Struggling with child domestic work: what can a postcolonial perspective offer?

Majority World working children's voices have attained some prominence in debates over their well-being. Many have defended their right to work, challenging Minority World understandings of children's ‘best’ interests. Yet employers' voices remain sidelined, raising questions over the extent to which the discursive and material spaces of children's work have been decolonised. A postcolonial perspective on children's work challenges suggestions that Majority World adults (and societies) need western guidance on how children ought to be raised. It also creates opportunities to look beyond western discourses of economic exploitation, to the potential for more-than-economic relationships between working children and their employers.     

Restoration of a calligraphy work by Yang Jisheng北大核心

While traditional techniques are still used for the restoration of calligraphy and painting works, modern analytical technologies can also be included to achieve cultural relic restoration effects by following the relevant principles. This paper takes the restoration of a calligraphy work by Yang Jisheng in the collection of Fengxian Museum as a case to show how the combination of modern analytical technologies and traditional restoration techniques—by selecting suitable materials for restoration and conservation through the analysis of disease types, paper materials and mounting characteristics of the work—can achieve the best restoration effect. © 2023, Sciences of Conservation and Archaeology. All Rights Reserved.     

Psychoanalytic reflections upon the work of María Zambrano

ABSTRACT

This paper engages in an overdue dialogue amongst some aspects of the thinking of Maria Zambrano and psychoanalytic theory. The discussion focuses on some epistemological and phenomenological ideas that were prevalent in twentieth-century European philosophy. The notion of the real, for instance, is one of the jambs of this comparison, particularly between Zambrano and Jacques Lacan’s ideas. Reflecting upon how Zambrano, Lacan and Freud characterised the origins and limits of the subject and language is testimony of these problems and limits themselves. Division, traversement, schism and exile are distinct yet similar heterogeneities that are central in the thinking of these authors. The Zambranian schism between philosophy and poetry, where pathos and logos are divided, resembles the psychoanalytic understood schism between the psychic and bodily and recalls the problems of the Freudian pleasure principle. These schisms can in turn be understood as an exile of a mythical prelinguistic unity which is best characterised by Lacan as the fundamental castration of the subject of desire. The psychoanalytic reflection upon Zambrano’s writing itself opens possibilities for future dialogues, perhaps in terms of a sinthomatic savoir-faire, which offers yet another layer to the discussion of her remarkable life and work.     

‘Just looking’: domestic workers' consumption practices and a latent geography of Beijing

The post-socialist Chinese city has been an important site to explore the formation of modernity in its everyday shape and manifestations. A common way of understanding urban experiences is through the prism of consumption. Rural migrants in the city cannot compare with urban residents in terms of their consumption level, but they are seen to be equally enthusiastic in partaking in consumption, and their identities are also believed to be (re)shaped by consumption practices. Drawing on several years' extensive ethnographic research in Beijing, this article suggests that these scenarios cannot adequately account for the diversity and complexity of rural migrants' experience in the consuming city. In this article, I put forward a methodological argument for considering the lived spatiality of ethnographic subjects in conceiving and considering consumption. Then, through an investigation of how migrant domestic workers use urban spaces, I consider the ‘dialectic of freedom and constraint’ which marks their agency and their individual choices and decisions. Finally, I explore the social production of space by considering migrant domestic workers' ‘subversive’ behaviours within rather than in opposition to the capitalist commercial logic and space. This discussion demonstrates that consumption practices are at the same time spatial practices, and despite the many obstacles and constraints, migrant domestic workers are actively availing themselves of the opportunities that the city has to offer. This creative process is crucial if we are to gain a new and more nuanced understanding of consumption as a social practice. I further argue that it is also a process by which rural migrants hold on to their sense of dignity and self-respect in an environment of exclusion and discrimination.     

Women’s changing domestic responsibilities in neoliberal Africa: a relational time-space analysis of Lesotho’s garment industry

Since 2001 when Lesotho embraced the neoliberal African Growth and Opportunities Act that offers preferential access to the US market, its garment industry has expanded dramatically to become the nation’s leading employer. Elsewhere, large-scale employment of women in low-paid factory jobs has entailed spatial restructuring of gender and age relations. Lesotho is a distinctive context, with socio-spatial relations historically adjusted to male labour migration, high levels of contemporary male unemployment and alarming AIDS prevalence. Based on semi-structured interviews with 40 female factoryworkers and 37 dependents, this article applies a relational time-space analysis to explore how financial and spatio-temporal aspects of factory employment articulate to alter women’s relationships with those for whom they have culturally determined responsibilities: their children, those suffering from ill health and their (generally rural) home communities. The analysis highlights that such employment is not merely adding to women’s responsibilities, but transforming how they are able to undertake social reproduction, as practical, social and emotional roles are converted to largely financial obligations.     

