bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on the scientific revolution that preceded and outsoared the political one, changing life, the universe and everything in the last decades of the eighteenth century. It pays attention to Sir Joseph Banks, who joined Captain James Cook's round-the-world expedition and pioneered a new kind of science, later called anthropology. The chapter presents Banks's journal which records every aspect of the Tahitians' lives — how they tattooed themselves, wrestled, played a kind of flute through their noses, and rode the huge Pacific rollers on bits of wood (the first European account of surfing). The chapter then shifts to demonstrate how richly science and Romanticism overlapped. It discusses the joy, hope and wonder of the revolutionary era. The chapter argues that we must engage the minds of young people with science by writing about it in a new way, entering imaginatively into the biographies of individual scientists and showing what makes them just as creative as poets, painters and musicians.
Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on Beatrix Potter, who was depicted in Linda Lear's authoritative biography as undoubtedly heroic. Dauntless and public-spirited, Potter pitted herself against a world dominated by incompetent and obstructive men. It talks about how Potter was a serious student of natural history who pursued research unthought of by the established male scientists of her day long before she began her famous series of little books for children. The chapter considers Potter's animal books for children as the first to reflect accurate knowledge. Animal behaviour in her stories, though fantasised, is based on years of scientific investigation and hundreds of precise drawings.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter introduces Yuval Noah Harari, who is a young Israeli academic and an intellectual acrobat whose logical leaps have readers gasping with admiration. Harari wrote Sapiens, which presents a brief history of life on earth, starting with the big bang and ending 1,000 years in the future. It looks at Harari's prediction of the extinction of Homo sapiens because science will have replaced people with genetically engineered immortals and super-cyborgs, part human, part machine, with faculties unimaginable. The chapter talks about the prospect of the disappearance of old-style humans that Harari does not regret as humans proved to be the most destructive species ever to plague the planet. It mentions how human ancestors lived peacefully among the other animals for many millenniums until about 70,000 years ago when Homo sapiens developed superior cognitive powers and, crucially, invented language.
Bounding real tensor optimizations via the numerical range
Authors: Johnston Nathaniel , Pipes Logan
Published: May 2023

A new method of using the numerical range of a matrix to bound the optimal value of certain optimization problems over real tensor product vectors is presented. This bound is stronger than the trivial bounds based on eigenvalues and can be computed significantly faster than bounds provided by semidefinite programming relaxations. Numerous applications to other hard linear algebra problems are discussed, such as showing that a real subspace of matrices contains no rank-one matrix, and showing that a linear map acting on matrices is positive.
An Examination of Excess Wood Pellet Supply in the United States
Authors: Atasoy Filiz Guneysu , Zhang Daowei , Prestemon Jeffrey P.
Published: May 2023

The US wood pellet exports—mostly to Europe, Japan, and South Korea—comprised 85 percent of its wood pellet production in the past 20+ years. In this article, we estimate the regional excess supply of wood pellets in the United States using annual data from 1996 to 2021.We use Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) analysis in a profit maximization framework for the South, North, and West regions of the United States. We also include some clean energy policies of the European Union (EU) to examine their potential impact on US wood pellet export volume. Our results show that after application of the low-carbon energy target in the EU, the export volume of the United States has increased, especially in the South region. Elasticity of excess wood pellet supply from the United States was approximately 0.15 in all three regions, and interest rates and energy costs have negative impacts on regional excess supply. Therefore, the recent increase in interest rates and energy costs could slow down the growth of excess supply of wood pellets in the United States.
Nejvýznamnější cenotvorné faktory kulturních památek s rezidenční funkcí v Olomouci
Authors: Brandejs David , Klika Pavel , Francová Klára
Published: May 2023

