bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland
Authors: INGOLD TIM , KURTTILA TERHI
Published: March 2007

We contrast two understandings of traditional knowledge: as enframed in the discourse of modernity (MTK), and as generated in the practices of locality (LTK). Where `indigenous knowledge' is opposed to science, it always appears in the guise of MTK. This modernist understanding rests on a genealogical model of transmission that separates the acquisition of knowledge from environmentally situated practice. For local people, by contrast, traditional knowledge is inseparable from the practices of inhabiting the land that both bring places into being and constitute persons as of those places. To illustrate the meaning of LTK, we describe how Saami people in northernmost Finland perceive their environment, focusing on their experiences of the weather. These are shown to be embedded in life-histories, dependent on tasks of travel, multisensory, crucial to spatial orientation and the co-ordination of activities, and seasonally periodic. To regard people's knowledge of the weather as an aspect of tradition means thinking of tradition as process rather than substance, as part of a way of life conceived not as the enactment of a received script but as the continual negotiation of a path through the world. Here there is no contradiction between continuity and change. LTK, we show, is tantamount to skill: a property of the whole organism-person, having emerged through a history of involvement in an environment. From the perspective of LTK, there is no opposition between traditional knowledge and science. For science is itself a form of LTK, differing from other forms in the practices through which it is generated, rather than in the epistemological status of the knowledge itself.
Excess, Scarcity and Desire among Drug-Using Sex Workers
Authors: Epele MarÕa E.
Published: March 2007

In the street life of the Mission District in San Francisco, two opposite ways of understanding the female ownership of the body circulate among women who are drug-using sex workers: sexual slavery and women's liberation. This article analyzes how both models obfuscate the manner in which lack and scarcity govern the economy of needs and desires when drug abuse intersects with sex work. Lack and scarcity are shown to pervade not only economic resources but also drug-related gratification, bodily well-being, sexual desire and body commitment during sexual practices. Even though both women and men are involved in this economy, there is an `artificial scarcity' of drug-related gratification for women. Controlling women's ability to close this circuit, men reinstate and reproduce the gender stereotypes that dominate in the street culture.
Engines and Acolytes of Consumption: Black Male Bodies, Advertising and the Laws of Thermodynamics
Authors: SOAR MATTHEW
Published: March 2007

An investigation into the historical development of Nike's award-winning advertising campaigns in the US reveals that, over the last decade or so, African-American athletes have become their almost exclusive focus. However, these ads have increasingly centered not on black personalities per se, but on the aesthetic, affective and visceral manifestations of skin, musculature and sweat. Black bodies in advertising are rarely to be seen at rest, unless in a state of exhaustion (from which the requisite product alone can provide relief). Consideration is therefore given to the potential connotations of cultural producers' repeated references to extreme physical exertion. Anson Rabinbach's trope of the `human motor' evokes modern science's concern with matters of energy preservation and entropy; here it is utilized to provide a fresh insight into the chronic contradictions between commercial cultural production on one hand, and the reality of contemporary cultural and social inequalities on the other.
Unidentified Pleasures: Gender Identity and its Failure
Authors: HIRD MYRA J.
Published: March 2007

Feminist philosophical analyses have recently returned to psychoanalytic theory's insights into the origins of gender. Freud's exegesis on social development holds gender to be a matter of identification, as opposed to an ontological condition of being. This article considers Judith Butler's use of psychoanalytic theory to argue that homosexuality both precedes and conditions the formation of heterosexual gender identification. While convinced the processes of identification do involve loss and are grieved in some way, I am less convinced that the precedence of either heterosexuality or homosexuality can be logically sustained. I suggest that Butler's political commitment to subvert the hetero-normative gender system leads to a conflation of identification with desire, two distinct processes involving different psychic mechanisms. I want to argue that all gender is melancholic, as any restriction of pleasures entails loss; but the closer to the dominant heteronormative system the greater that failure.
Trading Sexpics on IRC: Embodiment and Authenticity on the Internet
Authors: SLATER DON
Published: March 2007

Cyberspace, the internet and vituality are widely understood in terms of poststructuralist or antiessentialist expectations that when identity is separated from physical bodies it is experienced as self-evidently performative: we might therefore expect that new kinds of identities will be enacted on-line, and that participants will frame these identities as performances rather than judging them in terms of their truth or authenticity. This article uses a long-term ethnographic engagement with one internet social setting - the `sexpics' trade on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) - to argue that neither of these expectations is met there. First, the sexual act and identities performed tend to be conventional in relation to off-line heterosexual norms and (pornographic) representations. Second, authenticity is a fundamental criterion by which participants understand and manage their on-line experiences: they veer between complete cynicism (their inability to authenticate the other meant according the relationship and the other no weight or commitment) and a desire for involvement that depended on pursuing startegies for authenticating the other, for being able to treat the other's performances as real rather than merely realistic. Significantly, these strategies of authentication were attempts to fix the other in a body or body-like presence, one which persists over time and is locatable in space, and which is therefore ethically accountable and trustworthy.
The (Im)mediate Body: A Transvaluation of Corporeality
Authors: BROADHURST SUSAN
Published: March 2007

