Journal articles on the topic 'Sotho Women'

Illness representations have been shown to differ across cultures. The aim of the study was to study disease terminology and lay prototypes among a Northern Sotho community in South Africa. The sample for a free listing of disease terms included 41 (55%) women and 34 (45%) men, with a mean age of 36 years (SD=5.6, range 18 to 75 years). The sample for pile sorting of disease terms included 80 Northern Sotho-speaking third-year students from the University of Limpopo; 44 women, 36 men, mean age, 23.4 years (SD=3.4). From free listing of disease terms 50 were selected for pile sorting. Using hierarchical cluster analysis the following clusters could be identified: (1) respiratory problems, (2) internal body problems and sexually transmitted diseases, (3) chronic diseases and head diseases, (4) child diseases and mental problems, (5) child diseases and cancer, (6) feet problems, (7) gastrointestinal diseases. There was homogeneity of features within cluster and difference between clusters.

The aim of this study was to compile a culture specific taxonomy of human values in Northern Sotho. Two raters extracted a comprehensive list of value descriptive nouns from two Northern Sotho dictionaries. The list comprised a total of 210 terms. Four hundred individuals, 256 men and 144 women, from the Limpopo Province of the Republic of South Africa, participated. Their mean age was 24.6 years (SD = 7.9). The participants rated these concepts on an 11-point-scale with regard to their subjective importance as guiding motives in life. The principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation yielded five factors which explained 42.3% of total variance: (I) Religiosity and Support, (II) Solidarity (ukuzwdana, ubunye or ubudlelwane), (III) Conformity and Benevolence, (IV) Leadership and Achievement, and (V) Human Enhancement. With respect to cross-cultural comparisons the outcome of the study shows that in Northern Sotho, religious themes and social commitment play a more important role than in German, and that religious issues correlate with social concerns. The other dimensions share some aspects with the German factors but mainly reflect the religious and collective values of traditional African culture.

Traditional cultural practices reflect the values and beliefs held by members of a community for periods often spanning generations. Every social grouping in the world has specific traditional cultural practices and beliefs, some of which are beneficial to all members, while others have become harmful to a specific group, such as women. These harmful traditional practices include early and forced marriages (Ukuthwala as practised currently), virginity testing, widow's rituals, 'u ku ngena' (levirate and sororate unions[1]), female genital mutilation[2] (FGM), breast sweeping/ironing, the primogeniture rule, practices such as 'cleansing' after male circumcision, and witch-hunting.[1] Levirate unions occur when the deceased's surviving male relative inherits the widow of the deceased. Sororate unions occur where the widower is inherited by the deceased wife's surviving female relative. The inherited widow or widower becomes the wife or husband to the surviving relative of the deceased.[2] FGM is not just the cutting of the clitoris; it includes disfigurement, and the changing of the form or elongation of the labia as practiced by Tsonga and Sotho communities.

Background: This study researched the perceptions of patients diagnosed with diabetes concerning diabetes-related health communication strategies in the Free State province in South Africa. The prolongation and quality of life of patients diagnosed with diabetes are affected by lifestyle choices. An enabler of risk reduction is health communication which informs, influences and motivates individuals to adopted health-focused lifestyles.Aim: This study sought to describe the perceptions of patients regarding diabetes-related health communication strategies in the Free State, South Africa.Setting: This study was carried out in primary health care centres and community health care centres within the Free State province in South Africa.Methods: A qualitative, descriptive and exploratory research design was used in this study. Thirty-four patients diagnosed with type two diabetes for at least a year were purposively included in this study. Semi-structured interviews in Afrikaans, English, Sotho and Xhosa were conducted. Data analysis was through inductive reasoning and thematic analysis.Results: The majority of the respondents were older women having been diagnosed with diabetes for more than 5 years, with at least primary school education and of diverse South African ethnicities. The main prompting questions operationalised the term ‘perception’, probing their feelings, experiences and knowledge of health-related communication strategies as presented by a variety of information sources. After recording interviews, data were analysed according to themes, categories and sub-categories.Conclusions: The study highlights factors that encourage patients to seek help and foster attitudes of compliance. Practical problems regarding the management of diabetes are underlined. The role of family, as well as the patient–caregiver relationship, in the acceptance and management of the disease is revealed. Societal perception of male symptomology is shown. The study offers information to stakeholders and health care workers for continued successful management of diabetes in communities.

Il saggio propone un'analisi della narrazione utilizzata nel quadro degli scenari di policy orientati all'integrazione dei migranti relativamente alle questioni di genere e alla diversità in al-cuni documenti di particolare in questo ambito dell'intervento pubblico. L'analisi delle politiche pubbliche nei settori dell'integrazione e dell'uguaglianza di genere sviluppata utilizzando la rap-presenta il quadro di riferimento teorico proposto per la lettura in chiave critica di una selezione di documenti dell'UE adottati tra il 2004 e il 2018 relativi al tema dell'integrazione. È del tutto evidente la tendenza da parte delle istituzioni europee a disegnare in questi documenti scenari di policy nell'area dell'integrazione prevalentemente neutri sotto il profilo delle implicazioni di gene-re, mentre in chiave interserzionale, il binomio gender+inequalities sembra differire in modo si-gnificativo a seconda del metaframe entro il quale è inquadrato lo stesso discorso dell'integrazione, ovvero se prevalgano logiche umanitarie, securitarie piuttosto che economiche.

The purpose of this study is to provide greater insight into the power of native women as understood by sixteenth century North American conquistadors by juxtaposing two analogous but geographically distinct settings. Depictions of women in New France by Jacques Cartier, Samuel Champlain and their followers in the northern borderlands of North America are compared to those depictions made by Hernando de Soto, Pedro Menendez de Avilés and their contemporaries during the same general period in the southern borderlands (Florida). The accounts of these figures, who came from varied backgrounds and promoted differing world views, provide evidence for the earliest foundations of the “imperial gaze” in reference to distant poles along North America's eastern seaboard. They also demonstrate the key role that native women played in orchestrating intercultural encounters with conquistadors during the sixteenth century.

