Books by Frank Sowa
Wir laden Sie sehr herzlich zur Konferenz "Fragile Behausungen. Prekäres Wohnen und Wohnungslosig... more Wir laden Sie sehr herzlich zur Konferenz "Fragile Behausungen. Prekäres Wohnen und Wohnungslosigkeit in Zeiten multipler Krisen“ ein. Unsere Konferenz findet vom 22. bis 24. Februar 2024 an der Ohm in Nürnberg statt.
Wir freuen uns über Einreichungen von Beitragsvorschlägen bis zum 20. Januar 2024! Bitte verfassen Sie Ihren Vorschlag für ein Konferenz-Format in Form eines Abstracts von maximal 250 Wörtern für Vorträge, Posterpräsentationen oder Buchvorstellungen und maximal 900 Wörtern für Ad-Hoc-Gruppen oder Open-Space-Beiträge. Bitte geben Sie bei der Einreichung an, für welches Konferenz-Format Sie sich bewerben. Zudem bitten wir um eine Autor*innen-Info mit maximal 100 Wörtern für alle Beitragenden (Kurzportrait mit beruflichem/persönlichem Hintergrund, Kurzbiografie, Arbeitsschwerpunkte). Senden Sie alle Unterlagen an [email protected]. Für Rückfragen steht Ihnen das Organisationsteam unter dieser E-Mail-Adresse jederzeit zur Verfügung.
Im Anschluss an die Konferenz werden alle Abstracts und Autor*innen-Infos in der digitalen Schriftenreihe „Prekäres Wohnen und Wohnungslosigkeit“ der Technischen Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm veröffentlicht. Zudem werden ausgewählte Beiträge als wissenschaftliche Buchbeiträge in einem Sammelband veröffentlicht.
Der „aktivierende“ Wohlfahrtsstaat und seine nach betriebswirtschaftlichen Kriterien ausgerichtet... more Der „aktivierende“ Wohlfahrtsstaat und seine nach betriebswirtschaftlichen Kriterien ausgerichteten Organisationen sind das Ergebnis tiefgreifender Reformprozesse. Was bedeutet dies im Alltag von Beratungs- und Vermittlungsorganisationen? Welche Spannungen im Handeln und in den Organisationen entstehen durch diese Imperative?
Der Sammelband hat zum Ziel, die zahlreichen Umstrukturierungen der Arbeitsverwaltungen als außerordentlich sichtbares Element von wohlfahrtstaatlichem Wandel zu thematisieren. In besonderer Weise haben dabei die Einführung einer aktivierenden Sozialpolitik sowie eine Etablierung von privatwirtschaftlichen Effizienz- und Rationalisierungsvorstellungen die Arbeitsverwaltungen transformiert. Die international vergleichende Perspektive in diesem Werk zeigt erstmalig Ähnlichkeiten, aber auch Unterschiede im Wandel europäischer wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Institutionen auf sowie dessen Folgen für Verwaltungsbedienstete und BürgerInnen.
Since the late 1990s, scientists and environmental activists have held the hunting lifestyle of t... more Since the late 1990s, scientists and environmental activists have held the hunting lifestyle of the Inuit responsible for the decline of certain Greenlandic animal populations. However, indigenous peoples (still) receive special status in the ecological discourse, in that the practice of resource-efficient dealings with natural (animal- and plant-based) goods is attributed to them. Nature in need of protection clashes with Greenlandic collective identity as the Greenlandic expression for local food - Kalaalimernit - becomes a contested terrain. Frank Sowa traces how the global models of 'nature', 'indigeneity', and '(national) culture' increasingly structure the capacity of local actors.
Seit Ende der 1990er Jahre machten Naturwissenschaftler und Umweltschutzaktivisten die mit der Jagd verbundene Lebensweise der grönländischen Inuit für den Rückgang einiger Tierpopulationen in Grönland verantwortlich. Indigene Völker nehmen jedoch im ökologischen Diskurs einen Sonderstatus ein, da ihnen zugeschrieben wird, dass sie einen ressourcenschonenden, nicht-ausbeuterischen Umgang mit natürlichen Gütern aus der Tier- und Pflanzenwelt praktizieren. Damit verbindet sich die Annahme, indigene Völker seien ihrerseits (noch) nicht den ökonomischen und konsumtiven Praktiken der kapitalistischen Welt unterworfen. Kalaalimernit – der grönländische Ausdruck für einheimisches Essen – wird zum umkämpften Terrain: Schützenswerter Natur vs. grönländische Kollektividentität. Der grönländischer Geschmack dient der Artikulation einer Kollektividentität, die die Inuit als traditionelles, indigenes Jagdvolk beschreibt, die ihnen die Anerkennung als indigenes Volk und Rechte sichert, wie beispielsweise die Fortführung des Walfanges. Die Arbeit zeigt auf, dass die globalen Modelle von ‚Natur‘, ‚Indigenität‘ und ‚(National-)Kultur‘ die Handlungsfähigkeit der lokalen Akteure strukturieren.
Peer-reviewed SSCI/SCI journal articles by Frank Sowa
Through the introduction of welfare states and social policy, owners of labour power acquired alt... more Through the introduction of welfare states and social policy, owners of labour power acquired alternatives to the permanent sale of their labour. Entitlements to social security created the conditions for a strategic temporary withholding of labour. Based on qualitative data, this article presents empirical evidence of trends towards recommodification in Germany, i.e. a reduction in the possibilities for decommodification, as a result of a new employer orientation in the public employment service (PES). The findings highlight an increased employer orientation as well as a differentiation and specialisation in placement work leading to a shift in the placement rationale encountered in the local branches of the German PES. A pure market orientation is seen to increasingly replace the social policy mandate of the PES. Strengthening employer-oriented placement services implies, on the one hand, a professionalisation of services and, on the other, a further recommodification of labour.