Jednou z nejvýznamnějších součástí kulturního dědictví a bohatství každéhonároda jsou kulturní památky. Jak již bylo uvedeno v prvním článku tétosérie, který byl zveřejněn v časopise „Soudní inženýrství“ s názvem:„Architektonický styl není příliš významným cenotvorným faktorem.“[1]Kulturních památek, v podobě nemovitých staveb, je v České republicenespočet. Více než polovina objektů je využívána k rezidenčním účelům,tedy k bydlení. V prvním článku byl zkoumán vliv architektonickéhoslohu, který lze u historických objektů předpokládat. V tomto článku seautoři zaměřili na cenotvorné faktory, které se zpravidla uvažují u běžnýchstaveb a zkoumali jejich významnost u památkových objektů. Jednalo seo stáří staveb a faktory polohové jako jsou vzdálenosti do centra města,na zastávku městské hromadné dopravy, ke školským institucím čik nejbližšímu zdravotnímu středisku.Studie vyhodnocuje nejvýznamnější cenotvorné faktory bytových jednotek,které jsou součástí památkově chráněných bytových domů. Pro výzkumbyly použity cenové údaje realizovaných prodejních cen, získané z Českéhoúřadu geodézie a katastru nemovitostí. Dále data z Českého statistickéhoúřadu a v neposlední řadě data získané z databáze Národního památkovéhoústavu, konkrétně z Památkového katalogu.Po vytvoření dostatečně velké databáze byly za pomoci Analýzy závislosti,korelace, regresního modelování a vícerozměrné regresní analýzyspecifikovány, kvantifikovány a vyhodnoceny nejvýznamnější cenotvornéfaktory.
The Impacts of Welfare Conditionality
Authors: Dwyer Peter , Scullion Lisa , Jones Katy , McNeill Jenny , Stewart Alasdair B.R.
Published: May 2023

Welfare conditionality combines compulsory engagement with various interventions to move social welfare benefit recipients into work and/or promote the cessation of problematic or antisocial behaviour, with different types of sanction for non-compliance. It is now an established aspect of policy within many social security, housing and antisocial behaviour regimes across the globe. This book explores the efficacy and ethicality of welfare conditionality in changing behaviour over time. The first part of the book (Chapters 1–3) set the scene by offering definitional and theoretical discussions, tracing the expansion and intensification of welfare conditionality within UK policy and offering a critical review of the behavioural science and rationales used by policymakers to justify its use. The second part (Chapters 4–7) provides original analysis of qualitative, longitudinal data generated in repeat interviews conducted with 339 UK welfare service users over a two-year period. The authors conclude that that welfare conditionality largely fails to trigger and sustain the behaviour changes that advocates cite in its defence. Instead, they argue that making eligibility to collective social provisions contingent on individual responsibilities routinely triggers a range of profoundly negative outcomes that exacerbate existing and create new inequalities which undermine the concept of social citizenship.
Conditionality in the UK welfare state
Authors: Dwyer Peter , Scullion Lisa , Jones Katy , McNeill Jenny , Stewart Alasdair B.R.
Published: May 2023

This chapter outlines and discusses the increasing prominence of welfare conditionality within the UK welfare state. Concentrating mainly on key policies initiated since the mid-1990s, discussions in this chapter outline developments in relation to the implementation of welfare conditionality in three substantive areas of the UK welfare state, namely: social security; social housing; and the management of ‘antisocial behaviour’ among groups of citizens variously labelled as problematic or vulnerable. The chapter locates the intensification and extension of behavioural conditionality within the wider context of policies that have delivered austerity, welfare state retrenchment and devolution since 2010.
Unintended outcomes? The wider impacts of compulsion and benefit sanctions in social security
Authors: Dwyer Peter , Scullion Lisa , Jones Katy , McNeill Jenny , Stewart Alasdair B.R.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 6 focuses on the consequences of highly conditional social security systems built around the twin elements of compulsion and benefit sanctions. The first part of the chapter sets out the scope of UK benefit sanctions before moving on to consider how the use of such sanctions impacts on the lives of those people subject to them. Analysis presented in the second part of the chapter documents how and why the threat and/or implementation of benefit sanctions routinely trigger profoundly negative outcomes including poverty, destitution and physical and mental ill-health. The chapter then moves on to consider the diverse ways in which people respond to benefit sanctions, including counterproductive compliance and disengagement from social security systems, and how this varies dependent upon their personal circumstances.
Ethical debates
Authors: Dwyer Peter , Scullion Lisa , Jones Katy , McNeill Jenny , Stewart Alasdair B.R.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 7 addresses ethical questions related to welfare. Initial discussions set out four important and differing normative positions (that is, contractualism, paternalism, mutualism and unconditional entitlement) that are often used to support or oppose the use of welfare conditionality. In the second part of the chapter discussions then explore the extent to which citizens deem a general principle of welfare conditionality to be fair. The chapter then moves on to consider more practical questions about the appropriateness and issues of fairness related to extending welfare conditionality within social security to previously exempt groups, namely lone parents and disabled people, and low-paid workers.
Researching Arts Award in youth work settings
Authors: Howard Frances
Published: May 2023

In this chapter, the Arts Award program, an ethnographic methodology and the three youth work settings are described. Interviews with youth workers are shared as a synopsis of the key findings are given. It argues that despite the award being a ‘good fit’ with the informal education practices of youth work, there was a real danger that this program would instrumentalise the experience of working with the arts. The value of the arts as a ‘tool’ for youth work is highlighted, however the program’s use as a tool for monitoring and controlling behaviour for some young people is also shown. Practices of austerity youth work are presented in order to explore how the arts can be translated into instrumental and measured forms of youth work.
Youth arts pedagogies
Authors: Howard Frances
Published: May 2023

