Building on critical geographic research on the embodied politics of labour that has explored how different forms of work transform bodily capacities for action, this paper argues that a body’s ...capacity to be affected is an overlooked aspect of a labouring body’s power. In response, the paper develops the concept of anaesthesia in relation to work by explaining how a reduced capacity to be affected can be both politically constraining and enabling for the bodies involved. Through qualitative fieldwork with digital platform workers, the paper presents three narratives that express the embodied complexities of this insecure work. Concealment, projection and resignation are explored as anaesthetic bodily tactics that constitute a refusal to inhabit certain depleting experiences. By drawing attention to such survival strategies, the paper highlights how workers’ changing capacities for feeling are just as significant for understanding worker agency as their changing capacities for action.
PurposeThis paper explores the survival strategies and coping mechanisms of ethnic minority entrepreneurs operating in the hospitality sector in northern Finland during the ongoing COVID-19 ...pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe paper utilizes qualitative research approach based on six exploratory case studies. The in-depth interviews in two phases were conducted with owners/mangers of ethnic minority entrepreneurial restaurants.FindingsThe findings reveal that all studied case firms undertook quick adjustments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, staff working hours were reduced through mutual consultation, and readjustments to the supply chain were made so that critical ingredients remain available despite the forced lockdown and supply chain bottlenecks. However, the readjustment of the supply chain was not visible in all case firms. Some of the owner-managers who were interviewed decided to keep doing business with the ethnic minority suppliers, despite some transportation problems due to lockdowns, especially in the early phases of COVID-19. Findings also suggest that the support grants announced by the state appeared not to be particularly useful for these restaurants due to restrictive eligibility criteria that many microbusinesses potentially fail to meet. Finally, the sample microbusinesses (restaurants) entrepreneurs recognize the importance of home delivery for their business survival, although they were critical of online food delivery service providers (apps) due to their high charges. Some of the case restaurants gave customers incentives for directly ordering from them, as an alternative strategy.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first studies to specifically highlight the peculiarities of ethnic minority entrepreneurship and survival dynamics in northern Finland, where running the restaurant operations, including ensuring the supply chain management, is more complex than in the case of ethnic minority restaurants in more well-connected European countries and cities with an established history of immigrant businesses. This study is also novel in terms of specifying the strategies adopted by ethnic minority businesses in adjusting to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and surviving through it. At the same time, it has shown limitations and some problems associated with accessing state support announced for the hospitality industry in response to COVID-19. Finally, it offers a new angle by explicitly highlighting the power dynamics between restaurants and food ordering platforms (apps) and the potential alternatives in this specific context.
The resuscitated strains achieved through the addition of resuscitation promoting factor (Rpf) hold significant promise as bio-inoculants for enhancing the bioremediation of polychlorinated biphenyls ...(PCBs). Nevertheless, the potential of these resuscitated strains to transition into a viable but non-culturable (VBNC) state, along with the specific stressors that initiate this transformation, remains to be comprehensively elucidated. In this study, a resuscitated strain HR2, obtained through Rpf amendment, was employed to investigate its survival strategies under combined stress involving low temperature (LT), and PCBs, in the absence and presence of heavy metals (HMs). Whole-genome analysis demonstrated that HR2, affiliated with Achromobacter, possessed 107 genes associated with the degradation of polycyclic aromatic compounds. Remarkably, HR2 exhibited effective degradation of Aroclor 1242 and robust resistance to stress induced by LT and PCBs, while maintaining its culturability. However, when exposed to the combined stress of LT, PCBs, and HMs, HR2 entered the VBNC state. This state was characterized by significant decreases in enzyme activities and notable morphological, physiological, and molecular alterations compared to normal cells. These findings uncovered the survival status of resuscitated strains under stressful conditions, thereby offering valuable insights for the development of effective bioremediation strategies.
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•New insights to survival strategy of resuscitated strain HR2 under combined stress.•HR2 harbor diverse xenobiotic-degrading genes, showing effective PCB degradation.•HR2 exhibit remarkable resistance to stresses induced by low temperature and PCBs.•HR2 enter VBNC state under combined stress of low temperature, PCBs, heavy metals.•Significant morphological, physiological and proteomic shift underlying VBNC state.
Tardigrades are renowned for their ability to enter the extremotolerant state of latent life known as cryptobiosis. While it is widely accepted that cryptobiosis can be induced by freezing ...(cryobiosis) and by desiccation (anhydrobiosis), the latter involving formation of a so-called tun, the exact mechanisms underlying the state—as well as the significance of other cryptobiosis inducing factors—remain ambiguous. Here, we focus on osmotic and chemical stress tolerance in the marine tidal tardigrade
Echiniscoides sigismundi
. We show that
E. sigismundi
enters the tun state following exposure to saturated seawater and upon exposure to locality seawater containing the mitochondrial uncoupler DNP. The latter experiments provide evidence of osmobiosis and chemobiosis, i.e., cryptobiosis induced by high levels of osmolytes and toxicants, respectively. A small decrease in survival was observed following simultaneous exposure to DNP and saturated seawater indicating that the tardigrades may not be entirely ametabolic while in the osmobiotic tun. The tardigrades easily handle exposure to ultrapure water, but hypo-osmotic shock impairs tun formation and when exposed to ultrapure water the tardigrades do not tolerate DNP, indicating that tolerance towards dilute solutions involves energy-consuming processes. We discuss our data in relation to earlier and more contemporary studies on cryptobiosis and we argue that osmobiosis should be defined as a state of cryptobiosis induced by high external osmotic pressure. Our investigation supports the hypothesis that the mechanisms underlying osmobiosis and anhydrobiosis are overlapping and that osmobiosis likely represents the evolutionary forerunner of cryptobiosis forms that involve body water deprivation.
