Social Position Research Articles

“Successful” ageing in later older age: A sociology of class and ageing in place

Supporting people to ‘age in place’ – to live independently at home and remain connected to the community – is an international policy priority. But the process of ageing in place is mediated in a socio-cultural context where neoliberal tropes of successful ageing reproduce a pervasive model about ‘ageing well’ by elevating ideals of individualised choice and self-governance.Based on two waves of qualitative interviews and interim observations, we employ a Bourdieusian logic to explore the ramifications of this context on the experiences of 46 people in later older age (80+) ageing in place in North East England. All participants enacted everyday improvisatory practices to render their homes habitable. But our participants – most of whom were located in middle-class social positions – supplemented such improvisions with a strategic disposition to plan for and actively shape their ageing-in-place futures. Our participants conveyed a distinct sense of agency over their ageing futures. Underpinning their orientations to practice was an awareness of the value attached to individually ‘ageing well’ and a distancing from the agedness associated with the fourth age.Our analysis demonstrates the role of capital, accrued throughout the life course, in bringing such future trajectories into effect. The central argument of this paper therefore is that the embodiment of (neoliberal) ideals of successful ageing in place requires the deployment of classed capital. In sum, contrary to the individualising narratives ubiquitous in policy pertaining to ageing well, we show the importance of classed structural moorings in this process.

Banter as transformative practice: linguistic play and joking relationships in a UK swimming club.

This article investigates the multiple interpretations and uses of banter as an inclusive and exclusionary practice amongst competitive youth swimmers inthe Southeast of England. As a metacommunicative act, banter is a form of linguistic play that focuses on the ways in which the words are delivered, and the social relationships involved between those engaged in banter. Through an immersive "apprenticeship" within a competitive swimming club from 2018 to 2022, I was party to particular forms of English "humorous" communication and invitations to join in banter with coaches and swimmers. As competitive swimming can be a monotonous activity, with long periods between competitions and nigh endless repetition of training drills, coaches encouraged swimmers' engagement in banter as an inclusive strategy for squad cohesiveness and to stave off boredom throughout the swimming season. Playful teasing was used to invite engagement in banter from one or more people, helping to foster social bonds, develop joking relationships, and create a relaxed atmosphere within training spaces. Mockery and teasing used to initiate banter were also mobilized as exclusionary social positioning strategies to test the limits of social interaction and define oneself against others. This article asserts that despite the nearly-totalitarian position of the coach within high-performance swimming humorous or joking banter does not simply function as a morale-booting activity or as a substitute for active resistance against monotonous training requirements. By paying attention to the intersubjective processes within joking relationships, here through banter, we can see how youth actively navigate sociality and assert their agency within institutional training environments.

"I arrived with just $1 in my pocket": Narratives of immigrant exceptionalism on X

Narratives of immigrant exceptionalism such as “I arrived with just $1 in my pocket” are commonly used by established immigrants in Canada to signal their personal achievement, their resilience, their claims to legitimacy on Canadian issues, or simply to counter narratives of an unwelcoming place. The convenience of the temporal and seemingly causal communicative form of the narrative, further combined with the social position of the established immigrant, the narratives of immigrant exceptionalism are highly amenable for reproduction. These narratives must be contextualized within the wider discourse of Canadian exceptionalism that allow such narratives to be further reproduced over generations and cohorts of new immigrant arrivals through the creation of the imaginary integrated immigrant. The framing of the narratives of immigrant exceptionalism tells us about the spectrum of meanings that people attach to immigrant exceptionalism, as well as what Canadian exceptionalism means to them. I collected 165 posts from X/Twitter and categorized the tweets into frames. I find that relevant problem frames such as “taking responsibility” and “threat“ stand out, as well as benefit frames such as “solidarity”.

