‘The Message Is in the Book’: What Virago's Sale in 1995 Means for Feminist Publishing

This article examines the UK publisher Virago, the world's largest women's imprint and the best known of the second-wave feminist publishing houses that sprang up during the 1970s and 1980s. Feminist publishing remains a peculiarly unacknowledged and underexamined aspect of feminist history, but one that had real influence and effect. This article gives a historical account of Virago, noting its intention to enact feminist politicking through the act of publishing books. The author looks at the effect Virago had on the industry more widely, on literary culture and on attitudes to women. The author also examines changing formulations of feminism and how these were reflected—or not—through Virago's published output. The author then moves on to her central proposition: that Virago's sale in 1995, rather than marking the death of feminist publishing (as was stated in media comment at the time), was in fact the point at which it was saved. Virago's move into Little, Brown, coinciding with the rise of an increasingly commodified consumer culture, the conglomeration of the book industry and more pluralized expressions of feminism, allowed it to continue to work as a publisher of women's writing while none of its contemporaries survived. The author looks in detail at the changes post-1995 within the book industry, within feminism and in wider culture, as well as at Virago. The author asks whether Virago still has value as a ‘feminist’ imprint and how it has sought to remain vital and relevant.     

Some Personal Reflections on the Foundation of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History in 1987: a message sent to the participants of the twentieth anniversary conference,held in Bulgaria, 2007

This article is a greeting sent to the participants in the International Federation for Research in Women’s History (IFRWH) Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, 8–12 August 2007. The author looks back to the establishment of the IFRWH in 1987, of which she was Co‐founder, tracing the contacts, correspondence and meetings that led to that moment. Attention is also drawn to the first conferences in Bellagio, Madrid, Bielefeld and Montreal, as well as to the Newsletter activities that served to connect all the national committees that make up the Federation. The story told is one of friendships and inspiring moments. It ends with hope for the continued importance of the IFRWH to global women’s and gender history.     

‘Stepping back and moving in’: the role of the state in the contemporary food regime

In recent years, a number of middle-income countries and influential multilateral institutions have instigated actions that frame food system governance around social protection and rights. These state-centered mobilizations raise fundamental questions about how to portray the global politics of food. Since the late 1980s, analysts have largely concurred that US hegemony in the global politics of food has given way to diverse and volatile neo-liberalist and corporate-led food system governance. However, what should we make of a situation where state and supra-state actors are flexing their powers to reshape food systems in line with rights-based models? Should this be understood as reflexes which aim to preserve national order, at a time of intensified food and nutrition insecurities? Or, does it lay the foundations of a re-governed system which curbs and molds a corporate-led politics of food within frameworks of justice? This contribution responds to these questions by tracing the evolution of social protection and rights-based approaches to the politics of food at the multilateral level and in two influential jurisdictions (India and South Africa). We argue that these initiatives underline a robust and continuing role of state power in global food politics, albeit in a novel fashion compared to previous entanglements.     

Can Locus of Control Compensate for Socioeconomic Adversity in the Transition from School to Work?

Internal locus of control is associated with academic success and indicators of wellbeing in youth. There is however less understanding regarding the role of locus of control in shaping the transition from school to work beyond the more widely studied predictors of socioeconomic background and academic attainment. Guided by a socio-ecological model of agency, the current study examines to which extent internal locus of control, understood as an indicator of individual agency, can compensate for a lack of socioeconomic resources by moderating the association between parental disadvantage and difficulties in the transition from school to work. We draw on data collected from a longitudinal nationally representative cohort of 15,770 English youth (48% female) born in 1989/90, following their lives from age 14 to 20. The results suggest that the influence of agency is limited to situations where socioeconomic risk is not overpowering. While internal locus of control may help to compensate for background disadvantage regarding avoidance of economic inactivity and unemployment to some extent, it does not provide protection against long-term inactivity, i.e. more than 6 months spent not in education, employment or training.     

‘i pray for the factory to continue earning money’: the familial factory regime of the ‘Sun’ food factory in Turkey

This paper explores the factory regime in the ‘Sun’ food processing factory in Turkey, drawing on participant observation in the factory, informal interviews with women workers and in-depth interviews with the managers of the factory’s ‘gherkin department’ in which I worked. This paper argues that the ‘Sun’ bottling and canning factory is best understood through my concept of the ‘familial factory regime’. By ‘familial factory regime’ I mean a factory regime in which the features of the extended patriarchal family are used to manage the labour force by obtaining women workers’ consent. Indeed, the paper suggests that there is a tendency for patriarchy to be reconstituted in the workplace through the presence of a familial factory regime.     

Understanding the silent majority in authoritarian populism: what can we learn from popular support for Putin in rural Russia?

