bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

This chapter sets the scene for the book by noting the political and policy salience of issues around voluntary action in contemporary Britain before providing an overview of the literature on how and why people volunteer. The chapter acknowledges the diversity of definitions of volunteering and consdiers methodological challenges associated with the measurement of this activity. The debates on voluntary action to which this book contributes – the dominant paradigm, serious leisure and civil society perspectives will be outlined. This is followed by a consideration of interpretations of the meanings of and motivations for volunteering. The chapter, and book more widely, advocates a lifecourse approach, providing a longitudinal perspective on the place of volunteering in people’s lives. The chapter concludes with an outline of the key sources of data – particularly the rich qualitative material from the Mass Observation Project (MOP).
The changing policy environment for voluntary action from 1979
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

This chapter analyses post-1979 changes in the British political and policy environment for volunteering and voluntary action. It distinguishes between government policy measures targeted at voluntary action by individuals, proposals to encourage the development of voluntary organisations, and the government’s institutionalisation of the voluntary sector by bringing the sector into public policy deliberation. The chapter demonstrates variations in the underlying motivations for government policy, showing how different government administrations have sought to solve certain problems through voluntary action. The chapter draws primarily upon public sources, but also upon archival records of central government deliberations. There has been strong continuity between governments, but there have also been significant differences in the emphasis these have placed on particular elements of policy. All post-1979 governments have supported voluntary action by individuals, at least rhetorically. This chapter identifies differences, however, in relation to how these various governments sought to promote voluntary action; and in how they engaged with voluntary organisations in supporting public policy.
Why people volunteer: contextualising motivation
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

The central argument of this chapter is that there are multiple and complex explanations as to why people decide to volunteer or not volunteer, and why they choose a specific volunteering domain and role. Volunteers are often not consciously aware of some of their motives for taking part in volunteering. An individual’s choice as to whether to volunteer, and how to volunteer, is founded on a complex range of different influences, triggers, desires and needs, that may affect them throughout their lives, and are contingent on that individual’s personal circumstances, skills, values, identity and personality, and changes therein, over their lifecourse. The chapter draws on survey data on the motives and benefits people attributed to volunteering during the timeframe of the study; however, it relies on the accounts of Mass Observation Project writers to more fully explore these issues. It examines influences such as parental role-modelling and guidance; childhood volunteering; value systems; being asked; the need for therapeutic activities, leisure, and career advancement; and the need to belong. It also considers some of the negative influences and triggers that can result in would-be volunteers refusing to take part, feelings of coercion, and people becoming disillusioned in their volunteering.
Attitudes to voluntary action
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

This chapter reviews existing research on attitudes to voluntary action. Despite the importance of this topic, public attitudes have received even less consistent consideration over time than voluntary action itself. This chapter summarises information from the National Survey of Volunteering (1981 and 1991) and the British Social Attitudes Surveys (from the 1990s) on the virtues of voluntarism, and the relationship between voluntary action and government policy. However, given the later gaps in the statistical record, the emphasis in the chapter is firmly upon two key Mass Observation Project directives, implemented 16 years apart, in 1996 and 2012. Writers have a strong sense of where the boundary should lie between statutory responsibility and voluntary initiative; and demonstrate particular concerns of and criticisms about the use of volunteers to substitute for paid staff, and to undercut the position of the lowest-paid members of society. Writers also discuss strong concerns about the ways in which governments take the contribution of volunteers for granted, leading to scepticism about individual and community capacities to take on further social responsibilities. We argue that the rationales on which appeals for greater voluntary effort are made are crucial to the success of these appeals.
Conclusions
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

