Neglected dimensions of child well-being

Academic researchers on children should not ignore criteria for children's well-being. Starting from the observation that attempts at protection from harmful work has often damaged children's opportunities, the article argues that protection must be broader than simply protection from particular risks, and take in protection of opportunities. Moreover, researchers need to find ways to look beyond material and cognitive development to neglected areas of well-being sometimes referred to as ‘spiritual’.     

Bereavement from afar: transnational grieving and the emotional geographies of migration

ABSTRACT

This exploratory article aims to contribute to scholarship on migrants’ experiences of bereavement and grief through the loss of a parent in their country of origin. It considers how transnational bereavement and grieving relate to the ever changing emotional geographies of migration and transnational families. Empirical material is drawn from a research project conducted with Latin American and Latino-British families living in the north of England, particularly from narratives presented by sons and daughters who had experienced such bereavements. Middle generation migrants may express: a continuing bond with a deceased parent as part of their emotional support network; regret at missing the death of the parent and the reinforcement of ambivalent emotions regarding their migration project; boundary ambiguity towards the transnational family; and a sense of physical distance from the family home as a geographical cure which allows working through the grieving process and troubling changes in family configurations.     

Difficult heritage and digital media: ‘selfie culture’ and emotional practices at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

ABSTRACT

This article sheds light on the entanglements of difficult heritage and digital media through an ethnographic analysis of digital photography and social media practices at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. After a discussion of the project ‘Yolocaust’, through which an artist publicly shamed the ‘selfie culture’ at the memorial, the article argues that the sweeping condemnation of digital self-representations in the context of Holocaust remembrance remains simplistic. Instead, many visitors explore and enact potential emotional relationships to the pasts that sites of difficult heritage represent through digital self-representations. This observation raises critical questions about the role of digital media in current transformations of touristic memory cultures.     

The lived experiences of school lunch: an empathy-based study with children in Sweden

ABSTRACT

School lunch is in general regulated through policies and agendas constituted by the perspectives of adults. In this article, we focus on children’s lived experiences of school lunch with a special emphasis on emotions and how they relate to social and physical dimensions. This study draws on empathy-based stories written by 10–11 year olds (n?=?171) from schools in Sweden. We identified three themes: Interaction and exposure, Routines and restrictions and Food and eating. The children’s lived experiences of school lunch and the emotions attached to them are closely associated and intertwined with the socio-spatial dimension of school lunch. A pleasant meal experience seems to require harmonization between the physical and social space whilst negative experiences contain tensions between them, something that actors working with school lunch and school lunch environments should take in consideration when resourcing, planning and scheduling school lunch, and also when designing new school restaurants.     

‘A rancour and a passion would be introduced into politics’: Perceptions of the Woman MP in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Britain*

On 21 November 1918, the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act was passed, which enabled women over the age of 21 to stand for parliamentary election. Unlike women's suffrage, there was no sustained campaign to allow women to sit in parliament. However, this does not mean that the issue was ignored in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This article traces perceptions of the woman MP in the pre-1918 period and offers the first detailed exploration of the topic. It argues that although discussions on the matter were not widespread like women's suffrage, there is value in examining these lesser-known debates. This article studies the parliamentary candidacy of Helen Taylor in the 1885 General Election, in addition to how male politicians, the press, suffrage, and anti-suffrage organisations engaged with the idea of women sitting in parliament. Women's supposedly emotional nature played an integral role in how contemporaries approached the subject of women MPs. Indeed, women's emotions, and more specifically their passionate temperament, were often used to discredit their political capabilities and portray women as emotionally, intellectually and physically inferior to men.