bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The American Phage Group
Authors: Summers William C.
Published: May 2023

This book is the first critical and analytical study of the American Phage Group—a small group of scientists who gathered around Max Delbrück, Salvador Luria, and Alfred Hershey between 1940 and 1960—and how this novel research program became the foundation of the field of molecular biology. These three young, charismatic, and iconoclastic scientists were convinced of the importance of bacterial viruses (bacteriophages) to the study of the gene and of heredity in general. Based on substantial archival research, numerous participant interviews collected over the past thirty years, and an intimate knowledge of the relevant scientific literature in the field, the book is a fascinating new history of the American Phage Group. Rather than a linear narrative of progress by past heroes, the book emphasizes the diversity and historical contingencies in the group's development.
The Mediterranean in History
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter covers The Mediterranean in History (2003), a book covering multiple historical periods regarding the area. The Mediterranean is a collection of works written by an international team of scholars, and chapters range from the geological upheavals that first formed this small, landlocked sea, with its jagged north coast and smooth south one. The emphasis is on how the exchange of commodities and ideas across the sea developed, rather than on the history of the societies along its shores. The chapter remarks on the breadth of topics covered in the Mediterranean, from agriculture to political institutions to religious massacres and organised crime. It provides commentary on several topics covered in the book and the ways in which the book has used up-to-date historical evidence.
The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve: The Story that Created Us
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the story of Adam and Eve through Stephen Greenblatt's The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve: The Story that Created Us (2017). It begins with a quick introduction into Greenblatt's distinguished career in literary criticism, and how his innovations have been applied to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. Here, the chapter takes a look at how Rise explores this story's origins in folklore and historical events. Furthermore, Rise examines multiple attempts to reconcile the story's various inconsistencies throughout millennia, including such ideas as the doctrine of original sin or the theory that the story of Adam and Eve is merely allegorical. Finally, the various anecdotes, artistic expressions, and historical writings about Adam and Eve are briefly considered.
A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter turns to the biography of Joseph Paxton in A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton (2003), by Kate Colquhoun. Paxton was a farm labourer's son who went on to work at the Horticultural Society's gardens in Chiswick. These were boom times in gardening. Since the eighteenth-century voyages of exploration, hundreds of plant species had been pouring into Britain. Paxton was eventually appointed head gardener at Chatsworth, one of the grandest estates in the realm. Along with Paxton's many achievements, the chapter also explores his friendship with his employer, George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire. Together, both men went on to innovate the horticultural field. Paxton, in addition, also made many architectural achievements.
The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter traces the history of the circus through The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus (2014), by Linda Simon. Here, the chapter argues that the circus was the most comprehensive popular art form ever invented. It explores the circus' ancient origins before examining the ways in which circus acts began to diversify over the centuries, prompting the beginnings of well-known circus trappings such as clowns, feats of daring, and close-fitting attire. Indeed, the circus mirrored the dynamic growth and ruthless competition that epitomised the nineteenth century. The chapter also explores the aspects of circus more controversial to modern sensibilities, such as animal acts and ‘living curiosities’, and how these and other parts of the circus have come to be viewed in modern times.
The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the world of Elizabethan science via a database of 1,800 Elizabethan Londoners, all of whom had an interest, however unofficial, in some aspect of science or technology. They were midwives, gardeners, clockmakers, barber-surgeons, alchemists, apothecaries, engineers, and naturalists. Author Deborah E. Harkness tracks them through the city's back alleys, workshops, and taverns in The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (2007). The Jewel House constructs a map of the swarming, fractious, competitive, largely unregulated, and almost wholly unexplored underworld of Elizabethan science. However, the chapter also criticises the book's assertions that Elizabethan London held a keen interest in mathematics, citing evidence to the contrary. The book's assertion that Sir Francis Bacon had undeservedly received credit for inaugurating the Scientific Revolution that should by rights go to humbler folk such as those explored in The Jewel House is also examined.
Laughter: A Scientific Investigation; Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter compares Robert Provine's Laughter: A Scientific Investigation and Tom Lutz's Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears. It first focuses on Lutz's study of crying which comes from the arts side. It ponders why we cry and why are there tears of joy as well as sorrow. The chapter also presents Provine's investigation of laughter. By contrast, the chapter notes that it is a model of constructive scientific thinking, and can be recommended as a shampoo and conditioner for the brains of arts aficionados everywhere. The chapter then discusses Provine's observation about people actually laughing, and deduces laughter as a mode of pre-linguistic social bonding. It also highlights Provine's discovery that speakers, on average, laugh more than their audiences. The chapter turns to examine what we know about why tears happen, how they affect us, and what they mean.
Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour that Changed the World
