Dignity,happiness and being able to live a ‘normal life’ in the UK – an examination of post-accession Polish migrants' transnational autobiographical fields

This article examines data from a qualitative study of post-accession Polish migrants living in the UK. We examine themes from our interviews such as ‘dignity’, ‘normality’, ‘happiness’ and the ‘affordability’ and ‘ease’ of life in the UK (compared to Poland). We focus on the autobiographical or intra-personal discursive practices that define what Habib calls migrants' continuing relationship with their ‘homeland’. We draw on Emirbayer and Mische's analysis of the relationship between ‘agency’ and what they call ‘embedded temporalities’ to examine the interaction between our participants' recollections of life in Poland and their evaluation of their present lives in the UK in order to examine the impact of these on their future plans (to stay in the UK or return to Poland). We locate this analysis in what we call a transnational autobiographical field which is a modification of what Levitt and Glick Schiller call a transnational social field. Rather than examine, for example, how decisions to migrate, settle and re-migrate are embedded in inter or trans-personal social relations and networks, in this article we examine the self-dynamics associated with our participants' articulation of their intra-personal and autobiographical embedded temporalities. Our argument is that articulations of individuals' pasts, presents and anticipated futures are also significant factors shaping their migration, settlement, and re-migration decisions.     

Television And The Domestication Of Cosmetic Surgery

An exploration of the discursive production of cosmetic surgery on the television shows Extreme Makeover and Nip/Tuck illustrates that these programmes contribute to and reflect the processes through which cosmetic surgery has become domesticated within increasingly globalised contexts. I demonstrate that across a range of cultural sites, including some feminist scholarship, the press, and surgical television, post-feminist frames have displaced feminist frames for comprehending cosmetic surgery, enabling the culture's surgical turn. Feminist attention to risk, oppressive standards for appearance, and the cultural and discursive location of suffering around the deviant body is displaced by the post-feminist celebration of physical transformation as the route to happiness and personal empowerment. It is this logic that is played out through Extreme Makeover's rendering of surgery as the solution for personal suffering and a meting out of justice to the “moral” individual. Extreme Makeover explicitly domesticates cosmetic surgery by publicising its benefits and undoing the former imperative to hide surgery rather than be viewed as “inauthentic.” As a corollary, the show promotes a system of visual eugenics where “unaesthetic” raced and gendered facial and bodily features are erased. Nip/Tuck gestures toward feminist responses to surgical culture through making its violent interventions into the body explicit, by including a feminist character, and through incorporating plot lines which critique the narcissism and gendered cruelty of surgical appearance work. However, these gestures serve as dramatic devices, the political potential of which is curtailed by the requirements of the melodrama to favour sensational story arcs and to retain a degree of sympathy for the surgeon leads. Thus, both shows contribute to a post-feminist mediascape which renders the inevitability of the culture's surgical turn, providing limited frames for viewers negotiating their own responses to the meanings of cosmetic surgery.     

"A sound track of your life": music in contemporary UK funerals

This article considers the role that music plays in contemporary UK funerals and the meaning that the funeral music has for bereaved families. It is based on findings from a recently completed study of 46 funerals funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. Music contributes to the public ceremony and the personal existential quest of the bereaved. It is important to both the content and process of the contemporary funeral, an event of deep cultural significance in our response as individuals and communities to death and the loss of a significant relationship. There is evidence that for many people, the music chosen and used also evokes and conveys their spirituality. Spirituality may not be intrinsic to the music but spiritual experience may result from the meaning that the music has for that particular person.     

Gender,financial literacy,and preretirement planning in the UK

This study uses a two-stage logistic regression model to explore the determinants of retirement planning behavior. A survey of 516 UK women and men of prestate retirement age was used to establish interrelationships between gender, retirement planning, and financial literacy, taking account of attitudinal and expectational variables. Findings confirm lower levels of planning among women, but contrary to previous studies, this study reveals that financial literacy is not significantly related to planning. Furthermore, when attitudinal and expectational variables are incorporated as independent variables, gender becomes statistically insignificant as a determinant of planning.     

Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics: A Publisher's Perspective, 2nd Edition*

Wiley has updated its publishing ethics guidelines, first published in 2006. The new guidelines provide guidance, resources, and practical advice on ethical concerns that arise in academic publishing for editors, authors, and researchers, among other audiences. New guidance is also included on whistle blowers, animal research, clinical research, and clinical trial registration, addressing cultural differences, human rights, and confidentiality. The guidelines are uniquely interdisciplinary, and were reviewed by 24 editors and experts chosen from the wide range of communities that Wiley serves. They are also published in Advanced Materials, Headache, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, International Journal of Clinical Practice, and on the website http://exchanges.wiley.com/ethicsguidelines .     

Communicating misunderstandings: multi-agency work as social practice

This paper reflects on the findings of an ethnographic study of interprofessional communication and social relations in an integrated child health service, during and after the relocation of different parts of the service to a single site. In the context of the governmental emphasis on restructuring services in order to facilitate better communication between different disciplines, its findings are of considerable pertinence. The study found that co‐location did not straightforwardly lead to better communication. This paper urges that greater attention be paid to the kinds of professional narratives that maintain ritualized ways of working and reinforce professional boundaries. It urges the creation of conditions where everyday practices are open to scrutiny and challenge, and aligns itself with those who call for the development of a ‘communication mindset’ among professionals.     

Disabled citizens as researchers – Challenges and benefits of collaboration for effective action and change

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the evaluation of an initial pilot for a collaborative research project undertaken in an English county between a service user-led Coalition of Disabled People, the local authority and local university. The project sought to map the assets and resources for/of disabled people in their local community as well as needs and gaps, to inform the Coalition’s strategic planning and raise awareness of disability issues across the county.

The article discusses an inclusive, co-productive approach using participatory action research. It focuses on experiences from the pilot stage of the project and considers how the authors worked together with the required knowledge exchange and power-sharing to recruit and train researchers with expertise from their personal experience of disability. Recruitment ensured they had relevant qualities and skills that could be developed, to increase their confidence, knowledge and skills set as researchers. They then undertook photo-elicited, semi-structured interviews with other disabled people, analysed findings and created photographic exhibitions for dissemination and awareness raising.

Demonstrating a commitment to emancipatory research and collective action for change, the discussion considers the promotion of shared values within the research team, and explores the benefits and challenges encountered during the process and how the particular stages were managed to achieve the beneficial outcomes of the pilot. The article seeks to add to the literature of participatory/emancipatory action research for social work.