Balancing school and work with new opportunities:changes in children’s gendered time use in Ethiopia (2006–2013)

We explore the temporal dimension of childhood, through time use of boys and girls in Ethiopia, focusing on the relationship between children's work and school attendance. We argue that children's time use reflects both current exigencies and more strategic future-orientated considerations, with work mainly serving the former, and education, the latter. We compare two cohorts of children aged 12 years from Young Lives longitudinal study, interviewed at two different points in time, 2006 and 2013. We examine the role of education aspirations, labour demand and structural factors such as household wealth and composition. Contrary to expectations, increased returns to work in rural areas have lowered boys' education aspirations and increased their school drop-out rates relative to girls'. Though time allocation is correlated with educational aspirations, we demonstrate that aspirations are not static, and change over childhood; locality and everyday exigencies interact with gender in reshaping children's aspirations and time-use

Radial-piston pump for drive of test machines

The article reviews the development of radial-piston pump with phase control and alternating-flow mode for seismic-testing platforms and other test machines. The prospects for use of the developed device are proved. It is noted that the method of frequency modulation with the detection of the natural frequencies is easily realized by using the radial-piston pump. The prospects of further research are given proof

Radial-piston pump for drive of test machines

The article reviews the development of radial-piston pump with phase control and alternating-flow mode for seismic-testing platforms and other test machines. The prospects for use of the developed device are proved. It is noted that the method of frequency modulation with the detection of the natural frequencies is easily realized by using the radial-piston pump. The prospects of further research are given proof

‘We are in the process’: The exploitation of hope and the political economy of waiting among the aspiring irregular migrants in Nepal

‘We are in the process’ was the phrase used by my Nepali interlocutors, soon-to-be migrants, who were waiting for their departure abroad for months on end. Based on conversations with irregular migrants, this paper explores the relationship between time and power, focusing on the political economy of waiting. It suggests that making people wait has become a key technique of governmentality used by the migration industry actors to control aspiring migrants’ movement, exploit their desires and hopes, and extract surplus value, turning the migration industry in Nepal into a major system of profiteering. Forcing aspiring migrants to wait in a state of suspense (not boredom) for departures that are imminent but not certain, unscrupulous brokers create an affective state in suspended subjects, which allows those in power to prey on migrants’ vulnerability and their hope for a better life, pushing many of the aspiring migrants into grave debt

Gender, marriage, and the dynamic of (im)mobility in the mid-Western hills of Nepal

This paper explores the relationship between gender, marriage, and (im)mobility in rural hilly areas of mid-Western Nepal, showing how (1) the mobility of men is predicated on the ‘immobility’ of women, with marriage being key to the gendered dynamic of (im)mobility, (2) how the construction of hegemonic masculinity, exemplified by a figure of a successful international migrant, is inseparable from an ideal of femininity vested in the figure of a virtuous domesticated housewife. Examining different scales of mobility, the paper cautions against posing a rigid dichotomy between ‘mobile men’ and ‘immobile’ women, illustrating that the ‘left behind’ wives experience an impressive degree of everyday mobility in contrast to their internationally mobile husbands

Maoist people's war and the revolution of everyday life in Nepal

This book is an ethnography of social change and norm-remaking brought about by the Maoist People’s War in Nepal between 1996 and 2006. Drawing on long-term fieldwork with people in the former Maoist heartland, including both committed Maoist revolutionaries and ‘reluctant rebels’, it explores how a remote Himalayan village was forged as the centre of the Maoist rebellion, how its inhabitants coped with the situation of war, how they came to embrace the Maoist project and maintain ordinary life during war. Contrary to the dominant narrative, even in the Maoist capital, hailed as a village of resistance, a lot of ordinary people were only ‘reluctant rebels’ who supported the Maoists because of kinship ties, moral solidarity, and compliance with the Maoist regime of governance. By focusing on the relational side of the Maoist movement – kinship ties between ordinary villagers and guerrillas, fraternal and affective bonds within the Maoist movement – the book explores the social processes and relationships through which the People’s War became possible. The book illuminates how the everyday became a primary site of revolution in Nepal: of crafting new subjectivities, normalizing previously transgressive norms, such as beef-eating and inter-caste commensality, and reconfiguring the ways people act in and think about the world. Revolution in Nepal came about not as a result of war, but rather in the process of war, with the praxis of revolutionary modes of sociality and ‘embodied change’ being key to transforming people’s practical consciousness. Rather than being simply an outcome of the Maoist policies or ideas, much of the change was a result of embodied experiences of radically new ways of relating across caste, class and gender divides. By having recreated their everyday practice—often as part of the exceptional times of war and rules that apply in times of crisis—people in the Maoist base area transformed not only their values, but also the rigid social hierarchies structuring Nepali society

Maoist people's war and the revolution of everyday life in Nepal

This book is an ethnography of social change and norm-remaking brought about by the Maoist People’s War in Nepal between 1996 and 2006. Drawing on long-term fieldwork with people in the former Maoist heartland, including both committed Maoist revolutionaries and ‘reluctant rebels’, it explores how a remote Himalayan village was forged as the centre of the Maoist rebellion, how its inhabitants coped with the situation of war, how they came to embrace the Maoist project and maintain ordinary life during war. Contrary to the dominant narrative, even in the Maoist capital, hailed as a village of resistance, a lot of ordinary people were only ‘reluctant rebels’ who supported the Maoists because of kinship ties, moral solidarity, and compliance with the Maoist regime of governance. By focusing on the relational side of the Maoist movement – kinship ties between ordinary villagers and guerrillas, fraternal and affective bonds within the Maoist movement – the book explores the social processes and relationships through which the People’s War became possible. The book illuminates how the everyday became a primary site of revolution in Nepal: of crafting new subjectivities, normalizing previously transgressive norms, such as beef-eating and inter-caste commensality, and reconfiguring the ways people act in and think about the world. Revolution in Nepal came about not as a result of war, but rather in the process of war, with the praxis of revolutionary modes of sociality and ‘embodied change’ being key to transforming people’s practical consciousness. Rather than being simply an outcome of the Maoist policies or ideas, much of the change was a result of embodied experiences of radically new ways of relating across caste, class and gender divides. By having recreated their everyday practice—often as part of the exceptional times of war and rules that apply in times of crisis—people in the Maoist base area transformed not only their values, but also the rigid social hierarchies structuring Nepali society