9,044 research outputs found

    Building body identities - exploring the world of female bodybuilders

    Get PDF
    This thesis explores how female bodybuilders seek to develop and maintain a viable sense of self despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of what Erving Goffman (1983) refers to as the 'interaction order'; the unavoidable presentational context in which identities are forged during the course of social life. Placed in the context of an overview of the historical treatment of women's bodies, and a concern with the development of bodybuilding as a specific form of body modification, the research draws upon a unique two year ethnographic study based in the South of England, complemented by interviews with twenty-six female bodybuilders, all of whom live in the U.K. By mapping these extraordinary women's lives, the research illuminates the pivotal spaces and essential lived experiences that make up the female bodybuilder. Whilst the women appear to be embarking on an 'empowering' radical body project for themselves, the consequences of their activity remains culturally ambivalent. This research exposes the 'Janus-faced' nature of female bodybuilding, exploring the ways in which the women negotiate, accommodate and resist pressures to engage in more orthodox and feminine activities and appearances

    Towards a sociology of conspiracy theories: An investigation into conspiratorial thinking on Dönmes

    Get PDF
    This thesis investigates the social and political significance of conspiracy theories, which has been an academically neglected topic despite its historical relevance. The academic literature focuses on the methodology, social significance and political impacts of these theories in a secluded manner and lacks empirical analyses. In response, this research provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for conspiracy theories by considering their methodology, political impacts and social significance in the light of empirical data. Theoretically, the thesis uses Adorno's semi-erudition theory along with Girardian approach. It proposes that conspiracy theories are methodologically semi-erudite narratives, i.e. they are biased in favour of a belief and use reason only to prove it. It suggests that conspiracy theories appear in times of power vacuum and provide semi-erudite cognitive maps that relieve alienation and ontological insecurities of people and groups. In so doing, they enforce social control over their audience due to their essentialist, closed-to-interpretation narratives. In order to verify the theory, the study analyses empirically the social and political significance of conspiracy theories about the Dönme community in Turkey. The analysis comprises interviews with conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory readers and political parties, alongside a frame analysis of the popular conspiracy theory books on Dönmes. These confirm the theoretical framework by showing that the conspiracy theories are fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish society. Hence, conspiracy theorists, most readers and some political parties respond to their own ontological insecurities and political frustrations through scapegoating Dönmes. Consequently, this work shows that conspiracy theories are important symptoms of society, which, while relieving ontological insecurities, do not provide politically prolific narratives

    Exploring environmental concerns on digital platforms through big data: the effect of online consumers’ environmental discourse on online review ratings

    Get PDF
    By deploying big data analytical techniques to retrieve and analyze a large volume of more than 2.7 million reviews, this work sheds light on how environmental concerns expressed by tourists on digital platforms, in the guise of online reviews, influence their satisfaction with tourism and hospitality services. More specifically, we conduct a multi-platform study of Tripadvisor.com and Booking.com online reviews (ORs) pertaining to hotel services across eight leading tourism destination cities in America and Europe over the period 2017–2018. By adopting multivariate regression analyses, we show that OR ratings are positively influenced by both the presence and depth of environmental discourse on these platforms. Theoretical and managerial contributions, and implications for digital platforms, big data analytics (BDA), electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and environmental research within the tourism and hospitality domain are examined, with a view to capturing, empirically, the effect of environmental discourse presence and depth on customer satisfaction proxied through online ratings

    Women’s Experiences of Accessing Breastfeeding and Perinatal Health Support in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence: An Interpretive Description Study

    Get PDF
    Background: Women experiencing intimate partner violence are at a heightened risk of negative perinatal and breastfeeding outcomes. This study explored the experiences of accessing breastfeeding support for women who endorse a history of intimate partner violence. A study of five in-depth semi-structured interviews were completed at 12-weeks postpartum with breastfeeding mothers with a history of intimate partner violence. Findings: Women expressed difficulties in accessing a healthcare provider who had specialized skill in breastfeeding support. Trust in their healthcare provider, built through displays of compassion and competence, was important to mitigate obstacles experienced during care access for this population. Trauma-and-violence-informed care principles were beneficial to the development of the therapeutic relationship in perinatal care. Women placed value on breastfeeding support received from both healthcare providers and social supports, which impacted mothers’ perceived breastfeeding support and self-efficacy. Further, mothers described increased levels of breastfeeding self-efficacy after engaging in a trauma-and-violence-informed care program aimed at supporting breastfeeding. Conclusions: Trauma-informed care may aid in the development of trust in the therapeutic relationship, which in turn impacts access to breastfeeding support and breastfeeding self-efficacy. The inclusion of trauma-and-violence informed principles in perinatal care may be effective at mitigating barriers to access for women who endorse a history of intimate partner violence. health care on how to employ trauma-informed breastfeeding care to may lead to better support for this population

