Local and transnational care relations: relatedness and family practice among au pairs in Denmark

An increasing number of young women from the Global South have become au pairs in the Global North since the turn of the millennium. Through ethnographic analysis of three cases of au pairing in Denmark, involving Filipina and Caribbean women, this article discusses the nature of the local as well as transnational family relations in which these women are embedded as au pairs, and the opportunities and restraints that they present. We use anthropological theory to conceptualize family and kinship in terms of notions and practices of relatedness. This offers a useful framework for elucidating the different moral and contractual obligations and expectations associated with these varying family relations, the power asymmetries with which they are linked, and the agency that the au pairs display as they seek to position themselves in the most favourable way in relation to the multi‐directional ties in which they are involved.     

The Embarrassment of Co-Presence: AU Pairs and their Rooms

ABSTRACT

This article explores the ways Slovak au pairs living in London relate to their rooms through decoration and alternative aesthetic strategies. In this article the theme is neither the appropriation nor the refusal of personal spaces, but rather an ambivalence that becomes evident through the detailed study of au pairs' material culture. The source of this ambivalence lies both in the transience of their residence and in the contradictions inherent in the au pair scheme, causing a relationship that I explore as the embarrassment of co-presence. The evidence suggests that au pairs find themselves torn between a desire to settle and appropriate a space and an equal desire not to be present or not to make an impact upon this space. This emerges not only from strategies of (non-)decoration, but also from au pairs' exploitation of the parameters of tidiness and mess, and alternative foci of self-expression such as the individual body.     

Learning to gamble: early gambling experiences among young people in Denmark

This article presents results from the first phase of a longitudinal qualitative study of gambling among young people in Denmark. The longitudinal study is designed to capture the trajectories of young gamblers and to explore how social and cultural factors and processes impact on young people's gambling careers. The first stage of analysis places a special emphasis on young people's introduction to gambling and the social contexts of these early gambling experiences. Theoretically, this first study is guided by a symbolic interactionist approach. We conclude that early experiences with gambling are socially mediated and that significant social contexts such as the family and peer groups form important contexts of these early experiences. Our evidence suggest that becoming engaged in gambling is a social process involving a transfer of skills and knowledge in which novices learn how to play and to attribute specific meanings to gambling. Overall, our findings indicate that young people start gambling not because of purely individual characteristics or deviant motivations but through social processes within significant social networks. Implications for prevention and further research are briefly discussed.     

CULTURAL STUDIES IN AUSTRIA

One of the two main lines of argumentation of this text turns around the idea of ‘intellectual practices’. This idea is used here to criticize the hegemony that both academic institutions and publishing industries have been exerting on representations of the idea of ‘the intellectual’. In ­addition, the idea of ‘intellectual practices’ is useful to make more visible the diversity of forms in which intellectual work informs current social practices, as well as to show that this work assumes forms not limited to writing practices. The other line of argumentation turns around the conceptual pair ‘culture and power’. This pair, explicitly or implicitly used by many intellectuals, allows the formerly mentioned reflection to be grounded in a relatively more limited universe of practices. Moreover, the reference to this pair highlights the importance of the particular set of practices that explicitly or implicitly relate to it. These practices may be characterized as simultaneously involving a cultural approach (focusing on socio-symbolic dimensions) of issues of power, and a political approach (focusing on relations of power) of the cultural (socio-symbolic) dimensions of social processes. Finally, this article also presents a critic of the idea of ‘Latin American cultural studies’, which fundamentally criticizes a de-contextualized and de-contextualizing application of certain representations of the idea of cultural studies in Latin America, as well as studies about Latin America from abroad. Such de-contextualization impoverishes the critical impulse of such an intellectual perspective, and at the same time diminishes the visibility of other significant practices in culture and power developed in Latin America.     

What Human Capital,Which Migrants? Returned Skilled Migration to Slovakia From the UK1

This article contributes to the understanding of skilled labor migration by exploring some of the differences in the economic behavior of three contrasting groups of returned skilled labor migrants from Slovakia to the United Kingdom: professionals and managers; students; and au pairs. Formal professional experiences and training provide only limited understanding of the value of working/studying abroad. Instead, there is a need to look at particular competences, such as interpersonal skills and self‐confidence, as well as the role of social recognition. The empirical results also emphasize the importance of spatiality and temporality when analyzing skilled labor migration.     

