Academic literature on the topic 'Lisa Adkins'

There is a revival of interest in Bourdieu’s work and this article examines dominant trends within feminist re-engagements. It considers the insights into gender identity afforded by ‘habitus’ and ‘social field’, distinguishing between analyses of ‘gender habitus’, and the potential of habitus and social field for feminist analysis of change. Feminist responses to Bourdieu continue to be divided on the extent to which social field structure determines habitus, and there is a tendency to represent the relationship as too seamless and coherent. Drawing on debates within recent feminist sociology, notably the work of Lois McNay and Lisa Adkins, this article argues instead for greater acknowledgement of the instability of gender norms and the contradictory effects of crossing different social fields. A feminist rethinking of the relationship between gender change, habitus and social field is suggested, which arises from a more contextual analysis of the varying degrees of correspondence between habitus and field. This addresses the co-existence of change and continuity in gender relations and identities, and aims to move such debates beyond questions of either freedom or reproduction.

This forum has come about through a series of conversations and discussions over a period of time in 2021-2022. Our ambition was to bring together scholars from different disciplines and perspectives, hoping for mutual curiosity and dialogue. We invited the participants to the forum to consider the following question: “How can we understand the complex and often contradictory ways through which sexualities and capital are related to, shaped by, and constitutive of each other?” Due to restrictions and exigencies of the corona situation together with time zone obstacles, the conversation had different modes. The fi rst part of the forum consisted of an online video-recorded conversation between M.E. O’Brien, Nat Raha and Grietje Baars. The conversation was moderated by Liu Xin and Mathias Klitgård. Laura Horn provided editorial support. Jin Haritaworn and Lisa Adkins then kindly sent their contributions to this conversation in writing. What you will read in the following is hence a conversation across three continents, which mixes synchronous and asynchronous elements, and which aims to show the strengths but also divergences and open questions in these different engagements.

This artide problematises, from a poststructuralist and queer perspective, the linking of men and masculinity, which is common in the main part of Men's Studies. The genealogy of the concepts is discussed and also how Connell, Kimmel and Hearn, the Second Wave feminism and poststructuralists have used them. Judith Halberstam's concepts of "female masculinity" and "male femininity" are then suggested as a fruitful way to exceed the sex dichotomy. By focusing on how both femininity and masculinity are materialised and used in identity constructions of both men and women, it is argued that a more complex understanding of gender is possible. Halberstam's concept is also linked to Lisa Adkin's discussion of gender flexibility in the late modern labour märket, and to Adkin's argument that new gender hierarchies are hidden behind what is supposed to be more equal gender relations. In the last part of the artide the author exemplifies from a study of men in female occupations how men working as nurses, hairdressers and pre-school teachers position themselves by using masculinity and femininity concepts. These men both integrate and position themselves in contrast to femininity and masculinity concepts. While feminine characteristics are highly prefered, femininity connected with gay men is by the heterosexual matrix made unthinkable. In conclusion it is argued that in the future gender researchers need to problematise heterosexual gender presumptions and study how both women and men perform femininity and masculinity.

The thesis argues that an important step in an agenda calling for change is a re-signification of the mother–infant connection from a role to a relationship so as to embed the subject position of the woman-as-mother and enhance her reflexive stance. It identifies intersections between structure and agency as played out in the lives of a small group of women in the early years after the birth of their first child. It contributes to a call for transformational change so as to accommodate dependency while attending to gender equal outcomes. The study is multidisciplinary, bringing together gender, sociology, psychoanalysis and health through a conceptual framework informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Cornelius Castoriadis, Jessica Benjamin and Lois McNay. It locates the work of care through the dependency theory of Eva Feder Kittay and Martha Fineman and the proposition that both the state and the market rely on the family for care. Data are drawn from in-depth and semi-structured interviews with sixteen first-time mothers from Sydney and Canberra. The participants self identified from posters circulated through playgroups and childcare centres from northern, southern, eastern and western suburbs to ensure a diverse sample. What has generally been thought of as a paradox between the rights of women and an assertion of gender difference associated with the maternal body can be recast in terms of tensions. The family as a social unit in the early twenty-first century is marked by tension and change evidenced through the experience of women when they first become mothers. Research that focuses on the early years after the birth of an infant under the banner of the Transition to Parenthood brings to light gendered economic outcomes, maternal stress, depression and a decline in marital satisfaction; in essence a mismatch between expectations and experience that is played out through the sense of self. This is a consequence of a divergence between cultural trends and social structuring with a lack of recognition of both intersubjective dynamics between women-as-mothers and their infants and intrapsychic processes of the self. I cast this dissonance in terms of tensions between macrosocial and microsocial factors. A disjuncture is evident through the ambivalences of these new mothers. In the interview data there is a sense of displaced self, difficulties reconnecting with former lives through the workplace, and often disruptions within families arising from unfulfilled expectations. There is nevertheless a strong and abiding connection with their infants. Motherhood is often characterized as selfless. The needs and interests of the infant/child became paramount and this is seen as a good thing, a moral imperative. Identifications with one’s mother and/or the projected interests of the child or family promote continuity while everyday expectations and practices within families point to change. Women have historically promoted both social and cultural capital through asserting the interests of their families and child/ren. However, attending to these related tasks generally comes at an economic cost and at a cost to their health. There is a significant body of both academic and popular texts reflecting on the experience of being a mother at the microsocial level which is accompanied by a common experience of ambivalence in locating the maternal self. There is evidence of movement for change at the macrosocial level through a rethinking of welfare economics, feminist proponents calling for a public ethic of care, trends towards a gender equal or egalitarian family form, a feminist mothers’ movement, and the emergence of a concept of social care.

The contributors to Long Term use the tension between the popular embrace and legalization of same-sex marriage and the queer critique of homonormativity as an opportunity to examine the myriad forms of queer commitments and their durational aspect. They consider commitment in all its guises, particularly relationships beyond and aside from monogamous partnering. These include chosen and involuntary long-term commitments to families, friends, pets, and coworkers; to the care of others and care of self; and to financial, psychiatric, and carceral institutions. Whether considering the enduring challenges of chronic illnesses and disability, including HIV and chronic fatigue syndrome; theorizing the queer family as a scene of racialized commitment; or relating the grief and loss that comes with caring for pets, the contributors demonstrate that attending to the long term offers a fuller understanding of queer engagements with intimacy, mortality, change, dependence, and care. Contributors. Lisa Adkins, Maryanne Dever, Carla Freccero, Elizabeth Freeman, Scott Herring, Annamarie Jagose, Amy Jamgochian, E. Patrick Johnson, Jaya Keaney, Heather Love, Sally R. Munt, Kane Race, Amy Villarejo, Lee Wallace

Looming behind the formidable spectres haunting Europe is a rising tide of indebted households. This chapter focuses upon the United Kingdom, where a perfect storm of measures has caused a fundamental change in the very meaning of ‘household debt’. In this chapter we focus upon the temporal frameworks of debt, challenging the dominant understanding of debt as imposing a ‘disciplinary’ framework of time upon the subject. Across two bodies of fieldwork – with the advice sector and with debtors – we trace not only the imposition, management and varied narratives of ‘disciplinary’ structurings of time, but also the ‘moments’ in which they crack, fragment, or are suspended. We show how the ways in which debt is sold, managed and collected, as well as the practices through which debtors consider multiple futures in their negotiations of debt, weave other forms of time into the indebted everyday. We show also how the stagnation and irregularity of household budgets renders the disciplinary edifice of debt increasingly unstable. Following the work of Lisa Adkins, we bring these non-disciplinary ‘moments’ together under the remit of ‘speculative time’.