Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Bits Of Belonging:Information Technology, Water, And Neoliberal Governance In India, Simanti Dasgupta

Simanti Dasgupta

India’s global success in the Information Technology industry has also prompted the growth of neoliberalism and the re-emergence of the middle class in contemporary urban areas, such as Bangalore. BITS of Belonging shows that this economic shift produces new forms of social inequality while reinforcing older ones. The study investigates this economic disparity by looking at IT and water privatization to explain how these otherwise unrelated domains correspond to our thinking about citizenship, governance, and belonging. The ethnographic study in this book shows how work and human processes in the IT industry intertwine to meet the market stipulations of the …

Negotiating Work And Family: Lifestyle Migration, Potential Selves And The Role Of Second Homes As Potential Spaces, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

This article is based on ethnographic research conducted in the USA with migrants who use an act of relocation as a means of deliberately constructing identity as well as seeking greater ‘balance’ and ‘control’ in their lives. Specifically, it examines how ‘second’ homes can serve as a transitional or ‘potential space’ in the lives of these migrants not only between different geographic places but also what are taken to be distinct identities and ideals associated with these places and the lives lived in them. Such behaviour is not simply about coping and adapting to a new environment; rather, it is …

Annotated Bibliography: Cruelty To Animals And Violence To Humans (1998-2013), Erich Yahner

Erich Yahner

No abstract provided.

Theorising The ‘Fifth Migration’ In The United States: Understanding Lifestyle Migration From An Integrated Approach, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

This chapter is an empirically-informed discussion of relevant social theory for examining the phenomenon of lifestyle migration in the United States in both rural and urban settings. Specifically, the chapter explores key explanatory models born of research into so-called non-economic migration occurring since the early twentieth century—models that may be characterized as primarily either production or consumption oriented in their emphasis—as a context for outlining an integrated approach. The author then highlights changes in how some Americans appear to calculate personal and collective quality of life as engendered by an emerging economic order—based on principles of flexibility and contingency—whose affects …

Introduction: Transitions And Transformations: Paradigms, Perspectives, And Possibilities, Caitrin Lynch, Jason Danely

Caitrin Lynch

Rapid population aging, once associated with only a select group of modern industrialized nations, has now become a topic of increasing global concern. This volume reframes aging on a global scale by illustrating the multiple ways it is embedded within individual, social, and cultural life courses. It presents a broad range of ethnographic work, introducing a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to studying life-course transitions in conjunction with broader sociocultural transformations. Through detailed accounts, in such diverse settings as nursing homes in Sri Lanka, a factory in Massachusetts, cemeteries in Japan and clinics in Mexico, the authors explore not …

Introduction: Transitions And Transformations: Paradigms, Perspectives, And Possibilities, Caitrin Lynch, Jason Danely

Jason Danely

Rapid population aging, once associated with only a select group of modern industrialized nations, has now become a topic of increasing global concern. This volume reframes aging on a global scale by illustrating the multiple ways it is embedded within individual, social, and cultural life courses. It presents a broad range of ethnographic work, introducing a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to studying life-course transitions in conjunction with broader sociocultural transformations. Through detailed accounts, in such diverse settings as nursing homes in Sri Lanka, a factory in Massachusetts, cemeteries in Japan and clinics in Mexico, the authors explore not …

江戸時代女性の噂話 第一部: 都会の庶民の女性 (町の女1), Cecilia (淑子） S. Seigle (瀬川） Ph.D.

Cecilia S Seigle Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

江戸時代女性の噂話:第一部: 都会の庶民の女性 : 町の女 2, Cecilia (淑子） S. Seigle (瀬川）江戸時代女性の噂話:第一部: 都会の庶民の女性 : 町の女 2 江戸時代女性の噂話:第一部: 都会の庶民の女性 : 町の女 2 Ph.D.

Cecilia S Seigle Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Some Observations On The Weddings Of Tokugawa Shogun’S Daughters – Part 2, Cecilia Seigle

Cecilia S Seigle Ph.D.

This section discusses the complex psychological and philosophical reason for Shogun Yoshimune’s contrasting handlings of his two adopted daughters’ and his favorite son’s weddings. In my thinking, Yoshimune lived up to his philosophical principles by the illogical, puzzling treatment of the three weddings. We can witness the manifestation of his modest and frugal personality inherited from his ancestor Ieyasu, cohabiting with his strong but unconventional sense of obligation and respect for his benefactor Tsunayoshi.

Alison Larkin: The English American Speaks Her Truth About Adoption, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben interviews Alison Larkin, adoptee, author and one-woman show writer-performer, about her adoption, international adoption practices, and her reunion and relationship with her mother and father.

Some Observations On The Weddings Of Tokugawa Shogun’S Daughters – Part 1, Cecilia S. Seigle Ph.D.

Cecilia S Seigle Ph.D.

In this study I shall discuss the marriage politics of Japan's early ruling families (mainly from the 6th to the 12th centuries) and the adaptation of these practices to new circumstances by the leaders of the following centuries. Marriage politics culminated with the founder of the Edo bakufu, the first shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616). To show how practices continued to change, I shall discuss the weddings given by the fifth shogun Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) and the eighth shogun Yoshimune (1684-1751). The marriages of Tsunayoshi's natural and adopted daughters reveal his motivations for the adoptions and for his choice of the daughters’ …

The Seven Spices: Pumpkins, Puritans, And Pathogens In Colonial New England, Michael Sharbaugh

Michael D Sharbaugh

Water sources in the United States' New England region are laden with arsenic. Particularly during North America's colonial period--prior to modern filtration processes--arsenic would make it into the colonists' drinking water. In this article, which evokes the biocultural evolution paradigm, it is argued that colonists offset health risks from the contaminant (arsenic poisoning) by ingesting copious amounts of seven spices--cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, vanilla, and ginger. The inclusion of these spices in fall and winter recipes that hail from New England would therefore explain why many Americans associate them not only with the region, but with Thanksgiving and Christmas, …

Adopted Citizens Denied Access To Their Birth Certificates: A Little-Known Civil Rights Issue, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

American citizens who were adopted are denied the right to access their own original birth certificates (OBC) in most U.S. states, a right available to all other non-adopted citizens. State regulations denying unrestricted access to one’s own birth certificate that apply only to a segment of the population create a lifelong inequality and violate the civil rights of adopted persons. Outdated state regulations that maintain this discrimination need to be repealed.

Repeal The Seal!, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Instead of introducing legislation to give back rights to adoptees taken from them during the 1940s, the author suggests repealing the state regulations that originally sealed the birth certificates of adoptees.

The Ironies Of Adoption, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

The author points out the irony of the extent people will go to in an attempt to conceive and birth a child that is genetically and biologically connected to them, yet when all their efforts fail and they ersort to adoption, they accept a system that relies on lies and secrecy and severs all the adoptee's connections to his heredity.

Defining Ethics In Domestic And Global Adoption Practice, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption practitioners and agencies all speak about ethics. However, without definition, the term is as subjective meaningless as "nice." This presentation points out the lack of definition or agreement of what constitutes ethical adoption practice and offers some concrete guidelines to be initiated to protect all parties.

American Adoption Access Laws Are And Policies Are Upside Down And Backwards, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption seals original birth certificates not just from the public, but from the parties named therein. The author argues against the claim that there is any need to continue these antiquated laws to "prtoect" mothers' anonymity.

Place For Personhood: Individual And Local Character In Lifestyle Migration, Brian A. Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

While drawing on literature of narrative interpretations of the construction of self and place-based, embodied identity, this article will explore the impact of invasive market forces on intertwined processes of person, self, and place-making. It considers how resources for these projects have changed in the face of translocal market forces and neoliberal ideals. Despite numerous proclamations of an essential placelessness to contemporary American society, place continues to be a basic part of the construction of the person. In fact, a variety of place-making practices are increasingly pursued as ways of negotiating tension between personal experience with material demands in pursuit …

Adoption Fees: Ethical Considerations For All Parties In Adoption, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

A great deal is said about ethics in adoption. However, the term remains vague, undefined, and subjective with suggested, but no firm or enforced guidelines enacted to police the adoption industry and protect the families and individuals whose lives they irrevocably change. This presentation focuses on the inequities of adoption fees particularly in terms of providing legal counsel to the mothers relinquishing.

