'Do it Yourself' Girl Revolution: LadyFest, Performance and Fanzine Culture

Riot grrrl began as an independent music and political movement in the early 1990s emerging initially in the USA and few years later in the UK. From the beginning riot grrrl embraced a 'do-it-yourself' ethos operating outside the mainstream music business organising independent music festivals, workshop events and encouraging self-published fanzines (fan magazines which were distributed primarily through word of mouth, music gigs, artists and zine book fairs or by post). These zines became recognisable forms of personal expression and made visible a specific DIY approach alongside the development of a coherent style of graphic language in the producer's use of the photocopier, handwritten and graffiti texts, cut-n-paste and ransom note lettering style, collage and the co-option of mainstream media imagery. These production techniques made fanzine publishing accessible and played a central role in the development of a non-hierarchical community. The main intent of this talk is to explore the idea of 'event as performance' using as a case study the specific activities of riot grrrl and focussing on a series of international events called 'LadyFests' and the graphic language of self-published riot grrrl fanzines. This will be achieved by examining the origins of today's riot grrrl performances (e.g. theatre, spoken word, music events) in 1970s feminist art, as well as locating the activities within the specific context of their counter-cultural predecesors including punk and punk performance

An Immigrant, Not a Worker: Depiction of the 2006 ‘Day without an Immigrant’ Protests in Printed Media of the United States

writing about the Day Without an Immigrant (DWI) Protests within the year of the 2006 protests are analyzed in order to understand narratives on labor activism of documented and undocumented immigrants in the United States. DWI protests marked an anticipated ‘turning point\u27 in collective action among immigrant workers in the United States. Content analysis was employed to ascertain the portrayal of the protesters by a variety of print media sources. Both univariate and multivariate procedures utilized find that charged rhetoric of racialized anti-immigrant sentiment is present in most sources regardless of the ‘political leaning\u27 of the press, reaffirming the status of ‘other\u27 to both documented and undocumented migrants in the United States in the present day. Protesters ultimately were not seen as workers, but solely as immigrants. The findings illustrate the continued marginalization and racialization of more recent immigrant workers in the United States

Multiplicity in Movements: The Case for Redneck Revolt

Teal Rothschild on the importance of a holistic approach to social movements

Valentine Moghadam. Globalizing women: transnational feminist networks. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Valentine Moghadam has written a much-needed text outlining the work of transnational activists concerned with women’s rights worldwide. Moghadam informs the reader that in an era characterized by heightened globalization and a restructuring of the state, there is a critical mass of educated, employed, mobile, and politically conscious women around the world, responding to the gendered process of globalization

What is Colorism?

Analyze any advertising campaign colorism, dark-skinned, skin lightening, skin bleaching or notice the types of people represented in the media and on television and one major conclusion will be made clear -- Colorism is a prevalent issue worldwide. When the complexity of colorism transpires within a race it causes an even greater societal struggle, making it almost impossible to eliminate

Education, incomes, poverty and inequality in Ghana in the 1990s.

Three issues are addressed in this paper. First, we use both household and macro data to establish how fast per capita consumption and incomes grew in Ghana in the 1990s. Second, we ask how much of the rise in incomes was due to rises in the level of human capital and how much reflected underlying technical progress. Third, we assess the implications of how incomes rose for the interpretation of changes in the poverty profile. Four household surveys are used to show changes in both expenditures and incomes over the decade. The household surveys show that both consumption per capita and incomes rose by 12 per cent, a rate of 1 per cent per annum. This figure is identical to the growth rate for consumption per capita implied by the macro accounts. The average level of education of the population rose by 27 per cent over the decade which led to a rise of 3 per cent in per capita consumption. We find, on average, no evidence for any underlying technical progress. We show that the rise in income was associated with modest falls in the head count and poverty gap measures of poverty but with virtually no change in the severity of poverty measure. The fall in the head count measure was too small to prevent the absolute number of poor people from rising. Inequality increased with the incomes of the non-agricultural self-employed, with given levels of human capital, falling both absolutely and relative to wage workers.Ghana, real incomes, poverty.

Real wages and the demand for labour in Ghana's manufacturing sector

Real wages in Ghana have fallen substantially over the last twenty years. The question posed by this paper is whether this evidence for wage flexibility implies a competitive market clearing labour market. It is argued that it does not. There is sufficient flexibility in the production structure to ensure that a rapid growth of labour demand can be absorbed at declining average real wages while maintaining a substantial differential across workers based on firm characteristics. Indeed it is possible the differential has been increasing in the recent past. Declining real wages are not indicative of a competitive labour market, or of market clearing, in the sense that a uniform wage exists for the same quality of labour. Falling real wages are indicative of a labour market in which social security provisions are absent and investment is insufficient to raise labour demand faster than supply. A decline in wages is associated with a fall in productivity. It is possible that output is rising.

Private sector wages and poverty in Ghana: 1988-1998.

Real wage rises for the unskilled are one mechanism by which poor people can obtain rises in their incomes and a reduction in their economic vulnerability. In this paper it is shown that over a period in Ghana when measured poverty declined, 1988 to 1992, real wages for the unskilled rose, by about 11 per cent. Over the 1990s evidence from the manufacturing sector suggests substantial falls in the real wages of the unskilled, some 23-26 per cent between 1992 and 1998. In the longer term such wages are lower than those of the mid 1980s and approximately one-third the level of the early 1970s. Even if poverty can be reduced in this context, any fall in poverty will omit one of the most vulnerable groups of the working population. There is evidence that high rates of inflation and low investment are two factors explaining these falls in real wages.Ghana, real wages, poverty.

Real Wages and the Demand for Skilled and Unskilled Male Labour in Ghana's Manufacturing Sector: 1991-1995..

Real wage rates in Ghana have fallen substantially over the last 20 years. In this paper survey data for the years 1991-95 is used to assess the changes which have occurred in the 1990s. It is shown that the real wage rate for the unskilled has continued to fall. Factor share equations for skilled and unskilled labour are estimated, which show the rise in skilled wages leading to substitution to unskilled labour but no rise in the share of skilled labour in income. The own price elasticities of skilled and unskilled labour are estimated at -0.44 and -0.52, respectively.

Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa: a Review of Channels and Interactions.

While the numbers with completed tertiary level education are low in Africa, both relative to other countries and in absolute terms, they have been growing very rapidly. Three questions are addressed in this paper. The first is how higher education links to other forms of capital accumulation in a process that leads to economic growth. The second is how higher education links to job outcomes in particular the role of the public sector and self-employment as outcomes for graduates. The third is whether and how an expansion of skilled jobs can create its own demand. The paper draws on both macro and micro evidence to answer those questions which are placed in a long run historical context. It is argued that growth has been more closely linked to investment in physical capital than in education and this may well reflect the fact that education is most valuable when it is linked to technology which requires higher skills. Data from thirty two African countries are used to show that the returns to education, measured both by macro production functions and by micro earning functions, are highest for those with higher levels of education. A contrast is drawn between the role of higher education in providing access to public sector employment and the increasing importance of self-employment in Africa. The paper concludes by asking whether Africa can use its investment in higher skilled labour to effect a service based growth revolution.