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A considerable literature places the emergence of occupational health discourses and institutions in the second half of the nineteenth century. This article uses the records of the Chatham Chest, a pension fund for maritime workers that existed from 1590 to 1803, as well as the records of the Sick and Hurt Boards and the Seamen's Registry for the Greenwich Hospital, to argue for the existence of an early modern system of occupational health. Over two centuries, these institutions collected contributions and paid out pensions and healthcare costs to and from tens of thousands of workers on hundreds of ships and in dozens of hospitals, prisons and shipyards. They used customary estimates of the costs of avoiding poverty to price the loss of body parts and other injuries, and created systems of inspection and registration that grew increasingly stringent through episodes of post-war austerity. Managing occupational injury and death focused on poverty alleviation and subsistence, through a discursive field based on concepts of custom, deservedness and service rather than prices, income replacement and risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do prevailing economic relations enable non-capitalist forms of alternative organising? Through an ethnographic case study of a free food store, I illustrate how an alternative organisational form emerges through the entanglement of diverse economic practices. By tracing the journey of the surplus food, I argue that the use value of food and labour plays a crucial role in mediating alternative economic, symbolic and political relations. Furthermore, the relationality of diverse economic practices reveals a non-capitalist parasitic alternative organising sustained by/for the community. This study contributes to the literature on alternative organising by introducing use value as a theoretical tool to untangle the intricate relationship between capitalist and non-capitalist economic practices from a critical political economy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a unique dataset of approximately 1,400 French manufacturing firms, this study provides insights into their utilization of telework in 2019. Our findings reveal firms that engaged in telework benefit from a Total Factor Productivity substantially higher than those that did not. Additionally, we uncover a non-linear relationship between the extent of telework usage and productivity. These descriptive results align with recent worker surveys and experiments, adding valuable and rich firm-level information to the ongoing conversation on teleworking and its potential impact on productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green Skills are considered a prerequisite for sustainability transitions. However, existing literature shows heterogenous meanings of Green Skills, which are based on normative assumptions about what is understood as 'green' and 'skill'. Despite the high expectations of Green Skills as a driving force for increasing sustainability of companies and regions, there is a research gap about implementation of Green Skills in vocational education and further training, and their impact on sustainability transitions. This paper is based on a literature review and reveals a fertile field for investigation, creating clarity by systematically analysing the fragmented literature and suggesting a research agenda for economic geography and labour geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Most individuals spend a significant amount of their time at work, and the dynamics at work can potentially influence their overall life, especially health and mental health. The present study tried to understand the association of the nature of work categorized as physically demanding, psychologically demanding, and environmentally hazardous on life satisfaction, cognitive functioning, and depressive symptoms among working middle-aged and older adults in India. Method: We used data from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI), Wave 1, collected between 2017 and 2018. The study sample consists of 28,653 working adults aged between 45 and 70. The study measures were assessed using standard tools. Linear regression analysis was employed. Results: The results indicate that individuals working in less physically demanding (β = 0.06, 99% CI = 0.02–0.09) and not hazardous environments (β = 0.15, 99% CI = 0.09–0.20) had better life satisfaction. Also, not being involved in hazardous work environments increased the likelihood of good cognitive functioning and reduced depressive symptoms (β= -0.17, 99% CI= -0.20- -0.15). However, samples involved in works requiring less psychological demand had an increased likelihood of reduced life satisfaction and increased depressive symptoms. Conclusion: This study's results highlight the importance of creating a conducive working environment for the ageing adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This discussion paper is presented to be read in three simultaneous and different modalities. At one level, it is a historiography of British Bengali women's labour power and hence an exploration of the historical constraints that vis-a-vis appear as a natural logical consequence but on closer examination performed as part of a broader structure of inequality. At another level, it intervenes, utilising the theoretical lens of Pierre Bourdieu's 'thinking tools' to inform an awareness that does not pathologize, but instead reads against the constructed layers of assumptions to foreground the social conditions that appear as social structures in diminishing Bengali women's labour power. Finally, the discussion expands the site of analysis, arguing under Sunni orthodoxy based upon the recitation, women have significant labour rights, moreover those rights have diminished in Bangladesh. At the same time, in Britain, social conditions have superseded religious limitations that have benefitted British Bengali women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims: Evidence for vaginal examinations to assess labour progress is inconclusive and indicates some negative psychological impacts for women. Understanding women's perceptions of vaginal examinations is essential to guide future clinical practice. This literature review aimed to explore women's experiences of vaginal examinations in labour. Methods: A comprehensive review of four databases was carried out, searching for publications made between 2012 and 2023. Findings were synthesised using thematic analysis. Results: Eight relevant papers were included. Four themes emerged: frequency of vaginal examinations, true, informed consent, emotional reactions and rapport building and humanisation. Conclusions: Negative experiences were associated with overuse and lack of properly informed consent. Positive experiences linked to continuity in carer. Further research into alternative ways of assessing labour progression to minimise non-clinically indicated vaginal examinations may improve women's labour experience. Implications for practice: There is a need for further education for healthcare professionals on ongoing informed consent, appropriate communication, the necessary frequency of vaginal examinations and avoiding desensitisation. Additional training should be well-established in hospitals to minimise exams when not clinically indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Workers tasked with specific responsibilities around patient and public involvement (PPI) are now routinely part of the organizational landscape for applied health research in the United Kingdom. Even as the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has had a pioneering