Search results

Hazel Kyrk’s recognised contributions include a shift in analytic focus from production to consumption, pioneering work to measure household production as part of family income, empirical studies of family behaviour, and contributions to policy. But her account of ‘wise’ consumption and its intersection with ‘high’ living standards is not well understood. The three aims of this chapter are to explain ‘wise’ consumption across Kyrk’s three major books, to consider its role in Kyrk’s empirical studies, and to explain why it fell into oblivion. Tackling what Wesley Mitchell described as the ‘most baffling of difficulties’, Kyrk explained what constitutes a family’s ‘good’ in a manner that was critical of mere emulation. Her 1923 book required that wise consumption include new and personal elements. Her 1929/1933 book detailed five qualitative criteria (balance between interests, full and varied experiences, originality, rational sources of satisfaction, and the use of scientific information). But her 1953 book weakened this normative language, reflecting Margaret Reid’s view that Kyrk’s account was too demanding. Although Kyrk felt wise consumption avoided paternalism, her peers disagreed (Hoyt, 1938/1945; Reid, 1938/1945). We close with some problems with Kyrk’s account and a brief consideration of its continuing relevance.

There seems to be no controversy about Nigeria being an agricultural country with food sufficiency up till the late 1970s. However, in recent times the country is finding it very difficult to provide sufficient food for the teeming population which has resulted in the majority of the country’s citizens slipping into poverty. The ability of the country to provide sufficiently for the citizens was a result of a lack of reliable and effective developmental and transformational strategies in the agricultural sector of the country which is a major employer of labour in the rural community. To this end, this chapter mainly focuses on factors inhibiting the development of agricultural companies in Nigeria and how to overcome the developmental barriers in the agricultural sector in Nigeria. The findings from the review show that the bane of the agricultural sector in Nigeria is due to the lack of an agricultural regulatory framework and policy transmission mechanism and over-dependence on oil revenue amongst other things (Adams, 2016). It is therefore imperative for the country to embark on the development of a reliable agricultural framework and model that will aid food sufficiency in the country.

Hazel Kyrk’s contribution is the most advanced formulation of the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon, an approach to the analysis of consumption that, originated from Veblen’s theory, was developed in the US in the early 20th century. This approach was part of a wider stream of empirical analyses of consumption expenditure that had begun more than a century earlier.

Along with elements that can be traced back to the neoclassical tradition, in Keynes’ analysis of consumption, we find original elements. The dependence of consumption expenditure on the level of income, which is essential for asserting the principle of effective demand, can also be found in a long tradition of empirical studies. In qualifying this relationship, Keynes uses theoretical elements echoing key insights of the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon. There is no documentary evidence that Kyrk or the economics of the social relevance of consumption came to Keynes’ attention. It is possible, however, to develop reasonable speculative considerations to argue a link between Keynes’ elaboration and both the empirical literature on the determinants of consumption and the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon.

Social skills training (SST) is increasingly used as an adjunct to academic interventions for children and youth with learning disabilities (LD). A brief context and an overview of SST are provided and the issue related to the establishment of SST efficacy via extant meta-analyses is described. Generally, outcomes for SST efficacy are mixed, at best, with very little evidence of strong efficacy effects across the literature.

Care options for older people are important to individuals and to society, and currently, there is a crisis in this care. The chapter presents a research base projection onto the situation in England in 2045, using Office for National Statistics (ONS) modelling based on current population reaching the age of 85-years plus. We take three The Archers characters and fantasise about their lives in 2045, Shula and Kenton Archer and Hazel Woolley. Through them, we illustrate three options for care, namely, cared for by family members, buying in care in own home and moving into a care home. The financial aspects of these choices are explored.

Drawing inspiration from C Wright Mills exhortation to sociologists to locate themselves and their experiences in the ‘trends of their epoch’, I consider how first-hand experience of imprisonment can help criminology account for the growing trend towards the use of imprisonment in many Western democracies. Using interviews with a small group of British criminologists who have experience of imprisonment, I explore the connections between personal stories and collective narratives. Drawing reflexively from my own imprisonment, my subsequent professional trajectory and experiences of prison research, I consider the difficulties and potential of crafting a collective criminological project from disparate and profoundly personal experiences of imprisonment. The chapter combines methodological reflections on the use of autoethnography, autobiography and vignettes as a means to an end: establishing collective narratives from personal stories. I argue that the task of connecting these narratives to the ‘trends of the epoch’ that manifest in expanding prison populations is difficult but developing some momentum in convict criminology.

For centuries, death has proved itself a well-spring of inspiration for artists and musicians. In particular, an artist's own experiences with death and bereavement often overflow into their creative process, giving birth to artworks which channel grief and embodied experience. Morning Heroes by the British composer Sir Arthur Bliss (1891–1975) is a paradigm of such praxis.

Morning Heroes (1930) was written in memory of Bliss's brother, Kennard, who was killed in action during the First World War. Using an anthology of texts, the work aims to enshrine a universal experience of war for both soldier and civilian and maintains its connection with the British War Requiem through its use of musico-funerary rhetoric. Bliss, who converted to Catholicism during the war, wrote several times in his later life about the spiritual nature of music, specifically its ability to heal and bring peace. It is significant, therefore, that Morning Heroes was to act as a catharsis for Bliss, sublimating his recurring nightmares of the war.

Adopting Douglas Davies' (2017) ‘words against death’ idea, this chapter considers Sir Arthur Bliss's Morning Heroes as ‘music against death’ through an examination of Bliss's use of text and music to craft a requiem in sound. It explores Bliss's use of death rhetoric and embodied experience to create a vehicle for grief and situates this process within the context of his own spiritual philosophies.

This chapter places the discussion of trade and food security in a more general macroeconomic context.

This chapter uses historical analysis to briefly trace the debate on economy-wide policies, starting with the 1943 United Nations (UN) Conference on Food and Agriculture that led to the creation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. A general economic framework is used to organize the different channels through which macroeconomic policies may affect food and nutrition security.

Examples of monetary, financial, fiscal, and exchange rate policies are presented, along with their implications for food and nutrition security.

The current debates about trade and food security must be placed in the context of the overall macroeconomic framework: a single trade policy may have different impacts depending on its interactions with other macroeconomic policies and structural factors.