bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Insider Action Research Projects
Authors: Coghian David
Published: March 2007

Managers are increasingly undertaking action research projects in their own organizations. Action research involves opportunistic planned interventions in real time situations and a study of those interventions as they occur, which in turn informs further interventions. Insider action research has its own dynamics, which distinguish it from an external action researcher approach. The manager-researchers are already immersed in the organization and have a preunderstanding from being an actor in the processes being studied. Challenges facing such manager-researchers are that they need to combine their action research role with their regular organizational roles and this role duality can create the potential for role ambiguity and conflict. They need to manage the political dynamics, which involves balancing the organization's formal justification of what it wants in the project with their own tactical personal justification for the project. Manager-researchers' preunderstanding, organizational role and ability to manage organizational politics play an important role in the political process of framing and selecting their action research project. In order that the action research project contribute to the organization's learning, the manager-action researcher engages in interlevel processes engaging individuals, teams, the inter-departmental group and the organization in processes of learning and change. Consideration of these challenges enables manager-action researchers to grasp the opportunities such research projects afford for personal learning, organizational learning and contribution to knowledge.
Second Thoughts on Team Building
Authors: Critchley Bill , Casey David
Published: March 2007

A good example of something needed in Management Development - examining issues raised in practice. In this case the authors question the value and assumptions which underlie team work and team building and ultimately their usefulness in certain settings. On the basis of this analysis they develop ideas for future practice of working with management groups.
Implications For Development Of New Technology
Authors: Boddy David , Buchanan David
Published: March 2007

This paper records the main points which were discussed by the study group on this theme. It concentrates on the implications of information technology for the organisation of work, for management and for management training.
Group Analytic Training for Management Trainers
Authors: Nichol Brian
Published: March 2007

In recent years, a number of management trainers and consultants have been investigating group analysis, suspecting a link between management development and group psychotherapy. Their discoveries about the way people learn and change in groups have not been adequately discussed in management training and development circles, and the possibility of using group analytic techniques in training management trainers and consultants has received scant attention.1 This article sets out the value of group analytic training to management trainers and consultants. It argues that group analysis can help them to understand the psychodynamics of groups and organizations; furthermore, it can help them to understand and work with the emotions of management learning, as well as enhancing their skills in working with groups.
Advancing Gender Equity in Organizations: The Challenge and Importance of Maintaining a Gender Narrative
Authors: Ely Robin J. , Meyerson Debra E.
Published: March 2007

Building on Coleman and Rippin's analysis of how the methodological approach we took in this project made it difficult for us to keep gender equity a primary goal of our organizational change efforts, we reflect on how our conceptual approach to gender, described in the Meyerson and Kolb paper, exacerbated this problem. We explore the consequences of losing the gender focus of our work for our ability to make meaningful change in organizations. Finally, we describe how we have developed our approach to organizational change so as to maintain our focus on gender as a basis of our critique and gender equity as an objective of our intervention.
Power, Machines and Social Relations: Delegating to Information Technology in the National Health Service
Authors: Bloomfield Brian P.
Published: March 2007

This article considers the implications of Latour's notions of durability and delegation for theorizing the relationship between technology and organization. Two central themes are the heterogeneous character of the fabric of organizational life which interweaves both humans and non-humans (including machines and inscriptions); and the question of power/domination in matters technological. To contextualize the discussion, the paper reflects on some of the recent developments in the UK National Health Service (the NHS) which centre on the development and use of information systems for purposes of management control, decision-making, contracting and the search for greater efficiency and organizational rationality through the operation of an internal market.
Professionalization of Women's Health Groups in Sao Paulo: The Troublesome Road towards Organizational Diversity
Authors: Lebon Nathalie
Published: March 2007

This article gives an overview of the origins and characteristics of the women's health movement in Sao Paulo as a specific example of a social movement. It focuses, in particular, on its organizational diversity which includes, but is not restricted to, differences between professionalized and non-professionalized organizations. In this respect, three questions seem important: (1) what happens to the potential of social movements when they become dependent for funding on mainstream institutions such as foundations and international aid agencies; and more interestingly for organizational research, how do changes in organizational forms and practices such as formalization and professionalization impinge upon (2) the solidarity and collective identity of these groups and (3) the way they bring change about? In broader terms, this article wishes to promote an understanding of social movement fields as plural, organizationally and otherwise. It points to the advantages of this organizational diversity, as well as to the problems and tensions it brings about.
The Ambivalent Dynamics of Secretarial `Bitching': Control, Resistance, and the Construction of Identity
Authors: Sotirin Patty , Gottfried Heidi
Published: March 2007

