Re-energizing Japan's teikei movement: Understanding intergenerational transitions of diverse economies

In the 1960s-70s, Japan’s teikei movement, also referred to as Japanese community supported agriculture (CSA), emerged as a response to a period marred with multiple food scandals and environmental injustices and resulted in direct partnerships between consumers and organic farmers. Although this movement peaked in the 1990s just as the concept of alternative food networks (AFNs) gained popularity in western countries, little is known about what has happened to teikei today. This paper analyzes how teikei exemplifies diverse economies and explores how the possibilities of noncapitalist economic practice currently exist compared to the founding movement principles. Through case studies of two teikei groups in the Kansai region of Japan that transitioned their leadership to younger generations, I assess how changes made by current generations allow teikei to adapt to challenges that have long plagued the movement, such as the decline of volunteer labor provided by housewives. Drawing on a diverse economies approach, I argue that, despite current members’ detachment from strong activist identities, they sustain their organizations through part-time work, community building, and institutionalizing volunteer labor. The successes and struggles of current teikei groups provide insight into how AFNs seeking to build alternative economies can overcome difficulties that emerge from actualizing diverse economies.

Tumblr’s Xkit Guy, social media modding, and code as resistance

The platformalization of the internet means that fan communities must make homes in spaces that they do not own. Tumblr has lately been the chosen home for many online fandoms because of its affordances for anonymity and lack of censorship. However, the profit motives of Tumblr's owners, especially after Yahoo purchased the site in 2013, are frequently at odds with the affordances that nourish fan communities. Fans on Tumblr are aware of their precarious position, where a few keystrokes by a developer could endanger an affordance that their communities depend on. An examination of the relationship between Tumblr users and Tumblr staff provides a case study of how fan communities push back against platform owners. The Tumblr Xkit Extension, a fan-made browser extension maintained by the volunteer labor of the Xkit Guy, is used to illustrate that the Tumblr community acts as a fandom of a social media site. This lets us understand the Xkit Browser extension as a resistant fan work written in the medium of code. Like video game modding, social media modding is a transformative work that permits fans to oppose the platform's code as law—but one that could also constitute a form of exploited labor.

Volunteer Urban Environmental Stewardship, Emotional Economies of Care, and Productive Power in Philadelphia

Recent efforts to increase urban forests and greenspaces rely on the volunteer labor of individuals and environmental nonprofits. The estimation of market values has often justified urban greening. These neoliberal approaches to urban environmental governance have been heavily critiqued, revealing the uneven power relationships and urban environments that result. This paper aims to move beyond such critiques by exploring how the reproduction of urban nature can be valued outside of the market. Fieldwork with volunteers participating in environmental stewardship in Philadelphia revealed their participation was motivated by intense emotional attachments to their neighborhoods, other participants, and nonhuman others, leading me to propose emotional economies of care as an alternative framework. The circulation of emotions and affects between participants, places, and nonhuman others forms an emotional economy. The generative power of this circulation makes emotional economies of care collective bodies or multiplicities. Furthermore, these multiplicities produce power from below, in counterpoint to the top down power of neoliberal environmentalities. However, just as these multiplicities come together, they can come apart or change directions. I close with ideas on how emotional ecologies and economies of care can be brought into being and processes of change within them shepherded in progressive ways.

Organization of Volunteer Camps at Historical and Сultural Heritage Sites in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: International Experience