Is there a specific lesbian theatre aesthetic? If so, is butch and femme at the heart of it? Or androgyny? Or the freedom-confinement dynamic? Or, on another level, distancing role from ‘essential being’, and ‘woman’ and ‘man’ as social constructs from male and female as biological entities? By focusing on a number of lesbian texts, including her own work, Nina Rapi explores both the theory and practice of an emerging aesthetic that reveals the ‘performance of being’, seeking to ‘shift the axis of categorization’, and so to create a new and exciting theatre language. Nina Rapi is a playwright and translator whose theatre work includes Ithaka (Riverside Studios, June 1989; Link Theatre, staged readings, April 1992; published in Seven Plays by Women, 1991), Critical Moments, a trilogy of shorts (Soho Poly Theatre, June 1990), Johnny Is Dead (First One Person Play Festival, Etcetera Theatre, March 1991), Dreamhouse (Oval House and Chat's Palace, April-May 1991), Dance of Guns (touring production, including King's Head and Jackson's Lane Theatres, April-May 1992), and Dangerous Oasis (Finborough, March 1993).

This essay aims to explore the political messages found in the work of Soth Polin, one of Cambodia’s influential writers in the 1970s. Soth’s short story, Sramol Ptī Oey..Khluon Ūn Rahaek [My Dear Husband…My Body Was Torn Apart] illustrates how Cambodia was in a state of physical and moral decay during the Vietnam War as a result of attacks from Vietnamese Communists and American influence over the Cambodian leaders during the Vietnam War. In Soth’s stories, pornographic, philosophical and political elements are artistically interwoven. The author uses women’s bodies and sexuality as both a site of patriarchal control and as a site of negotiation between the female subject and the patriarchal power. The feminised body of Cambodia symbolizes the political oppression of foreign powers and resistance to these powers. Soth’s text shows the continuity of traditional concepts and new creativity in modern Cambodian literature.

The majority of informal entrepreneurs and workers in Bogota are women, most of whom do not have social security provision or job stability.This research investigates to what extent female entrepreneurs in the city of Bogota, Colombia, prefer to situate their business in the informal labor market. Some theorists as represented by De Soto, argue informality occurs due to a preference-based rational decision to avoid paying taxes, while others consider it to be primarily related to an “escape” from poverty as a unique option. The study used an experiment, featuring a tax evasion game targeting500 women participants, formal and informal entrepreneurs, from the city of Bogota. The null hypothesis of the study was tested using Chi-square (X2) and inferential statistical model at a 5% level of significance. The findings revealed that a significant difference between attitudes towards taxation in formal and informal female entrepreneurs in Bogota does not exist.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the role of women in the history of Buddhist culture in medieval Japan. The article examines the formation of the first female Buddhist monastic community in Japan. It is noted that the formation of the first Buddhist monastic community here was associated with women of Korean origin. A significant role in the institutionalization of Buddhism in Japan and its transformation into the dominant ideology was played by the Japanese empresses, who were impressed by the Buddhist approach to the religious status of women. The Japanese empresses actively supported the construction of Buddhist temples, donated land and significant funds to them. While pursuing a policy of strengthening the Buddhist church, they simultaneously contributed to its centralization and the establishment of strict control over the sangha by the state. The social and confessional status of women in the history of medieval Japan was constantly changing. If, until the end of the Nara period, nuns had the same social and confessional status as monks, then in the Heian era, nuns were removed from government positions and state ceremonies, and in religious treatises the opinion that women could not find salvation until will not be reborn as men. During the Kamakura and Muromachi eras, women again began to play an active role in society, including in religious institutions. During this period, new directions of Buddhism appeared (Amidaism, Soto-Zen, the Nichiren school), in whose doctrines the attitude towards women was more respectful. In the subsequent period, there was an increase in the influence of Confucianism and a weakening of the position of Buddhism in Japanese society, which negatively affected the social status of women and the state of the female monastic community.

Tanika Gupta is one of the most prolific and outstanding new writers in contemporary British theatre. Born in Chiswick in 1965, she is a bilingual British Bengali who – after reading modern history at Oxford University – began her career in 1991, when her Radio 4 play, Asha, was part of the BBC Young Playwrights Festival. In 1995, her BBC film, The Rhythm of Raz, was nominated for a Children's BAFTA and the following year her film Bideshi won an award at the Bombay Short Film Festival. Meanwhile, although she made a living writing for Grange Hill and EastEnders, her play Voices on the Wind was being developed and, in 1996–98, she was Writer-in-Residence at the Soho Theatre. In 1997, A River Sutra was staged at Three Mills Island, London, and Skeleton at the Soho Theatre. In 1998, Flight, her BBC2 screenplay, won an EMMA. The Waiting Room (2000), staged by the National, won the John Whiting Award, and was followed by Sanctuary (National) and Inside Out, toured by Clean Break (both 2002). In 2003, Gupta's Fragile Land opened the new Hampstead Theatre's education space, her Asian version of Hobson's Choice was staged at the Young Vic, and she won the Asian Woman of Achievement Award. Later, she had further success with her campaigning play about the Zahid Mubarek case, Gladiator Games (Sheffield Crucible, 2005), and Sugar Mummies (Royal Court, 2006). A year later came a play for the National Youth Theatre, White Boy (Soho). What follows is an edited transcript of Aleks Sierz's ‘In Conversation with Tanika Gupta’, part of the ‘Universal Voices’ festival held at Rose Bruford College, Sidcup, Kent, in April 2007, organized by Nesta Jones.

As the state of Georgia marks the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of Hernando de Soto, we reflect on the other actors in the encounter. The King site, a Native American village in the sixteenth-century chiefdom of Coosa, yielded an unusually high crude death rate of 36 per 1,000. We attribute the elevated mortality to casualties from a clash with the Spaniards. Twenty percent of the King site skeletons exhibit injuries-deep gashes and cuts across two extremities–inflicted by steel weapons. Although enemies of the Coosa possessed some European weapons, the demographic profile of the fatalities–young women and middle-aged males and females–implicates the Spaniards. Comparison with European battle casualties supports the notion that the Spaniards were responsible for the injuries. The chronicles reveal de Soto’s army to have been the likely perpetrator. The victims probably either resisted enslavement or attempted to free others from enslavement. The site offers the first archaeological evidence of Spanish violence in the interior Southeast.

Discrimination against women is a structural phenomenon that international organizations have tried to eradicate through different legal instruments. In this regard, Mexico has signed several treaties and despite such initiatives, the discriminatory practice continues to diminish the fundamental rights of half of the population. Based on the interests of the state of Hidalgo (Mexico), this social phenomenon is regarded to be very crucial. The treatment of the subject is carried out by means of a quantitative review, and by comparing the last National Survey on Discrimination of the sub-sample of the State of Hidalgo with the national results. The analysis of the situation in a federative entity allows us to approach, in a diagnostic way, a phenomenon that is approached a little by the social sciences of the context. This research is the product of the "Diagnosis of discrimination in Pachuca de Soto, Hidalgo, and conurbada zone" project, and it was funded by the PROMEP of the Undersecretary of Higher Education.