    Examination of a Brief, Self-Paced Online Self-Compassion Intervention Targeting Intuitive Eating and Body Image Outcomes among Men and Women

    Get PDF
    Ideals for appearance and body image are pervasive in Western culture in which men and women are portrayed with unrealistic and often unattainable standards (Ferguson, 2013; Martin, 2010). Exposure and reinforcement have created a culture of social acceptance and internalization of these ideals, contributing to pervasive body image disturbance (i.e., body dissatisfaction; Fallon et al., 2014; Stice, 2001; Thompson & Stice, 2001; Thompson et al., 1999). Research has suggested that body dissatisfaction is expressed differently across sexes (Grossbard et al., 2008), with attention to thin ideals among women and muscular ideals among men. Body dissatisfaction has been linked to numerous poor outcomes, including dieting, unhealthy weight control behaviors, disordered eating, and increased psychopathology. Although dieting is one of the primary mechanisms employed to reduce body dissatisfaction (Thompson & Stice, 2001), research has shown that such efforts are contraindicated as dieting predicts weight gain over time (PietilÀinen et al., 2012) as well as preoccupation with food, disordered eating, eating disorders, emotional distress, and higher body dissatisfaction (Grabe et al., 2007; Johnson & Wardle, 2005; Neumark- Sztianer et al., 2006; Paxton et al., 2006; Tiggemann, 2005). Restrictive dietary behaviors suppress physiological cues to eat (e.g., hunger) that presents a vulnerability to eating in response to alternative cues, both internal (e.g., emotions) and external (e.g., availability of food). Intuitive eating is a non-restrictive approach to eating that encourages adherence to internal physiological cues to indicate when, what, and how much to eat (Tylka, 2006) and has demonstrated an inverse relationship with disordered eating, restrained eating, food preoccupation, dieting, body dissatisfaction, and negative affect (Bruce & Ricciardelli, 2016). Self-compassion, relating to oneself in a caring and supportive manner (Neff, 2003a), has been proposed as a pathway to increase intuitive eating and reduce body dissatisfaction (Neff & Knox, 2017; Schoenefeld & Webb, 2013; Webb & Hardin, 2016). Research has highlighted the efficacy of self-compassion interventions in addressing weight-related concerns (Rahimi-Ardabili et al., 2018) as well as brief experiential exercises for reducing body dissatisfaction (Moffitt et al., 2018). Additionally, there is a growing body of evidence supporting the efficacy of internet-based self-compassion interventions (Mak et al., 2018; Kelman et al., 2018; Nadeau et al., 2020). The purpose of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of a brief, self-paced online self-compassion intervention targeting body image and adaptive eating behaviors and potential mechanisms of change (e.g., self-compassion and psychological flexibility) among undergraduate men and women. This study also examined outcomes among men and women in the area of self-compassion, body dissatisfaction, and intuitive eating as research has highlighted the need to determine who benefits more from self-compassion interventions (Rahimi-Ardabili et al., 2018). The study compared a one-hour, self-guided online self-compassion intervention to an active control condition. The intervention was comprised of psychoeducation, experiential exercises, and mindfulness practice designed to increase self-compassion surrounding body image and eating behaviors. In contrast, the active control condition consisted of self-care recommendations and self-assessments for nutrition, exercise, and sleep. The study was administered over three parts (e.g., baseline, intervention, and follow-up) in which variables of interest were assessed at each time point. Outcome variables included self-compassion, intuitive eating, disordered eating, body appreciation, muscle dysmorphia, internalized weight bias, fear of self-compassion, and psychological inflexibility. Participants were randomized on a 2:1 intervention to control ratio at the second time point in order to make comparisons between groups while simultaneously having sufficient power for examining mediation and moderation within the treatment condition. Overall, 1023 individuals (64% women, Mage = 18.9, 67.4% white) signed informed consent and participated in at least one part of the study whereas 101 participants (71% women, Mage = 19.3, 71% white) completed all three study portions. As predicted, self-compassion was correlated with all variables of interest, and all study variables were correlated with each other (p < .01). In contrast to hypothesized outcomes, the self-compassion condition failed to demonstrate improvements across time or between conditions on all study outcomes. These results persisted when participants were screened for levels of intuitive eating as well. Contrary to prediction, internalized weight bias, muscle dysmorphia, and fear of self-compassion demonstrated increased levels within the intervention condition and decreases in the control condition. There were significant gender differences on multiple outcome variables, with men demonstrating higher levels of self-compassion and body appreciation whereas women endorsed higher levels of disordered eating, internalized weight bias, muscle dysmorphia, and psychological inflexibility. Additionally, there were significant gender interactions for internalized weight bias, body appreciation, and muscle dysmorphia. The interactions existed such that men demonstrated increased internalized weight bias and muscle dysmorphia across time whereas women displayed decreased weight bias and muscle dysmorphia. The opposite pattern was found within body appreciation; women demonstrated increased body appreciation across time while men reported decreased levels of body appreciation. Despite this studyñ€ℱs intent to examine underlying mechanisms of change, the condition in which participants were randomly selected did not have any relationship, positive or negative, with the outcome variables of interest. As such, mediation within the current study was not conducted as it would violate statistical assumptions required to examine this hypothesis. Finally, upon examining the moderating relationship of fear of self-compassion between self-compassion and outcome variables, there were main effects for self-compassion on intuitive eating, emotional eating, internalized weight bias, body appreciation, and psychological inflexibility as well as main effects of fear of self-compassion on psychological inflexibility. There were significant interactions for intuitive eating and emotional eating, such that as fear of self-compassion increased, the effect of self-compassion on intuitive eating decreased, and the effect of self-compassion on reducing emotional eating behaviors decreased. Overall, the brief, self-paced online intervention delivered in the current study did not prove to be an effective means for improving self-compassion, intuitive eating, body appreciation, disordered eating, muscle dysmorphia, and psychological inflexibility. Nevertheless, the relationships between self-compassion and outcome variables of interest throughout the study mirror that of the existing literature. Findings from this study, in general, were also consistent with differences between men and women despite a gap in the research for intervention outcomes. Although fear of self-compassion demonstrated a moderating effect on the relationship between self-compassion and intuitive eating as well as emotional eating, this does not account for the lack of significant findings. The context surrounding this study, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, provided a considerable challenge to examining the efficacy of the current intervention. However, the findings of this study suggest future research will likely need to identify ways to enhance the delivery of experiential exercises that encourage engagement, provide a safe and warm environment for participants, and create flexibility and willingness surrounding painful and difficult experiences in order to undermine internalized and socially accepted beliefs about body image and eating behaviors