Naked modernisation: the rise and fall of the erotic humour magazines in 1930s Turkey

This article discusses four erotic humour magazines – Piliç (Chick) (1930–1931), Bıldırcın (Quail) (1931), Çapkın Kız (The Flirtatious Girl) (1931) and Güvercin (Pigeon) (1931) – that appeared one after the other between 1930 and 1931 within the political, social and cultural atmosphere of the period in Turkey. It argues that the sudden emergence of these magazines was due to two important factors. The first factor is related to the rapidly reviving nightlife and entertainment scene in Istanbul from the 1920s onwards. The second factor is that the print media gave more space to sexual images of women to recover its sales figures, which suddenly dropped after the adoption of the Latin script in 1929. These magazines, published by well-known publishers in Istanbul and fuelled by the images in erotic magazines and postcards coming from abroad, promoted Western notions of beauty and fashion trends while glorifying monogamous relationships and sexual heteronormativity achieved through marriage along the lines of the modernist elites. This visual and textual erotica, which soon became the centre of controversy and was curbed by criminal sanctions, constitutes an important source to contribute to the literature on women's social position and sexual lives in early republican Turkey.

"Losing access to outdoor spaces was the biggest challenge for children to be healthy": pandemic restrictions and community supports for children's movement in Nova Scotia.

Health-focused communities can promote physical activity for children by providing them with safe and supportive environments to move. Across the COVID-19 pandemic many community spaces and services were closed due to public health restrictions. During the pandemic, Atlantic Canada uniquely implemented an agreement between four provinces to restrict travel and reduce the spread of the virus. The "Atlantic bubble" led to fewer cases of COVID-19 and restrictions to community spaces and services. With restrictions now removed, community spaces and services likely play a critical role in facilitating the recalibration of children's movement. Perspectives from families who experienced the "Atlantic bubble" may offer valuable insights to the use of these spaces during and after the removal of restrictions. This study explored the role of community spaces and services on their child's physical activity across the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of Nova Scotia caregivers. We employed a qualitative description approach and conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 caregivers of children aged 5-11 years who lived in Nova Scotia, Canada. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Four themes were generated: (1) Public health restrictions limited community movement behaviors and social connections, (2) Spaces, locations, and environments influenced how families experienced physical activity during public health restrictions, (3) Virtual realities: screens supported a new sense of community for children throughout the pandemic, and (4) "Facilitated" and "forced adaptability": public health restrictions changed family dynamics, routines, and movement behaviors. Despite living in the "Atlantic bubble," Nova Scotian caregivers shared that COVID-19 related public health restrictions shifted their family's dynamics, routines, and ability to engage in physical activity within their communities. Community spaces and services can be leveraged to recalibrate children's movement as pandemic-related restrictions are reduced. In future public health crises, community spaces and services should remain in place to whatever extent possible to reduce the collateral consequences of public health restrictions on children's health.

A functional intervention within a cognitive approach to chronic cervical radiculopathy

BackgroundMost patients with cervical radiculopathy improve within the first months without treatment or with non-surgical treatment. A systematic review concluded that these patients improve, regardless of their intervention. Still, many patients are offered surgery, despite limited evidence regarding the indications for surgical treatments. The aim of this article is to describe the intervention that is going to be followed in the non-surgical treatment arm of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) comparing the effectiveness of surgical and non-surgical treatment for patients with cervical radiculopathy.MethodsThe non-surgical intervention is a functional intervention within a cognitive approach founded on previous experiences, and current recommendations for best practice care of musculoskeletal pain and cervical radiculopathy. It is based on the biopsychosocial rather than a biomedical perspective, comprises an interdisciplinary approach (physicians, physiotherapy specialists), and includes brief intervention and graded activities. The intervention consists of 6 sessions over 12 weeks. The primary goals are first, to validate the patients´ symptoms and build a therapeutic alliance, second, to explore the understanding and promote alternatives, and third, to explore problems and opportunities based on patients´ symptoms and function. Motivational factors toward self-management are challenging. We will attempt shared decision-making in planning progress for the individual patient and emphasise learning of practical self-help strategies and encouragement to stay active (reinforcing the positive natural course). General physical activities such as walking will be promoted along with simple functional exercises for the neck- and shoulder region. We will also explore social activity, comorbidities, pain location, sleep, and work-related factors. The health providers will set individualised goals together with each patient.DiscussionThe aim of the intervention is to describe a functional intervention within a cognitive approach for patients with chronic cervical radiculopathy. The effectiveness of the present program will be compared to surgery in a randomised controlled trial.

