‘Pinstripes on the prairies’: examining the financialization of farming systems in the Canadian prairie provinces

Drawing on recent scholarship on the financialization of agro-food systems and the global land grab, this paper examines new forms of financial investment in agriculture in the Canadian prairie provinces. We examine the factors underpinning investor involvement in the sector, including its anticipated financial performance as well as processes of agricultural restructuring that, combined with government actions to liberalize farmland ownership, have facilitated the enrollment of land and labour into new financial vehicles. We focus in particular on the emergence of two new forms of investment vehicles – farmland investment funds and an exchange-traded farming corporation – comparing the business model and investment strategy of each. In doing so, we highlight the ways in which the new investment patterns may propel the restructuring of the agricultural sector, alter power relations among key actors, and introduce new logics into the farming landscape. Our findings allow us to comment on the relevance of the land grabbing frame for making sense of the financialization of agriculture in the global North.     

crisis,austerity and gendered governance: a feminist perspective

Feminist scholars have been highly attentive to the ways that crises have become an everyday technique of global governance. They are particularly sensitive to the mechanisms through which ‘crisis management’ entrenches the power of particular economic orders and constrains the possibilities, and space, for contestation and critique. This paper seeks to contribute to but also to extend existing feminist research on financial crisis by arguing that, over the course of what has commonly been labelled the ‘global financial crisis’, the emergence of ‘crisis governance feminism’ has enabled existing structures and mechanisms of gendered privilege, such as the global financial industry, to suppress calls for their overhaul and to re-entrench their power in the global political economy. Adopting a discursive approach to gender and governance that situates gender centrally in understanding governance discourses and their reproduction of common sense (about what people do, how they labour, where they invest and so on), this paper argues that the governance of crisis in the contemporary era, in particular the various actors, institutions, policies and ideas that have sought to describe and ‘contain’ the global financial crisis, are gendered. Gender has become, in the contemporary global political economy, a technique of governance, and with deleterious effects. Despite inciting more discussion of ‘gender’ in economic systems than ever before (particularly in terms of discussions of ‘economic competitiveness’), this paper argues that the ‘global financial crisis’ has precipitated and continues to reproduce techniques of governance that trivialise feminist concerns while further embedding a masculinised, white and elitist culture of global financial privilege.     

Women seafarers in Taiwan: survivors during the evolution of the special shipping relationship between China and Taiwan

The first Taiwan women seafarer appeared on a container ship as a training deck officer in 1998, but so far only a handful of Taiwan shipping companies are willing to provide female navigational students with on-board internship opportunities. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the career development of women seafarers in Taiwan. The author has adopted the qualitative research approach, conducted in-depth interviews with women seafarers and representatives of shipping companies, and sailed on an LPG carrier for 14 days to conduct on-site observations. This study discovers that, in the seesaw battle between occupational gender-equality awareness and the shipping market mechanism, the dominant power remains in the hands of employers who demonstrate gender bias towards women seafarers. A noteworthy finding in this study is that the political forces, which include the evolution of the special shipping relationship across the Taiwan Strait as well as the domestic regulations limiting the employment of foreign seafarers, have had a non-negligible positive impact on the seafaring career prospects of Taiwanese women.     

‘Belles from Bristol and Bournville in New Surroundings’: female confectionery workers as transnational agents, 1918–1928

ABSTRACT

In existing histories of the development of multinational business, women are usually absent. Yet when the British confectionery companies of Cadbury, Fry and Pascall took the bold step to build an entirely new factory in Tasmania in the early 1920s, women workers were important, and mobile, actors. This article draws on business history archives and genealogical material, from both Britain and Australia, to explore how a select group of British women became the ‘pioneers’ of the Cadbury-Fry-Pascall company. It examines why women were key to the formation of an Australian subsidiary, how they influenced, and sometimes challenged, the creation of workplace culture and practice, and the consequences of this mode of female labour migration.     

‘Like gold with yield’: evolving intersections between farmland and finance

Since 2007, capital markets have acquired a newfound interest in agricultural land as a portfolio investment. This phenomenon is examined through the theoretical lens of financialization. On the surface the trend resembles a sort of financialization in reverse – many new investments involve agricultural production in addition to land ownership. Farmland also fits well into current financial discourses, which emphasize getting the right kind of exposure to long-term agricultural trends and ‘value investing’ in genuinely productive companies. However, capital markets' current affinity for farmland also represents significant continuity with the financialization era, particularly in the treatment of land as a financial asset. Capital gains are central to current farmland investments, both as a source of inflation hedging growth and of potentially large speculative profits. New types of farmland investment management organizations (FIMOs) are emerging, including from among large farmland operators that formerly valued land primarily as a productive asset. Finally, the first tentative steps toward the securitization of farmland demonstrate the potential for a much more complete financialization of farmland in the future.     

