bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
From Pavement to Piazza: Grassroots Social Work to Counteract the Globalization of Marginality
Authors: Ferraro Ermete
Published: March 2003

This paper—inspired by the experience of grassroots social work in Naples begun by M. Borrelli in the 1950s—emphasizes that “consciousness‐raising” and “community development” can be useful processes to stimulate responsible social participation on the part of the most marginal individuals and groups. To overcome a bureaucratic and pietistic model of the welfare state which serves in the long run to increase their dependence and socio‐cultural subordination, there is a need for alternative social policies, capable of improving people's empowerment and social citizenship. Giving more resources and decision‐making power to the most marginal could amount to changing an unfair and oppressive society from the roots up. This goal remains a moral imperative for both professional and voluntary social workers who believe in a fair, non‐violent and ecological model of development. Unfortunately, in Italy as elsewhere, neo‐liberal reforms of welfare states are tending in the opposite direction, partly as a result of out‐of‐date functionalist theories and by means of a worrying process of welfare marketization and globalization that actually increases the exclusion and marginality of the lower classes. This paper takes issue with current neo‐liberal trends by returning to a territory‐based and resident‐focused image of social work. This way, non‐profit agencies can play a more active and stimulating role in support of communitarian networks and help avoid the risk of the Third Sector's alternative spur being compromised by the otherwise “commodification” of welfare. Only in this way might one stop the transformation of non‐profit organizations into mere private providers for a buyer/controller state, more business‐minded than really concerned with freeing the poor and the marginal “underclass” from subordination and exclusion.
People, Land and Sustainability: Community Gardens and the Social Dimension of Sustainable Development
Authors: Ferris John , Norman Carol , Sempik Joe
Published: March 2003

Community gardens vary enormously in what they offer, according to local needs and circumstance. This article reports on research and experience from the USA. The context in which these findings are discussed is the implementation of Local Agenda 21 and sustainable development policies. In particular, emphasis is given to exploring the social dimension of sustainable development policies by linking issues of health, education, community development and food security with the use of green space in towns and cities. The article concludes that the use of urban open spaces for parks and gardens is closely associated with environmental justice and equity.
Choices, Policy Logics and Problems in the Design of Long–term Care Systems
Authors: Ikegami Naoki , Campbell John Creighton
Published: March 2003

Establishing a public, comprehensive, independent, mainly community–based long–term care system, separate from medical care and social services, can lead to the provision of more effective and consumer–oriented services, and also to a more appropriate mix of public/private financing. Of the two main approaches to financing long–term care (LTC), a tax–based model is more flexible in providing benefits according to the individual’s need, since income levels and the family’s ability to provide care will be taken into consideration, while a social insurance model is more rigid because the individual’s rights are more explicitly defined. The latter system is likely to provide more opportunities for choice, including decisions about the mix of health and social services. Policy–makers must decide which approach to take after weighing the positive and negative aspects of each, and the existing organizational infrastructure. Decisions must also be made on the practical issues of coverage, fairness, form of benefits, service delivery patterns, relationship with medical and social services, and controlling costs. With increasing pressure to contain public sector expenditures and improve efficiency, the focus of care will gradually shift from medical care to LTC, and within LTC, from institutions to housing. How to make this process proactive and planned, instead of ad hoc and reactive, is the challenge for public policy.
The Contested Redefinition of the Countryside. An Analysis of Rural Discourses in The Netherlands
Authors: Frouws Jaap
Published: March 2003

The current ‘struggle for space’ in the Netherlands and other north‐west European countries reflects diverse claims and concerns related to the countryside. This paper examines the underlying socio‐political discourses on the rural to impose some order on this diversity and come to an understanding of the processes through which access to and use of rural resources are constructed. After a description of the theoretical status and social relevance of rural discourse, three such discourses, drawn from current debates on the future of Dutch countryside are analysed. The agri‐ruralist, utilitarian and hedonist discourses distinguished here clearly differ in their perceptions of the main problems in rural areas, the best solutions and the social actors identified to bring about the ‘ideal countryside’. The analysis of rural discourses thus provides an adequate framework for interpreting the multiplicity of ‘visions’ and policy concepts applied in the debates on the countryside in Europe.
Dependent Reproduction of Alternative Modes of Agriculture: Organic Farming in New Zealand
Authors: Coombes Brad , Campbell Hugh
Published: March 2003