Este artigo utiliza experiências penosas da protagonista de “Woman Hollering Creek” (uma mulher latina sem acesso à língua inglesa, vítima de violência doméstica em uma comunidade chicana no Texas, literariamente comparada à mítica figura de A Chorona) como ilustração para uma reflexão sobre feminicídio na América Latina, mais especificamente no México e no Brasil. Assim sendo, a leitura ressalta o papel da telenovela como elemento midiático propulsor para a idealização do amor e o sonho de prosperidade nos EUA (American Dream); valores estes que, em nome do amor e da família heteronormativa, relegam a mulher à domesticidade, afastando-a de práticas intelectuais e do mercado de trabalho. Intensificando o olhar feminista sobre as peculiaridades da mulher latina, o texto se volta para tópicos pertinentes à Teoria Pós-colonial, e até mesmo o Feminismo Pós-colonial, com destaque para a identidade marginalizada e em trânsito, resistência cultural e interculturalidade, a intraduzibilidade linguístico-cultural bem como a prática diaspórica com vistas para melhor qualidade de vida. Considerando que a representação do inverossímil também se encontra no limiar do anglicismo e da hispanidade, o texto mostrará como leituras sobre o Fantástico, o Realismo Mágico e o Gótico Pós-colonial reforçam a adoção da figura folclórica da chorona no México como ícone de resistência, subserviência e sofrimento relegados ao corpo feminino graças às estruturas de sociedades patriarcais na América Latina.

Sinopsi: A ridosso del 1917 per molte socialiste e successivamente per le comuniste, Il Paese dei Soviet si afferma quale modello politico da imitare anche per quanto concerne la parità di genere. Un ruolo che l’Urss mantiene ben saldo esercitando, anche sotto questo profilo, un indubbio fascino sull’emigrazione femminile antifascista. Partendo da queste premesse, il saggio si articola in due parti.Il primo e il secondo paragrafo delineano le principali coordinate del dibattito sull’emancipazione, si soffermano sui caratteri del nuovo modelo femminile e sulla fondazione di una nuova tradizione femminista che trova nel simbolo dell’8 marzo la propria legittimazione. Il terzo parágrafo si concentra, invece, sulla circolazione e l’assimilazione del modello femminile sovietico da parte delle militanti. Le lettere dall’Urss, in special modo, confermano una fedele adesione all’immagine della donna nuova che si riflette sull’autorappresentazione delle militanti, le quali spesso ancora ignare delle condanne subite negli anni del Terrore staliniano, informano entusiaste familiari e amici sulle opportunità e sulla autonomia acquisita. L’esperienza migratoria ebbe però in molti casi risvolti tragici e molte militanti finirono nella fitta rete della repressione staliniana.Parole chiave: mito soviético, stampa femminile socialista e comunista, emancipazione femminile, emigrazione femminile antifascista, lettere.Summary: Just prior to 1917, for many socialists and later for the communists, The Soviet Country was a political role model to be emulated, even in terms of gender equality. Not only did the USSR continue resolutely to exercise this role, but it also harboured an undoubted fascination on women’s antifascist emigration.Starting from these premises, this essay is divided into two parts. It starts by articulating the main topics of the debate on emancipation. This focuses on the features of the new women’s status and the constitution of a new feminist tradition that finds its legitimacy in the symbol of 8 March. It then moves to focus on the spread and the assimilation of the Soviet women’s model among activists. In particular, letters coming from the USSR confirm a faithful adherence to the image of the new woman which is reflected on the self-representation of militants. Communist and socialist women, who were often unaware of the sentences suffered during the years of Stalinist Terror, enthusiastically inform relatives and friends about the opportunities and independence acquired. In many cases, however, migration led to tragic consequences, and several militants were victims of the Stalinist repression.Key words: Soviet myth, Socialist and Communist women’s Press, women’s emancipation, women’s antifascist Emigration, letters.

Este artigo apresenta o resultado de um processo de pesquisa-formação em que a bordadeira de Ivoti/RS, Celita Holler, narra e borda aspectos de sua história de vida que corraboram para a sua afirmação “Bordar é minha vida, meu alimento, minha arte, meu sonho, meu alento”. A mulher, detentora do conhecimento do modo de bordar, não guarda apenas o modo de fazer os riscos (desenho), os pontos e de escolher as cores. O guardar se constitui como parte de sua práxis social, evidenciando sua visão de mundo, seus valores culturais, religiosos, sociais, políticos. Com seu conhecimento, Celita contribui na preservação cultural do Wandschoner, trazido à sua cidade por famílias imigrantes alemãs.This article presents the result of a research-training process in which Ivoti / RS embroiderer, Celita Holler, narrates and edges aspects of her life history that corroborate her statement "Embroidering is my life, my food, My art, my dream, my breath". The woman, who knows how to embroider, does not only keep the way of making the scratches (drawing), the stitches and choosing the colors. The saving is constituted as part of its social praxis, evidencing its vision of the world, its cultural, religious, social, political values. With his knowledge, Celita contributes to the cultural preservation of the Wandschoner, brought to his city by German immigrant families.

O artigo sugere uma agenda para que se realize o sonho de uma nova Igreja – segundo o desejo do Vaticano II (1962-65) – “ensaio e profecia” de um mundo novo, justo e irmanado. Propõe critérios para enfrentar criativamente os desafios levantados pelas rápidas transformações culturais que a história está contemplando. Recomenda: imprimir um novo modelo de exercício do primado petrino; dar o primado à Palavra de Deus; edificar uma Igreja ministerial, participativa, com espaço para que a mulher tome parte em todas as instâncias de serviço e decisão; fortalecer as características de uma Igreja sinodal e conciliar. Pede também que se rompa o rígido cristocentrismo que marca “o triunfalismo das hierarquias, que escrevem documentos sobre o Cristo para falar de si mesmas e do seu poder”.Abstract: The article proposes an agenda for the realization of the dream of a new Church – according to the Vatican II’s wishes (1962-65) – the “trial and prophecy” of a just and fraternal new world. It suggests some criteria to enable us to face, in a creative manner, the challenges raised by the rapid cultural changes that history has been witnessing. It recommends that we should: divulge a new model for the exercise of the Petrine primacy; give priority to the Word of God; build a ministerial, participative Church, in which women may participate in all instances of service and decision making; and strengthen the characteristics of a synodical and conciliar Church. It also requires that the rigid Christ-centrism that marks “the triumphalism of the hierarchies that write documents about Christ in order to speak about themselves and their own power” should be broken.

