Pandemics, intellectual property and 'our economy': A worldview analysis of Canada's role in compromising global access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Despite self-congratulatory rhetoric, Canada compromised COVID-19 vaccine equity with policies impeding a proposed global waiver of vaccine intellectual property (IP) rules. To learn from Canada's vaccine nationalism we explore the worldview - a coherent textual picture of the world - in a sample of Government of Canada communications regarding global COVID-19 vaccine sharing. Analysed documents portray risks and disparities as unrelated to the dynamics and power relations of the Canadian and international economies. Against this depoliticised backdrop, economic growth fueled by strict IP rules and free trade is advanced as the solution to inequities. Global vaccine access and distribution are pursued via a charity-focused public-private-partnership approach, with proposals to relax international IP rules dismissed as unhelpful. Rather than a puzzling lapse by a good faith 'middle power', Canada's obstruction of global COVID-19 vaccine equity is a logical and deliberate extension of dominant neoliberal economic policy models. Health sector challenges to such models must prioritise equity in global pandemic governance via politically assertive and less conciliatory stances towards national governments and multilateral organisations. Mobilisation for health equity should transform the overall health-damaging macroeconomic model, complementing efforts based on specific individual health determinants or medical technologies.

Examining the health and wellness of solo self-employed workers through narratives of precarity: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: In recent decades, there has been a significant transformation in the world of work that is characterized by a shift from traditional manufacturing and managerial capitalism, which offered stable full-time employment, to new forms of entrepreneurial capitalism. This new paradigm involves various forms of insecure, contingent, and non-standard work arrangements. Within this context, there has been a noticeable rise in Self-Employed individuals, exhibiting a wide range of -working arrangements. Despite numerous investigations into the factors driving individuals towards Self-Employment and the associated uncertainties and insecurities impacting their lives and job prospects, studies have specifically delved into the connection between the precarious identity of Self-Employed workers and their overall health and well-being. This exploratory study drew on a 'precarity' lens to make contributions to knowledge about Self-Employed workers, aiming to explore how their vulnerable social position might have detrimental effects on their health and well-being. METHODS: Drawing on in-depth interviews with 24 solo Self-Employed people in Ontario (January - July 2021), narrative thematic analysis was conducted based on participants' narratives of their work experiences. The dataset was analyzed with the support of NVIVO qualitative data analysis software to elicit narratives and themes. FINDINGS: The findings showed that people opt into Self-Employment because they prefer flexibility and autonomy in their working life. However, moving forward, in the guise of flexibility, they encounter a life of precarity, in terms of job unsustainability, uncertainties, insecurities, unstable working hours and income, and exclusion from social benefits. As a result, the health and well-being of Self-Employed workers are adversely affected by anger, anomie, and anxiety, bringing forward potential risks for a growing population. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Neoliberalism fabricates a 'precariat' Self-Employed class. This is a social position that is vague, volatile, and contingent, that foreshadows potential threats of the health and wellbeing of a growing population in the changing workforce. The findings in this research facilitate some policy implications and practices at the federal or provincial government level to better support the health and wellbeing of SE'd workers.

Continuity or change? Platforms and the hybridization of neoliberal institutional contexts.

In recent years, a wide range of contributions have sought to conceptualize the emergent effects of platforms on contemporary capitalism(s). One strand of literature has emphasized the novelty of platforms, stressing their disruptive features and proclaiming the rise of a new era - platform/digital capitalism. Another strand has tended to position platforms within the longue durée of capitalist transformation, focusing on the continuities and historical recurrences of platform-led transformations. In contrast to both strands of literature, this paper argues that platforms should be understood as reworking existing, neoliberal institutions from within, engendering a process of hybridization. It builds on the French Régulation approach to trace platform-led transformations in the wage relation and social reproduction. It argues that platforms have consolidated their dominance in the post-2008 financial crisis period by, on the one hand, inserting themselves into neoliberal 'innovations' in labor markets, benefitting from a flexibilized, precaritized and casualized workforce and, on the other, by responding to the neoliberal crisis in social reproduction, and the decades-long privatization, marketization and individualization of reproductive tasks. It explores these dynamics in the context of Amsterdam and Berlin, tracing the hybridization of the neoliberal wage-labor nexus in the context of food delivery, cleaning and care platforms.

