‘Deprivation’ and ‘the rural’: An investigation into contradictory discourses

This paper investigates the issue of ‘rural deprivation’ using material collected for the Rural Lifestyles Project, conducted at Saint David's University College, Lampeter. The concept of ‘deprivation’ usually deployed within the literature in rural studies is problematic, and a number of criticisms are made about existing conceptualisations of the term. One of these criticisms is based on the finding that amongst respondents interviewed for the study of lifestyles in rural areas of England, a number were highly critical of the application of the term ‘deprivation’ to rural areas. This issue is explored through an investigation of the discourses of ‘the rural’, taken to mean a system of meanings that describe English rural areas. An examination of these discourses shows how ‘deprivation’ is denied, and this is investigated through a discussion of the representation of rural areas as problem-free and ‘idyllic’ in some way; through the portrayal of ‘deprivation’ as a fault of the individual; and through the construction of ‘deprivation’ as a feature of ‘the rural's’ ‘other’, i.e. the urban. The paper concludes with a call for the attitudes and beliefs of different groups of people living in rural areas to be taken account of in the production of research into lifestyles in rural areas.     

‘An Unstable Amalgam’

Christopher Herbert. Culture and anomie: ethnographic imagination in the nineteenth century. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. 1991. x, 364pp., references, index, notes. ISBN 0 226 32738 8 (hard); ISBN 0 226 32739 6 (paper).     

Out of the ordinary: research participants’ experiences of sharing the ‘insignificant’

How do research participants feel about having their ‘ordinary’ lives researched? This article focuses on how research participants manage the sharing of details emerging out of their ordinary lives in the context of research – an activity which, for most, is outside of the ordinary. Despite two significant research turns – towards reflexivity and towards the ‘everyday’ – these experiences remain curiously neglected. Drawing on a study of small acts of help and support, I seek to push methodological debate about researching the ordinary beyond the technical challenges of surfacing or capturing the apparently mundane or ‘insignificant’. I do so by arguing that background feelings rooted in the living of, and sharing about, the ordinary are analytically important in their own right; that the ‘ordinary’ itself, therefore, has to be managed by research participants and researchers; and that Goffman’s notion of performance is a useful tool for understanding how this is done.     

Inside the ‘efficacy gap’: Migration policy and the dynamics of encounter

In recent years, migration has become an important policy priority within and beyond the European Union. While the discourse that surrounds the contemporary migration policy agenda is one of the technocratic migration management, this overarching narrative conceals an underlying goal of prevention. Preventive efforts are increasingly geared towards stopping migratory movements before they have even begun. The effectiveness of such an approach remains contested and unclear. This article builds on the theoretical work of Czaika and de Haas (Population and Development Review, 2013, 39, 487) to explore the limits of prevention strategies designed to change minds, alter plans and redirect behaviours. It does so by drawing on insights from our own research into migration decision-making, alongside wider literature on individual sense-making, and connecting these to ongoing debates around policy effectiveness. In doing so, we show how the nature of localised encounters between ‘target’ populations and implemented policies can create potential sources of policy failure.     

Producing youth ‘Out of sync:’ the intersectional social relations of educational inequality

This article investigates intersecting institutional and policy relations that influence divergent developmental trajectories among young people. Beginning with young people’s experiential knowledge of key institutional contexts shaping their lives, the article illuminates socially organized disjunctures whereby young people come to see themselves as developmentally out of sync with institutional expectations for youth development, which organize everyday life in public schools. This institutional ethnography explicates the intersecting social relations that shape how young people grow up, the choices that are available to them, their participation in public sector institutions and ultimately, the race and class-based patterns of inequality perpetuated by public schools and other public sector institutions.     

Inside the Revolution: Power,Sex, and Technique in Freud’s “‘Wild’ Analysis”

ABSTRACT

This essay situates Freud’s “‘Wild’ Analysis” in its local and global histories, even while reading it for what it can tell us about psychoanalysis now. Even as it is taken on its own terms, this essay serves also as a means to consider psychoanalysis as host to crucial tensions, its ideas and their relation to technique, its traffic in power, and sexuality and the primal crime. Using a clinical vignette, the essay argues the heterogeneity and multiplicity inherent to psychoanalysis are a gift to later generations, even if they made trouble for Freud. In celebration and critique, it examines, in effect, where Freud was and where psychoanalysis is now.     