We conceptualize bitching as an ambivalent communicative practice that takes place in and contributes to the construction of gendered organizational identities. Through interpretive analyses of in situ bitching among corporate secretaries, we show how the ambivalent dynamics of their collective bitching both maintained stereotypical gender attributes and destabilized the properly professional secretarial identity. By elaborating the ambivalent dynamics of bitching, we offer a more nuanced understanding of the interplay of control and resistance in the communicative construction of gendered workplace identities.
International Norms and Domestic Politics:
Authors: CHECKEL JEFFREY T.
Published: March 2007

In recent years, students of regimes and norms have paid greater attention to domestic politics. Both liberals and constructivists are `unpacking' the state in ways that further our understanding of how international norms work their effects in the domestic arena. A crucial next step is for adherents of these two schools to engage in dialogue. This article contributes to such an enterprise by developing scope conditions that predict when norms will have the constraining or constitutive effects favored, respectively, by liberals and constructivists. I make a distinction between compliance with norms and the diffusion mechanisms empowering them domestically, explaining variance in the latter with an institutional argument that captures key dynamics — rationalist or social constructivist — portrayed in other prominent accounts. The argument is illustrated by considering the domestic impact of norms embedded in the European human rights regime.
The Imperial Peace:
Authors: BARKAWI TARAK , LAFFEY MARK
Published: March 2007

To date, the only account of the `zone of peace' among states in the core of the international system is that found in the democratic peace debates. We rework the conceptual parameters through which the object of analysis — the zone of peace — is defined in the democratic peace debates. Specifically, we historicize the concepts — `democracy' and `war' — that enable the identification of zones of peace and war, and contextualize those histories in processes of globalization. This enables us to offer an alternative account of the emergence of zones of peace and war in the international system and of the central unit of analysis in the democratic peace debates, the sovereign and territorial liberal democratic state. This account conceives of the international system as a whole and recognizes the mutually constitutive character of relations between the zones. It opens up a research agenda focused not on why democratic states do not war with one another but on the international relations of democracy and war.
The Unconstructed Self
Authors: Polkinghorne Donald E.
Published: March 2007

Postmodernism proposes that the notion of self is a cultural construction and lacks any substantive or real referent. Chandler (2000) and Shotter (2000) offer challenges to this postmodern destruction of the self. Chandler proposes that within the cultural variety of self notions there is a common theme whose characteristics are ‘permanence within change’ and ‘sameness within becoming’. Shotter suggests that narrative structure opens up a conceptual space through which the self can be known. Support for Chandler and Shotter is provided by Neisser’s notion of five kinds of information about the self and Gendlin’s view that experience is more intricate and complex than the logical configurations provided by language.
Performing the Past in Electronic Archives: Interdependencies in the Discursive and Non-Discursive Ordering of Institutional Rememberings
Authors: Brown Steven D. , Middleton David , Lightfoot Geoffrey
Published: March 2007

This paper examines interdependencies in the discursive and non-discursive ordering of institutional memory in organizational settings. Issues of what happens to historical consciousness in the time of modern technology are examined with reference to how the past is used in the context of electronic archiving of email in corporate cultures. Drawing from ideas in the work of Martin Heidegger concerning interdependencies between the use of technology and the arts of the mind, we examine how the truth of matters is more than an issue of correspondence between language and reality, and more than the rhetorical deployment of what counts as true in establishing stake and interest. We analyse how the work of ordering the archive, which is driven by current projects in the organizations studied, takes place alongside the discursive work of remembering. We illustrate how, without the non-discursive labour of forging relations between components, there is no possibility of playing out evidential strategies that dominate the rhetorical performance of the past. What we call ‘mind’ and what we call ‘society’ emerge in this dual ordering. This dual work of ordering occurs through the joint operation of discursive and non-discursive practices, which together produce remembering and forgetting in a way that draws upon cultural resources at the same time as making sense in the flow of interaction, experiences and events.
Being, Feeling and Doing: Discourses and Ethnic Self-Definitions among Minority Group Members
Authors: Verkuyten Maykel , deWolf Angela
Published: March 2007

In psychology there is a growing research interest in issues of ethnic minority identity and acculturation. In this research the emphasis is on relatively stable or enduring internal dispositions and attitudes. Studies on the way ethnic minorities define and account for their identity are scarce. However, ethnic minority members often have to explain and justify their identity, not only in interactions with dominant group members but also in relation to their own group. The present study examines how Chinese people living in the Netherlands account for their ethnic identity. The focus is on the actual accomplishment and manifestation of ethnic self-definitions in talks with other Chinese. The analysis highlights the different resources the participants use to manage the normative issues and personal responsibilities involved. Accounts were accomplished by stressing the significance of appearance, the importance of early socialization and the (non-)possession of critical attributes. However, these deterministic accounts leave little room for personal agency, and the participants also tried to define an active and constructive role for themselves. It is concluded that discursive psychology can make an important contribution to our understanding of ethnic minority identity.
Cultural Surplus and Social Mobility among Minorities
Authors: Moghaddam Fathali M.
Published: March 2007

