James Kneale

Excessive financialisation: insuring lifestyles, enlivening subjects, and everyday spaces of biosocial excess

The last two decades have witnessed, as part of a wider financialisation of British economy and society, a creeping privatisation of social welfare provision. Political justification for the expansion of privatised social insurance markets has frequently been couched in the language of responsibility. However, as the ‘credit crunch’ spectacularly attests and as studies of the dynamics of financialisation have succeeded in showing, financialised capitalism turns on excess. In this paper we explore some of the ways in which the reworking of long-term insurance or life assurance has contributed to the financialisation of everyday life. More particularly, we trace the emergence of what we call ‘lifestyle insurance’. Our purpose here is not only to begin to map the terrain and consider the consequences of this nascent modality of insurance in the UK, but in so doing to contribute to wider debates about the processes of subjectification that underwrite financialisation. In addition to pressing for a greater attention to be given to life assurance the paper suggests, by mobilising the figure of excess, three more areas to which studies of the financialisation of the everyday might productively attend: first, the financialisation of life itself; second, the ways in which financialisation is affectively charged; third, the spatial politics of financialisation.

Science fiction or future fact? Exploring imaginative geographies of the New Millennium

In this article, we examine the imaginative geographies of the new millennium through a critical reading of cyberfiction. This fiction, we argue, through its use of estrangement and defamiliarization, and its destabilization of the foundational assumptions of modernism, provides a cognitive space in which to contemplate future spatialities given the present postmodern condition–a cognitive space which is already providing an imaginal sphere in which present-day individual and institutional thought and practice are partially shaped. Using a detailed reading of 34 novels and four collections of short stories, we illustrate the utility of this cognitive space, and its appropriation, through an exploration of fictional visions of postmodern urbanism in the early twenty-first century. We assess the viability and utility of these visions by comparing them to academic analyses of the sociospatial processes shaping present-day urban form and spatiality.

Drinking pattern is more strongly associated with under-reporting of alcohol consumption than socio-demographic factors: evidence from a mixed-methods study

BackgroundUnder-reporting of alcohol consumption is widespread; surveys typically capture 40-60% of alcohol sales. However the population distribution of under-reporting is not well understood.MethodsMixed-methods study to identify factors associated with under-reporting, using the nationally-representative Health Survey for England (HSE) 2011 (overall response rate 66%). Comparison of retrospective computer-assisted personal interview and seven-day drinking diary (n = 3,774 adults 18+, 50% women, diary response rate 69%) to identify factors associated with diary responses exceeding those of the interview using multivariable linear regression for three outcomes: drinking days in the week recorded, volume consumed on heaviest drinking day in the week recorded, and weekly alcohol consumption. Qualitative semi-structured interviews (n = 10) explored reasons for under-reporting in further detail.ResultsNumber of drinking days was slightly greater in the diary than the interview (P < 0.001). Reported consumption was higher in the diary than in the interview for heaviest drinking day in the week recorded (0.7 units greater among men, 1.2 units among women, P < 0.001), and weekly alcohol consumption in women only (1.1 units among women, P = 0.003). Participants who drank more frequently, more heavily, and had a more varied drinking pattern with respect to the types of drink consumed or choice of drinking venues had a larger difference between their diary week and their interview week.The qualitative interviews identified having a non-routine drinking pattern, self-perception as a non-frequent drinker, and usually tracking drinking using experiential approaches as linked to more drinking being reported in the diary than the retrospective interview.ConclusionsHeavy drinking and non-routine drinking patterns may be associated with greater under-reporting of alcohol consumption. Estimates of drinking above recommended levels are likely to be disproportionately under-estimated.

SPECULATING ON CARELESS LIVES

This paper is concerned with biofinancialisation; that is, with the ways in which contemporary processes of financialisation and biopolitics intermesh and interpolate. While the significance of the relation between the bios and circuits of finance has begun to be recognised, biofinancialisation remains little interrogated. In seeking to address this lacuna, the paper focuses on the recent transformation of the UK after-retirement market and, in particular, the invention of enhanced and impaired pension annuities. Enhanced annuity products like the ‘smokers’ pension’ provide, we argue, a striking example of the ways in which biofinancialisation works to fashion new worlds for capitalist accumulation, in this case through the capitalisation of morbidity and of the residual vital capacities of life, and the ways in which novel forms of biofinancial subject and subjectivity are produced to populate such worlds – to make them live. The paper concludes by identifying three political fracture points or fault lines in the enterprise to secure life biofinancially through the enhancing of annuities: first, the promise of reconciliation; second, the promise of autonomy and freedom; and, third, the promise of a good retirement.