Gays Against Groomers and the politics of digital ventriloquism

ABSTRACT Prior to its political appropriation, “groomer” characterized adults earning children's trust, so they can manipulate and sexually exploit them. Conservative activists have recently transformed “groomer” into an anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) slur. This critique of anti-“groomer” rhetoric examines an organization called Gays Against Groomers (GAG). GAG's website, which is presumably run by “gays,” depicts children as especially vulnerable to queer “indoctrination” and “mutilation.” Investigative probes recently conducted by The Advocate, the Anti-Defamation League (“Online Amplifiers,” 2023), and Media Matters revealed that far-right hate groups and anti-LGBTQ conservative media strategists are largely responsible for the group's genesis. GAG participates in a duplicitous online discourse I call digital ventriloquism. In this context, digital ventriloquy describes online communication where anti-LGBTQ cadres throw their voices into a “dummy” organization that seemingly operates from a divergent social location. GAG's homonormative cooptation of the groomer pejorative results in a dangerous paradox of speaker location, or social identity, that virtually erases child molestation from anti-“grooming” speech, and recasts transgender people and progressive gender education as child pollutants.

The effect of preferential associations on the reproductive performance of group-housed sows

The investigation of social bonds as a measure to improve reproduction in farmed species is an underrepresented research area. This study investigated the effects of preferential associations between group housed sows (average herd size, n = 59) on stillborn and crushed piglet numbers. Preferential associations were described as resting within < 1 m of a conspecific in which the proximity was tolerated > 60 s. The study occurred over 63 consecutive days, broken down into three 21-day periods referred to as cycles. The 21-day cycles represent the time between reintegrating events. Seven days per cycle were selected for observations providing 63 h of footage covering the functional areas of the barn. Production data were taken from one farrowing that occurred after a sow had been transferred from the barn to the farrowing house during the study period. For group-level analysis, the sows were categorised as socially prominent or non-socially prominent. Social prominence is defined as an individual that engages in significantly higher levels of interactions than their sub-group conspecifics. The subgroups were determined by our previous work that identified assortment by social connectivity within the same study herd. Each subgroup was defined as a k-core, in which the k-value represents the level of connectivity of those in the group (i.e., subgroup K1 means sows are connecting with at least one other conspecific). For individual-level analysis, sows were categorised as a sow with stillborn (at least one stillborn piglet) or a sow without stillborn (no stillborn piglets) and as a crushing sow (at least one crushed piglet) or a non-crushing sow (no crushed piglets). Degree centrality was applied to determine the number of interactions that individuals initiated and received. Results showed no overall effects of social prominence on live-born piglets (p = 0.436). Socially prominent sows demonstrated a lower mean rate of stillborn than non-socially prominent sows. Sows with stillborn had significantly lower degree centrality than sows without stillborn (p < 0.05). The numbers of crushed piglets between socially prominent and non-socially prominent sows were variable with crushing sows demonstrating significantly higher degree centrality than non-crushing sows (p < 0.05). Overall, the evidence does not provide a clear relationship between social prominence during gestation and the reproductive outputs of sows. Therefore, further work is required to validate the effects of social position in affiliative networks on the production indices of farmed pigs.

