Contesting Ideologies: Deconstructing Racism in African-American Fiction

Baillie's article is concerned with how African-American fiction seeks to define and shape an aesthetic in opposition to racial ideologies as diffused through science, education and popular culture. In an examination of Count Joseph de Gobineau's Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines (1853-5), it traces the construction of racialized discourse in nineteenth-century America. Baillie examines Toni Morrison's first novel The Bluest Eye (1970) in terms of Morrison's engagement with nineteenth-century racial theory and its implicit presence within ideologies of beauty and American popular culture of the 1930s. Through the figure of Shirley Temple, Morrison shows how the African-American community's internalization of cinematic images of beauty can lead to a psychosis that leaves identity fractured and the racial self all but erased. As well as reading The Bluest Eye as both a critique of scientific racism and as an historical novel in sustained debate with the cultural hegemony of the 1930s, Baillie examines its significance as a text in dialogue with the social and political milieu in which it was written. Here, The Bluest Eye becomes an intervention into the affirmative aesthetic of 1960s Black Power politics and its extreme proclamations of racial pride rooted firmly in black lower-class expression. She discusses the Black Power movement's appropriation of Frantz Fanon's theories and argues that Morrison's own articulation of a black identity eschews the nationalism of Black Power, and instead finds its focus in the political contestation of ideologies through the expression of African-American art forms. The Bluest Eye is an oppositional narrative that draws on western forms and yet privileges African-American vernacular as a counter-balance to language as a vehicle for ideologies of beauty and scientific racism.     

Matrilocality and female power: Single mothers in extended households

Based on a qualitative study of non-marital pregnancy and childbearing in the Republic of Ireland, this article reports on the gendered power position of unmarried women who return to their parental homes following their babies' births. It is argued that in matrilocal households, centralised male power associated with the traditional nuclear family is diffused to some extent. Empirical evidence to support this notion is to be found in analysing the position of the putative father as ‘guest’ in the home of his partner and child (the martrilocal household) and also in exploring the relationship between the participant and her own father within that household. In relation to her own father, it was found that reproducing an offspring provided the women with some bargaining leverage vis-à-vis her own father within the family home. These reshaped relationships represent, to some extent at least, the undercutting of centralised male authority within the household.     

Labeled clanization: the social structure of a Third Line enterprise*

This work focuses on the Third Line workers, who were secretly located in the remote mountain areas and fully untapped in the studies of Chinese labor politics. In this study, I show that the Third Line workers mainly originate from three different groups: the transferred workers, the returned educated youths, and the demobilized soldiers. These three origins served as different labels signifying the characteristics that each group had in common. In the workers’ quotidian interactions, these labels were meaningfully and closely associated with the workers’ occupational opportunities in the factory and shape their mutual perceptions and attitudes toward one another. As a result, the high degree of isolation gradually shaped the social structure of the Third Line workers toward a model of ‘labeled clanization.’ In the light of this unique social structure, I further argue that the widely accepted organizational dependency of Chinese urban danwei system needs to be reconsidered.     

Shock to Thought: An Encounter (of a Third Kind) with Legal Feminism

This paper takes a recently published text and, in examining it closely, argues that it exemplifies trends within feminist scholarship in law, which might be characterised asestablishing a form of orthodoxy. The paper explores some of the ways in which thiso rthodoxy is constructed and presented, and argues that it is characterised by a commitment both to `grand theory' and Hegelian dialectics. The adoption of this model of work seems to offer a chance to hold together the triangular figure of women/theory/law reform. The paper will argue that, whilst this model is clearly a valid choice, and attractive to feminist scholars in the promise it seems to hold, the model is not to be presumed but rather should be examined and considered in terms of its potential for feminist scholarship. Both within its own terms, and as part of the construction of an orthodoxy, the paper will argue that it is in fact problematic and that feminist scholarship would be better served by seeking an alternative theoretical model. An alternative is suggested, using the work of Deleuze, but it is acknowledged that this will require the acceptance of a very different theoretical configuration from that suggested by the triangular model of women/theory/lawreform.     

Remortgaging Women's Lives: The World Bank'sLand Agenda in Africa

In recent months, the World Bank has issued a series of draft policy reports on land relations. This is the first time in over two decades that the Bank has sought to review its policy on lending in the land sector. Access to the draft reports and participation in the consultation process has, however, been severely limited. Nonetheless, the World Bank expects to issue the final Report by the end of this year. This paper presents a gender analysis of the two draft documents that have been made available to date. It assesses their implications for gender relations in Africa. It explores the World Bank's promotion of formal rural credit and challenges the assumption of the availability of women's unpaid agricultural labour. The paper argues that, far from being over, the struggle over land relations which has characterised the last decade in Africa, must continue. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Correction to: Age Patterns in Risk Taking Across the World

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - In the original publication, the legends for Figs 4 and 5 were incorrect, such that each regression line was mislabeled with the incorrect country. Below are the...     

