Can the goldfish see the water? A critical analysis of ‘good intentions’ in cross-cultural practice

We claim to hold values that our students are responsible and autonomous adults whose success in our courses is best facilitated by our understanding of and respect for their specific backgrounds. We wish to be judged on these values by feedback provided by our students and those with whom we work. However, how well, if ever, are we able to ‘see the water,’ the cultural conditioning that leads us to act in ways that seem supportive of our students to us, but may be perceived differently by them? In this paper, we present conflicting evidence around perceptions of our practice. We discuss where things have gone well, and where interventions have possibly been traumatic for the recipients. We question whether, and how, our practice cross-culturally can be safe. We challenge ourselves and others to think carefully about our responsibilities to our students, whether our privileged positioning obliges us to share and if so, how that sharing can occur in ways that validate and equally respect the values of those with whom we work

Canadian Contributions to Social Reproduction Feminism, Race and Embodied Labor

Recent methodological advances in Canadian Social Reproduction Feminism foreground labor as a foundational concept of social theory and, as a result, address the structuralist bias critics of the paradigm have identified, while still grounding theory in a comprehensive analysis that accounts for specifically capitalist relations. Yet, to fully address issues of racialization, this broad and dynamic concept of labor needs to be extended and complexified. Along with accounting for the sex-gender dimensions of labor, we need also to attend to its socio-spatial aspects. In other words, it’s not just what we do to reproduce society, but where we do it that counts in an imperial capitalist world. And Social Reproduction Feminism, with its expansive definition of labor and its comprehensive focus on the full spectrum of practical activity, is uniquely positioned to accommodate such complexity without forfeiting attentiveness to social relations of class and/or capitalism. It has the potential, therefore, to provide intersectional analyses with a methodology that brings “both capitalism and class back into the discussion.

Overview of the labour market [March 2003]

The latest figures on the labour market in Scotland are summarised. Over the last quarter, Labour Force Survey (LFS) data showed that employment increased by 9 thousand in the three months to November 2002, to 2,415 thousand - up 0.4 percent on the previous quarter level. Over the year to November 2002, employment increased by 24 thousand. The employment rate - as a percentage of the working age population in employment - increased to 74.5 per cent, up 0.4 percentage points on the previous quarter. The paper provides an account of quarterly LFS employment over a two-year period to November 2002