    Balancing the urban stomach: public health, food selling and consumption in London, c. 1558-1640

    Get PDF
    Until recently, public health histories have been predominantly shaped by medical and scientific perspectives, to the neglect of their wider social, economic and political contexts. These medically-minded studies have tended to present broad, sweeping narratives of health policy's explicit successes or failures, often focusing on extraordinary periods of epidemic disease viewed from a national context. This approach is problematic, particularly in studies of public health practice prior to 1800. Before the rise of modern scientific medicine, public health policies were more often influenced by shared social, cultural, economic and religious values which favoured maintaining hierarchy, stability and concern for 'the common good'. These values have frequently been overlooked by modern researchers. This has yielded pessimistic assessments of contemporary sanitation, implying that local authorities did not care about or prioritise the health of populations. Overly medicalised perspectives have further restricted historians' investigation and use of source material, their interpretation of multifaceted and sometimes contested cultural practices such as fasting, and their examination of habitual - and not just extraordinary - health actions. These perspectives have encouraged a focus on reactive - rather than preventative - measures. This thesis contributes to a growing body of research that expands our restrictive understandings of pre-modern public health. It focuses on how public health practices were regulated, monitored and expanded in later Tudor and early Stuart London, with a particular focus on consumption and food-selling. Acknowledging the fundamental public health value of maintaining urban foodways, it investigates how contemporaries sought to manage consumption, food production waste, and vending practices in the early modern City's wards and parishes. It delineates the practical and political distinctions between food and medicine, broadly investigates the activities, reputations of and correlations between London's guild and itinerant food vendors and licensed and irregular medical practitioners, traces the directions in which different kinds of public health policy filtered up or down, and explores how policies were enacted at a national and local level. Finally, it compares and contrasts habitual and extraordinary public health regulations, with a particular focus on how perceptions of and actual food shortages, paired with the omnipresent threat of disease, impacted broader aspects of civic life

    Strung pieces: on the aesthetics of television fiction series

    Get PDF
    As layered and long works, television fiction series have aesthetic properties that are built over time, bit by bit. This thesis develops a group of concepts that enable the study of these properties, It argues that a series is made of strung pieces, a system of related elements. The text begins by considering this sequential form within the fields of film and television. This opening chapter defines the object and methodology of research, arguing for a non-essentialist distinction between cinema and television and against the adequacy of textual and contextual analyses as approaches to the aesthetics of these shows. It proposes instead that these programmes should be described as televisual works that can be scrutinised through aesthetic analysis. The next chapters propose a sequence of interrelated concepts. The second chapter contends that series are composed of building blocks that can be either units into which series are divided or motifs that unify series and are dispersed across their pans. These blocks are patterned according to four kinds of relations or principles of composition. Repetition and variation are treated in tandem in the third chapter because of their close connection, given that variation emerges from established repetition. Exception and progression are also discussed together in the fourth chapter since they both require a long view of these serial works. The former, in order to be recognised as a deviation from the patterns of repetition and variation. The latter, In order to be understood in Its many dimensions as the series advances. Each of these concepts is further detailed with additional distinctions between types of units, motifs, repetitions, variations, and exceptions, using illustrative examples from numerous shows. In contrast, the section on progression uses a single series as case study, CarnivĂ le (2003-05), because this is the overarching principle that encompasses all the others. The conclusion considers the findings of the research and suggests avenues for their application

