Search

Most accounts of migration stress the economic necessity, but generally blur the role of migrants themselves in the process. It is also rare to consider male and female migrants together, or to explore the relational aspects of masculinity and femininity in migration histories. This paper explores the relational aspects of Irish (‘Irish’ is used throughout this article to refer to our participants who self-identified as ‘Irish’. It is further noted that all of the participants were from the Republic of Ireland and hence does not include Northern Irish migrants. Where ‘Ireland’ is used it refers to the Republic of Ireland) migrants’ residential and work histories using narrative enquiry. First, we explore the complex relationship between housing and employment in Irish women and men’s stories focusing particularly on the early phase of migration. Second, we argue that these narratives, especially the ‘intertwining personal, sub-cultural and cultural stories’ are essential in understanding Irish migrants’ experiences. Third, we posit that gender emerges as a significant factor with qualitative differences in Irish women’s and men’s trajectories. Our analysis focuses on the self-in-relation, housing pathways and gendered housing and employment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intersection between food, recollection and Irish migrants’ reconstructions of their housing pathways in the three English cities of Leicester (East Midlands), Sheffield (South Yorkshire) and Manchester (North). Previous studies have acknowledged more implicitly the role of memory in representing the Irish migrant experience in England. Here, we adopt a different stance. We explore the mnemonic power of food to encode, decode and recode Irish men’s reconstructions of their housing pathways in England when constructing and negotiating otherness. In doing so, we apply a ‘Proustian anthropological’ approach in framing the men’s representations of their formative residential experiences in the boarding houses of the three English cities during the 1950s and 1960s are examined. The extent to which food provided in the boarding houses was used as an instrument of discipline and control is examined. The relevance of food related acts of resistance, food insecurity and acts of hedonic meat-centric eating in constructing the men’s sociocultural identity are also explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the beliefs and practices that constitute gender among Gypsy-Traveller women and then attempts to discern the consequences that flow from these. It analyses gender ideology and expectations among women and the shared investment in the moral identity attached to being a good Gypsy-Traveller wife. The paper argues that 'Gypsy-Traveller woman' cannot be understood as an identity that stands apart from gender and racial oppression. It is within this context that the tension between change and permanence in gender relations is played out. It argues that the maintenance of cultural taboos embodied and symbolised in the surveillance of womens' bodies is an important issue that problematises the construction of Gypsy-Traveller women. It posits that the appeal to morality may represent as much an avoidance of anxiety as a defence of marked gendered divisions within Gypsy-Traveller society. The paper suggests that the demands of cultural survival play a significant role in framing the degree to which women are willing or able to challenge the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the beliefs and practices that constitute gender among Gypsy-Traveller women and then attempts to discern the consequences that flow from these. It analyses gender ideology and expectations among women and the shared investment in the moral identity attached to being a good Gypsy-Traveller wife. The paper argues that ‘Gypsy-Traveller woman’ cannot be understood as an identity that stands apart from gender and racial oppression. It is within this context that the tension between change and permanence in gender relations is played out. It argues that the maintenance of cultural taboos embodied and symbolised in the surveillance of womens' bodies is an important issue that problematises the construction of Gypsy-Traveller women. It posits that the appeal to morality may represent as much an avoidance of anxiety as a defence of marked gendered divisions within Gypsy-Traveller society. The paper suggests that the demands of cultural survival play a significant role in framing the degree to which women are willing or able to challenge the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores homeless women's use of public spaces and buildings in England. In doing so it problematises the spatial boundaries typically presented in the literature and research which suggest homeless women are largely confined to institutional or private spaces of homelessness. The paper argues that homeless women also use highly visible public spaces and semi-private spaces, and that these practices can be conceptualised in terms of resistance. Homeless women challenge the rules associated with occupying public spaces that either directly or tacitly exclude them, and they engage in identity work to resist being labelled as homeless. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social housing in Britain is managed by a large grouping of 'housing managers', an occupational label which is viewed as unproblematic by most housing academics, and therefore, is largely taken for granted. Urban sociologists posit that a collective identity is crucial to professional status, and hence have been sceptical of housing managers' prospects of furthering their aims collectively. The paper departs from this focus on the collective endeavours of housing management as a profession to examine how housing managers themselves create and present self-identities. Specifically, it argues that housing managers use the lack of a collective identity as an opportunity to manage the 'spoiled identity' of being in an 'invisible' and marginalised profession. In doing so, they construct individualised occupational trajectories which bear little relation to the domain professionalism of more established occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of the neighborhood as a source of middle-class identity. Gentrified urban neighborhoods and suburban landscapes have been examined extensively, but not much work has analyzed marginal middle-class neighborhoods. The authors draw on data gathered from middle-class neighborhoods that contain social renters to discover a process of dis-identification with the neighborhood, which exacerbates neighbor differences. The concept of a "spoiled identity" is analyzed.