Self-employment and family life: constructing work–life balance when you're ‘always on’

This study explores how men and women who are self-employed and have children living at home construct work–life balance. Guided by the concept of work–life fit, in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 parents who were self-employed and had at least one dependent child. Using thematic analysis, the first theme, ‘in control,’ related primarily to schedule flexibility but also extended to income opportunities and, sometimes, to job security. Feelings of control were experienced and expressed in relation to shortcomings of previous job experiences, business location, and preferences for raising children. The second theme, ‘always on,’ meant that parents expected to be both readily accessible to children and available to clients, while continually pursuing income opportunities. This contributed to time pressure, although some viewed participation in volunteer and children's activities as a form of business networking. Work–life balance was described in terms of time, activity, or experience. Most participants believed self-employment contributes positively, but some questioned whether work–life balance is possible. Parents mostly followed traditional gender role patterns. Some fathers resisted this arrangement and saw self-employment as a way to participate more actively in family life. Implications and directions for further research are discussed.     

Reflections on conducting research on the ‘war on terror’: religious identity,subjectivity and emotions

In recent years there has been an increase in literature which has explored the insider/outsider position through ethnic identities. However, there remains a neglect of religious identities, even though it could be argued that religious identities have become increasingly important through being prominent in international issues such as the ‘war on terror’ and the Middle East conflict. Through drawing on the concept of subjectivity, I reflect on research I conducted on the impact of the ‘war on terror’ on British Muslims. I explore the space between the insider/outsider position demonstrating how my various subjectivities – the ‘non-Islamic appearance I’, the ‘Muslim I’, the ‘personal I’, the ‘exploring I’, the ‘Kashmiri I’ or the ‘Pakistani I’, the ‘status I’ and the ‘outsider I’ – assisted in establishing trust, openness and commonality. I conclude by demonstrating how the ‘emotional I’ allowed me to manage my own emotions and participants emotions.     

Governing the liberal self in a ‘post-truth’ era: science,class and the debate over GMOs

ABSTRACT

This essay examines four case studies in which prominent commentators in media sites that target the liberal-leaning, educated class – The Daily Show, Slate magazine, the New York Times, and Real Time with Bill Maher – announced that they had changed their minds on the issue of genetically modified foods (GMOs). Though each had previously been sceptical of the technology, they now embraced it in the name of science and humanitarianism, and urged audiences to do the same. These cases were flashpoints in a broader shift in which the liberal, educated middle class – a formation historically critical of GMOs–has increasingly denounced scepticism about biotechnology as a pernicious ‘anti-science’ conservatism. This liberal pro-GMO discourse posits itself as a matter of truth versus lies. We argue, however, that the manner in which it framed GMO opposition as irrational and immoral threatened attachments that have long been central to liberal, educated middle class selfhood and capital – attachments to being a caring and rational self. Moreover, this discourse intensified as this class was experiencing heightened cultural and economic instability under neoliberalism, the post-industrial labour economy, and the aftermath of the Great Recession. Through their narratives of coming to believe in GMOs, our case studies provide their audiences with technologies, in the Foucauldian sense, for making classed selves and shoring up this class’ claims to authority under these conditions. We suggest that this swell of cultural technologies aiming to cultivate liberal support for GMOs has a great deal to teach us about the class dynamics of the so-called ‘post-truth’ era.     

Failing ‘Abyan’, ‘Golestan’ and ‘the Estonian Mother’: Refugee Women,Reproductive Coercion and the Australian State

Abstract

In September and October 2015, the story of detained Somali refugee ‘Abyan’ unfolded in the Australian media. A victim of rape on Nauru and seeking an abortion that could not be obtained on the island nation, Abyan was escorted to Sydney where she was to attend an abortion clinic. She was ultimately returned to Nauru without having had an abortion. This paper situates Abyan’s story alongside other stories from Nauru and in a longer history of reproductive coercion in Australian Immigration Department accommodation since the Second World War.     

The ‘compliant’, the ‘pacified’ and the ‘rebel’: experiences with Swiss disability insurance

Switzerland’s social policies in the field of disability have been significantly reshaped over the last two decades by reducing the number of allowances awarded and by increasing the recourse to vocational rehabilitation measures. What stances do individuals who experience the implementation of these policies adopt? What kind of tests are they subjected to? How can we explain the posture they adopt – be it ‘compliant’, ‘pacified’ or ‘rebellious’ – when facing the (re)assignations of their identity and professional status? Drawing on interviews conducted with individuals who have recently been involved in programmes set up by Swiss disability insurance, we highlight their uncertainties and concerns relating to their place in society, as well as their reactions to disability insurance’s interventions.     