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter delves into Sir William Perkin's discovery of mauve. Although Perkin's discovery was a stroke of luck, he was, as the chapter demonstrates, the kind of exemplary juvenile who was almost bound to make his mark sooner or later. Once Perkin had found that his new colour would stain cloth, the chapter follows how he acted quickly, obtained a patent, and contacted a Scottish dyeworks. Within months he had built a factory near Harrow and started production. The chapter then explores how mauve mania swept London and Perkin's fortune was made. This chapter also examines how hundreds more aniline dyes — reds, blues, greens, violets — burst upon the world. It investigates how Perkin changed the way women smelt, and how he simulated the perfumes of roses, jasmine, violets and musk. The chapter looks at how his breakthrough had repercussions in many other fields. Coal-tar preparations led to the development of photographic plates and colour film, of aspirin and saccharin, and of more powerful explosives.
Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter raises the questions that none of us wants to think about. What will happen to our loved ones when they become too old or ill to care for themselves? What will the end of their lives, and ours, be like? The chapter delves into the way modern medicine treats the old and the dying. It argues that medicine puts medical considerations first, and the rest nowhere. The chapter also displays the author's insights that making lives meaningful in old age requires more imagination than making them safe does, and more than the medical profession currently possesses. It mentions that advances in medical science have spurred oncologists, radiation therapists and surgeons to keep pushing back the limits, subjecting their patients to increasingly ‘barbaric’ procedures, even though they know that the sufferers cannot be cured. The chapter discusses palliative care. Whereas surgery and therapy sacrifice the patient's present quality of life in the hope of postponing death, palliative care, as the chapter explains, encourages the patient to accept the inevitability of death, and focuses on freedom from pain and anxiety.
Publisher
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on Tom Maschler at that time when he was chairman of Jonathan Cape. It discusses Maschler's career, noting that his book is laid out as a series of labelled sections, each devoted to a single well-known author from the Cape list. The chapter then argues that Maschler's book should have been the literary event of the decade, providing intimate insight into the shaping spirits of contemporary literature. Instead, it is an embarrassment. As the chapter underlines, Maschler keeps telling us what scintillating talkers his authors were, yet he records virtually nothing of what they said. The chapter also looks at Maschler's style, which, for someone who has honed his wits on the foremost penmen of the era, is strangely ponderous. In conclusion, the chapter recounts how Maschler has clearly stirred warm and deep affection in many of his authors. When, in the late 1980s, he suffered from clinical depression, he received loving, supportive letters. The only surprise is that, with so many friends in the literary world, none of them persuaded him not to publish this book.
Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter elaborates on the literary and cultural history left by Francis O'Gorman. It highlights the notion of worry prominent in O'Gorman's work. O'Gorman admits that the worry he experiences does not indicate any clinical condition, but it does eat away his happiness. While self-doubt could be crippling, O'Gorman conceded that it does free him from dogmatism. According to O'Gorman, worrying involves imagining possible futures, an ability that distinguishes us from other animals, and must be almost as old as the act of thinking. Thus, survival depended on worry for early man. The chapter mentions how creativity and worry come from the same source of imagination.
Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter tackles the life of Daniel Everett living in an Amazonian jungle. Everett and his family lived with a hunter-gatherer tribe called Piraha, who occupy the banks of the Maici, a tributary in the Amazon. Everett became the world's first non-Piraha Piraha speaker and a professor of linguistics whose discovery questioned basic modern language assumptions. The chapter elaborates on Everett's argument that clashes with Noam Chomsky's theory of relative clauses being a vital feature of all human language. It details the features of the Piraha language, which consists of hum-speech and consonants that vary whether it is spoken by a man or a woman.
The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The True Story of a Jamaican Slave Who Became Samuel Johnson’s Heir
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter introduces Francis Barber, a Jamaican slave who became Dr Samuel Johnson's heir. It starts with how Barber was born a slave on a Jamaican sugar plantation before he was given to Johnson to lift his spirits following his wife's death. Johnson treated Barber more like a son instead of a slave. However, Barber left home to work in an apothecary and later on, joined the navy. The chapter explains how Johnson took Barber out of the navy and forced him to become a scholar. It cites that Johnson left Barber the bulk of his estate, but he did not receive the proceeds directly since Johnson had three appointees to manage the bequest and pay Barber an annuity.
The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on Patrick French's colourful biography of Sir Vidia Naipaul. The biography exposes Naipaul as an egotist, a domestic tyrant and a sadist to a degree that would be farcical if it were not for the consequent distress suffered over many years by his first wife, Pat. Descended from destitute Indian labourers sent to Trinidad to cut sugar cane, he was made to feel inferior even within his own extended family by the failures and mental breakdowns of his beloved father. To survive these setbacks, he had to cling to a belief in his inherent superiority. French's character analysis is not flattering, but it does justice to its subject's complexity.
Bertie, May and Mrs Fish: Country Memories of Wartime
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter describes Xandra Bingley's story as full of bright colours like a child's paintbox, and its short, present-tense sentences capture the unguarded immediacy of childhood experience. Bingley was born in 1942 on a farm in the Cotswolds and her father, Bertie, had gone off to the war, leaving her mother May in charge. The chapter mentions Mrs Fish who came in at Bingley's house to do the washing and help the other three elderly farm hands. The chapter considers May as the heroine of Bingley's story as in command of a 2,000-acre farm, plus thirty cows that need hand milking twice a day. The kind of life Bingley's story depicts has attracted the passionate loathing of anti-hunters and their mob following.
Levelized Cost of Energy-Based Economic Analysis of Microgrid Equipped with Multi Energy Storage System
Authors: Kumar Pradeep , Das Vipin , Singh Asheesh K. , Karuppanan P.
Published: May 2023