role in developing a robust PPI infrastructure for publicly funded health research in the United Kingdom, considerable barriers remain to embedding substantive and sustainable public input in the design and delivery of research. Notably, researchers and clinicians report a tension between funders' orientation towards deliverables and the resources and labour required to embed public involvement in research. These and other tensions require further investigation. Methods: This was a qualitative study with participatory elements. Using purposive and snowball sampling and attending to regional and institutional diversity, we conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with individuals holding NIHR-funded formal PPI roles across England. Interviews were analysed through reflexive thematic analysis with coding and framing presented and adjusted through two workshops with study participants. Results: We generated five overarching themes which signal a growing tension between expectations put on staff in PPI roles and the structural limitations of these roles: (i) the instability of support; (ii) the production of invisible labour; (iii) PPI work as more than a job; (iv) accountability without control; and (v) delivering change without changing. Conclusions: The NIHR PPI workforce has enabled considerable progress in embedding patient and public input in research activities. However, the role has led not to a resolution of the tension between performance management priorities and the labour of PPI, but rather to its displacement and – potentially – its intensification. We suggest that the expectation to "deliver" PPI hinges on a paradoxical demand to deliver a transformational intervention that is fundamentally divorced from any labour of transformation. We conclude that ongoing efforts to transform health research ecologies so as to better respond to the needs of patients will need to grapple with the force and consequences of this paradoxical demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industria Textila is the property of Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Textile si Pielarie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The agricultural sector, essential for food security and economic stability, especially in developing countries such as India, faced significant disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic. Impacts included labour shortages, limited market access, disrupted supply chains and wasted perishable goods due to mobility restrictions. While many studies have addressed these effects in India, a conspicuous gap remains in understanding how gender dynamics intensify these vulnerabilities within the country. This review synthesises findings from 32 studies, shedding light on the intersection of gender and the pandemic's influence on India's agri-food system. Results revealed a noticeable underrepresentation of gender-centric research on COVID-19's agricultural impacts in India, with many studies being geographically limited. When gender was considered, few critically examined it as a socially constructed role, often reducing it to a mere variable. Women farmers, constrained by societal norms like lack of land rights and limited access to resources, endured more pronounced negative effects. Their participation in wage employment dropped, and household food security dwindled. Furthermore, women in India faced augmented domestic burdens, heightened domestic violence risks and health challenges. Notably absent from current research is a focus on the long-term economic recuperation of rural women post-pandemic within the Indian context and an exploration of varied gender-category impacts. Future research in India must adopt a longitudinal, intersectional lens, combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies, to fully grasp and address these enduring gendered ramifications in the agri-food sector in the post-COVID-19 context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines film and television workers' experience of mothering in Ireland and argues that not only are mothers constructed as a 'problem' in these Creative Industries workplaces because of their care work duties, but the 'problem' of work's incompatibility with motherhood is presented as one to be 'solved' by mothers themselves. Drawing from the scholarship on motherhood in film and television work and 12 interviews with workers in the film and television Creative Industries sectors who are mothers, we undertake a thematic analysis to uncover common experiences and insights that are reflective of but depart in some ways from the literature. We identify four themes that suggest that motherhood remains Othered in film and television work and that balancing care work and motherhood remains a form of additional labour that mothers (almost exclusively) must undertake: managing pregnancy at work; maternity leave and the return to work; care for children while working; and mothers' finding solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the case of the migration studies industry in Turkey, which has flourished over the past decade, through an examination of knowledge production on refugee labour. Focusing on research about Syrian refugees' labour and employment in Turkey between 2012 and 2018, the article discusses the ways in which refugee labour is articulated and studied to provide ground for a wider critique of migration-related knowledge production. This study aims to reflexively question academic outputs by (1) exploring the conceptual frames used broadly in research on refugee labour, and (2) developing an overview of the literature on Turkey with a focus on this topic. Through the case of the literature on refugee labour in Turkey, we explore the underlying political economy premises of migration research. This case serves as an example to argue that knowledge produced in a Southern context is mainly incorporated as case studies despite attempts to advance theoretical discussions, highlighting a North–South hierarchization of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction - Preterm labour refers to the initiation of labour prior to 37 weeks and after 28 weeks of gestation, characterised by consistent uterine contractions that result in gradual cervical modifications. Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the several causes of preterm labour. The aim of this study is to evaluate first trimester urinary tract infection and risk of preterm labour pain. Material and methods- The present cross-sectional hospital based study was conducted at department of obstetrics and gynecology among 100 women with preterm labour pain during the study period of one year. Midstream urine samples were collected from all and culture test was performed. Results were analyzed using SPSS version 25.0 Results- Maximum patients were in the age group of 25 to 29 years (50%). 