In a world increasingly both fragmented and globalized, there is a need for a normative framework of values linking individual and group concerns by means of a conception of collective human rights. Felice argues that individual human rights, which have proven to be of enormous value in the twentieth century, must be extended to communities ranging from the family unit to the entire human community.
Growing dreadlocks, a hair practice usually associated with the Rastafarian movement, has become increasingly popular among people of African descent globally. In concert with other "makers," dreadlocks became symbolic accompaniment to oppositional collective identities associated with the African liberation/Black Power movements. Its spread among African liberationists, womanists, radical artists of African descent reflects counterhegemonic politics. From a combined new social movement and African cultural studies perspective, this research traces the sociopolitical and historical phases of "locking." On the microsociological level, the role that dreadlocks are perceived as playing along three main dimensions of collective identity formation: boundary demarcation, consciousness and negotiation, are explored. The study combines data from fifty-two dreadlocked persons' responses in surveys, interviews, and a focus group with historical documents and sources. Dreadlocks, as contemporary hair aesthetics, can be considered an example of culturally contextualized everyday resistance.
PurposeA literature gap has triggered a discussion on the influence of relational pluralism in the adoption of new practices of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on this literature, this paper aims to understand how relational pluralism influences small companies in the development of their collective CSR strategies.Design/methodology/approachThis study used the case of a Brazilian hotel network called Charm Routes, which comprises 66 members. The study adopted a qualitative approach based on qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).FindingsThe results show that relational pluralism influences small companies in their collective CSR strategies. This is especially because of the relationships among different actors within the network.Research limitations/implicationsQCA does not explain the correlation between variables, but rather the logical relations among them. The adoption of multivariate techniques is suggested for future studies to evaluate the correlations among the variables and not only the possible causal conditions.Practical implicationsThe results bring added clarity to the collective CSR strategies of networks composed of small companies.Social implicationsThe findings may be of use to networks of small companies working collectively to develop initiatives aimed at providing social and environmental benefits.Originality/valueInstead of a framework, the study generated the expression RPN*(INT+LON) → CSR_CS. This means that relational pluralism within the network, enhanced by the intensity and the longevity of the relationship, influences small companies in the development of their collective CSR strategies.
In our research on collective memory we have assumed the challenge of understanding it as a social practice. This has involved moving away from those visions that assume memory as an individual faculty as well as those who take the memories as representations of the past. We seek to understand the social processes of construction of collective memories always in relation to the political processes in which they are carried out, reflecting on the meanings, social imaginary and political actions they produce. ; En nuestras investigaciones sobre memoria colectiva hemos asumido el desafío de entenderla como una práctica social. Esto ha implicado alejarse de aquellas visiones que asumen la memoria como una facultad individual y también de aquellas que asumen los recuerdos como representaciones del pasado. Buscamos comprender los procesos sociales de construcción de memorias colectivas siempre en relación con los procesos políticos en los cuales se realiza, reflexionando en torno a los significados, imaginarios sociales y acciones políticas que contribuyen a producir.
Mumbai and Stockholm are worlds apart in terms of public services, infrastructures and standard of living. However, both cities have known common problems of social exclusion and marginalisation related to neo‐liberal globalisation. Social workers are facing similar challenges regarding collective empowerment as a strategy for community work. This comparative study explored how collective empowerment is undertaken by community workers. The research participants were 13 informants from community‐work organisations in the two settings. Semi‐structured interviews were used and were analysed with the help of Atlas‐ti 6.2 (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH D‐10623 Berlin Germany). Social work in Mumbai is in a context of extreme poverty and mainly within the informal sector, whereas in Stockholm most social work is done in relation to a public welfare model. In Stockholm, interventions are aimed towards strengthening social networks, without direct aim at social change. In Mumbai, community workers organise people for collective empowerment to strengthen marginalised groups and achieve social change.
This article discusses crisis-related developments in collective bargaining in the private sector across the EU since the onset of the crisis during 2008. It analyses developments in the incidence, procedures and content of collective bargaining during the crisis and is cross-nationally and cross-sectorally comparative. It also examines how economic developments, industrial relations institutions and public policy might explain these developments. The article shows that collective bargaining responses to the crisis have been much more frequent in multi-employer bargaining systems than in single-employer bargaining systems, both at sectoral and company level. Major differences also exist between manufacturing and services, with bargaining being more prevalent in the former. In procedural terms, with some exceptions, the crisis has accelerated the longer-term trend towards organized decentralization. Substantively, restoring competitiveness and maintaining employment are central to the agenda of crisis-response agreements. The trade-offs are more integrative under multi-employer bargaining systems and where public policy offers support in negotiating short-time working schemes, and more distributive under single-employer bargaining.
