Providing care for children: how service providers define and apply care in contemporary South Australia

While a wide array of service providers and academic scholars apply the use of “care” in their work, the concept of “care” itself remains largely undefined. This has widespread implications for applied work with children and young people (CYP), particularly since institutions such as schools and non-governmental organisations are increasingly being expected to care for or about children. In this paper, we use thematic analysis to report on interviews with representatives from four service providers and organisations responsible for the care of children. In our analysis, we explore both how care is defined by these organisations, and the implications for practice when working with CYP.Katie Barclay, Dee Michell and Clemence Du

In good company: risk, security and choice in young people's drug decisions

This article draws on original empirical research with young people to question the degree to which 'individualisation of risk', as developed in the work of Beck and Giddens, adequately explains the risks young people bear and take. It draws on alternative understandings and critiques of 'risk' not to refute the notion of the reflexive individual upon which 'individualisation of risk' is based but to re-read that reflexivity in a more hermeneutic way. It explores specific risk-laden moments – young people's drug use decisions – in their natural social and cultural context of the friendship group. Studying these decisions in context, it suggests, reveals the meaning of 'risk' to be not given, but constructed through group discussion, disagreement and consensus and decisions taken to be rooted in emotional relations of trust, mutual accountability and common security. The article concludes that 'the individualisation of risk' fails to take adequate account of the significance of intersubjectivity in risk-decisions. It argues also that addressing the theoretical overemphasis on the individual bearer of risk requires not only further empirical testing of the theory but appropriate methodological reflection

Visions in monochrome: Families, marriage and the individualisation thesis

This paper takes issue with the way in which the individualisation thesis – in which it is assumed that close relationships have become tenuous and fragile - has become so dominant in ‘new’ sociological theorising about family life. Although others have criticised this thesis, in this paper the main criticism derives from empirical research findings carried out with members of transnational families living in Britain whose values and practices do not fit easily with ideas of individualisation. It is argued that we need a much more complex and less linear notion of how families change across generations and in time

"Ordinary, the same as anywhere else": notes on the management of spoiled identity in 'marginal' middle class neighbourhoods

Urban sociologists are becoming increasingly interested in neighbourhood as a source of middle-class identity. Particular emphasis is currently being given to two types of middle-class neighbourhood; gentrified urban neighbourhoods of ‘distinction’ and inconspicuous ‘suburban landscapes of privilege’. However, there has been a dearth of work on ‘marginal’ middle-class neighbourhoods that are similarly ‘inconspicuous’ rather than distinctive, but less exclusive, thus containing sources of ‘spoiled identity’. This article draws on data gathered from two ‘marginal’ middleclass neighbourhoods that contained a particular source of ‘spoiled identity’: social renters. Urban sociological analyses of neighbour responses to these situations highlight a process of dis-identification with the maligned object, which exacerbates neighbour differences. Our analysis of data from the ‘marginal’ middle-class neighbourhoods suggests something entirely different and Goffmanesque. This entailed the management of spoiled identity, which emphasized similarities rather than differences between neighbours.</p