This chapter reflects on the main findings of this book, and place these in a broader context by reflecting on their practical implications and relevance. A key issue is what the evidence tells us about whether voluntary action constitutes a genuinely renewable resource for social development, in a context of rising demand for it. The findings point to both challenges and opportunities. There is a strong and stable base of committed volunteers, and a majority of the adult population already engages to a significant degree (taking a broad definition of voluntary action, to include both formal and informal activities). An expansion of voluntary action is, however, challenging in the context of difficult economic circumstances faced by individuals, the growing need for care of elderly relatives as a result of pressures on the welfare system, and the reductions in public funding. Volunteers are not going to come forward simply in response to austerity measures. Persuading people to engage at all, or to a greater degree, requires a clear message about the intrinsic rewards of voluntary action and arrangements which enable people to fit voluntary action around their everyday lives. Essentially, this is about thinking about policy in a wider frame of reference than incentives and nudges towards pro-social behaviour. Instead, we might ask how economic policy and society might be managed to maximise opportunities for engagement.
Introduction: professional health regulation in the public interest
Authors: Chamberlain John Martyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter provides a commentary on, and introduces, the collection of papers in this volume. It begins by outlining how professional forms of health care expertise have become increasingly subject over the last four decades to third-party scrutiny, as well as how we have witnessed greater public involvement in the monitoring and quality assurance of healthcare work, particularly in Western neo-liberal societies. It then discusses how these changes have led the ‘social closure’ model of professional work to become revised, and in doing so how this raises concerns regarding academic engagement with members of the public as part of a broader patient advocacy and policy reform agenda focused on the promotion of the public interest. This discussion helps set the scene for subsequent chapters, which together seek to unpack the complex relationships that exist between health care practitioners, civil society, the state and professional groups in a variety of different international borders and regulatory jurisdictions. In doing so, each author seeks to explore critically how calls for increased efficiency and cost effectiveness in healthcare are balanced with the need to promote the public interest through providing citizens with essential health services.
Medical regulation for the public interest in the United Kingdom
Authors: Roche William
Published: January 2019

Regulation of the medical profession has a long history in the United Kingdom but a number of high profile failures of National Health Service (NHS) organisations to deliver safe health care and the unlawful killing of more than 200 patients by one rogue doctor have led to a clamour for change. Many of these tragedies have been the subject of public inquiries and have created significant public disquiet about the role and effectiveness of the medical regulator. United Kingdom governments have responded to these inquiries by means of a combination of strengthening professional regulation and the introduction of new mechanisms of appeal against the sanctions imposed on doctors by tribunals. The historical development of medical regulation is reviewed and the more recent changes to address the public interest and crises in the confidence in the regulation of health care are described.
Let the consumer beware: maintenance of licensure and certification in the United States
Authors: Horowitz Ruth
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the medical licensure and specialty certification environment in United States and examines the persistent difficulties with ensuring that all physicians keep up with the changing demands and advances in medicine. Government agencies (state and federal legislatures, departments and courts), multiple medical organisations, and market bodies (consumers and insurance companies) are intertwined in complex and conflict-prone interactions. This chapter critically explores if the United States can continue to leave it to medical professionals or local state legislatures to oversee maintaining competency and licensure. States currently vary as to the strategy they adopt, the preferred method reflecting local traditions and physician practices, leaving gaps in standards. Anti-regulation sentiments have been on the rise, with the result that efforts by some medical organisations to nudge others toward greater oversight have been stymied by others which launch legal and political challenges against regulatory changes. The diversity of institutions with a stake in the regulatory process complicates the matter. The chapter concludes that what tends to get lost in this state of affairs is the ‘public interest’.
Health complaints entities in Australia and New Zealand: serving the public interest?
Authors: Morris Jennifer , Moore Jennifer , Bismark Marie
Published: January 2019

