Stories from the field:Women's networking as gender capital in entrepreneurial ecosystems

Women are underrepresented in successful entrepreneurial ecosystems and the creation of women-only entrepreneurial networks has been a widespread policy response. We examine the entrepreneurial ecosystem construct and suggest that it, and the role networks play in entrepreneurial ecosystems, can be analysed in terms of Bourdieu's socio-analysis as field, habitus and capital. Specifically, we develop the notion of gender capital as the skill set associated with femininity or from simply being recognized as feminine. We apply this to the development of women's entrepreneurial networks as a gender capital enhancing initiative. Using data from qualitative interviews with network coordinators and women entrepreneurs we reflect on the extent to which formally established women-only networks generate gender capital for their members and improve their ability to participate in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The paper concludes by drawing out the implications of our analysis for theory, entrepreneurial practice and economic development policy

Argumentum ad misericordiam - the critical intimacies of victimhood

This article discusses the widespread use of victim tropes in contemporary Anglo-American culture by using cultural theory to analyse key social media memes circulating on Facebook in 2015. Since the growth of social media, victim stories have been proliferating, and each demands a response. Victim narratives are rhetorical, they are designed to elicit pity and shame the perpetrator. They are deployed to stimulate political debate and activism, as well as to appeal to an all-purpose humanitarianism. Victimology has its origins in Law and Criminology, but this paper opens up the field more broadly to think about the cultural politics of victimhood, to consider how the victim-figure can be appropriated by/for different purposes, particularly racial and gender politics, including in the case of Rachel Dolezal, and racial passing. In formulating an ethical response to the lived experience of victims, we need to think about the different kinds of critical intimacies elicited by such media

Class dynamics of development: a methodological note

This article argues that class relations are constitutive of developmental processes and central to understanding inequality within and between countries. In doing so it illustrates and explains the diversity of the actually existing forms of class relations, and the ways in which they interplay with other social relations such as gender and ethnicity. This is part of a wider project to re- vitalise class analysis in the study of development problems and experiences

Garotas de loja, história social e teoria social [Shop Girls, Social History and Social Theory]

Shop workers, most of them women, have made up a significant proportion of Britain’s labour force since the 1850s but we still know relatively little about their history. This article argues that there has been a systematic neglect of one of the largest sectors of female employment by historians and investigates why this might be. It suggests that this neglect is connected to framings of work that have overlooked the service sector as a whole as well as to a continuing unease with the consumer society’s transformation of social life. One element of that transformation was the rise of new forms of aesthetic, emotional and sexualised labour. Certain kinds of ‘shop girls’ embodied these in spectacular fashion. As a result, they became enduring icons of mass consumption, simultaneously dismissed as passive cultural dupes or punished as powerful agents of cultural destruction. This article interweaves the social history of everyday shop workers with shifting representations of the ‘shop girl’, from Victorian music hall parodies, through modernist social theory, to the bizarre bombing of the Biba boutique in London by the Angry Brigade on May Day 1971. It concludes that progressive historians have much to gain by reclaiming these workers and the service economy that they helped create

Effects of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism and met allele load on declarative memory related neural networks

It has been suggested that the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism modulates episodic memory performance via effects on hippocampal neural circuitry. However, fMRI studies have yielded inconsistent results in this respect. Moreover, very few studies have examined the effect of met allele load on activation of memory circuitry. In the present study, we carried out a comprehensive analysis of the effects of the BDNF polymorphism on brain responses during episodic memory encoding and retrieval, including an investigation of the effect of met allele load on memory related activation in the medial temporal lobe. In contrast to previous studies, we found no evidence for an effect of BDNF genotype or met load during episodic memory encoding. Met allele carriers showed increased activation during successful retrieval in right hippocampus but this was contrast-specific and unaffected by met allele load. These results suggest that the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism does not, as previously claimed, exert an observable effect on neural systems underlying encoding of new information into episodic memory but may exert a subtle effect on the efficiency with which such information can be retrieved

Troubling complicity: audience ethnography, male porn viewers and feminist critique

International audienceThis article offers a self-reflexive account of an audience reception study conducted in Paris, France, examining gay, bisexual and heterosexual cisgender men's everyday (and everynight) uses of pornography. The study explores the gender dynamics at work in practices such as surfing, watching, reimagining and discussing pornography, based on in-depth interviews with 34 viewers, combined with the replication of their online sexual meanderings; this positions me as a viewer among others, with specific epistemic goals. The article analyzes porn audiences' accounts of pornographic tastes, fantasies and attractions, both in relation to the interviews' interactional setting and to normative public representations of the " responsible " viewer. As a verb, troubling refers to a strategy: I grasp viewers' multifaceted relations to pornography through the strategic use of complicit empathy and feminist contradicting. As an adjective, troubling refers to an aporia: while this study is oriented towards feminist goals, it implies my participation as an ethnographer in hegemonic complicity, the process by which female and feminist views are demeaned in homosocial male bonding

Parents, partners and peers: Bearing the hidden costs of lifelong learning

This paper examines data from three projects to explore the 'hidden costs' of participating in lifelong learning. Whilst other potential risks (financial for instance) are anticipated, those around family and friendship ties are usually not. Adult re-engagement with education can result in unexpected negative consequences for learners' existing relationships, something addressed in academic literature but rarely in official policy rhetoric. We draw upon data from the projects to demonstrate how these unanticipated risks are negotiated and the impact of this discursive practice on those involved. We discuss this sense of risk, and also concepts of entitlement to one aspect of lifelong learning, higher education (HE) amongst those traditionally excluded from it in the UK. Entry to HE alone does not secure either a sense of entitlement, or a reduction of risk in terms of social justice, viewed as a means of fairly redistributing opportunities to compete for credentials. For some non-traditional learners, their sense of a lack of entitlement and levels of loss and risk to identity increase as they participate in university. We conclude by discussing how these 'hidden costs' of lifelong learning are borne by learners and those closest to them, their parents, partners and peers, and how institutions may offer support through processes of transition to adult learner. © 2011 Taylor & Francis

Scatterplots showing correlations between activation during successful retrieval (hits – correct rejections beta value – y axis) in right hippocampus and memory performance (d′ – x axis) in met carriers (left panel) and val homozygotes (right panel).

<p>Scatterplots showing correlations between activation during successful retrieval (hits – correct rejections beta value – y axis) in right hippocampus and memory performance (d′ – x axis) in met carriers (left panel) and val homozygotes (right panel).</p