The powerful relational language of ‘family’: togetherness,belonging and personhood

This article examines the notion of ‘family’ to consider how it may be understood in people's everyday lives. Certain recurrent and powerful motifs are apparent, notably themes of togetherness and belonging, in the context of a unit that the person can be ‘part of’. At the same time, there may be important variations in the meanings given to individuality and family, evoking differing understandings of the self and personhood. I consider these ideas further through globally relevant but variable cultural themes of autonomy and relationality, suggesting the term ‘social person’ as a heuristic device to distinguish the sense of ‘close‐knit selves’ that may be involved in some understandings of personhood. I argue that this version of personhood may be powerfully expressed through ‘family’ meanings, with a significance which can be at least provisionally mapped along lines of inequality and disadvantage within and between societies around the world. These forms of connectedness may be hard to grasp through those theoretical and methodological frameworks which emphasize the (relational) individual. I argue that, in affluent English speaking societies, ¹ there may be little alternative to the language of ‘family’ for expressing such forms of relationality and connection.     

Communicating Risks and Benefits from Fish Consumption: Impact on Belgian Consumers' Perception and Intention to Eat Fish

Communicating about the health effects of fish and seafood may potentially result in a conflict situation: increasing intake is desirable because of health and nutritional benefits, but higher consumption may also lead to an increased intake of potentially harmful environmental contaminants. In order to anticipate the communication challenge this conflict may pose, the research presented here aimed to assess the impact of risk/benefit communication on Belgian consumers' fish consumption behavior and fish attribute perception. Data were collected in June 2005 from a sample of 381 women, aged between 20 and 50 years. An experimental design consisting of four message conditions (benefit‐only; risk‐only; benefit‐risk; and risk‐benefit) combined with three information sources (fish and food industry; consumer organization; government) was used. Exposure to the benefit‐only message resulted in an increase from a self‐reported fish consumption frequency of 4.2 times per month to an intended fish consumption frequency of 5.1 times per month (+21%), while fish attribute perceptions only marginally improved. The risk‐only message resulted in a strong negative perceptual change in the range of two points on a seven‐point scale. This translated into an 8% decrease of behavioral intention (from eating fish 4.5 times per month to an intention of eating fish 4.1 times per month). Balanced messages referring to both risks and benefits yielded no significant change in behavioral intention, despite a significant worsening of fish attribute perception. The presentation order of benefits and risks in the balanced message showed a tendency to affect both behavioral intention and attribute perception, with the first message component being most influential. Information source did not yield any significant impact either on behavioral intention or on attribute perceptions, independent of the message content. The results from this study provide valuable insights for future risk/benefit and balanced communication about seafood.     

Towards ‘New Emotional Movements’? A Comparative Exploration into a Specific Movement Type

In this article we broaden the scope of earlier research that established a theoretical specificity for the Belgian ‘White March’ and ‘White Movement’, by comparing them to three similar movements and mobilizations that were also triggered by random violence. The comparisons suggest that we are dealing with a new type of social movement and mobilization, preliminarily referred to as ‘new emotional movements’. The three other cases under study are the ‘Snowdrop Campaign’ in the UK, the ‘Million Mom March’ in the US and the ‘Movement against Senseless Violence’ in the Netherlands. Four important features seem to characterize all cases: the central role of emotions and victimization in the mobilization and development of the movement; broad elite support; organizational weakness; and extensive media support. We distinguish two sub-types of new emotional movements: (1) an instrumental variant with clear-cut aims and demands; and (2) an identity variant with displays of solidarity and compassion as the main constitutive elements. In both cases the initiators lack prior organizational experience and the absence of mobilizing organizations is compensated for by mass media support. In the instrumental sub-type neither the victims nor their relatives take the initiative but lend support and give approval to amateur entrepreneurs. The main mobilizing emotion appears to be fear about the possibility of personal suffering, and this emotion is reflected in the formulation of clear-cut demands for the future prevention of similar events. This instrumentality results in elite support being considerably broad, yet partisan. In contrast, the victims themselves take the initiative in the identity variant, causing the movement to remain more or less without specific demands but ensuring a broad support that is not bounded by party lines.     

The Institutionalisation of ‘TongNian’ and ‘childhood’ in China and Britain: Exploring Cautious Comparisons

This article engages with the question of how theorisation of the social construction of childhood can be applied across cultural contexts, taking China and Britain as examples. The paper draws on collaborative dialogue between scholars from the People's Republic of China and Britain, and literatures from both Anglophone and Mandarin sources. It takes forward emergent work on theorising childhood from diverse global perspectives by focusing on the institutionalisation of childhood in these countries, with particular reference to language, conceptualisation and legal frameworks relating to chronological age.     