Energy storage system (ESS) plays a critical role in maintaining the reliability of microgrids. ESS selection for microgrids depends on energy density, specific power, specific energy, and economics. This paper analyses the economic benefits of various combinations of short-, medium-, and long-term ESS, i.e., multi-energy storage systems (MESS) in a microgrid. The economic feasibility of the system is analyzed using Homer software. The net present cost (NPC), the Levelized cost of energy (LCOE), and pollutant gas emission are chosen as parameters for analyzing the economic feasibility of the microgrids. The results show that amongst all the scenarios, the system with Hydrogen Storage System (HSS) with Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and electrolyzer is the most feasible solution with the lowest LCOE and pollutant emission.
On the Use of the Kolmogorov–Wiener Filter for Heavy-tail Process Prediction
Authors: Gorev Vyacheslav , Gusev Alexander , Korniienko Valerii , Shedlovska Yana
Published: May 2023

This paper is devoted to the investigation of the applicability of the Kolmogorov–Wiener filter to the prediction of heavy-tail processes. As is known, telecommunication traffic in systems with data packet transfer is considered to be a heavy-tail process. There are a lot of rather sophisticated approaches to traffic prediction; however, in the rather simple case of stationary traffic sophisticated approaches may not be needed, and a simple approach, such as the Kolmogorov–Wiener filter, may be applied. However, as far as we know, this approach has not been considered in recent papers. In our previous papers, we theoretically developed a method for obtaining the filter weight function in the continuous case. The Kolmogorov–Wiener filter may be applied only to stationary processes, but in some models telecommunication traffic is treated as a stationary process, and thus the use of the Kolmogorov–Wiener filter may be of practical interest. In this paper, we generate stationary heavy-tail modeled data similar to fractional Gaussian noise and investigate the applicability of the Kolmogorov–Wiener filter to data prediction. Both non-smoothed and smoothed processes are investigated. It is shown that both the discrete and the continuous Kolmogorov–Wiener filter may be used in a rather accurate short-term prediction of a heavy-tail smoothed stationary random process. The paper results may be used for stationary telecommunication traffic prediction in systems with packet data transfer.
Welfare conditionality and behaviour change
Authors: Dwyer Peter , Scullion Lisa , Jones Katy , McNeill Jenny , Stewart Alasdair B.R.
Published: May 2023

Conditional welfare interventions are regarded as important instruments of behaviour change by many governments. This chapter offers an overview of economic and psychological theories on behaviour change that influence the thinking of contemporary policymakers. A consideration of the conceptualisation of agency and behaviour within the welfare conditionality literature and the relevance of different policy tools (that is, sanction, support, sermons and nudges) that policymakers use when attempting to change the behaviour of those reliant on social welfare benefits and services is offered in the second section. The third section reviews existing evidence on the effectiveness of welfare conditionality, in either moving those reliant on social welfare benefits into paid work or promoting the cessation of problematic behaviour among sections of the population.
Xenophobia, hostility and austerity: European migrants and civil society in Wales
Authors: Drinkwater Stephen , Guma Taulant , Jones Rhys Dafydd
Published: May 2023

