Negotiating a moral identity in the context of later life care

Strategies to maintain independence for older people have received considerable attention as a social policy solution to the financial and social impact of the ageing population. Critical scholars in gerontology have also highlighted the negative consequences of promoting independence in this way. Understandings of independence have profound implications for caring relationships as people age. To investigate the ways that older people talk about caring we interviewed 48 people aged 55-70years. A discourse analysis of these data showed that a dominant discourse of 'independence' was drawn upon to value self-sufficiency and construct dependence on others as burdensome. This construction of care provides a comfortable position for those who can afford to purchase professional care; however, those without resources are unable to accept unpaid help without also accepting a position of dependency. An alternative discourse of 'being there' constructs having others to provide personal care as a virtue and obligations to provide such care as based on family duty and affection. This discourse emphasises connections between people and a moral obligation to care which also creates difficulties for those with fewer material resources. The position for a dependent older subject in these two discourses may seem incompatible but can be reconciled by reframing independence as autonomy. Autonomy for those requiring care alongside a wider recognition of caring as the responsibility of all members of the community rather than with individual family members would support a flexible approach to later life care arrangements.     

'When I'm in the garden I can create my own paradise': Homes and gardens in later life

This paper brings together recent work on later life and considers the effects of ageing in relation to participation and interest in gardening. Whilst there is considerable research and literature on issues such as health, housing, and social care, the significance of the garden in process of home‐making is less well understood. Using qualitative data from the Mass Observation Data Archive, key physical, psycho‐social processes that impact on the use of the garden and gardening activities are examined. It will be suggested that the garden can have major significance in the (re) creation of ‘home’ in later life.     

Negotiating the boundaries of intimacy: the personal lives of asexual people

This paper uses findings from research diaries to explore the use of practices of intimacy among asexual people. While much of the literature to date has focused on the supposedly transformative and political nature of uniquely asexual practices of intimacy, our findings suggest something different. Rather than seeking to transform the nature of intimate relationships, asexual people make pragmatic adjustments and engage in negotiations to achieve the forms of physical and emotional intimacy they seek. We discuss this in relation to three areas: friendships, sex as a practice of intimacy, and exclusion from intimacy. Our findings suggest the importance of not only considering the social context in which asexual people practise intimacy, but also how the practices in which they engage may be shared with non‐asexual people.     

Challenging cultural constraints: a personal testimony

DISHA is one of the oldest Oxfam project partners in Uttar Pradesh, India. DISHA works with rural women and rope-makers; it encourages village-level women's organizations to fight against obstacles to women's empowerment and to institute income-producing activities; and it provides legal, educational, and health care services. In this article, a Muslim woman tells the story of her involvement with DISHA and how that involvement gave her the courage to reject the restrictions of purdah and of the wearing of the bourkha. This woman was married at age 13. She suffered ill treatment at the house of her in-laws and returned to her father's home with her 3 daughters. Her husband eventually joined her at her father's house. She was approached by a coordinator of DISHA and asked to apply for a job. She was offered the job, which she accepted. When she started going into the villages, she felt that the restrictive dress of the bourkha interfered with her ability to work. With the permission of her father and her husband, she set aside the bourkha. She had to endure criticism and censure for this action, but eventually people have been won over to her position as they have seen the positive results of her work on behalf of society. After having 5 daughters, she finally had a son. Now she is determined that her daughters will never wear the bourkha, even if they must remain single as a result of this resolve. She feels that DISHA has given her the power to overcome oppression in her own life, in the life of her family, and in society.     

Negotiating personal engagement and professional accountability: professional wisdom and ethics work

This article examines the relationship between personal engagement and professional accountability in social work—considering whether the increasing focus on professional accountability in the context of the new public management, public austerity and market-based systems of welfare is incompatible with the personal engagement of social workers with service users and with their work. After undertaking a conceptual analysis of the terms, it is argued that both personal engagement and professional accountability are essential features of social work. Indeed, it is this negotiation of the creative tension between them that constitutes the subject matter and work of professional ethics. This requires a capacity and disposition for good judgement based in professional wisdom and a process of practical reasoning or ‘ethics work’ to find the right balance between closeness and distance, passion and rationality, empathic relationships and measurable social outcomes. It also requires a space for the exercise of professional wisdom.     

Polyvictimization in later life: Trauma-informed best practices

ABSTRACT

This article provides a summary of salient trauma findings and conveys the dearth of research pertaining specifically to the trauma of elder abuse. This material, in conjunction with information contained in other articles composing this special issue, lays the foundation for advancing a trauma-informed approach to assisting older adults who have experienced polyvictimization. Informed by the findings presented and their extensive clinical experience with victims of violence, the authors suggest steps for providing a trauma-informed and victim-centered response to older adults who have suffered polyvictimization. These steps are then illustrated with an in-depth late-life polyvictimization case analysis.     

