Growing Up Young,Asian and Female in Britain: A Report on Self-harm and Suicide

It is now a well-documented statistic that Asian women between the ages of 15–35 are two to three times more vulnerable to suicide and self-harm than their non-Asian counterparts (Soni-Raleigh, 1996). The article will summarize the findings of the research report Growing Up Young, Asian and Female in Britain (Newham Asian Women's Project, 1998), which aimed to explore the reasons why young Asian women self-harmed and to evaluate the service responses they were given. It also made recommendations aimed at decreasing the high prevalence of suicide and self-harm among young Asian women. The article concludes by reflecting upon the impact and service developments that have been made since the report was published.     

Objectivity and truth: Problems in doing feminist research

This paper examines principles of feminist research and discusses the authors' attempts to use these principles in a systematic way in their own research. Three principles of feminist research are identified: research should contribute to women's liberation through producing knowledge that can be used by women themselves; should use methods of gaining knowledge that are not oppressive; should continually develop a feminist critical perspective that questions dominant intellectual traditions and can reflect on its own development.Consciously applying these principles in a research study of the relation between changes in consciousness and the changes in the structural situation of individuals raised several methodological issues and dilemmas. These include the impossibility of creating a research process that completely erases the contradictions in the relationship between the researcher and the researched; the difficulties in analysing change as a process; the tension between the necessity of organizing the data and producing an analysis which reveals the totality of women's lives; and problems of validity, particularly those raised when the research process becomes part of the process of change.     

Gender and land rights in Murang'a district,Kenya

Conceptualising rights to land in a framework of legal pluralism, this article explores the historical nature of struggles over land by women and men in a situation of increasing land scarcity. It is argued that the manipulation of customary law and state law is instrumental in increasing gender and, more generally, social differentiation.     

Periodicals by,for, and about women in Britain

Periodicals in general are an underrated resource for researchers, and this is especially true of women's periodicals. For present purposes these can be divided into three categories: commercial, organisational, and feminist. Commercial women's magazines first emerged at the turn of the eighteenth century, and have been increasingly concerned with the domestication of women and with fashionable dress. They have come to be almost entirely controlled by advertising interests. Organisational periodicals frequently demonstrate a tension between the organisation and the women within it, which tends to be resolved to the women's disadvantage. Feminist periodicals first began to appear in the mid-nineteenth century, since when they have undergone various vicissitudes, but at present they appear to be flourishing as never before. The Fawcett Library has been stocking as many women's periodicals as it can, but runs into difficulties of space and categories. Although satisfactory lists of women's periodicals have been appearing, the important task of article-indexing has scarcely begun.     

Staging race: Florence Mills,celebrity, identity and performance in 1920s Britain

This article focuses on the time the African American performer Florence Mills spent in Britain in the 1920s. Mills was one of the most popular performers of the period, taking a lead in African American vaudeville productions, she was admired by working class and ‘elite’ black and white audiences. Our paper examines four examples of Mills’ British fan mail alongside newspaper reports of her performances in London. These reveal complex themes of identity, of Britishness, sexuality, gender and class within the context of changing international understandings of race relations in the Inter-war period. We utilise these letters alongside newspaper reports to consider how Mills’ presence in Britain as a performer and anti-racist activist influenced debates and personal reflections on racial identity, sexual desire and belonging to Britain.     

The business of leisure: sport,labour and co-operation in post-war Britain

Compared with the activities of its European counterparts, the sporting and recreational pursuits of the British labour movement are less well known. Yet the co-operative movement organised an impressive range of sports clubs, competitions and events. Whereas previous studies have examined the relationship between the labour movement and working-class leisure during the interwar years, this article considers the interactions of the co-operative moment with popular discourses on recreation in Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s. In so doing, it challenges assumptions about the Left's disconnection from sporting culture. The Co-op used sport to create a collective co-operative identity amongst its employees. Examining the social and political context of these activities in post-war Britain can inform debates on the construction of female identity through sport, the use of recreation for business advantage and the extent to which the co-operative movement shaped working-class leisure patterns. Although the article highlights that co-op sport formed a source of tension between the retail and wholesale sections of the movement and could be adversely affected by popular affluence, it argues that a reappraisal of the co-operative movement's recreational activities contributes to a broader understanding of post-war working-class culture.     

Nadine El-Enany: (B)ordering Britain: Law,Race, and Empire

Feminist Legal Studies -     

Feminism,imperialism and race: a dialogue between India and Britain

Abstract

During the partition period and up to 1918, Polish women's interests and aspirations outside the family were in increasingly frequent cases directed to taking up paid work and resorting to other measures in order to sustain their family. In other cases women's activity was shaped by experiences of resistance to national and sometimes also religious discrimination. In the early twentieth century only small groups of women put forward demands for equality, and even if they did so, they usually thought that this would be possible only after the rebirth of an independent foolish state. It is to this supreme aim that they subordinated their interest and their struggle for equality.     

Balancing acts in construction: A study of two women painters in Denmark and Britain

The construction industry is the most male-dominated labour market in every country in Europe. In Britain and Denmark, women constitute only 1% of those employed in this industry. In spite of the barriers to women entering and remaining in skilled construction work, inroads have been made. Amongst housepainters in Denmark, for instance, women constitute 27% of the workforce and 40% of trainees, and in a number of local authorities' Direct Labour Organisations in Britain, relatively high proportions are to be found. Through the example of two women painters in Britain and Denmark, each with over 14 years' continuous employment, the authors identify the opportunities and obstacles to women entering and remaining in the construction industry. The commonalities and differences between the two countries are illustrated, and it is shown how integration has successfully occurred where social and working conditions are better. The paper concludes that gender segregation and the exclusion of women can be attributed to structural discrimination through training and recruitment mechanisms, the nature of labour relations, employment conditions and the wage system.