This chapter describes health complaints entities in Australia and New Zealand, with an analytical focus on the ways in which they do, or do not, serve the public interest. The concept of public interest is explored with reference to the aims and functions of these entities, and the competing interests at work in their design, establishment, administration and operation. We also examine significant events and social movements that have created the impetus for health complaints system reform, and examine the impact and effectiveness of these. We examine the evidence, as well as the lack thereof, regarding the extent to which current complaints commissioners achieve their stated goals. Finally, the chapter identifies emerging challenges with implications and opportunities for the contribution of health complaints entities to the public interest.
The evolution of the Troubled Families Programme
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers the evolution of the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) as it has been implemented. Shifts and developments in the first phase are discussed, including the problems of some local authorities in finding troubled families and the subsequent relaxation of the criteria for what constituted a ‘troubled family’ at that stage of the programme. The chapter discusses the changes that happened as a result of the massive expansion of the programme into its second phase, working with 400,000 more families, including new entry criteria for families, new measures of success, and a new Payment by Results (PbR) framework. It also explores the next phase of the programme, announced in April 2017 and with a stronger focus on supporting workless families into employment.
The ‘responsibility deficit’
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This chapter analyses Prime Minister David Cameron's claim, when he launched the Troubled Families Programme (TFP), that his mission in politics was fixing the responsibility deficit. Turning this mission on its head, the chapter focuses on the ways in which the coalition and Conservative governments have abdicated their responsibilities to poor, disadvantaged, and marginalised families. The chapter locates TFP as a central plank of attempts to craft a neoliberal state in the UK. Drawing on the work of Loïc Wacquant and his call for neoliberalism to be understood sociologically rather than economically, the chapter shows how the TFP has been expanded at the same time that traditional welfare services have been rolled back.
‘This thing called family intervention …’
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses how the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) is predicated on the family intervention model, which relies on a key worker gaining the trust of a family, building a relationship with them and then working intensively with them in a holistic manner. It considers both the domestic and international history of such approaches, including the 1940s Family Service Unit approach. The chapter also examines the shorter history of the family intervention model, as well as the journey from a single Scottish voluntary sector project to a nationwide government programme in England. This includes the discursive shift from support to intervention; the introduction of the threat of sanctions; the types of families targeted across all projects; and changes to the level of resources allegedly required for effective family intervention.
Research: ‘help or hindrance’?
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This chapter analyses the engagement of researchers with previous debates about ‘the underclass’ and notes that a recurring feature of such debates is the involvement of researchers. It examines the research approach within the Troubled Families Programme (TFP), highlighting the use, misuse, and abuse of research in a number of key areas. The chapter looks at a number of issues including the misrepresentation of data behind the Understanding Troubled Families report which helped support the case for the expansion of the TFP; the invention of a survey that allegedly proved the need for radical reform of services to help troubled families; the use of case studies in the troubled families narrative; and the criticism of researchers involved with the official evaluation of the first phase of the TFP.
Policy analysis and the central executive
Authors: Craft Jonathan , Wilson Paul
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the policy making role of key central agencies within the Canadian federal core executive, and in particular their role in initiating, contesting, directing and coordinating policy advice across government. The chapter considers the three formal public service central agencies—the Privy Council Office, the Department of Finance and the Treasury Board Secretariat—as well as the Prime Minister’s Office which, although lacking formal authority to act for the Prime Minister, is nevertheless integral in providing policy advice to the head of government and coordinating policy development among ministers’ partisan political staff. Using elite interviews and documentation obtained through Access to Information, the chapter explores the advisory instruments of policy briefing notes and memoranda to cabinet as well as general advisory processes in the central executive.
The diminished invisible private service: consultants and public policy in Canada
Authors: Speers Kimberly
Published: January 2019

Management consultants who work for and with the various orders of government in Canada are no longer as invisible as they once were. Other authors have increasingly been writing about this policy and management actor and the media and the general public are also beginning to better understand the influence that management consultants have on how decisions are made in government. A question that remains is how much control and influence do management consultants have with government and administrative actors and if the private service is indeed stepping over any democratic boundaries.
Canadian legislatures, public policy and policy analysis
Authors: Glenn Ted
Published: January 2019

This chapter aims to clarify the roles that legislatures play in Canadian public policy and its analysis by looking at the institution as it functions in the country’s parliamentary system of government. The chapter begins by describing the four core functions that legislatures perform in Canada’s parliamentary system, namely making government, making government work, making government behave, and making alternative governments. The chapter then explains how and where these functions fit into the public policy process, most significantly in the agenda-setting, implementation and evaluation stages. The chapter concludes with some thoughts on what this fresh perspective on Canadian legislatures and public policy offers for policy analysis in this country.
Transforming governance patterns: challenges and opportunities for voluntary sector policy capacity
Authors: Laforest Rachel
Published: January 2019

Governance dynamics such as contracting, partnerships, networks and privatization have transformed the policy system into complex mix of networks and providers from the public, private and voluntary sectors. This chapter examines how voluntary organizations are contributing to policy in this new governance context and whether they have the policy capacity to sustain that contribution. The integration and realignment of service delivery systems holds great promise for voluntary organizations to balance their service delivery role with the democratic role of representation (which has too often been neglected over the years). User-centred and place-based models legitimize experiential evidence recognises the importance of the representation of interests in the very design and evaluation of programs. The challenge will continue to be the lack of stable and sustainable financing sources to support the capacity of voluntary organizations.
Policy analysis and advocacy in the Canadian labour movement: when the force of argument is not enough
Authors: Evans Bryan , Ross Stephanie
Published: January 2019

