Maternal ambivalence in contemporary Australia: navigating equity and care

The thesis argues that an important step in an agenda calling for change is a re-signification of the mother–infant connection from a role to a relationship so as to embed the subject position of the woman-as-mother and enhance her reflexive stance. It identifies intersections between structure and agency as played out in the lives of a small group of women in the early years after the birth of their first child. It contributes to a call for transformational change so as to accommodate dependency while attending to gender equal outcomes. The study is multidisciplinary, bringing together gender, sociology, psychoanalysis and health through a conceptual framework informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Cornelius Castoriadis, Jessica Benjamin and Lois McNay. It locates the work of care through the dependency theory of Eva Feder Kittay and Martha Fineman and the proposition that both the state and the market rely on the family for care. Data are drawn from in-depth and semi-structured interviews with sixteen first-time mothers from Sydney and Canberra. The participants self identified from posters circulated through playgroups and childcare centres from northern, southern, eastern and western suburbs to ensure a diverse sample. What has generally been thought of as a paradox between the rights of women and an assertion of gender difference associated with the maternal body can be recast in terms of tensions. The family as a social unit in the early twenty-first century is marked by tension and change evidenced through the experience of women when they first become mothers. Research that focuses on the early years after the birth of an infant under the banner of the Transition to Parenthood brings to light gendered economic outcomes, maternal stress, depression and a decline in marital satisfaction; in essence a mismatch between expectations and experience that is played out through the sense of self. This is a consequence of a divergence between cultural trends and social structuring with a lack of recognition of both intersubjective dynamics between women-as-mothers and their infants and intrapsychic processes of the self. I cast this dissonance in terms of tensions between macrosocial and microsocial factors. A disjuncture is evident through the ambivalences of these new mothers. In the interview data there is a sense of displaced self, difficulties reconnecting with former lives through the workplace, and often disruptions within families arising from unfulfilled expectations. There is nevertheless a strong and abiding connection with their infants. Motherhood is often characterized as selfless. The needs and interests of the infant/child became paramount and this is seen as a good thing, a moral imperative. Identifications with one’s mother and/or the projected interests of the child or family promote continuity while everyday expectations and practices within families point to change. Women have historically promoted both social and cultural capital through asserting the interests of their families and child/ren. However, attending to these related tasks generally comes at an economic cost and at a cost to their health. There is a significant body of both academic and popular texts reflecting on the experience of being a mother at the microsocial level which is accompanied by a common experience of ambivalence in locating the maternal self. There is evidence of movement for change at the macrosocial level through a rethinking of welfare economics, feminist proponents calling for a public ethic of care, trends towards a gender equal or egalitarian family form, a feminist mothers’ movement, and the emergence of a concept of social care

A design theory for transparency of information privacy practices

The rising diffusion of information systems (IS) throughout society poses an increasingly serious threat to privacy as a social value. One approach to alleviating this threat is to establish transparency of i nformation privacy practices (TIPP) so that consumers can better understand how their information is processed. However, the design of transparency artifacts (eg, privacy notices) has clearly not followed this approach, given the ever-increasing volume of information processing. Hence, consumers face a situation where they cannot see the ‘forest for the trees’ when aiming to ascertain whether information processing meets their privacy expectations. A key problem is that overly comprehensive information presentation results in information overload and is thus counterproductive for establishing TIPP. We depart from the extant design logic of transparency artifacts and develop a theoretical foundation (TIPP theory) for transparency artifact designs useful for establishing TIPP from the perspective of privacy as a social value. We present TIPP theory in two parts to capture the sociotechnical interplay. The first part translates abstract knowledge on the IS artifact and privacy into a description of social subsystems of transparency artifacts, and the second part conveys prescriptive design knowledge in form of a corresponding IS design theory. TIPP theory establishes a bridge from the complexity of the privacy concept to a metadesign for transparency artifacts that is useful to establish TIPP in any IS. In essence, transparency artifacts must accomplish more than offering comprehensive information; they must also be adaptive to the current information needs of consumers