Narratives of family,community and waged work: Latvian European volunteer worker women in post-war Britain

In the mid to late 1940s displaced people in camps in Germany were recruited by the British Government to work in industries in which labour market shortages were severe. This article looks at the recruitment of women who were originally from Latvia for domestic work in hospitals, other institutions and private households and as textile workers. The author argues that as well as reconstructing a sense of belonging to Latvia through the creation of imagined communities in exile, waged work was also a significant part of these women's lives. The author explores the ways in which different types of work influenced the future lives of EVW (European Volunteer Worker) women, both as workers and as members of locally based networks, and discusses the connections between employment and home/community life in the social construction of identity among Latvian women in Britain. The article draws on recent oral testimonies of twenty-five women who came to Britain under the Balt Cygnet and Westward Ho schemes between 1946 and 1949, have lived in this country since then and are now retired.     

Migrant medical women: a case study of British medical graduates in twentieth-century Australia

The lives of medical women—with a few notable exceptions—remain marginal in the growing body of literature on the twentieth-century migration of medical practitioners. This article examines the professional experiences and outcomes of a group of women who trained as medical graduates in Britain and migrated to Australia—both temporarily, but often permanently. In exploring the professional lives of these women, this article extends histories of migrant women in Australia to include middle-class, professionally qualified British women. The collective biography of this group of women reveals the broader socio-medical contexts by which they were shaped, in which they participated, and helped shape.     

The UN decade for women and Japan: Tools for change

Rapid industrial growth in post-World War II Japan has contributed to radical external changes in the lives of Japanese women. Among them, the increase in the average woman's lifespan and the decrease in family size have given women a number of years when they are relatively free of childcare and therefore available to enter the job market. Nevertheless, traditional values help to maintain rigid sex-role stereotyping and are woven together with the aims of the capitalist, corporate society to form a complex socio-economic fabric in which women are kept in a subordinate position economically, socially and psychologically. It is against this background that the International Women's Year and the UN Decade for Women have been introduced to Japan and have had the positive effect of providing both validity to the efforts of individuals and organizations struggling for sexual equality, and tools with which to apply leverage in the struggle to change discriminatory social institutions. In this brief paper, a number of issues that are being confronted by women in Japan today will be discussed within the context of the general socio-economic trends with the aim of clarifying gains in the struggle to ensure equality for women as well as some of the challenges which lie ahead.Note: As this paper was written in the summer of 1984, the political situation has changed somewhat since then.     

Gender,money and professional identity: medical social work and the coming of the British National Health Service

The arrival of the British National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 heralded significant changes for all health workers, but the establishment of a ‘free’ health service was especially meaningful for the hospital almoners—or medical social workers, as they were starting to be known—who had previously been responsible for the assessment and collection of patient payments. It was on this basis they had gained a foothold in the hospital, capitalising on gendered assumptions of financial understanding and behaviour. Yet what might have caused an identity crisis was embraced. This was a dual strategy of both repositioning the profession in alignment with the planned NHS and of asserting an enhanced professional status by distancing themselves from the handling of payment. It was an episode in the history of this distinctly female profession that speaks to women’s historic relationship with money.     

State Facilitated Economic Abuse: A Structural Analysis of Men Deliberately Withholding Child Support

Economic abuse is well established as a widespread and damaging element of intimate partner violence. However research largely addresses cohabiting couples, with few detailed explorations of women’s longer-term experiences after separation. Further, researchers have not developed a gendered analysis of child support related economic abuse. Such an analysis requires understanding gender as a framework that organises institutions and relationships in ways that build and reproduce hierarchical relations of difference. In this paper, I present data from in-depth interviews with 37 single mothers to pursue a structural analysis of how men’s deliberate withholding of child support (termed child maintenance in some countries) can be a form of economic abuse that is facilitated through gendered state processes and institutions that order child support transfers. I argue that masculine financial discretion structures policy and organizational practices in ways that legitimate men’s financial agency at the expense of women’s financial autonomy. On-going compliance issues are not the result of a failure of Australia’s Child Support Program, but suggest that the state’s role can be one of regulation, not prevention, of economic abuse. Thus, Australia’s Child Support Program normalises the potential for post-separation economic abuse.     

The ‘rule of experts’ in making a dynamic micro-insurance industry in India

India is reported to have the most dynamic micro-insurance market in the world and the largest weather-index insurance market among developing countries. This is interesting because, paradoxically, reports readily suggest that the primary hindrance for the industry is the widespread lack of effective demand for insurance. This paper seeks to identify, understand and problematize the paradox of resolutely promoting micro-insurance and its apparent rapid growth despite a manifest absence of demand for insurance. Neo-classical theories about risk-averse behaviour do not explain the current lack of appeal of insurance among the poor. Rather, I draw on a postcolonial political economy framework to argue that expert investment in getting prices and culture right while safeguarding micro-insurance supply currently explains the celebrated dynamism of Indian micro-insurance. I argue that promoting comprehensive institutional reform for an ideal investment and entrepreneurial climate involves securing mutually beneficial linkages, collaborations and knowledge within a broad assemblage of profit motives, insurance expertise, policy-makers and professionals. Insurance experts rule by promoting the micro-insurance sector while simultaneously investing in and gaining from discursive, material and pedagogical construction of this industry. Future research should address whether such processes and products are effective in managing financial risks of the poor.     