Rowing ‘at home’ and ‘away’: sport,heritage and identity in the Malay world

This paper is grounded in a comparison of the cultural identifications that accompany Sambas Malays’ participation in rowing competitions ‘at home’ and ‘away’. Sambas Malays are Indonesian citizens from the regency of Sambas, who ethnically identify as Malay. There, rowing competitions provide the sociocultural infrastructure for developing local and translocal cultural identifications. Two related, yet distinguishable, cultural identifications are evident, each associated with a specific rowing infrastructure. When contests occur ‘at home’, rowing is steeped in local Sambas Malay culture and heritage. However, contests ‘away’, in areas loosely identified as ‘Malay’, generate identifications with a regionally based Malay culture and consociality. Utilizing a non-positivistic conceptualization of ‘border’, this paper considers the intersection of culture, politics, economy, geography and mobility in everyday bordering practices producing two overlapping cultural identifications.     

After ‘ethnicity’: Migration,identity and political economy

In an earlier article¹ I have argued that British ‘African Asians’ can not legitimately be described as an ‘ethnic’ community. This argument was made by means of a critique of sections from the 4th PSI Survey. I show that the attitudinal responses of British ‘African Asians’, as evidenced in the Survey, do not reveal any special emphasis upon the components of ethnicity (religion, skin colour, ‘extra‐British’ origins, ‘racial’ grouping) specified by the Survey's authors and that parental roles in marital decision‐making, thought by the Survey's authors to be important in maintaining ‘ethnic’ boundaries, and their attitudes towards ‘mixed marriages’, are now little different from the majority of Britishers. My chief objection to the ‘ethnicity’ paradigm, incorporating the notion of ‘ethnic identities’, is that, as with all analytical concepts, it inhibits those whom it embraces from inclusion within alternative conceptions: marking individuals and communities as ‘ethnically’ special robs them of parity with their ‘non‐ethnic’ neighbours.

In this article, in opposition to the current vogue for ‘ethnic’ labelling and in sympathy with Robert Miles's well‐known position, I contend that British Gujarati Hindus (who form a majority of British ‘African Asians') should be considered in the same analytical light as any other group of British citizens. The focus of the article is on those members of the Gujarati Hindu Patidar caste (commonly having the surname Patel), who settled first in East Africa and then, often not through their own choice, in Britain. I argue that their caste identity, the dynamics of their migrations and changes to their socioreligious culture are all fully explicable by non‐'ethnic’ political sociology.     

‘The invisible enemy’: disability,loneliness and isolation

Abstract

The aim of this article is to quantitatively explore the relationship between disability, emotional loneliness and social isolation. The data analysis presents a number of statistically significant findings which illustrate that disabled people (N?=?250) were at increased risk of experiencing emotional loneliness and social isolation compared with the nondisabled group (N?=?355). This study identifies a number of disabling barriers which result in this overrepresentation of disabled people. The study aims to move away from a pathological explanation of linking loneliness and social isolation to disability, in order to explain this occurrence from a barrier-based approach.     

‘The performative surprise’: parody,documentary and critique

Can parody help us to ‘re‐imagine’ the organizations and institutions we live with (Du Gay 2007 Du Gay, Paul. 2007. Organizing identity: Persons and organizations after theory, London: Sage.  [Google Scholar], 13)? Or, like many forms of critique, does parody risk being incorporated: becoming part of the power it aims to make fun of? In this paper, drawing on Judith Butler’s work, I argue that certain circumstances enable parody to destabilize hegemonic, taken‐for‐granted institutions (Butler 1990 Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]). I explore these ideas through a reading of the Yes Men documentary (Tartan Video 2005 Yes Men. 2005. “Directed by Chris Smith, Dan Ollman and Sarah Price”. Tartan Video.  [Google Scholar]). This film features a series of humorous representations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). I show how these act to denaturalize and effectively critique this dominant force in global trade. This paper discusses the value of parody for helping us to re‐think and re‐make particular institutions and organizations. In doing so, I point to the importance of creating a spectacle in which parody can travel beyond its immediate location, so that it can reach ever newer audiences with its ‘performative surprise’ (Butler 1990 Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar], xxvi). I suggest that the rise of the Internet and inexpensive documentary techniques offer interesting new ways for achieving this.     

‘Your whole life depends on it’: academic stress and high-stakes testing in Ireland

International research consistently shows that high-stakes exams are a significant source of stress and worry for students within secondary education. Existing research focuses on individual variation in exam-related stress levels among students with very little attention given to the influence of school context on student stress. Using data from the Irish Post-Primary Longitudinal Study, a mixed methods study of secondary students, this paper examines both individual and school level factors influencing the levels of stress among students preparing for the nationally standardised Leaving Certificate examination. The paper presents new findings which highlight the potential role of schools in ameliorating student stress. Findings show that student stress is not only influenced by individual-level factors but that certain aspects of the schooling process impact on stress levels. In particular, the quality of student–teacher interaction and peer relations within the school are found to have a significant impact on student stress levels. Students with more positive interactions with their teachers have lower stress levels with higher stress levels among those who have experienced bullying from peers. Stress is also influenced by programme choice at upper secondary level and the extent to which students are facilitated in their choice of subjects.     