92% of them live in rural area. 70% of patients had normal urine examination and 30% were suffering from UTI. 3% of women had pyleonephritis and 97% had no complications. Organisms isolated from urine culture and sensitivity were : E.coli (68%), cogaulase negative staph (11%), S.aureus (10%), Klebsiella (6%) and GBS (5%). Conclusion – Untreated urinary tract infection (UTI) can be linked to obstetric problems and lead to preterm birth. The predominant bacterial illness that occurs during pregnancy is urinary tract infections (UTIs). It is recommended that all women undergo screening for urinary tract infections (UTIs) during their initial antenatal appointment. Upon diagnosis, it is crucial to rapidly administer an appropriate antibiotic that is both effective and safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the efforts that were made within the British Labour Party to isolate and exclude the Militant Tendency, a Trotskyite entryist group, during the period 1979 to 1983. It argues that the battle over whether or not Militant should be expelled from Labour was, primarily, a battle of metaphor and semantics. More specifically, it suggests that these years witnessed the successful construction of Militant as Labour's unwanted and malignant 'other'. Five central discursive motifs (medical, subhumanal, emotional, ideological, and historical) for 'othering' are identified. These motifs were operationalised in a systematic and sustained manner by individuals and groups who were hostile to Militant, such as the Labour Solidarity Campaign. Over time, Labour leader Michael Foot, who had, initially, been reluctant to take action against Militant, also adopted the language of this active and purposive rhetorical strategy. In response, Militant's main counter-discursive strategy, the 'witch hunt' narrative, failed to shape party opinion decisively and prevent the initiation of exclusionary processes. By 1983, the pattern of interrelated discursive motifs for 'othering' that would be applied to Militant throughout the decade had been established: a hegemonic narrative, concerning the tendency's imminent 'threat' to Labour, had permeated all levels of the party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of O Social em Questão is the property of Faculdades Catolicas - Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There is a growing interest in exploring contemporary financialisation in terms of the geographies of debt. Many economic geographers have adopted a financial ecologies approach to explain these geographies. While this approach provides analytical benefits, it nonetheless analyses debt almost exclusively in terms of consumer finance, thereby overlooking the relations of production in which many indebted households engage. To address this issue, I develop the agrarian financial ecologies concept, which both directs analysis towards the diversity of credit–debt relations in rural economies, and highlights the relationship between land, labour and debt in the process of agricultural production. I apply this concept to study farm household debt in Cambodia, where indebtedness has become a widespread problem among farmers facing rapid economic transformation in the countryside. By focusing on land and labour, I demonstrate how diverse credit–debt relations within Cambodia's agrarian financial ecology have produced uneven socio‐spatial outcomes, namely debt‐driven land dispossession. This paper advances geographic theory about the dynamics of value production, circulation and appropriation within geographies of debt. It also extends the empirical remit of existing financial ecologies scholarship by attending to the credit–debt relations that characterise many agrarian livelihoods today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We adopt a pandemic-macroeconomic model to simulate the macroeconomic impact of COVID-19 on various occupations under both laissez-faire and government lockdown scenarios. We integrate a SIR model of virus transmission into a simplified neoclassical model and categorize occupations into two groups based on their ability to work remotely. Subsequently, we assess the shock impact of the pandemic on GDP, consumption, and working hours of flexible and rigid occupations. We find that these three variables declined during the pandemic, yet the consumption varied among individuals with different health status. The labour market experienced a recession, with workers in flexible occupations experiencing a relatively milder impact compared to those in rigid occupations. A larger proportion of remote work mitigated the recessionary effects, although it accentuated the disparities between occupations' income and working hours. The implementation of lockdown policies detrimentally affects welfare, similar to the pandemic itself, but the impact on flexible and rigid occupations differs from that in a laissez-faire scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study explored whether assessing flexibility levels in clinical settings might predict the odds of oxytocin administration and caesarean section to stimulate labour. Methods: Pregnant women from the GESTAFIT Project (n = 157), participated in this longitudinal study. Maternal upper-body flexibility was assessed at 16 gestational weeks (g.w.) through the Back-scratch test. Clinical data, including oxytocin administration and type of birth, were registered from obstetric medical records. Results: Pregnant women who required oxytocin administration or had caesarean sections showed lower flexibility scores (p < 0.05 and p < 0.01, respectively). The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the Back-scratch test was able to detect the need for oxytocin administration ((area under the curve [AUC] = 0.672 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.682 (95% CI: 0.59–0.78, p = 0.001)). The AUC to establish the ability of flexibility to discriminate between vaginal and caesarean section births was 0.672 (95% CI: 0.60–0.77, p = 0.002). A Back-scratch test worse than 4 centimetres was associated with a ~5 times greater increased odds ratio of requiring exogenous oxytocin administration (95% CI: 2.0–11.6, p = 0.001) and a ~4 times greater increased odds ratio of having a caesarean section (95% CI: 1.7–10.2, p = 0.002). Conclusions: These findings suggest that lower flexibility levels at the 16th g.w. discriminates between pregnant women who will require oxytocin and those who will not, and those with a greater risk of a caesarean section than those with a vaginal birth. Pregnant women below the proposed Back-scratch test cut-offs at 16th g.w. might specifically benefit from physical therapies that include flexibility training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foley sound effects – those sounds that are created in post-production through live performance and then added to the sound mix of films, television, video games and animation – are ubiquitous. But effective Foley should not be heard. It is one of those creative labours in the making of a film that, to be considered successful, must erase itself. While film studies has begun to redress theory and practice's bias towards the visual, film sound studies has yet to sufficiently acknowledge this hidden body in the sound process and fully reckon with the individual contribution made by the Foley artist to cinematic expression and cinema's capacity to represent the world in motion and the exertion of bodies on-screen. To the extent we consider sound cinematic, what does the Foley artist contribute when they supplement images of a rock, a chair, a phone with sound or pay attention to the way paper brushes wood, metal rattles against metal, sand pushes back against a finger? This introduction establishes how refocusing attention to Foley sound extends our understanding of cinema as a medium, as well as addressing the current cultural and scholarly 'visibility' of Foley sound. It outlines the way the issue seeks to open up new theoretical perspectives on Foley sound and explore its interdisciplinary potential for theories of the soundtrack and film theory more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the ethical implications of the use of Foley sound in wildlife documentaries. Almost all of the sounds that animals seem to make in these films and television programmes are added by Foley artists; animals in the wild are often filmed using telephoto lenses, beyond the reach of microphones. Crew or vehicle noise will also often muddy sounds recorded on location and so a clean soundtrack must be created in