Gendered Self-Improvement: Autonomous Personhood and the Marriage Predicament of Young Women in Urban China

How does gender shape the experience and imaginaries of self-realisation? This article explores practices of self-improvement among young women in China, namely workshops for interpersonal skills. These practices direct participants to express themselves as autonomous persons, disembedded from social hierarchies and familial responsibilities. Unmarried women who attend workshops conceive of marriage as an unavoidable impediment to their self-realisation. This is due to a prevailing gender inequality in marriage, as well as the ongoing expansion of an ideal of individual autonomy in China through economic reforms. In this article, I do not centre my analysis on a cultural clash between this ideal and local cultural practices. Instead, it is the possibility of this ideal, which is always shaped and restricted by socio-economic imperatives, that induces women’s frustration with their local culture. The fact that this ideal promises universal attainment highlights for women the gender roles that limit their autonomy.     

Where Is “Place” in Aging in Place? Transnational Issues for the Danish State and Its Retirement Migrants Abroad

The aim of this article is to contribute a transnational perspective to the field of environmental gerontology and the concept of aging in place. Seniors from the northern hemisphere, among them Danish citizens, are increasingly adapting to transnational lives as they move to warmer climates. This article builds on a qualitative study among Danish retirement migrants regarding their experiences with the need for care or support while living abroad. Denmark is a welfare state with a long history of public nursing homes and in-home care for frail elderly persons. This system of governance is influenced by universalism, aiming at equality in terms of access to health services and care. However, these welfare provisions seem to be deeply embedded in methodological nationalism, since only citizens with residence within the borders of Denmark have the right to live in public nursing homes or receive in-home help. It is argued that we should consider public solutions to the problems faced by frail Danish citizens in transnational settings, enhancing their opportunities to live abroad.     

Youth and social movements on the move: political engagement among young Spanish migrants in London

Since the beginning of the economic crisis in Spain young people have migrated abroad looking for job opportunities. In the meantime, after the 15-M movement in 2011, Spanish society created various social movements hoping to make change happen, as well as the pro-independence movement in Catalonia that gathered strength as a response to the Spanish economic and political crisis. This paper analyses how Spanish young people in London, as transmigrants rooted in two different countries, engage with the politics of their home country through two transnational social movements in London: ANC England and the Maroon Wave London. The article describes both local movements (comparing their goals, structure and activities), showing the reasons that young Spanish migrants get involved and their experiences within them. It also rethinks the nature and modalities of young diasporic identities and political engagement in the global age through the experiences of the young people interviewed.     

THE RISE OF THE ECLECTIC CULTURAL CONSUMER IN DENMARK, 1964–2004

Existing research on cultural stratification and consumption patterns rarely presents a cross‐time comparative perspective and rarely goes back before the 1980s. This article employs a unique series of surveys on cultural participation collected in Denmark over the period 1964–2004 to map the historical development of three distinct cultural consumption groups (eclectic, moderate, limited) also identified in previous research. We report two major findings. First, the eclectic (or “omnivorous”) cultural consumption group existed as far back as the 1960s and has since the 1980s comprised about 10 percent of the Danish population. Second, the major stratification variables—income, education, and social class—are strong predictors of cultural eclecticism in Denmark, and the predictive power of these stratification variables appears not to have declined in any substantive way over the past 40 years.     

Diminished tradition of return? Transnational migration in Bolivia's Valle Alto

One‐fifth of the Bolivian population lives abroad, and transnational behaviour strongly links their villages with destination communities. In this article we address whether the increasing difficulty of return migration (owing to legal and geographic barriers) results in diminished social and economic remittances to the country of origin. Results from a questionnaire survey of 417 households in the Valle Alto area of Cochabamba Department in 2007 reveal that monetary remittances account for one‐half of the income of active migrant families (and one‐quarter of income overall), and that transnational cultural ties remain strong. However, after ten years of cumulated time abroad the intention to return to Bolivia drops markedly along with economic and some social remittances. Closer analysis reveals that time abroad reduces these ties through the mediating forces of family members abroad, legal status, and home ownership abroad.     

