Stigma narratives: LGBT transitions and identities in Malta

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below. Copyright @ 2011 A B Academic Publishers.This article considers narratives of transition experiences of a group of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) young people in Malta. The article draws on Goffman's concept of stigma and uses this to explore transitions in a society that retains some traditional characteristics, particularly the code of honour and shame, although mediated by aspects of modernity. Interviews were undertaken with 15 young people with the goal of producing narratives. The article analyses the experience of stigma, its effects and how young people manage its consequences. It concludes by drawing attention to the pervasive nature of stigma and the importance of structure, agency and reflexivity in youth transitions. In particular stigma remains an important feature of societies in which hetero-normative sexuality remains dominant

The transnational lives and third space subjectivities of British Nigerian girls

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in 2012 on British Nigerian young women who have gone to boarding school in Nigeria and returned to attend university in the UK, I use the concept of third space as a heuristic device for understanding their transnational subjectivities and practices. I argue that, for some, this third space is a transgressive one in which they can craft alternative subjectivities and narratives about African culture and political economy. Applying insights from decolonial theory, I seek to build on the transgressive nature of this third space. In positioning themselves variously as Londoners, Nigerians, dual and post‐nationals, they express key features of contemporary transnational European subjectivities. Yet, parental expectations that they marry Nigerians and members of the Nigerian diaspora serve to reproduce the racial distinctions and nationalist rhetoric of colonial modernity that their third space subjectivities contest

Precis of epistemic angst:Book Symposium: Duncan Pritchard, Epistemic Angst (Princeton University Press, 2015, xiii + 236 pages)

ABSTRACT This book symposium features three critical pieces dealing with Duncan Pritchard's book, 'Epistemic Angst'; the symposium also contains Pritchard's replies to his critics

Donna m'apparve

Irrazionali, emotive e passive, parlano e amano troppo, sono fedeli, disponibili al contatto umano, adatte ai compiti di cura ma non a quelli dirigenziali, non sono oggettive, non amano la matematica. Questi sono alcuni dei luoghi comuni e dei pregiudizi tipici della nostra societ\ue0, impiegati per esprimere l\u2019idea che le donne hanno attitudini diverse, e che pensano e agiscono in modo differente, dove diversit\ue0 \ue8 spesso sinonimo di inferiorit\ue0. La donna, insomma, in quanto incarnazione della soggettivit\ue0, non pu\uf2 conoscere e non pu\uf2 essere conosciuta. Partendo da tra prospettive \u2013 l\u2019identit\ue0 personale, i rapporti dell\u2019io con gli altri, il confronto dell\u2019io col mondo esterno \u2013 nel volume si dipanano diversi percorsi e scoperte, argomentati rigorosamente, alla luce di una domanda complessa: \ue8 possibile definire il concetto di \u201cdonna\u201d, oppure ogni definizione contiene in s\ue9 una normativit\ue0 di matrice negativa \u2013 in ogni caso, una normativit\ue0 che erroneamente presuppone, senza giustificazione, tesi essenzialiste. Le argomentazioni che si intrecciano nel volume restituiscono donne in tutta la loro individualit\ue0, donne lontane da stereotipi che risultano alla fine comodi alibi. Argomentazioni che fissano la centralit\ue0 di discipline che vanno dall\u2019ontologia all\u2019etica, dalla filosofia del linguaggio alla filosofia della scienza, dall\u2019epistemologia alla teoria della conoscenza. Il volume ha riscosso un buon successo e ricevuto ottime recensioni, contribuendo a mostrare quanto le diverse discipline risultino necessarie all\u2019analisi dei tanti problemi sollevati dal concetto \u201cdonna\u201d