This article argues that language without the body does not `mean' at all; corporeality provides language with meaning under socio-cultural constraints. Traditional ways of interpretation have been dominated by the transference of linguistic interpretation to the non-linguistic. At the same time, traditional linguistically focused interpretation is heavily laden with orthodox value systems. This makes the body a secondary phenomenon. In many art forms, however, the body is primary and yet transient. This requires a reversal of traditional approaches. Recent liminal performances have attempted to offer a non-verbal critique of both that linguistic dominance and such value orthodoxy. Unless the immediacy of the body, including corporeal readings (visual, tactile, haptic, olfactory, gustatory, kinetic, proximic, etc.) is made the focus of interpretation, such recent experimental genres as Viennese Actionism, Tanztheater, digitized music, high-definition television and its filmic consequences, cannot be appreciated. However, I suggest it would be a mistake to read their presentations of the immediacy of the body as an escape from representation altogether. Rather, what we are dealing with here is a radical transvaluation of corporeality. The article questions some recent theories from this perspective, using selected excerpts from liminal performances to illustrate this critique.
Body Modification, Self-Mutilation and Agency in Media Accounts of a Subculture
Authors: PITTS VICTORIA
Published: March 2007

In this article, I focus on the media's framing of non-mainstream body modification as a social problem. I demonstrate, through an analysis of a sample of 35 newspaper articles on body modification, that a mutilation discourse is one of the dominant frames of meaning used to make sense of body modifiers in the mainstream media. This framing, which effects the pathologization of body modifiers, utilizes the claims making of mental-health experts and relies on a gendered account of body modification as a social problem. While news accounts are a medium for presenting body modification to a large `community of speakers', I find that they have precluded the legitimacy of the claims of subcultural actors. I argue from a poststructuralist perspective that body modifiers' `claims from the underside' are subjugated by accounts that problematize body modification through the dominant discourse of the mental-health model. I suggest that this frame is problematic for its silencing of `underside' or marginal embodied knowledges, which include, for example, alternative accounts of female embodiment.
`Disability' - The Unwelcome Ghost at the Banquet... and the Conspiracy of `Normality'
Authors: CORKER MAIRIAN
Published: March 2007

This article critiques the analysis of the comic and the tragic in disability discourse and the text by Ian Stronach and Julie Allan, using the work of Mikhail Bakhtin on the theory of the novel, of language and of speech genres. Taking Bakhtin's notion that to speak or to write is always essentially dialogic, the article introduces particular dimensions of audience, disability, feminism and poststructuralism in an attempt to explore the social organization of disability discourse and to move beyond the artifice of the text's stasis. It argues that unless critical theory is matched with critical response, institutionalized inequality demands that the authority of an individualized `disability' text written by non-disabled authors remains intact - even when it is accompanied by an undermining discussion of itself. The text is commonly decontextualized and remote, and the role of the disable reader, especially their role as audience, is reduced to a `simple' one - a vessel into which the authors' authority is poured. This represents a particular kind of audience experience that maximizes the distance between the reader and the text's performance and, in the case of Stronach and Allan's work, ultimately destabilizes their arguments.
A Cross-Cultural Study of Classificatory Ability in Australia
Authors: de Lacey P. R.
Published: March 2007

An assessment was made of the development of logical thinking of four samples of Australian children. Two of these were samples of full-blood Australian Aboriginal children, one sample living in an isolated, rural, mainly Aboriginal community, and the other sample living in much closer contact with Europeans and their technology. The two samples of European children were identified as high-and low-socioeconomic. The measure of logical thinking was a battery of classificatory tests based on tests developed by Inhelder and Piaget. Marked differences in performance were found between the two European and the two Aboriginal groups, especially on a test of multiple classification. A small sub-sample of very high-contact Aboriginals performed at least as well as white Australian children living in a similar environment. Environmental differences between the four populations sampled were considered to have been a major influence in the performance differences found.
Personal Values and Political Affiliation Within italy
Authors: Barron Frank , Young Harben Boutourline
Published: March 2007