Mind-Stuff and Withdrawal of the Senses: Toward an Interpretation of Pratyahara in Contemporary Postural Yoga.

Yoga has become a popular health and wellbeing practice that draws on ancient philosophy. Pratyahara is a core tenet of yoga practice and is often translated to mean withdrawal of the senses. Withdrawing from the senses plays a key role in aiding yoga practitioners to find spiritual enlightenment by transcending the worldly. Withdrawing from the material world, however, does not neatly fit within the parameters of the contemporary postural yoga industry. This paper looks at the conceptual origins of pratyahara through stances relevant to health research. The author weaves biomedical, esthetic, and neoliberal onto-epistemological stances through health discourse to discuss how postural yoga both resists and replicates power imbalances. In so doing the author emphasizes the paradoxical nature of pratyahara as it is reflected in socio-political tensions of the yoga industry. To conclude, the author suggests that pratyahara itself can be useful in resolving this tension as yoga fulfills a philosophical prerogative for social change.

Technological Encounters in a Knowledge Economy: An Epistemic X-Ray.

Climate emergency is a planetary health and systems science challenge because human health, nonhuman animal health, and the health of the planetary ecosystems are coproduced and interdependent. Yet, we live in a time when climate emergency is tackled by platitudes and weak reforms instead of structural and systems changes, and with tools of the very same systems and metanarratives, for example, infinite growth at all costs, that are causing climate change in the first place. Seeking solutions to problems from within the knowledge frames and metanarratives that are causing the problems reproduces the same problems across time and geographies. This article examines and underlines the importance of an epistemological gaze on knowledge economy, an epistemological X-ray, as another solution in the toolbox of decolonial and other social justice struggles in an era of climate emergency. Epistemology questions and excavates the metanarratives embedded in knowledge forms that are popular, dominant, and hegemonic as well as knowledges that are silent, omitted, or erased. In this sense, epistemology does not take the "archives" of data and knowledge for granted but asks questions such as who, when, how, and with what and whose funding the archive was built, and what is included and left out? Epistemological choices made by innovators, funders, and knowledge actors often remain opaque in knowledge economies. Epistemology research is crucial for science and innovations to be responsive to planetary society and climate emergency and mindful of the social, political, neocolonial, and historical contexts of science and technology in the 21st century.

Unmasking imposter syndrome: individual responsibility or repercussions of systemic oppression?

In contemporary and popular discourse, imposter syndrome is frequently outlined as an individual problem that can be overcome. Rather than the locus of responsibility being placed on the individual, we posit that neoliberal academic institutions contribute to imposter syndrome by (de)legitimising certain forms of knowledge.

The problem with resilience.

The term 'resilience' has become a fashionable buzzword infiltrating mental health services globally. This latest ad nauseam has become both an irritation and insult to service users and mental health professionals alike. We argue resilience is a flawed Western theory of suffering aligned with neoliberal ideology. It is a double-edged sword indiscriminately yielded at both service users and staff. This paper examines the origins and evolution of resilience, and how mental health services have morphed resilience into a meaningless slogan, causing iatrogenic harm. We call for mental health professionals to consider their use of language and the intended or unintentional meaning behind their choice of words.

Informal Employment Under the Skin: Informality and Health Inequalities Among Chilean Workers.

Informal employment has been identified as an important social determinant of health. This article addresses the processes through which informal employment affects workers' health in Chile. The study's methodological approach was based on qualitative interviews with 34 formal and informal workers. The findings show how workers perceive informal employment as negatively affecting their mental and physical health through different dimensions of their living and working conditions. Incorporating a gender perspective proves to be integral to the analysis of these processes. The article concludes by discussing how neoliberalism underlies such vulnerability processes and negatively impacts on the population's health.

Reconciling healthism and techno-solutionism: An observational study of a digital mental health trial.

