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

Self, identity and the naming question: Reflections on the language of disability

With all the emphasis on 'political correctness', it is especially important to delineate the functions of naming. People with disabilities are facing issues quite similar to minority groups which have preceded them in attempting to enter 'mainstream' America. Their similarities and differences with these groups are traced as well as their own unique path (with all its implications) and some possible analytic and political solutions.self identity language disability

Development of a Cluster of Differentiation Antibody-Based Protein Microarray

Protein microarrays combine aspects of DNA microarrays and ELISA for the parallel interrogation of a biological sample using a multiplex of protein biomarkers. Here we report the development of a protein microarray consisting of a subset of CD antibodies and CRP. Several preparations (culture supernatant, ascites fluid and purified Ig) of each antibody were used in a forward phase protein microarray. Microarrays were fabricated using a non-contact printer delivering 300 pL (± 30 pL) to specific locations on polyacrylamide gel-based substrates. Following production, microarrays were blocked for non-specific binding and incubated with sera conjugated directly with Cy3. Using CRP as a control biomarker, 12 clinical samples (inflammatory conditions and controls) were interrogated using the protein microarray format and results compared to CRP measured by conventional immunoassay. The data obtained from the microarray correlated with CRP assessed by immunoassay. Subsequently CRP ‘positive’ samples were interrogated for CD antigen expression; which revealed CD25 and CD45RO expression in all samples. Whilst this study focussed on a subset of CD antibodies, it is anticipated that this array could be expanded to include a larger number of CD antibodies and allow screening of sera from multiple conditions in order to identify disease markers