The philosophy of life of 82 young Italian males was analyzed in relation to their preferences in politics. The political spectrum from Right to Left was identified by the following continuum of party affiliation: Fascist, Monarchist, Liberal, Christian Democratic, Socialist, Communist, Popular Front Socialist. Statements in a questionnaire organized around personal and social philosophy were then correlated with positions of the young men on this continuum. The results showed clearly that the influence of the Catholic Church in matters of custom and morality is an important source of divisiveness in Italian political life. The Left splits sharply from Center and Right on matters having to do with divorce and sexual freedom; the Center is less exclusively determined by dogma but still is clearly orthodox and conservative, while the Right is dominated by its hatred of Communism and its emphasis on formalism and central authority.
Young Persons' Social Interaction Group
Authors: Dogra Nisha , Parkin Andrew
Published: March 2007

The experience of three trainees running a young persons' social interaction group is described. This is discussed in six stages: training needs; philosophy and practice of group work; planning the assessment of group members; making the assessments; planning the group; and running the group. Supervision, evaluation and follow-up are also discussed. Our thoughts and conclusions following the experiences are presented. This is a personal perspective of training in group work. We hope that this article will encourage trainees considering group work to do so with confidence.
Communication Practices in the Social Construction of Health in an AIDS Kesidence
Authors: Frey Lawrence R. , Adelman Mara B. , Query Jim L.
Published: March 2007

Physical illness and well-being, while grounded in bodily and psychological experiences, are also constructed socially through communication practices. Significant symbols, rituals and myths, among other forms, converge to create shared meanings that help define the health/illness experience. This article first provides a conceptual framework for understanding how communication intertwines physical, psychological and collective worlds. This perspective is then contextualized by illustrating some communication practices within a residential facility for people with AIDS that help residents cope with the 'depression bind' created by the need to 'grieve efficiently' over the loss of fellow residents. In- depth interviews with residents uncover metaphors that describe this bind, the military and journey myths embedded in the language of 'fighting AIDS' and 'passing', and the remembering and 're membering' rituals of bereavement. These communication practices help residents grasp elusive meanings, discharge deep and contradictory feelings and manage the tensions of everyday life.
The Patients' Perspective on the Self-management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Authors: Eakin Elizabeth G. , Glasgow Russell E.
Published: March 2007

Little attention has been paid to the many behavioral issues involved in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Using a patient- centered approach and drawing upon similar work in the area of diabetes self-management, this study evaluates factors related to the self-management behaviors of 65 patients with COPD. The primary focus was on patients' perceptions of the importance of COPD self-care activities, their recall of provider advice regarding COPD self-care, and the relationship of these factors to patient participation in self- care activities during the past month. The self-management behaviors assessed included smoking cessation, medication- taking, physical activity, diet, relaxation, breathing techniques, controlled coughing and bronchial drainage. Both patient- importance ratings and recall of provider advice showed moderate to strong correlations ( r = 0.43-0.79) with the frequency of self-care in the past month, indicating that both the patient's perception (i.e. perceived-importance ratings) and the receipt of health-care provider advice may be important influences on the extent to which patients engage in the various COPD self-management behaviors. Implications for behaviorally-focused interventions are discussed.
Narratives of Somatizing and Non somatizing Patients in a Primary Care Setting
Authors: Elderkin-Thompson Virginia , Silver Roxane Cohen , Waitzkin Howard
Published: March 2007

Somatizing patients, who comprise approximately 20 percent of the primary care population, often present physicians with recurrent but confusing combinations of symptoms without organic explanations. Illness narratives presented during initial medical encounters with primary care physicians were examined qualitatively to determine if the narrative structure, chronological development of symptoms and temporal frame differed between somatizing and non-somatizing patients. Following a structured interview to identify somatization tendency and co-morbidities of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, 116 patients' encounters with primary care physicians were video-recorded and transcribed. Somatizers demonstrated a narrative structure that was similar to that of non-somatizing patients, but they used a thematic rather than a chronological development of symptoms and they did not convey a clear time frame. Somatizing patients with a co-morbid psychological condition focused on concrete physical sensations, were unable to provide contextual history or chronological organization, and did not develop a temporal frame. The narratives of somatizing and non-somatizing patients differed sufficiently to warrant further research for use as a clinical aid in the diagnosis of somatization.
Vietnam Zippos
Authors: Walters Ian
Published: March 2007

