Search results

1 – 10 of 192
Article
Publication date: 25 October 2011

Jeremy Morris

The purpose of this paper is to explore an important nexus of formal/informal economic activity in Russia: “normative” workers (in waged formal employment) by virtue of a strongly…

855

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore an important nexus of formal/informal economic activity in Russia: “normative” workers (in waged formal employment) by virtue of a strongly embedded work‐related social identity and characterized by a significant number of weak social ties, move with little “effort” between formal and informal work.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents extensive ethnographic data from the Russian provinces on workers and diverse economic practices. It utilizes participant observation and semi‐structured interviews from periods of fieldwork over the course of a year (2009‐2010).

Findings

This study traces the theoretical debates on the informal economy from 1989 to 2008 and argues for a substantivist position on household reproduction that focuses on the interdependence of social networks, employment, class‐identity and (informal) work. The findings demonstrate significant performative and spatial aspects of embedded worker identity, including the workspace itself as a contested domain, that facilitate movement between formal‐informal work.

Originality/value

The originality of the paper resides in its ethnographic approach to informal economies under post‐socialism and the substantivist evaluation of diverse economic practices in Russia as supported by formal work‐based shared identities.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 31 no. 11/12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 16 June 2017

Paul Kelly, Marie Murphy and Nanette Mutrie

The purpose of this chapter is to review and synthesise the available evidence for the health benefits of walking. It follows a non-systematic evidence review and finds that the…

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to review and synthesise the available evidence for the health benefits of walking. It follows a non-systematic evidence review and finds that the evidence base for the health benefits of walking is growing. Increasingly we are finding strong evidence for the beneficial effects of walking for both individuals and populations. More evidence is required on how to better understand the health outcomes associated with walking and how to promote long term increases in walking behaviour. Systematic reviews of specific health benefits remain rare. Walking should be promoted in all population groups regardless of age or sex. There are currently few existing integrative syntheses of the physical and mental health outcomes associated with walking and this chapter aims to help fill that gap.

Article
Publication date: 4 December 2017

Anna Danielsson

The purpose of this paper is to examine three explanatory perspectives in the academic literature on informal economies that seek to account for agents’ engagement in informal…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine three explanatory perspectives in the academic literature on informal economies that seek to account for agents’ engagement in informal economic practices.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology to interrogate the existing perspectives and to provide a conceptual rethinking of informal economies and informal economic practices.

Findings

The paper reveals an inherent scholastic epistemocentrism in the established perspectives. By privileging either an objectivist or a subjectivist viewpoint, these accounts do not examine the practical knowledge and logic that constitute agents’ knowledgeable engagement in informal economic practices. By making use of Bourdieu’s thinking tools of “field”, “capital” and “the habitus”, the paper offers a conceptual rethinking of informal economic practices as the product of a dialectic relationship between socially objectivated structures and subjective representations and experiences.

Originality/value

The paper introduces a reflexive rethinking of informality that draws on but also develops an emergent literature on informal economic practices as relational and context bound.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 37 no. 13/14
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 13 March 2019

Shellie McMurdo and Wickham Clayton

Roland Joffé, the film-maker behind the significant critical hits The Killing Fields (1984) and The Mission (1986), employed a hypnotic aesthetic, which unflinchingly depicted…

Abstract

Roland Joffé, the film-maker behind the significant critical hits The Killing Fields (1984) and The Mission (1986), employed a hypnotic aesthetic, which unflinchingly depicted violence and brutality within different cultural contexts. In 2007, he used a no less impressive aesthetic in a similar way, although this film, Captivity, was met with public outcry, including from self-proclaimed feminist film-maker Joss Whedon. This was based upon the depiction, in advertisements, of gendered violence in the popularly termed ‘torture porn’ subgenre, which itself has negative gendered connotations.

We aim to revisit the critical reception of Captivity in light of this public controversy, looking at the gendered tensions within considerations of genre, narration and aesthetics. Critics assumed Captivity was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the torture horror subgenre, and there is evidence that the film-makers inserted scenes of gore throughout the narrative to encourage this affiliation. However, this chapter will consider how the film works as both an example of post-peak torture horror and an interesting precursor to more overtly feminist horror, such as A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) and Raw (2017). This is seen through the aesthetic and narrative centralizing of a knowing conflict between genders, which, while not entirely successful, does uniquely aim to provide commentary on the gender roles which genre criticism of horror has long considered implicit to the genre’s structures and pleasures.