Modernization,under development,uneven development: Prospects for a theory of third world formations

Taken as a whole, the two books considered in this review article ‐ David Lehmann, ed., Development Theory: Four Critical Studies, Frank Cass: 1979, £9.50, £4.95 (paperback) and John G. Taylor, From Modernisation to Modes of Production: A Critique of the Sociologies of Development and Underdevelopment, Macmillan: 1979, £12.00, £4.95 (paperback) ‐ give a concise but comprehensive picture of the complex debates and the various theoretical impasses of today's ‘Third World’ studies. The four essays edited by David Lehmann are a critical review of both the old orthodoxies (development economics and modernisation theories) and the newer ones (neo‐Marxist theory of underdevelopment); whereas John Taylor's work is an ambitious attempt to go beyond the neo‐Marxist paradigm by laying the foundations of a mode‐of‐production approach to the study of third‐world formations.

Since I believe that the most lively and interesting debates in this field today focus on the various shortcomings of the neo‐Marxist approach, and on attempts within Marxism itself to overcome them, this review will pay particular attention to Henry Bernstein's article “Sociology of underdevelopment vs. Sociology of development?” and to Taylor's book.     

经济全球化对我国劳动关系的影响及对策

经济全球化和加入WTO,使我国劳动关系正在发生巨大的变化。准确把握劳动关系的新变化,顺应经济全球化潮流,对于建立适应社会主义市场要求的科学和谐的新型劳动关系,具有重大意义。要采取相应的对策,加强劳动立法,营造良好的法律环境,工会要强化职能,充分发挥在调整劳动关系中的作用。     

Labor History on the World Wide Web: Thoughts on Jumping onto a Moving Express Train

Most historians believe that inside contracting (IC), a system that had its origins in the early industrial revolution, remained an important practice throughout nineteenth-century America. Under IC, proprietors appointed a senior worker who agreed to supply components or completed articles at an agreed price. It was the contractor who bore the risk of failure or pocketed the profits. Here was a system that created an alternative locus of power within the workshop. Focusing on machine building, this article argues that IC should be seen as a feature of the earlier nineteenth century, primarily associated with New England's industrial development. In the workshops of 1870s and 1880s Philadelphia, proprietors and workers used the language of ‘contracting’ but its meaning was altogether different. In Philadelphia, a system of piece contracting (PC) emerged, encouraged by the crisis of the 1870s depression, as proprietors attempted to reduce costs and control skilled labour—in contrast to earlier IC which was an expression of owners’ reluctance or inability to take charge. At the Baldwin Locomotive Works and Cramp shipyard a sophisticated system of gang PC also developed. PC did not offer a share of the profits but only limited inducement to a layer of labour aristocrat ‘contractors’; overall, it intended to constrain the world of the skilled mechanic.     

Creating Perfect Immigrants: Guestworkers of the World in Historical Perspective 1

This article analyses the decision-making process leading to adoption of the Directive on Services in the Internal Market (2006/123/EC), focusing on the role of the European Parliament (EP) and the influence the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) obtained on the compromise outcome. It is widely assumed that organized labor is structurally disadvantaged in promoting worker interests in the EU decision-making machinery. The outcome of the Services Directive strife shows, however, that under the co-decision procedure, where Council decisions are reliant on negotiations and agreement with the EP, European trade unions can – under certain conditions – gain substantial political impact if they have a clear, joint strategy and manage to combine effective coalition-building inside the EU institutions and key Member States, with mobilisation of popular and parliamentarian forces at the national level.     

Ego development in adolescence: Longitudinal studies

Adolescents from four schools (one inner-city, two suburban, and one private) were tested two or three times using the Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development. Testing intervals ranged from 1.5 to 6 years. About half (N=193) the original pool was retested at twelfth grade. Every sample showed a mean rise in ego level; for six of eight samples that rise was statistically significant. Every pair of testings showed a postive correlation between scores; 10 of 14 correlations were significantly different from zero. Thus both test-retest correlations (about 0.5) and change scores support the hypothesized sequence of ego development. Significant correlation between ego level and intelligence occurred in two schools (0.6 at elementary and junior high grades and 0.4 at twelfth grade), but correlation was about zero in the private school.These studies were supported by Grant MH-05115 and Research Scientist Award MH-00657, both from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health Service.Received her Ph.D. from Washington University. Main interest is adolescent development.Received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Main interest is theory and measurement of ego development.     

关注全球化下的劳工权益--"全球化下的劳资关系和劳工政策"国际学术研讨会侧记

全球化已成为当代世界经济发展的基本态势。在全球化的背景下 ,劳资关系的变动更为广泛和深刻。全球化的实质是资本全球化 ,资本的流动和运营已经没有国界的限制。因此 ,在世界范围内 ,资本与劳动的关系已打破了原有的结构与平衡。这种劳资关系的倾斜和劳资矛盾的加剧 ,是一个全球性的问题。全球化所引起的劳资关系的变化 ,不仅直接表现为企业雇主和雇员的冲突 ,而且还表现在劳动者与政府、发达国家的工会与发展中国家的工会 ,以及不同国家的政府之间的利益差别和矛盾。入世后的中国 ,即将面临吸引外资的大发展和剧烈的产业结构调整 ,加之近…