post-production. This article is based on first-hand interviews conducted with practising Foley artists. It details some of the techniques that Foley artists use to simulate the sounds of animals walking, chewing, scratching or otherwise engaging with their environments. It then draws on the work of Emmanuel Levinas to frame ethical activity as the act of encountering the other in terms which recognize and accept their otherness as such. I suggest first that Foley might impede such an ethical encounter with animal life because it seems, at first, to anthropomorphize the animal and to reduce them to a subset of the human. I go on to suggest, however, that Foley is also invested in representing what the biologist Jakob von Uexküll has labelled the umwelt of the animal – the animal's unique 'lifeworld'. According to this reading, Foley does ethical work in the wildlife documentary; it brings us to an encounter with the animal's otherness and intimates that humanity's own umwelt is but one amongst many. In this way, Foley reveals that the human perception of the world is neither objective nor universal nor absolute. It decentres the human in the way we conceive the world and ethically frames the animal Other as coequal with the human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how platform-mediated gig work is entangled in the migration process across transnational, national and local scales. Drawing on the concepts of simultaneity and migration infrastructure from critical transnational migration studies as well as qualitative interviews with migrants, the analysis focuses on the figures of three migrant gig workers from both EU and non-EU countries to elucidate two matters. First, we analyse how different forms of citizenship produce different ways of responding to the migration infrastructure that results in frictions and/or smoothness across different times and spaces in the migration process. Second, we analyse how migrants who perform platform-mediated gig work on a local scale in Copenhagen, Denmark, establish particular transnational lives. Thus, this article contributes a timely transnational perspective on the relationship between the growing gig economy and migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the end of the nineteenth century, the view of labour as control of the environment for human benefit was being re-evaluated. In the United States, the conservation movement of the Progressive era (1890–1920) brought new attention to the problem of the 'wise use' of resources. Progressive social movements also developed a concern with holistic health and social conditions in rapidly industrialising cities. This paper argues that the formation of the new allied health science of occupational therapy in the early 20th century can be understood as a response to the health and conservation implications of changing relations between labour and resources. An analysis of published sources on the aims of occupational therapy in the Progressive era concluded that the early stage of the profession was structured by dominant Western narratives about humans and nature. Those narratives included the trope of redemption or transformation through labour and the importance of conservation as a response to the squandering of resources, both natural and human. I argue that the early development of occupational therapy was significantly influenced by environmentalist discourse as a therapeutic response to industrialisation and emerging Anthropocene awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qatar has become a significant destination for migrant workers looking to escape unemployment in their home countries. However, highly active labour migration pathways create migration industries that exploit the increased supply of labour migrants, leading to trafficking. Human trafficking has been a longstanding concern in Qatar, especially with low-skilled migrant workers in the informal, domestic service and construction sectors. United Nations bodies and non-governamental organisations have criticised Qatar over the treatment of its migrant workforce, especially with concerns about trafficking for labour exploitation and forced labour. In addition to complaints of human trafficking, concerns have been raised concerning perceived racialised drivers of exploitation in Qatar. According to the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Ms Tendayi Achiume, Qatar battles with issues of structural racial discrimination concerning its migrant workforce. This article examines the links between race and the trafficking of migrant workers in Qatar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparative study of the Roma population in Romania and Spain can provide a detailed insight into the different aspects of the life of these communities in the two countries. This research could be conceived using a mixed approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to obtain a comprehensive and contextualized image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A minor movement of strippers and sex workers are unionising as the Sex Workers' Union (SWU) branch of the Bakers Food & Allied Workers Union. SWU have produced a counter hegemonic perspective on law and society in the process of class struggle. This perspective demystifies the view that strippers and sex workers are free workers and enterprising subjects, or unfree vulnerable victims in need of state protection. SWU's counter hegemonic perspective inverts this common-sense assumption and posits that strippers and sex workers are unfree workers and free sexual subjects. This demystification is evident in SWU's 'feminist law work', which demands decommodification and decriminalisation for all sex workers by working within, and against, official law. In conclusion, I argue that there are at least three reasons why other feminists should support SWU by ceasing eradication of sex work via criminalisation and closure campaigns. This would open space for a politics of solidarity between sex workers and other feminists, centred on the conditions within which sex workers' labour is commodified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To develop evidence‐based clinical algorithms for assessment and management of abnormal maternal pulse and blood pressure during the intrapartum period. Population: Low risk singleton, term, pregnant women in labour. Setting: Institutional births in low‐ and middle‐income countries. Search strategy: A review of the literature was performed to retrieve evidence‐based guidelines, systematic reviews, and papers on maternal pulse and blood pressure during labour. We searched a number of international clinical guidelines and PubMed using the corresponding key terms in November 2018 and updated the search in May 2020. Case scenarios: Four common intrapartum case scenarios of abnormal pulse and blood pressure were identified for which algorithms were developed: hypertension, hypotension, tachycardia and bradycardia. Algorithms were constructed after reviewing guidelines and relevant papers, with input from a panel of experts. Thresholds for upper and lower limits of normal maternal pulse and blood pressure measurements are defined, evidence‐based interventions for the initial management of abnormal parameters are described (resuscitation and monitoring) and guidance is provided on exploration of the potential causes for each case scenario, with links to pathways for their management. Conclusions: Evidence‐based algorithms to support the identification, and management of deviations in pulse and blood pressure during intrapartum care have been developed for hypertension, hypotension, tachycardia and bradycardia. The algorithms focus on initial resuscitation