‘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.     

“Getting pregnant might make me seem more normal to them”: Attitudes,experiences, and gendered nuances regarding pregnancy and parenting among youths experiencing homelessness

Homelessness among youths exacerbates an array of challenging life experiences, notable examples of which are pregnancy and parenting. Research is lacking on young men’s attitudes and experiences, and also the influences which homeless youths’ gender identities and sexualities may have on their pregnancy and parenting outcomes and trajectories. This study qualitatively explores gender differentials, including youths’ gender identities and sexual orientations, with regard to their attitudes and experiences of pregnancy and parenting while homeless. Qualitative data were obtained from interviews with a diverse sample of 30 female, male, and transgender homeless youths, ages 18 to 21. Findings revealed that topics of pregnancy and parenting represent a wide range of complexities, different standards, and threats for homeless youths. Although pregnancy is often viewed positively within this community, it is received and experienced differently for each gender and sexuality. Results demonstrate that youths’ unimpeded access to and knowledge of all available reproductive and sexual health care services is essential. These services must be designed and delivered for youths of all gender identities and sexual orientations. Interventions and resources on parenting and co-parenting, particularly models that more inclusively engage a greater diversity of young parents’ involvement, are also urgently needed.     

The Importance of Identity in Policy: The Case For and Of Children

This article draws out one of the core reasons why children should be conceived as active agents in research, particularly policy‐related research. The main thesis is that policy inevitably projects and, to an extent, constitutes the subject identities of its intended objects — in this case, that of ‘children’. Drawing on several bodies of theory — the ‘new’ sociology of childhood, identity theory, ‘governmentality’ and theories of discourse — the article shows why not incorporating children’s voices is a problem for social policy, and suggests that the impact of their exclusion has the potential to render policy both inappropriate and non‐responsive.     

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.     

Sexuality and the city: exploring the experience of minority sexual identity through storytelling

This article explores the discursive construction of sexual identity through organizational storytelling, in the London office of a global investment bank, InvestCo. Work on the identity of sexual minorities in work organizations is rare, and even more so in the context of an institution such as a bank. Minority sexual identities have largely been ignored by the organizational studies and diversity literatures, but organizations and the researchers who study them, are starting to turn their attention to this previously silenced population. A major difficulty for researchers in this area, and one which has been well researched and documented in other areas of identity construction, is how to access and research this area. This article puts forward the idea that storytelling is an effective way of exploring this still sensitive topic. The results of the research are presented according to different ways in which minority sexual identity is constructed in organizations. This includes a discussion of social identities, displayed and hidden identities, changing identities, accepted and castigated identities and finally congruent and incongruent identities. The article also identifies themes which emerge from the stories about the stories themselves; themes of hidden identities, mistakes, victimhood and resistance. Although of relevance to those interested in the experience of sexual minorities in organizations, the storytelling discursive approach opens up the subject's experiences to a wider audience interested in diversity, discourse theory, ethnography and organizational life in general. The level of access is unusual and the double level story telling research approach could be of use in other areas.     

The NGOization of LGBT activism: ILGA-Europe and the Treaty of Amsterdam

This article discusses the Europeanization of social movement organizations using the case of ILGA-Europe, the umbrella of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organizations in Europe. It examines the impact of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which bans discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and focuses on three entrenched dynamics ILGA-Europe has rapidly undergone: NGOization, institutionalization, and professionalization. It argues that although we should be aware of the role of the European political opportunity structure in shaping civil society organizations, we cannot overlook internal organizational dynamics and movement identities. Following the literature on the Europeanization of social movements, this piece confirms institutional opportunities and interactions with European institutions are a major cause of transformation: The adoption of Article 13 and the development of a European equal opportunity policy constitute a pivotal moment in ILGA-Europe’s history, endowing it with easier access to EU institutions and core funding. This allowed the organization to NGOize, contributed to a transformation of its internal structures, and led to the appointment of highly skilled professionals. However, this article also insists on the importance of movement identity. These transformations are not solely the result of interactions with the European institutional environment, but had been prepared by long-term orientations within ILGA, that is a preference for reformist claims and institutional strategies. ILGA-Europe’s NGOization is thus not only a response to institutional and political changes, but also results from specific ways of imagining activism. It is the interaction between movement identity and arising institutional opportunities that allowed the organization to transform.     

The work of disabled identities in intimate relationships

This article details a thematic analysis of disabled men and women’s accounts of past and present intimate relationships. Drawing upon the sexual stories of 25 disabled people, informants’ intimate relationships are explored as a site of emotional work, and as a site of other forms of (gendered) work. This article critically questions the work carried out by informants and considers the ways in which it was shaped by their lived experiences of gender, sexuality, impairment and disability. The article concludes that the requirement to carry out forms of work within intimate and sexual life constituted a form of psycho-emotional disablism.     

