Women, workplace militancy and political subjectivity in Britain, 1968-1985

This thesis examines the experiences and political subjectivity of women who engaged in workplace protest in Britain between 1968 and 1985. The study covers a period that has been identified with the ‘zenith’ of trade-union militancy in British labour history. The women’s liberation movement also emerged in this period, which produced a shift in public debates about gender roles and relations in the home and the workplace. Women’s trade union membership increased dramatically and trade unions increasingly committed themselves to supporting ‘women’s issues’. Industrial disputes involving working-class women have frequently been cited as evidence of women’s growing participation in the labour movement. However, the voices and experiences of female workers who engaged in workplace protest remain largely unexplored. This thesis addresses this space through an original analysis of the 1968 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford, Dagenham; the 1976 equal pay strike at Trico, Brentford; the 1972 Sexton shoe factory occupation in Fakenham, Norfolk; the 1981 Lee Jeans factory occupation in Greenock, Inverclyde and the 1984-1985 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford Dagenham. Drawing upon a combination of oral history and written sources, this study contributes a fresh understanding of the relationship between feminism, workplace activism and trade unionism during the years 1968-1985. In every dispute considered in this thesis, women’s behaviour was perceived by observers as novel, ‘historic’ or extraordinary. But the women did not think of themselves as extraordinary, and rather understood their behaviour as a legitimate and justified response to their everyday experiences of gender and class antagonism. The industrial disputes analysed in this thesis show that women’s workplace militancy was not simply a direct response to women’s heightened presence in trade unions. The women involved in these disputes were more likely to understand their experiences of workplace activism as an expression of the economic, social and subjective value of their work. Whilst they did not adopt a feminist identity or associate their action with the WLM, they spoke about themselves and their motivations in a manner that emphasised feminist values of equality, autonomy and self-worth.

Politics and protestant Lordship in North East Scotland during the reign of James VI: The life of George Keith, fourth Earl Marischal, 1554-1623

George Keith, fourth Earl Marischal is a case study of long-term, quietly successful and stable lordship through the reign of James VI. Marischal’s life provides a wholly underrepresented perspective on this era, where the study of rebellious and notorious characters has dominated. He is also a counter-example to the notion of a general crisis among the European nobility, at least in the Scottish context, as well as to the notion of a ‘conservative’ or ‘Catholic’ north east. In 1580 George inherited the richest earldom in Scotland, with a geographical extent stretching along the east coast from Caithness to East Lothian. His family came to be this wealthy as a long term consequence of the Battle of Flodden (1513) where a branch of the family, the Inverugie Keiths had been killed. The heiress of this branch was married to the third earl and this had concentrated a large number of lands, and consequently wealth, in the hands of the earls. This had, however, also significantly decreased the number of members and hence power of the Keith kindred. The third earl’s conversion to Protestantism in 1544 and later his adherence to the King’s Party during the Marian Civil War forced the Keiths into direct confrontation with their neighbours in the north east, the Gordons (led by the Earls of Huntly), a Catholic family and supporters of the Queen’s Party. Although this feud was settled for a time at the end of the war, the political turmoil caused by a succession of short-lived factional regimes in the early part of the personal reign of James VI (c.1578-1585) led the new (fourth) Earl Marischal into direct confrontation with the new (sixth) Earl of Huntly. Marischal was outclassed, outmanoeuvred and outgunned at both court and in the locality in this feud, suffering considerably. However, Huntly’s over-ambition in wider court politics meant that Marischal was able to join various coalitions against his rival, until Huntly was exiled in 1595. Marischal also came into conflict briefly with Chancellor John Maitland of Thirlestane as a consequence of Marischal’s diplomatic mission to Denmark in 1589-1590, but was again outmatched politically and briefly imprisoned. Both of these feuds reveal Marischal to be relatively cautious and reactionary, and both reveal the limitations of his power. Elsewhere, the study of Marischal’s activities in the centre of Scottish politics reveal him to be unambitious. He was ready to serve King James, the two men having a healthy working relationship, but Marischal showed no ambition as a courtier, to woo the king’s favour or patronage, instead delegating interaction with the monarch to his kinsmen. Likewise, in government, Marischal rarely attended any of the committees he was entitled to attend, such as the Privy Council, although he did keep a keen eye on the land market and the business conducted under the Great Seal. Although personally devout and a committed Protestant, the study of Marischal’s interaction with the national Kirk and the parishes of which he was patron reveal that he was at times a negligent patron and exercised his right of ministerial presentation as lordly, not godly patronage. The notion of a ‘conservative North East’ is, however, rejected. Where Marischal was politically weak at court and weak in terms of force in the locality, we see him pursuing sideways approaches to dealing with this. Thus he was keen to build up his general influence in the north and in particular with the burgh of Aberdeen (one result of this being the creation of Marischal College in 1593), pursued disputes through increasing use of legal methods rather than bloodfeud (thus exploiting his wealth and compensating for his relative lack of force) and developed a sophisticated system of maritime infrastructure, ultimately expressed through the creating of the burghs of Peterhead and Stonehaven. Although his close family caused him a number of problems over his lifetime, he was able to pass on a stable and enlarged lordship to his son in 1623.