Women’s gender role attitudes and fertility intentions of having a second child: survey findings from Shaanxi Province of China

China is a country with a unique history of gender traditions and birth-control regulations. Traditional gender role attitudes, closely related to son preference, exert entrenched influence on the fertility intentions and behaviours of women in China. In recent years, despite the fact that employment characteristics and educational attainment of women have caught up with men, China has witnessed a resurgence of patriarchal Confucian tradition. Gender relations in the private sphere are increasingly regulated by traditional gender norms. Considering the declining fertility in China and recent fertility policy adjustments, this paper analyses the varying effects of gender role attitudes on fertility intentions of women under different birth control policies, utilising data from 1,422 questionnaires conducted in 2015 in the Shaanxi Province in northwestern China and using the Multinomial Logistic Model. Our findings imply that the relationship between women’s gender role attitudes and fertility intention differs between women affected by different birth control policies. We find that among married women with one child who are restricted to one child, the more egalitarian the gender role attitude, the more likely they intend to have a second child. Among married women who have had one child and are allowed to have two children, the more egalitarian the gender role attitude, the less likely they intend to have a second child. The results also indicate that traditional gender role attitudes and norms still play an important role in Chinese women’s fertility intentions.     

Theorizing a child–dog encounter in the slums of La Paz using post-humanistic approaches in order to disrupt universalisms in current ‘child in nature’ debates

This paper theorizes children's interspecies relation with dogs in La Paz Bolivia utilizing post-humanism and new materialism as its approach. This approach allows for the deconstructing of human–nature binaries found in discourses central to the children in nature movement. Questioning the universalizing of children's experience in nature the paper considers three propositions. Firstly, what if children were viewed as nature rather than outside of it. Secondly, can the objects or ‘things’ of nature be viewed as animated. And finally, how sensitive is the contemporary imperative to reconnect children to a romanticized more natured life, to children's diverse worldly experiences. I explore these propositions drawing on a study where I have adopted a materialist ontology and theorized using the work of [Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press] and her concept of intra-action as adopted by Rautio [2013a. “Children Who Carry Stones in Their Pockets: On Autotelic Material Practices in Everyday Life.” Children's Geographies 11 (4): 394–408]. Based on my child–dog interspecies exploration, I will conclude by re-addressing the three propositions.     

Making gender–work practicable: situating men's reconstruction of ‘women's job’ in a Swedish supermarket's micro-politics

Based on empirical data from one Swedish supermarket, this article argues that men's reconstructing of ‘women's work’ in accordance with a masculinised sense of self what Simpson (2004, ‘Masculinity at Work: The Experience of Men in Female Dominated Occupations’, Work, Employment & Society 18, no 2: 349–368) calls ‘gender–work’ is not limited to individual men's perceptions and creations of self. Rather, by investigating the gendered boundary work in which the manager and other workers engage, this study shows how these reconstructions are legitimised and made practicable by organisational micro-politics. By emphasising the specific skills required by ‘their’ department – produce – the male workers distanced themselves from the routine and standardised stocking that dominated the work performed at the supermarket. This notion that working in the produce department required specialised knowledge was legitimised by the manager and the organisation of work at the supermarket. While at times, other workers (most of them women) challenged the boundaries of the produce department, they simultaneously re-established those boundaries by glossing over potential conflicts and maintaining equal treatment existed within the organisation.     

‘Well weather is not a girl thing is it?’ Contemporary amateur meteorology,gender relations and the shaping of domestic masculinity

Although there is a growing scholarship on the history of amateur meteorology, contemporary amateur meteorology has tended to remain a largely invisible social phenomenon. Moreover, questions of female involvement and gender relations therein have tended to be overlooked. This paper seeks to address this gap by drawing on interviews with members of one of the most important amateur meteorological networks in the UK—the Climatological Observers Link. The research identifies a predominantly male bias within amateur meteorology in the UK, offers insight into why and how this bias has emerged and explores the implications of this bias for gender politics in the home. It also considers the way in which, as a pursuit that is very much situated within the domestic sphere, amateur meteorology complicates traditional framings of the home as a female realm and contributes to a domestic masculinity.     

‘And now imagine her or him as a slave,a pitiful slave with no rights’: child forced labourers in the culture of remembrance of the USSR and post-Soviet Ukraine

This article examines the various components of the image of Soviet children, who were deported to Nazi Germany during the Second World War to perform forced labour, within the culture of remembrance of the USSR and post-Soviet Ukraine. In her analysis, the author emphasises that throughout the Soviet period the topic of forced labour had mostly instrumental significance and was used for a variety of propaganda tasks: during the war, to mobilise the population to struggle against the enemy; in its aftermath, to underscore and contrast the essence and policies of the post-war Western ‘democracies’ and the USSR; and, from the late 1960s, to accuse capitalist countries, above all the Federal Republic of Germany, of preparing for undertakings such as a new war or an arms race. With the collapse of the USSR, the Ostarbeiters' ‘territory of memory’ enlarged dramatically. In the new climate of democratic transformation, there were socio-legal initiatives which aimed to regulate the status of forced labourers, and the first steps were taken towards institutionalising Ostarbeiter associations. This, in turn, facilitated the process of analysing the construction and presentation of the image of the child Ostarbeiter on the level of state-legal regulation, institutional support, public interest and scholarly research that is taking place in contemporary Ukraine.     