Deaf Voice and the Invention of Community Interpreting

This article poses the existence of a relational model of interpreting that is already rooted in culturally Deaf ways of using evolved interpreters for intercultural communication. Deaf criticism of professional interpreters directs attention to the history of simultaneous interpretation and its origins at the Nuremberg trials. The birth of professional spoken language simultaneous interpretation occurred as a result of new technology used in a new situation. In that setting, the role space of the interpreter was created and confined within a language regime based on unquestioned and therefore non-negotiable values. The Deaf voice has been raised in protest against some of the restrictions of this model for half a century. During this time, sign language interpreters and practitioner-researchers have been watching and learning. Finally, recent theoretical concepts have begun to shape the framework of an alternative paradigm

Psychosocial Studies and Psychology: Is a Critical Approach Emerging?

This article describes a brand of 'psychosocial studies' that adopts a critical attitude towards psychology as a whole, yet remains rooted in an attempt to theorize the 'psychological subject'. Principles for psychosocial studies work of this kind are discussed, arising out of the actual work of one academic centre within a university department of psychology. These principles are: concern with the human subject as a social entity; interest in the emergence of subjectivity in the social domain; interest in critique, defined as a concern with ideological issues in psychology; methodological pluralism, including an active assertion of the value of qualitative and theoretical research, as well as more traditional quantitative research; theoretical pluralism, including interest in discourses traditionally marginalized in academic psychology (e.g. psychoanalysis, systems theory, feminist theory, phenomenology); interest in inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to psychological theory and research; and interest in personal and social change, including psychotherapy. Some complicating issues relating to the process and content of this kind of work are also outlined

A macro-micro study of ecological orientations in residential locational choice: downtown residence versus suburban residence

The focus of this work is the development of a theory and paradigm integrating aspects of individuals\u27 sociocultural environment, the macro perspective, with traits and social psychological patterns of their individual environment, the micro perspective, into a relationship that allows common patterns of behavior to be discerned and prediction of human action made. The research component addresses individuals\u27 relationship to their residential environment;The residential locational choice paradigm and theory is multi-disciplinarian, incorporating knowledge and theory from the areas of sociology, psychology, human ecology, environment and behavior, and urban planning. The functionalist concept that the world presents fundamental properties which can be isolated and studied in a classificatory scheme provides a foundation. The theory further assumes the \u27neodeterministic\u27 perspective, in that individuals make choices within the constraints of their daily lives as they seek to meet personal \u27need-states.\u27 Finally, it assumes individuals will obtain identity, or a perceived picture of the self, through interaction with others within the situations in which they place themselves. The paradigm defines individuals\u27 dominant action/interaction patterns with their environment in terms of four ecological orientations--instrumental, territorial, sentimental, and symbolic--developed from the previous human ecology work of Erik Cohen. Interaction/identity patterns are developed through incorporation of middle range social psychological theories that provide understanding and knowledge about the diversity and similarity in individual behavior;Subjects in the empirical component of the study were residents of three apartment complexes in a midwestern city. Analysis of the two-step model first employed the theoretical application of nineteen predictor variables to define the four ecological orientations, then utilized discriminant analysis to test the ability of the orientations to predict residential location. A test of satisfaction with the present living environment was also included. The discriminant function of the micro variables accounted for 26 percent of the variance in the dependent macro variable, residential location. It also shows a conceptually significant theoretical linkage across societal and individual levels of analysis

Religion and everyday consumption ethics: a moral economy approach

As research on ethical consumers and consumption practices has continued to grow, a complimentary body of work concerned less with ethical consumption but more with ethics in consumption has emerged. Problematizing the divide between ethical and non-ethical consumption, this stream of research focuses on the domain of everyday and explores the moral struggles individuals face while engaging in ordinary consumption practices. However, the attention on the ordinary runs the risk of obscuring the contribution of the ‘extraordinary’ or the transcendental to the ethical concerns embedded in the mundane flow of the everyday. This study addresses this blind spot and explores the ways in which religion is implicated in everyday consumption ethics. In doing so, I go beyond a view of religion as an individual trait and emphasize its role as a major institutional structure of the contemporary political economy. The empirical context of the study is the controversy over the so-called halal nail polish. The debate over the products’ appropriateness for Muslim women provides a fertile setting to explore how an ordinary object becomes an ethical problem amid changing relations between religion and market. In order to trace and analyze the linkages between daily practices and institutional dynamics I draw from the moral economy framework and discuss the multiple and conflicting moral repertoires that shape the ethical evaluations of the object. The study offers several contributions to the existing theorizations of everyday consumption ethics and moral economies of consumption. It also highlights the potential of interdisciplinary approaches in providing a holistic understanding of the ethical and moral dimensions of consumption

Stories of teachers’ identity: Between personal and professional experience

Teacher identity is one of the key factors influencing the form and quality of educational processes. The aim of our literature review is an analysis of research on teachers' narrative identity in primary and secondary education. We used the Web of Science database and selected studies from 2010–2020 in English. The analysis shows that the area of teacher identity can be viewed from the points of personal and professional identity and their interplay. The data about teacher identity were collected mostly as narratives showing teachers' experience of their profession and their selves. Professional identity is investigated in terms of diversity in classroom discourse, curriculum, and professional development. Research on a teachers' personal identity focuses primarily on gender, parenting, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture, political orientation, and national identity. The study illustrates an interplay of professional and personal identity.Teacher identity is one of the key factors influencing the form and quality of educational processes. The aim of our literature review is an analysis of research on teachers' narrative identity in primary and secondary education. We used the Web of Science database and selected studies from 2010–2020 in English. The analysis shows that the area of teacher identity can be viewed from the points of personal and professional identity and their interplay. The data about teacher identity were collected mostly as narratives showing teachers' experience of their profession and their selves. Professional identity is investigated in terms of diversity in classroom discourse, curriculum, and professional development. Research on a teachers' personal identity focuses primarily on gender, parenting, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture, political orientation, and national identity. The study illustrates an interplay of professional and personal identity

Feeling at home and seeing the other side: Muslim responses to right-wing populism

Is it going to be an Islamised Europe or Europeanised Islam? This is a question, a final ultimatum, almost apocalyptic, posed by commentators on Right-wing populism (RWP) across both sides of the Atlantic. RWP has stimulated profound structural shifts in European politics. What isn’t disputed is that at its embryonic phase, this particular socio-political phenomenon was responding to everyday voices at the microsocial level. For the most part, academia has however focused on the macrosocial level. Regards the Muslims – a key target of RWP ideology – their voices in response are absent in the current literature. I therefore asked: has RWP affected Muslim identity? If so, why and how has this occurred? This thesis applies an interpretative sociological approach and qualitative methodology to conduct fieldwork in three European cities: Malmo, Copenhagen and Edinburgh. The data constituting the empirical basis of the study is from a subset of 28 participants (second-generation and converts) from a total 45 who participated. The data was subjected to narrative analysis to identify the main factors influencing the participants’ responses to RWP. Although the participants’ exhibited a range of ‘social creative responses’, these were in response to stigmatisation primarily. The data showed no ‘reactive’ Muslim identity emerging as a response to RWP. The participants perceived other factors as having a far greater impact on their everyday lives than RWP activism. Two main factors emerged: (segregation and second-class citizenship) influencing the production of Muslim identities. Malmo and Copenhagen, characterised by ethno-cultural segregation created more obstacles impeding equal citizenship by comparison to Edinburgh, where a small dispersed Muslim community benefitted from a civic nationalism and aspirational pluralism

Explaining successful information management in small business

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