From theory to impact: bringing work-life initiatives into the mainstream

In this special issue we focus on the work and influence of Sue Lewis, one of the Community, Work and Family’s two founding editors. In launching this journal Sue, together with Carolyn Kagan, aimed to encourage debate and critical examination of, and reflection on, existing perspectives, frameworks and practices (Kagan and Lewis, 2015). They also explicitly aimed “to publish work that challenged the status quo, encouraged personal reflection and reflexivity, and put professional and lay views side by side” (Kagan and Lewis, 2015). For this special issue we invited researchers who have worked with Sue at different stages of her career – from her Ph.D. supervisor (Cary Cooper), some of her international research partners (Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Ellen Kossek), her previous colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University (Carolyn Kagan, Rebecca Lawthom), her national and international research partners on a series of European projects (Julia Brannen, Ann Nilsen, Laura den Dulk, Bram Peper), through to one of Sue’s former Ph.D. students and colleague at Middlesex University (Uracha Chatrakul Na Ayudhya) and early career researchers (Sweta Rajan-Rankin). In the articles that are to follow, the authors draw upon and highlight the considerable and invaluable influences that Sue’s work has had in the field of Community, Work and Family

Family as a eudaimonic bubble:women entrepreneurs mobilizing resources of care during persistent financial crisis and austerity

Drawing on the conceptualization of family as a eudaimonic bubble the study explores how women entrepreneurs mobilize familial resources to navigate the gendered challenges faced during persistent financial crisis and austerity in Greece, a country affected by acute socio‐economic crisis. Through qualitative interviews with women who started their own business during the financial crisis it investigates how the allocation of resources and opportunities built on care enabled women to start and sustain their own business and achieve a degree of normative conformity, creating social cohesion in the here and now. The analysis reveals the transformational potential of familial care by illustrating three modes of resources of care that contribute to business viability, and positions the family, an organizing principle, in the centre of research on gendered mobilizations in crisis economies. In that way the study critically contributes to debates regarding gender, entrepreneurship, and austerity

The effects of flexibilization on social divisions and career trajectories in the UK labour market

The UK has been characterized as a liberalmarket economy with a liberal residual welfare system. Relative to other Western European economies, British workers have low levels of employment protection and limited support from the social security system. Erosion of legal protection and trade union support further accelerated during the 1980s and 1990s. Although employment laws introduced by the ‘New Labour’ government that was in power from 1997 to 2010 and European Directives aimed at protecting part-time and temporary workers have to some extent alleviated the problems associated with the flexibilization of work, employment protection remains low, which particularly affects young people entering the labour market and older people on the cusp of retirement

Theory Actions in X Chapters/Actions Theory in X Acts : Talk and Twerk

The result of the project is a short video documentation of reciprocal lesson given by the twerking instructress and the teacher of the rhetoric. We can easily observe how the smart nonverbal choreography of speech is joining the erotically explicit dance. Women bodies are shot by camera during the training. They exercise proper breathing techniques first, then nonverbal expression and finally they try to articulate diverse notions on twerking. After the rhetoric lesson is given, they change the positions of teacher and the person being taught. It's time to learn how to twerk. In the final sequence we can see both women performing short twerk choreography on hip-hop music track made originally for the project