The influencing factors of health status among low-income individuals living alone in Wuxi, China

This study aimed to understand the health status of low-income individuals living alone and to identify influencing factors. Using systematic random sampling methods, low-income individuals living alone were randomly selected. Via telephone interviews, we gathered information about their general health status. A logistic regression model was used to analyze relevant factors about the physical health of this population. The study included 1583 low-income individuals living alone. The prevalence rate of all kinds of diseases in low-income living alone in this survey was 88.63%. The multifactorial logistic regression analysis revealed that the risk factors for illness in this population were age ≥ 60 (OR 1.842, 95% CI 1.135–2.926, P = 0.006), self-rated poor mental health (OR 2.538, 95% CI 1.128–3.828, P = 0.005), and self-rated poor hearing status (OR 2.781, 95% CI 1.586–3.647, P = 0.001). Being female (OR 0.469, 95% CI 0.178–0.821, P = 0.033) was identified as a protective factor. Low-income individuals living alone are a unique group who lack familial care and economic and social support, and are thus in a disadvantaged social position. Therefore, this population requires increased attention, especially regarding their physical health. Implementing targeted assistance policies to improve their health status and enhance their quality of life is essential.

Patient engagement in the development and implementation of navigation services: a scoping review protocol

IntroductionPatient navigation, a complex health intervention meant to address widespread fragmentation across the healthcare landscape, has been widely adopted internationally. This rapid uptake in patient navigation has led to a...

Request for confirmation sequences in German

Abstract In request for confirmation (RfC) sequences, interlocutors negotiate their social positions regarding access and rights to knowledge. The article presents an overview of a quantitative analysis of 200 RfCs and their responses in German conversations to highlight the relevant linguistic resources speakers of the language deployed to position themselves vis-à-vis a confirmable proposition. In German RfCs, modal particles and tags play an important role in expressing the requester’s epistemic stance; explicit inference marking is used less frequently. Responses usually include response tokens (among others doch as a token specialized for disconfirming negatively formatted RfCs) and an expansion. The article shows that such expansions do important work to tailor the response to the situated informational needs of the requester in a cooperative way beyond the constraints of type-conformity.

Беструдовое общество: право на лень и новая мотивация труда

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of the “end of labour” and the con­sideration of this problem in modern social thought. Anti-labour rhetoric, which originated in the 19th century, finds its development in the 20th century in the dis­course of refusal to work and the prospect of preserving human individuation in the conditions of a technical society. As a result of the comparison of approaches to the issue of liberation from labour, the authors of the article come to the conclu­sion that the proposed concepts in assessing labour and its role in the development of society are inconsistent, the untimeliness of abandoning work (as a fundamental type of activity) and work-centrism (as a way of life). Insisting on the need for li­beration from labour, supporters of the rejection of work ethics and work culture leave out of discussion the possible consequences of the transition to a labour-free society. The proposed projects lack convincing options for effectively replacing work activity in its high social position and a model of a new work ethic based on the comprehensive improvement of a person. The article attempts to contrast ideas about the creative evolution of labour activity in the works of Russian thinkers of the twentieth century (A. Bogdanov, A. Gastev) with the post-labour discussion (N. Srnicek, A. Williams, group “Crisis”). An alternative to the discussion about a society without labour at the turn of the 2020s is the question of a new labour paradigm, a revision of the motivation of work and the preservation of its social significance, a new work ethic and individual planning for the future (A. Hines, B. Stigler, O. Nesterov, A. Pisarev, etc.)

Explore the Chinese Feminism Breaking Through by Analyzing the Unconventional Images of Female Roles in the Movie Buddha Mountain

In the twentieth century, Chinese females' social position seems to be enhanced. In fact, because of the problem of development of Chinese history, more and more potential threats for females occur. In order to revolt against the oppression from the males and society, Chinese female directors display the description of unconventional images of female roles to the public, as in the case of the movie Buddha Mountain. By analyzing the movie Buddha Mountain created by the female director Li Yu, the author finds that Li Yu used imagery, camera language, and queer theory to show the female characters unconventional images and thereby going against the patriarchal society. From the study, the author indicates that if there will be more and more female directors like Li Yu appears, the females power in Chinese society could be equal as males in one day, as the public film communication promoted by movie of feminism.