Recent studies of organic agriculture are characterized by an assumption that it is relatively easy for agribusiness to transform the meaning of organic food and marginalize the position of small‐scale organic producers. In this paper, it is argued that such studies pay insufficient attention to the contradictions and limitations of capitalist agriculture as established in recent and classical formulations of the agrarian question. Attempts to liberate international trade and globalize the food system, which are particularly evident in New Zealand, result in disruption of food security and quality, so the agrarian question remains central in contemporary agri‐food research. Tempered by biological conditions and associated with alternative social groups, organic production is strongly influenced by those forces which comprise the agrarian question, so attempts by agribusiness to manipulate the organic industry are fraught with contradiction. Research findings from four regional case studies in New Zealand show that small‐scale organic producers are persistent, despite the increasing involvement of agribusiness in organic agriculture.
Rural Development and Social Exclusion
Authors: Shucksmith Mark , Chapman Pollyanna
Published: March 2003

The central purpose of this paper is to enquire into how rural societies, groups and individuals across Europe experience social change and social exclusion. Social exclusion is a multi‐dimensional, dynamic concept which refers to a breakdown or malfunctioning of the major societal systems that should guarantee the social integration of the individual or household. These include the democratic and legal system, which promotes civic integration; the labour market, which promotes economic integration; the welfare state system, promoting social integration; and the family and community system, which promotes interpersonal integration. Recent work in England and Scotland provides evidence of the processes and system failures lying behind social exclusion in a rural context and suggests that there may be substantially different pathways to social exclusion and insertion in a rural context. Research issues arise of how these processes and pathways vary between areas, and how they connect to the broader forces operating at macro and meso levels, and to local action. Finally, a research agenda is proposed.
Agricultural Policy and the Struggle over the Destiny of Collective Farms in Estonia
Authors: Alanen Ilkka
Published: March 2003

The principal goal of several Estonian governments has been the privatization of agriculture, replacing large collective farms with western family farms. This has happened despite a clear majority of kolkhoz and sovkhoz workers who favoured preserving the system of large‐scale farms. The abstract restitutionalist and ultra‐liberalist ideas became a fixed dogma, unconnected with resolving immediate pragmatic problems, because government policy was not articulated with the interests of the agricultural population. Nevertheless, the large‐scale system has been partially preserved thanks to the resistance of the rural population. In many respects the outcome of decollectivization also depended on inner struggles on the farm. These struggles were fought between two nationwide networks, the ‘old guard’ (who held posts in the Soviet administrative system) and the ‘new guard’ (which arose from the nationalist movement). This struggle contributed to the destructive character of decollectivization.
The leader Programme and the Rise of Rural Development in Spain
Authors: Esparcia Perez Javier
Published: March 2003

In many ways, leader has been a very significant intervention in Spain. Prior to leader, rural development policy was almost completely unknown and, for this reason alone, leader represented a new force in rural affairs. The invitation to form territorial collaborations was also novel and local actors were quick to perceive it as an important political tool with which to tackle both the problems of rural areas and the challenges presented by the new roles being assigned to the rural world. Furthermore, leader has subsequently produced material, local impacts through its ability to generate investment in development projects. The progress of leader has been refracted through the institutional conditions of the politico‐administrative system. Leader has been used as a political power tool by the various levels, leading to confrontations in order to gain control over the programme. Nevertheless, awareness and acceptance of the deeper philosophy behind leader has been gaining ground so that it is increasingly acknowledged as a powerful tool for the promotion of rural development in general and for the animation of local, collective action. It would be inaccurate to describe leader as a ‘great success.’ Rather, it has started an incipient process in which a new democratic and co‐operative culture in rural areas is being created and in which rural entrepreneurs are acquiring an enhanced capacity for decision making.
Endogenous Development, Social Capital and Social Inclusion: perspectives from leader in the UK
Authors: Shucksmith Mark
Published: March 2003

There is a danger of subscribing too readily to the rhetoric of participative development. The communitarian assumptions of the endogenous approach privilege a ‘territory’ as potentially homogenous and gloss over internal socio‐economic and cultural inequality. The insights of Bourdieu are particularly instructive here. This paper argues that leader‐type programmes need to include pro‐active action targeted at raising the social and cultural capital of individuals and of disadvantaged groups (either of which happen to be in the area, but not innately defined by the area).The ideas are illustrated in relation to leader in the United Kingdom.
Organic Farming in Late Modernity: At the Frontier of Modernity or Opposing Modernity?
Authors: Kaltoft Pernille
Published: March 2003

