Conditions Of Exclusion Research Articles

The Asymmetries of Border Spaces

ABSTRACT Boris Pahor was born in 1913 in Trieste, where he died at the age of 108. In all his works, he tries to reconstruct the conditions of exclusion experienced by himself, his family, his people, and finally all those who resisted the ideological pressures at the height of the Nazi terror, as described in the novel Necropolis (1967). The extreme violence with which assimilation was imposed on the Slovenian minority did not allow him to preserve his original identity. Pahor’s Trieste confirms that spaces exposed to a constant pressure of assimilation are spaces of undeniable vitality. This perspective should allow us to create a corpus of knowledge that reflects the resilience of cultures exposed to domination. Instead of seeing the margins as a place of exclusion and endemic difficulties, we need to change the narrative that defines them. Margins are the spaces where translation constantly materializes, the spaces of exchanges and transfers, thus the periphery has the capacity for mediation between complex cultural systems.

Housing the poor? Accessibility and exclusion in the local housing systems of Vienna and Milan

AbstractDespite featuring very different housing systems, both in Vienna and Milan a growing number of people struggle to access affordable and decent housing. Even though social housing policies are in place in both contexts, for many the unregulated and often unaffordable private housing market is the only option. Building upon Antonio Tosi’s work, we centre our analysis on the poor and compare how two very different local housing systems create the conditions for their inclusion or exclusion. Through a comparative analysis of the Viennese and Milanese local housing regimes and adopting a mixed methodology, we discuss how both generate conditions of exclusion and who the ones excluded are, which local policies address the poor and how appropriate these are for mitigating housing exclusion. Finally, we indicate some directions for policies aimed at tackling the intersections of poverty and housing exclusion, advocating for a maximization of the ‘sociality’ of housing policies, involving a shift in prioritisation from the middle classes to the most vulnerable groups and the loosening of certain formal access requirements to housing or welfare services that constitute barriers to these groups, where possible.

Compliance is far from standard: Relational conditions of access and exclusion in agriculture

Regulatory regimes codify complex social objectives for agriculture, and judge producers' compliance relative to the resulting rules and standards. By combining Access Theory with Regulator-Intermediary-Target Theory, we frame farmers' compliance with agricultural rules and standards as a dynamic, relational product of social networks, rather than an asset that a farmer either has or lacks. To build these arguments, we compare four cases of governance over distinct social objectives sought from agricultural production: (1) legitimacy, examined through ongoing cannabis legalization in California; (2) safety, examined through the proliferation of microbial risk management into specialty crop agriculture in the United States; (3) organic, examined through the evolution of the US National Organic Program standards; and (4) fairness, examined through the fair trade movement and the split between Fair Trade International and Fair Trade USA. We find that farmers must continuously negotiate their compliance to maintain market access. Three key types of intermediaries participate in that negotiation: gatekeeping intermediaries who judge who shall pass, normative intermediaries who reify norms of ‘good’ as opposed to ‘bad’ farms and farmers, and facilitating intermediaries upon whom farmers depend to help them claim compliance. Our comparative analysis reveals novel insights into the network of social relations that shape who can comply and who cannot, which in turn determines who may participate in agriculture, in what ways, and for the sake of whom.

Let me in: The neural correlates of inclusion motivation in loneliness

BackgroundWhile it is well-established that humans possess an innate need for social belonging, the neural mechanisms underlying motivation for connection are still largely unknown. We propose that inclusion motivation – measured through the effort that individuals are willing to invest to be included in social interactions – may serve as one of the basic building blocks of social behavior and may change in lonely individuals. MethodsFollowing the screening of 303 participants, we scanned 30 low- and 28 high-loneliness individuals with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they performed the Active Inclusion Task (AIT). The AIT assesses the participants' levels of effort invested in influencing their inclusion during classic Cyberball conditions of fair play and exclusion. ResultsHigh- compared to low-loneliness individuals showed higher urgency for inclusion, specifically during fair play, which correlated with higher activity in the right thalamus. Furthermore, in high-loneliness individuals, we found increased functional connectivity between the thalamus and the temporoparietal junction, putamen, and insula. LimitationsParticipants interacted with computerized avatars, reducing ecological validity. Additionally, although increasing inclusion in the task required action, the physical demand was not high. Additional limitations are discussed. ConclusionsInclusion motivation in loneliness is heightened during fair but not exclusionary interactions, and is linked to activity in brain regions implicated in appetitive behavior and social cognition. The findings indicate that lonely individuals may view threat in inclusionary interactions, prompting them to take action to regain connection. This suggests that inclusion motivation may help explain social difficulties in loneliness.

