RSS 1.0Social and Political Science
There is a strong culture of research activity in the Department of Social and Political Science which informs academic teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Staff are engaged in research of both national and international significance and are also involved in publication, peer review, professional practice, postgraduate training and Knowledge Transfer activities. A number of PhD students supervised by Social Studies and Counselling staff also contribute to the vibrant research culture of the department and are usually offered both teaching and publication opportunities. There is an active research culture in the department with regular research seminars at which staff and postgraduate research students present their most recent work. Research and scholarship has developed and flourished around a number of key areas in the department: Criminology; Sociology, Health and Social Policy; International Development; Political Communications; Counselling and Trauma.
This collection is licenced under a Creative Commons licence. The collection may be reproduced for non-commerical use and without modification, providing that copyright is acknowledged.
Recent Submissions
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Mass Indebtedness and the Luxury of Payment MeansWithout the remarkable explosion of the credit industry since the early 1990s it’s almost inconceivable that late capitalism, in its neoliberal mode, could have maintained the vibrant and multifaceted consumer markets of the last few decades. Its capacity to create payment means by attaching contractual claims to prospective futures has allowed capitalism to transcend the decline of its material productivity, sustaining consumption against the upward concentration of wealth. In this chapter we consider both the source and the implications of that transcendence, tracing it from the rarefied confines of the financial industry into the lives of consumers to explore the implications of distributing payment means as a kind of ‘systemic luxury’ running counter to the material productivity of prevailing systems and processes.
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Staff as mental health supporters: building confidence and capacity in helping studentsThis chapter considers the factors staff working in higher education need to be aware of in supporting students who present with mental health problems. A range of skills and training resources and considered, including good practice indicators.
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An exploration of the ways in which feelings of ‘maternal ambivalence’ affect some womenThis study explores the ways in which feelings of “maternal ambivalence” affect women. Through semistructured interviews, four women spoke about their experiences that led to ambivalent feelings about their motherhood. The data gathered from these interviews were analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. This research found that these women experienced a loss of independence, relationships, and confidence when they became mothers. Together, these losses felt like a loss of “self” which led to many unexpected and unwanted feelings. They were shocked and confused when they experienced feelings of resentment towards themselves, others, and their children. They also experienced unexpected feelings of boredom and anxiety in relation to mothering. However, with time and perspective, these women experienced a reemergence of “self” through their ability to begin to balance parts of “self” and accept their ambivalent feelings towards motherhood.
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Book ReviewsMatthew Heins, The Globalization of American Infrastructure: The Shipping Container and Freight Transportation (New York: Routledge, 2016), 222 pp., $145 (hardback)Lesley Murray and Susan Robertson, eds., Intergenerational Mobilities: Relationality, Age and Lifecourse (London: Routledge, 2017), 194 pp., 14 illustrations, $145 (hardback)Sebastián Ureta, Assembling Policy: Transantiago, Human Devices, and the Dream of a World-Class Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015), 224 pp., 22 illustrations, $39 (hardback)Yuk Wah Chan, David Haines, and Jonathan H. X. Lee, eds., The Age of Asian Migration: Continuity, Diversity, and Susceptibility, vol. 1 (Newcastle on Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 450 pp., £54.99Robert Henke and Eric Nicholson, eds., Transnational Mobilities in Early Modern Theater (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014) 320 pp., 22 illustrations, $117 (hardback)Ruth Oldenziel and Helmuth Trischler, eds., Cycling and Recycling: Histories of Sustainable Practices (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2016), 256 pp., 18 illustrations, £67 (hardback)Margo T. Oge, Driving the Future: Combating Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars (New York: Arcade, 2015), xv + 351 pp., $25.99 (hardback)Thomas Birtchnell, Satya Savitzky, and John Urry, eds., Cargomobilities: Moving Materials in a Global Age (New York: Routledge, 2015), 236 pp., 16 illustrations, $148 (hardback)Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, Snowpiercer 1: The Escape, trans. Virginie Sélavy (London: Titan Comics, 2014), 110 pp., $19 (hardback)
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Breaking up with Jesus: a phenomenological exploration of the experience of deconversion from an Evangelical Christian faith to AtheismThis study examines the experience of deconversion from an Evangelical Christian faith to Atheism in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants and the data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The resulting superordinate themes emerged: Process of Deconversion; Post Deconversion Issues; What Helped and Did Not Help. The findings are supportive of similar research conducted on deconversion but are from the UK, rather than from a largely American, perspective. The underlying reason for deconversion is found to be cognitive dissonance and, as such, deconversion is a rational and intellectual process. Helping professionals need to convey a non-judgemental attitude, being understanding, sympathetic, supportive and kind.