In a growing trend in digital psychiatry, algorithmic systems are used to determine correlations between data that is collected using wearable devices and self-reports of mood. They then offer recommendations for behaviour modification for improved mood. The present study consists of observations of the development of one of these systems. Descriptions of the trial emphasise the powerful role of the intrinsically motivated, responsible participant on one hand and the empowering machine learning (ML)-based technology on the other. This conceptualisation is shown to extend the neoliberal paradox of a freedom that, to be maintained, must be continually adjusted through discipline. Because of the paradoxical nature of this formulation, laboratory members disagree about the balance of agency between the objective machine learning system and the empowered participant. The guides who help participants interpret ML outputs and implement system recommendations are ascribed a replaceable role in formal accounts. Observations of this guidance practice make clear not only the important role played by guides but also how their work is relegated to the technological side of the broader formulation of the trial and further how this conceptualisation affects the way they conduct their work.

Vanishing academics: On the importance of speed and becoming-imperceptible.

Under the influence of neoliberalism, academic work faces mounting pressure to align with imperatives of visibility and perceptibility. Traditionally criticised for working in isolated 'ivory towers', academics are now compelled to showcase the societal value of their work through performance metrics and evaluations. Paradoxically, these efforts have unintentionally led to the rigidification and commodification of academic work, stifling the production of knowledge beyond predefined parameters. In this paper, we contend that academics should resist the imposition of this neoliberal 'grid' and instead seek a path of 'becoming-imperceptible', drawing inspiration from the insights of Deleuze and Guattari. Becoming-imperceptible does not entail silent disengagement; rather, it represents a creative form of resistance challenging prevailing modes of assessment rooted in visibility and perceptibility. By incorporating the concept of 'fast feminism' to subvert Paul Virilio's hypermasculine speed theory, we uncover the transformative potential of temporary absences. Leveraging these moments of absence, academics can intensify their affective connections with both their peers and their work, making them undiscernible to the confines of the academic establishment. We argue that these instances of imperceptibility create fertile ground for creative and inventive academic endeavours on the margins of established boundaries, where original scholarship can flourish. Such a subversive approach is particularly relevant in fields like nursing and the health sciences, where it can challenge the dominant discourses that typify neoliberal academia.

Do Discurso Capitalista Neoliberal ao Sujeito como Inapropriável / From the Neoliberal Capitalist Discourse to the Subject as Unappropriable / Del Discurso Capitalista Neoliberal al Sujeto como Inapropiable

Por meio da formalização lacaniana da teoria dos discursos e do discurso do capitalista, objetivamos localizar os modos de operação presentes na racionalidade neoliberal. Partimos da introdução de uma nova modalidade de laço social, que parece travar as possibilidades de funcionamento do quarto de giro e opera sob o psiquismo aos moldes de uma produção ilimitada, reduzindo o desejo à dimensão da demanda. Esse movimento realiza uma manobra de captura da subjetividade por meio do supereu e passa a se orientar por horizontes forjados pelo neoliberalismo. A empreitada do discurso do capitalista se assemelha a um "crime perfeito", a qual tem como meta o apagamento de qualquer rastro que sirva como uma orientação desejante. Apostamos na inscrição do desejo por meio do ato de escuta como estratégia de localização de representações possíveis. Assim evita-se a consumação de um crime perfeito e trata-se de uma operação com um resto inassimilável pela economia de mercado. É na medida em que esse resto pode ser acolhido por meio de uma escuta que se inscreve a possibilidade de produção não apenas de uma coordenada pautada no desejo bem como de uma estratégia política frente ao ilimitado dos mercados contemporâneos.

Through Lacan's formalization of the theory of discourses and the discourse of the capitalist, we aim to locate the operation modes present in neoliberal rationality. We start from the introduction of a new modality of social bond, which seems to block the working possibilities of a quarter spin and operates under the psyche in the mold of an unlimited production, reducing desire to the dimension of demand. This movement captures the subjectivity through the superego and begins to be guided by horizons forged by neoliberalism. The endeavor of the capitalist discourse resembles the "perfect crime", which has as its goal the erasure of any trace that serves as a desiring orientation. We bet on the inscription of desire through the act of listening as a strategy for locating possible representations. In this way, the consummation of a perfect crime is avoided and it is turns to be about an operation with a leftover that cannot be assimilated by the market economy. It is to the extent that this remainder can be welcomed through listening that the possibility of producing not only a coordinate based on desire, but also a political strategy in the face of the unlimited nature of contemporary markets is inscribed.