The traditional approach to the study of the integration of immigrants has assumed the main constraints to be fixed dispositional characteristics internal to individuals. An alternative, in line with Verkuyten and de Wolf (2002), is to view constraints as cultural, as part of a collectively constructed and collaboratively upheld social world that is fluid and changing rather than fixed and static. The concept of cultural surplus is introduced to clarify further the nature of cultural constraints faced by immigrants, and to illuminate the cultural factors associated with the differetial success of immigrant groups in the adopted land.
An Interview with K.J. Gergen (Part 11) Culture and Psychology in Postmodernism: A Necessary Dialog
Authors: Gulerce Aydan
Published: March 2007

Discussion of critical issues of postmodernism in psychology between Kenneth J. Gergen and Aydan Gulerce revealed a multitude of challenging questions that neither the intellectual tendency labeled 'postmodernism' nor contemporary psychology have managed to answer (see Culture & Psychology 1(1), 147-159). In this continuation of the invesfigation into ideas, lines for a possible new dialog are charted out.
Public Opinion and Party Choice in Slovakia and the Czech Republic
Authors: Krause Kevin Deegan
Published: March 2007

How do voters' political opinions shape the way they think about political parties? In the left-right socio-economic competition of advanced democracies the answer to this question is often taken for granted. For this reason many approaches to the study of parties are not easily applicable to countries where different issues dominate political debate. This paper offers an alternative. It provides a method for identifying differences in the weight that voters place on particular issues when they evaluate political parties, using the cases of Slovakia and the Czech Republic to show how these differences shape both electoral outcomes and the overall stability of democracy. The weight that Slovakia's voters place on national and democracy issues when evaluating parties contrasts sharply with the more familiar left-right socioeconomic judgements made by Czech voters. This difference helps to explain the weakness of democratic institutions in Slovakia in comparison to those of the Czech Republic.
Offsetting the PR Effect?
Authors: Vowles Jack
Published: March 2007

The 1999 election produced probably the lowest voting turnout of any twentieth-century New Zealand election. Yet it was the second election after a change to proportional representation from a first-past-the-post system, which comparative research indicates should have had the effect of turnout increase. This puzzle is examined using pooled validated data from the 1996 and 1999 New Zealand Election Studies, with particular attention to the effects of partisan dealignment, party mobilization and the short-term effects of New Zealand's first experience of coalition government since the 1930s.
The Rise of Plebiscitary Democracy in Canadian Political Parties
Authors: Young Lisa , Cross William
Published: March 2007

In this article we trace the development of intra-party democracy within Canadian political parties and argue that a new, plebiscitary model of intra-party democracy is shaping internal party organization. This is evidenced by changing party practices, which are for the most part supported by grassroots party members. Data from a survey of members of the five major political parties demonstrate this support for plebiscitary democracy, and suggest that conflicts surrounding plebiscitary democracy shape party activists' structure of opinion on matters of internal party organization. This support among party members suggests that the move toward plebiscitary democracy in Canadian political parties is not merely elite-driven, and is likely to result in enduring changes.
Adaptation of Agrarian Parties in Norway and Sweden
Authors: Christensen Dag Arne
Published: March 2007

The centre parties of Norway and Sweden both have their background as traditional farmer parties. They have faced the unavoidable challenge of a shrinking agrarian electorate. This article focuses on how they have responded to this challenge and argues that both agricultural identity and contextual variations are important in explaining differences in their electoral adaptation. The article shows how strong loyalties towards the farmers' union may strengthen traditional party loyalties.
The Instability of Party Identification among Eligible Japanese Voters
Authors: Kabashima Ikuo , Ishio Yoshito
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the instability of party identification among eligible Japanese voters, using a seven-wave panel survey covering the period from 1993 to 1996. We found that only about a quarter of our sample consistently identified with the same parties, suggesting that party identification of eligible Japanese voters is very unstable. We also examined the individual characteristics influencing the stability of party identification and found that membership in religious organizations and favourable opinions toward major pre-existing political parties (the LDP, the CGP and the JSP/SDP) have a stabilizing effect on party identification. On the other hand, favourable opinions toward new parties and minor, pre-existing parties (the JCP and the DSP) have a destabilizing effect on party identification. Furthermore, political dissatisfaction, reformative ideology, and the absence of a belief in voting as a duty have a destabilizing effect on party identification.
Riding: Embodying the Centaur
Authors: GAME ANN
Published: March 2007