In recent years, a decline in the consumption of local foods (kalaalimernit) can be observed in G... more In recent years, a decline in the consumption of local foods (kalaalimernit) can be observed in Greenland. However, its appreciation and symbolisation is increasing and kalaalimernit are a powerful contemporary symbol for being Greenlandic. The present article argues that kalaalimernit, as a specifically Greenlandic taste, are suited to marking and maintaining a cultural boundary in relation to the Danish people living in the country, a boundary constructed through identity politics. As the empirical findings from fieldwork conducted in the Greenlandic capital Nuuk and the small coastal settlement Oqaatsut demonstrate, this construction is subject to social change. Greenlanders advocate two different narrative patterns regarding how kalaalimernit are to be understood that stem from contemporary definitional struggles over what kind of cultural boundary is deemed important to demarcate. The struggle illustrates two different perceptions of Greenland as either an indigenous people and/or a small Nordic nation.
According to the neoinstitutional theory of the world polity, peripheral societies switch to the ... more According to the neoinstitutional theory of the world polity, peripheral societies switch to the complete institutional apparatus of modern social organization. The system of the United Nations leads to the expansion of legal “global models,” for instance global models of how to perceive nature and indigeneity. As rational actors, peripheral societies follow global models, which appear as given “scripts,” to gain recognition. As a local peripheral society, Greenland develops in a manner influenced by global formal structures. Hence, the impact of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) has been immense: First, environmental management and environmental protection institutions and organizations have been established in line with the global model of nature. Second, the Greenlandic Inuit have been recognized as an indigenous people possessing traditional ecological knowledge (global model of indigeneity). Hence, the CBD adopted the image of the “noble eco-savage” living in harmony with nature, an image that the Greenlandic Inuit later reproduced themselves. However, the institutionalization of the CBD is not without contradictions.
, 2013
After the whaling moratorium had come into force in 1986, the Greenlandic whaling is still catego... more After the whaling moratorium had come into force in 1986, the Greenlandic whaling is still categorized as aboriginal subsistence whaling, which means that it is considered as a legitimate subsistence economy of the Greenlandic Inuit. On the contrary, the Japanese coastal whaling is continued as “scientific whaling,” which is internationally criticized as an illegitimate practice with a suspected background of commercial interests. The consideration of the regulation of the international whaling as a form of global environmental regimes shows that the decisions within the International Whaling Commission will be determined by global models and categories of the world polity.
"Delivering placement services is one of the main functions of employment offices. How they fulfi... more "Delivering placement services is one of the main functions of employment offices. How they fulfill this function also depends on the number of job placement officers. Based on a large-scale pilot project, this paper analyzes the effect of raising the number of job placement officers on individual unemployment duration. We combine quantitative analyses of causal effects with qualitative implementation studies. Results indicate that more job placement officers are associated with shorter unemployment duration. We interpret the employment offices’ three different strategies to use the additional resources (job seekers orientation, employer orientation, process orientation) as possible causal mechanisms. Empirical analysis shows that the extent of the causal effect depends on the respective mecha-
nism. Detailed analysis of the pilot project indicates that the higher number of job placement officers was important but only one among several conditions for its success."
[From Workfare to ‘Regular’ Employment? A Mixed-Methods-Evaluation of In-Firm Transitions of One-... more [From Workfare to ‘Regular’ Employment? A Mixed-Methods-Evaluation of In-Firm Transitions of One-Euro-Jobs to Regular Employment]
This paper investigates in-firm transitions from so-called ,one-euro-jobs' to regular employment. One-euro-jobs are an important workfare instrument of German labour market policy and are meant to increase employability of long term unemployed persons, enabling them to apply for regular jobs after a long time off the labour market. By using qualitative methods, hypotheses are developed to explain why those transitions occur at all. Then we will check those hypotheses with quantitative methods using a special survey of the lAB-Establishment Panel. The main finding is that those in-firm transitions do less seem to result from increasing employability of the participants, but more from the indirect funding of regular jobs in the respective companies.
Peer-reviewed journal articles/book chapters by Frank Sowa
The topic of the sea and society is not new to sociology. Maritime spaces include oceans as well ... more The topic of the sea and society is not new to sociology. Maritime spaces include oceans as well as coastal areas, spaces which are at risk nowadays. Ecological crises (overfishing, decline in biodiversity, climate change, eutrophication, ocean pollution), economic crises (de-industrialization, whaling moratorium, structural change, development of alternative industries) and cultural crises (destabilization of collective identities of seaside and island inhabitants, cultural practices of sharing, inhabitants’ knowledge, local traditions, transformations of maritime professions) cumulate in these maritime spaces. So far research on maritime issues is dominated by natural science disciplines. The protection of maritime natural sources and the need for sustainable development demands research on the ‘human factor’ and a sociological perspective on maritime spaces.
Sozialer Fortschritt Vol. 64, Nr. 3, S. 47-54., 2015
Activation as a Global Model of World Politics? Conceptual Considerations on Labour Market Policy... more Activation as a Global Model of World Politics? Conceptual Considerations on Labour Market Policy Shifts in European Welfare States
Since the last decades of the twentieth century, European welfare states have faced a significant increase in unemployment. Referring to the neoliberal discourse, the emerging criticism of the welfare state has led to a gradual realignment of social policy and its administrative apparatus. Activation has since become a crucial attribute of labour market reform activities all over Europe, causing a step-by-step convergence of European welfare regimes as well as increasingly isomorphic structures of different welfare states. However, the neoliberal discourse encounters different state-dominated institutions and organizations, each with its own history, tradition, and culture. Hence, differences related to labour market policy practices still persist.
