bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Getting There from Here
Authors: Beaulieux Michele
Published: October 2024

This memoir, manifesto, and manual provide a road map for Contact Improvisation jams wanting to create “safer brave spaces”—spaces that consciously support consent culture, making being brave safer, especially for marginalized people. The author uses her experience of sexual violence in an open jam and its aftermath to contrast groups supporting rape culture and those creating consent culture. The Beaulieu Test measures whether jam guidelines prioritize looking after each other and the group and listening for “yes,” or taking care of oneself, setting boundaries, and saying “no.” Community accountability, democratic governance, and sensitive response processes grounded in restorative, transformative, and transitional justice can operationalize consent culture values. A precipitating event often mobilizes outside pressure and committed insiders to transition to safer brave space. Past harm may be embodied in the jam, so it is best addressed. The chapter applies to other voluntary groups in which participants risk vulnerability, especially with touch.
Gender, Power, and Equity in Contact Improvisation
Authors: Horrigan Kristin
Published: October 2024

This chapter argues that gendered power dynamics in Contact Improvisation (CI) negatively impact the experience of some dancers more than others, inequitably limiting access to full participation. While in its core principles, CI rejects gender roles, in practice, ideas about gender influence CI dancing in many ways. A significant number of dancers find their access to CI impeded by the effort it takes to protect themselves from gender-based power dynamics on the dance floor—including misgendering, objectification, stereotyping, sexual misconduct, and bias. This chapter lays out many of the ways that gender and gendered power dynamics show up in Contact Improvisation dancing and identifies aspects of CI that can lead us to replicate oppressive patterns from society. Additionally, it highlights aspects of CI that help dancers resist repeating daily social hierarchies in their dancing and proposes a series of practices to work toward a more equitable and inclusive CI.
Not
Authors: Smith Joy Mariama
Published: October 2024

Contact Improvisation (CI) is often touted as an egalitarian, improvisational dance form in which neutral practitioners explore fundamental physical principles such as gravity, weight, and momentum. Perhaps this is why it looks and feels oddly similar no matter where on the planet or by whom it is being practiced. This chapter looks at the practice from a non-white, queer, nonconforming view, revealing the imprint of the ontologically expansive white culture in which CI arose (and for the most part remains embedded). This chapter activates the reader with questions, scores, methods, and exercises to participate in the evolution of CI pedagogies; infusing them with strategies of consent and accountability. Delving into their lived experience, the author argues that CI will become truly improvisational and inclusive when practitioners make space for the weight and gravity of diverse cultures, histories, genders, sexualities, racialized identities, abilities, and other invisible but impactful forces.
Underscoring Nancy Stark Smith’s Legacy
Authors: Young Sarah
Published: October 2024

This chapter explores the undercurrents of the Underscore, a group framework for dance improvisation originated by Contact Improvisation (CI) pioneer, Nancy Stark Smith (1952–2020). The author describes three experiences, including an influential encounter with Nancy Stark Smith at a weekly Underscore practice in Northampton, Massachusetts; an Underscore with 150+ participants during a 50th anniversary celebration of CI; and an Underscore posthumously honoring Nancy Stark Smith at her alma mater, Oberlin College. In sourcing personal stories, as well as Caught Falling (Smith and Koteen, 2008) and terminology and pictorial “glyphs” from the written outline of the Underscore, this chapter reflects on the far-reaching contributions of the Underscore as part of Nancy Stark Smith’s legacy and considers how the form will expand and evolve in the years to come.
The Small Dances of Listening
Authors: Greco Lesley
Published: October 2024

The Stand, also known as the small dance, is a form of meditation described by Steve Paxton in the early 1970s as a means of mitigating physical dangers that Contact Improvisation (CI) dancers navigate. It is now being recognized within the global CI community that the challenges being navigated are not simply physical. The ability to stabilize attention and the skills of staying awake within disorientation are increasingly challenged, yet remain critical foundations in CI. Aside from the obvious physical risks CI dancers navigate, the potential for enmeshed, harmful, and fraught interactions in CI is massive. Through concepts of interpersonal neurobiology, osteopathic philosophy, and CI practice research, the Stand is explored as a listening practice, as a means of training awareness, of stabilizing attention, of developing trust in one’s own rapidly self-organizing system in gravity, and as a pragmatic way of establishing connection with oneself before making contact with another.
Introduction
Authors: Aiyar Yamini
Published: October 2024