Laddishness Online

In a textual analysis of public social network site (SNS) profiles owned by young women aged between 18 and 21, many of the profiles contain representations of self which would typically be considered ‘unfeminine’. Photos of young women and their friends posed with wide open mouths and protruding tongues and images depicting drunkenness and raucousness are common. This kind of ‘laddish’ performativity by young women leaves feminists, especially those concerned with cultural representation, with a dilemma: is ‘feminist representation’ to be found in this aspect of SNS representation, in this kind of ‘symbolically inverted’ depiction of feminine bodies? Does this kind of ‘laddish’ performativity by young women function less as a rebellion against femininity and more as a kind of ‘giving in’ to a certain model of masculinity; as a ‘phallic’ form of girlhood now licensed by the patriarchy; or even an indication of ‘feminine melancholia’, predicated on the broader cultural rejection of critical feminist voices? In this article, I suggest that neither paradigms of resistance or conformity completely suffice for understanding ‘laddishness’ by young women in the context of a viewing premise of self-production, such as that we encounter with SNS material. I start by offering a possible feminist reading of ‘laddish’ body performativity by young women on SNSs, drawing from theories of the ‘grotesque body’ in representation as well as from Mulvey's psychological explanation of ‘voyeuristic’ viewing pleasure in narrative cinema. I go on to develop the concept of ‘performative shamelessness’ by young women and expand upon its possible significations in the post-feminist, neoliberal cultural landscape. Engaging in particular with McRobbie's ideas about the post-feminist era, I suggest that performative shamelessness may be one of the few options available to young women wishing to maintain a sense of self-definition in the face of intense social and cultural scrutinizing, and often sexually objectifying, gazes.     

Bodywork and bodily capital among youth using fitness gyms

In this article, we explore what had become a predominant focus on the body and on shaping and refining the body through frequent, intensive workout and strict, controlled diets among a group of young people engaged in strength training in fitness gyms in Denmark. Theoretically and analytically, we draw inspiration from French sociologist Loïc Wacquant’s ethnographic study of professional boxers in Chicago around 1990. First, we use the concept of bodywork to explore and understand the meaning of the young people’s exercise and diet practices. We argue that the young people’s bodywork can be understood as the building up of bodily capital. Second, we aim to explore the social implications of this bodywork. We explore how and in what ways the young people’s bodily capital can be converted into other resources, or forms of capital, that are essentially social: social relations and sense of connectedness; knowledge, expertise and future plans; and recognition, self-worth and identity.     

A rights-based conceptual framework for the social inclusion of children and young persons with an intellectual disability

There is a basic principle that all children and young persons with intellectual disabilities should be able to enjoy citizenship on an equal basis with others. This includes enjoying personal dignity and exercising choice, control and freedom in social, community and cultural life, in keeping with their individual lifestyle preferences and aspirations. There is a need for a stronger human rights narrative to achieve this. This article identifies a conceptual framework for a rights-based approach to the integration of children and young persons with disabilities. Seven components of such a framework are identified: citizenship and social inclusion; recognition; agency; voice; capabilities; equality; and self-realisation. This framework was developed as part of an Irish case study involving consultation with young persons with intellectual disabilities, their parents or guardians and professional staff delivering support services. The rights of children/young persons with intellectual disabilities are essentially those of children generally. While this principle may be obvious in many respects, its implementation presents significant challenges. The need for a transformative narrative and its components are outlined.     

Multi‐sited accumulation of capital: Cape Verdean returnees and small‐scale business

In recent years, policymakers have portrayed return migration as positive for development. In both migrant sending and migrant receiving countries, policymakers expect the transfer of economic, cultural and social capital by returnees to stimulate economic growth. Inherent in these assumptions is the idea of a unidirectional flow of capital from northern countries of immigration to the countries of return. The objective of this article is to contest this idea of a one‐way transfer of capital through a case study of Cape Verdean returnee business owners. To what extent have they accumulated their various forms of capital before emigration, during their sojourn abroad or after return? In this article, I examine the returnees' multi‐sited accumulation of capital and how it corresponds to the resources they need to run a sustainable business. In addition, I analyse how they adapt capital accumulated abroad to the conditions in Cape Verde.     