Drawing on the notion of cultural citizenship, this chapter questions what arts programs ‘prepare’ young people for. It argues that youth arts programs have the potential to develop young people as justice-oriented cultural citizens (Kuttner, 2015) who feel a civic responsibility to use their artistic practice to actively promote justice and address inequalities in society. The potentially liberating and oppositional affordances of working with the arts are highlighted through the pedagogy of empowerment and transformative potentialities youth arts programs can offer. However, this chapter also explores a counter-argument, which demonstrates that these affordances were not consistent for all young people. While arguing that the potential of the youth arts programs is not being reached, this chapter problematises assumptions made about the power of the arts to ‘transform’ young lives, without recognising the cultural values and interests young people bring with them.
Enabling youth arts programs to flourish
Authors: Howard Frances
Published: May 2023

This final chapter returns to youth arts programs in order to investigate implications for practice and how these can be made reality. It focuses, in particular, on maintaining youth work principles, artistic quality, partnerships, planning and evaluation. Two models are drawn from the case studies – the youth arts festival and working with an artist-in-residence – as exemplars of how the arts and young people can be at the centre of every program.
Inside Retirement Housing
Authors: Clark Sam
Published: May 2023

This book presents and interprets the stories of nine actors involved in the design, construction, management and habitation of third age housing in the UK. The primary motivation behind this book is to offer a creative practice research perspective to the field of gerontology – through anthropology by means of design – and, specifically, an architectural ‘insider’ view on the designed environments of retirement housing. One distinct intention of this work is to amplify the voice of architects among associated researchers, but also, through sharing aspects of the underlying multi-sited ethnography, give voice to some overlooked actors within the research field that are equally well-placed to contribute to design discussions of retirement-living products. Readers are invited to consider the question of how designers – professional or otherwise – can facilitate the wellbeing of older people in their homes, by optimising design details of these micro environments, in support of collective ambitions to age in place for as long as possible. Related to this, it is anticipated that readers might seek authentication of retirement housing – as products marketed as ‘specialist’ housing options – asking the question whether all housing should be age-friendly. The book is especially relevant to scholars in the fields of ageing and environmental gerontology, as well as architecture and the built environment. It will also appeal to industry professionals and practitioners from the housing sector more broadly. The visual vignettes and variety of writing approaches – from storytelling to reflective accounts – make this an accessible, transdisciplinary book. It may also be read by people preparing for later life.
Professional context
Authors: Clark Sam
Published: May 2023

Chapter 9 provides an overview of two instrumental built environment professionals within the retirement housing sector – architects and town planners – and their respective vocations, training and ethics, with reference to professional codes of conduct, governing bodies and authorities. The chapter explores some of the underlying values and motives of these professionals, specifically their commitment to work that has social purpose and serving the public interest, as well as clients and stakeholders. It also offers a reminder that housing has a role to play beyond simply providing shelter to individuals. Good housing has the potential to positively impact wider societal issues – such as social care – and to reach into the wider public realm, for instance, helping to shape and sustain communities as well as add value and character to the built environment of towns and cities.
Dialogues to develop civil movements in the Caucasus
Authors: Sotieva Larissa , Schofield Juliet
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines how local intelligentsia drove community development in the conflict-affected regions, reaching out across the conflict divides and beyond to find allies in their mission. One particularly bright illustration of this is the formation of the Caucasus Forum of NGOs, which between 1998 and 2005 brought together active civil society from across the north and south of the region in a shared mission and mutual exchange. The format was an adaptation for the new and emerging ‘civil society’ of a traditional Caucasian method of dispute resolution, wherein neighbours are invited to play the role of mediator and facilitator.
The chapter provides examples of how through various initiatives the network operated as mediator, dialogue facilitator, civil society capacity builder, early warning and conflict prevention mechanism and an engine for community development. It reflects that the distinctions between national elite and local community development are false distinctions in this context – or where there are ‘local leaders’ who are not part of the ‘elite’, their work is almost completely dependent on them.
Brazil: public security as a human right in the favelas
Authors: Silva Eliana Sousa , Malanquini Lidiane
Published: May 2023