Цель исследования – выявление принципов и правил организации международных волонтерских кампусов в области сохранения историко-культурного наследия в условиях пандемии COVID-19 на примере деятельности некоммерческих организаций HistoriCorps (США) и Ассоциации REMPART (Франция), специализирующихся в этой сфере. Использованы документы данных организаций, программные материалы по волонтерской работе. Изучены нормы, касающиеся вопросов проживания участников международных проектов, их численности, питания, проезда, организации культурно-досуговой программы и длительности проведения лагеря в период пандемии. Установлено, что во время карантина появились принципиально новые стандарты реализации международных проектов волонтерскими организациями. Сформулированы общие требования к организации волонтерских кампусов: от обеспечения волонтеров средствами индивидуальной защиты до их размещения принимающей стороной, создание системы мониторинга самочувствия волонтеров и сотрудников проекта. The aim of the study was to identify the principles and rules for organizing international volunteer camps in the field of preserving historical and cultural heritage in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic using the example of the activities of non-profit organizations HistoriCorps (USA) and the REMPART Association (France), specializing in this field. The study used reports, guidelines and instructions for working with participants on volunteer camps of these organizations during quarantine and in the subsequent post-pandemic period. The author applies a structural-functional approach using the methods of interpretation of legal norms and a comparative method. The practice of conducting volunteer camps was studied on the example of the activities of the American organization HistoriCorps. The data on the number of volunteers, the number of man-hours, employment conditions, peculiarities of the organization of activities, requirements for the personality, competencies and duties of the head of the volunteer brigade were revealed. The changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related to the rules and principles of preparing HistoriCorps volunteer camps, new requirements for organizing a volunteer camp and creating conditions for safe volunteer activities were investigated in detail. The HistoriCorps protocols regulating the procedure for actions in case of suspected signs of coronavirus infection in project participants were analyzed. The changes in the methodology of conducting volunteer camps, developed by the French volunteer association REMPART and related to the response of this organization to the spread of COVID-19, were studied. Specific actions, helping to ensure the sanitary safety of the participants, were identified in relation to the organization of volunteer labor. It was determined that the condition for participation in the volunteer camp should be the provision of a medical document (the PCR test result), indicating that the candidate does not have COVID-19, the passage of special training on health and safety by employees, and the provision of personal protective equipment to volunteers in accordance with the requirements of local authorities. The study resulted in a generalization of the experience accumulated by international volunteer organizations on taking additional measures related to the safe conduct of camps during the COVID-19 pandemic and the development of a number of universal recommendations that can become a practical guide for organizers and participants of volunteer camps, regardless of the location of the projects.

The Results of Exit Polls in Kansas to Verify Voting Machine Counts in the November 2016 Election

Citizens’ exit polls are performed by local voters to verify the official reported election results. Five citizens’ exit polls were run in southeast Kansas during the Nov 8th 2016 election. These exit polls were designed specifically to verify computer generated vote counts and run solely by volunteer labor, all local citizens who were willing to put in the necessary hours on Election Day to conduct the poll and later, to count the results by hand. These exit polls were able to obtain high participation rates resulting in the ability to detect small yet statistically significant differences. All five polling stations surveyed show evidence of multiple statistical anomalies in both the pattern and size of the errors between the official results and exit poll results although biases were not uniformly oriented across sites. The small discrepancies found in the studied races were insufficient to alter the outcomes. Non-response bias and unintentional errors were evaluated as potential causes; those explanations were plausible in some but not all cases. These results show a pattern of discrepancies between the exit polls and computer counted results displaying consistent bias within sites. This would be an expected outcome of a deliberate manipulation of the computer results. While this data doesn’t conclusively prove election interference and manipulation of votes counts, it should be taken seriously as a sign of such interference. Doubts about the accuracy of the reported results are appropriate unless other plausible explanations for the discrepancies can be found.

Meaningful Volunteer Labor

I would like to present a specific kind of social structure – that of a community of about 50 Bulgarians who live in the St. Georgi Zografski monastery in the monastic republic of Mount Athos (Holy Mountain) within the territory of the Republic of Greece. Over the last 2-3 decades the number of inhabitants has increased so as the interest in it. The community is visited, except the pilgrims and volunteer Bulgarian workers, by the people who come for a week every month to donate their labor to the monastery. They are called charisans (volunteers). They come from different parts of Bulgaria to work for free, i.e. to donate their labor to a monastic community. To do so, they have to take a vacation, to pay for a visa and transport, which is not easy for inhabitants of the poorest EU country. Interestingly, their number is increasing from year to year. What causes these people to leave secular life forever or to come regularly with the cost of deprivation? I look for an answer to this question, apart from Orthodox and history evidences, (Metropolitan Hierophaeus (Vlachos) 2011) and through the anthropological method of participation – observation and interviews – conversations with monks, volunteers, pilgrims.

