Journal articles: 'Same-gendered families' – Grafiati (2024)

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This article explores the ways in which Chinese lesbians, who identify themselves as lalas, form their own families and navigate their relationships with families of origin. To date, there is a lack of research on families formed by same-sex couples in urban China, where hom*osexuality remains stigmatized. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 35 lala-identified women in Beijing, this article shows that lalas’ formation of families has been shaped by, but at the same time shaping, their relationships with their families of origin, who tend to embrace heteronormative family beliefs. Engaging with ongoing debates on choice and individualization, this study reveals the tensions between lalas’ family aspirations and gendered, familial, material, and socio-political constraints imposed on female-led same-sex families. It contributes to sociological understanding of family change by revealing alternative paths to same-sex family formation in a context where the act of coming out is challenging and families formed by same-sex couples remain largely invisible.

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Abstract This ethnographic case study illustrates how same-gendered biracial parents raising a transgender teen manage challenges interacting with transgender pediatric and adolescent health care settings. Their experiences show that obtaining puberty blocking hormones in elite medical settings systematically alienates transgender teens and their multi-marginalized families who lack White, heteronormative, and socioeconomic privilege. In this particular case, the dependence on low-cost State-sponsored medical coverage of puberty blocking hormones and the need to live near expensive “diverse” neighborhoods and “tolerant” schools takes away the families' choice of employment, career advancement, and geographic location. The cultural norms based on assumed cultural similarity that inform the current medical model in transgender adolescent health care thus do not take into account the burdens of multi-minority stressors for queer, poor families of color.

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Guided by contemporary feminist revisions of individual theories on adolescent development, interviews with 142 parent dyads were conducted to better understand the variation in mothers' and fathers' perceptions of changes and continuities in their relationships with their firstborn young adult sons and daughters. A between-families content analysis of parents' responses revealed that the most salient issues were firstborns' independence, contact and time spent together, and role patterns. Several gendered patterns emerged, suggesting that mothers and fathers might differentially relate to their daughters and sons. However, a within-family analysis of parental dyads' responses challenges previously held beliefs about gender differences and suggests few gendered differences emerge when considering responses from both parents within the same family. Implications for future research on parent—child relationships are discussed.

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Women have been instrumental to the Palestinian liberation struggle from its inception, and the role they have played in political, civil, and armed resistance has been as critical, if not as visible, as that of their male counterparts. In addition to experiencing the same forms of repression as men, be it arrest, indefinite detention, or incarceration, Palestinian women have also been subjected to sexual violence and other gendered forms of coercion at the hands of the Israeli occupation regime. Drawing on testimonies from former and current female prisoners, this paper details Israel's incarceration policies and examines their consequences for Palestinian women and their families. It argues that Israel uses the incarceration of women as a weapon to undermine Palestinian resistance and to fracture traditionally cohesive social relations; and more specifically, that the prison authorities subject female prisoners to sexual and gender-based violence as a psychological weapon to break them and, by extension, their children.

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The article analyzes Chechen women's everyday experiences of war and violence and outlines their multiple effects on women's roles and identities. Particular attention is paid to how these effects are shaped by generational differences. The study is based on 35 oral history interviews with Chechen women in Austria, Germany, and Poland. The experience of two Russo–Chechen wars reinforced domesticated forms of femininity. It also exposed women to intensified nonmilitary forms of gendered violence. At the same time, some of the traditional roles were transformed, for example, when women became the main breadwinners for their families. Women's heightened realization of their importance in securing the well-being of their families and communities empowered them and created a sense of solidarity and responsibility reaching beyond their households. This has generated a level of insecurity among some sections of Chechen society and the Moscow-backed Chechen administration of Ramzan Kadyrov puts considerable effort in instructing women about their “proper place.” In exile, women's ability to continue fulfilling their gendered responsibilities in a new environment serves as an important coping mechanism. Different generations of women adopt distinct adaptation strategies that relate to their roles during the war as well as to the conditions of their socialization.

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The essay explores the historical colonial legacies of prostitution, sexual and gendered violence. It draws parallels with new forms of colonialism by mining, timber, oil, and other extractive industries that destroy families and eco-systems at the same time. It connects how violence is deliberately engendered to destroy and colonize whole communities and societies. The essay attempts to show that sexual violence and structural violence are interlinked and that to undo the systems of structural violence, women and men will have to confront the sexual violence in their lives as individuals, as collectives and in systems.

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ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of kinship in the Swedish tobacco industry of 1898, making use of rich data that cover the entire industry and include both men and women. The focus is on the role of families in labour recruitment, which is often claimed to have been important. In this case, however, it was not the norm to have a father in the same industry. Occupational following was clearly a gendered phenomenon. To follow in the footsteps of fathers was more common among young men than among other groups of workers, and occupational following was associated with higher earnings for male but not for female workers.

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Abstract This article analyzes ways that legal and social understandings of kinship intersect for Taiwanese queer parents and prospective parents. Parents in this research experience varying degrees of legal and cultural intelligibility within the existing household registration system and the familial contexts in which they reside and carry out their daily lives. Many are rearing children in multigenerational, extended family households and are juggling a variety of gendered family roles and responsibilities that shape their parenting practices. Their experiences highlight the limits of rights discourses that treat marriage and parenthood as largely class- and gender-neutral institutions and presuppose a nuclear family model. Such uncritical approaches to marriage and parenthood leave the normative power of these systems intact even as they provisionally open to greater numbers of people. The article foregrounds pathways to parenthood and struggles for legal recognition among queers in a variety of family arrangements, including those that do not fit within the conventional representation of a cohabiting and marriage-desiring same-sex couple with children.

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This article focuses on male same-sex couples who fulfil their wish for a child through gestational surrogacy. As two-father families they must engage with society’s expectation that every child has both a mother and a father. Thus, the position of the mother must be filled, or at least accounted for. The empirical data derive from interviews with male samesex couples from Germany. Following the grounded theory approach, we analyse the couples’ ‘doing (being) family’ from two perspectives. First, we discuss how family roles are negotiated within the family formation process. The fathers employ different strategies to address the issue of the ‘absent mother’. Second, we examine how the couples draw boundaries in family formation processes to ensure that they are seen as the child’s only parents. We argue that social discourses lack broader definitions of (family) relations beyond the gendered categorizations of father and mother.

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AbstractIn the flow of the material, cultural and moral influences shaping contemporary Chinese society, individual desires for emotional communication are reconstituting the meaning of the subject, self and responsibility. This article draws on fieldwork conducted in Beijing between 2000 and 2004 to discuss the gendered dimensions of this process through an analysis of the implications of the “communicative intimacy” sought by mothers and daughters in their mutual relationship. What could be termed a “feminization of intimacy” is the effect of two distinct but linked processes: on the one hand, a market-supported naturalization of women's roles, and on the other, the changing subjective articulation of women's needs, desires and expectations of family and personal relationships. I argue that across these two processes, the celebration of a communicative intimacy does not signify the emergence of more equal family or gender relationships, as recent theories about the individualization and cultural democratization of daily life in Western societies have argued. As families and kin groups, communities and neighbourhoods are physically, spatially and socially broken up, and as gender differences in employment and income increase, media and “expert” encouragement to mothers to become the all-round confidantes, educators and moral guides of their children affirms women's responsibilities in the domestic sphere. Expectations of mother–daughter communication reshape the meaning – and experience – of the individual subject in the changing character of the urban family at the same time as they reinforce ideas about women's gendered attributes and the responsibilities associated with them.

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Purpose This study examined the utility of the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) recording system for investigating the language input to bilingual infants. Method Twenty-one French–English bilingual families with a 10-month-old infant participated in this study. Using the LENA recording system, each family contributed 3 full days of recordings within a 1-month period. A portion of these recordings (945 minutes) were manually transcribed, and the word counts from these transcriptions were compared against the LENA-generated adult word counts. Results Data analyses reveal that the LENA algorithms were reliable in counting words in both Canadian English and Canadian French, even when both languages are present in the same recording. While the LENA system tended to underestimate the amount of speech in the recordings, there was a strong correlation between the LENA-generated and human-transcribed adult word counts for each language. Importantly, this relationship holds when accounting for different-gendered and different-accented speech. Conclusions The LENA recording system is a reliable tool for estimating word counts, even for bilingual input. Special considerations and limitations for using the LENA recording system in a bilingual population are discussed. These results open up possibilities for investigating caregiver talk to bilingual infants in more detail.

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Abstract This paper focuses on gender influences on life space mobility based on distance from home traveled by elderly retirees. Consideration of life space travel offers a window into environmental autonomy and complexity in late life. The gendered nature of time use and social networks have been primarily studied in younger age groups. Our sample included 437 older adults (mean age 83 for both men and women) living in a large Florida retirement community that offered no services. Mean age was 83 for both men and women. Fewer (37.6%) women than men (69.7%) were married and more men drove a car (83% vs 63%).Women reported poorer subjective health and had more IADL limitations. Compared to women, men were significantly more likely to travel long distances. Women’s weekly and monthly travel tended to be local, limited to their neighborhood. On average, respondents of both genders visited their families and friends out of town every month. Better health, current driving and volunteering were related to longer driving distances for both genders, but these advantages were no longer significant after controlling for demographic characteristics. Our findings underscore the complex relationships between gender and life space travel in late life. Even among elderly men and women of the same age better health and driving resources contribute to larger life space for elderly men.

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Prior studies of assortative mating have shown that people tend to marry someone of the same educational level, but why individuals value a mate’s education and the process of mate selection itself remain a black box in predominantly quantitative studies. With online dating’s growing popularity, research needs to examine how online daters navigate dating markets given educational preferences they hold and “freedom of choice” offered by technologies. This study aims to investigate individuals’ educational preferences and how educational preferences shape mate selection processes in online dating. In-depth interviews were conducted with 29 university-educated, heterosexual online daters (13 men, 16 women) in Shanghai. Data were analyzed through a combination of abductive and inductive coding strategies. Results showed that both educational levels and university prestige were primary mate selection criteria in online dating. Both genders considered educational sorting essential for achieving cultural matching, but only men emphasized the importance of spouse’s education for their future children’s education. Furthermore, guided by their educational preferences, online daters deliberately chose dating platforms and screened dating candidates. We argue that online daters’ emphasis on university prestige is rooted in China’s hierarchical higher education system, and gendered rationales for educational preferences stem from ingrained gender roles in Chinese families. Seemingly “personal” preferences are therefore shaped by cultural norms and institutional contexts. Moreover, results suggest that online dating may reinforce social closure among China’s educational elites.

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Although the number of women teachers is increasing in primary schools, the profession is often devalued considering social prestige and remuneration. This review article thus aims to explore the ways in which existing structures of the state, markets, and families in Bangladesh are leading to feminize primary school teaching. By adopting a gender lens, this study is mainly supported by kinds of literature, policy documents, and guidelines were ‘teaching as a feminized profession’ has been conceptualized in a global-local context. The study argues that states’ existing policies regarding primary school teaching is politicized in a way that it encourages women and devalues the profession at the same time. This critical descriptive review reveals how income status within the home can shape masculine and feminine work experiences and how the whole process of teaching gets cheaper with the presupposed gender-roles. The household ideology within patriarchal structures encourages women to pursue this profession which provides them enough time to take care of the family. Finally, the societal fabrics of the market and heteronormative ideas of family are found as intertwined with the state’s intervention to feminize primary school teaching. This study would therefore hopefully lead to change gendered mindsets of not only the policymakers but also of both the men and women themselves who should pursue primary teaching as a profession where they genuinely can contribute regardless of their gender-roles.

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Purpose As migration of family members becomes an omnipresent phenomenon, the conventional norm of having a family and living under the same roof together is far from normal for many households. It produces transnational practices and multisite lifestyle configurations. This study aims to explore the implication of maternal absence as a result of transnational labour migration on the left-behind child in the context of transnational labour migration from Ethiopia. Design/methodology/approach It focusses on the perspective of those who stayed behind. The ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in two rural villages – Bulebullo and Bokekesa – of Worebabbo district in Northern Ethiopia. It involved in-depth interviews with children and their caregivers supported by interviews and group discussions with members of the community, local officials and traditional leaders. Findings Transnational mothering and other mothering emerge as new practices of mothering in the rural villages due to maternal absence have interrelated implications and meanings for the left-behind child. However, the rigidity of sending societies’ norms related to mothering and gendered labour dynamics exacerbated the negative implications of maternal absence on left-behind children. The absence of the fathers’ effort to redefine mothering or fathering by providing childcare is part of the equation in the relationship between maternal absence and left-behind children. Originality/value The findings of this study refute the notion that labels mother’s out-migration as “abandoning children”, “disrupting families” and “acts of selfishness”.

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This study investigates how gender-role values of Turkish-German adolescents are shaped by intergenerational as well as intercultural relations. As part of a major survey of migrant families in Germany (Nauck, 2000), Turkish same-sex parent-child dyads (N= 405) were each asked separately about their gender-role values, about socialisation goals and styles in parent-child relations, and about degrees of acculturation and perceived discrimination in intercultural relations. Intergenerational discrepancies differed across gender. in that second-generation daughters showed a significant shift towards more egalitarian values, but sons remained as conservative as their fathers. To explain the adoption of egalitarian vs. conservative gender-role values by Turkish adolescents, socio-demographic, intergenerational and intercultural factors were entered as independent variables in analyses of covariance with adolescents’ values as a dependent variable. As expected, adolescents who are more acculturated, as indicated by self-reported German language proficiency, are more egalitarian. In addition, we find most egalitarian values among daughters of more highly educated and more egalitarian mothers. Conversely, father’s religious socialisation goals and the perception of discrimination reinforce conservative values in sons. The findings suggest a gendered transmission pattern, where the mother is the direct cultural transmitter and the father exerts influence through normative reference to religious authority. Most importantly, tense intercultural relations are associated with conservative gender-role values among the sons of Turkish migrants. Zusammenfassung In dieser Studie wird untersucht, wie die Geschlechtsrollenvorstellungen türkisch-deutscher Jugendlicher sowohl durch intergenerationale als auch interkulturelle Beziehungen geprägt werden. Als Teil einer größeren Befragung von Einwandererfamilien in Deutschland (Nauck 2000) wurden Eltern-Kind-Dyaden gleichen Geschlechts (N=405) getrennt voneinander über ihre Geschlechtsrollenvorstellungen, Sozialisationsziele und Erziehungsstile in den Eltern-Kind-Beziehungen, sowie über das Ausmaß von Akkulturation und wahrgenommener Diskriminierung in den interkulturellen Beziehungen befragt. Die Diskrepanz zwischen den Generationen unterschied sich je nach Geschlecht dahingehend, dass bei den Töchtern ein signifikanter Schub in Richtung egalitärer Wertvorstellungen auftrat, während die Söhne so konservativ wie ihre Väter blieben. Um die Annahme egalitärer vs. konservativer Geschlechtsrollenvorstellungen durch türkische Heranwachsende zu erklären wurden soziodemographische, intergenerationale und interkulturelle Faktoren als unabhängige Variablen in Kovarianzanalysen einbezogen, wobei die Wertvorstellungen der Heranwachsenden als abhängige Variable angesehen wurde. Wie erwartet waren im höhere Maße akkulturierte Heranwachsende – was durch die Selbsteinschätzung der Kenntnisse in der deutschen Sprache gemessen wurde – egalitärer eingestellt. Darüber hinaus waren die egalitärsten Wertvorstellungen bei denjenigen Töchtern anzutreffen, die Mütter mit höherer Bildung und egalitären Wertvorstellungen hatten. Umgekehrt verstärkten die väterlichen Ziele im Bereich der religiösen Sozialisation und Diskrimierungswahrnehmungen konservative Wertvorstellungen bei den Söhnen. Die Ergebnisse legen ein geschlechtsspezifisches Transmissionsmuster nahe, bei dem die Mutter die unmittelbare Kulturvermittlerin ist, der Vater aber über die normative Bezugnahme auf religiöse Autorität Einfluss ausübt. Am wichtigste ist jedoch, dass angespannte interkulturelle Beziehungen mit konservativen Geschlechterrollenvorstellungen bei den Söhnen der türkischen Migranten assoziiert sind.

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This article offers a critical ethnography of the reproduction of elites and inequalities through the lenses of class and gender. The successful transfer of wealth from one generation to the next is increasingly a central concern for the very wealthy. This article shows how the labor of women from elite and non-elite backgrounds enables and facilitates the accumulation of wealth by elite men. From covering “the home front” to investing heavily in their children’s future, and engaging non-elite women’s labor to help them, the elite women featured here reproduced not just their families, but their families as elites. Meanwhile, the aff ective and emotional labor of non-elite women is essential for maintaining the position of wealth elites while also locking those same women into the increasing inequality they help to reproduce.

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This article seeks to introduce a more complex understanding of family change in Israel, through the case study of Israeli blended families. Going beyond the research on blended families in Israel and elsewhere, we wish to focus our analysis on how blended families are displayed in contemporary Israeli society. The analytical stress on displaying enables us to discern the fluidity and creativity in contemporary family life in Israel, as well as the boundary work through which family members present their family, to themselves and to other audiences. By analyzing data from over 40 in-depth interviews with parents who formed a blended family unit, we argue that family members embody a fuzzy mindset, which does not confine to a state of either/or, and at the same time negotiates traditional nuclear models of the “natural” family inherent in Israeli society.

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On 24 May 2017, a historical landmark for the LGBT movement was achieved in Taiwan. The courts delivered Interpretation no. 748, which declares that the legal regulation in the Civil Code disallowing two individuals of the same sex to marry is unconstitutional and that the law should therefore be amended within two years. While the legal arguments at the constitutional level seem settled, discussions regarding sexuality, family and tradition triggered by the debate about same-sex marriage are continuing. Drawing on feminist and queer scholarship, I advocate turning the spotlight from the ‘subversive’ hom*osexual to ‘normative’ heterosexuality. In addition, through the theoretical lens of interactionism on sexuality, this study investigates a quotidian but controversial topic emerging in the debate: gendered familial appellations. Using transcripts of public hearings as research data, I discuss how the practice of employing gendered familial appellations based on the idea of the heterosexual family becomes an issue in the debate. Through an analysis of the matter, I argue that the heteronormative social order embedded in everyday interactions within the context of Taiwan society is revealed. This heteronormativity is not only gendered and hierarchically heterosexual but also ethnocentric in nature.

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Established for over two decades, archive studies have often conflated the archive and the library, leading to the theoretical neglect of the latter. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, however, critical and historical works on the library have been on the increase. At the same time, a body of fictional texts offers a very specific representation of the library in the digital age. The literary libraries discussed here – a sample published post-2000, drawn from seven national literatures and representing various genres – champion the codex and construct the library as an affective, nostalgic material space. Acknowledging the ubiquity of digitization whilst nonetheless eschewing a simplistic material/ digital binary, they rework familiar tropes such as the universal library, the library destroyed, and the library as a symbol or repository of cultural memory. Finally, these are spaces of (gendered) familial psychic dramas, tracing oedipal conflicts, family romances and troubled transgenerational legacies.

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Abstract This essay explores the dynamics that surround the figuring and staging of bodies in the Electra plays – especially dead bodies, but also living ones that are represented as approximate and / or proximate to corpses. Interacting with such bodies intensifies agony and transport for characters and audiences alike, both of which affects plunge toward sublimity. At the same time the strongly gendered familial dynamics of pivotal scenes inflect the emotional shudder that attends them with a psychic recoil, as mothers haunt sons and sisters seek to lie down with brothers or other ‘wrong’ objects of affection. Focusing on how Orestes and especially Electra position themselves in relation to these bodies, the essay argues that they operate as sublime and uncanny objects, attracting the living into confrontation with their perverse pleasures and stimulating aesthetic and affective reactions that are central to tragic mimesis.

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Conditions of impoverishment underlie many family “troubles” and the family is often a site of antipoverty interventions. Feminist scholars have provided a series of trenchant critiques of neoliberal initiatives which purport to tackle familial poverty but have the effect of retraditionalizing gendered divisions of labor, as well as sidelining demands for social and economic justice for women. Taking one article as an in-depth case study, this article considers what happens to “the child” in such feminist critiques. I suggest there is a tendency to posit neoliberal antipoverty initiatives as benign for or even of benefit to children. The unintended consequences are to position impoverished women against impoverished children and to naturalize childhood at the same time as contesting motherhood. In troubling the family in this way, I argue for the productivity of complementing feminist critiques with critically oriented childhood scholarship to better understand the operations and impacts of neoliberal antipoverty initiatives.

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Abstract Our aim in this study was to explore whether and how siblings’ marital and work status influence Japanese adult children’s perceived responsibility for parental care. Within traditional familial institutions in Japan, married sons were expected to assume parental care responsibility. At the same time, such care arrangements built on gendered division of labor; sons served as family breadwinners, and their wives cared for their parents-in-law while out of the paid labor force. Yet, because of sociodemographic shifts such as a greater percentage of unmarried persons and a growing number of women who seek to maintain their job, it has been increasingly unclear which adult children can and should assume the role of parental caregiver. Using online survey data from 989 Japanese adult children who were all employees with no parental care experiences ever, we sought to clarify the influences of siblings’ circ*mstances on whether these children anticipated assuming responsibility for conducting different care tasks for their parents. In doing so, we focused on how siblings’ gender and work and marital status might combine to affect adult children’s anticipation of parental care responsibility. A series of logistic regression analyses revealed that having a married brother made it less likely for adult daughters to anticipate assuming responsibility for conducting typical care tasks (e.g., ADL assistance) whereas for adult sons, having a single sister declined such anticipation. We discuss our findings in terms of how traditional familial institutions still impinge on Japanese adult children’s views of parental care responsibility.

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The Status of Women in Leadership Tahani H. Alqahtani PhD student, Management at Aberdeen University – Lecturer, College of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Imam Mohamed Ibn Saud University. Abstract Even though females have indeed entered jobs previously closed to them, many occupations remain as gender-gapped now as they were half a century ago. Gender-segregated employment patterns are so tenacious because, they are built into the very organizational fabric of work and the workplace. Descriptive stereotyping describes what men and women are like and prescriptive stereotyping defines defining what women and men should be like. This literature review provides a broad understanding of the gender differences in leadership and the gender gap in organization. This literature review founds that gender-segregated employment patterns are so tenacious because they are built into the very organizational fabric of work and the workplace. Introduction The current literature concerning leadership from a variety of Eastern and Western countries highlights that, regardless of a recent global increase in the number of females entering the labour market, only a small number of professional women hold top management or leadership positions. In spite of the fact that the growth pattern of women in the labour force and their representation in leadership roles does differ across countries and regions, and although a number of women in leadership positions worldwide are making contributions both within and beyond their communities (Percupchick, 2011), the overarching observation can be made that a substantive gender gap exists in female’s representation in relation to leadership positions and decision-making across many sectors of society (Catalyst, 2016). Moreover, studies indicate that a large number of sometimes highly qualified women are choosing to step down from positions of authority and leave their careers (Rabas, 2013). This literature review provides a broad understanding of the gender differences in leadership and the gender gap in organization. Literature Review Research has identified the reasons for the persistence of women having a less expressive presence in management and leadership positions (Acker, 1991; Kolb et al., 1998; Simpson, 2004; Williams, 2001; England, 2010; Kellerman and Rhodes, 2014; Gipson, et al., 2017). Among these, the existence of a male-normed corporate culture and organizational structure is posited as a formidable obstacle to female progress in the workplace. The literature abounds with evidence of the way organizational norms, values and structures, disadvantage females in their career advancement at the institutional level (Morrison, 2012; Keohane, 2014). Looking specifically at the field of academia, for Nguyen (2012), “Policies and process in higher education can act as barriers against women assuming leadership and management positions” (p. 127). Acker (1990) suggests the existence of an organizational attitude behind these gender contrasts as a result of organizational structure, rather than any differences held to exist in the characters of males and females. Goveas and Aslam (2011, p. 236) state that a further important factor with the potential to hinder female's opportunities for development consists of “the unavailability of structured human resource policies and strategies addressing women workers, [which] has proven to be a major obstacle to women’s progress and development”. Referring specifically to the field of educational management, for Sui Chu Ho (2015), “Gender inequalities in staff recruitment, appointment and promotion exist in educational institutions, such as universities” (p. 87). She goes on to note how this evidence and claim to support it are actually routinely dismissed, both by those in authority and the general public. It is likely that hierarchal organizational structures create a setting in which women feel out of place due to gender variances (Morrison, 2012; Al-Shanfari, 2011; Keohane, 2014), resulting in many females stepping down or leaving from a post in a workplace at which their leadership abilities are being questioned. This conflict is further compounded by many jobs being designed around men’s objectives, and that many organizations are reluctant to support women within their workforce when potential career conflicts arise (Kellerman, and Rhode, 2012). Therefore, the ideal worker is male: “Images of men’s bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gendered segregation in organisations” (Acker 1990, p. 139). A key impact of organizational masculinity is the emotional labor expended by women in order to succeed. Connell (1987) states that gendered structures and practices operating within organizations result in very different career experiences and outcomes for women and men, and the most senior organizational positions are considered sites of hegemonic masculinity. Thus, organizational structure is not gender neutral and organizational culture reflects the wishes and needs of powerful men. In reviews of research into gender and leadership, limiting women’s progress in organizations is a well-documented phenomenon, including the persistence of gender stereotypes. Kanter (1977) identifies the ‘masculine ethic’ as part of the early image of leaders and managers. This masculine ethic elevates the traits assumed to be exclusive to men as requirements for effective management: a tough-minded approach to problems; analytical planning abilities; a capacity to set aside personal emotional considerations in the interests of task accomplishment; and cognitive superiority in problem-solving and decision-making (Kanter, 1977). Thus, even with regards to Kanter, (1977), although social construction presumes that these traits and characteristics supposedly belong to males only (or are at least more likely to be held by males), if practically all leaders and managers are men from the beginning, it should come as no surprise that when females attempt to enter leadership or management occupations the masculine ethic is invoked as an exclusionary principle Acker (1991) sees the ‘masculine ethic’ referred to earlier as the structural basis of organizations, in the sense that allegedly ‘masculine characteristics’ are built into the very fabric of organizations. As a result, the workplace itself is stacked against the equalization of opportunities for women. Acker (1991, p. 289) defines gendered organizations as occurring when “advantage and drawback, control and exploitation, emotion and action, identity and meaning, are patterned through and in terms of a distinction between female and male, feminine and masculine”. Thus, masculinity assumes control of the workplace environment or the business sphere in the subtlest of ways (Acker, 1991). Additionally, masculinity also appears to affect employees’ characters. The preferred employee presents her/himself as a masculine character in choice of clothes, language, and presentation (Acker, 1991). Furthermore, job opportunities and hierarchies are also filled in accordance with gender preferences, meaning that the positions should concur with what is deemed relevant and suitable for the gender that fills them (Kolb et al., 1998). In this way, gender implications have negatively influenced the progress of women in their working lives (Acker, 1991). Informal occupational segregation due to gender stereotypes as well as the gender biases commonly held by the wider society entail the trend of hiring women and men in different types of working areas and positions (Fitzsimmons, Callan, and Paulsen, 2014). Simpson (2004) argues that gender representation in social discourse and social perceptions of gender play a significant role in sustaining and promoting gendered employment. Consequently, these biased stereotypes, embedded in deep-rooted ideologies, automatically view job placement through the lens of gender (Simpson, 2004). Thus, work related to masculine organizations draws on the notion of a job requiring allegedly masculine qualities such as analytical skills, assertiveness and physical strength, in turn reinforcing more the idea of being ‘manliness’ being something distinct and unattainable for women. Unsurprisingly, as Britton and Logan (2008) note, these jobs, in turn, naturally attract more male applicants than females. At the same time, stereotypical assumptions that females pay more attention to detail, are more caring, and place value on physical attractiveness confine them to roles as teachers, nurses, administrators, and jobs in the beauty industry (Britton and Logan, 2008). Moreover, men are more likely to be selected for any ‘male-type’ position in a company even when women and men possess the same qualifications because of the implicit bias that, like for like, men perform better than women (Omar and Davidson, 2001). This leads individuals to believe that women do not have the necessary skills and so are unable to work effectively in male-type jobs. For example, because women are associated with activities that do not involve much in the way of physical strength (such as taking care of their children and families), they have traditionally been considered a second choice to men when it comes to jobs that involve working outdoors (Britton and Logan, 2008). England’s (2010) research has shown that in the twentieth century women have progressed at a sluggish pace in terms of workplace equality. Despite the fact that females have indeed entered jobs previously closed to them, many occupations remain as gender-gapped now as they were half a century ago. Moreover, she notes that at any level of the employment pyramid, females continue to lag behind males in terms of authority and pay, regardless of the closing gap between men and women in workplace seniority and educational attainment. Acker (1990) argues that such gender segregated employment patterns are so tenacious because, as noted, they are built into the very organizational fabric of work and the workplace. Stereotyping means generalizing behavioural characteristics of groups of individuals and then applying the generalization to people who are members of the group (Heilman, 2012). Recently, researchers have investigated gender stereotyping by dividing the generalizations into two properties, descriptive and prescriptive. Heilman (2012) concentrated on the importance of each of those properties. Descriptive stereotyping describes what men and women are like and prescriptive stereotyping defines defining what women and men should be like. For instance, descriptive stereotyping of women creates negative expectations about a woman’s performance as a leader owing to there is a lack of fit between the characteristics assigned to traditionally male leadership roles and the societal roles assigned to females. Prescriptive stereotypes, or ascribing behaviors women ought to emulate, and the agentic characteristics of leadership create an incongruity with expected women behavior (Wynen et al., 2014). Furthermore, Heilman argues that irrespective of whether gender stereotyping is prescriptive or descriptive, the practice impedes the progress of females into leadership roles. One source for gender inequalities in the work force is gender stereotyping in the form of occupational segregation (Wynen et al., 2014). Occupational segregation occurs because there is a separation of women or men in certain occupations or employment sectors (Wynen et al., 2014). This gender separation is seen in occupations such as doctors , nursing, lawyers and teaching. Often, teachers or nurses are portrayed as women, while, lawyers and doctors are portrayed as men. According to scholars in social role theory, such as Franke, Crown, and Spake (1997) and Eagly (1987) gender stereotyping in certain occupations is deeply inherent in societal roles for female and male. Although both women and men have been shown to exhibit biases toward women in high management positions (Eagly and Carli, 2007; Ellemers, Rink, Derks, and Ryan, 2012; Ryan et al., 2011), Ellemers et al. (2012) pointed out that most individuals prefer to believe in a just world where gender differentiation is rare and success is based on merit; thus, in most instances, they will treat allegations of unequal treatment unfavourably. This result lead to fewer reports for fear of negative repercussions, and consequently inequity is often not noticed, challenged, or addressed (Ellemers et al., 2012). Moreover, Ibarra et al (2013) believe that when organizations advise females to seek leadership positions without addressing the subtle biases that exist in practices and policies, the companies undermine the psychological development that should take place to become a leader. Conclusion In conclusion, this literature review has outlined how women face obstacles in different organizational context, limiting their ability to achieve empowerment by aspiring to and achieving leadership. Historically, certain factors have hindered women from being accepted as leaders, regardless of their achievements, which leads to an underestimation of their capabilities. This under-representation of qualified women in leadership roles is symbolic of the gender gap in the workplace.

Abstract:

There is a tendency in academic literature to compare and contrast reli- gions to try to understand the motivations of the convert. What are the costs and benefits of conversion? What is gained and what is lost? Thinking in these utilitarian terms can lead to a focus on causality and materiality, rather than the metaphysical and ephemeral aspects of religious thought and practice. Furthermore, religious conversion to Islam is often mired in the same prejudices and stereotypes of the orient found in western and predominantly Judeo-Christian depictions of the Middle East, the region that Islam is most often associated with. In Everyday Conversions: Islam, Domestic Work, and South Asian Migrant Women in Kuwait, Attiya Ahmad moves away from the emphasis on what distinguishes religious traditions and discursive communities to focus on what religious conversion means to the individual convert. Ahmad seeks to counter the notion that conver- sion must have some material benefit to the convert and instead looks at the quotidian character of religious transformation. Ahmad argues in her eth- nographic work that conversion can be understood through the minutiae of daily interactions, conversations, and affections that develop over time. She follows the lives of migrant domestic workers in the Gulf and their relationships with their employers as well as their own families over the course of their conversions and argues that it is neither the strength of the da'wa movement in Kuwait, nor the benefits gained by conversion to the employee/employer relationship that effectively describes the reason the women convert (although Ahmad is admittedly not looking for causality). Instead, Ahmad writes: “I have sought to tell a more modest and mundane set of stories that convey moments of slippage, tension and traces of feel- ings, thoughts and impressions of everyday conversion” (194). The strengths of Ahmad’s ethnography lie in its attention to detail and equanimity in representing the challenges of migration and domestic labor. Ahmad is careful not to create victims, nor inflate the value of the women’s migration and conversion to their economic or personal well-being. In this approach, there are hints of Lila Abu-Lughod’s and Saba Mahmood’s work with women who appear to be in marginal or precarious positions. Like these feminist ethnographers, Ahmad is attuned to the ethics and politics of representation, but with an eye towards transnational and cultural stud- ies. In its theoretical framing, the ethnography calls to mind the work of Michel DeCerteau in The Practice of Everyday Life, which rejects theories of production to focus on the consumer. Furthermore, by placing conversion in light of transnational migration, Ahmad also shows how the individu- al convert navigates her conversion through the complex nexus of Kuwait City as well as her own home town. Thus, the individual convert as artist of her own conversion is the primary subject of Ahmad’s book. My one cri- tique of the book would be in the area of theory, where Ahmad is hesitant to challenge others who have written on the subject of Islamic religious faith and practice, despite the theoretical weight evident in her ethnography. In the introduction, Ahmad begins with Talal Asad and Saba Mah- mood’s seminal arguments in the field of anthropology of Islam, which she argues “relativize and provincialize secular modern understandings of sub- jectivity, agency and embodied practice” (9). She distinguishes her work from Asad and Mahmood’s by utilizing a transnational feminist framework that highlights the process of “mutual constitution and self-constituting othering, as well as sociohistorical circ*mstances” (10). Ahmad wants to go beyond discursive narratives of secular liberalism and the Islamic piety movement. Specifically, Ahmad follows the approach of Eve Sedgewick, who eschews Judith Butler’s “strong theory” in exchange for an approach that looks at factors that “lie alongside” gender performativity (23). Ahmad does this by showing “how religious conversion also constitutes a complex site of interrelation through which religious traditions are configured and reconfigured together” (24). Instead of showing conflict or contrasting discursive traditions, Ahmad contends that the best way to understand the lives and stories of her interlocutors are in the quotidian affairs of the households they work and live in. She divides the chapters into the affec- tive experiences the women have as a result of their migration experiences, which in turn spur their conversions. Chapters one and two cover the political and geographic terrain that the women must cut across, which produces an overwhelming feeling of being neither here nor there, but temporarily suspended between states, households, and religions. Chapter one paints a somewhat grim picture of the politically precarious position of migrant women within the kefala sys- tem, labor laws, and bans on migrations often creating impossible condi- tions for migrant woman. Chapter two sets out to “discern, document and describe” (66) the migratory experience and why it produces uncertainty about one’s place in the world. It follows the women back and forth between Kuwait and their home countries, emphasizing the socio-historical context that requires a transnational feminist framework. The four women that Ah- mad follows throughout the book share their migratory journeys and their sense of “suspension” between two households. This chapter segues neatly into chapter three, where the women share how being a female migrant and domestic laborer requires knowledge of cross-cultural norms regarding gender, all of which require the women to be naram, “a gendered, learned capability of being malleable that indexes proper womanhood” (122). In their own eyes, a successful domestic worker from South Asia bends to the norms of the society they are in, and they attribute male and female migrant failure to being too sakht, or hard and unyielding. Here, I would have liked a stronger connection between how she describes naram and how Mahmood describes malaka. Does being naram lay the groundwork for women’s conversion to Islam, a religion which requires the ability to engage in rituals entailing patience, modesty, and steadfastness? Ahmed hints at this connection in the conclusion to the chapter—“Being naram resonates with the fluid, flexible student-centered pedagogies of Kuwait’s Islamic dawa movement, thus facilitating domestic worker’s deepening learning of Islamic precepts and practices” (123)—but she could have spent more time discussing the overlap in the concepts in either chapter three or five, where she discusses the da'wah movement. Chapters four and five deal directly with questions of religious thought and practice and illustrate how the women grapple with Islamic practices in the household as their relationships with their employers deepen. Chapter five is about the household and the everyday conversations or “house talk” that Ahmad argues are the touchstones for the women’s conversion. The daily relations in the household make blending and layering practices of Is- lam onto older traditions and rituals seem easy and natural. Ahmad argues that “the work undertaken by domestic workers—such as tending to family members during trips and caring for the elderly or the infirm—necessari- ly involves the disciplining and training of their comportment, affect and sense of self ” (129) and makes Islamic practices easier to absorb as well. Chapter 6 is a foray into the da'wah movement classroom. Like Mahmood’s Politics of Piety, Ahmad shows how the teachers and students use the space to create “intertwining stories” of patience in the face of hardship and the eventual rewards that come from this ethical re-fashioning, which mirror their own hardships as converts and help them deal with the dilemmas of being female migrant and domestic workers. The chapter ends with a sense of uncertainty, returning to the themes of temporality and suspension that began the book. Ahmad can’t say whether the conversions will remain fixed pieces or will bend and move with the women as their circ*mstances change. In the epilogue, Ahmad follows the “ongoing conversions” of her inter- locutors as some of them return home as Muslims and encounter new chal- lenges. As a book that focuses on the everyday, it is fitting to end on a new day and possibly, a new conversion. The strength of Ahmad’s ethnography is in giving center-stage to the considerable creativity and diligence mi- grant women show in piecing together their own conversions. This piecing together is perfectly captured by the book’s cover, which features Azra Ak- samija’s “Flocking Mosque”. The structure of a flower illustrates how believ- ers form a circular and geometric shape when gathered in devotion to God. Like Aksamija’s patterns, which build into a circular design, Ahmad’s chap- ters each represent a key piece of the story of migrant domestic workers’ conversion to Islam as a gradual process that blends nations, households, and individuals together to create a narrative about the women’s newfound faith. Scholars should read this book for its textured and detailed observa- tions about migrant women’s daily lives and for its treatment of religious conversion as a gradual process that unfolds in the everyday experiences of individuals. It would also be a great book for students as theory takes a back seat to the ethnography. The book is a refreshing, graceful approach to the subject of religious conversion and Islamic faith. Ahmad stays focused on telling her interlocutors’ stories while navigating often conflicting posi- tions. Rehenuma AsmiAssistant Professor of Education and International StudiesAllegheny College

Abstract:

There is a tendency in academic literature to compare and contrast reli- gions to try to understand the motivations of the convert. What are the costs and benefits of conversion? What is gained and what is lost? Thinking in these utilitarian terms can lead to a focus on causality and materiality, rather than the metaphysical and ephemeral aspects of religious thought and practice. Furthermore, religious conversion to Islam is often mired in the same prejudices and stereotypes of the orient found in western and predominantly Judeo-Christian depictions of the Middle East, the region that Islam is most often associated with. In Everyday Conversions: Islam, Domestic Work, and South Asian Migrant Women in Kuwait, Attiya Ahmad moves away from the emphasis on what distinguishes religious traditions and discursive communities to focus on what religious conversion means to the individual convert. Ahmad seeks to counter the notion that conver- sion must have some material benefit to the convert and instead looks at the quotidian character of religious transformation. Ahmad argues in her eth- nographic work that conversion can be understood through the minutiae of daily interactions, conversations, and affections that develop over time. She follows the lives of migrant domestic workers in the Gulf and their relationships with their employers as well as their own families over the course of their conversions and argues that it is neither the strength of the da'wa movement in Kuwait, nor the benefits gained by conversion to the employee/employer relationship that effectively describes the reason the women convert (although Ahmad is admittedly not looking for causality). Instead, Ahmad writes: “I have sought to tell a more modest and mundane set of stories that convey moments of slippage, tension and traces of feel- ings, thoughts and impressions of everyday conversion” (194). The strengths of Ahmad’s ethnography lie in its attention to detail and equanimity in representing the challenges of migration and domestic labor. Ahmad is careful not to create victims, nor inflate the value of the women’s migration and conversion to their economic or personal well-being. In this approach, there are hints of Lila Abu-Lughod’s and Saba Mahmood’s work with women who appear to be in marginal or precarious positions. Like these feminist ethnographers, Ahmad is attuned to the ethics and politics of representation, but with an eye towards transnational and cultural stud- ies. In its theoretical framing, the ethnography calls to mind the work of Michel DeCerteau in The Practice of Everyday Life, which rejects theories of production to focus on the consumer. Furthermore, by placing conversion in light of transnational migration, Ahmad also shows how the individu- al convert navigates her conversion through the complex nexus of Kuwait City as well as her own home town. Thus, the individual convert as artist of her own conversion is the primary subject of Ahmad’s book. My one cri- tique of the book would be in the area of theory, where Ahmad is hesitant to challenge others who have written on the subject of Islamic religious faith and practice, despite the theoretical weight evident in her ethnography. In the introduction, Ahmad begins with Talal Asad and Saba Mah- mood’s seminal arguments in the field of anthropology of Islam, which she argues “relativize and provincialize secular modern understandings of sub- jectivity, agency and embodied practice” (9). She distinguishes her work from Asad and Mahmood’s by utilizing a transnational feminist framework that highlights the process of “mutual constitution and self-constituting othering, as well as sociohistorical circ*mstances” (10). Ahmad wants to go beyond discursive narratives of secular liberalism and the Islamic piety movement. Specifically, Ahmad follows the approach of Eve Sedgewick, who eschews Judith Butler’s “strong theory” in exchange for an approach that looks at factors that “lie alongside” gender performativity (23). Ahmad does this by showing “how religious conversion also constitutes a complex site of interrelation through which religious traditions are configured and reconfigured together” (24). Instead of showing conflict or contrasting discursive traditions, Ahmad contends that the best way to understand the lives and stories of her interlocutors are in the quotidian affairs of the households they work and live in. She divides the chapters into the affec- tive experiences the women have as a result of their migration experiences, which in turn spur their conversions. Chapters one and two cover the political and geographic terrain that the women must cut across, which produces an overwhelming feeling of being neither here nor there, but temporarily suspended between states, households, and religions. Chapter one paints a somewhat grim picture of the politically precarious position of migrant women within the kefala sys- tem, labor laws, and bans on migrations often creating impossible condi- tions for migrant woman. Chapter two sets out to “discern, document and describe” (66) the migratory experience and why it produces uncertainty about one’s place in the world. It follows the women back and forth between Kuwait and their home countries, emphasizing the socio-historical context that requires a transnational feminist framework. The four women that Ah- mad follows throughout the book share their migratory journeys and their sense of “suspension” between two households. This chapter segues neatly into chapter three, where the women share how being a female migrant and domestic laborer requires knowledge of cross-cultural norms regarding gender, all of which require the women to be naram, “a gendered, learned capability of being malleable that indexes proper womanhood” (122). In their own eyes, a successful domestic worker from South Asia bends to the norms of the society they are in, and they attribute male and female migrant failure to being too sakht, or hard and unyielding. Here, I would have liked a stronger connection between how she describes naram and how Mahmood describes malaka. Does being naram lay the groundwork for women’s conversion to Islam, a religion which requires the ability to engage in rituals entailing patience, modesty, and steadfastness? Ahmed hints at this connection in the conclusion to the chapter—“Being naram resonates with the fluid, flexible student-centered pedagogies of Kuwait’s Islamic dawa movement, thus facilitating domestic worker’s deepening learning of Islamic precepts and practices” (123)—but she could have spent more time discussing the overlap in the concepts in either chapter three or five, where she discusses the da'wah movement. Chapters four and five deal directly with questions of religious thought and practice and illustrate how the women grapple with Islamic practices in the household as their relationships with their employers deepen. Chapter five is about the household and the everyday conversations or “house talk” that Ahmad argues are the touchstones for the women’s conversion. The daily relations in the household make blending and layering practices of Is- lam onto older traditions and rituals seem easy and natural. Ahmad argues that “the work undertaken by domestic workers—such as tending to family members during trips and caring for the elderly or the infirm—necessari- ly involves the disciplining and training of their comportment, affect and sense of self ” (129) and makes Islamic practices easier to absorb as well. Chapter 6 is a foray into the da'wah movement classroom. Like Mahmood’s Politics of Piety, Ahmad shows how the teachers and students use the space to create “intertwining stories” of patience in the face of hardship and the eventual rewards that come from this ethical re-fashioning, which mirror their own hardships as converts and help them deal with the dilemmas of being female migrant and domestic workers. The chapter ends with a sense of uncertainty, returning to the themes of temporality and suspension that began the book. Ahmad can’t say whether the conversions will remain fixed pieces or will bend and move with the women as their circ*mstances change. In the epilogue, Ahmad follows the “ongoing conversions” of her inter- locutors as some of them return home as Muslims and encounter new chal- lenges. As a book that focuses on the everyday, it is fitting to end on a new day and possibly, a new conversion. The strength of Ahmad’s ethnography is in giving center-stage to the considerable creativity and diligence mi- grant women show in piecing together their own conversions. This piecing together is perfectly captured by the book’s cover, which features Azra Ak- samija’s “Flocking Mosque”. The structure of a flower illustrates how believ- ers form a circular and geometric shape when gathered in devotion to God. Like Aksamija’s patterns, which build into a circular design, Ahmad’s chap- ters each represent a key piece of the story of migrant domestic workers’ conversion to Islam as a gradual process that blends nations, households, and individuals together to create a narrative about the women’s newfound faith. Scholars should read this book for its textured and detailed observa- tions about migrant women’s daily lives and for its treatment of religious conversion as a gradual process that unfolds in the everyday experiences of individuals. It would also be a great book for students as theory takes a back seat to the ethnography. The book is a refreshing, graceful approach to the subject of religious conversion and Islamic faith. Ahmad stays focused on telling her interlocutors’ stories while navigating often conflicting posi- tions. Rehenuma AsmiAssistant Professor of Education and International StudiesAllegheny College

Abstract:

Abstract In recent years there has been increasing policy focus on keeping mature-age people engaged in the labour market. At the same time, grandparents play an important role as regular child-care providers for many families. Yet, little research has explored how grandparents negotiate these dual, often competing demands of paid employment and intergenerational care. Drawing on focus groups with 23 grandparents and an online survey of 209 grandparents providing regular child care for their grandchildren in Australia, this paper addresses this gap in the literature by examining how Australian grandparents experience and negotiate competing responsibilities as older workers and intergenerational care providers. The paper draws on the concept of gendered moral rationalities to examine the way in which grandparents’ decisions about participation in paid work are deeply embedded in idealised forms of parenting and grandparenting that are highly gendered. The paper suggests that, as the rate of both maternal and mature-age participation in the paid labour market continues to rise, inadequate attention is being paid to how time spent undertaking unpaid care is compressed, reorganised and redistributed across genders and generations as a result.