Too often, debates on State capacity in India, have dismissed the voices of the frontline, as no more than the complaints of an apathetic, corrupt, incompetent bureaucracy, seeking to legitimize its corrupt ways and apathy toward the goal of delivering quality public services to all. But what if we paid attention to rather than dismissed these complaints? Could we learn something new about the challenge of weak state capacity that plagues India’s public service delivery systems? Through the voices of frontline education bureaucrats, this chapter makes the case for a constructive engagement with the perspectives at the frontlines of the state and in so doing, lays out the key argument of this book. It sets the stage for making the case that building state capacity is a challenge that goes beyond techno-managerial solutions. Rather it requires engaging with the realities of the frontlines, the organizational culture—norms, rules and hierarchies—that shape the behaviour of frontline actors. This chapter ends with a brief overview of the research methods and structure and organization of the book.
Inside the Classroom
Authors: Aiyar Yamini
Published: October 2024

This chapter turns its gaze to the dynamics of reform inside the classroom. It draws on detailed classroom observations, interviews, and surveys with teachers to capture the dynamics of resistance and disruption that shifted the pedagogical needle within the classroom. The chapter highlights the specific infusions of reform, the mentor teachers, the sites of deliberation opened by the training sessions, the repeated reading missions and explores the subtle ways in which these served to shift teacher perspectives on the classroom. It describes how the teachers evolved from active resistance to Chunauti to grudging acceptance and eventual agreement with reformers on the relevance of ideas like the Mission Buinyad and the mandate to focus on learning levels of students in the classroom. To test the stickiness of these reforms, the research phase ended with a survey of teacher perceptions after schools reopened from COVID-19 induced closures and demonstrated the effects of the nearly five year long effort of reforms that preceeded COVID-19. Through these observations, this chapter offers perspectives on the effectiveness of the school reforms.
History, Memory, and Affect in Postcolonial Arabic Literature and Film
Authors: Gana Nouri
Published: October 2024

While modern Arab history has been marked largely by the experience of colonialism, postcolonial Arab history has been marked particularly by the Palestinian experience of settler colonialism. From the occupation of Palestine in 1948 to the occupation of Iraq in 2003, colonial entrenchments and encroachments have cast a long shadow on the decolonial achievements of several Arab countries, especially during the successful Egyptian and Algerian revolutions in the 1950s. Arabs have come to realize that Arab culture, literature, and film constitute a repository for these experiences, especially in the wake of the 1967 Naksa, the cataclysmic defeat of three Arab armies by Israel. Despite the turn to affect in early 21st-century scholarship, and a much earlier explosion of works on mourning and melancholia in post-World War II modernist and postcolonial studies, there is little theoretical and critical work done at the intersection between Arabic literature and affect theory—a puzzling lacuna, given the centrality of affect in everyday Arab culture and the aforementioned historical convulsions experienced by Arab countries in colonial and postcolonial times. Nothing can be gained by giving short shrift to the affective toll of the serial colonial and postcolonial defeats suffered by Arab regimes.

Affect is inextricably related to subjective experience and individual agency but it is increasingly enmeshed in politics and political mobilization. Grief, for instance, has always taken forms of response that range from declarations of love to declarations of war. Note, for instance, the outpouring of love that followed Lady Diana’s tragic passing or Michael Jackson’s similar fate. By contrast, note the serial declarations of war that followed the tragic events of 9/11 or October 7. The bombings of Afghanistan, Iraq, and, more recently, Libya and Syria, not to mention the catastrophic bombings of Gaza by Israel, all took place because or in spite of grief, and in order to fulfill or foreclose mourning. Colonial powers prescribe offensive and retaliatory violence to settle grief yet proscribe the same measures to the populations in whose dispossession and terrorization they are implicated. The stakes of grief seem so high that they decide who has the monopoly on violence and who wants to subvert that monopoly and claim their rightful share of the use of violence to inflict or overcome grief. Arab culture, literature, and film are bloated with ungrieved and ungrievable corpses, staking, as it were, a claim from beyond the grave to memory and justice.
Teaching Slavery and the Slave Trade in Senegal
Authors: Seck Ibrahima
Published: October 2024