This chapter explains how community activists in Complexo da Maré, Brazil, worked to enhance the sense of identity of local residents by recording and celebrating their stories, lives and the social relations that exist, in addition to physically mapping the area for the first time. This participative mapping exercise, undertaken with the support of sympathetic academic and civil society actors, provided an evidence base to make effective demands on service providers. The chapter also refers to the range of strategies adopted by Redes da Maré, from creative approaches to the training of local volunteers, and from the provision of direct services to advocacy and legal tactics.
Community-based action in Northern Ireland: activism in a violently contested society
Authors: O’Prey Monina
Published: May 2023

The chapter considers community development practice in Northern Ireland/the North of Ireland – where even the appellation is contested. The political context and landscape are described to offer a context for the community development and conflict transformation approaches adopted over some five decades. The author examines the politics of peacebuilding as well as outlining community development practice at various phases of the conflict and emergence from overt violence. She also focuses specifically on learning drawn from work undertaken by, and with, victims/survivors of the violence and political ex-prisoners.
The chapter also offers an insight into how development work was undertaken with those communities that were in danger of being ‘left behind’ in terms of community organising. The sensitive and difficult work of addressing inter-community divisions is also described, with an examination of the application of Putnam’s theory of social capital (bonding, bridging and linking) to frame the important task of building relationships among divided communities. The chapter concludes with some pointers for funding organisations that are interested in resourcing community development approaches to peacebuilding.
Research and ethics of care
Authors: Brannelly Tula , Barnes Marian , Tronto Joan C.
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses the origins of the authors’ commitment to caring research in experiences of conducting participatory research with users/survivors of health and social care services, and in discovering feminist care ethics. It offers a brief introduction to the ethics of care and the way in which this has been taken up by researchers working in many different contexts and disciplines who are concerned with the relationship between care and justice, and the necessity to hear different voices. This introduces the importance of thinking outside the boundaries both of disciplines and fields of study in order to encompass the interdependencies of human lives and the more-than-human world. Authors note the harms done by focusing on methodology to the exclusion of caring ethics. The chapter outlines the book structure.
Caring, knowing and making a difference
Authors: Brannelly Tula , Barnes Marian , Tronto Joan C.
Published: May 2023

The authors draw on Sayer’s arguments about the necessity of recognising ‘what matters’ to people in social science research. They develop this as a basis for thinking of different ways of caring about research, and also the necessity for thinking in different ways about emotions, knowledge and their interactions in the way in which we research. The intersections between knowledge and justice are explored through the concepts of epistemic or cognitive justice, and the impact of exclusive assumptions about authoritative knowers and dominant epistemologies discussed in the context of both colonialism and the marginalisation of specific social groups. The significance of emotions is discussed as a necessary source of insight into meanings, but also to explore how emotions can be generated through the research process for both researchers and those whose lives they study. Participatory research seeks to include different knowledges and the emotional dimension of experience, but is not always experienced positively. Collaborations between indigenous and non-indigenous researchers offer insights for those seeking to adopt care-based approaches.
Doing research together: interdependencies to maintain, sustain and renew our worlds
Authors: Brannelly Tula , Barnes Marian , Tronto Joan C.
Published: May 2023

The ethical dilemmas of research are not always predictable. The ethics of care offers a guide to recognising and responding to the relational ethical challenges of research, and to how caring relations can optimise positive outcomes. Understanding research as a dynamic relational practice helps develop competences and generate substantive insights from the way we work together. Conversations with other researchers highlighted the importance of focusing on the process of research as a space in which transformations can occur. But research reports focus on outcomes and there is often little space for consideration of process. Here authors recount stories of projects not previously included in published outputs, but which offer learning that is often as significant as formal ‘findings’. These include conceptual discussions across cultures as well as an explicit focus on what caring for co-researchers means in practice in different contexts. This includes both practical and emotional support. The chapter also reflects on roles of reviewers in research.
A welfare for a highly individualised society
Authors: Siza Remo
Published: May 2023

The programmes conceived in the past decades were intended to respond to growing social risks associated with an ageing population, lack of self-sufficiency, and difficulties reconciling work and family responsibilities. The chapter highlights that it is necessary to observe more carefully the transformations that are taking place in most people’s living conditions, ordinary human relationships, and the capacity of institutions to reproduce and mobilise communicative resources. A reconceptualisation of the relationships between state, market and the informal sector can help to recognise the plurality of resources that the individual can have at their disposal in each sphere of life (informal relations, market, welfare) and promote new welfare strategies. Adopting this perspective, the chapter outlined some proposals to change key welfare programmes with the aim to create more collaborative relations of welfare institutions both with the majority of people and with minority groups; to promote institutional programmes more grounded in the communicative sphere, as well as activation programmes founded on a plurality of social resources.
Chemsex among gay men living with HIV aged over 45 in England and Italy: sociality and pleasure in times of undetectability
Authors: Feliciantonio Cesare Di , Dryden OmiSoore H.
Published: May 2023

