Negotiating Solidarity: Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and the ‘NGO-ization’ of Postcolonial Narrative

This essay examines the relationship between transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and postcolonial disasters as represented in literature. After the 1990s expansion of humanitarian organizations, a wide array of NGO-related literature emerges, including depictions of aid workers in fiction as well as humanitarian-authored narratives. While these texts contain a capacity for self-critique typically lacking in transnational NGO campaign materials, they remain mired in a ‘bureaucratic imagination’, sequestered from supposed beneficiaries. Alongside this literary development is an increasing pressure on postcolonial fiction to align with narrowly defined NGO missions, or what might be called an ‘NGO-ization of postcolonial narrative’. This essay interprets Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People as a vociferous refutation of such humanitarian pressure. Sinha stages the interaction between subaltern survivor and humanitarian benefactor not in terms of heroic salvation or radical rejection but as a conditional and negotiated solidarity. Disaster thus creates an opportunity to reimagine the subaltern-humanitarian relationship.     

Older People’s Conceptualization of Abuse: A Systematic Review

The concept of elder abuse is a relatively recent one, and there is ongoing debate around its definition and interpretation. Policy in America, the United Kingdom, and Ireland has been criticized as being professionally driven and therefore paternalistic and disempowering. Little is known about older people’s understanding of the term “abuse” or the behaviors that they deem to be abusive. In this systematic review, eight databases were searched using agreed-upon criteria, and the results were assessed for relevance. Fifteen studies were included and are discussed under the themes of caregiving, domestic violence, society, abusive acts, and thresholds.     

Male collective identity in the People’s Liberation Army of Nepal

This paper examines how participation in insurgency during conflict impacts notions of collective gender identity among low-level male combatants, using Nepal as a critical case. In addressing the research question, the paper focuses on changes in attitudes toward gender-specific roles and conduct, notions of acceptable behavior within male–female interaction, and perceptions of gender hierarchies. Male low-level combatants are defined in terms of a collective identity and the analysis utilizes the concept of relational comparisons of other identity groups as a tool through which to explore gendered meanings and perceptions of the “masculine self,” “the collective,” and the “gendered other.” Using empirical data from qualitative interviews with former members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), relational comparisons are applied to three out-groups: (1) state forces, (2) female PLA members, and (3) the rural population. Contrary to other studies on men and insurgency, this research strives to move beyond a focus only on masculinity and violence, and places particular emphasis on how men engage with a more gender-equal ideology within the movement than exists in society. By presenting fresh insights into this area of study, the paper also discusses normally disregarded possibilities for former combatants as agents for change in post-conflict transformative agendas.     

Achievements of and challenges facing the Korean Disabled People’s Movement

Abstract

This paper provides a critical review of the development of the disabled people’s movement in South Korea since 1945, reflecting both its achievements and the obstacles it has faced. In particular, political positions and responses to the movement’s agitation against socio-cultural discrimination and inequality are discussed. Further, three key theoretical foundations of the movement are examined in order to describe the diversity inherent therein. This paper concludes that the disabled people’s movement has heavily influenced the values, norms, and systems of Korean society, but it has predominantly focused on integrating disability issues into policy and legislation, not on changing society and culture. Hence, the Korean Disabled People’s Movement is currently facing many challenges that are major threats towards its future development.     

The Portuguese Disabled People’s Movement: development,demands and outcomes

The increased variety of social conflicts in the post-1960?years resulted in the extension of the individual’s participation in the state’s activity. This change was mirrored by the emergence of new social movements and the related expansion of the notion of citizenship. New groups of people, including disabled people, have emerged claiming citizenship rights. In order to do this, disabled people started to coalesce into uni-impairment and multi-impairment groups and organisations to denounce social exclusion and legal oppression, as well as to demand rights as citizens. Partially based on my research about social citizenship and the Disabled People’s Movement, this article investigates, firstly, the seeds and development of the Portuguese Disabled People’s Movement, secondly, its aims, demands and action strategies and, finally, its impact in the lives of disabled people in Portugal.     

Wanting to Be Seen: Young People’s Experiences of Performative Making Out

People engage in sexual behavior for many reasons, some of which require an audience (e.g., arousing onlookers, making someone jealous). In this study, we investigated the prevalence, motivations, and outcomes of young people’s experiences with performative making out—making out with someone and wanting others to see. Of the 155 female and 194 male college students who completed the online questionnaire, 32% of the women and 37% of the men reported having done this, often before entering college. Significantly more women than men reported same-sex performative experiences. We used thematic analysis to identify themes in the qualitative data. Participants’ motivations included enhancing their image, causing jealousy or envy, demonstrating a relationship, sexually arousing men, and participating in fun and games. Men reported that their reputations were enhanced more often than damaged; women reported the opposite pattern. These results provide insights into the functions of sexual behavior as a means of communication and highlight gender differences consistent with problematic cultural belief systems such as “slut shaming,” victim blaming, and sexual double standards.     