Electronic Effect of the [Au(PPh3)]+ Fragment in the Stabilization of Imidazolium Salts and the Destabilization of NHCs

AbstractThis work presents the synthesis and characterization of mono‐ (1) and di‐nuclear (2) imidazolium salts stabilized by [AuPPh3]+ fragments. The presence of the gold moiety induces a significant decrease in the carbenic proton‘s acidic character (high pKa). This high stability is consistent with the pronounced instability of the conjugate bases obtained through deprotonation using strong bases. The formation of carbene species is accompanied by the identification of a 1,2‐rearrangement process in which a preference for the C‐bound species over the N‐bound species is observed. Experimental techniques such as NMR, single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction analysis, mass spectrometry, and computational calculations are employed to investigate the reactivity exhibited by the imidazolium salts. Additionally, the electrochemical properties of the two imidazolium salts were also investigated. This study reveals that both species 1 and 2 display two cathodic peaks which are related to two electro‐chemical irreversible reduction events. The results obtained from both experimental and theoretical studies of this system reveal a strong tendency of the [AuPPh3]+ fragment to stabilize imidazolium salts. Additionally, they demonstrate the preference of this fragment for C‐bound species over N‐bound ones, with the former proving to be highly unstable even under severe conditions of air and moisture exclusion.

The legacy of immigration policies and employment exclusion: Assessing the relationship between employment exclusions and immigrant health

Restrictive federal and state immigration policies create conditions of employment exclusion that may negatively influence the health of immigrants. In particular, these policy effects are reflected in labor market and workplace experiences that determine the types of work and employment opportunities that immigrants are able to access and pursue. This study examines the relationship between both cumulative and individual measures of employment exclusion and self-rated health and psychological distress among Asian and Latino immigrants in California, and whether this relationship is modified by legal status. We used data from the Research on Immigrant Health and State Policy (RIGHTS) study (n = 2010). We used both multivariable logistic regression and linear regression models for our analyses. For cumulative models, labor market exclusion was associated with poor health (OR = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.46). Workplace exclusion was also associated with poor self-rated health (OR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.82) and increased psychological distress (β = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.31, 1.07). For individual measures of employment exclusion, settling for a job – a labor market exclusion – and working in a dangerous job and experiencing wage theft – workplace exclusions – were associated with poor health and increased psychological distress. There was no evidence that the association between employment exclusions and health varied by legal status. These findings demonstrate that the combined effect of employment exclusions is detrimental to immigrant health. To improve population health, public health researchers should continue to interrogate the policy conditions at the federal, state, and local level that exclude immigrants from employment opportunities and workplace protections.

Essential yet excluded: COVID‐19 and the decent work deficit among domestic workers in Brazil

This article presents data from a survey conducted with the National Federation of Domestic Workers of Brazil on the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on domestic workers, also considering emergency policies and the Federation's main actions in the first year of the crisis. Focusing on employment and income, occupational health and safety, and violations of rights, it shows the extreme polarization between those who lost their livelihoods and those obliged to continue working at the expense of their health and basic human rights. Although the circumstances were exceptional, the authors argue that this situation was made possible by pre‐existing conditions of legal exclusion and precarity.