As states in the early twentieth century established labour ministries to manage and mitigate class conflict, the question of whether and under what conditions the public policy perspectives of the working class and their trade unions could find a hearing within the state became significant. As the labour-capital compromises that characterized the political economy of post-1945 liberal democracies unravelled and the internal architecture of states transformed with the rise of neoliberalism, the labour movement’s policy influence has declined, even within institutions of social dialogue. While it remains strategically important for trade unions to engage in state-oriented policy analysis and advocacy, the force of argument, of good rational analysis, is insufficient in the current era. This exploration of trade unions’ resulting reorientation of their policy advocacy tactics and strategies suggests a creative process of engaging members and the public is underway.
From policy analysis to policy analytics
Authors: Longo Justin , McNutt Kathleen
Published: January 2019

Policy analysis relies on data collected at discrete intervals along the policy cycle, from problem identification through evaluation. Policy analytics, in contrast, represents the combination of new, ubiquitous, and continuous data sources—from Internet search and social media to mobile smartphones, Internet of Everything (IoE) devices, and electronic transaction cards—with new data analytics techniques for informing and directing policy choices. New technology platforms also offer the possibility of small-scale policy experiments that can be piloted with their effects precisely observed in real-time. This big data + analytics + real-time experiments approach offers a significant change to the traditional practice of policy analysis. This chapter describes the movement from policy analysis to policy analytics, discusses emergent examples and potential applications, and concludes with questions that can guide the appropriate adoption of policy analytics for supporting policymaking.
Academics and public policy
Authors: Cohn Daniel
Published: January 2019

Academic researchers are important contributors to the public policy process in Canada and other countries. However, they generally do not contribute directly. First their work tends to pass through the hands others, sometimes called knowledge brokers, before it reaches those who actually make public policy. Secondly, although policy advisors and ultimate decision-makers tend to be aware of major schools of thought, they are less likely to be influenced by any specific single journal article or book. This chapter explores the process by which academic research finds its way into public-policy process and illustrates steps academic researchers can take to increase the chances their work will be taken account of in policy-making. The chapter ends with a word of caution about what can go wrong if academic researchers over-reach and try to influence the policy process without taking account of context.
Public policy studies in North America and Europe1
Authors: Botha Johanu , Geva-May Iris , Maslove Allan M.
Published: January 2019

North American and European public policy programs are placed in a comparative context and assessed in light of domestic and global developments. The historical background of policy analysis and research in light of the nature and scope of American influence, the development of differences and similarities in policy analysis versus research, the roles and impacts of ‘experiential learning’ tools such as co-ops and internships, and the roles and impacts of accreditation bodies, are identified and discussed as key determinants in the development and nature of public policy programs.
Introduction
Authors: Edwards Deanna
Published: January 2019

This introductory chapter provides an overview of family group conferences (FGCs) in the UK. FGCs have been used in the UK since the early 1990s and are now used worldwide following their inception in New Zealand in the 1980s. FGCs belong to an area of social work practice often known as ‘strengths based approaches’ because they seek to utilise the existing and developing strengths of the family and reduce or eliminate concerns. They are used in a wide range of social care child welfare situations from early intervention onwards, but recent use has focused upon their use in child protection, pre-proceedings, and proceedings cases. Ultimately, they seek to empower families: their key principles include the family as primary decision maker, the use of private family time, and the independence of the FGC coordinator.
A guide to convening a FGC
Authors: Edwards Deanna
Published: January 2019

This chapter provides guidance for convening a family group conference (FGC). The FGC process is designed to be family-led and empowering. As much of the decision-making as possible should therefore be undertaken by the family, including decisions about the practicalities of the meeting. It is also important to consider the role that advocates can play in ensuring that the views of vulnerable family members are represented. An FGC can only be an empowering process for families if individuals are enabled to express their views. Ultimately, it is a complex and time-consuming piece of work and should be undertaken by a skilled and well-trained and supported coordinator. Indeed, ongoing training and support for coordinators is crucial and should include full FGC training, safeguarding training, and shadowing opportunities.
The policy and legislative context
Authors: Edwards Deanna , Parkinson Kate , Taylor Marilyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the legislative context for family group conferences (FGCs) in both the UK and across the globe. While FGCs do not have a legislative mandate in the UK, with the exception of Northern Ireland, legislation and subsequent policy lends itself to the FGC approach and indeed in some cases recommends the use of FGCs as best practice. Meanwhile, very few countries across the globe have a legislative mandate for FGCs. What is clear, particularly from the field of children's social care, is that FGCs have been effectively applied in a legislative context to divert children away from care proceedings and from local authority care. Moreover, service evaluations for those FGC services that are using FGCs in an adult social care context have highlighted that FGCs have been an effective tool for decision-making and planning for vulnerable adults, including adult safeguarding cases.
Family members’ experiences
Authors: Edwards Deanna
Published: January 2019