Seit den letzten Dekaden des ausgehenden zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts sind die europäischen Wohlfahrtsstaaten mit einer spürbaren Zunahme der Arbeitslosigkeit konfrontiert. Die sich auf den neoliberalen Diskurs beziehende Kritik am Wohlfahrtsstaat führte daraufhin zu einer schrittweisen Neuausrichtung der damit in Verbindung stehenden Sozialpolitik und des dazugehörigen Verwaltungsapparats. Aktivierung prägt seitdem die sozialpolitischen Reformwellen in Ländern historisch unterschiedlichen Wohlfahrtszuschnitts. Dadurch kommt es zu einer tendenziellen Angleichung der europäischen Wohlfahrtsregime, zur Herausbildung zunehmend isomorpher Strukturen im sozialpolitischen Bereich. Der neoliberale Diskurs trifft jedoch auf unterschiedliche, nationalstaatlich geprägte Institutionen und Organisationen mit ihrer je eigenen Historie, Tradition und Kultur. Daher bleiben Unterschiede in den Praktiken der Arbeitsmarktpolitik bestehen.
After the whaling moratorium of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) came into force in 198... more After the whaling moratorium of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) came into force in 1986, Japanese whaling activities such as small−type coastal whaling, scientific whaling in the Antarctic, driving whaling or hand−harpooning continued on a reduced level. The zero−catch moratorium had an enormous impact on the whalers’, the whalers families and the traditional whaling towns. Being located in very remote rural areas, seaside communities found themselves involved in crisis concerning their economic, cultural, spiritual, social and moral development. Results of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a contemporary whaling town in Japan show that whaling is still a part of the collective memory of the town: whalers and non−whalers construct their identities through the articulation of a strong attachment to the traditional whaling town and their ancestors. From the very beginning whaling was an economic activity, an industry, but it was so dominant (“whales are my life”) that all inhabitants were also involved in whaling related activities (sharing, arts and crafts). Today, whaling activities on the sea and on the land are decreasing. Additionally, whale and whaling symbolization is increasing. Inhabitants of the community experienced pressure from anti−whaling campaigns by global environmental groups and animal welfare organizations. Due to these experiences a new community identity emerged involving whaling as a reflected articulation, a marker of a cultural boundary in relation to Euro−Americans, but also in relation to urban Japanese and other rural communities which are not whaling, securing the future of the town as whaling town.
Journal für Psychologie, Jg. 22(2014), Ausgabe 2
The paper examines the question in what way and with what possibilities and limitations reflexive... more The paper examines the question in what way and with what possibilities and limitations reflexive forms of counselling can be realized in contexts like the public employment services that are characterized by coercion. ‘Reflexive counselling’ is a form of social action, through which subjects produce a space of counselling through face-to-face communication. This space enables reflection with the help of dialogue and the conscious reference back to earlier actions. The subject regains or maintains its capacity to act. Based on an observed counselling interview conditions and factors for practical realization of reflexivity are analyzed in the job placement process.
On the one hand, the indigenous people of Greenlandic Inuit are recognized by its non-exploitativ... more On the one hand, the indigenous people of Greenlandic Inuit are recognized by its non-exploitative access to natural resources in environmental discourse. On the other hand, within scientific studies the hunting activities are blamed for the decline of individual animal populations. The present paper examines the question of whether Greenlandic Inuit as well as environmentalists from Denmark and Germany recognize alternative perspectives on societal relationships with nature. The qualitative interviews show that the interviewee let their own experiences of foreignness in the horizon of experience and thus legitimize their actions.
In the mid-1990s changes started in the German Federal Employment Agency, which profoundly transf... more In the mid-1990s changes started in the German Federal Employment Agency, which profoundly transformed the daily routines of job placement officers. Not only the recipients of unemployment benefits have to deal with extensive consequences, but also the personnel of job agencies is affected to a large extent as well. Qualitative interviews, conducted during 2007 and 2008, with job placement officers reveal the massive use of accounting techniques, i.e. of quantifies work supervision, and how these are altering their scope of action, leading in to a dilemma: Job placement officers act primarily as counseling professionals with their clients, trying to adopt the needs of the individual jobseeker. However, every (professional) decision of job placement officers is also object of accounting and has to be revised if contradicting the managerial logic of organization.
In the last decades, the German Public Employment Service was substantially reorganized. Like in ... more In the last decades, the German Public Employment Service was substantially reorganized. Like in many other European Countries, elements of New Public Management, especially an active labor market policy, were introduced into the Federal Employment Agency (FEA, Bundesagentur für Arbeit). As a result, the workflow of the placement personnel is now more standardized than in former days. It is quite normal for the FEA to test variations of its work organization. In this tradition, a pilot project tested the correlation between the ratio of placement personnel to unemployed clients and successful job placements with substantially increasing the number of placement personnel. The central findings of the qualitative evaluation of the pilot project indicate that the job placement agencies used the new and additional placement personnel in three different fields: The division of labour, communication and the supply of services. We also find that the agencies are divided in three specialized directions of human resource management. The first type focused on the unemployed, the second on the employers and the third used the new placement personnel to optimize the internal processes of work organization.
