The structure of everyday narrative in a city market: An ethnopoetics approach

This paper considers the value of Hymesian ethnopoetics as a means of analysing everyday narrative in conditions of mobility and change. The paper offers an account of the development of ethnopoetics as a means to make visible and valorize narrative in the Native American oral tradition, and as a method of revealing culturally specific relations of form and meaning. Hymes’ ethnopoetic approach viewed narrative structure as a reflection of a cultural tradition of meaning‐making. Hymes’ analysis proposed that traditional narrative was a culturally shaped way of speaking, and analysis of narrative structure could reveal and recreate culture. His orientation rested on an assumption that the culture of a group was more or less stable and fixed. This paper adopts an approach to analysis based on ethnopoetics, representing everyday narrative dramatically, organized not only as lines and verses, but also as scenes and acts. Representation in scenes and acts makes visible the dynamic nature of the narrative. The paper asks whether Hymes’ ground‐breaking work on ethnopoetics still has currency and purchase in 21st‐century conditions of mobility, change, and unpredictability. Analysis of everyday narrative in a city market concludes that, notwithstanding the complexity of notions of ‘culture’ and ‘language’ in such conditions, ethnopoetics can be productively applied to everyday contexts for the analysis of narrative.     

The Wish to Know/The Wish Not to Know: Curiosity and the Primal Scene

ABSTRACT

This article explores the developmental experience of curiosity and how it relates to the primal scene. Bion’s concepts of K and –K, alpha function, and containment are used to think about the wish to know and the wish not to know (or to “titrate” knowing). Clinical vignettes trace the experience of curiosity as it plays out in the analytic relationship, and they illustrate instances when thinking becomes confused and boundaries collapse in response to “too much” information. Curiosity, when worked through, may become an analytic object, a vehicle for intimacy, and a possible third position between K and –K, one that leads the way toward creativity and play.     

Rebellion or riot?: black Loyalist food laws in Sierra Leone

In 1800 black Loyalists in Sierra Leone participated in an event that historians have called a rebellion. Reinterpreting the 1800 rebellion as a food riot reveals more extensive black Loyalist political activity in the 1790s, greater cooperation between black Loyalists and white councilmen, and increased animosity between black Loyalists and Africans. Black Loyalists created food legislation with the approval of the Sierra Leone Council, but those laws fostered disagreements with Africans. When the Sierra Leone Council revoked the black Loyalists’ law-making abilities, colonists rioted to reclaim the political and legal rights that they developed through their food legislation.     

The Changing Demography of Grandparenthood

Demographic changes affect the time that individuals spend in different family roles. Mortality decline increases the time an individual can spend as a grandparent, but childlessness decreases the proportion of people who ever become grandparents, and fertility postponement delays when grandparenthood begins. This article examines changes in the length of grandparenthood at the population level and why it has changed in Canada over a 26‐year period. Using the Sullivan method, years spent as a grandparent are estimated by sex for 1985 and 2011. Results show that grandparenthood is coming significantly later to Canadians, in small part due to increased childlessness and in large part to fertility postponement of respondents and their children. The average length of grandparenthood decreased among women from 24.7 to 24.3 years but increased among men from 17.0 to 18.9 years. The changing timing and length of grandparenthood have implications for multigenerational relationships and intergenerational transfers.     

Understanding Grandfamilies: Characteristics of Grandparents,Nonresident Parents,and Children

Using data from the Year 9 Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N ～ 3,182), we investigated the characteristics grandfamilies (grandparents raising their grandchildren with no parent present, N = 84) and compared them to other key groups, including children's nonresident parents and other economically disadvantaged families with children. Results show that grandparents raising their grandchildren were generally better off in terms of educational attainment, marital status, and economic well‐being than the child's parents. Grandparents raising their grandchildren also had characteristics very similar to other disadvantaged mothers. Academic and socioemotional well‐being were poorer among children in grandfamilies compared with those living with their mothers, but parenting practices were very similar. These findings suggest that although children in grandfamilies may be at a disadvantage academically and socioemotionally, grandparent caregivers are in many ways similar to other fragile‐family mothers. Overall, this study enhances our knowledge of an important yet understudied family type.     

Testing the Clinical Implications of Planned Missing Data Designs

Assessment is a core element of evidence‐based practice, but thorough formal assessment can place a significant burden on clients. We evaluated the clinical viability of using planned missing data designs to reduce client burden. Data come from an archival dataset with 1342 participants. Although significant differences were found in scores with planned missing data versus real scores, the effect sizes for the differences were generally small. Scores with missing data had sensitivity and specificity scores generally above .90 when predicting real scores over clinical cutoffs and improvement in real scores. These findings offer useful information to agencies and researchers looking for ways to collect more data without losing its immediate clinical utility.     

Migration Decisions,Acculturation, and Overweight among Asian and Latino Immigrant Adults in the United States

Using the 2002–2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), we examine relationships between acculturation, migration decisions, and overweight among Latino and Asian immigrants. Pooled logistic regression models showed no evidence that acculturation and migration decisions were related to overweight among Asians, but models for Latinos indicated that aspects of acculturation (duration of US residence and English proficiency) and migration decisions (moving to find a job) were significantly associated with overweight status. However, interaction models also highlighted the gendered nature of the acculturation–weight relationship, such that country‐of‐origin ties can have different implications for the overweight status of male and female immigrants.     

‘She Knew What was Coming’: Knowledge and Domestic Violence in Social Work Education

Social Work educators are aware that within any class of social work students there are likely to be students with first-hand experience of domestic violence. The Writing Stories project was designed to engage students with social policy learning using experiential accounts. An unintended outcome of the project was the disclosure of students' experience of domestic violence. The accounts of violence offer an interesting juxtaposition with the formalised academic story of violence. This paper, by drawing on the concept of banality, aims to uncover how knowledge is presented in those stories and what challenges this may pose for educators. Feminist research highlights the need for researchers to enable women to tell their stories. Social work values also stress that service-user experience should be central to theorising and knowledge production. However, within an educational relationship these stories also need to be examined for how they can both provide a basis for knowledge and compete with, clash or resist other forms of knowledge. The key argument is that neither the formal, academic forms of knowledge, nor the experiential should be privileged. Instead, it is by working across a spectrum of epistemological methods that practice is best contextualised.     

Inclusion or outcomes? Tensions in the involvement of people with learning disabilities in strategic planning

Social inclusion is a key principle that underpins the provision of services for people with learning disabilities in England. Learning Disability Partnership Boards, which are responsible for local strategic planning of learning disability services, hold a particular role in promoting inclusion since they are required both to operate inclusively and to achieve inclusive outcomes. This study sought to explore the extent to which these ambitions for inclusion were being achieved. It consisted of three phases: a scoping exercise to elicit the views of key stakeholders; a postal survey of Partnership Boards (response rate 51%); and semi-structured interviews with Partnership Boards members in six local authorities. Findings suggest that Partnership Boards are struggling to fulfil their dual role, with tensions emerging between the desire to operate in fully inclusive ways and the ability to affect strategic change within local services.