Browsing Social and Political Science by Title
Social and Political Science
The Dark Side of Prosperity: Late Capitalism's Culture of Indebtedness
Horsley, Mark; University of Chester (Ashgate, 2015-03-02)
This book offers a critical analysis of consumer credit markets and the growth of outstanding debt, presenting in-depth interview material to explore the phenomenon of mass indebtedness through the life trajectories of self-identified debtors struggling with the pressures of owing money.
The 'Death of Deviance' and the Stagnation of Twentieth Century Criminology
Horsley, Mark; University of Chester (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014-10-22)
In 1994 the British criminologist Colin Sumner published a lengthy obituary for the 'sociology of deviance'. He claimed that the normative study of 'crime' as that which transgressed social values and norms was all but dead, replaced by a more useful and politically aware form of criminological theory. This new direction, he suggested, would benefit from conceptualising 'crime' as a form of social censure resulting from social reactions, power imbalances and manipulated public fears. This censure ultimately gives rise to certain acts being defined as 'criminal' and punished by formal and informal measures. In this chapter we consider this type of classic 'social reaction' theory in the light of Steve Hall's (2012) assertion that late-twentieth century criminology has been captured, repurposed and impoverished by left and right variants of an underlying libertarian narrative. This has left us struggling to identify and explain persistent forms of criminality appearing throughout the social structure. Since the turn of the millennium, however, there have been significant moves in criminological theory and research back towards criminal motivations, the relationship between criminality and late capitalist culture and the social impact of the more harmful criminal activities. With these new moves in mind this chapter will explore the possibility that the 'sociology of deviance' might not be quite as moribund as Sumner's obituary suggests.
Deinstitutionalization
Taylor, Paul J.; University of Chester (SAGE, 2016-02-12)
An analysis of the process of deinstitutionalization (mental health systems) in the US and UK context.
Determined Learning Approach: Implications of Heutagogy Society Based Learning
Halsall, Jamie; Powell, Jason; Snowden, Mike; University of Huddersfield; University of Chester (Cogent OA, 2016-08-25)
Recently, within the higher education system in the United Kingdom, there has been close examination of the way institutions teach and assess students. This scrutiny has been intensified by central government with the proposed introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). The anticipated TEF demands that higher education institutions evaluate their teaching and learning practices and think of new ways to develop excellent student experience. Self-determined learning has resurfaced as a popular approach in the higher education sector. At the centre of self-determined learning is the concept of heutagogy. This approach enables the student to apply what they have learned in an education setting and relate it to the workplace. The aim of this paper is to critically explore the theoretical framework behind the self-determined learning approach. The authors of this paper argue that, from a social science perspective, a determined learning approach is in the best place to provide a contemporary, exciting teaching and learning experience in a competitive higher education market.
Developmental Trauma and the Role of Epigenetics
Kiyimba, Nikki; University of Chester (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, 2016-10-31)
This is an article investigating the role of epigenetics in developmental trauma, providing fascinating insights into the debate about the relationship between nature and nurture, and the possibilities for healing
Ogden, Cassandra A.; University of Chester (Routledge, 2014-03-28)
An exploration of the understanding of disability and deviance through the lens of critical disability studies.
'Disciplining' truth and science: Michel Foucault and the power of social science
Powell, Jason; University of Chester (World Scientific News, 2015-07)
Discursive Psychology as a method of analysis for the study of couple and family therapy
O'Reilly, Michelle; Kiyimba, Nikki; Lester, Jessica N.; University of Leicester; University of Chester; Indiana University (Wiley, 2018-03-08)
The field of couple and family therapy has benefitted from evidence generated from qualitative approaches. Evidence developed from approaches relying on language and social interaction using naturally occurring recordings of real-world practice has the benefit of facilitating practice-based recommendations and informing practice. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of one approach to discourse analysis, Discursive Psychology (DP), demonstrating how a social constructionist framework and focus on discourse can provide an important contribution to the field of therapy. To illustrate the methodological decision-making process for researchers and/or practitioners who utilize DP, we draw upon a video-recorded therapeutic session involving Tom Andersen. To conclude, we make recommendations for practitioners using DP to explore and examine therapeutic practice.
