title: "Never say never?": Heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women's accounts of being childfree.

authors: Hayfield, Nikki

subjects: gender roles

abstract: Feminist scholars have identified a “motherhood imperative” in Western cultures, when heterosexual women are understood to both want and to have children. However, social shifts have resulted in a decrease in pronatalism as well as an increase in social recognition of the parenting desires of same-sex parents. Despite a resurgence of interest in childfree identities, research to date has predominantly focused on heterosexual women’s explanations for being childfree and their experiences of marginalization. Our aim in the current study was to explore how childfree heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and queer women negotiate their childfree lives and identities in the context of their personal and social relationships within changing cultural contexts. Data from 23 interviews with women in the United Kingdom, who responded to a call for childfree participants, were thematically analyzed. We constructed two themes: (1) Never say never? Negotiating being childfree as ever precarious, which shows how women constructed being childfree as requiring constant revisiting and renegotiating to maintain and (2) An ordinary life: Constructing being childfree as rational and reasonable, in which we identify the rhetorical efforts of participants to establish their being childfree as an ordinary, reasonable, and rational position. We conclude that for these women, childfreedom was constantly in flux and that maintaining a positive childfree identity required considerable identity work in order to manage intimate personal relationships and wider friendships.

text: "Never say never?": Heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women's accounts of being childfree. Feminist scholars have identified a “motherhood imperative” in Western cultures, when heterosexual women are understood to both want and to have children. However, social shifts have resulted in a decrease in pronatalism as well as an increase in social recognition of the parenting desires of same-sex parents. Despite a resurgence of interest in childfree identities, research to date has predominantly focused on heterosexual women’s explanations for being childfree and their experiences of marginalization. Our aim in the current study was to explore how childfree heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and queer women negotiate their childfree lives and identities in the context of their personal and social relationships within changing cultural contexts. Data from 23 interviews with women in the United Kingdom, who responded to a call for childfree participants, were thematically analyzed. We constructed two themes: (1) Never say never? Negotiating being childfree as ever precarious, which shows how women constructed being childfree as requiring constant revisiting and renegotiating to maintain and (2) An ordinary life: Constructing being childfree as rational and reasonable, in which we identify the rhetorical efforts of participants to establish their being childfree as an ordinary, reasonable, and rational position. We conclude that for these women, childfreedom was constantly in flux and that maintaining a positive childfree identity required considerable identity work in order to manage intimate personal relationships and wider friendships.

year: 2019

title: The characteristics and historical development path of the globalizing Chinese automobile industry

authors: Ding, Qiang

subjects: automobile industry

abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the historical development and characteristics of the globalizing Chinese automobile industry.

Design/methodology/approach – This study is positioned as an exploratory case study, using data triangulation techniques based on archival research and published reports of statistical agencies both at central government and single industry level.

Findings – China's automobile industry represents an extraordinary case of a development path toward globalization in a transitional economy. One of the obvious characteristics of the auto industry is that it necessitates technology transfer and innovative learning, which can be regarded as an important aspect of maintaining competitiveness in industrialization and global competition. The automobile industry in China is also characterized by state intervention and industrial regulations. The state initiated open-door reform has led to a mixed regulatory mechanism including both market-based competition and the legacy of a command economy. Other major features are demonstrated as follows: state-owned auto enterprises have been gradually given more freedom in the decision-making processes; the Chinese auto industry has shown phenomenal growth in the country's economic development with an average annual rate of about 9 percent. This achievement combined with the increasing impacts of globalization of production and market expansion has undoubtedly led to the increasing inflows of foreign direct investment in the form of international partnerships between the auto-producing MNCs and major local Chinese firms as per the industrial policies in the Chinese automobile industry.

Originality/value – This paper addresses an important topic, the historical development path of the Chinese automobile industry, but to date, it has received very little research attention. It advances the institution-based perspective and therefore develops a better understanding of changes in China's automobile industry over the past decades since 1949 and concludes that the combination of the influences of foreign technology, China's industrial policies and institutional dynamic processes has resulted in a unique dynamic development path for the globalizing Chinese automobile industry.

text: The characteristics and historical development path of the globalizing Chinese automobile industry Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the historical development and characteristics of the globalizing Chinese automobile industry.

Design/methodology/approach – This study is positioned as an exploratory case study, using data triangulation techniques based on archival research and published reports of statistical agencies both at central government and single industry level.

Findings – China's automobile industry represents an extraordinary case of a development path toward globalization in a transitional economy. One of the obvious characteristics of the auto industry is that it necessitates technology transfer and innovative learning, which can be regarded as an important aspect of maintaining competitiveness in industrialization and global competition. The automobile industry in China is also characterized by state intervention and industrial regulations. The state initiated open-door reform has led to a mixed regulatory mechanism including both market-based competition and the legacy of a command economy. Other major features are demonstrated as follows: state-owned auto enterprises have been gradually given more freedom in the decision-making processes; the Chinese auto industry has shown phenomenal growth in the country's economic development with an average annual rate of about 9 percent. This achievement combined with the increasing impacts of globalization of production and market expansion has undoubtedly led to the increasing inflows of foreign direct investment in the form of international partnerships between the auto-producing MNCs and major local Chinese firms as per the industrial policies in the Chinese automobile industry.

Originality/value – This paper addresses an important topic, the historical development path of the Chinese automobile industry, but to date, it has received very little research attention. It advances the institution-based perspective and therefore develops a better understanding of changes in China's automobile industry over the past decades since 1949 and concludes that the combination of the influences of foreign technology, China's industrial policies and institutional dynamic processes has resulted in a unique dynamic development path for the globalizing Chinese automobile industry.

year: 2013

title: Ideology is theft: Thoughts on the legitimacy of a Maori psychology

authors: Tamatea, Armon J.

subjects: Maori

abstract: ‘War, in fact, can be seen as a process of achieving equilibrium among unequal technologies’ (McLuhan, 1964) 
We are at war. As Western science and its accompanying technology expands the frontiers of knowledge at an ever-increasing rate, ‘indigenous’ perspectives of knowledge are exiled into the borderlands of special interest groups and localized research programmes. Mainstream scientific thought lays claim to objective interpretations of experience at the expense of alternative realities offered by emerging theories of knowledge. Furthermore, as localized worldviews (i.e., those derived from ancestral knowledge bases and pre-industrial or non-scientific premises) challenge existing paradigms, the inevitable interactions threaten to undermine the fidelity of this knowledge. One such arena where this ideological conflict is apparent is the growing field of Maori psychology.

text: Ideology is theft: Thoughts on the legitimacy of a Maori psychology ‘War, in fact, can be seen as a process of achieving equilibrium among unequal technologies’ (McLuhan, 1964) 
We are at war. As Western science and its accompanying technology expands the frontiers of knowledge at an ever-increasing rate, ‘indigenous’ perspectives of knowledge are exiled into the borderlands of special interest groups and localized research programmes. Mainstream scientific thought lays claim to objective interpretations of experience at the expense of alternative realities offered by emerging theories of knowledge. Furthermore, as localized worldviews (i.e., those derived from ancestral knowledge bases and pre-industrial or non-scientific premises) challenge existing paradigms, the inevitable interactions threaten to undermine the fidelity of this knowledge. One such arena where this ideological conflict is apparent is the growing field of Maori psychology.

year: 2008