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The politics of part-time work in the age of liberalisation: social reproduction and working time policies in Austria, 1970-2018
No full textLabour relations have been radically transformed in high income welfare states since the 1970s. The growth of part-time work has been a key dimension of this process, albeit one that has seldom been critically analysed in relation to the politics of liberalisation. This thesis examines the politics of part-time work in Austria from the 1970s to the late 2010s. From the mid-1980s, Austria’s ruling coalitions pursued a path of coordinated, gradual liberalisation by introducing different incentives for individual part-time working, until this consensus started to break down in the 2010s. This thesis examines the political drivers of the new politics of part-time work in Austria, and what they tell us about the role of working time policies in processes of liberalisation more broadly. Using a qualitative historical-comparative methodology, it compares changes in the actor strategies and the regulation of part-time work across different policy fields from mid-1970s to late 2010s, including care policy, unemployment policy and labour market policy.
This thesis argues that the politics of part-time work was characterised by three interrelated dynamics: Firstly, the slowdown of capitalist growth and the liberalisation of the global economy pressured political elites to find new ways to secure capital accumulation which heightened class conflict over working time. Secondly, labour weakening due to rising unemployment and slowed capitalist growth, coupled with the already limited bargaining power of women and racialized minorities, facilitated social partnership compromises over working time flexibilisation. This contributed to the third dynamic, which is that Conservative and business organisations were able to develop new social reproductive imaginaries that promoted part-time work as an indispensable part of managing labour supply as well as individualising other costly issues of social reproduction such as retirement, care provision and skills development. These social reproductive imaginaries became shared and modified by parts of the Left too and shaped policy over time. Overall, the thesis provides new insights into the relationships between working time and welfare policies in the crisis management of liberalisation. It challenges narratives of inevitable liberalisation by evidencing the contested politics of working time and the role of changing gendered class relations and imaginaries
Powering improvisation: unstable electrification in rural northern Uganda
Get PDFElectrification is a key focus in the development strategies of countries in Sub
Saharan Africa, where large parts of the population still live beyond the reach of the
central grid. Most people without access to electricity live in rural areas. In national
and international development policies, rural electrification is anticipated to contribute
to poverty reduction and to the general improvement of people’s lives. However,
power sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa struggle to supply their growing customer base
with stable electricity in the aftermath of neoliberal restructuring policies. In the newly
electrified village in northern Uganda where I conducted ethnographic fieldwork for
eleven months in 2019, power cuts happened often and could last up to several
weeks, creating rhythms of progress and setback. Electricity’s instability affected
how people perceived the power provider, and by extension the state. It also led to a
plethora of improvisational practices as people attempted to secure access to
electricity and stable income through electrified work, relying on their own knowledge
and skills, and the market of distributed electricity sources.
Following the approaches of previous anthropological scholarship on energy,
electricity, and infrastructures, this dissertation asks: how does unstable
electrification restructure social relations at different scales? I focus on two
categories of relations – those between people and the state, and the local, personal
relations between kin, friends, and neighbors. I show how grid instability and
irregularities in the payment system led to mistrust in the power cooperative and by
extension the state, complicating and at times even negating the sense of citizenship
understood as a relation of trust and reciprocity. People’s references to customer
service furthermore exemplifies how grid connection in Lalogi has contributed to
producing a kind of neoliberal subjectivity where the state is no longer seen as
providing social services to its citizens but rather commodities that can be accessed
through market-like relations. At a local scale, I show how improvisational
approaches to securing access to electricity that rely on technical knowledge,
embodied skills, and calculative capabilities create new lines of social differentiation,
but at the same time map onto and enhance existing inequalities, since they are
closely tied to people’s material resources. Counteracting the increased inequalities
resulting from unstable electrification, I show how the moral obligation to share
resources with kin, friends, and neighbors that underscores social life in the region
contributes to a more equal distribution of electricity.
