2015 Colloquium Booklet Complete Papers

Papers submitted by DBA and DMC students to the UoG Doctoral Colloquium 2015

Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century

Globalisation has adversely affected working-class organisation and mobilisation; but international labour movement demobilisation is not necessarily an irreversible trend. Globalisation has prompted workers and their organisations to find new ways to mobilise. This book examines international labour movement opposition to globalisation. It chronicles and critically scrutinizes the emergence of distinctively new forms of labour movement organisation and mobilisation that constitute creative initiatives on the part of labour, which present capitalism with fresh challenges. The author identifies eight characteristics of globalisation that have proven problematic to workers and their organisations and describes and analyses how they have responded to these challenges since 1990 and especially in the past decade. In particular, it focuses attention on new types of labour movement organisation and mobilisation that are not simply defensive reactions but are offensive and innovative responses that compel corporations to behave more responsively and responsibly towards employees and society at large. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of globalisation, political economy, labour politics, economics, Marxism and sociology of work

Negotiating the occupational landscape : the career trajectories of ex-teachers and ex-engineers in Singapore

The central focus of this thesis is how professionals in Singapore negotiate\ud occupational mobility in their career life-course. The research seeks to understand the\ud factors that underpin and guide individual aspiration and motivations when making\ud occupational moves within career trajectories. Occupational mobility is fast\ud becoming the norm among the international skilled labour force, creating a need to\ud understand how such flexibility can be used advantageously, at the national level, for\ud workforce management. The approach taken in this study conceptualises the career\ud landscape as a field, and analyses mobility at the political, social and individual\ud levels. It examines the power that is enacted by government on its citizens and the\ud reflexive meaning making of individuals participating in occupational mobility. The\ud empirical work consists of interviews with ex-teachers and ex-engineers in Singapore.\ud The thesis presents an analysis of their narratives and identifies generic skills\ud acquired in pre-employment training and in employment as a key to understanding\ud how professional individuals are negotiating occupational fields.\ud Amongst the achievements of the research is the understanding of what happens\ud when individuals move from one occupation to the next. The research attempts to\ud humanise the 'human resource' and present, through individual narratives, the\ud individual's perspective on the changing nature of work, the need to participate in\ud boundaryless work contexts and their involvement in occupational mobility. The\ud thesis further illustrates the complexities that surround mobile behaviours of workers\ud within an Asian context, and presents ways of understanding the needs of such\ud professional workers so that they can negotiate the contemporary advanced economy\ud landscape more effectively. The resulting conceptual framework attempts to explain\ud how mobile Asian professional workers negotiate occupational mobility within a\ud context that is influenced by conservative Confucian ideologies that place nation\ud before self, and community before family. The research further emphasises the role\ud that state-initiated lifelong learning structures play in creating the mobile worker and\ud explores how generic skills facilitate occupational movements. It discusses the\ud importance of contextualised skill acquisition and practice for subsequent\ud recontextualisation in a new occupation and also aligns current career discourses to\ud the perceptions that these individuals have of their occupations. Finally, the role that lifelong learning is perceived to play when considering the need for career\ud adaptability competences, the space for recontextualisation of skills and the\ud ideologies that influence individual occupational mobility are presented. By looking\ud at those who have participated in it themselves, this research explores how\ud individuals engage in occupational mobility and explains how control can be\ud maintained over people's personal aspirations in the grand occupational mobility\ud scheme

The emancipated worker? A Foucauldian study of power, subjectivity and organising in the information age.