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Building a case for accessing service provision in child and adolescent mental health assessmentsIn everyday conversations, people put forward versions of events and provide supporting evidence to build a credible case. In environments where there are potentially competing versions, case-building may take a more systematic format. Specifically, we conducted a rhetorical analysis to consider how in child mental health settings, families work to present a credible ‘doctorable’ reason for attendance. Data consisted of video-recordings of 28 families undergoing mental health assessments. Our findings point to eight rhetorical devices utilised in this environment to build a case. The devices functioned rhetorically to add credibility and authenticate the case being built, which was relevant as the only resource available to families claiming the presence of a mental health difficulty in the child were their spoken words. In other words, the ‘problem’ was something constructed through talk and therefore the kinds of resources used were seminal in decision-making.
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Moving Forward: New frontiers in treatments for psychological traumaBoth the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual (DSM 5), and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) embed PTSD (and complex PTSD in the ICD-11) as categories of mental health disorders. Although these classification tools offer criteria by which patients can be assessed as to whether they meet the criteria for diagnosis of PTSD, or complex PTSD, they are not able to provide guidance on treatment options. This special section of Counselling and Psychotherapy Research showcases three very new approaches to working with psychological trauma. The first paper by Kip and Finnegan introduces Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), which is a brief intervention protocol that is already demonstrating very promising early results, particularly within the military veterans community of those also experiencing traumatic brain injury (TBI). The second paper by psychiatrists Frank Corrigan and Alistair Hull, demonstrates the ways in which the Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM) is an excellent choice of treatment for those suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). The third paper by Brochmann et al., explores the ways in which therapists can work effectively with groups of people who have experienced psychological trauma. Regarding the impetus of moving forward in tailoring treatments for those experiencing PTSD, the papers presented in this special issue provide a valuable starting point to discussions about treatments best suited for particular sub-populations of PTSD sufferers.
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Using naturally occurring data in qualitative health research: A practical guide.This highly practical resource brings new dimensions to the utility of qualitative data in health research by focusing on naturally occurring data. It examines how naturally occurring data complement interviews and other sources of researcher-generated health data, and takes readers through the steps of identifying, collecting, analyzing, and disseminating these findings in ethical research with real-world relevance. The authors acknowledge the critical importance of evidence-based practice in today’s healthcare landscape and argue for naturally occurring data as a form of practice-based evidence making valued contributions to the field. And chapters evaluate frequently overlooked avenues for naturally occurring data, including media and social media sources, health policy and forensic health contexts, and digital communications. Included in the coverage: · Exploring the benefits and limitations of using naturally occurring data in health research · Considering qualitative approaches that may benefit from using naturally occurring data · Utilizing computer-mediated communications and social media in health · Using naturally occurring data to research vulnerable groups · Reviewing empirical examples of health research using naturally occurring data Using Naturally Occurring Data in Qualitative Health Research makes concepts, methods, and rationales accessible and applicable for readers in the health and mental health fields, among them health administrators, professionals in research methodology, psychology researchers, and practicing and trainee clinicians.
