The fall of kinship - towards an epidemiological explanation

Kinship used to be described as what anthropologists do. Today, many might well say that it is what anthropologists do not do. One possible explanation is that the notion of kinship fell off anthropology's radar due to the criticisms raised by Needham and Schneider among others, which supposedly demonstrated that kinship is not a sound theoretical concept. Drawing inspiration from epidemiological approaches to cultural phenomena, this article aims to enrich this explanation. Kinship became an unattractive theoretical concept in the subculture of anthropology not simply because of problems with kinship theory per se, but also on account of fundamental changes in the very conception of anthropological knowledge and the impact of these changes on the personal identity of anthropologists.

Disabled Children Negotiating School Life: Agency, Difference and Teaching Practice

This paper explores the school experiences of seven 11–14 year old disabled children, and focuses on their agency as they negotiated a complex, changing, and often challenging social world at school where “difference” was experienced in negative ways. The paper draws on ethnographic data from a wider three-year study that explores the influence of school experiences on both disabled and non-disabled children’s identity as they make the transition from primary to secondary school in regular New Zealand schools (although the focus of the present paper is only on the experiences of disabled children). The wider study considers how Maori (indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand) and Pakeha (New Zealanders of NZ European descent) disabled children and their non- disabled matched peers (matched for age, gender and classroom) understand their personal identity, and how factors relating to transition (from primary to secondary school); culture; impairment (in the case of disabled children); social relationships; and school experience impact on children’s identities. Data on Maori children’s school experiences is currently being collected, and is not yet available for inclusion in this paper. On the basis of our observations in schools we will illustrate how disabled children felt and were made to feel different through an array of structural barriers such as separate provision for disabled students, and peer and teacher attitudes to diversity. However, we agree with Davis, Watson, Shakespeare and Corker’s (2003) interpretation that disabled children’s rights and participation at school are also under attack from a “deeper cultural division” (p. 205) in schools based on discourses of difference and normality. While disabled students in our study were trying to actively construct and shape their social and educational worlds, our data also show that teachers and peers have the capacity to either support or supplant these attempts to be part of the group of “all children”. We suggest that finding solutions that support disabled children’s full inclusion and participation at school requires a multi-faceted and systemic approach focused on a pedagogy for diverse learners, and on a consistent and explicitly inclusive policy framework centred on children’s rights.

Masks as self-study. Challenging and sustaining teachers’ personal and professional personae in early–mid career life phases

Drawing on previous research identifying how teachers’ capacities to sustain their effectiveness in different phases of their professional lives are affected positively and/or negatively by their sense of identity, this paper illuminates three early–mid career teachers’ self-study inquiries, centring on mask work. The creative development of individual masks discloses teachers’ complex, occasionally
dislocated narratives of personal/professional identity. Subsequent improvisation with their masks is shown to engage teachers emotionally with tensions and dissonances within and between their various personae and personal, professional and political contexts at each of their respective career life phases. Storylines ultimately become reframed and, in a number of instances, lay claim to reinvigorated commitment, self-determination and initiatives for change.

Attitudes, norms, identity and environmental behaviour: Using an expanded theory of planned behaviour to predict participation in a kerbside recycling programme

In an effort to contribute to greater understanding of norms and identity in the theory of planned behaviour, an extended model was used to predict residential kerbside recycling, with self-identity, personal norms, neighbourhood identification, and injunctive and descriptive social norms as additional predictors. Data from a field study (N = 527) using questionnaire measures of predictor variables and an observational measure of recycling behaviour supported the theory. Intentions predicted behaviour, while attitudes, perceived control, and the personal norm predicted intention to recycle. The interaction between neighbourhood identification and injunctive social norms in turn predicted personal norms. Self-identity and the descriptive social norm significantly added to the original theory in predicting intentions as well as behaviour directly. A replication survey on the self-reported recycling behaviours of a random residential sample (N = 264) supported the model obtained previously. These findings offer a useful extension of the theory of planned behaviour and some practicable suggestions for pro-recycling interventions. It may be productive to appeal to self-identity by making people feel like recyclers, and to stimulate both injunctive and descriptive norms in the neighbourhood.

Autopoiesis and the Home Confined Consumer: The Role of Personal Communities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the consumption of a personal community and its role in the everyday life of the home-confined consumer. Design/methodology/approach – Using a Radical Constructivist approach, three cases of home confinement were explored in depth over a period of two years. Ongoing “conversations” captured the consumption experiences with personal communities. Findings – In relation to the home-confined context, the ability to attain individuality, empowerment and creativity are all heightened as a result of personal community construction. An underlying concern for home-confined consumers is their removal from independent living to institutionalized living, and, as a result the need to construct, manage and maintain a personal community is of major concern. Research limitations/implications – Although the study addresses a home-confined context, it is nevertheless reflective of concerns that are significant to all consumers, namely the attainment of individuality and independence irrespective of marginalization or not. Practical implications – The importance of a personal community in terms of both self-empowerment and self-identity with respect to marginalized groups and vulnerable individuals should not be underestimated. The supporting role of a personal community provides, in times of uncertainty, a framework to maintain self-identity and independence. Originality/value – This paper provides a better understanding of the role of a personal community in the consumption experiences of those consumers marginalized and vulnerable as a consequence of context. Home-confined consumers are “invisible” in the marketplace and the personal community is a means of redressing this imbalance by empowering such individuals.