This chapter looks at the views of family members who have been involved in child welfare family group conferences (FGCs). FGCs originate in New Zealand from roots that are firmly embedded within service-user rights and empowerment. Therefore, it is not surprising that FGC projects have developed strategies for involving families in developing services. At present, there are pockets of good practice in terms of service-user involvement. However, it must be acknowledged that service-user involvement in all areas of social care remains a pipe dream for many reasons, which include scarce resources in terms of staff and financial commitments. Nevertheless, it is recommended for new and established projects to continue to evaluate service-user experiences of FGCs and to use these evaluations to enhance provision, and to give FGC service users the opportunity to contribute to FGC training.
Addressing domestic abuse through FGCs
Authors: Parkinson Kate , Rogers Michaela
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on the use of family group conferences (FGCs) in cases of domestic violence and abuse (DVA). In the case of DVA, there is a disconnection between the family, domestic abuse services, child protection services, and child contact. Evidence highlights the potential of FGCs to galvanise relationships between families and professionals, and among professionals themselves. For example, research into the state-wide implementation of FGCs in Hawai'i found that the conference approach enabled professionals to understand each other's professional responsibilities, enhancing communication and leading to an improved service response to meeting the needs of families. More specific research into the use of FGCs in DVA cases undertaken in North Carolina found the potential of FGCs to offer an inclusive and coordinated response to families, bringing together families, domestic abuse support professionals, and child welfare professionals to plan for the safety of children.
FGCs with marginalised communities
Authors: Fatimilehin Iyabo Ayodele
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses family group conferences (FGCs) and marginalised communities. FGCs offer an alternative and more sustainable approach to working with families who are marginalised or socially excluded. Used in the right way, and with due regard paid to the culture and context in which families are living, FGCs are a powerful and effective intervention. The danger is that practitioners and services believe that it is automatically culturally competent, and they need to be aware that it operates as a framework that embraces culture if true partnerships are formed with families and they are empowered to make choices about the way that the model works for them. In order to do this, practitioners must be able to have conversations with families about their cultural beliefs, values, and practices and work with them to ensure that the FGC embodies this. Furthermore, FGCs have the potential to strengthen and build communities and social capital.
FGCs and harmful sexual behaviour
Authors: Anderson Monique
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the potential and some of the risks of family group conferences (FGCs) in cases where young people have displayed harmful sexual behaviour (HSB). By definition, HSB causes hurt and can lead to trauma, particularly for the young victim, who may experience negative consequences into adulthood. Young perpetrators may have transgressed social norms or even broken laws, but they have often themselves experienced victimisation and will have welfare needs. Importantly, FGCs are not zero-sum constructions that require victim needs to be met at the expense of the perpetrator. Rather, FGCs are ‘child-sensitive’ processes, because they prioritise the safety and value the needs of all young people involved, while promoting their reintegration into the community.
Conclusion
Authors: Edwards Deanna , Parkinson Kate
Published: January 2019

This concluding chapter argues for the potential of family group conferences (FGCs) to lead to positive outcomes for families in a diverse range of social work practice areas. The research and evidence base, while patchy, is clear on this. Policy makers, practitioners, and advocates of the FGC process have a responsibility to ensure that the practice does not become marginalised by austerity measures and increasingly risk-averse practice contexts. After all FGCs not only embody the key principles of key social work legislation and policy in the UK but also the values of social work practice. Indeed, the principles of FGCs are clearly aligned to the International Federation of Social Work definition of social work and the model provides the opportunity for local authorities to become increasingly reflective of the holistic approach to social work practice.
Things and possessions
Authors: Ekerdt David J.
Published: January 2019

