Some Spatial Politics of Queer-Feminist Research: Personal Reflections From the Field

ABSTRACT

This article addresses methodological issues emerging from research conducted with Trans in the Center, an LGBT activist group in Tel Aviv, Israel. It addresses some complex issues related to the politics and ethics of applying queer and feminist methodology to qualitative research in a trans, queer, and feminist community space. The focus is on two issues: the researcher’s positionality vis-à-vis the participants and selecting the appropriate methodology in relation to the characteristics of the group under study. Such issues demonstrate how queer and feminist principles are articulated and interwoven in geographical-spatial research in two different dimensions: in the research practice and methodology and in the practices and the spaces created by the activity of the researched group itself. I conclude with insights arising from the attempt to apply feminist and queer paradigms in both theory and research, and I call for their integration into geographical research.     

Community confidentiality,consent, and the individual research process: Implications for demographic research

Institutional review boards are increasingly meticulous about informed consent and risks and benefits to study participants. Concurrently, heated debate in a number of fields has advanced the notion of community risk and benefit. When research is conducted in communities, and the results may “do harm to” communities socially, economically, or medically, should informed and voluntary consent be obtained from communities as well? We argue that for demographers – by definition interested at the phenomena at the population level – concern for individuals as a part of communities is critical to the research process. Questions of community consent, confidentiality, and participation will be pushed to the fore as demography delves into new areas and methods of investigation. This paper provides a brief overview of the historical development of ethics in human subjects research and the subsequent ties to community-level concerns. Drawing on current examples from a variety of settings, we explore definitions of community, the scope and viability of community participation in research, and the implications of these for demographic enquiry. We find that in contrast to substantive debates, little attention has been given to ethical issues in the demographic research process. Research accountability to communities, including the documentation of community risks and benefits, and community representation and consultation in the research process are recommended.     

The Great Emigration of 1841: Recruitment for New South Wales in British Emigration Fields

A survey of papers reporting the use of ethnographies in three population journals and an examination of two case studies show that the criticisms made by anthropologists and others of demographers’ use of ethnographies are well founded. In their use of these accounts, demographers tend to present an excessively static view of social organization, to use ethnographic evidence selectively to support other findings, to be indifferent to how long ago an ethnography was produced, to take for granted the validity of the ethnographic evidence, to ignore the broader historical context in which the ethnography was produced, and to be unaware of the ways in which demographic evidence can be used at all stages of the research process. The adoption of anthropologists’ suggestions for establishing the plausibility and credibility of ethnographic evidence could improve the value of the contribution made by these studies to demographic research and theory.     

Fertility in Kenya and Uganda: A comparative study of trends and determinants

Between 1980 and 2000 total fertility in Kenya fell by about 40 per cent, from some eight births per woman to around five. During the same period, fertility in Uganda declined by less than 10 per cent. An analysis of the proximate determinants shows that the difference was due primarily to greater contraceptive use in Kenya, though in Uganda there was also a reduction in pathological sterility. The Demographic and Health Surveys show that women in Kenya wanted fewer children than those in Uganda, but that in Uganda there was also a greater unmet need for contraception. We suggest that these differences may be attributed, in part at least, first, to the divergent paths of economic development followed by the two countries after Independence; and, second, to the Kenya Government's active promotion of family planning through the health services, which the Uganda Government did not promote until 1995.     

Caring Together for Elderly Mothers: A Qualitative Study of Relations Between Adult Daughters and Supportive Home Care Workers

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examines relationships between adult daughters caring for elderly disabled mothers and the mothers' personal care workers (PCWs) paid directly by the Wisconsin Community Options Program (COP). A subset of a larger study, in these five cases PCWs provide substantial hands on care without substituting for the heavy care also provided by the daughters. Direct payment offers the daughters and workers freedom to schedule around their family obligations and other limits and tailor care to the abilities of all three participants. It also allows the daughter to be the paid provider when she chooses. Expansion of such supportive services could benefit many more low and middle income families.     