Legal Pluralism in the World Society? The Customary Law of Indigenous Peoples Based on the Exampl... more Legal Pluralism in the World Society? The Customary Law of Indigenous Peoples Based on the Example of the Greenlandic Inuit
The traditional Greenlandic customary law, which is of significance for villagers in the small settlements on Greenland's west coast, is confronted with conflicting demands by the global environmental regime. Can traditional customary rights of indigenous peoples be maintained in a global society? As the example of the Greenlandic Inuit illustrates the conflict to ensure the continuation of hunting activities, however, cannot be understood as a conflict between societies that have different legal and rationality conceptions. The intellectual elites in the Greenland Self-Government are taking over the structural patterns of the global model of nature and run information campaigns about the biological status of the species. Hunters cite their traditional hunting rights and reject this information and those hunting restrictions. As a consequence, intra-societal conflicts develop between Greenland elites and hunters and thus in situations of legal pluralism within Greenland.
in: Brogi, Susanna/Freier, Carolin/Freier-Otten, Ulf/Hartosch, Katja: Repräsentationen von Arbeit. Transdisziplinäre Analysen und künstlerische Produktionen, Bielefeld: transcript, S. 247-264., 2013
in: Franke, Ulrich/Roos, Ulrich: Rekonstruktive Methoden der Weltpolitikforschung. Anwendungsbeispiele und Entwicklungstendenzen, Baden-Baden: Nomos, S. 143-179., 2013
in: Heininen, Lassi: Arctic Yearbook 2013. The Arctic of regions vs. the globalized Arctic, Akureyri: Northern Research Forum, S. 184-198., 2013
Established in 1979 as Home Rule and replaced in 2009 as self-government, the Greenlandic Inuit h... more Established in 1979 as Home Rule and replaced in 2009 as self-government, the Greenlandic Inuit have developed the most advanced form of self-government. Concerning the status of the Greenlandic Inuit, this process of nation-state building may have an influence on being indigenous. The focus of this article is to answer the question of how indigenous peoples are affected by the existing relations of power and domination in a world polity. Taking the continued permission to hunt whales of the Greenlandic Inuit as an example, the article will demonstrate that Greenlanders adopt the projected images of otherness as their own because of the fear of losing the rights exclusively reserved for indigenous peoples. The early and later versions of a working paper by an international group of experts commissioned by the Greenlandic self-government illustrate the debate about the cultural self-images in Greenland. While the narration of the Greenlandic Inuit as indigenous peoples secures rights in international fora, a second narration of a collective identity of a small Nordic nation emerges and is discussed. The later version of the working paper emphasizes Greenland‘s indigenous status. The analysis shows the authority of global models since the categories of world polity dominate discourses on the cultural collective identity of the Greenlandic Inuit.
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Books by Frank Sowa
Wir freuen uns über Einreichungen von Beitragsvorschlägen bis zum 20. Januar 2024! Bitte verfassen Sie Ihren Vorschlag für ein Konferenz-Format in Form eines Abstracts von maximal 250 Wörtern für Vorträge, Posterpräsentationen oder Buchvorstellungen und maximal 900 Wörtern für Ad-Hoc-Gruppen oder Open-Space-Beiträge. Bitte geben Sie bei der Einreichung an, für welches Konferenz-Format Sie sich bewerben. Zudem bitten wir um eine Autor*innen-Info mit maximal 100 Wörtern für alle Beitragenden (Kurzportrait mit beruflichem/persönlichem Hintergrund, Kurzbiografie, Arbeitsschwerpunkte). Senden Sie alle Unterlagen an [email protected]. Für Rückfragen steht Ihnen das Organisationsteam unter dieser E-Mail-Adresse jederzeit zur Verfügung.
Im Anschluss an die Konferenz werden alle Abstracts und Autor*innen-Infos in der digitalen Schriftenreihe „Prekäres Wohnen und Wohnungslosigkeit“ der Technischen Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm veröffentlicht. Zudem werden ausgewählte Beiträge als wissenschaftliche Buchbeiträge in einem Sammelband veröffentlicht.
Der Sammelband hat zum Ziel, die zahlreichen Umstrukturierungen der Arbeitsverwaltungen als außerordentlich sichtbares Element von wohlfahrtstaatlichem Wandel zu thematisieren. In besonderer Weise haben dabei die Einführung einer aktivierenden Sozialpolitik sowie eine Etablierung von privatwirtschaftlichen Effizienz- und Rationalisierungsvorstellungen die Arbeitsverwaltungen transformiert. Die international vergleichende Perspektive in diesem Werk zeigt erstmalig Ähnlichkeiten, aber auch Unterschiede im Wandel europäischer wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Institutionen auf sowie dessen Folgen für Verwaltungsbedienstete und BürgerInnen.
Seit Ende der 1990er Jahre machten Naturwissenschaftler und Umweltschutzaktivisten die mit der Jagd verbundene Lebensweise der grönländischen Inuit für den Rückgang einiger Tierpopulationen in Grönland verantwortlich. Indigene Völker nehmen jedoch im ökologischen Diskurs einen Sonderstatus ein, da ihnen zugeschrieben wird, dass sie einen ressourcenschonenden, nicht-ausbeuterischen Umgang mit natürlichen Gütern aus der Tier- und Pflanzenwelt praktizieren. Damit verbindet sich die Annahme, indigene Völker seien ihrerseits (noch) nicht den ökonomischen und konsumtiven Praktiken der kapitalistischen Welt unterworfen. Kalaalimernit – der grönländische Ausdruck für einheimisches Essen – wird zum umkämpften Terrain: Schützenswerter Natur vs. grönländische Kollektividentität. Der grönländischer Geschmack dient der Artikulation einer Kollektividentität, die die Inuit als traditionelles, indigenes Jagdvolk beschreibt, die ihnen die Anerkennung als indigenes Volk und Rechte sichert, wie beispielsweise die Fortführung des Walfanges. Die Arbeit zeigt auf, dass die globalen Modelle von ‚Natur‘, ‚Indigenität‘ und ‚(National-)Kultur‘ die Handlungsfähigkeit der lokalen Akteure strukturieren.