and monitoring, with an exploration of causes and early identification of underlying maternal conditions. These algorithms will help provide a standardised approach to investigation and management of these abnormal parameters to guide clinical practice. Algorithms for abnormal maternal pulse and blood pressure during labour allow standardised approach to early identification and management of complications. Algorithms for abnormal maternal pulse and blood pressure during labour allow standardised approach to early identification and management of complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To develop evidence‐based clinical algorithms for the assessment and management of spontaneous, uncomplicated labour and vaginal birth. Population: Pregnant women at any stage of labour, with singleton, term pregnancies considered to be at low risk of developing complications. Setting: Health facilities in low‐ and middle‐income countries. Search Strategy: We searched for relevant published algorithms, guidelines, systematic reviews and primary research studies on Cochrane Library, PubMed, and Google on terms related to spontaneous, uncomplicated labour and childbirth up to 01 June 2023. Case scenarios: Three case scenarios were developed to cover assessments and management for spontaneous, uncomplicated first, second and third stage of labour. The algorithms provide pathways for definition, assessments, diagnosis, and links to other algorithms in this series for management of complications. Conclusions: We have developed three clinical algorithms to support evidence‐based decision making during spontaneous, uncomplicated labour and vaginal birth. These algorithms may help guide health care staff to institute respectful care, appropriate interventions where needed, and potentially reduce the unnecessary use of interventions during labour and childbirth. Evidence‐based clinical algorithms may help support respectful, high quality intrapartum care. [Correction added on 23 August 2024, after first online publication: The Abstract has been updated to structure layout in this version.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of obstructed labour, associated risk factors and outcomes across a network of referral hospitals in Nigeria. Design: Retrospective observational study. Setting: A total of 54 referral‐level hospitals across the six geopolitical regions of Nigeria. Population: Pregnant women who were diagnosed with obstructed labour during childbirth and subsequently underwent an emergency caesarean section between 1 September 2019 and 31 August 2020. Methods: Secondary analysis of routine maternity care data sets. Random‐effects multivariable logistic regression was used to ascertain the factors associated with obstructed labour. Main outcome measures: Risk factors for obstructed labour and related postpartum complications, including intrapartum stillbirth, maternal death, uterine rupture, postpartum haemorrhage and sepsis. Results: Obstructed labour was diagnosed in 1186 (1.7%) women. Among these women, 31 (2.6%) cases resulted in maternal death and 199 (16.8%) cases resulted in postpartum complications. Women under 20 years of age (OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.50–2.75), who lacked formal education (OR 1.88, 95% CI 1.55–2.30), were unemployed (OR 1.94, 95% CI 1.57–2.41), were nulliparous (OR 2.11, 95% CI 1.83–2.43), did not receive antenatal care (OR 3.34, 95% CI 2.53–4.41) or received antenatal care in an informal healthcare setting (OR 8.18, 95% CI 4.41–15.14) were more likely to experience obstructed labour. Ineffective referral systems were identified as a major contributor to maternal death. Conclusions: Modifiable factors contributing to the prevalence of obstructed labour and associated adverse outcomes in Nigeria can be addressed through targeted policies and clinical interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To develop clinical algorithms for the assessment and management of slow progress of labour. Population: Low‐risk singleton, term, pregnant women in labour. Setting: Institutional births in low‐ and middle‐income countries. Search strategy: We systematically reviewed the literature on normal labour progression, and guidance on clinical management of abnormally slow progression from 1 December 2015 to 1 October 2020 from relevant international guidelines, Cochrane reviews and primary research studies in PubMed by searching for international and national guidance documents, electronic databases and published systematic reviews using relevant keywords. Case scenarios: We developed two clinical algorithms: one for abnormally slow labour progression and arrest during first stage and one for the second stage. The algorithms provide definitions of suspected and confirmed slow progress of labour or arrest, initial assessment and ongoing monitoring, differential diagnosis, and management of the abnormalities, as well as links to other algorithms for labour management. Conclusions: Identifying abnormal progress of labour is often challenging. These algorithms may help healthcare providers identify abnormal labour progress and institute prompt management or referral where needed but also reduce misdiagnosis and unnecessary use of interventions to accelerate labour. Evidence‐based clinical algorithms may help and standardize early identification and management of abnormally slow labour progress or arrest. Evidence‐based clinical algorithms may help and standardize early identification and management of abnormally slow labour progress or arrest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To construct algorithms with a sequential decision analysis pathway for monitoring of the fetal heart rate and managing fetal heart rate bradycardia, late decelerations and tachycardia during labour. Population: Low‐risk pregnant women in labour with singleton cephalic term pregnancies. Setting: Institutional births in low‐ and middle‐income countries. Search strategy: We sought relevant published clinical algorithms, guidelines and randomised trials/reviews by searching the Cochrane Library, PubMed and Google on the terms: "fetal AND heart AND rate AND algorithm AND (labour OR intrapartum)", up to March 2020. Case scenarios: The two scenarios included were fetal heart rate bradycardia or late decelerations (potentially related to uterine rupture, placental abruption, cord prolapse, maternal hypotension, uterine hyperstimulation or unexplained) and fetal heart rate tachycardia (potentially related to maternal hyperthermia, infection, dehydration or unexplained). The algorithms provide pathways for definition, assessment, diagnosis, interventions to correct the abnormalities and ongoing monitoring leading to mode of birth, and linking to other algorithms in the series. Conclusions: The algorithms provide a framework for monitoring and managing fetal heart rate bradycardia, late decelerations and tachycardia during labour. We emphasise the inherent diagnostic inaccuracy of fetal heart rate monitoring, the tendency to over‐diagnose fetal compromise, the need to consider fetal heart rate information in the context of other clinical features and the need to engage in informed, shared, family‐centred decision‐making. We note the need for further research on methods of fetal assessment during labour including clinical fetal arousal testing and the rapid biophysical profile test. Decision analysis algorithms for fetal bradycardia, late decelerations and tachycardia highlight diagnostic limitations. Decision analysis algorithms for fetal bradycardia, late decelerations and tachycardia highlight diagnostic limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The development of an evidence‐based algorithm