KNOWING THE ENEMY: NAZI FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE IN WAR, HOLOCAUST, AND POSTWAR

“Knowing the Enemy: Nazi Foreign Intelligence in War, Holocaust and Postwar,” reveals the importance of ideologically-driven foreign intelligence reporting in the wartime radicalization of the Nazi dictatorship, and the continued prominence of Nazi discourses in postwar reports from German intelligence officers working with the U.S. Army and West German Federal Intelligence Service after 1945. For this project, I conducted extensive archival research in Germany and the United States, particularly in overlooked and files pertaining to the wartime activities of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Abwehr, Fremde Heere Ost, Auswärtiges Amt, and German General Staff, and the recently declassified intelligence files pertaining to the postwar activities of the Gehlen Organization, Bundesnachrichtendienst, and Foreign Military Studies Program. Applying the technique of close textual analysis to the underutilized intelligence reports themselves, I discovered that wartime German intelligence officials in military, civil service, and Party institutions all lent the appearance of professional objectivity to the racist and conspiratorial foreign policy beliefs held in the highest echelons of the Nazi dictatorship. The German foreign intelligence services’ often erroneous reporting on Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, and international Jewry simultaneously figured in the radicalization of the regime’s military and anti-Jewish policies and served to confirm the ideological preconceptions of Hitler and his most loyal followers. After 1945, many of these same figures found employment with the Cold War West, using their “expertise” in Soviet affairs to advise the West German Government, U.S. Military, and CIA on Russian military and political matters. I chart considerable continuities in personnel and ideas from the wartime intelligence organizations into postwar West German and American intelligence institutions, as later reporting on the Soviet Union continued to reproduce the flawed wartime tropes of innate Russian military and racial inferiority.

Campanha de Galípoli O Estreito de Dardanelos no contexto político-militar internacional

A Campanha de Galípoli foi uma operação ofensiva conduzida pela Grã-Bretanha, que teve como cenário a península de Galípoli, na Turquia (que fazia parte do Império Otomano, na época) entre fevereiro de 1915 e janeiro de 1916. Considerada uma das campanhas mais desgastantes da Grande Guerra. Envolveu uma combinação de forças Britânicas, Francesas, Australianas e Neozelandesas, numa tentativa de dominar o estreito de Dardanelos e subjugar o império Otomano, a fim de obrigar as forças Alemãs a estenderem-se para mais uma frente de guerra e obter uma rota segura com a Rússia através do Mar Negro, para ligar por sul os Aliados, cuja comunicação só podia fazer-se através do estreito. Do lado dos defensores, os Turcos, esta batalha foi uma grande vitória no aspeto militar, que ergueu o orgulho e valor patriótico do povo turco, que eram vistos como um oponente fraco durante o conflito mundial, subestimados pelas suas capacidades de defender o estreito de Dardanelos. Um dos aspetos preponderantes, no resultado, seria que na época a tecnologia utilizada no campo de batalha favorecia maioritariamente o defensor.

Regulating IVF and pre-implantation tissue-typing for the creation of "saviour siblings" : a harm analysis

Scientific discoveries, developments in medicine and health issues are the constant focus of media attention and the principles surrounding the creation of so called ‘saviour siblings’ are of no exception. The development in the field of reproductive techniques has provided the ability to genetically analyse embryos created in the laboratory to enable parents to implant selected embryos to create a tissue-matched child who may be able to cure an existing sick child. The research undertaken in this thesis examines the regulatory frameworks overseeing the delivery of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in Australia and the United Kingdom and considers how those frameworks impact on the accessibility of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures for the creation of ‘saviour siblings’. In some jurisdictions, the accessibility of such techniques is limited by statutory requirements. The limitations and restrictions imposed by the state in relation to the technology are analysed in order to establish whether such restrictions are justified. The analysis is conducted on the basis of a harm framework. The framework seeks to establish whether those affected by the use of the technology (including the child who will be created) are harmed. In order to undertake such evaluation, the concept of harm is considered under the scope of John Stuart Mill’s liberal theory and the Harm Principle is used as a normative tool to judge whether the level of harm that may result, justifies state intervention or restriction with the reproductive decision-making of parents in this context. The harm analysis conducted in this thesis seeks to determine an appropriate regulatory response in relation to the use of pre-implantation tissue-typing for the creation of ‘saviour siblings’. The proposals outlined in the last part of this thesis seek to address the concern that harm may result from the practice of pre-implantation tissue-typing. The current regulatory frameworks in place are also analysed on the basis of the harm framework established in this thesis. The material referred to in this thesis reflects the law and policy in place in Australia and the UK at the time the thesis was submitted for examination (December 2009).