Value Network Configuration and Competitiveness of Emerging Agricultural Cooperatives in the Central Free State of South Africa

Introduction: While many emerging agricultural cooperative firms in the Central Free State of South Africa remain inclined to progress into mainstream markets, conditions of market exclusion continue to dampen their predisposition to exploit competitive opportunities. Since cooperatives determined to reach their full market potential must contemplate competitive positions in their value networks, the business strategy literature on cooperative firms foregrounds the theoretical assertion that the value network configuration significantly influences competitiveness. Purpose: This conceptual study challenges the assertion that emerging agricultural cooperative firms’ value network configuration significantly influences their competitiveness. Methodology: Drawing on the transaction cost economics theory and a review of literature, the study sought to address the core constructs that constitute the claims, establishing, rather, that sustained competitive performance has a direct influence on the competitiveness of emerging agricultural cooperative firms. Findings: The findings suggest sustained competitive performance as the principal determinant of competitiveness and a function of the cooperative firms’ ability to navigate through transaction interaction dynamics and configurational influences. Originality: The study links industry structure and competition intensity to configurational influences, manifesting in various drivers and indicators determining sustained competitive performance, a novel concept underexplored in cooperative entrepreneurial literature.

INTELLECTUAL IMPAIRMENT AND EXPERIENCE OF EXTREME POVERTY IN A SINGLE PARENT FAMILY (CASE STUDY IN THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA CONTEXT)

The article analyzes the issue of family resources in a family with a single father with mental retardation raising two adolescents in conditions of extreme poverty. The research methodology is based on the model of case study qualitative research within the phenomenological “life world” approaches. The study has an entire description of the father’s “life world” and the structural, constituent, and essential elements of his day-to-day parenting experience. It is shown that the family experience is struggling with extreme poverty within the conditions of severe social exclusion and is governed by the father's family history with a class nature. Current family resources (health, education, social, and economic) are characterized as being affected by different types of deficiency and dependence on external “donors”. The discussion is raising awareness of the role of special education in the process of structuring essential elements of the “life world” experience in such families, in general, and conditions of extreme poverty, in particular.

“And Then It Spreads”: contagion and disease as metaphors of sociomoral contamination in Charles Burns’ graphic novel Black Hole

This article attempts to demonstrate how Charles Burns’ graphic novel Black Hole (1995) construes the prevalence of contagion and pathological transformation(s) as metaphors of social contamination operating within a biopolitics...

Towards a Weak Avant-Garde, Re-Shaping the Canon

Feminist discussions in art history usually focus on the exclusion of women artists and the reification of women’s bodies. A growing constellation of queer and feminist theorists today, however, analyse failure and cuteness as aspects of contemporary feminist avant-garde practices, suggesting that alternative currents in art practice and theory are emerging that challenge traditional notions and modes of art production. In my article, I discuss these debates in relation to “weak universalism” and weak messianism in order to reshape our understanding of avant-garde theory and practice from a feminist perspective. I argue that feminist analysis transforms what was previously thematized as conditions of exclusion into an important part of artistic legacy in works made by previously excluded groups. I propose that the concept of a weak avant-garde might help to theorize these shifts.

Against lords and Parientes Mayores. Social conflict and resistance in the late medieval Basque Country

ABSTRACT This work aims to define the structural elements of aristocratic rule, noble lords in Álava and Parientes Mayores (heads of household) in Guipúzcoa and Biscay, over their lordships and church patronages; the fiscal and political opposition presented by hidalgos (petty nobility), peasants, ferrones (metal-industry workers) and townspeople; and the evolution of the resulting conflict over time. We also outline the discourses elaborated to legitimise lordly authority or to reject it, and those mobilised to denounce the arbitrary fiscal demands of the nobility and conditions of political exclusion. In order to illustrate this, we examine the rule of the Rojas and the Hurtado de Mendoza families over the small towns of Antoñana and Santa Cruz de Campezo, and the steadfast opposition to this rule from the towns’ residents.

