Ethnicity and the prostate cancer experience: a qualitative metasynthesis

Routledge International Handbook of Rural Studies.:Understanding the association between rural ethnicity and inequalities

Rural areas are facing demographic transformation. Some localities have experienced significant levels of (internal and international) immigration in recent decades. In other rural places, a shifting minority: majority ratio (arising mainly from increased minority fertility and decreases in the majority population) is altering the rural landscape. It is this context of increasingly diverse rural societies that frames this chapter. It begins by examining inequalities arising from ethnicity in a rural context. The review proceeds by identifying how different factors, including recent patterns of international migration and historical legacies of ethnic diversity, intertwine to produce multi-cultural rural areas. First of all an overview of the significance of the ‘ethnic’ label is presented, recognizing its limitations and also its usefulness. Having established this context the chapter proceeds by highlighting the way in which rural ethnic inequalities are measured and also the particular challenges of measuring rural poverty. The processes that produce inequalities among ethnic groups are examined, with particular attention on migration and space and place, but mindful of historical legacies along with economic transformations and associated recent migration patterns. Finally, the conclusion of the chapter highlights gaps and identifies areas for future research agendas.

Ethnicity and the prostate cancer experience: a qualitative metasynthesis

Objectives: To summarise black and minority ethnic (BME) patients' and partners
experiences of prostate cancer (PCa) by examining the findings of existing qualitative studies
Methods:
We undertook a systematic metasynthesis of qualitative studies using a modified version of
Noblit and Hare's 'meta-ethnography' approach, with a 2000-2015 search of seven databases.
Results: Thirteen studies of men from US and UK BME groups were included. We explored
constructs with BME-specific features. Healthcare provider relationships, formation of a
spiritual alliance with God (which enhanced the participants’ feeling of empowerment and
ability to cope with the cancer) and living on for others (generally to increase cancer
awareness), often connected to spiritual regrowth, were the three constructs most commonly
reported. A magnified effect from erectile dysfunction was also common. Initially this
affected men’s disclosure to others about their cancer and their sexual problems, but
eventually men responded by shifting their conceptualisations of masculinity to sustain self
and social identities. There was also evidence of inequality resulting from financial
constraints and adversity that necessitated resilience in coping.
Conclusions: The prostate cancer experience of BME men and their partners is affected by a
complex intersection of ethnicity with other factors. Healthcare services should acknowledge
this. If providers recognise the men’s felt masculinities, social identities and spiritual beliefs
and their shifting nature, services could be improved, with community as well as individual
benefits. More studies are needed in diverse ethnic groups

The Adequacy of Traveller Education in Northern Ireland

The issues facing Travellers, including those associated with education are often linked to social exclusion, widespread disadvantage and discrimination (Reynolds, McCartan, and Knipe 2003




). The Office for Standards in Education (Office for Standards in Education 1999




) referred to Gypsy Traveller pupils as ‘the most at risk in the education system.’ Within this article issues pertaining to Traveller education are discussed and in particular accessing education provision in Northern Ireland. The article focuses on the views of the statutory and voluntary sector to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of educational provision for Traveller children and young people and reviews the policies in place relating to the provision of education for Travellers in Northern Ireland. It also considers the issue of segregated education for the Traveller community and how for some this segregation can exacerbate social exclusion, disadvantage and discrimination.

Renaissance Humanism and Ethnicity before Race:The Irish and the English in the Seventeenth Century

Inspired both by debates about the origins of the modern ideology of race and also by controversy over the place of Ireland and the Irish in theories of empire in the early modern Atlantic world, Renaissance Humanism and Ethnicity before Race argues that ethnic discourse among the elite in early modern Ireland was grounded firmly in the Renaissance Humanism and Aristotelianism which dominated all the European universities before the Enlightenment. Irish and English, Catholic and Protestant, all employed theories of human society based on Aristotle’s Politics and the natural law of the medieval universities to construct or dismantle the categories of civility and barbarism. The elites operating in Ireland also shared common resources, taught in the universities, for arguing about the human body and its ability to transmit hereditary characteristics. Both in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, these theories of human society and the human body underwent violent changes in the late seventeenth century under the impact of the early Enlightenment. These changes were vital to the development of race as we know it.

‘Do you want to see my hornpipe?’: the traditional Irish dancing body at play in the work of Jean Butler and Colin Dunne’, in Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp.41-65.

This chapter considers the radical reimaginings of traditional Irish step dance in the recent works of Jean Butler and Colin Dunne, in which the Irish step-dancing body is separated from its historical roots in nationalism, from the exhibitionism required by the competitive form, and from the spectacularization of the commercialized theatrical format. In these works the traditional form undergoes a critical interrogation in which the dancers attempt to depart from the determinacy of the traditional technique, while acknowledging its formation of their corporealities; the Irish step-dance technique becomes a springboard for creative experimentation. To consider the importance of the creative potential revealed by these works, this chapter contextualizes them within the dance background from which they emerged, outlining the history of competitive step dancing in Ireland, the “modernization” of traditional Irish dance with the emergence of Riverdance (1994), and the experiments of Ireland’s national folk theater, Siamsa Tíre.