Emotional responses to world inequality

Drawing on discussions with Kenyan, Mexican and British teachers, this paper reports on emotional responses to international socio-economic inequality. Emotional regimes are explored to identify what ‘appropriate’ responses to inequality are in a variety of local and national contexts. These include rural and urban settings, and social milieus ranging from elite to deprived. Politeness, hand-wringing and humour can create a protective distance; while sadness, anger and hope for change connect with the issue of inequality and challenge the associated injustices. Distancing and connecting emerge as central themes in the analysis. The spatial patterns of emotions align with participants' socio-economic positions, in more disadvantaged settings unapologetic anger about inequality was expressed, as was humour in the face of group or national misfortune. These emotional regimes can be understood within the wider context of participants' socio-economic position; their senses of injustice; and their views on the possibility of social change. I argue that social norms surrounding justice and distribution can influence levels of inequality, and vice versa. This is of particular importance given the societal damage caused by inequality, which is now widely acknowledged.This research was funded by the ESRC and Dudley Stamp Memorial Trust

World poverty - what can we do about it?

In this article I argue that the way poverty is framed in mainstream politics and the media illuminates some aspects of the issue, while obscuring others. This framing may to some extent be responsible for the lack of improvement in the situations in which poor people live worldwide, as efforts to alleviate poverty may not be addressing its real causes. Rethinking how we talk about poverty, one of the most pressing issues of our time, can help us to see what is missing from dominant explanations of poverty. This article gives an insight into the history of the concept of 'the poor', and presents some critiques of thinking on poverty and actions to alleviate poverty.ESRC +3 PhD Funding Dudley Stamp Memorial Fund gran

Discourses supporting socio-economic inequality in Kenya, Mexico and the United Kingdom

© 2016 Intellect Ltd Dossier. Socio-economic inequalities are often studied at the country or local level, which offers insight into local dynamics and perceptions. This article considers discourses of inequality within and between countries, enabling a consideration of the web of connections between places and ideas. The three studied countries are spread along a continuum, with varying national wealth and diverse regional locations: Kenya, Mexico and the United Kingdom. This international comparative approach identifies some key discursive ways of supporting inequality that persist in diverse neo-liberal settings. Specific discursive devices include the focus on personal aspirations, opportunities, denial of problems, discrediting alternatives and framing inequality as being natural

Relaxation energies and excited state structures of poly(para-phenylene)

We investigate the relaxation energies and excited state geometries of the light emitting polymer, poly(para-phenylene). We solve the Pariser-Parr-Pople-Peierls model using the density matrix renormalization group method. We find that the lattice relaxation of the dipole-active $1^1B_{1u}^-$ state is quite different from that of the $1^3B_{1u}^+$ state and the dipole-inactive $2^1A_g^+$ state. In particular, the $1^1B_{1u}^-$ state is rather weakly coupled to the lattice and has a rather small relaxation energy ca. 0.1 eV. In contrast, the $1^3B_{1u}^+$ and $2^1A_g^+$ states are strongly coupled with relaxation energies of ca. 0.5 and ca. 1.0 eV, respectively. By analogy to linear polyenes, we argue that this difference can be understood by the different kind of solitons present in the $1^1B_{1u}^-$, $1^3B_{1u}^+$ and $2^1A_g^+$ states. The difference in relaxation energies of the $1^1B_{1u}^-$ and $1^3B_{1u}^+$ states accounts for approximately one-third of the exchange gap in light-emitting polymers.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review

Challenging inequality in Kenya, Mexico and the UK

The structures that we use to think and talk about inequality influence how we make sense of disparities, and also contribute to political choices and calls for change. While local and national inequalities and perceptions thereof have been widely studied, studies at wider geographic scales are comparatively rare. Here I investigate how teachers in Kenya, Mexico and the UK critique inequality. From group discussions, three main arguments against inequality emerged in each of the three countries: (i) the framing of inequality as an inclusive and relational concept; (ii) moral distaste for the coexistence of extreme wealth with poverty; and (iii) attributing the causes of inequality to larger political and economic systems. The analysis reveals that when people describe themselves as being connected to, enmeshed within, responsible for, or morally outraged by inequality, their critiques of it tend to be stronger. In contrast, those who offer weaker critiques of inequality, position themselves as separate from it, or as having no leverage to challenge it. The strong discourses already in the public sphere offer support for policy interventions aimed at reducing inequality. This identification of stronger and weaker discursive challenges to inequality may be mirrored in public discussions of other global challenges.ESRC PhD +3 Studentship Dudley Stamp Memorial Trust research gran

The depths of the cuts: The uneven geography of local government austerity

Austerity, the sustained and widespread cuts to government budgets, has characterised Britain’s public policy since 2010. The local state has undergone substantial restructuring, driven by major budget reductions from central government. Hitherto, few studies of austerity in the UK have considered the interplay of national and local policies. We contribute a fine-grained spatial analysis of local authority budgets, highlighting their socioeconomically- and geographically-uneven impacts. We identify substantial variations between authorities in terms of funding, local tax-base, fiscal resources, assets, political control, service-need and demographics. We argue that austerity has actively reshaped the relationship between central and local government in Britain, shrinking the capacity of the local state, increasing inequality between local governments, and exacerbating territorial injustice.Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust British Academ

Climate Change and Young People in Uganda: A Literature Review

The disruptions of anthropogenic climate change are increasingly severe. People living in sub-Saharan Africa are especially exposed to these risks, and amongst them young people. It is well established that climate disruptions have the potential to halt education, displace populations, and wreck infrastructure. This rigorous literature review focuses on climate change in the landlocked East African country of Uganda, demographically the world’s third youngest country, where young people struggle to get by due to insufficient work opportunities. Extended to other countries in the Eastern and Central African region, the review considers what is known about the intersection of youth livelihoods and climate change; young people’s susceptibility to climate disruption due to limited resources and livelihood options; and the constraints around their responses. The review findings suggest the need for substantial youth informed interventions to bolster young people’s economic resilience and adaptive capacity given the worsening climate change and prolonged population growth. British Academy Youth Futures Programm

Theory of singlet fission in carotenoid dimers

We develop a theory of singlet fission in carotenoid dimers. Following photoexcitation of the “bright” state (i.e., a singlet electron–hole pair) in a single carotenoid, the first step in the singlet fission process is ultrafast intramolecular conversion into the highly correlated “dark” (or 2Ag) state. This state has both entangled singlet triplet-pair and charge-transfer character. Our theory is predicated on the assumption that it is the singlet triplet-pair component of the “dark” state that undergoes bimolecular singlet fission. We use valence bond theory to develop a minimal two-chain model of the triplet-pair states. The single and double chain triplet-pair spectra are described, as this helps explain the dynamics and the equilibrated populations. We simulate the dynamics of the initial entangled pair state using the quantum Liouville equation, including both spin-conserving and spin-nonconserving dephasing processes. By computing the intrachain and interchain singlet, triplet, and quintet triplet-pair populations, we show that singlet fission critically depends on the interchain coupling and the driving potential (that determines endothermic vs exothermic fission)

Large scale numerical investigation of excited states in poly(phenylene)

A density matrix renormalisation group scheme is developed, allowing for the first time essentially exact numerical solutions for the important excited states of a realistic semi-empirical model for oligo-phenylenes. By monitoring the evolution of the energies with chain length and comparing them to the experimental absorption peaks of oligomers and thin films, we assign the four characteristic absorption peaks of phenyl-based polymers. We also determine the position and nature of the nonlinear optical states in this model.Comment: RevTeX, 10 pages, 4 eps figures included using eps