More shadows than lights: The management of intangible heritage in Valencia

[EN] That the immaterial heritage is one of the big contributions of our last decades it does not have answer. Nevertheless, it turns out necessary to do an analysis on the application that of the regulations of international range is realized for a certain territory. With this aim, the present work has been structured to outline those points of agreement and of distance that can find in a comparison that takes as links of facing the last directives established by the UNESCO, specially theConvention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and that one that remains gathered in successive laws of cultural valencian heritage published inside the Comunitat Valenciana.The above mentioned study has made clear the quantity of weak points for lack ofapractical applicationthat exist in those four points governing that stable the UNESCO as for the management of the notable heritage. The Safeguard, Respect, Awarenessand Help, in spite of being had in account along the legislative texts of the territory in question do not manageto reach a relevant efficiency for different reasons[ES] Que el patrimoni immaterial és una de les grans aportacions de les darreres dècades no té contestació. No obstant, resulta necessari realitzar, amb certa freqüència per la seua natura, una anàlisi sobre l’aplicació que de les normatives de rang internacional es realitzen per a un determinat territori. Amb eixe fi, el present article ha estat estructurat per a perfilar aquells punts de consonància i de distància que poden trobar-se en una comparació que pren com a nexes a enfrontar les darreres directrius establides per la UNESCO, especialment a la Convenció per a la Salvaguarda del Patrimoni Cultural Immaterial, i allò que queda arreplegat a les successives lleis de patrimoni cultural valencià publicades a la Comunitat Valenciana. Dit estudi ha deixat patent la quantitat de punts febles per falta d’aplicació pràctica que existeix en aquells quatre punts rectors que estableix la UNESCO en quan a la gestió del patrimoni assenyalat. La Salvaguarda, Respecte, Sensibilització i Ajuda del patrimoni immaterial, tot i ser tinguts en compte al llarg dels textos legislatius del territori en qüestió no arriben a assolir una efectivitat rellevant per diverses raons.Ferrandis Micó, D. (2014). Més ombres que llums. La gestió del patrimoni immaterial a la Comunitat Valenciana. Culturas. Revista de Gestión Cultural. 1(1):79-96. doi:10.4995/cs.2014.2023SWORD799611Appadurai, Arjun,1996. La modernidad desbocada. Buenos Aires: Trilce.Ari-o, Antonio, 2005. La diversidad cultural en el discurso de la UNESCO. En: Las encrucijadas de la diversidad cultural. Madrid: CIS, pp. 497-526.Bauman, Zigmunt, 2004. Modernidad liquida. Mexico: Editorial Fondo de Cultura Económica.Beck, Ulrich, 2004. ¿Qué es la globalización?: Falacias del globalismo, respuestas a la globalización. Barcelona: Paidos Ibérica.Giddens, Anthony, 2003. Un mundo desbocado: los efectos de la globalización en nuestras vidas. Madrid: Taurus

Taijiquan the 'Taiji World' way: Towards a cosmopolitan vision of ecology.

In this article, we present a case study analysis of data gathered on the practice of the art of Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) in one UK context. Our interest in looking at this physical culture was in exploring if/how physical cultures of shared embodied experience and practice may help “sow the seeds of environmental awareness”. In so doing, we illustrate certain affinities between this interpretation of the art and Beck’s idea of a “cosmopolitan vision of ecology”. We present an analysis of documentary and interview data of one English Taijiquan organisation and how it currently promotes the idea of interconnectedness, wellbeing and an alternative meta-narrative for living through the practice of Taijiquan. We conclude that, while further research is needed, there is evidence that a cosmopolitan vision for ecology is emerging in physical cultures such as Taijiquan

Power between Habitus and Reflexivity – Introducing Margaret Archer to the Power Debate

This article introduces Margaret Archer’s research on reflexivity to the power debate, alongside Pierre Bourdieu’s already influential concept of habitus. Both offer significant insights on social conditioning in late modernity. However, their tendency to the extreme of social determinism and voluntarism must be avoided. To do so, this article adopts Haugaard’s family resemblance concept of power, describing habitus and reflexivity as an important new binary of power instead of a conceptual zero-sum game. This strengthens the explanatory role of agency, central to the three dimensions of power, without losing sight of constitutive, structural power. It also helps overcome the habitus-reflexivity dichotomy in social theory and provides a starting point to evaluate Archer’s work from a power perspective

Using biographical narrative and life story methods to research women's movements: FEMCIT

This paper discusses the use of the biographical narrative interpretative method (BNIM) in a research project that investigated the ways in which intimate life and intimate citizenship have changed in the wake of the cultural and political interventions of women's movements and other movements for gender and sexual equality and change. It outlines the research design of the study, which was the “Intimate Citizenship” work package of the FEMCIT research project, and describes how the biographical narrative interpretative method enabled the project's central research questions to be addressed