What is your gender? Gender and participation in Attac-Italy

Since gender disparities do not appear to be confined within the political system, I assume a gender perspective within social movements. In order to better understand the relations between the social movements and gender issues, I analysed the case of the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens (Attac) in Italy. Attac is an international network of sibling organizations. The Italian branch has been described as a political/cultural association which is based on previous cultural/political backgrounds of militants. Accordingly, I supposed that these cultural/political backgrounds have affected the present organization and its forms of participation. Structural information on participation in parties and trade unions proves that Attac has a strong linkage to the Italian left-wing, while the relations between gender, participation and power have been investigated in the fieldwork. Yet, certain dynamics of inequity and the risk of reproducing models learned elsewhere, which also replicate gender exclusion in those associations which lie halfway between civil society and political parties, have been discussed for gender and participation in the contradictory age of globalization.     

What is a Fair Trial? Rape Prosecutions, Disclosure and the Human Rights Act

This article engages with the vogue for predicting the effects of the Human Rights Act 1998 by focusing on the rape prosecution and trial. The specific interest is feminist scrutiny of the right to a fair trial, particularly the concept of ‘fairness’, in light of the increasing use of disclosure rules (in Canada and England) to gain access to medical and counseling records. Transcending the two contemporary narratives of ‘victims’/women’s rights and defendants’ rights in the criminal justice system, the authors argue for the infusion of the legal debate on disclosure with feminist understandings of wider cultural debates. They suggest that an increased reflexivity about intimacy, publicity and power, leading perhaps to the development of a concept of ‘democratic publicity’ (Fraser, 1997, p. 100), might help to revision the meaning of ‘relevant’ evidence in the rape trial. They also suggest that the wide-ranging cultural debate about memory, truth and history, and the emerging commitment to experimentation in responding to massive, institutionalised human rights violations (including apartheid, war crimes and child abuse) might be of use in deepening current thinking about the rape trial and listening to the ‘voice’ of the complainant. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

What is Black British Feminism?

Young looks at the place of black feminists in today's academy in Britain, and poses some questions for contemporary self-identified black and white feminists based in that country. There is a new confidence among some black, professional Britons but infiltration into the academy remains problematic for many. Black British feminists and writers are largely absent in so-called postcolonial literary canons developed in the Anglo-American institutions, and by and large black British feminists are only offered fragile support by white feminists. Although African-American feminism offers intellectual sustenance and networks, the situation in the United States is very different, particularly as, there, black feminism has had much more impact and recognition. Discussions of the intersections of race, class and gender are rare in Britain outside black feminism, and there has been much less attention than in the States to black women's writing. Perhaps some kind of 'provisional essentialism' is still needed, for it is difficult for black feminist academics ever to feel the question of race is optional. It can be argued that 'blackness' is used to describe women of very different origins, and can obscure differential histories, but 'blackness' is always a political concept, not a register of national belonging. Black women have transformed British culture, but white feminists have largely failed to understand their problems. Attention to the social history of black women in Britain, and particularly to the creative work of black women writers, filmmakers and other cultural workers, is the place at which a new analysis should begin.     

Revolutionary Mothers? Interacting Power Relations,Agency, and Social Change

In this article a theoretical discussion about intersectionality is carried out in dialogue with the ways in which battered and separated mothers deal with their children's situation and their relationship to their violent co‐parents/ex‐partners. In line with Connell's (1987) Connell, R. W. 1987. Gender and Power. Society, the Person and Sexual Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press.  [Google Scholar] argument that categories such as gender are shaped by several structures and that the social order is inherently instable due to historic “unevenness”, contradictions, and internal differentiation, it is shown how abused mothers both follow and undermine well‐established notions of childhood, gender, and parenthood when trying to tackle their situation post separation or divorce. What is furthermore shown is how their “doing” of age, gender, and kinship entails both dichotomization and neutralization. It is argued that constructions prominent in public discussions about children at risk—the intrinsic value of childhood, children's right to personal integrity, and need of safety and protection—serve as a resource when the interviewees argue against the norm prescribing contact between children and fathers post separation and divorce. Two established constructions of the child's best interests are set up against each other when the mothers try to undermine power associated with the father position. An empirically sensitive and actor‐centred intersectional analysis must be sophisticated enough to grasp such complexities if we are to be able to fully explore possibilities for social change.     