Moving from opportunity: Intergenerational mobility of rural–urban return migrants in Sweden, 1890s–1940s

AbstractUsing a novel longitudinal dataset, we study the intergenerational mobility of rural–urban migrants who returned to the countryside in due course. By examining pairs of brothers during the entire migration lifecycle – from childhood until age 34 – we estimate the effect of temporarily relocating to an urban area on occupational income over the mature working ages of 35–44 between the 1890s and the 1940s in Sweden. The results show that rural–urban migrants who returned to the countryside were not failures who did not improve their social position, but instead experienced substantial gains compared with their non‐migrant brothers. These gains were similar to those of migrants who had permanently settled in urban areas. This pattern is mainly attributed to their capacities to leave farming and enter white‐collar positions to a greater extent than non‐migrants. The extent of temporary rural–urban migration, combined with the high levels of intergenerational mobility of return migrants in Sweden during the period examined, suggests that rural–urban migration to towns resulted in positive feedback effects for the countryside.

Double immobility: Syrian refugee women navigating the voluntary and forced marriage binary in Egypt

ABSTRACT Research on why women, especially racialized women, stay in undesirable relationships is scarce and often misses how intersecting inequalities affect their decisions and the wider range of consent and coercion. Syrian refugee women in Egypt, grappling with not just unwanted marriages but also displacement and uprooting are a case in point. Their limited cultural, social, and legal mobility complicates their decision-making and limits their options. I describe this compounded precarity as ‘double immobility’: immobility within the marriage and immobility within the country. A secondary displacement where this time they become ‘displaced in place’ (Lubkemann, S. C. 2008. “Involuntary Immobility: On a Theoretical Invisibility in Forced Migration Studies.” Journal of Refugee Studies 21 (4): 454–475). Drawing on qualitative interviews with Syrian refugee women in Egypt in 2017, I employ an intersectional lens to highlight the social, legal, and migratory locations of displaced women that exacerbate their predicament, prompting a re-evaluation of the binary views of force/voluntary and coercion/consent in discussions about entering, remaining, and exiting marriage. The paper offers a novel framework for understanding the intersection of gendered displacement and marital dynamics and contributes to the broader discussion within the sociology of gender, displacement, and marriage.

A sense of injustice in care networks: An intersectional exploration of the collaboration between professionals and carers with a migration background.

This study tries to understand the power of knowledge within collaborative care networks to provide insights for designing successful collaboration within care networks by combining intersectionality and epistemic (in)justice. Becoming an informal carer for someone with an acquired brain injury (ABI) causes a dramatic disruption of daily life. Collaboration between professionals and carers with a migration background may result in unjust and unfair situations within care networks. Carer experiences are shaped by aspects of diversity which are subject to power structures and processes of social (in)justice in care networks. In this study, intersectionality was used to both generate complex in-depth insights into the different active layers of carer experiences and focus on within-group differences. Intersectionality was combined with the theoretical concept of epistemic (in)justice to unravel underlying dynamics in collaborative care networks contributing to the understanding that carers with a migration background are often not seen as ‘knowers of reality.’ This qualitative study conducted in the Netherlands between 2019 and 2022 incorporated three informal group conversations (N = 32), semi-structured interviews (N = 21), and three dialogue sessions (N = 7) with carers caring for someone with an ABI. A critical friend and a community of practice, with carers, professionals, and care recipients (N = 8), contributed to the analysis. Three interrelated themes were identified as constituting different layers of the carer experience: (a) I need to keep going, focusing on carers' personal experiences and how experiences were related to carers social positioning; (b) the struggle of caring together, showing how expectations of family members towards carers added to carer burden; and (c) trust is a balancing act, centering on how support from professionals shaped carers' experiences, in which trusting professionals' support proved challenging for carers, and how this trust was influenced by contextual factors at organizational and policy levels. Overall, the need for diversity-responsive policies within care organizations is apparent. Carers with a migration background need to feel heard so they can meaningfully tailor care to meet recipients' needs.

