Development in the mountains of confusion: Guaribas under the Zero-Hunger Programme

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the implementation of the Zero-Hunger Programme (PFZ), the Brazilian government’s main development project, in its pilot community, the rural village of Guaribas in Northeast Brazil. It examines the economic, political, and social impact of project policies on local institutions and practices, highlighting the discrepancy between PFZ’s stated goals and its achievements five years after its inception. Despite the conspicuous shortcomings of project initiatives, PFZ intervention has yielded instrumental “side effects” for the Brazilian government, such as the expansion of state capacity and bureaucratic power, and the conversion of social policy into political capital for propaganda. Recent scholarship on development attributes to these “instrumental effects”, which enhance state jurisdiction and social control, the systematic reproduction of development projects in spite of their perceived failures. Similarly, I argue that PFZ is linked to a specific project of governance whose object is ultimately the shaping of human capacities for the production of cooperative subjects. Through the expansion of public education, the calculated use of mass media artefacts, and workshops in “citizenship education”, self-esteem, beauty, and hygiene, PFZ aims at a major reform of its beneficiaries’ skills, attitudes, aspirations, and psychological dispositions. In this sense, PFZ can be described as the instrument of a civilizing enterprise tied to a project of governance. This thesis contributes to the literature on development, which has typically focused on development projects in South Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia as vehicles for sociopolitical control, by describing novel strategies of a recent development project in a region understudied by development scholarship

The great divide? Occupational limbo and permanent liminality amongst ‘teaching only’ staff in higher education

In this paper, we contribute new theoretical perspectives and empirical findings to the conceptualisation of occupational liminality, specifically in relation to so-called ‘teaching-only’ staff at UK universities. Here, we posit ‘occupational limbo’ as a state distinct from both transitional and permanent liminality; an important analytic distinction in better understanding occupational experiences. In its anthropological sense, liminality refers to a state of being betwixt and between; it is temporary and transitional. Permanent liminality refers to a state of being neither-this-nor-that, or both-this-and-that. We extend this framework in proposing a conceptualisation of occupational limbo as always-this-and-never-that. Based on interviews with 51 teaching-only staff at 20 research-intensive ‘Russell Group’ universities in the United Kingdom, findings revealed participants’ highly challenging occupational experiences. Interviewees reported feeling ‘locked-in’ to an uncomfortable state by a set of structural and social barriers often perceived as insurmountable. These staff felt negatively ‘marked’ (Allen-Collinson, 2009), subject to identity contestation as academics, and were found to engage in negative, often self-deprecatory identity talk that highlighted a felt inability to cross the līmen to the elevated status of ‘proper academics’ (Bamber et al., 2017). The findings and the new conceptual framework provide sociological insights with wider application to other occupational spheres

Effects of social support on the mental health of the physically disabled in a Chinese context.

