Positioning Analysis of Filipino Family Narratives in the Context of Prisoner Reintegration

Prisoner reintegration may be viewed as a crisis situation that may lead to a period of instability within the family. Existing researches in this area remain focused on the individual perspective of ex-offenders rather than the experiences of receiving families back in their households. In this study, we aim to examine the reintegration experiences of the family as a group from an initial state of chaos to equilibrium upon the reentry of an incarcerated parent. Using a sample of 12 interviews of family members left behind by incarcerated fathers, three major storylines relating to the family’s struggle for moral re-ascendancy in the context of parental reintegration are identified: othering, rehabilitation, and restoration. We explain the interlocking emotional, discursive, and material forms of labor embedded in the process of prisoner reintegration. Policy implications on social and institutional aid to the families of reintegrating fathers are also discussed

The Development of a Community-Based Drug Intervention for Filipino Drug Users

This article documents the development of a community-based drug intervention for low- to mild-risk drug users who surrendered as part of the Philippine government\u27s anti-drug campaign. It highlights the importance of developing evidence-informed drug recovery interventions that are appropriate to the Asian culture and to developing economies. Interviews and consultations with users and community stakeholders reveal the need for an intervention that would improve the drug recovery skills and life skills of users. Evidence-based interventions were adapted using McKleroy and colleagues’ (2006) Map of Adaptation Process (MAP) framework. The resulting intervention reflected the country\u27s collectivist culture, relational values, propensity for indirect and non-verbal communication, and interdependent self-construal. The use of small groups, interactive and creative methodologies, and the incorporation of music and prayer also recognised the importance of these in the Philippine culture

Towards an Embodied Political Ecology of Fat Masculinities

The purpose of this brief critical review is to show voluptuous interconnections between fat studies and embodied urban political ecology. By shifting the inquiry to men\u27s bodies; I make a case towards a shared space of theoretical resonance concerning differential and embodied justice. The review advances three key observations. First; by and large; fat studies and the subfield of urban political ecology heavily focused on women\u27s experiences and by implication position men and the performance of masculinity as de-gendered. Second; the mutual entanglement of fat and urban processes has been sparse; and those studies that do tend to shift its explanatory weight on the latter (i.e. \u27fattening\u27 of the urban). Third; there are already existing intellectual resources in and beyond geography that assert complex performances of masculinities; but are seldom activated in enriching inquiries that used urban political ecology. Taking all these into consideration; I strive towards a more inclusive and embodied fat-urban geographies outside public health\u27s thin frame

Do cities enable caring-with men? An ordinary politics of urban care

This critical commentary unpacks the promise of care-full and just cities, and how men are understood as subjects of urban care. Overall, my discussion offers a generative space that forwards the situated practices of caring-with men as ordinary politics in order to fully realise the promise of a city for everyone. The main body is divided into three sections. The first section revisits the concept of care-full cities as an alternative vision of the city grounded in feminist ethics of care and justice. Here I aim to expand the discussion on men as subjects of urban care to consider the diverse performances of masculinities in relation to economic conditions, social meanings, and cultural norms which structure spaces and subjectivities of care giving/-receiving. In the second section, I conceptualise caring-with men as ordinary politics shaping the contested relations and place-making practices in the city. Here I highlight that caring-with involves transversal logics and heterogenous politics that enrich how care as a cultural value and everyday practice can be embodied, reinforced, or even neglected among certain groups of men. The last section provides a synthesis and several key reflections on the (im)possibilities of caring-with men in culturally diverse cities. The situated understandings of care giving/-receiving amongst men in the city inspire crosscurrents and interdisciplinary synthesis across bodies of work in urban studies, feminist care geographies and gender/sexuality studies. In conclusion, caring-with men as ordinary politics is a step towards encouraging situated and comparative inquiries through consolidating a hybrid praxis of global urban masculinities

“How Shall I Say Love … “: Reimagining a Non-relational Geopolitics of Love in the Time of COVID-19

The pandemic as a portal has deeply changed life as we know it; including our homes. While countries continue to strengthen their health systems and policies; marginalized groups in local communities are absorbed; reassembled; and transformed in everyday ‘portals\u27 which generate mutually entangled and composite forces of unification and healing as well as forces of division and wounding. In this commentary; I argue that these forces can be taken as embodying a geopolitics of love already subsumed by intimate; proximal; and mediated relations; therefore leaving out aspects of love that are populated by voids; hollows; and liminalities. Here; I reflect upon Massey\u27s spatial politics vis-a-vis Harrison\u27s notion of non-relationality in order to puncture the representational limits of the geopolitical as a way to transform ‘bad\u27 love (i.e. love that eclipses pains; sufferings; and otherness) while simultaneously not succumbing to a desire for sameness underpinning ‘good’ love (i.e. love that promotes unification and healing). Specifically; I suggest that the nonrelationality of place making and its geographies of nowhereness may lead us back home to love as always already there