This article traces income and employment changes through various phases of the lockdown based on primary data. It analyses the coping strategies of people in response to fall in their income. The ...article reveals that there was a large drop in income and employment with the announcement of lockdown. While there is some recovery with easing of the lockdown, the income at the time of survey is still substantially lower than its pre-lockdown level. Casual labour households with the largest fall in income and employment are the most affected. Income and employment losses are also higher among Scheduled Caste (SC) and Other Backward Caste (OBC) households. In the absence of any income, the households either had to live off their savings or had to borrow money for their basic needs. With rapidly depleting savings, borrowing approached its limits, and with slow recovery of income, households may need substantial government assistance to save them from deprivation.
Although response of microbial community to arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb) co-contamination has been investigated in neutral and acidic environments, little is known in alkaline environment. Herein, ...the microbial response and survival strategies under the stress of As and Sb co-contamination were determined in the alkaline sediments. Elevated concentrations of As (13700 ± 5012 mg/kg) and Sb (10222 ± 1619 mg/kg) were introduced into the alkaline sediments by the mine drainage, which was partially adopted in the aquatic environment and resulted in a relatively lower contamination (As, 6633 ± 1707 mg/kg; Sb, 6108 ± 1095 mg/kg) in the downstream sediments. The microbial richness was significantly damaged and the microbial compositions were dramatically shifted by the As and Sb co-contamination. Metagenomic analysis shed light on the survival strategies of the microbes under the pressure of As and Sb co-contamination including metal oxidation coupled with denitrification, metal reduction, and metal resistance. The representative microbes were revealed in the sediments with higher (Halomonas) and lower (Thiobacillus, Hydrogenophaga and Flavihumibacter) As and Sb concentration, respectively. In addition, antibiotic resistance genes were found to co-occur with metal resistance genes in the assembled bins. These findings might provide theoretical guidance for bioremediation of As and Sb co-contamination in alkaline environment.
This study analyzes the survival strategies of Indonesian women from low-income families with different social and geographical backgrounds. The participants of this study are married women with ...children from poor families who live in the provinces of East Java and West Sumatra, Indonesia. This research uses the survey method; researchers received questionnaire responses from 857 respondents (457 respondents in East Java, and 400 respondents in West Sumatra). The results of this study indicate that the survival strategy of low-income families during the COVID-19 pandemic is based on the strength of their existing social capital, especially with the support of their families and neighbors. Heavy reliance on their internal social capital creates heightened vulnerability; this study reveals that not all low-income families receive assistance or benefits from the central or local governments. External assistance is pivotal to amplify their existing social capital and to enhance their resilience. This study also suggests that the government's policies designed to support low-income families need to emphasize women's agency and empowerment.
This article provides an explanation for the significant variation in coups in autocracies. The existing theoretical literature focuses on the strategies that leaders use to thwart mass mobilization ...and survive in power. However, most autocratic leaders lose power through a coup, indicating that the main threats to political survival in autocracies emerge from insiders and not from outside the incumbent coalition. This article focuses on leaders' strategies to mitigate elite threats and argues that autocrats' strategies of co-optation and repression within the ruling elite and the armed forces affect the risk of coups in opposite ways. Elected authoritarian legislatures are instruments that leaders employ to co-opt members of the incumbent coalition and are expected to decrease the likelihood of coups. In contrast, purges of insider actors constitute a repressive strategy that depletes bases of support and increases the risk of coups. We find empirical support for these hypotheses from a sample of all authoritarian regimes from 1950 to 2004.
When do domestic events affect international relations? Our answer to this puzzle emphasizes patterns of interaction in domestic networks. Leaders depend on coalitions of subnational ...actors—civilians, parties, militaries, and so on—for political survival. Structural imbalance emerges when the higher-order relations of subnational actors contradict their revealed preferences, such as when actors cooperate with enemies of friends or conflict with friends of friends. Imbalance generates uncertainty about the preferences and future behaviors of subnational actors, which in turn diminishes the government’s confidence in domestic coalitions. Imbalance thus increases the probability that leaders will turn to survival strategies, such as manipulating foreign relations in order to show competence. At the same time, foreign governments respond to imbalance by implementing preventive measures or intervening for strategic gain. We develop and test these arguments from a networks-of-networks approach. We introduce generalizable metrics of structural imbalance and foreign-relations shifts. Extensive empirical analysis shows that the greater the imbalance generated by domestic events, the greater the probability that those events will affect foreign relations.
Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction argues that technological innovation facilitates the growth of innovative new firms and causes the demise of old-technology firms. But not all disrupted ...firms wither and die – rather, some survive and grow by utilizing strategic entrepreneurship. Whereas the strategic entrepreneurship of disrupter firms has received considerable research interest, the strategies that disrupted firms use to avoid elimination in a disrupted declining industry have been afforded relatively little attention. This paper reports on a qualitative grounded research study of firms in the disrupted printing industry and reveals three main strategies used by survivors: namely, reconfiguration of external networks; exploitation of the untapped potential of intangible assets; and the rebalancing of legacy product exploitation and new product exploration. Propositions are developed regarding entrepreneurial strategies that disrupted incumbents may utilize to survive in disrupted industries.
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