浅论风险投资

风险投资作为一种新型的股权融投资方式在我国逐渐流行起来,风险投资把资金投放和企业管理职能有机结合起来,提高了投资效率。一个国家的风险投资业是否成功,应该以风险投资基金的增值和盈利为标准。     

创新与我国的大学生创业促进

创新是时代的命题,大学生创业是一种积极的就业措施,创新会给大学生创业带来良好机遇。大学毕业生是高等教育的"产品",促进大学生创业要进行高等教育"供给侧改革",实行适应市场的高等教育运行机制,扩大国家和社会对人力资本的投资,基于市场需求定位进行人才的培养。促进大学生创业有内外部两方面的措施:内部措施即提升大学毕业生的创业综合素质,包括专业知识技能、广博知识才学、优秀创业素质、创业实操技能和市场经济观念等;外部措施有发挥创业指导服务机构的作用,提升大学生创业教育的实效,拓宽大学生创业资金的来源,推进大学生创业立项审核制和招标制,持续帮助已立项的大学生创业项目等。     

British Women Missionaries in Nineteenth‐Century China

There were only a few women among the first Protestant missionaries to settle in China, and most were married, yet by the end of the nineteenth century, the majority of missionaries were women, many of them single. This article focusses on British women missionaries, discussing their motivation for going so far at a time when women were supposed to be confined to the world of home and the family. It looks at their lives in China, the role models they presented to Chinese women, and their own rather conservative views of what their influence should be.     

Nothing to spare : by Jan Carter, 237 pages. Penguin Books, Australia. Price, Aus. $6.95

When attempting to establish women's studies courses within institutions of higher education, women face a traditional power structure designed to obstruct movements for change. Four factors relevant to a power analysis of this situation are status, concrete resources, expertise and self-confidence. These factors are defined and examined in relation to the fight to establish women's studies courses. Within this background the issue of men as ‘patrons’ as teachers and as students, and the fact of women's anger are examined. Many arguments forwarded by conservative patriarchal institutions are discussed. The paper emerges from the experiences of the author in three universities. It is aimed at clarifying some of the traps set for women so that other women can eliminate any fears that their experiences are idiosyncratic or ‘their fault’ rather than part of a formalized power game.     

Women's studies courses: Pragmatic and political issues concerning their establishment and design

When attempting to establish women's studies courses within institutions of higher education, women face a traditional power structure designed to obstruct movements for change. Four factors relevant to a power analysis of this situation are status, concrete resources, expertise and self-confidence. These factors are defined and examined in relation to the fight to establish women's studies courses. Within this background the issue of men as ‘patrons’ as teachers and as students, and the fact of women's anger are examined. Many arguments forwarded by conservative patriarchal institutions are discussed. The paper emerges from the experiences of the author in three universities. It is aimed at clarifying some of the traps set for women so that other women can eliminate any fears that their experiences are idiosyncratic or ‘their fault’ rather than part of a formalized power game.     

影响企业投资规模决策的因素分析

企业投资规模的大小反映企业未来生产能力的高低,进而影响企业投资效益的好坏.因此,企业投资规模的正确决策就必须考虑到产品市场供求状况、资本市场完善程度、政策、人力、财力、物力、技术水平、市场等多方面的因素.     

Women,the other academics

In Britain, women academics occupy an elite position and therefore have not excited much feminist sympathy. Yet when compared to their male counterparts such women are clearly disadvantaged. This paper analyses three persistent problems British women academics typically encounter. The first involves the coordination, over time, of demands of two ‘greedy institutions’: home and work. The second is the management of colleague relations while occupying token status in a department. The third is the task of understanding and confronting biases reflecting male dominance in what is considered acceptable professional knowledge and practice. What links all three is the marginality, the ‘otherness’ of women academics. Their vulnerability is high and their political potential low; yet by advancing feminist scholarship they can turn their talents to good use.     

建立我国上市公司业绩评价体系和财务预警体系的构想

上市公司作为我国企业群体中的“精英”,其释放的“标杆效应”极为明显。通过对上市公司的适当评价,不仅可以为投资者提供一个较为真实的投资对象,而且对于中国资本市场的稳定、健康发展具有重要的意义。     

An Accidental Liberation: Ugandan women on the front lines of Idi Amin's economic war

This article considers one of the most curious outcomes of Idi Amin's military dictatorship—the ‘accidental liberation’ of Ugandan women. By expelling the Asian population in late 1972, Amin inadvertently opened up a new economic space for urban women. Whether they were forced to engage in petty trade out of necessity or because they received a shop ‘abandoned’ by the departing Asians, numerous women fondly remembered Amin as the one who ‘taught us how to work’. For the first time, they gained access to financial resources and decision-making power. Despite the economic windfall, many women continued to suffer the brutal realities of a harsh military dictatorship. Thus, for most women in Uganda, liberation was partial at best.