Gender,risk and the Wall Street Alpha Male

From the outset, analyses of the 2008 financial crisis, in mainstream as well as feminist discussions, have been gendered. In particular, rampant risk taking in an unregulated environment, widely deemed to be a principle cause of the crash, has been associated with masculine characteristics. In this article, I explore how the concepts of gender and risk entwine in two films on the financial crisis – The Other Guys and Margin Call. By looking at how gender is used to dramatise financial risk, I explore how understandings of high-risk behaviour are gendered, and the implications this has in the context of finance. Fictional representations mediate public understanding of this notoriously complex field as the number of films and documentaries on the crisis demonstrates. Exploring how gender is used to communicate risk reminds us that risk taking is part of a performance of masculinity that needs to be established by constructing a feminine, risk-averse other. The contention of this paper is that, to address gender bias in finance and the economy, gendered meanings of risk need to be openly challenged, and cultural and material analyses of gendered inequality brought into dialogue.     

Regulating Volunteering: Lessons from the Bingo Halls

This article uses charitable bingo to explore the sociolegal regulation of volunteers. Using case studies of two provincial bingo revitalization initiatives in Canada, I explore how charities and government officials manage the tension between regulating and incentivizing volunteers. I show that bingo revitalization plans in Alberta and Ontario increased surveillance of nonregularized workers and failed to protect charity service users from unpaid labor requirements. Moreover, revitalization initiatives reframe the volunteer role to focus on customer service and explaining how charities benefit the community. The potential for bingo volunteering to promote spaces of mutual aid with players will thus likely decline. I suggest that the allied power of charity and state over unpaid workers is increasing, giving charities better‐protected interests in volunteer labor and changing the tasks that volunteers do. The need for more research exploring the interests of volunteers as regulatory stakeholders in their own right is thus pressing.     

Translation in cross-cultural research: an example from Bolivia

Translation raises ethical and epistemological dilemmas inherent in cross-cultural research. The process of communicating research participants' words in a different language and context may impose another conceptual scheme on their thoughts. This may reinforce the hegemonic terms that Development Studies should seek to challenge. The article explores the idea that a reflexive approach to translation can not only help to overcome the difficulties involved in cross-cultural research, but also be a tool with which to deconstruct hegemonic theory. It addresses the epistemological and political problems in translation, techniques of translation, and the impact of translation on the author's own research, which is used to illustrate some of the ways in which translation can support deconstruction and highlight the importance of building a framework for talking with rather than for research participants.