How the history of slavery and the slave trade in French-speaking Africa, in particular Senegal, is taught has played a part in shaping a collective memory that focuses on the coastal sites of the slave trade. The inland dynamics are overlooked, especially the involvement of local players, states, and African tradespeople in the trade of captives and the centuries-old existence of domestic slavery. The approach, largely based on textbooks, does not provide all the information necessary to understand a painful chapter of the past that keeps resurfacing in the daily lives of Africans, often tragically. The primary sources for studying slavery in French-speaking Africa can be found in the French Overseas Archives (Archives d’Outre-Mer) in Aix-en-Provence and in port cities such as Lorient, the port of the French West India Company (Compagnie des Indes Occidentales). Travel accounts also offer information on slavery and the slave trade in Africa. In terms of domestic slavery, the sources are mainly oral. In addition, there was a major survey on captivity in French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française [AOF]) in 1905, which led to the second abolition of slavery in AOF, after the one of 1848. A significant amount of documents relating to freedom papers and the guardianship of persons freed from slavery can be found in the National Archives of Senegal (Archives Nationales du Sénégal). These official documents do not shed much light on cultural phenomena, and there is scant consideration of the African diasporas, whose tales and legends still carry the memory of the tragedies of the past. The same is true of Africa. Whether in America, in the so-called Islamic lands, or beyond, Africans and their descendants always fought cultural alienation with a resilience that was deeply rooted in religion. The history of slavery needs to be taught as a history of civilizations.
Phonetics of Fricatives
Authors: Jongman Allard
Published: October 2024

Fricatives are very common, occurring in over 90% of the world’s documented languages and at all places of articulation codified in the International Phonetic Alphabet charts. Fricatives constitute a class of consonant sounds characterized by a turbulent airflow produced by a severe but not complete constriction of the vocal tract. This constriction divides the vocal tract into two parts, a front cavity that ranges from the constriction to the lips and a back cavity that ranges from the constriction to the larynx. For anterior fricatives, the friction generated at the constriction excites the front cavity and the resonances associated with the front cavity dominate the sound spectrum. The length of the front cavity is a major determinant of the spectrum. As the location of the constriction moves toward the back of the vocal tract, the front cavity becomes longer, and the resonances occur at lower frequencies. For more posterior fricatives produced at and beyond the velum, back cavity resonances become more prominent.

Acoustic and perceptual studies focusing on the frication noise show that properties of the spectrum, amplitude, and duration of the noise all serve to distinguish the sibilant from the non-sibilant fricatives across a wide variety of languages. In addition, spectral properties distinguish /s/ from /ʃ/, with /s/ having a concentration of energy in higher frequencies than /ʃ/. None of the noise properties seem adequate to distinguish /f/ from /θ/. Acoustic and perceptual studies of fricative-to-vowel formant transitions suggest that transitions may provide unique information for those contrasts that are difficult to distinguish on the basis of the frication itself.

Fricatives, especially /s/ and /ʃ/, have also been shown to carry information about social-group membership, including speakers’ sexual orientation and social class.

Measures such as spectral moments can be sensitive to differences in sampling rate and type and exact location of the analysis window. Methods to obtain reliable measurements are discussed, including ensemble averaging and multitaper analysis. In addition, alternatives to spectral moments such as the Discrete Cosine Transformation coefficients are introduced.
Grammatical Gender in the Romance Languages
Authors: Loporcaro Michele
Published: October 2024

This article describes the manifestations of the morphosyntactic category of grammatical gender in the Romance languages, including regional varieties and dialects, as well as Romance minority languages spoken under total language contact (which underwent significant reshaping under contact pressure). It will briefly sketch the diachronic development of this category from Latin to the Romance varieties highlighting the diversity that has come into being in Romance as a product of language change and dialect differentiation in this area of grammar. Among this diversity, some phenomena of gender marking and/or assignment have sometimes arisen that are rare among Indo-European languages (and, in some cases, even beyond): these rara & rarissima are paid special attention in the present account of Romance gender.
Special Education
Authors: Ball Annahita , Skrzypek Candra
Published: October 2024

The special education system in the United States serves youth with disabilities in the public schools. After decades of marginalization and oppression, federal and state policies established in the 1970s created a complex policy and service delivery system that serves more than 15% of youth in schools. Under federal law, disabled youths are entitled to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive setting. At the federal level, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the guiding policy for special education. Under IDEA, key features of special education include the identification and evaluation of disabled youths, the least restrictive environment, Individualized Education Plans (IEP), procedural safeguards, and shared decision-making. To be eligible for services, a youth’s disability must directly and adversely impact their education as demonstrated by a comprehensive evaluation. Following the evaluation, a student will receive an educational placement in the least restrictive environment meaning the student must be included with students who are nondisabled to the maximum extent possible. The student will also receive an IEP, or a written document that specifies how the school or district will provide FAPE for the student as well as measurable annual goals. Students and their families should be involved throughout this process, and procedures are in place to ensure that any disputes are resolved.

