Class, Gender, and the Conscientious Objector to Vaccination, 1898–1907

2002 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadja Durbach
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Smallpox Vaccination ◽  
Conscientious Objector ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Modern Subject ◽  
National Debate ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
The Law

In 1898, after forty-five years of enforcing mandatory infant smallpox vaccination, the British parliament passed an act to allow parents to “opt out” of the compulsory system. The 1898 Vaccination Act introduced a conscience clause that entitled parents who objected to the practice of vaccination to claim certificates of conscientious objection by applying to a magistrate for an exemption. This provided working- and lower-middle-class anti-vaccinationists a measure of relief from the repeated fines they had suffered for noncompliance with the law, and from the threat of imprisonment. By the end of 1898, over 200,000 certificates of conscientious objection had been issued. Many of these were granted in anti-vaccination strongholds where exemptions outnumbered vaccinations, but conscientious objection to vaccination was by no means limited to these regions. Once an amended conscience clause was passed in 1907, which made conscientious objector status much easier to attain, the national exemption rate grew to 25 percent of all births.The vaccination conscience clauses were controversial. As most of the applicants who applied for these exemption certificates came from the working classes, and many were women, these acts generated a national debate over the classed and gendered nature of the conscience and the meanings of conscientious objection. The years between 1898 and 1907 thus mark a significant moment in the making of the modern subject and citizen. For, as the debate over conscientious objection to vaccination reveals, who exactly was entitled to make a claim to possess a conscience, with its concomitant rights, was itself a contested issue.

New measures may not appease violent protests in Chile

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Business Elite ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government

Subject Continuing violent protests. Significance The wave of demonstrations and violence that has rocked Santiago and most other Chilean cities over the past few days, shocking Chileans themselves, is essentially a protest against the “1%”, in other words the political and business elite. However, this does not mean, at least for now, that Chileans want a radical change in the predominantly neoliberal economic model, but rather a fairer share of its proceeds and opportunities. Impacts Repair of some sections of the Metro could take months, to the detriment of mostly lower-middle-class neighbourhoods of Santiago. The disruption of activity will pull down growth this year, which was already expected to drop to around 2.5% from 4.0% in 2018. Growing reports of police and army brutality and violations of the law are further polarising the situation. For the rest of its term the government will be at the mercy of events and will have to negotiate agreements with the opposition.

V. Mechanics' Institutes and the Working Classes, 1840–1860

1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Royle
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
History Of Mechanics ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Higher Rank ◽  
To Come

The history of mechanics’ institutes ‘is at once beautiful and terrible to read', Christopher Charles Cattell, the Birmingham radical republican, told the members of his Eclectic Institute in 1854. Contemporaries of the mechanics’ institute movement in the mid-nineteenth century were acutely aware of this terrible history. ‘The banquet was prepared for guests who did not come …,’ wrote Robert Elliott in 1861. J. W. Hudson referred to ‘The universal complaint that Mechanics’ Institutions are attended by persons of a higher rank than those for whom they were designed…’ The Westminster Review continued the lament, Samuel Smiles, Lloyd Jones and J. M. Ludlow joined the chorus, and later historians have followed the tune. E. P. Thompson, for example, writes: ‘After the mid-Twenties the tendency was general for the custom of artisans to give way to that of the lower middle class, and for orthodox political economy to come into the syllabus.

Economic Justice

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-112
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Economic Justice ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Wealth Redistribution ◽  
Proper Weight

This chapter deals with economic justice and Rawls' difference principle. Macronism is not a uniquely French phenomenon. Like Thatcherism and Reaganism, it reflects a consensus between the winners of globalization and the economic order of a post-Cold-War world. The small-mean class, comprised of the working classes as well as the lower-middle class that largely form the movement of the gilets jaunes, has been sacrificed at the altar of austerity, privatization and the retreat of the state from social services. The particular brand of liberal-libertarianism being promoted by Macron is reminiscent of the worst aspects of Rawls and Nozick — with small amounts of wealth redistribution justifying large inequalities, and a laissez-faire economic model for those at the very top. A new social contract is desperately needed, one that gives economic concerns their proper weight and addresses the need for justice and solidarity discussed in this chapter.

