The public spheres of unprotected workers

This article examines emergent forms of political subjectivity amongst subordinate social forces, focusing on how ‘unprotected’ workers in household relations of production can become political subjects antagonistic to world order. For unprotected workers the very lack of institutional protection makes articulating political demands risky. At the same time, the need to conceptualise the manner in which the workers in the households and in proximate forms of social relations of production become political subjects is increasingly urgent. The article begins by articulating a conception of the public sphere relevant to the forms of political subjectivity examined. The argument then proceeds to situate the family in the global political economy. Next, the article examines the circulation of women between the household and proximate forms of social relations of production. It is in this circulation that unprotected workers produce potential and emergent counter-public spheres needed for the forms of political subjectivity that challenge the dominant forces in world order.     

Rights, Relationality, and Membership: Rethinking the Making and Meaning of Citizenship

The republication after 40 years of T. H. Marshall's Citizenship and Social Class signifies a revived interest in sociolegal historical approaches to citizenship rights. For decades students have been guided by Marshall's classic treatise. But can Marshall's argument for the causal power of the “transition from feudalism to capitalism” continue to provide an adequate grounding for sociolegal approaches to citizenship and rights formation? Building on Marshall's path-breaking expansion of the concept of citizenship, I use institutional analysis and causal narrativity to present an alternative explanation. I argue that modem citizenship rights me a contingent outcome of the convergence of England's medieval legal revolutions with its regionally varied local legal and political cultures, not of the emergence of capitalist markets.     

Race and Ethnicity in Medical Research: Requirements Meet Reality

Race and ethnicity are commonly reported variables in biomedical research, but how they were determined is often not described and the rationale for analyzing them is often not provided. JAMA improved the reporting of these factors by implementing a policy and procedure. However, still lacking are careful consideration of what is actually being measured when race/ethnicity is described, consistent terminology, hypothesis-driven justification for analyzing race/ethnicity, and a consistent and generalizable measurement of socioeconomic status. Furthermore, some studies continue to use race/ethnicity as a proxy for genetics. Research into appropriate measures of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic factors, as well as education of researchers regarding issues of race/ethnicity, is necessary to clarify the meaning of race/ethnicity in the biomedical literature.     

" 'These Boots Are Made for Walking' ": A Reply

Erik Craft's comment on our 2000 article takes up a minor point,the impact of no-fault divorce on the gender of the spouse filingfor divorce. In the original article, we related the genderof the filing to rent exploitation during marriage, rent appropriationthrough divorce, and particularly child custody. We tested thehypotheses we generated using a sample of more than 46,000 divorcedecrees from the only four states collecting all the informationwe needed. The type of divorce ground was only a control variable,and not a strong one. We argue that Craft's comment misses ouressential point.     

Women's agency in Australia's first fertility transition: a debate revisited

The place of women's agency in the fertility transition of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century is a contested one. Some argue that the transition was achieved mainly through male methods of contraception. Others, including many arguing from an Australian perspective, contend that women's agency in fertility decline was significant. In this article, the authors revisit the issue of women's agency in Australia. Drawing on a range of archival sources and scholarship, they seek to demonstrate that women in Australia in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had access to contraception, albeit limited, and, where that failed, to abortion. The authors argue that the changing political and educational climate, which saw women gaining the vote in 1894 in South Australia and admission to secondary and higher education and paid work, provided the setting for women's changing status. Their increasing agency – an agency many women worked to secure – encouraged women to challenge many traditional practices.     

Supporting Accountability in the Field of Mediation

Over time, many fields of work - law, medicine, and teaching - matured from informal bodies of knowledge and skills, passed from one practitioner to another, into professions. In the process each began enumerating and affirming their intellectual and practical roots. Each also began testing practitioners to insure comprehension of relevant knowledge and an ability to demonstrate relevant skills. Family mediators in Canada have moved in this direction. In the United States, people who mediate interpersonal disputes also feel pressured to take additional steps to assure the quality of our work. This article summarizes what mediation organizations in the United States have done and could do to vouch for work in our field. But, taking additional steps calls for a clearer understanding of what a mediator should know and what they are expected to do. These two critical pieces of information remain nebulous. So, this article goes beyond describing ways of insuring accountability by also describing a recently completed job analysis, a tool frequently used in other fields of work to describe the skills and knowledge relevant to a particular job.