The lives of our mad mothers: Aging and contemporary performance

This paper investigates representations of aging in contemporary British and Irish theatre. The turn towards portraits of female, as opposed to male, aging in theatre, popular television comedy, and literature is notable. It is the purpose of this paper, therefore, to excavate the politics that lie beneath this cultural development. While, of course, older women have long populated the stage, it is the contention of this article that it is recent years that one can witness a concern to stage particular aspects of the lived experiences of older women's lives in contemporary British and Irish society. Through an examination of stereotype, comedy, illness roles, acting, intergenerational heritage, tragedy, and politics, this paper seeks to better understand the politics of staging age.     

Chronic stress in the lives of college students: Scale development and prospective prediction of distress

This article reports the development of the 54-item College Chronic Life Stress Survey (CCLSS) and its use in prospective studies of the relationship between chronic stress and psychological distress in college students. Study 1 demonstrated the CCLSS's test-retest reliability and concurrent validity (best friend corroboration of specific items). Study 1 also revealed differential endorsement of specific CCLSS items as a function of gender and year in college. Study 2 cross-sectional and prospective analyses showed that CCLSS chronic stress was a significant predictor of distress. Study 3 cross-sectional analyses showed that the CCLSS effects withstood the statistical control of neuroticism. The findings suggest the value of future research on chronic stress and demonstrate the utility of the CCLSS in studies with college students.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Delaware. Current interests include child sexual abuse, family therapy, and psychology internship training.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Florida State University. Current interests include research on stress-related growth and the role of social cognition in stress vulnerability. To whom correspondence should be addressed.     

Between resistance and negotiation: indigenous organisations and the Bolivian State in the case of TIPNIS

A government-driven road-building project, crossing the national park and demarcated indigenous communitarian native land Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS) in the Bolivian Amazon, has caused considerable debate, divisions and conflict. Based on extensive fieldwork in Bolivia, I examine the conflict between 2011 and 2013, focusing on specific cases of micro-politics with examples of changing strategies, local negotiations and strategic framings in the interactions between the indigenous organisations and the state involved in the conflict. I show that the evolution of the conflict has been affected by these micro-political issues, as well as strategic state projects. Secondly, I focus on how discursive framings have legitimised advanced or marginalised certain solutions, ideas and interests.     

Maquila Workers in Mexico: The Prospects for Organization and International Solidarity

This article studies the changes in economic policy in the Netherlands and their effects on the coordinated market economy (CME). In order to gain insight into the development of the CME, the neo-corporatist literature and the concept of ‘policy learning’ are called upon. The article takes the analysis of Visser and Hemerijck on the changes in the Dutch labor market in the 1980s and 1990s as a starting point for the analysis of the development of the Dutch CME. The analysis includes a systematic review of macroeconomic developments. The frequent introduction of market-oriented solutions is related to a paradigm change in macroeconomic policy. ‘Policy learning’ explains the transition in priorities of economic policy in the Dutch corporatist economy. After a decade of increasing polarization in the 1970s, economic urgency increased and stimulated a regime change towards more market-oriented policy, creating a more liberal CME. In any CME, either new forms of coordination will develop, or market-based solutions will be sought. In the Netherlands, in various policy fields coordination was transferred to the market. Labor market reform was accompanied by supply-side reform and deregulation. The tension between global trends in economic ideas and their application in a CME was resolved by policy concertation (as institutionalized regular consultation between parties is often called) and learning, creating a more liberal business environment within the CME.     

The Work of Sacrifice: Framing gender politics, racialization and the significance of Islam in the lives of Ajda Pekkan and Konca Kuris

This essay examines the roles of women's lives in contemporary Turkey as 'the work of sacrifice' wherein tragedy and irony take place simultaneously. I will present one of the major Turkish female singers, Ajda Pekkan, articulating her relationship to womanhood as an endpoint on the continuum that represents the 'Turkish women'. In contrast, I will assess the case of Konca Kuris, a Turkish Muslim feminist, who stands at the other end of the continuum, and explore her tragic death as a primary sacrifice. Western discourse has framed the 'woman question' in a way that problematizes secularisms and Islamic practices. This problematization will serve as the initial momentum to assign sacrifice as a notion that lies in between the object—secular Islam—and the subject—Turkish women—of analysis. Thus, 'sacrifice' will be explored as a performative notion, in order to understand, mediate and measure gender performativity in contemporary Turkey.     

Agrarian crisis and social differentiation in Mexico

This article explores the double crisis of Mexican agriculture: one relating to the capitalist sector, the other to the peasant economy. An analysis of cash crops in contrast with subsistence crops is provided, using production and prices data for the 940–83 period. Then, based on the 1970 census, we present a spectrum of social differentiation of agrarian producers in Mexico which reflects the extent to which the peasant economy had been eroded by that year. By contrasting these data with those of 1960, we illustrate how the middle peasantry tends to disappear.     

Between subordination and she-tiger: Social constructions of white femininity in the lives of single, Protestant missionaries in China, 1905–1930

In this paper I focus on the social constructions of gender in the lives of single Protestant missionary women, exploring how they were able to expand notions of White femininity by utilising both ideologies of devotional domesticity and the personal support and professional validation of women-identified communities. I suggest that these freedoms were directly related to certain framings of indigenous Chinese men and women — specifically, the emasculated Chinese male who was seen as little threat to Western women's safety, and the victimised Chinese woman who required advocacy and rescue. To illustrate these issues, I use the writings of two White Methodist missionary women from the United States and England who served in China between 1905 and 1930, suggesting that such stretching of the parameters of femininity questioned the particularly androcentric nature of Western imperialist authority at the same time that it perpetuated the racial dynamic of a colonial social order.