Vast inequities and disproportionalities have been identified within the special education system. Specifically, inequity spans the identification, evaluation, and discipline of youths with disabilities. Some youths are overidentified in special education, while others are underidentified. Black, Native, and Hispanic youths are more likely to be identified for special education services and are more likely to be placed in restrictive and segregated settings. Disabled youths, especially racialized youths, are also at increased risk of exclusionary discipline (e.g., suspensions and expulsions). Policy changes identify and rectify disproportionality in special education. States and districts are required to report on disproportionality and those that have significant disproportionality by race or ethnicity must provide early intervening services to eliminate the disproportionality. Debate persists on whether the current special education system can truly be equitable though continued advocacy, policy changes, and innovation to ensure that special education practices meet the needs of all students.
Child Protection
Authors: Drake Brett , Jonson-Reid Melissa
Published: October 2024

All children require a safe and nurturing environment for optimal development. Child maltreatment is among the most serious societal problems, with severe behavioral, health, and economic costs. Preventing and responding to child maltreatment is therefore among the most critical services a society can provide. Child protection in the United States is handled by many agencies in a general sense, including law enforcement and health departments. The main agency tasked with protecting children is the Child Protective Services (CPS) system, which is charged with supporting the safety and well-being of children who may be at risk of child maltreatment. Child maltreatment is a common societal problem, with various national studies suggesting that up to a third of children may experience maltreatment before turning 18. CPS contacts about 4% of all children in the United States each year. Among children contacted, about one fifth are substantiated and a very small proportion of all children reported are placed in foster care. CPS serves poor persons at higher rates than wealthier persons, consistent with the higher need for protection faced by those under economic stress. Similarly, Black children are contacted by CPS at a rate almost twice that of White children, consistent with increased risks and stressors faced by that population, largely associated with historical and current racism, particularly as manifested in economic racial stratification. Child welfare practice innovations include, among other things, the increased use of “differential response” programs, in which situations presenting fewer safety risks are handled with less emphasis on investigation, and an increased awareness of the need for preventative services, including services aimed at supporting those under severe economic stress.
An experimental study on distinguishing gel pen ink stains using desorption electrospray ionization mass spectroscopy combined with the K-means algorithm
Authors: Yuan Yiting , Tao Yu , Qin Da
Published: October 2024

In the realm of document examination, the identification of suspicious alterations to handwritten documents is an important factor in case characterization. Investigating the differences in gel pen ink compositions has significant implications. In this study, we used desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) to analyze the ink compositions of gel pens. The methodology involved the following steps. (i) Sample selection: a total of 227 gel pens available in the market were procured for the study. (ii) Pre-experimental parameter exploration: preliminary experiments were performed to optimize the experimental parameters. (iii) Analytical technique: DESI-MS was used to collect compositional data from the gel pen ink samples, without requiring pre-treatment of the samples. (iv) Data analysis: the obtained data were analyzed using the Davies–Bouldin index, Calinski–Harabasz index, and K-means algorithm for ink sample classification. The experimental findings indicated that DESI-MS is a viable method for examining the ink compositions of gel pens. Notably, the testing process is minimally destructive and does not necessitate pre-treatment of the samples. Furthermore, variations in the ink compositions were observed among different models of gel pens within the same brand, and the extent of the variation in the composition varied across brands. Additionally, there were instances in which the ink compositions of different brands of gel pens exhibited similarities.
Evaluation and Real-world Experience of a Neutralization Susceptibility Screening Assay for Broadly Neutralizing Anti–HIV-1 Antibodies
Authors: Pahus Marie Høst , Zheng Yu , Olefsky Maxine , Gunst Jesper Damsgaard , Tebas Pablo , Taiwo Babafemi , Søgaard Ole S , Peluso Michael J , Lie Yolanda , Reeves Jacqueline D , Petropoulos Christos J , Caskey Marina , Bar Katharine J
Published: October 2024

Background

Development of a screening assay for the clinical use of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) is a priority for HIV therapy and cure initiatives.

Methods

We assessed the PhenoSense Monoclonal Antibody Assay (Labcorp-Monogram Biosciences), which is Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) validated and has been used prospectively and retrospectively in multiple recent bnAb clinical trials.

Results

When performed on plasma and longitudinal peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples (before and during antiretroviral therapy, respectively), as sourced from a recent clinical trial, the PhenoSense assay produced robust reproducibility, concordance across sample types, and expected ranges in the susceptibility measures of bnAbs in clinical development. When applied retrospectively to baseline samples from 3 recent studies, the PhenoSense assay correlated with published laboratory-based study evaluations, but baseline bnAb susceptibility was not consistently predictive of durable virus suppression. Assessment of assay feasibility in 4 recent clinical studies provides estimates of assay success rate and processing time.