Through a phenomenological study of horse-human relations, this article explores the ways in which, as embodied beings, we live relationally, rather than as separate human identities. Conceptually this challenges oppositional logic and humanist assumptions, but where poststructuralist treatments of these issues tend to remain abstract, this article is concerned with an embodied demonstration of the ways in which we experience a relational or in-between logic in our everyday lives.
On the Embodiment of Addiction
Authors: WEINBERG DARIN
Published: March 2007

In an effort to promote more theoretically incisive research regarding the specifically sociological aspects of addiction, this article critically discusses three prominent theoretical paradigms for the study of addiction - neurology, learning theory and symbolic interaction. Neurological theories and learning theories are found to inadequately provide for the role of culturally transmitted meanings in the addiction process. While symbolic interactionist theories have been centrally concerned with meaning, they have failed to theorize how issues of meaning might figure in the addict's inevitable subjective estrangement from his or her drug-related activities. This stems from their failure to appreciate the reality of non-symbolic meaning, or meaningful experience that manifests pre-reflectively, at the level of our immediate bodily encounter with reality. The article concludes by suggesting that sociological students of addiction adopt a more thoroughly praxiological orientation to meaningful experience, so as to overcome the analytic limitations inherent in the antinomy between biological reductionism and disembodied cognitivism.
Modern Primitivism': Non-Mainstream Body Modification and Racialized Representation
Authors: KLESSE CHRISTIAN
Published: March 2007

This article focuses on the philosophy underpinning the non-mainstream body modification practices of `Modern Primitives'. This subculture seeks inspiration in the body modification techniques and bodily rituals of so-called `primitive societies'. Establishing their prioritization of body, sexuality, community and spirituality as analytical links, the author shows that these self-perceived radical opponents of Western modernity nonetheless remain captured in its foundational discursive assumptions. The author argues that the movement's enthusiastic turn towards `primitivism' represents a particular identity strategy within the late modern condition. Drawing on colonial discourse analysis, the author argues that the primitivist discourse originated as an ideology within colonialism and has informed the construction of the Western self-image. Modern Primitives' notion of `primitivism' is seen as a postcolonial legacy of this tradition of `othering', which inevitably reproduces stereotypes of racialized people.
Georg Simmel at the Lectern: The Lecture as Embodiment of Text
Authors: STEWART JANET
Published: March 2007

Recalling a public lecture that Georg Simmel gave in Berlin in 1910, Paul Fechter described him as `philosophizing with his whole body'. This article focuses on the role of the communicative body in the production, reproduction and reception of sociological ideas by investigating the dissemination of Simmel's sociological thought through the medium of the lecture. It utilizes contemporary reports of Simmel's lecturing style as observational data, and his own writings on the `Sociology of the Senses' and the `Aesthetic Importance of the Face' as a theoretical framework. This examination of Simmel's lectures, focusing on both physiognomic expression and perception, reveals that the lecture as a complex communicative event is structured on a dialectic of closeness and distance.
A Systemic Perspective on Working with Interpreters
Authors: Raval Hitesh
Published: March 2007

A systemic framework is adopted to explore theoretical and clinical issues when interpreters are used in therapy. A child mental-health setting was used to ask therapists about how they experienced their work with Bangladeshi families when working with an interpreter. The interpreter's perspective of this work was also explored. The paper reports on how carrying out therapy is experienced differently by therapists when working with an interpreter. The differences reported by the therapists included positive comments about how having an interpreter enhanced their work in many ways, while also acknowledging some of the difficulties that arose.
When Individual Child Psychotherapy Exacerbates Family Systems Problems in Child Abuse Cases: A Clinical Analysis
Authors: Shochet Ian , Dadds Mark
Published: March 2007

Children who have suffered physical or sexual abuse are as vulnerable as adult trauma victims to experience `secondary trauma', in which the reactions of the family or broader system exacerbate the child's difficulties. Three clinical cases are presented that suggest that this secondary trauma can be made worse by either excessive or insufficient provision of individual child psychotherapy, and the way the system interprets and reacts to these clinical decisions. Types of secondary trauma and their interactions with clinical decisions are discussed. Ways of framing clinical decisions to minimize the potential secondary trauma are presented.
The Coming Out Process: Developmental Stages for Sexual Minority Youth
Authors: Carrion Victor G. , Lock James
Published: March 2007