Mapping alcohol: Health, policy and the geographies of problem drinking in Britain

While parallels can be drawn between contemporary problem drinking in Britain and apparently similar cases from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, little attention has been paid to the ways in which drink is represented as a spatial problem. Closer analysis reveals that the mapping of ‘clusters’ of alcohol outlets or trouble spots has waxed and waned over the last hundred and fifty years, and that the appearance, disappearance and re-emergence of the cluster in policy discussions owes a good deal to changing understandings of the nature of public drinking. Both temperance and contemporary epidemiological approaches favour the cluster because they assume that the supply of alcohol lies at the root of the problems seen to be associated with drink, and mapping clusters makes this supply visible. In contrast the disease theory of alcoholism favours individual rather than social causes, and has little use for maps of clusters; as a consequence the cluster seems to disappear from discussions in the middle years of the twentieth century. The paper concludes that the history of problem drinking demonstrates the need to pay closer attention to changing constructions of drink as problem and the need for a more sophisticated understanding of the history of medicine and public health. It also makes clear the need to look beyond the State and the market as spaces in which the risks of alcohol are calculated.

From beyond: H. P. Lovecraft and the place of horror

The work of the American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft offers a valuable opportunity to study the representation of space in literature, but while Lovecrafts biography provides a useful way of making sense of his horror fictions, it also risks obscuring the importance of his represented spaces. Many of these impossible spaces mark a threshold between the known and unknown, and the paper argues that an attention to narrative demonstrates that these thresholds constitute the fulcrum about which his plots move. The work of Mikhail Bakhtin also suggests that Lovecrafts belief that ‘change is the enemy of everything really worth cherishing’ explains why these thresholds are represented as threats rather than progressive engagements with social space.

Actual and Perceived Units of Alcohol in a Self-Defined “Usual Glass” of Alcoholic Drinks in England

Background Several studies have found participants pour more than 1 standard drink or unit as their usual glass. This is the first study to measure actual and perceived amounts of alcohol in a self-defined usual glass of wines and spirits in the general population. Methods Participants were a convenience sample of adults who drink alcohol or who pour drinks for other people (n = 283, 54% women) at 6 sites in South East England. The survey was face to face and comprised a self-completion questionnaire and pouring task. Estimation accuracy, categorised as correct (±0.5 units), underestimate (>0.5 units), or overestimate (>0.5 units) was the main outcome. Results The mean number of units poured was 1.90 (SD 0.80; n = 264) for wine and 1.93 (SD 0.78; n = 201) for spirits. The amount of alcohol in a self-defined usual glass was estimated in 440 glasses (248 wine and 192 spirits). Overestimation took place in 42% glasses of spirit poured and 29% glasses of wine poured, and underestimation in 17 and 19%, respectively. Multinomial logistic regression found volume poured to be significantly associated with underestimating both wines and spirits, and additionally for wine only, belonging to a non-white ethnic group and being unemployed or retired. Not having a university degree was significantly associated with overestimating both drink types. Conclusions This study is the first in the general population and did not identify systematic underestimation of the amount of alcohol in a self-defined usual glass. Underestimation is significantly associated with volume poured for both drink types; therefore, advocating pouring smaller glasses could reduce underestimation of alcohol consumption.

Plots: Space, Conspiracy, and Contingency in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition and Spook Country

The author William Gibson is clearly interested in space. However, as a novelist rather than a geographer, Gibson is interested in two kinds of plots: with locations but also with stories. His novels bring these two forms of ‘plot’ together: his narratives essentially involve the location and tracking of missing people and objects though space, as well as complex conspiracies; in his most recent novels—Pattern Recognition and Spook Country—these plots are set in motion by, or become tangled up with, members of security and intelligence services. They therefore seem like perfect examples of post-9/11 popular geopolitical texts. However, these concerns predate 9/11 by many years, and Gibsons plots are driven as much by contingency as conspiracy. As a consequence of this, unforeseen circumstances and the apparently coincidental meeting of characters both play an important role in the narratives. These geographies of conspiracy and coincidence are explored to suggest that, if Gibson is something of a ‘contingency theorist’, then it is partly because of the way he thinks and writes about space.