Conclusions

The PhenoSense Monoclonal Antibody Assay provides reproducible bnAb susceptibility measurements across relevant sample types yet is not consistently predictive of virus suppression. Logistical and operational assay requirements can affect timely clinical trial conduct. These results inform bnAb studies in development.
Can Voluntary Business and Human Rights Norms be Effective? Exploring a Multidimensional Perspective of Norm Effectiveness in Africa
Authors: Andrews Nathan , Alorse Raynold W
Published: October 2024

Although the concept of human rights was rarely visible in corporate documents prior to the 2000s, many corporations today publicly espouse strong commitments to respect human rights due to normative mechanisms such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) introduced in 2008. Contributing to ongoing scholarly discussions around the known gap between human rights rhetoric and performance, this article draws upon the global norm diffusion literature to conceptualize the effectiveness of business and human rights (BHR) norms as output, outcome, and impact. This multi-dimensional understanding of effectiveness reveals why a norm—embraced by a variety of stakeholders such as corporations, governments, and civil society groups—could still face contestation and implementation challenges at the grassroots, implying a lack of impact effectiveness. The article contextualizes this discussion within specific cases in Africa, using primary fieldwork data collected in Ghana and South Africa alongside other secondary data. Our overall objective is to contribute to both theoretical and practical discussions of how BHR norms spread and become useful to purported beneficiaries or ‘end-users’ of such norms. In doing so, the article showcases a deeper understanding and contextualization of human rights in the ‘real world’ of places where extractive corporations operate.
A single-center case study series assessing the effect of selumetinib use in patients with neurofibromatosis-related plexiform neurofibromas
Authors: Passos João , Soares Marta P , Salgado Duarte , Nunes Sofia , Cavaco Daniela , Garrido Pedro M , Coutinho Mónica , Carvalho Inês Patrocínio , Vilares Miguel , Ferreira Mafalda , Lacerda Cristina
Published: October 2024

Background

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is a common genetic disorder of phenotypic variability with age-dependent penetrance. This study describes the diagnosis, clinical characterization, management, and outcomes of a large patient cohort with plexiform neurofibroma (PN) treated with selumetinib in a real-world clinical setting.

Methods

This single-center observational study consecutively enrolled patients with NF1-PN treated with selumetinib from April 2018 to 2023. Data on clinical features, tumor types and locations, and results from genetic tests were recorded at baseline; details of disease management with selumetinib and surgical intervention and disease evolution including imaging data and evaluations of pain and function were documented.

Results

Overall, 54 patients with a median age (range) of 16.4 (4.5–58.0) years were enrolled. Most had cutaneous manifestations (88.9%), including cutaneous neurofibromas and PN. Patients underwent [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET/CT imaging before treatment to rule out malignant lesions. Initial evaluations included directed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which facilitated future comparisons and allowed for the assessment of PN resectability. Pharmacological treatment with selumetinib (with surgery, without surgery) resulted in the following proportion of patients achieving stable disease (58.8%, 54.3%), partial response (29.4%, 28.6%), and improved pain (58.8%, 37.1%), deformity (17.6%, 20.0%), and functional (17.6%, 20.0%) outcomes, respectively.

Conclusions

Results from this study demonstrate that NF1-PN can be managed effectively with selumetinib with surgical intervention in some patients. Most patients achieved tumor stability and improved symptom control, and the majority of patients continue under treatment. Effective diagnosis and management were achieved through individualized utility of FDG-PET/CT and MRI imaging and targeted resource allocation.
Childhoods and Collective Memory in Latin America
Authors: García Gómez Diana , Giraldo Mueller Luz Adriana
Published: October 2024

The end of the Cold War influenced the fall of military dictatorships and authoritarian regimes throughout Latin America. In tandem with democratization, victims’ rights groups advocating for justice and reparations for the gross violations and state crimes that plagued the region during the twentieth century became critical political actors. These grassroots organizations emerged in the search for redressing and restoring dignity and human rights while undertaking efforts to preserve and transmit collective memory, an ideological process known now as “the memory turn.” This shift highlights how Latin American activism and scholarship center the study of memory as a locus for the revindication of rights and a route for the consolidation of democracy. This “memory turn” has also been considered a catalyst for the numerous estallidos sociales (social protests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Peru, to name a few) that have swept the continent since 2019. Any understanding of the interconnections between these troubling pasts and the fragile, transitional presents the region faces must include children and young people as crucial participants in the co-narration and transfer of history. Although, in most traditional collective trauma and memory studies, children and youth are solely discussed as victims of human rights violations, critical work centering their active participation in collective memorialization is also being developed in the region. This entry focuses on how Latin Americanists, memory scholars, and childhood scholars have approached the study of children’s and youth’s participation in collective memory. Examples include the reconstruction of fractured family histories by the post-dictatorship generations in the Southern Cone, exile stories across the continent, the recognition of the destruction of racialized collective identities due to political violence in Peru and Guatemala and anti-blackness in Brazil, the memorialization of the “lost generation” in Colombia, and the analysis of literary works for children created under the banners of “never forget” and “never again.” Children’s and youth’s participation in collective memory has served a dual purpose: first, to construct ideal future political subjects responsible for the democratization project; second, as the cure to end the systemic cycles of violence that have constituted the region’s history. These works also show that when one seeks to center children’s and youth’s participation in collective memory work, we must look for children between the lines, as they tend to be overlooked as political agents.
Scotland and Scottish Literature
Authors: Shields Juliet
Published: October 2024