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‘Combatting’ self-harm and suicide in the US military and after: Culture, military labor and no-harm contractsTaylor and Reeves' chapter opens with the increasing concerns regarding the self-harm suicide rate amongst the veteran community across the USA. The author's highlight powerfully that this issue wrenches the attention beyond those veterans who have sustained mental injury from conflict alone. The issue's contemporary relevance is focused around the US military's proposal to draw up 'no harm contract' under a ‘Separation Oath’ model. The chapter provides an overview of the current situation facing US military veterans' engagement with health and welfare sectors. The authors assert the roots of stigma and the avoidance of help-seeking are operating at both formal and informal levels in the military, at the added expense of mental health crises experienced by those in non-combat roles, which are often carried out into their civilian lives. The chapter then critically examines the notion of the no harm contract suggestion- finding a distinct lack of evidence for their efficacy in reducing the potential for suicide and self-harm. The chapter closes with a critic of the adoption of Oaths on Exit as a therapeutic intervention.
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Counselling and psychotherapy; Hierarchies, epistemicide and bad medicineThis article is a critique of the Scope of Practice and Education for the counselling and psychotherapy professions (SCoPEd) project which seeks to differentiate counselling and psychotherapy within a competence framework. It argues that SCoPEd is representative of a wider hegemonic, neoliberal and dehumanising agenda which is putting counselling at risk.
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Utilising Reflective Practice Groups as pedagogy in ordination training and theological developmentWith the Church of England's ([2014. Formation Criteria with Mapped Selection Criteria for Ordained Ministry in the Church of England. https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2139103/formationcriteriaforordainedministryapprovedhofbpsdec2014.docx]) recent formation criteria now requiring ordinands to have a greater degree of reflexive capability, this article considers the pedagogy of Reflective Practice Groups in ordination training and focuses on how reflexivity can be developed in a group context, towards fostering greater spiritual formation, theological reflection, self-awareness, relational practices for pastoral encounter, resilience and self-care practices for ministry. Some ‘foci for reflexivity’ are advocated for use within Reflective Practice Groups in ordination training.
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An Introduction to Counselling: From Theory to PracticeAn authoritative introductory text for counselling and psychotherapy
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Research as Transformation and Transfromation as ResearchThe authors explore the transformational process of supervisors and postgraduate students through five research projects using activity theory. The projects were funded by the DHET and endorsed by HELTASA and CHE.
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The crisis of democratic culture?This piece assesses the risk of disinformation primarily, but not exclusively, in the Anglo-American context. It unpicks assumptions behind post-truth and fake news; considers precedents for disinformation and queries the extent of its novelty. Are these manageable challenges to democratic cultures or a crisis? It concludes that whatever the terminological tangles, industrialized disinformation signal threats to the public sphere, threats underscored by historical events highlighting the vulnerability of democracy. Yet threats to democratic systems have not deleted their scrutinizing capabilities from below (voters) and from above (the legislature). Therefore challenges, for all their potency and potential, have not yet reached crisis.
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The pleasure imperative? Reflecting on sexual pleasure’s inclusion in sex education and sexual health settings.This article offers an empirically grounded contribution to scholarship exploring the ways in which pleasure is ‘put to work’ in sex and sexuality education. Such research has cautioned against framing pleasure as a normative requirement of sexual activity and hence reproducing a ‘pleasure imperative’. This paper draws on interviews with sexual health and education practitioners who engaged with Pleasure Project resources and training between 2007 and 2016. Findings suggest that practitioners tend to understand pleasure within critical frameworks that allow them to avoid normalising and (re)enforcing a pleasure imperative. Accounts also show negotiations with, and strategic deployments of, values surrounding sexual pleasure in society and culture. While some accounts suggest that a pleasure imperative does run the risk of being reproduced by practitioners, notably this is when discussing more ‘contentious’ sexual practices. Interviews also demonstrate that practitioners attempting to implement a pleasure agenda are faced with a range of challenges. While some positive, holistic, and inclusive practice has been afforded by a pleasure approach, we argue that the importance of a critical framework needs to be (re)emphasised. The paper concludes by highlighting areas for further empirical research.