Fraud And Kidnapping Casts A Cloud On Guatemalan Adoptions, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Children are being stolen, kidnapped and trafficked fro adoption in Guatemala, as elsewhere. The author reports on her Human Rights Delegatiion visit with one mother who successfully reclaimed her daughter as she was on her way to be adopted in the US, as well as her visit with Norma Cruz' Survivor's Foundation who is working to help the victim of kidnappings in this corrupt nation.

Frock Coat And Flag: Union Soldier Markers In Central Maine, Kimberly Sawtelle

Kimberly J. Sawtelle

The Frock Coat and Flag motif of gravestone is a short-lived memorial theme borne from a compressed period of American history. The horrors, tragedy, and impact of the U.S. Civil War on American civilians and a lack of a comprehensive plan by the U.S. Congress to provide means or methods to bury and mark the graves of soldiers who died in service contributed to the manifestation of a portrait-style grave marker used by families in a relatively compact geographic region of central Maine between 1861 and 1864.

"Open Records" Versus "Equal Access": Reframing Our Issues, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption reform activists have for decades used the phrase "open records". Riben argues that "Equal Access" rightly reframes the argument as one of equality rather than a special request.

Who Deserves To Be A Mother: The Impact Of Class, Age And Powerlessness,, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Worldwide, poverty far exceeds abuse, neglect or abandonment as adoption moves children from economically at-risk mothers to adopters of higher socio-economic status. Domestically, American mothers (and those in other industrialized countries) have historically lost children to protect their parents from the shame and stigma of out-of-wedlock, “unwed” pregnancy. It is socially created criteria such as age, marital and financial status, which change over time and place - not fitness - that determine who is considered "deserving" to be a mother and who is made to feel inadequate, selfish and undeserving of their own child. These criteria create pressure on marginalized, …

Adoption Loss, Pain, Irresolvable And Universal Grief, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption loss is a limbo loss with no ritual or closure, that has been recognized as being irresolvable, creating increased risk of secondary infertility and post traumatic stress disorder. The pain is felt regardless of where the mother lives, how much she chose the decision and felt it was best. The grief, pain and anger do not lessen over time.

Pursuing The Good Life: American Narratives Of Travel And A Search For Refuge, Brian A. Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

American Dreaming: Refugees From Corporate Work Seek The Good Life, Brian A. Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

Alternatives Routes To Permanency: Is Adoption Always The Best Option, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

A presentation that asks if current adoption practices are optimally in the best interests of children and families they serve and offers family preserving options such as permanent legal guardianship or simple adoption in which the child rceeives the care he or she needs but doe snot involuntarily give up all ties to his or her family, genetics, and heredity.

Therapeutic Uses Of Place In The Intentional Space Of Purposive Community, Brian A. Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

Grey Suit Or Brown Carhartt: Narrative Transition, Relocation And Reorientation In The Lives Of Corporate Refugees, Brian A. Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

From Pi To Pie: Moral Narratives Of Noneconomic Migration And Starting Over In The Postindustrial Midwest., Brian A. Hoey

Brian A Hoey

Research introduced here examines the impact of social and structural transitions during the past three decades on middle-class working families in the United States. Through the telling narrative of an especially iconic case of urban-to-rural migration and career change, this article explores the meaning of relocation away from metropolitan areas and corporate careers to growing ex-urban, small-town communities. The author interprets this life-style migration as a manner of personally negotiating tension between experience of material demands in pursuit of a livelihood within the flexible New Economy and prevailing cultural conventions for the good life that shape the moral narratives that …