Negotiating cultural boundaries: Confucianism and trans/national identity in Korea 1

Abstract

This essay looks to the complex intercultural relations of China and Korea to highlight two important issues in political theory and international relations: the transnational nature of world politics and the limits of analytical binaries such as East‐West and tradition‐modernity. Discussions of international politics in East Asia characteristically address issues of security and development studies. More recently, Confucianism has been mobilized as part of the clash of civilizations of Asia with the West. This essay will consider how cultural boundaries are negotiated within the region via an analysis of the workings of the transnational discourse of Confucianism in the construction of Korean identity. While many make truth claims about what ‘Confucianism’ means in Korea, this essay examines the discursive economies of ‘Confucian events’ in three overlapping social spaces: official, mass media, and academic. This essay will show the diversity of Confucianism within East Asia, and underline how rather than being a simple orthodoxy, the shape of Confucianism is an active political issue. While many try to define a core ‘Korean Confucianism’, I argue that we should use Confucianism as an analytical tool to understand something else, citing how some scholars are using Confucianism for the specific project of building democracy in Korea.     

Parent-as-researcher: The politics of researching in the personal life

Several roles for conducting ethnographic research with children have been discussed, but one that has been omitted is the parent-as-researcher. In this paper, we describe some of the methodological advantages and disadvantages of the longitudinal ethnography of preadolescent children we conducted in our community using this methodological approach. We discuss the implications of our role lodging in this complete membership stance and the type of role relations, role identification, and role bifurcation that arose from this combined research/membership approach. We conclude by addressing the ethical issues associated with researching the community of one's own children. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at theWorkshop on Methodological Issues in Fieldwork with Children, Cortland, NY, October, 1994.     

Negotiating cultural and socio-economic flows in the era of Belt and Road Initiatives: An introductory overview

This introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the development of the Belt and Road Initiatives that comprises 6 BRI corridors. It explores the reasons behind the launching and promoting of the BRI by the Mainland Chinese government. The initiative by President Xi Jinping is, in part, the fulfillment of the China Dream and his focus on the “Community of Shared Future for Mankind.” In this sense, BRI provides a platform for Mainland Chinese business community and individuals to move out of the comfort of Mainland Chinese society and embark on economic and cultural connectivity with business community and the Chinese Diaspora in the global world. At the same time, BRI also serves as a platform for the global business and Chinese community to reach into China. As such, BRI could be regarded as a soft power and a cultural power that facilitate people-to-people connectivity and enhance sociocultural and economic activities along the BRI flowscape. The papers in this volume each provides a case study of how BRI serves as a soft and cultural power that enables the individuals and the business corporations to expand in their sociocultural and economic connectivity.     

Sexual expression in later life: a review and synthesis

In the past decade, researchers have begun to study the sexual functioning of typical older persons. This review summarizes literature on the sexuality of men and women over age 50 as researched by social and health scientists. Research on the relationship of biological factors (changes accompanying aging), health (physical, mental, and medication use), psychological factors (attitudes, information about sex), relationship factors (status, satisfaction), and sexual functioning (desire, dysfunctions, treatment) to sexual behavior is reviewed. The review suggests that (a) men and women remain sexually active into their 70s and 80s, (b) aging-related physical changes do not necessarily lead to decline in sexual functioning, and (c) good physical and mental health, positive attitudes toward sex in later life, and access to a healthy partner are associated with continued sexual activity. In turn, regular sexual expression is associated with good physical and mental health. Progress in understanding later life sexuality requires development of comprehensive theoretical models, a broad focus on intimacy, attention to measures and samples, and research on couples. Progress in understanding is especially important, given the aging of populations.     

Negotiating a fusion of horizons: A process view of cultural validation in developmental psychology

Explanations of child development can be used to inform social action at various levels. In many cases a key factor determining the effectiveness of such explanations is the degree to which they are appropriated by primary agents of child socialization, such as parents. In every culture, parents routinely draw on implicit theoretical ideas to interpret the behavior of the children for whom they care, to decide how to respond to that behavior, and to predict changes in child behavior across circumstances and over time. The system of meanings about child development and socialization shared by most of the participant‐owners of a culture may be regarded as a cultural model, or ethnotheory. Research is presented concerning caregiver ethnotheories in a rural Chewa community inZambia, and in two low‐income neighborhoods in a US city. In both cases the focus of attention was on the ways in which caregivers construe the significance of schooling in children's development. In order for this field of application in developmental psychology to achieve cultural validation, the author argues that a process of negotiation is required, in search of common ground between the explicit, formal constructs and theories of the educational establishment and the implicit ethnotheories of caregivers in the children's homes. The first step in this process is to articulate and acknowledge differences of perspective. From there, teachers, caregivers, and psychologists can work towards a fusion of horizons.     