The contention of this paper is that organic farming, the movement and ideology, challenges sociological theory of the nature–culture relation (environmental issues, the role of science). The idea is discussed and explored in two ways. Firstly the paper gives a ‘diagnosis’ of organic farming in terms of modernization. The organic farming movement is a social movement having some success in a period when the power of social movements in general seems low. It is also a movement with a radical view on environmental issues and the man–nature relationship. Recently, several researchers have written about the institutionalization of organic farming, where institutionalization might be understood as a kind of modernization. How can we understand the organic farming movement in terms of modernization? Is the organic farming movement a movement opposing modernity, arguing for pre‐modern structures of society? Is it perfectly modern in the classical sense? Or is the existence of the organic farming movement rather a frontier empirical example of the reflexive state of modern society? The Danish organic farming movement serves as an example for the discussion. The ‘diagnosis’ depends on the theoretical point of departure – which theory of modernity is used. This leads to the second approach, namely the comparison of Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society and Bruno Latour's theory of actor‐networks. Both theories are dealing explicitly with the nature–culture relation in late (or ‘post’ or ‘reflexive’) modern societies.
Contemporary clerical constructions of a spiritual rural idyll
Authors: Walker Geoffrey
Published: March 2003

Research among rural clergy in Somerset suggests that both historically and in the present, country clergy play a part in the creation, re–creation, envisioning, and transmission of a spiritual variant of the rural idyll. Earlier studies on the origins, nature, and function of the rural idyll have largely neglected this spiritual dimension. Few have regarded the clergy as an object of scholarly enquiry. What this article suggested is that rural clergy are contributing to the creation of an idealised spirituality as one component within an evolving rural idyll. This is largely the result of growing institutional marginalisation. The creation of a spiritualised component within the rural idyll is the result of a symbiotic or dialectical relationship with ‘folk–religion’. For the most part such a process is as unconscious as it is explicit, but it enables country clergy to retain a sense of their own relevance as religious functionaries in a secular world. As such the emergence and re–emergence of these spiritual aspects of the idyll provides a mechanism of clerical self–justification for many rural clergy.
Emotions, Embodiment and the Sensation of Society
Authors: Shilling Chris
Published: March 2003

The study of emotions has attracted an increased amount of attention from mainstream sociologists in recent years, both because of its potential to provide an added dimension to the analysis of such subjects as social conflict, gender inequalities and the organisation of the workplace, and as a result of its relevance to theoretical and methodological debates which have long characterised the discipline. This paper suggests that some of the core questions facing this subject can be interrogated productively by engaging critically with the work of one of the most important ‘founding figures’ of the discipline, Emile Durkheim. What Collins (1988) refers to as the ‘underground wing’ of Durkheim's work has yet to be fully utilised or developed by sociologists concerned with emotions, yet it provides us with a suggestive and provocative means of reconceptualising the gulf that often exists within contemporary work on emotions as malleable and controllable, on the one hand, and that concerned with emotions as intransigent ‘somatic states of being’, on the other. As such, Durkheim's writings constitute an important resource for sociologists concerned with the ongoing project of ‘embodying’ the discipline.
Men, Power and Caring Relationships
Authors: Dominelli Lena , Gollins Tim
Published: March 2003

Power is a controversial subject. In this article we reject the notion that power is simply a matter of the exercise of control over others. Instead, we posit the view that power is a complex phenomenon which is constantly negotiated and renegotiated between social actors. We examine this idea by looking at men working as carers and consider how power is used in caring relationships through the use of case materials. Our analysis reveals that no one party to an interaction is either all powerful or all powerless. Taking this idea through into empowering practice means that carers need to create spaces in which people can exercise a greater sense of agency through their interaction with others.
Contested Communities: The Refuge Movement and Cultural Identities in Wales
Authors: Charles Nickie , Davies Charlotte Aull
Published: March 2003

This paper explores different meanings of community and cultural identity. Women involved in the refuge movement in rural Wales belong to overlapping communities: geographically located rural communities; linguistic and ethnic communities; and the gendered and occupationally based community of Welsh Women's Aid. Language is an important marker of belonging to Welsh rural communities which are under threat from an influx of non-Welsh speakers. Incoming women who are homeless as a result of domestic violence may be perceived as part of this threat. This creates a potential conflict for refuge workers, some of whom are also Welsh speakers, who represent the interests of this group of women but also belong to Welsh-speaking, rural communities. We explore the interrelation between these refuge workers, the various communities to which they belong, and how belonging or not belonging shapes their identities. We conclude that these women, in spite of the conflicting rights and interests of their various communities, negotiate a shared collective identity which owes something to all three.
Essentialism, Social Constructionism, and beyond
Authors: Sayer Andrew
Published: March 2003

