Migration trajectories of ‘highly skilled’middling transnationals: Singaporean transmigrants in London

10.1002/psp.569Population, Space and Place171116-12

Measuring capacity building in communities: a review of the literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although communities have long been exhorted to make efforts to enhance their own health, such approaches have often floundered and resulted in little or no health benefits when the capacity of the community has not been adequately strengthened. Thus being able to assess the capacity building process is paramount in facilitating action in communities for social and health improvement. The current review aims to i) identify all domains used in systematically documented frameworks developed by other authors to assess community capacity building; and ii) to identify the dimensions and attributes of each of the domains as ascribed by these authors and reassemble them into a comprehensive compilation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Relevant published articles were identified through systematic electronic searches of selected databases and the examination of the bibliographies of retrieved articles. Studies assessing capacity building or community development or community participation were selected and assessed for methodological quality, and quality in relation to the development and application of domains which were identified as constituents of community capacity building. Data extraction and analysis were undertaken using a realist synthesis approach.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Eighteen articles met the criteria for this review. The various domains to assess community capacity building were identified and reassembled into nine comprehensive domains: "learning opportunities and skills development", "resource mobilization", "partnership/linkages/networking", "leadership", "participatory decision-making", "assets-based approach", "sense of community", "communication", and "development pathway". Six sub-domains were also identified: "shared vision and clear goals", "community needs assessment", "process and outcome monitoring", "sustainability", "commitment to action" and "dissemination".</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The set of domains compiled in this review serve as a foundation for community-based work by those in the field seeking to support and nurture the development of competent communities. Further research is required to examine the robustness of capacity domains over time and to examine capacity development in association with health or other social outcomes.</p

Willing to Work: Agency and Vulnerability in an Undocumented Immigrant Network

Restriction-oriented immigration policies and polarizing political debates have intensified the vulnera- bility of undocumented people in the United States, promoting their “willingness” to do low-wage, low-status work. In this article, I draw on ethnographic research with undocumented immigrants in Chicago to examine the everyday strategies that undocumented workers develop to mediate constraints and enhance their well-being. In particular, I explore how a cohort of undocumented Mexican immigrants cultivates a social identity as “hard workers” to promote their labor and bolster dignity and self-esteem. Much of the existing literature on unauthorized labor migration has focused on the structural conditions that encumber immigrants and constrain their opportunities. By shifting the focus to workers’ agency, I seek to complement these analyses and show how undocumented immigrants actively navigate the terrain of work and society in the United States

NADIE SABE, NADIE SUPO: EL PROGRAMA FEDERAL H2A Y LA EXPLOTACIÓN DE MANO DE OBRA MEDIADA POR EL ESTADO

Este estudio de los trabajadores agrícolas latinos en Carolina del Norte analiza las trayectorias de poder hacia arriba y hacia abajo, haciendo hincapié no sólo en los puntos de vista de los de arriba o de los de abajo, sino en los discursos y prácticas en la intersección de las relaciones entre el poder corporativo, la mano de obra migrante y el Estado. Documenta un hecho contencioso: la ausencia histórica de compensación justa, seguridad y condiciones de trabajo adecuadas son los factores centrales que posibilitan programas de trabajadores transmigrantes así como la presencia de intermediarios para la contratación y control de mano de obra latina en el programa H2A. El mercado de trabajo transmigrante no opera según los procesos de un mercado económico sino que depende de los arreglos entre el gobierno norteamericano y las corporaciones de agronegocio

Making Complexity Your Friend: Reframing Social Theory for the Anthropocene

Abstract This article uses the dilemma of climate change as an entry point to explore the utility of a complexity framework for a more comprehensive social science of environmental sustainability. A theory of complex adaptive systems (CAS) is especially appropriate for the Anthropocene, a newly proposed geological period defined around humanity’s impact on the biosphere. Aspects of complexity theory have been entering public consciousness through popular accounts of climate “tipping points” and “emergent” change—the risk that Earth’s climate could shift into a new pattern in a relatively short time period. Social structures, including capitalism, are complex systems, as are social movements. The paper reviews CAS research with special attention to applications in social ecology. It discusses two case studies of exemplary research on human management of environmental resources and one case study of the antiglobalization movement, all conceived within a complexity framework. The central argument is that complexity thinking will enhance social studies of sustainability and efforts to create a more resilient economy and biosphere.</jats:p