The Scrutinized Priest: Women in the Church of England Negotiating Professional and Sacred Clothing Regimes

This article examines the integration of women priests in the Church of England through the lens of dress. Clothing is a salient dynamic in occupational cultures, particularly in relation to the regulation of gendered bodies. Women's ordination to the priesthood was only sanctioned in 1992. Complex clothing regimes are negotiated, for ordination bestows upon the priest certain clothing rights and responsibilities. However, such attire has traditionally been associated only with the male body, creating tension in relation to women's appropriation of this sacred and professional dress. Based on in‐depth interviews with 17 Anglican clergy women, this article will focus both on the scrutiny the women experienced in relation to their clothing choices, as well as the relationship the women themselves negotiated with their clothes. It will be argued that as representatives of both a sacred and professional domain, clothing had to be carefully managed by clergy. Dress functioned as a key test in women's integration into the organization, often operating as a constraining and exclusionary mechanism.     

Married to the Military: Filipinas Negotiating Transnational Families

Women migrating transnationally as "entertainers" within Asia are particularly exposed to the possibility of forming relationships in these transnational sites. This is because the nature of their work, which entails chatting and dancing with customers and various forms of sexual labour, including fondling, kissing and sometimes sex, often leads to romantic liaisons with customers in the clubs where they are deployed. This possibility is even more pronounced for women who are trafficked (that is, deceptively recruited and employed) as entertainers, as they often counter the severe vulnerabilities associated with their positions by relying on customers-cum-boyfriends for support and assistance. Marriage is one common result of these liaisons. This paper considers the multiple impacts of such marriages for foreign female entertainers on family. I focus particularly on the ways such marriages can both constrain existing family responsibilities and facilitate new ones. The paper draws on the case of Filipinas married to American soldiers in Korea as a case study for discussion. I suggest that migrant women who become involved in such marriages are often pulled between the potentially conflicting demands of old (within their home countries) and new (with their American soldier husbands) family ties and responsibilities. I also suggest that these women's new families, whilst outwardly displaying elements of traditional gendered household roles and structures, are often characterised by long absences of the husband (to other countries or within the country of residence) and long-term patterns of transnational migration that can have a highly disruptive impact on family arrangements.     

Women making sense of midlife: Ethnic and cultural diversity

Within social gerontology and the sociology of ageing there has been a tendency to focus on ageing and midlife as a period characterised by adaptation, consumption and commodification of the body (e.g. Biggs, S. (1997). Choosing not to be Old? Masks, bodies and identity management in later life. Ageing and Society 17: 553–70; Featherstone, M., & Hepworth, M. 1996. The midlifestyle of ‘George and Lynne’: Notes on a popular strip. In The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory, edited by M. Featherstone, M. Hepworth and B. Turner. London: Sage). This has highlighted the extent to which an ageing appearance might impact on the formation of identity and self during midlife. However, a limitation of this focus is a lack of attention to the significance of ethnic and cultural diversity on how midlife is experienced and enacted. In this paper it is argued, such theorisations tend to overlook the complex meanings attached to midlife and how these are often bound up with past, current, and future ethnic and cultural belief systems and values. Based on empirical research with women from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, this paper seeks to examine the different meanings women attach to midlife. It considers the extent to which current theories of ageing have neglected experiences of midlife that are not structured around Western concerns and priorities. The main argument is that women's priorities throughout midlife differ significantly in relation to cultural and ethnic affiliation and background.     

Negotiating Gender Relations: Muslim Women and Formal Employment in Pakistan's Rural Development Sector

Drawing on evidence from qualitative field research, this article explores how Pakistani female development practitioners experience their work situations as they are shaped both by local sociocultural norms and globalized development agendas. In this context, policies at global and national levels demand that more female development practitioners work in remote rural places in Pakistan, thus creating new employment opportunities for some Pakistani women. This article argues that, in this work environment, these women are exposed to different expectations about their gender behaviour and that they therefore develop physical strategies on the one hand and discursive strategies on the other in order to negotiate gender relations in a way that allows them to engage in formal employment. This article adds to under‐researched debates on gender and work in Muslim countries as well as to debates in critical development and gender studies.     

Repartnering: the relevance of parenthood and gender to cohabitation and remarriage among the formerly married

This paper is an exploratory analysis of the impact of current and anticipated parenthood on cohabitation and remarriage among those formerly living in marriage-type relationships. The focus on children is embedded within a broader analysis of repartnering which takes account of other factors, including gender. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are used, with a multivariate analysis of repartnering patterns, using data from the General Household Survey, being complemented by in-depth interview data examining the attitudes of the formerly married to future relationships. The paper demonstrates that parenthood has a statistically significant effect on the likelihood of formerly married women repartnering, with a higher number of children being associated with a lower probability of repartnering. The presence of children can work against repartnering in a variety of ways. Children place demands on their parents and can deter or object to potential partners. Parents may see their parental role as more important than, and a barrier to, new relationships. However, mothers are typically looking for partners for themselves rather than fathers for their children. Among formerly married people without children, the desire to become a parent encourages repartnering. The paper concludes that parenthood should be a key consideration in analyses of repartnering.