As if born to: The social construction of a deficit identity position for adopted persons

Many adopted persons report experiencing ongoing problems with identity, often resulting in feelings of personal deficiency to imprison their sense of self. The dominant position of the literature eon adoption individualizes and problematizes “identity” issues by locating the source of difficulties to individual traits of the adopted person and his/her adoptive family. Consequently, the struggle associated with the identity “adopted” is typically constructed as an individual struggle. Drawing on my own lived experience as an adopted women, I have been engaged in a critical inquiry of the traditional view of adoption in order to understand the problem of identity not as an individual problem but as a social construction rooted in power. From this critical inquiry, I have developed a post-structuralist framework of adoption which offers a more liberatory interpretation of the adoption experience, in general, and the problem of identity, in particular. This theoretical perspective radically reframes the problems of identity formation within adoption by showing its social origins through the concrete production of difference at the level of the individual. The purpose of this inquiry is to show the social construction of adoption as a problem of identity and to examine the ideological purposes of that construction. I interviewed eight participants who are self-identified “adoption advocates” and who openly acknowledged having struggled with the identity “adopted.” The methodological approach is an in-depth interview study informed by feminist research principles and hermeneutics. I argue that identity formation is an intersubjective process of construction acquired through shared experiences of recognition. For adopted persons, the template “as if born to” that is active in the formation of identity is problematic because to think and live “as if” something is true when it is not intolerable and injurious to one’s developing view of self. Additionally, I argue that being produced “adopted” is harmful because potentials are harmed in that process of construction. In reviewing some of the salient experiences of adoption identified by the participants’ stories, as well as my own, I have selected four sites of injury sustained to our identity formation. Specifically, the four sites of injury selected for discussion include: The Birth Story… Living a Pretense; Living Silence… Living Silent; The Experience of Being Mothered… The Desire to Belong; and Looking for Recognition… Claiming our Difference. Generally, my interpretation disputes widely held beliefs that suggest problems of identity in adoption are caused by early attachment disturbance and infant trauma. Instead, following a social construction approach, my different interpretation of adoption claims that the primacy of the biological family as a cultural ideal in Western Society causes harm to adopted persons

How Still the Riddle Lies; Emily Dickinson\u27s Sense of Naturalness

Beauchesne, Jill, M.A., Autumn 2006 Literature Abstract: How Still the Riddle Lies Robert Baker, Chair Louise Economides Phil Condon The tradition of “nature writing” in the United States draws heavily on the literary movements of Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Wordsworth’s meditative walks, Keats’s nightingale, Thoreau’s pond—these concepts have shaped literary beliefs and perceptions of natural landscapes as much as a writer’s individual haunts or favorite creatures. In a contemporary context, a writer steps down a long, wellworn path when he or she attempts to describe a bird taking flight or the way the sunlight feels at a certain time of afternoon. In the nineteenth century, writers began looking to nature as a source of redemption—through interaction and contemplation of natural landscapes or animals, writers often constructed fantastic, extraordinary metaphors and expressions of individual consciousness or feeling. These types of natural contemplations still serve as potential artistic reservoirs for contemporary writers and artists; however, this reservoir emerges as increasingly fraught under the lens of feminist criticism. The Romantic construction of “sublimation,” a process by which a “subject” can gain invaluable creative or spiritual knowledge through an interaction with an “other” (often, a natural place or thing) requires an implicit separation of subject from object. Feminists have latched on to the dualist makeup of Romanticism and have urged a critical reevaluation of how we must read these writers from a present standpoint. Moreover, within this reevaluation,feminist criticism focuses on how female writers in this period and others handled this objectification of the other. In my thesis, I have utilized feminist and ecofeminist criticism to examine how nineteenth century poet Emily Dickinson confronted the Romantic sublime, specifically in relation to the natural world. Namely, I believe that Dickinson’s relationship to the natural world is less objectifying than more publicly dominant literary names of her time and that she remained less interested in obtaining subjective sublimity than in expressing a conceptually particular, somewhat strange, always fascinating relationship with her physical surroundings. Furthermore,humor served as a primary tool for Dickinson to conduct subversive reactions against the dominant Romantic paradigm concerning the natural world and also allowed her more access to reactionary discursive tools