ABSTRACT We report the case of a 35-year-old woman diagnosed with keratoconus since she was 18 years old and wearer of corneal rigid contact lenses (CLs). We refitted the case with the fully scleral CL ICD16.5 (Paragon Vision Sciences) for obtaining not only a successful visual restoration, but also a comfortable wear. We initiated the fitting with the spherical model of the CL, but it failed due to instability of the lens. We confirmed the presence of a clear asymmetry in the anterior scleral geometry in both eyes by using the profilometer eye surface profiler (ESP, Eaglet Eye), with a difference between nasal and temporal sagittal heights of 470 and 170 μm in right and left eyes respectively. Although this profile suggested the need for the fitting of a CL with significant peripheral toricity, we followed the manufacturer's guidelines and performed a trial with a CL of moderate peripheral toricity (125 μm of difference between steep and flat meridian). The stability of the CL failed again and finally a CL with a peripheral toricity close to that measured with the profilometer was fitted. With this lens, good visual performance, lens stability, and comfort was obtained and maintained during a 1-year follow-up. This case suggests that fully scleral CLs fitting might be optimized with the use of corneo-scleral profilometers, minimizing potentially the number of trials. This potential benefit should be investigated further in future studies. How to cite this article Piñero DP, Soto-Negro R. Anterior Eye Profilometry-guided Scleral Contact Lens Fitting in Keratoconus. Int J Kerat Ect Cor Dis 2017;6(2):97-100.

Abstract Background: Although suprasellar and cavernous sinus invasion are common in giant prolactinomas, intra-orbital extension is extremely uncommon [1]. Even less reported are cases of giant prolactinomas causing cerebral ischemia or death. Clinical Case: A 51-year old woman presented to the ED with confusion, right-sided weakness and severe left eye proptosis with loss of vision. Five years prior, she underwent a partial transphenoidal resection for a macroprolactinoma due to acute vision changes with compression of the optic chiasm. Prior to surgery, prolactin level was elevated to 2,106 ng/mL (n 2.4-24.0 ng/mL). Post-operative MRI showed residual 2.7 x 3.1 x 2.6 cm mass. Thereafter she was prescribed cabergoline which she self-discontinued three years later. MRI of the brain at time of presentation demonstrated a 10.1 x 6.4 x 4.3 cm sellar/suprasellar mass extending into the left orbit causing severe proptosis and mass effect on the left frontal lobe, temporal lobe, midbrain, and basilar artery with encasement of the left cavernous internal carotid artery. A recent left striatocapsular infarct due to compression of the left middle cerebral artery was present. Prolactin level was elevated to 16,487 ng/mL. Neurosurgery was consulted and recommended medical management. Free thyroxine level was low and thyroid hormone replacement was started. Although the cosyntropin stimulation test showed an appropriate cortisol level peak of 21.5 mcg/dL, she was given stress dose glucocorticoids. Bromocriptine was initially started and titrated and later changed to cabergoline. Six weeks after discharge, she was readmitted with worsening confusion and seizure activity. On day 2 of admission, she decompensated. New hemorrhage inside the mass with increased vasogenic edema and a midline shift was discovered on a head CT. She underwent emergent craniotomy with surgical debulking of the tumor. Unfortunately, her mental status did not improve post-operatively. She was transitioned to hospice care and died 7 days after surgery. Surgical pathology showed a lactotroph adenoma with markedly elevated Ki67 proliferation index of 20-30%. Conclusion: This case demonstrates an unusually aggressive macroprolactinoma causing severe proptosis, ischemic stroke and death and adds to the very few cases previously reported [2]. References: 1. Karcioglu ZA, Aden LB, Cruz AA, Zaslow L, Saloom RJ. Orbital invasion with prolactinoma: a clinical review of four patients. Ophthalmic Plast Reconstr Surg. 2002 Jan;18(1):64-71. 2. Navarro-Bonnet J, Martínez-Anda JJ, Balderrama-Soto A, Pérez-Reyes SP, Pérez-Neri I, Portocarrero-Ortiz L. Stroke associated with pituitary apoplexy in a giant prolactinoma: a case report. Clin Neurol Neurosurg. 2014 Jan;116:101-3.

Na Exortação pós-sinodal Querida Amazônia, o Papa Francisco apresenta o Documento final do sínodo “de maneira oficial” e, por esta razão, em vez de querer superá-lo ou substituí-lo, convida “a lê-lo integralmente”. Daí o fato de sugerir “uma recepção harmoniosa, criativa e frutuosa de todo o caminho sinodal” (QA, 2). Como articular o Documento final com a Exortação pós-sinodal com vistas a uma potencialização recíproca? Reputa-se que questões candentes emersas no curso do longo processo sinodal continuam postas sobre a mesa. E isso justificaria, portanto, o fato de se continuar refletindo sobre as mesmas. A teologia tem por missão iluminar a prática pastoral no intuito de torná-la mais lúcida e eficaz. Nesse sentido, serão aqui problematizadas algumas das questões em torno a três nós temáticos: 1) a Igreja faz a Eucaristia, mas é a Eucaristia que edifica a Igreja; 2) a ”privatização” do ministério ordenado e da eucaristia; 3) a relação entre “sacerdócio batismal” e “sacerdócio ministerial”. Antes, porém, são partilhadas algumas perplexidades relativas, sobretudo, às questões tratadas nos parágrafos que se situam no quarto capítulo, intitulado “Sonho eclesial”, e, mais precisamente, nos números relativos à “inculturação do ministério” (n. 85-90) e à “força e dom das mulheres” (n. 99-103). Manifesta-se, enfim, a convicção de que tais questões devam ser analisadas e aprofundadas no horizonte de uma eclesiologia de comunhão enredada ao redor do binômio comunidade-ministérios.Abstract: In the post-synodal Exhortation Dear Amazon Pope Francis presents the final document of the synod “in an official manner” and for this reason, instead of wanting to go beyond or replace it invites us to “read it in its entirety”. Hence his suggestion for “a harmonious, creative and fruitful reception of the entire synodal path” (QA, 2). How to link the final Document with the post-synodal Exhortation with the intention to produce a reciprocal enhancement? It is believed that complex topics kept under the surface throughout the long synodal process continue on the table. This would justify, therefore, the fact that we continue to reflect about them. Theology has as its mission to throw light on the pastoral practice in order to make it clearer and more effective. In this sense, some of the issues around three thematic knots there will be discussed and analyzed here: 1) the Church makes the Eucharist but it is the Eucharist that builds the Church; 2) the “privatization” of the ordained ministry and of the Eucharist; 3) the relation between “baptismal priesthood” and “ministerial priesthood”. Before this, however, some perplexities related, above all, to the issues dealt with in some paragraphs of the fourth chapter – entitled Ecclesial Dream – are shared. And, more precisely, the numbers related to the “enculturation of the ministry” (n.85-90) and to “the strength and gifts of women” (n. 99-103). Finally, the conviction that such issues must be further analysed and studied more deeply in the horizon of a communion ecclesiology entangled with the binomial community-ministries.Keywords: Eucharist; Inculturation; Baptized priesthood; Community; Ministries.