This paper describes Zippo cigarette lighters collected in Vietnam. Though they are objects of contemporary material culture, these artefacts derive from the Vietnam War era. They have hitherto been absent from the anthropological literature of material culture studies. Inscriptions engraved on behalf of former owners give insights into the attitudes and feelings of soldiers from that time in that place. The social lives of these Zippos have moved through stages of ignition and war comment to become expensive memorabilia for sale in Vietnamese market places. Foreign visitors to Vietnam acquire them in their thousands, selling them at significant markup in their home countries. Vietnam Zippos have become palimpsests for one way modern communist Vietnam, with a clear view of independence and history, has moved into the present and future world capitalist system while countenancing ironic representations of its past.
Specifying the Nature and Course of the Joint Attention Impairment in Autism in the Preschool Years
Authors: Charman Tony
Published: March 2007

The paper reviews recent experimental findings into the extent and specificity of the joint attention impairments shown by preschool children with autism. In contrast to the commonly held view that children with autism are impaired in declarative gestures but intact in requesting gestures, the pattern of intact and impaired joint attention abilities revealed by recent research is more complex. The research reviewed represents a significant advance on previous findings by dissociating form and function in gestural communicative acts, by adopting a developmental perspective and thus identifying changes in the precise nature of the joint attention impairments over time, and by taking advantage of recent advances in early detection and diagnosis that enable us to study very young preschoolers with autism. The lessons to be learnt from this research for clinical diagnosis, and early intervention and education programmes, are considered.
Sexual Rivalry and Sexual Conflict:
Authors: WILSON MARGO , DALY MARTIN
Published: March 2007

There is a cross-culturally universal sex difference in homicide perpetration, and motives of male sexual proprietariness and rivalry are implicated in some substantial proportion of all homicides everywhere. With the exception of some forensic psychiatrists, however, criminologists have paid these motives little explicit attention. Human motives and emotions have evolved by selection, and the theoretical framework of evolutionary psychology can be used to develop hypotheses about the psychological links between violence and sexually rivalrous and possessive motives in men. Violent inclinations are not simply pathological, but self-interested, although their expression is often counterproductive where social and material circumstances differ greatly from those in which the human social psyche evolved. Evolutionary psychology is also a rich source of hypotheses about how situational, economic, demographic and other factors are likely to affect men's uses of violence against wives and rivals, and hence about the sources of cross-cultural and historical variations in rates of homicide and assault.
Alternatives to What Kind of Suffering?
Authors: LIPPENS RONNIE
Published: March 2007

This article seeks to imagine a renewed common ground for critical criminologies. In this article, the quest of imagination is developed as an answer to the question: `On what kind of suffering should critical criminologies/ists be concentrating their attention?'. Looking for answers to that question, the paper explores the broad contours of our contemporary era, which is read as a `hypermodern' zone of strategized ambivalence, or ambivalent strategics. This hypermodern zone, which has seeped into the very capillaries of everyday life, is also the zone which (re)produces contingent logics of incoherence/coherence within politics of identity/difference; it is the zone of hyperflexibility, and of hyperreflexivity, of ambivalent social fragmentation/contraction, and of ambivalent communities, of ambivalent de(re)centring identities, of contingent locations of multiple, multivocal and often incoherent and contradictory voices of oppression/liberation. Answering the question: `Alternatives to what kind of suffering?', then, must take this hypermodern ambivalence into account. One way of doing so, as is argued here, is in and through a discursive praxis of `border-crossing', during which critical criminologists will find a renewed common ground only (paradoxically) while dissolving or evaporating into a radical democratic politics.
Photo Images: Jo Spence’s Narratives of Living with Illness
Authors: Bell Susan E.
Published: March 2007

Sociological approaches to understanding narratives of illness usually begin with oral or textual discourse. This article extends the study of illness narratives beyond oral and textual accounts to photographs. It takes the position that attempts to distinguish clearly images and words, or verbal and visual narratives, are utopian projects. It examines three photographs taken by British feminist Jo Spence (1934–92) to document her experiences of breast cancer from the time of her diagnosis in 1982 until the time of her death in 1992. After defining ‘narrative’ and ‘photography’ and explaining how some photographs are narratives, the article considers how Spence’s photographs are narratives of living with cancer that incorporate visual and textual elements. It concludes by suggesting how and why extending the study of illness narratives beyond oral and textual accounts can enlarge and enrich social science understandings of people’s experiences of illness.
Pain Gestures: The Orchestration of Speech and Body Gestures
Authors: Hydén Lars-Christer , Peolsson Michael
Published: March 2007