ABSTRACT

This study distinguishes and challenges three main assumptions/shortcomings regarding the silent majority – the majority of the ‘ordinary’, ‘simple’, ‘little’ people, who are the main supporters of authoritarian populism. The silent majority is commonly portrayed as (1) consisting of ‘irrational’, ‘politically short-sighted’ people, who vote against their self-interests; (2) it is analysed as a homogeneous group, without attempting to distinguish different motives and interests among its members; (3) existing studies often overlook the political economy and structures of domination that gave rise to authoritarian populism. I address these shortcomings while analysing the political behaviour of rural Russians, who are the major supporters of Vladimir Putin. I reveal that the agrarian property regime and power relations in the countryside largely define the political posture of different rural groups. Less secure socio-economic strata respond more strongly to economic incentives, while better-off villagers tend to support the regime's ideological appeals. Furthermore, Putin's traditionalist authoritarian leadership style appeals to the archetypal base of the rural society – namely, its peasant roots – and, therefore, finds stronger support among the farming population. Finally, this study reveals that collective interests prevail over individual interests in the voting behaviour of rural dwellers, who support the existing regime despite the economic hardship it imposes upon them.     

A dilemma for the welfare state: managing the cost for shorter working hours, 1919–2002

The purpose of this article is to study how the Swedish welfare state has managed the cost of shorter working hours. During the twentieth century, several official reports were published in order to produce knowledge about this issue and to deal with the cost for the reform. This article aims to examine the arguments and beliefs of the political economy of the welfare state that emerge from these formulations. An examination of shorter working hours as social policy sheds new light on the relationship between the welfare state and capital, in addition to limits for social policy imposed by the economic system. A reduction of work hours has never been justified as a reform that simply gives more time for leisure and less time for work, but has been assigned a cost that was necessary to manage. The reform was considered possible because it was interpreted as helping to reproduce labor power or capitalism as a whole. It was thought impossible and undesirable when considered to be a threat to this reproduction. This article shows the process of managing the cost for shorter working hours in Sweden and how arguments fundamentally changed over time, although the basic premises remained the same.     

Participation in Extracurricular Activities in the Middle School Years: Are There Developmental Benefits for African American and European American Youth?

In this study, we examined the associations between organized activity participation during early adolescence and adjustment in a large and economically diverse sample of African American and European American youth. The sample included 1,047 youth (51% female and 49% male and 67% African American and 33% European American). We used analysis of covariance techniques to examine links between participation in 8th grade school clubs, school sports teams, and out of school recreational activities and adjustment at 8th and 11th grade, controlling for a set of self-selection factors measured at 7th grade prior to activity involvement. Organized activity participation was associated with higher than expected grades, school value (i.e. perception of importance of school for the future), self-esteem, resiliency, and prosocial peers, and lower than expected risky behavior, though the pattern of findings differed by activity context, outcome, and time point. In a few of the models, the relation between activity participation and adjustment varied by gender, race, and socioeconomic status.

Digging for England in Elizabeth’s German Garden: Imperial Romance and National Femininities in the Early Works of Elizabeth von Arnim

Abstract

The author treats von Arnim’s Elizabeth and Her German Garden and The Solitary Summer as types of imperial romance, showing the ways in which von Arnim quite literally domesticates the genre by adapting discourses of eugenics and racial contest to fit an Englishwoman’s experiences of home-making and gardening in late nineteenth-century Pomerania. Racial fitness is replaced by aesthetic fitness as von Arnim sets up a contest between English and German femininities within the home and garden.     

The British,the Tudeh party and the 1947 World Federation of Trade Unions’ visit: battle for labour reform in Iran

ABSTRACT

After the British-Soviet occupation of Iran during the Second World War, Iran became the key battleground for the international labour movement. The plight of the workers had become an important political issue with the Iranian government in conflict with the socialist Tudeh party for leadership over the trade unions. The Labour government in Britain was also deeply interested in the matter but regarded the Tudeh as too dangerous and too aligned with the Soviet Union to be supported. Within this climate, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) made an official visit to Iran. With its international delegates, they represented different views over the Tudeh, which caused much conflict during the visit. This article sheds crucial light on this important visit and reveals how international the Labour questions were in Iran and how the WFTU visit brought the various tensions to light. This research will also show how the timing of the visit may have impacted on the removal of the Iranian strong-man Ahmad Qavam by the end of 1947. This work is of particular significance as it looks at the previously understudied role and interest of the British government on the Iranian labour.     

Counterinsurgency for wind energy: the Bíi Hioxo wind park in Juchitán,Mexico

Sustainable development and climate change mitigation policies, Dunlap and Fairhead argue, have instigated and renewed old conflicts over land and natural resources, deploying military techniques of counterinsurgency to achieve land control. Wind energy development, a popular tool of climate change mitigation policies, has consequently generated conflict in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Istmo) region in Oaxaca, Mexico. Research is based on participant observation and 20 recorded interviews investigating the Fuerza y Energía Bíi Hioxo Wind Farm on the outskirts of Juchitán de Zaragoza. This paper details the repressive techniques employed by state, private and informal authorities against popular opposition to the construction of the Bíi Hioxo wind park on communal land. Providing background on Juchitán, social property and counterinsurgency in Southern Mexico, this paper analyzes the development of the Bíi Hioxo wind park. It further explores the emergence of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ counterinsurgency techniques used to pacify resistance against the wind park, enabling its completion next to the Lagoon Superior in October 2014. Discussing the ‘greening of counterinsurgency’, this contribution concludes that the Bíi Hioxo wind park has spawned social divisions and violent conflict, and intervened in the sensitive cultural fabric of Istmeño life.     