Por medio de la formalización lacaniana de la teoría de los discursos y del discurso del capitalista, pretendemos ubicar los modos de operación presentes en la racionalidad neoliberal. Partimos de la introducción de una nueva modalidad de vínculo social, que bloquea las posibilidades de trabajo del rotación y opera bajo el psiquismo en el molde de una producción ilimitada, reduciendo el deseo a la demanda. Este movimiento captura la subjetividad a través del superyó y comienza a guiarse por horizontes forjados por el neoliberalismo. La obra del discurso capitalista se asemeja al "crimen perfecto", que tiene como fin borrar cualquier rastro de orientación deseante. Apostamos por la inscripción del deseo a través del acto de escuchar como estrategia de localización de posibles representaciones. De esta forma se evita la consumación de un delito perfecto y se trata de una operación con un resto que no puede ser asimilado por la economía de mercado. Es en la medida en que este resto puede ser acogido a través de la escucha que se inscribe la posibilidad de producir no sólo una coordenada basada en el deseo, sino también una estrategia política frente a la naturaleza ilimitada de los mercados contemporáneos.

"Your Diet Defines Who You Are, Especially as a Man": Masculinity in Online Media Focused on Healthy Eating for Men.

In contexts marked by neoliberal ideology and a claimed "crisis" in men's health, men are responsibilized to be/come healthy. Eating has long been a gendered practice in Western cultures, and recent cultural shifts have produced ways of eating that are both masculinized and (claimed) healthy. Online healthy eating advice, which encourages and supports men to eat healthily, is an important information source. However, such information draws on, reproduces, and/or disrupts existing meanings about men and eating. To understand contemporary representations of men and healthy eating, we examined 30 online media articles oriented specifically to this topic. Using reflexive thematic analysis from a social constructionist position, we developed two themes: A lad's looks and lifestyle and Mind over matter: The masculine mindset. These themes together told an overarching story that healthy eating is effectively sold to men by drawing on traditional or hegemonic ideals of masculinity and effectively evoking access to an enhanced masculinity through healthy eating. While these representational practices may sell healthy eating to men, with likely positive health benefits, they also reinforce hegemonic ideals of masculinity which can be problematic from a health perspective.

Meritocracia: uma ideologia em prol do Neoliberalismo / Meritocracy: an ideology in favor of Neoliberalism / Meritocracia: una ideología a favor del neoliberalismo

Este artigo visa mostrar como a meritocracia é uma ideologia que se imbrica no sistema capitalista neoliberal e promove a manutenção do status quo. Busca-se desnaturalizar a lógica meritocrática que se apresenta como inerente ao funcionamento social. Ela é mascarada pela aparência de ser a única proposta adequada para categorizar os sujeitos em seus devidos lugares, em uma sociedade de classes. A complexidade desse fenômeno, que se apresenta em um discurso lacunar, permite que sejam analisadas as brechas em que o próprio discurso meritocrático falha. Neste artigo, nos debruçaremos sobre tais lacunas, e verificaremos como essa ideologia, fundamentada pela lógica liberal, promove a legitimação das disparidades sociais. Para fazer essa análise, é necessário se esquivar da lógica individual, e verificar como, coletivamente, são produzidas e se mantidas superestruturas sociais que configuram as dimensões subjetivas da realidade. Não se propõe, portanto, um olhar ingênuo às estruturas sociais como "algo dado", e sim construído pelos agentes sociais que estão atravessados pela ideologia vigente (AU).

This paper aims to show how meritocracy is an ideology that is built-in the neoliberal capitalism and how it maintains the status quo. It seeks to denaturalize the meritocratic logic that presents itself as inherent to social functioning. Meritocracy is masked by the appearance of being the only appropriate proposal to categorize people to their standing in a class society. The complexity of this phenomenon, which is presented in a lacking discourse, allows one to analyze the gaps in which the meritocratic discourse itself fails. We intend to inspect such gaps, and see how this ideology, based on the liberal logic, promotes the legitimation of social disparities. In order to carry out this analysis, it is necessary to avoid the individualistic logic, and also to verify how social superstructures that compose the subjective dimensions of reality are produced and maintained collectively. Therefore, we do not propose a naive portrait of social structures as straightforward, but forged by the social agents who are mingled with the prevailing ideology (AU).

