Multilingual gendered identities: female undergraduate students in London talk about heritage languages

In this paper I explore how a group of female university students, mostly British Asian and in their late teens and early twenties, perform femininities in talk about heritage languages. I argue that analysis of this talk reveals ways in which the participants enact ‘culturally intelligible’ gendered subject positions. This frequently involves negotiating the norms of ‘heteronormativity’, constituting femininity in terms of marriage, motherhood and maintenance of heritage culture and language, and ‘girl power’, constituting femininity in terms of youth, sassiness, glamour and individualism. For these young women, I ask whether higher education can become a site in which they have the opportunities to explore these identifications and examine other ways of imagining the self and what their stories suggest about ‘doing being’ a young British Asian woman in London

'You were quiet - I did all the marching': Research processes involved in hearing the voices of South Asian girls

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below. Copyright @ 2011 A B Academic Publishers.This article provides insights into the outcomes of reflection following two interview approaches used to explore narratives of the lived, individual experiences of South-Asian girls living in West London. In attempting to illuminate and re-present the cultural experiences as told by these girls, the choice of interview approach became critical in allowing the voices to be effectively heard (Rogers, 2005). This article therefore considers how a semi-structured interview approach offered valuable insights into the girls' experiences but became constraining for both researcher and participant in unveiling the complexity and depth of their lives. These constraints emerged through reflection by both participants and researcher. As a result of reflexivity during the research process, the researcher moved towards the use of research conversations during the second phase of the study. Ultimately the study revealed how the girls felt empowered by the opportunity to narrate their individual experiences and tell of their lives. In narrating their reflections on being part of the research, there was a clear recognition that the process facilitated the articulation of new voices and ‘multi-voicedness’ (Moen, 2006

Young British Pakistani Muslim women’s involvement in higher education

YesThis article explores the implications for identity through presenting a detailed analysis of how three British Pakistani women narrated their involvement in higher education. The increased participation of British South Asian women in higher education has been hailed a major success story and is said to have enabled them to forge alternative, more empowering gender identities in comparison to previous generations. Drawing on generative narrative interviews conducted with three young women, we explore the under-researched area of Pakistani Muslim women in higher education. The central plotlines for their stories are respectively higher education as an escape from conforming to the ‘good Muslim woman’; becoming an educated mother; and Muslim women can ‘have it all’. Although the women narrated freedom to choose, their stories were complex. Through analysis of personal ‘I’ and social ‘We’ self-narration, we discuss the different ways in which they drew on agency and fashioned it within social and structural constraints of gender, class and religion. Thus higher education is a context that both enables and constrains negotiations of identity

The endogenous caspase-8 inhibitor c-FLIPL regulates ER morphology and crosstalk with mitochondria

Components of the death receptors-mediated pathways like caspase-8 have been identified in complexes at intracellular membranes to spatially restrict the processing of local targets. In this study, we report that the long isoform of the cellular FLICE-inhibitory protein (c-FLIPL), a well- known inhibitor of the extrinsic cell death initiator caspase-8, localizes at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria-associated membranes (MAMs). ER morphology was disrupted and ER Ca2+-release as well as ER-mitochondria tethering were decreased in c-FLIP-/- mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). Mechanistically, c-FLIP ablation resulted in enhanced basal caspase-8 activation and in caspase-mediated processing of the ER-shaping protein reticulon-4 (RTN4) that was corrected by re-introduction of c-FLIPL and caspase inhibition, resulting in the recovery of a normal ER morphology and ER-mitochondria juxtaposition. Thus, the caspase-8 inhibitor c-FLIPL emerges as a component of the MAMs signaling platforms, where caspases appear to regulate ER morphology and ER-mitochondria crosstalk by impinging on ER-shaping proteins like the RTN4

Bifurcated homeland and diaspora politics in China and Taiwan towards the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia

The conventional literature on diaspora politics tends to focus on one ‘homeland’ state and its relations with ‘sojourning’ diaspora around the world. This paper examines an instance of ‘bifurcated homeland:’ the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) since 1949. The paper investigates the changing dynamics of China's and Taiwan's diaspora policies towards Overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia throughout the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. They were affected by their ideological competition, the rise of Chinese nationalism, and the ‘indigenisation’ of Taiwanese identity. Illustrating such changes through the case of the KMT Yunnanese communities in Northern Thailand, this paper makes two interrelated arguments. First, we should understand relations through the lens of interactive dynamics between international system-level changes and domestic political transformations. Depending on different normative underpinnings of the international system, the foundations of regime legitimacy have changed. Subsequently, the nature of relations between the diaspora and the homeland(s) transformed from one that emphasises ideological differences during the Cold War, to one infused with nationalist authenticity in the post-Cold War period. Second, the bifurcated nature of the two homelands also created mutual influences on their diaspora policies during periods of intense competition

