WOMEN WHO HAVE KILLED: THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL EFFECTS OF PRISON LIFE

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Zanele Nyamakai ◽  
Barbra Chiyedza Manyarara

The female ex-prisoners interviewed in the semi-autobiographical collection A tragedy of lives: Women in prison in Zimbabwe (2003) caused the deaths of their own loved ones, consequently they were unable to mourn or bury them. The processing of the homicides precludes these women going through the appropriate rites and rituals which ordinarily form part of deaths in Zimbabwean cultural traditions. Variously manifesting in the experiences of the different women interviewed, the complex psychiatric and psychological problems observed in these women are attributable to incomplete mourning and unresolved grief which are linked to the social inadequacies of a necessarily truncated expression of that grief. The present textual analysis is dually guided by Africana womanist and psychoanalytic theoretical frameworks. The study establishes a shift by Zimbabwean women writers from merely highlighting issues that affect women, to taking a stance on the effects of imprisonment on female offenders both during and after incarceration. Empathy and optimism are shown towards the interviewees. The semi-autobiography also enables the generality of Zimbabweans to understand the effects of such crimes and the need to rehabilitate offenders. The study encourages harmonious co-existence between males and females in the postcolony.

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 20160337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pau Carazo ◽  
Jared Green ◽  
Irem Sepil ◽  
Tommaso Pizzari ◽  
Stuart Wigby

Sex differences in ageing rates and lifespan are common in nature, and an enduring puzzle for evolutionary biology. One possibility is that sex-specific mortality rates may result from recessive deleterious alleles in ‘unguarded’ heterogametic X or Z sex chromosomes (the unguarded X hypothesis). Empirical evidence for this is, however, limited. Here, we test a fundamental prediction of the unguarded X hypothesis in Drosophila melanogaster , namely that inbreeding shortens lifespan more in females (the homogametic sex in Drosophila ) than in males. To test for additional sex-specific social effects, we studied the lifespan of males and females kept in isolation, in related same-sex groups, and in unrelated same-sex groups. As expected, outbred females outlived outbred males and inbreeding shortened lifespan. However, inbreeding-mediated reductions in lifespan were stronger for females, such that lifespan was similar in inbred females and males. We also show that the social environment, independent of inbreeding, affected male, but not female lifespan. In conjunction with recent studies, the present results suggest that asymmetric inheritance mechanisms may play an important role in the evolution of sex-specific lifespan and that social effects must be considered explicitly when studying these fundamental patterns.


2020 ◽  
pp. 036319902096739
Author(s):  
Josep Lluís Mateo Dieste

In the Arab world, the recognized children of elite men and slave women could adopt the status of their father, ignoring the slave origin of the mother, owing to a system of patrilineal transmission. This regime co-existed with negative stereotypes toward slaves and blackness, despite the very fact that—as this study of notable families in Tetouan between 1859 and 1956 demonstrates—skin color was not the determinant factor to form part of this group. Rather, it was based on the social definition of filiation, leading to legal disputes between family members to delineate the boundaries of kinship.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002071522098808
Author(s):  
Liza G Steele

How does wealth affect preferences for redistribution? In general, social scientists have largely neglected to study the social effects of wealth. This neglect was partially due to a dearth of data on household wealth and social outcomes, and also to greater scholarly interest in how wealth has been accumulated rather than the social effects of wealth. While we would expect household wealth to be an important component of attitudes toward inequality and social welfare policies, research in this area is scarce. In this study, the relationship between wealth and preferences for redistribution is examined in cross-national global and comparative perspective using data on 31 countries from the 2009 wave of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the first wave of that study to include measures of wealth. The findings presented compare the effects of two types of wealth—financial assets and home equity—and demonstrate that there are differences in effects by asset type and by redistributive policy in question. Financial wealth is more closely associated with attitudes about income equality, while home equity is more closely associated with attitudes about unemployment benefits. Moreover, while the upper categories of financial wealth have the largest negative effects on support for income equality, it is the middle categories of home equity that are most strongly associated with opposition to unemployment benefits. Effects also differ by country, but not in patterns that theories of comparative welfare states nor political economy would adequately explain.