The Department of Literature and the Department of English: Transforming Aspects of ‘English Studies’ in South Africa

Abstract

This article begins with a brief survey of the different manifestations of ‘English studies’ at various South African universities, demonstrating the lack of clarity regarding the roles and responsibilities of the ‘English Department’: should it teach literature in English, or should it teach the English language? Such inconsistency makes the ‘Department of English’ as it currently exists unable to contribute towards the intellectualisaton of African languages (Alexander, 2005) and the transformation of South Africa's universities, particularly with regard to the use of African languages for learning and teaching. The article thus proposes that the ‘Department of English’ and the ‘Department of Eiterature’ should be separated. The former should take its place alongside other language departments and, at English-language universities, be primarily responsible for English language teaching and support (for those students to whom English-medium instruction presents a barrier to learning). The latter should pursue literary studies – not only ‘literatures in English’, but also texts in translation – a pursuit that calls attention to the potential for dialogue between literary texts across linguistic, ethnic, and national divides.     

A semiotic approach to ‘ethnicity’. An example from Taiwanese ‘Chineseness’

For a few decades, socio-cultural as well as linguistic anthropologists have worked hard to construct a reliable semiotic paradigm to study linguistic, cultural and social interactions. These subfields – linguistic, cultural and social – are often analytically tackled asunder, though they are intimately interconnected, intertwined and overlapping. The semiotic theory of culture is not a novel discovery in itself, but it can also be applied to the study of society and ethnicity. Culture, society and ethnicity are systems of communication, that is systems of signs; society is a system of signs whose meaning emerges from social interactions and ethnicity a system of signs whose meaning is strategically imposed by a specific society through a specific culture. Moreover, those three systems of communication, of signs, are interconnected in various ways. This essay will analyze ‘Taiwanese Ethnicity’ in its semiotic dimension, and explore how society, culture and ethnicity interact in constructing an ethnic identification.     

Hunting ruralities: nature,society and culture in ‘hunt countries’ of England and Wales

The practice of hunting with dogs in the British countryside has received a great deal of political attention over recent years. The election of the New Labour Government in 1997, with a manifesto commitment to allow a free parliamentary vote on hunting, has provided the campaign to abolish hunting with a great deal of momentum. However, a merger of the pro-hunt groups into the Countryside Alliance has created a powerful counter campaign, evidenced by the highly publicised countryside marches of the late 1990s. A key tactic of the Alliance's campaign has involved a key shift in the defence of hunting from the natural to the social realm, with the focus increasingly placed on the claimed socio-cultural contribution of hunting to rural communities. This paper assesses the merits of this claim by providing a critical in-depth exploration of the socio-cultural role of hunting with dogs in areas of the English and Welsh countryside. It does this in two main ways. Firstly, recent discussions of hunting are positioned within a broader social science context of nature–society relations, and consideration is given to the complex connections between hunting, nature and rurality. Secondly, connections between hunting, nature and rural society are examined in greater depth by drawing on key findings from a recent study of the social and cultural role of hunting in four areas of English and Welsh countryside.     

Potent Places in Central Vietnam: ‘Everything that Comes Out of the Earth is Cham’

Set apart from the so-called ‘Hinduisation’ process, the Cham country is characterised by the presence of many sites or shrines dedicated to local deities. This paper—based on the analysis of archaeological and anthropological evidence—aims to identify these cults, to clarify the associated practices and to demonstrate how the local cults map out the entire local geography. Moreover, in central Vietnam, it is possible to precisely examine ‘potent places’ in order to achieve a better understanding of the local cults and the persistence of those cults from antiquity to the present. In ancient times, each local deity was connected to a political power, which ‘exhaled’ it and, at the same time, put a mark on the territory. The diversity of potent places allows a better understanding of puzzling territories. The continuity of ritual practices performed at Cham potent places, centuries after the disappearance of any form of Cham political power, shows the link between the first occupants of the land and the following Viet inhabitants.     

Getting into the ‘Giving Habit’: The Dynamics of Volunteering in the UK

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Scholarship on volunteering has paid insufficient attention to how experiences of volunteering in the past affect current...     