Through the study of unstable electrification in northern Uganda, this dissertation
generates new insights into the effects of electrification and connectivity in the global
south. More specifically, it contributes new insights into how infrastructures
restructure social relations in a context where grid electricity is unstable and people
thus combine it with other power sources. While infrastructural instability has been
actively theorized in anthropological scholarship about urban infrastructures, this is
less evident in the scholarship on rural infrastructures and infrastructural
development. This dissertation also makes a contribution to the regional literature on
northern Uganda by providing new perspectives on history and contemporary life
beyond the war
PTEN regulates the BMI1-mediated self-renewal of long-term hematopoietic stem cells in developmental and stress conditions
No full textIn the hematopoietic system, self-renewing long-term hematopoietic stem cells (LT-HSCs) maintain stem cell pools and differentiate into hematopoietic progeny. In addition to its critical role in the daily production of blood cells, LT-HSCs are able to resist the threats posed by various types of stress. However, our understanding of LT-HSCs under stress is still limited.
It has been observed in our laboratory that the deletion of Pten in the LT-HSCs of VE-cadherin-cre+;Ptenfl/fl mice does not lead to the loss of HSC self-renewal, raising the possibility that PTEN-mediated self-renewal regulation may be more complicated than previously reported. To understand the molecular regulation of HSC homeostasis, I crossed Bmi1GFP/+ knock-in reporter mice, in which the intact Bmi1 promoter drives the transcription of the GFP transgene instead of the self-renewal regulator gene Bmi1, with Pten-deficient mice (Vav-icre+;CD2-C3+;Ptenfl/fl, or vCPΔ/Δ) to generate vCBPΔ/Δ (vCPΔ/Δ;Bmi1GFP/+) mice. The intact GFP signals in vCBPΔ/Δ mice, which represent the expression of Bmi1, indicated that the transcription of Bmi1 was not affected by PTEN loss. However, vCBPΔ/Δ mice surprisingly suffered from the exhaustion of LT-HSCs and eventually died between 2 and 4 months after birth, which was reminiscent of the HSC defects in Bmi1-/- mice. The similar phenotypes between vCBPΔ/Δ mice and Bmi1-/- mice raised the possibility that PTEN plays an important role in the protein stability of BMI1 and the BMI1-mediated self-renewal of LT-HSCs.
To understand the role of PTEN in the regulation of BMI1, the protein levels of BMI1 in vCBPΔ/Δ LT-HSCs were measured by protein-flow analysis. Indeed, the BMI1 protein in vCBPΔ/Δ LT-HSCs was decreased by more than 50%. In contrast, the protein levels of BMI1 in vCPΔ/Δ and Bmi1GFP/+ mice, where the HSC pools remained normal, were slightly reduced by less than 50%. Consistently, the stem cell exhaustion marker p16Ink4a, which is typically repressed by BMI1, was strikingly upregulated in vCBPΔ/Δ LT-HSCs. These observations indicate that the protein levels of BMI1 are critical for the expression of p16Ink4a and the BMI1-mediated self-renewal regulation.
At the molecular level, the loss of PTEN or its phosphatase function led to the activation of the stress-responsive kinase p38α MAPK. The activated p38α phosphorylated BMI1 at T275, which resulted in the degradation of BMI1. However, the T275 phosphorylation of BMI1 was suppressed by the phosphatase-independent function of PTEN. The T275A mutant of BMI1, which was unable to be phosphorylated by p38α, rescued the protein levels of BMI1 and the HSC pool in vCBPΔ/Δ mice. These molecular and genetic findings suggest that the T275 phosphorylation of BMI1 is associated with its protein stability and self-renewal regulation.
To investigate the molecular regulation of BMI1 by PTEN and p38α under stress, an X-ray irradiation murine model was employed. The 3 Gy irradiation led to a decrease in the BMI1 protein levels in response to irradiation, which was accompanied by the increased reactive oxygen species at 14 days post-irradiation. The irradiated HSCs with increased ROS exhibited compromised self-renewal activity in serial transplantation assays. Conversely, HSCs with the Bmi1T275A mutation rescued the self-renewal ability of irradiated HSCs in those serial transplantation assays. These observations highlight the BMI1 T275 as a critical checkpoint in HSCs in response to stress.
