School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemHealth policy and COVID-19: path dependency and trajectory(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2022-03-01)The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has tested the mettle of governments across the globe and has thrown entrenched fault lines within health systems into sharper relief. In response to the outbreak of the pandemic, governments introduced a range of measures to meet the growth in demand and bridge gaps in health systems. The objective of this paper is to understand the nature and extent of the changes in health systems triggered by the COVID-19 crisis. The paper examines changes in the role of governments in (1) sector coordination, (2) service provision, (3) financing, (4) payment, and (5) regulations. It outlines broad trends and reforms underway prior to the pandemic and highlights likely trajectories in these aspects in the future. The paper argues that while the pandemic has accelerated changes already underway before the crisis, it has made little headway in clearing the path for other or deeper health policy reforms. The reform window that COVID-19 opened has not been wide enough to overcome the entrenched path dependency and structural interests that characterize the sector.
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ItemActive stewardship in healthcare: Lessons from China's health policy reforms(Wiley, 2022-11-01)Governments across the globe have made repeated attempts to reform their health systems in recent decades with the purpose of improving access while containing costs. What is the role of government in contemporary health policy in achieving these somewhat contradictory goals? This paper conceptualises this role as one of “active stewardship” wherein the government is a central actor steering and coordinating the sector through a portfolio of diverse policy tools. In this conceptualisation, the government is not a passive participant—in merely financing, delivering, or regulating the sector—but a steersman at the helm that sets policy objectives and actively pursues them. We argue that active stewardship is central to achieving contemporary health policy priorities of universal healthcare. We apply this conceptualisation to China's recent healthcare forms and show that the role of the government in governing the sector has changed substantially over time, particularly since 2009, and the changes are showing promising results. China's experience suggests that governments need to more actively guide and shape the behaviour of both public and private players in order to achieve the goals of universal health coverage. It also suggests that a high degree of policy capacity is essential if active stewardship is to be effective.
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ItemHistory as activism: critical uses of history at the Berkeley School of Criminology in the 1970s(Bristol University Press, 2023-02-27)Works of historical criminology do not have to be disinterested studies of past crime-related phenomena. Instead, they can represent practical attempts to intervene in the politics of crime and justice in the present. This article takes this claim to a critical conclusion; historical research in criminology can function as a weapon in contemporary political struggles and a way of injecting radical politics into criminological studies. To demonstrate this point, the article scrutinises the ways in which early critical criminologists in the US engaged in historical research as a way of doing politics and activism. To such criminologists, doing historical research was a form of praxis. Focusing on the works produced at the Berkeley School of Criminology in the 1970s, the article shows that the nurture of a historical interest was deemed to be a vital step in the development of a critical paradigm within American criminology.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableGender identity and sexual orientation: a glossary(BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP, 2023-02-17)Gender and sexually diverse populations remain understudied and under-represented in research. This is attributable not only to significant and ongoing data collection limitations, where large population-based studies fail to ask adequate questions around gender and sexuality, but also due to continuously evolving terminology in this space. This glossary takes a preliminary step in rectifying these issues by defining and clarifying the application and understanding of key terms related to gender, gender identity, expression and sexuality. In doing so, this glossary provides a point of reference for understanding key differences in gender and sexually diverse terminology to (1) help guide researchers and practitioners in the use and understanding of terms and (2) facilitate the utility of more respectful, inclusive and consistent language application across the public health arena.
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ItemMigrant immobilities in the periphery: insights from the Vietnam-Russia corridor(Informa UK Limited, 2023-01-01)Migration and mobility tend to be used interchangeably in migration studies. This runs the risk of oversimplifying migrants’ (im)mobility aspirations and capability, taking for granted their agency and control of their own migration trajectory. Drawing on ethnographic research on Vietnamese migrants trading at Moscow markets, this paper offers original insights into migrant immobilities, highlighting the social technologies and social imaginaries that arise from their gendered, raced, and classed experiences of immobilisation. Migrants’ immobilities, whether voluntary or involuntary, have a profound impact on their sense making of self and aspirations for the future. The study enriches our understanding of the complex relationship between migration and mobility and the various ways in which it shapes social practice, identity and belonging.