Anti-essentialism has criticised a range of targets, from cultural essentialism and biological reductionism to causal explanation and foundationalism, and concerning topics ranging from markets to ‘race’, identity and sexuality. The paper assesses these diverse lines of critique. Some social phenomena, like identities, clearly do not have essences, but it does not follow from this that other phenomena we study do not have essences or something like them. While a strong, or deterministic essentialism is always wrong and often dangerously misleading, a moderate, non-deterministic essentialism is necessary for explanation and for a social science that claims to be critical and have emancipatory potential. The concept of essence is problematic, but not for some of the epistemological and ontological reasons put forward by anti-essentialism. Strong variants of social constructionism are liable to invert rather than resolve the problems of strong essentialism, including those of its biological reductionist guises. While it may be best to avoid concepts of essences which assume that the distinguishing and generative properties of objects must coincide, we still need to distinguish classes of objects and identify causal powers which enable and constrain what those objects can do.
‘A Man in the Making’: Sexual Masculinities within Changing Training Cultures
Authors: Haywood Chris , Ghaill Máirtín Mac an
Published: March 2003

The academic representation of social transformation in Britain has underplayed the key contribution of sexual politics. More specifically, sociological accounts of changing social relations within institutional sites has served to make invisible sexual identities. From research on a Modern Apprenticeship in the mid 1990's, empirical material is used to make visible male sexualities within Further Education. Importantly, we suggest that in order to capture the dynamics of the interplay between labour process restructuring and regendering, there is a need to refocus upon sexual cultures. In this local site, currently experiencing rapid institutional changes in training practices, a range of young male sexual cultures are identified. With reference to institutional spaces and micro-cultural relations, we illustrate how these sexual cultures construct themselves through sexual difference. Finally, we also consider the importance of sexual knowledges in young people's post-16 education and training.
Home, Home Ownership and the Search for Ontological Security
Authors: Dupuis Ann , Thorns David C.
Published: March 2003

The central focus of this paper is the notion that the home can provide a locale in which people can work at attaining a sense of ontological security in a world that at times is experienced as threatening and uncontrollable. The paper builds on and develops the ideas of Giddens and Saunders on ontological security and seeks to break down and operationalise the concept and explore it through a set of empirical data drawn from interviews with a group of older New Zealand home owners. The extent to which home and home life meets the conditions for the maintenance of ontological security is assessed through an exploration of home as the site of constancy in the social and material environment; home as a spatial context in which the day to day routines of human existence are performed; home as a site free from the surveillance that is part of the contemporary world which allows for a sense of control that is missing in other locales; and home as a secure base around which identities are constructed. The paper also argues that meanings of home are context specific and thus the data need to be seen in relation to New Zealanders' long standing pre-occupation with land and home ownership. The paper concludes by speculating on how meanings of home may be changing.
Living Together and Eating Together: Changes in Food Choice and Eating Habits during the Transition from Single to Married/Cohabiting
Authors: Kemmer Debbie , Anderson A.S. , Marshall D.W.
Published: March 2003

In 1995 we recruited twenty-two heterosexual couples from Edinburgh and Glasgow to examine the changes which took place in their eating habits and food related activities when they began to live together. Semi-structured interviews were carried out three months before and after moving-in dates and on each occasion both men and women were interviewed separately. Both felt that eating together had a symbolic importance when they set up home together and most couples made efforts to eat a main meal together most evenings, while shopping and eating patterns tended to become more regular and formalised than they were at the pre-marriage/cohabitation stage. In a small majority of cases the women were mainly responsible for buying and preparing food. A significant difference between these women and those of other, earlier studies is that they tended to be less deferential to their husbands' food choices. However, associations between women, food and nurturing were evident in the efforts women made to improve their husbands' diets. Where food purchase and preparation were shared, so was choice of food. The goal of enjoying food together was achieved by learning, influence and compromise but no significant gendering of power in food choice was identified.
Trouble with Gender
Authors: Hood-Williams John , Harrison Wendy Cealey
Published: March 2003

This paper is a critical engagement with some of the writings of Judith Butler who is perhaps best known for popularising the idea of gender as performative. Here we trace the origins of the notion of performatives in the work of J.L. Austin. We outline Butler's extended definition of performative gender and comment on its relationship to earlier sociological accounts. We follow her development of the idea through the later deployment of Derrida's notion of citationality. We draw attention to potential problems of this usage and to the difficulties of linking it to a psychoanalytic account of subjectivity. We consider her extended example of drag as sharing the impersonatory character of gender and as allegorizing the melancholic character of heterosexual gender identity. We comment on her interest in a theatrical politics that may make trouble for gender. Finally we consider the theoretical burden that these ideas attempt to carry.
Reflexivity, Ethnography and the Professions (Complementary Medicine) Watching You Watching Me Watching You (and Writing about Both of Us)
Authors: Cant Sarah , Sharma Ursula
Published: March 2003

