Search results for "Poverty"
showing 10 items of 492 documents
Textiles in blue : production, consumption and material culture in rural areas in early-nineteenth century Finland
2021
The article focuses on masculine consumption patterns and the production and dyeing of textiles in rural Finland in the early nineteenth century. It maintains that the rural consumption of textiles as well as individual choices and tastes evolved, and our selected examples of males’ wardrobes demonstrate that contemporary styles were followed. The article targets an era that can be regarded as a watershed: this was a time when mass production was in its infancy and craft production and self-sufficiency were still relevant to household economies. As the wealth of certain groups, particularly landed peasantry, increased, they began among other things to purchase and wear clothes dyed with imp…
India Re-loaded: Vikas Swarup’s Slumdog Millionaire as a Postcolonial Novel
2012
Once “the jewel in the crown” of the British Empire, India for some time ceased to be the focus of interest for the British writers. Largely due to the success of its film version, Vikas Swarup’s Slumdog Millionaire (Black Swan, London, 2005, originally called Q and A) again drew the attention of the Western world to the problems postcolonial India has to face: poverty, crime, sex abuse, exploitation of children, police brutality and many more. In this paper, however, we are not going to compare the two versions of the story, i.e. the novel and the film, but primarily concentrate on the textual commentaries in the context of postcolonial theory and literature. Of particular interest for us …
Mind the Gap: The Big House in Cinematic Representations of the Anglo-Irish War
2018
It goes without saying that the Big House was intended to be a symbol: as more than one critic has remarked, these houses really were only “big” in comparison to the poverty of the lesser structures that surrounded them. They were to be a bastion for British and Anglo-Irish culture and a center for social and administrative interactions. In this sense, they straddled the gap between the towns of Dublin and London, whence their power came, and the villages to whom they administered: it is no coincidence that these garrisons of British power bore the brunt of Republican anger during the Troubles of 1919-1921. Examining two of the rare films to focus on the War of Independence from the perspec…
Unequal poverty and equal industrialisation: Finnish wealth, 1750–1900
2018
We present the first comprehensive, long-run estimates of Finnish wealth and its distribution from 1750 to 1900. Using wealth data from 17,279 probate inventories, we show that Finland was very unequal between 1750 and 1850; the top decile owned about 90% of total wealth. This means that Finland was more unequal than the much wealthier economies Britain, France and the US, which goes against the common assumption of richer economies being more unequal. Moreover, when industrialisation took off in Finland, inequality started a downward trajectory. High inequality 1750–1850 was bottom-driven, by a large share of the population owning nothing or close to nothing of value, while economic develo…
#IoRestosenzaCasa. La condizione delle persone senza dimora durante la pandemia
2020
To reach the identification of the serious marginality, in a moment of pandemic, is not a very simple operation considering the amplification of inequalities throughout the national territory, but also internationally. The Covid-19 pandemic has severely tested the resilience of States and social and health care systems. It is inevitable that the most affected by the lockdown, which marked the country from March to May 2020, were the homeless. When we talk about homeless people, issues, questions, difficulties arise immediately. The first limit is to have the count of the phenomenon in numerical terms. Data on the presence of homeless people in Italy date back to 2014 and estimate 50,724 hom…
How urban characteristics affect vulnerability to heat and cold: a multi-country analysis
2019
Background The health burden associated with temperature is expected to increase due to a warming climate. Populations living in cities are likely to be particularly at risk, but the role of urban characteristics in modifying the direct effects of temperature on health is still unclear. In this contribution, we used a multi-country dataset to study effect modification of temperature–mortality relationships by a range of city-specific indicators. Methods We collected ambient temperature and mortality daily time-series data for 340 cities in 22 countries, in periods between 1985 and 2014. Standardized measures of demographic, socio-economic, infrastructural and environmental indicators were d…
Home as a Base for a Well-Lived Life: Comparing the Capabilities of Homeless Service Users in Housing First and the Staircase of Transition in Europe
2020
Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities refer to the elements of a well-lived life, and many adults who experience homelessness are deprived of these capabilities. The study aim was to investigate whether service users experience different homeless services as affording or constraining capabilities. We conducted semi-structured interviews with homeless service users (n = 77) in Housing First (HF) and staircase services (SS) in eight European countries. We used thematic analysis to identify three themes: autonomy and dependency, the relational impact of living arrangements, and community interaction and stigma. While SS participants were able to address their bodily integrity and health, their highe…
Comparison of housing first and traditional homeless service users in eight european countries: Protocol for a mixed methods, Multi-site study
2020
Background Homeless services expend considerable resources to provide for service users’ most basic needs, such as food and shelter, but their track record for ending homelessness is disappointing. An alternative model, Housing First, reversed the order of services so that homeless individuals are offered immediate access to independent housing, with wraparound supports but no treatment or abstinence requirements. Although the evidence base for Housing First’s effectiveness in ending homelessness is robust, less is known about its effectiveness in promoting recovery. Objective The objective of this research is to compare rehabilitation- and recovery-related outcomes of homeless services us…
Housing Issue and Right to Housing in Palermo
2021
This article explores the dichotomy between interests and values in the field of the right to housing for homeless people, focusing on the informal practices of reappropriation of spaces (properties owned by the Municipality of Palermo) in the case study of Palermo. The experience we are dealing with here must be addressed in a wider context of structural and latent conflicts concerning the city of Palermo, which are strictly related to the emergency housing issue. Indeed, Palermo’s housing issue is a quite complex and articulated theme, where the ineffectiveness of public policies and the increasing poverty conditions, aggravated by the economic crisis, seem to find in the various forms of…
When Aiyagari meets Piketty: Growth, Inequality and Capital Shares
2021
We incorporate the division of income between capital and labor into analysis on the relationship between inequality and growth. Using historical data, we document that changes in the top 1 % income shares are positively associated with subsequent growth of per capita GDP when the capital share of income is low, whereas under high capital share, the association is negative. We show that these findings are compatible with a theoretical analysis that emphasises how changes in the distribution of income translate into the accumulation of capital and overall economic activity through the interplay between precautionary saving motives and consumption smoothing. We also investigate how accounting…