Network

Network has emerged from a contempory worldwide phenomenon, culturally manifested as a consequence of globalization and the knowledge economy. It is in this context that the internet revolution has prompted a radical re-ordering of social and institutional relations and the associated structures, processes and places which support them. Within the duality of virtual space and the augmentation of traditional notions of physical place, the organizational structures pose new challenges for the design professions. Technological developments increasingly permit communication anytime and anywhere, and provide the opportunity for both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. The resultant ecology formed through the network enterprise has resulted in an often convolted and complex world wherein designers are forced to consider the relevance and meaning of this new context. The role of technology and that of space are thus interwined in the relation between the network and the individual workplace. This paper explores a way to inform the interior desgn process for contemporary workplace environments. It reports on both theoretical and practical outcomes through an Australia-wide case study of three collaborating, yet independent business entities. It further suggests the link between workplace design and successful business innovation being realized between partnering organizations in Great Britain. Evidence presented indicates that, for architects and interior designers, the scope of the problem has widened, the depth of knowledge required to provide solutions has increased, and the rules of engagement are required to change. The ontological and epistemological positions adopted in the study enabled the spatial dimensions to be examined from both within and beyond the confines of a traditional design only viewpoint. Importantly it highlights the significance of a trans-disiplinary collaboration in dealing with the multiple layers and complexity of the contemporary social and business world, from both a research and practice perspective.

The politics of media policy [Review]

"The Politics of Media Policy opens with a highly insightful analysis of how to do media policy studies in original and significant ways. Unfortunately, by anchoring its empirical analysis closely to a desire to expose the hidden machinations of neo-liberal ideology, it loses focus the more that it moves out of the dominant terrain of political economy in the study of media ownership. Des Freedman has pointed to important new directions in media policy studies, but has unfortunately only got half way to developing a new synthesis for understanding the relationship between policy institutions and broader ideas." -- from author's personal website

By the day nurses bank up in a casual pool!

We suspect that the array of silly names used to refer to temporary staff worldwide may be indicative of the extent to which these nurses have been relegated to, and we would argue, remain in, a type of underclass – relatively unsupported by employers in terms of professional practice and ipso facto excluded from contributing professionally to team work, practice development, clinical governance and evidence based practice. This may be acceptable to some but in a climate of risk averseness and in the interests of strategic planning we would suggest it is an accident waiting to happen. The recent UK Royal College of Nursing (RCN) (Ball & Pike, 2006) survey of bank and agency nurses brings a welcome focus on a group of nurses that make a significant contribution to the smooth running of health services in many countries.

Culture and creative industries in Australia

It has been argued that the origins of modern creative industries policies can be found in Australia. The Creative Nation national cultural policy statement released by the Labor government headed by the Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1994 sought an original synthesis of arts and media policies that was outwardly looking, identifying the opportunities presented by what were then new digital media technologies, and clearly stated the economic opportunities presented by promotion of what were referred to at the time as the cultural industries. Several commentators have identified the influence that Creative Nation had on the Blair Labour government when it came to power in the United Kingdom in 1997. Faced with the question of how to revitalise the once-mighty industrial cities of the U.K. after the Conservative government, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport drew upon policy documents such as Australia’s Creative Nation, as well as the experience of local governments in these cities, in looking to the cultural sectors to spearhead new jobs growth, as well as re-branding the cities as cultural or creative cities in a post-industrial economic landscape. This growing alignment of culture and economics, that has been a characteristic of creative industries policies as they have developed in Australia, Britain, East Asia and Europe, marks an interesting shift in the traditional focus of arts and cultural policy as compensatory to the economic domain. The first Chair of what would become the Arts Council of Great Britain (now the Arts Council of England) was the famous economist John Maynard Keynes. In the First Annual Report of the Arts Council for 1945-1946, prepared in the latter stages of the Second World War, Keynes proposed that “the day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems — the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behaviour and religion”. 中文摘要 1994年工黨執政時期澳洲總理基挺（Paul Keating）發表創意的國家（The Creative Nation）的文化政策聲明堪稱是澳洲現代創意產業的起源，該聲明試圖將藝術與媒體政策結合在一起，其目的在面向海外，為新數位媒體技術尋找機會。聲明中明確指出要推動文化產業為經濟帶來機會。「文化政策也是經濟政策。文化創造財富與附加價值，對創新、行銷與設計有重要貢獻，是我們工業的標誌（badge）。我們創意的層次實際上決定了我們適應新經濟imperatives的能力。文化本身就是項重要出口，是其他產品出口的主要附件（essential accompaniment）。文化吸引觀光與學生，也是我們經濟成功之關鍵。」 創意產業的策略是構建藝術、媒體與資訊電信科技的網絡以利文化產業在國家創新政策策略中擁有一席之地。此一策略最早是由1990年代末英國布萊爾（Tony Blair）的新工黨政府所採行，其後歐洲聯盟、澳洲、紐西蘭、新加坡、台灣、南韓與中國。