Redesigning the Market for Volunteers: A Donor Registry

This paper addresses volunteer labor markets where the lack of price signals, nonpecuniary motivations to supply labor, and limited fungibility of supply lead to market failure. To address the causes of the market failure, we conduct a field experiment with volunteer whole blood donors where we introduce a market-clearing mechanism (henceforth: the Registry). Our intention-to-treat estimates suggest that subjects invited to the Registry, regardless of joining, are 66% more responsive to critical shortage appeals than control subjects. While the Registry increases supply during a critical shortage episode, it does not increase supply when there is no shortage; thus, the Registry significantly improves coordination between volunteer donors and collection centers, thereby improving market outcomes. We find evidence that the Registry’s effectiveness stems from crowding-in volunteers with purely altruistic motives and volunteers with a preference for commitment. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, decision analysis.

Exploration role of volunteerism on the digitisation project: case of the office of the premier in Mpumalanga province, South Africa

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of volunteerism during the digitisation project by the Office of the Premier in Mpumalanga with a view recommending the best practice. Design/methodology/approach The empirical data was collected through the semi-structured qualitative interviews with the records manager and ten volunteer archivists employed by the Office of the Premier. Findings Local pupils within the Mpumalanga province were recruited to participate in the digitisation project as a form of youth empowerment. The Mpumalanga Provincial Archives was not involved in the digitisation project to ensure that all digitisation specification was in line with the requirement of the provincial archives. Furthermore, a lack of resources to implement the digitisation project was cited as the main stamping block for the successful implementation of the project. Research limitations/implications This paper is limited to the Office of the premier, in the Mpumalanga province. Practical implications Archivists interested in recruiting volunteers on a digitisation project can use this paper to understand the benefits and cost of volunteer labor before putting volunteer projects into practice. Social implications The success of a digitisation project depends on the involvement of the Mpumalanga Provincial archives. Originality/value This paper presents a unique case study in South Africa of a digitisation project staffed with volunteers in the office of the Premier.

Fast Mass-Production of Medical Safety Shields under COVID-19 Quarantine: Optimizing the Use of University Fabrication Facilities and Volunteer Labor

COVID-19 pandemic provoked a number of restrictive measures, such as the closure or severe restriction of border transit for international trading traffic, quarantines and self-isolation. This caused a series of interrelated consequences that not only prevent or slow down the spread of disease, but also impact the medical systems’ capability to treat the patients and help their recovery. In particular, steeply growing demand for medical safety goods cannot be satisfied by regular suppliers due to the shortage of raw materials originating from other countries or remotely located national sources, under conditions of quarantined manpower. The current context inevitably brings back memories (and records!) of the situation 80 years ago, when WWII necessitated major effort directed at the rapid build-up of low-cost mass production to satisfy all aspects of war-time need. In the present short report we document a successful case of fast mass-production of light transparent medical safety face shields (thousands per day) realized in Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) at Fablab and Machine Shop Shared Facility (Skoltech FabLab). The demand for safety face shields by tens of hospitals in Moscow and other cities rapidly ramped up due to the need to protect medical staff during patient collection and transportation to hospitals, and within both the infected (“red”) and uninfected (“green”) zones. Materials selection for sterilizable transparent materials was conducted based on the analysis of merit indices, namely, minimal weight at given stiffness and minimal cost at given stiffness. Due to the need for permanent wear, design was motivated by low weight and comfortable head fixation, along with high production efficiency. The selection of minimal tooling in University fabrication workshops and the use of distributed volunteer labor are discussed.

Volunteer activity as a means of instilling fire safety skills to preschool children

The number of fires caused by children remains quite high. The constant employment of adults, a high pace of life, and other factors adversely affect the development of skills for safe behavior of children. In the preschool period, the foundation is laid for a conscious and responsible attitude to personal security issues. In order to improve the training of preschool children in fire safety rules and their effective socialization, the active use of volunteer labor is proposed. Volunteers are professional workers, parents, schoolchildren, and students. They can teach children how to deal with fire and provide first aid, which is necessary to save their own lives. When organizing and conducting classes with children, volunteers must take into account their psychological, age, physiological and physical characteristics. Volunteers need special training in the field of fire safety, knowledge of methods and methods for conducting classes with children. Activities such as reading fiction, games, sports, talking, situational game tasks, will allow the child to put the acquired knowledge and skills into practice. The ongoing targeted training of volunteers for working with children will contribute to the effective formation of a system of safe behavior among preschool children.