Using as his example post-World War I Italy and the government's interest in the size, growth rate, and "vitality" of its national population, David Horn suggests a genealogy for our present ...understanding of procreation as a site for technological intervention and political contestation.Social Bodieslooks at how population and reproductive bodies came to be the objects of new sciences, technologies, and government policies during this period. It examines the linked scientific constructions of Italian society as a body threatened by the "disease" of infertility, and of women and men associalbodies--located neither in nature nor in the private sphere, but in that modern domain of knowledge and intervention carved out by statistics, sociology, social hygiene, and social work.
Situated at the intersection of anthropology, cultural studies, and feminist studies of science, the book explores the interrelated factors that produced the practices of reason we call social science and social planning. David Horn draws on many sources to analyze the discourses and practices of "social experts," the resistance these encountered, and the often unintended effects of the new objectification of bodies and populations. He shows how science, while affirming that maternity was part of woman's "nature," also worked to remove reproduction from the domain of the natural, making it an object of technological intervention. This reconstitution of bodies through the sciences and technologies of the social, Horn argues, continues to have material consequences for women and men throughout the West.
This open access book makes a comparative overview of the demographic evolution of the Mediterranean populations. It addresses all the demographic issues since 1950 such as fertility, mortality, ...growth, demographic aging, and the age structure of the population. The book discusses the major demographic changes and its consequences for the Mediterranean region and describes the socio-economic and societal opportunities such as the silver economy, improvement in health of the population, and progress in education. By providing insights into the past demographic evolutions and analyzing the most recent indicators, this book constitutes an essential reference work for those who wish to better understand the major transformations that Mediterranean societies are undergoing.
Displaced Memories Wylegala, Anna
Polish Sociological Review,
2019, 2019-08-15, 20200101, Letnik:
26, Številka:
212
eBook, Book Review
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The book is a comparative case study of collective memory in two small communities situated on two Central-European borderlands. Despite different pre-war histories, Ukrainian Zhovkva (before 1939 ...Polish Żółkiew) and Polish Krzyż (before 1945 German Kreuz) were to share a common fate of many European localities, destroyed and rebuilt in a completely new shape. As a result of war, and post-war ethnic cleansing and displacement, they lost almost all of their pre-war inhabitants and were repopulated by new people. Based on more than 150 oral history interviews, the book describes the process of reconstruction of social microcosm, involving the reader in a journey through the lives of real people entangled in the dramatic historical events of the 20th century.
Although average incomes in China have
risen dramatically since the 1980s, concerns are increasing
that the rural elderly have not benefited from growth to the
same extent as younger people and the ...urban elderly.
Concerns about welfare of the rural elderly combine spatial
and demographic issues. Large gaps exist between conditions
in coastal and interior regions and between conditions in
urban and rural areas of the country. In addition to
differences in income by geography, considerable differences
exist across demographic groups in the level of coverage by
safety nets, in the benefits received through the social
welfare system, and in the risks of falling into poverty.
This book aims to do two things: first, it provides detailed
empirical analysis of the welfare and living conditions of
the rural elderly since the early 1990s in the context of
large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and second, it
explores the evolution of the rural pension system in China
over the past two decades and raises a number of issues on
its current implementation and future directions. Although
the two sections of the book are distinct in analytical
terms, they are closely linked in policy terms: the first
section demonstrates in several ways a rationale for greater
public intervention in the welfare of the rural elderly, and
the second documents the response of policy to date and
options to consider for deepening the coverage and effects
of the rural pension system over the longer term.
A mechanistic understanding of the dynamics of populations requires knowledge about the variation of the underlying demographic rates and about the reasons for their variability. In geographically ...open populations, immigration is often necessary to prevent declines, but little is known about whether immigration can contribute to its regulation. We studied the dynamics of a Red‐backed Shrike population (Lanius collurio) over 36 years in Germany with a Bayesian integrated population model. We estimated mean and temporal variability of population sizes, productivity, apparent survival, and immigration. We assessed how strongly the demographic rates were correlated with population growth to understand the demographic reasons of population change and how strongly the demographic rates were correlated with population size to identify possible density‐dependent mechanisms. The shrike population varied between 35 and 74 breeding pairs but did not show a significant trend in population size over time (growth rate 1.002 ± 0.001 mean ± SD). Apparent survival of females (juveniles 0.06 ± 0.01; adults 0.37 ± 0.03) was lower than that of males (juveniles 0.10 ± 0.01; adults 0.44 ± 0.02). Immigration rates were substantial and higher in females (0.56 ± 0.02) than in males (0.43 ± 0.02), and average productivity was 2.76 ± 0.14. Without immigration, the Red‐backed Shrike population would have declined strongly. Immigration was the strongest driver for the number of females while local recruitment was the most important driver for the number of males. Immigration of both sexes and productivity, but not local recruitment and survival, were subject to density dependence. Density‐dependent productivity was not effectively regulating the local population but may have contributed to regulate shrike populations at larger spatial scales. These findings suggest that immigration is not only an important component to prevent a geographically open population from decline, but that it can also contribute to its regulation.
This article presents a narrative of the unfolding of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) since the theory was first formulated in 1986. The first part recapitulates the foundations of the ...theory, and documents the spread of the SDT to the point that it now covers most European populations. Also for Europe, it focuses on the relationship between the SDT and the growing heterogeneity in period fertility levels. It is shown that the current positive relationship between SDT and TFR levels is not a violation of the SDT theory, but the outcome of a "split correlation" with different sub-narratives concerning the onset of fertility postponement and the degree of subsequent recuperation in two parts of Europe. The second part of the article addresses the issue of whether the SDT has spread or is currently spreading in industrialized Asian countries. Evidence gathered for Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan is presented. That evidence pertains to both the macro-level (national trends in postponement of marriage and parenthood, rise of cohabitation) and the micro-level (connections between individual values orientations and postponement of parenthood). Strong similarities are found with SDT patterns in Southern Europe, except for the fact that parenthood is still very rare among Asian cohabiting partners.
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