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result(s) for
"Ekers, Michael A"
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organizing tree planters: labour and environmental politics in the British Columbia silviculture industry
2010
According to a recent book on BC forest policy, tree planters are a cultural fixture in BC life, a fascinating combination of rural residents, counterculture enthusiasts, and university students looking for a quick infusion of cash. Neither \"student\" nor long-term \"career\" planters receive a guaranteed number of work days over the course of a season. [...] tree planters receive no health benefits or pensions and are generally defenceless against falling piece-rates (beyond trying to find work with a higher-paying contractor).
Journal Article
Antonio Gramsci
2012
New York, 2010, 207 pp.: 978-1583672105 £12.30 (pbk) Antonio Santucci is relatively unknown to exclusively English language readers. [...] his untimely passing in 2006, Santucci was perhaps the most renowned Italian scholar of Antonio Gramsci's life's work, known for editing numerous collections of Gramsci's writings and producing countless commentaries on the Sardinian's life and political activities.
Book Review
The Metabolism of Socioecological Fixes: Capital Switching, Spatial Fixes, and the Production of Nature
by
Ekers, Michael
,
Prudham, Scott
in
formulación espacial
,
la formulación socioecológica
,
metabolism
2017
In this article, and the companion piece that follows, we develop an account of the socioecological fix. Our concern is to explore the ways in which crises of capitalist overaccumulation might be displaced through spatial fixes that result in the production of nature. We review Harvey's theory of the spatial fix, with emphasis on his model of capital switching, noting that the socioecological implications of the diversion of fixed capital into the built environment have been insufficiently developed by Harvey and others. We invoke Smith's writings on the production of nature to help fill this lacuna but note that Smith did not discuss the spatial fix vis-à-vis the production of nature explicitly. Moreover, neither Harvey nor Smith emphasized the role of political struggle and contestation as internal to the formation of spatial fixes and the production of nature, respectively. We draw on O'Connor's theory of ecological contradiction along with Katz and other feminist political economists who emphasized the systemic tension between the reproduction of capitalism and social reproduction more broadly, including as this pertains to the production and possible \"underproduction\" of nature. Our overall project is to develop an account of the socioecological fix as a way of linking capitalist crises, capital switching, and fixed capital formation with socioenvironmental transformations. Although we argue that any spatial fix has socioecological dimensions, we contend that making these connections explicit and rigorous is crucial at the current conjuncture.
Journal Article
The Socioecological Fix: Fixed Capital, Metabolism, and Hegemony
2018
This article, the second of two, argues that conceptualizing the socioecological fix involves understanding how fixed capital, as a produced production force, can transform the socioecological conditions and forces of production while also securing the hegemony of particular social hierarchies, power relations, and institutions. We stress that fixed capital is inherently political-ecological in its constitution and how it shapes socioecological processes of landscape transformation. Fixed capital necessarily congeals socioecological materials and processes and can be understood as a produced form of nature tied to the circulation of value and the deployment of social labor. Fixed capital is therefore inherently metabolic and internalizes and transforms socioecologies. We also discuss the fixing of capital within socioecological landscapes as processes involving both the formal and real subsumption of nature. We emphasize the dual role of fixed capital formation in shaping the socioecological conditions and forces of production and, more broadly, of everyday life. Thus, we argue, fixed capital formation as a metabolic process cannot be fully conceptualized in narrowly economic terms. We turn to Gramsci and some recent work in political ecology to argue that socioecological fixes need to be understood in ideological terms and specifically in the establishment and contestation of hegemony.
Journal Article
Revitalizing the production of nature thesis
2013
This paper revisits the central ontological claim in the production of nature thesis, Neil Smith’s proposition that labour is at the heart of the mutual co-production of nature and society. Surveying Smith’s work and others, we argue that there is a danger of losing the embodied, historically and geographically specific practices that are so central to the making of natures. Turning to the work of Antonio Gramsci, we find crucial resources that enable a historicized and geographically contextualized understanding of the making of natures.
Journal Article
Behavioural activation for low mood and anxiety in male frontline NHS workers (BALM): a pre-post intervention study
2025
ObjectivesTo evaluate the impact and acceptability of a tailored, gender-responsive behavioural activation (BA) intervention for improving depression and anxiety in male National Health Service (NHS) frontline workers.DesignPre-post intervention study.SettingThree NHS organisations in the North of England.Participants45 men aged ≥18 years working in a frontline NHS role scoring in the subclinical range (5–14) on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) (depression) and/or the Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) (anxiety) at baseline.InterventionsA tailored BA treatment programme consisting of up to eight telephone support sessions over a period of 4–6 weeks, accompanied by a BA self-help manual.Main outcome measuresSelf-reported symptom severity of depression, assessed by PHQ-9, and anxiety, assessed by GAD-7, at baseline and 4 and 6 months. Acceptability from the perspectives of male study participants and coaches who delivered the intervention was assessed in a nested qualitative study using the theoretical framework of acceptability (TFA).ResultsPHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores decreased from baseline to 4 months on both the PHQ-9 and GAD-7. While scores increased from 4 months to 6 months, the 6-month scores remained below those of the baseline scores. Acceptability of the intervention was high across all constructs of the TFA. The practical and action-oriented strategies of the intervention, and the confidential, flexible, convenient mode of delivery, worked to support men’s engagement with the intervention.ConclusionsDelivery of a tailored, gender-responsive BA intervention was appealing to, and beneficial for, men working in frontline NHS roles with less severe depression and anxiety. The BALM intervention offers promise as a tailored workplace mental health programme that is aligned with men’s needs and preferences and can help overcome a reticence to engage with mental health support in NHS staff and beyond.Trial registration numberISRCTN48636092.
Journal Article
Will work for food: agricultural interns, apprentices, volunteers, and the agrarian question
by
Dale, Bryan
,
Ekers, Michael
,
Levkoe, Charles Z.
in
Agrarian society
,
Agricultural Economics
,
Agriculture
2016
Recently, growing numbers of interns, apprentices, and volunteers are being recruited to work seasonally on ecologically oriented and organic farms across the global north. To date, there has been very little research examining these emergent forms of non-waged work. In this paper, we analyze the relationships between non-waged agricultural work and the economic circumstances of small- to medium-size farms and the non-economic ambitions of farm operators. We do so through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of farmers’ responses to two surveys we conducted of farmers using non-waged workers in Ontario, Canada. We situate our analysis within debates on the agrarian question, which we contend requires an account for both the economic and non-economic dimensions of new forms of non-waged work on farms. We suggest that many ecologically oriented farm operators are struggling financially and report low gross on-farm revenues and personal incomes. We argue that in addition to relying on off-farm incomes and self-exploitation, many farms are managing to persist in a challenging economic climate through their use of intern, apprentice, and volunteer labor. However, we also suggest that the growth of non-waged work on farms is not simply being driven by economic processes but also a series of non-economic relationships focused on non-institutional farmer training, the pursuit of sustainability, and social movement building. We suggest, the “economic” and “non-economic” dimensions of internships, apprenticeships, and forms of volunteerism sit uneasily alongside of one another, generating questions about the politics, ethics, and sustainability of non-waged work and ecological farming.
Journal Article