Peer-reviewed SSCI/SCI journal articles by Frank Sowa
nism. Detailed analysis of the pilot project indicates that the higher number of job placement officers was important but only one among several conditions for its success."
This paper investigates in-firm transitions from so-called ,one-euro-jobs' to regular employment. One-euro-jobs are an important workfare instrument of German labour market policy and are meant to increase employability of long term unemployed persons, enabling them to apply for regular jobs after a long time off the labour market. By using qualitative methods, hypotheses are developed to explain why those transitions occur at all. Then we will check those hypotheses with quantitative methods using a special survey of the lAB-Establishment Panel. The main finding is that those in-firm transitions do less seem to result from increasing employability of the participants, but more from the indirect funding of regular jobs in the respective companies.
Peer-reviewed journal articles/book chapters by Frank Sowa
Since the last decades of the twentieth century, European welfare states have faced a significant increase in unemployment. Referring to the neoliberal discourse, the emerging criticism of the welfare state has led to a gradual realignment of social policy and its administrative apparatus. Activation has since become a crucial attribute of labour market reform activities all over Europe, causing a step-by-step convergence of European welfare regimes as well as increasingly isomorphic structures of different welfare states. However, the neoliberal discourse encounters different state-dominated institutions and organizations, each with its own history, tradition, and culture. Hence, differences related to labour market policy practices still persist.
Seit den letzten Dekaden des ausgehenden zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts sind die europäischen Wohlfahrtsstaaten mit einer spürbaren Zunahme der Arbeitslosigkeit konfrontiert. Die sich auf den neoliberalen Diskurs beziehende Kritik am Wohlfahrtsstaat führte daraufhin zu einer schrittweisen Neuausrichtung der damit in Verbindung stehenden Sozialpolitik und des dazugehörigen Verwaltungsapparats. Aktivierung prägt seitdem die sozialpolitischen Reformwellen in Ländern historisch unterschiedlichen Wohlfahrtszuschnitts. Dadurch kommt es zu einer tendenziellen Angleichung der europäischen Wohlfahrtsregime, zur Herausbildung zunehmend isomorpher Strukturen im sozialpolitischen Bereich. Der neoliberale Diskurs trifft jedoch auf unterschiedliche, nationalstaatlich geprägte Institutionen und Organisationen mit ihrer je eigenen Historie, Tradition und Kultur. Daher bleiben Unterschiede in den Praktiken der Arbeitsmarktpolitik bestehen.
The traditional Greenlandic customary law, which is of significance for villagers in the small settlements on Greenland's west coast, is confronted with conflicting demands by the global environmental regime. Can traditional customary rights of indigenous peoples be maintained in a global society? As the example of the Greenlandic Inuit illustrates the conflict to ensure the continuation of hunting activities, however, cannot be understood as a conflict between societies that have different legal and rationality conceptions. The intellectual elites in the Greenland Self-Government are taking over the structural patterns of the global model of nature and run information campaigns about the biological status of the species. Hunters cite their traditional hunting rights and reject this information and those hunting restrictions. As a consequence, intra-societal conflicts develop between Greenland elites and hunters and thus in situations of legal pluralism within Greenland.
Wir freuen uns über Einreichungen von Beitragsvorschlägen bis zum 20. Januar 2024! Bitte verfassen Sie Ihren Vorschlag für ein Konferenz-Format in Form eines Abstracts von maximal 250 Wörtern für Vorträge, Posterpräsentationen oder Buchvorstellungen und maximal 900 Wörtern für Ad-Hoc-Gruppen oder Open-Space-Beiträge. Bitte geben Sie bei der Einreichung an, für welches Konferenz-Format Sie sich bewerben. Zudem bitten wir um eine Autor*innen-Info mit maximal 100 Wörtern für alle Beitragenden (Kurzportrait mit beruflichem/persönlichem Hintergrund, Kurzbiografie, Arbeitsschwerpunkte). Senden Sie alle Unterlagen an [email protected]. Für Rückfragen steht Ihnen das Organisationsteam unter dieser E-Mail-Adresse jederzeit zur Verfügung.
Im Anschluss an die Konferenz werden alle Abstracts und Autor*innen-Infos in der digitalen Schriftenreihe „Prekäres Wohnen und Wohnungslosigkeit“ der Technischen Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm veröffentlicht. Zudem werden ausgewählte Beiträge als wissenschaftliche Buchbeiträge in einem Sammelband veröffentlicht.
Der Sammelband hat zum Ziel, die zahlreichen Umstrukturierungen der Arbeitsverwaltungen als außerordentlich sichtbares Element von wohlfahrtstaatlichem Wandel zu thematisieren. In besonderer Weise haben dabei die Einführung einer aktivierenden Sozialpolitik sowie eine Etablierung von privatwirtschaftlichen Effizienz- und Rationalisierungsvorstellungen die Arbeitsverwaltungen transformiert. Die international vergleichende Perspektive in diesem Werk zeigt erstmalig Ähnlichkeiten, aber auch Unterschiede im Wandel europäischer wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Institutionen auf sowie dessen Folgen für Verwaltungsbedienstete und BürgerInnen.
