Revenge and Injustice in the Neoliberal City: Uncovering Masculinist Agendas

The literature on the Western city as a site of "actually existing neoliberalism" has done much to expose the injustices wrought by new modes of urban governance. In particular, this literature has highlighted the increasing exclusion of minority groups from the spaces of the central city. To date, however, there has been little sustained exploration of the gendered dimensions of this process. In this paper I offer such a gendered reading, suggesting that neoliberal policy serves to recentre masculinity in the cityscape at the same time that it encourages capital accumulation. I demonstrate this by noting some of the forms of revenge currently being exacted on prostitute women in Western cities, reading such actions as symptomatic of urban policies that serve both capital and the phallus. In conclusion, I suggest that the conceptual framework of neoliberalism is useful for making sense of contemporary urban restructuring, but only if we recognise that the resulting city can be mapped along axes other than those fixated on capital and class.     

United by a Common Language? Trade Union Responses in the UK and India to Call Centre Offshoring

Abstract: The offshoring of business processes from the global North to low‐cost countries of the global South has grown spectacularly in the current decade. Self‐evidently, transnational relocation presents considerable challenges for organised labour since it suggests both a ‘race to the bottom’ in respect of pay, conditions and workers' rights and wholesale redundancies in the developed economies. This paper examines the specific case of the migration of call centres from the UK to India and trade union responses in both geographies. Informed by theoretical developments, insights and evidence from diverse disciplines and literatures, the authors concur particularly with Herod's conviction that union strategies to counter TNCs should not be counterposed between ‘organising globally’ and ‘organising locally’and that ‘organising at both scales simultaneously may best serve their goals’. Following reflection upon the nature of the call centre and consideration of important contradictions in the offshoring process, we present evidence of UK union responses ranging from the nationalistic, even xenophobic, to the internationalsist, and conclude that membership mobilisation on a principled basis has been key to the limited successes unions have achieved. The paper also evaluates developments in India and the emergence of an embryonic organisation UNITES which is attempting to organise its call centre and business process outsourcing (BPO) workforce. We conclude by considering the gap between the potential and the reality of effective internationally co‐ordinated union activity.     

Re-regulating the Gambling Industry: Regulatory Reform in Victoria and New South Wales, 1999–2006

Historically, in Australia, gambling policy and regulation have been the sole responsibility of Australian State and Territory governments. However, in 1998–99 the Commonwealth commissioned an unprecedented national inquiry into gambling that was highly critical of existing gambling policies and regulatory regimes. The Productivity Commission proposed a ‘blueprint’ for an effective, independent gambling regulatory system. Seven years on, this article revisits Australian gambling regulation to present a contextualised account of regulatory reform in Victoria and New South Wales (NSW). It finds that that they have taken a markedly different approach to structural reform. Neither State has adopted the Productivity Commission's ‘ideal’ regulatory model. Reforms have been shaped by local circumstances and government priorities, rather than the regulatory principles and functions outlined by the Productivity Commission.     

The Ballast Trade: An Economic Driver In Seventeenth- And Eighteenth-century Newcastle Upon Tyne

The domination of the economy of Newcastle upon Tyne by the coal industry during the seventeenth- and eighteenth - centuries is well known. Many ships arriving to collect a cargo of coal did not carry cargo but carried ballast, often in the form of sand or gravel. Over many years a vast quantity of ballast was deposited along the banks of the river, often spilling into the water, causing obstruction to river traffic. The management of ballast became a major pre-occupation for the Burgesses of Newcastle and a complex organisation evolved to manage the problem. Ships masters paid fees to the town to deposit ballast at ballast staiths which was then conveyed to the ballast hills at some distance from the river. The cumulative amount of these fees provided a substantial income both to the town and the Ballast Conveyors who leased and ran the ballast staiths, resulting in significant competition between the leading citizens in the town to obtain a lease to work a ballast shore. The ballast trade and its associated social, political and business networks played a very important and previously little understood role in the economy of Newcastle during this period.