Conscientious Objection (European and American approaches)

Law and World ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-144
Keyword(s):  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
Conscientious Objectors ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual

The Article concerns the legal issues, connected with the situation, when a person (or group of people) disobey requirements of the Law or other State regulations on the basis of religious or nonreligious belief. The Author analyses almost all related issues – whether imposing certain obligation on individuals, to which the individual has a conscientious objection based on his/her religious beliefs, always represents interference with his/her religion rights, and if it does, then what is subject of the interference – forum integrum or forum externum; whether neutral regulation, which does not refer to religion issues at all, could ever be regarded as interference into someone’s religious rights; whether opinion or belief, on which the individual’s objection and the corresponding conduct is based, must necesserily represent the clear “manifest” of the same religion or belief in order to gain legal protection; what is regarded as “manifest” of the religion or other belief in general and whether a close and direct link must exist between personal conduct and requirements of the religious or nonreligious belief; what are the criteria of the “legitimacy” of the belief; to what extent the following factors should be taken into consideration : whether the personal conduct of the individual represents the official requirements of corresponding religion or belief, what is the burden which was imposed on the believer’s religious or moral feelings by the State regulation, also, proportionality and degree of sincerity of the individual who thinks that his disobidience to the Law is required by his/her religious of philosofical belief. The effects (direct or non direct) of the nonfulfilment of the law requirement (legal responsibility, lost of the job, certain discomfort, etc..) are relevant factors as well. By the Author, all these circumstances and factors are essencial while estimating, whether it arises, actually, a real necessity and relevant obligation before a state for making some exemptions from the law to the benefi t of the conscientious objectors, in cases, if to predict such an objection was possible at all. So, the issues are discussed in the prism of the negative and positive obligations of a State. Corresponding precedents of the US Supreme Court and European Human Rights Court have been presented and analysed comparatively by the Author in the Article. The Article contains an important resume, in which the main points, principal issues and conclusion remarks are delivered. The Author shows, that due analysis of the legal aspects typical to “Conscientious objection” is very important for deep understanding religious rights, not absolute ones, and facilitates finding a correct answer on the question – how far do their boundaries go?

scholarly journals Between field and home: notes from the balcony

2021 ◽  
pp. 147447402110205
Author(s):  
Shruti Ragavan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Dairy Farms ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
The Past ◽  
Urban Village ◽  
The City

Balconies, windows and terraces have come to be identified as spaces with newfound meaning over the past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and concomitant lockdowns. There was not only a marked increase in the use of these spaces, but more importantly a difference in the very nature of this use since March 2020. It is keeping this latter point in mind, that I make an attempt to understand the spatial mobilities afforded by the balcony in the area of ethnographic research. The street overlooking my balcony, situated amidst an urban village in the city of Delhi – one of my field sites, is composed of middle and lower-middle class residents, dairy farms and farmers, bovines and other nonhumans. In this note, through ethnographic observations, I reflect upon the balcony as constituting that liminal space between ‘field’ and ‘home’, as well as, as a spatial framing device which conditions and affects our observations and interactions. This is explored by examining two elements – the gendered nature of the space, and the notion of ‘distance and proximity’, through personal narratives of engaging-with the field, and subjects-objects of study in the city.

The Conscientious Objector and the Law

1943 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 198
Author(s):  
Arthur Garfield Hays ◽  
Julien Cornell
Keyword(s):  
Conscientious Objector ◽  
The Law

Peran UMKM Dalam Mengurangi Tingkat Pengangguran Masyarakat dan Strategi UMKM Ditengah Pandemi Covid-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-107
Author(s):  
Nida Alfi Nur Ilmi
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Descriptive Approach ◽  
The Government

ABSTRACT This paper tries to explain and describe the position of UMKM in the Kepuh, Boyolangu Village, Banyuwangi, as an effort to reduce the unemployment rate, especially in the lower middle class and to see how the strategy of the UMKM founders in maintaining their position in all conditions. So it is hoped that readers can find out and analyze UMKM within the scope of the region as an effort to minimize unemployment and increase living standards. This paper use qualitative research method with a qualitative descriptive approach. Establishing UMKM is certainly not an easy thing, because the large number of workers does not guarantee UMKM, who is determined by the appropriate expertise and strategy. In addition, the Government has not been maximally perfect in overcoming problems and financial assistance for community UMKM which in reality is able to absorb many new workers, and has an impact on reducing the unemployment rate.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document