This study is about organisational control in the information age. Organisational control is examined through the changing landscape of power, subject and organisation. The focus is on examining escapes from the traditional practice of organisational control and the spaces of freedom which open up for workers to exercise their own agency. This examination takes place in the avant-garde professional work organisations of a pioneer industry in the world's leading information society, Finland. Theoretically, the study draws on the later works of Michel Foucault and on Critical Management Studies. Empirically, the contemporary operation of organisational control is examined as a case study, in which the Finnish mobile content providing industry constitutes the case. The research is qualitative, consisting of semi-structured interviews and thematic analyses. The findings indicate that the contemporary worker is a subject rather than an object. This impacts on organisational control, as objects can be externally controlled, but subjects cannot. Correspondingly, the ways of controlling and the locus of control have changed from external to internal. The traditional structures of domination, practices of management and preconceived worker subjectivities are largely absent in the organisations researched - and instead there is self-control. This form of control operates through the subjects actively working upon themselves and their own conduct. In contemporary organisations this culminates in the practice of self-management. Self-management is founded on the premise of agency. Overall, the means of control are no longer supported by structures of domination or based upon disciplinary techniques, but rely on relational, pastoral, power. This form of power operates directly through subjectivity. There is no objectifying system, but a subjectifying self. The findings also indicate that contemporary organisations, or any part of them, are no longer viewed as socio-technical systems that can be externally managed and controlled Instead they are seen as essentially consisting of human social processes - lateral relations, which are deeply embedded in action and in their contextuality, historicity and politicality. By implication, social processes and agency need to be incorporated into the analysis, and the social and political reality of organising, managing and working put on the agenda of future organisational research

Modelling land-use decision-making in encroached forests, Copperbelt Province, Zambia

Natural resource management is an important issue around the world in the light of increased global population size and the subsequent demands arising from an increased need for food, clean water and other ecosystem services. This has often resulted in the encroachment of protected areas and the adoption and maintenance of unsustainable land use practices. This study is concerned with the development of tools that will help us understand the characteristics of land use decision-making by people who illegally settle in protected areas. The study has the main aim of developing a model of local stakeholder land-use decision-making for the encroached forest areas in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. This will allow the modelling of the stakeholder land-use practices. This will help predict their effects on the environment of the Province. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) was used to develop a conceptual model of land use decision making in the study area and the outputs from SSM were used to develop a Belief Network (BN) model of land use decision making in the study area. Decision trees were also used to model the land use decision-making characteristics of the local stakeholders in the area. The findings suggest that SSM is a useful tool for the modelling of the complex problem situation in the study area and the subsequent development of solutions to the problems identified through participatory approaches. The research also showed that BNs and decision trees were able to model land use decision-making by using the agricultural activity as a basis for analysis. The findings suggest that BNs and decision trees are complementary and have the potential for addressing applications in land-use decision-making in informal settlements where available information is more likely to be scant and disparate

The Music Sound

A guide for music: compositions, events, forms, genres, groups, history, industry, instruments, language, live music, musicians, songs, musicology, techniques, terminology , theory, music video. Music is a human activity which involves structured and audible sounds, which is used for artistic or aesthetic, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The traditional or classical European aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color/timbre, and form. A more comprehensive list is given by stating the aspects of sound: pitch, timbre, loudness, and duration. Common terms used to discuss particular pieces include melody, which is a succession of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord, which is a simultaneity of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord progression, which is a succession of chords (simultaneity succession); harmony, which is the relationship between two or more pitches; counterpoint, which is the simultaneity and organization of different melodies; and rhythm, which is the organization of the durational aspects of music

The appropriation and dismembering of development intervention : policy, discourse and practice in the field of rural development in Benin