An Approximation of Freedom: On-demand Therapy and the Feminization of Labor

Platform labor and gig work have become key sites for understanding a nascent "future of work" hallmarked by informalization and digitization. A growing body of research emphasizes how experiences of platform work are mediated not only by algorithms and user interfaces, but also by gender, race, local cultures as well as labor hierarchies. Drawing from ongoing ethnographic research on the digital transformation of healthcare, we show how therapists' experiences of platform labor are centrally shaped by the historical and ongoing feminization of mental health work. Platforms reinscribe feminized labor conditions that are pervasive in the healthcare industry, and yet platform labor appears as 'useful' to some therapists as they navigate a set of precarious career choices fundamentally structured by feminization. We use the analytic of the stopgap to describe platforms' two-fold reproduction of the status quo: first by offering an approximation of freedom to individual workers, helping to forestall a crisis of unsustainable work conditions; and second by reinscribing the same logics of exploitation in order to make labor scalable. This stopgap analytic reorients the focus away from the impact of the platforms technologies as such, towards the conditions that make stopgap solutions necessary for survival. It also points towards the importance of intervening in the conditions of exclusion and exploitation that help to create a market for platform stopgaps.

The effect of social exclusion on intertemporal choice in suicide attempters: A preliminary experimental study

BackgroundSuicide-related theories and a growing body of evidence suggest that suicidal patients may have a tendency toward “short-sightedness"—the preference for immediate gratification when making intertemporal choice—and that social exclusion may exacerbate this tendency in suicidal patients. The present study examined the intertemporal choice performance of suicide attempters under conditions of social exclusion in a sample of affective disorder patients. MethodsA total of 64 affective disorder patients (22 non-suicidal patients, 24 single-suicide attempters and 18 multiple-suicide attempters) completed an intertemporal choice task in an exclusion or a non-exclusion condition. Social exclusion was manipulated using the Cyberball paradigm. ResultsNon-suicidal patients and single-suicide attempters both exhibited an exaggerated preference for immediate rewards in the exclusion condition compared with the non-exclusion condition; in contrast, the multiple-suicide attempters appeared relatively indifferent to the social exclusion, exhibiting virtually identical preferences for immediate rewards in both the exclusion and non-exclusion conditions. In addition, the multiple-suicide attempters exhibited an exaggerated preference for immediate rewards compared with non-suicidal patients and single-suicide attempters in the non-exclusion condition, while the three groups did not differ in the exclusion condition. ConclusionsAffective disorder patients with a single or no suicide attempts are more short-sighted after being excluded, while those with multiple suicide attempts appeared consistent short-sightedness in both exclusion and non-exclusion conditions. The study provides preliminary evidence of the role of disadvantageous intertemporal choice in the suicidal process. Future research replicate and extend these findings could have implications for suicide prevention and intervention.

Inclusion motivation: Measuring the drive to be included in real time and how it is affected by loneliness.

Humans have a fundamental need to belong and affiliate with others. The term inclusion motivation, coined here, represents the drive of the individual toward an active attempt to be included, at least as equally as others, in social interactions. It is postulated to be triggered by social exclusion and further influenced by personal traits and other stable conditions. To assess inclusion motivation, we developed the active inclusion task (AIT), which is based on the cyberball paradigm. The AIT allows participants for the first time to actively influence their inclusion during conditions of fair play and exclusion, by waving a virtual hand controlled by keyboard presses. In the first step of our study, we examined how different levels of required effort affect the performance of participants (N = 154) by using two versions of the AIT that differ in the magnitude of influence generated by each keypress. Using basic measures of motivation, we found that behavioral inhibition predicted lower numbers of keypresses during exclusion compared with fair play, only when high effort was required. Conversely, higher behavioral activation predicted higher numbers of keypresses across conditions. In the second step of our study, we tested whether loneliness accounts for differences in inclusion motivation. Results show that higher loneliness score predicted higher number of keypresses during exclusion compared with fair play, only when low effort was required. Collectively, we propose that inclusion motivation should be considered as a prominent facet of motivation with the potential to explain social behavior in health and in psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

“To Teach Empathy and Fight Racism”

