Rugemødre, rejser og nye reproduktionsmetaforer. Weblogs om transnationalt surrogatmoderskab

SURROGACY MOTHERS, TRAVELS AND NEW REPRODUCTION METAPHORS | Surrogacy is a growing industry in India, as still more infertile couples, homosexual couples and singles from the Western world, travel abroad to fulfill their dream of having a baby. Indian clinics offer highly specialized services in exotic surroundings, an obliging culture and legislation, and remarkably low payments. This article examines and discusses how the conception of motherhood is constructed in public weblogs narrated by parents and intended parents of Indian surrogate children. The chapter aims at analyzing the rhetorical, narrative and metaphorical strategies of the blogs, focusing on how the biological aspects of motherhood (for instance pregnancy and giving birth) and the transnational aspects are negotiated and reinterpreted in the present context of globalization, tech nological possibilities and consumer culture.

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Searching for lost femininity: Russian middle-aged women’s participation in the post-Soviet consumer culture

Journal of Consumer Culture ◽

10.1177/1469540517714021 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 169-188

Author(s):

Maria Davidenko

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Consumer Culture ◽

Self Care ◽

Social Structures ◽

Western World ◽

Middle Aged ◽

Stable Period ◽

Women's Participation ◽

Normative Practices ◽

Interpersonal Level

In the existing literature, the relatively stable period of the 1970s, in Russia, is characterised by the rise of ‘socialist consumer modernity’, while the affluent 2000s were the time when a new phenomenon, ‘the culture of glamour’, emerged. Both periods parallel some cultural developments in the western world: the 1970s–1980s supposedly saw the rise of late modernity whereby individuals, freed from constraints of social structures, engage in ongoing process of self-reflexivity and self-fashioning, through consumption. In this article, drawing on the interviews with 20 middle-aged women from Moscow, I examine the limitations on self-fashioning as a means of achieving and maintaining a position of privilege. I particularly focus on the women’s concerns about failing to engage in normative practices of self-care, including anti-ageing cosmetic procedures, and hence failing to embody feminine dispositions that had value in their middle-class milieu. The analysis of such concerns helps discern the ways different markers of identity (gender, class and age) interplay and act as enablers or constraints in the mundane struggle for power at the interpersonal level.

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Church, theology and the holiness of God

Scottish Journal of Theology ◽

10.1017/s0036930619000061 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 72 (2) ◽

pp. 207-226

Author(s):

Steffen Lösel

Keyword(s):

Consumer Culture ◽

Identity Crisis ◽

Western World ◽

Late Modernity ◽

Christian Churches

AbstractThis paper addresses the identity crisis of Christian churches under the conditions of late modernity. With Jürgen Moltmann, I describe the dilemma of the contemporary church and of its theology as a crisis both of relevance and identity. I suggest that churches have responded to the loss of their stronghold in the Western world in three ways: liberal Protestants embrace modernity, evangelicals oppose it and a third group, whom I identify as church theologians, try to ignore it. I argue that none of the three approaches successfully solves the church's crisis in late modernity and especially in a consumer culture with its commodification of religion. I trace these struggles of the contemporary church to its loss of alterity, both of God and of the human other, and suggest that we can regain a sense of God's otherness by rediscovering God's holiness.

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PHILOSOPHY OF THE VICTORY: AXIOLOGICAL DIMENSION

Sociopolitical sciences ◽

10.33693/2223-0092-2020-10-6-124-128 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 124-128

Author(s):

ALEXEY MELNIKOV ◽

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Information And Communication Technologies ◽

Western World ◽

Russian Society ◽

Traditional Values ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Present Context ◽

Information And Communication ◽

Great Victory

Purpose of research. In the present context of informational confrontation between Russian Federation and the Western world, some social actors are trying to monetize, understate or distort the results of the World War II by using the latest information and communication technologies in order to form and nurture future generations. Given the situation, for the benefit of prosperous development of Russian society it is necessary to identify the value aspects of ensuring the Victory. The heirs of the “liberation soldiers” should thought of the Victory as the greatest value, preserve the memory of it and pass it to their children. The falsifications of the Great Victory should be challenged with its understanding as the value of pan-unity, seamlessly including Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Conclusion. As a result of research the author arrives at a conclusion that in the context of the development of modern information confrontation, it becomes necessary to counteract the influence of destructive technologies of discrediting the Great Victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany, which author understands as an integrated value that helps to unite Russian society, find a common language for mutual understanding for people of different beliefs and political views, pursue traditional values and the most significant social guidelines.

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