    Studies of strategic performance management for classical organizations theory & practice

    Get PDF
    Nowadays, the activities of "Performance Management" have spread very broadly in actually every part of business and management. There are numerous practitioners and researchers from very different disciplines, who are involved in exploring the different contents of performance management. In this thesis, some relevant historic developments in performance management are first reviewed. This includes various theories and frameworks of performance management. Then several management science techniques are developed for assessing performance management, including new methods in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Soft System Methodology (SSM). A theoretical framework for performance management and its practical procedures (five phases) are developed for "classic" organizations using soft system thinking, and the relationship with the existing theories are explored. Eventually these results are applied in three case studies to verify our theoretical development. One of the main contributions of this work is to point out, and to systematically explore the basic idea that the effective forms and structures of performance management for an organization are likely to depend greatly on the organizational configuration, in order to coordinate well with other management activities in the organization, which has seemingly been neglected in the existing literature of performance management research in the sense that there exists little known research that associated particular forms of performance management with the explicit assumptions of organizational configuration. By applying SSM, this thesis logically derives some main functional blocks of performance management in 'classic' organizations and clarifies the relationships between performance management and other management activities. Furthermore, it develops some new tools and procedures, which can hierarchically decompose organizational strategies and produce a practical model of specific implementation steps for "classic" organizations. Our approach integrates popular types of performance management models. Last but not least, this thesis presents findings from three major cases, which are quite different organizations in terms of management styles, ownership, and operating environment, to illustrate the fliexbility of the developed theoretical framework

    Pontus in Antiquity: aspects of identity

    Get PDF
    The purpose of this thesis is the presentation of the interaction between the successive inhabitants of Pontus in antiquity, indigenous Anatolians, Greeks, Persians and Romans. Limited archaeological evidence cannot determine the precise extent of interaction, although the available information substantiates the notion of a slow, but steady amalgamation. Initially, the intermingling was based on mutual trading links. Although the Hellenic cultural element tended to surface, Eastern factors remained visible. The Mithridatic dynasty was established around the vicinity of Pontus, creating the 'Kingdom of Pontus' which reached its height under Mithridates VI. His administrative and military policy appears to have placed the foundations for the later, Roman corresponding structures. His policies-propaganda reflected the GraecoEastern image of a king, which appealed to the Greek and Persian-Eastern inhabitants of his kingdom, Asia Minor and, to a lesser extent, mainland Greece. This GraecoEastern image might have nourished the concept of a shared history among the inhabitants of Pontus. Their interactions appear to have given rise to an unnamed, local culture, which was enriched with the relevant Roman practices. Around the third century A.D., the Roman administrative patterns might have established an externally defined appellation. During Roman times, Christianity started to be established in Pontus. Although it was not yet a socio-political factor, its non-racial nature prevailed in later centuries. The influence of the Roman-Christian elements can still be observed in the modern Ponti an identity. In antiquity, (lack of) evidence indicates that no group defined themselves as 'Pontics' or 'Pontians' and an internally defined Pontic identity is unlikely to have existed. However, people associated themselves with the geographical area of Pont us, cultural and religious concepts were frequently amalgamated, while the notion of a common descent and a shared history might have been unconsciously fostered. These factors can assist in the understanding of the 'Pontians' today

    Disunity in society, fractures at home: family relating in the context of divisive socio-political issues

    Get PDF
    Section A A systematic literature review conducted to identify and explore research that has investigated adult intrafamilial relationships and divisive political issues since 2016. Ten papers are included in the review. The studies are critiqued using a mixed-methods risk of bias tool. Findings are collated using narrative synthesis. The synthesis focuses on relational responses—to divisive political issues—the potential reasons for these responses, and their consequences. Review findings are discussed in relation to previous theoretical and empirical literature. Finally, clinical and research implications are presented. Section B A grounded theory study to develop an understanding of adult intrafamilial invalidation in the context of social and political change. Brexit and COVID-19 serve as the contextual lens through which the phenomenon was observed. Data from 11 participants and 45 screening questionnaire respondents were analysed as part of the study. A model of family “Rejection of You” experiences is presented outlining foundational and contextual factors that frame the experience, the experience itself, and relational, behavioural, cognitive, and emotional consequences. Findings are discussed in relation to previous theory and previous empirical research. Clinical implications are considered and possible directions for future research are set out
    • 

    corecore