International audience ; This contribution takes place in the context of a PhD in anthropology, started in 2007, about the links between technical culture and political culture in the French Parliament's lower house, for which I engaged myself in a long-term field work. The ethnographic approach led me to focus on a shift about what an MP is and what s/he is not: while citizens are tending to see an MP as an individual, s/he is rather considering himself or herself as a team, even if a lot of efforts are made to hide this collective aspect. Several researchers have already insisted that, in various national contexts, parliamentary work is highly collaborative. This is true on two levels: firstly on an institution scale (the parliamentary activity is the sum of the activity of each MP), secondly on a team scale (the parliamentary activity of one MP is the sum of the activity of each member of his staff, plus his own activity). These studies have also pointed that the main part of their staff activity stays invisible most of the time. As I intend to understand how the digital technologies were newly appropriated by MPs, I took this collective and collaborative dimension of parliamentary work as my starting point. Here I defend that brought to light the importance of tools and procedures in the parliamentary network is relevant to step back from the common sense of the activities of this institution.
Collective farming has been suggested as a potentially useful approach for reducing inequality and transforming peasant agriculture. In collectives, farmers pool land, labor, irrigation infrastructure, agricultural inputs and harvest to overcome resource constraints and to increase their bargaining power. Employing a feminist political ecology lens, we reflect on the extent to which collective farming enables marginalized groups to engage in smallholder agriculture. We examine the establishment of 18 farmer collectives by an action research project in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, a region characterised by fragmented and small landholdings and a high rate of marginalised and landless farmers. We analyze ambivalances of collective farming practices with regard to (1) social relations across scales, (2) intersectionality and (3) emotional attachment. Our results in Saptari/ Eastern Terai in Nepal, Madhubani/Bihar, and Cooch Behar/West Bengal in India demonstrate how intra-household, group and community relations and emotional attachments to the family and neighbors mediate the redistribution of labor, land, produce and capital. We find that unequal gender relations, intersected by class, age, ethnicity and caste, are reproduced in collective action, land tenure and water management, and argue that a critical feminist perspective can support a more reflective and relational understanding of collective farming processes. Our analysis demonstrates that feminist political ecology can complement commons studies by providing meaningful insights on ambivalences around approaches such as collective farming.
This paper discusses 過労死 (Karōshi)'s phenomenon, stating it as a social labor-related issue. It presents Karōshi as sudden death by overworking. This paper objective consists in showing it as a singular and particular case of Japanese workaholism, rooted in its own cultural work system, conceptualizing Karōshi as a singularity in Japanese cultural system, putting it, and also 過労自殺 (Karōjisatsu), as an existential damage beyond the individual worker. Karōshi surpasses the line of personal damage and can be considered a cultural collective damage.
This paper integrates literature on social movements and migration to examine how migration shapes both the cognitive and social foundations of collective action in origin communities. Using longitudinal data and in-depth interviews from rural China, we find that outward migration spurs collective resistance in origin communities and shapes the form and scale of collective action. Migration fosters non-institutionalized rather than institutionalized collective action, because it induces relational diffusion that empowers peasants to mobilize and employ more effective resistance strategies. This holds more for small- and medium-size collective action than for large-scale mobilizations, mainly because out-migration can also trigger community disintegration that inhibits larger-scale action. Furthermore, local social institutions condition the role of migration: migration has a stronger positive impact in close-knit villages embedded in strong lineage networks than in less cohesive villages. We contextualize the findings against the distinct institutional arrangements in China, which were originally engineered to disenfranchise rural-origin people but which instead have inadvertently politicized migrants and peasants alike.
What are the drivers of collective bargaining to achieve gender equality in companies? Although much research has been done on this question, answers tend to focus exclusively on the institutional perspective and to neglect the social and power relations at work. We address this deficiency in this article by taking a micro-political perspective. We trace the trajectory of a collectively bargained gender equality policy in a French company over 14 years and examine how management and unions contribute to the process. Our results show that the construction of a coalition between management and unions around gender equality, as well as the form taken by the bargained policy, are closely linked to the capabilities that these actors possess and mobilise. This study contributes to the understanding of gender equality bargaining and, more generally, to the micro-politics of collective bargaining. In doing so, it aims to connect organisation studies and industrial relations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected communities already marginalized in pre-coronavirus societies, aggravated by socio-political technologies of racialization, sexism, homo- and transphobia. Dear Chaemin (directed by Bae, 2020) is an autofictional documentary series of three video letters sent from The Hague to the director's sister in Seoul amid isolation. The film juxtaposes the Korean and Dutch contexts of state surveillance, entangled with the b/ordering technologies against queer communities in Seoul and Asian communities in Europe. This paper explores autofictional documentary as an audiovisual method to engage with contemporary dynamics of international politics. First, I summarize the arguments made in the three chapters of the film Dear Chaemin. Second, I propose autofictional documentary as an effective cinematic mode that accounts for situated knowledges and critiques collective memories. Finally, I explore how the autofictional mode is further contextualized through the use of unconventional, non-lens-based audiovisual material.