Formata dal movimento dei ghiacciai quaternari, la Valle di Susa è una valle alpina nel Nord Ovest italiano. Luminoso esempio di “materia narrante”, è anche terreno di scontro tra iniziative conservazionistiche e progetti infrastrutturali transnazionali. Il progetto dell’alta velocità-capacità ferroviaria, o TAV, è stato oggetto di dure critiche. Dagli anni Novanta, grandi mobilitazioni riunite sotto il vessillo No TAV dalla valle si sono estese all’intero territorio nazionale. Parallelamente, il TAV gode l’appoggio bipartisan delle forze politiche. Diversi progetti preliminari sono stati stracciati nel tentativo di sedare un conflitto quasi trentennale con le comunità locali, un conflitto che buona parte della popolazione descrive come “resistenza”, riallacciandosi all’epopea partigiana contro la piaga nazista. Il 28 luglio 2017, il Movimento No TAV ha annunciato il rinvenimento della sgargiante Zerynthia polyxena presso il torrente Clarea. Questa farfalla è inserita nella Direttiva Habitat, adottata dall’Unione europea nel 1992 per promuovere la tutela della biodiversità. Tuttavia, l’area è stata scelta come nuovo sito di cantiere da TELT, Promotore Pubblico responsabile della realizzazione e gestione della sezione transfrontaliera della futura linea Torino-Lyon. La notizia offre una lettura inedita del rapporto fra umano, tecnologia e ambiente in un contesto di altissima tensione economica e sociale quale è la Val di Susa. Nell'Ecuba, Euripide racconta che Polissena, principessa troiana, preferì farsi uccidere piuttosto che diventare schiava. La vicenda di Polissena è il cavallo di legno che introduce nel dibattito sul progetto del TAV l’assunto per cui “la liberazione della natura così ardentemente desiderata dagli ambientalisti non potrà mai essere pienamente ottenuta senza la liberazione della donna” (Gaard). Una nuova possibilità per il Movimento No TAV di far sentire la propria voce sarà illuminando la verità che il corpo della Terra e i corpi delle donne sono un unico corpo soggiogato e subordinato all’uomo, vittime dello stesso pregiudizio, quello di essere predisposti a uno scopo: compiacere, nutrire, servire. Ho ripercorso una china che va da La Dea Bianca di Robert Graves alla stregoneria al fascismo, guidato da alcune eroine letterarie. Coniugando idealmente l’ecofemminismo alla teoria designata da Edward Lorenz, battendo le ali Polissena può davvero scatenare un uragano. Abstract Formed by the movement of large ice sheets during the Quaternary glaciations, the Susa Valley is an alpine site in northwestern Italy. It is a luminous example of “storied matter,” but it is also a battlefield between visions of wild nature and the plans of “crossnational” infrastructures. The planned TAV (Treno Alta Velocità, or high-speed train) line has been the source of heavy criticism: since the 1990s, an intense mobilization has spread from the valley all across Italy under the banner of the “No TAV” movement. The TAV project has since enjoyed unwavering political support from the members of parliament, right-wing and left-wing alike. Several preliminary drafts have been overturned in the attempt to quell a three-decades–long clash with the communities, a clash that most of the local people depict as “resistance,” latching on to the partisans’ epic stories of endurance against the Nazi scourge that took place in the valley. On July 28, 2017, the No TAV movement announced the discovery of the rare and striking butterfly Zerynthia polyxena, among the rare, threatened, or endemic species in the European Union listed in the Habitat Directive adopted in 1992. Yet, the area has been chosen as the new construction site by the company entrusted with the management of the cross-border section of the high-speed railway line between Turin and Lyon (a.k.a. TELT). This piece of news provides an original point of view to address the relationship between human and non-human agencies in a context of economic and social tension such as the Susa Valley. In this paper, I compare contemporary circumstances in the valley to the ancient Greek myth of Polyxena. In the tragedy Hecuba, the dramatist Euripides describes Polyxena as the Trojan princess who prefers to kill herself rather than become a slave. Hence, the butterfly that carries her name might become a Trojan horse enshrining the idea that “the liberation of nature so ardently desired by environmentalists will not be fully effected without the liberation of women” (G. Gaard). Combining various critical strains within the Environmental Humanities–from ecofeminism and biosemiotics to environmental history and new materialism–I suggest that richer, more encompassing narratives will be generated only when the similar fate of subjugation experienced by non-human bodies and the bodies of women will be more widely recognized. I carve a meandering spatio-temporal narrative path that goes from Robert Graves’ The White Goddess to witch trials and fascism, attempting to follow an erratic fluttering pattern amongst the voices of literature. It is the very slanted figure eight pattern that Polyxena makes with its wings, and by which, according to the theory designated by Edward Lorenz, a hurricane could grow, bringing alternative world visions.Resumen Formado por el movimiento de grandes capas de hielo durante las glaciaciones cuaternarias, el valle de Susa es un enclave alpino en el noroeste de Italia. Es un ejemplo luminoso de “materia narrada”, pero también es un campo de batalla entre las visiones de la naturaleza salvaje y los planes de las infraestructuras “transnacionales”. La línea TAV (“Treno Alta Velocità” o tren de alta velocidad) ha sido objeto de fuertes críticas: desde la década de 1990 se ha extendido en toda Italia una intensa movilización bajo el lema del movimiento “No TAV”. Desde entonces, el proyecto TAV ha gozado de un apoyo político inquebrantable por parte de los miembros del parlamento, tanto de derecha como de izquierda. Varios proyectos preliminares han sido revocados en un intento de sofocar un enfrentamiento de tres décadas con las comunidades, un choque que la mayoría de la población local concibe como “resistencia”, con referencia a las épicas historias de resistencia de los partisanos contra el flagelo nazi que tuvo lugar en el valle. El 28 de julio de 2017, el movimiento No TAV anunció el descubrimiento de la sorprendente mariposa Zerynthia polyxena, entre las especies raras, amenazadas o endémicas de la Unión Europea, enumeradas en la Directiva Hábitat adoptada en 1992. Sin embargo, el lugar ha sido elegido como el nuevo sitio de construcción por la empresa encargada de la gestión del tramo transfronterizo de la línea ferroviaria de alta velocidad entre Turín y Lyon (también conocido como TELT). Esta noticia proporciona un punto de vista original para abordar la relación entre los seres humanos y el medio ambiente en un contexto de tensión económica y social como el Valle de Susa. En este artículo, comparo las circunstancias contemporáneas en el valle con el antiguo mito griego de Políxena. En la tragedia Hécuba, el dramaturgo Eurípides describe a Políxena como la princesa troyana que prefiere suicidarse antes que ser una esclava. Por lo tanto, la mariposa que lleva su nombre podría convertirse en un caballo de Troya que consagre la idea de que “la liberación de la naturaleza tan ardientemente deseada por los ecologistas no se realizará completamente sin la liberación de las mujeres” (G. Gaard). Combinando varias tendencias críticas dentro de las ciencias humanas ambientales—desde el ecofeminismo y la biosemiótica hasta la historia ambiental y los nuevos materialismos—sugiero que se generarán narrativas más ricas e incluyentes sólo cuando el destino similar de subyugación experimentado por cuerpos no humanos y cuerpos de mujeres sea más ampliamente reconocido. Trazo una ruta narrativa espacio-temporal serpenteante que va desde La Diosa Blanca de Robert Graves hasta los juicios de brujas y el fascismo, tratando de seguir un patrón de aleteo errático entre las voces de la literatura. Es el patrón inclinado de la figura de ocho que hace Políxena con sus alas, y por obra del cual, de acuerdo con la teoría designada por Edward Lorenz, un huracán podría crecer, trayendo visiones alternativas del mundo.