This chapter highlights turbulence and uncertainty in relation to contemporary patterns and processes of migration. This has been driven by a variety of causes including the international rise of populism and Brexit. Many EU citizens have been targeted in xenoracist incidents. A review of the academic and policy literature underlines how many accounts take an integrationist view of migrants’ participation in the UK. This presents them as passive and requiring support, rather than as being resourceful agents and civil society makers. The interview data discussed in this chapter reveal how the Brexit referendum result made many feel that they no longer belonged or were wanted. In turn, migrants’ experience of hostility and discrimination prompted some to be proactive, setting up and running new civil society initiatives to tackle dominant negative discourses of migrants in the UK. A further core finding is that volunteering and participation in civil society functions as an anchoring practice, helping individuals bond with their communities, both in terms of people and places. The analysis also reveals a major civic participation gap between migrants and non-migrants.
Policymaking in higher education: understanding the economy
Authors: Tholen Gerbrand
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on how the role of education in the economy is understood. Here it outlines distinct assumptions on the importance of university graduates within the modern economy, inspired by the idea of the knowledge-based economy. It demonstrates that the ideological adherence to this ideal emphasises the need for higher education (HE) expansion and later on the importance of inserting the right type of graduate skills in the labour market to achieve economic prosperity. A problematisation of whether HE was able to develop the right skills was salient to make a case for further marketisation
Policymaking in higher education: understanding work and the labour market
Authors: Tholen Gerbrand
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines how the role of education in work and the labour market is understood. It shows that the policy documents presume the skills employers demand can be developed in higher education (HE). Yet universities are increasingly held to task to support the economy, adjusting to employer skills demand and ensuring the work-readiness of students. Employers, students and the state were thought to have a shared interest in making HE more attuned to the economy’s needs. The importance of market competition to improve the quality of HE and the employability of its graduates was seen as desirable.
Policymaking in higher education: human capital
Authors: Tholen Gerbrand
Published: May 2023

This chapter demonstrates the reliance on Human Capital Theories (HCT) to understand the graduate labour market within higher education (HE) policy discourse. The theory’s expected relationship between education, skills and rewards policy justify marketisation in HE. The market for HE provision is seen as directly linked to labour market outcomes. The skills that employers need are closely aligned to the skills that universities teach. Marketisation makes sense if students are responsible for their labour market outcomes as well to ensure optimal human capital investment.
Graduate work in modern capitalism
Authors: Tholen Gerbrand
Published: May 2023

This chapter investigates how well the narrative of the knowledge-based society holds up. Here it finds that some key characteristics of contemporary Anglo-Saxon capitalism contradict how the knowledge-based economy was initially thought of. The greater use of technology may not necessarily reward graduate workers. Also, many so-called knowledge workers do not have strong labour market power as often has been assumed. As a result, graduate workers are misunderstood in terms of their expected status and earnings but also within their role in economic development.
The misinterpretation of graduate work
Authors: Tholen Gerbrand
Published: May 2023

This chapter reflects why marketisation in higher education is so hard to reverse. It warns that one of the problems in changing the current drive for more marketisation is that many of the assumptions on graduate labour are shared by other policy and political projects. The chapter deals with three of them. These are: the idea of an education-based meritocracy; employability as means of individual empowerment and responsibility; and the reliance on Human Capital Theory within economic, social and educational policies. The chapter demonstrates that each is problematic in its own right.
Conclusion
Authors: Tholen Gerbrand
Published: May 2023

This chapter concludes the book. It reflects on what resistance against marketisation in higher education (HE) may look like and how this may shape how we imagine what the HE institutions are for. It ends with some thoughts on what the future may hold for HE in the UK and beyond.
Knowing young people
Authors: Howard Frances
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines problematic labels which are placed upon groups of young people, such as ‘at-risk’, NEET, disengaged. It argues that access to arts programmes is socially streamed, using youth work settings as an example. This chapter highlights that the sites in which young people access arts projects often dictate what kind of practices and pedagogies they receive. It raises issues of social justice and explores the conditions of learning that are important for young people under these categorisations.
Youth arts practices
Authors: Howard Frances
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the different arts practices on offer through the youth arts program in my study – Arts Award. Drawing on Paul Willis’ framework of common culture, examples of the artistic practice undertaken by the young people are given as incorporating everyday practice, symbolic resources and bedroom culture. This chapter also explores ‘subcultural’ arts practices and their functioning as realignment for some young people to deviant social groupings by drawing on case studies.
Accommodating common culture
Authors: Howard Frances
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the kinds of arts practices that flourish within youth work settings. Two international case studies are presented, which demonstrate young people’s take-up of common culture. These include Dancehearts, based at Annantalo in Finland, which provides inclusive dance sessions; and Bolt FM (Scotland), which is a program that gives young people a voice using radio. These two programs exemplify, in particular, the value of informal education and kinaesthetic pedagogies. This chapter argues that youth arts programs that accommodate common culture, for example those that engage with DIY and digital arts practices, are more likely to be responsive, engaging and ultimately impactful for the young people involved.
Cultivating cultural citizenship
Authors: Howard Frances
Published: May 2023

