UiS Open Journals (Univ. of Stavanger)
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Deconstructing Social Work in Africa: An autoethnographic approach
Get PDFIn the dominant debate, dialogue and literature, there is an assumption that Africa had no form of social work before colonisation. In this article, we deal with the historical question pertaining to the existence of social work in Africa, and deconstruct the term ‘social work’, its origin and meaning in an African context. We employ an autoethnographic approach to describe the knowledge and skills known as social work in African communities using Indigenous Knowledge. We conclude that the Western epistemological paradigm facilitated the idea that social work was non-existent in the pre-colonial era, which distorted and distracted knowledge and skills construction in post-modernism theory and practic
An Ecological Approach to Understanding the Complexities of School-To-Work Transitions Among Youth with Intellectual Disabilities
Get PDFPurpose: This study investigated the complexities in the school-to-work transition faced by youth with intellectual disabilities in Hong Kong. There is a lack of local research focused on such transitions for youth with intellectual disabilities.
Methods: In-depth individual interviews were held with 30 participants, including youth with intellectual disabilities, their family carers and health, education and social work professionals. Data were analysed using the Framework Method.
Results: Data analysis based on the ecological model revealed participants’ experiences of different challenges in different systems.
Conclusion: By exploring the interplay among various interactions, this study revealed the conditions that impacted the self-determination of youth with intellectual disabilities in a Chinese context, the perspectives on work held by them, their personal aspirations and the interconnected factors within-and between systems. Recommendations for rehabilitation practice were given
Gender and music in Luxembourg : Looking back at 25 years of archival work and music mediation
Get PDFIn 1996 and 1998, I came across music of female composers thought to be lost: first, orchestral and piano music, orchestral songs and the performance material of a feminist operetta by Lou Koster (1889-1973) and two years later, the entire musical estate of Helen Buchholtz (1877-1953).
In contrast to Lou Koster, Buchholtz had been completely forgotten at the time. In 1999, the heir to Buchholtz\u27s estate decided to make the manuscripts, which he had kept in his cellar for around 50 years, available to the public. Thanks to his decision, I was able to found and manage the Helen Buchholtz Archive at the feminist documentation center CID |Fraen an Gender. The Lou Koster Archive was opened three years later. Collections on contemporary female composers from Luxembourg were added in the following years.
The aim of these new archives was not only to make the music accessible again, but also to research it, promote it through educational projects, edit it and have it performed again in concerts, as well as recorded on CDs. Since Buchholtz’s music was completely forgotten and there were no recordings of it, the history of interpretation of her music was a blank slate. To bring the works back to life, I worked together with various interpreters: pianists, singers, and orchestras. Due to these projects, the two composers have become better known and their music is now being performed again in Luxembourg as well as abroad.
An important aspect of my work with the historical music was to bring it into dialogue with contemporary music. I therefore invited female composers to write new music inspired by Buchholtz and Koster. The commissioned compositions were premiered in concerts and most of them were recorded.
In 2022, a new research project titled MuGi.lu (Music and Gender in Luxembourg) was launched at the University of Luxembourg, in collaboration with MUGI (Musik und Gender im Internet, a joint research project of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg and the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar). Thus, the archival, research and music mediation work that has been carried out at the CID |Fraen an Gender for the last 25 years is now being continued at the University of Luxembourg in a new form: with the development of digital archives, an emphasis on oral history film interviews and the project\u27s own homepage, which focuses on sources of different materiality (https://mugi.lu)
Measuring First Normal Stress Difference at Higher Shear Rates via Capillary Rheometer
Get PDFFirst normal stress difference is commonly measured in cone-plate geometries up to the shear rates of around 10 s-1 with rotational rheometers. At higher shear rates, the measurement is limited either by the torque or normal force threshold of the instrument or by some material-related limitations e. g., edge fracture. A new Normal Stress die designed to simultaneously measure steady-state shear viscosity and first normal stress difference at higher shear rates (>>10 s-1 ) via a capillary rheometer is first introduced. Measured data of the first normal stress difference are then correlated to the onset of flow instabilities, like shark skin of plastics and poor extrusion of rubber compounds, detected by the Garvey die. Here, dimensionless numbers are introduced to increase selectivity. First normal stress difference measurement also opens an easy and effective way to analyse the die drool effect
Modeling and Simulation of Non-Newtonian Fluid Flow using COMSOL Multiphysics®
Get PDFThis paper presents an overview of the capabilities of COMSOL Multiphysics® for simulating non-Newtonian fluids, with an emphasis on multiphysics. It outlines the COMSOL implementation of inelastic and viscoelastic non-Newtonian fluid models and reviews the software’s ability to couple fluid flow with heat transfer, structural deformation, and multiphase flow modeling
‘I feel good here’: A qualitative study on subsidised employment in a Swedish municipal labour market programme