RESUMENLa pretensión de este artículo es ofrecer una serie de reflexiones y valoraciones metodológicas sobre la historia medieval de la Iglesia y la religiosidad partiendo de algunos aspectos destacados de la producción historiográfica reciente y esbozar ciertas propuestas en la misma clave metodológica. Este ensayo reflexiona sobre temas, enfoques y perspectivas, sobre los niveles de estudio de lo religioso y sobre la integración de la historia de la Iglesia y la historia social, y aboga por una historiasocial de la Iglesia.PALABRAS CLAVE: Historia Medieval, Historia de la Iglesia y la vida religiosa en la Edad Media, Metodología histórica, Liturgia y sociedad, Tendencias historiográficas.ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to offer a series of reflections and methodological evaluations on the medieval history of the Church and religiosity based on some outstanding aspects of recent historiographical production, and to outline certain proposals in the same methodological vein. 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This study aimed to explore the perceived barriers to physical activity among college students Study Design: Qualitative research design Eight focus group discussions on 67 college students aged 18-24 years (48 females, 19 males) was conducted on College premises. Data were analysed using inductive approach. Participants identified a number of obstacles to physical activity. Perceived barriers emerged from the analysis of the data addressed the different dimensions of the socio-ecological framework. The result indicated that the young adults perceived substantial amount of personal, social and environmental factors as barriers such as time constraint, tiredness, stress, family control, safety issues and much more. Understanding the barriers and overcoming the barriers at this stage will be valuable. Health professionals and researchers can use this information to design and implement interventions, strategies and policies to promote the participation in physical activity. This further can help the students to deal with those barriers and can help to instil the habit of regular physical activity in the later adult years.

In varying Jewish and African contexts (cf. the Yorùbá and Sotho in the present essay), the ‘ēšet hayil is regarded as a historical figure who should serve as a model for women both young and old. As an organic scholar within an African context, I am both fascinated and also challenged by how biblical notions of gender and womanhood, as portrayed in the paean on the ‘ēšet hayil in Proverbs 31:10–31, seem to be at variance with notions of gender and womanhood as depicted in some Yorùbá and Sotho proverbs. Noting the emphasis in Proverbs 31:10–31 on the positive image of the ‘ēšet hayil as the ideal wife, this article shows that overall, in the African proverbs, the woman is depicted positively as a mother, though many proverbs (cf. especially the Yorùbá proverbs) cast the woman as a wife in a negative light. It is argued that the epitome of womanhood, which in Proverbs 31:10–31 is the ideal wife, appears to stand in tension with the image of a good mother and of a bad wife observed in some of the African proverbs. This article therefore focuses on the kind of gender- and family-conscious hermeneutic that may be envisioned when Proverbs 31:10–31 is read in the Yorùbá and Sotho contexts.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The research carried out in this article entails Old Testament Studies, Gender Studies and African Languages. Sotho and Yorùbá proverbs on womanhood are used as a hermeneutical lens to interrogate the text of Proverbs 31:10–31, resulting in fresh insights on womanhood. The resultant output makes a needed contribution in challenging patriarchal ideologies and contexts.

The question of the history of the reception of the Christian Bible in South Africa particularly by African- South Africans has not been a smooth ride. It was part of a bigger package that included among others, the importation of European patriarchy onto African soil, the land grabbing exercise which resulted in among others, the impoverishment of African peoples and, the emasculation of the African man. The latter in turn led to the intensification of patriarchy within the average African family. The preceding situation, was not helpful to the context and/or situation of African women who were already then, at the bottom of the patriarchal ladder, because, as can be expected, within the context of the Black church and theology then, little if any except for a handful of liberation theologians and members of some ecumenical bodies, was done to make the theology propagated then, relevant to pertinent issues which affected the lives of Black people.Given the historical marginalisation of women in the Bible and Theology, not only in South Africa, but also globally, it becomes obvious that even in our context, mainstream theology and biblical hermeneutics left issues pertaining to gender justice basically untouched. It is no wonder, as we will argue in this paper, that given that already vulnerable situation into which African women have been thrown into by the preceding factors as well as by how the Bible continues to be used in our HIV and AIDS contexts, their situation may be succinctly captured as that of a limping animal that has been made to climb the mountain! The Northern Sotho proverb or saying: Wa re o bona e hlot�a, wa e namet�a thaba (while limping, you let it climb the mountain) simply means that a certain situation is being aggravated (by an external factor). The present article will use the preceding proverb as a hermeneutical lens through which to analyse the reception of the Bible by African women in the HIV and AIDS context of South Africa.