This article is about the use and function of gestures in pain communication. More specifically how we can communicate an internal bodily experience like pain with the help of gestures. This is of great importance both in everyday situations and in medical consultations of various types. Our focus in this article is on the issues of the gesture as a communicative resource, how verbal and nonverbal communicative resources are related to each other and in what way gestures contribute to the structure of different types of pain. Thirty-seven patients have been interviewed about their pain experiences and the main result is that several communicative modalities are interwoven in the pain accounts. Three different functions of gestures were identified: the pointing, iconic and symbolic functions. The clinical relevance of this approach to gestures in pain communication is to take note of the intricate interplay of different communicative resources used in the pain description, and to emphasize both verbal and nonverbal interaction in the clinical conversation as a resource in the care situation.
Psychiatric Contributions to Understanding Racism
Authors: Moore Laurie Jo
Published: March 2007

This article reviews the theoretical contributions of psychiatrists to understanding racism. Racism is poorly understood because it is a tool of socio-economic oppression and it serves those in power to obscure its nature. Confounding factors are examined from several perspectives including coercive behaviors characteristic of unequal relationships, ethnocentric blindness, ignorance about socio-economic oppression and the racialization of poverty. The damaging effects of racism on physical and mental health are reviewed, as well as the complicity of medicine and psychiatry in dominant cultural racist practices. Despite this complicity, psychiatry has contributed to psychological theories of the origins of racism. Psychoanalytic perspectives argue that racism is not a problem of certain people, but a problem intrinsic to human character and unconscious dynamics.
Social Factors in the Personality Disorders
Authors: Paris Joel
Published: March 2007

Personality disorders are pathological amplifications of normal personality traits. Although the form of personality pathology largely depends on underlying traits, which are under strong genetic influence, different social structures tend to reinforce some traits and discourage others. The most important social factors in the personality disorders are those risk or protective factors that influence the process by which traits are amplified. Modernity, most particularly an increasing rate of social change, is acting as a major stressor for individuals with many types of personality structure. The mechanisms most probably involve negative effects on family functioning, as well as a diminishing availability of buffering factors in the larger community.
Cultural Considerations for Childhood Disorders: How Much was Included in DSM-IV?
Authors: Canino Ian , Canino Glorisa , Arroyo William
Published: March 2007

This paper addresses the extent to which the recommendations of a Child Committee of the Group on Culture and Diagnosis of the DSM-IV Task Force were incorporated into the DSM-IV text. After a brief introduction and a description of the importance of including cultural variables in childhood psychiatric disorders, we review the cultural recommendations for specific childhood disorders and discuss those areas that were included and those that were omitted in the DSM-IV text. The last section addresses the need for empirical data on culture-bound syndromes in children and on the cultural mechanisms that may explain onset and prognosis of these disorders.
The Effect of Out-Group Competition on Individual Behavior and Out-Group Perception in the Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) Game
Authors: Goren Harel
Published: March 2007

Hebrew University of Jerusalem students participated in two experiments of repeated play of the Intergroup Prisoners’ Dilemma (IPD) game, which involves conflict of interests between two groups and, simultaneously, within each group. The experiments manipulated the level of competition exhibited by the out-group members (i.e. their level of contribution to their group’s effort in the conflict). Consistent with the hypothesis that participants use strategies of reciprocal cooperation between groups, higher levels of out-group competition caused participants to increase their contribution and lower levels caused them to decrease it. In addition, participants had accurate recall of the contribution levels of out-group members, and they attributed motivations to out-group members in a manner that reflected their level of contribution. The nature of reciprocation with the out-group is discussed in light of both behavioral and cognitive data.
Self-Anchoring in the Minimal Group Paradigm: The Impact of Need and Ability to Achieve Cognitive Structure
Authors: Otten Sabine , Bar-Tal Yoram
Published: March 2007

A study is reported that focused on the role of self-anchoring in the definition of social groups. We assumed that group members give meaning to a novel ingroup by defining it as similar to the self. Moreover, the need and ability to engage in cognitive structuring should affect this process. A minimal group study in which self, ingroup and outgroup evaluations were obtained supported these hypotheses. Regression analysis revealed that self-evaluations predicted ingroup evaluations, but that this effect was qualified by an interaction with ability and need for cognitive structuring. Participants high both in the need for cognitive structure and the ability to achieve cognitive structure relied most heavily on the self as a heuristic for ingroup evaluations.
Investment Decisions by Individuals and Groups in `Sunk Cost' Situations: The Potential Impact of Shared Representations
Authors: Smith Christine M. , Tindale R. Scott , Steiner Linda
Published: March 2007