Abstract:

AbstractThis paper sheds light on Syrian refugee women’s negotiation strategies in language learning classrooms and in their broader social contexts from an intersectional perspective. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups complemented by participatory observation in language classes, we use a post-structuralist approach to examine gendered language socialization. Our research combines an intersectional framework and a Bourdieusian perspective on symbolic capital to show how women perform gender and negotiate their roles in classrooms, within families and vis-à-vis the host society. The findings demonstrate that being a woman and a migrant presents particular challenges in learning language. At the same time, learning language allows for the re-negotiation of gender relations and power dynamics. We find that gender structures women’s access to linguistic resources and interactional opportunities as they perform language under social pressure to conform to prescribed roles as mothers, wives and virtuous, and shy women. Yet, these roles are not static: gender roles are also reconstituted in the process of language learning and gaining symbolic capital.

Abstract:

This article discusses the findings of an empirical study, the first to investigate Taiwanese and Hong Kong parents’ perspectives on their disabled children’s play. The study employed an online survey to explore parents’ views on (a) the value of play for their child; (b) their child’s experiences of play (e.g. where and with whom they play); c) what, if any, barriers their child experiences in/to play. Our analysis shows that disabled children living in Taiwan and Hong Kong face many of the same barriers to play as disabled children elsewhere (e.g. in the West), but that these barriers have distinct ‘local formations’ resulting from, for example, high-density urban-living, family-based welfare systems, prevailing gendered family roles/relations, persistent social stigma towards disabled people and their families and intense valuing of academic achievement within Chinese cultures. We present this article as an original contribution to Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies, to Global Disability Studies and Play Studies. The article concludes by mapping an agenda for further research into access to and inclusion in play for disabled children living in East Asia.

Abstract:

The kids in our house are making a public comeback. They are surfacing from the private recesses of the house out into the more communal space of the family lounge room. After years of being holed-up in their bedrooms they are back – thanks to pay TV. Foxtel has presented them with a smorgasbord of programs, tempting enough to entice even the most die-hard gamer or teenage recluse out of the bedroom and into the throes of lounge room politics. In some ways, our newly populated lounge room is reminiscent of David Morley’s Family Television with television viewing “situated firmly within the politics of the living room”(19). This article explores the notion that the introduction of pay TV in Australia challenges the general movement towards an individualisation of media consumption in the family home. Due to pay TV’s limitations of one outlet per household, children and teenagers are leaving the privacies of their own bedrooms and returning to the family lounge room. With this return, many family members are having to relearn the art of sharing (or getting your fair share of) this limited resource. This situation may also be a particularly Australian one, as it seems that pay TV with its multi-channel viewing is more readily available on multiple television sets within homes in other countries (Tidhar, Chava and Nossek 16) Family television viewing seems to be part of a relatively recent (round the hearth) tradition, which followed from the family piano, phonograph and the radio. These traditions re-established the home and family as a place where parental authority overrode the dangers of the outside world. Radio broadcasters in the 1940s endorsed the family radio as a way to promote family togetherness because (as they saw it) “the house and hearth have [had] been largely given up in favour of a multitude of other interests and activities outside, with the consequent disintegration of family ties and affections” (Lewis qtd. in Flichy 158). Television viewing followed suit as another round-the-hearth family tradition during the earlier period of domestic television. David Morley (1986) explored the domestic consumption of television in the context of everyday family life during this time, a time when only one television set was available to most families – a time when dads, and the occasional mum, ruled the television viewing habits of the family. Morley’s approach to television viewing was one in which the household (or family) was central to interpreting the television audience; where there were gendered regimes of watching and program choice which often reflected existing power relationships in the home. Today most Australian families have more than one television set (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), leading the way to more individualised and fragmented modes of television watching within Australian homes. The introduction of computers, the Internet and video consoles in many family homes seems to have further dispersed family members to more private spaces in the family home, diffusing existing conflict surrounding the family television. Therefore, "if television once brought the family together around the hearth, now domestic technologies permit the dispersal of family members to different rooms or different activities within the same space" (Livingstone 128). The geographical migration of the television set, along with new digital technologies, to the bedrooms and secondary living spaces in many family homes has brought with it new dynamics for social space within the household and a “reciprocal (re)construction of the meanings and functions of both the technological objects and the domestic spaces they inhabit” (Caron 3). Equipping bedrooms with television and digital technologies has the ability to change the room’s conventional usage – both spatially and temporally. In this way our 11-year-old’s bedroom has been transformed into a specialised bedroom culture – a gamer’s paradise. By locating a television and game console in this bedroom the technologies are identified as personal property while at the same time allowing for a space that functions as both communal and private, for sharing with siblings and friends and solitary gaming. The upside of this general movement towards a separate bedroom culture (or private media spaces) is that there are more spaces to engage with media technologies and therefore more viewing choice for family members. These extra media spaces have freed up the lounge room possibly allowing for more harmony and accord within the family, while at the same time bringing about the opportunity for some family members to retreat from the social togetherness of family television viewing. However, with the limitations of one outlet per household in Australian pay TV, the lounge room has again become the focus of family television viewing in some Australian homes. With over twenty percent of Australian homes now subscribing to pay TV (Australian Film Commission) some Australian families may again be experiencing the togetherness (and the inevitable struggles) of sharing one television set. In the days when one television set was the norm, Morley explored the way in which family viewing habits reflected existing power relationships in the home, focussing mainly on issues concerned with gender and class in the UK home. Twenty years later, in our house on the other side of the world, similar battles are taking place – Dragonball Z vs. Ocean Girl, Robot Wars vs. Buffy and World Series Cricket vs. Changing Rooms. However, unlike Morley’s Family Television the results of these gendered battles are too close to call. Perhaps, with forty or more channels to choose from, and programs designed to appeal to specific family members, the stakes are even higher and the battle has only just begun. Today’s media-rich home environments, with multiple television sets and digital technologies, seem to have gone some way to resolving household conflicts over television viewing allowing for more choice and individualisation of media consumption. However, the introduction of pay TV in Australia has seen a return to the living room politics of family television viewing somewhat reminiscent of Morley’s Family Television where sharing the family television reflected and highlighted existing family power relationships and struggles. Works Cited Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Australia in Brief: Way of Life. Commonwealth of Australia. 2 March 2003 <http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib2001/media.php>. Australian Film Commission. Get the Picture: Fast Facts. 2002. 3 March 2003 <http://www.afc.gov.au/GTP/wptvfast.php>. Caron, Andre. "New Communication Technologies in the Home: A Qualitative Study on the Introduction, Appropriation and Uses of Media in the Family." Young People and the Media. Sydney: International Forum of Researchers, 2000. Livingstone, Sonia. "The Meaning of Domestic Technologies: A Personal Construct Analysis of Familial Gender Relations." Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. Eds. Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch. London: Routledge, 1992. 113-30. Morley, D. Family Television: Cultural Power and Domestic Pleasure. London: Routledge, 1986. Tidhar, Chava E., and Hillel Nossek. "All in the Family: The Integration of a New Media Technology in the Family." Communications 27 (2002): 15-34. Links http://www.afc.gov.au/GTP/wptvfast.htmlhttp://www.dfat.gov.au/aib2001/media.html Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Holloway, Donell. "Sharing Foxtel" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0304/06-sharingfoxtel.php>. APA Style Holloway, D. (2003, Apr 23). Sharing Foxtel. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0304/06-sharingfoxtel.php>

Abstract:

Introduction One in three Australian marriages ends in divorce (ABS, Parental Divorce). While such statistics may be interpreted to mean that marriage is becoming less significant to Australians, many Australians continue to invest heavily in marriage as a constitutive mode of subjectification. Recently released first-wave data from a longitudinal study being conducted with seven thousand high school students in Queensland indicates that the majority of high schoolers expect to get married (Skrbis et al. 76). Significant political attention and debate in Australia has centred on the issue of marriage “equality” in relation to legislating same-sex marriage. Many accounts problematise marriage in Australia today by focussing on the current inequities involved in who can and cannot legally get married, which are important debates to be had in the process of understanding the persistent importance of marriage as a social institution. This paper, however, provides a critical account of “equality” in contemporary heterosexual marriages or heteronormative monogamous relationships. I argue that, far from being a mundane “old” debate, the distribution of unpaid work between spouses has a significant effect on women’s spousal satisfaction, and it calls into question the notion of “marriage equality” in everyday heterosexual marriages whether these are civil or common law relationships. I suggest that the contemporary “Hollywood” fantasy about marriage, which informs the same-sex marriage movement, sets up expectations that belie most people’s lived realities.Project Overview This paper draws on data from a larger research project that explores the impact of globalised ideas about good womanhood and good motherhood on Western Australian women, and how local context shapes these women’s personal ideals about their own life trajectories. Interviews were conducted with a series of women living in regional Western Australia. While more women were interviewed as part of the larger research project, this paper draws on interviews with seven intending-to-mother women and fifteen mothers. Through several open-ended questions, the women were asked about either their plans for motherhood or their experiences of motherhood, in relation to additional expectations of women’s lives, such as participation in the paid sector and body ideals. Married women were also asked about how unpaid labour—that is, domestic and, where relevant, childcare labour—is divided between themselves and their husbands. Women’s responses to these questions provide a critical account of how marriage and the notion of “equality” is currently lived out in Australia. To ensure confidentiality, their real names have been replaced by pseudonyms. My purpose in drawing on my own data in conjunction with literature on the gendered division of unpaid labour is to emphasise that while the theoretical insights are not new, the fact that a gendered disparity continues to exist is of concern because of women’s dissatisfaction with the situation, particularly in the context of frequent claims that equality is already achieved, and given that it queries the fantasy of marriage continuing to circulate in contemporary culture. The women I interviewed responded openly to questions about the division of domestic, and where relevant, childcare labour and the affects of this on their relationships. Feminist approaches to the research process highlight the importance of being reflexive about the relationship(s) between researcher and researched to make the presence of the researcher in the research process explicit (Ramazanoglu and Holland 156). Ramazanoglu and Holland argue “producing knowledge through empirical research is not the same as acting as a conduit for the voices of others” (116). While the power dynamic between researcher and researched is not generally an equal one, the fact that I am younger than all of my participants bar one (who is the same age) I believe went some way towards diffusing my position of power in the interviews. Some of my participants were also either already known to me, or had been referred to me by another participant prior to the interview, which may have made the process of interview less intimidating and more comfortable. Importantly, in many instances, my participants’ reflections about the division of unpaid labour in their marriages, their expectations, hopes for the future, and feelings about it mirrored my own feelings and realities. I related personally to their experiences, and empathise with their dilemmas. This is significant methodologically because “emotional connectedness” (Coffey 158–9) including a close identification with participants (Conle 53–4) influences the process of interpretation. However, in Scott’s terms, power operated through my assessment of participants’ dilemmas being similar to my own and my writing up of their interviews (780). The findings presented in this paper are based on my interpretation of the voices of others, and are unavoidably influenced by my personal context as the researcher. Two predominate themes emerged from women’s accounts of unpaid domestic and childcare labour. Women anticipated their partner’s participation in domestic care activities, although in most cases, this expectation was not met. Further, women held these expectations for “when they had children,” even though their partners did not presently participate in domestic activities. At the same time, the women accepted that, while their husband’s should participate more in unpaid work, this participation would not be equal to their own responsibilities regardless of what other activities either were engaged in outside of the domestic and familial sphere. I found that while women expect a fairer division of domestic labour, they do not expect it to be “50/50.” I argue that the gendered division of labour has changed less than most couples readily admit, as seen through the following overview. Gender Relations: Changes and Stases In Western societies, women’s roles in the public sphere have changed considerably over the last fifty plus years. Women now constitute a significant percentage of the paid workforce. Today, couple families where both partners work in the paid sector are the most common of all families (ABS, Family Functioning). However, there has not been a corresponding shift in the way that unpaid labour is divided between partners. Only one half of the historical gendered division of labour has undergone change; while women as well as men now operate in the paid (and thus valued) sector (traditionally available only to men), women still predominately perform most of the unpaid (and undervalued) domestic work. Gender researchers have been reporting on the unequal division of domestic labour between couples, and the material and emotional consequences for women, for a long time (see Hochschild; DeVault; Coltrane), yet I argue that it remains largely unchanged, and dismissed as an important issue in the Australian community. Hochschild’s work, in particular, made a significant contribution to research into the gendered division of unpaid labour between couples by analysing and reporting on interview data collected from fifty couples, both working full-time in the paid sector, with young children. Hochschild identified and reported on couples justifications for the way they divide domestic and care, which, as I will demonstrate, are still common today (17, see also Hochschild with Machung 128). Several contemporary studies (Meisenbach; Shelton and Johnson) report that women perform the majority of domestic and care duties, despite women’s long established presence in the paid workforce. Indeed, historically, the majority of women participated in the workforce, with only middle and upper-class women experiencing a delayed entry to paid work. In their review of current research into the division of household labour in the United States Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard find that: In spite of women’s increased commitment to the labour force market and their associated political and social achievements, their advances have not been paralleled in the familiar sphere…the gains women have made outside the home have not translated directly into an egalitarian allocation of household labour…[American] women continue to perform the vast majority of unpaid tasks performed to satisfy the needs of family members or to maintain the home. (767) Exchange theories predicted that women’s increased participation in paid work would stimulate an increase in the time men spent performing domestic work (Carter 16). However, various studies including Lupton’s investigation into the distinctions, or indeed, commonalities, between the roles of “mother” and “father” find that women still perform the majority of childcare and domestic labour, even those who are also engaged in paid employment. Time use studies conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics also suggest that this prediction has not eventuated, and that whilst some women may have an improved capacity to negotiate with their partners about domestic labour division because of their income, this is not always the case (Carter 17). Ella (aged 32, mother of one) described “quite enjoying it” when her partner was away on business because it was less work not having to deal with his mess on top of other tasks. This is consistent with earlier research findings that single mothers spend less time on domestic work than women with children who live with men (Carter 17). It is common for men to do less domestic work than they create (Bittman 3). All of the women I interviewed who were in partnerships and intending to mother sometime in the future were either employed full-time in the paid sector, seeking full-time employment after completing graduate degrees, or combining paid work with tertiary study. One participant had recently dropped her hours from full-time to part-time because she was pregnant. All of the partnered women who were already mothering at the time of the interview were in full-time employment before the birth of their first child, and seven of them were still in paid employment; one full-time, one three-quarter time and five part time. Most women reported doing the majority, if not all, of the domestic and childcare labour regardless of whether they combined this work with paid work outside of the home. Whilst some women were indifferent to the inequity in their domestic labour and childcare responsibilities, most identified it as a source of tension, conflict, and disappointment in their spousal relationships. These women had anticipated greater participation by their husbands in the home, an optimism derived from some other source than those women with whom they interact.Anticipating Participation In their in-depth psychological study into the specific temporal disruptions and occasions of social dislocation ensuing from the birth of a child in the United States, Monk et al. found that the disruption to daily events and the reduction of social activities were more discernible for women than for men. Other research (Arendell; Hays; Mauthner; Nicolson) conducted at this time concurred with these findings. Similar results are found over a decade later. Choi et al. found most women feel at least some resentment about the impact of parenthood on their lives being “far greater for them than for their partner” (174). Influenced by reports of a supposed ideological shift in the late 1990s wherein fathers were encouraged to take a more active role in the raising of their children in ways previously considered maternal (Lupton 51), women today tend to anticipate that their husband’s will participate more in domestic and care activities, which predominately, does not eventuate. Consequently, feeling “let down” by partners has been identified as a key factor in the presentation of postnatal depression (Choi et al. 175). The women I interviewed who were planning to mother sometime in the future anticipated that their husbands would participate more in the home after the birth of a child. Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years) hoped that this would be an 80/20 split. The idea of an 80/20 split as an “improvement” may be confronting, but this is Gabrielle’s reality, and her predicament—shared by many other women today—captures the prevailing importance of discussions around the gendered division of domestic labour. Several interviewees who were already mothering had also anticipated that their husbands would participate alongside them in household and childcare related activities. For most, this kind of participation had not eventuated and women were left with feelings of disappointment, and tensions and conflicts in their marriages. Grainne (aged 30, married for five years, mother of one) had expected her husband to be reasonably supportive and helpful around the house when they started their family. Yet she was unpleasantly surprised and intensely disappointed by how participation in the home had worked out since she and her husband had become parents six months ago. Grainne explained that she: expected that my husband would be more supportive and more helpful…I’ve been even more disappointed because he hasn’t followed through with…how I thought he would be…I almost despair a bit…we have actually struggled more in our relationship in the last six months than in the five and a half years. Grainne spoke about the impact of this inequity on the intimacy in her relationship. This is consistent with Poco*ck who identifies inequity in the division of unpaid work as one of “two work-related spokes in the wheel” (106–107) of spousal intimacy; the other being time and energy to communicate. According to Poco*ck intimacy, not necessarily sexual, is lacking in many Australian spousal relationships with unequal divisions of unpaid labour (107). While the loss of intimacy results in feelings of loss and regret, for some women, it is characterised as a past concern in their overworked and stressed lives (Poco*ck 107). Several women from professional backgrounds, in particular Lena and Freya, identified the inequity in their partnerships when it came to home duties and childcare as a significant, and even as the “main,” source of tension and conflict in their spousal relationships. Lena (aged 30, married for five years, mother of two) described having “great debates” with her husband about the division of domestic labour and childcare in their partnership. From her husband’s perspective, it is her “job…to do all the kids and the housework and everything else,” whereas from Lena’s perspective, “he should be able to feed the kids and clean up” on the weekend if she needs to go out. Freya (aged 30, married for ten years, mother of three) also talked about the “various rows” she had had with her husband about her domestic and childcare load. She described herself as “not coping” with the workload. For all of these women, domestic inequality in their marriages has real emotional consequences for them as individuals, and is a significant source of marital discontent. Women’s decisions about whether and when to have children, and how many to have, are influenced by the inequity experienced in marital relationships. Although I suggest that women’s desire to become mothers may eventually outweigh these immediate and everyday concerns, reports from already mothering women suggest that this source of conflict does not dissipate. The evidence gathered from my interviews demonstrates that trying to change dynamics in a relationship, when it comes to domestic tasks, is even more difficult when it is compounded with the emotional, mental and physical demands of motherhood, as Choi et al. also suggest (177).Accepting Inequality The findings of my study suggest that women intending to mother and those already mothering continue to expect to do more domestic and childcare labour than their partners. However, even with this concession, some women are still over-optimistic in their estimations about the amount of domestic labour their partner’s will perform. Fetterolf and Eagly find similar patterns in gender equality expectations in the United States amongst female college undergraduates planning to mother sometime in the future (90–91). Some women I interviewed who were planning to mother sometime in the future described their own attempts to negotiate with their partner to make them do more work. For instance, Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years), who, as discussed earlier, hoped that her husband will participate more in the home after the birth of a child, said: Once we’ve had kids he might change and realise he might have to help out a little bit more, I can’t actually do everything…I don’t think it’ll be 50/50 just from experience of how we’ve been married so far… I do hope that it’ll be maybe 80/20 or something like that. When asked about whether their current division of house work was a concern for her, particularly in relation to having children, Gabrielle replied that she just “nagged” about it. Putting her discontent in the frame of “nagging” trivialises the issue. While it is men who tend to characterise women’s discontent as “nagging,” women can also internalise, and use this language to minimise their own feelings. That men “just don’t see mess and dirt” in the same way that women do is a popular idea drawn on to account for women’s acceptance of inequity in the home as evidenced in numerous statements from the women I interviewed. Commentaries like these align with Carter’s (1) observations that generally accepted ideas about women and men (for example, that women see dirt and men do not) are drawn on to explain and justify domestic labour arrangements. In response to how domestic labour is divided between her husband and herself, Marguerite (aged 25, married for ten months), like Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years), described an “80/20 split,” with her as the 80%. Marguerite commented that “it’s not that he’s lazy, it’s just that he doesn’t see it, he doesn’t realise that a house needs cleaning.” Fallding described these ideas, and the behaviours that ensue, as a type of patriarchal family model, specifically “rightful patriarchy” (69) that includes the idea that women naturally pay more attention to detail than men. Conclusion “Falling in love” and “getting married” remains an important cultural narrative in Australian society. As Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years) described, people ask you “when are you getting married? When are you having kids?” because “that’s just what you do.” I argue that offering critical accounts of heteronormative monogamous relationships/marriage equality from a variety of positions is important to understandings of these relationships in contemporary Australia. Accounts of the division of unpaid labour in the home between spouses provide one forum through which equality within marriage/heteronormative monogamous relationships can be examined. A tension exists between an expectation of participation on the part of women about their partner’s role in the home, and a latent acceptance by most women that equality in the division of unpaid work is unrealistic and unachievable. Men remain largely removed from work in the home and appear to have a degree of choice about their level of participation in domestic and care duties. The consistency of these findings with earlier work, some of which is over a decade old, suggests that the way families divide unpaid domestic and care labour remains gendered, despite significant changes in other aspects of gender relations. Many of the current discussions about marriage idealise it in ways that are not borne out in this research. This idealisation feeds into the romance of marriage, which maintains women’s investment in it, and thus the likelihood that they will find themselves in a relationship that disappoints them in significant and easily dismissed ways.ReferencesAustralian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Social Trends, 2003, Family Functioning: Balancing Family and Work. 4102.0 (2010). ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/c8647f1dd5f36f42ca2570eb00835397!OpenDocument›. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Social Trends, 2010, Parental Divorce or Death During Childhood. 4102.0 (2010). ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40Sep+2010›. Arendell, Terry. “Conceiving and Investigating Motherhood: The Decade's Scholarship.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62.4 (2000): 1192–207. Bittman, Michael. Juggling Time: How Australian Families Use Time. Office of the Status of Women, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet: Canberra, 1991. Carter, Meg. Who Cares Anyway? Negotiating Domestic Labour in Families with Teenage Kids. (Doctoral dissertation). (2007). ‹http://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/swin:15946.› Choi, P., Henshaw, C , Baker, S, and J Tree. "Supermum, Superwife, Supereverything: Performing Femininity in the Transition to Motherhood." Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 23.2 (2005): 167–180. Coffey, Amanda. The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of Identity. London: Sage Publications, 1999. Coltrane, Scott. “Research on Household Labour: Modelling and Measuring Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work.” Journal of Marriage and Family 62.4 (2000): 1208-1233. Conle, Carola. 2000. “Narrative Inquiry: Research Tool and Medium for Professional Development.” European Journal of Teacher Education 23.1 (2000): 773-97. DeVault, Marjorie. Feeding the Family: The Social Organisation of Caring as Gendered Work. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1991. Fallding, Harold. “Inside the Australian Family.” Marriage and the Family in Australia. Ed. Adolphus Elkin. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1957. 54–81. Fetterolf, Janell and Alice Eagly. “Do Young Women Expect Gender Equality in Their Future Lives? An Answer From a Possible Selves Experiment.” Sex Roles 65.1 (2011): 83–93. Hays, Susan. The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift. New York: Viking, 1989. Hochschild, Arlie with Anne Machung. The Second Shift. New York: Penguin Edition, 2003. Lachance-Grzela, Mylene, and Genevieve Bouchard. “Why Do Women Do the Lion's Share of Housework? A Decade of Research.” Sex Roles 63.1 (2010): 767–80. Lupton, Deborah. “‘A Love/Hate Relationship’: the Ideals and Experiences of First-Time Mothers.” Journal of Sociology 36.1 (2000): 50–63. Mauthner, Natasha. “Reassessing the Importance and Role of the Marital Relationship in Postnatal Depression: Methodological and Theoretical Implications.” Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 1.16 (1998): 157–75. Meisenbach, Rebecca. “The Female Breadwinner: Phenomenological Experience and Gendered Identity in Work/Family Spaces.” Sex Roles 62.1 (2010): 2–19. Monk, Timonthy H., Marilyn J. Essex, Nancy A. Smider, Marjorie H. Klein, and David J. Kupfer. “The Impact of the Birth of a Baby on the Time Structure and Social Mixture of a Couple's Daily Life and Its Consequences for Well-Being.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 26.14 (1996): 1237– 58. Nicolson, Paula. Postnatal Depression: Psychology, Science and the Transition to Motherhood. London: Routledge, 1998. Poco*ck, Barbara. The Work/Life Collision: What Work is Doing to Australians and What to Do About It. Sydney: The Federation Press, 2003. Ramazanoglu, Caroline and Janet Holland. 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Abstract:

China’s expanding workforce of rural–urban migrants is increasingly involved in care work while simultaneously facing issues of care within its own ranks for its family members. The work examined here concerns care—for the elderly and ill, for children, and in everyday domestic labor. This form of work is widely performed predominantly by migrant women in (usually) urban households in circ*mstances lacking labor protections. They are performing work that creates value and that constitutes a key service sector of the informal economy. Much the same population provides similar care work for family members of their own (usually) in the countryside, work that also creates value but is normally unremunerated. Rural migrant and potential migrant women may be in complex social positions where their work is needed in both circ*mstances, and are in both circ*mstances providing value for their families—through income earned and through work of direct use value. The work in both instances is socially structured through being in or outside the informal economy and in or outside ties of kinship. This article argues for an expanded and adequately gendered concept of the informal economy based on value and Maussian concepts of human economy. 中国日益增加着由乡村进入城市的大量投入到保姆工作中的劳动力，与其同时也面临着她们对其自身家庭成员的照料问题。本文关切的是家庭护理问题，这里指的是对老人，病患，孩子的照料，以及日常家务劳动。这种工作主要是由农村妇女来到通常是城市的家庭中，在缺少正规劳动保护的环境中工作。她们劳动创造的价值构成了非正规经济服务职能中的一个核心部分。这群打工族大多来自农村，并在其自身家庭中承担着同样的照料工作。然而这种同样创造着价值的工作一般并没有得到补偿。来自乡村的打工族及潜在的妇女民工可能处于一种复杂的社会地位中，她们的工作在这两种社会环境中都迫切需要，并都为她们的家庭或通过所挣工资，或通过直接使用其劳动创造着价值。这两种工作情况——在非正规经济之中或其外，以及在亲属关系之中或其外，都是社会构成的。本文提出一种基于价值观与人类学马塞尔莫斯学派的人性经济概念, 并进一步将其扩展并充分性别化的非正规经济。 (This article is in English.)

Abstract:

