an article by Rachel Skaggs (Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA) published in Work and Occupations Volume 46 Issue 2 (May 2019)
Abstract
Failure is a normal aspect of work in creative industries; even highly successful artists are subject to rejection by critics, fans, and peers. It is known that organizations such as schools and workplaces are the primary space for job-related socialization, but artistic careers are characterized by nonstandard employment relations and do not generally require formal schooling. Without the bureaucratic structures typically used to socialize novice group members, how do artistic occupational communities socialize aspirants to manage rejection and labor market failure?
This article draws from 6 months of participant observation from “Song Club”, a periodic professional workshop for aspiring songwriters where aspirants present a song to publishers in the hopes of having it recorded and released to commercial audiences.
During the period of study, 403 songs were presented to publishers, and 327 were rejected. During the workshops, Song Club members are socialized toward normalizing rejection, appropriately interacting with gatekeepers, and developing collaborative relationships with peers. Adopting these norms reduces the likelihood of failure and contextualizes the meaning of rejection in this occupational community.
Thursday, 2 May 2019
Wednesday, 1 May 2019
‘On the wet side of the womb’: The construction of ‘mothers’ in anti-abortion activism in England and Wales
an article by Pam Lowe and Sarah-Jane Page (Aston University, UK) published in European Journal of Women's Studies Volume 26 Issue 2 (May 2019)
Abstract
Across the UK, there has been an increase in anti-abortion activism outside abortion clinics. The activism deployed includes explicitly religious activities such as ‘prayerful witnessing’ and ‘pavement counselling’, which aim to discourage women from entering clinics.
This article stems from a wider ethnographic study of public activism over abortion to determine what claims about motherhood are being made within these debates.
Two arguments are presented.
First, how women’s role as mothers is central and essentialised in anti-abortion discourses, with the body of the mother often disappearing as activists seek to erode the distinction between a foetus and a baby by constructing pregnancy as a foetal environment. Motherhood is constructed as ‘natural’ and sacred, therefore abortion must be damaging because it destroys women’s ‘natural’ position.
Second, the article argues that although the activists’ arguments are always religiously framed, their activism takes place in a largely secular context, meaning that they have to find ways of appealing to secular audiences.
This leads to a complex interrelationship between secular and religious discourses, where theological viewpoints sit alongside ‘scientific’ claims to buttress activists’ views.
This article explores how the presence and absence of mothers within activists’ narratives is due to the tensions between religiously based understandings of motherhood, and the need to appeal to a secular audience.
Abstract
Across the UK, there has been an increase in anti-abortion activism outside abortion clinics. The activism deployed includes explicitly religious activities such as ‘prayerful witnessing’ and ‘pavement counselling’, which aim to discourage women from entering clinics.
This article stems from a wider ethnographic study of public activism over abortion to determine what claims about motherhood are being made within these debates.
Two arguments are presented.
First, how women’s role as mothers is central and essentialised in anti-abortion discourses, with the body of the mother often disappearing as activists seek to erode the distinction between a foetus and a baby by constructing pregnancy as a foetal environment. Motherhood is constructed as ‘natural’ and sacred, therefore abortion must be damaging because it destroys women’s ‘natural’ position.
Second, the article argues that although the activists’ arguments are always religiously framed, their activism takes place in a largely secular context, meaning that they have to find ways of appealing to secular audiences.
This leads to a complex interrelationship between secular and religious discourses, where theological viewpoints sit alongside ‘scientific’ claims to buttress activists’ views.
This article explores how the presence and absence of mothers within activists’ narratives is due to the tensions between religiously based understandings of motherhood, and the need to appeal to a secular audience.
Are You Using Mental Health Apps? They Might Be Sharing Your Data
a post by Carl Velasco for Tech Times [via World of Psychology]
You might want to err on the side of caution when it comes to mental health apps. Most of them are sharing your data to advertisers, a new study has discovered. ( Pixabay )
There are a lot of apps that claim to aid with mental health, doing so by providing introductions on meditation, mindful thinking, and encouraging mental exercises that might help alleviate stress or anxiety.