Do you speak Français? The hidden social structures of bilingualism at an international boarding school

This article investigates linguistic practices related to students’ social and academic lives – something that has been overlooked in the research literature on international schooling and elite boarding schools. Pierre Bourdieu reminds us that language has a social dimension linked to relations of symbolic power. Boarding schools serve as excellent case studies on how language structures social life due to their closed social space. Drawing on Bourdieu’s relational sociology, an ethnography was carried out at the College of Europe, an international private boarding school. Findings show that the practice of bilingual code-switching was endowing the institution with social distinction while hierarchically dividing its students. Three modes of student attitudes towards bilingualism were identified. While students’ bilingual attitudes and strategies were correlated to their social positions, socioeconomic origins and previous trajectories, the former were not deterministically an effect of said social position, evidenced by an observed case of habitus transformation.

A rapid realist review on leadership and career advancement interventions for women in healthcare

Women represent 70% of the global health workforce but only occupy 25% of health and social care leadership positions. Gender-based stereotypes, discrimination, family responsibilities, and self-perceived deficiencies in efficacy and confidence inhibit the seniority and leadership of women. The leadership inequality is often compounded by the intersection of race and socio-economic identities. Resolving gender inequalities in healthcare leadership brings women’s expertise to healthcare decision making, which can lead to equity of healthcare access and improve healthcare services. With the aim of enhancing women’s advancement to leadership positions, a rapid realist review (RRR) was conducted to identify the leadership and career advancement interventions that work for women in healthcare, why these interventions are effective, for whom they are effective, and within which contexts these interventions work. A RRR ultimately articulates this knowledge through a theory describing an intervention’s generative causation. The Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards (RAMESES) for conducting a realist synthesis guided the methodology. Preliminary theories on leadership and career advancement interventions for women in healthcare were constructed based on an appraisal of key reviews and consultation with an expert panel, which guided the systematic searching and initial theory refinement. Following the literature search, 22 studies met inclusion criteria and underwent data extraction. The review process and consultation with the expert panel yielded nine final programme theories. Theories on programmes which enhanced leadership outcomes among women in health services or professional associations centred on organisational and management involvement; mentorship of women; delivering leadership education; and development of key leadership skills. The success of these strategies was facilitated by accommodating programme environments, adequacy and relevance of support provided and programme accessibility. The relationship between underlying intervention entities, stakeholder responses, contexts and leadership outcomes, provides a basis for underpinning the design for leadership and career advancement interventions for women in healthcare.

Mobile borders and chronotope of homeland

Abstract In this article, we examine the imagining of homeland as one of the discursive practices of rearticulating belonging within new state borders. The study focuses on an under-researched diasporic group of the Dungan community in Kazakhstan and examines how the diaspora subjects make sense of shifting borders and legitimize their presence within an increasingly homogenizing nation-state. Specifically, our interrogation focuses on spatiotemporal frames for re-imagining the notion of homeland and belonging in the context of shifting borders and changing conditions of settlement. We show how the Dungan negotiate their social positioning by re-orienting themselves to their ancestral home and their current place by discursively constructing double loss – permanent dispersal from China, their ancestral homeland, and displacement from the home and ideal life they managed to build in the Soviet Union. This spatiotemporal perspective allows us to see that the notion of homeland, a defining feature of diaspora and often viewed as naturalized and fixed, is a fluid construct, and one which can be rooted in time just as much as in space. The study contributes to understanding of processes of diasporic imagination in response to sociopolitical changes, and shows us that feelings of displacement can arise without physical dispersal, that temporality is as important in the processes of constructing diasporas as spatial movement.

Poetics

This chapter begins with a discussion of three works of poetics that emphasize local and material concerns from poets-theorists-activists engaged in collaborative and experimental writing practices. This openness in form and enquiry is further reflected in the major works published in 2023 that are under examination in the body of the review, which together attend to six major topics: (1) the formation of national poetries; (2) the role of the academy in preserving or destabilizing the lyric voice; (3) the intimate impasse of confessional and anthropocentric writing; (4) the sensorial body of hybrid writing; (5) the limiting structures of racial capitalism; and (6) the role of poetry in public life. Ending with a brief reflection on the immense influence of Lyn Hejinian, this chapter attests to the openness of enquiry that the aesthetic, philosophical, and political field of poetics permits from its discrete social locations and close attention to the page, the voice, and the body.