scholarly journals Between Care and Contract: Aging Muslim Immigrants, Self-appointed Helpers and Ambiguous Belonging in the Danish Welfare State

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-128
Author(s):  
Sara Lei Sparre ◽  
Mikkel Rytter
Keyword(s):  
Immigrant Families ◽  
The Self ◽  
Public Health Care ◽  
Close Relative ◽  
Grey Zone ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Care Managers ◽  
Standard Procedures ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
Care Worker

In Europe, a growing population of aging citizens have migrant background, and many have their origin in non-Western countries. Often, care arrangements in these families are different from those of the majority populations. In Denmark, a growing number of immigrant families utilise an option in the Social Service Act, under which municipalities can contract a family member to take care of an elderly citizen at home. Due to the special construct of the ‘self-appointed helper arrangement’, the caregiver is both a professional care worker, formally employed by the municipality, and a close relative. As such, the arrangement provides a unique opportunity to examine ideas and practices of care at the intersection of the immigrant family and the state.Based on data from interviews with and observations among both immigrant families and municipal care managers, we explore consequences of this care scheme for aging citizens and their self-appointed helpers. Drawing on the concept of ‘lenticular subject positions’, we show how both the self-appointed helpers and the care managers adopt two different, often contradictory, perspectives or subject positions simultaneously.In all, we argue that the self-appointed helper arrangement constitutes a grey zone in the Danish public health care system, since both care managers and helpers seem to neglect the national legislation and standard procedures, in relation to the elders and the general work environment. The consequences are most severe for the self-appointed helpers who end up in a particular precarious position at the margins of the Danish labor market.

Psychotic, acritical and precarious? A Lacanian exploration of the neoliberal consumer subject

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aliette Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Mental Health Issues

Extending the critical project of interrogating the consumer subject form, in this study, the consumer subject is read as potentially acritical, precarious and psychotic through Dufour’s Lacanian-inspired analysis of neoliberal subjectivity. Reflecting on two case studies from an ethnographic-type study of young women, identity and consumer culture, I demonstrate how participants attempt to fulfil neoliberal ideals related to agency, productivity and creativity. Relying on commodities for symbolic anchoring in doing so, a ‘psychotic’ and precarious subject position is evidenced. While the findings could certainly be interpreted as productive, tendencies toward materialism, uncertainty and anxiety, along with pervasive mental health issues, provided the impetus to further problematise dominant understandings of the consumer. Neoliberal consumer culture is evidenced as a harmful, dehumanising ideology that fosters competitiveness, individuality and meritocratic tendencies, encouraging a reliance on ever-changing, transient commodities to (in)form the self. This occurs at the expense of compromise, communality and social welfare, through which subjects may find more stable and emancipatory symbolic anchors. Only by recognising critical theorisations of the consumer as dominant subject positions of neoliberalism can cultural consumer researchers begin to imagine opportunities for resistance and emancipatory change.

scholarly journals Violent Attachments

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-29
Author(s):  
Hagar Kotef
Keyword(s):  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
The Self ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Subject Positions

Drawing on feminist and queer critiques that see violence as constitutive of identities, this essay points to subject-positions whose construction is necessarily conditioned by exercising violence. Focusing on settler colonialism, I reverse the optics of the first set of critiques: rather than seeing the self as taking form through the injuries she suffers, I try to understand selves that are structurally constituted by causing injury to others. This analysis refuses the assumption that violence is in conflict with (liberal) identity, and that, therefore, the endurance of violence of liberal states/societies is dependent upon mechanisms of active blindness (or denial, deferral, and other forms of dissociation). I argue that this assumption, which is shared by many critiques of violence, fails to perceive that people can desire the violent arrangements supporting their communities. They therefore fail to address political settings wherein violence is an affirmative element of political identities.

