Towards a Gendered Understanding of Conflict

Summaries Conflict has only recently been examined in the context of development studies and a gender analysis is frequently lacking. Nevertheless a gender analysis is an important tool for understanding how economic, social and political divisions which underlie conflict situations are cross?cut by gender divisions and how men and women are caught up in and affected in different ways by struggles over power and resources. This article draws out the potential relevance of feminist writings on conflict, peace and gender ideologies for the analysis of conflict from a gender and development perspective. It challenges essentialist notions of men and women and proposes instead that there needs to be an analysis of the ways in which gender identities are re?defined and manipulated in processes of conflict. The article also addresses the question of intervention, arguing that gender analysis is an essential, if neglected, tool for interventions for development and relief agencies in conflict situations

Not just class: towards an understanding of the whiteness of middle class schooling choice

There is an increased attention to questions of class in studies of education, particularly among those who adopt a Bourdieuian perspective. This paper uses the example of the burgeoning literature on school choice and class (and in particular middle 'classness') to argue that there are serious analytical and sociological costs to a singular focus on class without due attention to race. Using qualitative interview material, it will show instances where the racialised nature of schooling choice has been ignored or overlooked. It argues that examining the literature through the lens of race and class is imperative for an understanding of the complexities of class and white middle classness in particular

Americans in the Making : Myths of Nation and Immigration in Naturalization Ceremonies in the United States

Citizenship ceremonies have been practiced for at least a century in the United States. This article explores what citizenship ceremonies – the rituals created to ‘make’ new citizens – can tell us about understandings of citizenship and the nation. Focusing on the case of the US, the paper asks who is being held up as the welcomed citizen and who is excluded in these public events. What does it mean to ‘welcome’ a new citizen and how are migration and national history imagined in these events? These questions become increasingly urgent in the context of securitization and given current debates about the withdrawal of citizenship from suspected ‘extremists’

All in the mix

All in the mix: class, race and school choice considers how parents choose secondary schools for their children and makes an important intervention into debates on school choice and education. The book examines how parents talk about race, religion and class – in the process of choosing. It also explores how parents’ own racialised and classed positions, as well as their experience of education, can shape the way they approach choosing schools. Based on in-depth interviews with parents from different classed and racialised backgrounds in three areas in and around Manchester, the book shows how discussions about school choice are shaped by the places in which the choices are made. It argues that careful consideration of choosing schools opens up a moment to explore the ways in which people imagine themselves, their children and others in social, relational space

Which Factors Determine The Capital Structure of Non-financial Publicly Traded Irish Firms

In this paper, we trace the indebtedness of the non-financial corporate sector in Ireland over the period from 1980 to 2007. This period witnessed an episode of leveraging to 2001, following by a period of deleveraging to 2007. Our findings suggest that fundamentals can help explain why firms became more indebted between 1980 and 2001, but the deleveraging that took place after 2001 is due to factors other than the fundamentals included in our analysis. While we cannot say definitively, our findings may be in line with evidence which points to a concerted effort on the part of Irish firms to reduce their debt financing since 2001

Which Factors Determine The Capital Structure of Non-financial Publicly Traded Irish Firms

In this paper, we trace the indebtedness of the non-financial corporate sector in Ireland over the period from 1980 to 2007. This period witnessed an episode of leveraging to 2001, following by a period of deleveraging to 2007. Our findings suggest that fundamentals can help explain why firms became more indebted between 1980 and 2001, but the deleveraging that took place after 2001 is due to factors other than the fundamentals included in our analysis. While we cannot say definitively, our findings may be in line with evidence which points to a concerted effort on the part of Irish firms to reduce their debt financing since 2001

Diversity in place: narrations of diversity in an ethnically mixed, urban area

This paper explores the implications of representations of places as ‘diverse’, particularly for those who live in them. Arising from an interdisciplinary research project, the paper takes one neighbourhood in Manchester (Cheetham Hill) and explores some of the narratives about it produced by residents and those who have a ‘professional’ stake in the area. These are put in the context of public narratives of the area, as well as Census data. The paper examines how different types of data generate different stories and how different methodological approaches can produce varied understandings of place, which have implications for how a place comes to be known and for the potential impact on the distribution of resources. Cheetham Hill is known as ‘diverse’, or even ‘super-diverse’, but the paper examines how this label serves to obscure lived experience and inequalities and can reveal ambivalences over the ethnic difference and urban living

Making a livable life in Manchester: doing justice to people seeking asylum

This thesis explores how people struggle to make livable lives in the conditions of existence of seeking asylum in the UK. The study is based on ethnographic research, conversations and participant observation, with people seeking asylum in Manchester. Grounding the research in their narratives is a contribution to decolonizing knowledge and doing justice to the sentience of people who are marginalized and pathologized. The narratives are brought into dialogue with feminist and decolonial philosophy and political theory, and with empirical studies of 'refugeedom' from a number of disciplines, to produce a new field of connection from which to map the terrain involved in theorizing livability. While the whole thesis seeks to respond to the narratives, there is a detailed focus on three dimensions which participants emphasize as crucial to livability: settlement in Manchester; the prohibition of employment; the asylum application procedures. These are moments in which livability is claimed as both ethics and practice. From the perspective of the narratives and the ethics which permeate them, livability opens up into questions of recognition, social justice and care. People claim commonality: recognition as human, equality and inclusion in social goods, and care in public settings. These are the practical and ethical supports of livability. The narratives point also towards critiques of 'refugeedom', the policies and practices that form the discursive and material conditions within which people seeking asylum attempt to make livable lives.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo