Negotiating hegemonic masculinity: imaginary positions and psycho-discursive practices

In this paper we provide a critical analysis of the concept of hegemonic masculinity. We argue that although this concept embodies important theoretical insights, it is insufficiently developed as it stands to enable us to understand how men position themselves as gendered beings. In particular it offers a vague and imprecise account of the social psychological reproduction of male identities. We outline an alternative critical discursive psychology of masculinity. Drawing on data from interviews with a sample of men from a range of ages and from diverse occupational backgrounds, we delineate three distinctive, yet related, procedures or psycho-discursive practices, through which men construct themselves as masculine. The political implications of these discursive practices, as well as the broader implications of treating the psychological process of identification as form of discursive accomplishment, are also discussed

Constructions of welfare recipients and work in New Zealand newspapers : an examination of discourse and policy : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand

This paper drew from discursive psychology and Foucauldian discourse analysis to analyse and critique constructions of welfare, its recipients and proposed policies as they were discussed in 200 New Zealand newspaper accounts published between 2005 and 2014. Analysis identified three dominant discursive formations related to welfare and work in the media accounts: the culture of dependence, carrot-stick discourse and work as a panacea. Media accounts were examined for stereotypical constructions of welfare recipients to reveal the promotion of particular social positions, attributions of blame and practices. Media accounts of proposed welfare policies that drew from these discursive formations were similarly examined to demonstrate the potential for media constructions to inform policy changes. Media accounts that resisted the dominant discursive formations were examined for alternative accounts of welfare recipients, work and policy. The dominant discursive formations were demonstrated to rest on a neoliberal social framework that promoted the interests of dominant social groups and shifted blame off an unequal society and economic structure onto welfare recipients. These findings demonstrate a need to increase the representation of welfare recipients’ interests through research exploring their lived experiences of dependence and the continued critique of existing social and power structures

Discursive Constructions of the EU's Identity in the Neighbourhood: An Equal Among Equals or the Power Centre?

Using critical discourse analysis, this article explores the discursive self-representations of the EU in its official documents related to the European Neighbourhood Policy. Its main claim is that the EU's position towards its neighbourhood basically oscillates between two contradictory positions - that of a power centre, asymmetrically dominating its neighbourhood, and that of an equal among equals, thus offering a more benign face to its neighbours. Two discursive areas frequently mentioned in the documents are analysed: the notion of joint ownership and the EU's stance towards the frozen conflict, showing that each of the two facets of EU's identity may become dominant under particular circumstances.EU, European Neighbourhood Policy, critical discourse analysis, identity constructions

Self as social practice: rewriting the feminine in qualitative organizational research

This paper offers a reflexive discussion of the paradox of researching others and offering to represent multiple voices whilst suppressing the voice of the researcher. Martin’s (2002) injunction to repair research accounts by ‘letting the “I” back in’ is problematised by identifying four typically unacknowledged discursive subject positions which constitute the multiple nature of the “I” in such texts: the empirical ‘eye”, the analytical I, the authorial I and the I as semiotic shifter. It is argued that this shifting multiplicity is stabilised by the relationship between self and research text being corporeally grounded and gendered. From this discussion, three possible approaches to gender are considered: the discursive/textual approach (as developed inter alia by Foucault); the performance/social practice approach (as developed inter alia by Judith Butler) and the corporeal multiplicity approach (as developed inter alia by Elizabeth Grosz and Dorothea Olkowski). The paper concludes by suggesting a tripartite approach to writing self-multiplicity in research which extends the possibilities opened up by the social practice approach: re-citing (redeploying discursive resources in intertextuality); re-siting (changing the positioning of the self in power relations by reinscribing); and re-sighting (opening up new, virtual visions of possibility)

Size Acceptance: A Discursive Analysis of Online Blogs

This document is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Fat Studies on 25 May 2018, available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/21604851.2018.1473704. Under embargo until 25 May 2019.Dominant discourses of “fatness” and “fat people” have implications for physical and mental health. Although alternative discourses such as “size acceptance” exist, there has been little consideration of the ways in which these alternative arguments (and speakers) may be positioned to be heard. Using a discursive thematic analysis, the authors demonstrate that size acceptance online bloggers have created a community online that enables them to persuasively provide alternative claims to “expertise,” which positions their views as credible and legitimate alternatives to those of more established authority figures—such as health professionals. This has implications not only for the lived experience of fat people, but also for researchers by emphasizing the importance of exploring not just what is said, but how, if we are to understand how different articulated positions are to be persuasive.Peer reviewe

Applying discursive approaches to health psychology

Objective: The aim of this paper is to outline the contribution of two strands of discursive research, glossed as ‘macro’ and ‘micro’, to the field of health psychology. A further goal is to highlight some contemporary debates in methodology associated with the use of interview data versus more naturalistic data in qualitative health research. Method: Discursive psychology is a way of analysing talk as a social practice which considers how descriptions are put together and what actions they achieve. Results: A selection of recent examples of discursive research from one applied area of health psychology, studies of diet and obesity, are drawn upon in order to illustrate the specifics of both strands. Whilst both approaches focus on accountability, ‘macro’ discourse work is most useful for identifying the cultural context of talk and can demonstrate how individuals are positioned within such discourses, and examine how such discourses are negotiated and resisted. ‘Micro’ discursive research pays closer attention to the sequential organisation of constructions and focuses on naturalistic settings which allow for the inclusion of an analysis of the health professional. Conclusion: Diets are typically depicted as an individual responsibility in mainstream health psychology but discursive research highlights how discourses are collectively produced and bound up with social practices

Performing weight change : a performative reading of reality-making through a relationship of meaning and doing : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in English at Massey University

Reading the reality-making processes that create bodies in weight change performances challenges us to understand the relationships between meanings and actions, or between discourses and materiality. This study uses a performative model to elaborate how discourses and materiality can be read in texts in such a way to bring transparency to the process of materiality-making, agency and causality. The texts used in this study are transcribed interviews of participants who identified themselves as undergoing weight change. Reading weight and body-making as a discursive-material relationship enriches a shared understanding in the interdisciplinary space of psychology and English. The performative model chosen for this study offers sufficient structure to read both the generic features of reality-making and individually-nuanced reality-making practices, presenting psychologists with a sophisticated understanding of change processes. To read reality-making with detailed transparency, we require tools of analysis that can directly read discourses and actions as shared spaces of relationship, through which material entities can emerge. For such tools of analysis, this study utilizes and extends the model of performativity offered by Dr Karen Barad (2007). In using this model to read text performatively, the unique features that are creating performances of weight change are accessed through a reading of boundary-making practices, through the relationship between meaning and doing that establishes what matters in accessing possibilities for meaning and possibilities for doing, and through the elaboration of subject-object relationships into a sequenced performance

The construction and use of belief in cognitive therapy : a discursive analysis : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

This research explores how the notion of belief is constructed and used within the cognitive therapy domain. Utilising a multi-media approach, in which cognitive therapy texts were gathered from instructional books, demonstration videos, and interviews with practicing psychotherapists, the transcripts were analysed using Jonathan Potter, Derek Edwards and Margaret Wetherell's model of discourse analysis. The analytic attention was on the linguistic resources and practices therapists had available and used in constructing and deploying different notions of belief. By approaching therapists' belief talk in this way and showing the contingent, socially constructed, and rhetorical nature of their discourse use, two main constructions of belief became evident. These were of 'a belief itself' and of 'a believing person'. In addition, Davies and Harrés' positioning theory was utilised which highlighted two main subject positions; the therapist as the 'expert' and the client as the 'layperson'. The findings tend to support the view that there are medium and therapist specific idiosyncratic aspects to belief, which are constructed and constituted in multiple repertoires and by various discursive strategies. This suggests a need for cognitive therapy to re-evaluate the notion of belief and its various uses, and highlights the benefits and pitfall of utilising a multi-media discursive approach

Choosing more mathematics : happiness through work?

This paper examines how A-level students construct relationships between work and happiness in their accounts of choosing mathematics and further mathematics A-level. I develop a theoretical framework that positions work and happiness as opposed, managed and working on the self and use this to examine students' dual engagement with individual practices of the self and institutional practices of school mathematics. Interviews with students acknowledge four imperatives that they use as discursive resources to position themselves as successful/unsuccessful students: you have to work, you have to not work, you have to be happy, you have to work at being happy. Tensions in these positions lead students to rework their identities or drop further mathematics. I then identify the practices of mathematics teaching that students use to explain un/happiness in work, and show how dependable mathematics and working together are constructed as 'happy objects' for students, who develop strategies for claiming control over these shapers of happiness. © 2010 British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics