Dedication and Display of Portrait Statues in Hellenistic Greece: Spatial Practices and Identity Politics

This dissertation models a new approach to the study of ancient portrait statues—one that situates them in their historical, political, and spatial contexts. By bringing into conversation bodies of evidence that have traditionally been studied in discrete categories, I investigate how statue landscapes articulated and reinforced a complex set of political and social identities, how space was utilized and manipulated on a local and a regional level, and how patrons responded to the spatial pressures and visual politics of statue dedication within a constantly changing landscape.

Instead of treating sites independently, I have found it to be more productive—and, indeed, necessary—to examine broader patterns of statue dedication. I demonstrate that a regional perspective, that is, one that takes into account the role of choice and spatial preference in setting up a statue within a regional network of available display locations, can illuminate how space shaped the ancient practice of portrait dedication. This level of analysis is a new approach to the study of portrait statues and it has proved to be a productive way of thinking about how statues and context were used together to articulate identity. Understanding how individual monuments worked within these broader landscapes of portrait dedications, how statue monuments functioned within federal systems, and how monuments set up by individuals and social groups operated along side those set up by political bodies clarifies the important place of honorific statues as an expression of power and identity within the history of the site, the region, and Hellenistic Greece.

Understanding Patients’ Needs and Healthcare Seeking Behavior in Rural Southern India: The Comparison of Providers through Patients’ Perceptions and Cost Issues

This study explores patients’ needs in rural Thanjavur, southern India through understanding how people with diabetes choose providers and perceive care-seeking experience. To measure perception, the study surveyed people regarding six common barriers to care-seeking behavior, selected from both literature and local expert interview. Ninety-one percent of the sampled population goes to public or private allopathic providers out of the six presented providers. The low socioeconomic group and people with more complications or comorbidities are more likely to go to private allopathic providers. What is more, there is no difference between public and private allopathic providers in patients’ perception of care except for perceived cost. Positive perceptions in both providers are very common except for perceptions in blood-sugar management, distance to facilities, and cost of care. Sixty-six percent of patients perceived their blood-sugar control to fluctuate or have no change versus improved control. Twenty-seven percent of patients perceived the distance to facilities as unreasonable, and sixty-two percent of patients perceived the cost as high for them. The results suggest that cost may affect low socioeconomic people’s choice of care significantly. However, for people in middle and higher socioeconomic groups, cost does not appear to be a major factor. For qualitative text analyses, physician’s behavior and reputation emerge as themes, which require further studies.

Women in the Global Clothing and Textile Industry

This paper examines the current role of women in the clothing and textile industry through oral history of South African union members. I argue that the industry’s particularly exploitative environment is directly related to both gender and globalization, acting together to worsen conditions in factories. Additionally, I argue that the more recent addition of an increasingly consumer-driven industry structure also impacts its abusive environment. Unionization, along with public and private regulation, have the potential to be catalysts for change in the industry. To be most effective, these organizations need to take into account both gender and globalization, and recognize the equal impacts both have when making decisions.

Institutions, Innovation, and Grassroots Change: Alternatives to Transnational Governance in the Global South

Transnational governance has been advanced as a viable option for regulating commodities produced in emerging economies—where incapable or unwilling states may undersupply institutions requisite for overseeing supply chains consistent with the quality, safety, environmental, or social standards demanded by the global marketplace. Producers from these jurisdictions, otherwise left with few venues for securing market access and price premiums, ostensibly benefit from whatever pathways transnational actors offer to minimize barriers to entry—including voluntary certification for compliance with a panoply of public and private rules, such as those promulgated by NGOs like the Fair Trade Federation or multinational retailers like Wal-Mart. Yet, such transnational “sustainability” governance may neither be effective nor desirable. Regulatory schemes, like third-party certification, often privilege the interests of primary architects and beneficiaries—private business associations, governments, NGOs, and consumers in the global North—over regulatory targets—producers in the global South. Rather than engaging with the international marketplace via imported and externally-driven schemes, some producer groups are instead challenging existing rules and innovating homegrown institutions. These alternatives to commercialization adopt some institutional characteristics of their transnational counterparts yet deliver benefits in a manner more aligned with the needs of producers. Drawing on original empirical cases from Nicaragua and Mexico, this dissertation examines the role of domestic institutional alternatives to transnational governance in enhancing market access, environmental quality and rural livelihoods within producer communities. Unlike the more technocratic and expert-driven approaches characteristic of mainstream governance efforts, these local regulatory institutions build upon the social capital, indigenous identity, “ancestral” knowledge, and human assets of producer communities as new sources of power and legitimacy in governing agricultural commodities.