North Hill Hawk

NORTH HILL HAWK By Jill Marie Beauchesne (No abstract available

Emergence of thin shell structure during collapse in isotropic coordinates

Numerical studies of gravitational collapse in isotropic coordinates have recently shown an interesting connection between the gravitational Lagrangian and black hole thermodynamics. A study of the actual spacetime was not the main focus of this work and in particular, the rich and interesting structure of the interior has not been investigated in much detail and remains largely unknown. We elucidate its features by performing a numerical study of the spacetime in isotropic coordinates during gravitational collapse of a massless scalar field. The most salient feature to emerge is the formation of a thin shell of matter just inside the apparent horizon. The energy density and Ricci scalar peak at the shell and there is a jump discontinuity in the extrinsic curvature across the apparent horizon, the hallmark that a thin shell is present in its vicinity. At late stages of the collapse, the spacetime consists of two vacuum regions separated by the thin shell. The interior is described by an interesting collapsing isotropic universe. It tends towards a vacuum (never reaches a perfect vacuum) and there is a slight inhomogeneity in the interior that plays a crucial role in the collapse process as the areal radius tends to zero. The spacetime evolves towards a curvature (physical) singularity in the interior, both a Weyl and Ricci singularity. In the exterior, our numerical results match closely the analytical form of the Schwarzschild metric in isotropic coordinates, providing a strong test of our numerical code.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures. version to appear in Phys. Rev.

The NGA-DOE grant to examine critical issues related to radioactive waste and materials disposition involving DOE facilities. Quarterly report, October 1--December 31, 1997

Topics explored through this project include: decisions involving disposal of mixed, low-level, and transuranic (TRU) waste and disposition of nuclear materials; decisions involving DOE budget requests and their effect on environmental cleanup and compliance at DOE facilities; strategies to treat mixed, low-level, and transuranic (TRU) waste and their effect on individual sites in the complex; changes to the FFCA site treatment plans as a result of proposals in the EM 2006 cleanup plans and contractor integration analysis; interstate waste and materials shipments; and reforms to existing RCRA and CERCLA regulations/guidance to address regulatory overlap and risks posed by DOE wastes. The work accomplished by the NGA project team during the past four months can be categorized as follows: maintained open communication with DOE on a variety of activities and issues within the DOE environmental management complex; and maintained communication with NGA Federal Facilities Compliance Task Force members regarding DOE efforts to formulate a configuration for mixed low-level waste and low-level treatment and disposal, DOE activities in the area of the Hazardous Waste Identification Rule, and DOE`s proposed National Dialogue

THE NGA-DOE GRANT TO EXAMINE CRITICAL ISSUES RELATED TO RADIOACTIVE WASTE AND MATERIALS DISPOSITION INVOLVING DOE FACILITIES

Through the National Governors Association (NGA) project ``Critical Issues Related to Radioactive Waste and Materials Disposition Involving DOE Facilities'' NGA brings together Governors' policy advisors, state regulators, and DOE officials to examine critical issues related to the cleanup and operation of DOE nuclear weapons and research facilities. Topics explored through this project include: Decisions involving disposal of mixed, low-level, and transuranic (TRU) waste and disposition of nuclear materials; Decisions involving DOE budget requests and their effect on environmental cleanup and compliance at DOE facilities; Strategies to treat mixed, low-level, and transuranic (TRU) waste and their effect on individual sites in the complex; Changes to the FFCA site treatment plans as a result of proposals in the Department's Accelerating Cleanup: Paths to Closure plan and contractor integration analysis; Interstate waste and materials shipments; and Reforms to existing RCRA and CERCLA regulations/guidance to address regulatory overlap and risks posed by DOE wastes. The overarching theme of this project is to help the Department improve coordination of its major program decisions with Governors' offices and state regulators and to ensure such decisions reflect input from these key state officials and stakeholders. This report summarizes activities conducted during the period from October 1, 1999 through January 31, 2000, under the NGA grant. The work accomplished by the NGA project team during the past three months can be categorized as follows: maintained open communication with DOE on a variety of activities and issues within the DOE environmental management complex; convened and facilitated the October 6--8 NGA FFCA Task Force Meeting in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; maintained communication with NGA Federal Facilities Compliance Task Force members regarding DOE efforts to formulate a configuration for mixed low-level waste and low-level treatment and disposal, external regulation of DOE; and continued to facilitate interactions between the states and DOE to develop a foundation for an ongoing substantive relationship between the Governors of key states and the Department

Descriptive Assessment of Conversational Skills: Towards Benchmarks for Young Adults with Social Deficits

Descriptive assessments are necessary to identify social norms and establish a foundation for experimental analysis. Much of the social skills intervention literature involves goals that have been selected through interviews and direct observation of behavior without a reference to desired outcomes. The purpose of the current study was to extend research on descriptive assessments of conversations by including additional measures and examining conversational behavior across contexts. We conducted a descriptive assessment of social skills exhibited by 16 neurotypical young adults. Participants had 10-min conversations in groups and 1-on-1 with friends and novel individuals. We then assessed variability within and across participants on a wide array of relevant measures. Throughout the conversations, participants shared the conversation time equally, spent most of the conversation time making on-topic comments, and gazed at their conversation partner more frequently while listening than while speaking. These descriptive data extend current research, inform future experimental analyses, and may guide clinical decisions