In recent years, chemsex has become the object of intense public scrutiny, mainly based on pathologising and panic-raising narratives. Building on critical contributions across the social sciences and cultural studies, the chapter focuses on an underexplored dimension within the literature on chemsex: ageing with HIV. Centred around the narratives of self-identified gay men living with HIV, aged over 45 and who practise chemsex, in England and Italy, the chapter analyses the relationship between their life courses and their engagement with chemsex. Data analysis reveals how research participants frame their engagement with chemsex as driven by the quest for sociality combined with a rediscovery of sexual pleasure and an improved sense of comfort with their bodies resulting from the emergence of the paradigm of undetectability. However, through the adoption of an intergenerational and intersectional perspective, the chapter reveals also ambivalences and tensions within participants’ engagement with chemsex.
Freed from fear: reconstructing older gay male sexuality through PrEP – an account of a generational experience
Authors: Kolodziej Jacek , Dryden OmiSoore H.
Published: May 2023

This piece is written as an autoethnographic memoir and study of how it has been and is to live as an HIV-positive gay man from Aotearoa New Zealand across a time of great cultural change. It is a reflection through a sociological and historical lens of how the personal side of my life as a gay man intersects with wider cultural, political and health-related themes. Generational trauma impacted how gay men coming of age during the AIDS crisis engaged in sexual practices. The biomedical methods of HIV prevention, like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), have the potential to transform community practices, with profound psychological consequences. In this chapter, I present an account of Allan, a gay man in his sixties who lives in Aotearoa New Zealand and uses PrEP. During the AIDS crisis, Allan’s perception of physical closeness with other men became contaminated with fear of HIV transmission and feelings of mistrust, guilt and shame. With PrEP, these feelings disappeared as Allan recovered important functions of his sexual experience: transcending the boundaries of individuality and resisting heteronormative norms through subversive practices. The effects of PrEP can be viewed from a generational perspective to reveal the undoing of the psychological effects of the AIDS crisis trauma and the recovering of the pleasure of sexual connection by older gay men.
‘Apocalyptic demography’ versus the ‘reckless generation’: framing the third and fourth ages in the media
Authors: Higgs Paul , Gilleard Chris
Published: May 2023

Whether later life is represented through the lens of an apocalyptic demography or an over-entitled baby-boom generation, such differing representations point to the continuing dissolution of old age as a unitary social category. The division between the ‘third’ and ‘fourth’ ages is becoming an important feature of ageing societies. While the latter reflects an image of old age defined by dependency and vulnerability, the former projects an image of generational capture. This bifurcation has been present over the past 30 years and has recently become evident in responses to, and discourses about, the COVID-19 pandemic. By drawing attention to these disparate representations of ageing in the media, this chapter argues that public discourses of ageing articulate a fundamental incompatibility in the framing of later life, through the representational structures of the third and fourth ages in society.
Older LGBTQ+ persons in Canadian newspapers
Authors: Hurd Laura , Mahal Raveena
Published: May 2023

This chapter considers how Canadian news media depict older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and other sexual-minority and gender-diverse (LGBTQ+) adults. The authors build from a previous content and thematic analysis of newspaper and magazine stories, which found that older LGBTQ+ persons were largely invisible and represented either as victims of discrimination or as extraordinary individuals. Framed by queer theory, the current study uses critical discourse analysis to investigate how older LGBTQ+ persons’ identities, experiences and social statuses were discursively constructed in four representative stories from the original study. The chapter examines the ways in which the positioning of older LGBTQ+ adults within the stories, the inclusion or exclusion of their voices and the use of language and imagery combine to construct them as invisible, victims and/or extraordinary. The authors conclude by situating their findings in a broader discussion of the media, ageism and heteronormativity.
Ageism and the promotion of agelessness in Brazilian advertising
Authors: Castro Gisela G. S.
Published: May 2023

Advertising is a complex type of persuasive, cultural text, produced by the promotional industry. It displays powerful economic, social and cultural significance. This chapter takes an analytical stance on the persuasive language of Brazilian advertising to argue that negative assumptions about ageing still inform the Brazilian media, according to which individuals are presumed to take responsibility for the way they ‘choose’ to age. The chapter first presents the fundamental, sociocultural basis of this discussion. It then provides empirical data that inform our critical reflection on ageism and the promotion of the ageless ethos in contemporary Brazilian advertising. The chapter closes with a reflection on the sociocultural construction of the meanings of ageing in the Brazilian imaginary, the role of promotional cultures in the production of subjectivities and the social engagement of academic research, which actively takes part in the struggle against ageism in Brazil.
Community development, empowerment and youth participation in social-housing neighbourhoods in France
Authors: Erdi Gülçin
Published: May 2023

