Knowledge nodes and international networks of connection: representations of private philanthropy by elite higher education institutions

This paper investigates the social and cultural geographies of large-scale individual giving in supporting the work of ‘elite’ international universities. With public funding of higher education in general decline, universities in countries of the global North are increasingly seeking funding from alternative sources, including private philanthropy. Although scholarly work has examined corporate and foundational giving to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), there has been little enquiry into how donations from wealthy individuals are represented by universities in their official literature. Publications such as annual reports, giving reports and campaign reports are used strategically by HEIs to project a global image. We examine the official literature of 50 elite HEIs located across the globe, uncovering new discourses into the cross-cultural reach of universities. We draw attention to complex social and cultural relations between HEIs and philanthropists, describing their encounters with reference to debates on personal mobilities, world-making and global and social inequalities. We conclude by highlighting the implications for theoretical work on ‘strategic philanthropy’ and on the transformative nature of HEIs as global centres of knowledge.     

Policy Innovativeness and Interstate Compacts

Are some American states inherently more innovative than others? This question has confounded researchers for more than four decades. In this study we develop a measure of collective policy innovation that measures formal cooperative policy arrangements among the states, compare the measure to existing measures of internal state policy innovation, and assess whether existing innovativeness measures explain policy cooperation among the states. This test of the innovativeness concept addresses internal and external validity concerns that have long plagued this research tradition. Our multivariate analyses indicate that policy innovativeness is often a statistically and substantively important determinant of compact participation. These results suggest that (i) innovativeness is a meaningful and durable state attribute, (ii) several existing indices successfully capture the underlying latent concept, and (iii) innovativeness provides analytic utility in multiple empirical contexts.     

Agents in Inter-Action: Bruno Latour and Agency

This paper aims to describe Bruno Latour's contributions to the theory and methodology of agency in the Philosophy of Science and to apply them to the study of agency in archaeology. These contributions include an understanding of how artifacts or representations of the world emerge, what the best conditions to study them under are and how to understand the process of change they undergo. A case study using the Hopewell burial mounds of the Lower Illinois Valley will serve to demonstrate the application of this methodology.     

Work Design and the Labouring Body: Examining the Impacts of Work Organization on Danish Cleaners’ Health

Globalization and neoliberalism are having significant impacts upon the cleaning industry, as in the drive for greater work “efficiency”. One way in which cleaning companies have sought to increase efficiency is through the introduction of new equipment and forms of work organization. However, such moves appear to be having negative impacts upon cleaners’ bodies, and many report significant work‐related health problems. In light of this, here we explore the bodily consequences of two possible strategies for giving cleaners a healthier workday—increasing variation within cleaners’ current work tasks or allowing them to engage in a broader range of tasks through job enlargement. Drawing upon a literature review performed as part of a recent European Union project concerning the degree of physical strain to which cleaners are exposed during cleaning, a Danish laboratory study focusing on the loads to which cleaners’ shoulder muscles, backs, and hearts were exposed by different cleaning tasks, and a field study investigating the effects of job enlargement in Danish hospitals, we show that cleaning work is characterized by repetitive work for the muscles of the body's upper extremities and by high levels of dynamic and static force upon these muscles, regardless of which modes of cleaning (old or new style of cleaning tools) are used. Equally, monitoring of heart rates and assessment of the psychosocial environment suggest that simply interchanging current cleaning tasks does not provide sufficient variation in cleaners’ work to prevent work‐related musculoskeletal or cardiovascular damage, nor to create a less mentally stressful work environment. Although introducing greater work variation through job enlargement (such as combining cleaning with kitchen and portering tasks) is often presented as an effective way to minimize musculoskeletal and cardiovascular damage, our field study shows that even this does not provide sufficient variation in physical work conditions, although improvement in some cleaners’ mental health was noted. Therefore, we conclude, prevention of musculoskeletal and cardiovascular disorders demands a much more comprehensive strategy of work redesign than that proposed by some employers and government agencies. Whether this is likely, given competitive pressures towards increased outsourcing and privatization, is, of course, the question.