Past research has shown that individuals prefer to continue investing resources into a failing endeavor once a considerable investment has been made, even when abandoning the project would be more rational economically. This phenomenon has been labeled the sunk cost effect (Arkes & Blumer, 1985). Since investment decisions are often made by groups, we compared individual and group propensities for falling prey to the sunk cost effect. We also varied whether or not individuals and groups needed to justify their investment decision to a superior. Both individuals and groups showed the sunk cost effect. Group process analyses showed that error-prone majorities were more powerful than more rational minorities. In addition, group decisions seemed to be a function of two competing task representations - one favoring the sunk cost interpretation and the other favoring economic rationality.
The Two Psychologies of Conflict Resolution: Differing Antecedents of Pre-Experience Choices and Post-Experience Evaluations
Authors: Tyler Tom R. , Huo Yuen J. , Lind E. Allan
Published: March 2007

The literature on the `myth of self-interest' model of perceived human motivation suggests that people believe that both they and others are more motivated by self-interest than is actually the case. Four studies are reported which test one implication of the myth of self-interest: the psychology of pre-experience preferences and post-experience evaluations will differ. We hypothesize that people arrive at pre-experience preferences for decision-making procedures based upon the belief that they want to maximize their self-interest. Further, they will define their self-interest in material terms. Consequently, they choose procedures that they believe promise them the best material outcomes. However, post-experience evaluations are based upon a different factor - the quality of the treatment received during the course of the procedure. The results of all four studies support the suggestion that the psychology of preference and of evaluation differ as predicted. The findings suggest that preference and choice should be viewed as reflecting different psychological processes.
Nationalism: A Literature Survey
Authors: Tambini Damian
Published: March 2007

The postwar period has been marked by a problematization of nations and nationalism: these phenomena, which were previously assumed to be natural products of evolution, have received a growing amount of attention from social theory. First an attempt was made to debunk nationalist constructions, and then a `primordialist' reaction defended the nation. Explanatory theory has however been held back due to vagueness regarding key categories such as culture, agency, rationality and motivations. Nationalism studies must be clearer in its use of these categories, and separate normative and explanatory questions if it is to yield more useful generalizations in the future.
Social Exclusion and Information and Communication Technologies
Authors: Haddon Leslie
Published: March 2007

Current notions of social exclusion are to an extent anchored in older concerns with relative poverty, which had the merit of considering not just material deprivation but also the social and cultural dimensions of participation or exclusion. The focus of this article is on the role of ICTs in relation to people's ability to participate in society. It draws upon detailed qualitative research on single parent and young elderly households to explore what counts as experiences of inclusion or exclusion and the processes behind them. Dealing mainly, but not exclusively, with the more traditional ICTs of telephony and broadcasting, the article considers processes of self-exclusion as people have mixed evaluations of these technologies derived both from current circumstances and past experiences. It then looks beyond the acquisition of ICTs to show how other modes of access to these resources are important before reflecting upon the quality of experience of ICTs, not just in terms of the functionality on offer but also taking into account that technologies are themselves symbolic goods. Finally, and drawing on more recent research, the article asks what lessons might be learnt from these traditional ICTs when considering newly emerging ones like the internet.
Relational Positioning Strategies in Police Calls: A Dilemma
Authors: TRACY KAREN , ANDERSON DONALD L.
Published: March 2007

When citizens call the police to report a problem with (or caused by) another, they need to not only characterize the problematic action/event, but they must position themselves in relation to the complained-about person. This conversational work of positioning self, and describing the other's actions, is delicate business when the complained-about person is connected to the caller. Different constructions of the other and the problem affect whether callers get the help they are seeking. At the same time, alternate constructions offer different pictures of the other's blameworthiness and self's contribution to the problem. In this study we analyze citizen calls to the police in which callers have a dilemma: they have a problem with another that they want remedied but the problem occurs in a situation where involving the police is regarded as unreasonable. Past research on calls to the police, and studies about how people position their own and others' actions in sensitive situations are described. Then the materials (the police calls) and interpretive method are explained. The heart of the article is a description of four relational positioning strategies. Strategies include: (a) generic reference terms; (b) `friend' to imply a non-sexual relationship; (c) ex-prefaces; and (d) agent-less problems. The conclusion considers where else the dilemma will be found and highlights distinctive features of the rhetorical discursive perspective developed in the article.
Episodic Boundaries in Conversational Narratives
Authors: ABU-AKEL AHMAD
Published: March 2007