Researchers commonly chart the life course as a progression of intangibles, yet the life course also has an important material basis: it is enacted and embodied with things and sometimes in the service of things, possessions in particular. A material convoy of possessions accompanies social actors from cradle to grave, and the materiality of these things necessitates labour on their behalf. In later life, the convoy has added characteristics: it is an accumulation of things that have endured and are perhaps more “sticky”; it is more challenging to accommodate; and its eventual disposition becomes a shared, social concern. The standard view, which is difficult to doubt, is that possessions cohere around a person or household and these persons’ subjectivity gives meaning to the objects. At the same time, it is possible to maintain that things have a ‘material agency’ that shapes older adults’ behavior in ways unintended by human subjectivity.
Our Fitbits, our (ageing) selves: wearables, self-tracking and ageing embodiment
Authors: Marshall Barbara L.
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers the ways that embodied aging may be produced through wearable self-tracking technologies. With physical activity now promoted as key to the prevention of many age-related problems, and as inactivity becomes framed as irresponsible, the market for devices to both measure and motivate activity has expanded. While research in the biomedical and exercise sciences focuses on how self-tracking devices can enhance interventions aimed at behavior modification with older adults, this chapter draw on interviews with older users to argue that we need to attend more carefully to how the data produced by self-tracking circulates through the networks of technologies, relationships and regimes of expertise that are embedded in everyday social worlds.
Introduction
Authors: Hinch Ronald , Gray Allison
Published: January 2019

This book is about the food people eat, the conditions under which it is produced and what is done to it before it is bought and consumed. It is about the way food is regulated, poorly regulated or in need of regulation. It involves questions of governance, how problems involving foodstuffs and food processes are enforced, ineffectively enforced or not enforced at all. From this perspective, this book encompasses an understanding of food crimes and harms beyond legalistic anthropocentric definitions. This entails a critical contextualisation of humanity’s relationship to food, and questions many phenomena, including the role of speciesism and social inequalities among various actors within the food industry, the commodification of food and the greenwashing of its marketing, and the consequences of changing agricultural techniques and food technologies on humans, non-human animals and the environment. Above all else, this book is about ...
A food crime perspective
Authors: Gray Allison
Published: January 2019

A food crime perspective involves an evaluation of the (lack of) criminal, legal, and regulatory organisation, and the insufficient, ineffective, or lack of enforcement, which surrounds the criminal behaviour and social harms produced within systems of food production, processing, marketing, distribution, selling, consumption, and disposal, victimising (often simultaneously) humans, animals, and the environment. Married to a social harm approach, and grounded in the views of critical criminology, green criminology, and radical victimology, a food crime perspective problematises the practices and contexts of food systems as immoral, harmful, and criminal. This chapter introduces this concept of a food crime perspective in three parts. First, it recognises the study of food must be contextualised in contemporary global food systems. Second, it situates a food crime perspective among other (sub)theories of criminology. Finally, it concludes with an argument why it is important to think criminologically about food.
The social construction of illegality within local food systems
Authors: Rosa Marcello De , Trabalzi Ferro , Pagnani Tiziana
Published: January 2019

This paper analyses the conventions of production within the agrifood sector in Italy, with a case study on Buffalo Mozzarella in southern Italy, to argue that legality and illegality are not universal values, but social constructs which are the product of institutional selection. By analysing three driving forces – territory, entrepreneurship and institutions – the authors argue that the practices of production may be positioned along a legal-illegal continuum, in that producers perceive acts not as opposite to each other, but as possible behaviours along the spectrum of legal or illegal defined practices. This chapter proposes the Evil Trinity, comprised of the three elements of territories, entrepreneurship and institutions, as a model for understanding the process of institutionalisation of (il)legal behaviors, within areas characterised by the endemic presence of organised crime, such as southern Italy.
Agency and responsibility: The case of the food industry and obesity
Authors: Schrempf-Stirling Judith , Phillips Robert
Published: January 2019

Obesity has become a global health epidemic and, as a result, a vivid debate about who bears responsibility has emerged. The book chapter elaborates on three fundamental elements that significantly influence agency in the context of food decisions: awareness and knowledge, the presence of alternatives, and addictive or addiction-like tendencies of human physiology and psychology. Under current conditions consumers do not have full agency to take full responsibility for obesity. Instead, corporations and governments play an active role in restoring consumer agency to make responsible food choices.
The value of product sampling in mitigating food adulteration
Authors: Manning Louise , Soon Jan Mei
Published: January 2019