The Muslim problematic: Muslims, state schools and security

Muslims are folk-devils that mark the ubiquitous moral panic. For some, the idea of the Muslim problematic signifies a long and worrying trend of creeping ‘Islamification’ of state schools. For others, the discourse of the Muslim problematic reflects the ongoing racial patholigisation of Britain’s minoritised communities. One thing is for certain, the current debate marks a significant moment in the nature and function of the neoliberal state as it reframes race relation policy in Britain in the light of the security agenda. The Trojan Horse affair, surrounding claims of infiltration of radical Islam in state-run schools, marks a significant moment in the embedding of the security agenda in Britain’s inner city schools through the medium of the Prevent agenda. It argues that one of the best ways of understanding the security agenda is by locating it within a broader sociological and historical context of the functioning of the racial state

A participatory physical and psychosocial intervention for balancing the demands and resources among industrial workers (PIPPI): study protocol of a cluster-randomized controlled trial

Background: Need for recovery and work ability are strongly associated with high employee turnover, well-being and sickness absence. However, scientific knowledge on effective interventions to improve work ability and decrease need for recovery is scarce. Thus, the present study aims to describe the background, design and protocol of a cluster randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention to reduce need for recovery and improve work ability among industrial workers. Methods/Design: A two-year cluster randomized controlled design will be utilized, in which controls will also receive the intervention in year two. More than 400 workers from three companies in Denmark will be aimed to be cluster randomized into intervention and control groups with at least 200 workers (at least 9 work teams) in each group. An organizational resources audit and subsequent action planning workshop will be carried out to map the existing resources and act upon initiatives not functioning as intended. Workshops will be conducted to train leaders and health and safety representatives in supporting and facilitating the intervention activities. Group and individual level participatory visual mapping sessions will be carried out allowing team members to discuss current physical and psychosocial work demands and resources, and develop action plans to minimize strain and if possible, optimize the resources. At all levels, the intervention will be integrated into the existing organization of work schedules. An extensive process and effect evaluation on need for recovery and work ability will be carried out via questionnaires, observations, interviews and organizational data assessed at several time points throughout the intervention period. Discussion: This study primarily aims to develop, implement and evaluate an intervention based on the abovementioned features which may improve the work environment, available resources and health of industrial workers, and hence their need for recovery and work ability

SMURF1 Amplification Promotes Invasiveness in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is a deadly disease, and new therapeutic targets are urgently needed. We previously identified DNA amplification at 7q21-q22 in pancreatic cancer cell lines. Now, by high-resolution genomic profiling of human pancreatic cancer cell lines and human tumors (engrafted in immunodeficient mice to enrich the cancer epithelial fraction), we define a 325 Kb minimal amplicon spanning SMURF1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase and known negative regulator of transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) growth inhibitory signaling. SMURF1 amplification was confirmed in primary human pancreatic cancers by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), where 4 of 95 cases (4.2%) exhibited amplification. By RNA interference (RNAi), knockdown of SMURF1 in a human pancreatic cancer line with focal amplification (AsPC-1) did not alter cell growth, but led to reduced cell invasion and anchorage-independent growth. Interestingly, this effect was not mediated through altered TGFβ signaling, assayed by transcriptional reporter. Finally, overexpression of SMURF1 (but not a catalytic mutant) led to loss of contact inhibition in NIH-3T3 mouse embryo fibroblast cells. Together, these findings identify SMURF1 as an amplified oncogene driving multiple tumorigenic phenotypes in pancreatic cancer, and provide a new druggable target for molecularly directed therapy

The Effects of Aging on the Molecular and Cellular Composition of the Prostate Microenvironment

Advancing age is associated with substantial increases in the incidence rates of common diseases affecting the prostate gland including benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and prostate carcinoma. The prostate is comprised of a functional secretory epithelium, a basal epithelium, and a supporting stroma comprised of structural elements, and a spectrum of cell types that includes smooth muscle cells, fibroblasts, and inflammatory cells. As reciprocal interactions between epithelium and stromal constituents are essential for normal organogenesis and serve to maintain normal functions, discordance within the stroma could permit or promote disease processes. In this study we sought to identify aging-associated alterations in the mouse prostate microenvironment that could influence pathology.We quantitated transcript levels in microdissected glandular-adjacent stroma from young (age 4 months) and old (age 20-24 months) C57BL/6 mice, and identified a significant change in the expression of 1259 genes (p<0.05). These included increases in transcripts encoding proteins associated with inflammation (e.g., Ccl8, Ccl12), genotoxic/oxidative stress (e.g., Apod, Serpinb5) and other paracrine-acting effects (e.g., Cyr61). The expression of several collagen genes (e.g., Col1a1 and Col3a1) exhibited age-associated declines. By histology, immunofluorescence, and electron microscopy we determined that the collagen matrix is abundant and disorganized, smooth muscle cell orientation is disordered, and inflammatory infiltrates are significantly increased, and are comprised of macrophages, T cells and, to a lesser extent, B cells.These findings demonstrate that during normal aging the prostate stroma exhibits phenotypic and molecular characteristics plausibly contributing to the striking age associated pathologies affecting the prostate