Income inequality in the digital era. WP C.S.D.L.E. "Massimo D'Antona", N. 9, 2002

[From the Introduction]. The changes in the employment relationship have been accompanied by a marked deterioration in income distribution.... The growing gap between rich and poor stands as a persistent reminder that current economic arrangements are not moving in the direction of economic justice. The dramatic extent of inequality offends our sense of decency and undermines social cohesion. In recent years, many economists have analyzed the trends in income distribution in order to isolate the causes of the current trends. In this paper I review the existing evidence and theories about the causes of rising income inequality. I suggest that the changing nature of the employment relationship is contributing to, or perhaps even driving, rising income inequality. The following chapter presents and evaluates several policy proposals for redressing inequality or ameliorating its effects

Sympathy, empathy, and postmemory : problematic positions in Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter

Critics often discount the television mini-series Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter (2013) as bad history, constructed around emotions rather than facts. This article argues, however, that emotional engagement does not necessarily inhibit critical engagement or moral reflection. My argument builds on an analysis of how the drama manipulates the sort of generational and gendered tropes that are central to Marianne Hirsch's theory of postmemory. Exemplifying the aesthetics of postmemory, the mini-series illuminates transformations in contemporary memory culture. It also raises questions overlooked by Hirsch about the ethical imperatives of postmemorial engagements with the history of the perpetrators

Structural insights of oligomeric protein complexes by electron spin resonance

This thesis describes the use of site-directed spin labeling (SDSL) and electron spin resonance (ESR) for measuring distance constraints in oligomeric protein complexes. We demonstrate the use of ESR for biological systems that suffer from a lack of structural data by other methods. First, we show that distance measurements of several mutants of the EcoRI restriction endonuclease could be used to investigate the disorder to order transition. The double electron-electron resonance (DEER) ESR experiment was performed on spin labeled residues of EcoRI bound to several different sequences of DNA. We chose residues that would probe the inner and outer arms of EcoRI, which are known to play a critical role in modulating the specificity of the endonuclease. Distance measurements revealed that the average distance of each mutant remains the same when the protein is bound to different sequences of DNA. This data suggests that although EcoRI exhibits a significantly lower binding affinity to sequences of DNA differing from the specific complex, the overall structure of the arms is preserved. SDSL and ESR were also performed on the human α1 glycine receptor (GlyR), an integral membrane protein that is a member of the ligand-gated ion channel superfamily (LGICs). Seven cysteine mutants of the homopentameric complex were cloned, expressed, purified, reconstituted and spin labeled. These mutants are located in the third transmembrane domain of GlyR and are putatively buried in the lipid bilayer. We show that the cysteines are accessible to the thiol-reactive spin label even when the channel is reconstituted in a lipid bilayer. Using DEER-ESR, we measured the average number of coupled spins per receptor and found that for each mutant, between one and two cysteines were labeled with the spin label. The inter-spin distances were measured in each mutant. Preliminary results indicate that two distances could be distinguished, which is consistent with the pentagonal symmetry of the channel. These results establish the applicability of SDSL and ESR distance measurements for the LGICs. Such distance measurements will likely be essential for determining subunit packings and providing structural details in this important class of proteins

How To Write A Rape Piece (If You Really Feel You Must)

Start with a joke. It makes you more likeable

Social Change and Documentary Film in Mexico: Violence, Autonomy, and Cultural Production

The use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media in the Arab Spring, #Occupy Wall Street, and Mexico\u27s #YoSoy132 student movement have all generated excitement about the new uses of digital technology in organized social movements. This dissertation concerns itself with media and social transformation, but recognizes that even as media content can have a deep impact on society and culture, it is ultimately human beings who create and use technology off screen for our own purposes. This dissertation focuses ethnographically on one social movement, the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra: The Peoples\u27 Front in Defense of Land) of San Salvador Atenco on the outskirts of Mexico City, and their relationships with a range of national and international filmmakers. Through examining the daily practices of producing and distributing social documentary films, I show how people used media as an ethical and political practice to purposefully shape and transform face-to-face human relationships. I argue that filmmaking and distributing was one set of practices through which people attempted to cultivate a collectivist disposition called compañerismo, and through which they could build partial autonomies from the state and corporate capitalism. I argue that the historical shift from `resistance\u27 political practices to `autonomy\u27 practices represents a significant departure for contemporary transnational social movements, and signifies a trend away from a Marxist tradition of organizing and toward greater articulation with anarchist thinking and organizing. The cultivation of compañerismo is part of this shift and is indicative of a partial relocation of objectives away from institutional, legal, and policy changes and toward personal and collective transformations of self. I argue that the intersection between cultural production and self production is a crucial locus for examining how social movements help to bring about elusive social and cultural changes that exist outside the grasp of legal and institutional frameworks. These arguments build from and contribute to three large bodies of anthropological research: a political anthropology interested in social movements, a visual anthropology interested in media production, and a broad theoretical anthropological interest in transformations of self, society, and culture through practice

To the Yukon and Beyond: Local Laborers in a Global Market

This Article explores the possibilities for effective protection of labor rights in the emerging global labor market. It explores existing forms of transnational labor regulation, including both hard regulation, i.e., regulation by state-centered institutions, and soft regulation, i.e., regulation through private actors responding to market forces. The author finds that existing regulatory approaches are inadequate to ensure that the global marketplace will offer adequate labor standards to its global workforce. She proposes new approaches to global labor regulation, approaches that blend hard and soft law by reshaping market forces and embedding them in a regulatory framework that is protective of core labor rights