The marriage of Bourdieu and private ordering on Gretna's football field

This paper presents an in-depth study of the insolvency of Gretna football club. It sets the insolvency within the wider context of the field of football in Scotland and the special rules of the field which apply immediately upon the insolvency of a club and which are arguably at odds with general insolvency regulation in the UK. Insolvency presents a unique opportunity to study fields since it is at this point when there is a shortfall of funds that the field's power relations become most clear and the struggles on the field more visible. In order to provide a more nuanced complex picture of the football field, its actors and regulations, especially those relating to insolvency, this paper draws upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu. It also draws upon the concept of private ordering since the insolvency rules set by the governing body of the Scottish Premier League (a private company) have an impact that extend beyond the members of the League

Accounting for human rights : doxic health and safety practices - the accounting lesson from ICL

This paper is concerned with a specific human right - the right to work in a safe environment. It sets out a case for developing a new form of account of health and safety in any organisational setting. It draws upon the theoretical insights of Pierre Bourdieu taking inspiration from his assertion that in order to understand the "logic" of the worlds we live in we need to immerse ourselves into the particularity of an empirical reality. In this case the paper, analyses a preventable industrial disaster which occurred in Glasgow, Scotland which killed nine people and injured 33 others. From this special case of what is possible, the paper unearths the underlying structures of symbolic violence of the UK State, the Health and Safety Executive and capital with respect to health and safety at work. While dealing with one specific country (Scotland), the analysis can be used to question health and safety regimes and other forms of symbolic violence across the globe

Local taxation, spending and poverty : new choices and tax justice

In the environment of the 2014 Independence Referendum, a number of key questions have been raised about the future Scotland we want to see and live in. Core to such discussions have been the interventions on wealth creation and benefits, by the leaders of the Conservatives and Labour Parties in Scotland, respectively. However, and as rigorously debated in the Whose Economy? Seminar Series (Danson and Trebeck, 2011), such questions need to be considered in their wider contexts to identify and analyse fully all aspects of ‘who pays?’ and ‘who benefits?’. Indeed, several of the papers to that seminar series echoed previous classical work on poverty and the welfare state by Townsend, Abel-Smith and others which confirmed there are some long-standing myths to be addressed. These commentaries have suggested that all is not what it seems in the review of statistics of income and benefits, and robust, objective and clinical assessment of the dat

Are day-active small mammals rare and small birds abundant in Australia desert environments because small mammals are inferior thermoregulators?

Small desert birds are typically diurnal and highly mobile (hence conspicuous) whereas small non-volant mammals are generally nocturnal and less mobile (hence inconspicuous). Birds are more mobile than terrestrial mammals on a local and geographic scale, and most desert birds are not endemic but simply move to avoid the extremes of desert conditions. Many small desert mammals are relatively sedentary and regularly use physiological adjustments to cope with their desert environment (e.g., aestivation or hibernation). It seems likely that prey activity patterns and reduced conspicuousness to predators have reinforced nocturnality in small desert mammals. Differences such as nocturnality and mobility simply reflect differing life-history traits of birds and mammals rather than being a direct result of their differences in physiological capacity for tolerating daytime desert conditions

Endocrinology of osmoregulation and thermoregulation of Australian desert tetrapods: A historical perspective.

Many Australian tetrapods inhabit desert environments characterised by low productivity, unpredictable rainfall, high temperatures and high incident solar radiation. Maintaining a homeostatic milieu intérieur by osmoregulation and thermoregulation are two physiological challenges faced by tetrapods in deserts, and the endocrine system plays an important role in regulating these processes. There is a considerable body of work examining the osmoregulatory role of antidiuretic hormones for Australian amphibians, reptiles and mammals, with particular contributions concerning their role and function for wild, free-living animals in arid environments. The osmoregulatory role of the natriuretic peptide system has received some attention, while the role of adrenal corticosteroids has been more thoroughly investigated for reptiles and marsupials. The endocrinology of thermoregulation has not received similar attention. Reptiles are best-studied, with research examining the influence of arginine vasotocin and melatonin on body temperature, the role of prostaglandins in heart rate hysteresis and the effect of melanocyte-stimulating hormone on skin reflectivity. Australian mammals have been under-utilised in studies examining the regulation, development and evolution of endothermy, and there is little information concerning the endocrinology of thermoregulation for desert species. There is a paucity of data concerning the endocrinology of osmoregulation and thermoregulation for Australian desert birds. Studies of Australian desert fauna have made substantial contributions to endocrinology, but there is considerable scope for further research. A co-ordinated approach to examine arid-habitat adaptations of the endocrine system in an environmental and evolutionary context would be of particular value