A recessionary debate: who suffered more? A study of sectoral well-being and economic insecurity in Ireland

The aim of this thesis is to identify the relationship between subjective well-being and economic insecurity for public and private sector workers in Ireland using the European Social Survey 2010-2012. Life satisfaction and job satisfaction are the indicators used to measure subjective well-being. Economic insecurity is approximated by regional unemployment rates and self-perceived job insecurity. Potential sample selection bias and endogeneity bias are accounted for. It is traditionally believed that public sector workers are relatively more protected against insecurity due to very institution of public sector employment. The institution of public sector employment is made up of stricter dismissal practices (Luechinger et al., 2010a) and less volatile employment (Freeman, 1987) where workers are subsequently less likely to be affected by business cycle downturns (Clark and Postal-Vinay, 2009). It is found in the literature that economic insecurity depresses the well-being of public sector workers to a lesser degree than private sector workers (Luechinger et al., 2010a; Artz and Kaya, 2014). These studies provide the rationale for this thesis in testing for similar relationships in an Irish context. Sample selection bias arises when a selection into a particular category is not random (Heckman, 1979). An example of this is non-random selection into public sector employment based on personal characteristics (Heckman, 1979; Luechinger et al., 2010b). If selection into public sector employment is not corrected for this can lead to biased and inconsistent estimators (Gujarati, 2009). Selection bias of public sector employment is corrected for by using a standard Two-Step Heckman Probit OLS estimation method. Following Luechinger et al. (2010b), the propensity for individuals to select into public sector employment is estimated by a binomial probit model with the inclusion of the additional regressor Irish citizenship. Job satisfaction is then estimated by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) with the inclusion of a sample correction term similar as is done in Clark (1997). Endogeneity is where an independent variable included in the model is determined within in the context of the model (Chenhall and Moers, 2007). The econometric definition states that an endogenous independent variable is one that is correlated with the error term (Wooldridge, 2010). Endogeneity is expected to be present due to a simultaneous relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction whereby both variables are jointly determined (Theodossiou and Vasileiou, 2007). Simultaneity, as an instigator of endogeneity, is corrected for using Instrumental Variables (IV) techniques. Limited Information Methods and Full Information Methods of estimation of simultaneous equations models are assed and compared. The general results show that job insecurity depresses the subjective well-being of all workers in both the public and private sectors in Ireland. The magnitude of this effect differs among sectoral workers. The subjective well-being of private sector workers is more adversely affected by job insecurity than the subjective well-being of public sector workers. This is observed in basic ordered probit estimations of both a life satisfaction equation and a job satisfaction equation. The marginal effects from the ordered probit estimation of a basic job satisfaction equation show that as job insecurity increases the probability of reporting a 9 on a 10-point job satisfaction scale significantly decreases by 3.4% for the whole sample of workers, 2.8% for public sector workers and 4.0% for private sector workers. Artz and Kaya (2014) explain that as a result of many austerity policies implemented to reduce government expenditure during the economic recession, workers in the public sector may for the first time face worsening perceptions of job security which can have significant implications for their well-being (Artz and Kaya, 2014). This can be observed in the marginal effects where job insecurity negatively impacts the well-being of public sector workers in Ireland. However, in accordance with Luechinger et al. (2010a) the results show that private sector workers are more adversely impacted by economic insecurity than public sector workers. This suggests that in a time of high economic volatility, the institution of public sector employment held and was able to protect workers against some of the well-being consequences of rising insecurity. In estimating the relationship between subjective well-being and economic insecurity advanced econometric issues arise. The results show that when selection bias is corrected for, any statistically significant relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction disappears for public sector workers. Additionally, in order to correct for endogeneity bias the simultaneous equations model for job satisfaction and job insecurity is estimated by Limited Information and Full Information Methods. The results from two different estimators classified as Limited Information Methods support the general findings of this research. Moreover, the magnitude of the endogeneity-corrected estimates are twice as large as those not corrected for endogeneity bias which is similarly found in Geishecker (2010, 2012). As part of the analysis into the effect of economic insecurity on subjective well-being, the effects of other socioeconomic variables and work-related variables are examined for public and private sector workers in Ireland.

Acción política y participación de las y los jóvenes de escuelas secundarias de la ciudad de La Plata

Esta investigación sobre la relación que establecen los jóvenes con la política busca interpretar analíticamente las formas a través de las cuales las y los estudiantes secundarios de la ciudad de La Plata participan políticamente. Desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX diversos estudios provenientes de campos como la sociología, la antropología y la teoría política, colocaron en el centro del debate teórico dimensiones clásicas del análisis de lo social (el Estado, las esferas pública y privada, lo político). Allí aparece una nueva problemática en torno del lazo social y la pluralidad de formas que asume la acción política. En ese contexto, emergen preguntas sobre las acciones políticas de jóvenes escolarizados y su relación con el contexto de surgimiento. E0ste análisis brindará elementos interesantes a partir de los cuales realizar una lectura epocal que recupere las formas y sentidos bajo los cuales las y los jóvenes desarrollan en la actualidad la acción política. El propósito de esta investigación es conocer e interpretar las formas que asume hoy la acción política juvenil estudiantil en la ciudad de La Plata, en torno a qué contenidos e intereses participan, bajo que formatos, cuáles son los territorios y estrategias que despliegan. Se utilizan tres categorías para describir las prácticas más características que se encuentran en nuestro campo: trayectorias de participación, enfoque de derechos humanos y performance. Por último, la investigación busca comprender las posibles variaciones de prácticas de acción política en función de las propuestas de escolarización de la que participan como alumnas y alumnos de escuelas secundarias