Food supply chain fraud occurs as a result of a multiplicity of drivers, motivations, and intended outcomes. The aim of this book chapter is to consider one aspect of food fraud, namely adulteration and provide comment on reported prevalence, and critique the use of countermeasures, including product sampling, to minimise, or where possible eliminate, food adulteration risk. Procedural and policy driven countermeasures and/or traditional process controls alone will not give sufficient protection against food adulteration. Instead additional measures such as risk based product testing, responsive surveillance and verification mechanisms that are underpinned by real-time supply chain intelligence also need to be in place. This requires food supply chain leaders and managers to firstly recognise the specific risk of food adulteration associated with their organisations and products, implement effective risk characterisation, risk assessment and risk mitigation, and appropriate food adulteration risk communication programs.
Regulating food fraud: Public and private law responses in the EU, Italy and the Netherlands
Authors: Corini Antonia , Meulen Bernd van der
Published: January 2019

The horsemeat scandal urgently raised the question of how to regulate food fraud. Responses across Europe have shown, on the one hand, differing approaches in terms of conceptualisation and management of food fraud and, on the other hand, the inconsistencies and weaknesses of the European Union Food Law system in dealing with food fraud. This chapter discusses how to deal with food fraud. The combination of a focus on framing public enforcement to food fraud prevention and the adaption of a punitive sanction system to fight food fraud, interest is growing in the use of private schemes. Some of these private schemes already recommend companies to use instruments that may prevent and manage crimes involving food. The use of private schemes means that businesses assume responsibility to avoid food law violations. Therefore, together with international and national regulatory schemes, private schemes provide a promising tool to combat food fraud.
Food crime in the context of cheap capitalism
Authors: Asomah Joseph Yaw , Cheng Hongming
Published: January 2019

The production and sale of unsafe food, which typifies the concept of cheap capitalism, has become a global concern due to the increasing integration and interdependence of contemporary societies. Using secondary data sources, including the media, regulatory bodies, interest groups, and scholarly literature, this chapter explores unsafe food within the conceptual framework of cheap capitalism. By examining the nature and scale of unsafe food, it first argues that cheap capitalism is rampant, posing a greater risk to public health locally and internationally. Second, it argues that the state, the industry, and the processes of globalisation typically constitute the dominant factors shaping and driving cheap capitalism in the food sector. Third, it argues that unsafe food in the Canadian context can properly be understood within the global context of cheap capitalism. Finally, it explores steps being taken to address cheap capitalism in the food industry.
Fair trade laws, labels and ethics
Authors: Low Will , Davenport Eileen
Published: January 2019

The fair trade movement is arguably one of the most successful social movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. A key goal of the movement is to offer both a theoretical and practical alternative to the existing power relations in global trade which are argued to structurally disadvantage producers in the global south. Fair trade can be seen as a response to systemic harms and injustices caused by the global food production and distribution system to the people involved in the food industry – rather than instances of food adulteration and the misrepresentation of food quality highlighted elsewhere in the food crimes literature. While championing the agenda of global trade reform alongside anti-globalisation, ethical consumption, and anti-sweatshop activists, fair trade has offered a practical alternative for structurally disadvantage food producers to take direct action against the hegemonic forces of ‘free trade’.
Farming and climate change
Authors: White Rob , Yeates Jasmine
Published: January 2019

Global warming is rapidly changing the physical biosphere in ways that will reverberate well into the future. This chapter explores the relationship between food and climate change. On the one hand, profit-oriented systems of food production contribute to the production of carbon emissions while simultaneously undermining the resilience of natural systems to withstand the effects of climate-related changes. On the other hand, the degradation of natural resources associated with climatic change further perpetuates the demise of existing agricultural and pastoral systems in ways that will continue to generate famine and climate-induced migrations. While climate change has global consequences, the extent of the impact varies depending on the vulnerability of particular locales, social groups and livelihoods. Diverse circumstances will give rise to a range of responses, from the continuation of unsustainable production practices and the systematic hoarding of food, through to widespread social unrest linked to food scarcity and criminality.
Responding to neoliberal diets: School meal programmes in Brazil and Canada
Authors: Coca Estevan Leopoldo de Freitas , Júnior Ricardo César Barbosa
Published: January 2019

This chapter identifies school meal programs in Brazil and Canada as sustainable alternatives to some of the harms caused by the dominance large corporations exert on the global food system. It analyses the new version of the Brazilian National School Meal Program (PNAE) and British Columbia’s Farm to School initiative (F2S BC) in Canada. On one hand, PNAE creates an institutional market for family farmers, while offering students a greater amount of locally produced fresh and healthy food. On the other, F2S BC takes form through activities such as school gardens, food education and incentives to purchase locally produced food. This work finds that PNAE has more reach but limits school meals to consumption, whereas F2S BC emphasizes the role of schools as spaces for growing and recognises food as a pedagogical resource.
Responding to food crime and the threat of the ‘food police’
Authors: Gray Allison
Published: January 2019

