Cultural economy and the creative field of the city

I begin with a rough sketch of the incidence of the cultural economy in US cities today. I then offer a brief review of some theoretical approaches to the question of creativity, with special reference to issues of social and geographic context. The city is a powerful fountainhead of creativity, and an attempt is made to show how this can be understood in terms of a series of localized field effects. The creative field of the city is broken down (relative to the cultural economy) into four major components, namely, (a) intra-urban webs of specialized and complementary producers, (b) the local labor market and the social networks that bind workers together in urban space, (c) the wider urban environment, including various sites of memory, leisure, and social reproduction, and (d) institutions of governance and collective action. I also briefly describe some of the path-dependent dynamics of the creative field. The paper ends with a reference to some issues of geographic scale. Here, I argue that the urban is but one (albeit important) spatial articulation of an overall creative field whose extent is ultimately nothing less than global

The place of self-employment in the European context : evidence from nine country case studies: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom

International audienceChapter 4 presents an overview of the various regulatory and legal frameworks around self-employed workers, the main institutional arrangements and a state of the art examination of social dialogue in each country case study. Nine European countries are covered (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK), embodying different welfare state regimes and diverse models of labour market and profession regulation. The country studies present the same structure, which includes an analysis of the institutional framework, the public policies supporting self-employment and the emergent and innovative strategies of collective representation. The picture that emerges from the country studies is small reforms at the margin and great fragmentation of the measures implemented, accompanied by institutional experimentalism and some innovative strategies of collective representation, carried out by new actors in the industrial relations arena

Imaging of head and neck lipoblastoma: case report and systematic review

Lipoblastoma is a rare and benign tumour arising from embryonal fat cells, predominantly diagnosed in children younger than 3 years old. The most frequent locations are the extremities and trunk, while the head and neck areas are more rarely affected (10–15% of total cases). Clinically, the most common presentation is a fast-growing painless mass. Ultrasound is the first-line imaging examination, but Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) allows for better definition of the relationships with the adjacent vascular and muscular structures. It can help to identify the lipomatous components, and it is useful for preoperative planning. However, the definitive diagnosis is provided by histopathological examination. Complete surgical excision is the first-line treatment, with a good prognosis in case of total eradication. We report the case of a 7-month-old male child with a rapidly growing mass that had typical radiological features of lipoblastoma

Autonomy under contract: the case of traditional free-range poultry farmers

This article explores the autonomy developed by free-range poultry farmers in their daily work. In this type of livestock production, farmers are linked by a contract to a farmer organization, to which they sell their broilers in exchange for a payment resembling a salary. The farmers do have autonomy in their work, which is framed by a set of prescriptions and rules. As they experience the same constraints, farmers involved in the same production mode develop a collective identity. Relationships of confidence progressively develop between the farmers and their technical staff (veterinary practitioners and production technicians). These good relationships strengthen the collective identity while also enabling the collective work between the three professionals. Veterinary practitioners and production technicians consecutively share some of the constraints and transfer part of their decision-making to the farmers. The latter thereby acquire more autonomy, even in fields apparently out of their reach. We illustrate the latter idea with the example of antimicrobial use. We observe that while strictly supervised by veterinary practitioners, farmers nevertheless manage to get involved in the decision underlying the prescription of antimicrobials