Redesigning the Strategy of the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo in the Maquiladoras

This article assesses the consequences of political reform and structural adjustment programmes on trade union development in the countries of francophone West Africa. It addresses the key questions of how and to what extent the democratic upsurge of the 1990s has impacted trade unionism and how structural adjustment has reshaped the industrial relations landscape. It surveys recent developments such as the increasing influence of international labour organisations, the growth of social dialogue in the region, trade union proliferation and the new focus on organising informal-sector workers. The article concludes that, despite the decline in trade union density, the present climate represents opportunities as well as dilemmas for continued trade union vigour.     

‘for Wales,see England?’ suffrage and the new woman in Wales [1]

With a few notable exceptions, Wales has generally been portrayed as an overtly patriarchal nation, the haven of anti-suffragists. The first part of this article reassesses this reputation. It is argued that national as well as local historical specificities must be taken into account in order to achieve a more accurate representation of suffrage history in Wales and Britain. The second part examines Welsh suffragism in the context of the nationalist Cymru Fydd movement of the 1890s as it appeared in the English language nationalist periodicals Young Wales, The Welsh Review and (the bilingual) Cymru Fydd.     

Unjustified optimism: why the World Bank's 2008 ‘agriculture for development’ report misses the point for South Africa

The World Bank Development Report 2008 sees agriculture as a crucial instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction. It emphasises the need for a sharp productivity increase in smallholder farming, as well as more effective support to millions of subsistence farmers. However, while admitting that there are challenges in making this goal a reality, the report fails to fully acknowledge the legacy of colonialism and apartheid on land and agrarian relations in South Africa. Contrary to the World Bank's optimism about smallholder and subsistence agriculture, this legacy of inequality and land dispossession discourages farming by Blacks in countries like South Africa.     

The Newsletter of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History: presentation to its conference in Sofia, 8 August 2007

Presented as part of the twentieth anniversary celebration of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History in Sofia in August 2007, this paper examines the association’s newsletter to see what it reveals about the expansion of the academic infrastructure for women’s history from 1987 through to 2007. It looks at the rapid advancement of the subject in the 1980s and early 1990s and its slower growth in the following decade. It also explores briefly the problems that the establishment of Women’s Studies Centres presented for women’s history.     

’My Mother Resides in the Beating Artery …’: Engendering Voices for Medieval and Early Modem Studies

Elizabeth D. Harvey, Ventiloquized Voices: Feminist Theory and English Reniassance Texts (Routledge) London and New York, [1992 rpt], 1995.

Andrew Lynch and Philippa Maddern (eds), Venus and Mars: Engendering Love and War in Medieval and Early Modem Europe (University of Western Australia Press) Nedlands, 1995.     

for reproductive justice in an era of Gates and Modi: the violence of India’s population policies

This article addresses India’s contemporary population control policies and practices as a form of gender violence perpetrated by the state and transnational actors against poor, Adivasi and Dalit women. It argues that rather than meeting the needs and demands of these women for access to safe contraception that they can control, the Indian state has targeted them for coercive mass sterilisations and unsafe injectable contraceptives. This is made possible by the long-term construction of particular women’s lives as devalued and disposable, and of their bodies as excessively fertile and therefore inimical to development and progress. It further considers how population policy is currently embedded in the neoliberal framework of development being pursued by the Indian state. In particular, it argues that the violence of population policies is being deepened as a result of three central and interrelated aspects of this framework: corporate dispossession and displacement, the intensification and extension of women’s labour for global capital, and the discourses and embodied practices of far-right Hindu supremacism. At the same time, India’s population policies cannot be understood in isolation from the global population control establishment, which is increasingly corporate-led, and from broader structures of racialised global capital accumulation. The violence of India’s contemporary population policies and the practices they produce operate at several different scales, all of which involve the construction of certain bodies as unfit to reproduce and requiring intervention and control.     

Prosperity in crisis and the longue durée in Africa

ABSTRACT

Understanding the evolution and tenacity of particular ways of envisaging economic growth and development for Africa requires a form of analytical history that examines how conceptual structures function over the longue durée. Such an approach is more than simply empirical analysis through time or a set of abstractions based on the self-understandings of historical agents. It involves the development of a hypothetical analytic structure which through its own forms of transformation eventually comes to play a role in shaping the lived world of participants, including researchers, policymakers and ordinary citizens. This article uses research from Kenya and Zambia to demonstrate how a long-running – but temporally and spatially variable – focus on agricultural productivity has shaped the character of rural life in Africa, and why it has consistently failed to deliver enlarged forms of prosperity based on quality of life and ecological well-being.