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Consumer sexualities: women and sex shoppingIntroduction: Consumer Sexualities The introduction to Consumer Sexualities: Women and Sex Shopping sets out the main objective of the book: to provide an insight into the experiential, everyday dimensions of sexual consumption. It gives an overview of the theoretical frameworks used, including Foucault’s technologies of the self and de Certeau’s notion of ‘making do’ with the materials of commodity culture. It outlines how the qualitative research, including interviews and accompanied shopping trips, was undertaken and considers some of the challenges of researching sexual cultures. Finally, an overview of the following chapters is provided. Chapter One - Sexual Consumption and Liberation in Feminism This chapter deals with a series of ‘moments’, from the late 1960s to the 1980s, in which feminist connections between sexual liberation and the consumption of sexual commodities (such as the vibrator and dildo) were forged. Drawing on the Spare Rib magazine archive alongside a range of other primary and secondary sources, the chapter explores how sexual consumption as an enabler of sexual, and even socio-political emancipation, emerged as a key area of debate, although not of agreement, over this period. These moments point to a foundation, both discursive and material, for the 1990s postfeminist ‘makeover’ of sexual consumer culture. Chapter Two - Consumer Sex: Technologies of the Self This chapter explores the role of sexual consumption in an age of postfeminist neoliberalism. Examining popular forms of sex advice for women, the chapter argues that women are enjoined to participate in technologies of the sexual self that enable them to work upon their sexual consumer knowledge and identities. Such technologies were taken up in the doing of the research itself, both by researcher and participants. Finally, there is a discussion of the question of women’s agency and lived experience – arguing for the importance of attending to women’s ambivalent everyday negotiation of postfeminist culture. Chapter Three - Sexual Spaces: Going Sex Shopping This chapter explores the sex shop as a space of ‘encounter’, where sexualities are both represented and experienced. Through the distinctions made between sex shops – as accessible, feminine, tasteful, classy, tacky, seedy, and even dangerous – gendered and classed sexual identities are constructed and performed whilst non-respectable sexual identities are othered. Performing sex shopping in a confident, respectable, tasteful, knowledgeable and feminine manner can be understood as a key regulatory technology of the sexual self through which female subjects are incited to articulate and work upon their sexual identities and lives in neoliberalism. Chapter Four - The Sexy Body: Wearing Lingerie This chapter argues that lingerie is used as a technology of the self through which postfeminist forms of sexiness and femininity are constructed. However, embodied narratives of pleasure and discomfort in lingerie can be understood as negotiations with the postfeminist and neoliberal construction of the ‘sexy body’ as a visual project to be worked upon. Finally, the chapter highlights the ways in which lingerie can be deployed in non-(gender) normative ways through the process of pleasurable laughter, performance and play. Chapter Five - Sexual Objects: Using ‘Sex Toys’ This chapter examines the various ways in which sex toys are mobilised as part of sexual practice. The body and sex toy are understood as an ‘assemblage’ that can enable and disable particular sexual pleasures, identities and practices. Women’s accounts point to the pressure to perform feminised emotional labour by working on the orgasmic sexual self and relationships. However, participants’ experiences also demonstrate that, as sex toys are made ordinary through their repeated everyday use and their assemblage with bodies, their meanings may shift in ways that often exceed or contradict their significance as commodities in postfeminist sexual culture. Conclusion: (Sexual) Politics of the Ordinary The conclusion to Consumer Sexualities explores the wider implications of placing the everyday at the centre of an analysis of contemporary sexual cultures. This approach demonstrates that commodities like lingerie and sex toys are adapted, negotiated and transformed as they become embedded in the mundane, ordinary contexts of everyday sexual use. I suggest that focusing the critical gaze on the ‘ordinariness’ of sexual materials, far from being placatory or complacent, is key to forming a critical response to restrictive or moralising popular debates around sexual cultures.
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Look good, feel good: sexiness and sexual pleasure in neoliberalismThis paper explores the connections between sexiness and sexual pleasure for women in neoliberal, postfeminist culture. The first half of the paper is concerned with an examination of the way that ‘looking good’ and ‘feeling good’ are constructed and conflated by sex advice for women. The second half of the paper considers how this discourse is negotiated in women’s accounts, in which they work upon and understand themselves as sexual agents who look and feel good ‘for me’. In conclusion, I argue that working upon the self/body in ways that are intelligible in neoliberalism can be precarious and prone to failure.