Being Han in a multi-ethnic region of the People’s Republic of China

This article draws on ethnographic material collected in Yangzong county of Yunnan, a province well known for its ethnic diversity. It deals with how the members of this peripheral Han population are categorised by others and by themselves in relation to minority groups and notions of Chinese identity. The specificity of the Han of Yangzong is framed by an ongoing tension between two contrasting points of view: they appear both as a local ethnic minority among others, and, notably by means of ritualised theatrical representations, as the legitimate representatives of the national majority. The Han people of Yunnan, who represent two-thirds of the province’s population, have been largely ignored by contemporary research. However, this study sheds light on the necessary interplay of different levels of identity and asserts the understanding of the category of ‘Han’ as perceived by the Chinese State as well as by the local people.     

Learning Religion: Exploring Young People’s Participation Through Timespace and Mediation at Confirmation Camp

This article explores how material tools mediate affordances for and constraints on young people’s participation in the religious practice of confirmation. Learning is understood as a process of participation in a religious practice in which most participants enter as subalterns. The material established by ethnographic fieldwork from two confirmation camps is analyzed, and the findings suggest that time and space as unified features played a significant role in opening up or closing off participation.     

Older People’s Motivations to Engage in Political Organizations: Evidence from a Catalan Study

This study explored the motivations of Catalan older people to engage in political organizations. The sample consisted of 192 people aged 65 and over who were active members of three types of political organizations: neighborhood associations, political parties/trade unions, and single-issue organizations. Their answers to an open-ended question were content analyzed, and a series of Chi-square tests were run to assess the association of the resulting categories with the type of organization in which participants were active. The results show that the motives for engaging in political organizations were mainly focused on introducing changes in the community, although the scope of the changes desired tended to vary. While some participants expressed idealistic motivations, others stated that they become involved in order to stand up for a cause in which they believed. One in six participants was motivated by self-interest, either related to personal growth or to self-protective needs. Motives for participating were related to the type of organization in which participants were active, suggesting that organizations should consider the influence of their own particular context and characteristics in developing recruitment and retention strategies.     

People Automatically Extract Infants’ Sex from Faces

People can reliably distinguish the sex of faces across age groups. Rates of accuracy are lower for infants, however, likely because they lack the pronounced sexually dimorphic features that develop during puberty. Given that previous research has shown that perceivers categorize adult sex automatically, we wondered whether this would extend to the faces of infants for whom sex is less legible. We tested this using a semantic priming paradigm in which infant faces preceded the categorization of stereotypically male and female names. Results showed that participants categorized the sex of male names significantly faster following perceptions of male versus female infant faces (though female faces did not significantly facilitate the processing of female names). The asymmetry in interference for male but not female faces supports evidence for a male default in conceptions of sex among infants previously found for adults. Individuals may therefore process sex automatically in the absence of overt cues (e.g., post-pubertal sexually dimorphic features or stereotypical clothing), providing additional evidence for the depth and flexibility of social categorization.     

‘The Older I Get,the Colder I Get’—Older People’s Perspectives on Coping in Cold Homes

Abstract

An average of 26,560 UK excess winter deaths occur in people 65+ years old each winter, of which 30% are attributed to cold homes. Cold homes are known to exacerbate health problems prevalent in the 65+ demographic. Through conducting interviews in homes occupied by 65+-year-olds known to be achieving less than the World Health Organization (WHO) minimum recommended temperature (18ºC), this article highlights their struggles in maintaining health and managing their homes, with instances of extreme and potentially dangerous methods to achieve thermal comfort identified. Fairer energy provision, better targeted financial aid, and improved support networks are necessary to alleviate current problems.     

Editor’s Notes

As we were editing this issue, wereceived the news that the renowned writerBing Xin had passed away. We were deeplygrieved over her death. Bing Xin, old as the century, had     

Editor’s Notes

CHINA has achieved great leaps in the 20 years since it launched itsreform. Economically it has reached a vital junction — the reform ofstate-owned enterprises. China is aiming to enable the majority of thelarge- or medium-sized state-owned enterprises to rid themselves of deficitand those serving as China's economic backbone to establish a modernenterprise system, all by the end of the century. This is the hard, urgent taskfacing the Chinese people. In this reform, women have given, and are stillgiving, an important contribution. Wang Hongming, General Manager of theShenyang Dawn Garments Group, provides a suitable focus for this issue.