Fighting the Opposition: Lack and Excess in Cuban and Cuban-American Narratives of Selfhood

This essay presents a comparative discussion of two novels — one Cuban, one Cuban-American and both by women writers — that examines the roles played by the oppositional tropes of lack and excess in their respective portrayals of post-revolutionary Cuban female identities. Zoé Valdés’ La nada cotidiana (1995) and Dreaming in Cuban by are examined here via three shared thematic concerns — food, the female gendered body, and artistic expression — in which portrayals of lack and excess serve as vehicles for revealing and negotiating the oppositions often identified as inherent to the ‘Cuban condition’. Ultimately, I argue, these two literary works challenge the simplistic dualisms often used as paradigms for demarcating female Cuban identities in the post-1959 context, both within the national border and throughout the Cuban-American diaspora.     

How Sexual Identities Change: Pragmatism,Habit, and Creativity in the ‘Situation’ of the Lascivious Costume Ball

How do individuals’ sexual identities, in the sense of who they are as sexual beings, change? Research addressing this question in the modern U.S. setting points to several factors, including macrolevel societal transformations, vernacular culture, interpersonal interactions, psychodynamics, and life course transitions. Yet it is less clear how these diverse factors are configured in broader social processes. This article draws on and extends the pragmatist mechanism-based approach to social theory to illuminate a key causal pathway whereby individuals’ sexual identities may change. I argue that habits, specifically taken-for-granted ways of doing and thinking about sexuality, are a crucial constituent of sexual identities. But when individuals encounter problem situations to which existing habits are inadequate responses, they are more likely to do and think about sexuality creatively. Incorporation of these creative responses into stocks of habits can readily encompass shifts in sexual identities. The argument is illustrated using people’s dramatic reflections on the first three iterations of the Lascivious Costume Ball, a sexuality-themed party that occurred at the University of Chicago. The Ball dramatized the radical historical moment of the Sixties and functioned as an exceptional problem situation for all but three of my respondents. The utility of the theory centers on its capacity to (1) generate more precise explanations of how individuals’ sexual identities change; (2) integrate distinct literatures on sexual identity into a carefully generalizable theory of individual change; and (3) highlight a crucial relational dimension of certain problem situations.     

Migrant Traders in the Marketplaces (Pasar) and their Domination in the Post-conflict Society of the Moluccas Province,Indonesia

This article is about the domination of Butonese migrant traders in three urban marketplaces (pasar) of Ambon in the aftermath of sectarian conflict. The research examines how Butonese migrant traders struggle for their sovereign space and how they deal with the dissatisfied local traders in light of their domination in the market. The Butonese migrant traders also demonstrate an uncanny ability in political lobbying and creating businesses based on family networking. At the horizontal level, they construct their emotional connections and minimalise local people’s jealousy over their dominance in the market by reinventing local ceremonies in the marketplace, while at the vertical level, the Butonese traders create credit access and political contacts with the central government in Jakarta and with local legislators—most of whom belong to Islamic parties. The market has become a space for leveling-up the migrant trader’s self-esteem since, outside the market, local people (orang negeri) question their citizenship status.     

The death of informants or when a fieldworker outlives the community studied

This paper analyses the phenomenon of the death of informants. Based on his own experience with the long-term (1999–2016) research of Voyvodovo – the only Czech village in Bulgaria, the author shows what the death of one’s informants means for the research and the researcher. The author argues that any long-term fieldwork entails emotional involvement of the researcher, and so the departure of his or her informants has a deep impact on the researcher’s well-being. The articles also address methodological consequences of the death of informants, namely, the case when the death of all of them leads to a situation that the group ceases to exist. The author shows that with the last member’s passing away Malinowski’s ‘native’s point of view’ is lost forever. The author also suggests that the topic of death of informants should be included into educational curricula for fieldwork training.     

Confronting or Complementing? A Case Study on NGO–State Relations from Kerala, India

NGOs have, of late, found some of their traditional domains, such as provision of micro-credit and participatory development, coinciding with or being taken away by the state. How do they position themselves and retain relevance vis-a-vis the state in the changed scenario? Tracing the trajectory of interventions of a local NGO in Kerala, India, this article shows that NGOs exhibit ‘multiple identities’—selective collaboration, gap-filling and posing alternatives—in the process of engagement with the state. The ‘strategizing’ of such identities may hold the key to their relevance vis-a-vis the state.     

Tragic Choices in Humanitarian Aid: A Framework of Organizational Determinants of NGO Decision Making

Humanitarian NGOs face difficult choices about whom to help and whom not on a daily basis. The research question in this article is how humanitarian NGOs make these difficult decisions and why in a particular way. March’s study on consequential and appropriate decision-making processes is used to analyze the nature and course of NGO decision making. Since March’s two models are often explicitly or implicitly linked to certain types of organizational settings—as reflected in an organization’s formal structure, compliance and coordination mechanisms—this article particularly zooms in on the relationship between NGO decision-making processes and these settings. The theoretical framework is illustrated and discussed by means of an exploratory comparative case study of two international humanitarian NGOs: Médecins Sans Frontières Holland (MSF Holland) and Acting with Churches Netherlands (ACT Netherlands).     