奖励扶助制度监督与评估机制的研究

以农村部分计划生育家庭奖励扶助制度监督与评估的必要性为出发点,对监督和评估的内容和方法进行系统分析,以社会政策理论和实际工作需要为基础,为这项制度的监督与评估机制建设提供参考。     

人口老龄化、老年贫困与养老保障--基于德国的数据与经验

人口老龄化及老年女性比重较高增加了老年贫困的概率。对此,德国主要采取两项对策避免老年贫困：养老保障是第一道防线,里斯特／吕鲁普养老金、最低养老金等都是重要的政策选项;社会救助提供了最后一道有效安全网。借鉴德国经验,中国应通过完善多支柱模式并逐步扩大第二支柱比重、养老保险参量改革、建立老年低收入群体收入保护机制、建立健全老年社会救助制度等措施来有效解决人口老龄化过程中老年人特别是老年低收入群体的养老保障问题,有效规避老年贫困风险。     

Positive Identity Experiences of Young Bisexual and Other Nonmonosexual People: A Qualitative Inquiry

The majority of LGBTQ psychological research focuses on dysfunction. The exclusion of strengths-based perspectives in LGBTQ psychology limits the understanding of LGBTQ mental health. In this article we report experiences that young bisexual and other nonmonosexual people perceive as affirming of their sexual identity. A 28-day, daily diary study was used to investigate whether bisexual-identified participants encountered positive experiences related to their sexual identity, and which type of experiences they perceived to be positive. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, participants’ experiences were organized according to a social ecological model. Experiences were reported at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional levels, but most positive sexual identity experiences occurred at the interpersonal level. Implications for positive health outcome research and the integration of positive psychology with LGBTQ psychology are discussed, as well as study limitations.     

Challenges and Strategies of Sexual Minority Youth Research in Southwest Virginia

A research team that works on scholarship related to sexual minority issues has been conducting research and recruiting participants since the fall of 2012. In the years since the team was formed, there has been a variety of challenges with recruitment, approval for research through the Institutional Review Board, gaining access to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) community, and general mistrust of researchers. Using concepts from feminist-informed qualitative research methodology—including reflexivity, positionality, and engaging in research with individuals from marginalized communities—we present reflections on some of the methodological challenges the research team has encountered while trying to conduct LGBQ research in southwest Virginia. This article encompasses the viewpoints of multiple members of the research team, including those who are faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students with identities across the sexual orientation spectrum.     

人口结构失衡与犯罪研究：回顾、借鉴与展望

通过对现有东西方人口结构与犯罪关系文献的梳理和总结,笔者提出了适合研究性别比偏高亚洲国家的假设框架,以及可婚配男（女）性比例与犯罪率的u型假说。对中国1982—2008年人口年龄一性别结构与犯罪率数据探索性分析显示：反映人口年龄一性别结构的青年男性比例与可婚配男性比例的波动与犯罪率的波动高度一致,未来婚姻市场可婚配男性比例的不断升高将成为影响犯罪的主要人口结构因素。     

Development of the Contentment with Life Assessment Scale (CLAS): Using Daily Life Experiences to Verify Levels of Self-Reported Life Satisfaction

On average, Anglo-Americans report that they are satisfied with their lives, but their global evaluations tend to deviate from their daily experiences (e.g., Oishi [2002, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28(10), 1398–1406]). We explored the hypothesis that the average life satisfaction of Anglo-Americans is better characterized as neutral than satisfied. In Study 1 we developed the five-item Contentment with Life Assessment Scale (CLAS), which focuses on contentment, fulfillment and self-discrepancies. Normative data based on three general population samples demonstrated that the CLAS produces a close to normal distribution of scores, has excellent reliability, and is sensitive to differences in life conditions (e.g., income, marital status). In two daily diary studies we tested whether global life satisfaction measures corresponded to people’s daily subjective well-being. The CLAS was the best predictor among three self-report life satisfaction measures of daily escapist behaviors including television watching and alcohol consumption, and daily stress-related physical symptoms (Study 2). In Study 3, participants recorded their level of life satisfaction daily for two weeks. Average daily life satisfaction scores clustered close to the neutral rather than satisfied point of the measurement scale.     

Navigating Identities: Subtle and Public Agency of Bicultural Gay Youth

Young people who discover their sexual attraction to people of the same sex often go through a period of ambivalence or distress, especially when they grow up in an environment that condemns homosexuality. The Dutch sociopolitical context makes the expression of same-sex desires among those with non-Dutch roots even more complicated and risky, as prevailing schemes of interpretation render the two identities incompatible. This study explores the expressions of same-sex desires and identities as well as the different forms of agency of bicultural gay youth. In-depth interviews with 14 young adults reveal how young people negotiate bicultural identities in Dutch society that brings to the fore complexities in managing diverse sexual identities and strong religious and cultural affiliations in tandem. Their strategies have the effect of questioning dominant discourses and transcend the oppositional dichotomy between sexual and ethnic forms of sociocultural otherness.