What is a land grab? Exploring green grabs,conservation, and private protected areas in southern Chile

Discussions of land grabs for various purposes, including environmental ends, have expanded in recent years, yet land grabbing remains inconsistently defined and poorly understood. Our ability to assess the extent to which land grabs are occurring, and to identify the mixture of factors driving land and resource acquisition, is limited. This paper assesses whether a land grab for conservation is happening in southern Chile, and identifies the various driving forces that combine to drive land acquisitions in the region, based on a detailed exploration of the recent massive growth in privately owned protected areas in the region. This paper finds that the various dominant definitions of land grabs each apply only partially to southern Chile, that land grabs for conservation need to be understood as the latest stage in a longer process by which the region's natural resources are incorporated into the Chilean and the global economy, and that green grabs interact in various ways with broader resource grabs, particularly for forestry and hydroelectricity. This case study demonstrates the limitations of some definitions of land grabs, particularly their focus on capitalist accumulation within land grabs, their international nature and their emphasis on legal processes.     

The Personal is Work is Political is Theoretical: Continuities and Discontinuities in Women's Studies, (Pro)feminism, “Men” and My Selves

This essay reflects on some specific questions posed by the organizers of the Past, Present, Future conference held at Umeå University, Sweden, in June 2007 to the keynote speakers on their personal experiences of the influences, inspirations, challenges, and problems in and around Women's/Gender Studies over the last 30 years. It extends the notion of “the personal is political” to: the personal is work is political is theoretical. It also critically reflects on continuities and discontinuities in women's studies, (pro)feminism, “men” and my selves. Four kinds of (spheres of) activity and experience (the personal, work, the political, the theoretical) are considered in relation to four social spaces, social sites, or social institutional formations (in this context, primarily: selves, “men”, feminism/profeminism, women's/gender studies).     

Land,kinship and identity: The cultural roots of agrarian agitation in eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century Ireland

This paper seeks to uncover the underlying causes of agrarian agitation in eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century Ireland. It argues, in contrast to existing explanations, that rural unrest was a highly complex form of popular protest, disciplined and with clear objectives. These objectives centred on the Irish peasantry's defence of traditional rights and customs with regard to the ownership, occupation and use of the land. It is further argued that these rights and customs were in turn grounded upon a system of social norms, beliefs and obligations which governed the relationship between land, kinship and identity in Irish peasant communities.     

For better or for worse? The dilemmas of unmarried motherhood in mid-twentieth-century popular British film and fiction

This article investigates representations of unmarried motherhood in the late 1940s and early 1950s through readings of popular British film and fiction. These sources are used to illustrate contradictions and conflicts in the meanings afforded to unmarried motherhood and, in turn, to highlight how the unmarried mother was used as a motif for exploring post-war normative boundaries around marriage, motherhood, and female sexuality. The article draws upon Raymond Williams's idea of a 'structure of feeling' to make connections between these representations and issues and debates about the role and status of women and mothers more generally in post-war Britain.     

Striving for Educational and Career Goals During the Transition After High School: What is Beneficial?

The present study takes a motivational perspective that views youths’ educational and career engagement as influential and potentially competing for the same motivational resources in the transition to adulthood. We investigated whether motivational engagement with educational and career goals in the year after high-school graduation was differentially associated with educational, career-related and subjective well-being outcomes 2 and 4 years after school graduation. Our longitudinal study of a multi-ethnic sample of Los Angeles high-school graduates followed participants 2 years (N = 561; 61.5 % female) and 4 years (N = 364; 59.8 % female) after high school graduation. The findings indicate that motivational engagement with educational goals after high school graduation predicted educational attainments and psychological well-being at follow-up 2 and 4 years after graduation, and occupational progress at 4 years after graduation. Work hours assessed shortly after high school graduation were associated with poorer educational outcomes both at 2 and 4 years after high school. Occupational goal engagement was not associated with better outcomes, but predicted less educational attainment 4 years after graduating. Thus, educational goal engagement predicted favorable outcomes, whereas career-related goal engagement for the most part was neutral with some select associations with negative educational outcomes. A strong motivational commitment to educational goals, but not to career goals, is an important component of a successful transition to adulthood.     