This study attempts to integrate linguistic and discourse analysis to investigate the way narrators demarcate episodic boundaries in conversational settings and hypothesize about the kind of cognitive processes that might be involved in such an activity. In contrast to previous research in this area which predominately relies on experimentally designed text, this study draws on naturalistic data and relies on the notion that narrators in conversational setting interactionally create narrative by recruiting discourse skills that are most readily available to them. The study reveals that narrators in conversational settings employ reference (i.e. use of noun phrases and anaphors) and macropropositions following a general pattern. Generally, episode boundaries are marked both by macropropositions and full noun phrases. Noun phrases are often used to indicate the beginning of an episode, whereas pronominals are often used within episode boundaries suggesting the continuation of the current episode. The co-occurrence of macropropositions and NPs in demarcating episodic boundaries reflects the bidirectional process operating simultaneously within the linguistic and conceptual domains that is involved in the production of narratives. The use of pronominals within the episode boundaries indicates that cognitive mechanisms such as sustaining attention is also involved in demarcation of episodic boundaries.
Public Policy and Organizational Priority for Specialist Learning Disability Health Services
Authors: Greig Rob
Published: March 2007

This article describes a study into the current organizational arrangements for commissioning and providing specialist health services for people with learning disabilities (LD) in England. It describes significant variability in spend and service design and suggests a link between that and weak leadership and commissioning systems. The article also considers the potential impact of recent UK NHS reforms. It concludes that these reforms are likely to exacerbate this variability unless the health service invests in senior leadership with the capacity to take on board the learning disability agenda, and unless greater accountability for the delivery of national policy is placed within the public health care system.
Emotion Recognition in Adults with Mild-Moderate Learning Disabilities
Authors: Owen Ann , Browning Mary , Jones Robert S. P.
Published: March 2007

Adults with mild-moderate learning disabilities, together with non-learning disabled adults, were given emotion recognition tasks where they identified (1) the categorical emotion portrayed in facial photographs, affect-laden stories, and memory of personal emotional experience, and (2) the emotion dimensions (valence and arousal) portrayed in facial photographs, and stories. Adults with learning disabilities demonstrated impaired performance, relative to controls, in categorical emotion recognition, and recognition of the arousal dimension of emotion. No group differences were found, however, in the recognition of valence, the primary dimension of emotion. These results suggest that emotion recognition deficits in individuals with learning disabilities may be confined to categorical recognition or labelling deficits. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed.
Foundations of Consumer Behaviour Analysis
Authors: Foxall Gordon R.
Published: March 2007

This essay reviews the course of consumer behaviour analysis, a research programme that employs the findings and principles of behavioural research toelucidate consumer behaviour and marketing management. Although attempts have been made from time to time to integrate a behaviour analytic perspective intomarketing research, the tendency has been to concentrate on the potential contribution of operant psychology to managerial practice rather than to examine the potential of behaviourism to provide a theoretical basis for marketing and consumer research. Moreover, concentration on research with animal subjects has severelylimited the relevance of behaviour analysis to marketing. The essay therefore pursues three themes: (1) to explicate recent developments in behaviour analysis, such as the analysis of verbal behaviour; (2) to take account of work by behaviour analysts on economic choice and to apply its lessons to understanding consumer behaviour and marketing action in naturally occurring environments; (3) to establish the requirements of an interpretive approach to consumer behaviour and marketing which is not limited to an experimental analysis of choice.
The Usefulness of Normative Planning Theories in the Context of Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Watson Vanessa
Published: March 2007

The article focuses on three contemporary and better-known normative theories of planning: communicative planning theory (Forester, Healey, Innes and others), the Just City approach (Fainstein), and those concerned with the recognition of diversity and cultural difference (Sandercock). Such theories are of great interest to planners who continue to grapple with the problem of overcoming the extreme forms of inequity, division and social breakdown that persist in the cities of Africa. The article examines some of the central assumptions underlying these theories and considers the extent to which they provide useful direction, or simply attempt to generalize a western context.
The History of Concepts as a Style of Political Theorizing
Authors: Palonen Kari
Published: March 2007

The history of concepts has partly replaced the older style of the `history of ideas' and can be extended to a critique of normative political theory and, thereby, understood as an indirect style of political theorizing. A common feature in Quentin Skinner's and Reinhart Koselleck's writings lies in their critique of the unhistorical and depoliticizing use of concepts. This concerns especially the classical contractarian theories, and both authors remark that this still holds for work by their contemporary heirs, such as Rawls, Habermas and other contemporary normative theorists. Conceptual history offers us a chance to turn the contestability, contingency and historicity of the use of concepts into instruments for conceptualizing politics. The alternative, indirect mode of political theorizing Skinner and Koselleck practise consists of a `Verfremdungseffekt', which helps us to distance ourselves from thinking in terms of contemporary paradigms, unquestioned conventions, given constellations of alternatives or implicit value judgements. In the Skinnerian variant the conceptual changes are made intelligible through analysis of the rhetorical redescriptions among the political agents, whereas Koselleck thematizes the differences in the temporal index of concepts. The subversive aspect in the history of concepts consists of the explication and historical variation of the tacit normative content in the use of concepts.
Learning to Be an Effective Team Member
Authors: Vernon Sally
Published: March 2007