This chapter is based on empirical research conducted during 2017–19 in a social-housing and multiethnic neighbourhood, Sanitas, located in Tours, France. It focuses on a mobilisation against a renewal project in the neighbourhood and the relationships between different local structures including the Social Centre, Citizen Council and Sanitas Collective. The chapter argues that the top-down creation of participatory tools does not enable real empowerment of inhabitants leading to a local radical democracy but rather reflects the nature of neoliberal urban governance based on the efficiency of urban policies and the deconflictualisation of urban projects. It also discusses the tensions between different groups like young and ‘racialised’ people and activists in associations and the role the Social Centre plays in managing these tensions. Finally, the author highlights the importance of involving youth in the everyday life of the neighbourhood within the context of urban renewal.
LGBTQ+ young peoples’ sexuality and gender citizenship in digital spaces
Authors: Carr Sally , Hanbury Ali
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the gender and sexual citizenship of LGBTQ+ young people. It specifically draws on examples of how digital spaces can act as enablers for young people to create safer and more celebratory community spaces. The chapter outlines a history of societal exclusion, and the contemporary examples of creative and community responses that LGBTQ+ young people have pioneered, turning hardship and discrimination into joy and community. Of particular insight are the ways in which young people lead community development practices and the shift from individualism to collectivism. From these reflections, the authors put forward a new model of practice; Therapeutic Youth and Community Work.
Burning Work: field map
Authors: Oliver Christxpher
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores techniques for navigating and contesting the racialised legal geographies and policy frameworks that have disproportionately harmed multiple areas of life for people of African heritage within postcolonial Britain. The author draws on his own heritage, and gatherings with colleagues, friends, family and elders. The chapter begins at Elouise ‘Mama’ Edwards’ celebration of life in March 2021 – a towering figure within the African Caribbean diasporic community and beyond, who was committed to the community work of building support structures as foundation for freedom and balance. The writing of this chapter also cuts across and connects insights from organising with Windrush Defenders Legal C.I.C. and Channels Research Group; Q&As with civil servants; data analysis; libations; drumming; collaborative writing; counter archives; forums; judicial reviews and footnotes linking the multiple electronic languages of digital documentation. This poetic constellation of media and words maps the field through which memory survives – establishing lines of sight – towards scripting dreamt formulations of reparative futures.
When Social Workers Impact Policy and Don't Just Implement It
Authors: Gal John , Weiss-Gal Idit
Published: May 2023

Social workers have traditionally been regarded as the foot soldiers of the welfare state. Yet, over the last decades, social work scholars and professionals have offered an alternative perspective on the social work–social policy nexus which asserts that social workers should, can and do play a policy role, which takes diverse forms in different policy arenas. This reflects the professional values, the unique knowledge and the positioning of social workers within welfare states. However, still lacking in the literature on social workers’ policy engagement is a full-bodied conceptual framework that explains why and under what circumstances social workers engage in policy-related activities, and how we can explain the forms that this takes. Drawing on diverse theoretical sources and research undertaken by the authors and others across the globe, this book offers an original conceptual framework that provides an understanding of the efforts by social workers to promote social policies. Specifically, the policy engagement conceptual model suggested by the authors includes four key components – environments, opportunity, facilitation and motivation – that combine to explain when social workers decide to influence policy and what policies they are likely to adopt.
Is that a ‘university’? I’m not sure
Authors: Thrift Nigel
Published: May 2023

This chapter introduces the book’s contents and main arguments. It takes a considerable amount of space in order to explain what I call unlearning as the main way in which the knowledge generated by research universities progresses.
Mobilising the voluntary sector: critical reflections from across the four UK nations
Authors: Acheson Nick , Crawford Laura , Grotz Jurgen , Hardill Irene , Hayward Denise , Hogg Eddy , Jones Rhys Dafydd , Linning Matthew , Rees Sally , Rutherford Alasdair , Speed Ewen , McGarvey Amy , Goodall Catherine , Stuart Joanna , Maltman Debbie
Published: May 2023

Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had extraordinary effects on the voluntary sector across the four nations of the UK. The advent of the pandemic was preceded by a renegotiation of social policy, and this has played out differently in the four UK nations, which is reflected in variations in relations between the state and the voluntary sector. In this chapter, we draw on the findings of an ESRC-funded project co-produced by a UK-wide team of academics and practitioners. During the pandemic, the work of some volunteer-involving organisations had to be paused, the delivery of some projects reconfigured and new groups and organisations have been established to alleviate the economic and social consequences of the crisis. The chapter focuses on the challenges facing the voluntary sector across the four nations as they move to recovery and reflects on the policy adjustments that would strengthen voluntary sector responses.
At the COVID-19 frontlines: voluntary sector support for refugee and migrant families in Glasgow
Authors: McBride Maureen , Feeney Elaine , Pirie Clara , Cullingworth Jane
Published: May 2023

Higher levels of pre-existing social and economic inequalities, insecure legal status and the structuring forces of racism have left refugee and migrant families particularly vulnerable to the impact of the pandemic. This chapter examines the practical and emotional support provided by voluntary sector organisations (VSOs) to refugee and migrant families during the first pandemic lockdown. It draws on a qualitative case study of practitioners in Glasgow working at the frontline of the COVID-19 response. The findings show that refugee, asylum-seeking and Roma families experienced a range of specific challenges which required flexible and sensitive solutions. Support included translation of public health information, dispelling misinformation, liaising with statutory services and repatriating the bodies of deceased family members. This chapter highlights the importance of understanding pre-existing and intersecting inequalities that were overlaid by the new challenges of the pandemic. It demonstrates the specialist skill set and emotional labour of frontline voluntary sector workers engaged in supporting and advocating for vulnerable migrant families and their role in filling a gap in provision that is unmet by public services.
The value and contribution of BAME-led organisations during and beyond COVID-19
Authors: Woodward Abigail , Patmore Beth , Cliff Gilli , Dayson Chris
Published: May 2023

Pre-existing socioeconomic and racial inequalities among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people have been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has revealed an urgent need to reinvest in BAME-led charities and specialist organisations. This chapter draws upon qualitative data to explore the ways in which BAME-led organisations within the voluntary sector have responded to the pandemic, and how BAME communities have been supported. The data presented draws upon 15 stakeholder interviews with BAME-led VSOs and projects conducted across two larger qualitative studies during the pandemic. Evidence reveals that BAME communities are typically deprived, have been historically underserved by health and care services, and have the added complication of being disproportionately affected by the pandemic in terms of health and socioeconomic impacts.
Community ownership of physical assets in changing times: the context of opportunities in the pandemic
Authors: Skropke Carina
Published: May 2023

Community ownership of assets describes a situation in which a community organisation owns or manages a physical asset, such as a building. Physical space has long been recognised as important for facilitating social interaction, in building and maintaining relationships and bonds between people that contribute to community solidarity, resilience and belonging. Due to the pandemic and the resulting restrictions and economic consequences, the opportunity context of voluntary sector organisations owning physical assets has changed. It is now unclear if, and how, these assets might be used for maximum benefit to local communities. The chapter draws on semi-structured interviews with volunteers and staff involved in running community assets. It provides preliminary insights into how the pandemic has impacted on these organisations, their ability to assess future opportunities and the potential role these organisations and assets may play in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Introduction
Authors: Eroğlu Şebnem
Published: May 2023

This chapter presents the aims, significance and structure of the book. As well as highlighting the major gaps existing within the international migration literature, it outlines the unique features of the study and explains the significance of its theory-driven, multi-site and intergenerational approach to understanding migrant poverty.
Researching migrant poverty
Authors: Eroğlu Şebnem
Published: May 2023

This chapter aims to outline the methodological approach taken to empirically investigate migrant poverty. It starts by depicting the key characteristics of the target population and the sample to demonstrate its appropriateness for the exploration of migrant poverty from a multi-site and intergenerational perspective. This is followed by a presentation of the survey design and implementation, along with the methods, techniques and instruments used in sampling, data collection and analysis. The chapter ends with a detailed exposition of the dependent and independent variables and their links to the resource-based model.
Stay Home
Authors: Tunstall Becky
Published: May 2023

Household and home played an important role in the COVID-19 pandemic round the world. Billions were told to ‘stay home’ to prevent infection. This book uses a wealth of data from the UK to explore the influence of housing on the pandemic, and the pandemic on housing. It describes the key events of the pandemic in the UK, and key policies on staying home, income support, housing security and housing markets. Pre-pandemic, most people in the UK were well-housed but there were significant inequalities, overcrowding, poor quality, unaffordability and insecurity. Household and home affected the effectiveness of ‘stay home’ and the risk of infection and death, as well as wider experiences of the pandemic. The book describes being at home, how people adapted to greater occupancy and more activities at home, and to ‘shielding’ and ‘isolating’. It describes the impact of the pandemic on paid work, income and living standards, on domestic work, care at home, physical and mental health, on housing security, evictions, repossessions, homelessness, construction, sales and house prices, and on the meaning of home. In conclusion, the pandemic only added to pre-pandemic weaknesses, inequality and familialisation in the UK housing system. Policy support and benefits continued for existing home owners and the construction industry, and the crisis has not been enough to trigger significant reform.
People, households and time at home in the pandemic
Authors: Tunstall Becky
Published: May 2023