Food crises, food regimes and food movements: rumblings of reform or tides of transformation?

This article addresses the potential for food movements to bring about substantive changes to the current global food system. After describing the current corporate food regime, we apply Karl Polanyi's 'double-movement' thesis on capitalism to explain the regime's trends of neoliberalism and reform. Using the global food crisis as a point of departure, we introduce a comparative analytical framework for different political and social trends within the corporate food regime and global food movements, characterizing them as 'Neoliberal', 'Reformist', 'Progressive', and 'Radical', respectively, and describe each trend based on its discourse, model, and key actors, approach to the food crisis, and key documents. After a discussion of class, political permeability, and tensions within the food movements, we suggest that the current food crisis offers opportunities for strategic alliances between Progressive and Radical trends within the food movement. We conclude that while the food crisis has brought a retrenchment of neoliberalization and weak calls for reform, the worldwide growth of food movements directly and indirectly challenge the legitimacy and hegemony of the corporate food regime. Regime change will require sustained pressure from a strong global food movement, built on durable alliances between Progressive and Radical trends.     

Judith Scott’s What is Property?: an inquiry into principles of dependency,propriety, and self-possession of an “outsider” artist

The essay addresses the politics of biography in the interpretation and reception of “outsider artist” Judith Scott’s work. Drawing from feminism, disability studies, and Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt’s History and Obstinacy (1981) and its political economy of labor power, the essay proposes a new method of analysis which would foreground Scott’s work as a mode of institutional critique. Kluge and Negt ask “Can capital say ‘I’?.” The essay argues that Scott’s work compels a concomitant questioning of this “I” and the very terms of biography, authorship, and ownership that undergird the myths – and the institutions – of the “outsider” and her “art.”     

‘What is it about “fuck off” you don’t understand?’ The NILRC and politics of the Left in Northern Ireland

Abstract

At the 2016 Northern Ireland Assembly Election, a somewhat peculiar political ‘party’ hastily filled in nomination papers at the 11th hour. This last-minute concoction was elaborately named ‘The Northern Ireland Labour Representation Committee’. This article seeks to explore the circumstances around the creation of the NILRC, thereby developing a synthesis of the present-day situation of the Labour Party in Northern Ireland (LPNI), the local Constituency Labour Party (CLP) of the UK Labour Party. In a backdrop in which UK Labour does not stand for elections in Northern Ireland, this article engages with the LPNI’s rationale and raison d’être, followed by a discussion of the NILRC experiment of 2016. The LPNI–NILRC case carries resonances and insights of interest to political groups of the left operating in deeply divided societies.     

Reformulation,fortification and functionalization: Big Food corporations’ nutritional engineering and marketing strategies

In response to health concerns arising from the consumption of highly processed foods, the world's largest food and beverage manufacturing corporations (i.e. ‘Big Food’) have responded by modifying their existing products and introducing new products with ‘improved’ nutrient profiles. Three distinct strategies used by food corporations to nutritionally engineer and market their products will be identified: the reformulation of foods to reduce levels of harmful food components, the micronutrient fortification of products to address micronutrient deficiencies, and the functionalization of products that claim to provide optimal nutrition and health benefits. These nutritional strategies gain scientific legitimacy by drawing upon the dominant nutritional ideology of ‘nutritionism’, which is characterized by a reductive focus on nutrients as a way of understanding a food's effects on dietary health. Food and beverage corporations promote these nutritional strategies as an important part of their corporate social responsibility agendas, and as evidence that they are addressing the health issues associated with both over-nutrition and under-nutrition. However, these corporations are also using these nutritional strategies to legitimize and grow the markets for their products in the global North and South.