Kath Woodward and Sophie Woodward
This article aims to develop the methodological and intellectual approach taken in the authors' co‐authored book to explore the synergies and disconnections in the experience of…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to develop the methodological and intellectual approach taken in the authors' co‐authored book to explore the synergies and disconnections in the experience of being in the academy at different historical moments using the inter‐relationship between different feminisms in the context of the authors' lived experiences as a mother and daughter whose experience of the academy has crossed second‐wave feminism into third wave. There have been significant demographic, cultural and legislative shifts, but the authors' conversations demonstrate the endurance of imbalances of power and the continuing need for a feminist politics of difference which can engage with contemporary life in the academy.
Design/methodology/approach
This is primarily a theoretical paper that adopts feminist approaches to reflection and dialogue. The article is designed to bring together lived experience across generations, feminist theories and methodologies and the implications for activism. The paper uses the device of “I‐Kath I‐Sophie” as part of an autoethnographic approach to the cross‐generational conversation.
Findings
Far from being redundant, the authors argue that feminist critiques of inequalities that are often manifest in women's invisibility and silence even in the academy in the twenty‐first century – there is still the need to support a politics of difference and to explore ways of giving women a voice. The persistence of inequalities means that feminist battles have not been entirely won. The authors argue for dialogue between the feminisms of mothers and daughters.
Research limitations/implications
Feminist concepts and arguments from what has been called the “second wave” are still useful, especially in relation to maintaining the category woman as a speaking subject who can engage in collective action.
Practical implications
The authors' arguments support the continuation of spaces for women to share experience within the academy, for example in feminist reading groups and through women's networks.
Social implications
Feminist theories and activism remain important political forces for women in the academy today and post feminism is a questionable conceptualisation and phenomenon. In times when feminist battles may seem to have been won there remain issues to explore in relation to a new problem with no name.
Originality/value
The article is original in its authorship, methodological approach to a conversation that crosses experience and theoretical frameworks across generations and in its support for a twenty‐first century politics of difference.
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Katherine J.C. Sang, Simy Joy, Josephine Kinge and Susan Sayce
This paper aims to bring together feminist philosophy, phenomenology, and masculinity studies to consider the gendered formation of ethical practices, focusing on the construction…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to bring together feminist philosophy, phenomenology, and masculinity studies to consider the gendered formation of ethical practices, focusing on the construction of “male” and “female” identities in quotidian social encounters. While scholarship on masculinity has frequently focused on hegemonic modes of behaviour or normative gender relations, less attention has been paid to the “ethics of people I know” as informal political resources, ones that shapes not only conversations about how one should act (“people I know don’t do that”), but also about the diversity of situations that friends, acquaintances or strangers could plausibly have encountered (“that hasn’t happened to anyone I know”).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper rethinks mundane social securities drawing on Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, and Sara Ahmed to consider anecdotal case studies around gender recognition and political practice, and in doing so also develops the notion of interpellation in relation to everyday ethical problems.
Findings
The paper suggests that inquiry into diverse modes of quotidian complicities – or what de Beauvoir calls the “snares” of a deeply human liberty – can be useful for describing the mixtures of sympathy, empathy, and disavowal in the performance of pro-feminist and queer-friendly masculinities or masculinist identities. It also suggests that the adoption of an “anti-normative” politics is insufficient for negotiating the problems of description and recognition involved in the articulation of gendered social experiences.
Originality/value
This paper approaches questions around political identification commonly considered in queer theory from the viewpoint of descriptive practices themselves, and thus reorients problems of recognition and interpellation towards the expression of ethical statements, rather than focusing solely on the objects of such statements.
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Information science research has begun to broaden its traditional focus on information seeking to cover other modes of acquiring information. The purpose of this paper is to move…
Abstract
Purpose
Information science research has begun to broaden its traditional focus on information seeking to cover other modes of acquiring information. The purpose of this paper is to move forward on this trajectory and to present a framework for explicating how in addition to being sought, existing information are made useful and taken into use.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual enquiry draws on an empirical vignette based on an observation study of an archaeological teaching excavation. The conceptual perspective builds on Andersen’s genre approach and Huvila’s notion of situational appropriation.
Findings
This paper suggests that information becomes appropriable, and appropriated (i.e. taken into use), when informational and social genres intertwine with each other. This happens in a continuous process of (re)appropriation of information where existing information scaffolds new information and the on-going process of appropriation.
Originality/value
The approach is proposed as a potentially powerful conceptualisation for explicating information interactions when existing information is taken into use rather than sought that have received little attention in traditional models and theories of human information behaviour.
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David Barton, Kath Ward and Hazel Roddam
The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a range of material to improve the understanding of disengagement with everyday life, by some individuals who have learning disabilities…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a range of material to improve the understanding of disengagement with everyday life, by some individuals who have learning disabilities and mental health difficulties. Illustrative incidents from historical clinical cases are utilised, to consider whether this reframing may enhance the interpretation of presenting behaviours.
Design/methodology/approach
Key recurring themes within transpersonal literature were reviewed, relevant to adults with behaviour indicating a degree of disengagement from everyday life. These were grouped into Physical Realm, Psychosocial Realm and Realm of Being. Illustrative examples of behaviour are reviewed and re-interpreted within this framework.
Findings
These examples generated plausible interpretations for the presenting behaviours within this framework of the Three Realms. These interpretations support a fresh understanding of the quality of the individual's inner experience. This paper suggests a potential framework to consider the way in which some individuals may experience a different quality of consciousness than the usual.
Practical implications
Use of the Three Realms for behaviour interpretation should result into a more empathetic and client-centred approach that could reduce the need for aversive approaches, lessening risk for the client and any employing organisation. The identification of behaviours that signal participation in the Realm of Being could be defined and evaluated with the potential to be used to inform the nature and content of the support provided.
Originality/value
This paper, rooted in clinical examples, offers an original synthesis with reasons to include the immaterial realm in the perspective of the human condition. This could benefit people with substantial episodes of disconnection from the Physical Realm and everyday culture and those who support them.
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Alex Culvin and Ali Bowes
This chapter introduces women's football in a global, professional era. Key in this is an acknowledgement of the male-dominated roots of the sport in many contexts, which has…
Abstract
This chapter introduces women's football in a global, professional era. Key in this is an acknowledgement of the male-dominated roots of the sport in many contexts, which has historically served to restrict women's participation. However, we identify the significant growth of women's involvement in football, which has resulted in professional opportunities for women playing and working in the sport. Football organisations are increasingly taking the development of the women's game more seriously and football can be considered a legitimate career opportunity for women. The chapter then identifies the scope of the book, which includes contributions on the lived experience of professionalisation, the processes of professionalisation and the role of commercialisation and media.
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THE question of display in libraries becomes more important with the days. It is therefore a peculiar pleasure to us to publish a fine article by Mr. Savage on this. From his…
Abstract
THE question of display in libraries becomes more important with the days. It is therefore a peculiar pleasure to us to publish a fine article by Mr. Savage on this. From his earliest days the ex‐President has been deeply and practically interested in book‐display. We believe that nearly forty years ago he and Mr. Jast worked out many experiments in it which are occasionally revived by those who have quite forgotten their origin. He was, we think, the first librarian here to take an ordinary shop as a branch library and dress its window as if it were a bookshop. Before him few English libraries used colour to any extent, or were aware of the aesthetic value of plants, flowers, curtains and well‐shaped furniture.