Seit Ende der 1990er Jahre machten Naturwissenschaftler und Umweltschutzaktivisten die mit der Jagd verbundene Lebensweise der grönländischen Inuit für den Rückgang einiger Tierpopulationen in Grönland verantwortlich. Indigene Völker nehmen jedoch im ökologischen Diskurs einen Sonderstatus ein, da ihnen zugeschrieben wird, dass sie einen ressourcenschonenden, nicht-ausbeuterischen Umgang mit natürlichen Gütern aus der Tier- und Pflanzenwelt praktizieren. Damit verbindet sich die Annahme, indigene Völker seien ihrerseits (noch) nicht den ökonomischen und konsumtiven Praktiken der kapitalistischen Welt unterworfen. Kalaalimernit – der grönländische Ausdruck für einheimisches Essen – wird zum umkämpften Terrain: Schützenswerter Natur vs. grönländische Kollektividentität. Der grönländischer Geschmack dient der Artikulation einer Kollektividentität, die die Inuit als traditionelles, indigenes Jagdvolk beschreibt, die ihnen die Anerkennung als indigenes Volk und Rechte sichert, wie beispielsweise die Fortführung des Walfanges. Die Arbeit zeigt auf, dass die globalen Modelle von ‚Natur‘, ‚Indigenität‘ und ‚(National-)Kultur‘ die Handlungsfähigkeit der lokalen Akteure strukturieren.
nism. Detailed analysis of the pilot project indicates that the higher number of job placement officers was important but only one among several conditions for its success."
This paper investigates in-firm transitions from so-called ,one-euro-jobs' to regular employment. One-euro-jobs are an important workfare instrument of German labour market policy and are meant to increase employability of long term unemployed persons, enabling them to apply for regular jobs after a long time off the labour market. By using qualitative methods, hypotheses are developed to explain why those transitions occur at all. Then we will check those hypotheses with quantitative methods using a special survey of the lAB-Establishment Panel. The main finding is that those in-firm transitions do less seem to result from increasing employability of the participants, but more from the indirect funding of regular jobs in the respective companies.
Since the last decades of the twentieth century, European welfare states have faced a significant increase in unemployment. Referring to the neoliberal discourse, the emerging criticism of the welfare state has led to a gradual realignment of social policy and its administrative apparatus. Activation has since become a crucial attribute of labour market reform activities all over Europe, causing a step-by-step convergence of European welfare regimes as well as increasingly isomorphic structures of different welfare states. However, the neoliberal discourse encounters different state-dominated institutions and organizations, each with its own history, tradition, and culture. Hence, differences related to labour market policy practices still persist.
Seit den letzten Dekaden des ausgehenden zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts sind die europäischen Wohlfahrtsstaaten mit einer spürbaren Zunahme der Arbeitslosigkeit konfrontiert. Die sich auf den neoliberalen Diskurs beziehende Kritik am Wohlfahrtsstaat führte daraufhin zu einer schrittweisen Neuausrichtung der damit in Verbindung stehenden Sozialpolitik und des dazugehörigen Verwaltungsapparats. Aktivierung prägt seitdem die sozialpolitischen Reformwellen in Ländern historisch unterschiedlichen Wohlfahrtszuschnitts. Dadurch kommt es zu einer tendenziellen Angleichung der europäischen Wohlfahrtsregime, zur Herausbildung zunehmend isomorpher Strukturen im sozialpolitischen Bereich. Der neoliberale Diskurs trifft jedoch auf unterschiedliche, nationalstaatlich geprägte Institutionen und Organisationen mit ihrer je eigenen Historie, Tradition und Kultur. Daher bleiben Unterschiede in den Praktiken der Arbeitsmarktpolitik bestehen.
The traditional Greenlandic customary law, which is of significance for villagers in the small settlements on Greenland's west coast, is confronted with conflicting demands by the global environmental regime. Can traditional customary rights of indigenous peoples be maintained in a global society? As the example of the Greenlandic Inuit illustrates the conflict to ensure the continuation of hunting activities, however, cannot be understood as a conflict between societies that have different legal and rationality conceptions. The intellectual elites in the Greenland Self-Government are taking over the structural patterns of the global model of nature and run information campaigns about the biological status of the species. Hunters cite their traditional hunting rights and reject this information and those hunting restrictions. As a consequence, intra-societal conflicts develop between Greenland elites and hunters and thus in situations of legal pluralism within Greenland.
Since 2008, Europe has been shaken by an ongoing crisis. If relevant parts of populations are exposed to socioeconomic risks, it is a distinctive characteristic of European political ethics that they must not be left alone, but should be subject to support and solidarity by budget support policy, economic development policies and social policy at different levels. But, in analogy with medical and psychological findings, some parts of the vulnerable population, although experiencing the same living conditions as others, are developing resilience, which in our context means that they perform social, economic and cultural practices and habits which protect them from suffer and harm and support sustainable patterns of coping and adaption. This resilience to socioeconomic crises at household levels is the focus of the project. It can consist of identity patterns, knowledge, family or community relations, cultural and social as well as economic practices, be they formal or informal. Welfare states, labour markets and economic policies at both macro or meso level form the context or ‘environment’ of those resilience patterns. For reasons of coping with the crisis without leaving the common ground of the implicit European social model (or the unwritten confession to the welfare state) under extremely bad monetary conditions in many countries, and for reasons of maintaining quality of life and improving social policy, it is a highly interesting perspective to learn from emergent processes of resilience development and their preconditions. Thus, the main questions are directed at understanding patterns and dimensions of resilience at micro-/household level in different types of European member and neighbour states accounting for regional varieties, relevant internal and external conditions and resources as well as influences on these patterns by social, economic or labour market policy as well as legal regulations.
