Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
Using a critical feminist perspective, this article provides an ethnographic account of negotiations of gender relations, parenthood, and family in polyamorous relationships in the Netherlands. A conceptual framework is developed and employed to analyze the queering potentials of polyamory by looking at (1) a difference-oriented self, (2) expansion of political community, (3) deconstructions of gender, (4) enduring and unexpected care, and (5) an awareness of existence with people we do not know. Based on a thick description of everyday negotiations, it is argued that the categories of “gender,” “parent,” and “family” are mainly stretched and diffused rather than fundamentally disrupted.
Category Archives: Arts and Health
Consensually nonmonogamous parent relationships during COVID-19
Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents in consensually nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships navigated public health directives to social distance and avoid contact between households. Many parents practicing CNM share romantic, sexual, and coparenting relationships across households, and the pandemic introduced challenges and opportunities for innovation in maintaining connection. This qualitative study sought to explore the experiences, challenges, and adaptations of CNM parents, using survey and interview data from 70 US parents collected between May and December 2020. Thematic analysis highlighted that many parents spent less time with non-cohabiting partners and more time with cohabiting partners and children, but also adapted via creative strategies such as incorporating partners into a quarantine pod, inviting partners to move in, or connecting over technology. These data illuminate the diverse ways that CNM parents engaged in and “queered” family and partner relationships during the pandemic.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents in consensually nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships navigated public health directives to social distance and avoid contact between households. Many parents practicing CNM share romantic, sexual, and coparenting relationships across households, and the pandemic introduced challenges and opportunities for innovation in maintaining connection. This qualitative study sought to explore the experiences, challenges, and adaptations of CNM parents, using survey and interview data from 70 US parents collected between May and December 2020. Thematic analysis highlighted that many parents spent less time with non-cohabiting partners and more time with cohabiting partners and children, but also adapted via creative strategies such as incorporating partners into a quarantine pod, inviting partners to move in, or connecting over technology. These data illuminate the diverse ways that CNM parents engaged in and “queered” family and partner relationships during the pandemic.
Feminist ethicality in child-animal research: worlding through complex stories
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Making sense of ‘slippages’: re-evaluating ethics for digital research with children and young people
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On, to, with, for, by: ethics and children in research
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So you’re literally taking the piss?! Critically analysing and accounting for ethics (and risk) in interdisciplinary research on children and plastics
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Uncanny Babushka: Migration, aging and the search for a new sexual Self
Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
Geographical mobility may have a powerful influence on sexual change. The sexual dimension of migration has mostly been studied in reference to its role in shaping aspiration for mobility. It has been documented how the promise of an erotically desirable future plays often an important role in many migration subcultures. Mobility, moreover, has been recognized as one of the ways in which many types of sexual minorities have escaped repression or pursued greater autonomy. In this paper, we argue that the same phenomena may be observed in the migration of older people. For some mature persons, particularly women, migration provides an alternative to de-sexualization and stigmatization. In many of these cases, however, the subjective process of sexual change is triggered indirectly, and sometimes serendipitously, by the experience of geographical dislocation. In fact, the experience of re-sexualization may be utterly independent from any pre-emigration aspiration to change one’s sexual Self. The paper – on the basis of two longitudinal research projects on the women pioneers of the Eastern European migration to Italy – explores the role played in their settlement by the discovery that, in the new environment, their age did not disqualify them from romance. The different reactions to these opportunities have created a strong differentiation among migratory trajectories. For the women pioneers who have decided to explore it, this unexpected lovescape has made possible to draw some crucial social boundaries and to trigger the birth of a distinctive sexual field.