This chapter argues for the value of the arts in supporting participatory democracy and social change and explores youth arts programs which hold cultural citizenship at their heart. Two case studies will be presented that demonstrate the value of arts programs for the development of cultural citizenship. These are Chicago Arts and Music Project, as an example of an arts program which responds to the needs of local communities and empowers young people towards social action; and a European program from Jugend- & Kulturprojekt e.V. (Youth and Culture) in Germany, which uses the arts as a tool for social inclusion and the celebration of cultural difference. It argues that youth arts programs should be supporting and cultivating young people as cultural citizens, emphasising the importance of dialogue on ‘otherness’ and the value of building community relations.
Villa context
Authors: Clark Sam
Published: May 2023

Chapter 5 provides an overview of one property developer’s retirement-living product – the retirement villa – developed by ‘Pink & Knight’ for the UK independent-living homeowner market. The chapter explains the villa concept and its evolution from sheltered housing schemes developed in the late 20th century. The chapter thus contextualises the villa within a spectrum of accommodation types inhabited by older people. It includes discussion of contemporary models, such as Extra Care, which operate on a ‘village’ scale, rather than a single building block and deliberately blur the lines between specialist housing and care institution. Here there is fertile ground for further innovation, but also potential confusion around product identities and how they are understood by consumers, estate agents and the wider public, as well as local authority planning departments.
Architecture student
Authors: Clark Sam
Published: May 2023

Chapter 10 contains a research story that captures the position of the architecture student responding to the dual challenges of designing housing and accommodating an aged population. The story is located within the academic design studio of a fictional architecture school and presents a composite student character, August, while reflecting upon empathic design approaches to designing retirement housing on a ‘live’ development site. It explores how architecture students think about designing for older people and, crucially, how they might extend their awareness of housing needs and occupant aspirations in later life. This reflective practitioner account posits that the academic design studio can provide a space to explore research methodologies, involving short-term ‘cultural immersion’ or ‘empathic modelling’ and other ‘fast ethnography’ techniques, resulting in meaningful stakeholder engagement and potential to generate knowledge for and from design. In these terms the design studio can create a safe place to challenge ethnocentrism and the practice of self-design, as well as to question mainstream architectural behaviours and identities perpetuated by ‘starchitects’. The chapter also offers a behind-the-scenes view of architectural education that serves to support greater mutual understanding between designers of the built environment and researchers in environmental gerontology.
Town planner
Authors: Clark Sam
Published: May 2023

Chapter 12 presents the position of the town planner working within a UK Local Planning Authority (LPA), and their vital role in development control – specifically regulation of housing for older people. Town planners are uniquely placed as public servants in-between housing providers and consumers and the interests of the wider public. This chapter includes a part-fictionalised account of a planning inquiry where two LPA representatives – ‘Victor’ and ‘Rachel’ – advance a case for refusal of planning permission against a retirement housing scheme. This story highlights the importance of well-resourced and expert LPA teams, to help shape and ensure good-quality built environments in support of societal needs. The chapter also examines regional planning policy and guidance in relation to retirement housing. It highlights an ongoing ‘identity problem’ with regards to retirement-living products and their passage through the English planning system. The story raises further concerns about limited resources, with individual town planners being apparently hard-to-reach and planning teams lacking specialist knowledge. The chapter also underlines the importance of planners having capacity for innovation and work that goes beyond protecting ‘what is’ – conserving existing built environments and maintaining existent policies – and investing in ‘what could be’ through creative facilitation and plan-making.
Everyday peace as a community development approach
Authors: Ware Anthony , Ware Vicki-Ann , Kelly Leanne
Published: May 2023

