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Featured The Contribution of the Informal Sector in the Socio-economic Structure of Urban Households: A Dynamic and Cultural Representation of Dakar Street Vendors View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Fafa Sene
In developed countries, policy makers consider informal activities as limited in scope and criminal in nature. Opposing this Western view, Keith Hart (1973) analyzes the informal sector, in developing countries, as characterized by an easily-accessed self-employment, and a reliance on own resources in a family enterprise. In Senegal, street vendors contribute directly to the overall level of economic activity, and to the provision of goods and services. They are an integral part of the economy, and their elimination would reduce economic activities and increase poverty. However, there is no real enthusiasm from authorities to handle the street business. The absence of a device capable of identifying all vendors is considered by authorities as loss earnings, because they wrongly believe vendors would manage to get away with tax. African societies need more of an anthropological approach in the way development patterns are adopted. In a conservative society like Senegal, it is the practices developed in households that shape politics and not the opposite. That is the reason why the data collected in this study and within households, although not often considered in development programs, are a solid basis that could allow political authorities to respond, with clarity, to the demands of the populations. This study highlights the socio-economic role of street vending as a social safety net and an outlet for national production.
Diversity and Inclusion Career Path Analysis View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rezza Moieni, Nicole Lee, Peter Mousaferiadis
The field of Diversity Equity and Inclusion has hit an apex. A specific role, dedicated to the improvement of organisational diversity, has flourished in recent years. The issue with suddenly emerging fields and job titles, however, is the career path is undetermined. Whereas nurses, accountants, even dedicated HR professionals are well regulated and have professional accreditation, DEI professionals are seemingly drawn at random from a number of professionals. While ostensibly the DEI field emerged from HR departments, where this influx of DEI officers has come from is unclear. This paper looks into this gap in knowledge to find out more about the people who now fill these assorted DEI roles. The role itself also bears looking into – a largely unregulated ‘industry’ , the title and job description varies greatly from organisation to organisation. There are some significant issues facing the DEI field – the lack of regulation and consistency with all things from duties, to pay grades, to ideological approaches, is significant. These have led, consistently, to burnout being an apparently common occurrence as the idealistic goals of diversity and inclusion, may not always hold up to the pragmatic aspects of the corporate world. This study relies on LinkedIn profiles. We review 1000 Australian DEI officers, to uncover background information, and seek to fill some gaps in the knowledge we have about DEI professionals, their jobs, and their career trajectories.
Intentional and Unapologetic: Restrictive Voting Bills in the U.S. and the Legislators Responsible for Drafting Them View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kimberly S. Adams
The 2020 election turnout in America was record breaking, with more than 157 million Americans casting their votes in the presidential election. The unprecedented number of voters at the polls and the election outcomes led state legislators in 2021 to immediately begin to draft bills “aimed at reforming election procedure” (Mena, 2021) and to ensure the integrity of the voting process. Many of these bills’ limits voter access, and therefore, negatively affects racial minorities, and disabled Americans' right to vote. Hundreds of bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states since 2021 (BrennanCenter.org). Using descriptive statistics and Independent Samples t-Test, this research analyzes the 424 restrictive voter laws introduced into state legislatures across the country and their sponsors. The findings indicate that Republican, white legislators, primarily from the South, who held leadership positions, were more likely than their legislative colleagues to sponsor restrictive voting measures. Secondly, representatives from battleground states were more likely than representatives from non-battlegrounds states to sponsor restrictive measures. This research found no significant gender differences with regard to sponsorship of restrictive voting measures.
State Ward to Public Servant and Academic: How Faith, Mentoring, and Positive Role Models Helped an Aboriginal Woman Change her Stars View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lee Anne Daffy
This study shares a journey of an Aboriginal Australian woman stepping from state wardship to academic and public servant, being influenced, and perplexed by the bureaucratic rhetoric that is enmeshed in both academia and public policy alike. This paper seeks to encourage input through truth telling, of what works in other places related to mentoring programs. Strong, articulate and valuable voices for the collective good of reconciliation across countries, for all. Sharing a life story, by a story teller, as an Aboriginal researcher highlighting the importance of knowing, being and doing. The importance of knowledge sharing from an Indigenous standpoint, and the unmistakable importance of advocacy by truth telling and the power of mentors in one’s life journey -personally, professionally and socially. How genuine reciprocal relationship building embracing cultural responsiveness, encourages reconciliation. How positive mentoring can help shape the stars of our future generations. This study commits to Australian Indigenous Women’s Standpoint Theory. Focusing on a heart conversation to engage and share, opening a space for learning. By embracing the essence in life journey of one Aboriginal woman, hearts and minds of those in position to change policy can be changed. Destined to positively challenge views, and open hearts. It’s unique. Understanding privileged relationships, dominant cultures, and acceptance of positionality as a strength not a weakness, underpins the approach.
What Does Co-design with Communities Really Look Like?: Disruptive Platforms of Care, Multilingual Communities, and Local Government View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sally Lamping, Paul Mercieca, Toni Dobinson, Sonja Kuzich
This paper profiles a project that began in one Western Australian Local Government Area (LGA) in 2020 and continued for three years; the project focused on the ways in which the LGA worked to understand and engage multilingual communities during crisis and recovery. It uses Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) with communities, the LGA, and social service organisations to engage all stakeholders in the process of co-designing a framework for community-driven engagement. Over the course of three years, we tracked the implementation of this framework with communities, conducting surveys, focus groups, shadowing, and in-depth interviews to determine progress and inform next steps; the overall research project now includes 54 multilingual community leaders, 11 LGA staff members, three multilingual service provider staff. It also includes 112 identified community members who have participated in or benefitted from the co-design and activation of approximately 48 small and larger-scale projects, events, or initiatives across the City of X, including the opening of an intercultural centre that now serves the entire community. While the project noted transformative change within the LGA and its connections with surrounding multilingual communities, the paper also discusses the ongoing issues throughout the project, which contribute to new knowledge around caring platforms, cultural sustainability, and community-led co-design.
Featured “We Eat Our Own Pigs”: How Economic Principles and Institutions Shape the Emotions of Piggery Employees View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Haiyi Cheng
The “emotional schema” in the piggery illustrates the tension between the construction of the pig as a commodity to be sold and as a life to be suffered in the pig farm. The emotional experience of pig farm employees is not only denied and repressed by masculinity, but also shaped and motivated by the economic principles that govern the pig farm, and by the specialised institutions. Through fieldwork in family pig farms and slaughterhouses in southwestern China, we illuminate how economic principles construct pigs as profitable, edible individuals through the daily interactions in pig farms - feeding, breeding, selling - and how state laws requiring of specialisation normalises the cruel side of the farm-to-eat process through institutionalisation, and thus helps the employees to manage their feelings about pigs. Whereby much of the sociological literature on edible meat production focuses on one end of the chain, we analyse the interactions of the meat production process to reveal how economic principles shape and transform the emotional experience of workers through institutionalisation and specialisation in order to reconcile the tensions of commodity and life, and how changes in the structure of the pig industry and price quotations affect the role of economic principles in the construction of the pig. This provides further insights into how economics principles and institutions influences the human-animal work and our emotional experiences with animals.