No full textThe aim of this article is to understand how a group of subsidised employees constructed a collective identity and symbolic community, and the role the municipal labour market programme played in that process. Further, it explores whether and how a shared collective identity and symbolic community may provide an explanation for how the ‘successful intervention/lock-in effect paradox’ occurs when using subsidised employment as an activation intervention. The article is based on a qualitative interview study with eight social workers and 11 subsidised employees from a Swedish municipal labour market programme that offered subsidised employment as its main intervention. The interviews were analysed using the concepts of social identity and symbolic community. The article shows that subsidised employment plays a crucial role in subsidised employees constructing their identity as ‘persons with a job’, as distinct from the activation interventions usually associated with social assistance. The labour market programme serves as a transformative space where receiving a salary becomes a symbol of distinction, marking a significant departure from past experiences of receiving social assistance. The article also highlights the role of social workers in subsidised employees’ identity processes. The social workers perceived the subsidised employees as participants with special needs, and subsidised employment as an intervention which could influence the planning and support provided during the subsidised employment. The collective identity developed by the participants fostered a sense of community, but also led to reluctance to leave the programme, driven by the fear of reverting to social assistance, and once again being excluded from the labour market. The article concludes that the subsidised employees risked getting stuck in a borderland between work exclusion and work inclusion and, therefore, that subsidised employment can potentially place participants in a state of ‘marginalised inclusion’ in the labour market, instead of supporting participants into regular employment
Iterations of work inclusion beyond the standard service : Personalised welfare services in the era of activation and innovation
Get PDFEmployment services are repeatedly criticised for building barriers to service user participation and decent employment due to combinations of conditionality, bureaucratic logics, high caseloads and scarce resources. However, a range of newer service approaches recognise some of these shortcomings, and aim for personalisation, service coordination, and/or increased connection to employers. In this article, we compare four programmes and their key worker roles, implemented in Norwegian postreform welfare and employment services (NAV) in the 2010s, as iterations of work inclusion beyond the standard follow-up service. These approaches are sensitive to gaps in the current service system, and they invest in the relationship between the professional worker and the service user, working both within and beyond social work approaches. Situated in the broader research literature on activation, personalisation and street-level organisations, we provide an analysis of how these approaches go beyond “business as usual” through strengthened key worker roles. We argue that the relational work approach adopted in these measures has the potential to foster the participation of service users, and to smoothen and sometimes tone down the conditional aspects of services, but that different organisational demands and accountability mechanisms produce a different space of action for key workers and users to shape the path towards labour and social inclusion
Navigating Tensions between Indigenous Norms and International Frameworks Protecting Women from Gender-Based Violence in Tanzania: Insights for Social Work Practice
Get PDFGender-Based Violence (GBV) remains a significant health and social issue in Tanzania and Africa at large. Most GBV reduction interventions often concentrate on mitigating harmful cultural practices perpetuating it, therefore failing to identify and integrate aspects of the indigenous norms perceived to be protective to women against GBV. Thus, adopting qualitative approaches and cross-sectional design, this article: (i) explores norms considered protective to women against GBV in studied communities and the attached values; (ii) identifies and presents the tensions that emerge in the application of such norms when viewed through the analytical lens of the conventional frameworks that protect human and women rights and freedom against discrimination and abuse; and (iii) highlight potentials for the integration of these norms into social work practice to promote culturally sensitive interventions. Findings indicate varied views regarding GBV prevalence and magnitude. They also confirm the presence of deep-seated beliefs among the community members regarding the existence of some cultural norms that they perceived to be protective of women from GBV. Irrespective of this reality, findings also show tensions and clashes between some aspects of norms and human rights conventional frameworks and social work ethics on diversity and inclusion. Mindful of the importance of the integration of contextually relevant and culturally appropriate knowledge into social work, the study establishes the need for social workers to adopt a culturally sensitive and reflective mindset when designing gender-based interventions by sorting out what norms can be kept and what can be discarded
A Novel Strain Hardening Index SHI for Long-Chain Branched Polymer Melts
Get PDFStrain hardening of polymer melts in extensional flows is considered as a desirable rheological feature because it stabilizes the homogeneity of free surface flows, such as e.g., film blowing, blow molding, and fiber spinning. Relating strain hardening to molecular characteristics has been a long-standing challenge in rheology, but while long-chain branching (LCB) is known to be a decisive feature to enhance strain hardening, a quantitative relation between strain hardening and molecular topology is still missing. We propose a novel strain hardening index SHI, that can be used to assess the strain hardening behaviour and to compare the strain hardening of polymer melts with different topologies and different chemistries investigated at different temperatures