Notions about worthy womanhood are shaped to a large extent by the cultural contexts in which they are constructed. In the global village though, shaped as it is mainly by Eurocentric cultures, it would be presumptuous to assume that one can with certainty pinpoint what may be termed ‘purely traditional African notions of womanhood’. Also, it will be an exaggeration to argue that Africa does not have its own notions on ideal womanhood. Particularly in Christian African contexts, notions about womanhood are still shaped to a large extent by both the traditional African worldviews and the received biblical interpretations about womanhood. In the preceding scenario, one wonders if women’s identities reveal their real selves or whether they are tamed, and thus artificial. In one’s attempt to unravel notions of womanhood from both the corpus, Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and in the South African context (cf. selected African proverbs), this article has sought to answer the following main question: if images of women in selected African (Northern Sotho) proverbs (cf. also selected South African narratives) and in the book of Proverbs (cf. Pr 10:1–22:16) are brought together, what kind of picture may emerge from such a comparison?

Setswana proverbs point to the rich oral history of the Batswana people, their cosmology, morality, indigenous knowledge system, rituals, drama, sayings and memo scripts which are deeply embedded in memory. They emerged from reflections on existential experiences and animal behaviour. In her analysis of Proverbs 31:10�31 found in the Hebrew text, Masenya rereads this text in conjugation with her Northern Sotho proverbs regarding women from a bosadi [womanhood] approach. It is in this approach that she attempts to engage structures of �patriarchy� and the marginalisation of women�s identities. In so doing, the approach grapples with issues such as the mythological thinking of male dominance, cultural subjugation, gender equality, political marginalisation and economic transaction. The decolonial turn as a theoretical framework acknowledges the particularity and universality of cultures and knowledge. Whilst there is particularity among African cultures, there is also universality. In this article I will refer to Setswana proverbs in the context of marriage to engage the bosadi approach. It is the intention of this article to argue that proverbs such as lebitla la mosadi ke bogadi need to be contextualised within their historical location as well as within the context of the institution of lenyalo that is anchored in the practice of bogadi. Furthermore, there is a need to critically engage with terms such as patriarchy, oppression, structure and hierarchy. The paper will use the decolonial turn as a theoretical framework. A conclusion will be drawn from the discussion above.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article has an interdisciplinary approach, it touches on Historical analysis of Setswana Proverbs, the missionary era and the transition between �Setswana traditional� worldview and �Euro-Christian� worldview. Furthermore, it pertains to the understanding of the Proverbs within the custom of Lenyalo (marriage), boarders between anthropological, sociological and African philosophy approaches. The fundamental theoretical approaches used in this article is translational theory and decolonial turn, which is social sciences.

This article investigates and attempts to provide answers from pastoral perspectives regarding the perception the Basotho have on the issue of traditional purification. The aim of this article is to find out why the bereaved, that have not yet been purified traditionally, are not allowed to be part of certain activities, like going to the church and also performing certain community activities.The investigation was conducted by way of qualitative research. Three different Sotho Reformed congregations were selected, namely one from the Northern-Sotho speaking congregations, one from the Setswana speaking congregations and one from the Southern-Sesotho speaking congregations. Respondents included one minister, one older man, one older woman, and two young members including a man and a woman from each congregation in order to get a broader perspective. For the sake of confidentiality the names of the congregations and participants remained anonymous.The results of the article indicate that the rights of the bereaved to perform certain duties in the community are reduced till such time that they are purified traditionally.

In the 104 years of the existence of the African National Congress, many a black person in Sout Africa has been exclusively led by men. Also, 24 years into a democracy, patriarchy continues to raise its ugly head in our parliament, among other institutions. Disturbingly, against the call for a female presidential leadership Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the National Union of Mineworkers, together with the ANC leadership in the Gauteng province, are lobbying for a male presidential candidate namely, Cyril Ramaphosa. In order to engage the issue of patriarchy in the South African politics, the Sepedi/Northern Sotho proverb tsa etwa ke ye tshadi pele, di wela ka leope [once they are led by a female one, that is, a cow, they will fall into a donga] will be employed as a hermeneutical tool to re-read the Deuteronomistic Athaliah the bosadi way. the interest of the preceding way lies at seeking justice for the transformation of many an African women's life in present day South Africa. Inthe end, this article will investigate whether the tenor of the Northern Sotho/Sepedi proverb that once they (cattle [read: South Africans]) are led by a female one, they are sure to fall into a donga.Intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary implications: Drawing from the insight in the fields of the Old Testament, gender and social sciences studies as well as Indigenous Knowledge Systems (with particular focus on an African proverb), this article addresses the topic of the South African Female Presidential Leadership and the Deuteronomistic Athaliah the bosadi way.Keywords: Deuteronomistic Athaliah; Patriarchy; Woman president; South Africa; Sepedi proverb; bosadi

The De Soto chronicles introduce us to the Caddo Indian peoples of East Texas in what we can arbitrarily call “historic times.” The Gentleman of Elvas had this to say when the Spaniards reached the Caddo province of Naguatex on the Red River in the Great Bend area of southwestern Arkansas in August of 1542. The cacique [of Naguatex], on beholding the damage that his land was receiving [from the Spanish forces], sent six of his principal men and three Indians with them as guides who knew the language of the region ahead where the governor [Luis de Moscoso] was about to go. He immediately left Naguatex and after marching three days reached a town of four or five houses, belonging to the cacique of that miserable province, called Nisohone. It was a poorly populated region and had little maize. Two days later, the guides who were guiding the governor, if they had to go toward the west, guided then toward the east, and sometimes they went through dense forests, wandering off the road. The governor ordered them hanged from a tree, and an Indian women, who had been captured at Nisohone, guided them, and he went back to look for the road. Despite the “miserable” condition of the lands traversed by the Spaniards in Caddo country, the Caddo were successful agriculturists, with a Mississippian societal flavor, as well as bison hunters when they were first described in 1542 by the Spanish expedition.