Introduction There is much to be said about house and home and about our media’s role in defining, enabling, as well as undermining it. […] For we can no longer think about home, any longer than we can live at home, without our media. (Silverstone, “Why Study the Media” 88) For lesbians, inhabiting the queer slant may be a matter of everyday negotiation. This is not about the romance of being off line or the joy of radical politics (though it can be), but rather the everyday work of dealing with the perception of others, with the “straightening devices” and the violence that might follow when such perceptions congeal into social forms. (Ahmed 107) Picture this. Once or twice a week a small, black, portable TV set goes on a journey; down from the lofty heights of the top shelf of the built in storage cupboard into the far corner of the living room. A few hours later, it is being stuffed back into the closet. Not far away across town, another small TV set sits firmly in the corner of a living room. Yet, it remains inanimate for days on end. What do you see? The techno-stories conveyed in this paper are presented through – and anchored to – the idea of the cultural biography of things (Kopytoff 1986), revealing how objects (more specifically media technologies) produce and become part of an articulation of particular and conflicting moral economies of households (Silverstone, “Domesticating Domestication”; Silverstone, Hirsch and Morley, “Information and Communication”; Green). In this context, the concept of the domestication of ICTs has been widely applied in Media Studies during the 1990s and, more recently, been updated to account for the changes in technology, household composition, media regulation, and in fact the dislocation of domesticity itself (Berker, Hartmann, Punie and Ward). Remarkable as these mainstream techno-stories are in their elucidation of contemporary techno-practices, what is still absent is the consideration of how gender and sexuality intersect and are being done through ICT consumption at home, work and during leisure practices in alternative or queer households and families. Do lesbians ‘make’ house and home and in what ways are media and ICTs implicated in the everyday work of queer home-making strategies? As writings on queer subjects and cyberspace have proliferated in recent years, we can now follow a move to contextualize queer virtualities across on and offline experiences, mapping ‘complex geographies of un/belonging’ (Bryson, MacIntosh, Jordan and Lin) and a return to consider online media as part of a bigger ICT package that constitutes our queer everyday life-worlds (Karl). At the same time, fresh perspectives are now being developed with regards to the reconfiguration of domestic values by gay men and lesbians, demonstrating the ongoing processes of probing and negotiation of ‘home’ and the questioning of domesticity itself (Gorman-Murray). By aligning ideas and concepts developed by media theorists in the field of media domestication and consumption as well as (sexual) geographers, this paper makes a contribution towards our understanding of a queer sense of home and domesticity through the technological and more specifically television. It is based on two case studies, part of a larger longitudinal ethnographic study of women-centred households in Brighton, UK. Gill Valentine has identified the home and workplaces as spaces, which are encoded as heterosexual. Sexual identities are being constrained by ‘regulatory regimes’, promoting the normalcy of heterosexuality (4). By recounting the techno-stories of lesbian women, we can re-examine notions of the home as a stable, safe, given entity; the home as a particular feminine sphere as well as the leaky boundaries between public and private. As media and ICTs are also part of a (hetero)sexual economy where they, in their materiality as well as textual significance become markers of sexual difference, we can to a certain extent perceive them as ‘straightening devices’, to borrow a phrase from Sara Ahmed. Here, we will find the articulation of a host of struggles to ‘fight the norms’, but not necessarily ‘step outside the system completely, full-time’ (Ben, personal interview [all the names of the interviewees have been changed to protect their anonymity]). In this sense, the struggle is not only to counter perceived heterosexual home-making and techno-practices, but also to question what kinds of practices to adopt and repeat as ‘fitting in’ mechanism. Significantly, these practices leave neither ‘hom*onormative’ nor ‘heteronormative’ imaginaries untouched and remind us that: In the case of sexual orientation, it is not simply that we have it. To become straight means that we not only have to turn towards the objects that are given to us by heterosexual culture, but also that we must “turn away” from objects that take us off this line. (Ahmed 21) In this sense then, we are all part of drawing and re-drawing the lines of belonging and un-belonging within the confines of a less than equal power-economy. Locating Dys-Location – Is There a Lesbian in the Home? In his effort to re-situate the perspective of media domestication in the 21st century, David Morley points us to ‘the process of the technologically mediated dislocation of domesticity itself’ (“What’s ‘home’” 22). He argues that ‘under the impact of new technologies and global cultural flows, the home nowadays is not so much a local, particular “self-enclosed” space, but rather, as Zygmunt Bauman puts it, more and more a “phantasmagoric” place, as electronic means of communication allow the radical intrusion of what he calls the “realm of the far” (traditionally, the realm of the strange and potentially troubling) into the “realm of the near” (the traditional “safe space” of ontological security) (23). The juxtaposition of home as a safe, ‘given’ place of ontological security vis a vis the more virtual and mediated realm of the far and potentially intrusive is itself called into question, if we re-consider the concepts of home and (dis)location in the light of lesbian geographies and ‘the production and regulation of heterosexual space’ (Valentine 1). The dislocation of home and domesticity experienced through consumption of (mobile) media technologies has always already been under-written by the potential feeling of dys-location and ‘trouble’ by lesbians on the grounds of sexual orientation. The lesbian experience disrupts the traditionally modern and notably western ideal of home as a safe haven and refuge by making visible the leaky boundaries between private seclusion and public surveillance, as much as it may (re)invest in the production of ideas and ideals of home-making and domesticity. This is illustrated for example by the way in which the heterosexuality of a parental home ‘can inscribe the lesbian body by restricting the performative aspects of a lesbian identity’, which may be subverted by covert acts of resistance (Johnston and Valentine 111; Elwood) as well as by the potentially greater freedoms of lesbian identity within a ‘lesbian home’, which may nevertheless come under scrutiny and ‘surveillance of others, especially close family, friends and neighbours’ (112). Nevertheless, more recently it has also been demonstrated how even overarching structures of familial heteronormativity are opportune to fissures and thereby queered, as Andrew Gorman-Murray illustrates in his study of Australian gay, lesbian and bisexual youth in supportive family homes. So what is, or rather, what can constitute a ‘lesbian home’ and how is it negotiated through everyday techno-practices? In and Out of the Closet – The Straight-Speaking ‘Telly’ As places go, the city of Brighton and Hove in the south-east of England fetches the prize for the highest ratio of LGBT people amongst its population in the UK, sitting at about 15%. In this sense, the home-making stories to which I will refer, of a white, lesbian single mother in her early 40s from a working-class background and a white lesbian/dyke couple in their 30s (from middle-/working-class backgrounds), are already engendered in the sense that Brighton (to them) represented in part a kind of ‘home-coming’ in itself. Helen and Ben, a lesbian butch-femme couple (‘when it takes our fancy’, Helen), had recently bought a terraced 1930s three-bedroom house with a sizeable garden in a soon to be up and coming residential area of Brighton. The neighbours are a mix of elderly, long-standing residents and ‘hetero’ families, or ‘breeders’, as Ben sometimes referred to them. Although they had lived together before, the new house constituted their first purchase together. This was significant especially for Helen, as it made their lives more ‘equal’ in terms of what goes where and the input on the overall interior decoration. Ben had shifted from London to Brighton a few years previously for a ‘quieter life’, but wished to remain connected to a queer community. Helen had made the move to Brighton from Germany – to study and enjoy the queer feel, and never left. Both full-time professionals, Helen worked in the publishing industry and Ben as a social worker. Already considering Brighton their ‘home’ town, the house purchase itself constituted another home-making challenge: as a lesbian/dyke couple on equal footing they were prepared to accept to live in a pre-dominantly straight neighbourhood, as it afforded them more space for money compared to the more visibly gay male living areas in the centre of town. The relative invisibility of queer women (and their neighbourhoods) compared to queer men in Brighton may, as it does elsewhere, be connected to issues of safety (Elwood) as well as the comparative lack of financial capacity (Bell and Valentine). Walking up to this house on the first night of my stay with them, I am struck by just how inconspicuous it appears – one of many in a long street, up a steep hill: ‘Most housing in contemporary western societies is “designed, built, financed and intended for nuclear families”’ (Bell in Bell and Valentine 7). I cannot help but think – more as a reflection on myself than of what I am about to experience – is this it? Is this the ‘domesticated lesbian’? What I see appears ‘familiar’, ‘tamed’, re-tracing the straight lines of heterosexual culture. Helen opens the door and orders me directly into the kitchen. She says ‘Ben is in the living room, watching television… Ben takes great pleasure in watching “You’ve been Framed”’. (Fieldnotes) In this context, it is appropriate to focus on the television and its place within their home-making strategies. Television, in its historical and symbolic significance, could be deemed the technological co-terminus to the ideal nuclear family home. Lynn Spigel has shown through her examination of the cultural history of TV’s formative years in post World War America how television became central to providing representations of family life, but also how the technology itself, as an object, informed material and symbolic transformations within the domestic sphere and beyond. Over the past fifty years as Morley points out, the TV has moved from its fixed place in the living room to become more personalised and encroach on other spaces in house and home and has now, in fact, re-entered the public realm (see airports and shopping malls) where it originated. At present, ‘the home itself can seen as having become … the “last vehicle”, where comfort, safety and stability can happily coexist with the possibility of instantaneous digitalised “flight” to elsewhere – and the instantaneous importation of desired elements of the “elsewhere” into the home’ (Morley, “Media, Modernity” 200). Importantly, as Morley confirms, today’s high-tech discourse is often still framed by a nostalgic vision of ‘family values’. There was only one TV set in Helen and Ben’s house: a black plastic cube with a 16” screen. It was decidedly ‘unglamorous’ as Helen pointed out. During the first round of ‘home-making’ efforts, it had found its way into a corner in the front room, with the sofa and armchair arranged in viewing distance. It was a very ‘traditional’ living room set-up. During my weeklong stay and for some weeks after, it was mostly Ben on her own ‘watching the telly’ in the early evenings ‘vegging out’ after work. Helen, meanwhile, was in the kitchen with the radio on or a CD playing, or in her ‘ICT free’ bedroom, reading. Then, suddenly, the TV had disappeared. During one of our ‘long conversations’ (Silverstone, Hirsch and Morley, “Listening”, 204) it transpired that it was now housed for most of the time on the top shelf of a storage cupboard and only ‘allowed out’ ever so often. As a material object, it had easily found its place as a small, but nevertheless quite central feature in the living room. Imbued with the cultural memory of their parents’ and that of many other living rooms, it was ‘tempting’ and easy for them to ‘accept’ it as part of a setting up home as a couple. Ben explained that they both fell into a habit, an everyday routine, to sit around it. However, settling into their new home with too much ‘ease’, they began to question their techno-practice around the TV. For Helen in particular, the aesthetics of the TV set did not fit in with her plans to re-decorate the house loosely in art deco style, tethered to her femme identity. They did not envisage creating a home that would potentially signal that a family with 2.4 children lives here. ‘The “normality” of [working] 9-5’ (Ben), was sufficient. Establishing a perceived visual difference in their living room, partly by removing the TV set, Helen and Ben aimed to ‘draw a line’ around their home and private sphere vis a vis the rest of the street and, metaphorically speaking, the straight world. The boundaries between the public and private are nevertheless porous, as it is exactly that the public perceptions of a mostly private, domesticated media technology prevent Helen and Ben from feeling entirely comfortable in its presence. It was not only the TV set’s symbolic function as a material object that made them restrict and consciously control the presence of the TV in their home space. One of Helen and Ben’s concerns in this context was that TV, as a broadcast medium, is utterly ‘conservative’ in its content and as such, very much ‘straight speaking’. To paraphrase Helen – you can only read so much between the lines and shout at the telly, it can get tiring. ‘I like watching nature programmes, but they somehow manage even here to make it sound like a hetero narrative’. Ben: ‘yeah – mind the lesbian swans’. The employment of the VCR and renting movies helps them to partly re-dress this perceived imbalance. At the same time, TV’s ‘water-cooler’ effect helps them to stay in tune with what is going on around them and enables them, for example, to participate and intervene in conversations at work. In this sense, watching TV can turn into home-work, which affords a kind of entry ticket to shared life-worlds outside the home and as such can be controlled, but not necessarily abandoned altogether. TV as a ‘straightening device’ may afford the (dis)comfort of a sense of participation in mainstream discourses and the (dis)comfort of serving as a reminder of difference at the same time. ‘It just sits there … apart from Sundays’ – and when the girls come round… Single-parent households are on the rise in the US (Russo Lemor) as well as in the UK. However, the attention given to single-parent families so far focuses pre-dominantly on single mothers and fathers after separation or divorce from a heterosexual marriage (Russo Lemor; Silverstone, “Beneath the Bottom Line”). As (queer) sociologists have began to map the field of ‘families of choice and other life experiments’ (Weeks, Heaphy and Donovan), a more concerted effort to bring together the literatures and to shed more light on the queer techno-practices of alternative families seems necessary. Liz and her young son Tim had moved to Brighton from London. As a lesbian working single mother, she raises Tim pre-dominantly on her own: ‘we are a small family, and that’s fine’. Liz’s home-making narrative is very much driven by her awareness of what she sees as her responsibilities as a mother, a lesbian mother. The move to Brighton was assessed by being able to keep her clients in London (she worked as a self-employed communication and PR person for various London councils) – ‘this is what feeds us’, and the fact that she did not want Tim to go to a ‘badly performing’ school in London. The terraced three-bedroom house she found was in a residential area, not too far from the station and in need of updating and re-decorating. The result of the combined efforts of builders, her dad (‘for some of the DIY’) and herself produced a ‘conventional’ set-up with a living room, a kitchen-diner, a small home-office (for tele-working) and Tim’s and her bedroom. Inconspicuous in its appearance, it was clearly child-oriented with a ‘real jelly bean arch’ in the hallway. The living room is relatively bare, with a big sofa, table and chairs, ‘an ancient stereo-system’ and a ‘battered TV and Video-recorder’ in the corner. ‘We hardly use it’, Liz exclaims. ‘We much rather spend time out and about if there is a chance … quality time, rather than watching TV … or I read him stories in bed. I hate the idea of TV as a baby sitter … I have very deliberately chosen to have Tim and I want to make the most of it’. For Liz, the living room with the TV set in it appears as a kind of gesture to what family homes ‘look like’. As such, the TV and furniture set-up function as a signal and symbol of ‘normality’ in a queer household – perhaps a form of ‘passing’ for visitors and guests. The concern for the welfare of her son in this context is a sign and reflection of a constant negotiation process within a pre-dominantly heterosexual system of cultural symbols and values, which he, of course, is already able to ‘compare’ and evaluate when he is out and about at school or visiting friends in their homes. Unlike in Helen and Ben’s home, the TV is therefore allowed to stay out of the closet. Still, Liz rarely watches TV at all, for reasons not dissimilar to those of Helen and Ben. Apart from this, she shares a lack of spare time with many other single parents. Significantly, the living room and TV do receive a queer ‘make-over’ now and then, when Tim is in bed or with his father on a weekend and ‘the girls’ come over for a drink, chat and video viewing (noticeably, the living room furniture and TV get pushed around and re-arranged to accommodate the crowd). In this sense, Liz, in her home-making practices, carefully manages and performs ‘object relationships’ that allow her and her son to ‘fit in’ as much as to advocate ‘difference’ within the construction of ‘normalcy’. The pressures of this negotiation process are clearly visible. Conclusion – Re-Engendering Home and Techno-Practices As women as much as lesbians, Helen, Ben and Liz are, like so many others, part of a historical and much wider struggle regarding visibility, equality and justice. If this article had been dedicated to gay/queer men and their techno- and home-making sensibilities, it would have read somewhat differently to be sure. Of course, questions of gender and sexual identities would have remained equally paramount, as they always should, enfolding questions of class, race and ethnicity (Pink 2004). The concept and practice of home have a deeply engendered history. Queer practices ‘at home’ are always already tied up with knowledges of gendered practices and spaces. As Morley has observed, ‘space is gendered on a variety of scales … the local is often associated with femininity and seen as the natural basis of home and community, into which an implicitly masculine realm intrudes’ (“Home Territories” 59). As the public and private realms have been gendered masculine and feminine respectively, so have media and ICTs. Although traditional ideas of home and gender relations are beginning to break down and the increasing personalization and mobilization of ICTs blur perceptions of the public and private, certain (idealized, heterosexualized and gendered) images of home, domesticity and family life seem to be recurring in popular discourse as well as mainstream academic writing. As feminist theorists have illustrated the ways in which gender needs to be seen as performative, feminist and queer theorists also ought to work further on finding vocabularies and discourses that capture and highlight diversity, without re-invoking the spectre of the nuclear family (home) itself (Weeks, Heaphy and Donovan). What I found was not the ‘domesticated’ lesbian ‘at home’ in a traditional feminine sphere. Rather, I experienced a complex set of re-negotiations and re-inscriptions of the domestic, of gender and sexual values and identities as well as techno-practices, leaving a trace, a mark on the system no matter how small (Helen: ‘I do wonder what the neighbours make of us’). The pressure and indeed desire to ‘fit in’ is often enormous and therefore affords the re-tracing of certain trodden paths of domesticity and ICT consumption. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the day when even Liz can put that old telly into the closet as it has lost its meaning as a cultural signifier of a particular kind. References Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology – Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2006. Bell, David, and Gill Valentine. “Introduction: Orientations.” mapping desire. Eds. David Bell and Gill Valentine. London: Routledge, 1995. 1-27. Berker, Thomas, Maren Hartmann, Yves Punie and Katie J. Ward, eds. Domestication of Media and Technology. Maidenhead: Open UP, 2006. Bryson, Mary, Lori MacIntosh, Sharalyn Jordan, Hui-Ling Lin. “Virtually Queer?: Homing Devices, Mobility, and Un/Belongings.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.3 (2006). Elwood, Sarah A.. “Lesbian Living Spaces: Multiple Meanings of Home.” From Nowhere to Everywhere – Lesbian Geographies. Ed. Gill Valentine. New York and London: Harrington Park Press, 2000. 11-27. Eves, Alison. “Queer Theory, Butch/Femme Identities and Lesbian Space.” Sexualities 7.4 (2004): 480-496. Gorman-Murray, Andrew. “Reconfiguring Domestic Values: Meanings of Home for Gay Men and Lesbians.” Housing, Theory and Society 24.3 (2007). [in press]. ———. “Queering Home or Domesticating Deviance? Interrogating Gay Domesticity through Lifestyle Television.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.2 (2006): 227-247. ———. “Queering the Family Home: Narratives from Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth Coming Out in Supportive Family Homes in Australia.” Gender, Place and Culture 15.1 (2008). [in press]. Green, Eileen. “Technology, Leisure and Everyday Practices.” Virtual Gender – Technology and Consumption. Eds. Eileen Green and Alison Adam. London: Routledge, 2001. 173-188. Johnston, Lynda, and Gill Valentine. “Wherever I Lay My Girlfriend, That’s My Home – The Performance and Surveillance of Lesbian Identities in Domestic Environments.” mapping desire. Eds. David Bell and Gill Valentine. London: Routledge, 1995. 99-113. Karl, Irmi. “On/Offline: Gender, Sexuality, and the Techno-Politics of Everyday Life.” Queer Online – Media, Technology & Sexuality. Kate O’Riordan and David J Phillips. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 45-64. Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Ed. Arjun Appadurai. New York: Cambridge UP, 1986. 64-91. Morley, David. Family Television – Cultural Power and Domestic Leisure. London: Routledge, 1986/2005. ———. Home Territories – Media, Mobility and Identity. London: Routledge, 2000. ———. “What’s ‘Home’ Got to Do with It? Contradictory Dynamics in the Domestication of Technology and the Dislocation of Domesticity.” Domestication of Media and Technology. Eds. Thomas Berker, Maren Hartmann, Yves Punie and Katie J. Ward. Maidenhead: Open UP, 2006. 21-39. ———. Media, Modernity and Technology – The Geography of the New. London: Routledge, 2007. Pink, Sarah. Home Truths – Gender, Domestic Objects and Everyday Life. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004. Russo Lemor, Anna Maria. “Making a ‘Home’. The Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies in Single Parents’ Households.” Domestication of Media and Technology. Eds. Thomas Berker, Maren Hartmann, Yves Punie and Katie J. Ward. Maidenhead: Open UP, 2006. 165-184. Silverstone, Roger. “Beneath the Bottom Line: Households and Information and Communication Technologies in an Age of the Consumer.” PICT Policy Papers 17. Swindon: ESRC, 1991. ———. Television and Everyday Life. London: Routledge, 1994. ———. Why Study the Media. London: Sage, 1999. ———. “Domesticating Domestication: Reflections on the Life of a Concept.” Domestication of Media and Technology. Eds. Thomas Berker, Maren Hartmann, Yves Punie and Katie J. Ward. Maidenhead: Open UP, 2006. 229-48. Silverstone, Roger, Eric Hirsch and David Morley. “Listening to a Long Conversation: An Ethnographic Approach to the Study of Information and Communication Technologies in the Home.” Cultural Studies 5.2 (1991): 204-27. ———. “Information and Communication Technologies and the Moral Economy of the Household.” Consuming Technologies – Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. Eds. Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch. London: Routledge, 1992. 15-31. Spigel, Lynn. Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Post-War America. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1992. UK Office for National Statistics. July 2005. 21 Aug. 2007http://www.statistics.gov.uk/focuson/families>. Valentine, Gill. “Introduction.” From Nowhere to Everywhere: Lesbian Geographies. Ed. Gill Valentine. Binghampton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2000. 1-9. Weeks, Jeffrey, Brian Heaphy, and Catherine Donovan. Same Sex Intimacies – Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments. London: Routledge, 2001. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Karl, Irmi. "Domesticating the Lesbian?: Queer Strategies and Technologies of Home-Making." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/06-karl.php>. APA Style Karl, I. (Aug. 2007) "Domesticating the Lesbian?: Queer Strategies and Technologies of Home-Making," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/06-karl.php>.

Abstract:

The paper studies the immense opposition to a nonviolent campaign against the practice of moral policing in Kerala to understand the dominant spaces, collective identities, and discourses that give shape to the outrage of public morality in India. The campaign through its politics specifically targeted rightwing and political groups as well as socially embedded familial and institutional structures that exercise control over individuals through patriarchal regimes. The adverse reaction to the campaign revealed that collective aggression or violence can be used to impose majoritarian values and exert social control through the authority of public morality and everyday acts of moral policing in masculinized, politico-religious spaces that characterize the traditional public sphere in India. The contested ‘morals’ were gendered and communal notions particular to the middle classes and central to the maintenance of dominant structures of family, marriage, religious community, and the nation. The same informs notions of popular morality that give moral policing its ‘rational’ authority. The research employs online opinion pieces, reports and discussions, and two structured interviews to examine why the campaign became prominent in the public sphere. It gives coherence to the campaign’s agenda to counter the underlying violence of moral policing and suggests measures for peaceful resolution of public contestations.

Abstract:

Explorations of the intersecting terrain between the resources (or mining) sector and gendered socialisation are gaining currency (Laplonge and Albury; Lahiri-Dutt). Some argue that mine workers and their families are particularly vulnerable to divorce, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, injury, violence and worksite conflict, mental health struggles, financial over-extension, isolation, and loss of familial and community connection (Ashby; Paddenburg 14). Others contradict anecdotal evidence to support these concerns (Clifford 58; BHP Billiton 11-5). Substantive research on the emotional cost of mining remains sparse and contested (Windsor 4). Of concern to some, however, is that mining companies may be placing pressure on employees to generate a profit (Brough 10), while failing to acknowledge the cost of “hypermasculinised” mechanisms of domination that characterise mining cultures (Laplonge, Roadshow). I refer to these characteristic mechanisms of domination throughout this paper as “malestream norms” (O’Brien 62). In this paper, I argue that mining cultures have become prime examples of unsustainable practices. They forfeit relationally and ecologically sensitive modes of production that would otherwise celebrate and indeed prioritise a holistic level of care for the Earth, mining cultures, work colleagues and the self. Here, the term “sustainable” refers to a broader spectrum of social, cultural, psychological and ecological needs of mine workers, mining culture, and the environment upon which mining profits depend. I posit that mining communities that tend to the psycho-social needs of mine workers beyond malestream norms are more likely to implement sustainable mining practices that are not only considerate of the broader needs of mine workers, not only profitable for mining companies, but care for the Earth as well. Granted, employee assistance mechanisms do include substantial support services (such as health and wellness programmes, on-site counselling and therapy, mining family support networks, shorter rosters, improved access to family contact from site, etc.). However, these support services—as they may be offered by individual mining companies—do not adequately address the broader psycho-social impact of mining on mine site communities, the relational integrity of mine workers with their families, or how mine workers are faring within themselves in light of the pressures that abound both on-swing and off (Lahiri-Dutt 201). Discussions of a “softer” approach to mining fail to critically analyse malestream norms (Laplonge, Roadshow). In other words, attempts to make mining more sustainable have at-best been superficial by, for example, seeking to increase numbers of women on-site but then “jamming” these new women into cultures of hypermasculinism in hopes that a “trickle-down affect” of softening mining communities of practice will ensue (Laplonge, "You Can't Rely"). A comprehensive approach to sustainable mining practices must begin with deeper psycho-social care for mine workers (both women and men), and shift mining culture towards environmental care as well—an approach to mining that reflects a holistic and integrated model for pursuing profitable company development that is more caring than is currently the norm throughout the corporate world (Anderson). To accomplish this, we must specifically challenge malestream norms as they manifest in mining (Laplonge, Roadshow). In response, I introduce ecological masculinism as a relational approach to softening the malestream norms that pervade mining. To begin, it is recognised that mining masculinities—like all practices of masculinity—are pluralised social constructions that are not fixed but learned (Connell). Ecological masculinism is explored as a path towards fresh systemic practices that can steer men in mining towards masculine identities that are relationally attuned, emotionally articulate, and environmentally aware. It is argued that the approach to mining masculinities introduced here can help the resources sector become more sustainable for men, more conducive to greater numbers of women, more profitable for mining companies over longer periods of time, and gentler on the Earth. Where Are All the Ecomasculinists in Mining? Ecology as a science of relationships can serve as a guide towards the order that emerges among complex systems such as those that pervade mining (Capra). I suggest that Ecology can assist us to better understand and redefine the intricacies of gender dynamics in mining. It would be easy to presume that Ecology is oppositional to mining. I argue that to the contrary, the relational focus of Ecology has much to teach us about how we might reconfigure malestream norms to make it possible for mining cultures to demonstrate deeper care for others and the self at work and at home. An ecological analysis of malestream norms (and their impacts on Earth, community, others and the self) is not new. Richard Twine initiated some of the earliest explorations of the intersecting terrain between men, masculinities and the Earth. This discourse on the need for an “ecologisation” of masculinities grew out of the “broad church” of ecological feminism that explored so called Logics of Dualism that malestream norms construct and maintain (Plumwood 55-59). For more than 40 years, ecological feminism has served as a specialised discourse interrogating the mutual oppression of women and Nature by the male-dominated world. In his contribution to the Essex Ecofem Listerv, Twine posted the following provocative statement: Where are all the ecomasculinists? … there does not seem to be any literature on how the environmental and feminist movements together form a strong critique of the dominant Western masculine tradition. Does anyone know of any critical examinations … of this position, particularly one that addresses masculinity rather than patriarchy? (Twine et al. 1) Twine highlighted the need for a new discourse about men and masculinities that built on the term “ecomasculinity.” This term was originally coined by Shepherd Bliss in his seminal paper Revisioning Masculinity: A Report on the Growing Men's Movement (1987). I suggest that this intersecting terrain between Ecology and masculinities can guide us beyond the constraints of malestream norms that are entrenched in mining and offer us alternatives to mining cultural practices that oppress women and men as well as the environment upon which mining depends. However, these early investigations into the need for more nurturing masculinities were conceptual more so than practical and failed to take hold in scholarly discourses on gender or the pluralised praxes of modern masculinities. Coupled with this, the dominating aspects of malestream norms have continued to characterise mining cultures resulting in, for example, higher than average injury rates that are indicators of some negative consequences of a hypermasculinised workplace (Department of Health, WA 18; Laplonge, Roadshow). Further, the hom*ophobic elements of malestream norms can give many men cause to hesitate seeking out emotional support if and where needed for fear of peer-group ridicule. These are some of the ways that men are subject to “men’s oppression” (Smith; Irwin et al.; Jackins; Whyte; Rohr), a term used here not to posit men as victims but rather as individuals who suffer as a result of their own internalised sense of superiority that drives them to behave inequitably towards other men, women and the Earth. Men’s Oppression Men’s oppression is a term used to illuminate the impact of malestream norms on men’s lives. Richard Rohr noted that: Part of our oppression as men ... is that we are taught to oppress others who have less status than we do. It creates a pecking order and a sense of superiority. We especially oppress racial minorities, hom*osexuals, the poor and women. (28) Men’s oppression is harmful to men, women and the ways that we mine the Earth. It is consequently of great importance that we explore the impacts of men’s oppression on mining masculinities with an emphasis on deconstructing the ways that it shapes and maintains malestream norms in mining culture. Men’s oppression pressures men to behave in ways that can constrain the spectrum of permissible behaviours that they adopt. Men’s oppression is ego-driven, based in comparing and competing against each other and pressure them to work tirelessly towards being better, higher, stronger, more virile, smarter, richer, more powerful, outwardly composed and more adored by others through status and material wealth often acquired at the expense of others and indeed the compromising of their own capacities to care for others and the self. These products of malestream norms validate an inner sense of feeling good about oneself at the expense of relational connection with others, including the Earth. As mentioned previously, malestream norms enable men to acquire socioeconomic and political advantages. But this has occurred at what has proven to be a terrible cost for all others as well as men themselves. Many men, especially those most strongly immersed in malestream norms, don’t even know that they are subject to this internalise superiority nor do they recognise it as an oppression that afflicts them at the same time and through the same mechanisms that assures their primacy in a world.. Notably, the symptoms of men’s oppression are not unique to mining. However, this form of oppression is intensely experienced by miners precisely because of the isolated and hypermasculine nature of minthat men (and increasing numbers of women) find themselves immersed in when on-site. Unfortunately, perceiving and then countering men’s oppression can undermine men’s primacy (Smith 51-52). As a consequence many men have little reason to want to take a stand against malestream norms that can come to dominate their lives at work and home. But to refuse to do so can erode their health and well-being and set them on a path of perpetration of oppressive thoughts, words and deeds towards others. Pathways to Ecological Masculinism The conceptual core of ecological masculinism is constructed on five precepts (that I refer to as the ADAMN model). These precepts help guide modern Western men towards greater care for others and the self in tangible ways (Pulé). Accompanying these precepts is the need for a plurality of caring behavioural possibilities for men to emerge. Men are encouraged to pursue inner congruency (aligning head with heart and intuition) as a pathway to their fuller humanness so that more integrated and mature masculinities can emerge. In this sense, ecological masculinism can be adapted to any work or home situation, providing a robust and versatile model that redresses gendered norms amongst mining men despite the diversity of individuals and resistances that might characterise some mining cultures. The ADAMN model draws on the vernacular encouragement for men to “give a damn” about all others and themselves. The five key instructions of masculine ecologisation are: A: Accept the central premise that you were born good and have an infinite capacity to care and be caring D: Don’t separate yourself from others; instead strengthen and rebuild your sense of connection with others and yourself A: Amend your own past hurts and any you have caused to others M: Model mature modern masculinity. Construct your masculine identity on caring thoughts, words and actions that nurture the relational space between yourself and others by seeking a life of service for the common good N: Normalise men’s care; support all men to show their care as central features of being a mature modern man Collectively, these key instructions of the ADAMN model are designed to raise men’s capacities to care for others and the self. They are aspects of ecological masculinism that are introduced to men through large group presentations, working with teams and at the level of one-on-one coaching in order to facilitate the recovering of the fuller human self that emerges through masculine ecologisation. This aspect of ecological masculinism offers tangible alternatives to malestream norms that dominate mining cultures by subverting the oppressive aspects of malestream norms in mining with more integrated levels of care for all others and the self. The ADAMN model is drawn as a nested diagram where each layer of this work forms the foundations of and is imbedded within the next, taking an individual man on a step-by-step journey that charts a course towards a heightened relational self and in so doing shifts the culture of masculinities within which he is immersed (see Figure 1). Trials of the ADAMN model over the past three years have applied ecological masculinism to groups of miners, at first in larger groups where hypermasculinised men can remain anonymous. From there masculine ecologisation drills down into the personal stories of individual men’s lives to uncover the sources of individual adherence to malestream norms—interrogating the pressures at play for them to have donned the “armour” that malestream norms demand of them. Stepping further towards the self, we then explore group and team dynamics for examples of hypermasculinism in the context of its benefits and costs to individual men’s lives in a support group type setting, and finally refine the transformational elements of this exploratory in one-on-one coaching of men across the spectrum from natural leaders to those in crises. At this final level of intensive personal reflection, an individual man is coached towards integrative alignment of his head, heart and intuition so that he can discover fresh perspectives for accessing his caring self. The project’s hope is that from this place of heightened “inner congruency” the ecologised man can more easily awaken and engage his care for others and himself not only as a man, but as an active and engaged citizen whose life of service to his employer, community, family, friends, and himself, becomes a central fixture of the ways he interacts with others at work and at home. Effectively, ecological masculinism reaches beyond the constraints of hypermasculinism as it commonly pervades mining by “peeling the onion” of malestream norms in a step-wise manner. It is hoped that, if the ADAMN model is successful, that the emerging “ecomen” become more sensitive to the needs, wants and intrinsic rights of others, develop rich emotional vocabularies, embrace the value of abstract thinking and a strong and engaged intuition concurrently, engage with others compassionately, educate themselves about their world at work and home, willingly assume leadership on the job, within their families and throughout their communities and grow proactively through the process. Such men embody a humanistic worldview towards all of life. They are flexible, responsive, and attentive to the value of others and themselves. Such is the ecoman I suggest might best benefit resource companies, mining cultures, mining families and miners.Figure 1 Conclusion Central to a more gender-aware future for men in mining is hope—hope that we will adapt to the challenges of mining culture swiftly by reaching beyond engineered solutions to the problems that many mine workers face; hope that our responses will be humanistic, creative and transgress malestream norms; hope that those responses are inclusive of softer and more caring approaches mining masculinities. This hope hinges on the willingness of resource companies to support such a shift in mining culture towards greater care for all others and the self. One path towards this fresh future for mining is through ecological masculinism as I have introduced it here. This new conversation for mining men and masculinities gives priority to the ending of men’s oppression for the benefit of individual mining men as well as all those with whom they share their lives at work and at home. In this paper, my intention has been to emphasise a more caring approach to mining. It is my earnest belief that through such work, mining will become more sustainable for men, women and the Earth. The ecologised mining man will have an important role to play in such a transformation.ReferencesAnderson, Ray. Our Sustainability Journey – Mission Zero. 2008. 29 April 2013 ‹http://www.interfaceglobal.com/Sustainability/Interface-Story.aspx›. Ashby, Nicole. The Need for FIFO Families. Personal Interview. 11 Dec 2012. BHP Billiton. 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Abstract:

Introduction How do we measure intimacy? What are its impacts on our social, political and personal lives? Can we claim a politics to our intimate lives that escapes the normative confines of archaic institutions, while making social justice claims for relationship recognition? Negotiating some of these disparate questions requires us to think more broadly in contemporary public debates on equality and relationship recognition. Specifically, by outlining the impacts of the popular "gay marriage" debate, this paper examines the impacts of queer theory in association with public policy and community lobbying for relationship equality. Much of the debate remains polarised: eliminating discrimination is counterposed to religious or reproductive narratives that suggest such recognition undermines the value of the "natural" heterosexual family. Introducing queer theory into advocacy that oscillates between rights and reproduction problematises indexing intimacy against normative ideas of monogamy and family. While the arguments circulated by academics, lawyers, politicians and activists have disparate political and ethical impacts, when taken together, they continue to define marriage as a public regulation of intimacy and citizenship. Citizenship, measured in democratic participation and choice, however, can only be realised through reflexive politics that value difference. Encouraging critical dialogue across disparate areas of the marriage equality debate will have a significant impact on how we make ethical claims for recognising intimacy. (Re)defining Marriage In legislative terms, marriage remains the most fundamental means through which the relationship between citizenship and intimacy is crystallised in Australia. For example, in 2004 the Federal Liberal Government in Australia passed a legislative amendment to the Marriage Act 1961 and expressly defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. By issuing a public legislative amendment, the Government intended to privilege monogamous (in this case understood as heterosexual) intimacy by precluding same-sex or polygamous marriage. Such an exercise had rhetorical rather than legal significance, as common law principles had previously defined the scope of marriage in gender specific terms for decades (Graycar and Millbank 41). Marriage as an institution, however, is not a universal or a-historical discourse limited to legal or political constructs. Socialist feminist critiques of marriage in the 1950s conceptualised the legal and gender specific constructs in marriage as a patriarchal contract designed to regulate female bodies (Hannam 146). However, Angela McRobbie notes that within a post-feminist context, these historical realities of gendered subjugation, reproduction or domesticity have been "disarticulated" (26). Marriage has become a more democratic and self-reflexive expression of intimacy for women. David Shumway elaborates this idea and argues that this shift has emerged in a context of "social solidarity" within a consumer environment of social fragmentation (23). What this implies is that marriage now evokes a range of cultural choices, consumer practices and affective trends that are incommensurable to a singular legal or historical term of reference. Debating the Politics of Intimacy and Citizenship In order to reflect on this shifting relationship between choice, citizenship and marriage as a concept, it is necessary to highlight that marriage extends beyond private articulations of love. It is a ritualised performance of heterosexual individual (or coupled) citizenship as it entrenches economic and civil rights and responsibilities. The private becomes public. Current neo-liberal approaches to same-sex marriage focus on these symbolic and economic questions of how recognising intimacy is tied to equality. In a legal and political context, marriage is defined in s5 Marriage Act as "the union between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life." While the Act does not imbue marriage with religious or procreative significance, such a gender dichotomous definition prevents same-sex and gender diverse partners from entering into marriage. For Morris Kaplan, this is a problem because "full equality for lesbian and gay citizens requires access to the legal and social recognition of our intimate associations" (201). Advocates and activists define the quest for equal citizenship by engaging with current religious dogma that situates marriage within a field of reproduction, whereby same-sex marriage is seen to rupture the traditional rubric of monogamous kinship and the biological processes of "gender complementarity" (Australian Christian Lobby 1). Liberal equality arguments reject such conservative assertions on the basis that desire, sexuality and intimacy are innate features of human existence and hence always already implicated in public spheres (Kaplan 202). Thus, legal visibility or state recognition becomes crucial to sustaining practices of intimacy. Problematising the broader social impact of a civil rights approach through the perspective of queer theory, the private/public distinctions that delineate citizenship and intimacy become more difficult to negotiate. Equality and queer theory arguments on same-sex marriage are difficult to reconcile, primarily because they signify the different psychic and cultural investments in the monogamous couple. Butler asserts that idealisations of the couple in legal discourse relates to norms surrounding community, family and nationhood (Undoing 116). This structured circulation of sexual norms reifies the hetero-normative forms of relationships that ought to be recognised (and are desired) by the state. Butler also interrogates this logic of marriage, as a heterosexual norm, and suggests it has the capacity to confine rather than liberate subjects (Undoing 118-20). The author's argument relies upon Michel Foucault's notion of power and subjection, where the subject is not an autonomous individual (as conceived in neo liberal discourses) but a site of disciplined discursive production (Trouble 63). Butler positions the heterosexuality of marriage as a "cultural and symbolic foundation" that renders forms of kinship, monogamy, parenting and community intelligible (Undoing 118). In this sense, marriage can be a problematic articulation of state interests, particularly in terms of perpetuating domesticity, economic mobility and the heterosexual family. As former Australian Prime Minister John Howard opines: Marriage is … one of the bedrock institutions of our society … marriage, as we understand it in our society, is about children … providing for the survival of the species. (qtd. in Wade) Howard's politicisation of marriage suggests that it remains crucial to the preservation of the nuclear family. In doing so, the statement also exemplifies hom*ophobic anxieties towards non-normative kinship relations "outside the family". The Prime Ministers' words characterise marriage as a framework which privileges hegemonic ideas of monogamy, biological reproduction and gender dichotomy. Butler responds to these hom*ophobic terms by alluding to the discursive function of a "heterosexual matrix" which codes and produces dichotomous sexes, genders and (hetero)sexual desires (Trouble 36). By refusing to accept the binary neo-liberal discourse in which one is either for or against gay marriage, Butler asserts that by prioritising marriage, the individual accepts the discursive terms of recognition and legitimacy in subjectifying what counts as love (Undoing 115). What this author's argument implies is that by recuperating marital norms, the individual is not liberated, but rather participates in the discursive "trap" and succumbs to the terms of a heterosexual matrix (Trouble 56). In contradistinction to Howard's political rhetoric, engaging with Foucault's broader theoretical work on sexuality and friendship can influence how we frame the possibilities of intimacy beyond parochial narratives of conjugal relationships. Foucault emphasises that countercultural intimacies rely on desires that are relegated to the margins of mainstream (hetero)sexual culture. For example, the transformational aesthetics in practices such as sadomasochism or queer polyamorous relationships exist due to certain prohibitions in respect to sex (Foucault, History (1) 38, and "Sex" 169). Foucault notes how forms of resistance that transgress mainstream norms produce new experiences of pleasure. Being "queer" (though Foucault does not use this word) becomes identified with new modes of living, rather than a static identity (Essential 138). Extending Foucault, Butler argues that positioning queer intimacies within a field of state recognition risks normalising relationships in terms of heterosexual norms whilst foreclosing the possibilities of new modes of affection. Jasbir Puar argues that queer subjects continue to feature on the peripheries of moral and legal citizenship when their practices of intimacy fail to conform to the socio-political dyadic ideal of matrimony, fidelity and reproduction (22-28). Puar and Butler's reluctance to embrace marriage becomes clearer through an examination of the obiter dicta in the recent American jurisprudence where the proscription on same-sex marriage was overturned in California: To the extent proponents seek to encourage a norm that sexual activity occur within marriage to ensure that reproduction occur within stable households, Proposition 8 discourages that norm because it requires some sexual activity and child-bearing and child-rearing to occur outside marriage. (Perry vs Schwarzenegger 128) By connecting the discourse of matrimony and sex with citizenship, the court reifies the value of marriage as an institution of the family, which should be extended to same-sex couples. Therefore, by locating the family in reproductive heterosexual terms, the court forecloses other modes of recognition or rights for those who are in non-monogamous relationships or choose not to reproduce. The legal reasoning in the case evinces the ways in which intimate citizenship or legitimate kinship is understood in highly parochial terms. As Kane Race elaborates, the suturing of domesticity and nationhood, with the rhetoric that "reproduction occur within stable households", frames heterosexual nuclear bonds as the means to legitimate sexual relations (98). By privileging a familial kinship aesthetic to marriage, the state implicitly disregards recognising the value of intimacy in non-nuclear communities or families (Race 100). Australia, however, unlike most foreign nations, has a dual model of relationship recognition. De facto relationships are virtually indistinguishable from marriage in terms of the rights and entitlements couples are able to access. Very recently, the amendments made by the Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - General Reform) Act 2008 (Cth) has ensured same-sex couples have been included under Federal definitions of de facto relationships, thereby granting same-sex couples the same material rights and entitlements as heterosexual married couples. While comprehensive de facto recognition operates uniquely in Australia, it is still necessary to question the impact of jurisprudence that considers only marriage provides the legitimate structure for raising children. As Laurent Berlant suggests, those who seek alternative "love plots" are denied the legal and cultural spaces to realise them ("Love" 479). Berlant's critique emphasises how current "progressive" legal approaches to same-sex relationships rely on a monogamous (heterosexual) trajectory of the "love plot" which marginalises those who are in divorced, single, polyamorous or multi-parent situations. For example, in the National Year of Action, a series of marriage equality rallies held across Australia over 2010, non-conjugal forms of intimacy were inadvertently sidelined in order to make a claim for relationship recognition. In a letter to the Sydney Star Observer, a reader laments: As a gay man, I cannot understand why gay people would want to engage in a heterosexual ritual called marriage … Why do gay couples want to buy into this ridiculous notion is beyond belief. The laws need to be changed so that gays are treated equal under the law, but this is not to be confused with marriage as these are two separate issues... (Michael 2) Marriage marks a privileged position of citizenship and consumption, to which all other gay and lesbian rights claims are tangential. Moreover, as this letter to the Sydney Star Observer implies, by claiming sexual citizenship through the rubric of marriage, discussions about other campaigns for legislative equality are effectively foreclosed. Melissa Gregg expands on such a problematic, noting that the legal responses to equality reiterate a normative relationship between sexuality and power, where only couples that subscribe to dyadic, marriage-like relationships are offered entitlements by the state (4). Correspondingly, much of the public activism around marriage equality in Australia seeks to achieve its impact for equality (reforming the Marriage Act) by positioning intimacy in terms of state legitimacy. Butler and Warner argue that when speaking of legitimacy a relation to what is legitimate is implied. Lisa Bower corroborates this, asserting "legal discourse creates norms which universalise particular modes of living…while suppressing other practices and identities" (267). What Butler's and Bower's arguments reveal is that legitimacy is obtained through the extension of marriage to hom*osexual couples. For example, Andrew Barr, the current Labor Party Education Minister in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), noted that "saying no to civil unions is to say that some relationships are more legitimate than others" (quoted in "Legal Ceremonies"). Ironically, such a statement privileges civil unions by rendering them as the normative basis on which to grant legal recognition. Elizabeth Povinelli argues the performance of dyadic intimacy becomes the means to assert legal and social sovereignty (112). Therefore, as Jenni Millbank warns, marriage, or even distinctive forms of civil unions, if taken alone, can entrench inequalities for those who choose not to participate in these forms of recognition (8). Grassroots mobilisation and political lobbying strategies around marriage equality activism can have the unintentional impact, however, of obscuring peripheral forms of intimacy and subsequently repudiating those who contest the movement towards marriage. Warner argues that those who choose to marry derive pride from their monogamous commitment and "family" oriented practice, a privilege afforded through marital citizenship (82). Conversely, individuals and couples who deviate from the "normal" (read: socially palatable) intimate citizen, such as promiscuous or polyamorous subjects, are rendered shameful or pitiful. This political discourse illustrates that there is a strong impetus in the marriage equality movement to legitimate "hom*osexual love" because it mimics the norms of monogamy, stability, continuity and family by only seeking to substitute the sex of the "other" partner. Thus, civil rights discourse maintains the privileged political economy of marriage as it involves reproduction (even if it is not biological), mainstream social roles and monogamous sex. By defining social membership and future life in terms of a heterosexual life-narrative, same-sex couples become wedded to the idea of matrimony as the basis for sustainable intimacy and citizenship (Berlant and Warner 557). Warner is critical of recuperating discourses that privilege marriage as the ideal form of intimacy. This is particularly concerning when diverse erotic and intimate communities, which are irreducible to normative forms of citizenship, are subject to erasure. Que(e)rying the Future of Ethics and Politics By connecting liberal equality arguments with Butler and Warner's work on queer ethics, there is hesitation towards privileging marriage as the ultimate form of intimacy. Moreover, Butler stresses the importance of a transformative practice of queer intimacy: It is crucial…that we maintain a critical and transformative relation to the norms that govern what will not count as intelligible and recognisable alliance and kinship. (Undoing 117) Here the author attempts to negotiate the complex terrain of queer citizenship and ethics. On one hand, it is necessary to be made visible in order to engage in political activism and be afforded rights within a state discourse. Simultaneously, on the other hand, there is a need to transform the prevailing hetero-normative rhetoric of romantic love in order to prevent pathologising bodies or rendering certain forms of intimacy as aberrant or deviant because, as Warner notes, they do not conform to our perception of what we understand to be normal or morally desirable. Foucault's work on the aesthetics of the self offers a possible transformational practice which avoids the risks Warner and Butler mention because it eludes the "normative determinations" of moralities and publics, whilst engaging in an "ethical stylization" (qtd. in Race 144). Whilst Foucault's work does not explicitly address the question of marriage, his work on friendship gestures to the significance of affective bonds. Queer kinship has the potential to produce new ethics, where bodies do not become subjects of desires, but rather act as agents of pleasure. Negotiating the intersection between active citizenship and transformative intimacy requires rethinking the politics of recognition and normalisation. Warner is quite ambivalent as to the potential of appropriating marriage for gays and lesbians, despite the historical dynamism of marriage. Rather than acting as a progressive mechanism for rights, it is an institution that operates by refusing to recognise other relations (Warner 129). However, as Alexander Duttmann notes, recognition is more complex and a paradoxical means of relation and identification. It involves a process in which the majority neutralises the difference of the (minority) Other in order to assimilate it (27). However, in the process of recognition, the Other which is validated, then transforms the position of the majority, by altering the terms by which recognition is granted. Marriage no longer simply confers recognition for heterosexual couples to engage in reproduction (Secomb 133). While some queer couples may subscribe to a monogamous relationship structure, these relationships necessarily trouble conservative politics. The lamentations of the Australian Christian Lobby regarding the "fundamental (anatomical) gender complementarity" of same-sex marriage reflect this by recognising the broader social transformation that will occur (and already does with many heterosexual marriages) by displacing the association between marriage, procreation and parenting (5). Correspondingly, Foucault's work assists in broadening the debate on relationship recognition by transforming our understanding of choice and ethics in terms of "queer friendship." He describes it as a practice that resists the normative public distinction between romantic and platonic affection and produces new aesthetics for sexual and non-sexual intimacy (Foucault, Essential 170). Linnell Secomb argues that this "double potential" alluded to in Foucault and Duttman's work, has the capacity to neutralise difference as Warner fears (133). However, it can also transform dominant narratives of sexual citizenship, as enabling marriage equality will impact on how we imagine traditional heterosexual or patriarchal "plots" to intimacy (Berlant, "Intimacy" 286). Conclusion Making an informed impact into public debates on marriage equality requires charting the locus of sexuality, intimacy and citizenship. Negotiating academic discourses, social and community activism, with broader institutions and norms presents political and social challenges when thinking about the sorts of intimacy that should be recognised by the state. The civil right to marriage, irrespective of the sex or gender of one's partner, reflects a crucial shift towards important democratic participation of non-heterosexual citizens. However, it is important to note that the value of such intimacy cannot be indexed against a single measure of legal reform. While Butler and Warner present considered indictments on the normalisation of queer intimacy through marriage, such arguments do not account for the impacts of que(e)rying cultural norms and practices through social and political change. Marriage is not a singular or a-historical construction reducible to state recognition. Moreover, in a secular democracy, marriage should be one of many forms of diverse relationship recognition open to same-sex and gender diverse couples. In order to expand the impact of social and legal claims for recognition, it is productive to rethink the complex nature of recognition, ritual and aesthetics within marriage. In doing so, we can begin to transform the possibilities for articulating intimate citizenship in plural democracies. References Australian Christian Lobby. "Submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry into the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009." Deakin: ACL, 2009. Australian Government. "Sec. 5." Marriage Act of 1961 (Cth). 1961. ———. Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - General Reform) Act 2008 (Cth). 2008. Bell, David, and John Binnie. The Sexual Citizen: Queer Politics and Beyond. Oxford: Polity P, 2000. Berlant, Lauren. "Intimacy: A Special Issue." Critical Inquiry 24 (1998): 281-88. ———. "Love, a Queer Feeling." hom*osexuality and Psychoanalysis. Eds. Tim Dean and Christopher Lane. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001:432-52. Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. "Sex in Public." Ed. Lauren Berlant. Intimacy. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 2000: 311-30. Bower, Lisa. "Queer Problems/Straight Solutions: The Limits of a Politics of 'Official Recognition'" Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories. Ed. Shane Phelan. London and New York: Routledge, 1997: 267-91. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. ———. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004. Duttmann, Alexander. Between Cultures: Tensions in the Struggle for Recognition. London: Verso, 2000. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality (1): The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin Books, 1977. ———. "Sex, Power and the Politics of Identity." Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Ed. Paul Rabinow. London: Allen Lange/Penguin, 1984. 163-74. ———. Essential Works of Foucault: 1954-1984: Ethics, Vol. 1. London: Penguin, 2000. Graycar, Reg, and Jenni Millbank. "From Functional Families to Spinster Sisters: Australia's Distinctive Path to Relationship Recognition." Journal of Law and Policy 24. 2007: 1-44. Gregg, Melissa. "Normal Homes." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). 27 Aug. 2007 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/02-gregg.php›. Hannam, Jane. Feminism. London and New York: Pearson Education, 2007. Kaplan, Morris. "Intimacy and Equality: The Question of Lesbian and Gay Marriage." Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories. Ed. Shane Phelan. London and New York: Routledge, 1997: 201-30. "Legal Ceremonies for Same-Sex Couples." ABC Online 11 Nov. 2009. 13 Dec. 2011 ‹http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/11/2739661.htm›. McRobbie, Angela. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London and New York: Sage, 2008. Michael. "Why Marriage?" Letter to the Editor. Sydney Star Observer 1031 (20 July 2010): 2. Millbank, Jenni. "Recognition of Lesbian and Gay Families in Australian Law - Part One: Couples." Federal Law Review 34 (2008): 1-44. Perry v. Schwarzenegger. 3: 09 CV 02292. United States District Court for the Northern District of California. 2010. Povinelli, Elizabeth. Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy and Carnality. Durham: Duke UP, 2006. Puar, Jasbir. Terrorist Assemblages: hom*onationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. Race, Kane. Pleasure Consuming Medicine: The Queer Politics of Drugs. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2009. Secomb, Linnell. Philosophy and Love. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007. Shumway, David. Modern Love: Romance, Intimacy and the Marriage Crisis. New York: New York UP, 2003. Wade, Matt. "PM Joins Opposition against Gay Marriage as Cleric's Election Stalls." The Sydney Morning Herald 6 Aug. 2003. Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.