The politics of concepts: family and its (putative) replacements

The central concern of this paper is that there has been a move within British sociology to subsume (or sometimes, even replace) the concept of ‘family’ within ideas about personal life, intimacy and kinship. It calls attention to what will be lost sight of by this conceptual move: an understanding of the collective whole beyond the aggregation of individuals; the creation of lacunae that will be (partially) filled by other disciplines; and engagement with policy developments and professional practices that focus on ‘family’ as a core, institutionalized, idea. While repudiating the necessity (and indeed, pointing out the dangers) of providing any definitive answer to definitions of ‘family’, the paper calls for critical reflection on the implications of these conceptual moves.     

Isolated housewives and complex maternal worlds – The significance of social contacts between women with young children in industrial societies*

This article reconsiders the picture of the mother of young children in industrialised societies as the ‘isolated housewife’, suggesting this notion is by no means straightforward. We suggest there is considerable evidence for the existence of mothers' social contacts and their significance both as ‘work’ and ‘friendship’ in industrial societies. A pre-occupation with the notion of the ‘isolation’ of ‘housewives’ has led social researchers to neglect sustained examination of the social relationships within which many/most mothers are involved on a day-to-day basis. Complexities of interpretation, for example what ‘isolation’ can actually mean, need to be drawn out from the existing literature. Evidence presented from two recent ethnographic studies shows patterned opportunities/constraints occurring in relation to mothers' social contacts within localised settings, whether through organised groups or other personal ties. The complex nature of individual women's social contacts is thus brought out. Some key questions are raised for the importance to sociology, anthropology and social policy of these apparently insignificant or invisible women's networks.     

Identification of Salmonella high risk pig-herds in Belgium by using semiparametric quantile regression

Summary.  Consumption of pork that is contaminated with Salmonella is an important source of human salmonellosis world wide. To control and prevent salmonellosis, Belgian pig-herds with high Salmonella infection burden are encouraged to take part in a control programme supporting the implementation of control measures. The Belgian government decided that only the 10% of pig-herds with the highest Salmonella infection burden (denoted high risk herds) can participate. To identify these herds, serological data reported as sample-to-positive ratios (SP-ratios) are collected. However, SP-ratios have an extremely skewed distribution and are heavily subject to confounding seasonal and animal age effects. Therefore, we propose to identify the 10% high risk herds by using semiparametric quantile regression with P -splines. In particular, quantile curves of animal SP-ratios are estimated as a function of sampling time and animal age. Then, pigs are classified into low and high risk animals with high risk animals having an SP-ratio that is larger than the corresponding estimated upper quantile. Finally, for each herd, the number of high risk animals is calculated as well as the beta–binomial p -value reflecting the hypothesis that the Salmonella infection burden is higher in that herd compared with the other herds. The 10% pig-herds with the lowest p -values are then identified as high risk herds. In addition, since high risk herds are supported to implement control measures, a risk factor analysis is conducted by using binomial generalized linear mixed models to investigate factors that are associated with decreased or increased Salmonella infection burden. Finally, since the choice of a specific upper quantile is to a certain extent arbitrary, a sensitivity analysis is conducted comparing different choices of upper quantiles.     

New media, new movements? The role of the internet in shaping the 'anti-globalization' movement

Collective action and social movement protest has become commonplace in our 'demonstration-democracy' and no longer surprises the media or the public. However, as will be shown, this was not the case with the recent anti-globalization protests that attracted demonstrators from countries all over the world. The battles of Seattle, Washington, Prague and Genoa, with an unforeseen mixture of nationalities and movements, became world news. Interestingly, the new media seemed to play a crucial role in the organization of these global protests. This article maps this movement-in-progress via an analysis of the websites of anti-globalization, or more specifically anti-neo-liberal globalization organizations. It examines the contribution of these sites to three different conditions that establish movement formation; collective identity; actual mobilization and a network of organizations. This ongoing, explorative research indicates signs of an integration of different organizations involved and attributes an important role to the Internet. However, whilst both our methodology and subject are evolving rapidly, conclusions, as our initial results show, must be tempered.     

Protesters on message? Explaining demonstrators’ differential degrees of frame alignment

The frame alignment perspective emphasizes the importance of congruence in beliefs between protest participants and protest organizers. Although frame alignment is widely used in social movement research and matters for important movement processes, it has remained largely unclear how we can explain different degrees of frame alignment among protesters. We use empirical evidence regarding organizers’ and participants’ frames, surveying 4000 protesters in twenty-nine demonstrations between 2009 and 2012 in Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The results show that frame alignment depends on variables that tap into protesters’ exposure to organizational and alternative messages. Participants who are recruited by staging organizations, and events organized by strong and more professionalized organizations, display higher levels of frame alignment, whereas salience of the protest issue in the political arena severely constrains frame alignment.