Conducting Qualitative Longitudinal Research: Fieldwork Experiences

This collection draws on the fieldwork experiences of some of the researchers involved in the ESRC 'Timescapes: Changing Relationships and Identities throughthe Life Course‘ programme. Timescapes, the first major Qualitative Longitudinal (QLL) study to be funded in the UK, aims to build a picture of life in 21st century Britain by gathering, archiving and analysing interviews from over 400 people living in a variety of circumstances across the UK. Temporal understanding is central to the programme. In essence, Timescapes is concerned with the intersection between different dimensions of time and the ways in which temporality shapes and is shaped by the changing relationships and identities of different individuals and collectives. We are exploring how individuals perceive past, present and future, and the relationship between their biographies and wider historical processes. Our work is framed by Barbara Adam‘s (1998) notion of 'timescapes‘. Like a landscape, cityscape or seascape a timescape is a panorama or view of the world in which time is placed as central

From toothpick legs to dropping vaginas: Gender and sexuality in Joan Rivers' stand-up comedy performance

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2011 Intellect.This article employs sociocultural analysis to examine Joan Rivers’ stand-up comedy performances in order to reveal how she successfully operates in a sphere of artistic expression that has been, and continues to be, male-dominated. The analysis uncovers how Rivers’ stand-up comedy performance involves a complex combination of elements and how it fuses features that are regarded as ‘traditionally masculine’, such as aggression, with features frequently used by other female stand-up comedians, such as self-deprecating comedy and confessional comedy. Furthermore, the analysis exposes the complex ways in which constructions of gender and sexuality are negotiated and re-negotiated in Rivers’ stand-up comedy performance, and illustrates how dominant ideological identity constructions can be simultaneously reinforced and subverted within the same comic moment

Intergenerational Transfers over the Life Course: Addressing Temporal and Gendered Complexities via a Human Well-being Approach

Research on intergenerational transmissions of poverty and inequality has tended to focus on material transfers. This paper refocuses attention on the intersection of material and psychosocial transfers, which reveals temporal and gendered complexities. It examines three key ideas emerging from the life course literature (relationality, intersectionality and intergenerationality) to shed light on how these complexities might be addressed. It is argued that a human wellbeing lens is potentially useful as a unifying framework to integrate these ideas as it interrogates what living well means over the life course and how it is constructed relationally

Applying provenance in APT monitoring and analysis: Practical challenges for scalable, efficient and trustworthy distributed provenance

Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) are a class of security threats in which a well-resourced attacker targets a specific individual or organisation with a predefined goal. This typically involves exfiltration of confidential material, although increasingly attacks target the encryption or destruction of mission critical data. With traditional prevention and detection mechanisms failing to stem the tide of such attacks, there is a pressing need for new monitoring and analysis tools that reduce both false-positive rates and the cognitive burden on human analysts. We propose that local and distributed provenance metadata can simplify and improve monitoring and analysis of APTs by providing a single, authoritative sequence of events that captures the context (and side effects) of potentially malicious activities. Provenance metadata allows a human analyst to backtrack from detection of malicious activity to the point of intrusion and, similarly, to work forward to fully understand the consequences. Applying provenance to APT monitoring and analysis introduces some significantly different challenges and requirements in comparison to more traditional applications. Drawing from our experiences working with and adapting the OPUS (Observed Provenance in User Space) system to an APT monitoring and analysis use case, we introduce and discuss some of the key challenges in this space. These preliminary observations are intended to prime a discussion within the community about the design space for scalable, efficient and trustworthy distributed provenance for scenarios that impose different constraints from traditional provenance applications such as workflow and data processing frameworks

Mixing methods to explore appearance in dementia care

This paper considers approaches to investigating appearance and the work invested in maintaining it within dementia care. Our focus is upon methodological and methods-related issues associated with the challenge of generating knowledge of the embodied worlds of people with dementia. We begin with a brief overview of the literature on appearance and dementia, and consider what it teaches us about the nature of appearance and ways of understanding it. We describe and discuss the mixing of methods for an on-going investigation into hairdressing in dementia care: The Hair and Care project. Based upon the experience of research in care-based hair salons, we argue for a creative use of methods in dementia studies as an avenue to better engaging with the embodied experiences of people with dementia and, as a result, understanding how people use their bodies and senses to create meaningful worlds. © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

Controlled Radical Polymerization of Vinyl Acetate Mediated by a Bis(imino)pyridine Vanadium Complex

Source type: Prin