From Idealism to Realism: Women,Feminism and Empowerment in Nicaraguan Tailoring Co-operatives

Co-operatives have been widely promoted as the ideal type of project for women. Because of the focus on income earning, they have been seen as less threatening than more explicit attempts to organize feminist consciousness-raising groups. Based on field research conducted in 1988, this article discusses the experience of women in the Nicaraguan tailoring co-operatives. After the 1979 Revolution, these were set up on a large scale as part of a wider economic policy and grassroots political mobilization. After an initial period of expansion in which many women benefited both in improved income and access to training and management experience, the co-operatives found themselves in serious difficulty by 1988. It is argued that even without the wider economic crisis in Nicaragua, they would have faced serious problems without extensive and probably unsustainable state support. Although co-operative employment has considerable potential, the Nicaraguan case highlights the need for new thinking on ways to resolve basic tensions between economic efficiency and worker participation. It also casts doubt on their viability as a development alternative for women, without specific attention to basic gender inequalities.     

Bronze Age Globalisation and Eurasian Impacts on Later Jōmon Social Change

Journal of World Prehistory - From northern China, millet agriculture spread to Korea and the Maritime Russian Far East by 3500–2700 BC. While the expansion of agricultural societies across...     

When Studies Collide*

Environmental epidemiology increasingly is being used as a foundation for environmental health policy. Since environmental epidemiologic studies have increased dramatically in number, approaches are needed to interpret them. Two approaches used in epidemiology are rules of evidence and meta-analysis. Rules of evidence pertain to the consistency, strength, uniqueness, and medical basis of the relationship between disease and risk factors such as chemicals. Meta-analysis is a systematic and rigorous approach to comparing studies and understanding their heterogeneity. Dioxins, benzene, and formaldehyde are three chemicals that are at the forefront of health policy debates. These chemicals illustrate some of the conditions under which researchers are drawn or are not drawn to approaches to compare studies. A meta-analysis was not conducted for dioxins or benzene, but was conducted for formaldehyde. Rather than addressing study comparisons, epidemiologic studies of dioxins are focusing on expanding the number of health effects studied and obtaining greater specificity for exposures, whereas studies of benzene are focusing on effects at low dose exposures. In the case of formaldehyde, meta-analysis has strengthened the evidence for some health effects beyond what individual studies could provide. Thus, whether rules of evidence and meta-analysis approaches to synthesizing information are used can depend upon where the debates are focused.     

Transformational versus transactional styles of cabinet leadership in Australian politics

Burns's classic study of leadership distinguished two types of leader. Transformational leaders are visionaries who are able to persuade followers to transcend their own self‐interest for the sake of a larger good. Transactional leaders, on the other hand, base their relationships with followers on an exchange, such as jobs for votes. The transformational/transactional model of leadership has been adapted by Bass for use in organisations. However, Burns's analysis focuses on what may be termed macro‐level leadership of entire states or organisations, whereas Bass's approach is used to study micro‐level leadership where there is ongoing direct interaction between leader and followers. This paper examines the cabinet leadership styles of four Australian political leaders: Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, John Cain and Joh Bjelke‐Petersen. Cabinet ministers who served under these leaders were asked to complete a questionnaire rating the leadership behaviours they experienced. The results are compared with the evidence on leadership style presented in biographical accounts.     

Moving stories: precarious work and multiple migrations

According to the United Nations over 3% of the global population or 232 million people currently live outside their country of birth. Their significance as a growing proportion of the labour force in many European countries is widely known. It is also evident that women – many of them young – are increasingly represented among economic migrants and asylum seekers. However, the longer term contribution of women, as migrants and as workers, is less well recorded. Here, I explore the connections between migration and employment, through the lens of oral histories undertaken with women who moved to the UK. Their life stories illustrate the growing diversity among female migrants as well as the changing nature of women’s employment. My key focus is, however, not on the work these women migrants undertook in the UK, but on precarious forms of waged work engaged in during the migration journey itself. I also reflect on oral history as a method and the problems of writing difference for feminist scholars working with and on women migrants.