That reflexivity is a characteristic of high modernity is now a truism, but its ethical and practical implications for field research have not been explored. The article is based on research conducted among complementary medical practitioners, focusing on issues of professionalisation. This research revealed the problematic and permeable nature of boundaries in ethnographic work. For example, in the course of interviews and observation therapists vouchsafed information to us which seemed controversial, even indiscreet. Was this a matter of their own naivety, their failure to demonstrate the mature ‘professionalism’ to which they aspired? Or was it a conscious strategy, conducted in the expectation that we would make such material public without attributing it to them by name? We were obliged to reflect on the nature of our own ‘professionalism’ as researchers, the ways in which private and public selves interact in the course of research. The confessional nature of some ethnographic writing raises further issues about trust, privacy and the preservation of professional boundaries between researcher and researched. We conclude that social scientists are entitled to critique ‘professionalism’ as a historically situated ‘folk’ concept whose rhetoric often obscures material interests, but they would do well not to abandon it themselves if they are to claim a responsible and ethical form of practice.
Interdiscursivity and Child Welfare: The Ascent and Durability of Psycho-Legalism
Authors: White Susan
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the knowledges affecting contemporary child welfare policy and practice. Using a number of conceptual frameworks, it seeks to challenge the view of some commentators that a new ‘legalism’ and a putative concern with ‘surface form’ has accorded formal psychological knowledge, and hence the ‘psy’ complex, a diminished and waning significance. The paper argues that, although there have been significant changes in child welfare practice, rumours of the waning of the ‘psy’ complex have been exaggerated. A detailed analysis of the way the law thinks, and of policy documents and practice guidance reveals both the complex interdiscursivity of the new ‘legalism’ and the durability of psychological and developmentalist forms of thought.
The Beer Talking: Four Lads, a Carry Out and the Reproduction of Masculinities
Authors: Gough Brendan , Edwards Gareth
Published: March 2003

Discourse analytic research on masculinity has produced some interesting and insightful understandings of male-bonding talk and/or talk around alcohol-related activities. These and other contributions have helped demonstrate the dependence of ‘hegemonic’ masculinities on the discursive subordination of the ‘other’, notably women and gay men. The present study builds on such work by examining the reproduction of masculinities in the context of a group of four young men interacting under the influence of alcohol. The talk was recorded with the permission of the four participants (one of whom is a co-author – GE) and subsequently subjected to discourse analysis. Particular attention is paid to definitions of (male) self and others – women, gay men and men from ethnically different backgrounds – which are negotiated during the interaction. The analysis is discussed in the light of current debates on the discursive reproduction of masculinities.
‘Boys Own’ Stuff: Masculinity and the Management of Further Education
Authors: Kerfoot Deborah , Whitehead Stephen
Published: March 2003

The connections between men, masculinity and management remain understated if not largely concealed, despite a critical spotlight being increasingly cast on masculinity by many academic and other writers. In a similar vein, numerous commentators on organisation have charted the rise of new organisational forms and structures, and the management practices which flow from them. With few notable exceptions, however these bodies of work deny or downplay the complex linkages and inter connections between masculinity and the activities of management. By drawing on the case of UK further education (FE), and more particularly, the management practices therein, an aim of this article is to draw attention to this inter-relationship of masculinities and men managers. In so doing, we suggest that the term ‘masculine subject’ best exemplifies those men, and women, who seek to invest their sense of being in mas culinist discourses. The empirical basis is taken from research undertaker across a number of FE colleges wherein 24 men managers were interviewed as part of a larger project concerned with the management and regulation of the sector. In exposing the intensified and increasingly uncertain work conditions now typifying the new FE work culture, this article draws attention to practices of oppression and bullying by managers underplayed or overlooked by writers elsewhere.
A Noisy Road or Noisy Resident?: A Demonstration of the Utility of Social Constructionism for Analysing Environmental Problems
Authors: Burningham Kate
Published: March 2003