Taken together, the regulators p38α, PTEN and BMI1 form a new circuit to regulate HSC self-renewal in developmental and stress conditions. PTEN and p38α play an essential role in regulating the protein levels of BMI1 and the self-renewal of HSCs via the BMI1 T275. The T275 locus in BMI1 is a critical checkpoint in response to stress
Performing stragismo and counter-spectacularisation: Italian right-wing terrorism and its legacies
No full textThis practice-based PhD project is interested in how spectacularity, particularly the spectacle of political violence, influences collective memory. In pursuing this analysis, the project questions how spectacularity permeates the public discourse through the language of power and the media. The case study is the partially erased collective memory of Italian right-wing political violence (1969-1980) and its intergenerational transmission.
During the 1970s, Italy experienced a high number of terrorist attacks, perpetrated by both left- and right-wing extremists. Due to judicially verified collusion with secret services and political personalities, the right-wing bombing attacks were and are known as “stragi di stato” [state massacres] by a large segment of the population. However, the historical and social contexts of these attacks, along with the factual and judicial truths, are largely forgotten. This project asks what factors contributed to this collective erasure and what strategies, drawn from theatre and performance theory and practice, can be implemented to develop collective memory.
The project theorises ‘counterspectacularisation’ as a set of strategies created by the public, as well as by theatre and performance practitioners, in response to the spectacular violence of terrorists. Practice and theoretical examination inform each other, with counterspectacularisation being analysed through theories of theatre and performance, case studies of performances and and four original artworks that I developed as part of my personal practice, all of which examine how to address memory gaps ethically and respectfully
What’s consent got to do with it? An examination of legitimacy, trust, and the police-public relationship in Scotland, United Kingdom
Get PDFIn the years since 1829 and the creation of “The New Police” in London under the leadership of Sir Robert Peel and Commissioners Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne, police services in the United Kingdom have often struggled with the principles that underpin their ability to prevent and detect crime. Many negative incidents have plagued police organisation efforts to operate legitimately including the criminal acts of serving police officers and the admission of decades of organisational racism, bias, and misogyny. Further, the closing of police stations and subsequent withdrawal from neighbourhoods and communities for all but the most serious of calls have fractured police relationships with the public, impacting and decreasing public confidence, and trust even more. This thesis critically explores the police-public relationship from the perspective of the widely recognised, traditional British policing model of policing by consent, examining if it is a way to repair and renew trust and legitimacy in the police service.
An extensive literature review examined the historical foundations for policing by consent, before exploring the concept of consent. The literature then interrogated legitimacy, trust, and social exchange before revealing gaps in the understanding of the intersection of policing by consent with these concepts. Specifically, this review focused on the status of the current relationship police have with the public, the extent to which that relationship is characterised or underpinned by the theory of policing by consent, and the impact of trust, confidence, and legitimacy. These foci framed the question regarding policing by consent as being the most appropriate model to repair the relationship. The research draws on the in depth, semi-structured interviews of fifty participants including government, police, partner, and service user segments in Scotland, United Kingdom from 2022 to 2023. The research questions explored the nature of the police-public relationship and the key factors that influenced that relationship.
The findings contribute to the understanding of the police-public relationship in four key areas. Firstly, the findings confirmed the fragility and brokenness of the current police-public relationship but also reveal the willingness of both the police and the public to work to make it better. This underscored the value of the police-public relationship to both sides and revealed its importance to the ability of the police to function effectively in society. Secondly, the findings explored the nature and importance of trust in the police and how it is shaped in the community context. Trust was found to be a foundational concept for relationships with the police and was dependant on strong connections to procedural justice and visibility. These factors combined to create positive effects in communities and their ability to function with collective efficacy to reduce crime and decrease police demands. Thirdly, the status of police legitimacy was examined through sincerity, shared interests, communication, and procedural justice. Impact in this area was especially felt as it related to gender and socio-demographic bias, racism, and fear.
The overarching contribution this thesis makes to the literature is the examination of the problematic aspects of the theory of policing by consent which are explored with a particular focus on the manner consent is obtained and the ability to withdraw consent. Most significantly, while policing by consent has traditionally been lauded as the policing ideal, underpinning police effectiveness and providing the method by which police can operate in Britain, the findings revealed major limitations in the concept assisting police organisationally or operationally. The findings showed that the ability to police by consent is an outcome of legitimacy, trust, confidence, and positive relationships, not the means by which these goals are to be attained.
