Search Results (174)

(1) Background: This article aims to understand the forms and elements through which the inhabitants of the city of Medellin have configured their subjectivity in the context of the application of neoliberal policies in the last two decades. In this way, we can approach the frameworks of understanding that constitute a fundamental part of the individuation processes in which the incorporation of their subjectivities is evidenced in neoliberal contexts that, in the historical process, have been converging with authoritarian, antidemocratic and neoconservative elements. (2) Method: A qualitative approach with a hermeneutic-interpretative paradigm was used. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 inhabitants of Medellín who were politically identified with right-wing or center-right positions. Data analysis included thematic coding to identify patterns of thought and points of view. (3) Results: Participants associate success with individual effort and see state intervention as an obstacle to development. They reject redistributive policies, arguing that they generate dependency. In addition, they justify authoritarian models of government in the name of security and progress, from a moral superiority, which is related to a negative and stigmatizing perception of progressive sectors and a negative view of the social rule of law and public policies with social sense. (4) Conclusions: The naturalization of merit as a guiding principle, the perception of themselves as morally superior based on religious values that grant a subjective place of certainty and goodness; the criminalization of expressions of political leftism, mobilizations and redistributive reforms and support for policies that establish authoritarianism and perpetuate exclusion and structural inequalities, closes roads to a participatory democracy that enables social and economic transformations. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and intensified structural tensions surrounding work−life balance, precarity, and gender inequalities in academia. This paper examines the spatial, temporal, and emotional disruptions experienced by early-career and precarious researchers in Italy during the first national lockdown (March–April 2020) and their engagement in remote academic work. Adopting an exploratory and qualitative approach, the study draws on ten narrative video interviews and thirty participant-generated images to investigate how structural dimensions—such as gender, class, caregiving responsibilities, and the organizational culture of the neoliberal university—shaped these lived experiences. The findings highlight the implosion of boundaries between paid work, care, family life, and personal space and how this disarticulation exacerbated existing inequalities, particularly for women and caregivers. By interpreting both visual and narrative data through a sociological lens on gender, work, and organizations, the paper contributes to current debates on the transformation of academic labor and the reshaping of temporal work regimes through the everyday use of digital technologies in contemporary neoliberal capitalism. It challenges the individualization of discourses on productivity and flexibility and calls for gender-sensitive, structurally informed policies that support equitable and sustainable transitions in work and family life, in line with European policy frameworks. Full article

This article examines the struggles for water justice led by women in the Aconcagua River Basin (Valparaíso, Chile) through a hydrofeminist perspective. Chile’s water crisis, rooted in a colonial extractivist model and exacerbated by neoliberal policies of water privatization, reflects a deeper crisis of socio-environmental injustice. Rather than understanding water merely as a resource, this research adopts a relational epistemology that conceives water as a living entity shaped by and shaping social, cultural, and ecological relations. Drawing on life-history interviews and the construction of a hydrofeminist cartography with women river defenders, this article explores how gendered and racialized bodies experience the crisis, resist extractive practices, and articulate alternative modes of co-existence with water. The hydrofeminist framework offers critical insights into the intersections of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and environmental degradation, emphasizing how women’s embodied experiences are central to envisioning new water governance paradigms. This study reveals how women’s affective, spiritual, and territorial ties to water foster strategies of resilience, recovery, and re-existence that challenge the dominant extractivist logics. By centering these hydrofeminist life histories, this article contributes to broader debates on environmental justice, decolonial feminisms, and the urgent need to rethink human–water relationships within the current climate crisis. Full article

This paper explores the experiences of parents of children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) who have participated in parenting programmes in the UK. The parents attended generic programmes before they were able to access more specific programmes geared towards the needs of children with ASD. The parents found that the generic programmes were detrimental to the needs of their children and disruptive of family life, resulting in parental relationship breakdown in some instances. Whilst the ASD-specific programmes did provide some level of support, the most decisive factor was the sharing of experiences amongst those parents as well as the ongoing support that this fostered. The conclusion of this study is that the neoliberal responsibilisation of parents via parenting programmes is undermining the support networks of parents of children with ASD, and an asset-based community development approach would be more beneficial. Full article