for the clinical management of deviations in maternal temperature during labour and childbirth. Population: Pregnant women at any stage of labour, with singleton, term (37–42 weeks) pregnancies at low risk of developing complications. Setting: Health facilities in low‐ and middle‐income countries. Search strategy: We searched for international guidelines and prioritised WHO guidelines. In addition, we searched for other sources of evidence in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, EMBASE, MEDLINE and CINAHL until June 2020. Studies were prioritised according to the hierarchy of evidence. Case scenarios: Two case scenarios were identified: maternal hyperthermia and hypothermia. We developed a single algorithm including both, due to commonalities in diagnosis, monitoring and management of underlying causes. The underlying conditions covered in the pathway include maternal sepsis and infection, chorioamnionitis, pyelonephritis, lower urinary tract and respiratory infections. Key decision points in the algorithm are suspicion of condition, definition, differential diagnosis, monitoring and management. Conclusions: We present an evidence‐based algorithm to assist healthcare professionals in making decisions about appropriate clinical management of deviations in maternal temperature. Research is needed to assess the views of healthcare professionals and women accessing healthcare on the feasibility of implementing the algorithm. An evidence‐based intrapartum care algorithm to support management of deviations in maternal temperature in labour and childbirth. #sepsis #maternitycare. An evidence‐based intrapartum care algorithm to support management of deviations in maternal temperature in labour and childbirth. #sepsis #maternitycare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To develop algorithms as decision support tools for identifying, managing and monitoring abnormal uterine activity during labour. Population: Women with singleton, term (37–42 weeks) pregnancies in active labour at admission. Setting: Institutional birth settings in low‐ and middle‐income countries (the algorithm may be applicable to any health facility). Search strategy: PubMed was searched up to January 2020 using keywords. We also searched The Cochrane Library, and international guidelines from World Health Organization (WHO), National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and French College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians (CNGOF). Case scenarios: Algorithms were developed for two case scenarios: uterine hypoactivity and excessive uterine contractions. Key themes in the algorithm are: diagnosis, identification of probable causes, assessment of maternal and fetal condition and labour progress, monitoring and management. Conclusion: The algorithms for uterine hypoactivity and excessive uterine contractions have been developed to facilitate safe and effective management of abnormal uterine activity during labour. Research is needed to assess the views of healthcare professionals and women accessing healthcare to explore the feasibility of implementing these algorithms, and impact on labour outcomes. An evidence‐based algorithm to support clinical management of abnormal uterine activity during labour. An evidence‐based algorithm to support clinical management of abnormal uterine activity during labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To develop evidence‐based clinical algorithms for management of common intrapartum urinary abnormalities. Population: Women with singleton, term pregnancies in active labour and immediate postnatal period, at low risk of complications. Setting: Healthcare facilities in low‐ and middle‐income countries. Search strategy: A systematic search and review were conducted on the current guidelines from WHO, NICE, ACOG and RCOG. Additional search was done on PubMed and The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews up to May 2020. Case scenarios: Four common intrapartum urinary abnormalities were selected: proteinuria, ketonuria, glycosuria and oliguria. Using reagent strip testing, glycosuria was defined as ≥2+ on one occasion or of ≥1+ on two or more occasions. Proteinuria was defined as ≥2+ and presence of ketone indicated ketonuria. Oliguria was defined as hourly urine output ≤30 ml. Thorough initial assessment using history, physical examination and basic investigations helped differentiate most of the underlying causes, which include diabetes mellitus, dehydration, sepsis, pre‐eclampsia, shock, anaemia, obstructed labour, underlying cardiac or renal problems. A clinical algorithm was developed for each urinary abnormality to facilitate intrapartum management and referral of complicated cases for specialised care. Conclusions: Four simple, user‐friendly and evidence‐based clinical algorithms were developed to enhance intrapartum care of commonly encountered maternal urine abnormalities. These algorithms may be used to support healthcare professionals in clinical decision‐making when handling normal and potentially complicated labour, especially in low resource countries. Evidence‐based clinical algorithms developed to guide intrapartum management of commonly encountered urinary abnormalities. An evidence‐based clinical algorithm was developed to enhance intrapartum management of commonly encountered urinary abnormalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on assemblage theory to propose a new theoretical understanding of modernity. While the conceptual framing is meant for modernity at large, this paper locates its conceptual discussion in the context of tourism in Macao and illustrates how plasmatic thinking, the new conceptual framework proposed, advances analysis of aspiration, exploitation and freedom of its tour guides. Plasmatic thinking helps examinations of tourism labour to engage with the fragile and fluid nature of the sociomaterial environments. Instead of structures, networks or fluidities, plasmatic thinking sees the world as composed of 'plasmas' – 'charged' sociomaterial clustering of objects, humans and the processes between them. Plasmas are a form of charged matter falling outside solid, liquid and gaseous states and metaphorises the fragility and impermanence of sociomaterial situations for plasmas disintegrates when discharged. The attention to charges and fragility of plasmas helps describes both pandemic levels shocks and everyday disruptions. Through a plasmatic analysis of the falling apart and coming together of such plasmas and how they bring about significant consequences to Macao's tourism, I showcase plasmatic thinking as a theoretical approach which vividly uncovers the fragility and fluidity of modernity and the workings of power in our sociomaterial worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline of the power of organised labour, which is a central feature of neoliberalism, was compounded during the 'age of austerity'. Yet, the potentially disruptive agency of workers remains. This article presents a qualitative process-tracing exercise for over 150 prominent episodes of worker-led dissent in the period 2010–2019 in the UK, the results of which are also made available in a website accompanying the article: ' Contesting the UK's neoliberal model of capitalism: worker-led dissent (2010–2019). The article identifies seven configurations of causal conditions that proved sufficient for workers to successfully pursue their stated aims during this period. While 'standard' national disputes led by mainstream trade unions were on the whole not sufficient to achieve success during this period, nevertheless a number of alternative combinations of conditions did prove to be sufficient, especially locally-focused campaigns, those