Until recently, Victorian Scottish literature has been ignored or marginalized both within Scottish studies and Victorian studies. Scholars in the latter field have tended to regard Scotland as an afterthought or appendage to England, while those in the former viewed the Victorian era as a fallow period in Scotland’s literary history. Falling between the Romantic era, when Edinburgh rivalled London as a vibrant center of literature and culture, and the Scottish literary renaissance of the early twentieth century, which sought to foster a new cultural nationalism, the Victorian period seemed to be marked by a dearth of literary creativity. This supposed dearth has been attributed to the seamlessness of 19th-century Scotland’s cultural and political incorporation in Great Britain. Many Scottish authors resided in London, the metropolitan center of Britain’s literary empire; and consequently, some of the most prolific and best-known of these authors, such as Margaret Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Arthur Conan Doyle, sometimes are not even recognized as Scottish. Much of the fiction and poetry that is unequivocally Scottish in linguistic register, form, or content was relegated by 20th-century critics to the Kailyard, a term that literally describes a kitchen garden, but that became a pejorative label suggesting the home-grown simplicity of much mid-Victorian Scottish literature. Scholars dismissed Kailyard literature, epitomized by the works of James M. Barrie, Samuel R. Crockett, and Annie S. Swan, as sentimental, parochial, and inauthentic. Since the early twentieth-first century, scholars have begun to question the biases of the literary historical narratives constructed by 20th-century critics. Work on the impact of imperial expansion and emigration and on the formation of the Free Church of Scotland has transformed our understanding of Kailyard literature as a response to economic and social change. Research on the history of print has redirected our attention from London’s literary marketplace to local literary cultures in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee, in addition to other, less urban sites. These developments have begun to redress the exclusion of women and working-class writers from the study of Victorian Scottish literature. Writers working in Gaelic continue to be marginalized, although explorations of fin de siècle Celticism have revealed their impact on those writing in Scots and in English. This article includes sources on literature written in all of Scotland’s three languages: English, Scots, and Gaelic.
Older Workers
Authors: Zacher Hannes
Published: October 2024

In times of demographic change, researchers and practitioners have become increasingly interested in the group of “older workers.” Due to population aging in most developed and also many developing countries, members of this group make up a growing proportion of the workforce. Older workers are typically distinguished from the group of “young workers” and sometimes also from the group of “middle-aged workers.” The cut-off used to distinguish the group of older workers from the groups of young and/or middle-aged workers varies across literature sources and institutions that use such cut-offs, from as young as forty years to forty-five or fifty years and older. Typically no upper age cut-off is specified, and older workers belong to this group until they retire. Numerous sources in the literature describe the individual characteristics and actual and desired work characteristics and working conditions of the group of older workers. Moreover, many sources distinguish older workers from other age groups in terms of individual characteristics (e.g., physiological and cognitive abilities, personality, motivation), actual and desired contextual characteristics (e.g., work characteristics, working conditions, leadership, human resource practices, organizational culture and climate), and work-related outcomes (e.g., job attitudes, work performance, occupational health and well-being). This Oxford Bibliographies article provides an overview of the most important general overviews, edited books, and academic journals on older workers.
Dragonetti’s Virtuosity of Arrangement
Authors: Nachtergaele Shanti
Published: October 2024

This study takes as its starting point a popular anecdote about Ludwig van Beethoven and the celebrated double bassist Domenico Dragonetti. The two virtuosos reportedly met in Vienna in 1799, and together they played Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 5 No. 2. Since Dragonetti never notated his adaptation of the cello part, the anecdote bears potential for the exploration of historically informed transcription. As an approach to Arrangement Studies, historically informed transcription shifts the focus of study from the arrangement itself to the act of arranging and its associated aural, visual, and tactile experiences. Transcribing the cello sonata highlights the relationship between Dragonetti’s instrument and his performance idiom and provides insights into the possible motivations behind his penchant for arrangement as a medium for virtuosic display.
Building Partnerships
Authors: Kranke Matthias
Published: October 2024