Discursive Psychology: Implications for counselling psychology
Lester, Jessica N.; O'Reilly, Michelle; Kiyimba, Nikki; Wong, J.; University of Chester (Sage, 2018-07-13)
In this article, we present discursive psychology (DP), a qualitative approach that focuses on the study of conversational and textual materials, including everyday interactions. Although DP is well-established methodologically and theoretically and used widely in Europe and in the Commonwealth countries, it is relatively unknown in counseling psychology in the United States. As such, the purpose of this article is to provide a general overview of DP and offer guidance for researchers who may be interested in studying and using DP. We thus discuss practical considerations for doing DP, including the development of research questions, carrying out data collection, and conducting DP-informed analysis. We also provide a general overview of the history of DP and key resources for those interested in studying it further, while noting the usefulness of DP for counseling psychology.
Discussing citizenship and social inclusion through the lenses of emotions and care practices
Pratesi, Alessandro; University of Chester (2016-02)
The workshop addresses fundamental political, cultural and sociological implications of the current international refugee crisis in terms of social inclusion, citizenship and social change. Several scholars (Castles, 2014; Dauvergne and Marsden, 2014; James, 2014; McNevin, 2006; Shachar, 2014; Stychin, 2001) highlight the multiple challenges involved in the attempt to overcome current limited uses of the language of citizenship. Among the numerous issues concerning the necessity to provide different social actors with fair and adequate responses, James (2014) emphasises the issue of the social and ethical framing of the problem, which requires going beyond unilateral, inflexible and value-neutral definitions of entitlement to rights. More specifically, the author suggests the necessity to ground the ethics of rights to an ethics of care through which fundamental questions of difference/identity, inclusion/exclusion, and mobility/belonging are negotiated (James, 2014). This involves the necessity to shift the focus upon the micro level of analysis and to look at the spaces where the situated actions and interactions occur, at the ways, in other words, in which people constantly construct and reconstruct their sense of entitlement and belonging. Citizenship and social inclusion (macro level) will be associated in this workshop to the 'sentiments' and the 'practices' of family care (micro level). The term 'world families' (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2014) includes a heterogeneous and tension-filled set of social actors who share in common the potentiality to bridge traditional distinctions between public and private, centre and periphery, national and international, bypassing dichotomous ideas of inclusion/exclusion which typically characterise the concept of citizenship. This concept resonates with the notion of 'cultural rights' described by Pakulski (1997) in terms of a new set of claims including the right to symbolic presence and visibility vs. marginalisation; the right to dignifying representation vs. stigmatisation; and the right to affirmation and propagation of identity vs. assimilation. 'Global citizens' and 'global families' are the terms I use in this context to indicate refugees, asylum seekers and other unequally entitled citizens. From the theoretical point of view, the approach here illustrated draws on those aspects of the sociology of emotions that explain inequality in terms of emotion-based processes which occur at the level of micro-situated interactions (Barbalet, 2001; Collins, 1990, 1993, 2004; Gordon, 1990; Hammond, 1990; Hochschild, 1995; Katz, 1999; Kemper, 1990; Scheff, 1990; Smith-Lovin, 1993; von Scheve & von Luede, 2005). The idea is intersecting care, emotion and citizenship and analysing their role to understand social inclusion and social change. More specifically, the workshop will be based on Collins' theory of Interaction Ritual Chains (2004), according to which the fundamental mechanisms defining the individuals' positions (/statuses) in society possess an emotional nature rather than a merely economic, cultural, social or political one.
Disseminating Research
Reeves, Andrew; University of Chester (SAGE, 2014-10-16)
This chapter considers the different mechanisms for disseminating research findings and how counselors and psychotherapists might find the right audience for their work. The chapter includes 'how to' guides for a range of publishing opportunities.