Mental health is of course a sensitive subject, which is why data related to it should be protected at all costs. A new study suggests that isn't so. Apparently, 29 out of 36 mental health apps were sharing data for advertising or analytics to Facebook or Google, and many of them weren't disclosing that data-sharing to users.
Only six out of 12 Facebook-linked apps informed users what was happening, while only 12 out of 28 Google-linked apps did, as well. Of the entire mental health app pool, only 25 included policies laying out how they used data in any form, while 16 detailed secondary uses.
Continue reading
You might want to err on the side of caution when it comes to mental health apps. Most of them are sharing your data to advertisers, a new study has discovered. ( Pixabay )
There are a lot of apps that claim to aid with mental health, doing so by providing introductions on meditation, mindful thinking, and encouraging mental exercises that might help alleviate stress or anxiety.
Mental health is of course a sensitive subject, which is why data related to it should be protected at all costs. A new study suggests that isn't so. Apparently, 29 out of 36 mental health apps were sharing data for advertising or analytics to Facebook or Google, and many of them weren't disclosing that data-sharing to users.
Only six out of 12 Facebook-linked apps informed users what was happening, while only 12 out of 28 Google-linked apps did, as well. Of the entire mental health app pool, only 25 included policies laying out how they used data in any form, while 16 detailed secondary uses.
Continue reading
Paying consumers to increase their consumption can reduce the cost of integrating wind and solar electricity production into the grid
a column by Laura Mørch Andersen, Lars Gårn Hansen, Carsten Lynge Jensen and Frank Wolak for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Increased reliance on solar and wind power has changed the approach to managing peak demand.
The column details the results of a Danish experiment designed to flatten demand in which customers were randomly assigned to receive rebates based on how much consumption they could shift between periods of the day. Asking customers to shift consumption to periods of low net demand would create daily cost savings of €100,000 for the utility in question. Paradoxically, demand-shifting reduces the need for installed generation capacity, but increases overall demand.
Continue reading
Increased reliance on solar and wind power has changed the approach to managing peak demand.
The column details the results of a Danish experiment designed to flatten demand in which customers were randomly assigned to receive rebates based on how much consumption they could shift between periods of the day. Asking customers to shift consumption to periods of low net demand would create daily cost savings of €100,000 for the utility in question. Paradoxically, demand-shifting reduces the need for installed generation capacity, but increases overall demand.
Continue reading
Is universal credit working for working people? – Usdaw members’ experiences
a post by Kelly-Marie Jones (Welfare Rights Adviser | Early Warning System) for the CPAG blog
Since 2010, the government has ignored rising child poverty while repeating the mantra that work is the best route out of poverty. Work is indeed a factor in escaping poverty, but it needs to be secure work, with a decent wage, decent hours and prospects. In-work poverty is on the rise with 70 per cent of children growing up in poverty having a parent who works. Together with colleagues at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw), we set out to discover how the introduction of universal credit has affected Usdaw members.
Usdaw recently surveyed members receiving universal credit (UC). The results show that UC is not always supporting people out of poverty through work, or even upholding the early promise that “no-one will experience a reduction in the benefit they receive as a result of the introduction of Universal Credit”. Only one out of 25 respondents said they were better off on UC and nearly half reported being worse off. The biggest losses were borne by families with children, with one couple reporting a loss of £250 a month and a single parent losing as much as £320.
Getting hold of their entitlement, such as it was, wasn’t an easy process. Nearly half of survey respondents reported finding the claim process difficult, very difficult or even impossible – and only two of those received help with their claim. Difficulties included having to attend Jobcentre appointments around work hours and having their claim closed so having to start the claim process again.
Continue reading
Since 2010, the government has ignored rising child poverty while repeating the mantra that work is the best route out of poverty. Work is indeed a factor in escaping poverty, but it needs to be secure work, with a decent wage, decent hours and prospects. In-work poverty is on the rise with 70 per cent of children growing up in poverty having a parent who works. Together with colleagues at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw), we set out to discover how the introduction of universal credit has affected Usdaw members.