Even though the International Monetary Fund (IMF) features among the most closely studied contemporary international organizations (IOs), we know surprisingly little about its interactions with other IOs. This chapter remedies this blind spot. It does so by reviewing the literature on the IMF for contributions on inter-IO dynamics and by providing basic profiles of the IMF’s interactions with six partner IOs: the World Bank, the European Union (EU), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The overview developed in this chapter illustrates that our grasp of often quite routine interactions between IOs significantly lags behind our understanding of processes within IOs.
The IMF and World Bank
Authors: Clegg Liam
Published: October 2024

Conventional wisdom presents the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as “Bretton Woods twins,” with approaches to economic governance that are highly similar if not in identity. By assessing dynamics surrounding inter-institutional collaborative work, this chapter probes this prevailing characterization. In relation to financial sector stability, poverty reduction, and climate change, we see that an initial period of senior-management-driven deep collaborative working rolled back to shallower information sharing and consultation, with at times significant points of tension arising between the organizations. Effective collaboration across 19th Street is, it seems, difficult to establish, and difficult to maintain.
IMF Uniformity of Treatment
Authors: Hibben Mark
Published: October 2024

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is mandated to treat its members in an evenhanded manner. To address concerns of operations bias, the IMF adopted the “risk-adjusted input” (RAI) framework in 2014. The RAI framework argues that rather than focus solely on comparing surveillance “outputs” (policy advice) when assessing potential IMF bias, “inputs” into surveillance and relative risk of the country to systemic economic stability should also be considered. This chapter offers an overview of IMF uniformity of treatment debates and assesses its recent track record on policy evenhandedness. Employing RAI assessment metrics, it finds that the IMF acts in a broadly evenhanded manner. However, the RAI’s framing of evenhandedness does little to challenge perceptions of IMF bias, subsequently undermining institutional effectiveness.
Navigating Risk and Uncertainty within the IMF Technocratic Trap
Authors: Robles Te-Anne
Published: October 2024

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is widely considered to be the foremost technocratic authority on global macroeconomic and financial stability. Its tools and methods have been subject to great scrutiny, and the Fund has undergone numerous rounds of review and reform as it recognizes the analytical blinders that have limited IMF staff’s ability to correctly detect the build-up of risk and uncertainties in the global economy. This chapter examines the 2021 Comprehensive Surveillance Review to assess how the Fund deals with the escalation of risks and uncertainties and how this has led to the reshaping and reassertion of the IMF’s technocratic tendencies.
Reluctant Revisionism
Authors: Malkin Anton , Wang Lisha
Published: October 2024

China’s dynamic relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is marked by increased participation, aligning interests, and strategic use for its legitimacy. Simultaneously, China is subtly contributing to alternatives, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and regional financing arrangements, without directly challenging the IMF. This chapter argues that China’s stance toward the IMF is reluctantly revisionist, combining heightened engagement with a slow integration into alternative mechanisms. Examining literature, IMF Executive Board minutes, and recent developments, the chapter concludes that China’s conservative preferences mirror its gradualist approach to reform in the global monetary and financial system.
Global Market Integration, Crisis Management, and the Limits of the Macro-Social Turn
Authors: White Paul Antony
Published: October 2024

For almost eight decades, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), along with other international bodies, has played a pivotal role in fostering global market integration and crisis management. However, critics have argued that policies promoted by the Fund have had negative social impacts, including in relation to inequality. In recent times, the IMF has shifted its focus to “macro-social” concerns, including inequality, signaling an apparent departure from its traditional emphasis on fiscal consolidation above all else. This chapter scrutinizes the IMF’s post-2015 “inequality pilots,” assessing policy advice changes in the pilot countries and elsewhere. It is argued that the Fund’s ability to actually make a positive impact on macro-social issues like inequality is hindered by internal constraints and geo-political dynamics.
IMF Capacity Development
Authors: Kim Jung Yeon
Published: October 2024

Alongside surveillance and lending, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s capacity development (CD) is one of its three core mandates with about 30 percent of country operational budgets allocated for this purpose. IMF CD focuses on the areas of its core expertise, namely macroeconomic management, balance of payment issues, monetary and exchange rate policy, financial stability frameworks, fiscal policy and operations, statistics, and related legislative frameworks. IMF CD is regarded as of high technical quality by donors and other CD providers, and has been much appreciated by the recipient countries. The IMF is continuing its efforts to make CD more available, tailored, and impactful, and is working to make funding sources more stable and flexible. The effort is also under way to develop and implement measures to improve the CD prioritization, monitoring, and evaluation.
States and the IMF
Authors: Martin Lisa L.
Published: October 2024