Haplotype analysis of two recurrent CDKN2A mutations in 10 melanoma families : evidence for common founders and independent mutations

Germ-line mutations in CDKN2A have been shown to predispose to cutaneous malignant melanoma. We have identified 2 new melanoma kindreds which carry a duplication of a 24bp repeat present in the 5' region of CDKN2A previously identified in melanoma families from Australia and the United States. This mutation has now been reported in 5 melanoma families from 3 continents: Europe, North America, and Australasia. The M53I mutation in exon 2 of CDKN2A has also been documented in 5 melanoma families from Australia and North America. The aim of this study was to determine whether the occurrence of the mutations in these families from geographically diverse populations represented mutation hotspots within CDKN2A or were due to common ancestors. Haplotypes of 11 microsatellite markers flanking CDKN2A were constructed in 5 families carrying the M53I mutation and 5 families carrying the 24bp duplication. There were some differences in the segregating haplotypes due primarily to recombinations and mutations within the short tandem-repeat markers; however, the data provide evidence to indicate that there were at least 3 independent 24bp duplication events and possibly only 1 original M53I mutation. This is the first study to date which indicates common founders in melanoma families from different continents.

Good and bad Sharia : Australia's mixed response to Islamic law

Reflecting on the legal consequences of globalisation in the 21st century, Twining predicted that societies in the West would have to 'wrestle with the extent to which the state should recognise, make concessions to, or even enforce norms and values embedded in different religions, cultures or traditions'. This is borne out as the direction across the common law world moves towards entrenching legal pluralism. The concessions each nation has made to minorities with different religions, cultures and traditions have varied. The special character of Islam, as a comprehensive blueprint for life in which law and religion unite, has meant that the negotiations for a special place for Muslims within each common law jurisdiction has been at the forefront of new legal ordering possibilities. This is the crux of the pluralism debate. Cautiously, Australians have watched the, at times histrionic, discourse in Canada and Great Britain on official recognition for Islamic law.

Regulating Prostitution: Controlling Women's Lives'

The chapter argues that the women who compose the majority of street prostitutes in Great Britain are currently subject to an interlocking system of regulation that variously defines them as criminal offenders, threats to public health, victims of child abuse, and vulnerable women who must be compelled under the threat of punishment to seek welfare help. Each label or approach to the street prostitute involves a set of interventions aimed at changing or working with different aspects of the women's lives. This produces an interlocking system of regulation, because the interventions are not mutually exclusive. A street prostitute can be defined as both a victim and an offender and as both a patient in need of medical help and a threat to public health. This comprehensive system of regulation means that a street prostitute faces not only a wide range of criminal justice dispositions, but also mandatory participation in programs in which her relationships and the choices she makes in her life outside of prostitution are subject to scrutiny and intervention. Given that street prostitutes are mostly poor women seeking economic survival in a profession that makes them vulnerable to victimization, the current regulatory system is an attempt to control a small group of poor women regarding their choices and relationships as they struggle to survive poverty. Whereas in the 1980s in Great Britain, a woman involved in street prostitution may have faced only a fine, now she is subject to a more extensive range of criminal justice actions accompanied by various government interventions designed to remake her life.

Occupational Access and Wage Discrimination

This article presents a study on the quantification of the level of occupational access and wage discrimination in Great Britain. The traditional approach to quantifying the level of sex discrimination is to distinguish gender differences in productive characteristics from the unequal treatment of characteristics according to gender. The role of inter- versus intra-occupational effects in determining the magnitude of wage differences between men and women was examined. The econometric results provided estimates of the wage differential in six broad occupational classifications together with an aggregate picture of how important the occupational distribution of females is in explaining their lower average wage. In summary, the results of the study suggest that the vast majority of the male and female wage differential arises from intra-occupation effects. The results provide evidence to suggest that occupational segregation is not a major contributor to the observed male/female wage differential.

Refugees from Vietnam

"Refugees from Vietnam" sets out to identify the social policy issues that arise when mass settlement of refugees takes place, particularly in an unfamiliar social context. It also tries to offer ways forward which would allow the resettlement process to be more successful from the viewpoint of the refugees and of the host community. The refugee group chosen as a case study for this book was that group of refugees who fled from Vietnam as "the boat people" and arrived in Britain and many other Western countries between 1979 and 1981. Since 1979 the author has been involved in the resettlement in the UK of refugees from Vietnam. She has written a number of articles on this topic. She is also the author of the book "Illiteracy and the Offender.