Separation and Post‐Separation Parenting within Lesbian and Gay Co‐parenting (Guild Parented) Families

Gay men and lesbian women have a long history of jointly creating families and co‐parenting their children together. This qualitative study aims to explore the experiences of separation and post‐separation parenting within same‐sex parented families. This involved semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with 22 separated same‐sex parents in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and regional Victoria. An adaptive theory approach was used for the collection and analysis of the data. The paper explores data from a cohort of six participants who came from three different multi‐parent families who had experienced a separation – either their own, or that of other parents in their parenting group. The term ‘co‐parenting families’ was found to be confusing due to the different connotations within separation/divorce and same‐sex parent literature. Consequently, the term ‘guild parented families’ was created to describe these families. Participants from these multi‐parent families had very different experiences of family formation and separation compared to others within the wider separated same‐sex parent study. Separation of one or more of the parent couples within these families complicated their original plans and kinship ideals. Each of the families resolved this differently in their post‐separation arrangements. After separation, whole family narratives and/or the role of individual parents, were either questioned or revised as a way of resolving the complexity of their new kinship situation. Following separation, parents often relied on Western kinship norms that privilege biological kinship and the dual‐parent family to construct their post‐separation kinship arrangements. More awareness of families that begin with more than two parents is needed within separation research and amongst separation services and service providers.     

Cosmopolitanism and the relevance of ‘zombie concepts’: the case of anomic suicide amongst Alevi Kurd youth

Against Beck's claims that conventional sociological concepts and categories are zombie categories, this paper argues that Durkheim's theoretical framework in which suicide is a symptom of an anomic state of society can help us understand the diversity of trajectories that transnational migrants follow and that shape their suicide rates within a cosmopolitan society. Drawing on ethnographic data collected on eight suicides and three attempted suicide cases of second‐generation male Alevi Kurdish migrants living in London, this article explains the impact of segmented assimilation/adaptation trajectories on the incidence of suicide and how their membership of a ‘new rainbow underclass’, as a manifestation of cosmopolitan society, is itself an anomic social position with a lack of integration and regulation.     

Partner Violence in Transgender Communities: What Helping Professionals Need to Know

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, there has been an increase in scholarly attention devoted to the study of intimate partner violence (IPV) within rainbow communities. While a growing body of scholarship now informs our understanding of the experiences of gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women with IPV, comparatively less is known about IPV within transgender communities. Drawing on the published literature on transgender intimate relationships, this article seeks to provide practitioners with a foundational understanding of IPV in the lives of transgender people. Specifically, we will examine (a) methodological, political, and social barriers to the creation of knowledge about transgender IPV; (b) the familial and relationship contexts of IPV within transgender communities; (c) the prevalence of IPV experienced by transgender survivors; (d) the dynamics of IPV perpetrated against and/or by transgender persons; (e) the problematic use of the “trans panic” defense by perpetrators of IPV in legal contexts; and (f) recommendations for supporting transgender survivors of IPV in ways that are trans-inclusive and trans-positive.     

South Africa's 'Rainbow People', National Pride and Happiness

Since the first free elections were held in April 1994, South Africans are popularly known as the 'rainbow people'. The paper inquires whether South Africans who experienced pride in their nation in the first years of democracy also perceived a greater sense of subjective well-being. It is proposed that national pride in post-apartheid South Africa might be fused with or work through self-esteem to lift levels of happiness. The paper traces the history of the new integrating civil religion of the rainbow people and the acceptance of the rainbow as a political symbol of unity among the diverse people of South Africa immediately after the 1994 elections and two years later. The proposed link between national pride and happiness was explored with data from two independent national surveys, the 1995 South African World Values Survey conducted by Markinor and a June 1996 MarkData syndicated omnibus survey. The study found that the appeal of the rainbow as political symbol was inclusive of all groups in society and that feelings of national pride and support for the rainbow ideal were positively associated with subjective well-being. As indicated by intensity and frequency measures, the majority of South Africans were proud of their country and could name a national achievement that inspired pride. Better-off South Africans tended to be happier and more satisfied with life but less proud, while the poor were less happy but fiercely proud of their country. Results suggest that belief in South Africa's 'rainbow nation' ideal may have assisted in boosting happiness during the transition to a stable democracy, thereby preventing alienation among the losers under the new political dispensation. Supporters of the ideal of the rainbow nation were more optimistic than others about the future of their country.     

全视差彩虹全息

提出了一种新的彩虹全息原理。其特征是再现象视差保持完全,观察者位置不受限制,可以获得准单色象。实验结果与理论分析相符。     

论沈从文对“归宿”的寻找

沈从文是从湘西走向世界的一位作家,从边地到城市的地域转换,从和平到战乱的时代变动,都使沈从文对于人生有了深刻的漂泊感受。新环境的接纳认同与自我身份的重新塑造,既使他对湘西有一种天然的情结,又使他对都市有一定的隔膜,在不断的变动中,他始终在寻找着属于自己的归宿。湘西世界的自然归宿、都市生存的情感归宿、宗教情结的精神归宿,都体现着他寻找皈依的心灵历程。     

虹的中外文化特征类析

虹是一种与气象有关的自然现象,但在人类早期由于对自然界的认识不足,将虹神秘化,并对其赋予了多种不同的文化特征.已有学者对我国虹的早期文化特征进行了研究探讨,或因研究领域不同而各有侧重,而对虹的国外文化特征却较少关照,将两者进行类析型比较的文章也较为少见.本文即试图将虹从古至今的中外文化特征进行汇集,并按其文化意象分类,进行描述性分析,并尝试从文字、信仰、文化、心理等角度探寻其根源.     

说殷卜辞中的“虹”——殷商社会观念之一例

殷卜辞以“出虹”为灾祸之兆。出虹可以影响收成,造成祸患,这与《诗经》所谓“(?)(?)在东,莫之敢指”是一致的。甲骨文“虹”字并不起源于拱桥或玉璜之形,而是双首的龙形。殷人以见到它为灾祸之兆,由此我们可以窥见殷商时代“龙”的社会观念的一个侧面。     

中国虹信仰研究

虹信仰是一个世界性的民俗文化事象,在中国也有悠久的历史传承。虹不仅屡屡以龙蛇、美人及女神衣饰、天弓、神桥等形象出现,而且形成了诸多有关虹的预兆与禁忌。本文依据大量文献资料和民族志材料,参照域外虹信仰研究成果,运用民俗学、宗教学理论,较详尽地梳理和分析中国虹信仰中的虹形象、虹预兆和虹禁忌。     

Allegories of white masculinity in Damon Galgut’s The Good Doctor

Urban residents across Africa are neither simply the subjugated nor the purveyors of skilled survival. Rather they continuously navigate a world where no one set of assumptions or clearly delineated trajectory of efficacy and livelihood applies. In some Central African cities, such as Kinshasa, notions of economy concern practices of taking discrete people and things and interweaving them with others in relations that often have little familiarity, make little sense. Things that don't readily belong are assembled into provisional bundles. In this essay on an important retail market, urban agriculture, and a superblock development in Kinshasa, economy is demonstrated to be a way of keeping the value of things open to new uses and sites. Thus, to grasp the fierce ambivalence of many clearly impoverished urban districts requires an appreciation of the oscillations of value.