Contemporary scientific consensus recognizes forests as vital to the global carbon cycle and essential for mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss. Several internationally coordinated forest conservation initiatives were established in the late twentieth century. Market- and rights-based strategies and community-driven participatory reforms have evolved in the fortress forests of the Global South. However, there remains a gap in understanding how these overlapping conservation ideologies—particularly neoliberal, participatory, and fortress conservation—have evolved and interacted within specific geographies. This study investigates the nexus of three conservation ideologies in Myanmar since the 1990s. Using a Marxist materialism perspective and poststructuralist political ecology, we explore how power dynamics in forestry are shifting under neoliberal political philosophy. We show how hegemonic neoliberalism influences the roles of state and non-state actors in Myanmar, where new governance approaches to forest conservation have emerged. New ways of governing forest conservation have emerged in Myanmar, where numerous conservation philosophies have guided the state through global programs, leading to skeletal forest conservation governance. However, these approaches have downplayed Myanmar’s historical and geographical characteristics, both of which are progenitors of its problems in forestry. Our study critiques the contrasting tenets of forest conservation theories to inform future policies. Full article

This paper analyzes “Umbrella Agreements,” a policy tool implemented by the Israeli government across 32 municipalities over the past decade. Introduced in response to a deepening housing crisis, these agreements offered funding for local infrastructure in exchange for municipal consent to large-scale residential development on (mostly) state- managed land. We argue that umbrella agreements rescale the neoliberal mechanism of “planning deals” from the urban to the state (national) scale, expanding their logic to new contexts, and fundamentally transforming the Israeli planning regime. While prevailing theories of neoliberalism emphasize decentralization and privatization through “free market” mechanisms, the Israeli process is characterized by strong state control over land and a concentration of planning powers at the national level as a pre-condition for private housing development. Our analysis yields three main findings. First, upscaling planning deals erodes the state’s regulatory powers while increasing its interest as a direct beneficiary of the capitalist order. Second, these agreements subject market logic to greater political control. Third, this transformation has seriously undermined the democratic and professional characters of the planning system, leading to regressive social consequences. Full article

The main aim of this study is to examine how education policies in the public sector of Chile have shaped civic participation among stakeholders in the education sector. We address two complementary research questions. First, has the implementation of top-down State-level education policies created practice-oriented opportunities for key stakeholders to collaborate with the distinct governing bodies operating in primary and secondary schools in Chile? Second, to what extent have top-down State-level public sector education policies in Chile affected stakeholders’ levels of influence and participation in decision-making at the local level? To address these questions, the study involves a critical policy analysis of educational policies enacted in Chile between 1990 and 2022. The findings reveal that Chile’s education policies were: (a) characterized by a neoliberal orientation to service delivery and (b) positively affected some aspects of civic participation of stakeholders in education at the local level. Notably, the majority of governing bodies that promoted policy-driven civic participation were based in fully funded public schools. This paper contributes to understanding civic participation in a deeply neoliberal context and, through critical analysis, highlights how the power and collaboration of schools’ governing bodies in Chile are limited and differentiated by the nature of their funding. Full article

Brexit, the exiting of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU), has impacted socio-political relationships, both internally, and externally with other countries and economic groups. This has been especially true regarding international trade, and legal and market standards for food and food security. This paper examines how the enacting of Brexit has framed and underlined contemporary perceptions of the UK neoliberal food system, the relative importance of food standards, and the impact of policy transition on food security. Using a positional approach, perspectives and narratives within the literature are critiqued and synthesized, including academic sources, parliamentary debates, economic reports, and media analysis. The politico-economic effects of Brexit have altered food-related relationships, recalibrating trade interactions and changing the public funding that UK farmers receive. Through realigning extractive economic models, the pre-Brexit UK food system has been reset, and new perspectives about neoliberalism have emerged. Government intervention has steered away from traditional neoliberal framings towards neo-developmentalism. A dichotomy thus exists between recognizing the intrinsic right to adequate and nutritious food and maintaining existing cultural dynamics of food supply, and the use of agri-food policy as a politico-economic tool to drive higher economic growth. The implications of this policy change are stark for UK agri-food actors within food system transition post-Brexit. Full article