Distance, Time, Speed & Energy: A socio-political analysis of technologies of longer distance cycling
Cox, Peter; University of Chester
The basic laws of motion governing cycling are well understood. Consideration of the variables of energy use in cycle travel is less frequent. The potentials of both aerodynamically efficient cycle design and the augmentation of human power with e-motors dramatically reconfigure what we understand as a cycle and as cycling. The prospect of increasing travel distance in regular journeying, coupled with the logical application of augmentation (aerodynamic and/ or power), suggest a need to re-evaluate some of the ground expectations applied in design and planning for cycle travel if the cycles for which infrastructure is designed no longer conform to existing expectations of what a cycle is and how it performs. Current e-bike performance is limited principally by normative legislative intervention, not by the intrinsic potential of the technologies. Existing decisions as to what an e-bike can (and should) be, are shaped by the performance expectations of late 19th and early 20th century bicycle designs. Shaping modal shift for longer trips returns us to think about the place of cycling travel time as a function of the relationship between distance and speed. Increased speed allows for greater distance without time penalty. However, speed is itself governed by available energy, coupled with the efficiency of use of that energy. Without entirely substituting human power, E-motors allow us to augment the human power available in different ways; Changes in cycle design (velomobiles, for example) allow us to increase the efficiency of use of available power in overcoming resistance to movement. Identifying the assemblage of cycle/cyclist as a variable, rather than a determinate object to be accommodated, raises difficult questions for cycling provision, especially in relation to longer distance travel. Drawing on the capacities of already existing technologies of cycling and e-cycling, the paper focuses on the social implications of potentially problematic interactions. It argues that new decisions will need to be made in regard to speed and distance in cycle travel and that the forging of regulations consequent on those fundamentals will substantially shape the potentials and possibilities of modal shift for longer distance cycle travel. What emerges is a politics of longer distance cycle, not simply a set of technical barriers and problems.
Diversity and power inequalities: Notes of caution in promoting change
Cox, Peter; University of Chester (2013-11-29)
Doing Care, Doing Citizenship. Towards a Micro-situated and Emotion-based Model of Social Inclusion
Pratesi, Alessandro; University of Chester (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018-01)
The book examines the emotional, micro-situated dynamics of status inclusion/exclusion that people produce while caring for others by focusing, in particular, on non-conventional families. Grounded in empirical research that involves different types of care and family contexts, the book situates care within more inclusive and critical approaches while shedding light on its multiple and often overlooked meanings and implications. Engaging and accompanied by a useful methodological appendix, Doing Care, Doing Citizenship is essential reading for students and academics of sociology, psychology, social work and social theory. It will also be of interest to practitioners interested in developing their understanding of the relationship between care, emotions, social inclusion and citizenship.
Doing Care, Doing Difference. Informal Care, Emotional Dynamics and Social Change
Pratesi, Alessandro; University of Pennsylvania (2008)
Broadening and intertwining the conceptual categories of care, gender, and emotion, this dissertation discusses the dynamics of inclusion/exclusion and the consequent outcomes of inequality people produce while caring for others. It reports preliminary findings relating to a micro-situated study of daily caring activities among upper-middle class caregivers, both gay and non-gay. The focus is on informal care, seen as a strategic site to grasp deeper insights into the interactional mechanisms through which normative structures of subordination or superordination are daily constructed. By looking at the inner interactive dimensions of informal care, it is argued that, in doing care, people create forms of emotional stratification at the micro-level that affect their social positioning at the macro-level. The consideration of gay and non-gay caregivers in a broader phenomenological perspective provides us with new empirical evidence on how deeply people are embedded in gender systems and cultural beliefs; but it also highlights how individuals, by managing the emotions involved in care work, create the conditions to produce social change. By putting emotion at the center of the routine interactional processes of informal care and pointing to the different dimensions of difference, the findings from this research show the necessity of new theoretical and methodological approaches to investigate informal care.
Doing mental health research with children and adolescents: A guide to qualitative methods.
O'Reilly, Michelle; Parker, Nicola; University of Chester; Leicester University (Sage, 2014-07-07)
Researching child and adolescent mental health can be a daunting task, but with the right practical skills and knowledge your students can transform the way they work with children and young people, giving them a 'voice' through their research in the wider community. Michelle O'Reilly and Nikki Parker combine their clinical, academic and research expertise to take your students step-by-step through each stage of the research process. From first inception to data collection and dissemination, they'll guide them through the key issues faced when undertaking their research, highlighting the dilemmas, challenges and debates, and exploring the important questions asked when doing research with this population. Providing practical advice and strategies for dealing with the reality of conducting research in practice, this book will; - Provide your students with an overview of the theories that underpin methodological choice and the value of using qualitative research. - Guide them through the planning stage of your project, clearly outlining important ethical and legal issues. - Take them through the most popular qualitative data collection techniques and support them with their analysis. - Help them write up their findings and demonstrate how research evidence translates into effective clinical practice. Supported by helpful hints and tips, case examples and definitions of key terms, this highly practical and accessible guide throws a lifebelt to any students or mental health practitioner learning about the research process for the first time.