“Fugitive libraries,” as described by Shannon Mattern in her titular work, are Black libraries that emerge in American contexts in response to conditions of exclusion and antiBlackness. The question of whether they are necessary in a Canadian cultural context has not been investigated before, in part due to the lack of distinct existing scholarship on Black Canadian librarianship. Using an interdisciplinary framework informed by Black Canadian and Indigenous scholars, I undertake a content analysis and close reading of Black History Month and Black Lives Matter programming and booklists in two Canadian public libraries from 2020-2021 to investigate whether the programming meets the needs of Black Canadian communities, and whether fugitive libraries are a necessary response. I determine that though clear efforts towards the inclusion of Black narratives are apparent in these libraries, Black History Month programming and the discourse surrounding it are shaped to benefit and mobilize non-Black Canadians, rather than to address the needs of particular Black communities, and propose fugitivity as a solution to these conditions.

Self-Organisation in the Struggle for Economic Democracy in Colonial and Post-Colonial Lesotho, 1870s–2010s

This article explores a history of self-organisation among the Basotho traders in Lesotho’s colonial and post-colonial commerce from the 1870s to the 2010s. Using historical sources, the article argues that Basotho’s forms of self-organisation – voluntary business associations and co-operatives – are indispensable in their persistent struggle for economic democracy. Under colonial (1870s–1966) and post-colonial (1966–2010s) conditions of poverty, exclusion and authoritarianism, their forms of self-organisation, outside state intervention, blends their economic and political aspirations to have a meaningful say and participation in the economic affairs of their country. Their associational life illuminates particularised normative forms of humanism embedded in the historic and social fabric of their society.

Civicness in exile: The solidarities and struggles of South Sudanese refugees in Cairo

ABSTRACT We explore refugee solidarities and struggles under conditions of extreme political exclusion and violence, based on collaborative ethnography with South Sudanese refugees in Cairo. From the perspective of the refugees, the city is hostile and precarious. They are routinely subject to racism, deprivation, and arbitrary applications of law. At the same time, South Sudanese people have historical roots in Cairo and have generated forms of moral and political order there, shaped by fluctuating relations with each other, the city, and their homeland. We argue that these inconspicuous socio-political structures provide community citizenship at the urban margins. Additionally, we show how refugees strive for legitimate authority, social welfare, and rights in exile, within and beyond these local realms. We label these endeavours ‘civicness’ to capture their situated politics. The refugees’ relations and contentions are distinctive in that they are mostly oriented towards customary and humanitarian authorities, rather than the state; they rely on and encourage quotidian solidarities; and they blend notions of custom with references to human rights and constitutional norms. In this harsh context, South Sudanese refugees deploy civicness to promote survival with dignity and to counteract dehumanizing modes of humanitarian governance.

A Sociological Approach to the Adolescent Pregnancy in the Low-Income Population of the Gran Mendoza, Argentina

Our purpose is to contribute to the knowledge of the incidence of teenage pregnancy in the low-income sector of the Gran Mendoza by understanding them as part of their life strategies within the framework of their conditions of existence strongly impacted for low job opportunities and a reactive educational system. Pregnancy and motherhood in these adolescents are problematized considering that their incidence remains high compared to that for women of other social classes. We had chosen to know their opinions regarding their sexual and reproductive practices that drive them, or not, to the pregnancy and maternity. We think it is possible to argue that, in extreme conditions of social exclusion, with a lack of familiar support and limited cultural capital, teenagers tend to have sexual practices that drive them not to avoid pregnancies strongly influenced by traditional ideas regarding the role of women in society. On the contrary, when teenage women have bigger levels of cultural capital, dispute the reiterate tendencies of the traditional “class habitus” and report educational and professional life projects.

Self-Respect and Self-Segregation

In this article, I develop W. E. B. Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness to demonstrate the limitations of Kant’s and Rawls’s models of self-respect. I argue that neither Kant nor Rawls can explain what self-respect and resistance to oppression warrants under the conditions of violent and systematic racial exclusion. I defend Du Bois’s proposal of voluntary black self-segregation during the Jim Crow era and explain why Du Bois believes that the black American community has a moral right to assert its self-respect by mitigating its exposure to racial violence and animus in a white-controlled polity.