The research results show significant differences regarding the objective, the nature and extent of programme use and the design of work opportunities in the local networks. During the investigation period, a consistent use of this labour market policy instrument cannot be found. On closer inspection, this may not come as a surprise: By introducing work opportunities a universal tool for various fields of labour market and social policy has been created which was previously covered by different, problem and code-specific legal instruments. While the – politically significant – difference in the implementation of SGB II institutions (ARGE, opting municipality or separate responsibility of tasks) in order to create and form the framework for work opportunities turned out to be rather secondary, network exogenous factors (economic conditions, the unemployment rate, size of the municipality) and network endogenous aspects (relation between SGB II institution and the organizations that use the measures, transparency of networks and practices, ways of negotiating) were especially decisive for the differences in use and purpose of the SGB II-work opportunities. On the one hand, objectives vary depending on these factors since they were typically either involved in social policy on the preservation of social integration or in labour market policy focused on the reintegration into employment. On the other hand, these differences in orientation furthermore led to diverse types of work opportunities and success ratings. In addition to the variety of practices regarding the arrangement of work opportunities overall patterns such as creaming and dumping processes are observed and the fact that employment opportunities alone are only limited in their impact on employment opportunities."
sociology is established in Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and East-European countries today there is no such sociological sub-discipline in Germany. Even though there are German sociological or ethnographic studies on maritime issues concentrating on industrial sociological research and professional groups all efforts to professionalize maritime sociology in Germany failed. In the 1980ies there was an attempt to institutionalize a working group called ›maritime sociology‹ at the institute of sociology at Kiel university. This pioneering work was not continued after the disintermediation of the working group quite in contrast to the developments in Poland. In Poland a totally different development can be observed. Polish sociological studies on maritime issues go back at least to the interwar period; however these early publications lacked empirical studies. The proper research associated with maritime sociology perspective started after the Second World War when Poland acquired greater access to sea and maritime industry was to become an indispensable part of a recovering economy. Poznan, Gdansk and Szczecin became major academic centres of maritime sociology (socjologia morska). The term for a new sociological sub-discipline was coined by Aleksander Matejko and Ludwik Janiszewski. Between 1950ies and 1990ies the scientific research on the relations between man and sea was thriving, often published in the scientific journal ›Annuals of Marine Sociology‹ issued by Polish Academy of Sciences in Gdansk and Szczecin. After years of lower interest in maritime sociology parallel to the decline of maritime industry during the years of Polish transformation one may observe its revival now.
of welfare states. Within the new paradigms an ongoing divergence of national labor market policy can be analyzed. Hence, the new discourses are embedded in and dependent on
national labor market policy and institutional settings of the labor market actors. However, in almost every European welfare state the Public Employment Service (PES) as the central actor was transformed from a traditional bureaucratic institution to a service provider which had an enduring effect on job-oriented placement activities, the placement personnel and their ‘clients’, the jobless persons and the employers. Furthermore legislative changes enabled a tightening of reasonable regulations for job seekers augmenting the pressure on the unemployed and led to tendencies of recommodification.
We want to present the results of a qualitative study on the micro level that focuses on the transformation and restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für
Arbeit) in Germany and specifically their consequences for job placement officers and jobless persons. Our findings are the result of the ethnographically shaped participant observation of counseling interviews in several employment agencies. Our analysis of counseling interviews with recipients of unemployment benefit I (Arbeitslosengeld I) show that consultations assume a new quality under the conditions of an activating welfare and labor market regime especially for the group of elder jobseekers. Translation issues occur because of the incommensurability of different logics of action between elder jobseekers and job placement officers. On the one hand due to their experience-based self-portrait, their strong relation to their former manual jobs and their habitualized job seeking strategies in a high flexibility demanding labor market, elder jobseekers cannot cope with the crises of unemployment and the new conditions of the enterprising self and the subjectification of work. On the other hand due to their new organizational rationality of efficiency and effectiveness and the exclusion effects of the labor market job placement officers have difficulties to integrate elder jobseekers in the labor market or to offer them suitable measures. Activation policies are limited and marginalize elder jobseekers because there are no appropriate job offers and no means-tested support. We will show that the different frames of job seeking and work produce structurally induced misunderstandings or even incommensurabilities. If one takes the upcoming effects of the demographic change into consideration, this finding gets far more precarious than it already is.
Dear colleagues,
we are editing the book "Maritime Spaces and Society: Selected Studies in Maritime Sociology" and would like to invite you to contribute a chapter. The book will be published in 2021. If you are interested in contributing a chapter to our book you could submit an abstract of not more than 300 words to [email protected] until February 1, 2020.
We are looking forward to receiving your abstracts!
Best regards,
Agnieszka Kołodziej-Durnaś, Univerity of Szczecin, Poland
Frank Sowa, Nuemberg Tech, Germany
Marie C. Grasmeier, University of Bremen, Germany
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Call for Chapters
Maritime Spaces and Society: Selected Studies in Maritime Sociology
(eds. Agnieszka Kolodziej-Durnas, Frank Sowa, Marie C. Grasmeier)
Sociologists’ interest in society and sea has a long and rich tradition. Some of the founding fathers of sociology did research on specific maritime spaces. For instance, in 1896, the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies analysed the working conditions and wages of different maritime professions as well as the major strike of 1896/97 in Hamburg. Today, Tönnies is regarded as the founder of maritime sociology. But also, for other classical sociologists maritime spaces were not unfamiliar. Norbert Elias was interested in studying the careers of naval professions and intended to publish a book on that topic. In Poland, sociologists have been conducting research in the field of maritime research for over half a century now. Maritime sociology issues are also studied e.g. in the UK, Scandinavia and Mediterranean countries as well as in North America and East Asia with its main contributions from Chinese, Korean and Japanese ocean sociology and sociologists from the Philippines as a major source country of global seafarers.