There is growing evidence that public hospitals in high-income countries—in particular, Anglo-Saxon neoliberal countries (USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia)—have been engaging with food retailers to attract private capital and maximise their incomes in a drive to reduce costs. Added to which, public hospital food can have a substantial influence on the health of children and young people. However, there is still relatively little research on food for young people in healthcare settings. This is concerning, as an appropriate food intake is vital not only for the prevention of and recovery from diseases, but also for the physical growth and psychological development of young people. This critical narrative review examined the available evidence on hospital food provision, practices, and environments, as well as children’s experiences of hospitalization in high-income countries, drawing on both peer-reviewed articles and the grey literature. Our analytical lens for this review was the Commercial Determinants of Health (CDOH), a framework that necessitates a critical examination of commercial influences on individual, institutional, and policy practices relevant to health. Our findings illustrate the mechanisms through which the CDOH act as a barrier to healthy food and eating for children in hospitals in high-income countries. Firstly, hospital food environments can be characterised as obesogenic. Secondly, there is a lack of culturally inclusive and appropriate foods on offer in healthcare settings and an abundance of processed and convenience foods. Lastly, individualised eating is fostered in healthcare settings at the expense of commensal eating behaviours that tend to be associated with healthier eating. Public hospitals are increasingly facing commercial pressures. It is extremely important to resist these pressures and to protect patients, especially children and adolescents, from the marketing and selling of foods that have been proven to be addictive and harmful. Full article

Access to housing in Athens during the first postwar decades protected a broad range of low-means social groups and enhanced their social mobility. Eventually, the city’s housing market was dominated by neoliberal policies, producing a very different social effect. Since the mid-2010s, the changes in the housing market were also interconnected with the rise in demand for housing (some of it related to tourism and other forms of ‘external’ demand for accommodation), the boom in the construction sector, the change in property taxation, the increase in housing prices, and the need to improve built properties. The analysis of three different datasets in this paper confirmed that the unregulated city’s housing market is following the spatially differentiated demand and reproducing socio-spatial inequalities. It also confirmed that the few policy initiatives developed since the early 2010s have not faced the housing needs of the most vulnerable groups because they were weak and because these needs were not their primary target. Athens seems to be one of the most unregulated cities in Southern Europe, where housing policies are far behind the needs and issues raised by increasing inequalities, and difficulties for vulnerable groups look like unavoidable outcomes. Full article

Background/Objectives: This study examines the transformation of Turkey’s hospital sector from 2002 to 2022, focusing on physical capacity, service utilization, and workforce distribution in the public and private sectors. Methods: Longitudinal data from the Ministry of Health were analyzed using trend and breakpoint methods to evaluate hospital beds, qualified beds, intensive care beds, service volumes (outpatient visits, inpatient admissions, surgeries, and hospitalization days), and staffing (physicians, nurses, and midwives). Results: Findings reveal a marked shift in the balance between public and private providers. Due to public regulations effectively controlling resource allocation, the private sector’s share expanded to around one-fourth of the system. Private capacity in total beds rose from 7.53% to 21.00%, outpatient visits from 4.58% to 15.07%, and inpatient admissions from 10.10% to 30.63%. Breakpoint analyses indicate crucial turning points around 2005, 2008, and 2011, when policy changes restricted public capacity but facilitated private investment. Although the public sector’s share in total beds declined, its proportion of qualified and intensive care beds, as well as dialysis machines, increased, suggesting a strategic shift toward complex, high-quality services. Conclusions: Over the past 20 years, Turkey’s hospital sector exemplifies privatization without ownership transfer. Although delayed, private hospital expansion aligned with global neoliberal trends. Policy regulations played a key role in both promoting and limiting sector growth. A constant conflict exists between market-driven resource allocation and public health needs, which must be considered in restructuring efforts alongside private sector motivations. Full article

