Ethnographic Understandings of Gender and Economic Transition in Siberia: Implications for Planners and Policy Makers

Economic transition has been defined by neo-liberal restructuring policies and understandings. Using ethnographic data from Omsk, Russia, I examine structural adjustment policy implementation in the context of socially constructed gender norms. These policies have complicated implications for women and men's economic survival. The ethnographic understandings gained from interviews with women provide vital information that would improve planning processes in Omsk. For example, using an economic gardening approach to support women's small business development and workforce development targeting survivors of violence would advance women's economic self-sufficiency. I suggest that if planners use ethnographic understandings they will be able to more effectively respond to planning challenges such as poverty, education and health care issues.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

John Cain, John Cain's Years. Power, Parties and Politics (Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1995) pp.323 $29.95 ISBN 0 522 34615 7.

Braham Dabscheck, The Struggle for Australian Industrial Relations (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1995) pp.194 $26.95 ISBN 0 19 553486 7.

Timothy Doyle and Aynsley Kellow, Environmental Politics and Policy Making in Australia (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1995) pp.296 $32.95 ISBN 0 7329 2794 5.

Roy Green and Rodin Genoff (eds), Making the Future Work: Crisis and Change in the South Australian Economy (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993) pp.254 $26.95 ISBN 1 86373 526 7.

Comparative and international politics

Howard Adelman, Allan Borowski, Meyer Burstein and Lois Foster (eds), Immigration and Refugee Policy: Australia and Canada Compared. 2 Vols. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1994) pp.725 $34.95 @ Vol.1 ISBN 0 52285 559 2, Vol.2 ISBN 0 52284 560 6.

David Arase, Buying Power: The Political Economy of Japan's Foreign Aid (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1995) pp.307 $US49.95 ISBN 1 55587 447 9.

Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament. State Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995) pp.216 $US18.95 ISBN 1 55587 567 9.

Bruce J. Berman and Colin Leys (eds), African Capitalists in African Development (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.275 $US45.00 ISBN 1 55587 417 7.

Robert Ellas and Jennifer Turpin (eds), Rethinking Peace (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.380 $US19.95 ISBN 1 55587 488 6.

John R. Faust and Judith F. Kornberg, China in World Politics (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995) pp.281 SUS19.95 ISBN 1 55587 427 4.

Elie Kedourie, Nationalism, 4th ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) pp.154 $US16.95 ISBN 0 63118 885 1.

Jan‐Erik Lane and Svante Ersson, Comparative Politics: An Introduction and New Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) pp.270 $35.95 ISBN 0 7456 1257 1.

Rosemary Righter, Utopia Lost: The United Nations and World Order (New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1995) pp.420 $58.20 ISBN 0 87078 358 0.

Herbert F. Weisberg (ed.), Democracy's Feast: Elections in America (New Jersey: Chatham House, 1995) pp.353 $US29.95 ISBN 1 56643 011 9.

Spencer Zifcak, New Managerialism: Administrative Reform in Whitehall and Canberra (Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1994) pp.229 $39.95 ISBN 0 33519 304 8.

Political theory and methodology

R. Darcy and Richard Rohrs, A Guide to Quantitative History (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1995) pp.323 $35.25 ISBN: 0 275 95237 1.

Ernest Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994), pp.225 $35.00 ISBN 0 241 00220 6.

Jurgen Habermas, The Past as Future, interviews with Michael Haller (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) pp.181 $34.95 ISBN 0 74561 454 X.

G.J. Mulgan, Politics in an Antipolitical Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) pp.215 $US19.95 ISBN 0 745 60813 2.

Hugh Stretton and Lionel Orchard, Public Goods, Public Enterprise, Public Choice: Theoretical Foundations of the Contemporary Attack on Government (London: Macmillan Press, 1994) pp.301 $39.95 ISBN 0 33360 725 2.

Vernon Van Dyke, Ideology and Political Choice; the search for freedom, justice, and virtue (Chatham: Chatham House Publishers, 1995) pp.320 $US24.95 ISBN 1 56643 017 8.     

Reconstruction of diffusion processes at local scales: the 1846, 1882 and 1904 measles epidemics in northwest Iceland

Because medical records of individuals contracting measles were not kept in northwest lceland for epidemics before 1904, the spread of the disease in 1846 and 1882 has been traced from notifications of death recorded in burial registers and census returns. Using this evidence, a time-space matrix of measles deaths has been constructed and the dynamics of the diffusion process through a necklace of small communities strung along the coast has been analysed. In each of the three epidemics the mortality curve corresponded closely to an S-shaped logistic model, each new epidemic passing through the area more rapidly than its predecessor. The operation of a neighbourhood effect from a single point of introduction implies that the disease should move in a wave-like form through the area. Whereas the 1882 epidemic advanced steadily as a wave-front progression characteristic of the neighbourhood effect, those of 1846 and 1904 had strong spatial biases towards the parish of Eyri. The intense localization of the outbreaks in 1846 and 1904 appears not to be related directly to distinctive features in the demography or form of the settlement. In 1904 a confirmation service held in Eyri church brought many victims into contact with a measles carrier, but no special circumstances have been reported or can be deduced for 1846.     

Discourse, Party, and Policy: The Case of Abortion, 1965–1972

The parameters of the contemporary abortion debate were established in the pre-Roe period between 1965 and 1972, when groups and forces on the state and manual level competed to redefine the issue in order to pass new policies regulating it. This article traces the abortion politics of New York and Pennsylvania, the two states that led the nation in creating abortion policies before Roe, by looking at the relationship between the discourses created by various groups, the agree of party support they received, and the disparate policies that each state pawed as a result.     

Locating migrant Latinas in a diverse economies framework: evidence from Chicago

In this article I use an intersectional diverse economies framework and weak theory to build knowledge about migrant Latinas' economic spaces in Chicago. Drawing on qualitative data, I demonstrate how multiple and dynamic identities are linked to economic practices. I show that Latina migrants are not limited to capitalist or noncapitalist forms of economic engagement within neoliberal structures or to single spaces within or outside ethnic economies. Their multiple and dynamic practices shifted, as did their identities and geographies. I captured a snapshot of one migrant Latina economic community and provide insights about the nature and scale of its activities as well as the opportunities, and obstacles it faces. I propose future research and policy resulting from seeing economies differently. What kinds of programs might support collective economies and migrant Latina crafts? How might we re-envision workforce development programs if we see economies differently? What kinds of creative campaigns and advocacy do we need with new kinds of economies? More data and reflection on the nature and scale of intersectional identities within migrant (and other) economic communities and the geoeconomic ramification within those communities is needed. Furthermore, I call for the imagination of new global forms and practices that respond to the crisis that the current economic structures are facing.