Badea et al 2019 IJIR - Threat to national identity continuity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantina Badea ◽  
Michael Bender ◽  
Helene Korda
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Identity Group ◽  
Majority Group ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
Identity Continuity ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Impact

European majority group members increasingly perceive threats to national continuity, which in turn leads to defensive reactions, including prejudice against Muslim immigrants. However, according to self-affirmation theory, individuals can respond in a less defensive manner if they have affirmed positive aspects of their self-concept (self-affirmation) or their social identity (group-affirmation). In the present research, we test the potential of affirmation procedures as tools for reducing prejudice towards Muslim immigrants when national continuity is threatened. We examine the impact of personal vs. normative attachment to Christian roots of national identity on the efficacy of affirmation procedures, and the congruence between the threatened and the affirmed domains of the self. Results show that group-affirmation reduced opposition to Muslims’ rights amongst participants personally attached to the idea that national continuity is based on Christian roots. The discussion stresses the importance of non-congruence between the threatened domain of the self and the affirmed domain for the design of affirmation procedures.

scholarly journals Questioning the Subject in Biographical Interviewing

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 16-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Harding
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
University Students ◽  
The Self ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Training Video ◽  
The Past ◽  
Emotional Aspects ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Recent Project

This paper considers how different approaches to interviewing and styles of questioning produce different sorts of biographical subjects and accounts. It compares styles of biographical interview (chronological and narrative) and types of question (narrative and explanatory), and presents an approach, which treats the interview as a collaborative co-production primarily concerned with the present and subjectivity, rather than the past and fact. It also considers how biographical interviewing may direct and contain narratives of the self through the subject positions it creates and offers interviewees. Discussion is grounded in reflection on a recent project involving university students in interviewing young people leaving care about their care experiences and making a training video for professionals. The paper highlights the inter-subjective and emotional aspects of interviewing in this context.

scholarly journals Are There Just Barriers? Institutional Perspective On the Development of E-Health in Poland

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-72
Author(s):  
Marcin Kautsch ◽  
Mateusz Lichoń ◽  
Natalia Matuszak ◽  
Jonathan Erskine ◽  
Malcolm Whitfield
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Professional Group ◽  
Public Health Care ◽  
It Infrastructure ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Health Development ◽  
National Programme ◽  
Standard Procedures ◽  
Remote Services

Abstract Development of e-health in Poland has suffered from multiple setbacks and delays. This paper presents views on and experiences with implementation of e-health solutions of three groups of respondents: buyers, suppliers and external experts with the aim of establishing to what extent and in what way e-health development was taking place in Polish public health care and if there were any national policy targets or European targets influencing this development. It is based on desktop studies and interviews conducted in Poland in the spring and summer of 2015. The interviews largely confirmed findings from the desktop study: legal obstacles were the decisive factor hindering the development of e-health, especially telemedicine, with extensive insufficiency of basic IT infrastructure closely following. Stakeholders were deterred from engaging with telemedicine, and from procuring e-health using non-standard procedures, from fear of legal liability. Some doctor’s resistance to e-health was also noted. There are reasons for optimism. Amendment to the Act on the System of Information in Health Care removed most legal obstacles to e-health. The Polish national payer (NFZ) has started introducing reimbursement for remote services, though it is still too early see results of these changes. Some doctors′ reluctance to telemedicine may change due to demographic changes in this professional group, younger generations may regard ICT-based solutions as a norm. In the same time, poor development of basic IT infrastructure in Polish hospitals is likely to persist, unless a national programme of e-health development is implemented (with funds secured) and contracting e-health services by NFZ is introduced on a larger scale.

scholarly journals Changing from Clinician-Collected to Self-Collected Throat Swabs for Oropharyngeal Gonorrhea and Chlamydia Screening among Men Who Have Sex with Men

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric P. F. Chow ◽  
Catriona S. Bradshaw ◽  
Deborah A. Williamson ◽  
Shauna Hall ◽  
Marcus Y. Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Worker ◽  
Health Centre ◽  
Prevalence Ratio ◽  
The Self ◽  
Chlamydia Screening ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Collection Period ◽  
Sex With Men ◽  
Care Worker