This work describes the developmental process of coming out in gay and lesbian youth. The case is made for the need to identify developmental stages during this process. We address how identity formation is affected by societal intolerance during the process of coming out. To explain this process, we present a psychodynamic model within a sociocultural framework. A review of the literature was undertaken to explore the relevance of the social context in which this internal process takes place. Based on the review of the literature and a clinical understanding of the coming out process, a stage model is proposed that describes the chronology of events that characterizes this process. Societal intolerance can be detrimental to healthy identity formation. There is a need to research the process of identity formation in sexual minority youth.
The Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect: Pipe Dreams or Possibilities?
Authors: Leventhal John
Published: March 2007

A new interest in the prevention of child abuse and neglect has resulted in the development of home-based prevention programs in the USA. Several randomized trials comparing home visitation with standard care have been conducted, and results from these studies suggest that such interventions can affect the occurrence of maltreatment, as well as other outcomes related to the child's and mother's functioning. This new evidence suggests that the prevention of abuse and neglect is a real possibility and not a pipedream.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Disturbed Adopted and Foster Children: A Single Case Follow-Up Study
Authors: Lush Dora , Boston Mary , Morgan Judith , Kolvin Israel
Published: March 2007

This paper addresses the theme of the long-term utility of psychoanalytic psycho-therapy for a child who was exposed to traumatic psychological experiences in the early years of life. He was adopted relatively late and then taken into psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the age of 11 because of unhappiness and negative self feelings, and school behavioural problems. He was comprehensively assessed when aged 10, 11 and 13. A catch-up longitudinal design was used (Robins, 1980) at the age of 15 using age-and behaviour appropriate measures. The latter allow a view of his wider adjustment to his early life experiences and his adjustment to his adoption, and also an insight into the processes of therapy in relation to outcome. This study utilizes a variation of the classical single case study method (Kazdin, 1982).
Siblings of Chronically Ill Children: Towards an Understanding of Process
Authors: Gardner Eli
Published: March 2007

Recently researchers have become interested in the well child's coping responses to the stressor of living with an ill sibling. However, few studies to date have shed sufficient light on what children are actually thinking and feeling in an effort to cope. This study used grounded theory to explore children's appraisals of stressful events and to propose a model of which factors exacerbate or decrease the stressful experience. Categories of appraisals were generated relating to themselves and others. Key factors identified as exacerbating the impact of stressors included: poor parental responses; catastrophic thinking; perception of having little control; perception that negative events will persist over time; and repeated, ineffective coping strategies. The impact of stressors was decreased by: children perceiving themselves as able to cope and to have some control, good parental responses, and achieving a balance between thinking of their own needs and thinking of others. A framework to incorporate these findings is proposed.
Health Psychology in Context
Authors: Marks David F.
Published: March 2007

Over 25 years there has been a remarkable growth of theoretical and empirical studies in health psychology. Its theoretical underpinnings have been largely derivative, its focus primarily clinical, and its subject, the individual. Relatively little attention has been paid to the cultural, sociopolitical and economic conditions which set the context for individual health experience and behaviour. Theories which do not reflect the complex interaction of these variables are unlikely to provide a satisfactory account of individual health. Multidisciplinary efforts are needed at a community level to provide effective interventions which are relevant to the exposure groups being targeted. Health psychology needs measures which are valid and relevant to the general population regardless of culture, gender, social class or age. Putting health psychology into its cultural, sociopolitical and community context is a major priority for future development.
Some Observations on Health and Socio economic Status
Authors: Carroll Douglas , Smith George Davey , Bennett Paul
Published: March 2007

Health and socio-economic status are powerfully linked. This association cannot be attributed to social-selection effects, and the unequal distribution of behavioural risk factors, such as smoking, explains only a part of the variance. Differential exposure to physical hazards plays a role, but the persistence of health differentials into the better-off social strata and the significance of relative as well as absolute living standards suggest psychosocial factors also. We outline a conceptual model that regards the clustering of adverse physical and psychosocial factors over the life course as critical. Identifying the salient physical and psychosocial factors is a formidable research mission. In pursuing this mission we should not lose sight of the key fact that socio economic health differentials are intimately bound up with material differentials, and that remediation demands strategies that counter socio-economic disparity.
Stress, Social Support and Coping in Pregnancy
Authors: Cameron Rebecca P. , Wells Jennifer D. , Hobfoll Stevan E.
Published: March 2007