The Relations of Inebriety to Insurance”: geographies of medicine, insurance and alcohol in Britain, 1840-1911 2013 2013-01-01 Macmillan Education UK 87 109 24 0 0 In: Herring, and Regan, and Weinberg, and Withington, , (eds.) Intoxication: Problematic Pleasures. (pp. 87-109). Palgrave Macmillan (2013) 2016-06-24 349715201 26628 laser fusion volume 2 a bibliography with abstracts Laser fusion, volume 2. A bibliography with abstracts 1977 1977-01-01 0 0 0 2016-06-24 2581610355 20485 10.1063/1.4974970 Journal effect of graphene oxide on the microstructure and charge carrier transport of polyaniline nanocomposites under low applied electric fields Effect of graphene-oxide on the microstructure and charge carrier transport of polyaniline nanocomposites under low applied electric fields 2017 2017-01-28 AIP Publishing LLC 187991544 121 4 045109 25 1 1 Journal of Applied Physics 2017-02-03 156558941 22296 authentication authorization issues and fulltext document migration for the cern document server Authentication/authorization issues and fulltext document migration for the CERN Document Server 2007 2007-01-01 0 0 0 2016-06-24 349715260 23884 10.1107/S1600536804013662 Journal di aqua 2 2 bipyridyl 2 2 di hydroxy 1 1 bi naphthalene 3 3 di carboxyl ato cadmium ii n n di methyl form amide solvate Di­aqua(2,2′-bipyridyl)(2,2′-di­hydroxy-[1,1′]-bi­naphthalene-3,3′-di­carboxyl­ato)cadmium(II) N,N-di­methyl­form­amide solvate 2004 2004-07-15 Munksgaard International Publishers 2739106167 60 7 4 0 0 Acta Crystallographica Section E: Crystallographic Communications 2016-06-24 2581610359 25306 study in criminal precedents 406 Study in criminal precedents (406) 2008 2008-06-01 立花書房 61 6 213 224 0 0 0 警察学論集 2017-02-03 156558953 22819 Journal de l ermitage de la reine a la villa a l antique De l'Ermitage de la Reine a la villa a l'antique 2005 2005-01-01 Presses Universitaires de France, PUF 74137783 150 21 31 0 1 1 Revue De L Art 2016-06-24 349715272 21191 Journal hong kong s relations with china the future of one country two systems Hong Kong's Relations with China: The Future of One Country, Two Systems"

In August 1835 in Manchester Dr Ralph Barnes Grindrod participated in the ‘First Teetotal Discussion’, a public debate on temperance with the landlord of a local hotel. Grindrod was reportedly the fi rst British doctor to take the pledge and an early proponent of ‘medical temperance’. In many ways he epitomizes the aspects of temperance we are most familiar with, uniting medicine, morality and political activism in an assault on the drink trade, as reformers tested the possibilities of a newly emerging public sphere (MacFie, 1899; Grierson, 2001; Kneale, 2001). But Grindrod had another, less spectacular part to play in the battle against alcohol. By 1840 he had agreed to be a medical referee for the United Kingdom Total Abstinence Life Association, which would require him to assess the health of individuals seeking life insurance from this company. Grindrod’s role as a referee reminds us that life insurance was set against problematic drinking from the earliest years of organized temperance in Britain, and that there was a good deal more to drink in the nineteenth and early twentieth century than struggles over its regulation. This chapter examines the relationship between drinking and life assurance in Britain between 1840 and 1911. We have borrowed the title – ‘the relations of inebriety to insurance’ – from a paper given by Dr Norman Kerr in 1893 (Proceedings of the Society for the Study of Inebriety, 1893, pp. 12–14). Kerr was well placed to discuss this topic. He was the fi rst president of the Society for the Study of Inebriety, the chair of the British Medical Association’s Inebriates’ Legislation Committee, and one of the

Moderate drinking before the unit: medicine and life assurance in Britain and the US c.1860–1930

Abstract This article describes the way in which “Anstie’s Limit” – a particular definition of moderate drinking first defined in Britain in the 1860s by the physician Francis Edmund Anstie (1833–1874) – became established as a useful measure of moderate alcohol consumption. Becoming fairly well-established in mainstream Anglophone medicine by 1900, it was also communicated to the public in Britain, North America and New Zealand through newspaper reports. However, the limit also travelled to less familiar places, including life assurance offices, where a number of different strategies for separating moderate from excessive drinkers emerged from the dialogue between medicine and life assurance. Whilst these ideas of moderation seem to have disappeared into the background for much of the twentieth century, re-emerging as the “J-shaped” curve, these early developments anticipate many of the questions surrounding uses of the “unit” to quantify moderate alcohol consumption in Britain today. The article will therefore conclude by exploring some of the lessons of this story for contemporary discussions of moderation, suggesting that we should pay more attention to whether these metrics work, where they work and why.