological stance on reproducibility into the discussions, claiming that reproducibility is necessarily produced locally, on the shop floor, with methodological guidelines serving as references to already established practices rather than their origins. The article refers to this argument empirically, analyzing how a group of novice neuroscientists performs a series of measurements in a transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment. Based on ethnography and video analysis, the article traces a history of the local measurement procedure invented by the researchers in order to overcome the experimental uncertainty. The article aims to demonstrate (1) how reproducibility of the local procedure is achieved in the shop floor work of the practitioners and (2) how the procedure becomes normalized and questioned as incorrect in the course of experimental practice. It concludes that the difference between guidelines and practical actions is not problematic per se; what may be problematic is that researchers can be engaged in different working projects described by the same instruction.


Traditio ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 87-125
Author(s):  
JOEL L. GAMBLE

The “Defense of Medicine” prefaces the Codex Bambergensis Medicinalis 1, a Carolingian collection of medical texts. Some scholars have dismissed the Defense as an incoherent patchwork of quotations. Yet, missing from the literature is an adequate assessment of the Defense's arguments. This present study includes the first English translation accompanied by a complete source commentary, a prerequisite for valid content analysis. When read systematically and with attention to the author's use of sources, the Defense is limpid and cogent. Its first purpose is to defend the compatibility of Christian faith and secular medicine. Key propositions include the following: God made nature good, so the natural sciences are reconcilable with divine learning; scripture respects medicine; God expects the sick to avail of physicians and deserves honor for healings done through physicians. Counter-arguments used by the Defense's opponents, who rejected medicine on principle, can also be reconstructed from the text. Two further purposes of the Defense have hitherto been explored insufficiently. After justifying medicine, the Defense addresses sick patients. It encourages them that illness can be spiritually healthful, an instrument for curing their souls. The Defense then addresses caregivers. It tells them why they should succor the sick, even the poor: not for gain or fame, but in imitation of Christ and as if treating Christ himself, whose image the sick bear. The Defense thus contributes to the history of ideas on medicine, health, sickness, and the ethics of altruistic care.


2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-152
Author(s):  
Carolyn J. Sharp

Biblical narratives about ostensibly “local” barter (Abraham’s purchase of the cave at Machpelah), protection of battle spoils (Achan’s theft and subsequent execution), and commodification of labor and bodies (Ruth gleaning for hours and offering herself to Boaz) reveal much about ideologies of economic control operative in ancient Israel. The materialist analysis of Roland Boer provides a richly detailed study of Israelite agrarian and tributary practices, offering a salutary corrective to naïve views of Israelite economic relations. Highlighting labor as the most ruthlessly exploited resource in the ancient Near East, Boer examines the class-specific benefits and sustained violence of economic formations from kinship-household relations to militarized extraction. Boer’s erudite study will compel readers to look afresh at the subjugation of the poor and plundering of the powerless as constitutive features of diverse economic practices throughout the history of ancient Israel.


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