Teacher agency has been recognised as a relevant concept for understanding the role of teachers in the current uncertain and changing contexts. However, its study about inclusive education is recent, especially in the Global South. This study analysed how teachers exercised agency for inclusive education during the COVID-19 crisis and the conditions that enabled or inhibited agency. This article explores Chilean schools, where neoliberal policies particularly challenge teachers’ agency. A multiple case study was conducted based on mixed methods. Online questionnaires were carried out with 154 teachers from 5 schools. In addition, five teachers from each school participated in in-depth group interviews. The findings show how teachers promoted students’ learning and participation in response to the challenges of the pandemic. Teachers mobilised resources to adapt to the context of uncertainty and supported one another. Among the influential factors, education policy constraints and control were reduced during the pandemic, thus creating opportunities to achieve agency for inclusion across the schools. At the same time, leadership, collaboration, and vision influenced agency differently in each school. While not aiming for major transformations, this study shows how teachers develop initiatives to adapt their practices and contribute to building inclusive schools despite contextual constraints. Full article

Education is embedded within a complex societal ecosystem that attempts to imbue students with the cultural norms and values of the society in which it operates. Neoliberalism ideology has been shaping education systems, policies and reforms in Australia and many other countries, since the early 1980s. Arguably, there are both benefits and challenges related to neoliberal education. For example, neoliberals advocate for education systems to be run according to free market principles, that elements of education should be privatised endogenously and exogenously, that parents/guardians and students should have more agency and that top-down management should be increased through surveillance and mandated performance. This paper addresses the last point that increased teacher accountability measures and the standardisation of student learning outcomes have resulted in the de-professionalisation of teaching. Using case study research, five expert teachers’ experiences of using action research to explore and challenge their pedagogy is investigated. Perceptions about teacher autonomy and the de-professionalism of teaching emerged as the overarching research aim inquired whether action research can be used as a response to the declining status of the teaching profession. Findings suggest that through action research, teachers can be empowered to enhance their pedagogy, while developing meaningful and contextually relevant evidence-based practice. Full article

Over the past 30 years, Swedish labor market politics has swayed towards stronger workfare tendencies, emphasizing activation requirements for unemployed individuals to access welfare benefits. This process aligns with broader neoliberal reforms, fostering an individualistic view of unemployment characterized by personal responsibility for employability. In 2023, the Swedish Public Employment Service (PES) published a report addressing the needs of and solutions for long-term unemployed individuals ‘distant from the labor market’ (Sw. personer långt från arbetsmarknaden), marking the first formal use of this term as the main adhesive category in a political document. This paper examines the construction of the subject position ‘distant from the labor market’, investigating how it delineates and differentiates subgroups within the unemployed population, how this subgroup is understood in relation to other actors, and how discursive frameworks imbue this category with various meanings. Lastly, the paper discusses the categorization in relation to the current developments in the Swedish welfare system, arguing that the formalization of this category should be understood in relation to parallel political processes, such as proposals for a duty of activity for the unemployed, suggesting how this points to a way forward defined by neoliberal tendencies and welfare conditionality. Full article

Gender-based violence and sexual harassment in the Nordic labor market prevails, despite decades of preventive work. The #Metoo movement has clearly challenged past and current notions of the Nordic countries as gender equal welfare states, but it also pointed at the inability of policy to overcome its own prerequisites. In this study, we analyze past research on sexual harassment in Nordic working life, especially targeting theoretical, methodological, and practical results and challenges. By taking this systematic Nordic research review as a point of departure, we also develop a framework to analyze and transgress existing boundaries of policy and research in several ways. By reimagining research practices, as well as neoliberal management protocols for prevention, we elaborate on ways forward through several analytical steps. Finally, we envisage a need to overcome an immanent paradox when performing social research, pointing towards a vision of critical research moving beyond contemporary research politics and policy. Full article