This book concerns a Community Development Programme which provides a vehicle for a theoretical discussion of the reproduction of the discourse and practice of development intervention in general, and the concept of rural development as a field of social interaction in particular. The actions on which the theoretical discussion is based took place in various settings: in ministry offices, within the development intervention institution (the CARDER) and at village level. The Community Development Programme ran in all the six provinces of Benin from 1989-1993 and involved five to eight villages in each province. The programme was implemented by the CARDERs, which held a quasi-monopoly over development interventions in Benin from 1975 (when they were created) until they were disbanded in the early 1990s with the demise of the Marxist-Leninist regimeThe programme's goal, as formulated in the policy statement, was 'to turn our dying villages into dynamic places'. It was presented as an open ended participatory type of programme, meant to be an original approach to improving the living conditions of rural people, since, according to an assessment made of the village situation, all previous projects implemented had failed to lift rural peoples from their poverty. But looked at closely, the programme seemed more an attempt by the Minister and his close staff to contribute to the general campaign launched by the regime to win back the people's enthusiasm and support, then at its lowest ebb due to the particularly severe socio-political and economic crisis in Benin at the end of the 1980s. The sharp drop in state earnings following the persistent crisis in Nigeria, together with, among other things, the weak management of state resources, had made it difficult for the government to meet its running costs, the most visible aspect being the delay in paying civil servant's salaries, sometimes by as much as five to eight months. A structural adjustment programme was being negotiated with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, together with a restructuring of agricultural services under which staff were to be reduced by more than 50 percent. This was to extend to all civil servants. The Community Development Programme, as with other aspects of the regime's campaign, failed to win back people's confidence. There were street demonstrations and various political and economic pressures, from within and without the country, that finally brought the regime to an end at the famous National Conference of February 1990. This context was neither outside nor above the people but was a part of the everyday reality of intervention institutions and villages alike, and contributed to the making of the socio-political landscape surrounding the programme.In the CARDERs, the Minister's policy statement - that was to launch this new approach - was incoporated into a state intervention framework and culture that dated back to or had its roots in the colonial administration. It had been reproduced continuously in the process of creating a nation state out of what was a heterogenous Dahomean colonial territory. In the Zou Province, the implemenatation of the programme started with an initiation phase that resulted in almost standard development plans for all the eight villges concerned. Yet the plans had been formulated and presented with a participatory rhetoric that had matched the Minister's orders and the development intervention language then current, while giving to the CARDERs structure and functioning an image of coherency. But behind the coherent image, the programme both reflected and generated many conflictive situations. Ad hoc as well as more stable groupings and leadership emerged or were reproduced out of unspoken criteria and preoccupations as varied as people's regions of origin, ethnic affiliation, religion, patron-client relations, career perspectives, private (family) problems and sometimes purely technical matters. The social interactions in which the actors involved in the Community Development Programme were engaged, generally guided by the various groupings, criteria and preoccupations mentioned above, were determining for decisions which afterwards were presented as state policy. Such interactions were also an integral part of the process of policy transformation to which the Community Development Programme was subjected. They helped to produce both formal and informal I charts' for the implementation of the programme, which were at odds with the official ones. Nevertheless, the process showed itself to be efficient in reproducing the hidden social realities within the Zou CARDER while at the same time giving it the image of being up to date in the latest fashion of development language and practice.In the villages, the programme was variously implemented, with very little connection to what had been planned or to the regular injunctions and instructions from the General Director and his monitoring staff. Activities developed in the name of the programme, and particularly the everyday life of these activities, differed from one village to the next depending on a multiplicity of factors, such as the balance of power between local political forces (the socio-political landscape), recent intervention adventures in a village, the particular interests of the village agents appointed to the programme, etc. In Togoudo (the case documented in this book), a significant factor in the implementation of the programme, and a factor that might have played some role in other villages too, was the settlement patterns of the local population. This factor contributed to producing the existing socio- political landscape, to the pattern of the local economy, and to individual and household income generating activities.In fact, Togoudo, a residential composite of Idaca people who had arrived from villages in the surrounding Dassa hills during the early years of the colonial administration, enjoyed a dynamic and diversified economy. It was linked to the national and regional economy through the market of Gbomina and by frequent short and long term migrations of its inhabitants to Nigeria, Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The main income generating activity of the village was agricultyural production, on land over which the settlers held only insecure and problematic ownership rights, a situation typical for the relatively recent farm settlements of the Idaca, Fon and Ditamari cultivators on Nagot and Mahi territory of central Benin. But for men, the most successful survival and self-achievement strategies in the village were those in which agricultural production was combined with animal husbandry and, in some cases, the trading of agricultural products. For women, in addition to agriculture and animal (pig) husbandry, activities such as food processing (mainly cakpalo from millet and maize, and oil and kluiklui from groundnuts), trading of agricultural products and petty trade were important for economic and social success. These activities were combined in different ways and in varying degree, depending on several factors relating to the capability and organisational skills and strategies of individuals and groups of actors for mobilising productive resources - chiefly land, labour and credit. One further asset, crucial to self-achievement strategies, was the mobilisation or insertion into the networks of people in different geographical locations. This was instrumental to people's access to labour, credit, market and other external opportunities and depended on (but at the same time protrayed) the local ideologies on development and the different ways in which the people individually and collectively conceived of and worked to improve their own well-being (the local definition of 'rural development').In Togoudo, the activities within the programme fell broadly into two categories: the building of socio-economic infrastructure in the village, and the formation of men and women's groups whose objective was to create income-generating opportunities. Socio- economic infrastructure had already been initiated by villagers before the arrival of the RDV. These included a storehouse for agricultural inputs (mainly cotton), a maternity centre, a classroom for the village school (with the assistance of a German donor) and the maintenance of water pumps and wells. The buildings were funded, and expected to be funded, entirely from the resources of the CV - the cotton grower's association - and from the cash and labour contributions of villagers. The RDV, taking advantage on his arrival of the pressure put on the CV board by young Communitst Party members, introduced himself as a specialist in peasant cooperatives (which he indeed was) and managed to gain access to the village scene. He smuggled himself into village affairs and was given authority to look at the management of CV resources. This allowed him to secure a significant share of these resources for what he called development work in the village. But this authority was resented and frequently challenged by groups within the village, as well as groups in the CARDER, who felt the RDVs intervention was a threat to their own professional prerogatives and hierarchical position in the village and within CARDER. For the CV Secretary, for individual members of the CV Board and for some CARDER agents who had interests in the existing state of affairs, the involvement of the RDV in the management of the CV was intolerable. These people made various attempts to divert CV resourses to usages other than those agreed upon at the CV general assembly or as dictated by CV byelaws; they favoured an increase in the share of CV revenue distributed to board members; they allocated credit to individual cotton growers; they increased the running cost of the CV etc. In doing so, even though their actions solved the critical problems of some growers, their motives were more to hamper the plans of the RDV than to serve the best interests of village development.The income generating men and women's groups were formally presented as the cooperative or pre-cooperative ventures of groups of poor peasants working together and sharing the produce on an equitable basis. But in fact they were either family groupings, or made up of members coopted selectively by their leaders on the basis of a number of criteria. Such groups rarely included people from the lowest rank of the locally constructed socio- economic ladder. Furthermore, collective activities were limited to a minimum, while sub-groups were informally constituted within the groups around activities and concerns not disclosed to the RDV (at least he seemed not to know of them) but considered more relevant to the survival needs of the members. In some ways, as had occurred in its incorporation into the CARDER, the Community Development Programme helped reproduce the conflicts, groupings and leadership already existing among actors at local level. Here too, the RDV smuggled himself into the existing village trends in group formation, which were based on a mixture of logics and principles derived from various previous intervention fashions and operations, and all somehow deviant from what were considered good cooperative ways and practice. But the RDV had his reasons for embarking on such trends. Through his contacts with the head of CARDER and potential donors he appropriated the activities started by the groups, using his rhetorical skills to bridge the gaps and presenting all as ligitimate attempts on his part to implement the Community Development Programme in the village.These activities, supposed to turn the dying village into a dynamic place, actually covered only very marginal aspects of the local economy. Moreover, many of them served only a limited range of the socio-economic categories present in the village, excluding those barely surviving or keeping their heads above water, while including those considered to be the well- off. In fact, the rhetorical presentations of CARDER and the programme in various settings, drawing on different bits of the programme, served more the self-reproducing ends of the intervention itself than they did the development they sought to bring about. They processed old jargons and permanently created their own realities and problems. Within the village itself, and within the CARDER, the programme as such was considered to be irrelevant. People were prone to forget its existence. Any social changes occurring in this context derived from dismembered pieces of the package being incorporated and utilised by individuals to serve the aims of their own daily preoccupations and survival strategies. The pieces were made concrete as they were taken up in the local 'field of rural development', in the arenas and grounds that emerged from putting into practice existing normative conceptions of well-being in rural areas, and developed historically into a specific field of social interaction where policy makers, development practitiioners, social scientists and rural producers engage, as stakeholders, in struggles and negotiations over individual and collective interests. The various pieces are to be found, therefore, in various arenas and grounds where people meet over issues that are important to them but that seem to have nothing to do with the programme itself. In such conditions, structural ignorance, gaps and discrepancies become normal and attempts to bridge them or document the process turn development practitioners and social scientists into stakeholders themselves in the field of rural development