The contemporary corporate-industrial food system – the ‘risky food regime’ – produces a particular conceptualisation of food crime. Discursively, this global era of food constructs and maintains a risk discourse which normalises food crime and shifts blame for food harms away from food corporations, to responsibilise consumers for ‘food choice’. This has important consequences for food movements and activism – predominately constructing a false belief that consumers can change food systems through ‘buycotts’ and ‘voting with forks’. While there are many forms of resistance to food crime, food corporations actively counter or co-opt these efforts, largely through values aligned with corporate social responsibility. This is exemplified through specific defense strategies, such as greenwashing and nutriwashing, and broader tactics to accuse anyone intervening in consumers’ food choice as being ‘food police’. However, food corporations significantly mediate consumer choice themselves, and thus, ironically, are simultaneously key ‘food cops’ and key facilitators of food crime.
Women and religion: contemporary and future challenges: editors’ introduction
Authors: Ruspini Elisabetta , Bonifacio Glenda Tibe , Corradi Consuelo
Published: January 2019

This introductory chapter discusses the relationship between social change, religion, and women's lives and self-definition in the contemporary world. Using international and interdisciplinary perspectives reflective of different religious traditions, this volume pays attention to the specific experiences and positions of women, or particular groups of women, to understand current patterns of religiosity and religious change. Recent studies have shown that there is a strong connection between processes of change — such as the impact of globalization, increased intercultural and transcultural interaction and exchange, migration flows, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) — and religious identities. Overall, recent literature has revealed a great complexity and often contradiction in late modern negotiations of religion and secularism by women and men, and a range of possibilities for change.
Gender equality in different readings of Islam in post-revolutionary Iran
Authors: Bakhshizadeh Marziyeh
Published: January 2019

This chapter offers an understanding of women's rights and gender equality based on three interpretations of Islam within the context of post-revolutionary Iran. The debate among different interpretations of Islam provides a foundation for the investigation of women's rights and gender equality in various readings of Islam not only in the regional dimensions of Iran, but also in the Islamic world. While some studies and academic discussions tend to use the term fundamentalism to refer to religious revival movements, particularly within Islamic traditions, such discussions often fail to distinguish reformist and other movements within Islam, therefore identifying all Islamic revival movements as fundamentalist or as part of fundamentalist movements.
Religion and gender equality in Catholic Philippines: discourses and practices in the 21st century
Authors: Bonifacio Glenda Tibe
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on Catholic religious discourses and practices of gender equality in the contemporary Philippines. It looks at particular practices among Filipino Catholic women and examines the role of religion in the movement towards gender equality. Through ethnographic data in small communities in Eastern Visayas, participant observation, and a case study of two women from Leyte, the chapter provides insight into how religiosity is enmeshed with the aims of local women to improve their status in society. It also shows that even if the Catholic Church retains its prominent presence in the social fabric, and is very much a part of the rituals of life, the symbolism of its moral power, particularly in the lives of women, has been contested by lived experiences quite different from what is prescribed.
Divine shadows: Indian Devadasis between religious beliefs and sexual exploitation
Authors: Sharma Manu
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the origin and growth of the Devadasi system and highlights the present status of Devadasis in Indian society. The term Devadasi is a Sanskrit word, which literally translates to ‘female slave of God’. In contemporary times, for various sociohistorical reasons, the Devadasi tradition appears to have lost its status and is equated synonymously with prostitution and slavery in India. The chapter questions the importance of the religious factor in explaining the logic of the Devadasis' institution. Conversely, the element of caste and socioeconomic background are two fundamental aspects that must be taken into account. These factors, strictly interwoven, contribute to keeping this practice alive.
Christian women’s movements in secularizing and diversifying contexts: a case study from Belgium
Authors: Brandt Nella van den
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers the case of Flanders. In Flanders, Christian women's movements belonging to Catholic civil society used to draw a large following and were able to contribute to the political, religious, and social emancipation of Catholic women throughout Belgium. Today, however, these Christian women's movements face declining membership and the need to ‘reinvent’ themselves according to contemporary times and women's needs. Looking at how a movement that is constitutive of Christian women's history in Flanders rethinks its self-presentation, the chapter aims to generate important insights, both descriptive and normative, into the role and place of Christian feminism and Christian women's movements in the face of social changes that take place across Western Europe.