Within the developing field of environmental sociology the use of social constructionist approaches has often been criticised for detracting attention from the severity of environmental problems and for failing to contribute to attempts to manage them. While there are is a number of published social constructionist analyses of how various environmental problems have come to prominence, few of these address the criticisms which have been levelled at the approach. This paper attempts to contribute to this gap in the literature by providing a reflective case study of the use of social constructionism to analyse a specific environmental problem – the noise generated by a new road. The case study discussed is of the A27 road between Havant and Chichester. The results illustrate that treating environmental problems as socially constructed is often the most valid approach given that the existence and character of these problems, as well as how best to address them, are often contested. In addition it is suggested that the results of social constructionist analyses can make a practical contribution to the management of environmental disputes.
Action as Will-Power
Authors: Campbell Colin
Published: March 2003

The concept of power, as commonly formulated in contemporary sociology, is noted to lack any reference to the critical dimension of personal conative striving, or will-power. This deficiency is shown to stem from an overly cognitive conception of action, one in which acts are seen to embody choice and meaning but not emotion or effort, a view that has been reinforced by the use of trivial, easily-accomplished acts as examples to illustrate the nature of action. A perspective is advocated that redresses this imbalance; one that accepts that the immediate cause of all true actions is an act of will and that action is best conceived of as behaviour that individuals allow to happen to them. Power is then defined as an individual's ability to initiate and maintain action despite behavioural resistance, a conceptualization that closely links it to the concept of ‘character’. This perspective on human conduct is then shown to be identical to that adopted by Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Spencer's Future of Welfare: A Vision Eclipsed
Authors: Offer John
Published: March 2003

Spencer's sustained opposition to statutory welfare provisions, based on his theory of social and general evolution, is generally familiar. Much less familiar, however, are his positive arguments, made at various points in his Principles of Sociology, Principles of Ethics and other places, in favour of what he calls ‘positive private beneficence’ (which today would be called ‘informal welfare’ or ‘informal care’). Unfamiliar also are his analysis of charitable organisations and his support for an expansion of the administration of civil justice to enhance welfare. In fact, Spencer was laying out a form of welfare pluralism at the close of the last century. This article explores these matters. In particular it argues that Spencer's work on these matters, or rather its neglect, should be seen as significant in the history of social theory and welfare and in understanding the present day rediscovery of informal welfare. It also demonstrates that Spencer's work on private beneficence and the administration of justice is important for understanding his theory of social evolution.
Fragmented Selves in Late Modernity: Making Sociological Sense of Multiple Personalities
Authors: Scott Sara
Published: March 2003

Sociological responses to the increase in recent years of psychiatric reports of multiple personality (latterly redefined as Dissociative Identity Disorder) have focused upon its discursive production as a diagnostic category. Drawing on life-history interviews with survivors of extreme childhood abuse – some of whom defined themselves as having ‘multiple personalities’ – this paper suggests that an adequate sociological account needs to combine analysis of the popular and clinical discourses of dissociation/multiplicity, with an understanding of the relationship between these and particular individual auto/biographies. The production of a narrative of fragmented subjectivity is considered as an active engagement with previously denied and silenced autobiographical experience and with the dominant contemporary discourse that allows for the episodic denial of self-reflexive selfhood. In the light of DID diagnoses being largely applied to/adopted by women, questions are raised concerning the possible impact of the adoption of a multiple identity on individual integrity and autonomy.
Managing Ambiguity: Between Markets and Managerialism — A Case Study of ‘Middle’ Managers in Further Education
Authors: Gleeson Denis , Shain Farzana
Published: March 2003

Advocates of devolved and market oriented Education reform, point to the benefits from self determination which enhance both teacher and managerial autonomy. Critics refer, on the other hand, to the ways in which running education institutions on business and accounting principles have introduced a new managerialism (Clarke et al, 1994; Pollitt, 1990; Clarke and Newman, 1997), which has driven a wedge between lecturers and senior manager interests. In Further Education, according to Elliott (1996a), this finds expression in conflict between lecturers in defence of professional and pedagogic values, and senior managers promoting the managerial bottom line (Randle and Brady, 1994). The danger in polarising such interests in this way is that it presents a plausible, if not oversimplified, analysis of organisational behaviour as market forces permeate FE. If this paper concurs with many critics on the effects of the new managerialism, it departs company from a prevailing determinism which assumes an over controlled view of the FE workplace (Seddon and Brown, 1997). Despite evidence of widespread casualisation and depro-fessionalisation in FE, this paper examines changing managerial cultures in the FE workplace, in this case among academic ‘middle’ managers, which suggests that managerialism is not as complete or uncontested as is often portrayed. The paper draws on an ESRC research project conducted by the authors (ESRC no. R000236713), looking at Changing Teaching and Managerial Cultures in FE, at a time when the sector is emerging from a series of funding crises associated with redundancies, industrial action, mismanagement and low morale at college level.
(Not) Talking about Sex: Youth, Identity and Sexuality
Authors: West Jackie
Published: March 2003