Abstract:

Ingredients: Men, Women, Modern Kitchens, and the Gender Culture For working couples, the end of the day brings to the middle-class family with children the need to prepare the evening meal. Beyond an instrumental task to be performed, the kitchen space is hereafter the locus where the gender culture becomes visible. Who cooks? How does he/she cook? How good does he/she cook? In answering these questions, two main variables of context have to be clearly addressed. Firstly, contemporary gender culture promotes both men and women as “equal potential cookers.” Claims for gender equality are pervasive in the kitchen space, traditionally occupied by women, whose socialisation to be a “perfect housewife” served as a guarantee that they would “naturally” be good cooks, as well as good wives and mothers (Parsons and Bales). Currently, however, because individuals are now less defined by the traditional gender roles (Beck, Giddens, and Lash), one can expect either the man or the woman, or both, to prepare meals. From “sacrifice to gift” (Kaufmann), the possibilities are as numerous as the individuals who carry with them different and multiple socialisation processes that they differently mobilise in distinctive settings (Lahire). Secondly, the space of the kitchen has never been so technologically advanced as today. Contrary to images of a tiring, time-consuming, and demanding family workspace, the contemporary kitchens are equipped with such machinery assuring for efficiency, time domain, and aesthetic appeal (Daly, Gillis, Kaufmann, and Silva). Moreover, a paraphernalia of highly sophisticated equipment promises to help even the most awkward to be a successful and impressive chef. Nonetheless, the kitchens’ space has not ceased to be a profound and complex arena of family life, intimacy, and sociability (Southerton). Additionally, tradition, cultural heritage, knowledge, expertise, tenderness, pleasure, love, passion, and even sex: those are some of the “ingredients” with which media and popular culture socially construct the kitchen’s space (see for instance, the films Woman on Top, and Eat Pray Love, and television series Hell’s Kitchen featuring chef Gordon Ramsay). In this paper, I analyse the exploitation of the cookbook as an instrument used by some women aiming to encourage a greater participation rate among men in the cooking task. To study this topic was not an initial aim of research. Instead, it has emerged in the broader context of a previous sociological research devoted to the study of family practices (Morgan, Family Connections and Rethinking Family Practices), specifically family rituals within Portuguese middle-class families (Costa). Data was collected through episodic interviews (Flick) applied to both men and women with at least one child between the age of 3 and 14 years old. In this major study, a theoretical sample (Glaser and Strauss) of 30 individuals (with a mean age of 38 years old) were asked to describe in detail their “normal” and “special” moments or days. Through a subsequent content analysis (Bardin) carried out with the qualitative software NVivo (developed by QSR ©International), the cooking task has emerged from the data as a meaningful category. Findings presented and discussed hereafter are based upon the interviewees’s accounts that focus on a very circ*mscribed phase of their daily life, namely when they arrive home at the end of the day and need to prepare a “good,” “quick” meal. Particularly, in the case of the men’s accounts, the mention to the ways women urge men to participate (more) in the cooking tasks become prominent when talking about the use of the Bimby and it’s correlated recipe book. The Bimby (Thermomix) is a multi-function food processor intended for domestic use, commercialized by German company Vorwerk since the 1970s, yet only more recently having gained wide popularity in Portugal (Truninger). In short, this text focuses on the cookbook and related “mundane practices” (Martens) within the context of the appropriation of high-tech equipment in the kitchen to discuss the power of the socialisation of gender. Our argument is that cookbooks can be a way to dissipate the old difficulties that men, particularly, face in the kitchen; and at the same time, their use (and misuse) reinforces the persistence of some gaps due to previous and unequal socialisation regarding cookery as a skill. Preparation: Places, Spaces, Tasks, and (Traditional) Social Roles When arriving home early in the evening, both men and women usually occupy different spaces and perform different tasks, thus assuming distinctive social roles (Costa). Notwithstanding some recent changes causing a greater participation of men in domestic life (Wall, Aboim, and Cunha), Portuguese families still experience a very unequal household division of labour. At the same time that Portuguese women participate strongly in the paid work economy, especially on a full-time basis, they also undertake the majority of the household chores—both in number and time spent in doing so—such as the regular tasks of cooking, washing, and cleaning (Aboim, Wall and Amâncio). In most cases analysed in this study, there also remains a clear division of tasks concerning the preparation of the daily evening meal. Whereas the woman frequently prepares the evening meal, the man more often performs complimentary tasks such as setting the table for dinner and, afterwards, putting the dishes in the dishwasher and removing them once washed. Underlying this, couples seem to have negotiated an “agreement of exchange,” where women are responsible for a particular task, while men preferably “assume” or “choose another one.” Hence, insofar as women assume the task of cooking on a regularly basis, the participation of men in the preparation of meals is far more episodic (for example, at the weekend, for parties, at Christmas time or on some other special day or occasion). This can explain why men more often refer to the exact content of the daily meals they prepare as relatively “simple” and “fast”—dishes such as “grilled,” “tidbits,” “fries,” or precooked food for microwave are common. The “unpreparedness” or “lack of practice” of men and, consequently, the “greater experience” and/or “preparation” of their wives/partners are, coincidentally, evoked to justify why men do not participate more in the meal preparation. Both men and women refer either to the “tradition” or to a certain “naturalisation” of the women’s skills as the main arguments for the way they share tasks around the evening meal. Actually, most of the men who were interviewed admitted not being “ready” or “prepared” to perform specific tasks once married or living with a partner. The “blame” seems to be in the fact that they were not socialised to clean, wash, or cook when unmarried. When living with their parents, they were responsible for only minor tasks like tidying up their rooms, making their beds, or taking out the garbage. At other times, they may have “aided” their parents, yet only when “asked to do so.” In fact, when compared to women, these men were not domestically socialised as children or teenagers. Let us also remember that many came directly from their origin families into a procreation family. Thus, when they entered into a marital status, the task of cooking passed “automatically and intuitively” from their mothers into the hands of their wives/partners. Only with the (rare) deliberate refusal of the woman to cook does the male’s unpreparedness to cook become an issue and (may be) regarded as a problem in the couple’s relationship. The unpreparedness of males to cook is particularly evident in the absence of women, notably in post-divorce situations. Those who had performed cooking tasks previously or during the marriage were usually better prepared. For others, carrying out these tasks, either by choice or by imposition (for example, due to financial difficulties in the post-divorce period), meant facing many internalised social constraints. The support from close female figures (mother, friends, girlfriend, or colleagues) seems to be crucial in the path of self-instruction. The cookbook is both a new and old instrument that (also) serves this purpose. Variation: Bringing Men into the Kitchen with Cookbooks At this point, a variation is introduced in the gender division of labour related to the food preparation noted above. It is true that the generalisation of technology for cooking has followed in time the entry of men into the kitchen. In this context, I now turn upon specific accounts of men when referring to the use of the Bimby (Thermomix) in association with its recipe book. This food processor combines the functions of various utensils and small kitchen appliances: “it minces, chops, purees, weighs, stirs, grates, grinds, blends, cooks and simmers; in fact, it does the work of at least twelve kitchen devices and practically cleans itself when food preparation is done” (Vorwerk). Additionally, in order to be exploited to the fullest, the Thermomix comes with a cookbook whose instructions should be, it states, strictly followed. With this appliance, offering 12 functions in one single product, one can cook “everyday meals or elaborate menus, European or Asian specialties” (Vorwerk), with the guarantee that including soups, main courses and desserts, “everything turns out delicious” (Vorwerk). Pedro is 35; he has been married since 2000 and is the father of two boys, one 7 and the other 4 years old. His wife offered him this machine and corresponding cookbook with the aim of “encouraging” him to undertake some cooking tasks. However, he admits, “the result was only partially achieved.” He points out: “I can cook with the Bimby ... and even more through the Bimby; I admit, than with pots and all that.” Although strictly following the cookbook, Pedro recognises that he always “needs more time [than his wife] to make things work well in the kitchen.” Pedro feels that he lacks the “experience” and “training” that enables his wife to cook everything “very fast”: “Cooking very [emphasis added], very fast, honestly: I can’t! She can do it even when she is in a hurry ... If I have to read the recipes ... I have to take enough time to read and interpret them! And she ... she usually does it ... she doesn’t even have to think about it!” The gift of the Bimby was a purposeful means of trying to overcome some of the difficulties Pedro has in the kitchen. Metaphorically, I envisage it as a kind of “sugar” aimed to sweeten Pedro’s lack of cooking skills: “She [his wife] offered me the Bimby but ... the problem, I already told her ‘I could cook, but you have to give me enough time to cook!’”. Surprisingly in relation to such a piece of equipment that promotes itself as “the most superior kitchen appliance” (Vorwerk), using it is not simple for Pedro. The explanation, again, seems to be in the fact that his wife—in his perspective—does everything so “routinely” and in such an “intuitive” way that he can’t follow her example, despite using the cookbook. Additionally, his “inexperience,” “uncertainty,” and “slowness” sometimes rouses a lack of patience in his wife who, in turn, embodies all the opposite attributes. Sometimes, he says, the situation comes to a point where she tells him: “at this pace, it’s not worth it!” These are the cases where the kitchen overflows to an arena of tension, eventually even conflict, between knowing and doing (Casimiro). Pedro then “gets annoyed,” especially when his wife wants to set a pace he cannot keep up with: “Often I tell her ‘if you want to explain things to me, you have to waste some time with it.’ If you do not want to waste time, it [my cooking] is not worth it!”. Rui is 34, lives in a de-facto union and is the father of two boys, one four years of age and the youngest one-year-old. His example adds to the case of Pedro. The Bimby is also the “only cooking experience” Rui has beyond the grill. He admits he uses it, especially to cook soups for his youngest child, but still he prefers to leave his wife responsible for that task while he performs others. He recognises that using the Bimby, the task of cooking the soups is “fairly easy.” However, not everything runs smoothly: “Once I forgot to add water [laughs]; nonetheless, it went well [laughs]; it was not so bad! [laughs]”. The irony is that Rui reveals how he generally prefers to leave the kitchen to this wife: I have a script for kitchen because we have the famous Bimby, you’ve heard about it, right? Ok! I have a cookbook with a script of how to make the soup ... Honestly, I have done it four or five times, no more than that. I’d rather clear up the kitchen, wash the baby bottles, clean up the room, to put one of the kids to bed; these are my evening’ tasks. Not the soup because I ... I ... I even strive to do it ... but the true is that it does not always run smoothly. Both Pedro and Rui reveal the tensions some men face when appropriating kitchen appliances in the context of the contemporary couple’s relationships claiming of equality. Purposely used by some women as a dose of “sugar,” it eventually ends up to “spicing” rather than “sweetening” the relationship. At first sight, the use of the cookbook enables even the most unprepared individual to succeed in the kitchen. Nonetheless, as in the above cases, some men carry with them the (absence) of a socialisation for cooking that strongly shapes their use (and misuse) of the cookbook. The evoked arguments strongly emphasise the “tradition,” “experience,” “training,” “practice” and “mastery” they lack when compared to women. While this can be the epicentre of existing tensions between the couple, it underlines subtle yet profound socialisation processes, internalised values, and social roles. In questioning these complex relations, the transforming power of the cookbook has to be put in relative terms, since it allows—at least sometimes—for only a skin-deep change. Serving: The Cookbook—Sugar or Spice? Notwithstanding the several possible approaches to gendered culture in the kitchen, this text had no quantitative, generalisation, class, or culture comparative purpose. Instead, through a qualitative and in-depth approach, its main goal was to explore both the power and the limits of the cookbook as an instrument sometimes used by women aiming a greater participation of men in the cooking tasks. This arises as a particularly interesting issue in a context where men admitted that they were not domestically socialised as children or teenagers to clean, wash, or cook and, additionally, many of them went directly from their origin families into a procreation family. Summing up, cookbooks are not magical devices that can erase, at once, the complex and profound socialisation processes, internalized values, and social roles. In context, the cookbook can be either “sugar” or “spice” at the top of the gender culture. While, at the forefront, it can be purposely used by women to overcome some of the hardships men face at the kitchen; in the background its use (and misuse) reinforces the persistence of some gaps (still) unveiled through a previous and wider socialisation for cooking. More and more visible in contemporary society as either family or cultural heritage artefacts, media products or scientific outputs, cookbooks remain a site of endless interest, and this is also true in the sociological enquiry. In this article, analysing the use of a specific cookbook by men provides a forum through which the gender cultures can be examined in a simultaneously creative and fruitful way. As in the kitchen, one just has to “light the stove”. References Aboim, Sofia. “Gender Cultures and the Division of Labour in Contemporary Europe: A Cross-national Perspective.” The Sociological Review 58.2 (2010): 171–96. Bardin, Laurence. L’Analyse de Contenu. Paris: PUF, 1977. Beck, Ulrich, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash. Reflexive Modernization. Cambridge: Polity, 1994. Casimiro, Cláudia. "Da Violência Conjugal às Violências na Conjugalidade. Representações e Práticas Masculinas e Femininas. PhD Thesis in Social Sciences. Specialisation: ‘General Sociology’. University of Lisbon: Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL), 2008 ‹http://repositorio.ul.pt/handle/10451/313›. Costa, Rosalina. Pequenos e Grandes Dias: os Rituais na Construção da Família Contemporânea [Small and Big Days. The Rituals Constructing Contemporay Families]. PhD Thesis. Social Sciences. Specialisation: General Sociology. University of Lisbon: Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL), 2011. ‹http://hdl.handle.net/10451/4770›. Daly, Kerry J. Families & Time: Keeping Pace in a Hurried Culture. Thousand Oaks, Sage, 1996. Eat Pray Love. Dir. Ryan Murphy, 2010. Flick, Uwe. The Episodic Interview: Small-scale Narratives as Approach to Relevant Experiences (Series Paper). 1997. 29 Oct. 2010 ‹http://www2.lse.ac.uk/methodologyInstitute/pdf/QualPapers/Flick-episodic.pdf›. Gillis, John. A World of their Own Making. Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for family Values. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996. Glaser, Barney, and Anselm Strauss. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine, 1967. Hell’s Kitchen. Fox. May 2005-current. (U.S. Television series). Kaufmann, Jean-Claude. Casseroles, Amour et Crises : Ce Que Cuisiner Veut Dire. Paris: Armand Colin, 2005. Lahire, Bernard. L'Homme Pluriel. Les Ressorts de l'Action. Paris: Nathan, 1998. Martens, Lydia. “Practice ‘In Talk’ and Talk ‘As Practice’: Dish Washing and The Reach of Language.” Sociological Research Online: An Electronic Journal 17.2 (2012): on-line. Morgan, David. Family Connections—An Introduction to Family Studies. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. —. Rethinking Family Practices. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillam, 2011. Parsons, Talcott, and Robert Bales. Family, Socialization and Interaction Process. Glencoe, IL: Free P of Glencoe, 1955. Silva, Elizabeth. “The Cook, the Cooker and the Gendering of the Kitchen.” Sociological Review. 48. 4 (2000): 612–27. Southerton, Dale. Consuming Kitchens. “Taste, Context and Identity Formation.” Journal of Consumer Culture 1.2 (2001): 179–203. Truninger, Mónica. “Cooking with Bimby in a Moment of Recruitment: Exploring Conventions and Practice Perspectives.” Journal of Consumer Culture 11.1 (2011): 37–59. Vorwerk. Thermomix Kitchen Appliance. 2013. 24 Apr. 2013 ‹http://corporate.vorwerk.com/en/divisions/thermomix-kitchen-appliance›. Wall, Karin, and Lígia Amâncio [Orgs.]. Família e Género em Portugal e na Europa. Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2007. Wall, Karin, Sofia Aboim, and Vanessa Cunha. A Vida Familiar no Masculino. Negociando Velhas e Novas Masculinidades. Lisboa: CITE, 2010. Woman on Top. Dir. Fina Torres, 2000.

Abstract:

On 10 September 2012, a cat named Tuxedo Stan launched his campaign for mayor of the Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia, Canada (“Tuxedo Stan for Mayor”). Backed by his human supporters in the Tuxedo Party, he ran on a platform of animal welfare: “Tuxedo Stan for Mayor Because Neglect Isn’t Working.” Artwork Courtesy of Joe Popovitch As a feline activist, Tuxedo Stan joins an unexpected—if not entirely unprecedented—cohort of cats that advocate for animal welfare through their “cute” appeals for humane treatment. From Tuxedo Stan’s internet presence to his appearance on Anderson Cooper’s CNN segment “The RidicuList,” Tuxedo Stan’s cute campaign opens space for a cultural imaginary that differently envisions animals’ and humans’ political responsibilities. Who Can Be a Moral Agent? Iris Marion Young proposes “political responsibility” as a way to answer a question central to human and animal welfare: “How should moral agents—both individual and organizational—think about their responsibilities in relation to structural social injustice?” (7). In legal frameworks, responsibility is connected to liability: an individual acts, harm occurs, and the law decides how much liability the individual should assume. However, Young redefines responsibility in relation to structural injustices, which she conceptualizes as “harms” that result from “structural processes in which many people participate.” Young argues that “because it is therefore difficult for individuals to see a relationship between their own actions and structural outcomes, we have a tendency to distance ourselves from any responsibility for them” (7). Young presents political responsibility as a call to share the responsibility “to engage in actions directed at transforming the structures” and suggests that the less-advantaged might organize and propose “remedies for injustice, because their interests [are] the most acutely at stake” and because they are vulnerable to the actions of others “situated in more powerful and privileged positions” (15). Though Young does not address animals, her conception of responsible agency raises a question: who can be a moral agent? Arguably, the answer to this question changes as cultural imaginaries expand to accommodate difference, including gender- and species-difference. Corey Wrenn analyzes a selection of anti-suffragette postcards that equate granting votes to women as akin to granting votes to cats. Young shifts responsibility from a liability to a political frame, but Wrenn’s work suggests that a further shift is necessary where responsibility is gendered and tied to domestic, feminized roles: Cats and dogs are gendered in contemporary American culture…dogs are thought to be the proper pet for men and cats for women (especially lesbians). This, it turns out, is an old stereotype. In fact, cats were a common symbol in suffragette imagery. Cats represented the domestic sphere, and anti-suffrage postcards often used them to reference female activists. The intent was to portray suffragettes as silly, infantile, incompetent, and ill-suited to political engagement. (Wrenn) Dressing cats in women’s clothing and calling them suffragettes marks women as less-than-human and casts cats as the opposite of human. The frilly garments, worn by cats whose presence evoked the domestic sphere, suggest that women belong in the domestic sphere because they are too soft, or perhaps too cute, to contend with the demands of public life. In addition, the cards that feature domestic scenes suggest that women should account for their families’ welfare ahead of their own, and that women’s refusal to accept this arithmetic marks them as immoral—and irresponsible—subjects. Not Schrödinger's Cat In different ways, Jacques Derrida and Carey Wolfe explore the question Young’s work raises: who can be a moral agent? Derrida and Wolfe complicate the question by adding species difference: how should (human) moral agents think about their responsibilities (to animals)? Prompted by an encounter with his cat, Jacques Derrida follows the figure of the animal, through a variety of texts, in order to make sensible the trace of “the animal” as it has appeared in Western traditions. Derrida’s cat accompanies him as Derrida playfully, and attentively, deconstructs the rationalist, humanist discourses that structure Western philosophy. Discourses, whose tenets reflect the systems of beliefs embedded within a culture, are often both hegemonic and invisible; at least for those who enjoy privileged positions within the culture, discourses may simply appear as common sense or common knowledge. Derrida argues that Western, humanist thinking has created a discourse around “the human” and that this discourse deploys a reductive figure of “the animal” to justify human supremacy and facilitate human exceptionalism. Human exceptionalism is the doctrine that humans’ superiority to animals exempts humans from behaving humanely towards those deemed non-human, and it is the hegemony of the discourse of human exceptionalism that Derrida contravenes. Derrida interrupts by entering the discourse with “his” cat and creating a counter-narrative that troubles “the human” hegemony by redefining what it means to think. Derrida orients his intellectual work as surrender—he surrenders to the gaze of his cat and to his affectionate response to her presence: “the cat I am talking about is a real cat, truly, believe me, a little cat. The cat that looks at me naked and that is truly a little cat, this cat I am talking about…It comes to me as this irreplaceable living being that one day enters my space, into this place where it can encounter me, see me, even see me naked” (6-9, italics in original). The diminutive Derrida uses to describe his cat, she is little and truly a little cat, gestures toward affection, or affect, as the “thing…philosophy has, essentially, had to deprive itself of” (7). For Derrida, rationalist thinking hurries to “enclose and circ*mscribe the concept of the human as much as that of reason,” and it is through this movement toward enclosure that rationalist humanism fails to think (105). While Derrida questions the ethics of humanist philosophy, Carey Wolfe questions the ethics of humanism. Wolfe argues that “the operative theories and procedures we now have for articulating the social and legal relation between ethics and action are inadequate” because humanism imbues discourses about human and/or animal rights with utilitarian and contractarian logics that are inherently speciesist and therefore flawed (192). Utilitarian approaches attempt to determine the morality of a given action by weighing the act’s aggregate benefit against its aggregate harm. Contractarian approaches evaluate a given (human or animal) subject’s ability to understand and comply with a social contract that stipulates reciprocity; if a subject receives kindness, that subject must understand their implied, moral responsibility to return it. When opponents of animal rights designate animals as less capable of suffering than humans and decide that animals cannot enter moral contracts, animals are then seen as not only undeserving of rights but as incapable of bearing rights. As Wolfe argues, rights discourse—like rationalist humanism—reaches an impasse, and Wolfe proposes posthumanist theory as the way through: “because the discourse of speciesism…anchored in this material, institutional base, can be used to mark any social other, we need to understand that the ethical and philosophical urgency of confronting the institution of speciesism and crafting a posthumanist theory of the subject has nothing to do with whether you like animals” (7, italics in original). Wolfe’s strategic statement marks the necessity of attending to injustice at a structural level; however, as Tuxedo Stan’s campaign demonstrates, at a tactical level, how much you “like” an animal might matter very much. Seriously Cute: Tuxedo Stan as a Moral Agent Tuxedo Stan’s 2012-13 campaign pressed for improved protections for stray and feral cats in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). While “cute” is a subjective, aesthetic judgment, numerous internet sites make claims like: “These 30 Animals With Their Adorable Miniature Versions Are The Cutest Thing Ever. Awwww” (“These 30 Animals”). From Tuxedo Stan’s kitten pictures to the plush versions of Tuxedo Stan, available for purchase on his website, Tuxedo Stan’s campaign positioned him within this cute culture (Chisolm “Official Tuxedo Stan Minion”). Photo Courtesy of Hugh Chisolm, Tuxedo Party The difference between Tuxedo Stan’s cute and the kind of cute invoked by pictures of animals with miniature animals—the difference that connects Tuxedo Stan’s cute to a moral or ethical position—is the narrative of political responsibility attached to his campaign. While existing animal protection laws in Halifax’s Animal Protection Act outlined some protections for animals, “there was a clear oversight in that issues related to cats are not included” (Chisolm TuxedoStan.com). Hugh Chisholm, co-founder of the Tuxedo Party, further notes: There are literally thousands of homeless cats — feral and abandoned— who live by their willpower in the back alleys and streets and bushes in HRM…But there is very little people can do if they want to help, because there is no pound. If there’s a lost or injured dog, you can call the pound and they will come and take the dog and give it a place to stay, and some food and care. But if you do the same thing with a cat, you get nothing, because there’s nothing in place. (Mombourquette) Tuxedo Stan’s campaign mobilizes cute images that reveal the connection between unnoticed and unrelieved suffering. Proceeds from Tuxedo Party merchandise go toward Spay Day HRM, a charity dedicated to “assisting students and low-income families” whose financial situations may prevent them from paying for spay and neuter surgeries (Chisholm TuxedoStan.com). According to his e-book ME: The Tuxedo Stan Story, Stan “wanted to make a difference in the lives of tens of thousands of homeless, unneutered cats in [Halifax Regional Municipality]. We needed a low-cost spay/neuter clinic. We needed a Trap-Neuter-Return and Care program. We needed a sanctuary for homeless, unwanted strays to live out their lives in comfort” (Tuxedo Stanley and Chisholm 14). As does “his” memoir, Tuxedo Stan’s Pledge of Compassion and Action follows Young’s logic of political responsibility. Although his participation is mediated by human organizers, Tuxedo Stan is a cat pressing legislators to “pledge to help the cats” by supporting “a comprehensive feline population control program to humanely control the feline population and prevent suffering” and by creating “an affordable and accessible spay/neuter program” (Chisholm TuxedoStan.com). While framing the feral cat population as a “problem” that must be “fixed” upholds discourses around controlling subjected populations’ reproduction, Tuxedo Stan’s campaign also opens space for a counternarrative that destabilizes the human exceptionalism that encompasses his campaign. A Different ‘Logic’, a Different Cultural Imaginary As Tuxedo Stan launched his campaign in 2012, fellow feline Hank ran for the United States senate seat in Virginia – he received approximately 7,000 votes and placed third (Wyatt) – and “Mayor” Stubbs celebrated his 15th year as the honorary mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, also in the United States: Fifteen years ago, the citizens of Talkeetna (pop. 800) didn’t like the looks of their candidates for mayor. Around that same time resident Lauri Stec, manager of Nagley’s General Store, saw a box of kittens and decided to adopt one. She named him Stubbs because he didn’t have a tail and soon the whole town was in love with him. So smitten were they with this kitten, in fact, that they wrote him in for mayor instead of deciding on one of the two lesser candidates. (Friedman) Though only Stan and Hank connect their candidacy to animal welfare activism, all three cats’ stories contribute to building a cultural imaginary that has drawn responses across social and news media. Tuxedo Stan’s Facebook page has 19,000+ “likes,” and Stan supporters submit photographs of Tuxedo Stan “minions” spreading Tuxedo Stan’s message. The Tuxedo Party’s website maintains a photo gallery that documents “Tuxedo Stan’s World Tour”: “Tuxedo Stan’s Minions are currently on their world tour spreading his message of hope and compassion for felines around the globe" (Chisholm TuxedoStan.com). Each minion’s photo in the gallery represents humans’ ideological and financial support for Tuxedo Stan. News media supported Tuxedo Stan, Hank for Senate, and Mayor Stubbs’s candidacies in a more ambiguous fashion. While Craig Medred argues that “Silly 'Alaska cat mayor' saga spotlights how easily the media can be scammed” (Medred), a CBC News video announced that Tuxedo Stan was “interested in sinking his claws into the top seat at City Hall” and ready to “mark his territory around the mayor's seat” (“Tuxedo Stan the cat chases Halifax mayor chair”), and Lauren Strapagiel reported on Halifax’s “cuddliest would-be mayor.” In an unexpected echo of Derrida’s language, as Derrida repeats that he is truly talking about a cat, truly a little cat, CNN journalist Anderson Cooper endorses Tuxedo Stan for mayor and follows his endorsem*nt with this statement: If he’s serious about a career in politics, maybe he should come to the United States. Just look at the mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska. That’s Stubbs the cat, and he’s been the mayor for 15 years. I’m not kidding…Not only that, but right now, as we speak, there is a cat running for Senate from Virginia. (Cooper) As he introduces a “Hank for Senate” campaign video, again Cooper mentions that he is “not kidding.” While Cooper’s “not kidding” echoes Derrida’s “truly,” the difference in meanings is différance. For Derrida, his encounter with his cat is “a matter of developing another ‘logic’ of decision, of the response and of the event…a matter of reinscribing the différance between reaction and response, and hence this historicity of ethical, juridical, or political responsibility, within another thinking of life, of the living, within another relation of the living, to their own…reactional automaticity” (126). Derrida proceeds through the impasse, the limit he identifies within philosophical engagements with animals, by tracing the ways his little cat’s presence affects him. Derrida finds another logic, which is not logic but surrender, to accommodate what he, like Young, terms “political responsibility.” Cooper, however, applies the hegemonic logic of human exceptionalism to his engagement with feline interlocutors, Tuxedo Stan, Hank for Senate, and Mayor Stubbs. Although Cooper’s segment, called “The RidicuList,” makes a pretense of political responsibility, it is different in kind from the pretense made in Tuxedo Stan’s campaign. As Derrida argues, a “pretense…even a simple pretense, consists in rendering a sensible trace illegible or imperceptible” (135). Tuxedo Stan’s campaign pretends that Tuxedo Stan fits within humanist, hegemonic notions of mayoral candidacy and then mobilizes this cute pretense in aid of political responsibility; the pretense—the pretense in which Tuxedo Stan’s human fans and supporters engage—renders the “sensible” trace of human exceptionalism illegible, if not imperceptible. Cooper’s pretense, however, works to make legible the trace of human exceptionalism and so to reinscribe its discursive hegemony. Discursively, the political potential of cute in Tuxedo Stan’s campaign is that Tuxedo Stan’s activism complicates humanist and posthumanist thinking about agency, about ethics, and about political responsibility. Thinking about animals may not change animals’ lives, but it may change (post)humans’ responses to these questions: Who can be a moral agent? How should moral agents—both individual and organizational, both human and animal—“think” about how they respond to structural social injustice? Epilogue: A Political Response Tuxedo Stan died of kidney cancer on 8 September 2013. Before he died, Tuxedo Stan’s campaign yielded improved cat protection legislation as well as a $40,000 endowment to create a spay-and-neuter facility accessible to low-income families. Tuxedo Stan’s litter mate, Earl Grey, carries on Tuxedo Stan’s work. Earl Grey’s campaign platform expands the Tuxedo Party’s appeals for animal welfare, and Earl Grey maintains the Tuxedo Party’s presence on Facebook, on Twitter (@TuxedoParty and @TuxedoEarlGrey), and at TuxedoStan.com (Chisholm TuxedoStan.com). On 27 February 2014, Agriculture Minister Keith Colwell of Nova Scotia released draft legislation whose standards of care aim to prevent distress and cruelty to pets and to strengthen their protection. They…include proposals on companion animal restraints, outdoor care, shelters, companion animal pens and enclosures, abandonment of companion animals, as well as the transportation and sale of companion animals…The standards also include cats, and the hope is to have legislation ready to introduce in the spring and enacted by the fall. (“Nova Scotia cracks down”) References Chisolm, Hugh. “Tuxedo Stan Kitten.” Tuxedo Party Facebook Page, 20 Oct. 2012. 2 Mar. 2014. Chisholm, Hugh. “Official Tuxedo Stan Minion.” TuxedoStan.com. Tuxedo Stanley and the Tuxedo Party. 2 Mar. 2014. Chisolm, Hugh. “You're Voting for Fred? Not at MY Polling Station!” Tuxedo Party Facebook Page, 20 Oct. 2012. 2 Mar. 2014. Chisholm, Hugh, and Kathy Chisholm. TuxedoStan.com. Tuxedo Stanley and the Tuxedo Party. 2 Mar. 2014. Cooper, Anderson. “The RidicuList.” CNN Anderson Cooper 360, 24 Sep. 2012. 2 Mar. 2014. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989: 139–67. 2 Mar. 2014. Derrida, Jacques. The Animal That Therefore I Am. Trans. David Willis. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Friedman, Amy. “Cat Marks 15 Years as Mayor of Alaska Town.” Newsfeed.time.com, 17 July 2012. 2 March 2014. Medred, Craig. “Silly ‘Alaska Cat Mayor’ Saga Spotlights How Easily the Media Can Be Scammed.” Alaska Dispatch, 11 Sep. 2014. 2 Mar. 2014. Mombourquette, Angela. “Candidate’s Ethics Are as Finely Honed as His Claws.” The Chronicle Herald, 27 Aug. 2012. 2 Mar. 2014. “Nova Scotia Cracks Down on Tethering of Dogs.” The Chronicle Herald 27 Feb. 2014. 2 Mar. 2014. Pace, Natasha. “Halifax City Council Doles Out Cash to Help Control the Feral Cat Population.” Global News 14 May 2013. 2 Mar. 2014. Popovitch, Joe. “Tuxedo Stan for Mayor Because Neglect Isn’t Working.” RefuseToBeBoring.com. 2 Mar. 2014. Strapagiel, Lauren. “Tuxedo Stan, Beloved Halifax Cat Politician, Dead at 3.” OCanada.com, 9 Sep. 2013. 2 Mar. 2014. “These 30 Animals with Their Adorable Miniatures Are the Cutest Thing Ever. Awwww.” WorthyToShare.com, n.d. 2 Mar. 2014. “Tuxedo Stan for Mayor Dinner Highlights.” Vimeo.com, 2 Mar. 2014. Tuxedo Stanley, and Kathy Chisholm. ME: The Tuxedo Stan Story. Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia: Ailurophile Publishing, 2014. 2 Mar. 2014. “Tuxedo Stan the Cat Chases Halifax Mayor Chair.” CBC News, 13 Aug. 2012. 2 Mar. 2014. Wolfe, Cary. Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Wrenn, Corey. “Suffragette Cats Are the Original Cat Ladies.” Jezebel.com, 6 Dec. 2013. 2 Mar. 2014. Wyatt, Susan. “Hank, the Cat Who Ran for Virginia Senate, Gets MMore than 7,000 Votes.” King5.com The Pet Dish, 7 Nov. 2012. 2 Mar. 2014. Young, Iris Marion. “Political Responsibility and Structural Injustice.” Lindley Lecture. Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas. 5 May 2003.

Abstract:

In today's society there is evidence of a culture of the 'empowered consumer' -- an image of the consumer as a citizen rather than a subordinate. In fact, human rights language is increasingly coming to the fore in the consumption debate. The consumer has been allocated rights by the United Nations whereby all human beings are born free and equal and have civil, political, economic and social rights (McGregor 44). However, as citizens we also have responsibilities of an environmental and social concern. Food retailing and equality of shopping provision is one such concern. Food is a basic right. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger and have access to safe and nutritious food. Social exclusion refers to those in the population who are unable to participate in economic, political, social and cultural life. Social exclusion is different from, but related to, poverty since it further marginalises the most disadvantaged -- for example, those who cannot access a large supermarket. In keeping with the rights/responsibilities language, the consumer has a basic right to food and the retailer has the social responsibility to supply the needs of the consumer. It is in this respect that food is an ethical issue and has social justice implications. Inability to consume, or have access to, sufficient food of nutritional quality is a global concern. In North America the issue is one of 'food insecurity' or 'food poverty' due to inadequate finance to purchase sufficient food. In the United Kingdom the same problem arises within the context of access to food stores. This is identified as a 'food (shopping) desert', where due to restricted access social exclusion can arise. The term 'food deserts' was first used by the Low Income Project Team of the Nutrition Task Force in 1996 and was succinctly defined by Tessa Jowell (Government Health Minister) in 1997 when she stated that a food desert was an area "where people do not have easy access to healthy, fresh foods particularly if they are poor and have limited mobility". The term 'food desert' is an emotive one referring to a unique tool of social polarisation and exclusion (Lang 5). The issues compounding the problem include low income, locational policy of supermarkets with the acquisition of edge-of-town / out-of-town sites, consumer mobility, car ownership levels and food availability. This research study focuses on Northern Ireland -- a region of the UK on the periphery of Europe. The Province of Northern Ireland (Ulster) is a sparsely populated (122 people per km²), predominantly rural area with the highest unemployment and poverty statistics in the United Kingdom. Similarly, Northern Ireland has a proportionately high degree of non-car ownership (35%) which further complicates the equation since shopping is increasingly becoming a car-borne activity necessitating transportation to edge-of-town superstores. Those not able to avail themselves of large edge-of-town superstores are being socially excluded, since inner-city areas are becoming denuded of food stores. Those that do exist usually have a limited range of food items, usually non-perishable, or are specialist shops stocking high priced items. It is the aim of the study to identify the characteristics, extent and location of food deserts in both rural and urban areas of Northern Ireland. It is a particularly apt time to do so since Northern Ireland is experiencing a 'retail revolution' with the arrival of the major UK grocery multiples and subsequent situational policies to locate off-centre. Similarly, there are plans to curtail out-of-town developments which has been viewed by some smaller retailers as "too little, too late". With the above in mind, it is a timely study for Northern Ireland. Multiple research tools of both a qualitative and a quantitative nature have been employed including consumer focus groups, shopping diaries, comparative shopping exercises, consumer questionnaires and retail interviews. This will enable sufficient validation of results. The focus groups provide qualitative depth (Colquhoun 39) and serve to highlight the issues of shopping inequality from the point of view of different consumer groups which could be identified as potentially vulnerable in the food poverty stakes; the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed or low income families, lone-parent families and females in general; to whom falls the responsibility for provisioning the household, organising the kitchen and doing the household's cooking (Murcott 11). Basically, food is gendered -- women are mainly in charge (Vaines 13). The respondents in this study demonstrate exactly that point since 77% of the sample were female and reported that they were responsible for household shopping. This point is particularly prevalent with regard to access to cars. In fact over 50% of women in 1991-1993 either lived in households without a car or were non-drivers in a household with a car. Similarly, although there is a rising proportion of women who work they still do most of the shopping and spend twice as much time as men provisioning the household (Piachaud & Webb 18). Ultimately, anything that affects the purchaser also affects the purchasing experience -- in this case physical access to the foodstore. Comparative shopping exercises illustrate the availability and price indices of food and reiterate the price differences between the smaller independents, the local corner shops and the supermarkets. Initial research using the British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's "Low Cost, Healthy Diet" (Leather 75) provides evidence of a cost differential of £1.41, or a 26% cost penalty by shopping at a corner store rather than a superstore. Availability among corner shops similarly compared unfavourably with the supermarkets, with the smallest stores offering minimal fresh fruit and vegetables and regularly offering no 'economy' branded equivalent to an established manufacturer's brand. This supports previous research which found that in areas where small shops do exist they offer only a limited overpriced range of processed foods (Elliott 5), and it is generally accepted that those who can shop at supermarkets can generally benefit from lower prices and more choice (Piachaud & Webb 32). The benefits of supermarkets are not therefore available to all. Shopping diaries further illustrate this point with the dichotomy existing where the lower-income consumer shops more frequently and locally than does her higher-income counterpart and it is these same consumers who patronise the smaller, often more expensive corner shop. Many consumers like the convenience of large supermarkets where they have access to a vast range of items and do not mind paying premium prices on some items for this convenience. Supermarkets do not offer low prices on all items, but do stock economy lines as well as premium priced items. The consumer questionnaire provides some quantitative analysis and statistical weight to the data and was analysed using the χ-square test on SPSS for Windows Version 8. With the χ-square test the important detail is the significance level (reported as a p-value). A p-value of less than 0.05 indicates that the two groups are significantly different at a confidence level of 95% -- in other words, it can be concluded that the author is 95% certain that the result is statistically significant and free from error. Four areas of the Province were sampled -- two rural and two urban. The sample was 77% female and the median age group fell between 45 to 54 years. The social class status was skewed towards the lower socio-economic classes and only 12% fell into social classes A or B. The mean household income was £151 to £200 per week. The survey was interviewer-assisted and pointed to some interesting correlations between levels of satisfaction with store location and distance travelled, product choice and the decision to continue shopping in the town centre. Thirty percent of the sample stated that they shop at off-centre complexes and 70% of the sampled households shop in the town centre or closer to home. This sample also provides evidence that shopping is largely a car-borne activity with 58% of the sample using the family car. Journey distance is significantly influenced by degree of satisfaction with locality: p<0.01 and is supported with the evidence that 64% of the respondents stated that they shop less than fifteen minutes from home. Similar relationships exist between reported satisfaction with locality and differing degrees of satisfaction for product choice: p<0.01. A significant bias similarly exists between those who continue to shop in the town centre after the advent of the UK multiples into Northern Ireland in 1996 and those who do not: p<0.05 with a bias towards those continuing to shop in the town centre reporting high satisfaction levels. Ultimately, perceived adequacy of shopping provision influences satisfaction with store locality: p<0.05. Although the majority of respondents' weekly shopping is conducted at a multiple there is still an identified need for the local corner shops and independents since approximately 29% of respondents buy essentials like bread, milk and other basic grocery provision there. In fact, 98% of those surveyed reported that every town centre should have a food store, and 82% noticed a reduction in the number of food stores locally in recent years. In a concluding open question in the survey attitudes towards off-centre supermarkets were gauged. Responses ranged from positive in nature ("better parking facilities") to indifferent ("I never bother with them") to negative ("they [out-of-town supermarkets] only suit people with cars" and "they hurt the small shopkeeper"). From a retail management point of view, the multiple stores perceive (or want the consumer to believe) that they have a "social responsibility" but suggest that it should be a coalition between retailers and councillors to rejuvenate the town centres and it is not their sole responsibility. The corner shops argue their business position has survived but allude to the fact that the migration to out-of-town sites by the supermarkets has "created a void in the town centre". The issue is complex. While it is true that the multiples have brought shoppers a number of benefits -- price, choice and quality -- they have also both directly (siting shops outside town centres and in high income areas) and indirectly (undermining the economies of small, local outlets) increased costs on disadvantaged consumers in terms of time, physical effort and transport. This has led to a degree of social exclusion amongst certain consumer groups, although this was not quantitatively expressed as significant via the medium of the questionnaire in this preliminary study. It should be remembered that food and mealtimes are imbued with social and cultural meaning (Lang 27) and that "food is a vehicle for social control" (7). In fact food desertification has been likened to the "food equivalent of disconnecting the water supply" (27) and initiatives should be considered to alleviate food poverty and rejuvenate town centres throughout the Province. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary with input from retailers, councillors, health promotion personnel and education bodies to bring about a policy to eradicate this form of social exclusion and disadvantage. References Colquhoun, A. "Food Retailing in Transition: Memories of Traditional Grocer Shops in the 1950s." Strugnell and Armstrong. Elliott, V. "Food Deserts Threaten Health of Poor and Old." Sunday Times 5 Nov. 1997: 5. Lang, T. "Running On Empty." Demos Collection 12 (1997). 25-7. ---. "Food Education and the Citizen: Whose Responsibility?" Strugnell and Armstrong 7. Leather, S. "Less Money, Less Choice: Poverty and Diet in the United Kingdom Today". Your Food: Whose Choice? Ed. National Consumer Council. London: HMSO, 1992. 72-94. McGregor, S. "Globalising Consumer Education: Shifting from Individual Consumer Rights to Collective Human Responsibilities." Strugnell and Armstrong 43-52. Murcott, A. "Is It Still a Pleasure to Cook for Him? Social Changes in the Household and the Family." Strugnell and Armstrong 11. Piachaud, D. and J. Webb. The Price of Food: Missing Out on Mass Consumption." London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1996. 32. Strugnell, C. J. "Food Deserts: Fact or Fiction." Nutrition and Food Science 6. MCB UP. 349-50. Strugnell, C.J. and G. A. Armstrong, eds. Consumer Education: An International Dimension. Conference Proceedings of the XIXth International Consumer Studies and Home Economics Research Conference. Belfast: University of Ulster, 1999. Vaines, E. "The Sacred Nature of Food: A Family Perspective" Strugnell and Armstrong 13. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Sinead Furey, Heather McIlveen, Christopher Strugnell. "Food Deserts: An Issue of Social Justice." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.7 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9910/deserts.php>. Chicago style: Sinead Furey, Heather McIlveen, Christopher Strugnell, "Food Deserts: An Issue of Social Justice," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 7 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9910/deserts.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Sinead Furey, Heather McIlveen, Christopher Strugnell. (1999) Food deserts: an issue of social justice. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(7). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9910/deserts.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

