Gendered divisions of labour in urban crop cultivation in a Kenyan town: implications for livelihood outcomes

This article highlights the labour contributions of men and women in urban crop cultivation in Eldoret, Kenya. Divisions of labour in urban gardening were mediated by social constructs of masculinity and femininity, gender differentials in entitlements and farming knowledge and intra-household power relations. The resulting labour distribution patterns manifested itself in the type of crops men and women took responsibility for, the specific agricultural tasks they performed and the spatial segregation of men's and women's activities and tasks. Traditional gender-related labour boundaries were also challenged and reworked. With regard to livelihood outcomes, women's labour contributed more directly to household food security, although men were increasingly getting involved in subsistence farming, which held prospects for improved productivity and therefore enhanced household food security.     

The role of recruitment agencies in imagining and producing the ‘good’ migrant

This paper focuses on representations of labour migrants and interrogates how such imaginaries shape migrant recruitment and employment regimes. The recruitment and employment of labour migrants inevitably involves a range of knowledge practices that affect who is recruited, from where and for what purposes. In particular, this paper seeks to advance understandings of how images of ‘bodily goodness’ are represented graphically and how perceptions of migrant workers influence the recruitment of workers to the UK from Latvia. The research described in this paper is based on interviews with recruitment agencies, employers and policy makers carried out in Latvia in 2011. The analysis results in a schema of the ‘filtering’ processes that are enacted to ‘produce’ the ‘ideal’ migrant worker. An important original contribution of this paper is that it details how recruitment agencies, in not only engaging in the spatially selective recruitment of labour from certain places but also drawing socially constructed boundaries around migrant bodies, play a key part in shaping migration geographies both in sending and destination countries.     

Migration and ethnic nationalism: Anglophone exit and the ‘decolonisation’ of Québec

This article explains the effects of ethnic nationalism on Anglophone and Francophone migration. The rise of Québec ethnic nationalism in the 1960s dismantled the cultural division of labour, which created new opportunities for Francophones but threatened Anglophones' traditional dominance over the Québec economy. This had negative consequences for Anglophones but positive outcomes for Francophones, which in turn accounts for differences in migration patterns. Drawing from the internal colony model as well as migration and exit‐voice theories, and using ecological census data, micro‐census data and election panel data, I find that the key variables that increase the likelihood of Anglophone out‐migration either do not explain Francophone out‐migration or have opposite effects. This is because ethnonationalist policies decreased the economic return particularly for well‐educated, higher‐earning, professional Anglophones in Québec, while increasing the economic position of Francophones and in particular well‐educated professionals.     

The art of link-making in global labour history: subaltern,feminist and Eastern European contributions

Benefiting from the ‘global’ and ‘trans-national’ turns in the larger historiography, labour historians in the past two decades have greatly expanded their geographical scope, developed new methodologies, refashioned categories of analysis and largely abandoned teleological assumptions. In this context, the history of labour in Eastern Europe still constitutes one of the least-globalized research topics in the field, even though the region attracted an array of excellent labour historians both before and after the collapse of state socialism in 1989/91. This introduction to the Dossier on labour history and Eastern Europe reflects on the reasons for the apparent mismatch between Eastern European labour history and the new global labour history. It does so by situating this large question within a discussion of some more or less successful examples of how scholarship on a particular theme in labour history has contributed or attempted to contribute to the conceptual and empirical enlargement of labour history in the past few decades. Focusing on particular aspects of the debates on class analysis, the peasant question, the history of gender, and the history of labour under state socialism, the authors address key questions in the international development of the history of labour. These questions, the authors argue, are at the core of the contributions on Eastern Europe assembled in the Dossier. Situating the four historiographical studies contained in the Dossier in this larger context, the introduction discusses the varied reception of scholarship on aspects of the history of labour emerging in and from different contexts and asks how this scholarship has contributed or might contribute to the development of a more inclusive global labour history.     

Tooth wear in two ancient populations of the Khazar Kaganat region in the Ukraine

Tooth wear is a common phenomenon in archaeological material. It has been related to the abrasiveness of diet and to the tribological attrition of teeth of individuals. Numerous investigations have been carried out in north and middle American samples as well as African anthropological material. Not much is known about tooth wear in European cultures. Eleven skulls from Chervona Gusarovka, and 14 skulls from the Upper Saltov sites of the Khazar Kaganat region (8th–10th centuries AD) in eastern Ukraine, with different diets were examined. A total of 208 teeth were studied for tooth wear, caries prevalence and periodontal status. Abrasion grades were determined according to a standardised classification and statistically evaluated. Periodontal status was measured using the distance between the enamel‐cementum junction and alveolar crest and the gingival attachment level respectively. Tooth wear was significantly different (P < 0.01) between the two populations. A low caries prevalence of 4.2% in the Chervona Gusarovka population and 1.7% in the Upper Saltov population was found. Significantly more alveolar crest bone resorption on the lingual side was found in the premolars and anterior teeth of the Chervona Gusarovka population. No significant differences were found regarding gingival attachment levels and gingival recession. It is concluded that the content and mode of food preparation influenced tooth wear, as reflected by the prevalence of dental caries and periodontal diseases in these ancient populations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender equality in housework among professional Filipinas in Melbourne: painfully slow and illusory?

This article analyses how professional Filipinas in Melbourne negotiate housework with their partners in the absence of the domestic workers they were accustomed to in the Philippines. To some extent, the absence of maids revealed the informants’ escape from classism and sexism. I argue that as a result of the women’s persistent strategising, household work division did eventually become more egalitarian although variously insufficient to be able to relieve them from extreme stress. The women’s ambitions and career demands were important drivers in renegotiating the domestic realm. Yet the slow change towards gender egalitarianism is seen as a response to changed circumstances rather than to commitment to ideals of gender equity.