Traditions of a Mountain Village

ＴｒａｄｉｔｉｏｎｓｏｆａＭｏｕｎｔａｉｎＶｉｌｌａｇｅ￥／／ＭＡＬＩＨＵＡＴｈｆａｒｍｉｎｇａｒｅａｉｎｔｈｅｍｉｄｄｌｅｒｅａｃｈｅｓｏｆｔｈｅＹａｒｌｕｎｇＺａｎｇｂｏＲｉｖｅｒｉｓｓａｔｕｒａｔｅｄｗｉｔｈａｎｃｉｅｎｔｔｉｎｔｇｒｅａｔｄｅ...     

What constitutes a ‘trip’? Examining child journey attributes using GPS and self-report

Active travel is associated with improved health and development outcomes in children. Accurate detection of children's travel behaviors and routes, however, is problematic. Travel diaries are often used to collect information on children's travel behaviors, yet no evidence for the accuracy of this methodology exists. This study investigated the validity of children's self-reported trips (origin, destination) compared with an objective criterion (global positioning systems units; GPS). Children (n = 10, 9–11 y) wore the GPS units for seven consecutive days between March and June 2011 and completed travel diaries daily with researcher assistance. Affinity group interviews were conducted in December 2011 with 30 children from two schools to garner perspectives on trip definition, neighborhood perceptions, and to illuminate GPS and travel diary findings. GPS journeys were manually compared with travel diary journeys for destination sequencing, start times, and travel mode. Accuracy in trip sequencing was compared by day type, and journey type using percentage differences and the chi-square (χ²) statistic. Of the 380 trips captured, 54.5% of journey sequences were fully or partially matched, 22.4% were GPS only trips and 23.2% travel diary only. Greater accuracy (full/partial match) was observed for weekdays than for weekend days and for the journey to or from school than for other journeys. Travel mode agreement existed for 99% of matched trips. Although children's travel diaries may confer contextual journey information, they may not provide completely accurate information on journey sequencing. Thematic analysis of affinity group data revealed that reasons for this are multifaceted, including differing concepts of what constitutes a ‘trip’. A combined approach of GPS and travel diary is recommended to gather a comprehensive understanding of children's journey characteristics.     

LHUNDRUP TSOMO Gets a New House—One of a series of stories of Lhundrup Tsomo

In the middle of the 1980s the Chinese Government launched a campaign of poverty relief entitled the"Eight-Seven Plan to Attack Poverty".Later scholars from the China Tibetology Research Center followed the implementation of the plan by conducting comprehensive academic studies.Subsequently, scholars closely observed the family of Lhundrup Tsomo and her community,Chundul Village in Lhundrup County of Lhasa,for ten years.In this paper and others to come,a series of"Lhundrup Tsomo's stories:Studies in the ...     

At the Horizons of the Subject: Neo-liberalism,neo-conservatism and the rights of the child Part One: From ‘knowing’ fetus to ‘confused’ child

The inability of the child to represent his or her own interests as a legal subject (by definition), and the continued interest of the state in the child as a futurity or resource locks the child in an eternal pas de deux: the child continually approaches the possibility of ‘personhood’ but never achieves it. In the past 40 years, in western nations the child's legal personhood has been simultaneously invoked and constrained: through a growing array of persons and organizations that, as an exteriority, purport to ‘best represent the child’; and through an ever more finely gradated mapping of the child's interiority—which filters the child's voice through a range of interpretive theories, and mechanisms. In this myopic and hyperopic reading of the child, the child's voice disappears. This paper is the first of two examining the relationship of the child to the liberal notion of the subject. In the case law explored around fetal rights and custody issues in the United States and elsewhere we find a paradoxical situation where the ‘fetus’ is granted a more authoritative voice in terms of what it ‘wants’ than is the child, whose wishes are perpetually called into question. Together these papers raise questions about the nature of the subject qua individual. They highlight the potential for a ventriloquist discourse around the child whereby neo-liberal and neo-conservative groups that purport to speak for the child mobilize their own political interests.     

Story of a Civil Worker

EDITOR'SNOTEWeknewGyamco,DhectoroftheCommunicthensCommissionoftheTthetAutonomousRegtonthroughhisaccomPlishmentsandrePutahon,butprevfouslydiden'thaveachancetotalktohim.Recentlywepnallyhadtheopportunitytomeethim.n1976,whenGyamcowasthesecretnyoftheCPCPengdoDistrict,LhunzhubCounty,thelocalscomplainedaboutpowershortages.Gyamcoreactedbyhav-ingapowerstationbuilttoservethelocalityFortheconstrUchonofthePOwerstationinl993,Gyamcoreeeiwiapromhonandleftthedis-trict.VlCE-MAYOROFLHASA,Gyam…