Are We Being Served? Emotional Labour in Local Government in Victoria,Australia

This paper explores how front‐line street‐level bureaucrats (SLBs) cope with the expectations of citizens, clients, or ‘customers’ in daily work and how SLBs may be impacted by emotional labour. The study analyses data from 41 interviews with SLBs in local councils in Victoria, Australia. Although exploratory, it builds awareness and understanding of the emotional labour associated with public service. The situations that SLBs engage with on a daily basis are many and varied and take the form of increased expectations and intense encounters. Respondents experienced abuse, threats, violence, but also ‘sparkle moments’. Resources that helped SLBs cope are diverse and located both within and outside organisations. Implications are discussed and issues that merit additional investigation are raised concerning how SLBs can be supported to better meet the demands of the public. The research is of value to public managers and SLBs operating in a changing society with increased ‘customer’ expectations.     

How Do We Solve a Problem Like the Donald? The Democratic Challenge of Trump Supporters and the Politics of Presidential Removal

Political observers have debated whether and how to remove Donald J. Trump from the office of the presidency. This article explains the difficulties associated with both the Twenty-Fifth Amendment’s incapacity route and impeachment. These difficulties illuminate a larger underlying problem with American democracy that the Trump presidency both crystallizes and reinforces: the emergence of an energized core of political participants who unite around racialized identity and reject some core principles of democracy.     

Overlapping publics and the negotiation of legitimacy in South African and Namibian sexual politics

ABSTRACT

This article explores how and why social movement organizations negotiate their presence in, and demands on, multiple public spheres. We analyse the strategies of two social movement organizations, Free Gender in Cape Town, South Africa, and Sister Namibia in Windhoek, Namibia. Free Gender elected to withdraw participation from a governmental task team convened to address the issue of homophobic violence, despite the opportunity this offered the organization to participate in national politics. Sister Namibia, by contrast, decided to maintain its public presence despite experiencing political homophobia from the ruling party, the South West African People’s Organisation. We contribute to the literature on public spheres and social movements by demonstrating the need to consider the overlapping nature of public spheres in South Africa and Namibia at the local, national, and transnational levels to account for activists’ strategic decisions.     

Shape-shifting Around the Maternal: A Response

ABSTRACT

This article provides a considered response to all the contributions in this special issue on ‘Refiguring the Postmaternal’. It reflects on the new possibilities of postmaternalism as advanced and extended by each contributing author. It also attempts to reassert the idea of the postmaternal as a cultural anxiety about care and dependency and the need for ‘maternal thinking’. These are reinforced as important interpretive frames, while at the same time as paying particular attention to the limitations of these conceptions. Some of the recent literature on maternalism is discussed and this in turn raises questions about the widespread feminist discomfort around maternalism and its many historical and contemporary associations. A notion of the maternal as limit is introduced as a possible rich area for further investigation. The article ends with some policy examples of what a re-maternalised public sphere might look like. It calls for a cultural remembering of maternalist activism, alongside striving to develop alternative feminist visions for these postmaternal times.     

Law’s Vulnerability,and Vulnerability in Law

Vulnerability acts as a touchstone in this issue as we find our contributors reflecting on its intersection with gender and sexuality in different ways. Saeidzadeh draws out the significance of misrecognition in her consideration of responses to transsexuality in Iran, while Doonan highlights the potential pitfalls of relying on situational vulnerability in her critique of anti-trafficking legal discourse in the US. Lindsey considers the legal potential of situational vulnerability as a tool to address the ‘persistent failure to take action against abuse’ in the UK. Durojaye and Oluduro contribute to the recent revitalisation in asking ‘the woman question’ by drawing on African law and literature to flesh out the development of a gender-sensitive, substantive equality approach from the jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights as it addresses vulnerability to violence. The reviewers continue this international conversation as they address recent contributions on sexuality, family formation and social security.     

On Being Uncomfortable

Since the last issue of Feminist Legal Studies, we editorial board members have had lots of conversations about comfort, displacement and alienation. As we developed the programme for #FLaK2016 we thought about it as a kind of pulling ourselves out of our comfort zone (Fletcher et al. in Fem Leg Stud 24:1–6, 2016), if academic events and journals ever have a comfort zone. Drawing on a mix of feminist live performance methods and a science and technology studies-type curiosity for objects of experimentation, we tried out a kitchen table method of hosting a live research conversation with activists, artists and academics over two days (Fletcher in Fem Leg Stud 23:241–252, 2015). But we had not fully anticipated the way that the Brexit result would contribute to and complicate discomfort. A fuller analysis of FLaK awaits a later moment, but here we pick out this one aspect of our gathering—feelings of discomfort – as they animate the contributions to this issue in interesting ways.     

Adolescents Online: The Importance of Internet Activity Choices to Salient Relationships

The purpose of this study was to determine whether using the Internet for different activities affects the quality of close adolescent relationships (i.e., best friendships and romantic relationships). In a one-year longitudinal study of 884 adolescents (Mean age = 15, 46% male), we examined whether visiting chat rooms, using ICQ, using the Internet for general entertainment, or participating in online gaming predicted changes in the quality of best friendships and romantic relationships. Multiple regression analyses indicated that Internet activity choice influenced later relationship quality in both best friendships and romantic relationships. Using instant messaging (ICQ) was positively associated with most aspects of romantic relationship and best friendship quality. In contrast, visiting chat rooms was negatively related to best friendship quality. Using the Internet to play games and for general entertainment predicted decreases in relationship quality with best friends and with romantic partners. These findings reflect the important and complex functions of online socialization for the development and maintenance of relationships in adolescence.

Reparations for Sexual and Reproductive Violence: Prospects for Achieving Gender Justice in Guatemala and Peru

Sexual and reproductive violence (SRV) perpetrated against womenduring war or under authoritarian regimes is one of the mostsevere manifestations of gender-based violence. The authorsask how governments in new or reforming democracies hope torepair SRV and how state programs for reparation might be conceptualizedand delivered. By examining the cases of Guatemala and Peru,they explore the problematic of repairing damage caused by SRVand comment on prospects for redress to victims in each country.