In this article I discuss a story told by the South Australian Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal elder, Aunty Hilda Wilson (nee Varcoe), about the time when, at not quite sixteen, she was sent from the Point Pearce Aboriginal Station to work in the Adelaide Hills, some 500 kilometres away, as a housekeeper for “one of Adelaide’s leading doctors”. Her secondment was part of a widespread practice in early and mid-twentieth century Australia of placing young Aboriginal women “of marriageable age” from missions and government reserves into domestic service. Consciously deploying Indigenous storytelling practices as pedagogy, Hilda Wilson recounted this episode in a number of distinct ways during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Across these iterations, each building on the other, she exhibited a personal resilience in her subjectivity, embedded in Indigenous knowledge systems of relationality, kin and work, which informed her agency and determination in a challenging situation in which she was both caring for a white socially-privileged family of five, while simultaneously grappling with the injustices of a state system of segregated indentured labour. Kirmayer and colleagues propose that “notions of resilience emerging from developmental psychology and psychiatry in recent years address the distinctive cultures, geographic and social settings, and histories of adversity of indigenous peoples”. Resilience is understood here as an ability to actively engage with traumatic change, involving the capacity to absorb stress and to transform in order to cope with it (Luthar et al.). Further to this, in an Indigenous context, Marion Kickett has found the capacity for resilience to be supported by three key factors: family connections, culture and belonging as well as notions of identity and history. In exploring the layers of this autobiographical story, I employ this extended psychological notion of resilience in both a domestic ambit as well as the broader social context for Indigenous people surviving a system of external domination. Additionally I consider the resilience Aunty Hilda demonstrates at a pivotal interlude between girlhood and womanhood within the trajectory of her overall long and productive life, and within an intergenerational history of resistance and accommodation. What is especially important about her storytelling is its refusal to be contained by the imaginary of the settler nation and its generic Aboriginal-female subject. She refuses victimhood while at the same time illuminating the mechanisms of injustice, hinting also at possibilities for alternative and more equitable relationships of family and work across cultural divides. Considered through this prism, resilience is, I suggest, also a quality firmly connected to ideas of Aboriginal cultural-sovereignty and standpoint and to, what Victoria Grieves has identified as, the Aboriginal knowledge value of sharing (25, 28, 45). Storytelling as Pedagogy The story I discuss was verbally recounted in a manner that Westphalen describes as “a continuation of Dreaming Stories”, functioning to educate and connect people and country (13-14). As MacGill et al. note, “the critical and transformative aspects of decolonising pedagogies emerge from storytelling and involve the gift of narrative and the enactment of reciprocity that occurs between the listener and the storyteller.” Hilda told me that as a child she was taught not to ask questions when listening to the stories of an Elder, and her own children were raised in this manner. Hilda's oldest daughter described this as a process involving patience, intrigue and surprise (Elva Wanganeen). Narratives unfold through nuance and repetition in a complexity of layers that can generate multiple levels of meaning over time. Circularity and recursivity underlie this pedagogy through which mnemonic devices are built so that stories become re-membered and inscribed on the body of the listener. When a perceived level of knowledge-transference has occurred, a narrator may elect to elaborate further, adding another detail that will often transform the story’s social, cultural, moral or political context. Such carefully chosen additional detail, however, might re-contextualise all that has gone before. As well as being embodied, stories are also emplaced, and thus most appropriately told in the Country where events occurred. (Here I use the Aboriginal English term “Country” which encompasses home, clan estate, and the powerful complex of spiritual, animate and inanimate forces that bind people and place.) Hilda Wilson’s following account of her first job as a housekeeper for “one of Adelaide’s leading doctors”, Dr Frank Swann, provides an illustration of how she expertly uses traditional narrative forms of incrementally structured knowledge transmission within a cross-cultural setting to tell a story that expresses practices of resilience as resistance and transformation at its core. A “White Doctor” Story: The First Layer Aunty Hilda first told me this story when we were winding along the South Eastern Freeway through the Adelaide hills between Murray Bridge and Mount Barker, in 1997, on our way home to Adelaide from a trip to Camp Coorong, the Ngarrindjeri cultural education centre co-founded by her granddaughter. She was then 86 years old. Ahead of us, the profile of Mt Lofty rose out of the plains and into view. The highest peak in the Mount Lofty ranges, Yurrebilla, as it is known to Kaurna Aboriginal people, or Mt Lofty, has been an affluent enclave of white settlement for Adelaide’s moneyed elite since early colonial times. Being in place, or in view of place, provided the appropriate opportunity for her to tell me the story. It belongs to a group of stories that during our initial period of working together changed little over time until one day two years later she an added contextual detail which turned it inside out. Hilda described the doctor’s spacious hill-top residence, and her responsibilities of caring for Dr Swann’s invalid wife (“an hysteric who couldn't do anything for herself”), their twin teenage boys (who attended private college in the city) along with another son and younger daughter living at home (pers. com. Hilda Wilson). Recalling the exhilaration of looking down over the sparkling lights of Adelaide at night from this position of apparent “privilege” on the summit, she related this undeniably as a success story, justifiably taking great pride in her achievements as a teenager, capable of stepping into the place of the non-Indigenous doctor's wife in running the large and demanding household. Successfully undertaking a wide range of duties employed in the care of a family, including the disabled mother, she is an active participant crucial to the lives of all in the household, including to the work of the doctor and the twin boys in private education. Hilda recalled that Mrs Swann was unable to eat without her assistance. As the oldest daughter of a large family Hilda had previously assisted in caring for her younger siblings. Told in this way, her account collapses social distinctions, delineating a shared social and physical space, drawing its analytic frame from an Indigenous ethos of subjectivity, relationality, reciprocity and care. Moreover Hilda’s narrative of domestic service demonstrates an assertion of agency that resists colonial and patriarchal hegemony and inverts the master/mistress-servant relationship, one she firmly eschews in favour of the self-affirming role of the lady of the house. (It stands in contrast to the abuse found in other accounts for example Read, Tucker, Kartinyeri. Often the key difference was a continuity of family connections and ongoing family support.) Indeed the home transformed into a largely feminised and cross-culturalised space in which she had considerable agency and responsibility when the doctor was absent. Hilda told me this story several times in much the same way during our frequent encounters over the next two years. Each telling revealed further details that fleshed a perspective gained from what Patricia Hill Collins terms an “epistemic privilege” via her “outsider-within status” of working within a white household, lending an understanding of its social mechanisms (12-15). She also stressed the extent of her duty of care in upholding the family’s well-being, despite the work at times being too burdensome. The Second Version: Coming to Terms with Intersecting Oppressions Later, as our relationship developed and deepened, when I began to record her life-narrative as part of my doctoral work, she added an unexpected detail that altered its context completely: It was all right except I slept outside in a tin shed and it was very cold at night. Mount Lofty, by far the coldest part of Adelaide, frequently experiences winter maximum temperatures of two or three degrees and often light snowfalls. This skilful reframing draws on Indigenous storytelling pedagogy and is expressly used to invite reflexivity, opening questions that move the listener from the personal to the public realm in which domestic service and the hegemony of the home are pivotal in coming to terms with the overlapping historical oppressions of class, gender, race and nation. Suddenly we witness her subjectivity starkly shift from one self-defined and allied with an equal power relationship – or even of dependency reversal cast as “de-facto doctor's wife” – to one diminished by inequity and power imbalance in the outsider-defined role of “mistreated servant”. The latter was signalled by the dramatic addition of a single signifying detail as a decoding device to a deeper layer of meaning. In this parallel stratum of the story, Hilda purposefully brings into relief the politics in which “the private domain of women's housework intersected with the public domain of governmental social engineering policies” (Haskins 4). As Aileen Moreton-Robinson points out, what for White Australia was cheap labour and a civilising mission, for Indigenous women constituted stolen children and slavery. Protection and then assimilation were government policies under which Indigenous women grew up. (96) Hilda was sent away from her family to work in 1927 by the universally-feared Sister Pearl McKenzie, a nurse who too-zealously (Katinyeri, Ngarrindjeri Calling, 23) oversaw the Chief Protector’s policies of “training” Aboriginal children from the South Australian missions in white homes once they reached fourteen (Haebich, 316—20). Indeed many prominent Adelaide hills’ families benefited from Aboriginal labour under this arrangement. Hilda explained her struggle with the immense cultural dislocation that removal into domestic service entailed, a removal her grandfather William Rankine had travelled from Raukkan to Government House to protest against less than a decade earlier (The Register December 21, 1923). This additional layer of story also illuminates Hilda’s capacity for resilience and persistence in finding a way forward through the challenge of her circ*mstances (Luthar et al.), drawing on her family networks and sense of personhood (Kickett). Hilda related that her father visited her at Mount Lofty twice, though briefly, on his way to shearing jobs in the south-east of the state. “He said it was no good me living like this,” she stated. Through his active intervention, reinforcement was requested and another teenager from Point Pearce, Hilda’s future husband’s cousin, Annie Sansbury, soon arrived to share the workload. But, Hilda explained, the onerous expectations coupled with the cultural segregation of retiring to the tin shed quickly became too much for Annie, who stayed only three months, leaving Hilda coping again alone, until her father applied additional pressure for a more suitable placement to be found for his daughter. In her next position, working for the family of a racehorse trainer, Hilda contentedly shared the bedroom with the small boy for whom she cared, and not long after returned to Point Pearce where she married Robert Wilson and began a family of her own. Gendered Resilience across Cultural Divides Hilda explicitly speaks into these spaces to educate me, because all but a few white women involved have remained silent about their complicity with state sanctioned practices which exploited Indigenous labour and removed children from their families through the policies of protection and assimilation. For Indigenous women, speaking out was often fraught with the danger of a deeper removal from family and Country, even of disappearance. Victoria Haskins writes extensively of two cases in New South Wales where young Aboriginal women whose protests concerning their brutal treatment at the hands of white employers, resulted in their wrongful and prolonged committal to mental health and other institutions (147-52, 228-39). In the indentured service of Indigenous women it is possible to see oppression operating through Eurocentric ideologies of race, class and gender, in which Indigenous women were assumed to take on, through displacement, the more oppressed role of white women in pre-second world war non-Aboriginal Australian society. The troubling silent shadow-figure of the “doctor’s wife” indeed provides a haunting symbol of - and also a forceful rebellion against – the docile upper middle-class white femininity of the inter-war era. Susan Bordo has argued that that “the hysteric” is archetypal of a discourse of ‘pathology as embodied protest’ in which the body may […] be viewed as a surface on which conventional constructions of femininity are exposed starkly to view in extreme or hyperliteral form. (20) Mrs Swann’s vulnerability contrasts markedly with the strength Hilda expresses in coping with a large family, emanating from a history of equitable gender relations characteristic of Ngarrindjeri society (Bell). The intersection of race and gender, as Marcia Langton contends “continues to require deconstruction to allow us to decolonise our consciousness” (54). From Hilda’s brief description one grasps a relationship resonant with that between the protagonists in Tracy Moffat's Night Cries, (a response to the overt maternalism in the film Jedda) in which the white mother finds herself utterly reliant on her “adopted” Aboriginal daughter at the end of her life (46-7). Resilience and Survival The different versions of story Hilda deploys, provide a pedagogical basis to understanding the broader socio-political framework of her overall life narrative in which an ability to draw on the cultural continuity of the past to transform the future forms an underlying dynamic. This demonstrated capacity to meet the challenging conditions thrown up by the settler-colonial state has its foundations in the connectivity and cultural strength sustained generationally in her family. Resilience moves from being individually to socially determined, as in Kickett’s model. During the onslaught of dispossession, following South Australia’s 1836 colonial invasion, Ngarrindjeri were left near-starving and decimated from introduced diseases. Pullume (c1808-1888), the rupuli (elected leader of the Ngarrindjeri Tendi, or parliament), Hilda’s third generation great-grandfather, decisively steered his people through the traumatic changes, eventually negotiating a middle-path after the Point McLeay Mission was established on Ngarrindjeri country in 1859 (Jenkin, 59). Pullume’s granddaughter, the accomplished, independent-thinking Ellen Sumner (1842—1925), played an influential educative role during Hilda’s youth. Like other Ngarrindjeri women in her lineage, Ellen Sumner was skilled in putari practice (female doctor) and midwifery culture that extended to a duty of care concerning women and children (teaching her “what to do and what not to do”), which I suggest is something Hilda herself drew from when working with the Swann family. Hilda’s mother and aunties continued aspects of the putari tradition, attending births and giving instruction to women in the community (Bell, 171, Hughes Grandmother, 52-4). As mentioned earlier, when the South Australian government moved to introduce The Training of Children Act (SA) Hilda’s maternal grandfather William Rankine campaigned vigorously against this, taking a petition to the SA Governor in December 1923 (Haebich, 315-19). As with Aunty Hilda, William Rankine used storytelling as a method to draw public attention to the inequities of his times in an interview with The Register which drew on his life-narrative (Hughes, My Grandmother, 61). Hilda’s father Wilfred Varcoe, a Barngarrla-Wirrungu man, almost a thousand kilometres away from his Poonindie birthplace, resisted assimilation by actively pursuing traditional knowledge networks using his mobility as a highly sought after shearer to link up with related Elders in the shearing camps, (and as we saw to inspect the conditions his daughter was working under at Mt Lofty). The period Hilda spent as a servant to white families to be trained in white ways was in fact only a brief interlude in a long life in which family connections, culture and belonging (Kickett) served as the backbone of her resilience and resistance. On returning to the Point Pearce Mission, Hilda successfully raised a large family and activated a range of community initiatives that fostered well-being. In the 1960s she moved to Adelaide, initially as the sole provider of her family (her husband later followed), to give her younger children better educational opportunities. Working with Aunty Gladys Elphick OBE through the Council of Aboriginal Women, she played a foundational role in assisting other Aboriginal women establish their families in the city (Mattingly et al., 154, Fisher). In Adelaide, Aunty Hilda became an influential, much loved Elder, living in good health to the age of ninety-six years. The ability to survive changing circ*mstances, to extend care over and over to her children and Elders along with qualities of leadership, determination, agency and resilience have passed down through her family, several of whom have become successful in public life. These include her great-grandson and former AFL football player, Michael O’Loughlin, her great-nephew Adam Goodes and her-grand-daughter, the cultural weaver Aunty Ellen Trevorrow. Arguably, resilience contributes to physical as well as cultural longevity, through caring for the self and others. Conclusion This story demonstrates how sociocultural dimensions of resilience are contextualised in practices of everyday lives. We see this in the way that Aunty Hilda Wilson’s self-narrated story resolutely defies attempts to know, subjugate and categorise, operating instead in accord with distinctively Aboriginal expressions of gender and kinship relations that constitute an Aboriginal sovereignty. Her storytelling activates a revision of collective history in ways that valorise Indigenous identity (Kirmayer et al.). Her narrative of agency and personal achievement, one that has sustained her through life, interacts with the larger narrative of state-endorsed exploitation, diffusing its power and exposing it to wider moral scrutiny. Resilience in this context is inextricably entwined with practices of cultural survival and resistance developed in response to the introduction of government policies and the encroachment of settlers and their world. We see resilience too operating across Hilda Wilson’s family history, and throughout her long life. The agency and strategies displayed suggest alternative realities and imagine other, usually more equitable, possible worlds. References Bell, Diane. Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A World That Is, Was and Will Be. Melbourne: Spinifex, 1998. Bordo, Susan. “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity.” Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory. Eds. Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina, and Sarah Stanbury. New York: Columbia UP, 1997. 90-110. Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge, 2000. Fisher, Elizabeth M. "Elphick, Gladys (1904–1988)." Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 29 Sep. 2013. ‹http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/elphick-gladys-12460/text22411>. Grieves, Victoria. Aboriginal Spirituality: Aboriginal Philosophy, The Basis of Aboriginal Social and Emotional Wellbeing, Melbourne University: Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health, 2009. Haebich, Anna. Broken Circles: The Fragmenting of Indigenous Families. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Press, 2000. Haskins, Victoria. My One Bright Spot. London: Palgrave, 2005. Hughes, Karen. "My Grandmother on the Other Side of the Lake." PhD thesis, Department of Australian Studies and Department of History, Flinders University. Adelaide, 2009. ———. “Microhistories and Things That Matter.” Australian Feminist Studies 27.73 (2012): 269-278. ———. “I’d Grown Up as a Child amongst Natives.” Outskirts: Feminisms along the Edge 28 (2013). 29 Sep. 2013 ‹http://www.outskirts.arts.uwa.edu.au/volumes/volume-28/karen-hughes>. Jenkin, Graham. Conquest of the Ngarrindjeri. Adelaide: Rigby, 1979. Kartinyeri, Doris. Kick the Tin. Melbourne: Spinifex, 2000. Kartinyeri, Doreen. My Ngarrindjeri Calling, Adelaide: Wakefield, 2007. Kickett, Marion. “Examination of How a Culturally Appropriate Definition of Resilience Affects the Physical and Mental Health of Aboriginal People.” PhD thesis, Curtin University, 2012. Kirmayer, L.J., S. Dandeneau, E. Marshall, M.K. Phillips, K. Jenssen Williamson. “Rethinking Resilience from Indigenous Perspectives.” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 56.2 (2011): 84-91. Luthar, S., D. Cicchetti, and B. Becker. “The Construct of Resilience: A Critical Evaluation and Guidelines for Future Work.” Child Development 71.3 (2000): 543-62. MacGill, Bindi, Julie Mathews, Ellen Trevorrow, Alice Abdulla, and Deb Rankine. “Ecology, Ontology, and Pedagogy at Camp Coorong,” M/C Journal 15.3 (2012). Mattingly, Christobel, and Ken Hampton. Survival in Our Own Land, Adelaide: Wakefield, 1988. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. Talkin’ Up to the White Woman. St Lucia: UQP, 2000. Night Cries, A Rural Tragedy. Dir. Tracy Moffatt. Chili Films, 1990. Read, Peter. A Rape of the Soul So Profound. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2002. Tucker, Margaret. If Everyone Cared. Sydney: Ure Smith, 1977. Wanganeen, Elva. Personal Communication, 2000. Westphalen, Linda. An Anthropological and Literary Study of Two Aboriginal Women's Life Histories: The Impacts of Enforced Child Removal and Policies of Assimilation. New York: Mellen Press, 2011.

Abstract:

The first home video-gaming console, the Magnavox Odyssey, was released in 1972. Its limited graphical capacities led Magnavox to ship it with a number of plastic overlays for the user's television that would admit a little variety into the then relatively crude gaming experience, limited to a built-in, Pong-like game. Computer and video games have come a long way since then, but it often seems as if critical approaches to gaming have continued shuffling through these plastic films, taking transformations of the screen, or on-screen events, for the whole of the gaming experience. It seems to me that reflection has been paralysed, becoming a discourse of regulation as it revolves around anxieties about gender, violence and narrative. I'd like to explore these anxieties as they've emerged in a few places, and then see if I can articulate the beginnings of an approach that might afford us a more complex, less pessimistic aesthetics of gaming. Anxieties around gender are partly premised upon an evident difference in the types, frequency and extent of gameplay on the part of boys and girls. Recent Australian research suggests that while 76% of boys use home computers for gameplay, the proportion of girls who do the same is around 60% (Cuppitt and Stockbridge 1996). In addition, similar Australian research suggests that while 98% of 12-17 year old boys play games regularly, only around 89% of girls do (Durkin and Aisbett 2000). There is evidence that girls and boys favour different gaming genres (Durkin and Aisbett 2000), and there is little doubt that the magazines and Websites that operate so integrally within gaming cultures tend to hail and attract a mostly male audience. Evidence of this kind of gender split can be seen across the extant research, and from it the argument is often made that this gender imbalance implies a lifelong advantage for boys proceeding from an early pleasurable familiarity with computers. In addressing this problem, rather than confronting questions of access, and parental or teacherly responsibilities to guarantee equity of access for boys and girls, or even looking at issues of gender representation, many critics have instead argued that most games are fundamentally unsuited to the way girls play. In a recent anthology, From Barbie To Mortal Kombat (1998), essentialist discourses of gender are deployed in assembling a consensus around what is termed the 'girls games movement'. Time and again in most of the assembled articles and interviews, claims are made that girls' and boys' interests and styles of play are fundamentally different. While boys allegedly favour destructive play, with an emphasis on mastery, control and competition, girls -- it's constantly asserted -- require collaboration and co-operation, an emphasis on feelings and discussion, a less competitive framework for play, and, above all, narrative. Repeatedly in the anthology, its impugned that games now do not encompass the narrative complexity or richness that girls need, and that girls are alienated from the violent 'twitch and kill' dynamic that pervades gaming. Apart from the thoroughgoing essentialism -- which is brilliantly interrogated by the game-grrlz featured at the end of the anthology -- what troubles me about much of the anthology and much contemporary critical work on games is the implied moral demand that young people's game-culture begin to measure up to another generation's notions of 'appropriate' cultural experiences. A persistent trope in critical work on games -- from Jenkins's piece in the anthology (Jenkins 1998) to works like Marsha Kinder's Playing with Power (1991) -- is the parent-critic watching their children playing video games and becoming perplexed and worried about what is going on. The panic around the lack of 'girls games' -- apart from affording a lucrative opportunity to produce and market worthy material to concerned parents -- serves to authorise the 'correction' of young people's culture. The move from a critique of gaming -- one which rarely engages sympathetically with its pleasures -- to an attempt to inject strong, adult-devised narrative content into games is a move from speaking about gamers ('over their heads') to speaking for gamers. This speaking-for, this flutter of panic has, I think, more than a little to do with an anxiety around the dissipation of cultural power. Theorists of moral panic like John Springhall tell us that moral panics function as attempts to preserve the intergenerational status quo and the cultural-critical hierarchy of a particular period (Springhall 1998). Catharine Lumby argues that new media are like force-fields that reorganise social relations in their wake, and that the anxieties they can inspire can tell us a lot about who feels threatened by such re-organisations, and why (Lumby 1997). Gaming is disturbing in that although it shares some features with other, more familiar visual media, it seems finally, stubbornly unassimilable to the modes of criticism that have developed in relation to those forms. Entrenched critical narratives of spectatorship, or the relationship between viewers, texts, meaning and the economies of cultural production don't seem to find any useful or lasting purchase here. No-one would now argue that televisual or cinematic experiences are passive, but gaming's requirement in principle for the player's direct physical participation in the production of cultural experience means that the old separations underpinning mechanisms of identification or notions of consuming audiences seem irritatingly awkward. Faced with these and other difficulties, criticism has tended to become mesmerised with what is shared -- the screen -- and to be at once frustrated and provoked by the enormous differences still inscribed there. While the close scrutiny of gender representations in gaming has uncovered some serious problems, alongside the demand for narrative we can also see it as part of an older generation's attempt to adapt familiar, free-floating critical modes and models to a group of media with which it has no apparent deep or pleasurable engagement. Faced with a radical analytical and critical failure, the lack of any pleasure to account for or recover, and the need to preserve a cultural and critical hierarchy premised upon the study of other media, it is perhaps inevitable that a desire to alter gaming -- to make it more familiar -- has arisen, and with it a critical discourse of regulation. If we move beyond the screen, if we simply attend to what happens when we and others play games, we allow the possibility of a new aesthetics of gaming to emerge that moves beyond such desires for control. When we realise that what is almost never talked about in current critical work is the body of the player or the nature of machine-mediated play, a field begins to open that might allow us to talk about the uses and pleasures of gaming, and to see its various forms in a wider network of interactions. Paradigm-cases for beginning the sorts of investigations I'm thinking of are those amazing arcade games, like Dance Dance Revolution, that enable and even require public performance and public display. Often positioned at the street entrances of arcades, these games usually attract passing crowds to stop and watch (male and female) players dancing in time with thumping tunes and on-screen instructions. Points are scored by closely matching foot placement with the directional arrows thrown up onto the small screen, but what really attracts the onlookers is the undeniable, individual -- and, strictly, unnecessary -- flair with which the dancers often execute their moves. What at the level of programming, and from an analysis of the screen alone, is the most rudimentary of narratives nevertheless mediates a thrilling and spectacular playful-performative display. And this is where we begin to see that gaming pleasures do not, perhaps cannot, rely on finished or closed narratives. It seems to me that the undeniable popularity of gaming comes from the provision of endlessly recursive grammars and vocabularies for cyborg players to narrate performance, play and self. While many gaming genres and titles do include chunks of traditional narrative storytelling, it seems to me that these often simply embellish the distinctive pleasures of gaming, which require and enact the fundamental redistribution of authorial and narrative power. Gaming establishes a new relationship between perceptual fields and bodies -- a relationship fundamentally different from cinematic or televisual relationships. Associated with these pleasures and relationships is gaming's demand for an ontology -- a series of ontologies -- that can conceive of the moment of play as simultaneously social, mechanical, neither, both. Code and performance, programming and improvised play, when seen together in this way, make the demand for narrative -- ultimately premised upon the separation of consumer and product, spectator and image -- empty of any force. This is to say that when we begin to see the moment of gameplay as a hybrid one -- one where human and machine, play and code, text and reading, producer and consumer cannot be meaningfully distinguished -- we can then begin to see that its unfixed, unstriated forms of play demand a hybrid aesthetics. Such a hybrid aesthetics would move beyond the screen alone to consider gaming's involvement in multiple networks, and thus come to a consideration of its pleasures and possibilities that avoided discourses of morality and control. What it would consider is not only the relationship between gaming and other forms of 'visual culture', but simultaneously its technological artefacts, its involvement with transnational industry, the physical dexterities and epistemologies it demands, the differing shapes of its collectives as it proliferates, its interactions with urban spaces, and its production of different kinds and mixtures of spectators, players, narratives and machines. This kind of Latourean anthropology, with its refusal to bracket gaming as another form of 'soft' culture, is a critical approach that will allow us some traction on gaming's slippery surface, as it allows us to talk about its complexity all at once. If we begin to see games as 'mediators -- that is, actors endowed with the ability to translate what they transport', who in turn 'associate, combine and redeploy countless actors' (Latour 1993), if we look beyond the screen and instead, following Wittgenstein, look for the meaning of games in their everyday social use, we will have begun to look at games in a way that is more interested in what they do, than in what they allegedly do not do. Carrying out this kind of aesthetic project will require not only an attention to the involvement of players' bodies in gaming, but to the patterns of games' dissemination, and to what players themselves say about the games they play. Such an approach need not, in opposing the pessimism that goes with screen-fetishism, veer toward the utopianism of so much cyber-rhetoric. If we take arguments like Latour's seriously, we will say not that gaming represents a revolutionary moment, but that there has always been a deep involvement between humans and our technologies, such that machines and humans constitute collectives for social action. An aesthetics of gaming that takes cognisance of this will short-circuit conveniently polarised debates, and clear space for a more interesting consideration of the networks and uses of gaming. Perhaps those of us who have keenly felt the pleasures and possibilities of gaming can extend a conversation that is no longer sifting through the Odyssey's yellowing transparencies. References Cassell, Justine and Henry Jenkins, eds. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998. Cuppitt, Margaret, and Sally Stockbridge. Families and Electronic Entertainment. Sydney: Office of Film and Literature Classification, 1997. Douglas, Nikki, et al. "Voices from the Combat Zone: Game Grrlz Talk Back." In Cassell and Jenkins. Durkin, Kevin, and Kate Aisbett. Computer Games and Australians Today. Sydney: Office of Film and Literature Classification, 2000. Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. Jenkins, Henry. "'Complete Freedom of Movement': Video Games as Gendered Play Spaces." In Cassell and Jenkins. Kinder, Marsha. Playing with Power in Movies, Television and Video Games: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1993. Lumby, Catharine. "Panic Attacks: Old Fears in a New Media Era." Media International Australia, 85 (1997): 40-6. Springhall, John. Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panic. Houndmills: MacMillan, 1998. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell, 1951. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Jason A. Wilson. "Odyssey Renewed: Towards a New Aesthetics of Video-Gaming." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.5 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/odyssey.php>. Chicago style: Jason A. Wilson, "Odyssey Renewed: Towards a New Aesthetics of Video-Gaming," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 5 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/odyssey.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Jason A. Wilson. (2000) Odyssey renewed: towards a new aesthetics of video-gaming. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(5). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/odyssey.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

Introduction This paper explores some specific conjunctions that tie together two nations, Japan and the Philippines. Over the past 30 years both have become entwined as a transfer of people, cultures and societies have connected and formed some interesting developments. Relations between both countries have been highly influenced through the deployment of State intervention (historically colonial and post-colonial), as well as through actors’ initiatives, leading to the development of a complex network that links both countries. It is in these relations that I would like to locate a transition between two stages in Japan-Philippine relations. I argue, this is a transition, where marriages of one kind (international marriages), the bonding of social actors from two distinct cultural spheres, gives way to another form of marriage. This transition locates the term marriage as part of an ongoing process and a discursive realm in a larger ‘affective complex’ that has developed. In this paper, I focus on this term ‘affective complex’ as it offers some interesting avenues in order to understand the continuing development of relations between Japan and the Philippines. By ‘affective complex’ I refer to the ‘cultural responses’ that people use in reaction to situations in which they find themselves which are not mediated by language. I suggest that this complex is a product of a specific encounter that exists between two nations as understood and mediated by Japanese actors’ positionings vis-à-vis foreign resident Filipinos. In tracing a moment between Japan and the Philippines, I delineate emerging properties that currently allude to a transition in relations between both countries. I would like to show that the properties of this transition are creating an emergent phenomena, a complex? This is developing through interactions between human actors whose trajectories as transnational migrants and permanent foreign residents are coming under the scrutiny of Japanese State forces in a heavily contested discursive field. This paper focuses upon the nature of the complex that entwines both countries and examines Japan’s particular restructuring of parts of its workforce in an attempt to include foreign migrants. To do this I first offer an outline of my fieldwork and then delineate the complex that ties both countries within present theoretical boundaries. This paper is based on fieldwork which deals with the theme of International Marriages between Japanese and Filipino couples. In the field I have observed the different ways in which Filipinos or Japanese with a connection to the Philippines orientate themselves within Japanese society vis-à-vis the Philippines. For the purpose of this paper, I will focus exclusively on a particular moment in my field: a care-giver course run privately with approval and recognition from local government. This course was offered exclusively for Filipino nationals with permanent residency and a high level of Japanese. As part of a larger field, a number of overlapping themes and patterns were present within the attitudes of those participating in the course. These were cultural responses that social actors carry with them which constitute part of an ‘affective complex’, its gradual emergence and unfolding. To further locate this fieldwork and its theoretical boundaries, I also position this research within current understandings of complexity. Chesters and Welsh have referred to a complex system as being a non-linear, non-deterministic system. However, from my perspective, these parameters are insufficient if institutions, organisations and human actors exhibit linear and deterministic properties (properties that discursively capture, locate and define elements in a system). In my research, I am dealing with actors, in this case Filipinos who are seen first as recipients and then as providers of welfare services. Japanese actors act as suppliers of a service both to long-term residents and to the State. In this case the following question arises: whose ‘complexes’ may be defined by a mixture of both these parameters and how can it be possible to take into account relationships whose existence cuts across them? Could a complex not be any number of these terrains which have emerged through encounters between two countries? Marriage could be a starting point for complexes that can come under scrutiny at a higher level, that of the State forces. In addition, a study of complexity in the Social Sciences focuses on how structures form rather than by focusing on any prior structured existence. Any focus on a complex system is to analyze holistic multiple elements in order to descriptively locate structures, what they penetrate, and what they are penetrated by. Human actors’ actions, strategies and expectations merge under the influence of these structures, while simultaneously influencing them. As elements interact, emergent phenomena (properties that emerge at a higher level) show a system that is process dependent, organic, and always evolving (Arthur 109). Locating Affect Deleuze and Guattari refined the discursive realm to emphasise how spaces of creation, dialogue and the casting of influence are affective, institutional and State-influenced. Within these spaces I locate the existence of ‘affective complexes’ which are discursively constructed and deployed by local actors. I will to argue that international marriages have laid a groundwork in which ‘affect’ itself has become a catalyst, re-orientating perceptions of and toward Filipinos. Following Deleuze, we can understand ‘affect’ as an intensity which, to repeat, is an expression of human relationships not mediated directly through language (Rodriguez). However, I want to suggest ‘affect’ also comes under the scrutiny of, and is discursively appealed to by, State forces as ‘affective capital’. When I refer to ‘affective capital’ I mean the potential labour discursively constructed. This construction is then “projected and tapped” in response to the changing nature of Japan’s labour market – in particular, the shortage of care-givers. This construction itself exists as an ongoing management strategy that deals with certain foreign nationals in Japan. Here, in response to the transformations of service work, ‘affective capital’ is the commoditised value of care inherent the discourse. It is the kernel of ‘affective labour’. This was very clear in my fieldwork, wherein Filipinos were targeted exclusively as the recipients of training in the health-care sector based on an understanding of the form of ‘affect’ that they possess. In this context, ‘affect’ adds intensity to meaning and is used in a wide range of cultural contexts, yet its very essence eludes description, especially when that essence as used by ‘active agents’ may be misconstrued in its deployment or discursively captured. Returning to the Deleuzian interpretation of ‘affect’, it could be interpreted as the outcome of encounters between actors and as such, a ‘mode’ in which becoming can initiate possibilities. I refer to ‘affect’, the deployment of shared, performed, communicated non-verbal ‘content’, as a powerful tool and an essential component in everyday habituated practice. In other areas of my field (not included in this discussion), ‘affect’ deployed by both actors, husband and wife, within and beyond the family, manifests itself as a mode of being. This at times adds to the location of actors’ intentions, be they spoken or performative. In this sense, locating the ‘affect’ in my research has meant observing the way in which Filipinos negotiate the availability of life strategies and opportunities available to them. At the same time, ‘affect’ is also produced by Japanese actors realigning themselves vis-à-vis both foreign actors and social change, as well as by effectuating strategies to emergent situations in Japan such as care management. ‘Affective capital’ is an inherent long-term strategy which has its roots in the cultural resources at the disposal of non-Japanese partners who, over the years, in the short and long term put to use discursively produced ‘affect’. ‘Affect’, produced in reactions to situations, encounters and events, can work in favour of long-term residents who do not have access to the same conditions Japanese may find in the labour sector. From encounters in my fieldwork, the location of ‘affect’ is an asset not just within immediate relationships, but as a possible expression of strategies that have arisen in response to the recognition of reactionary elements in Japanese society. By reactionary elements I refer to the way in which a complex may realign itself when ‘interfered’ with at another level, that of the State. The Japanese State is facing labour shortages in certain sectors due to social change, therefore they must secure other potential sources of labour. Appropriation of human resources locally available has become one Japanese State solution for this labour shortage. As such, ‘affect’ is brought into the capitalist fold in response to labor shortages in the Health Sector. Background The Philippines is a prime example of a nomad nation, where an estimated eight million of the population currently work or live overseas while remitting home (Phillippines Overseas Employment Agency). Post-colonial global conditions in the Asia Pacific region have seen the Philippines cater to external national situations in order to participate in the global labour market. These have been in the form of flows of labour and capital outsourced to those economies which are entangled with the Philippines. In this context, marriage between both countries has come to be made up almost exclusively of Japanese men with Filipina women (Suzuki). These marriages have created nascent partnerships that have formed links within homes in both countries and supported the creation of a complex system tying together both nations. Yet, in the entanglement of what seems to be two economies of desire, some interesting observations can be drawn from what I consider to be the by-products of these marriages. Yet what does this have to do with a marriage? First, I would like to put forward that certain international marriages may have developed within the above discursive framework and, in the case of the Philippines and Japan, defined certain characteristics that I will explain in more detail. Over the past 20 years, Filipinos who came to Japan on entertainment visas or through encounters with Japanese partners in the Philippines have deployed discursively constructed ‘affective capital’ in strategies to secure relationships and a position in both societies. These strategies may be interpreted as being knowledgeable, creative and possessive of the language necessary for negotiating long-term dialogues, not only with partners and surrounding family, but also with Japanese society. These deployments also function as an attempt to secure additional long term benefits which include strengthening ties to the Philippines through increasing a Japanese spouse’s involvement and interest in the Philippines. It is here that Filipinos’ ‘affect’ may be traced back to a previous deployment of categories that influences local Japanese actors’ decisions in offering a course exclusively for Filipino residents. This offers the first hint as to why only Filipinos were targeted. In Japan, secure permanent work for resident Filipinos can be, at times, difficult even when married to a partner with a stable income. The reality of remitting home to support family members and raising a family in Japan is a double burden which cannot be met solely by the spouse’s salary. This is an issue which means actors (in this case, partners) recourse to their ‘affective capital’ in order to secure means towards a livelihood. In this context, marriages have acted as a primary medium entangling both countries. Yet changes in Japan are re-locating ‘possible’ resources that are rationalised as a surplus from these primary encounters. Shifts in Japan’s social landscape have over the past 10 years led to an increasing awareness of the high stakes involved in care for the ageing and invalid in Japanese society. With over 21% of the population now over 65, the care industry has seen a surge in demand for labour, of which there is currently a shortfall (Statistics Bureau Japan). With the Philippines having strategically relocated its economy to accommodate demands for the outsourcing of health care workers and nurses overseas, Japan, realigning its economy to domestic change, has shown a new type of interest (albeit reluctant) in the Philippines. In 2005, changes and reforms to Japan’s Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act successfully curtailed the flow of Filipinos applying to Japan to work as entertainers. This was in part due to pressure from the interventionary power of the U.S: in 2006 the U.S. State department published the Trafficking in Persons Report, which stipulated that Japan had yet to comply in improving the situation of persons trafficked to Japan (U.S. State Department). This watershed reform has become a precursor to the Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement ratified by Japan and the Philippines to promote the ‘trans-border flow of goods, person, services and capital between Japan and the Philippines (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and has now temporarily realigned both economies into a new relationship. Under the terms ‘movement of natural persons’, Filipino candidates for qualified nurses and certified care workers would be allowed a stay of up to three years as nurses, or four for certified care workers (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Nonetheless, this lip service in showing openness to admit a new category of Filipino is the continuation of a mode of ‘servicing’ within the Japanese nation, albeit under the guise of ‘care work’, and rests upon the capitalist rationalisation of hired workers for Japan’s tertiary sectors. The Philippines, a nation which is positively export-orientated in terms of its human resources in response to care inequalities that exist between nations at a global level (Parreñas 12-30), is now responding to the problematic issue of care that has become a serious concern in Japan. Fieldwork To place these issues in context I want to locate the above issues within a part of my present fieldwork. In 2006, I participated in a privately funded non-profit venture set up for Filipino residents with the aim of training them to be care-givers. The course was validated and acknowledged by the local prefectural government and primarily limited to a group of 20 participants who paid approximately sixty thousand yen ($485) for the three month course including training and text books. One Filipina acquaintance enthusiastically introduced me to the retired bank manager who had set up a fund for the three month care-giver course for Filipina residents. Through interviews with the course providers, one underlying theme in the planning of the course was clear: the core idea that Filipinos have a predisposition to care for the elderly, reflecting Filipino social values no longer existent in Japan. In particular, two Japanese words employed to reflect these views – ‘omoiyari’ (思いやり), meaning “compassion” or “considerateness” and ‘yasashisa’ (優しさ) meaning “kindness toward others” – were reiterated throughout the course as a requisite for dealing with the elderly or those in need of care. One core presupposition underlining the course was that the Philippines still cherishes values which are on the decline in Japan, offering a care ethos based on Christian values ready for deployment in such work. I believe this marks a transition point in how both countries’ relations are moving away from ‘entertainment-based’ care to ‘care within an institutional setting’, such as private nursing homes or hospitals. In both cases, ‘care’ (as it is ironically known in both industries, the deployment of hospitality and attendance), operates as a dynamic of desire within a social field which orientates how residents (i.e. foreign female residents with permanent residency) are used. Yet, why would the Philippines be such an attractor? It is not difficult to see how ‘affect’ is discursively rationalised and deployed and projected onto Philippine society. This ‘affect’ acts as an attractor and belongs to an ‘imagined’ cultural repertoire that Japan has created in response to its turbulent marriage to the Philippines. In this sense, the care course promoted this ‘caring affective side’ of Filipinas here in Japan, and provided a dynamic engagement for potential negotiation, persuasion and tension between ‘local actors’ (course providers and participants) who come under the direct remit of the Japanese State (care institutions, hospitals and nursing homes). I say “tension”, as to date only a handful (three women out of a total of sixty) of those who participated in the course have taken up employment in the care industry. As one participant, a divorcee, commented, the reluctance to seek work as a qualified care worker resided in an economic framework, she says: this is a useful investment, but I don’t know if I can do this work full time to live off and support my families…but it is another arrow in my bow if the situation changes. Yet, for another woman, care work was an extension of something that they were familiar with. She jokingly added with a sigh of resignation: Oh well, this is something we are used to, after all we did nothing but care for our papa-san (husband)! When I discussed these comments with an N.G.O. worker connected to the course she pessimistically summed up what she thought by saying: The problem of care in Japan was until very recently an issue of unpaid work that women have had to bear. In a sense, looking after the aged living at home has been a traditional way to treat people with respect. Yet, here in Japan we have experienced an excessively long period whereby it was de facto that when a woman married into someone’s family, she would care for the husband and his family. Now, this isn’t an individual problem anymore, it’s a societal one. Care is now becoming an institutional practice which is increasing paid work, yet the State works on the assumption that this is low paid work for people who have finished raising their children; hard labour for low wages. All the women have graduated and are licensed to work, yet at 1000 yen (U.S. $8) an hour for psychologically demanding hard labour they will not work, or start and finish realising the demands. Travelling between locations also is also unpaid, so at the most in one day they will work 2-3 hours. It is the worst situation possible for those who choose to work. The above opinion highlights the ambiguities that exist in the constant re-alignment of offering work to foreign residents in the effort to help integrate people into Japan’s tertiary ‘care sector’ in response to the crisis of a lack of manpower. To date most women who trained on this course have not pursued positions within the health sector. This indicates a resistance to the social beliefs that continue to categorise female foreign residents for gendered care work. Through three successive batches of students (sixty women in total) the president, staff and companies who participated in this pilot scheme have been introduced to Filipino residents in Japanese society. In one respect, this has been an opportunity for the course providers to face those who have worked, or continue to work at night. Yet, even this exposure does not reduce the hyper-feminisation of care; rather, it emphasises positions. One male coordinator brazenly mentioned the phrase ashi wo aratte hoshii, meaning ‘we want to give them a clean break’. This expression is pregnant with the connotation that these women have been involved in night work have done or still participate in. These categorisations still do not shake themselves free from previous classifications of female others located in Japanese society; the ongoing legacy that locates Filipinos in a feminised discursive space. As Butler has elucidated, ‘cultural inscriptions’ and ‘political forces with strategic interests’ work to keep the ‘body bounded and constituted’ (Butler 175). It is possible to see that this care course resides within a continuously produced genealogy that tries to constitute bodies. This resides under the rubric of a dominant fantasy that locates the Philippines in Japan as a source of caring and hospitality. Now, those here are relocated under a restructuring industry outsourcing work to those located in the lower tiers of the labour sector. Why other nationals have not been allowed to participate in the course is, I stress, a testimony to this powerful discourse. Major national and international media coverage of both the course and company and those women who found employment has also raised interest in the curious complex that has arisen from this dynamic, including a series of specials aired on Japanese television by NHK (NHK Kaigo no Jinzai ga Nigete iku). This is very reminiscent of a ‘citationary’ network where writings, news items and articles enter into a perpetuating relationship that foments and bolsters the building up of a body of work (Said) to portray Japan’s changing circ*mstances. As seen from a traced genealogy, initial entanglements between two nations, in conjunction with societal change in Japan, have created a specific moment in both countries’ trajectories. Here, we can see an emergent phenomena and the relocation of a discursive structure. An affective complex can be located that marks a shift in how foreign residents are perceived and on what terms they can participate or contribute to Japanese society. Within this structure, ‘care’ is relocated – or, rather, trapped – and extracted as labour surplus that resides in an antagonistic relationship of domination highlighting how a specific moment existing between two countries can be ‘structured’ by needs in the ‘engaging’ country, in this case Japan. Non-linear elements in a complex system that contest how discursive practices in Japanese society locate foreign residents, within the rubric of an ‘imagined’ ethos of compassion and kindness that emanates from outside of Japan, seem to display ‘affective’ qualities. Yet, are these not projected categories deployed to continue to locate migrant labour (be they permanent or temporary residents) within an ongoing matrix that defines what resources can be discursively produced? However, these categories do not take into account the diverse structures of experience that both Japanese nationals and Filipino nationals experience in Japan (Suzuki). Conclusion In this paper I have briefly delineated a moment which rests between specific trajectories that tie two nations. A complex of marriages brought about within a specific historic post-colonial encounter has contributed to feminising the Philippines: firstly, for women in marriages, and now secondly for ‘potential resources’ available to tackle societal problems in Japan. As I have argued a discursively produced ‘affective complex’ is an authorising source of otherness and could be part of a precursor complex which is now discursively relocating human resources within one country (Japan) as a ‘reluctant source’ of labour, while entering into a new discursive mode of production that shapes attitudes toward others. I also suggest that there is a very specific complex at work here which follows an as of yet faint trajectory that points to the re-organisation of a relationship between Japan and the Philippines. Yet, there are linear elements (macro-level forces rooted in the Japanese State’s approach to care vis-à-vis the Philippines) operating at the fundamental core of this care-giver course that are being constantly challenged and cut across by non-linear elements, that is, human actors and their ambivalence as the beneficiaries/practitioners of such practices. This is the continued feminisation of a highly gendered dynamic that locates labour as and when it sees fit, but through the willing coercion of local agents, with an interest in mediating services through and for the State, for the welfare of the Nation. The desiring-machine that brings together Japan and the Philippines is also one that continues to locate the potential in foreign actors located within Japan’s institutional interpellation for its care market. Within these newly emergent relationships, available political and social capital is being reshaped and imagined in reaction to social change in Japan. By exploring two entangled nations situated within global capitalist production in the twenty-first century, my research points towards new ways of looking at emerged complexes (international marriages) that precludes the reconfigurations of ongoing emerging complexes that discursively locate residents as caregivers, who fall under the jurisdiction and glare of political powers, government subjects and State forces. References Artur, W. Brian. “Complexity and the Economy.” Science 284.2 (1999): 107-109. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 2006. Chester, Graeme, and Ian Welsh. “Complexity and Social Movement(s): Process and Emergence in Planetary Action Systems.” Theory, Culture & Society 22.5 (2005): 187-211. Deleuze, Giles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minnesota: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan). Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement Press Statement. 29 Nov. 2004. 29 Mar. 2007 http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/philippine/joint0411.html>. NHK Kaigo no Jinzai ga Nigete iku. 介護の人材が逃げて行く (“Care Workers Are Fleeing.”) Televised 11 Mar. 2007. 29 Mar. 2007 http://www.nhk.or.jp/special/onair/070311.html>. Parreñas, Rachel Salazar. Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2005. Philippines Overseas Employment Agency. “Stock Estimates of Filipinos Overseas.” 2 May 2007 http://www.poea.gov.ph/html/statistics.html>. Rodriguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez. “Reading Affect – On the Heterotopian Spaces of Care and Domestic Work in Private Households.” Forum: Qualitative Social Research 8 (2007). 2 May 2007 http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-07/07-2-11-e.pdf>. Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 1995. Statistics Bureau and Statistical Research and Training Institute. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Philippines). 2005. 2 May 2007 http://www.poea.gov.ph/docs/STOCK%20ESTIMATE%202004.xls>. Suzuki, Nobue. “Inside the Home: Power and Negotiation in Filipina-Japanese Marriages.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 33.4 (2004): 481-506. “Trafficking in Persons Report.” U.S. State Department. 2006. 29 Apr. 2007. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/66086.pdf>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Lopez, Mario. "From Bride to Care Worker?: On Complexes, Japan and the Philippines." M/C Journal 10.3 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/04-lopez.php>. APA Style Lopez, M. (Jun. 2007) "From Bride to Care Worker?: On Complexes, Japan and the Philippines," M/C Journal, 10(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/04-lopez.php>.

