Rituals of migration: an introduction

ABSTRACT

This introduction presents a framework for the articles in the special issue Rituals of Migration. First, it provides an overview of studies of ritual and migration, highlighting the fruitfulness of exploring the two fields together and arguing for the use of ritual as a cultural prism on processes of continuity and change in migration. In light of these analytical approaches, the introduction continues by outlining and discussing the three major themes that crosscut the articles (the interrelations between change and continuity, processes of placemaking and lines of social differentiation), demonstrating how the articles can shed light on these issues.     

Educating the “Variant,” Educating the Public: Gender and the Rhetoric of Legitimation in The Ladder Magazine for Lesbians

This article explores the rhetorical strategies used within The Ladder magazine to legitimate its producers, and by extension all lesbians, as participants in the public dialogue regarding the problem of homosexuality. The Ladder was the first lesbian-produced, nationally distributed magazine in the United States, publishing continuously from 1956 through 1972. Unlike early publications by male homophile groups, the producers of The Ladder had two delegitimating statuses to overcome in order to establish legitimacy–their stigmatized sexuality and their delegitimated gender. This article examines the ways that gender expectations experienced by women during the magazine's early years of publication shaped and constrained the discursive practices within The Ladder in its quest for legitimation. Three rhetorical strategies are analyzed: normalization (constructing the lesbian as heterosexual woman), status elevation (the lesbian as man), and emphatic individualism (the lesbian as idealized citizen).     

Covenant Attachment: A Constructivist Grounded Theory of Christian Couples and God

The purpose of this constructivist grounded theory study was to develop a deeper understanding of the relational system of married couples and God. We interviewed nine marital couples from Christian denominations that reported having a strong relationship with each other and with God together. We used constructivist grounded theory techniques presented by Charmaz (2006) and analyzed emergent categories of behaviors, emotions, and cognitions to construct a theory and model of Christian marital couples and their shared relationship with God. We then compared and contrasted the results and theory to existing literature on attachment theory and theorized a shared attachment to God. We applied the theological concept of kinship covenant to the results in order to organize and situate the theory into a Christian framework. Finally, we discuss clinical, pastoral, and future research implications.     

The entry of women in predominantly male professions: when training supports the search of alternative ways of organizing work time

Following a research carried out on the integration of women in professional areas predominantly for men, this paper intends to present and debate the project of a training course which aims the transformation of the organization of work schedules in order to improve the well-being of the workers involved. The conception of training courses with this type of objective involves the confrontation and debate between the "invested skills" of the trainers and the "constituted skills" of the trainees. But will this paradigm remain intact when applied to training courses permeated by the gender dimension? That is what one will try to realize with the effective implementation of a training course, whose reflection will allow, ultimately, to enrich our understanding on gender, work, health and training.     

When gender bumps into health and safety training: working conditions, readings and challenges drawn from a case study in an industrial chemicals company

Health, safety and environmental issues are at present a social concern and an increasingly referred topic in the so called gender studies. This paper focuses on the relations between training, gender and risk perception in an industrial chemicals company, in Portugal, characterized by a mainly male population and by the presence of high occupational and environmental hazards. After characterizing the company and the training project that started up this reflection, the paper presents the reasons for its focus on gender followed by the essential methodological explanations: 14 interviews were made with male and female workers from the company; their content was transcribed from the audio recordings and it was systematically analyzed. A gender-attentive socio demographic analysis was also undertaken. Although at the beginning the company did not consider the gender issues as a problem nor was it the central topic of the training, which focused on the prevention of occupational and environmental hazards, the results reveal that the gender factor brought to light some working conditions, which so far have not been properly discussed within the group meetings. As a consequence, there is now room for the transformation of the representations on those working conditions.     

品味璀璨冬日美馔莫尔顿海鲜牛排坊

第一次吃到牛排是小时候第一次去西餐厅吃的。当时的牛排还是西方的舶来品,稀罕吃食。服务员端上来的滋滋作响的黑色铁板上,除了一大块牛排,还堆放着满满的配菜和意面。后来年纪渐长,吃过的牛排也真真是数都数不过来了,除了文艺范十足的西式餐厅,也有市井巷尾的隐蔽小店,居然也混进过正统的米其林餐厅。不管是下里巴人还是阳春白雪,在我心中留下印象的牛排馆子居然是美式风格十足的莫尔顿海鲜牛排坊。     

Communicating across,within and between,cultures: Toward inclusion and social change

In this article, I provide some reflections on the theme of this special issue and the recent World Public Relations Forum, “Communication across cultures”. In doing so, I was initially tempted to respond with a “how to”, but instead asked myself a fundamental question: “Who is communicating with whom, and why? ” The reason I pose this question is because we need to take stock of our assumptions and the perspectives we take as communication scholars and practitioners. As we face the new opportunities and challenges of global, highly mobile, and increasingly diverse and digitally savvy publics, we also need to clarify some of our assumptions. To expound on this, I will touch on the global, mobile and multicultural context; then discuss how inclusion must be combined with a focus on diversity, and conclude with a call for practitioners communicating across, within and between cultures to advocate for social change.     

Problematising Australia's Nanny Pilot Program as evidence‐based policy: A reconstruction of the problem of childcare

In a notable departure from long‐standing childcare policy in Australia, in January 2016 fee relief was extended to nannies providing in‐home care in a 2‐year pilot program. This policy is significant as fee relief is not tied to the meeting of regulatory requirements designed to ensure quality early learning and care for young children. Drawing on Carol Bacchi's approach to policy analysis, this paper extends previous problematising of evidence‐based policy by highlighting the value of first considering how a policy ‘problem’ has been constructed. We propose that the nanny pilot is an ideologically driven policy that has emanated from a construction of childcare that is adult (parent)‐centred and marginalises the needs and interests of young children. Accordingly, certain evidence is privileged while other evidence is ignored, with the ensuing policy focused on economic imperatives rather than quality early learning and care experiences for young children. We draw on an analysis of parent, peak body and researcher submissions to the Productivity Commission's 2013–2014 childcare inquiry, nanny‐focused research, and data from three national surveys to explore the limitations of such a policy approach. The utility of problem reconstruction as a means of disrupting policy‐informed evidence and the legitimisation of purported evidence‐based policy is considered.     

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.     

The fiscal impact of immigration to welfare states of the Scandinavian type

In this paper, we examine the potential of immigration to strengthen fiscal sustainability, which is under pressure by an ageing population in many European countries. We look at a particularly challenging case, namely that of Denmark, which has extensive tax-financed welfare programmes that provide a high social safety net. The analysis is based on a forecast of the entire Danish economy made using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model with overlapping generations. We present life cycle estimates of the potential fiscal impact of immigration considering the cost of immigration on the margin as well as on average. The main conclusion is that immigrants from Western countries have a positive fiscal impact, while immigrants from non-Western countries have a large negative one, which is also the case when considering only non-refugee immigrants. The negative effect is caused by both a weak labour market performance and early retirement in combination with the universal Danish welfare schemes.