Geographical mobility may have a powerful influence on sexual change. The sexual dimension of migration has mostly been studied in reference to its role in shaping aspiration for mobility. It has been documented how the promise of an erotically desirable future plays often an important role in many migration subcultures. Mobility, moreover, has been recognized as one of the ways in which many types of sexual minorities have escaped repression or pursued greater autonomy. In this paper, we argue that the same phenomena may be observed in the migration of older people. For some mature persons, particularly women, migration provides an alternative to de-sexualization and stigmatization. In many of these cases, however, the subjective process of sexual change is triggered indirectly, and sometimes serendipitously, by the experience of geographical dislocation. In fact, the experience of re-sexualization may be utterly independent from any pre-emigration aspiration to change one’s sexual Self. The paper – on the basis of two longitudinal research projects on the women pioneers of the Eastern European migration to Italy – explores the role played in their settlement by the discovery that, in the new environment, their age did not disqualify them from romance. The different reactions to these opportunities have created a strong differentiation among migratory trajectories. For the women pioneers who have decided to explore it, this unexpected lovescape has made possible to draw some crucial social boundaries and to trigger the birth of a distinctive sexual field.
Trustee professionalism transformed: Recruiting committed professionals
Current Sociology, Ahead of Print.
This article explores how employing organizations articulate the competencies, values and personal qualities that they expect professionals to possess, and how they envision and appeal to certain professional identities when recruiting new employees. The article is prompted by the influential view put forth by sociologist Steven Brint, i.e. that professional work both consists of and is legitimized as specialized expertise. With the rise of large organizations, professionals no longer identify as the social trustees that the classical sociology of professions posited. If we accept Brint’s and others’ claims that management and organizations increasingly shape professionalism and professional work, it is crucial to understand what professionalism looks like from the employers’ points of view, and, more specifically, whether employers are interested in only expertise. This article explores these implications by analysing Norwegian job advertisements for engineers, trained social workers and registered nurses within both public and private employing organizations, i.e. professional spaces that Brint associates with expert professionalism and social trustee professionalism, respectively. The analysis reveals that public service and private commercial organizations alike appeal to social responsibility and personal commitment, which indicates the presence of persistent, albeit transformed, versions of trustee professionalism.
This article explores how employing organizations articulate the competencies, values and personal qualities that they expect professionals to possess, and how they envision and appeal to certain professional identities when recruiting new employees. The article is prompted by the influential view put forth by sociologist Steven Brint, i.e. that professional work both consists of and is legitimized as specialized expertise. With the rise of large organizations, professionals no longer identify as the social trustees that the classical sociology of professions posited. If we accept Brint’s and others’ claims that management and organizations increasingly shape professionalism and professional work, it is crucial to understand what professionalism looks like from the employers’ points of view, and, more specifically, whether employers are interested in only expertise. This article explores these implications by analysing Norwegian job advertisements for engineers, trained social workers and registered nurses within both public and private employing organizations, i.e. professional spaces that Brint associates with expert professionalism and social trustee professionalism, respectively. The analysis reveals that public service and private commercial organizations alike appeal to social responsibility and personal commitment, which indicates the presence of persistent, albeit transformed, versions of trustee professionalism.
RETRACTION NOTICE: The abject as mass entertainment: Micro-celebrities in China’s Kuaishou video-sharing app
Mobile Media &Communication, Ahead of Print.
Ageing/body/sex/work – Migrant women’s narratives of intimacy and ageing in commercial sex and elder care work
Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
This article analyses how sex and elder-care workers negotiate intimacy and ageing in their work. We find surprising similarities between sex and care work that derive from the ways in which Eastern European migrant women are sexualised in the sites of our studies: Italy and Finland. The bodywork and intimate labour conducted by the women is defined in part by the social status of their work in society, in part by the ageing bodies upon whom the work is done, and in part by the ways in which the bodies of the workers are gendered, sexualised and racialised. The article draws on interview and participant observation data collected during two ethnographic research projects with female migrants from post-socialist countries working as eldercare workers in Italy and in sex workers in Finland.
This article analyses how sex and elder-care workers negotiate intimacy and ageing in their work. We find surprising similarities between sex and care work that derive from the ways in which Eastern European migrant women are sexualised in the sites of our studies: Italy and Finland. The bodywork and intimate labour conducted by the women is defined in part by the social status of their work in society, in part by the ageing bodies upon whom the work is done, and in part by the ways in which the bodies of the workers are gendered, sexualised and racialised. The article draws on interview and participant observation data collected during two ethnographic research projects with female migrants from post-socialist countries working as eldercare workers in Italy and in sex workers in Finland.