Community development approaches to peacebuilding usually focus on strengthening social cohesion, finding common ground, bringing groups together and negotiation. However, this is not always immediately safe or possible after serious intercommunal violence. The idea of ‘everyday peace’ has recently emerged in the literature, to describe the ways in which ordinary individuals and groups navigate everyday life in deeply divided societies, to avoid or minimise both awkward situations and conflict triggers. At one end of the spectrum, everyday peace may create a safe space in which things appear normal, despite the conflict, allowing people to get on with life. At this level, everyday peace could be seen as the first peace, with inter-group contact after violence, or the last peace in the sense of being the last remaining bridging social capital before total rupture. In this chapter, the authors explore the concepts of the everyday and of everyday peace in detail, highlighting its relevance to community development practice, particularly that which adopts appreciative inquiry and awareness-raising approaches (Elliott, 1999; Bushe, 2011).
Nepal: working with community-based women to influence inclusion and peacebuilding
Authors: Risal Susan
Published: May 2023

This chapter presents the history of violent political conflict in Nepal and the nature of its impact on local communities. Noting the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of November 2006, it suggests that although this laid out the basic framework for political transition, it did little to effectively address many grievances or to implement commitments on justice and accountability. Indeed, despite almost 15 years since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, there has not been any significant action taken by the state to improve the status of conflict affected communities, and especially the position of women affected by conflict.
The chapter describes the establishment of the women-led peacebuilding organisation, Nagarik Aawaz, in 2001, with a mission to work with local women and youth that had been impacted by the conflict. The principles and strategy of Nagarik Aawaz are detailed and discussed, as is the community development approach adopted. Linking the feminist understanding that ‘the personal is political’, the organisation focused on both personal and community agency and transformation. It also adopted a phased approach to what was achievable, based on both theoretical and grounded analysis. Finally, the chapter considers the importance of space, of trust, the building of relationships and the forging of networks and collaboration to deliver change. The chapter is written from the perspective of an activist who has engaged in critical reflection on practice.
Palestinian storytelling: authoring their own lives
Authors: Sellick Patricia
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the transformative potential of stories that are told and recorded by Palestinians living in the South Hebron Hills. The chapter explains the Palestinian experience of progressive and violent dispossession, displacement and fragmentation before introducing the collection of stories which are at the heart of the chapter. These stories were recorded during 2018–19 by Palestinians aged 18–30 living in the South Hebron Hills as part of an externally funded programme to protect cultural heritage in countries affected by conflict. From more than 100 hours of recordings, two interviews are considered more closely. The stories demonstrate how the dialogue between the tellers of the stories and the listeners encompasses both the pessimism related to the ongoing dispersal and dispossession of the Palestinian population and the optimism which comes from constructing community through collective action and solidarity across differences of age, gender, location and nationality.
Everyday peace: after ethnic cleansing in Myanmar’s Rohingya conflict
Authors: Ware Vicki-Ann , Ware Anthony , Kelly Leanne
Published: May 2023

In this chapter, the authors explore and build on this theory to discuss their attempts to operationalise it into community development practice in Rakhine State, Myanmar – a region that has seen significant intercommunal and armed conflict in recent years, resulting in two-thirds of the Rohingya population being driven into Bangladesh in an act of ethnic cleansing. This chapter explores ways in which the principles and typologies of ‘everyday peace’ are being translated into community development practice by Vicki-Ann and Anthony Ware and evaluated by Leanne Kelly, in a programme working to strengthen peace formation between villages of Rohingya Muslim remaining in Myanmar and their Rakhine Buddhist neighbours. The authors draw from both their academic perspective and their grounded experience of the practice put in place during this programme of work. The case study demonstrates the conclusion that community development approaches can offer a strong foundation on which to scaffold an everyday peace framework that, in turn, supports the building of inclusive relationships and more peaceful coexistence.
Research as praxis, interweaving a complex web
Authors: Brannelly Tula , Barnes Marian , Tronto Joan C.
Published: May 2023

This and the following chapters draw on conversations with ethics of care researchers as well as the authors’ own experiences. An introduction to this part of the book introduces these researchers. Discussions are structured by the stages of research, starting with the initial phase of how we identify and frame the research we plan to do. ‘What do you care about?’ can offer a useful way in to conversations that stimulate ideas and priorities. Providing space for storytelling and careful listening is important. Conversations with other researchers revealed both personal and political motivations to research. There were examples of ways in which doing research stimulated understanding of why things mattered to people as researchers, and of care ethics helping to enable personal reflections on new experiences, including growing older. These experiential impacts have informed the way in which researchers try to care about others they research with, as well as the issues they research. The different contexts in which researchers work and the different relationships they have with the topics raise complex questions about how we achieve epistemic justice through our work.
Analysis, legacy and care
Authors: Brannelly Tula , Barnes Marian , Tronto Joan C.
Published: May 2023