The social support literature, despite its focus on women's strengths in relationships, has not fully addressed the social realities of women of diverse ethnic backgrounds and socio economic conditions. Specifically, the emphasis on marital relationships as primary sources of support during pregnancy marginalizes those women for whom these partnerships are unhelpful or unavailable. In addition, women's greater use of social support as a coping strategy is often portrayed in the coping literature as an ineffective approach to stress. Data from two studies of pregnant women are presented to illustrate these points and to present a new model of coping that reframes women's coping as prosocial, active and effective. Our article is designed to challenge researchers to examine the relevance of work on social support and coping to women of varying ethnicities and economic circumstances.
Processes of Change in the Adoption of Consistent Condom Use
Authors: Milstein Bobby , Lockaby Tracey , Fogarty Linda , Cohen Abigail , Cotton David
Published: March 2007

Descriptions of reproductive and sexual behavior were obtained from interviews with a convenience sample of women at risk of HIV infection or transmission to assess whether the processes of change (POC) constructs from the Transtheoretical Model apply to women's explanations of condom behavior change. Participants were recruited from public housing, drug treatment centers, homeless shelters, and other sources. Interviews with 45 women were selected for analysis based on criteria of condom behavior change and narrative richness. In phase I, POC constructs were identified in women's statements regarding condom behavior change, using an a priori coding scheme. In phase II, text passages for each POC were examined for the range of topics addressed and the POC's perceived function in condom use adoption. Results show that each POC was identified at least once and that all respondents made statements that matched at least two POCs. Only 4 percent of 400 text segments did not fit a POC category. POC constructs appear to be integral components of the strategies women in this study used to progress toward consistent condom use with male partners. Interventions that promote condom use may be strengthened by using POC constructs as a basis for service delivery.
What a Rag Rug Means
Authors: Steedman Carolyn
Published: March 2007

A variety of approaches to the material object - primarily, psycho-analytic approaches - are employed, in order to give an account of historians' relationship to the past. In particular, the history of one domestic craft, rag rug making, is explored in its relation to the development of the textile industries and paper manufacture, from the end of the 18th century onwards. The strange absence of the rag rug from Elizabeth Gaskell's indus trial novel Mary Barton (1848) is scrutinized, in order to further explore the representation of working-class life, in literature and history: by social investigators and novelists in the past, and by modern historians. Questions are then raised about the uses to which these representations and accounts have been put, in a modern class society.
Criminal Detection and the Weight of the Past:
Authors: VALIER CLAIRE
Published: March 2007

This article presents a critique of Michel Foucault's work during the middle and later periods of his scholarship and the notions of preventative control that arise therefrom. A number of important deficiencies in Foucault's theories are demonstrated, which limit the efficacy of a Foucauldian approach as a basis for critical engagement with contemporary penality. Particularly, Foucault's formulations offer scant resources for understanding the affective dimensions of penality, and particularly the significance of the weight of the past to the insecurities and popular vengeful moralism of today. The arguments presented are substantiated by reference to my research on unsolved crimes and criminal detection practices. It is suggested that scholars analyse the thoroughgoing imbrication of past, present and future in relationships between identity, power and penality, rather than limiting their work to the study of risk-avoidance technologies and other future-orientated aspects of penality.
Sokal and Bricmont's Criticism of Relativism in the Humanities and its Relevance to Criminology
Authors: SAUVAGEAU JEAN
Published: March 2007

This article examines some aspects of the controversy generated by Alan Sokal's postmodern parody and the ensuing book published with Jean Bricmont where criticism is levelled at alleged relativist tendencies in the humanities for their negative consequences, deterimental to the Left in particular and to the advancement on the human condition in general. This criticism is examined in light of its relevance to various criminological conceptions of crime. The article concludes that the problematization through deconstruction that the concept of crime is undergoing with some theories should not be confused with relativism and that caution must be exercised when calling for rationalism if it is believed that it will prevent the excesses of conceptualization.
Managing a Disrupted Lifecourse: Issues of Identity and Emotion Work
Authors: Exley Catherine , Letherby Gayle
Published: March 2007

This article draws on the experiences of two groups of people: namely a group of people who have defined, or still define themselves as ‘infertile’ and/or ‘involuntarily childless’, and second, a group of people with cancer who have a terminal prognosis, who may be perceived as dying ‘prematurely’. We start by arguing that ‘infertility’ and/or ‘involuntary childlessness’ and terminal illness have a disruptive effect on daily lives and future expectations, and we are concerned throughout with how this disruption is managed. In particular, we explore how individuals who have experienced such a disruption to their lives manage both their sense of self and the self in relation to others. Within this we are concerned specifically with the emotion work which individuals engage in, and we explore the link between emotion work and lifecourse disruption.
Alternative Health and the Challenges of Institutionalization
Authors: Schneirov Matthew , Geczik Jonathan David
Published: March 2007