Acción política y participación de las y los jóvenes de escuelas secundarias de la ciudad de La Plata

Esta investigación sobre la relación que establecen los jóvenes con la política busca interpretar analíticamente las formas a través de las cuales las y los estudiantes secundarios de la ciudad de La Plata participan políticamente. Desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX diversos estudios provenientes de campos como la sociología, la antropología y la teoría política, colocaron en el centro del debate teórico dimensiones clásicas del análisis de lo social (el Estado, las esferas pública y privada, lo político). Allí aparece una nueva problemática en torno del lazo social y la pluralidad de formas que asume la acción política. En ese contexto, emergen preguntas sobre las acciones políticas de jóvenes escolarizados y su relación con el contexto de surgimiento. E0ste análisis brindará elementos interesantes a partir de los cuales realizar una lectura epocal que recupere las formas y sentidos bajo los cuales las y los jóvenes desarrollan en la actualidad la acción política. El propósito de esta investigación es conocer e interpretar las formas que asume hoy la acción política juvenil estudiantil en la ciudad de La Plata, en torno a qué contenidos e intereses participan, bajo que formatos, cuáles son los territorios y estrategias que despliegan. Se utilizan tres categorías para describir las prácticas más características que se encuentran en nuestro campo: trayectorias de participación, enfoque de derechos humanos y performance. Por último, la investigación busca comprender las posibles variaciones de prácticas de acción política en función de las propuestas de escolarización de la que participan como alumnas y alumnos de escuelas secundarias

Acción política y participación de las y los jóvenes de escuelas secundarias de la ciudad de La Plata

Esta investigación sobre la relación que establecen los jóvenes con la política busca interpretar analíticamente las formas a través de las cuales las y los estudiantes secundarios de la ciudad de La Plata participan políticamente. Desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX diversos estudios provenientes de campos como la sociología, la antropología y la teoría política, colocaron en el centro del debate teórico dimensiones clásicas del análisis de lo social (el Estado, las esferas pública y privada, lo político). Allí aparece una nueva problemática en torno del lazo social y la pluralidad de formas que asume la acción política. En ese contexto, emergen preguntas sobre las acciones políticas de jóvenes escolarizados y su relación con el contexto de surgimiento. E0ste análisis brindará elementos interesantes a partir de los cuales realizar una lectura epocal que recupere las formas y sentidos bajo los cuales las y los jóvenes desarrollan en la actualidad la acción política. El propósito de esta investigación es conocer e interpretar las formas que asume hoy la acción política juvenil estudiantil en la ciudad de La Plata, en torno a qué contenidos e intereses participan, bajo que formatos, cuáles son los territorios y estrategias que despliegan. Se utilizan tres categorías para describir las prácticas más características que se encuentran en nuestro campo: trayectorias de participación, enfoque de derechos humanos y performance. Por último, la investigación busca comprender las posibles variaciones de prácticas de acción política en función de las propuestas de escolarización de la que participan como alumnas y alumnos de escuelas secundarias

Commodification of health care systems: The Catalan case

Commodification of the public healthcare system has been a growing process in recent decades, especially in universal healthcare systems and in high-income countries like Spain.  There are substantial differences in the healthcare systems of each autonomous region of Spain, among which Catalonia is characterized by having a mixed healthcare system with complex partnerships and interactions between the public and private healthcare sectors.  Using a narrative review approach, this article addresses various aspects of the Catalan healthcare system, characterizing the privatization and commodification of health processes in Catalonia from a historical perspective with particular attention to recent legislative changes and austerity measures.  The article approximates, the eventual effects that commodification and austerity measures will have on the health of the population and on the structure, accessibility, effectiveness, equity and quality of healthcare services.

Entre lo público y lo privado: empleadores y trabajadoras domésticas frente al Tribunal del Trabajo Doméstico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires

El servicio doméstico ocupa un lugar ambiguo entre los mundos público y privado. Desarrollado en el interior de los hogares de los empleadores, da lugar a relaciones en las que lo laboral y lo afectivo están imbricados. Los juicios laborales entre empleadores y trabajadoras domésticas constituyen un escenario privilegiado para observar el solapamiento de estas dimensiones. Si las demandas de las trabajadoras frente a las instituciones de justicia sitúan esta relación en el mundo público, las respuestas de los empleadores muchas veces buscan resituarlas en el orden privado. Por otra parte, en algunos escenarios, las demandas de las trabajadoras son también expresadas en un lenguaje que remite a lo privado. En este artículo analizamos las lógicas de la confl ictividad judicial establecidas en las estrategias de empleadores y trabajadoras frente al Tribunal del Trabajo Doméstico (TTD), un organismo creado en 1956 para atender los confl ictos individuales que derivan de las relaciones de trabajo de este sector en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Tomamos dos horizontes temporales caracterizados por cambios en la regulación del trabajo, en general, y del servicio doméstico, en particular: el de los primeros años de funcionamiento del TTD y el cambio de siglo.