Este artículo tiene como objetivo mostrar cómo la meritocracia es una ideología que se inserta en el sistema capitalista neoliberal y promueve el mantenimiento del status quo. Buscamos desnaturalizar la lógica meritocrática que se presenta como inherente al funcionamiento social. Está enmascarado por la apariencia de ser la única propuesta adecuada para categorizar los asuntos en su lugar apropiado, en una sociedad de clases. La complejidad de este fenómeno, que se presenta en un discurso lacunar, permite analizar los vacíos en los que falla el propio discurso meritocrático. En este artículo examinaremos estas brechas y veremos cómo esta ideología, basada en la lógica liberal, promueve la legitimación de las disparidades sociales. Para realizar este análisis es necesario evitar la lógica individual y verificar cómo las superestructuras sociales que configuran las dimensiones subjetivas de la realidad se producen y mantienen colectivamente. Por tanto, no proponemos una mirada ingenua a las estructuras sociales como determinado, sino construidas por agentes sociales atravesados por la ideología imperante (AU).

What Drives Counter-Extremism? The Extent of P/CVE Policies in the West and Their Structural Correlates.

Counter-extremism (P/CVE) policies have shot to global prominence rapidly, yet there are large discrepancies in their implementation both between, and inside, countries. In this paper, we construct and present a robust index of P/CVE policies in Western countries (N = 38), based on data submitted by national experts, which we then use to test three hypothesized structural correlates of the extent of P/CVE implementation: threat of terrorism (measured as the number of past attacks/victims), size of Muslim minorities (Muslim communities have been "securitised" as potential threats in the post 9/11 period), and neoliberal governance (drawing on criminological literature that connects neoliberalism to anticipatory crime control). We find the first two structural factors to be positively and significantly correlated to the intensity of P/CVE deployment, while neoliberal governance negatively and significantly. In the discussion, we highlight the usefulness of a complementary in-depth qualitative research inspired by these findings.

Degrees of change: the promise of anti-racist assessment.

Assessment practices in Higher Education remain beholden to the twin pillars of neoliberal economic orthodoxy and White supremacy. The former has given rise to the modularization and commodification of education, wherein student performance is measured according to narrow and often meaningless metrics that foster and maintain ineffective assessment mechanisms. The latter imbues those metrics with a deference to, and valorization of, "Whiteness" as a marker of success, and this manifests in persistent awarding gaps across the sector. Critical Race Theory elucidates the ways in which the "banking model" of education and assessment is implicated in a history of colonial oppression that underpins contemporary experiences of marginalization for racially minoritized students. Furthermore, the rapid proliferation of Artificial Intelligence programs is now throwing into sharp relief the fact that traditional forms of assessment are no longer functional even on their own flawed terms. The authors argue that, at this critical juncture, Anti-Racist assessment, which not only exposes and problematizes racism itself but also embeds formative feedback, drafting, collaboration, and creativity into assessment practices, offers a practical solution that can reconceptualize 'academic excellence' and help to identify and support a different kind of 'good student', reshaping the employability agenda as a force for good and reclaiming the democratizing potential of Higher Education.

Historicizing psychedelics: counterculture, renaissance, and the neoliberal matrix.

In this essay, I would like to suggest that the historical transition of psychedelics from an association with counterculture to becoming part of the mainstream is related to the rise of what late cultural theorist Mark Fisher termed "capitalist realism"-the notion that there is no alternative form of social organization and, as such, capitalism simply is reality. For Fisher, the economic and political project of neoliberalism was the main agent behind this re-instauration of capitalist hegemony after its de-stabilization by the convergence of several radical forces at the end of the 1960s and early 70s, of which psychedelic "consciousness-expansion" was one. Thus, historicizing psychedelics within the shifts in political economy and culture associated with the "collective set and setting" of neoliberalism can serve both to understand the current shape and operations of the psychedelic "renaissance" as well as help us retrieve these substance's lost political potential. Concretely, this essay argues that such potential was not inherent to psychedelics but embedded in the political economy of the New Deal order, which supported both the formation of discourses, demands, and hopes based on "the social" and, relatedly, the idea that "the personal is political." As neoliberalism displaced this object of reference in favor of individualism, the personal was de-linked from the political and the dreams-and the threats-of psychedelic utopianism were successfully defused and forgotten. In the process, concretely, the anti-work and collective dimensions of the psychedelic counterculture have been all but lost as psychedelics have returned to enhance or treat individual brains-while leaving capitalist society unchallenged. In light of our ecological and social predicaments, the famous context-dependence of psychedelics can be a powerful reminder that, contra individualism, the social and political traverse the personal-and thus that to change the self in line with the psychedelic values of love and connection ultimately requires changing the world.