The ethics of care can be both a perspective from within which to analyse research data, and a guide to the process of conducting analysis together with others. In this chapter authors recount different approaches used by researchers to actively engage research participants in the process of data analysis. They outline Sevenhuijsen’s ‘Trace’ analysis that was developed to enable a critical analysis of policy from an ethic of care. In line with the purposive nature of care this encompasses not only critique but also renewal. A care ethics perspective invites different questions in approaching research data. Undertaking analysis is often a new experience for research participants, but relationships built during the research process can help people feel comfortable in talking about emotional responses to data as well as thoughts from different perspectives. Different modes of involvement at this stage can connect with different priorities of participants. This links to the use of creative methods for reporting research findings and drawing out implications for policy and practice. All participants can experience transformative change and we recount ways this influenced future work. We also consider the importance of taking care in how we end research relationships.
The shifting relations with the welfare state
Authors: Siza Remo
Published: May 2023

In the last two decades, all European welfare states have been reconfigured towards progressive deregulation and privatisation of welfare policies, increasing state control over public welfare expenditure, and a stronger emphasis on the importance of individual choice and individual responsibilities. These recalibrations of the welfare programmes do not seem able to cope with the changes in the living conditions of the majority of households. Nevertheless, many low-income families, minority ethnic groups and many more marginalised claimants are increasingly sanctioned or pushed out of welfare and the work system. Continuing from the age of dualisation, a ‘third welfare system’ provided by charities is being strengthened, inhabited by social groups expelled from public social welfare. However, it is possible to pursue a more inclusive, non-discriminatory and non-divisive social policy strategy overcoming some limitations of the prevailing frameworks in Europe.
‘Everyone is on their own and nobody needs us’: women ageing with HIV in Ukraine
Authors: Semigina Tetyana , Yurochko Tetiana , Stopоlyanska Yulia , Dryden OmiSoore H.
Published: May 2023

Current HIV prevention programmes in Ukraine are focused on sexual education of young people and prevention of vertical transmission, and on drug users. This chapter considers the experiences of Ukrainian older women who have HIV. Based on 12 interviews with HIV-positive women and representatives of HIV community services, the study identifies specific social and psychological problems of this group, reveals their attitudes towards their sexual lives and exposes their strengths and vulnerabilities. Notable findings of the research include: the self-blame and moral suffering of older women living with HIV; their scorned intimacies, which tend to be hidden; and the need to adjust national approaches to epidemic control in order to integrate the needs of older people into HIV policy. The chapter provides recommendations for prevention interventions for women ageing with HIV.
In the company of men: gay culture and HIV in Aotearoa New Zealand
Authors: Stevens Michael , Dryden OmiSoore H.
Published: May 2023

This piece is written as an autoethnographic memoir and study of how it has been and is to live as an HIV-positive gay man from Aotearoa New Zealand across a time of great cultural change. It is a reflection through a sociological and historical lens of how the personal side of my life as a gay man intersects with wider cultural, political and health-related themes.
Growing old with stigma: a case study of four older Chinese gay/bisexual men living with HIV in Hong Kong
Authors: Barry Man Wai Lee , Dryden OmiSoore H.
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the lived experiences of older Chinese gay/bisexual men living with HIV in Hong Kong. Their stories cover their emerging sexuality during their earlier formative years and living with HIV in later life. Four major themes have emerged from this study, including ‘filiality’, ‘heterosexist harassment’, ‘hidden lives’ and ‘living with ageing’, which indicate how cultural values and sexuality affected their ageing experiences. Their narratives illustrate how their unseen stories can shed light on this intersectional area of sexuality, HIV and ageing. The chapter concludes that older Chinese gay/bisexual men with HIV remain mostly invisible and closeted, affected by the barriers caused by heterosexism, HIV stigma and ageism that inhibit the process of successful ageing both within and outside the gay community.
Out in Africa: facing the HIV other in Nairobi
Authors: Charles Casey , Dryden OmiSoore H.
Published: May 2023

On a trip to Kenya to participate in a writing workshop, the author, an HIV-positive gay man in his fifties from Montana, finds himself compelled to face the precarious lives of other long-term survivors, attending a support group in the slum of Korogocho, and finding a level of intimacy that leads to a realisation and expression of the uncanny similarity in the different lives of women and men living with the global virus.
Survival of an older Bangladeshi lesbian experiencing intersectional vulnerability
Authors: Khan Kanamik Kani , Dryden OmiSoore H.
Published: May 2023