‘The Slavery of East and West’: Abolitionists and ‘Unfree’ Labour in India, 1820–1833

This article explores abolitionist treatments of East Indian slavery in the 1820s. It argues that rather than resulting from a lack of information or a conception of the qualitative difference between East and West Indian slavery, ambivalent and muted abolitionist responses to this issue prior to 1833 were conditioned by the wider imperatives of the anti-slavery campaign. Abstentionist substitution of ‘free-grown’ East India sugar for morally tainted West Indian produce, together with wider economic arguments about the equalisation of the sugar duties and the potential of India to provide a free labour alternative to the West Indian slave system, marked points of intersection between abolitionist and East India economic interests that relied on the assumption that labour in India, however cheap, was fundamentally ‘free’. As a result, rather than engaging with the various forms of slavery in India, abolitionists focused on discursively distancing them both from sugar production and from their campaign. This response suggests that abolitionist ideology was intersected by pragmatic political, economic, and discursive imperatives that precluded the universal application of humanitarian anti-slavery ideals.     

The politics of fear and empathy: emotional ambivalence in ‘host’ children and youth discourses about migrants in Cyprus

This article looks at the emotion discourses among 30 Greek-Cypriot children and youth interviewees when they describe their feelings about migrants in Cyprus. It looks at how migrant representations and narratives are highly emotional constructions that children and youth utilize to make sense of their views about how migrants are different or similar to themselves. In particular, the article focuses on the simultaneous contradictory positions and feelings of fear and empathy. Two important implications for intercultural education are discussed. First, it is suggested that it is valuable to acknowledge that the emotion work required from ‘host’ children and youth in their interactions with migrants should not be taken for granted. Second, rather than painting a ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ image of children and youth’s responses to migrants – which categorizes children and youth in simplistic ways – it might be more productive to examine how their emotions are linked to ambivalent discourses and inform actions in negotiating the presence of the other and one’s sense of belonging.     

‘Us’ and ‘them’: the limits and possibilities of a ‘politics of neurodiversity’ in neoliberal times

The neurodiversity movement claims that there are neurological differences in the human population, and that autism is a natural variation among humans – not a disease or a disorder, just ‘a difference’. A ‘politics of neurodiversity’ is based on the claim that the ‘neurodiverse’ population constitutes a political grouping comparable with those of class, gender, sexuality or race. This paper considers the limits and possibilities of neurodiverse political activism, and concludes by calling for a politics of identity that does not depend on a politics of ‘us’ and ‘them’.     

‘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.     

‘Northernness’, gender and Manchester’s creative industries

This article explores northernness and gender in the context of creative industries in Manchester. I argue that a version of northernness has been mobilised by those within the creative industries and that this identity is strongly linked with masculinity. The article examines the emergence of new creative industries in Manchester from the 1980s onwards. Many of these new creative industries were connected with music and club culture and often prioritised ‘lads’ and their interests. The ‘heritage’ and influence of this seedbed stage of Manchester’s creative industries and the dominant discourses about Manchester’s pop cultural creativity has had a profound influence on the ‘gendering’ of subsequent creative industries in this city. A paradigm of northern ‘laddishness’ pervades the creative sector in Manchester, and this is amplified and sustained by a powerful, media fuelled, cultural identity of the city and its popular culture. A number of local specificities have had an impact on linking creativity to ‘northern’ masculinity in the Manchester case. This has contributed to the ascendency of closed, male-dominated networks in the creative sector. This appears to stand in the way of women’s full access to, and participation in, the city’s creative industries. I suggest that all empirical case studies of creative industries could find value in reflecting on the local context and specificities of place. Using Manchester as a case study, I argue that place-specific identities could productively be explored in debates about exclusion and underrepresentation of women in creative industries.     

‘This is just so unfair!’: A qualitative analysis of loss-induced emotions and tilting in on-line poker

Poker is a game of skill and chance, where players often experience significant monetary losses. Detrimental out-of-control poker decision-making due to negative emotions is known as tilting. A qualitative assessment of losing and tilting was conducted by analysing stories about significant monetary losses, written by Finnish on-line poker players (N = 60). Thematic and narrative analyses uncovered five themes and a narrative structure underlying the aetiology and phenomenology of tilting. Tilting, in the narratives, was often instigated by dissociative feelings (‘unreality’, disbelief) following a significant monetary loss. Thereafter, moral indignation was experienced, followed by chasing behaviour, in an attempt to restore a ‘fair balance’ between wins and losses. In the aftermath of tilting, self-focused feelings of disappointment, depression and/or anxiety, and sleeping problems were experienced. It was also observed that experienced players, as compared to inexperienced ones, exhibited in their narratives a more mature disposition towards encountering ‘bad luck’, and losing in general. The results are relevant in better understanding psychological processes related to losing in the multifaceted game of poker, thus contributing also to existing knowledge on detrimental gambling behaviour.