Individual choices? Bioscience, culture and society as approaches to genes, eating and health

This paper presents the background and a plan for an interdisciplinary study that aims at examining the practices of eating as an entanglement of biology, culture and society all together. Our interest is on genes not only as a biological fact but also as a scientific discovery that increasingly shapes our understanding of the interconnections between genotype, eating patterns and health. Genetics is assumed to bear a growing role in the self-understanding and eating practices of future consumers. In this paper, we first highlight the basic assumptions on the role of the social and the individual in theory of practices, food-relating taste psychogenomics, and cultural studies

‘Somebody should have asked me…’ Young people in care and information-sharing practice

"Information sharing is an essential element of integrated working, because otherwise children and young people’s stories have to be told over and over again and their support needs can go unmet. Traditionally, young people in the care of the Local Authority may be very used to professionals discussing their needs at Social Care meetings including ‘Reviews’ of their care plans and other gatherings of the practitioners working with them. What this project seeks to explore is how young people themselves are engaged in consenting to that process. This research was undertaken between October 2009 and February 2010 by a foster carer who also manages a youth work project in the voluntary sector working with young people in and leaving care." - Page 4

Desire to belong : contesting the view of Irish travellers as Deleuzian and Guattarian nomads

In my thesis I have discussed whether Irish Travellers could be considered to be Nomads in a way that French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari have developed the concept. Nomads in this context challenge and object the normative order set by the state and the mainstream society. My research is constructed around the concept of ethnicity and namely what Irish Travellers hope to gain with the ethnic status and how this relates to the ways how Travellers are controlled by the state. As a primary material I have used a report made by a Traveller support group which discusses the challenges which Irish Travellers are facing in today’s Ireland and as a method I have used critical discourse analysis. In my thesis I have discussed how physical nomadism plays a key role constructing Traveller identity and how physical nomadism relates to Deleuze's and Guattari's ideas about Nomadism. According to my findings Irish Travellers have a strong desire to be accepted by the mainstream society and to have an access to the resources controlled by the state. Irish Travellers want to be a part of the mainstream society hence keeping their own culture and be a part of the political process of the state. In the main chapters of my thesis I employ also other Deleuzian and Guattarian concepts like Faciality, Minority and Becoming in order to outline Travellers' relationship to Nomadism. The conclusion in my thesis is that Irish Travellers cannot be considered Deleuzian and Guattarian Nomads. I have based this argument on my findings that according to my primary material Travellers have a strong desire to be included to the structures of the state and be respected by the main society. These require that Irish Travellers follow the rules set by the state and the mainstream society. There is however a possibility for Travellers to change the system in the context of becoming; by challenging the normative order by entering the state structures and the mainstream society

What Would It Take to Feel Safe?

What would it take to make people feel safe? What message will those who would wage peace offer to this beleaguered planet? There is indeed a threat. I will call that threat terrorist fascism because that is what it is. It thwarts human beings in pursuit of the most basic need identified by psychologists: The need to feel their bodies are safe. This threat is horrible indeed, and the road to ending it is long and hard. I do not know all we need to do to end terrorist fascism, but what I know of history tells me that militarism is less the answer to, than the fellow traveler of, fascists. Nothing will make us safe other than what democracy commands: Ask hard questions, consider all voices as we face this current threat. I often wonder, Could we do a better job in fighting terrorism if we had Arabic-speaking Muslim citizens in the FBI? If we knew more about Arab Americans, could we come up with more effective tactics than racial profiling and mass detentions to get the information we need to make us safe

Prairie Surreal--A Digital-Poetic Road Trip

Poetry by Mari-Lou Rowle