Home Confined Consumers’ Freedom through Surrogate Activities: the Role of Personal Communities

This article explores the nature of surrogate consumption activity with three cases of non-institutionalised home confined consumers. The role played by personal communities in their daily lives is explored from the constrained rural contexts in which they consume. Despite the barriers to achieving normalcy in the marketplace, home confined consumers are able to realise freedom and agency, and express identity through engagement in surrogate consumption activity. Surrogate consumption activity also provides home confined consumers with opportunities to reinforce and challenge traditional family practices (discourses of care) through the ability for relationship culture development and social capital creation. Findings in this study show that home confined consumers, labeled as 'limited-choice' (Gabel, 2005) have the ability to display power, make choices, and find their voice despite non-interaction in the marketplace.

Autobiography and Invention: Towards a Critical Understanding of Identity, Dialogue and Resistance in Improvised Musics

In this article I will argue that acts of improvisation are not productively understood in opposition to other practices which form our wider musical culture. Improvisation might be better understood as both rooted in, but not limited by, personal and cultural memory. Improvisational activities are legible to the performer and audience through a shared understanding of social norms, but only become a singular instance of improvisation through unique performative actions. This tension between experience and invention is played out in a dialogue between performer and listener, demanding a response that crucially takes the form of self-articulation, or autobiography. Finally, I contend that it is from this position that improvisation offers the possibility to transgress established personal and cultural identities.

The Role of Identity in Adjustment among Survivors of Oesophageal Cancer.

The study sought to contextualize the physical, social and emotional adjustments that are faced by oesophageal cancer patients following surgery. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five survivors, guided by the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Participants’ accounts encompassed descriptions of personal, social and medical relationships, illness and treatment experiences, eating behaviours, and spiritual and religious perspectives, representing myriad challenges to the self-concept. Surviving patients may have a role in addressing patient expectations about eating. The importance of attempts to nurture and maintain a sense of self should be recognized by those providing care.

Effects of the Interaction Between Reaction Component of Personal Need for Structure and Role Perceptions on Employee Attitudes in Long-Term Care for Elderly People

This study examined the interaction of reaction component of personal need for structure (reaction to lack of structure, RLS) and role perceptions in predicting job satisfaction, job involvement, affective commitment, and occupational identity among employees working in long-term care for elderly people. High-RLS employees experienced more role conflict, had less job satisfaction, and experienced lower levels of occupational identity than did low-RLS employees. We found individual differences in how problems in roles affected employees' job attitudes. High-RLS employees experienced lower levels of job satisfaction, job involvement, and affective commitment, irrespective of role-conflict levels. Low-RLS employees experienced detrimental job attitudes only if role-conflict levels were high. Our results suggest that high-RLS people benefit less from low levels of experienced role conflicts.

National identity in a foreign context: Irish women accounting for their children’s national identity in England

Social psychologists have attempted to capture the ideological quality of the nation through a consideration of its taken-for-granted quality, whereby it forms an unnoticed ‘banal’ background to everyday life and is passively absorbed by its members in contrast to its ‘hot’, politically created and contested nature. Accordingly, national identity is assumed to be both passively absorbed from the national backdrop and actively acquired through national inculcation. This raises the question of how national identity is expressed, transmitted and acquired in a foreign context, where the banal national backdrop is unavailable to scaffold identity and the national resources for identity transmission may be unavailable. The present article addresses this gap by examining the situation of Irish women raising children in England. Critical discursive analyses of the 16 interviews revealed that all women treated their children’s national identity and the issue of transmitting identity as dilemmatic: passive transmission risks children passively absorbing English, but active transmission contravenes the assumed naturalness of national identity and can furthermore conflict with children’s own personal choice. These results point to the complex interaction between the management of national identity and the broader personal and national context within which this occurs.

When terror hits home: Identity Fused Americans who saw Boston bombing victims as “family” provided aid

When tragedy strikes a group, only some group members characteristically rush to the aid of the victims. What motivates the altruism of these exceptional individuals? Here, we provide one set of answers based on data collected before and shortly after the 15 April 2013, Boston Marathon bombings. The results of three studies indicated that Americans who were strongly “fused” with their country were especially inclined to provide various forms of support to the bombing victims. Moreover, the degree to which participants reported perceiving fellow Americans as psychological kin statistically mediated links between fusion and pro-group outcomes. Together, these findings shed new light on relationships between personal and group identity, cognitive representations of group members, and personally costly, pro-group actions.