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ItemSex in prisoner power relations: Attitudes and practices in a Ukrainian correctional colony for men(Wiley, 2017-01-01)Most research on prison sex has originated in the global West, often employing quantitative methodology. Building on a semi-ethnographic study of a Ukrainian prison, this article explores how prisoners and officers perceive prisoner sex. Rape was not reported in this prison, despite the relatively young prison population. I argue that the informal prisoner power structure of the prison underworld diminishes sexual abuse. Thus, contrary to much of the literature, masculinity, homophobia, and informal prisoner hierarchies can equally instigate and restrain prison violence and sexual victimisation.
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ItemPrison order through the hyperopticon, collectivism, and atomisation: The surveillance and disciplining of Ukrainian prison officers(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2022-12-20)Bentham's idea of the panopticon has long influenced the theorisation of prison order. However, this model of control has been applied almost exclusively to prisoners. Drawing on ethnographic work in Ukraine, I argue that the disciplining of prison officers through institutionalised mutual surveillance was just as important to the maintenance of prison order. Broadening the theorisation of prison order by introducing the concept of hyperopticon, I argue that prison order in a Ukrainian prison hinged on two opposites: collectivism of prisoners and atomisation of prison officers, both depending on the system of multifaceted and excessive surveillance.
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ItemTrace residue identification, characterization, and longitudinal monitoring of the novel synthetic opioid beta-U10, from discarded drug paraphernalia(WILEY, 2022-05-23)Empirical data regarding dynamic alterations in illicit drug supply markets in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the potential for introduction of novel drug substances and/or increased poly-drug combination use at the "street" level, that is, directly proximal to the point of consumption, are currently lacking. Here, a high-throughput strategy employing ambient ionization-mass spectrometry is described for the trace residue identification, characterization, and longitudinal monitoring of illicit drug substances found within >6,600 discarded drug paraphernalia (DDP) samples collected during a pilot study of an early warning system for illicit drug use in Melbourne, Australia from August 2020 to February 2021, while significant COVID-19 lockdown conditions were imposed. The utility of this approach is demonstrated for the de novo identification and structural characterization of β-U10, a previously unreported naphthamide analog within the "U-series" of synthetic opioid drugs, including differentiation from its α-U10 isomer without need for sample preparation or chromatographic separation prior to analysis. Notably, β-U10 was observed with 23 other drug substances, most commonly in temporally distinct clusters with heroin, etizolam, and diphenhydramine, and in a total of 182 different poly-drug combinations. Longitudinal monitoring of the number and weekly "average signal intensity" (ASI) values of identified substances, developed here as a semi-quantitative proxy indicator of changes in availability, relative purity and compositions of street level drug samples, revealed that increases in the number of identifications and ASI for β-U10 and etizolam coincided with a 50% decrease in the number of positive detections and an order of magnitude decrease in the ASI for heroin.
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ItemRobot death care: A study of funerary practice(SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2021-07-01)Across the globe, human experiences of death, dying, and grief are now shaped by digital technologies and, increasingly, by robotic technologies. This article explores how practices of care for the dead are transformed by the participation of non-human, mechanised agents. We ask what makes a particular robot engagement with death a breach or an affirmation of care for the dead by examining recent entanglements between humans, death, and robotics. In particular, we consider telepresence robots for remote attendance of funerals; semi-humanoid robots officiating in a religious capacity at memorial services; and the conduct of memorial services by robots, for robots. Using the activities of robots to ground our discussion, this article speaks to broader cultural anxieties emerging in an era of high-tech life and high-tech death, which involve tensions between human affect and technological effect, machinic work and artisanal work, humans and non-humans, and subjects and objects.
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ItemThe disposition of the destitute(Council to Homeless Persons, 2019)The final disposition is a term used by people in the funeral industry to refer to the burial or cremation of a dead person. The final disposition is a profoundly important event, not simply a pragmatic or material process, and its significance is expressed through ritualised performances. The disposition and its rituals are shared and communal, involving ceremonies attended by the deceased’s family, friends, and community, whilst less indirectly the disposition is shared by wider social norms and values around the proper treatment of the deceased body. Although the disposition is common to us all, then, it is also a personalised event in which the particularity of the life lived is recognised. Similarly, the place of interment, whether body or ashes, is named and marked to recognise the individual life of the deceased. Places of interment are thus not only identified, but are also accessible to family, friends and community, for the purpose of ongoing visitation and remembrance.