This realisation led to the proposal of a new Theory of Relational Policing as a vehicle for police services and governments to repair the connection with the public, increasing trust, legitimacy, and confidence. The thesis argues that relational policing better connects the historical roots of traditional policing in the United Kingdom and the goals of both police and the public using an established literature base and evidence from the respondents in this thesis. The findings support that positive, non-enforcement-based relationships between the police and the public are essential, and that through them, the proposed Theory of Relational Policing could help repair the fractured relationship between the police and the public, driving additional community benefits preventing crime, increasing community and individual wellness, and improving neighbourhood collective efficacy where other models have not been effective
Early warning, early action in protracted crises
Get PDF‘Lightning talk’ presented by Enock Nyakundi (Save the Children) at the Jameel Observatory Community of Practice meeting, Addis Ababa, 13-14 May 202
Exploring the impacts of childhood sexual abuse and related adversities: a multi-study analysis of gendered pathways in disclosure, psychosocial, and psychosexual outcomes
Get PDFChildhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a pervasive and harmful experience with potentially long-term consequences for survivors. This thesis explored the impacts of CSA along with the presence of other adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s), focussing on CSA disclosure, and behavioural, psychosocial, and psychosexual outcomes. Employing a multi-study approach that integrated quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the research investigated gendered pathways and the roles of contextual and interpersonal factors. Each of the three studies addressed distinct but interrelated aspects of CSA’s aftermath, collectively contributing to a nuanced understanding of its complex effects.
The first study examined the relationships between the existence of childhood abuse (CA), as well as CA types specifically—CSA, childhood physical abuse (CPA), and childhood emotional abuse (CEA)—with outcomes including substance use disorder (SUD) patterns and self-directed violence (SDV). Using hierarchical multiple regression, the study identified significant associations between abuse types and maladaptive behavioural outcomes, highlighting the cumulative impact of abuse on risk behaviours. Notably, gender had no significant effect on the outcomes, underscoring shared underlying mechanisms while recognising potentially different contextual manifestations.
The second study explored the pathways linking CA types (i.e., CSA, CPA, and CEA) to sexual shame (SS) through structural equation modelling (SEM). This study investigated the mediating roles of disclosure experiences (DE) and contextual childhood adversities (CCA), as well as the moderating role of gender, to demonstrate how these factors influence psychosexual development. SEM revealed no significant mediating effects for DE, but identified significant mediating effects for CCA in some models. The study also found significant moderating effects for gender on SS in the CSA and CPA models, specifically that female participants were significantly more likely to experience higher levels of SS compared to male participants in these models. The findings emphasised the importance of social and environmental mediators in shaping long-term psychosexual outcomes for CSA survivors.
Building on the findings of these two studies, the third study employed Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) to further explore the lived experiences of CSA survivors, focussing on disclosure, recovery, and psychosexual development. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews, the study uncovered diverse trajectories shaped by barriers and incentives to disclosure, revealing the influence of attachment dynamics and societal constructs on the gendered experiences and outcomes of CSA survivors. The findings highlighted the pivotal role of disclosure as both a potential facilitator and barrier to recovery, offering critical insights into the relationship between personal and societal influences.