Abstract:

The habitual passenger cannot grasp the folly of traffic based overwhelmingly on transport. His inherited perceptions of space and time and of personal pace have been industrially deformed. He has lost the power to conceive of himself outside the passenger role (Illich 25).The most basic definition of Stillness refers to a state of being in the absence of both motion and disturbance. Some might say it is anti-American. Stillness denies the democratic freedom of mobility in a social system where, as Ivan Illich writes in Energy and Equity, people “believe that political power grows out of the capacity of a transportation system, and in its absence is the result of access to the television screen” (26). In America, it isn’t too far of a stretch to say that most are quite used to being interpolated as some sort of subject of the screen, be it the windshield or the flat screen. Whether in transport or tele-vision, life is full of traffic and flickering images. In the best of times there is a choice between being citizen-audience member or citizen-passenger. A full day might include both.But during the summer of 2008 things seemed to change. The citizen-passenger was left beached, not in some sandy paradise but in their backyard. In this state of SIMBY (stuck in my backyard), the citizen-passenger experienced the energy crisis first hand. Middle class suburbanites were forced to come to terms with a new disturbance due to rising fuel prices: unattainable motion. Domestic travel had been exchanged for domestication. The citizen-passenger was rendered what Paul Virilio might call, “a voyager without a voyage, this passenger without a passage, the ultimate stranger, and renegade to himself” (Crepuscular 131). The threat to capitalism posed by this unattainable motion was quickly thwarted by America’s 'big box' stores, hotel chains, and news networks. What might have become a culturally transformative politics of attainable stillness was hijacked instead by The Great American Staycation. The Staycation is a neologism that refers to the activity of making a vacation out of staying at home. But the Staycation is more than a passing phrase; it is a complex cultural phenomenon that targeted middle class homes during the summer of 2008. A major constraint to a happy Staycation was the uncomfortable fact that the middle class home was not really a desirable destination as it stood. The family home would have to undergo a series of changes, one being the initiation of a set of time management strategies; and the second, the adoption of new objects for consumption. Good Morning America first featured the Staycation as a helpful parenting strategy for what was expected to be a long and arduous summer. GMA defined the parameters of the Staycation with four golden rules in May of 2008:Schedule start and end dates. Otherwise, it runs the risk of feeling just like another string of nights in front of the tube. Take Staycation photos or videos, just as you would if you went away from home on your vacation. Declare a 'choratorium.' That means no chores! Don't make the bed, vacuum, clean out the closets, pull weeds, or nothing, Pack that time with activities. (Leamy)Not only did GMA continue with the theme throughout the summer but the other networks also weighed in. Expert knowledge was doled out and therapeutic interventions were made to make people feel better about staying at home. Online travel companies such as expedia.com and tripadvisor.com, estimated that 60% of regular vacation takers would be staying home. With the rise and fall of gas prices, came the rise of fall of the Staycation.The emergence of the Staycation occurred precisely at a time when American citizens were confronted with the reality that their mobility and localities, including their relationship to domestic space, were structurally bound to larger geopolitical forces. The Staycation was an invention deployed by various interlocutors most threatened by the political possibilities inherent in stillness. The family home was catapulted into the circuits of production, consumption, and exchange. Big TV and Big Box stores furthered individual’s unease towards having to stay at home by discursively constructing the gas prices as an impediment to a happy domestic life and an affront to the American born right to be mobile. What was reinforced was that Americans ideally should be moving, but could not. Yet, at the same time it was rather un-American not to travel. The Staycation was couched in a powerful rhetoric of one’s moral duty to the nation while playing off of middle class anxieties and senses of privilege regarding the right to be mobile and the freedom to consume. The Staycation satiates all of these tensions by insisting that the home can become a somewhere else. Between spring and autumn of 2008, lifestyle experts, representatives from major retailers, and avid Staycationers filled morning slots on ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, and CNN with Staycation tips. CNN highlighted the Staycation as a “1st Issue” in their Weekend Report on 12 June 2008 (Alban). This lead story centred on a father in South Windsor, Connecticut “who took the money he would normally spend on vacations and created a permanent Staycation residence.” The palatial home was fitted with a basketball court, swimming pool, hot tub, gardening area, and volleyball court. In the same week (and for those without several acres) CBS’s Early Show featured the editor of behindthebuy.com, a company that specialises in informing the “time starved consumer” about new commodities. The lifestyle consultant previewed the newest and most necessary items “so you could get away without leaving home.” Key essentials included a “family-sized” tent replete with an air conditioning unit, a projector TV screen amenable to the outdoors, a high-end snow-cone maker, a small beer keg, a mini-golf kit, and a fast-setting swimming pool that attaches to any garden hose. The segment also extolled the virtues of the Staycation even when gas prices might not be so high, “you have this stuff forever, if you go on vacation all you have are the pictures.” Here, the value of the consumer products outweighs the value of erstwhile experiences that would have to be left to mere recollection.Throughout the summer ABC News’ homepage included links to specific products and profiled hotels, such as Hiltons and Holiday Inns, where families could at least get a few miles away from home (Leamy). USA Today, in an article about retailers and the Staycation, reported that Wal-Mart would be “rolling back prices on everything from mosquito repellent to portable DVD players to baked beans and barbecue sauce”. Target and Kohl’s were celebrated for offering discounts on patio furniture, grills, scented candles, air fresheners and other products to make middle class homes ‘staycationable’. A Lexis Nexis count revealed over 200 news stories in various North American sources, including the New York Times, Financial Times, Investors Guide, the Christian Science Monitor, and various local Consumer Credit Counselling Guides. Staying home was not necessarily an inexpensive option. USA Today reported brand new grills, grilling meats, patio furniture and other accoutrements were still going to cost six percent more than the previous year (24 May 2008). While it was suggested that the Staycation was a cost-saving option, it is clear Staycations were for the well-enough off and would likely cost more or as much as an actual vacation. To put this in context with US vacation policies and practices, a recent report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research called No-Vacation Nation found that the US is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation (Ray and Schmidt 3). Subsequently, without government standards 25% of Americans have neither paid vacation nor paid holidays. The Staycation was not for the working poor who were having difficulty even getting to work in the first place, nor were they for the unemployed, recently job-less, or the foreclosed. No, the Staycationers were middle class suburbanites who had backyards and enough acreage for swimming pools and tents. These were people who were going to be ‘stuck’ at home for the first time and a new grill could make that palatable. The Staycation would be exciting enough to include in their vacation history repertoire.All of the families profiled on the major networks were white Americans and in most cases nuclear families. For them, unattainable motion is an affront to the privilege of their white middle class mobility which is usually easy and unencumbered, in comparison to raced mobilities. Doreen Massey’s theory of “power geometry” which argues that different people have differential and inequitable relationships to mobility is relevant here. The lack of racial representation in Staycation stories reinforces the reality that has already been well documented in the works of bell hooks in Black Looks: Race and Representation, Lynn Spigel in Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs, and Jeremy Packer in Mobility without Mayhem: Safety, Cars and Citizenship. All of these critical works suggest that taking easily to the great open road is not the experience of all Americans. Freedom of mobility is in fact a great American fiction.The proprietors for the Great American Staycation were finding all sorts of dark corners in the American psyche to extol the virtues of staying at home. The Staycation capitalised on latent xenophobic tendencies of the insular family. Encountering cultural difference along the way could become taxing and an impediment to the fully deserved relaxation that is the stuff of dream vacations. CNN.com ran an article soon after their Weekend Report mentioned above quoting a life coach who argued Staycations were more fitting for many Americans because the “strangeness of different cultures or languages, figuring out foreign currencies or worrying about lost luggage can take a toll” (12 June 2008). The Staycation sustains a culture of insularity, consumption, distraction, and fear, but in doing so serves the national economic interests quite well. Stay at home, shop, grill, watch TV and movies, these were the economic directives programmed by mass media and retail giants. As such it was a cultural phenomenon commensurable to the mundane everyday life of the suburbs.The popular version of the Staycation is a highly managed and purified event that reflects the resort style/compound tourism of ‘Club Meds’ and cruise ships. The Staycation as a new form of domestication bears a significant resemblance to the contemporary spatial formations that Marc Augé refers to as non-places – contemporary forms of hom*ogeneous architecture that are scattered across disparate locales. The nuclear family home becomes another point of transfer in the global circulation of capital, information, and goods. The chain hotels and big box stores that are invested in the Staycation are touted as part of the local economy but instead devalue the local by making it harder for independent restaurants, grocers, farmers’ markets and bed and breakfasts to thrive. In this regard the Staycation excludes the local economy and the community. It includes backyards not balconies, hot-dogs not ‘other’ types of food, and Wal-Mart rather than then a local café or deli. Playing on the American democratic ideals of freedom of mobility and activating one’s identity as a consumer left little room to re-think how life in constant motion (moving capital, moving people, moving information, and moving goods) was partially responsible for the energy crisis in the first place. Instead, staying at home became a way for the American citizen to support the floundering economy while waiting for gas prices to go back down. And, one wouldn’t have to look that much further to see that the Staycation slips discursively into a renewed mission for a just cause – the environment. For example, ABC launched at the end of the summer a ruse of a national holiday, “National Stay at Home Week” with the tag line: “With gas prices so high, the economy taking a nosedive and global warming, it's just better to stay in and enjoy great ABC TV.” It comes as no shock that none of the major networks covered this as an environmental issue or an important moment for transformation. In fact, the air conditioning units in backyard tents attest to quite the opposite. Instead, the overwhelming sense was of a nation waiting at home for it all to be over. Soon real life would resume and everyone could get moving again. The economic slowdown and the energy crisis are examples of the breakdown and failure of capitalism. In a sense, a potential opened up in this breakdown for Stillness to become an alternative to life in constant and unrequited motion. That is, for the practice of non-movement and non-circulation to take on new political and cultural forms especially in the sprawling suburbs where the car moves individuals between the trifecta of home, box store, and work. The economic crisis is also a temporary stoppage of the flows. If the individual couldn’t move, global corporate capital would find a way to set the house in motion, to reinsert it back into the machinery that is now almost fully equated with freedom.The reinvention of the home into a campground or drive-in theatre makes the house a moving entity, an inverted mobile home that is both sedentary and in motion. Paul Virilio’s concept of “polar inertia” is important here. He argues, since the advent of transportation individuals live in a state of “resident polar inertia” wherein “people don’t move, even when they’re in a high speed train. They don’t move when they travel in their jet. They are residents in absolute motion” (Crepuscular 71). Lynn Spigel has written extensively about these dynamics, including the home as mobile home, in Make Room for TV and Welcome to the Dreamhouse. She examines how the introduction of the television into domestic space is worked through the tension between the private space of the home and the public world outside. Spigel refers to the dual emergence of portable television and mobile homes. Her work shows how domestic space is constantly imagined and longed for “as a vehicle of transport through which they (families) could imaginatively travel to an illicit place of passion while remaining in the safe space of the family home” (Welcome 60-61). But similarly to what Virilio has inferred Spigel points out that these mobile homes stayed parked and the portable TVs were often stationary as well. The Staycation exists as an addendum to what Spigel captures about the relationship between domestic space and the television set. It provides another example of advertisers’ attempts to play off the suburban tension between domestic space and the world “out there.” The Staycation exacerbates the role of the domestic space as a site of production, distribution, and consumption. The gendered dynamics of the Staycation include redecorating possibilities targeted at women and the backyard beer and grill culture aimed at men. In fact, ‘Mom’ might suffer the most during a Staycation, but that is another topic. The point is the whole family can get involved in a way that sustains the configurations of power but with an element of novelty.The Staycation is both a cultural phenomenon that feeds off the cultural anxieties of the middle class and an economic directive. It has been constructed to maintain movement at a time when the crisis of capital contains seeds for an alternative, for Stillness to become politically and culturally transformative. But life feels dull when the passenger is stuck and the virtues of Stillness are quite difficult to locate in this cultural context. As Illich argues, “the passenger who agrees to live in a world monopolised by transport becomes a harassed, overburdened consumer of distances whose shape and length he can no longer control” (45). When the passenger is the mode of identification, immobility becomes unbearable. In this context a form of “still mobility” such as the Staycation might be satisfying enough. ConclusionThe still citizen is a threatening figure for capital. In Politics of the Very Worst Virilio argues at the heart of capitalism is a state of permanent mobility, a condition to which polar inertia attests. The Staycation fits completely within this context of this form of mobile immobility. The flow needs to keep flowing. When people are stationary, still, and calm the market suffers. It has often been argued that the advertising industries construct dissatisfaction while also marginally eliminating it through the promises of various products, yet ultimately leaving the individual in a constant state of almost satisfied but never really. The fact that the Staycation is a mode of waiting attests to this complacent dissatisfaction.The subjective and experiential dimensions of living in a capitalist society are experienced through one’s relationship to time and staying on the right path. The economic slowdown and the energy crisis are also crises in pace, energy, and time. The mobility and tempo, the pace and path that capital relies on, has become unhinged and vulnerable to a resistant re-shaping. The Staycation re-sets the tempo of suburbia to meet the new needs of an economic slowdown and financial crisis. Following the directive to staycate is not necessarily a new form of false consciousness, but an intensified technological and economic mode of subjection that depends on already established cultural anxieties. But what makes the Staycation unique and worthy of consideration is that capitalists and other disciplinary institutions of power, in this case big media, construct new and innovative ways to control people’s time and regulate their movement in space. The Staycation is a particular re-territorialisation of the temporal and spatial dimensions of home, work, and leisure. In sum, Staycation and the staging of National Stay at Home Week reveals a systemic mobilising and control of a population’s pace and path. As Bernard Stiegler writes in Technics and Time: “Deceleration remains a figure of speed, just as immobility is a figure of movement” (133). These processes are inexorably tied to one another. Thinking back to the opening quote from Illich, we could ask how we might stop imagining ourselves as passengers – ushered along, falling in line, or complacently floating past. To be still in the flows could be a form of ultimate resistance. In fact, Stillness has the possibility of becoming an autonomous practice of refusal. It is after all this threatening potentiality that created the frenzied invention of the Staycation in the first place. To end where I began, Illich states that “the habitual passenger must adopt a new set of beliefs and expectations if he is to feel secure in the strange world” (25-26). The horizon of political possibility is uniformly limited for the passenger. Whether people actually did follow these directives during the summer of 2008 is hard to determine. The point is that the energy crisis and economic slowdown offered a potential to vacate capital’s premises, both its pace and path. But corporate capital is doing its best to make sure that people wait, staycate, and see it through. The Staycation is not just about staying at home for vacation. It is about staying within reach, being accounted for, at a time when departing global corporate capital seems to be the best option. ReferencesAlban, Debra. “Staycations: Alternative to Pricey, Stressful Travel.” CNN News 12 June 2008. 6 Mar. 2009 ‹http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/06/12/balance.staycation/index.html›.Augé, Marc. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Verso, London, 1995.hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.Illich, Ivan. Energy and Equity. New York: Perennial Library, 1974.Leamy, Elisabeth. “Tips for Planning a Great 'Staycation'.” ABC News 23 May 2008. 6 Mar. 2009 ‹http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/story?id=4919211›.Massey, Doreen. Space, Place, and Gender. Minneapolis: Minnesota U P, 1994.Packer, Jeremy. Mobility without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke U P, 2008.Ray, Rebecca and John Schmitt. No-Vacation Nation. Washington, D.C.: Center for Economic and Policy Research, May 2007.Spigel, Lynn. Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. Chicago: Chicago U P, 1992.———. Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs. Durham, NC: Duke U P, 2001.Stiegler, Bernard. Technics and Time 2: Disorientation. Trans. Stephen Barker. California: Stanford University Press, 2009.USA Today. “Retailers Promote 'Staycation' Sales.” 24 May 2008. 6 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2008-05-24-staycations_N.htm›.Virilio, Paul. Speed and Politics. Trans. Mark Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1986.———. In James der Derian, ed. The Virilio Reader. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998.———. Politics of the Very Worst. New York: Semiotext(e), 1999.———. Crepuscular Dawn. New York: Semiotext(e), 2002.

Abstract:

An elderly man of my acquaintance once told me that there was nothing much to recommend living beyond 90. Things have changed over the past two decades, however. These days all he'd need is a touch of Viagra, an attitude reorientation, a little bit of manifesting and he'd be feeling as fit as, as, well … as a man in his 60s. Had he been around now, as a knowledgeable nonagenarian, he need not have mourned the passing of the years. Instead, he could have concentrated on becoming daily younger. As Second Youth so blithely trumpets: "In your youth, your mind, body and spirit are capable of great recuperative powers but, as you get older, you believe that those powers diminish. Not true! As long as you have a will -- and a method -- to improve your life, you will find the power to make it happen." Lacking the method? Look no longer… Books entitled RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be? (Roizen 1999) appear at the top of the New York Times best seller list, arguing that some 70-year olds can have the health profile of average 44-year olds within three years of making the right choices. (www.RealAge.com) This is the book's manifesto: The whole point of RealAge is to promote old age. Healthy, vibrant and young old age. RealAge shows you how you can live at eighty with all the energy and vigor of a fifty-five year old, how you can be the ninety year old who still lives on your own, travels and forcefully expresses feisty opinions -- the person who leaves the 'kids' marveling, 'How does she do it?' Having respect for old age means wanting to end the suffering that so often goes along with it. No one wants to be bedridden, afflicted with heart disease, or undergoing cancer treatment. Everyone wants to be able to do all the things he or she has always done and more. [Italics, gendered language, original] (Roizen 1999, p. 10) This website-supported best seller is part of a burgeoning industry which includes Cassel and Vallasi (1999) The Practical Guide to Aging: What Everyone Needs to Know, and Perls and Silver (1999) Living to 100: Lessons in Living to Your Maximum Potential at Any Age. "‘People have gotten old before, but never this many people and never this many people with such a high level of education … [boomers] will become obsessed with health and prevention of all the infirmities that accompany aging’ predicts Russell." (Wetzstein 1999, citing Russell.) The hypothesis put forward by Russell, by Wetzstein (1999) and by others, is that this is an 'age and stage' issue. It represents a new generational perspective reflective of the mindset and the life experience of the post mid-1940s 'baby boomer'. This website-supported best seller is part of a burgeoning industry which includes Cassel and Vallasi (1999) The Practical Guide to Aging: What Everyone Needs to Know, and Perls and Silver (1999) Living to 100: Lessons in Living to Your Maximum Potential at Any Age. "‘People have gotten old before, but never this many people and never this many people with such a high level of education … [boomers] will become obsessed with health and prevention of all the infirmities that accompany aging’ predicts Russell." (Wetzstein 1999, citing Russell.) The hypothesis put forward by Russell, by Wetzstein (1999) and by others, is that this is an 'age and stage' issue. It represents a new generational perspective reflective of the mindset and the life experience of the post mid-1940s 'baby boomer'. Boomers refuse to see 40 as middle aged (Wetzstein 1999), and would perish the thought that the Rolling Stones would ever retire. They define 50s as ‘Second youth’. (Gabriel & Molli 1995) They continue to participate in adventure and encounter holidays and subscribe to complementary health care regimes and new age approaches to daily life. They sign up for www.lovinguniversity.net and marvel at how much younger 43-yr old founder Susan Bradley looks on her website than in a recent Who Weekly (2001, p. 71). This baby boomer refusal to age has manifested itself widely in general and specialist consumer magazines, in broadcast TV and radio shows concentrating on good health and super-fitness, and in other elements of popular culture. Even given the hype, however, this new perspective might have long-term beneficial health/medical effects. The aging of the boomer generation may not be accurately predictable from the data collected from other generations with other mindsets. The back cover of Second Youth proclaims: "Desperate and aging far too fast she staked everything on discovering a natural source of Young Women's Hormones. Now, her triumph gives you thirty extra years of Second Youth. Age moved backwards for this woman. Just as it can -- this very month -- for you". (Gabriel & Molli 1995, back cover) Did someone mention snake oil? Or Bluebeard? Coupled with an optimism that allows them to forecast health and happiness into double-digit decades, however, boomers have a demonstrable suspicion of conventional medical ‘authority’ and a willingness to do their own research on health topics of interest. According to Mycek (1999) "In 1998, the [US] bill for homeopathic remedies (chiropractic and massage therapy, vitamins, yoga, herbal remedies, hypnosis, acupuncture) exceeded the total gross domestic product of all [US] hospitals put together." For boomers, a greater emphasis on health is not going to mean more of the same health care products, delivered in the same way. It is going to mean doing things differently. But is this a healthy way for us to look at aging and (shall we mention the word) death? Is our desire/burning commitment to remain indefinitely young and healthy in some way 'sick'? It is eminently reasonable to hypothesise -- as many people approaching their 'middle years' do -- that baby boomers are aiming to reinvent the aging process. (Dychtwald, 1999) The past quarter century has seen the burgeoning growth of preventative/health promotion and complementary health promoting services including nutritionists, naturopaths, chiropractors, rebalancers, meditation teachers, physiotherapists, counsellors and life coaches. The oldest members of the richest, best informed, most numerous generation in history are turning 55. The boomers (born from 1946--1960) can't put off for any longer the fact that -- chronologically -- they are approaching middle age. But what does this mean to a generation with many members who would rather be dead than old? Does the denial of chronological age, and the espousal of 'physiological age' (the premise upon which the RealAge philosophy and empire is built) represent a sick fantasy to avoid accepting our mortality? Baby boomers are a specific, much researched, sociocultural phenomenon. Their aim is to move beyond actuarial projections to re-write expectations of aging. From the self-help movement to the success of the potency drug Viagra, there is ample evidence that boomers have plans and expectations for their own aging processes that differ radically from those adopted by their parents. People born into the prosperity and plenty of the early post-WWII years often police their health attitudes and behaviours in proactive ways. These patterns are likely to impact upon their health profiles in the future and to influence the creation of services tailored to meet different hopes, fears and expectations. Who says Cher can't look young forever? Most health care planning is based on actuarial data that examines past events and extrapolates from these events into the future. However, this is not likely to result in a valid prediction of the health and aging patterns of the boomer generation. Graham May is a futurologist. He suggests that (May 2000), in anticipating the future, we are attempting either to foresee it, to manage it, or to create it. The philosophical distinctions between these perspectives provide different rationales for those who wish to influence the future. Attempts to foresee, or predict, the future – for example by extrapolating trends – presuppose that in some very particular ways the future already exists and/or is closely related to the forces evident in the present and the past. Managing the present with the future in mind accepts that present actions and decisions influence the future, and suggests that the future does not exist and is capable of being influenced by our current choices. The creation of the future – through techniques such as ‘creative visioning’ – works on the basis that once situations that do not exist have been imagined they can be brought into existence. These three approaches, separately and in parallel, offer ways of negotiating the uncertainty and essential unpredictability of the future, and of longevity and fitness. The longevity and second youth approach combines the idea of managing the future and envisioning it: 'the manifestation' approach. Baby boomers have already created a different future for our society. They are credited with re-writing the institutions of marriage (via de factos, divorce, blended families, single parents, older pregnancies); marketing (psychodemographics rather than age, sex, socioeconomic status); religion (the decline of the Church and the rise of new age philosophies, faith healing, angels on demand); education (just-in-time learning, lifelong learning); work practices -- and health. The boomers are also rewriting what aging means for them, and to them. Using popular culture starting points, such as Second Youth and RealAge, it seems that a major boomer project of the next twenty years is working to defy/turn back the aging clock. This project is invested with the hopes, fears, dreams and expectations of millions of citizens in western societies. Boomers are practical, however, as well as ‘just in time’ and they know that a belief that they can do it is half the battle. Let's assume that although many boomers are already fitter and healthier than any generation before them at their age, others may be intending to ‘make a break’ for fitness as an early priority of their retirement. Boomers may also expect their retirement years to be years of health and plenty, and they seem to indicate that they're prepared actively to work with these goals in mind. However, not all will be successful in beating their biology. How do boomers expect to manage their own chronic ailments in the future: arthritis, failing hearing and sight, late onset diabetes, heart disease, incontinence, dementia etc? Will the stem cell implants solve all foreseeable problems? Excluding alternative and complementary medical strategies, the health care industry is one of the biggest sectors of the economy representing 8% GDP (and rising). As indicated by its growing place in popular culture, health is also a hobby, pastime and pleasure – and the contemporary obsession with health is … sick. Although the social advantage to be conferred by living as healthily as possible, and as well as possible, is self-evident, it may require a level of selfishness and self-absorption unparalleled in human history. More to the point, however, this approach to getting older brings problems of its own. Firstly, it is built on a fear of aging, and a wish to deny the aging process which may become more desperate as the years (and they will) take their toll. Far from increasing the pleasure and satisfaction of 'a good age' this dynamic, operating over the decades, is as likely to build frustration, depression and a sense of powerlessness. As a (breast) cancer patient once told me: 'It's bad enough having cancer without everyone else thinking it's my fault for not having a positive enough attitude!' Aging is going to happen -- will we go with the flow - or end up like King Canute, with wet feet, trying to turn back the tide? Secondly, this perspective is counter-productive in fetishising a numerical age. When we're so focused on chronological age, biological age and the celebrating of our first, second and third 'year younger' parties (with fruit and water, please) we're not coming to terms with what's real for us in our ecological niche. Humanity is comprised of sentient, vertebrate, mammals. Far better to know our life cycle, and plan our lives to fit within it, than to pretend it can be revered. Much better to accept that we can be a very fit seventy year old (or a very unfit seventy year old) than to persuade ourselves that 'That's just my chronology, my real age is 44.' I'm sure we'll all be able to tell the difference… If anyone seriously believed the hype of living 26 years younger, you'd have to feel more than sorry for them. You'd have to suspect that maybe, even if they were blissfully unaware of it, they're a little bit sick. I gather that there's a Centre for Positive Aging recently started up in Perth: that's something altogether healthier References Cassel, C. and Vallasi, G. The Practical Guide to Aging: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Dychtwald, K. 'Age power': how the new-old will transform medicine in the 21st century, Geriatrics, vol. 54, no. 12, 1999, 22—7. Gabriel, V. and Molli, J. Second Youth, Melbourne: Bookman Press, 1995. May, G. Worldviews, assumptions and typologies of the future, Journal of Future Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, November, 2000, 37—51 Mycek, S. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Trustee, vol. 52, no. 8, 1999, 20—4 Perls, T. and Silver, M. Living to 100: Lessons in Living to Your Maximum Potential at Any Age, New York: Basic Books, 1999. Roizen, M. RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be? London: Thorsons, 1999 Wetzstein, C. Boomers’ new quest: to be forever young, Insight on the News, vol. 15, no. 24, 28th June, 1999, 40 Who Weekly Love is in the air, no. 474, 2 April, 2001, 71

Abstract:

