The class differentiation of older age: Capitals and lifestyles.

Older people have been overlooked in recent debates over the relationship between age, class and culture despite their prevalence and the conceptual questions they raise. Seeking to bridge mainstream class analysis with debates in social gerontology, especially via a shared turn to Pierre Bourdieu's relational sociology, this paper draws on survey data from the US to examine not only the class position of older people but their internal social and cultural differentiation. I use geometric data analysis to construct a model of the class system, locate older people within it and then explore differences among older people. I then proceed to compare the cultural symbolisations of social positions among older people to those of the larger sample. The core structures of social and cultural differentiation among older people are roughly homologous with those of the broader sample, but there are also notable differences and even inversions pointing toward the specificity - and autonomy - of ageing as a principle of difference and practice.

Rethinking the nation and international relations: The space of nation states.

Efforts to move sociology beyond the nation state and international relations theory have both been plagued by several limitations and dualisms. Recent research has begun to find ways beyond the problems by turning to Pierre Bourdieu's relational conception of social structure and practice. Yet one specific relational structure forming a key part of the puzzle has been neglected or merely implicitly assumed so far: the space of nation states. After clarifying the structural-constructivist nature of this concept, we aim to specify it by constructing an empirical model of the contemporary space of nation states using a specially compiled dataset and tools of geometric data analysis. The analysis reveals the distribution of powers on the world scene, and more specifically, the uneven possession of two varieties of "meta-capital" understood as capacities to regulate the value and exchangeability of certain capitals and to decree what even defines a legitimate "state". We argue that the nation state, which is accurately understood as a contingent construct and well-founded fiction from a Bourdieusian viewpoint, should not be excluded when analyzing the expression and reproduction of contemporary global power relations.

The structure of food taste in 21st century Britain.

This paper draws on the concepts and tools of Pierre Bourdieu to construct a comprehensive model of the contemporary British "food space." It uses multiple correspondence analysis to unearth a space structured in two key dimensions revolving around the lean and the rich. A host of supplementary variables are available to examine the relationship, or homology, between food tastes and broader alimentary dispositions, including orientations toward shopping, ethics and cooking. Indicators of social position reveal the structuring of the space by economic and cultural capital as well as gender, but also, updating and nuancing Bourdieu's own model for 1970s' France, by age, region, ethnicity and religion. Finally, the paper examines the relationship between position in the food space and physical, mental and existential wellbeing, demonstrating that orientation toward the less healthy and the less rich, corresponding with few resources, is, in some cases, accompanied by not only hunger and deprivation but profound worry and misery.

Risk of Lung Cancer Mortality in Nuclear Workers from Internal Exposure to Alpha Particle-emitting Radionuclides.

BACKGROUND: Carcinogenic risks of internal exposures to alpha-emitters (except radon) are poorly understood. Since exposure to alpha particles-particularly through inhalation-occurs in a range of settings, understanding consequent risks is a public health priority. We aimed to quantify dose-response relationships between lung dose from alpha-emitters and lung cancer in nuclear workers. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study, nested within Belgian, French, and UK cohorts of uranium and plutonium workers. Cases were workers who died from lung cancer; one to three controls were matched to each. Lung doses from alpha-emitters were assessed using bioassay data. We estimated excess odds ratio (OR) of lung cancer per gray (Gy) of lung dose. RESULTS: The study comprised 553 cases and 1,333 controls. Median positive total alpha lung dose was 2.42 mGy (mean: 8.13 mGy; maximum: 316 mGy); for plutonium the median was 1.27 mGy and for uranium 2.17 mGy. Excess OR/Gy (90% confidence interval)-adjusted for external radiation, socioeconomic status, and smoking-was 11 (2.6, 24) for total alpha dose, 50 (17, 106) for plutonium, and 5.3 (-1.9, 18) for uranium. CONCLUSIONS: We found strong evidence for associations between low doses from alpha-emitters and lung cancer risk. The excess OR/Gy was greater for plutonium than uranium, though confidence intervals overlap. Risk estimates were similar to those estimated previously in plutonium workers, and in uranium miners exposed to radon and its progeny. Expressed as risk/equivalent dose in sieverts (Sv), our estimates are somewhat larger than but consistent with those for atomic bomb survivors.See video abstract at, http://links.lww.com/EDE/B232.

Concerted Uranium Research in Europe (CURE): toward a collaborative project integrating dosimetry, epidemiology and radiobiology to study the effects of occupational uranium exposure.

The potential health impacts of chronic exposures to uranium, as they occur in occupational settings, are not well characterized. Most epidemiological studies have been limited by small sample sizes, and a lack of harmonization of methods used to quantify radiation doses resulting from uranium exposure. Experimental studies have shown that uranium has biological effects, but their implications for human health are not clear. New studies that would combine the strengths of large, well-designed epidemiological datasets with those of state-of-the-art biological methods would help improve the characterization of the biological and health effects of occupational uranium exposure. The aim of the European Commission concerted action CURE (Concerted Uranium Research in Europe) was to develop protocols for such a future collaborative research project, in which dosimetry, epidemiology and biology would be integrated to better characterize the effects of occupational uranium exposure. These protocols were developed from existing European cohorts of workers exposed to uranium together with expertise in epidemiology, biology and dosimetry of CURE partner institutions. The preparatory work of CURE should allow a large scale collaborative project to be launched, in order to better characterize the effects of uranium exposure and more generally of alpha particles and low doses of ionizing radiation.

Class habitus and perception of the future: recession, employment insecurity and temporality.

This paper examines the consequences of the recent economic downturn and UK government spending cuts, as exacerbations of prevailing trends in neoliberal employment policy, on temporal perception, specifically as it relates to the adaptation of subjective anticipations of and projections into the future to objective prospects of unemployment by class. Grounded in a phenomenologically-minded Bourdieusian conceptualization of class and time and contextualized by statistics on chances of job loss, it draws on qualitative research with 57 individuals from across the class structure to chart differing dispositions toward the future. In particular, it distinguishes three orientations - the future as controllable, the future as uncontrollable and the future as reasonably controllable - which appear to correspond with resources possessed.

The genesis of Brexit in the UK: outline of a multi-field model.

This paper outlines a sociological model of the conditions of possibility of the UK's decision to withdraw from the European Union in 2016. Drawing on the conceptual tools of Pierre Bourdieu and those inspired by him, it synthesises and goes beyond the partial and fragmentary accounts offered so far to offer a more comprehensive narrative implicating the interrelation of multiple fields, with agents' evolving strategies within the different fields being the major fulcra. To be specific, the conditions of possibility for the referendum result were provided by mutations within the global field of nation states ricocheting through the UK's political field, ethno-racial field and class structure.

Beck, individualization and the death of class: a critique.

Ulrich Beck has argued that the changing logic of distribution and, more importantly, the 'individualization' of social processes in reflexive modernity have killed off the concept of social class and rendered the analysis of its effects a flawed endeavour. The present paper takes issue with this perspective by exposing its key weaknesses, namely its ambivalence and contradiction over what exactly constitutes individualization and the extent to which it has really displaced class, its inconsistent and caricaturized description of what actually constitutes class, its erroneous and unsatisfactory depiction of class analysis, and its self-defeating reasoning on the motors of individualization. The intention is not to conservatively deny that social change is occurring nor to advocate any particular model of class, but only to illustrate the aporias of Beck's position with the aim of vindicating the enterprise of class analysis.