Wu Qiaobing.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-179).Abstracts in English and Chinese ; questionnaire also in Chinese.Abstract (English) --- p.iAbstract (Chinese) --- p.iiiAcknowledgement --- p.vTable of Contents --- p.viiList of Figures and Tables --- p.xChapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.6Chapter 2.1 --- Review of Major Concept: Social Support --- p.6Chapter 2.1.1 --- Conceptualization of Social Support --- p.6Chapter 2.1.2 --- Typology of Social Support --- p.8Chapter 2.1.3 --- Measurement of Social Support --- p.9Chapter 2.1.4 --- The Link between Social Support and Mental Health: Three Debates in Literature --- p.11Chapter 2.2 --- Review of Relevant Theories --- p.17Chapter 2.2.1 --- Social Network --- p.17Chapter 2.2.2 --- Social Exchange --- p.20Chapter 2.2.3 --- Social Capital --- p.23Chapter 2.3 --- Review of Empirical Studies on Social Support and Mental Health --- p.26Chapter 2.4 --- Implications for the Study --- p.34Chapter Chapter 3 --- Research Design --- p.38Chapter 3.1 --- Research Framework --- p.38Chapter 3.2 --- Research Methodology --- p.39Chapter 3.2.1 --- Sample --- p.40Chapter 3.2.2 --- Measurement --- p.42Chapter 3.2.3 --- Data Collection --- p.45Chapter 3.2.4 --- Data Analysis --- p.46Chapter Chapter 4 --- Research Finding I: Socio-Demographic Characteristics of the Physically Disabled and Their Social Support and Mental Health --- p.48Chapter 4.1 --- Socio-Demographic Characteristics of the Physically Disabled --- p.48Chapter 4.2 --- The Mental Health Status of the Physically Disabled --- p.52Chapter 4.3 --- Perceived Social Support of the Physically Disabled --- p.55Chapter 4.4 --- Received Social Support of the Physically Disabled --- p.59Chapter Chapter 5 --- Research Finding II: The Link between Social Support and Mental Health --- p.71Chapter 5.1 --- Bivariate Analysis --- p.71Chapter 5.2 --- Basic Model --- p.74Chapter 5.3 --- Test of Hypotheses: The Link between Social Support and Mental Health --- p.77Chapter 5.3.1 --- Distinguishing Effects of Support Unavailability from Support of Varied Degrees --- p.86Chapter 5.3.2 --- Testing Effects of Moderator Variables on the Relationship between Received Social Support and Mental Health --- p.89Chapter 5.4 --- Theoretical and Cultural Interpretations of Research Results --- p.99Chapter 5.4.1 --- The Functioning of Perceived Social Support --- p.102Chapter 5.4.2 --- The Negative Effect of Daily Care Support --- p.105Chapter 5.4.3 --- The Ambiguous Function of Economic and Emotional Support --- p.114Chapter Chapter 6 --- "Conclusion, Implication and Limitation" --- p.121Chapter 6.1 --- Conclusion --- p.121Chapter 6.2 --- Implication --- p.124Chapter 6.3 --- Limitation --- p.130Appendix I Questionnaire (English) --- p.132Appendix II Questionnaire (Chinese) --- p.145References --- p.15

Colonialisms, post-colonialisms and lusophonies: proceedings of the 4th International Congress in Cultural Studies

Colonialismos e pós-colonialismos são todos diferentes, mesmo quando referidos exclusivamente à situação lusófona. Neste contexto, mais do que procurar boas respostas, importa determinar quais as questões pertinentes aos nossos colonialismos e pós-colonialismos lusófonos. Com efeito, problematizar a própria questão é começar por descolonizar o pensamento. Em nosso entender, esta é uma das tarefas candentes no processo de re-imaginação da Lusofonia, que passa, atualmente, pela procura de um pensamento estratégico que inclua uma reflexão colonialista/pós-colonialista/descolonialista. Esta tarefa primeira, e mesmo propedêutica a qualquer construção gnoseológica, de descolonizar o pensamento hegemónico onde quer que ele se revele, não pode deixar de implicar as academias, centros de produção do saber e do conhecimento da realidade cultural, política e social. Neste sentido, descolonizar o pensamento sobre a Lusofonia passará por colocar em causa e instabilizar o que julgamos já saber e ser como ‘sujeitos lusófonos’, ‘países lusófonos’, ‘comunidades lusófonas’. Trata-se, assim, de instabilizar a uniformidade, mas também as diferenças instituídas, que frequentemente não são mais do que um novo género de cânone integrador e dissolvente da diferença. Por outro lado, não podemos deixar de praticar uma atitude vigilante, de cuidado e suspeição, em face do discurso sobre a diferença irredutível, que pode tornar-se (como no passado) na estéril celebração do exótico. Fazer com que a diferença instabilize o que oficialmente se encontra canonizado como ‘diferença dentro do cânone’, implica negociar e re-inscrever identidades sem inverter dualismos. Uma reflexão pós-colonial no contexto lusófono não pode evitar o exercício da crítica às antigas dicotomias periferia/centro; cosmopolitismo/ruralismo, civilizado/selvagem, negro/branco, norte/sul, num contexto cultural de mundialização, transformado por novos e revolucionários fenómenos de comunicação, que têm também globalizado a marginalidade. A tarefa de re-imaginar a Lusofonia implicará necessariamente a deslocação, inversão ou até implosão, do pensamento dual eurocêntrico, obrigando-nos a repensá-la dentro de uma mais vasta articulação entre local e global

Colonialisms, post-colonialisms and lusophonies: Proceedings of the 4th International Congress in Cultural Studies

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