ABSTRACT The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led many clinics to move from clinician-collected to self-collected oropharyngeal swabs for the detection of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Before this change, however, self-collection was used primarily for genital and anorectal infections, with only limited studies on the performance of self-collection of oropharyngeal swabs for oropharyngeal STI detection. The Melbourne Sexual Health Centre (MSHC) changed from clinician-collected to self-collected oropharyngeal swabs for oropharyngeal gonorrhea and chlamydia screening on 16 March 2020 in order to reduce health care worker risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. We compared the proportions of valid and positive samples for gonorrhea and chlamydia among men who have sex with men (MSM) in two time periods; the clinician collection period, between 20 January and 15 March 2020, and the self-collection period, between 16 March and 8 May 2020. A total of 4,097 oropharyngeal swabs were included. The proportion of oropharyngeal swabs with equivocal or invalid results for Neisseria gonorrhoeae was higher in the self-collection period (1.6% [24/1,497]) than in the clinician collection period (0.9% [23/2,600]) (P = 0.038), but the proportions did not differ for the detection of Chlamydia trachomatis. The positivity rates of oropharyngeal N. gonorrhoeae (adjusted prevalence ratio [PR], 1.07 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 0.85 to 1.34]) (P = 0.583) and oropharyngeal C. trachomatis (adjusted PR, 0.84 [95% CI, 0.51 to 1.39]) (P = 0.504) specimens did not differ between the two periods. Self-collected oropharyngeal swabs for the detection of N. gonorrhoeae and C. trachomatis have acceptable performance characteristics and, importantly, reduce health care worker exposure to respiratory infections.

scholarly journals Talent Production in Interaction

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Kilger ◽  
Rickard Jonsson
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Performance Appraisal ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
The Self ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Developmental Potential ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Different Types

In sports, there is an extensive interest in identifying and selecting talented children in order to develop elite adult athletes. The process of selecting and screening talents involves not only physical and technical skills but also efforts to find adequate personality traits. Therefore, different types of performance appraisal interviews (PAIs) are becoming increasingly common within the field. Departing from fieldwork in two selection camps for Swedish youth national teams in soccer and hockey, we will take a closer look at the PAIs employed during these camps. This article takes on a narrative approach, emphasizing PAI as a narrative genre and a framework for a specific form of interaction. Our findings show how eligibility is performed in interaction through following three practices: (i) showcasing gratitude without tipping into flattery, (ii) using temporality as a way of displaying developmental potential, and (iii) adopting the role of the self-reflecting subject. This genre of interviews not only produces certain practices but also preferred subject positions and narratives. The PAI is thus a narrative genre where the players are encouraged to perform talent in order to appear selectable.

The Impact of 9/11 on the Self-Employment Outcomes of Arab and Muslim Immigrants

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 430-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunbei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Capital Investment ◽  
Employment Outcomes ◽  
Professional Services ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Group I ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
Exit Decisions ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The Impact

This paper examines the effects of 9/11 on the self-employment outcomes of Arab and Muslim immigrants. Using CPS Data 2000–2005 and a difference-in-differences approach, I analyze the changes in their self-employment entry/exit decisions and earnings after 9/11 using native whites as the main comparison group. I find that the Arab and Muslim immigrants are less likely to enter self-employment after 9/11, especially into industries that require higher levels of capital investment. However, there is no evidence that 9/11 has negative impacts on their exit decisions or earnings. The paper further documents a shift of Arab and Muslim immigrants’ businesses toward industries such as construction, finance/real estate/insurance services, and professional services after 9/11, areas in which they have performed well.

scholarly journals Water logged Mona Lisa: who is Mary Sue, and why do we need her?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Frey
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Wish Fulfillment ◽  
Mona Lisa ◽  
Media Texts

Theorists suggest that participatory readers create mainstream-based texts - fan crafts - in order to address the ways they are 'hailed' by the themes and subject positions offered by a text by becoming textual re-writers (Jenkins, 1992,2003 ; Busse & Hellekson, 2007; Chander & Sunder, 2007; Willis, 2007). Re-writers force their personal position or opinions into the centre by creating fanworks based in and on established media texts. The 'Mary Sue' is a self-gratifying fan-crafting trope centered on an idealistic authorrepresentative character, a wish-fulfillment device for the re-writer that bridges the re-writer's reality and that of her favoured fiction. This paper is a comprehensive summarizing of the 'Mary Sue' and its precedents. It asks how they can be deployed as Meta Sues to actively investigate the self or marginalized subjects in media texts. It is accompanied

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document