Drivers of Nuclear Proliferation: South Africa's Incentives and Constraints
Francis, Suzanne; Asuelime, Lucky; University of Chester; University of KwaZulu-Natal (Sabinet, 2014-06-01)
Many factors are identified as causes of nuclear proliferation, but three stands out among them. These comprise the international and domestic political environment, technical capabilities and motivation. This article explores, on the one hand, the conditions that are conducive for the proliferation of nuclear weapons, whilst also suggesting strategies that can effectively address the problem. The authors use the South African episode as a case study. They identify the role of technology and motivations in the development of South Africa's nuclear weapons programme and claim that the possession of technological capability is not a sufficient cause of nuclear proliferation. Rather, the presence of strong motivations in conjunction with sufficient technical capability leads to nuclear proliferation.
E-mobility, immobility and alt-mobility
Extending the arguments raised by Dennis and Urry in After the Car (2009), this paper examines the potentials and problems facing innovation in vehicular systems. In mobility systems dominated by conventional automobility, the widespread adoption of e-vehicles and hybrid vehicles promises to change relationships between mobility and the oil economy. Consequently, significant investment in pilot projects and test examples has been widely promoted across the EU and in the USA. This paper argues, contra such programmes, that the substitution of propulsion systems within current conceptualisations of vehicle typologies, fails to allow for the transformation of mobility regimes and of hierarchies of mobility practices. Similarly, substitution approaches (as currently modelled) fail to reflect the real capacities of varying technologies, yet reproduce the very real inequalities of automobility. Carbon class power as currently visible, the paper argues, is not challenged but allowed to change in order to maintain its hegemony. The paper therefore looks towards potential mobility scenarios that maximise diversity, embracing the possibilities of e-mobility but locating them within deeper structural transformations of mobility regimes. It demonstrates both how this can be theorised and the consequent changing relationship between mobility technology, users and practices can be understood, and the relationship of users and practices to spaces and places of mobility. Though initially identifying the variety of potentials embedded in different technologies, the argument opens discussion of the social relations inherent in different mobility practices. The analysis draws initially on the work of Cox and Van De Walle (2007), but extends it towards a more complex consideration of capacity and relation to infrastructure and social space. The paper builds a scenario which may be better termed alt-mobility; concentrating not simply on the spread of e-technologies but the transformation of existing mobility practices and the implications this can have for the hierarchies of power in public space. It questions the extent to which such alternative mobilities can be accommodated within existing infrastructural hierarchies and the implications for the social relations of mobility.
The edge of the periphery: situating the ≠Khomani San of the Southern Kalahari in the political economy of Southern Africa
Francis, Suzanne; Francis, Michael; Akinola, Adeoye; University of Chester; University of KwaZulu-Natal (Taylor and Francis, 2016-04-14)
In this article, we situate the Southern Kalahari San within the political economy of Southern Africa and within the world system. Here we draw on and critique modernization theory as a model of explanation for the lack of development found locally. In the Southern Kalahari, the ≠Khomani San won a massive land claim that should have empowered and enabled local development. Yet they remain largely impoverished, while seeking out a meaningful life on the edge of the capitalist world system. Within states, contradictions remain as local diversity continues to be reproduced and modernity itself is reproduced as local diversity. The research is premised on empirical fieldwork conducted in the Southern Kalahari in 2013 and supported by a series of earlier field research over the previous five years. The San of the Southern Kalahari are not resisting modernity but drawing on aspects of it selectively for their own vision of meaningful development.
Editorial Introduction: Rethinking Illness, Crisis and Loss
Powell, Jason; University of Chester (Sage, 2014-09-01)
This timely issue of Illness, Crisis and Loss brings us a wealth of inspirational approaches on understanding spirituality, culture and grief, end-of-life care, nursing education, and implications of coping models. The articles in this issue address key issues in understanding individual experiences of loss, grief, and coping models. As bereaved people, we need our experiential grief to be recognized, to be acknowledged. We require an understanding of the meaning of the relationship that has been lost—and this is often what is least understood by others. The impact of a loss is determined, not so much by the name given to the relationships, but by the meaning of that relationship in the bereaved individual's life. Someone significant in our life is missing, and we realize that the cost of our love is the pain of our grief.