Through a case study of a complementary medicine clinic in a major urban hospital this article explores the links between two levels of power in the alternative health movement – the institutional level and alternative health’s ‘submerged networks.’ Alternative health is conceptualized as a ‘new social movement’ whose central goal has been to create and sustain a form of life outside of conventional codes and institutional arrangements. The strength of this movement has been its ability to create a cultural laboratory where patients and activists can experience new ideas, authority relations, and identities. Through interviews and observations with the clinic staff and patients, the article asks whether alternative health’s growing success in achieving institutional recognition is coming at the price of alternative health’s submerged networks and core identity. Overall it is argued that complementary medicine clinics located in hospitals have the potential of establishing fruitful links with the dominant health care system but there is a clear danger of becoming absorbed by that system. The other danger is that alternative health will remain marginalized and lose touch with the institutional direction of society as a whole. The article concludes by arguing that alternative health should remain a ‘dual movement’ with institutional links as well as maintaining a close connection to the lifeworlds of patients.
Concerning the Eccentricities of the Marquis of Valada: Politics, Culture and Homosexuality in Fin-de-Siècle Portugal
Authors: Howes Robert
Published: March 2007

This article describes three homosexual scandals in Portugal in the 1880s, including one involving a prominent politician, the Marquis of Valada. It shows how these scandals were publicized by the cartoonist Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro and later served as the inspiration for two novels by Abel Botelho and Alfredo Gallis, which dealt openly with the subject of homosexuality. It describes theoretical developments in the debate among historians between essentialists and social constructionists, particularly a recent article by David Halperin. It then analyses the various representations of homosexuality in the works described according to the categorizations proposed by Halperin and discusses to what extent they bear out his suggestions. It also highlights the change in discourse which can be observed in this episode.
Being Anally Penetrated: Erotic Inhibitions, Improvizations and Transformations
Authors: Middelthon Anne-Lise
Published: March 2007

Young gay men may both desire and fear, even dread, the act of being penetrated anally. In Norwegian culture today, these men not infrequently associate this act with a loss of dignity and manhood. Closely connected to this, the act of being anally penetrated has the power to shape or define the young man's sense of self. Young gay Norwegian men have, however, developed or adopted strategies for gaining experience and experiencing pleasure in emotionally satisfying, culturally transformative and physiologically safe ways. Hence, and examination of these strategies seems especially worthwhile. The empirical data underlying this examination were gathered through a qualitative study among young gay men in Norway (1994-1996).
The Unrecognized Social Stressors of Migration and Reunification in Caribbean Families
Authors: Lashley Myrna
Published: March 2007

Black Caribbean parents often immigrate in order to increase their fortune and improve opportunities for themselves and their families. Frequently, they leave their children in their country of origin, to be raised by family members. Reunification with their children often occurs at the time of adolescence and, for a multitude of reasons, is often fraught with conflict which sometimes necessitates the involvement of social services and other agencies. Some reasons for these difficulties are presented and are illustrated through the use of case histories. Mental health professionals are advised to take societal and cultural factors into consideration when creating treatment plans for this population.
Somatoform Symptoms in a Japanese Community Population: Prevalence and Association with Personality Characteristics
Authors: Ono Yutaka , Yoshimura Kimio , Yamauchi Keita , Asai Masahiro , Young Jerome , Fujihara Shigeki , Kitamura Toshinori
Published: March 2007

To investigate the prevalence rates and characteristics of poorly explained or unexplained somatic symptoms in the general population of Japan, questionnaires were administered to 132 people aged 18 years or older in a small community in the city of Kofu. The participants were then interviewed by trained interviewers using a semi-structured interview schedule. Of the 132 participants in our study, 55 (41%) reported somatic symptoms. Of these 55, nine (16%) were diagnosed with a specific DSM-IV somatoform disorder. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the number of poorly explained symptoms among women was related to the respondent’s score on Neuroticism. These data suggest that poorly explained or unexplained somatic symptoms are related to personality characteristics. Moreover, our analysis also revealed a gender difference in the pattern of these relationships. None of the respondents who reported medically unexplained somatic symptoms had sought psychiatric care.
Trauma Stories: Violence, Emotion and Politics in Somali Ethiopia
Authors: Zarowsky Christina
Published: March 2007