undertaken by grassroots 'indie' unions and those in the transport sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims: A Cochrane review reported that epidural analgesia had no effect on the risk of emergency caesarean section; there was a discrepancy between these findings and the author's clinical observations, prompting the author to evaluate labour outcomes for women with and without epidural analgesia. The aim was to establish whether the author's clinical observations were supported by data. Methods: A retrospective review of the outcomes of 200 labours with and without epidural analgesia was carried out, limited to women the author had personally cared for. A subsequent trust-wide analysis of labours was conducted to explore wider trends in analgesia and emergency caesarean section. Results: In the personal review, epidural analgesia was associated with a more than two-fold increase in risk of emergency caesarean section, regardless of the underlying obstetric risk factors (from 14.7% to 36.4%). A similar trend was found across the trust. Conclusions: Epidural analgesia in labour is associated with increased risk of an emergency caesarean section. Potential reasons for the discrepancy with the Cochrane review findings include differences in anaesthetic practice, timing and dilation at the time of receiving epidural analgesia, and evidence that women taking part in a randomised controlled trial experience better outcomes than those receiving routine care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the challenges of studying the effects of elective induction of labor (eIOL) compared to expectant management (EM) during pregnancy. The authors discuss the methodological issues in comparing outcomes between the two approaches due to differences in time at risk. They highlight the findings of the ARRIVE study, which found associations between eIOL and neonatal morbidity and caesarean birth, but stress the importance of considering time at risk when interpreting these results. The article suggests using measures of frequency that account for varying times at risk to enable valid comparisons and calls for further research to determine the best approach for comparing outcomes between eIOL and EM. [Extracted from the article]

This article analyses the relationship between law and class formation through the case of migrant care and domestic work, and puts sociological class theory into conversation with critical migration research. It contributes to class theory by analysing how law helps produce class relations in the Finnish context. The Finnish state channels migrants into cleaning and domestic work through policy measures, and migration law ties them to the reproductive sector, making law a central social relation that defines migrants' relation to production. The analysis draws on interviews with migrant care and domestic workers (N = 30) holding temporary work permits and examines their structural and affective descriptions of a position restricted by law. The article argues that the way migrant domestic work is formalised in the legislation produces a class relation for migrants, in which they lack full ownership over their labour power. The findings demonstrate how migrant domestic workers express gratitude for their employment despite experiencing it as devalued, indicating labour as repayment of the 'gift' of the residence permit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The platform or gig economy has had a profound impact on the tourism ecosystem. However, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) warns that whilst platforms can contribute to more gender equality, they can also reinforce sexism and inequality. While platforms offer access to informal micro-entrepreneurship, they can also expose women to heightened vulnerability due to limited control over clients and lack of legal protection. Our research questions the link between gender roles, spatial fear, and platform workers' experiences. Our findings indicate that despite Istanbul's evolving urban tourism landscape, the prevailing gender politics in Turkey continues to uphold conservative gender norms that result in gendered labour divisions and gendered public space access. As female platform workers navigate safety concerns and feelings of fear in Istanbul, productivity becomes spatially constrained, despite their efforts to adapt using diverse innovative approaches. Interesting conclusions are drawn regarding the future of work via the finding that platforms create a hybrid employment model blurring host-guest lines, raising questions about the implications for platform workers' safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how livelihood security is co-produced through multiple strategies in Southeast Asia's agrarian transformation, by considering the case of Cambodian migrant workers, who cobble together their livelihood through a combination of land, labour and debt. These workers leverage small landholdings as collateral to take on debts to finance migration to Thailand, where low wages and insecure employment inhibit their ability to repay such debts. The traditional social welfare role of land as a safety net is superseded by the use of land as collateral to access microfinance loans, which are also commonly used to respond to livelihood shocks. In this financialised context, social protection schemes insufficiently address the combined livelihood risks that are assumed by workers and do not provide meaningful protection to workers. Drawing on field interviews, we argue that these various supposed sources of livelihood security rather act to increase precarity for workers, by exacerbating labour discipline and dependence on employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between labour and social policy is at the heart of the social question. Scholars often treat this link as either a causal relation out there or a conceptual connection in policy makers' minds. This article examines its sociotechnical materiality instead. It follows anthropologists who ask how bureaucrats practice policy and scholars of science and technology studies who explore how social and technical aspects are interrelated in knowledge processes. China studies has suggested that the minimum livelihood guarantee (dibao) was originally designed as a market-oriented response to transformations of labour such as mass layoffs, peasant proletarianisation and associated unrest but later revamped to only combat extreme poverty. Ethnographic insights into dibao policy in a village in Sichuan show how its designed links to labour were erased and transformed through different methods of bureaucratic targeting, as well as expectations about the bureaucratic ability to know. For a time, dibao was even integrated into alternative rural development projects aimed at decommodification. Studying social policy as a knowledge process uncovers how its sociotechnical links to labour reconfigure it as an answer to the social question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue explores the intertwining reconfigurations of labour and welfare in the Global South by bringing together eight empirical studies of different national and transnational contexts and three commentaries. It asks how Global South people and states alike have come to prioritize market logics as guiding principles for welfare systems, moving away from collective risk-pooling towards individual responsibility, and how this reorientation is connected to the restructuring of labour. In this introduction to the special issue, we discuss the genealogies of the social question and review the growing academic discussion on the changing landscape of welfare in the Global South. We then