States created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the Bretton Woods conference, and much of the political science literature explores how states continue to be the major drivers of IMF actions. Two main approaches have emerged. The first, drawing on principal-agent theory, sees states as intentionally delegating authority to the Fund. The second explores the ways that states exercise informal influence, outside the official channels of delegation. This chapter links these two literatures by thinking of informal influence as rent-seeking behavior. When the United States or other powerful actors go outside the usual norms of influence, they are extracting private rents from the international organization (IO). Such rent-seeking behavior, if unchecked, undermines the fundamental reasons for the initial delegation of authority to the IMF.
Probation
Authors: Canton Rob
Published: October 2024

This chapter discusses the work of probation, with a particular focus on community supervision. After a short historical scene-setting, political and ethical critiques of probation are considered. Probation has had to answer charges of collusion with social injustice and/or ethically improper attempts to change individuals. It has also been attacked for being ineffective in reducing reoffending and for its failure to constitute a credible community alternative to imprisonment. What probation means—to the public, to the courts, to practitioners, and above all to those who are under supervision—is also explored. A persistent challenge for all forms of community sanctions is that they struggle to match the emotional expectations associated with punishment. A review of the experiences of those subject to supervision discloses that neither the burdens nor the benefits of being supervised are always what they are imagined to be. Probation’s potential is most likely to be realized when it is understood and organized as a local/community justice agency, rather than subsumed into a remote and centralized Department of Corrections. Probation is often taken to be one form of correctionalism, but while it can make modest contributions in these respects, it is argued that its main value is to be found in the messages it articulates and its potential to contribute both to retributive and social justice.
Electronic Monitoring
Authors: Bülow William
Published: October 2024

In many jurisdictions, electronic monitoring is available as a punishment for at least a subset of criminal wrongdoers. Instead of going to prison or paying a fine, the criminal wrongdoer is then typically placed under home confinement using remote location-checking technology to constrain their liberty. This chapter examines under which circumstances electronic monitoring is morally justified as a form of punishment. In doing so, it addresses a few potential ethical concerns that have been raised concerning this type of punishment, including the potential for net widening, invasion of privacy, public shaming, interference of the rights of legally innocent parties and that it is insufficient as a criminal punishment. It is argued that none of these concerns shows that electronic monitoring should be rejected as a form of punishment. Instead, it is argued that states are indeed morally justified in using electronic monitoring as a punishment and that its use should be encouraged, especially as an alternative to shorter prison sentences.
Consequentialism and Severity
Authors: Bagaric Mirko
Published: October 2024

Consequentialist theories of punishment contend that sanctions should be imposed on offenders to the extent that this would result in good outcomes. Traditionally the good outcomes from state-imposed sanctions are thought to derive from deterrence, community protection, and rehabilitation. Logically, the type and amount of punishment that should be imposed is that which would achieve these objectives. The empirical evidence, however, suggests that marginal deterrence does not work and there are no rehabilitative measures that have a high degree of success. Severe punishment, in the form of imprisonment, is justified in relation to serious sexual and violent offenders given that they have a relatively high recidivism rate. However, the goal of intense and general incapacitation should not be pursed without moderation given that there are no reliable techniques for predicting which offenders will reoffend. Thus, the consequentialist objectives of punishment provide little guidance regarding how much punishment is appropriate. Proportionalism can potentially provide more guidance on this issue, given that it seems that the legitimacy of the law might by eroded if overly harsh or soft penalties are habitually imposed. However, unless a methodology is developed for matching different forms of suffering, such as the pain of imprisonment and the trauma associated with being sexually assaulted, the proportionality principle will continue to provide only crude guidance regarding the amount of punishment that should be inflicted on offenders.
Female Offenders
Authors: Lawford-Smith Holly
Published: October 2024

Most incarcerated people are male, and men commit the bulk of the violent crime. The paradigm offender is male. But that is not to say that violent female offenders don’t exist. They do; some of them are well-known, because the men they hurt were celebrities (Solanas), or because the men they hurt had treated them in such despicable ways that the public sympathized, for once, with the woman rather than the man (Sauvage). But when women aggress against men, their defense is very often “insanity,” as though it is insane for a woman to enact violence against a man, even against a background in which men routinely enact violence against women in the forms of rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse, child abuse, and more. Sometimes their defense is “provocation,” and sometimes “self-defense.” While these defenses might be accurate and might be strategic, this chapter explores the idea that the actions of female violent offenders might be political. It considers several versions of this claim, and defends the idea that women’s violence against men is political when it targets the actions of men qua men against women qua women, a quintessential example of which is rape. It explores the implications of this claim when it comes to the punishment of an individual violent female offender, arguing that a woman’s violent actions being political can be morally exculpatory.