Details

Gender and Contemporary Horror in Film
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-898-7

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Sameness and Repetition in Contemporary Media Culture
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-955-0

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 10 December 2016

Abstract

Details

Communication and Information Technologies Annual
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-481-5

Content available

Abstract

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 18 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Article
Publication date: 5 September 2016

Lavagnon A. Ika and Jonas Söderlund

The purpose of this paper is to review and analyze Albert Hirschman’s landmark book Development Projects Observed, share its insights for managing big projects, discuss its…

1142

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review and analyze Albert Hirschman’s landmark book Development Projects Observed, share its insights for managing big projects, discuss its theoretical implications and how it may contribute to the current understanding of project behavior, project management (PM), and in what way it may encourage the rethinking of PM.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on an in-depth analysis of Hirschman’s book. The paper draws on the writings of Jeremy Adelman who authored Hirschman’s biography, Cass Sunstein and Michele Alacevich who, respectively, wrote the foreword and afterword of the Brookings Institution classic published in 2014. It also profits from the work of Robert Picciotto who first met Hirschman in 1964, and Bent Flyvbjerg who recently offered a test of validity for Hirschman’s “Hiding Hand” principle.

Findings

Albert Hirschman was an original thinker and, the authors argue in many ways, a father of PM scholarship. His ideas had profound implications for social sciences and lasting influence in academy, policy, and practice. Although, to a great extent based on studies of projects, his ideas have had surprisingly little impact on modern writings of PM. This paper contributes to amending this weakness in current literature on PM. The authors identify in Hirschman’s book a set of core ideas that possess analytical power for explaining problems in contemporary PM. They include the principle of the Hiding Hand, the power of context, the role of complexity and uncertainty, the unexpected project effects, project traits, and latitudes/disciplines. For all his work and way of research, the authors conclude that Hirschman is not only an early behavioral theorist in PM but equally an early rethinker of PM.

Originality/value

This is the first paper that offers a discussion of Hirschman’s ideas on contemporary projects, how to understand them, their behavior, including the principle of the Hiding Hand and other important nuggets of wisdom in his research such as the significance of project traits, latitudes, and disciplines. The authors discuss in what respects these ideas may enlighten PM practice and theory. This paper also conveys the novel idea that Hirschman is an early rethinker of PM.

Details

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8378

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 October 2014

Aleksandr Khechumyan

This chapter aims to demonstrate that the fundamental human rights principle that no one should be subjected to (grossly) disproportionate punishment should be interpreted to take…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter aims to demonstrate that the fundamental human rights principle that no one should be subjected to (grossly) disproportionate punishment should be interpreted to take into account terminal illness of the offender. It should be applied both during imposition of the sentences and also during execution of already imposed sentences.

Design/methodology/approach

In order to reveal whether this principle takes into account serious medical conditions, including terminal illness of the offender in the calculus of the proportionality of punishment and whether it is applicable at the execution stage of sentences, this chapter examined the roots of the fundamental human rights principle of proportionality of punishment by briefly surveying the penal theory, jurisprudence, court cases, laws, and legislative history from the U.S. federal and state jurisdictions and from Europe.

Findings

There is a consensus among surveyed theories that terminal illness of the offender is an element of the principle of proportionality of punishment. Thus the fundamental human rights principle must be interpreted to take it into account. The principle should be observed not only at the imposition stage, but also at the execution stage of already imposed sentences.

Originality/value

This chapter re-examines the roots of the fundamental human right to not being subjected to (grossly) disproportionate punishment. It does so in order to demonstrate that the right should be interpreted to take into account terminal illness of the offender and that it should be observed not only at the imposition stage, but also at the execution stage of already imposed sentences.

Details

Punishment and Incarceration: A Global Perspective
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-907-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 29 August 2018

Paul A. Pautler

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and…

Abstract

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Details

Healthcare Antitrust, Settlements, and the Federal Trade Commission
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-599-9

Keywords

1 – 10 of 192