This article draws on ethnographic material from Ethiopia to address two ways of making sense of violence and death: individual psychological trauma, in one society’s domain of psychological medicine, and personal and collective injury, in another society’s domain of politics. Both approaches entail theories of emotion and human nature. Both are embedded in social relations and have implications at individual, social and political levels. Among Somalis in Ethiopia, war-related distress is not interpreted in a medical framework aimed at healing. Rather, such violence is predominantly assimilated into the framework of Somali politics, in which individual injuries are considered injuries to a lineage or other defined group. The dominant emotion in this context is not sadness or fear, but anger, which has emotional, political and material importance in validating individuals as members of a group sharing mutual rights and obligations. Before advocating trauma-based models of war-related distress, researchers and practitioners should consider whether a medical framework would do better at helping individuals and communities to deal with distress and reconstruct meaningful lives and relationships in circumstances of longstanding collective violence.
Hispanic Psychiatry: From Margin to Mainstream
Authors: Alarc”n Renato D.
Published: March 2007

The advent of the 21st century offers a unique opportunity for a reassessment of the epistemological bases of American psychiatry and its diverse components. The case of Hispanic/Latino psychiatry in the U.S. exemplifies the complexities of this process including a reaffirmation of its singular characteristics, and a struggle to gain recognition from and full acceptance into ‘mainstream’ psychiatry. After a brief review of the history of Hispanic communities in the U.S., relevant issues such as acculturation and the response of the host society to the waves of immigrants from ‘south of the border’ are discussed. The growth and increasing visibility of Hispanic psychiatry are demonstrated by an examination of existing organizations, workforce, academic enrollment and productivity, and the contributions of its Latin American and Spanish streams. The receptivity of American psychiatry and the accomplishments and failures on the way towards a true integration are assessed. The journey of Hispanic psychiatry from margin to mainstream will be based on the shaping of a true mestizo identity, continuous and consistent research contributions in specific areas, in-depth study of biocultural linkages in a variety of clinical phenomena, and the adoption by American psychiatry of a new form of universalism modeled after the genuine mestization process of its Hispanic component.
Toward a Culture-Informed Epidemiology: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Transcultural Contexts
Authors: de Jong Joop T. V. M. , van Ommeren Mark
Published: March 2007

This article presents a model for research that aims to address challenges in transcultural psychiatric epidemiology. The model involves eclectic application of quantitative and qualitative techniques, namely: focus groups, in-depth interviews, snowball sampling and population surveys. The qualitative methods help provide information on the context of symptoms, illness experience and disease. These methods provide the background information needed to shape research questions, to modify instruments for local situations, and to interpret collected epidemiological data. Examples are provided.
Review : Equal opportunities, welfare and child health: a review
Authors: Guy Ian
Published: March 2007

■ Many families from ethnic minority backgrounds are disadvantaged

■ These families have poorer access to health care provision

■ Social factors such as poor housing are detrimental to both child health and child safety

■ Nurses from minority groups remain under represented within the NHS
The role of the nurse in the paediatric out-patient department
Authors: Fulbrook Paul , Caws Leigh
Published: March 2007

■ The aim of the study was to describe the role and function of the paediatric nurse in a POPD.
Dare we de-centre Birmingham?
Authors: Wright Handel K.
Published: March 2007

This article challenges the widely held assumptions that cultural studies originated in Britain and that the CCCS at Birmingham was the first site of organized cultural studies. Drawing on the very characteristics ascribed to early cultural studies work, the article illustrates that various moments at various other locations, from the Folk Schools of Denmark in the 1920s to Highlander School in North America's Appalachia in the 1930s to the Kamiriithu project in Kenya in the 1970s could and should be identified as 'other' origins of cultural studies. The aim in generating a multiplicity of origins is not to suggest that the Birmingham origin is 'false' but to underscore the point that cultural studies has multiple origins rather than a singular origin; to provide concrete examples of those other origins that are too seldom suggested and almost never pinpointed; and, most importantly, to contribute to the evolution of a more international cultural studies as well as to keeping cultural studies in progressive, anti-disciplinary flux.
Power Can Bias Impression Processes: Stereotyping Subordinates by Default and by Design
Authors: Goodwin Stephanie A. , Gubin Alexandra , Fiske Susan T. , Yzerbyt Vincent Y.
Published: March 2007

Powerholders may engage in two stereotyping processes: (a) by default, inattention to stereotype-inconsistent information, due to lack of dependency, and (b) by design, effortful attention to stereotype-consistent information, due to explicit control. Study 1 manipulated control (not dependency) over internship applicants; powerful decision-makers increased attention to stereotypic attributes, consistent with stereotyping by design. Study 2 measured differences in trait dominance as an analog to situational control, replicating Study 1. Study 3 separately manipulated perceiver control and dependency; powerful perceivers increased attention to powerless targets’ stereotypic attributes (by design) and also decreased attention to counter-stereotypic attributes (by default). Study 4 compared powerful perceivers’ ratings of potential subordinates to their own prior ratings of target categories and target traits. Relative to the powerless, powerful perceivers’ impressions were based significantly less on target traits, supporting the attention results.