As a scholarly discourse, transmedia storytelling relies heavily on conservative constructions of authorship that laud corporate architects and patriarchs such as George Lucas and J.J. Abrams as exemplars of “the creator.” This piece argues that transmedia theory works to construct patriarchal ideals of individual authorship to the detriment of alternative conceptions of transmediality, storyworlds, and authorship. The genesis for this piece was our struggle to find a transmedia storyworld that we were both familiar with, that also qualifies as “legitimate” transmedia in the eyes of our prospective scholarly readers. After trying to wrangle our various interests, fandoms, and areas of expertise into harmony, we realized we were exerting more effort in this process of validating stories as transmedia than actually examining how stories spread across various platforms, how they make meanings, and what kinds of pleasures they offer audiences. Authorship is a definitive criterion of transmedia storytelling theory; it is also an academic red herring. We were initially interested in investigating the possible overdeterminations between the healthcare industry and Breaking Bad (2008-2013). The series revolves around a high school chemistry teacher who launches a successful meth empire as a way to pay for his cancer treatments that a dysfunctional US healthcare industry refuses to fund. We wondered if the success of the series and the timely debates on healthcare raised in its reception prompted any PR response from or discussion among US health insurers. However, our concern was that this dynamic among medical and media industries would not qualify as transmedia because these exchanges were not authored by Vince Gilligan or any of the credited creators of Breaking Bad. Yet, why shouldn’t such interfaces between the “real world” and media fiction count as part of the transmedia story that is Breaking Bad? Most stories are, in some shape or form, transmedia stories at this stage, and transmedia theory acknowledges there is a long history to this kind of practice (Freeman). Let’s dispense with restrictive definitions of transmediality and turn attention to how storytelling behaves in a digital era, that is, the processes of creating, disseminating and amending stories across many different media, the meanings and forms such media and communications produce, and the pleasures they offer audiences.Can we think about how health insurance companies responded to Breaking Bad in terms of transmedia storytelling? Defining Transmedia Storytelling via AuthorshipThe scholarly concern with defining transmedia storytelling via a strong focus on authorship has traced slight distinctions between seriality, franchising, adaptation and transmedia storytelling (Jenkins, “Transmedia Storytelling;” Johnson, “Media Franchising”). However, the theoretical discourse on authorship itself and these discussions of the tensions between forms are underwritten by a gendered bias. Indeed, the very concept of transmediality may be a gendered backlash against the rising prominence of seriality as a historically feminised mode of storytelling, associated with television and serial novels.Even with the move towards traditionally lowbrow, feminized forms of trans-serial narrative, the majority of academic and popular criticism of transmedia storytelling reproduces and reinstates narratives of male-centred, individual authorship that are historically descended from theorizations of the auteur. Auteur theory, which is still considered a legitimate analytical framework today, emerged in postwar theorizations of Hollywood film by French critics, most prominently in the journal Cahiers du Cinema, and at the nascence of film theory as a field (Cook). Auteur theory surfaced as a way to conceptualise aesthetic variation and value within the Fordist model of the Hollywood studio system (Cook). Directors were identified as the ultimate author or “creative source” if a film sufficiently fitted a paradigm of consistent “vision” across their oeuvre, and they were thus seen as artists challenging the commercialism of the studio system (Cook). In this way, classical auteur theory draws a dichotomy between art and authorship on one side and commerce and corporations on the other, strongly valorising the former for its existence within an industrial context dominated by the latter. In recent decades, auteurist notions have spread from film scholarship to pervade popular discourses of media authorship. Even though transmedia production inherently disrupts notions of authorship by diffusing the act of creation over many different media platforms and texts, much of the scholarship disproportionately chooses to vex over authorship in a manner reminiscent of classical auteur theory.In scholarly terms, a chief distinction between serial storytelling and transmedia storytelling lies in how authorship is constructed in relation to the text: serial storytelling has long been understood as relying on distributed authorship (Hilmes), but transmedia storytelling reveres the individual mastermind, or the master architect who plans and disseminates the storyworld across platforms. Henry Jenkins’ definition of transmedia storytelling is multifaceted and includes, “the systematic dispersal of multiple textual elements across many channels, which reflects the synergies of media conglomeration, based on complex story-worlds, and coordinated authorial design of integrated elements” (Jenkins, “Transmedia Storytelling”). Jenkins is perhaps the most pivotal figure in developing transmedia studies in the humanities to date and a key reference point for most scholars working in this subfield.A key limitation of Jenkins’ definition of transmedia storytelling is its emphasis on authorship, which persists in wider scholarship on transmedia storytelling. Jenkins focuses on the nature of authorship as a key characteristic of transmedia productions that distinguishes them from other kinds of intertextual and serial stories:Because transmedia storytelling requires a high degree of coordination across the different media sectors, it has so far worked best either in independent projects where the same artist shapes the story across all of the media involved or in projects where strong collaboration (or co-creation) is encouraged across the different divisions of the same company. (Jenkins, “Transmedia Storytelling”)Since the texts under discussion are commonly large in their scale, budget, and the number of people employed, it is reductive to credit particular individuals for this work and implicitly dismiss the authorial contributions of many others. Elaborating on the foundation set by Jenkins, Matthew Freeman uses Foucauldian concepts to describe two “author-functions” focused on the role of an author in defining the transmedia text itself and in marketing it (Freeman 36-38). Scott, Evans, Hills, and Hadas similarly view authorial branding as a symbolic industrial strategy significant to transmedia storytelling. Interestingly, M.J. Clarke identifies the ways transmedia television texts invite audiences to imagine a central mastermind, but also thwart and defer this impulse. Ultimately, Freeman argues that identifiable and consistent authorship is a defining characteristic of transmedia storytelling (Freeman 37), and Suzanne Scott argues that transmedia storytelling has “intensified the author’s function” from previous eras (47).Industry definitions of transmediality similarly position authorship as central to transmedia storytelling, and Jenkins’ definition has also been widely mobilised in industry discussions (Jenkins, “Transmedia” 202). This is unsurprising, because defining authorial roles has significant monetary value in terms of remuneration and copyright. In speaking to the Producers Guild of America, Jeff Gomez enumerated eight defining characteristics of transmedia production, the very first of which is, “Content is originated by one or a very few visionaries” (PGA Blog). Gomez’s talk was part of an industry-driven bid to have “Transmedia Producer” recognised by the trade associations as a legitimate and significant role; Gomez was successful and is now recognised as a transmedia producer. Nevertheless, his talk of “visionaries” not only situates authorship as central to transmedia production, but constructs authorship in very conservative, almost hagiographical terms. Indeed, Leora Hadas analyses the function of Joss Whedon’s authorship of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (2013-) as a branding mechanism and argues that authors are becoming increasingly visible brands associated with transmedia stories.Such a discourse of authorship constructs individual figures as artists and masterminds, in an idealised manner that has been strongly critiqued in the wake of poststructuralism. It even recalls tired scholarly endeavours of divining authorial intention. Unsurprisingly, the figures valorised for their transmedia authorship are predominantly men; the scholarly emphasis on authorship thus reinforces the biases of media industries. Further, it idolises these figures at the expense of unacknowledged and under-celebrated female writers, directors and producers, as well as those creative workers labouring “below the line” in areas like production design, art direction, and special effects. Far from critiquing the biases of industry, academic discourse legitimises and lauds them.We hope that scholarship on transmedia storytelling might instead work to open up discourses of creation, production, authorship, and collaboration. For a story to qualify as transmedia is it even necessary to have an identifiable author? Transmedia texts and storyworlds can be genuinely collaborative or authorless creations, in which the harmony of various creators’ intentions may be unnecessary or even undesirable. Further, industry and academics alike often overlook examples of transmedia storytelling that might be considered “lowbrow.” For example, transmedia definitions should include Antonella the Uncensored Reviewer, a relatively small-scale, forty-something, plus size, YouTube channel producer whose persona is dispersed across multiple formats including beauty product reviews, letter writing, as well as interactive sex advice live casts. What happens when we blur the categories of author, celebrity, brand, and narrative in scholarship? We argue that these roles are substantially blurred in media industries in which authors like J.J. Abrams share the limelight with their stars as well as their corporate affiliations, and all “brands” are sutured to the storyworld text. These various actors all shape and are shaped by the narrative worlds they produce in an author-storyworld nexus, in which authorship includes all people working to produce the storyworld as well as the corporation funding it. Authorship never exists inside the limits of a single, male mind. Rather it is a field of relations among various players and stakeholders. While there is value in delineating between these roles for purposes of analysis and scholarly discussion, we should acknowledge that in the media industry, the roles of various stakeholders are increasingly porous.The current academic discourse of transmedia storytelling reconstructs old social biases and hierarchies in contexts where they might be most vulnerable to breakdown. Scott argues that,despite their potential to demystify and democratize authorship between producers and consumers, transmedia stories tend to reinforce boundaries between ‘official’ and ‘unauthorized’ forms of narrative expansion through the construction of a single author/textual authority figure. (44)Significantly, we suggest that it is the theorisation of transmedia storytelling that reinforces (or in fact constructs anew) an idealised author figure.The gendered dimension of the scholarly distinction between serialised (or trans-serial) and transmedial storytelling builds on a long history in the arts and the academy alike. In fact, an important precursor of transmedia narratives is the serialized novel of the Victorian era. The literature of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe was published in serial form and among the most widely read of the Victorian era in Western culture (Easley; Flint 21; Hilmes). Yet, these novels are rarely given proportional credit in what is popularly taught as the Western literary canon. The serial storytelling endemic to television as a medium has similarly been historically dismissed and marginalized as lowbrow and feminine (at least until the recent emergence of notions of the industrial role of the “showrunner” and the critical concept of “quality television”). Joanne Morreale outlines how trans-serial television examples, like The Dick Van Dyke Show, which spread their storyworlds across a number of different television programs, offer important precursors to today’s transmedia franchises (Morreale). In television’s nascent years, the anthology plays of the 1940s and 50s, which were discrete, unconnected hour-length stories, were heralded as cutting-edge, artistic and highbrow while serial narrative forms like the soap opera were denigrated (Boddy 80-92). Crucially, these anthology plays were largely created by and aimed at males, whereas soap operas were often created by and targeted to female audiences. The gendered terms in which various genres and modes of storytelling are discussed have implications for the value assigned to them in criticism, scholarship and culture more broadly (Hilmes; Kuhn; Johnson, “Devaluing”). Transmedia theory, as a scholarly discourse, betrays similarly gendered leanings as early television criticism, in valorising forms of transmedia narration that favour a single, male-bodied, and all-powerful author or corporation, such as George Lucas, Jim Henson or Marvel Comics.George Lucas is often depicted in scholarly and popular discourses as a headstrong transmedia auteur, as in the South Park episode ‘The China Problem’ (2008)A Circle of Men: Fans, Creators, Stories and TheoristsInterestingly, scholarly discourse on transmedia even betrays these gendered biases when exploring the engagement and activity of audiences in relation to transmedia texts. Despite the definitional emphasis on authorship, fan cultures have been a substantial topic of investigation in scholarly studies of transmedia storytelling, with many scholars elevating fans to the status of author, exploring the apparent blurring of these boundaries, and recasting the terms of these relationships (Scott; Dena; Pearson; Stein). Most notably, substantial scholarly attention has traced how transmedia texts cultivate a masculinized, “nerdy” fan culture that identifies with the male-bodied, all-powerful author or corporation (Brooker, Star Wars, Using; Jenkins, Convergence). Whether idealising the role of the creators or audiences, transmedia theory reinforces gendered hierarchies. Star Wars (1977-) is a pivotal corporate transmedia franchise that significantly shaped the convergent trajectory of media industries in the 20th century. As such it is also an anchor point for transmedia scholarship, much of which lauds and legitimates the creative work of fans. However, in focusing so heavily on the macho power struggle between George Lucas and Star Wars fans for authorial control over the storyworld, scholarship unwittingly reinstates Lucas’s status as sole creator rather than treating Star Wars’ authorship as inherently diffuse and porous.Recent fan activity surrounding animated adult science-fiction sitcom Rick and Morty (2013-) further demonstrates the macho culture of transmedia fandom in practice and its fascination with male authors. The animated series follows the intergalactic misadventures of a scientific genius and his grandson. Inspired by a seemingly inconsequential joke on the show, some of its fans began to fetishize a particular, limited-edition fast food sauce. When McDonalds, the actual owner of that sauce, cashed in by promoting the return of its Szechuan Sauce, a macho culture within the show’s fandom reached its zenith in the forms of hostile behaviour at McDonalds restaurants and online (Alexander and Kuchera). Rick and Morty fandom also built a misogynist reputation for its angry responses to the show’s efforts to hire a writer’s room that gave equal representation to women. Rick and Morty trolls doggedly harassed a few of the show’s female writers through 2017 and went so far as to post their private information online (Barsanti). Such gender politics of fan cultures have been the subject of much scholarly attention (Johnson, “Fan-tagonism”), not least in the many conversations hosted on Jenkins’ blog. Gendered performances and readings of fan activity are instrumental in defining and legitimating some texts as transmedia and some creators as masterminds, not only within fandoms but also in the scholarly discourse.When McDonalds promoted the return of their Szechuan Sauce, in response to its mention in the story world of animated sci-fi sitcom Rick and Morty, they contributed to transmedia storytelling.Both Rick and Morty and Star Wars are examples of how masculinist fan cultures, stubborn allegiances to male authorship, and definitions of transmedia converge both in academia and popular culture. While Rick and Morty is, in reality, partly female-authored, much of its media image is still anchored to its two male “creators,” Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. Particularly in the context of #MeToo feminism, one wonders how much female authorship has been elided from existing storyworlds and, furthermore, what alternative examples of transmedia narration are exempt from current definitions of transmediality.The individual creator is a social construction of scholarship and popular discourse. This imaginary creator bears little relation to the conditions of creation and production of transmedia storyworlds, which are almost always team written and collectively authored. Further, the focus on writing itself elides the significant contributions of many creators such as those in production design (Bevan). Beyond that, what creative credit do focus groups deserve in shaping transmedia stories and their multi-layered, multi-platformed reaches? Is authorship, or even credit, really the concept we, as scholars, want to invest in when studying these forms of narration and mediation?At more symbolic levels, the seemingly exhaustless popular and scholarly appetite for male-bodied authorship persists within storyworlds themselves. The transmedia examples popularly and academically heralded as “seminal” centre on patrimony, patrilineage, and inheritance (i.e. Star Wars [1977-] and The Lord of the Rings [1937-]). Of course, Harry Potter (2001-2009) is an outlier as the celebrification of J.K. Rowling provides a strong example of credited female authorship. However, this example plays out many of the same issues, albeit the franchise is attached to a woman, in that it precludes many of the other creative minds who have helped shape Harry Potter’s world. How many more billions of dollars need we invest in men writing about the mysteries of how other men spread their genetic material across fictional universes? Moreover, transmedia studies remains dominated by academic men geeking out about how fan men geek out about how male creators write about mostly male characters in stories about … men. There are other stories waiting to be told and studied through the practices and theories of transmedia. These stories might be gender-inclusive and collective in ways that challenge traditional notions of authorship, control, rights, origin, and property.Obsession with male authorship, control, rights, origin, paternity and property is recognisible in scholarship on transmedia storytelling, and also symbolically in many of the most heralded examples of transmedia storytelling, such as the Star Wars saga.Prompting Broader DiscussionThis piece urges the development of broader understandings of transmedia storytelling. A range of media scholarship has already begun this work. Jonathan Gray’s book on paratexts offers an important pathway for such scholarship by legitimating ancillary texts, like posters and trailers, that uniquely straddle promotional and feature content platforms (Gray). A wave of scholars productively explores transmedia storytelling with a focus on storyworlds (Scolari; Harvey), often through the lens of narratology (Ryan; Ryan and Thon). Scolari, Bertetti, and Freeman have drawn together a media archaeological approach and a focus on transmedia characters in an innovative way. We hope to see greater proliferation of focuses and perspectives for the study of transmedia storytelling, including investigations that connect fictional and non-fictional worlds and stories, and a more inclusive variety of life experiences.Conversely, new scholarship on media authorship provides fresh directions, models, methods, and concepts for examining the complexity and messiness of this topic. A growing body of scholarship on the functions of media branding is also productive for reconceptualising notions of authorship in transmedia storytelling (Bourdaa; Dehry Kurtz and Bourdaa). Most notably, A Companion to Media Authorship edited by Gray and Derek Johnson productively interrogates relationships between creative processes, collaborative practices, production cultures, industrial structures, legal frameworks, and theoretical approaches around media authorship. Its case studies begin the work of reimagining of the role of authorship in transmedia, and pave the way for further developments (Burnett; Gordon; Hilmes; Stein). In particular, Matt Hills’s case study of how “counter-authorship” was negotiated on Torchwood (2006-2011) opens up new ways of thinking about multiple authorship and the variety of experiences, contributions, credits, and relationships this encompasses. Johnson’s Media Franchising addresses authorship in a complex way through a focus on social interactions, without making it a defining feature of the form; it would be significant to see a similar scholarly treatment of transmedia. At the very least, scholarly attention might turn its focus away from the very patriarchal activity of discussing definitions among a coterie and, instead, study the process of spreadability of male-centred transmedia storyworlds (Jenkins, Ford, and Green). Given that transmedia is not historically unique to the digital age, scholars might instead study how spreadability changes with the emergence of digitality and convergence, rather than pontificating on definitions of adaptation versus transmedia and cinema versus media.We urge transmedia scholars to distance their work from the malignant gender politics endemic to the media industries and particularly global Hollywood. The confluence of gendered agendas in both academia and media industries works to reinforce patriarchal hierarchies. The humanities should offer independent analysis and critique of how media industries and products function, and should highlight opportunities for conceiving of, creating, and treating such media practices and texts in new ways. As such, it is problematic that discourses on transmedia commonly neglect the distinction between what defines transmediality and what constitutes good examples of transmedia. This blurs the boundaries between description and prescription, taxonomy and hierarchy, analysis and evaluation, and definition and taste. Such discourses blinker us to what we might consider to be transmedia, but also to what examples of “good” transmedia storytelling might look like.Transmedia theory focuses disproportionately on authorship. This restricts a comprehensive understanding of transmedia storytelling, limits the lenses we bring to it, obstructs the ways we evaluate transmedia stories, and impedes how we imagine the possibilities for both media and storytelling. Stories have always been transmedial. What changes with the inception of transmedia theory is that men can claim credit for the stories and for all the work that many people do across various sectors and industries. It is questionable whether authorship is important to transmedia, in which creation is most often collective, loosely planned (at best) and diffused across many people, skill sets, and sectors. While Jenkins’s work has been pivotal in the development of transmedia theory, this is a ripe moment for the diversification of theoretical paradigms for understanding stories in the digital era.ReferencesAlexander, Julia, and Ben Kuchera. “How a Rick and Morty Joke Led to a McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce Controversy.” Polygon 4 Apr. 2017. <https://www.polygon.com/2017/10/12/16464374/rick-and-morty-mcdonalds-szechuan-sauce>.Aristotle. Aristotle's Poetics. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961. Barsanti, Sami. “Dan Harmon Is Pissed at Rick and Morty Fans Harassing Female Writers.” The AV Club 21 Sep. 2017. <https://www.avclub.com/dan-harmon-is-pissed-at-rick-and-morty-fans-for-harassi-1818628816>.Bevan, Alex. “Nostalgia for Pre-Digital Media in Mad Men.” Television & New Media 14.6 (2013): 546-559.Boddy, William. Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1993.Bourdaa, Mélanie. “This Is Not Marketing. 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Abstract:

Contemporary definitions of resilience stress adaptability to changing ecological and economic conditions (Berkes, Colding and Folke; Castleden, McKee, Murray and Leonard 369). But this approach to resilience is a measure of individual ‘fitness’ to an adaptive whole (Hughes 165; McMahon et al.; Walker and Cooper). Not only is this incongruous with the experience of reproductive loss and infertility, it also works to sideline alternative forms or sources of resilience (Cox). In this paper, we share our efforts to build on previous theories of resilience by engaging in intimate dialogues and written reflections about our personal experiences with reproductive loss. Throughout the paper our reflections are interspersed with our ‘findings’ about the relationship between reproduction and resilience. For us, an active process of dialogically grounded reflection opened up the possibility of a different type of theoretical engagement, one that ultimately produced different enactments, and offered unexpected redirections, both of our experience with reproductive resilience, and in the resilience literature at large. This deeply personal, dialogical frame allowed us to move beyond the anecdotal and confessional to encompass a praxis that engaged the acutely affective reality of reproductive resiliency. Katherine: Three years ago, in the wake of the global financial crisis, I became interested in growing references to resilience in the media. I decided to start a graduate reading group on this theme. This was 'serious academic work.' We looked at questions like: Why has the UNDP rebranded itself 'Empowered Lives, Resilient Nations'? But my thinking about resilience was interrupted by a personal crisis. In January 2011, I was surprised and delighted to discover I was pregnant after years of clinically diagnosed 'unexplained infertility.' So my husband and I were devastated when, in May, a medical crisis (for me, not the baby) forced us to abort the pregnancy in its fifth month. Two years of exhausting medical interventions later, I learned that I am unable to bear children of my own—unable to reproduce—a fact which I am still actively struggling to reconcile. Ayumi: Strange the surprising state of affairs that would shift an employer and research lead into an acquaintance, confidante and friend. I initially learned of her challenges to carry a child to full term through proximity. As her teaching assistant I felt obliged to inform her that I had recently experienced an early miscarriage, and that it could possibly disrupt my work in her course. She was visibly pregnant at the time. Soon after, when I was participating in the resilience reading group, she miscarried as well. Reproductive Resilience A year or more passed before we spoke to each other about our losses, but when we did, we realised that we had both been influenced by dominant discourses around reproduction. Identifying the source of these pressures was an important topic of reflection for us. We found that dominant conceptions of reproductive resilience are overshadowed by a biological imperative to reproduce. When a woman is unable to conceive, or experiences a reproductive loss, she is told to ‘try again.’ There can be solace in trying, and in the ‘successful’ cases, a ‘happy resolution’ is achieved in subsequent pregnancies. But in other cases, the woman's body must produce several reproductive losses before medical professionals can understand the causes of her inability to reproduce (McMahon et al. 2007; Sexton, Byrd, and von Kluge 236). A series of increasingly invasive medical interventions can then be employed to increase the likelihood of reproduction. As a biological imperative, this type of reproductive resilience demands “progressive adaptation to a continually reinvented norm” (Walker and Cooper 156) of what it means to be fertile. But this is more than just a medical norm. Increasingly, reproduction also implies “adaptability to extremes of [ecological and economic] turbulence” (ibid.) that establish the conditions in which fertility is both experienced and understood, something that Katherine in particular had faced: Katherine: Why is it that we both ended up in this situation? Why is it that we are far from being alone in being 40 and childless? I am partly a product of the 1980s teen pregnancy hysteria in North America which made it an anathema for young women to ‘jeopardise’ their earning potential by having children. This makes me particularly bitter because I now understand that, at that moment in history, my society decided to prioritise my productive contributions to capital over socialised financing of the conditions that would allow me to produce a family. What I am suggesting is that the discourses which produce the preconceived notions that we attempt to ‘live up to’ are also discourses that we must, in many ways, ‘live with,’ because like it or not, they contributed to producing the situation which is now prompting us to write this paper! In this sense, reproductive resilience also becomes a measure of normalcy, where normalcy includes the adaptability of human bodies and biological process to the demands of a socio-economic system. Reproductive loss or infertility then becomes a source of personal weakness or abnormality that must be overcome, and a cause of personal degradation, which is often kept silent. In our experience, although individual responses differed greatly, either way the failure to reproduce demanded a response: Katherine: After my loss, I became determined to be pregnant again. For me IVF treatments were not so much about wanting to know with certainty my bodily ability to bring a child into the world. I was working under the perhaps rather desperate assumption that they would. I think of my IVF year more as desperation to achieve an end, a fear of failure, a crisis of sustainability, and a disbelief or disassociation from my own physical reality—the fact of my advancing age. The idea of ‘self-enclosed bodily anxiety’ captures this wonderfully for me. Ayumi: I did nothing, not a single consultation with a fertility expert, no visits to herbal medicine specialists, at most, a half-hearted internet search on adoption agencies. My path insisted upon embracing uncertainty over entrusting others with telling me the limits of my bodily integrity. When we began to share our stories with each other, we noticed that, despite having been surrounded by loving families and supportive colleagues at our times of crisis, both of us felt a tremendous sense of isolation as we tried to make sense of and respond to our losses. So a second area of reflection concerned the source of these emotions—both the sense of isolation, and the way in which it reinforced the normalisation of dominant discourses of reproductive resilience. We found that the reproductive industry’s medical interventions and specialised language community codify and reinforce measures of normalcy and sustain a coerced and often isolating process of adaptation to ever-more medicalised norms of fertility (Bonanno 753). This isolation is particularly apparent for women who choose to pursue fertility treatments. The language of medical intelligence is overwhelming and difficult to learn, creating a barrier between insiders and outsiders to fertility interventions (see for example: Kagan et al., S151). Fertility treatments are not only highly technical, but also a very introspective process, making it difficult for fertility partners, let alone friends and family, to fully comprehend what is going on, or to be involved. Meanwhile, support is difficult to find in a fertility clinic’s waiting room at 7am where groups of women silently await blood work to monitor hormone levels, avoiding eye contact by scanning their phones or reading a magazine. Many women turn instead to online forums, such as www.ivf.ca, where there is mutual comprehension wrapped in the security of anonymity. Rather than explain themselves each time they post to a forum, participants take up the language of reproductive medicine to detail their reproductive interventions in codified signature files (see Figure 1 below). Here, lengthy fertility campaigns become a merit badge of adaptability and perseverance. In their messages, participants share jingoistic mantras like ‘It only takes one!’, one harvested egg to have a child, as they cheer each other on in the search for a baby (Figure 2 below). These types of forums can empower insofar as they educate and encourage. However, they can also enclose and isolate as they cut patients off from family and friends, while creating external pressure to achieve a biological imperative suspended in changing parameters for what it means to be fertile. Figure 1: Example of a Signature File from an IVF Discussion Forum Figure 2: “It only takes one!” This kind of isolated adaptation to medicalised norms of fertility can come at a very high cost. For example, one friend was so traumatised by the multiple fertility interventions and failures it took for her to bear a child that she was ultimately unable to connect with the baby that she bore. The forward march of fertility treatments under the mounting pressure of advancing age required her to defer mourning for the multiple losses that she was experiencing: the loss of a child, the loss of normalcy, the loss of voice. She alone sustained the physical and psychological weight of reproductive resilience, and the pressures of achieving a ‘good outcome’ within the biological limits of her fertility window. When her daughter was born, she was engulfed by an avalanche of backlogged emotions—years of accumulated grief and stress. She was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and has struggled to develop a meaningful relationship with her child. But we also found that one need not pursue fertility treatments to experience the isolating and normalising effects of dominant conceptions of fertility. Some experienced infertility without feeling the need to consult medical professionals, or discover through initial consultations that a commercial and medicalised system was not the means through which they wanted to create a future for themselves. Others could find it difficult to contemplate the ‘reproduction’ of a ‘family’ when past experiences with family had been difficult. Yet, despite these decisions, changing norms of fertility continued to reinforce the biological imperative of reproduction in ways that become interwoven with tacitly heteronormative conceptualisations of the nature of family and community (Peters, Jackson, & Rudge 132-134). Katherine: Just the other day at the community garden, one of the gardeners, whom I had just met, wanted to know whether I had any children. When I said no, he bluntly asked me, ‘Why not?’ Just like that: ‘Why not?’ How can I even begin to answer this question? I’ve started to look people squarely in the eye and say, ‘I guess I must not be blessed.’ It’s not because I think I’m not blessed—my life is incredibly rewarding. It’s because it’s the best way I can think of to point out how inappropriate that line of questioning is. But I guess it’s also a defence… Ayumi: I do find that there is something deeply gendered and heterosexist about that line of questioning. As if there is some type of biological expectation for women to reproduce as a means to complete the family. And in absentia, in not raising the biological imperative with same-sex couples—in particular men, a whole host of assumptions are built into forming a good family. It’s like a double disrespect. In the first instance, the biological imperative falls on women, and in the second instance, the lack of expectation leaves many others out of the conversation. In total, we found that resilience always came with a modifier; otherwise we were left asking ‘resilience of what?’ ‘Resilience for what?’ Economic resilience, for example implied the adaptability of the capitalist system. Similarly, rather than expanding choices for and beyond women, the reproductive industry reinforced the normalcy of a gendered biological imperative that ultimately rested on the shoulders of an isolated individual. “The criteria of selection may well have shifted. Yet in the last instance, and for all its flexibility, the resilience perspective is no less rigorous in its selective function than Darwinian evolution” (Walker and Cooper 156). Dialogue Ayumi: To my surprise, she wanted to talk about it one day when we went for lunch, as though words would form the reality of her unexpected shift from pregnant to not-pregnant. The psychological experience of my own miscarriage had been devastating, so invisible, unannounced. Only those who needed to know were privy to the situation. Perhaps I quietly believed that if I spoke very little of it, it could almost have been mistaken for nothing other than conjecture or wishful thinking. Our conversation reproduced the reality of my failure to carry my child into childbirth. Her request for an empathetic listener would mean that a solitary introspection to resignify respect for my own body would give way to responding with due respect for her becoming no longer pregnant. Dialogue did more than just allow us to make sense of what we were experiencing. In conversation, reproductive resilience became something other than what we experienced in isolation. As experiences transformed into words, one perspective intermingled with and shaped the other, revealing imaginings that undid the closures and conclusions reached in our own minds, and offered an opportunity to reconsider the expectations of dominant narratives. Other possibilities surrounded, awaited contemplation, discursive engagement, solicitude in the shadows of experiences that coincided and diverged, resting assured that points of disagreement could be articulated as conjecture, wordless acknowledgement or future interactions. Our very different experiences and choices formed a context for conversation. We asked of one another: Why did this happen? How do you relate to your body? What do you feel is expected of you? What do you plan to do now? Upon dialogical reflection, it became clear that bodies, rather than being intentional enactments of adaptation, were more often than not products and reproductions of experiences and discourses: Ayumi: What kinds of biological, familial, technological, and economic imperatives are pressed upon our bodies? I wonder too about the ways in which consumerisation of reproduction plays upon our imagination of what it would be like to be a parent, creating a market and psychological demand for this life-changing acquisition of a human life. Perhaps these imperatives are operationalised as different mediations on the body, which is seen as a passive recipient of these directives. The externalisation and internalisation of our thoughts allowed us to see how our knowledge was suspended between our relationship with our body and the, often unexpressed, expectations of others which were based on their unexamined assumptions of what it meant to be a woman, a sexual being, a member of a family, a contributor to the community. Thinking about the body as something performed allowed us to use words to make real, reflect on, reproduce or recast our experiences: Katherine: I’m so independent, even in my relationship with my husband that I was a bit shocked at how my miscarriage rippled through my networks of friends, colleagues and family. People I hardly knew told me that they cried when they heard! I forget sometimes that my husband also suffered a huge loss, a blow to his identity and confidence, and a challenge to his sense of place. It is not just me who needs to engage with questions of resilience, but so does he, and we also need to do that together, and these processes will ripple through our networks of friends, family and co-workers in ways that affect the overall resiliency of a community of people. Ayumi: I talked to my partner about how deep down sometimes I feel that I've already done my work as a caregiver. I did a lot of volunteer and paid work with children when I was younger. I’ve taken care of so many children who ranged dramatically in age, mental and physical health and mobility, children who were dying and then died, and this took up so much of my teens, twenties and early thirties. I told him that while I've had that experience, he hasn't spent so much time with kids so that I wished for him to think about if this was something he wanted to explore (taking on a care giving / parental role), considering the options that are available to us through adoption or fostering. In dialogue, we figured out how to talk to one another, to locate a sense of fun within urgency, to reach toward mutual understanding, to test borders and to reshape them. Putting experiences and expectations into words allowed us to uncover expansive possibilities—options not considered, courses not taken. Ultimately, we began to think of reproductive resilience not as the means to achieve a biological imperative, but rather as a relational space of production. As we exchanged ideas, we came to question the assumption that reproductive resilience could be channeled through an individual body, and consequently we began to push back on definitions of fertility which served as measures of ‘fitness’ to a mythical adaptive whole. Through dialogue we resignified our individualised and isolated experiences with reproduction, turning what we experienced as vulnerability into a starting point for the reconceptualisation of resilience. This process—we call it ‘resiliency’ to distinguish it from adaptation—became an act of occupying our own reality in and through the relationships that surround us. Whereas resilience was about individual adaptations to shifting but still dominant norms of fertility, resiliency was about negotiating and constituting a fertile world through dialogues: Ayumi: I found our discussion of care a vitalising part of our conversations. Somehow, through forging different relations, the body propels resilience toward resisting external reinforcements to individualise reproduction and calls forth a collective response. Katherine: Today we discussed reproduction as a process of constructing a caring condition. Caring both in the sense of nurturing, but also in the sense of consideration. This was the most personally enriching part of our discussion – I felt empowered to make decisions about how I wanted to engage in caring and nurturing. This opened my mind to the possibility of adoption, but also to the fact that I express myself as a caring being in many other ways. Resiliency suggests actively engaging people and forces in ways that do not impose a certain order or state of affairs. But we struggled to think about how this new vision of reproductive resiliency would articulate with resistance. What does it mean to resist when biological failure renders acceptance of reproductive decline the only possible way forward? Though we can resist the conditions that created our current situations, we cannot resist our own pasts or our own biological reality. Should our inability to reproduce be seen as a victory in the fight against material myths of parental bliss? Or does our inability to reproduce make us the martyrs of the post-modern and neoliberal era? We want reproductive resiliency to offer a different experience of fertility. But we also want it to be a foundation to resist the normalisation of biological adaptation to the demands of a turbulent socio-economic system. We can do this by making a distinction between the biological act of reproduction (producing a baby), and the social reproducibility of care (nurturing, engaging, resisting, being, sharing, performing, etc.). Reproductive resiliency is concerned with nurturing the fertile enactments of human caring. It is on the basis of human caring that we can resist a system that creates the need for fertility adaptations, and it is also on this basis that we can open up room for thinking about reproductive resiliency in a respectful and socially engaged way. References Berkes, Fikret, Johan Colding and Carl Folke. “Introduction.” Navigating Social-Ecological Systems: Building Resilience for Complexity and Change. Ed. F. Berkes, J. Colding and C. Folke. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Bonanno, George A. “Uses and Abuses of Resilience Construct: Loss, Trauma, and Health-Related Adversities. Social Science & Medicine 74.5 (2012): 753-756. Castleden, Matthew, Martin McGee, Virginia Murray & Giovanni Leonard. “Resilience Thinking in Health Protection. Journal of Public Health 33.3 (2011): 369-377. Cox, Pamela. “Marginalized Mothers, Reproductive Autonomy, and Repeat Losses to Care.” Journal of Law and Society 39.4 (2012): 541—561. Herrman, Helen, et al. “What Is Resilience?” Canadian J. of Psychiatry 56.5 (2011): 258-265. Hughes, Virginia. “The Roots of Resilience.” Nature 490 (2012): 165-167. Kagan, et al. “Improving Resilience among Infertile Women: A Pilot Study.” Fertility & Sterility 96.3 (2011): S151. McMahon, Catherine A., Frances L. Gibson, Jennifer L. Allen and Douglas Saunders. “Psychosocial Adjustment during Pregnancy for Older Couples Conceiving through Assisted Reproductive Technology.” Human Reproduction 22.4 (2007): 1168-1174. Peters, Kathleen, Debra Jackson, and Trudy Rudge. “Surviving the Adversity of Childlessness: Fostering Resilience in Couples.” Contemporary Nurse 40.1 (2011): 130-140. Sexton, Minden B., Michelle R. Byrd, and Silvia von Kluge. “Measuring Resilience in Women Experiencing Infertility Using the CD: RISC: Examining Infertility-Related Stress, General Stress, and Coping Styles.” Journal of Psychiatric Research 44.4 (2010): 236-241. Walker, Jeremy, and Melinda Cooper. “Genealogies of Resilience: From Systems Ecology to the Political Economy of Crisis Adaptation.” Security Dialogue 14.2 (2011): 143-160.

Abstract:

"For most of us, if we do not talk of ourselves, or at any rate of the individual circles of which we are the centres, we can talk of nothing. I cannot hold with those who wish to put down the insignificant chatter of the world." -- Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage This issue of M/C explores the notion of 'chat', examining its contexts, forms, functions and operations. 'Chat' appears to be a descriptive subset of 'talk', often characterised somewhat unfairly as idle or frivolous 'small talk', 'gossip' -- the kind of tête-à-tête that is mediated through cups of tea (alluded to in Jen Henzell's cover image). However, 'chat' is not only an extremely prevalent activity, but, as Trollope implies, a primary social activity. Serious academic regard for 'chat' can be traced to Malinowski's (150) coining of the term "phatic communion" to refer to talk that expresses the "ties of union", a notion later taken up by Laver ("Communicative Functions"; "Linguistic Routines"). Watzlawick, Beavin and Jackson made a similar distinction between the content level of communication (contains assumptions that are communicable) and the relationship level (which reveals the speaker's attitude to the assumptions communicated and the speaker's relationship with and opinion of the hearer). 'Chat', they argue, is more about building and solidifying relationships between interactants than imparting information. Even gossip, probably the most content driven form of 'chat', lets hearers know that they are regarded well enough by the speakers to be drawn into confidence. We have divided the M/C 'chat' issue into two sections along the lines of context. The first section deals with what might be termed 'traditional' or 'more general' forms of chat, where the interactants are either physically (face-to-face) or acoustically (telephone) copresent. Given both the period and the medium in which M/C 'chat' is being published, it should not be surprising that the second section deals with computer-mediated communication (CMC). With the advent of CMC, 'chat' -- and research on it -- has been transformed, taking with it much of the old formula and leaving behind some of its trappings. M/C 'chat' is introduced by Charles Antaki's Feature Article "Two Rhetorical Uses of the Description 'Chat'". In this insightful and highly accessible piece, Antaki explores the paradoxical manner in which the description of a discursive event as 'chat' may be used to socially persuasive ends. Antaki takes as his starting point the fact that some uses of the word 'chat' demonstrate an old-fashioned view of spoken discourse as an inefficient information-transmission system ('mere talk' and 'gossip'). This, he argues, belies -- and belittles -- its use in actual talk. Analyses of four transcripts containing the descriptor 'chat' illustrate how speakers deploy it as a tactic to promote a description of an informal and blameless event, when in fact the episode in question might be categorised as something rather different. As befits an article by a member of Loughborough University's influential Discourse and Rhetoric Group, folded into the analysis is a persuasive demonstration of the methodological and theoretical strength of Conversation Analysis (CA) for describing language-in-use. However, as Antaki concludes, this is not just a game for analysts - we are all fundamentally sensitive to the power of the 'chat' descriptor. M/C 'chat' is introduced by Charles Antaki's Feature Article "Two Rhetorical Uses of the Description 'Chat'". In this insightful and highly accessible piece, Antaki explores the paradoxical manner in which the description of a discursive event as 'chat' may be used to socially persuasive ends. Antaki takes as his starting point the fact that some uses of the word 'chat' demonstrate an old-fashioned view of spoken discourse as an inefficient information-transmission system ('mere talk' and 'gossip'). This, he argues, belies -- and belittles -- its use in actual talk. Analyses of four transcripts containing the descriptor 'chat' illustrate how speakers deploy it as a tactic to promote a description of an informal and blameless event, when in fact the episode in question might be categorised as something rather different. As befits an article by a member of Loughborough University's influential Discourse and Rhetoric Group, folded into the analysis is a persuasive demonstration of the methodological and theoretical strength of Conversation Analysis (CA) for describing language-in-use. However, as Antaki concludes, this is not just a game for analysts - we are all fundamentally sensitive to the power of the 'chat' descriptor. In a turn away from the micro-level world of Conversation Analysis (CA), Mark Frankland's "Chatting in the Neighbourhood: Does It Have a Place in the World of Globalised Media?" is a broad diachronic and synchronic overview of the place local media such as 'chat' and community newspapers fit into an evolving and increasingly global media-scape. The first half of Frankland's article is an historical demonstration of the almost inevitable links between the rise of the urban form and moves away from local media to media globalisation. Given this history, in the second half of the article Frankland asks what effect the absence of local forms of media might have. He argues that local media forms are important sense-making mechanisms, operating at the level of personal effectivity, for assimilating the constantly changing media-scape. Local news media, and the even more micro level of 'chat' may act as "transition discourses", meaningful local contexts in which we may discuss the global. Most of the articles in this collection are about forms of chat to which both parties consent. "Invitation or Sexual Harassment? An Analysis of an Intercultural Communication Breakdown" by Zhu Yunxia and Peter Thompson considers quite the opposite -- unwelcome 'chatting up' or verbal sexual harassment. Zhu and Thompson examine a series of three telephone invitations to a party from a male Chinese tutor to a female Australian student, which resulted in an accusation of sexual harassment. Through an analysis combining Searle's speech acts, Austin's felicity conditions and Aristotle's rhetorical strategies, Zhu and Thompson suggest that different cultures use different tactics in the speech act of an invitation and they believe that the potential for miscommunication is increased when intercultural differences are present in the interaction. "The Naturally-Occurring Chat Machine" is Darren Reed and Malcolm Ashmore's interesting methodological reflection on the nature of the data collection and transcription processes of Conversation Analysis (CA), in order to "provoke a reconsideration of the marginal status of textually conducted interaction as a proper topic for CA". The worked-up complexities of CA transcripts, they argue, produce a myth of an unmediated origin, when in fact 'machinic-productive processes' are used to produce data considered 'studiable' in the CA of face-to-face conversations. Analogous processes produce data for the CA of Internet newsgroup messages. Ironically, in terms of CA's claim of using 'naturally occurring' data, Reed and Ashmore make the controversial counter-claim that newsgroup data might be considered superior to transcribed data, as the textual character of Internet newsgroups is the result of participants' work. In effect, therefore, Internet newsgroup data is considerably less mediated than recorded and transcribed conversations. Reed and Ashmore provide a neat link between bring the first section of M/C 'chat', dealing with what might be termed 'traditional chat media', and the second section concentrating on computer-mediated communication (CMC). The boom in CMC also marks the renaissance of Conversation Analytic research. Interestingly, both Reed and Ashmore, who end this section, and Paul ten Have, who we asked to introduce the CMC section, note that the proliferation of new interaction media not only provides new contexts in which to investigate human interaction, but also very conveniently produce easy-to-use data as a natural process of participation. Paul ten Have begins the CMC section with an introduction to some of the fundamental features and concerns of CMC research in his ethnographic investigation of how to find someone to talk to in a chat room. From the standpoint of Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA), "Computer-Mediated Chat: Ways of Finding Chat Partners" takes us through a description of the more or less generic categorisation features of most chat rooms, and then into the three primary concerns that CMC users often make apparent very early in an interaction: age, sex and location, indicated by the acronymic "a/s/l please". Interestingly, his conclusion is that while it is clear that pre-existing communication procedures must be adapted to the new environment -- manifested perhaps most obviously by a more explicit questioning when searching for chat partners -- current media do not provide much scope for radical change in the fundamentals of 'chat'. Paul ten Have begins the CMC section with an introduction to some of the fundamental features and concerns of CMC research in his ethnographic investigation of how to find someone to talk to in a chat room. From the standpoint of Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA), "Computer-Mediated Chat: Ways of Finding Chat Partners" takes us through a description of the more or less generic categorisation features of most chat rooms, and then into the three primary concerns that CMC users often make apparent very early in an interaction: age, sex and location, indicated by the acronymic "a/s/l please". Interestingly, his conclusion is that while it is clear that pre-existing communication procedures must be adapted to the new environment -- manifested perhaps most obviously by a more explicit questioning when searching for chat partners -- current media do not provide much scope for radical change in the fundamentals of 'chat'. Miranda Mowbray continues this theme of the false perception of restrictiveness. She notes that most interactive CMC systems place certain restrictions on the way in which a person may present themselves on arrival in the room. In her article, "Neither Male nor Female: Other -- Gendered Chat in Little Italy", Mowbray notes that the Little Italy's system (created by Pavel Curtis originally for Lambda MOO) gives participants the opportunity to broaden their gender presentation options from 'female' or 'male' to a range of 'other genders'. Mowbray observes that a fifth of the inhabitants of Little Italy opt to choose a gender other than that of the traditional 'female' or 'male', and, significantly, that half of users presenting as 'other genders' are still participating after a year -- more than the traditionally gendered Little Italians. Through 28 responses from these Little Italians, Mowbray investigates why these other-gendered participants are more likely to remain in the one space than those who chose 'female' or 'male'. She concludes that it is "the personal creative investment by the other-gendered citizens in Little Italy that makes them especially likely to remain active citizens." Mowbray considers Little Italy's system to be an excellent demonstration of a "stickiness" feature -- a feature of a CMC system that attracts long term use. Her results should be of interest to software companies wanting to design popular -- and profitable -- chat rooms. Since interactive synchronous and quasi-synchronous CMC systems became popular with the release of IRC, ICQ, Webchat and various ISP chat rooms, a flood of research about the transformation of language in computer-mediated situations has resulted. However most of this work has concentrated on chat between strangers. Campbell and Wickman observe this bias in their article, "Familiars in a Strange Land: A Case Study of Friends Chatting Online", choosing instead to concentrate on computer-mediated chat between acquaintances. In this autoethnographic account, the authors note that although they have adopted some of the more common conversational CMC strategies, they have also created their own, relevant to their particular circ*mstances. Historically, CMC research has argued that the 'cues-filtered-out' nature of CMC systems leads to depersonalisation and the lack of necessity to adhere to social conventions of politeness. However, Campbell and Wickman note that in their own chat as online and offline familiars, they observe a strong need to adhere to politeness conventions, due to the face-to-face consequences of their online actions. This interesting finding suggests that politeness theory may be of great value in future CMC research, particularly that comparing and contrasting chat between familiars and strangers, and/or face-to-face and online interaction. As Ylva Hård af Segerstad points out, most CMC research is conducted on English language forums. M/C 'chat' is pleased to help redress this balance with the publication of investigations on the impact of computer-mediation on languages other than English, in this case Swedish. Given the English focus of the Internet, however, CMC research on languages other than English must, of course, take account of the variations between the language-specific and 'international' (read English-language) forums. This being the case, Hård af Segerstad discusses the result of questionnaire data and logged conversations to determine if written online Swedish is being adapted in ways particular to it, or if Swedish written language is being developed in analogy with adaptations observable in international chat rooms. While the surprisingly uniform results of the two data sources indicate that Swedish written language is being adapted for online chat (rather than using one language offline and another online), the actual adaptation strategies are much the same as those observed in other adaptations of writing in general. In their paper "Chatting to Learn and Learning to Chat in Collaborative Virtual Environments", Teresa Cerratto and Yvonne Wærn discuss the importance of conversation to educational contexts and the communication problems inherent in using an electronic medium as an educational tool. These authors are more concerned with the information transmission aspect of chat rather than its dominant relationship characteristics. They examine two groups of teachers in Sweden who are learning to use the new collaborative virtual environment, TAPPED IN™. Cerratto and Wærn note some of the strategies that the teachers adopt in attempting to gain the floor in this CVE where there are a number of people vying for attention. At the same time, tactics used by teachers for communicative collaboration are also discussed by these authors. Finally, on the basis of an analysis of their data, Cerratto and Wærn provide arguments for the importance of leadership in these particular learning environments, arguing a leader helps maintain the informational coherence of the discussions. In terms of redressing imbalances in CMC research, not only has language been particularly biased to English, but in some media -- Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in particular -- most research has been qualitative in nature. We may know how users manage their interactions online, but how many are doing so? The bases of many generalisations about adaptation strategies are somewhat shaky on the quantitative front. Much can be gained by combining the quantitative with the qualitative, and with this in mind, Hinner has taken it upon himself to not only create a system capable of capturing usage statistics for all the major IRC networks, but also to provide two years of these statistics and make this system available on his Website. His article details the processes involved in creating the Socip statistical program and sample graphs of the kinds of information that his system can provide. The CMC section of M/C 'Chat' brought to our attention many more articles than we could publish in the already quite expanded issue, and we were sorry to have had to pass over promising work in this popular field. The contributions included, however, represent a turning point in CMC research, in which our wonder -- and glee -- of describing findings of social interaction in what were assumed to be anti-social media, has turned to the detailed consideration of just how socialisation is accomplished in what promise to be increasingly common media. What has not changed, as Paul ten Have notes, and, indeed, as Charles Antaki began the issue, is that all human life can be found in language-in-use -- wherever it takes place. Hinner's article brings the CMC section of M/C 'chat' to a close, but is not quite the last blast. Very early in the article submission process, Ulf Wilhelmsson contacted us about including his "Dialogue on Film and Philosophy". Wilhelmsson wanted to translate -- from the original Swedish -- his Socratic dialogue about film in which Quentin Tarantino moderates a discussion involving numerous influential philosophers, film-makers, film-scholars and the odd Beatle (John Lennon). While we were somewhat taken aback, the rough translation of the first few lines was interesting, and, as it turns out, quite entertaining. Unfortunately, due to its length, the dialogue can not be supplied in regular M/C 'bits', and so we have made it available as a downloadable Rich Text Format file. See the Editor's Preface to Wilhelmsson's article for more information on its content and to download the file itself. This very global issue of M/C brings together people in Germany to New Zealand, Sweden to the UK, all chatting about chat. We hope you enjoy this collection of articles. Felicity Meakins & E. Sean Rintel -- 'Chat' Issue Editors References Laver, John. "Communicative Functions of Phatic Communication." The Organisation of Behaviour in Face-to-Face Interaction. Eds. Adam Kendon, Richard M. Harris, and Mary Ritchie Key. The Hague: Mouton, 1975. 215-38. ---. "Linguistic Routines and Politeness in Greeting and Parting." Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardised Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech. Ed. Florian Coulmas. The Hague: Mouton, 1981. 289-304. Malinowski, Bronislaw. Supplement. The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and the Science of Symbolism. C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trebner, 1923. 451-510. Rpt. as "Phatic Communion." Communication in Face-to-Face Interaction. Ed. John Laver and Sandy Hutchinson. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1972. 126-52. Trollope, Antony. Framley Parsonage. New York: Oxford UP, 1980. Watzlawick, Paul, Janet Helmick Beavin, and Don D. Jackson. Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: Norton, 1967. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Felicity Meakins, E. Sean Rintel. "Editorial: 'Chat'." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.4 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/edit.php>. Chicago style: Felicity Meakins, E. Sean Rintel, "Editorial: 'Chat'," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 4 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/edit.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Felicity Meakins, E. Sean Rintel. (2000) Editorial: 'chat'. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(4). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/edit.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