Living as an older lesbian in a society that stigmatises marginalised communities is challenging. Patriarchy significantly impacts the experience of gender and sexually diverse populations in Bangladesh, especially for lesbians. This chapter explores the experiences of an older lesbian that speak to the intersectional oppression with which she lives. Bangladeshi society is significantly patriarchal, and women continue to experience that patriarchy as oppression. Being an older lesbian brings additional vulnerability, because older people often lack adequate financial support and health and social care. Her experience as an older lesbian is used as a lens to understand what it is like to live an identity that sits outside enforced cultural norms and to get access to health, social care and social relationships. This chapter further investigates the impacts of religion in her life and the implications of mental health support for people with HIV, based on her experiences.
Sanjeevani: early ageing and HIV survival in queer Mumbai
Authors: Charles Casey , Dryden OmiSoore H.
Published: May 2023

Three case studies from Mumbai illustrate the effects of immunosenescence on long-term HIV survivors. Many of the medical, psychological and social characteristics of ageing characterise the condition of positive women and men in their thirties and forties, demonstrating the way age is in many ways a social construct, but also showing how long-term survival depends on social support networks, like the community-based organisation Sanjeevani, which promotes intimacy and activism.
Portrayals of older people with dementia in Taiwanese newspapers
Authors: Chen Chin-Hui , Huang Yan-Hua
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines how Taiwanese newspapers portray older people living with dementia. Prior (Western) literature has reported an absence of their voices in the news, which means that dementia is perceived as a fearsome and aggressive threat. Monitoring how people with dementia are portrayed in the media could help combat social ageism. This chapter presents a critical discourse analysis of Taiwanese news reports so as to further internationalise the growing body of work on the theme of ageing, disability and the media. The results revealed derogatory representations of older people living with dementia, given the way the Taiwanese newspapers reported on them, which implied their frailty, problems caused by their condition as well as their lack of functionalisation and individuality. Their health-related and age identities were particularly highlighted in reports. Via modes of address indicating intergenerational relationships, Taiwanese news readers were invited to show more empathy towards the subjects of the examined news stories. This representational strategy, unique to Taiwan, is further explained in the discussion in relation to Confucianism, in addition to interpretations of the ideological effects of the problem-oriented framing of older people living with dementia in Taiwanese news contexts.
Imag(in)ing ageing futures in comics and graphic novels
Authors: Dalmer Nicole , Serantes Lucia Cedeira
Published: May 2023

Comics can be a helpful storytelling medium through which to study the representations and portrayals of older adults and later life. Contributing to the slow but steady acceptance and visibility of comics, this chapter examines five comics in conversation with emerging ideas about queering ageing futures, drawing on Sandberg and Marshall’s (2017) article that critiques successful ageing discourse. The analysis reveals that these comics, in their exploration of the fullness and the complexities and contradictions of later life, assume a liminal quality. The older characters’ bodies, behaviours and relationships occupy and weave through multiple, concurrent narratives associated with later life (biological decline, an imperative to age successfully and our proposed third narrative of the queering of ageing futures). In allowing these three narratives to co-exist, the analysed comics interrogate the narrow binaries of success and failure in dominant successful ageing discourse. This interrogation provides a space to queer ageing futures and ultimately recognises a different kind of diversity in ageing futures.
Older women and women’s magazines: audience, agency and the lifecourse
Authors: Sawchuk Dana
Published: May 2023

This chapter uses an audience-centred approach to women’s magazines and ageing. Based on interview data with 21 Canadian women over the age of 55, it explores the implications of their assessment that, given their current age, life stage and lifestyle, women’s magazines exclude them from their younger target audience. Recognising that they enjoy magazines that are not obviously meant for them, these women emphasise their agency as readers who selectively and creatively consume magazine content. They also make connections between their own family-based lifecourse and the magazine content for younger women and families, rendering such ostensibly irrelevant material meaningful in relation to their past and present linked lives. Overall, these readers demonstrate their control over defining whether and how such publications are suitable for them to read. In doing so, they challenge narrow age-based conceptions of target audience in women’s magazines.
The double logic of care: age, gender and media technologies in Austria
Authors: Ratzenböck Barbara
Published: May 2023

In Austria, considerably fewer older women than men use the internet (Statistik Austria, 2019), increasing their risk of exclusion from a digital society. To contribute to preventing such exclusion, this chapter offers insights into older women’s understanding of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and critically discusses cultural beliefs, social norms and life situations that facilitate use and non-use of ICTs in everyday life. Discussing the findings of a recent mixed-methods study on older women’s ICT use, the chapter identifies important commonalities in how older Austrian women make sense of media technologies in their lives. Most notably, their engagement with new ICTs is informed by a double logic of care: either they use new ICTs to care for others (particularly their families) or, on the contrary, are too busy caring for others to engage with them.