Healing the hurt amid the drug war: Narratives of young urban poor Filipinos in recovering families with parental drug use

Background This qualitative study explores the stories of young urban poor Filipino family members living with recovering parental drug users who turn themselves in to local authorities and completed theKatatagan Kontra Droga sa Komunidad (KKDK). This is a community-based rehabilitation program during the Philippine government’s anti-illegal drugs campaign. Methods Young urban poor family members living with parental drug use were interviewed (n = 13) and asked to narrate their experiences of parental drug use, surrender, and recovery. Their stories were analyzed using an integrated approach to narrative analysis guided by Rhodes’ framework (2002) of risk environment. Results Narrative work of participants focused on the stories of their parents’ drug use and recovery after surrendering. These stories show contexts which evoke the salience of prevailing discourse (i.e., cultural organization of Filipino family) and shaming practices in the community, and how these are embodied in the lives of our young participants. In re-telling their stories of parental drug use, our young participants (re) positioned themselves in three different ways: “I am used to it”, “I was neglected”, “I am angry and hurt”. After their parents completed the community-based rehabilitation program, they reconstructed their parents’ stories of recovery as a catalyst to improve their situation as a family unit (i.e., “their change is our change”). Conclusion Set against a national anti-illegal drug campaign, our findings contribute to a contextually nuanced perspective on the impact of parental drug use on children and families living in poverty. Policy makers and interventionists (e.g., mental health practitioners, social workers, psychologists) may need to consider young people’s stories as a struggle to exercise their agency when tailoring community-based programs to respond to the needs of younger people. Challenges to advocate for psychological, social, and structural ‘healing are discussed

A critical narrative inquiry to understand relapse among Filipino methamphetamine polydrug users in low-income communities

In the Philippines where an ongoing national drug campaign is implemented, continuous recovery of drug users is compromised especially those coming from low-income communities. However, studies that explore drug relapse and recovery issues in such communities are still scant. As an exemplar case, a critical narrative inquiry was performed to analyze accounts of 17 Filipino male low-income methamphetamine polydrug users and their experiences of repeated drug relapse. Findings show three overarching narratives namely: drug relapse as being taken by the body, drug use as mode of living and thriving in communities, and as a cyclic narrative of rehabilitation and community reintegration. Implications on understanding the interplay between personal agency and broader risk environments are discussed in light of existing rehabilitation and treatment modalities in drug recovery targeting low-income communities

Struggling to care: A discursive-material analysis of negotiating agency among HIV-positive MSM

A discursive-materialist framework of agency asserts the mutual constitution of agency within cultural discursive, economic, and embodied material structures. Understanding how HIV-positive men who have sex with men in the Philippines negotiate agency vis-a-vis wider social structures, we utilized Foucault’s care of the self to locate agency in relationships with the self, others, and the broader world. Using data from narratives of 20 Filipino HIV-positive men who have sex with men, we analyzed the negotiation of agency as HIV-positive as embedded in the unique discursive terrain of Roman Catholicism and the economic materiality of a developing country. Three main processes of negotiating agency are elaborated: (1) questioning the spiritual self and the sexual body in the relationship with the self, (2) navigating interpersonal limits to care giving in the relationship with others, and (3) reclaiming human dignity in health care in the relationship with the broader world. Theoretical insights on the discursive and material constitution of healing in light of discursive and material challenges are discussed

Unhearing Online Suicide Talk: Becoming-Voice through the Use of Maddening Poetic Conversations

This article advances the creative and theory-informed use of research poetry as a critical methodology in qualitative psychological research. As a case in point, we drew insights from Ken Gale’s maddening as methodology to make sense of online texts on youth suicide. In this context, we retheorize maddening poetic conversations as an alternative structure to research poetry to grapple with naturally occurring data online. As an analytical approach, the authors resist interrogating a speaking human subject, but rather argue the constitution of space – an ‘online-offline’ synergy that is open to affective, political, and emplaced non-human agents. Using online postings of young people bereaved due to the death of their peer, we described a reflexive, dialogical, and performative writing praxis through poetry as an alternative mode of analysis and presentation. As a methodological innovation, poetic conversations may hold a valuable space for multiple and conflicting perspectives on emotionally charged and culturally taboo topics like youth suicide. As a reflexive process, holding difficult spaces allow listeners to reverberate personal and social struggles in sense making and to communicate the emotional disruptions in navigating silent and silenced spaces of death and dying