The Problem and the Solution. People in organizations are increasingly being asked to work in teams It is often assumed that they can informally learn the competencies they need to be effective at working and learning in groups, but experience suggests that this is not the case This chapter identifies struc tured on-the-job training as the most effective formal strategy for becoming an effective team member It also identifies facilitators of team building and barriers to it and explores implications for practice
Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, the Family, and Child Maltreatment
Authors: MULSOW MIRIAM H. , O'NEAL KERI K. , MURRY VELMA McBRIDE
Published: March 2007

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is common in children (3% to 7% of the population) and adults (1% to 5%). When one member of a family has ADHD, it will usually be present in other members. Thus, many adults with ADHD are parents of ADHD children. ADHD in families is associated with increased stress, fewer resources, limited coping methods, and more negative perceptions. ADHD has been shown to contribute to substance abuse, depression, impulsivity, isolation, unemployment, low educational attainment, unintended pregnancy, and relationship disruption. Each of these factors has been linked to child maltreatment. Although the presence of ADHD in families is only one risk factor and does not by itself mean that a family will experience violence, it is a risk factor for which screening measures are available. In addition, most people with ADHD are responsive to treatment, and parent-training methods specifically tailored to parents of ADHD children are widely available.
Managing Health Care in Maryland: Lawmakers’ Role in Health Policy
Authors: Goldwater Marilyn
Published: March 2007

Over the past 10 years, more and more state legislatures have gotten into the business of managing their states’ health care delivery systems. With the failure to pass comprehensive national health care reform in the early part of the 1990's, the buck has passed to state governments to increase access, contain costs, and evaluate quality and program effectiveness. The writer is a nurse and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. She offers an insider’s view of the progress of health care reform in Maryland. Maryland is a state where regulation has prevailed over competition but many feel that stance may be undergoing some change.
North Carolina Health Technology and Telehealth Initiatives
Authors: Hardin Sonya , Langford David
Published: March 2007

North Carolina has emerged as a leader in the implementation of telecommunications technology designed to support the delivery of health services. Many are structured to improve access to health care for the residents of rural areas. Of primary importance is the state’s implementation of the North Carolina Information Highway, an upgraded telecommunications system. This system provides the infrastructure to support activities such as the electronic birth certificate system, composite matched birth records, death certificate data, central cancer registry, North Carolina Immunization Registry, Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, and Health Services Information System. The authors present detailed program descriptions of each of these innovative programs, and effectively demonstrate how telecommunications technology can organize and centralize important health statistical information so that health services can be better targeted and designed to meet special population needs. Important lessons can be gleaned from the North Carolina experience for all states and health care professionals who want to expand access to quality health care services.
The Supreme Court: An Overview
Authors: Mech Ann
Published: March 2007

The structure and jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court is outlined in Article III of the U.S. Constitution. The justices who comprise the Supreme Court today were originally appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents over the past three decades. Despite the opposing ideologies of the presidents who appointed them, these justices are increasingly moving to more centrist positions in their judicial opinions. During the 1999-2000 term, the Supreme Court will hear a number of cases with health policy implications, ranging from regulation of tobacco as a drug to allowing health maintenance organizations to be sued.
Health Policy and the Position of Nursing Leadership in the United Kingdom: A Few Perspectives
Authors: Hennessy Deborah
Published: March 2007

The introduction to health policy and the links with nursing leadership in the United Kingdom provide the context for this article. This is followed by a few points about nursing demographics and an outline of nursing education in the United Kingdom. The latter is important because contrary to the United States, only a minority of registered nurses in the United Kingdom are university graduates. Explanations of the National Health Service concept in the United Kingdom and the National and European environmental context follow. The health policy reforms are divided into those between 1990 and 1996 and those that emerged with the change of government in 1997. The exploration of a few recent health trends highlights the interplay of nursing policy and clinical leadership. Throughout the article, points are raised about the links between health policy and nursing leadership.
Reform or Rhetoric?
Authors: Malone Tracy A. , Chaffee Mary W.
Published: March 2007

The presidential candidates differ significantly in both their records and their views on health care. This article provides an overview of the health care agendas and record of each of the two major party candidates at this point in the long journey to the White House. This information will be valuable to nurses who are examining the candidates’ views to determine for whom they will cast a vote in November.