Usdaw recently surveyed members receiving universal credit (UC). The results show that UC is not always supporting people out of poverty through work, or even upholding the early promise that “no-one will experience a reduction in the benefit they receive as a result of the introduction of Universal Credit”. Only one out of 25 respondents said they were better off on UC and nearly half reported being worse off. The biggest losses were borne by families with children, with one couple reporting a loss of £250 a month and a single parent losing as much as £320.
Getting hold of their entitlement, such as it was, wasn’t an easy process. Nearly half of survey respondents reported finding the claim process difficult, very difficult or even impossible – and only two of those received help with their claim. Difficulties included having to attend Jobcentre appointments around work hours and having their claim closed so having to start the claim process again.
Continue reading
The use and abuse of participatory governance by populist governments
Agnes Batory, batorya@ceu.edu
Sara Svensson, Svenssons@ceu.edu
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Policy & Politics Volume 47 Number 2 (April 2019)
Populists claim that they alone represent the voice of the people against a corrupt elite. We argue that populist governments augment this claim by appropriating and manipulating the language and methods of participatory governance. Advancing an analytical framework on content, process, effect, resource efficiency and communication dimensions, we illustrate these arguments with the National Consultations in Hungary in 2010–18. Our conclusion for the case study is that these exercises were deeply flawed for securing popular input into policy-making. The implication for scholarship is that participatory governance enthusiasts need to be more aware not just of the uses, but also the abuses, of public input, while scholars of populism should pay more attention to the actual policies and practices populist actors employ to gain or maintain power.
Full text (PDF 18pp)
Sara Svensson, Svenssons@ceu.edu
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Policy & Politics Volume 47 Number 2 (April 2019)
Populists claim that they alone represent the voice of the people against a corrupt elite. We argue that populist governments augment this claim by appropriating and manipulating the language and methods of participatory governance. Advancing an analytical framework on content, process, effect, resource efficiency and communication dimensions, we illustrate these arguments with the National Consultations in Hungary in 2010–18. Our conclusion for the case study is that these exercises were deeply flawed for securing popular input into policy-making. The implication for scholarship is that participatory governance enthusiasts need to be more aware not just of the uses, but also the abuses, of public input, while scholars of populism should pay more attention to the actual policies and practices populist actors employ to gain or maintain power.
Full text (PDF 18pp)
What Are Boundaries and Why You Need Them
a post by Mike Matthews for the World of Psychology blog
One of the most misunderstood and important tools to develop healthy relationships is your ability to set boundaries.
Brene Brown famously said:
She’s right because setting boundaries helps you to take more responsibility for your life and therefore feel more in control which increases your confidence, energy and enthusiasm for life. Boundaries help you to become more open and trusting with yourself and others, which in turn improves the quality and intimacy of your relationships.
But what are boundaries exactly? My definition, which extends to both romantic and plutonic relationships is:
To have boundaries is to know where you end and someone else begins. It’s what you fall back on when someone steps so far into your world that you cease being yourself. It’s your ability to communicate with them in a way that both describes how you want to be treated, and empowers others to treat you that way.
There seems to be a common misunderstanding that boundaries are restrictive, selfish and oppressive in relationships. In reality, the opposite is true as it’s only from understanding, and communicating your boundaries that you can create safe, trusting and intimate relationships.
Continue reading
One of the most misunderstood and important tools to develop healthy relationships is your ability to set boundaries.
Brene Brown famously said:
“The most generous people are the most boundaried.”
But what are boundaries exactly? My definition, which extends to both romantic and plutonic relationships is:
Your ability to understand, communicate and make a stand for how you want to be treated in your relationships.
To have boundaries is to know where you end and someone else begins. It’s what you fall back on when someone steps so far into your world that you cease being yourself. It’s your ability to communicate with them in a way that both describes how you want to be treated, and empowers others to treat you that way.
There seems to be a common misunderstanding that boundaries are restrictive, selfish and oppressive in relationships. In reality, the opposite is true as it’s only from understanding, and communicating your boundaries that you can create safe, trusting and intimate relationships.
Continue reading
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