According to the ABC television program Four Corners, “Parliament House in Canberra is a hotbed of political intrigue and high tension … . It’s known as the ‘Canberra Bubble’ and it operates in an atmosphere that seems far removed from how modern Australian workplaces are expected to function.” The term “Canberra Bubble” morphed to its current definition from 2001, although it existed in other forms before this. Its use has increased since 2015, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison regularly referring to it when attempting to deflect from turmoil within, or focus on, his Coalition government (Gwynn). “Canberra Bubble” was selected as the 2018 “Word of the Year” by the Australian National Dictionary Centre, defined as “referring to the idea that federal politicians, bureaucracy, and political journalists are obsessed with the goings-on in Canberra (rather than the everyday concerns of Australians)” (Gwynn). In November 2020, Four Corners aired an investigation into the behaviour of top government ministers, including Attorney-General Christian Porter, Minister Alan Tudge, and former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party Barnaby Joyce; entitled “Inside the Canberra Bubble”. The program’s reporter, Louise Milligan, observed: there’s a strong but unofficial tradition in federal politics of what happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra. Politicians, political staff and media operate in what’s known as ‘The Canberra Bubble’. Along with the political gamesmanship, there’s a heady, permissive culture and that culture can be toxic for women. The program acknowledged that parliamentary culture included the belief that politicians’ private lives were not open to public scrutiny. However, this leaves many women working in Parliament House feeling that such silence allows inappropriate behaviour and sexism to “thrive” in the “culture of silence” (Four Corners). Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was interviewed for the Four Corners program, acknowledged: “there is always a power imbalance between the boss and somebody who works for them, the younger and more junior they are, the more extreme that power imbalance is. And of course, Ministers essentially have the power to hire and fire their staff, so they’ve got enormous power.” He equates this to past culture in large corporations; a culture that has seen changes in business, but not in the federal parliament. It is the latter place that is a toxic bubble for women. A Woman Problem in the Bubble Louise Milligan reported: “the Liberal Party has been grappling with what’s been described as a ‘women problem’ for several years, with accusations of endemic sexism.” The underrepresentation of women in the current government sees them holding only seven of the 30 current ministerial positions. The Liberal Party has fewer women in the House of Representatives now than it did 20 years ago, while the Labor Party has doubled the number of women in its ranks. When asked his view on the “woman problem”, Malcolm Turnbull replied: “well I think women have got a problem with the Liberal Party. It’s probably a better way of putting it … . The party does not have enough women MPs and Senators … . It is seen as being very blokey.” Current Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in March 2019: “we want to see women rise. But we don’t want to see women rise, only on the basis of others doing worse” (Four Corners); with “others” seen as a reference to men. The Liberal Party’s “woman problem” has been widely discussed in recent years, both in relation to the low numbers of women in its parliamentary representation and in its behaviour towards women. These claims were evident in an article highlighting allegations of bullying by Member of Parliament (MP) Julia Banks, which led to her resignation from the Liberal Party in 2018. Banks’s move to the crossbench as an Independent was followed by the departure from politics of senior Liberal MP and former Deputy Leader Julie Bishop and three other female Liberal MPs prior to the 2019 federal election. For resigning Liberal MP Linda Reynolds, the tumultuous change of leadership in the Liberal Party on 24 August 2018, when Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister, left her to say: “I do not recognise my party at the moment. I do not recognise the values. I do not recognise the bullying and intimidation that has gone on.” Bishop observed on 5 September: “it’s evident that there is an acceptance of a level of behaviour in Canberra that would not be tolerated in any other workplace.” And in her resignation speech on 27 November, Banks stated: “Often, when good women call out or are subjected to bad behaviour, the reprisals, backlash and commentary portrays them as the bad ones – the liar, the troublemaker, the emotionally unstable or weak, or someone who should be silenced” (Four Corners). Rachel Miller is a former senior Liberal staffer who worked for nine years in Parliament House. She admitted to having a consensual relationship with MP Alan Tudge. Both were married at the time. Her reason for “blowing the whistle” was not about the relationship itself, rather the culture built on an imbalance of power that she experienced and witnessed, particularly when endeavouring to end the relationship with Tudge. This saw her moving from Tudge’s office to that of Michaelia Cash, eventually being demoted and finally resigning. Miller refused to accept the Canberra bubble “culture of just putting your head down and not getting involved”. The Four Corners story also highlighted the historical behaviour of Attorney-General Christian Porter and his attitude towards women over several decades. Milligan reported: in the course of this investigation, Four Corners has spoken to dozens of former and currently serving staffers, politicians, and members of the legal profession. Many have worked within, or voted for, the Liberal Party. And many have volunteered examples of what they believe is inappropriate conduct by Christian Porter – including being drunk in public and making unwanted advances to women. Lawyer Josh Bornstein told Four Corners that the role of Attorney-General “occupies a unique role … as the first law officer of the country”, having a position in both the legal system and in politics. It is his view that this comes with a requirement for the Attorney-General “to be impeccable in terms of personal and political behaviour”. Milligan asserts that Porter’s role as “the nation’s chief law officer, includes implementing rules to protect women”. A historical review of Porter’s behaviour and attitude towards women was provided to Four Corners by barrister Kathleen Foley and debating colleague from 1987, Jo Dyer. Dyer described Porter as “very charming … very confident … Christian was quite slick … he had an air of entitlement … that I think was born of the privilege from which he came”. Foley has known Porter since she was sixteen, including at university and later when both were at the State Solicitors’ Office in Western Australia, and her impression was that Porter possessed a “dominant personality”. She said that many expected him to become a “powerful person one day” partly due to his father being “a Liberal Party powerbroker”, and that Porter had aspirations to become Prime Minister. She observed: “I’ve known him to be someone who was in my opinion, and based on what I saw, deeply sexist and actually misogynist in his treatment of women, in the way that he spoke about women.” Foley added: “for a long time, Christian has benefited from the silence around his conduct and his behaviour, and the silence has meant that his behaviour has been tolerated … . I’m here because I don’t think that his behaviour should be tolerated, and it is not acceptable.” Miller told the Four Corners program that she and others, including journalists, had observed Porter being “very intimate” with a young woman. Milligan noted that Porter “had a wife and toddler at home in Perth”, while Miller found the incident “quite confronting … in such a public space … . I was quite surprised by the behaviour and … it was definitely a step too far”. The incident was confirmed to Four Corners by “five other people, including Coalition staffers”. However, in 2017 the “Public Bar incident remained inside the Canberra bubble – it never leaked”, reports Milligan. In response to the exposure of Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s relationship with a member of his staff, Malcolm Turnbull changed the Code of Ministerial Standards (February 2018) for members of the Coalition Government (Liberal and National Parties). Labelled by many media as the “bonk ban”, the new code banned sexual relationships between ministers and their staff. Turnbull stopped short of asking Joyce to resign (Yaxley), however, Joyce stepped down as Leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister shortly after the code was amended. Turnbull has conceded that the Joyce affair was the catalyst for implementing changes to ministerial standards (Four Corners). He was also aware of other incidents, including the behaviour of Christian Porter and claims he spoke with Porter in 2017, when concerns were raised about Porter’s behaviour. In what Turnbull acknowledges to be a stressful working environment, the ‘Canberra bubble’ is exacerbated by long hours, alcohol, and being away from family; this leads some members to a loss of standards in behaviour, particularly in relation to how women are viewed. This seems to blame the ‘bubble’ rather than acknowledge poor behaviour. Despite the allegations of improper behaviour against Porter, in 2017 Turnbull appointed Porter Attorney-General. Describing the atmosphere in the Canberra bubble, Miller concedes that not “all men are predators and [not] all women are victims”. She adds that a “work hard, play hard … gung ho mentality” in a “highly sexualised environment” sees senior men not being called out for behaviour, creating the perception that they are “almost beyond reproach [and it’s] something they can get away with”. Turnbull observes: “the attitudes to women and the lack of respect … of women in many quarters … reminds me of the corporate scene … 40 years ago. It’s just not modern Australia” (Four Corners). In a disclaimer about the program, Milligan stated: Four Corners does not suggest only Liberal politicians cross this line. But the Liberal Party is in government. And the Liberal politicians in question are Ministers of the Crown. All ministers must now abide by Ministerial Standards set down by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2018. They say: ‘Serving the Australian people as Ministers ... is an honour and comes with expectations to act at all times to the highest possible standards of probity.’ They also prohibit Ministers from having sexual relations with staff. Both Tudge and Porter were sent requests by Four Corners for interviews and answers to detailed questions prior to the program going to air. Tudge did not respond and Porter provided a brief statement in regards to his meeting with Malcolm Turnbull, denying that he had been questioned about allegations of his conduct as reported by Four Corners and that other matters had been discussed. Reactions to the Four Corners Program Responses to the program via mainstream media and on social media were intense, ranging from outrage at the behaviour of ministers on the program, to outrage that the program had aired the private lives of government ministers, with questions as to whether this was in the public interest. Porter himself disputed allegations of his behaviour aired in the program, labelling the claims as “totally false” and said he was considering legal options for “defamation” (Maiden). However, in a subsequent radio interview, Porter said “he did not want a legal battle to distract from his role” as a government minister (Moore). Commenting on the meeting he had with Turnbull in 2017, Porter asserted that Turnbull had not spoken to him about the alleged behaviour and that Turnbull “often summoned ministers in frustration about the amount of detail leaking from his Cabinet.” Porter also questioned the comments made by Dyer and Foley, saying he had not had contact with them “for decades” (Maiden). Yet, in a statement provided to the West Australian after the program aired, Porter admitted that Turnbull had raised the rumours of an incident and Porter had assured him they were unfounded. In a statement he again denied the allegations made in the Four Corners program, but admitted that he had “failed to be a good husband” (Moore). In a brief media release following the program, Tudge stated: “I regret my actions immensely and the hurt it caused my family. I also regret the hurt that Ms. Miller has experienced” (Grattan). Following the Four Corners story, Scott Morrison and Anne Ruston, the Minister for Families and Social Services, held a media conference to respond to the allegations raised by the program. Ruston was asked about her views of the treatment of women within the Liberal Party. However, she was cut off by Morrison who aired his grievance about the use of the term “bonk ban” by journalists, when referring to the ban on ministers having sexual relations with their staff. This interruption of a female minister responding to a question directed at her about allegations of misogyny drew world-wide attention. Ruston went on to reply that she felt “wholly supported” as a member of the party and in her Cabinet position. The video of the incident resulted in a backlash on social media. Ruston was asked about being cut off by the Prime Minister at subsequent media interviews and said she believed it to be “an entirely appropriate intervention” and reiterated her own experiences of being fully supported by other members of the Liberal Party (Maasdorp). Attempts to Silence the ABC A series of actions by government staff and ministers prior to, and following, the Four Corners program airing confirmed the assumption suggested by Milligan that “what happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra”. In the days leading to the airing of the Four Corners program, members of the federal government contacted ABC Chair Ita Buttrose, ABC Managing Director David Anderson, and other senior staff, criticising the program’s content before its release and questioning whether it was in the public interest. The Executive Producer for the program, Sally Neighbour, tweeted about the attempts to have the program cancelled on the day it was to air, and praised ABC management for not acceding to the demands. Anderson raised his concerns about the emails and calls to ABC senior staff while appearing at Senate estimates and said he found it “extraordinary” (Murphy & Davies). Buttrose also voiced her concerns and presented a lecture reinforcing the importance of “the ABC, democracy and the importance of press freedom”. As the public broadcaster, the ABC has a charter under the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act (1983) (ABC Act), which includes its right to media independence. The attempt by the federal government to influence programming at the ABC was seen as countering this independence. Following the airing of the Four Corners program, the Morrison Government, via Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, again contacted Ita Buttrose by letter, asking how reporting allegations of inappropriate behaviour by ministers was “in the public interest”. Fletcher made the letter public via his Twitter account on the same day. The letter “posed 15 questions to the ABC board requesting an explanation within 14 days as to how the episode complied with the ABC’s code of practice and its statutory obligations to provide accurate and impartial journalism”. Fletcher also admitted that a senior member of his staff had contacted a member of the ABC board prior to the show airing but denied this was “an attempt to lobby the board”. Reportedly the ABC was “considering a response to what it believes is a further attack on its independence” (Visentin & Samios). A Case of Double Standards Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells told Milligan (Four Corners) that she believes “values and beliefs are very important” when standing for political office, with a responsibility to electors to “abide by those values and beliefs because ultimately we will be judged by them”. It is her view that “there is an expectation that in service of the Australian public, [politicians] abide by the highest possible conduct and integrity”. Porter has portrayed himself as being a family man, and an advocate for people affected by sexual harassment and concerned about domestic violence. Four Corners included two videos of Porter, the first from June 2020, where he stated: “no-one should have to suffer sexual harassment at work or in any other part of their lives … . The Commonwealth Government takes it very seriously”. In the second recording, from 2015, Porter spoke on the topic of domestic violence, where he advocated ensuring “that young boys understand what a respectful relationship is … what is acceptable and … go on to be good fathers and good husbands”. Tudge and Joyce hold a conservative view of traditional marriage as being between a man and a woman. They made this very evident during the plebiscite on legalising same-sex marriage in 2017. One of Tudge’s statements during the public debate was shown on the Four Corners program, where he said that he had “reservations about changing the Marriage Act to include same-sex couples” as he viewed “marriage as an institution … primarily about creating a bond for the creation, love and care of children. And … if the definition is changed … then the institution itself would potentially be weakened”. Miller responded by confirming that this was the public image Tudge portrayed, however, she was upset, surprised and believed it to be hypocrisy “to hear him … speak in parliament … and express a view that for children to have the right upbringing they need to have a mother and father and a traditional kind of family environment” (Four Corners). Following the outcome to the plebiscite in favour of marriage equality (Evershed), both Tudge and Porter voted to pass the legislation, in line with their electorates, while Joyce abstained from voting on the legislation (against the wishes of his electorate), along with nine other MPs including Scott Morrison (Henderson). Turnbull told Milligan: there’s no question that some of the most trenchant opponents of same-sex marriage, all in the name of traditional marriage, were at the same time enthusiastic practitioners of traditional adultery. As I said many times, this issue of the controversy over same-sex marriage was dripping with hypocrisy and the pools were deepest at the feet of the sanctimonious. The Bubble Threatens to Burst On 25 January 2021, the advocate for survivors of sexual assault, Grace Tame, was announced as Australian of the Year. This began a series of events that has the Canberra bubble showing signs of potentially rupturing, or perhaps even imploding, as further allegations of sexual assault emerge. Inspired by the speech of Grace Tame at the awards ceremony and the fact that the Prime Minister was standing beside her, on 15 February 2021, former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins disclosed to journalist Samantha Maiden the allegation that she had been raped by a senior staffer in March 2019. Higgins also appeared in a television interview with Lisa Wilkinson that evening. The assault allegedly occurred after hours in the office of her boss, then Minister for Defence Industry and current Minister for Defence, Senator Linda Reynolds. Higgins said she reported what had occurred to the Minister and other staff, but felt she was being made to choose between her job and taking the matter to police. The 2019 federal election was called a few weeks later. Although Higgins wanted to continue in her “dream job” at Parliament House, she resigned prior to her disclosure in February 2021. Reynolds and Morrison were questioned extensively on the matter, in parliament and by the media, as to what they knew and when they were informed. Public outrage at the allegations was heightened by conflicting stories of these timelines and of who else knew. Although Reynolds had declared to the Senate that her office had provided full support to Higgins, it was revealed that her original response to the allegations to those in her office on the day of the media publication was to call Higgins a “lying cow”. After another public and media outcry, Reynolds apologised to Higgins (Hitch). Initially avoiding addressing the Higgins allegation directly, Morrison finally stated his empathy for Higgins in a doorstop media interview, reflecting advice he had received from his wife: Jenny and I spoke last night, and she said to me, "You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?" Jenny has a way of clarifying things, always has. On 3 March 2021, Grace Tame presented a powerful speech to the National Press Club. She was asked her view on the Prime Minister referring to his role as a father in the case of Brittany Higgins. Morrison’s statement had already enraged the public and certain members of the media, including many female journalists. Tame considered her response, then replied: “It shouldn’t take having children to have a conscience. [pause] And actually, on top of that, having children doesn’t guarantee a conscience.” The statement was met by applause from the gallery and received public acclaim. A further allegation of rape was made public on 27 February 2021, when friends of a deceased woman sent the Prime Minister a full statement from the woman that a current unnamed Cabinet Minister had raped her in 1988, when she was 16 years old (Yu). Morrison was asked whether he had spoken with the Minister, and stated that the Minister had denied the allegations and he saw no need to take further action, and would leave it to the police. New South Wales police subsequently announced that in light of the woman’s death last year, they could not proceed with an investigation and the matter was closed. The name of the woman has not been officially disclosed, however, on the afternoon of 3 March 2021 Attorney-General Christian Porter held a press conference naming himself as the Minister in question and vehemently denied the allegations. In light of the latest allegations, coverage by some journalists has shown the propensity to be complicit in protecting the Canberra bubble, while others (mainly women) endeavour to provide investigative journalistic coverage. The Outcome to Date Focus on the behaviour highlighted by “Inside the Canberra Bubble” in November 2020 waned quickly, with journalist Sean Kelly observing: since ABC’s Four Corners broadcast an episode exploring entrenched sexism in Parliament House, and more specifically within the Liberal Party, male politicians have said very, very, very little about it … . The episode in question was broadcast three weeks ago. It’s old news. But in this case that’s the point: every time the issue of sexism in Canberra is raised, it’s quickly rushed past, then forgotten (by men). Nothing happens. As noted earlier, Rachel Miller resigned from her position at Parliament House following the affair with Tudge. Barrister Kathleen Foley had held a position on the Victorian Bar Council, however three days after the Four Corners program went to air, Foley was voted off the council. According to Matilda Boseley from The Guardian, the change of council members was seen more broadly as an effort to remove progressives. Foley has also been vocal about gender issues within the legal profession. With the implementation of the new council, five members held their positions and 16 were replaced, seeing a change from 62 per cent female representation to 32 per cent (Boseley). No action was taken by the Prime Minister in light of the revelations by Four Corners: Christian Porter maintained his position as Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations, and Leader of the House; and Alan Tudge continued as a member of the Federal Cabinet, currently as Minister for Education and Youth. Despite ongoing calls for an independent enquiry into the most recent allegations, and for Porter to stand aside, he continues as Attorney-General, although he has taken sick leave to address mental health impacts of the allegations (ABC News). Reynolds continues to hold the position of Defence Minister following the Higgins allegations, and has also taken sick leave on the advice of her specialist, now extended to after the March 2021 sitting of parliament (Doran). While Scott Morrison stands in support of Porter amid the allegations against him, he has called for an enquiry into the workplace culture of Parliament House. This appears to be in response to claims that a fourth woman was assaulted, allegedly by Higgins’s perpetrator. The enquiry, to be led by Kate Jenkins, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, is focussed on “how to change the culture, how to change the practices, and how to ensure that, in future, we do have the best possible environment for prevention and response” (Murphy). By focussing the narrative of the enquiry on the “culture” of Parliament House, it diverts attention from the allegations of rape by Higgins and against Porter. While the enquiry is broadly welcomed, any outcomes will require more than changes to the workplace: they will require a much broader social change in attitudes towards women. The rage of women, in light of the current gendered political culture, has evolved into a call to action. An initial protest march, planned for outside Parliament House on 15 March 2021, has expanded to rallies in all capital cities and many other towns and cities in Australia. Entitled Women’s March 4 Justice, thousands of people, both women and men, have indicated their intention to participate. It is acknowledged that many residents of Canberra have objected to their entire city being encompassed in the term “Canberra Bubble”. However, the term’s relevance to this current state of affairs reflects the culture of those working in and for the Australian parliament, rather than residents of the city. It also describes the way that those who work in all things related to the federal government carry an apparent assumption that the bubble offers them immunity from the usual behaviour and accountability required of those outside the bubble. It this “bubble” that needs to burst. With a Prime Minister seemingly unable to recognise the hypocrisy of Ministers allegedly acting in ways contrary to “good character”, and for Porter, with ongoing allegations of improper behaviour, as expected for the country’s highest law officer, and in his mishandling of Higgins claims as called out by Tame, the bursting of the “Canberra bubble” may cost him government. References ABC News. “Christian Porter Denies Historical Rape Allegation.” Transcript. 4 Mar. 2021. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-03/christian-porter-press-conference-transcript/13212054>. Boseley, Matilda. “Barrister on Four Corners' Christian Porter Episode Loses Victorian Bar Council Seat.” The Guardian 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/nov/12/barrister-on-four-corners-christian-porter-episode-loses-victorian-bar-council-seat>. Buttrose, Ita. “The ABC, Democracy and the Importance of Press Freedom.” Lecture. Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. 12 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <http://about.abc.net.au/speeches/the-abc-democracy-and-the-importance-of-press-freedom/>. Doran, Matthew. “Linda Reynolds Extends Her Leave.” ABC News 7 Mar. 2021. 7 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-07/linda-reynolds-extends-her-leave-following-rape-allegation/13224824>. Evershed, Nick. “Full Results of Australia's Vote for Same-Sex Marriage.” The Guardian 15 Nov. 2017. 10 Dec. 2020. <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng-interactive/2017/nov/15/same-sex-marriage-survey-how-australia-voted-electorate-by-electorate>. Four Corners. “Inside the Canberra Bubble.” ABC Television 9 Nov. 2020. 20 Nov. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/inside-the-canberra-bubble/12864676>. Grattan, Michelle. “Porter Rejects Allegations of Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour and Threatens Legal Action.” The Conversation 10 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://theconversation.com/porter-rejects-allegations-149774>. Gwynn, Mark. “Australian National Dictionary Centre’s Word of the Year 2018.” Ozwords 13 Dec. 2018. 10 Dec 2020 <http://ozwords.org/?p=8643#more-8643>. Henderson, Anna. “Same-Sex Marriage: This Is Everyone Who Didn't Vote to Support the Bill.” ABC News 8 Dec. 2017. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-08/same-sex-marriage-who-didnt-vote/9240584>. Heurich, Angelika. “Women in Australian Politics: Maintaining the Rage against the Political Machine”. M/C Journal 22.1 (2019). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1498. Hitch, Georgia. “Defence Minister Linda Reynolds Apologises to Brittany Higgins.” ABC News 5 Mar. 2021. 5 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-05/linda-reynolds-apologises-to-brittany-higgins-lying-cow/13219796>. Kelly, Sean. “Morrison Should Heed His Own Advice – and Fix His Culture Problem.” Sydney Morning Herald 29 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-should-heed-his-own-advice-and-fix-his-culture-problem-20201129-p56iwn.html>. Maasdorp, James. “Scott Morrison Cops Backlash after Interrupting Anne Ruston.” ABC News 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-11/scott-morrison-anne-ruston-liberal-party-government/12873158>. Maiden, Samantha. “Christian Porter Hits Back at ‘Totally False’ Claims Aired on Four Corners.” The Australian 10 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/christian-porter-hits-back-at-totally-false-claims-aired-on-four-corners/news-story/0bc84b6268268f56d99714fdf8fa9ba2>. ———. “Young Staffer Brittany Higgins Says She Was Raped at Parliament House.” News.com.au 15 Sep. 2021. 15 Sep. 2021 <https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/parliament-house-rocked-by-brittany-higgins-alleged-rape/news-story/>. Moore, Charlie. “Embattled Minister Christian Porter Admits He Failed to Be 'a Good Husband’.” Daily Mail 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8936197/>. Morrison, Scott. “Doorstop Interview – Parliament House.” Transcript. Prime Minister of Australia. 16 Feb. 2021. 1 Mar. 2021 <https://www.pm.gov.au/media/doorstop-interview-australian-parliament-house-act-160221>. Murphy, Katharine. “Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins to Lead Review into Parliament’s Workplace Culture.” The Guardian 5 Mar. 2021. 7 Mar. 2021 <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/05/sex-discrimination-commissioner-kate-jenkins-to-lead-review-into-parliaments-workplace-culture>. Murphy, Katharine, and Anne Davies. “Criticism of Four Corners 'Bonk Ban' Investigation before It Airs 'Extraordinary', ABC Boss Says.” The Guardian 9 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/nov/09/abc-under-extreme-political-pressure-over-bonk-ban-investigation-four-corners-boss-says>. Neighbour, Sally. “The Political Pressure.” Twitter 9 Nov. 2020. 9 Nov. 2020 <https://twitter.com/neighbour_s/status/1325545916107927552>. Tame, Grace. Address. National Press Club. 3 Mar. 2021. 3 Mar. 2021 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJmwOTfjn9U>. Visentin, Lisa, and Zoe Samios. “Morrison Government Asks ABC to Please Explain Controversial Four Corners Episode.” Sydney Morning Herald 1 Dec. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-government-asks-abc-to-please-explain-controversial-four-corners-episode-20201201-p56jg2.html>. Wilkinson, Lisa. “Interview with Brittany Higgins.” The Project. Channel 10. 15 Sep. 2021. 16 Sep. 2021 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyjkjeoO2o4>. Yaxley, Louise. “Malcolm Turnbull Bans Ministers from Sex with Staffers.” ABC News 15 Feb. 2018. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-15/turnbull-slams-joyce-affair-changes-to-ministerial-standards/9451792>. Yu, Andi. “Rape Allegation against Cabinet Minister.” The Canberra Times 27 Feb. 2021. 1 Mar. 2021 <https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7145324/rape-allegation-against-cabinet-minister/>.

Abstract:

The Walt Disney Company has been creating magical fairy tales since the early 1900s and is a trusted brand synonymous with wholesome, family entertainment (Wasko). Over time, this reputation has resulted in the Disney brand’s huge financial growth and influence on audiences worldwide. (Wohlwend). As the largest global media powerhouse in the Western world (Beattie), Disney uses its power and influence to shape the perceptions and ideologies of its audience. In the twenty-first century there has been a proliferation of retellings of Disney fairy tales, and Kilmer suggests that although the mainstream perception is that these new iterations promote gender equity, new cultural awareness around gender stereotypes, and cultural insensitivity, this is illusory. Tangled, for example, was a popular film selling over 10 million DVD copies and positioned as a bold new female fairy tale character; however, academics took issue with this position, writing articles entitled “Race, Gender and the Politics of Hair: Disney’s Tangled Feminist Messages”, “Tangled: A Celebration of White Femininity”, and “Disney’s Tangled: Fun, But Not Feminist”, berating the film for its lack of any true feminist examples or progressiveness (Kilmer). One way to assess the impact of Disney is to look at the use of shape shifting and transformation in the narratives – particularly those that include women and young girls. Research shows that girls and women are often stereotyped and sexualised in the mass media (Smith et al.; Collins), and Disney regularly utilises body modification and metamorphosis within its narratives to emphasise what good and evil ‘look’ like. These magical transformations evoke what Marina Warner refers to as part of the necessary surprise element of the fairy tale, while creating suspense and identity with storylines and characters. In early Disney films such as the 1937 version of Snow White, the queen becomes the witch who brings a poison apple to the princess; and in the 1959 film Sleeping Beauty the ‘bad’ fairy Maleficent shapeshifts into a malevolent dragon. Whilst these ‘good to evil’ (and vice versa) tropes are easily recognised, there are additional transformations that are arguably more problematic than those of the increasingly terrifying monsters or villains. Disney has created what we have coined the ‘princess bubble’, where the physique and behaviour of the leading women in the tales has become a predictor of success and good fortune, and the impression is created of a link between their possession of beauty and the ‘happily-ever-after’ outcome received by the female character. The value, or worth, of a princess is shown within these stories to often increase according to her ability to attract men. For example, in Brave, Queen Elinor showcases the extreme measures taken to ‘present’ her daughter Merida to male suitors. Merida is preened, dressed, and shown how to behave to increase her value to her family, and whilst she manages to persuade them to set aside their patriarchal ideologies in the end, it is clear what is expected from Merida in order to gain male attention. Similarly, Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White are found to be of high ‘worth’ by the princes on account of their beauty and form. We contend, therefore, that the impression often cast on audiences by Disney princesses emphasises that beauty = worth, no matter how transgressive Disney appears to be on the surface. These princesses are flawlessly beautiful, capable of winning the heart of the prince by triumphing over their less attractive rivals – who are often sisters or other family members. This creates the illusion among young audiences that physical attractiveness is enough to achieve success, and emphasises beauty as the priority above all else. Therefore, the Disney ‘princess bubble’ is highly problematic. It presents a narrow range of acceptability for female characters, offers a distorted view of gender, and serves to further engrain into popular culture a flawed stereotype on how to look and behave that negates a fuller representation of female characters. In addition, Armando Maggi argues that since fairy tales have been passed down through generations, they have become an intrinsic part of many people’s upbringing and are part of a kind of universal imaginary and repository of cultural values. This means that these iconic cultural stories are “unlikely to ever be discarded because they possess both a sentimental value and a moral ‘soundness’” (Rutherford 33), albeit that the lessons to be learnt are at times antiquated and exclusionary in contemporary society. The marketing and promotion of the Disney princess line has resulted in these characters becoming an extremely popular form of media and merchandise for young girls (Coyne et al. 2), and Disney has received great financial benefit from the success of its long history of popular films and merchandise. As a global corporation with influence across multiple entertainment platforms, from its streaming channel to merchandise and theme parks, the gender portrayals therefore impact on culture and, in particular, on how young audiences view gender representation. Therefore, it could be argued that Disney has a social responsibility to ensure that its messages and characters do not skew or become damaging to the psyche of its young audiences who are highly impressionable. When the representation of gender is examined, however, Disney tends to create highly gendered performances in both the early and modern iterations of fairy tales, and the princess characters remain within a narrow range of physical portrayals and agency. The Princess Bubble Although there are twelve official characters within the Disney princess umbrella, plus Elsa and Anna from the Disney Frozen franchise, this article examines the eleven characters who are either born or become royalty through marriage, and exhibit characteristics that could be argued to be the epitome of feminine representation in fairy tales. The characters within this ‘princess bubble’ are Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, Elsa, and Anna. The physical appearance of those in the princess bubble also connects to displays around the physical aspects of ethnicity. Nine out of eleven are white skinned, with Jasmine having lightened in skin tone over time, and Tiana now having a tanned look rather than the original dark African American complexion seen in 2009 (Brucculieri). This reinforces an ideology that being white is superior. Every princess in our sample has thick and healthy long hair, the predominant colour being blonde. Their eyes are mostly blue, with only three possessing a dark colour, a factor which reinforces the characteristics and representation of white ethnic groups. Their eyes are also big and bulbous in shape, with large irises and pupils, and extraordinarily long eyelashes that create an almost child-like look of innocence that matches their young age. These princesses have an average age of sixteen years and are always naïve, most without formal education or worldly experience, and they have additional distinctive traits which include poise, elegance and other desired feminine characteristics – like kindness and purity. Ehrenreich and Orenstein note that the physical attributes of the Disney princesses are so evident that the creators have drawn criticism for over-glamorising them, and for their general passiveness and reliance on men for their happiness. Essentially, these women are created in the image of the ultimate male fantasy, where an increased value is placed on the virginal look, followed by a perfect tiny body and an ability to follow basic instructions. The slim bodies of these princesses are disproportionate, and include long necks, demure shoulders, medium- to large-sized perky breasts, with tiny waists, wrists, ankles and feet. Thus, it can be argued that the main theme for those within the princess bubble is their physical body and beauty, and the importance of being attractive to achieve success. The importance of the physical form is so valued that the first blessing given by the fairies to Aurora from Sleeping Beauty is the gift of physical beauty (Rutherford). Furthermore, Tanner et al. argue that the "images of love at first sight in the films encourage the belief that physical appearance is the most important thing", and these fairy tales often reflect a pattern that the prince cannot help but to instantly fall in love with these women because they are so striking. In some instances, like the stories of Cinderella and Snow White, these princesses have not uttered a single word to their prince before these men fall unconditionally and hopelessly in love. Cinderella need only to turn up at the ball as the best dressed (Parks), while Snow White must merely “wait prettily, because someday her prince will come" (Inge) to reestablish her as royalty. Disney emphasises that these princesses win their man solely on the basis that they are the most beautiful girls in the land. In Sleeping Beauty, the prince overhears Aurora’s singing and that sets his heart aflame to the point of refusing to wed the woman chosen for him at birth by the king. Fortunately, she is one and the same person, so the patriarchy survives, but this idea of beauty, and of 'love at first sight', continues to be a central part of Disney movies today, and shows that “Disney Films are vehicles of powerful gender ideologies” (Hairianto). These princesses within the bubble of perfection have priority placed on their physical and sexual beauty (Dietz), formulating a kind of ‘beauty contest motif’. Examples include Gaston, who does not love Belle in Beauty and the Beast, but simply wants her as his trophy wife because he deems her to be the most beautiful girl in the town. Ariel, from The Little Mermaid, looks as if she "was modeled after a slightly anorexic Barbie doll with thin waist and prominent bust. This representation portrays a dangerous model for young women" (Zarranz). The sexualisation of the characters continues as Jasmine has “a delicate nose and small mouth" (Lacroix), with a dress that can be considered as highly sexualised and unsuitable for a girl of sixteen (Lacroix). In Tangled, Rapunzel is held hostage in the tower by Mother Gothel because she is ‘as fragile as a flower’ and needs to be ‘kept safe’ from the harms in the world. But it is her beauty that scares the witch the most, because losing Rapunzel would leave the old woman without her magical anti-aging hair. She uses scare tactics to ensure that Rapunzel remains unseen to the world. These examples are all variations of the beauty theme, as the princesses all fall within narrow and predictable tropes of love at first sight where the woman is rescued and initiated into womanhood by being chosen by a man. Disney’s Progressive Representation? At times Disney’s portrayal of princesses appears illusively progressive, by introducing new and different variations of princesses into the fold – such as Merida in the 2012 film Brave. Unfortunately, this is merely an illusion as the ‘body-perfect’ image remains an all-important ideal to snare a prince. Merida, the young and spirited teenage princess, begins her tale determined not to conform to the desired standards set for a woman of her standing; however, when the time comes for her to be married, there is no negotiating with her mother, the queen, on dress compliance. Merida is clothed against her will to re-identify her in the manner which her parents deem appropriate. Her ability to express her identity and individuality removed, now replaced by a masked version, and thus with the true Merida lost in this transformation, her parents consider Merida to be of renewed merit and benefit to the family. This shows that Disney remains unchanged in its depiction of who may ‘fit’ within the princess bubble, because the rubric is unchanged on how to win the heart of the man. In fact, this film is possibly more troublesome than the rest because it clearly depicts her parents to deem her to be of more value only after her mother has altered her physical appearance. It is only after the total collapse of the royal family that King Fergus has a change of patriarchal heart, and in fact Disney does not portray this rumpled, ripped-sleeved version of the princess in its merchandising campaign. While the fantasy of fairy tales provides enthralling adventures that always end in happiness for the pretty princesses that encounter them, consideration must be given to all those women who have not met the standard and are left in their wake. If women do not conform to the standards of representation, they are presented as outcasts, and happiness eludes them. Cinderella, for example, has two ugly stepsisters, who, no matter how hard they might try, are unable to match her in attractiveness, kindness, or grace. Disney has embraced and not shunned Perrault’s original retelling of the tale, by ensuring that these stepsisters are ugly. They have not been blessed with any attributes whatsoever, and cannot sing, dance, or play music; nor can they sew, cook, clean, or behave respectably. These girls will never find a suitor, let alone a prince, no matter how eager they are to do so. On the physical comparison, Anastasia and Drizella have bodies that are far more rounded and voluptuous, with feet, for example, that are more than double the size of Cinderella’s magical slipper. These women clearly miss the parameters of our princess bubble, emphasising that Disney is continuing to promote dangerous narratives that could potentially harm young audience conceptions of femininity at an important period in their development. Therefore, despite the ‘progressive’ strides made by Disney in response to the vast criticism of their earlier films, the agency afforded to their new generation of princesses does not alter the fact that success comes to those who are beautiful. These beautiful people continue to win every time. Furthermore, Hairianto has found that it is not uncommon for the media to directly or indirectly promote “mental models of how a woman should look, speak and interact with others”, and that Disney uses its pervasive princess influence “to shape perceptions of female identity and desirability. Females are made to measure themselves against the set of values that are meted out by the films” (Hairianto). In the 2017 film Beauty and the Beast, those outside of the princess bubble are seen in the characters of the three maidens from the village who are always trying to look their very best in the hope of attracting Gaston (Rutherford). Gaston is not only disinterested but shows borderline contempt at their glances by permitting his horse to spray mud and dirt all over their fine clothing. They do not meet the beauty standard set, and instead of questioning his cruelty, the audience is left laughing at the horse’s antics. Interestingly, the earlier version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast portrays these maidens as blonde, slim, and sexy, closely fitting the model of beauty displayed in our princess bubble; however, none match the beauty of Belle, and are therefore deemed inferior. In this manner, Disney is being irresponsible, placing little interest in the psychological ‘safety’ or affect the messages have upon young girls who will never meet these expectations (Ehrenreich; Best and Lowney; Orenstein). Furthermore, bodies are shaped and created by culture. They are central to self-identity, becoming a projection of how we see ourselves. Grosz (xii) argues that our notions of our bodies begin in physicality but are forever shaped by our interactions with social realities and cultural norms. The media are constantly filled with images that “glorify and highlight some kinds of bodies (for example, the young, able-bodied and beautiful) while ignoring or condemning others” (Jones 193), and these influences on gender, ethnicity, sexuality, race, and religion within popular culture therefore play a huge part in identity creation. In Disney films, the princess bubble constantly sings the same song, and “children view these stereotypical roles as the right and only way to behave” (Ewert). In The Princess and the Frog, Tiana’s friend Charlotte is so desperate to ‘catch’ a prince that "she humorously over-applies her makeup and adjusts her ball gown to emphasize her cleavage" (Breaux), but the point is not lost. Additionally, “making sure that girls become worthy of love seems central to Disney’s fairy tale films” (Rutherford 76), and because their fairy tales are so pervasive and popular, young viewers receive a consistent message that being beautiful and having a tiny doll-like body type is paramount. “This can be destructive for developing girls’ views and images of their own bodies, which are not proportioned the way that they see on screen” (Cordwell 21). “The strongly gendered messages present in the resolutions of the movies help to reinforce the desirability of traditional gender conformity” (England et al. 565). Conclusion The princess bubble is a phenomenon that has been seen in Disney’s representation of female characters for decades. Within this bubble there is a narrow range of representation permitted, and attempts to make the characters more progressive have instead resulted in narrow and restrictive constraints, reinforcing dangerous female stereotypes. Kilmer suggests that ultimately these representations fail to break away from “hegemonic assumptions about gender norms, class boundaries, and Caucasian privileging”. Ultimately this presents audiences with strong and persuasive messages about gender performance. Audiences conform their bodies to societal ‘rules’: “as to how we ‘wear’ and ‘use’ our bodies” (Richardson and Locks x), including for example how we should dress, what we should weigh, and how to become popular. In our global hypermediated society, viewers are constantly exposed to princesses and other appropriate bodies. These become internalised ideals and aid in positive and negative thoughts and self-identity, which in turn creates additional pressure on the female body in particular. The seemingly innocent stories with happy outcomes are therefore unrealistic and ultimately excluding of those who cannot or will not ‘fit into the princess bubble’. 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