The Body as Weapon: Bobby Sands and the Republican Hunger Strikes

The 1981 Hunger Strike marked an important point in the Northern Ireland conflict, shifting its focus away from city streets and country lanes into the H-Block prison. Here republican prisoners used their embodiment to resist and fight back at attempts to recast them as criminals as opposed to the soldiers they perceived themselves to be. Given the centrality of the body and embodiment in the prison struggle this paper will theorise the \'body-as-weapon\' as a modality of resistance. This will begin by interrogating key themes within the sociology of the body before discussing and dismissing an alternative explanation of the Hunger Strike: the actions of the hunger strikers standing in the traditions of heroic Gaelic myths and Catholic martyrdom. Finally, drawing from the sociology of the body, I will then proceed to discuss how the body and embodiment deployed in this manner can be effective, concentrating on how the \'body-as-weapon\': (i) acts as a resource for minority political groups; (ii) destabilises notions of the body in modernity and related to that point (iii) engages in a \'hidden\' impulse of modernity, that of self-sacrifice.Embodiment, Conflict, Modernity, Northern Ireland, Resistance

The Credit Crunch and the High Street: 'Coming Like a Ghost Town'

Drawing on primary visual data and secondary sources this rapid response piece speculates on the changes to the British high street as a consequence of the credit crunch. The changes are much more profound than simply the loss of a place to shop. For both individuals and wider society the changes to the British high street carry implications for issues of self-identity, social contacts and social exclusion.Credit Crunch, High Street, Visual Sociology, Urban, Consumerism, Social Exclusion

Is there a place for affect in studying alienation?

During the 1960s and 1970s alienation was, in the parlance of Nisbet (1966), one of the core units of sociological study. A quick trawl through the literature of the time easily identifies a burgeoning and expansive field that drew on material mainly from North America and Europe. Weighty philosophical tracts explored the theoretical dimensions of alienation in a capitalist society, while a raft of empirical work sought to investigate levels of alienation in workplaces and the wider society. From the 1980s onwards however interest in the concept of alienation waned for reasons external and internal to the academy. The decline of what can be seen as the wider Marxist project after the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Berlin Wall in the 1990s signalled closing time for those taking the writings of Marx as their reference point for alienation, whilst the linguistic turn ushered in by followers of the likes of Foucault and Derrida witnessed a rejection of many ideas – and not just alienation – that had been a core part of the sociological tradition prior to the 1980s

The use of abduction in alienation research: a rationale and a worked example.

Abduction as a form of inference is recommended as a means of analysis within theory-driven research. Its capacity to provide creative (re)interpretations of data that add to a theory allowing it to become a growing dynamic and nuanced body of thought is highly appealing. For Marxist research into alienation, abduction has that advantage but also assists in overcoming one of the central problems that hinder the theory's development and use in the 1960s and 1970s: the inability to productively articulate theoretical insights with empirical findings. What abduction involves as a form of analysis is laid out here before proceeding to discuss in greater depth its utility for research into alienation and the laying out of a worked example of how abduction was applied in an actual instance of research. A way forward for research driven by alienation theory is therefore established which could lead to wider re-engagement with what should be a core concern of sociology

The North Laine: a visual essay.

The North Laine in Brighton provides a useful case study in exploring different ways of experiencing and imagining urban life. The area possess many distinctive street forms and supports counter-cultural lifestyles, which emphasise environmentalism and alternative forms of capitalism, such as cooperative and collective organisation of the workplace. Drawing on the ideas and theories of Henri Lefebvre the essay focuses on (1) the various social and historical process that have conditioned and influenced the development of the area and (2) the various social power relations that have both sustained the area, allowing it to develop into its current format, and in turn question its future. A visual methodological approach is used to present the data and to convey the distinctive aesthetic of The North Laine

The digital health and wellbeing needs, or otherwise, of a deprived Scottish community.