QUEERLY INTIMATE:

This article examines the rise of the Girls' Love (GL) fan fiction community in contemporary China. More specifically, we focus on the ‘Pink Super Girl Bar’, an online fan fiction community devoted to the pairing of the contestants of the 2006 season of Super Girl, an entertainment program featured on Hunan Satellite TV that enjoys great popularity in the Sinophone world. Through an ethnographic account of the formation, convention and performativity of identities and socialities in this community, we demonstrate how Super Girl GL fans mobilize their emotional capital to create artworks, to have fun and to enrich their everyday lives. We argue that the GL fan fiction community has become a space of female homosociality, intimacy and affect in which a new generation of young Chinese women actively enact friendship and female subjectivity in a way that refuses the normalization of gender, sexuality and social relations. Moreover, by linking fan studies to affect studies and emotional geography, and by paying particular attention to indigenous concepts and cultural practices in mainland China's fan communities, we wish to contribute to fan studies with feminist, queer and transnational perspectives.     

THE EFFECT OF DIVORCE ON SUICIDE IN DENMARK, 1951–1980

Past research on the effect of marital dissolution on suicide is limited largely to the cultural and institutional framework of the U.S. The present article studies Denmark, a nation with a different social context. A Cochrane-Orcutt iterative regression analysis replicates the American-based pattern for Denmark. The divorce index is more closely associated than the unemployment rate with changes in the suicide rate. A 1% increase in divorce is associated with a 0.32% increase in suicide. Divorce trends also predict the incidence of youth suicide. The study further confirms the generalization that links rapid change in kinship structures to suicide in industrial societies.     

Cultural Identity,Social Capital,and Social Control of Young Korean Americans: Extending the Theory of Intercultural Public Relations

Through 10 in-depth interviews and 2 focus groups, this exploratory study examines how young Korean Americans perceive cultural identity, utilize social capital, and identify conflicts that arise between themselves and their significant others, particularly focusing on how they integrate Korean and American culture. The findings reveal that young Korean Americans have multifaceted, situational identities, which go beyond existing cultural stereotypes, maximize their religious-based social capital and human capital, and experience a varying range of cultural tensions and conflicts in social settings. Therefore, situational cultural identity, a new category of intercultural public relations is suggested, and implications for the practice of public relations are discussed.     

Primäre und sekundäre Effekte kultureller Praktiken

The influence of cultural factors on social inequality have been the subject of current debates in sociology, stressing “culture” as an excluding function. This article, based on a cross-cultural study, analyses if and how cultural styles and practices play a part in educational opportunities and occupational choices of young migrant women. According to this study, the young migrant women and comparable indigenous women found parallel forms of coping with the passage from school to vocational training. Due to limited chances of the groups compared, a successful transformation of life-style preferences and occupational orientation into reality can generally not be taken for granted. The qualitative approach differentiates to what extend cultural practices or rather the social values attributed to them become relevant for the course of the status passage between school and occupational training. In this way both primary and secondary effects of “culture” can be discussed.     

Gender and National Identity Constructions in the Cross‐Border Merger Context

In this article we explore ways in which vertical gender inequality is accomplished in discourse in the context of a recent chain of cross‐border mergers and acquisitions that resulted in the formation of a multinational Nordic company. We analyse social interactions of ‘doing’ gender in interviews with male senior executives from Denmark, Finland and Sweden. We argue that their explanations for the absence of women in the top echelons of the company serve to distance vertical gender inequality. The main contribution of the article is an analysis of how national identities are discursively (re)constructed in such distancing. New insights are offered to studying gender in multinationals with a cross‐cultural team of researchers. Our study sheds light on how gender intersects with nationality in shaping the multinational organization and the identities of male executives in globalizing business.     

'Tell me in your own words': disabling barriers and social exclusion in young persons

This article summarizes two research studies carried out in the University of Cantabria and the University of Sevilla with young persons at risk of social exclusion (underprivileged socio-economic groups, ethnic/cultural minorities and disabled people). We uphold the need to study exclusion as a socially constructed process, which allows us to discuss barriers to social participation (following the social model of disability) while ruling out the essentialist and psychological explanations of inequality and social oppression. We aim to know the barriers young persons have encountered in social and school participation through their own words. We have used several biographical/narrative techniques which have an emancipating interest. Such techniques allow us to learn from the discourses of the young women or men that participated in the research and to discover the fundamental milestones that have shaped their excluded identities.