Colonialismo fósil: Los nexos energía / deuda detrás del largo apagón de Puerto Rico

After Hurricane Maria half of the Puerto Rican population remained in the dark for 4 months or more, an unprecedented situation for a developed state.  This paper, based in part on interviews on the island in winter-spring of 2018, analyzes the reasons for the longest (and for some ongoing) blackout in US history.  It also questions the island government’s proposal to privatize the island’s public electrical utility as a solution to the problem of a fragile electric system.  The paper traces roots of the current crisis to “fossil-colonial” assumptions behind “la Operación Manos a la Obra,” Puerto Rico’s Cold War development program, exploring the relationship between oil-dependent infrastructure, extracted profits, declining jobs, and growing debt. The debt grew rapidly as US tax incentives were phased out during the high oil price years of 2005 – 2007.  Grassroots and energy advocates are working together today on the island to articulate an alternative future, based on reduced dependence on fossil fuels and more democratic management of energy and other public resource

The Debt/Energy Nexus behind Puerto Rico’s Long Blackout: From Fossil Colonialism to New Energy Poverty

After Hurricane Maria wiped out Puerto Rico’s electrical grid in 2017, its citizens endured the longest blackout in U.S. history, some not regaining power until nearly a year later. An analysis of the profound social impacts and health costs and the delays in power restoration with a focus on the relationship between the U.S. territory’s debt crisis and its “fossil colonial” past offers insights into patterns of manipulation by politicians, bankers, and fossil-fuel companies that led to excess borrowing by the Puerto Rican public electrical utility, contributing to a neglect of infrastructure and high rates for citizens during a time period when tax incentives for corporate manufacturing were being phased out just as oil prices rose to record levels. Después de que el huracán María destruyera la red eléctrica de Puerto Rico en 2017, sus ciudadanos sufrieron el apagón más largo en la historia de los EE. UU., Algunos no recuperaron la luz hasta casi un año después. Un análisis de los profundos impactos sociales y los costos de salud y los retrasos en la restauración del poder eléctrico, con un enfoque en la relación entre la crisis de deuda de este territorio estadounidense y su pasado “colonial fósil“, revela nuevas percepciones sobre los patrones de manipulación por parte de políticos, banqueros y empresas de combustibles fósiles que condujeron a préstamos excesivos por parte de la empresa eléctrica pública puertorriqueña, lo que contribuyó a la negligencia de la infraestructura y las altas tasas para los ciudadanos durante un período de tiempo cuando los incentivos fiscales para la fabricación corporativa se estaban eliminando gradualmente justo cuando los precios del petróleo subieron a niveles récord. </jats:p

Seeing No Evil

Labor relations are a paramount consideration in crop agriculture, a labor-intensive industry that is dependent on land. The U.S. government has long regulated the supply of foreign farm labor on behalf of agribusiness, and that role became more critical as the industry restructured itself in the competitive neoliberal climate since the early 1990s. The H2A program, which permits quasi-private labor brokers to import Mexican “guest workers” for seasonal work on U.S. farms, expanded after 1990 into states in the mid-South, which was also experiencing new flows of undocumented immigrants. North Carolina emerged as the state importing the most H2A workers. This chapter draws on the case of the North Carolina Growers Association, the state's large H2A brokerage, to examine the relationship between the neoliberal state and guest workers during the 1990s. It shows that during the 1990s, the North Carolina H2A program morphed into a model of contractual labor relations that represented a case of “government by proxy,” not unlike other public-private partnerships formed in the neoliberal era. In this case, the state delegated responsibility for labor supply manipulation, control of workers, and regulatory oversight directly to private brokers who publicly represented and shared revenue streams with agribusiness growers.</p