Healthcare is becoming increasingly digitised. Access and usage of digital health technologies however is unequal in deprived communities. Despite this disparity, research remains silent on digital health and health inequalities. The present study investigates the health and well-being needs of a deprived community and how digital health technologies could be implemented to meet those needs. An interpretative, qualitative approach was adopted. 18 residents from the deprived community of Raploch, Stirling were recruited. Participants were split into two age cohorts 26-49 (N=4) and 50+ years of age (N=14). Three focus group discussions and a semi-structured interview were used to explore the digital health needs of the residents using open-ended questions. The findings revealed that there are multitude of accessibility relations that influenced the everyday experience of the residents. The complex assemblage of relations must be understood and addressed if digital health interventions are to be successfully implemented into a deprived community

Paperwork, compassion and temporal conflicts in British social work.

While previous literature has examined time discourses in social work and demonstrated that social work is predicated on linear understandings of time, one area that has received little theoretical and empirical attention in the literature on time and social work is what effects various social work temporalities exert on the lifeworld of social workers and how they shape their working days. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with British social workers and employs an abductive approach to data analysis. By analysing the participants' experiences of time and work, the article identifies two temporalities that exist in social work practice, paperwork time and compassionate time. Paperwork time is linear, instantaneous and accelerated, requiring social workers to juggle multiple competing demands and needs. Compassionate time is more developmental and cyclical and requires slower engagement. The paper then discusses how social workers negotiated these contradictory temporalities and highlights the potentially negative effects of temporal conflicts on people's health, well-being and on social work practice at large

Canadian cities: climate change action and plans

The individual and collective decarbonization pathways of 26 Canadian cities are assessed by evaluating data gathered from the implementation of a unique energy model, CityinSight. Although many cities in Canada have declared a climate emergency and plans are at various stages of implementation, development path change is mostly incremental. They are at the very beginning of transforming development paths that necessitate climate action planning which embraces a systems perspective and whole-city planning. The present data reveal that there are very different starting points for Canadian cities, and considerable asymmetries between municipalities, as well as the collective impact of their plans on national targets. The latency of municipalities for on-the-ground implementation of their plans means that ongoing assessments will be required to determine the impact of efforts by cities to achieve their targets. 'Policy relevance' Cities are on the front line of implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation. Many climate researchers and practitioners have called for fundamental change and new governance arrangements to achieve even a 2°C limit to rising global temperatures. At the same time, researchers argue that Canadian cities do not have the ability to raise revenue other than through continuous development: an incentive therefore exists to keep ‘growing’ regardless of other sustainable imperatives. Transformational change is required through policy instruments and more appropriate incentives harmonized across macro-, meso-, and microlevels to create carbon-neutral development paths in the next decade. Policy harmonization, coherence, and alignment are necessary and sufficient conditions for meeting the international commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This also requires action at multiple scales with multilevel partnerships and unprecedented degrees of government collaboration and leadership

The emotional well-being of young people: a review of the literature.

Suicide is increasingly described by governments and policy-makers as a global public health problem. Between 1950 and 1995 global suicide rates have increased by 60%. In recent years concerns have been expressed in Scotland and the UK about rising suicide rates amongst children and young people and the accumulation of increasing evidence that the adoption of negative coping strategies is contributing to rising levels of deliberate self harm (DSH).This literature review was in part used and incorporated into chapter two of the final report, The emotional wellbeing of young people: final report of phase one of a 'Choose Life' research project in Aberdeenshire (March 2004-March 2007), which can be found at http://hdl.handle.net/10059/439

Landscape and well-being: A conceptual framework and an example

This article explores why landscape is a crucial element in researching the relationship between environment and well-being. The main point we make is that human social agents are embedded in particular landscapes, and it is in landscapes that environmental changes are experienced, which can have implications for well-being. We draw from a variety of perspectives on landscape that understands a fundamental creative relation between humans and landscape and recent developments in neo-materialism theorising. Landscape is understood here as an assemblage of different forms of matter, animate and inanimate objects, as well as symbolic and cultural processes. A case study is also presented to indicate how landscape can be studied in relation to environment and change. Using the conceptual ideas laid out in the first section of the article, we analyse landscape, environment and well-being in Xuan Thuy National Park in North Vietnam. The area is part of a precarious coastal region where extreme weather events have impacted on the well-being of both humans and other matter. This article concludes with suggestions on the use of this landscape approach in researching environment and well-being