Doing gender in Spanish same-sex couples. The distribution of housework and childcare

Housework and childcare have been considered mechanisms for ‘doing gender’ through the allocation of different functions to women and to men. Women continue to devote more time and effort to this type of work, in spite of their progressive incorporation into the labour market. Same-sex couples escape this gender binarism, and so this study set out to learn the distribution criteria work, as well as the influence of gender socialization when it comes to establishing this distribution. A qualitative investigation was carried out with 21 Spanish same-sex families. The results indicate that the majority of couples position themselves in an egalitarian discourse based on the absence of differentiated gender roles and a low level of specialization. No differences were found between male and female couples. Nevertheless, the female couples show higher levels of discontent when the distribution was not egalitarian. In conclusion, it is proposed that the effects of gender socialization are perpetuated beyond heterosexual relationships and also affect same-sex couples.     

Why Do Poor People Co-Hold Debt and Liquid Savings?

I examine the use of flexible savings-and-loan accounts offered by SafeSave, a microfinance institution serving poor slum dwellers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I find that 59 per cent of the clients co-hold, meaning that they borrow at high interest rates and simultaneously hold low-yield liquid savings. Co-holders could immediately pay down, on average, 32 per cent of their debt using liquid savings and thus avoid significant interest payments. The results show that co-holders are more likely to be regular workers subject to little income uncertainty, suggesting that co-holding is not a consequence of liquidity needs. The paper discusses alternative explanations.     

Gender differences in European volunteer rates

The main goal of this research is to identify the reasons for gender differences in European volunteer rates in different types of voluntary organisations. To that end, we focus in volunteer rates at individual and national levels. We have drawn our data from the European Values Survey (EVS, 1999 and 2008). We have employed Logit models carrying out independent estimations for the individual likelihood of working as a volunteer for four categories: social awareness, professional, education and social justice. We have carried out independent estimations and we have also repeated estimations by gender subsamples. Our main result is that social factors might be even more relevant for decisions to volunteer than individual socio-economic factors. Specifying the peer group as much as possible allows better control of social variables. For example, studying the female volunteer rate is more relevant to control for the female national NGO membership rate than the total national rate. We also highlight important gender differences. For example, education is positively correlated with decisions to volunteer for both genders in all categories, but the educational effect is stronger for men in relation to professional activities and stronger for women in relation to social awareness and social justice activities.     

The Greening of the Americas

ABSTRACT

This paper evaluates global capital’s ecological management and extends the assessment to the “green economy,” as developed in the first “green” neoliberal project, in Costa Rica. Costa Rica has been an important “laboratory” for experimentation in environmental governance mechanisms using debt-for-nature financial exchanges and other instruments of the Kyoto Protocol. I explore how “greening” can be understood as a new phase of capital accumulation, as I go into its five main aspects.     

Resilience as the new EU foreign policy paradigm: a pragmatist turn?

This article examines the rise of resilience discourses in EU foreign policy. The European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) refers to building state and societal resilience in its neighbourhood as one of the key strategic priorities of the EU. This article argues that the discourse of resilience that permeates the EUGS chimes well with a pragmatist turn in social sciences and global governance. The EUGS introduces resilience-building alongside an emphasis on flexibility, tailor-made approaches and the need for local ownership, capacity-building and comprehensiveness. More importantly, the new EUGS proposes “principled pragmatism” as a new operating principle in its foreign policy. While this might suggest a more pragmatic EU foreign policy, a closer examination of the EUGS discourse reveals significant tensions between a pragmatic and a principled foreign policy, which undermine the added value of resilience-building as a new foreign policy paradigm.     

South European Healthcare Systems under Harsh Austerity: A Progress–Regression Mix?

This article addresses the question of whether the economic crisis provides a politically opportune time to drastically curtail public healthcare in South Europe or whether, instead, there are signs of longer-term reform strategies for potentially balancing fiscal targets with the quest for enhanced value and health outcomes, when eventually growth resumes. After a brief examination of the profile of healthcare systems in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain prior to the crisis, we comparatively assess the mix of retrenchment, restructuring and recalibration strategies. The effects of the austerity-driven reforms on current (and expected) health outcomes are also briefly analysed. We conclude with reflections on the future of public healthcare in South Europe.     

My Heroine

Desire is forced to maintain itself in this space between reality and pleasure, this frontier that power jealously controls with the help of innumerable frontier guards: in the family, at school, in the barracks, at the workshop, in psychiatric hospitals and, of course, at the movies (Guattari 1996a Guattari , Félix (1996a) , ‘A Cinema of Desire’ , trans. from the French by David L. Sweet , in Félix Guattari , Soft Subversions , ed. Sylvère Lotringer , New York : Semiotext(e) , pp. 143 – 54 . [Google Scholar]:144).     

Black geographies of struggle and pleasure in Nona Faustine’s White Shoes

In Nona Faustine’s photo series of self-portraits, White Shoes, the artist’s body becomes the agent in exposing the instability of racialized historical geography. Faustine revisits New York City’s landmarks to address what is missing or made invisible: a slave ship, a fugitive woman’s rebirth, or African burial grounds. Making herself visible where she is supposed to remain invisible, she highlights the unacknowledged connection between national wealth, nationalism, geography, and black labor. She discloses the topography of her travels as a changeable terrain, where one slips from the national iconic to ambiguous and finally, to the sacred. I suggest that Faustine doesn’t seek to democratize the extant historical maps, but to shift the terms of reading the city’s geography. She lifts the boundaries between the polarized pathways of knowing – the secularized and the sacred, the living and the dead, the verifiable and the missing. This shift is also made possible by the medium of photography and a feminist turn towards pleasures in one’s body. As Faustine comes to terms with the psychic and cultural inheritance of the diaspora, she moves from the collective body of pain towards black women’s pleasure in their own bodies without purging the history of sexual trauma.