Cultural Shifts » Essays & Articles

Worker Protests, the Morning After: 7 lessons from Argentina for the future

Ethan Earle — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:49:40 +0000

Possibilities for bridging the gap between the symbolism of resistance and a real alternative for the working world.

Stop the World Water Forum

Emma Lui — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:51:16 +0000

How the 5th World Water Forum and the World Water Council Threaten People’s Access to Water.

National Identity Examined: A Study of the Quebec Nation

Rachel Ariey-Jouglard — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:21:14 +0000

What is a nation exactly? A theoretical look at the concept of nation in Quebec.

From Disabled to Dispossessed: CPP Disability Benefits and the Decline of Social Citizenship

Mary Rita Holland — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:00:09 +0000

What were formerly considered ‘entitlements' of highly vulnerable citizens are increasingly viewed as charity

Periodizing our Current Moment: Work-Well-Fare As a New Mode of Social Regulation

Matthew Lymburner — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:52:35 +0000

The title of my paper contains an assortment of words relevant to current labor studies – networks, struggle, unions – but one word, or more aptly, one concept, will certainly stand out as peculiar: work-well-fare. What is this concept? What does it mean? I argue that work-well-fare is a tendency towards a renewed class compromise [...]

Imagining the Diasporic Link: The Franco-Algerian Media Dialogues on the 2005 ‘Emeutes’ in France

Irina Mihalache — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:59:10 +0000

Both France and Algeria have been struggling with the memory of colonialism, adopting various strategies of collective remembering.

Marxxxist Alienation: Sexual Anthropomorphism of Realdolls™ and Construction of Man

Elizabeth Record — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:11:43 +0000

Looking at the changing interactions between the organic and inanimate constructions of capitalism.

Skipping Over the Bourgeoisie Moment of Expropriation

Armagan Teke — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 06:15:31 +0000

Primitive accumulation - a concept Marx previously used for addressing the initial inhumane stage of capitalism at which both the expropriation of the producers from the means of production and transformation of them into wage-labourers took place - has long been an absent reference point within the social sciences.

The Complication of the Nation: Latin America and the Dialectic of Changing Imagined Communities

Matthew Lymburner — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:28:09 +0000

Despite differing conceptions on what this might actually mean, we are living in a global world. The system of nation states remains intact - and with it, nationalist sentiment from Argentina to Yemen, and everywhere in between - but it is in transition. While in 1991, Benedict Anderson proclaimed, “nation-ness is the most universally legitimate [...]

Forces Constructing Consent for the Neoliberal Project

David Cavett-Goodwin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:06:41 +0000

This paper will attempt to provide a more holistic set of criterion necessary for the construction of consent over neoliberalism. This concept refers to methods by which the public buy-into the neoliberal agenda. How were they convinced that neoliberalism was the most suitable method of capital accumulation?

The Venue is the Culture?

Yiu Fai Chow — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:01:20 +0000

Allow me to blame the city of Hong Kong. I was born and grew up in Hong Kong. But for the last 15 years, I have been living in the Netherlands, although I am commuting between the two localities pretty frequently. The last time I spent quite a considerable period of time in Hong Kong, [...]

Making the Case for Corporate Social Responsibility

David Cavett-Goodwin — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:02:24 +0000

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a major buzzword within academic circles, politics, activist groups, and the business community. There are many definitions of CSR which emphasize different areas, but the most contemporary and most applicable to the majority cases, is defined by the World Bank Group’s Corporate Social Responsibility Practice, as a department of Foreign [...]

Fair Trade and Global Justice: The Case of Bananas in St. Vincent

Anna Torgerson — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:11:08 +0000

Fair trade is a response to the instability of international commodity markets and to problems of monocultural production.

International Human Rights Protection in the Citizenship Gap: The Case of Migrant Sex Workers

Christine Hughes — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:34 +0000

The Convention to Protect All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families has been heralded as a significant international achievement in the protection of migrant workers. Antoine Pecoud and Paul de Guchteneire assert that it represents “the most comprehensive international treaty protecting migrants’ rights and is therefore a crucial element in fostering respect for [...]

The Gin Craze: Drink, Crime & Women in 18th Century London

Elise Skinner — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:08:58 +0000

Eighteenth century London was home to the gin craze, a chapter in English history that marked the unprecedented mass consumption of this newly developed spirit. This paper traces the development of this complex urban phenomenon and examines how Parliamentarians came to attribute many of the social ills of the day, including criminal activity, to gin [...]

Care & Cash: A More Economic Approach to Criticizing Sweatshops

Matthew Prime — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 20:23:29 +0000

I. Background Across the globe, the growing dominance of trade has enveloped countries, both developed and developing, into asserting whatever advantages they might boast so as to remain globally competitive. This phenomenon is best described by the term ‘globalization’. While the uses of the term reach into matters of economic (de)regulation, the overlap of business [...]