Mini Constellations

Alasdair B R Stewart - Research Associate, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. I am a sociologist interested in theoretical-empircal research, open science, state-crafting, dwelling spaces, social suffering, and social security. This Tumblr blog is used for posting quotes, short asides, and links to podcasts & articles. Longer posts can be found on the main Constellations website. You can also find there more information about PythiaQDA, a free and open source software package for qualitative and mixed-methods data analysis in (very) early development.

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Slides - “The Victim is Always Everyone That’s on the Bottom, The Working Class, The Physically and Mentally Ill”. | Constellations

Below is a video of the concluding slide from the Medicine, Health and Illness Stream Plenary for the BSA’s Annual Conference. Alongside Drs

Below is a video of the concluding slide from the Medicine, Health and Illness Stream Plenary for the BSA’s Annual Conference. Alongside Drs Joanne Brown and Jenny McNeill, we explored disabled claimants’ lived experience of punitive welfare, drawing on data from the Welfare Conditionality project.

For a copy of the slides click the link at the top.

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Slides - “The Victim is Always Everyone That’s on the Bottom, The Working Class, The Physically and Mentally Ill”. | Constellations

Below is a video of the concluding slide from the Medicine, Health and Illness Stream Plenary for the BSA’s Annual Conference. Alongside Drs

Click the link above to view a video of the concluding slide from the Medicine, Health and Illness Stream Plenary for the BSA’s Annual Conference. Alongside Drs Joanne Brown and Jenny McNeill, we explored disabled claimants’ lived experience of punitive welfare, drawing on data from the Welfare Conditionality project.

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Constraint is always present in society, like a companion of whom there is no riddance; and in proportion to the greatness of a man’s individuality, it will be hard for him to bear the sacrifices which all intercourse with others demands, Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided, according as a man’s personal value is large or small,—But then, it will be a benefit for him whose physical separation is adequate to his emotional state of solitude.

Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms (via schopenhauerquotes)

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Upcoming plenary presentation: "The Victim is Always Everyone That's on the Bottom, The Working Class, The Physically and Mentally Ill". | Constellations

Our presentation will explore disabled claimants' lived experience of punitive welfare conditionality, drawing on data from the Welfare Conditionality Project, a Health Foundation study on welfare conditionality and mental health, and Jo's PhD research on welfare conditionality and disability.

Alongside Drs Joanne Brown and Jenny McNeill, I am presenting at the Medicine, Health and Illness Stream Plenary for the BSA’s Annual Conference. Our presentation will explore disabled claimants’ lived experience of punitive welfare conditionality, drawing on data from the Welfare Conditionality Project, a Health Foundation study on welfare conditionality and mental health, and Jo’s PhD research on welfare conditionality and disability.

The BSA’s annual conference is online this year, running from 13-15 April, and on the theme of ‘Remaking the Future’. You can register for the conference here. Our plenary session is 4-5pm on the 15th April.

Abstract:

The punitive nature of welfare conditionality has had a profoundly negative impact on disabled claimants. Successive waves of welfare reform have sought to reduce entitlement to disability benefits and subject greater numbers of disabled people to behavioural requirements under the threat of sanctions. Drawing on data from the Welfare Conditionality project, a five year ESRC Large Grant funded study, and associated projects, this presentation explores the pernicious effects of increasing welfare conditionality across three key themes. Firstly, the competing “bodies of knowledge” within UK medical assessments, that pit lived experience of impairment and ill-health and reports from medical specialists against an assessment framework based on a reductionist biopsychosocial model. Secondly, the contrast between policy discourse justifying conditionality as good for mental health through promoting work and the lived experience of conditionality as caustic to mental well-being through its enforcement of an endless repetition of futile jobseeking. Thirdly, how the experience of welfare conditionality, with its persistent questioning of disability status and threats of disentitlement and sanctions, impacts disabled people’s sense of self. Across these themes, a larger argument will be made that the reforms of disability benefits and policy are part of an exercise in neo-liberal state-crafting seeking to redefine and reconfigure the relationships between disability, welfare entitlement, and employment. Crucially, though, also highlighting the ways some disabled people critiqued welfare reform and challenged the stigmatised identities foisted upon them.

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South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over access to Covid vaccines

South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over access to Covid vaccines https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/19/south-africa-leads-backlash-against-big-pharma-over-access-to-covid-vaccines

South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over access to Covid vaccines

Pressure mounts for patent waivers to allow poorer countries to develop their own manufacturing capacity to boost availability

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Weekly Economics Podcast: Vaccine Nationalism

Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Common Wealth's Miriam Brett and Tahir Amin from the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge

Important podcast on the roles of corporate power & intellectual property in contributing to the dearth of vaccines available to the world’s poorest countries.

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A society’s political structure is only the way in which its various component segments have become accustomed to living with each other

Durkheim E. ‘The Rules of Sociological Method’ (via everydayhybridity)

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Slides - The Folds of Home

Slides – The Folds of Home

Here are my slides from this year’s Housing Studies Association Conference. This was part of a session on the meaning of home, with fantastic papers from Yoric Irving-Clarke and Craig Gurney. Thanks to everyone for the interesting discussion and braving the early 8.45am start.

Summary:

This presentation drew on interviews with formerly homeless young people in Scotland during the first year…

View On WordPress

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Amid the coronavirus crisis, the number of people becoming members of a union has skyrocketed. Unison reported 65,000 new members since the start of the year, and in the last six months, 50,000 people have joined the National Education Union. The TUC worked with the chancellor to create the furlough scheme, and teaching unions were partly responsible for the government U-turn over face masks in schools. It certainly looks like union influence has had a boost, as they fight against redundancies and for the health and safety of their members. But what about outside of the workplace? Can unions and their members change the rules of the economy? Ayeisha is joined by Alice Martin and Annie Quick, authors of Unions Renewed: Building Power in an Age of Finance. Grab a copy of the book at https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509539116&subject_id=2 ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Music by Poddington Bear and David Hillowitz, used under Creative Commons licence. Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF! The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

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From David Harvey's Anti-Capitalist Chronicles:

On this first episode of Season 3, Prof. Harvey argues that the economic and social consequences of COVID-19 have most seriously impacted the bottom 10-20% of the population. The crises of housing, public health, education is further deepening the inequalities. He contends that a redistribution of wealth from the top 10-20% to the bottom 10-20% to improve basic living standards will be needed and is our moral imperative.