Maritime spaces include oceans and ships as well as coastal areas. Ecological (overfishing, decline in biodiversity, climate change, ocean pollution), economic (de-industrialization, whaling moratorium, structural change, development of alternative industries) and cultural crises (destabilization of collective identities of seaside and island inhabitants, cultural practices of sharing, inhabitants’ knowledge, local traditions, transformations of maritime professions) cumulate in these maritime spaces. While research on maritime issues is dominated by natural science disciplines, the protection of maritime natural sources and the need for sustainable development also demands research on the ‘human factor’ and a social sciences perspective on maritime spaces as well.
The dynamics of economic development in recent decades has led to the disappearance of traditional images while new opportunities in the maritime sector are emerging. While the maritime economy in post-communist countries often experienced some collapse, in the western part of Europe it was exposed to intensive technological, economic and political changes as well as threatened by strong competition e.g. from Asia. These changes are associated with the emergence of open ship registers, an increased global division of labour regarding the separation of ownership and management and a global labour market for seafarers with the rise of labour supply countries of the global South. Due to the changing positions of maritime professions in the social structure as well as cross cultural, transcultural and postcolonial issues associated with the labour milieu of seafarers, fishermen, dockers and ship yard workers, gender discrimination and diversity management have emerged as topics of maritime social sciences.
The knowledge of marine ecosystems provides a good indication of the current status of the sea and is seen as essential in the field of natural resource management. This implies a profound and detailed knowledge of the marine ecosystems and marine animals. However, there are different types of knowledge – local, users’, indigenous, scientific knowledge – which should be integrated into decision-making processes or environmental governance. The so-called co-management regimes are institutional arrangements in which government agencies with jurisdiction over resources and user groups cooperate and agree on e.g. data gathering and analysis, harvest allocation decisions or enforcement of regulations. Co-management incorporating stakeholders offers major opportunities for incorporating tacit knowledge, skills, and practices into formal resource management regimes and takes place at a regional level that is more meaningful to most people. Various kinds of co-management regimes, case studies of knowledge-integration in practice and the analysis of asymmetric power relations must be considered by studies in maritime sociology.
Occupational and cultural identities of coastal communities and port cities are influenced by the sea and seaside activities. Hence, we welcome papers dealing with aspects of specific culture in seaside areas. Is there a maritime culture or maritime cultures? Are port cities a different kind of cities? Are social bonds in maritime regions different from those in non-maritime ones? Can social scientists speak of specific lifestyles, norms and values system and organizational culture referring to seaside communities and maritime industry companies?
As a sociological sub-field maritime sociology needs both the recapitulation of its proto-history and meta-theoretical elaboration of its future development in an academic world. Also, the prospects of applying various empirical approaches should be discussed by the researchers interested in exploring the mutual relations of society and sea. We have organized sessions during the conferences of the European Sociological Association in the past 10 years (Lisbon in 2009, Geneva 2011, Turin 2013, Prague 2015, Manchester 2019). Similar sessions took place at Polish and German national sociological conferences where they brought together scholars from sociology from all over the world to continue a discussion on the interrelations between society and the sea.
In our book Maritime Spaces and Society: Selected Studies in Maritime Sociology we would like to exchange theoretical perspectives on maritime issues from a historical point of view (from the founding fathers of sociology to recent theories) and present all fields of empirical maritime sociology research (e.g. sustainability issues, seaside local communities, construction of collective community identity) including a variety of methods (discourse analysis, grounded theory, qualitative interviews, quantitative methods, ethnography). We would like to discuss how sociology and related disciplines are approaching the subject of maritime issues and what kind of strengths and weaknesses are associated with such a perspective of maritime social sciences.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• History and Theoretical Foundations of Maritime Sociology
• Seafarers’ and Fishers’ Labour Milieu
• Seafarers’ and Fishers’ Families
• Port Cities
• Women at Sea and Gender Aspects
• Maritime Industry Organizations
• Maritime Communities
• Maritime Culture
• Maritime Education and Upbringing
• Maritime Policies
We welcome theoretical and empirical chapter proposals on a wide array of issues that address maritime spaces and society. Anyone interested in contributing a chapter to our book should submit an abstract to [email protected]. Please submit your abstract of not more than 300 words in English language until February 1, 2020.
please find attached details for a session on "Transformation of Work in Bureaucratic Organizations" at next year's ISA Forum of Sociology (http://www.isa-sociology.org/forum-2016/rc/rc.php?n=RC30)! The deadline for submitting an abstract is the 30th of September 2015. Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words through the dedicated ISA submission website (https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/forum2016/cfp.cgi).
We are looking forward to receiving your proposal abstracts,
Frank Sowa and Ronald Staples
Die Schriftenreihe richtet sich an Forschende aus allen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen, aber auch an Interessierte aus Selbstvertretungsorganisationen, der Praxis der Sozialen Arbeit, der Verwaltung, der Politik und der breiten Öffentlichkeit. Die Bände der Schriftenreihe werden in unregelmäßigen Abständen ausschließlich elektronisch publiziert und stehen zum kostenlosen Download zur Verfügung.