2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 281 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Dique ◽  
Jim Thompson ◽  
Harriet J. Preece ◽  
Deidré L. de Villiers ◽  
Frank N. Carrick

Koala dispersal was investigated as part of a detailed ecological study of a nationally significant koala population located 20 km south-east of Brisbane, Queensland. From 1996 to 2000, 195 koalas from three sites were captured and fitted with radio-collars. A total of 40 koalas (23 males and 17 females) dispersed from these sites. Most (93%) dispersing individuals were 20–36 months of age. Three adult females (more than 36 months old) dispersed and no adult males dispersed during the study. A significantly higher proportion of young males dispersed than females. Dispersal occurred between June and December, with most dispersal of males commencing in July and August and that of females commencing between September and November prior to, and early in, the annual breeding season. The mean straight-line distance between the natal and breeding home ranges for males and females was similar and was measured at 3.5 km (range 1.1–9.7 km) and 3.4 km (range 0.3–10.6 km) respectively. Dispersing males and females tended to successfully disperse south and west of their natal home ranges and were generally unable to successfully disperse to urban areas within the study area, as a high proportion of the mortality of dispersing koalas was associated with attacks by domestic dogs and with collisions with vehicles on roads. Information from other studies indicates that most young koalas disperse from their natal areas. It is likely that the social behaviour and mating systems of koala populations provide mechanisms for young koalas to disperse. The potential role of dispersal in the dynamics of regional koala populations is discussed.


1989 ◽  
Vol 67 (6) ◽  
pp. 1434-1438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn M. Brodsky ◽  
C. Davison Ankney ◽  
Darrell G. Dennis

The influence of social experience on the preferences for a potential mate in a captive population of black ducks, Anas rubripes, and mallards, Anas platyrhynchos, was examined. Birds were reared from hatching with conspecifics (i.e., female black ducks with male black ducks, female mallards with male mallards), or were cross-fostered with the other species (i.e., female black ducks with male mallards, female mallards with male black ducks). Preferences of individuals were tested in a chamber containing caged black ducks and mallards of the opposite sex. In over 90% (100/109) of the trials, males and females preferred the species that they were raised with since hatching, whether they were of the same species or not. These results demonstrate that social experience influences the social preferences of male and female black ducks and mallards.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942110060
Author(s):  
Jean-François Nault ◽  
Shyon Baumann ◽  
Clayton Childress ◽  
Craig M Rawlings

Are higher status cultural tastes in the modern United States better described as being inclusive and broad or exclusive and narrow? We construct an original dataset in response to conflicting answers to this question. We fill a major gap in the literature on cultural tastes by simultaneously considering taste for both musical genres and artists within genres. By examining the compositional balance of respondents’ taste portfolios, we reconcile seemingly incommensurate theoretical frameworks of class homology and omnivorousness. The results indicate that an omnivorous disposition to music is a relatively middle-status position in the social structure. In contrast, positions characterized by higher levels of cultural capital map onto exclusive and narrower tastes for consecrated culture.


Author(s):  
Genevieve R Cox ◽  
Paula FireMoon ◽  
Michael P Anastario ◽  
Adriann Ricker ◽  
Ramey Escarcega-Growing Thunder ◽  
...  

Theoretical frameworks rooted in Western knowledge claims utilized for public health research in the social sciences are not inclusive of American Indian communities. Developed by Indigenous researchers, Indigenous standpoint theory builds from and moves beyond Western theoretical frameworks. We argue that using Indigenous standpoint theory in partnership with American Indian communities works to decolonize research related to American Indian health in the social sciences and combats the effects of colonization in three ways. First, Indigenous standpoint theory aids in interpreting how the intersections unique to American Indians including the effects of colonization, tribal and other identities, and cultural context are linked to structural inequalities for American Indian communities. Second, Indigenous standpoint theory integrates Indigenous ways of knowing with Western research orientations and methodologies in a collaborative process that works to decolonize social science research for American Indians. Third, Indigenous standpoint theory promotes direct application of research benefits to American Indian communities.


Author(s):  
Deborah Warr ◽  
Gretel Taylor ◽  
Richard Williams

This chapter explores how arts-based activities form part of an experimental approach for social research that fuses sociological insights with creative practice. As an ethos, people conceive the prosocial as seeking to promote collective human flourishing, while a prosocial practice is inclusive and imaginative. The potential to flourish is supported by involvement in diverse social relations that connect people as families, friends, communities, neighbourhoods, and nations. Experiences of social collectivity, however, are being shredded through the expanding dominance, and cascading impacts, of market-oriented ideologies. The chapter shows how the status of the social as a nonmarket domain has little value or sense when seen from within these dominant ideological framings.


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