The Scylla State. A gendered understanding of the experiences of marginalised women in the United Kingdom.

Since the formation of the 2012 Coalition government, the UK has been subject to 12 years of neoliberal policy enacted with ferocity and vigour. This has comprised austerity measures including the retrenchment of welfare via the reshaping of the welfare state and public services according to business practices, ideals of individual responsibilisation and overwhelmingly, the notion of reducing the state's ideological and fiscal responsibility for equity and social welfare. The neoliberal state has been conceptualised by Loic Wacquant as a Centaur, boasting a liberal head, yet one atop an authoritarian body whose focus is the designated 'underclasses', the socially and economically non-compliant. The Centaur takes away with one hand while ruling punitively with the other, specifically via 'prisonfare' and 'workfare' to compel submission to precarious and sub-par employment. Although compelling, the Centaur State is justifiably critiqued for its blindness to gender and focus upon the manifestation of neoliberalism in the States. By exploring the stories of 23 women in the UK with histories of survival sex working and problematic drug use, a distinct gendered alternative reality emerges of the operation and machinations of the neoliberal state. Rather than a Centaur, marginalised women experience the Scylla State, a covert, hydra-headed beast motivated by neo-Victorian ideals of 'womanfare'. The operations of the Scylla State are unpredictable, replicate traumatising interpersonal experiences and variously involve surveillance, coercion, conditionality and the responsibilisation of victimhood to justify increasingly punitive responses to women's survival strategies in the face of increasing trauma and deprivation.

The I-frame vs. S-frame: how neoliberalism has led behavioral sciences astray.

In their recently published paper, Chater and Loewenstein critically elaborate on the differences between interventions that focus on individual behavior ('i-frame'), as opposed to the systems in which health behavior occurs ('s-frame'). They point out that behavioral scientists frequently rely on individual-level interventions, rather than systemic change to improve population health. As individual-level interventions have fallen short of the author's expectations to fix health problems, the authors argue that behavioral scientists should focus more on system-level change. They warn behavioral scientists that by framing disease as an individual problem they hinder real change. We agree with the arguments made by the authors; nevertheless, we propose that bringing underlying causes for the i-frame focus to light would advance their argument. In our commentary, we discuss that neoliberalism might be a reason for the focus on individual interventions in behavioral health sciences.

Exploring the Evidence for the Paradigms of Recovery and Social Work Converging in Mental Health Service Delivery Worldwide: Reflections from an Irish Case Study.

Recovery within mental health service delivery is no longer a new consideration in the Western world. However, it is well-documented how challenging its implementation and translation to practice and reality have been in contemporary mental health systems. In conjunction with this, mental health social work is continuously being challenged and debated in relation to its role, responsibilities, and identity in service delivery. This is largely the consequence of the continued dominance of the biomedical model in relation to service delivery. Yet, if we critically reflect on the philosophy and ethos of recovery, it becomes very clear that social work should be the key profession to lead the development and improvement of recovery-orientated services across the globe. To illustrate this argument, the authors first draw on empirical research undertaken by the lead author within the Republic of Ireland on how recovery is socially constructed within mental health service delivery. The key stakeholders involved in the Irish study included professionals, service users, family members, and policy influencers, with participants taking part in semi-structured interviews. Secondly, the authors reflect on some of the findings from this Irish study, presenting an argument for not only a more significant role for social work in an Irish mental health context but also making comparisons from an international perspective. This includes exploring the role of critical social work traditions for supporting services to move beyond a philosophy of recovery that has, to date, overlooked the intersectional injustices and inequalities faced by hard-to-reach populations. Finally, the authors conclude by providing some possibilities for how the paradigms of social work and recovery can and should continue to converge towards each other, opening a space for social work to become a more dominant perspective within mental health systems worldwide.