Young people remain inhibited in their exploration of sexuality not only by heterosexual morality and gendered power relations but also by their transitional status, yet the age dimension of youth and sexuality has been relatively neglected in recent research. This paper examines a number of social constraints on young people's opportunities for talk and discussion about sex, with reference to their experiences of sex education and services in sexual health. Based on interviews with 147 young women and young men and a separate survey of 400 clinic users, it emphasises the limited social acceptance of teenage sexuality and the forms of its regulation, which are both normative and relational. Attention to social relations with adults also shows how questions of sexual citizenship are closely connected to wider issues of social equality.
British Identity and ‘The People's Princess’
Authors: McGuigan Jim
Published: March 2003

This article treats the popular response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, as a manifestation of the cultural public sphere, by which is meant a symbolic space for affective communication and an emotional sense of democratic participation. The Diana phenomenon neither produced a ‘revolutionary moment’ nor, however, was it insignificant. Rather, it represented a vehicle for public debate on British identity, the role of the monarchy and, more diffusely, the conduct of personal relations. New Labour and feminist appropriations of Diana are examined in detail and related to a general consideration of the diverse and contested meanings of her life and death.
Social Identity and Emotion: The Meeting of Psychoanalysis and Sociology
Authors: Vogler Carolyn
Published: March 2003

This paper attempts to develop a framework for understanding social identities by linking together ideas from two disciplines which are normally pursued separately from each other namely, sociology and psychoanalysis. Drawing on the work of Craib (1989, 1994, 1998a) Bion (1961) and Scheff (1994a) in psychoanalysis and Mann (1986, 1993a, 1995, 1997) in sociology, the main argument is that social identities such as national identity are not just the result of sociological factors such as social classification, boundaries and processes of identification, they also have an important emotional dimension which coexists with but cannot be reduced to the social. In order to understand the persistence and indeed strengthening of nationalism and national identities in the contemporary world, we need to take account not just of changes in the inter-relationships between economics, politics and culture at the global level, but also of the ways in which they may now be coming to inter-relate with the kind of unconscious psychological processes and strong emotions such as love, hate, shame and anger, which occur within groups. The paper begins with a critique of existing sociological approaches to identity followed by an attempt to develop an alternative approach based on the psychoanalytic concept of emotional inter-subjectivity. By means of a case study of British trade unions in the 1980's and 1990's, it then goes on to show how unconscious psychological processes and strong feelings may now be articulating with sociological processes to form a mutually reinforcing loop which is strengthening and reinforcing nationalism in a sociological context in which other aspects of society are globalising. Finally, it is suggested that the reason why sociologists need to take feelings seriously in the contemporary world is that they may now be combining with sociological changes to strengthen and reinforce nationalism and the principle of nationality in situations in which it might be more productive to question it.
Between Sociology and Theology: The Spirit of Capitalism Debate
Authors: Tester Keith
Published: March 2003

This paper revisits the debate on the Spirit of Capitalism in order to show how this well-known sociological theme might be revitalised through an encounter with themes from theology. The paper seeks to offer some of the resources by which it might be possible to think about the ‘moral texture’ of the German tradition of sociology. In so doing, it seeks to compare and contrast the general theme of the Spirit of Capitalism in the work of the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich with debates raised in the neo-Kantian sociology of Georg Simmel and Max Weber. Tillich's discussion of the Spirit of Capitalism is discussed in detail and it is used as the basis for some concluding speculations about the relationship between the disciplines of sociology and theology.
The Professionalisation of Financial Advice in Britain
Authors: Clarke Michael
Published: March 2003

This paper reviews the impact of increasing state regulation of financial advice and its effect in requiring much higher levels of competence and probity, so stimulating professionalisation, though in doing so, pre-empting the traditional role of established professional bodies in securing competence and probity. Is it still possible at the end of the twentieth century for new professions to emerge? If so, is a new model of the professions in prospect?
Self-Organization and Trade Union Democracy
Authors: Humphrey Jill C.
Published: March 2003