Synthesising findings across the three studies, this thesis underscores the complexity of CSA’s impact and the critical role of contextual and gendered factors in shaping recovery and developmental trajectories. The research provides valuable insights of how disclosure experiences and contextual adversities influence behavioural and psychosexual outcomes, offering implications for practice and policy. Recommendations include fostering supportive disclosure environments, integrating psychosocial and psychosexual dimensions in intervention frameworks, and addressing gender-specific barriers to recovery. While limitations include the cross-sectional nature of two studies and potential contextual constraints, the findings provide a meaningful contribution to CSA research and support services, paving the way for further exploration into the long-term impacts of CSA
Mediation in 2024: First Insights from the MEND Database
No full textThe first release of the Mediation Events and Negotiators Database (MEND) captures 230 mediation and 903 mediation-related events across six conflict-affected contexts in 2024: Sudan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Israel (including Palestine/Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon). Israel-linked conflicts accounted for over half of all events, making it the most active mediation setting. Key trends include a spike in Sudanese mediation early in the year, and a December surge following the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Mediation involved a diverse range of actors, with Egypt and the US contributing to the highest number of agreements. Egypt’s role in mediating conflicts along its borders illustrates shifting regional dynamics. The majority of 2024 agreements focused on humanitarian access and ceasefires, reflecting the increasing importance of short-term, needs-based mediation. Of 17 agreements recorded in MEND, only four appear in formal legal datasets, highlighting the value of tracking informal and non-legal outcomes. As part of the PeaceRep Global Fragmentation project, MEND offers a unique, evolving resource that enhances understanding of third-party mediation in an increasingly complex global conflict landscape
Elemental analysis and structural characterisation of synthetic and natural Li-containing ore materials using advanced muon and neutron techniques
Get PDFLithium-Ion Batteries (LIBs) are vital in the drive to meet global CO₂ emission targets from road transport and to stabilize electrical supply from renewable sources. The unique characteristics of Li mean it is unlikely to be substituted as a key component of battery technologies in the short to medium term. Current global Li supply from primary resources is dominated by salar brines and spodumene (LiAlSi₂O₆) pegmatites, due to ease of economic extraction, but more Li resources are required to meet demand.
First identified in 2007, the lithium sodium borosilicate mineral jadarite (LiNaSiB₃O₇(OH)) has comparable Li contents to spodumene and potential as a novel ore from which Li and B can be co-produced. However, thus far it has only been observed in the Jadar basin (Serbia) where it forms the principal ore of one of Europe’s largest Li resources.
This research presents the novel synthesis of jadarite, crystallised from a precursor using a variation of the dry-gel conversion (DGC) technique. The precursor was synthesised either mechanochemically or by the sol-gel method. Samples were characterised using X-ray Powder Diffraction (XRPD), Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). Experimental conditions were varied to study their effects on crystallinity and secondary phase formation. These secondary phases included searlesite (NaBSi₂O₅(OH)₂), silica (SiO₂), and lithium carbonate (Li₂CO₃), which are formed alongside natural jadarite.
The synthesis of jadarite informed understanding of its formation, gave access to a phase-pure supply of jadarite, and allowed production of an appropriate synthetic standard to aid method development of analytical techniques with potential to quantify Li content in Li ores.
One technique with the capability to detect and quantify low Z elements, such as Li, and the second focus of this thesis, is Muonic X-ray Emission Spectroscopy (μ-XES), which enables non-destructive, depth-dependent elemental analysis. The aim was to develop the μ-XES setup on Port 4 of the RIKEN-RAL muon beamline at ISIS Neutron and Muon Source (Harwell) to study the distribution of elements and phases throughout Li ores.
Synthetic jadarite and other simple synthetic Li minerals, such as β-spodumene and β-eucryptite (LiAlSiO4), were used as standard samples for initial μ-XES measurements. Experimental data were compared to simulations of the μ-XES spectra generated by the software mudirac. A combination of simulated and standard data allowed accurate determination from experimental μ-XES data of elemental composition of natural mineral samples.
Complimentary high-resolution neutron diffraction data were collected on standard and mineral samples. Further μ-XES experiments on mixed phase synthetic samples
tested the capability of the technique to detect Li and to distinguish between different phases in a sample.
Overall, the synthesis of jadarite was used to provide insight into its geological genesis. Synthetic jadarite was used in place of natural jadarite for structural and elemental analyses. Synthetic jadarite, spodumene, and eucryptite acted as standards for μ-XES measurements at ISIS neutron and muon source, proving muons have their place as non-destructive, depth-dependent elemental probes for samples containing light elements such as Li and can also be applied to mineral samples
Cohomological Donaldson-Thomas theory for local systems on the 3-torus
Get PDFThis paper studies the Cohomological Donaldson-Thomas theory of G-local systems
on the topological three torus. Using an exponential map we prove cohomological
integrality for GLₙ-local systems using the statement of cohomological
integrality for the tripled Jordan quiver from [DM20]. Using this result we prove
a version of cohomological integrality for SLₙ and PGLₙ for prime n. Finally,
for prime n, we prove a Langlands duality statement for the SLₙ and PGLₙ
cohomological Donaldson-Thomas invariants
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