My Stomach Fell Through the Floor: The Moment of Not-Knowing What to Do

Youth workers routinely experience moments in their professional practice with young people when, despite their experience and training, they are simply at a loss for what to do, how to respond, and how to be helpful to the youth. These experiences of not-knowing are seldom shared with other youth workers, which contributes to a climate of shame and humiliation. Professional supervision seldom attends to how youth workers experience these moments and their personal and vocational costs. This study presents a phenomenological investigation of how youth workers experience moments of not knowing what to do, identifies five central themes of the experience, and makes recommendations for improved youth work practice and supervision. This chapter presents the research question and its significance to the field of American youth work.     

Contextualizing Not-Knowing: Terminology and the Role of Professional Identity

This chapter provides a context for the concept of not-knowing, including a discussion of how the concept was framed. The experience of not-knowing in professional youth work is framed in relationship to other concepts explored by the social work and therapeutic literature (including vicarious trauma, helplessness, secondary trauma, and burnout), as well as those offered by the limited youth work and nursing literature discussing similar concepts (disruption and hurt, suffering, commitment in spite of conflict, and the struggle to go along when you do not believe). The standing of youth work in the professions and its own struggles to professionalize are explored, with attention to how not-knowing affects and is affected by these efforts.     

It's Just a Little Too Human: Questions of Vocation

SUMMARY

Among youth workers who experience moments of not-knowing what to do, many often describe their thoughts and reactions to the phenomenon in vocational and existential terms. They ask what right they have to work in the helping professions if they find themselves simply unable to be helpful. In many cases, the vocational crises following experiences of not-knowing contribute to burnout and youth workers' decisions to leave the field altogether. This chapter describes the fourth of five themes associated with youth workers' experiences of not knowing what to do: questions of vocation. In addition to presenting the dominant theme, this chapter discusses the three variations on it, as described by youth worker participants: (a) What am I supposed to do? (b) Who am I to deal with this? and (c) Maybe the problem is me.     

Accumulation by Dispossession and Its Limits: The Southern Africa Paradigm Revisited

The dispossession of agricultural producers from the land has long been considered a condition of successful capitalist development. The main contention of this paper is that such dispossession has in fact become the source of major developmental handicaps for at least some and possibly many countries of the global South. We develop our argument by focusing on the South(ern) African experience as a paradigmatic outlier case of accumulation by dispossession—that is, as one of its extreme instances capable of highlighting in almost ideo-typical fashion its nature and limits. After reconstructing interpretations of capitalist development in Southern Africa that in the early 1970s established the region as a paradigm of accumulation by dispossession, we discuss how useful these interpretations are for understanding the more recent developmental trajectory of South Africa. We then suggest ways in which these interpretations from the 1970s should be reformulated in light of subsequent developments. We conclude by briefly examining the theoretical and policy implications of the analysis.     

和谐社会的人际伦理

在现代社会中使用"和谐"的说法,需要作与现代政治、社会有关的释义,方能明确它的现代含义.我们可以用现代民主、宪政、法制、权利、权威等概念来解释"和谐"的现代政治含义,也可以用别类现代概念来解释"和谐"其它方面的现代意义.著名伦理哲学家马各利特(A.Margalit)在<记忆的伦理>中提出的一系列有用的伦理哲学概念,为我们解释"和谐"的现代社会人际伦理意义提供了一种可能.     

当代科技革命和交往手段的变革

科技革命促使人们交往手段的变革.交往是实践活动中不可缺少的部分,它有共同的内在结构和变革机制.从交往的价值论观点看,交往是有价值负荷的,从交往的实践论观点看,交往推进了信息技术的革命,从交往的产权变革看,科技革命推进了经济交往手段的变革,从而促进了社会经济的发展.