underscore how the contemporary social question is predominantly framed in the terms of people's capacity for market participation in the specific empirical contexts discussed by our authors. The framing of the social question as such, and the accompanying solutions to it, we argue, disregards politics, political economy and social justice at the cost of the more urgent social question that confronts the increasingly asymmetrical power relations between labour and capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical link between labour and welfare is increasingly considered in the transnational register, largely because labour mobilities demand a rethinking of nation-based social protection systems. Transnational labour mobilities also illuminate other dimensions of boundary-crossing, including formality–informality, citizenship–non-citizenship and production–reproduction. These additional considerations call for going beyond the problem of transnational welfare access. We argue that the prism of social reproduction enables such a rethinking of the labour–welfare relationship. In this article, we conceptualise an expanded notion of welfare as flourishing social reproduction, in contradistinction to the principle of welfare deriving primarily from paid work and labour market participation. We apply this theorisation of welfare to our qualitative case study of the experiences and interests of Polish and Ukrainian migrant workers in Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom employed in care provision, food production and housing construction sectors. In the geopolitical setting of uneven and combined Europe, embodying high levels of differentiation together with advanced transnational social protection, we explore the role of differentiation of migrants in labour markets (along work, migration and citizenship axes) and the extent to which transnational mobility facilitates the improvement of social reproduction. While the low-waged labour of Polish and Ukrainian men and women working in care, food and housing furnishes their own and local workers' social reproduction needs, we find that migrant workers' welfare as flourishing social reproduction remains wanting, even for those with already privileged access to the current 'gold-standard' transnational social protection offered by the EUs freedoms of movement framework. Welfare remains centred on individualised paid work logic, leaving a vast range of needs unmet and work and workers excluded, bearing implications for prevalent transnational social protection efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the post-war experimental British novel helps theorise a response towards the aesthetics of representation and ethics of connection with 'invisible,' migrant characters through the aesthetic of defamiliarisation. Turning to Christine Brooke-Rose's 1964 avant-garde novel Out, I contend that the novel provides a defamiliarising, non-sentimental response to what Lyndsey Stonebridge calls the 'placeless condition' of the mid-twentieth century. Through a close reading of Out's estranging practices, I demonstrate that the novel's narrative choices become both a modality of non-sympathetic representation and a politically potent critique of the placeless condition through the narratological foregrounding of typically unnoticeable non-human entities. That these narrative choices, in fact, enable an engagement with the character's perspective, suggests that the process of 'staying with the estranging' also constitutes an ethical practice of acknowledgement and connection with an 'invisible' character, away from emotional identification. By centring my analysis on defamiliarisation, I also trace a trajectory between Viktor Shklovsky's Formalist thinking and Brooke-Rose's literary work, investigating more specifically the heretofore unexamined, yet crucial, imbrication of labour and affective estrangement as readerly practices that defamiliarisation encourages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2023 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Claudia Goldin "for having advanced our understanding of women's labour market outcomes". This paper surveys Goldin's contributions, analysing women's labour force participation from the late 1700s through to the present. To document women's participation in the workforce, Goldin uncovered rich data from varied sources, from government reports and city directories to health surveys and university registration cards. She combined these data with economic theory to identify the factors affecting women's employment and to explore how we might achieve gender equity today. Her work has had an immense influence on how we understand the labour market, household decision‐making, and gender inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article expands on an ongoing dialogue about representations of female protagonists' sensual and embodied experiences in Francophone North African cinema scholarship. It examines the dynamic cinematographic styles of contemporary Maghrebi French filmmakers Abdellatif Kechiche, Nadia El Fani, Leila Kilani and Houda Benyamina, asserting that they create a multisensory connection with the viewer that disrupts the underlying unequal power dynamic between film viewer and the Maghrebi woman's body. This article places labour practices as the loci of analysis, as these examples of quotidian life represent a microcosm of protagonists' participation in larger social and economic frameworks. First, it looks at the role of embodied labour in strengthening a protagonist's connection to her community in Kechiche's La Graine et le mulet/The Secret of the Grain (2007) and El Fani's Bedwin Hacker (2003). Then, it turns to labour practices in Kilani's Sur la planche/On the Edge (2011) and Benyamina's Divines (2016) that isolate and disconnect the protagonist from her community and her body. This article concludes that it is the distinctly multisensory style used by all four directors that centres their protagonists' physical, lived experiences while challenging the viewer not to merely watch them passively, but to engage in a dynamic, empathetic relationship with the body onscreen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our present changing climate, water governance is fast becoming a matter of concern everywhere, but especially in the Global South, which has long been the object of (mis)understandings of state failure and dysfunction. A common characterisation of "bad" water governance calls attention to the waste of water. In this article I show how contemporary development discourse and practice around the waste of water articulate conceptions of bureaucratic labour, farmer capability, and the suitability of irrigation practices, recalling a prior moment in colonial water governance. Examining the development of the "duty of water" in the context of canal irrigation infrastructure in colonial Punjab, I argue that seemingly "technical" measures and metrics of water governance are rooted in a colonial grammar, and show how the duty of water articulated racialised classifications of natives as wasteful, their places as waste, and of their labour, both agricultural and bureaucratic. While the tendency has been to view colonial irrigation as a battle with nature, I emphasise it instead as a battle of British with native labour to contribute to conceptualisations of environment and bureaucracy inseparable from, and incomplete without, an understanding of racialised labour. Today, figurations of labour have changed, but the underlying view of labour impeding, not enabling, governance, continues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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