Genito-Pelvic Pain Through a Dyadic Lens: Moving Toward an Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Model of Women’s Sexual Dysfunction

Researchers and clinicians alike widely acknowledge the inherently interpersonal nature of women’s sexual dysfunctions given that both partners impact and are impacted by these difficulties. Yet theoretical models for understanding the role of interpersonal factors in women’s sexual dysfunctions are severely lacking and have the potential to guide future research and inform more effective interventions. The most widely studied sexual dysfunction in women that has espoused a dyadic approach by including both members of affected couples is genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder (GPPPD). In this article we use the example of GPPPD to introduce a novel interpersonal emotion regulation model of women’s sexual dysfunction. We first review current knowledge regarding distal and proximal interpersonal factors in GPPPD. Then, we describe our theoretical model and consider relevant pain and sex-related research on emotion regulation processes—emotional awareness, expression, and experience—in the context of GPPPD, including sexual function, satisfaction, and distress. Next, we review how existing theories from the fields of chronic pain and sex and relationships research have informed our model and how our model further builds on them. Finally, we discuss the implications of our model and its applications, including to other sexual dysfunctions in women.     

Transnational queer sociological analysis of sexual identity and civic‐political activism in Hong Kong,Taiwan and mainland China

The sociology of homosexuality lacks engagement with queer theory and postcolonialism and focuses primarily on the global metropoles, thus failing to provide a plausible account of non‐Western non‐normative sexual identities. This research adopts the author’s newly proposed transnational queer sociology to address these deficiencies. First, it critiques the Western model of sexual identity predominantly employed to elucidate non‐Western, non‐normative sexualities. It does so by examining not only the queer flows between West and non‐West but also those among and within non‐Western contexts to produce translocally shared and mutually referenced experiences. Second, the proposed approach combines sociology with queer theory by emphasizing the significant role of material, as well as discursive, analyses in shaping queer identities, desires and practices. This article employs the approach to examine young gay male identities, as revealed in 90 in‐depth interviews conducted in Hong Kong (n = 30), Taiwan (Taipei, n = 30) and mainland China (Shanghai, n = 30) between 2017 and 2019. More specifically, it highlights the interplay between the state and identity by investigating the intersection and intertwining effects of these young men’s sexual and cultural/national identities, revealing three different forms of civic‐political activism. The article both demonstrates the way in which sexuality and the state are mutually constituted and provides nuanced analysis of the heterogeneity of contemporary homosexualities in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. In applying a new sociological approach to understanding sexuality, this research joins the growing body of scholarship within sociology that is decentring the Western formation of universal knowledge.     

Affirmative Practice and Alternative Sexual Orientations: Helping Clients Navigate the Coming Out Process

Those who differ from the dominant heterosexual ideal of exclusively other-sex attraction and intimacy encounter unique challenges, such as the coming out process, during which individuals with alternative sexual orientations must explore, define, and disclose their orientations in a way straight individuals need not. This article focuses on how clinicians can aid clients throughout the coming out process in a way that affirms the full range of sexual orientations. Following an overview of alternative sexual orientations and models of the coming out process, a case example is used to illustrate how clinicians can help clients address three challenges of coming out: overcoming internalized biases; clarifying their sexual orientation and identity; and making decisions about disclosure.     

Pleasure,power, and pain: A review of the literature on the experiences of BDSM participants

Since the explosion of social scientific and sociological research on BDSM in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the field has grown exponentially. In this review, I identify three particularly fruitful recent lines of research in sociological and related approaches to BDSM. First, I discuss work that critically analyzes the meaning(s) of BDSM for participants and the role of debates about the sexual and the erotic in relation to BDSM. Second, I discuss work on BDSM identities, including scholarship that examines BDSM identities in relation to other identities. Here, I also discuss emerging lines of scholarship that focus on the ways in which privileges (particularly race/ethnicity and class) shape identification with and access to BDSM communities. Third, I discuss work on BDSM communities, examining the ways that community organization shapes BDSM experiences. I conclude with suggestions for future research in the field including deepening and broadening intersectional analyses of BDSM experiences, exploring specialized roles and identities that exist within the broader BDSM umbrella, and investigating similarities and differences between those who participate in BDSM on a time‐limited basis versus those for whom BDSM is an ongoing, continual core aspect of identity.     

Desiring T,Desiring Self: “T-Style” Pop Singers and Lesbian Culture in China

This article examines an emerging group of “T-style” female singers in the popular music scene in China. The expression “T,” which is developed from the term “tomboy,” refers to lesbians with masculine gender style. It is a widely used form of identification in local lesbian communities in China. The emergence of “T-style” female singers coincided with the rapid development of local lesbian communities in major cities in China. By exploring the intersections—or mutual modeling—of “T-style” singers and local lesbian gender culture, this article also analyzes the different receptions of “T-style” singers by local lesbian women, and explores whether “T-style” singers are seen as a “cultural resource” that aids the construction of lesbian gender and sexual identities.