This article is an offshoot of a three year study into the self-organized groups for women, black members, disabled members and lesbians and gay men which have been enshrined in the constitution of the UK's public sector union UNISON. The argument is that self-organization has become a significant axis around which trade union democracy is being reconstituted in the late twentieth century. However, our understanding of this phenomenon has been obscured by the ascendancy of mainstream union perspectives over self-organized perspectives, which has unfortunately been compounded by academic researchers. A re-conceptualization of self-organization proceeds in three stages. First, it is contextualized politically and theoretically in terms of trade union histories, new social movements and models of a diversified democratic polity. Second, it is re-signified by attending to its actual unfolding over the past two decades and the self-understandings of its activists. Third, is problematized with reference to exogenous pressures towards bureaucracy and oligarchy, and endogenous pressures towards essentialisms and exclusions.
The Rediscovery of Child Neglect
Authors: Scourfield Jonathan
Published: March 2003

The article is a discussion of the construction of child neglect in a child and family social work team in the UK, based on ethnographic research in the social work office. Two influential and contrasting professional discourses on neglect are identified, and it is suggested that the dominant construction of neglect in the team studied is maternal failure to adequately service children's bodies. This construction is discussed in relation to some relevant theoretical insights and in the context of trends in contemporary child protection work.
Socialising Disease: Medical Categories and Inclusion of the Aged
Authors: Latimer Joanna
Published: March 2003

When older peoples' troubles are categorised as social rather than medical, hospital care can be denied them. Drawing on an ethnography of older people admitted as emergencies to an acute medical unit, the article demonstrates how medical categories can provide shelter for older people. By holding their clinical identity on medical rather than social grounds, physicians who specialise in gerontology in the acute medical domain can help prevent the over-socialising of an older person's health troubles. As well as helping the older person to draw certain resources to themselves, such as treatment and care, this inclusion in positive medical categories can provide shelter for the older person, to keep at bay their effacement as ‘social problems'. These findings suggest that contemporary sociological critique of biomedicine may underestimate how medical categorising, as the obligatory passage through which to access important resources and life chances, can constitute a process of social inclusion.
Cultural Stereotypes and the Gendering of Senior Management
Authors: Charles Nickie , Davies Charlotte Aull
Published: March 2003

This paper asks whether place is significant in understanding the gendering of senior management and how it might be integrated into existing theories. Drawing on interviews and focus group discussions with women and men in senior management in Wales, it compares the gendering of senior management in Wales with other regions of the UK. The situation in Wales is explained by the historical legacy of a peripheral economy dependent on male-dominated heavy industries and the gender relations and stereotypes associated with this. There is a relative lack of senior managerial positions, for both women and men, and women are under-represented in middle management compared with women elsewhere. There is evidence that paternalistic masculinites are widespread in managerial cultures and that although women may find this form of masculinity easier to deal with than a more aggressively ‘macho’ masculinity, it casts them in a subordinate role at work. Cultural stereotypes such as the ‘Welsh mam’ operate in contradictory ways, in some instances holding women back and in others furthering their careers, and there is evidence that women are challenging existing gender stereotypes. A lack of geographical mobility and associated attachment to place affects progress into senior management and creates stability at middle-management level. Place needs to be taken into account in explaining the gendering of senior management because of the spatial distribution of production and the cultural patterns and stereotypes associated with different economic structures.
The Cook, the Cooker and the Gendering of the Kitchen
Authors: Silva Elizabeth B.
Published: March 2003

This article combines the approaches of actor-network theory and poststructuralism to consider how a household technology has interacted with patterns of gender hierarchies over time. Two major innovations in cooking technologies are analysed in relation to cooking activities and the related conceptions of women's roles in families, which are central to these concerns. The first technological development is the thermostat oven control, introduced in the 1920s and 1930s; the second is the microwave oven, introduced in the late 1980s and 1990s. Important conceptions of the cook's performance are examined and various implicit roles that have been tacitly assumed by innovating agents in the use of cookers are made explicit. The study contributes to discussions of gender and technology in the context of domestic life.
Language and Libertarianism: The Politics of Cyberculture and the Culture of Cyberpolitics
Authors: Jordan Tim
Published: March 2003

A significant number of theories concerning the nature of cyberspace or virtuality are being constructed with little regard for the empirical realities of online life. This article sets out certain simple empirical factors related to the nature first of politics in cyberspace and second culture in cyberspace. These questions are posed as ‘what is the politics of cyberculture?’ and ‘what is the culture of cyberpolitics?’. The politics of cyberculture revolves around issues of grossly uneven regional distribution of the Internet and a bias toward anglo-american language and culture that is based on the competitive individual. The culture of cyberpolitics revolves around informational forms of libertarian and anarchist ideologies that posit cyberspace as the realm of individual freedom. These cultures and politics can be related to each other as the structure and action of cyberspace. The assumption that cyberspace is constituted by individuals is revealed as an assumption of both, and connection between, cyberpolitics and cybercultures.