Student transitions into drug supply: exploring the university as a ‘risk environment’

Drug use, like much criminality, is often explored in relation to the journey into adulthood. Though young people are understood to commonly ‘grow out’ of crime, protracted transitions from adolescence into adulthood have brought about a new developmental phase where many young people are freer to engage in drug-related leisure and other forms of subterranean play in a period of extended adolescence. In this article, we look to this phase with focus upon those engaged in full time higher education and explore the extent to which entry into university and ‘studenthood’ enables particular changes in levels of involvement in recreational drug use and supply. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews undertaken with mainly ‘traditional’ undergraduate university students in South West England, this article seeks to explore the ways in which the structural circumstances of the university environment can produce favourable conditions for ‘turning points’, where university students transition into regular drug use and ‘social supply’. It is argued that the university can be understood as a specific ‘risk environment’ where certain cultural and environmental attributes including distance from guardians, the interconnected nature of the student populace, and financial insecurity can ultimately provide facilitative conditions for transitions into drug supply.     

‘A mockery of equality’: an exploratory investigation into disabled activists’ views of the Paralympic Games

This article offers an exploratory analysis of the opinions of disabled activists towards the Paralympic Games. With the use of a qualitative online survey, the work focuses on the perceptions of disabled individuals (n = 32) who are not Paralympic athletes but are affiliated to the disability rights group, the United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council. Working on the premise that the views of disabled activists have been excluded from Paralympic sports discourse to date, the results illustrate a nuanced yet negative view of the Games to contrast with an existing, yet overly positive, academic narrative. Participants were particularly cynical of the portrayal and production of the Games and its Paralympic athletes as they perceived that the wider population of disabled people is misrepresented. The overwhelming perception in this preliminary analysis suggests that the Paralympic Games can be counterproductive to disability rights beyond sport.     

“I've never seen a client say: ‘Tell the influencer not to label this as sponsored’”: An exploration into influencer industry ethics

Previous research on influencer industry ethics has focused on three issues: transparency of collaborations, payments to influencers, and influencer authenticity. In this exploratory study, we demonstrate that influencer industry ethics is more complex. We interviewed 28 representatives from different actor groups in the German influencer industry (influencers, client organizations, and intermediaries such as influencer marketing agencies) to systematically identify ethical issues and the moral expectations underlying these issues. In analyzing the interview data in a qualitative content analysis, we identify ten ethical issues: autonomy, transparency, sincerity, truthfulness, caring, professionalism, reciprocity, respect, loyalty, and social responsibility. Our study adds to the body of knowledge by further substantiating the discussion on transparency, payments, and authenticity; by introducing previously neglected ethical issues; by organizing the field of influencer industry ethics; and by explaining how the specific constellation of ethical issues in the influencer industry levels out the distinction between sponsored and organic content. In doing so, we argue for a broad perspective on influencer industry ethics that positions influencer communication at the intersection between Public Relations, advertising, and journalism.     

Writing ‘Conflict’: Whispers as a ‘Restorative’ Narrative

Abstract

This paper examines contemporary Kenyan popular fiction as a site of cultural production, where the contradictions of African modernity are played out. The paper focuses on one of Kenya's oldest popular fiction columns, Whispers, published in local newspapers since 1983. Constructed around a Kenyan family, which is deployed as an allegorical trope to read modern Kenya, the paper explores how the column introduces us to the anxieties that define life in contemporary Kenya. Although the narrative comprises many thematic concerns, reference is particularly made to the restive masculinity threatened by social change. The paper also provides a discussion of the constant ‘backward glance’, an attempt to look for stability in the past, part of the society's relentless search for models that could help Kenyans make sense of an uncertain present, and an even more doubtful future. The paper also engages with the narrative mode of this fiction, examining how humour, satire and parody deceptively make light of what are important issues affecting society.     

Re-spatialising migration governance: From ‘multi-level’ to ‘entangled’

Policy actors engaged in migration governance operate in complex environments characterised by spatial entanglements that bring together different levels and jurisdictions. While “levels-of-analysis” and multi-level governance (MLG) frameworks capture some of this complexity, they undertheorise the extent to which migration and mobility are both causes and consequences of other forms of spatial entanglement. This article sets forth an “entangled” approach to migration governance and applies it to the Turkish case. It discusses how historical legacies and regional ties produce enduring cross-border connections, examining diaspora engagement policies; migration diplomacy; and conflict and security in Turkey through the lens of entangled migration governance.