Most people in the UK obeyed most of the restrictions on leaving home and mixing with other households most of the time. In the first national lockdown, most were at home for 23 or more hours a day and 41% were entirely at home for five or more days a week. The UK birth rate fell, international migration fell and the death rate increased, meaning the total population reduced, against previous trends. The trend of growth in the number of households paused, as people moved in with others to reduce costs, loneliness and infection risk. Home occupancy, overcrowding and time at home increased. People spent more time on sleep, childcare and leisure, and less on work outside the home, housework, personal care and travel. About 40% of employed adults worked from home. Experienced varied widely. There were difficulties in fitting multiple people and activities into congested home space, and in being home alone. Homes acted as refuges from the virus, but had to be defended from it. For some, the meaning of home was enhanced. Others felt home was no longer quiet, restorative or private. For many, home became a ‘prison’.
The impact of COVID-19 and COVID-19 policy on incomes, housing costs and housing security
Authors: Tunstall Becky
Published: May 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down or disrupted large parts of the UK labour market. By May 2020, almost half of the population had lost at least 10% of their income. Most people turned first to their savings and to friends and family, but in March 2020, the UK government invented new jobs support, benefits and housing policies, which were relatively generous compared to the pandemic policy in other countries and to the normal welfare safety net. A total of 12 million UK people were ‘furloughed’ on 80% of pay for some months at a cost of £70 billion. Universal Credit claims increased by 1.1 million or 39%. At least two million mortgagees took a payment ‘holiday’. A moratorium meant an almost complete halt to legal evictions and repossessions until at least 2022. Overall, median income fell and partly as a result, relative poverty reduced slightly. However, some people experienced stable incomes, reduced costs and increased savings, while others lost income, spent savings and borrowed. Three million people lost income but were ineligible for schemes. Job and income loss affected renters and outright owners more. Mortgagees and private renters experienced worsening affordability and increasing arrears. Renters had no ‘holiday’ scheme. There will be lingering and unequal effects on savings, debts, housing security and ability to buy.
Simpsons: the values-driven global consultancy
Authors: Schoneboom Abigail , Slade Jason , Tait Malcolm , Vigar Geoff
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores working life in a large, multi-disciplinary consultancy. It shows how planning consultants work with public-sector clients and on increasingly large and complex projects with many players. The chapter reveals the importance attached to sustaining good working relationships with clients and shows planners reflecting on how their work serves the public interest despite the imperatives of capital. We also explore the high-performance culture in the company and its implications for work-life balance.
States and Welfare States
Authors: Spicker Paul
Published: May 2023

Much of the literature in political theory begins with a picture of the state that is hard to recognise in contemporary societies. The state is assumed to have the primary duty of defence and security; its authority supposedly rests on the use of force. That is at best a small part of the picture. Government is rule-bound: the same processes by which governments set the rules – the conventions of sovereignty and the rule of law – also bind the institutions of government. Governments are not in control. They are expected to deal with complex, multi-faceted issues. Although they have a wide variety of tools they can summon and options they can take, the complexity of the process they are engaged in, the constraints that governments work under and the reliance on civil society make the outcomes uncertain. And governments are not the only actors in the field. They have to recognise the role of others, and other governments, and adapt their responses accordingly.A long-standing tradition in political thought tells us that ‘the welfare of the people is the highest law’. Just about every government in the world has programmes in education and health care. In the course of the last 20 years there has been a startling increase in the coverage of social security schemes – while other issues, such as housing and nutrition, are not so universally considered to be government responsibilities. This book, a work of political theory applied to social policy, tries to understand what is happening.
Introduction: the state, and what it has become
Authors: Spicker Paul
Published: May 2023

The state is often represented – or misrepresented – as if its role was defined by the use of physical force. For most of us, however, the state refers as much to a set of administrative processes, and to the services that its institutions provide, as it does to any of the other activities associated with government. The state routinely interacts with people in their daily lives. It manages the social infrastructure. It delivers benefits and services, typically including health care, education and cash benefits. Some states do this more effectively and more comprehensively than others, but even those which fall short in some respects can at least say that it is part of what they do, and what they are meant to do.