At a time when a trip abroad was out of the reach of most women, even if they could not make the journey, Australian women could imagine “abroad” just by reading popular women’s magazines such as Woman (later Woman’s Day and Home then Woman’s Day) and The Australian Women’s Weekly, and journals, such as The Progressive Woman and The Housewife. Increasingly in the post-war period, these magazines and journals contained advertisements for holidaying abroad, recipes for international foods and articles on overseas fashions. It was not unusual for local manufacturers, to use the lure of travel and exotic places as a way of marketing their goods. Healing Bicycles, for example, used the slogan “In Venice men go to work on Gondolas: In Australia it’s a Healing” (“Healing Cycles” 40), and Exotiq cosmetics featured landscapes of countries where Exotiq products had “captured the hearts of women who treasured their loveliness: Cincinnati, Milan, New York, Paris, Geneva and Budapest” (“Exotiq Cosmetics” 36).Unlike Homer’s Penelope, who stayed at home for twenty years waiting for Odysseus to return from the Trojan wars, women have always been on the move to the same extent as men. Their rich travel stories (Riggal, Haysom, Lancaster)—mostly written as letters and diaries—remain largely unpublished and their experiences are not part of the public record to the same extent as the travel stories of men. Ros Pesman argues that the women traveller’s voice was one of privilege and authority full of excitement and disbelief (Pesman 26). She notes that until well into the second part of the twentieth century, “the journey for Australian women to Europe was much more than a return to the sources of family identity and history” (19). It was also:a pilgrimage to the centres and sites of culture, literature and history and an encounter with “the real world.”Europe, and particularly London,was also the place of authority and reference for all those seeking accreditation and recognition, whether as real writers, real ladies or real politicians and statesmen. (19)This article is about two Australian writers; Helen Seager, a journalist employed by The Argus, a daily newspaper in Melbourne Australia, and Gwen Hughes, a graduate of Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy in Melbourne, working in England as a lecturer, demonstrator and cookbook writer for Parkinsons’ Stove Company. Helen Seager travelled to England on an assignment for The Argus in 1950 and sent articles each day for publication in the women’s section of the newspaper. Gwen Hughes travelled extensively in the Balkans in the 1930s recording her impressions, observations, and recipes for traditional foods whilst working for Parkinsons in England. These women were neither returning to the homeland for an encounter with the real world, nor were they there as cultural tourists in the Cook’s Tour sense of the word. They were professional writers and their observations about the places they visited offer fresh and lively versions of England and Europe, its people, places, and customs.Helen SeagerAustralian Journalist Helen Seager (1901–1981) wrote a daily column, Good Morning Ma’am in the women’s pages of The Argus, from 1947 until shortly after her return from abroad in 1950. Seager wrote human interest stories, often about people of note (Golding), but with a twist; a Baroness who finds knitting exciting (Seager, “Baroness” 9) and ballet dancers backstage (Seager, “Ballet” 10). Much-loved by her mainly female readership, in May 1950 The Argus sent her to England where she would file a daily report of her travels. Whilst now we take travel for granted, Seager was sent abroad with letters of introduction from The Argus, stating that she was travelling on a special editorial assignment which included: a certificate signed by the Lord Mayor of The City of Melbourne, seeking that any courtesies be extended on her trip to England, the Continent, and America; a recommendation from the Consul General of France in Australia; and introductions from the Premier’s Department, the Premier of Victoria, and Austria’s representative in Australia. All noted the nature of her trip, her status as an esteemed reporter for a Melbourne newspaper, and requested that any courtesy possible to be made to her.This assignment was an indication that The Argus valued its women readers. Her expenses, and those of her ten-year-old daughter Harriet, who accompanied her, were covered by the newspaper. Her popularity with her readership is apparent by the enthusiastic tone of the editorial article covering her departure. Accompanied with a photograph of Seager and Harriet boarding the aeroplane, her many women readers were treated to their first ever picture of what she looked like:THOUSANDS of "Argus" readers, particularly those in the country, have wanted to know what Helen Seager looks like. Here she is, waving good-bye as she left on the first stage of a trip to England yesterday. She will be writing her bright “Good Morning, Ma'am” feature as she travels—giving her commentary on life abroad. (The Argus, “Goodbye” 1)Figure 1. Helen Seager and her daughter Harriet board their flight for EnglandThe first article “From Helen in London” read,our Helen Seager, after busy days spent exploring England with her 10-year-old daughter, Harriet, today cabled her first “Good Morning, Ma’am” column from abroad. Each day from now on she will report from London her lively impressions in an old land, which is delightfully new to her. (Seager, “From Helen” 3)Whilst some of her dispatches contain the impressions of the awestruck traveller, for the most they are exquisitely observed stories of the everyday and the ordinary, often about the seemingly most trivial of things, and give a colourful, colonial and egalitarian impression of the places that she visits. A West End hair-do is described, “as I walked into that posh looking establishment, full of Louis XV, gold ornateness to be received with bows from the waist by numerous satellites, my first reaction was to turn and bolt” (Seager, “West End” 3).When she visits Oxford’s literary establishments, she is, for this particular article, the awestruck Australian:In Oxford, you go around saying, soto voce and aloud, “Oh, ye dreaming spires of Oxford.” And Matthew Arnold comes alive again as a close personal friend.In a weekend, Ma’am, I have seen more of Oxford than lots of native Oxonians. I have stood and brooded over the spit in Christ Church College’s underground kitchens on which the oxen for Henry the Eighth were roasted.I have seen the Merton Library, oldest in Oxford, in which the chains that imprisoned the books are still to be seen, and have added by shoe scrape to the stone steps worn down by 500 years of walkers. I have walked the old churches, and I have been lost in wonder at the goodly virtues of the dead. And then, those names of Oxford! Holywell, Tom’s Quad, Friars’ Entry, and Long Wall. The gargoyles at Magdalen and the stones untouched by bombs or war’s destruction. It adds a new importance to human beings to know that once, if only, they too have walked and stood and stared. (Seager, “From Helen” 3)Her sense of wonder whilst in Oxford is, however, moderated by the practicalities of travel incorporated into the article. She continues to describe the warnings she was given, before her departure, of foreign travel that had her alarmed about loss and theft, and the care she took to avoid both. “It would have made you laugh, Ma’am, could you have seen the antics to protect personal property in the countries in transit” (Seager, “From Helen” 3).Her description of a trip to Blenheim Palace shows her sense of fun. She does not attempt to describe the palace or its contents, “Blenheim Palace is too vast and too like a great Government building to arouse much envy,” settling instead on a curiosity should there be a turn of events, “as I surged through its great halls with a good-tempered, jostling mob I couldn’t help wondering what those tired pale-faced guides would do if the mob mood changed and it started on an old-fashioned ransack.” Blenheim palace did not impress her as much as did the Sunday crowd at the palace:The only thing I really took a fancy to were the Venetian cradle, which was used during the infancy of the present Duke and a fine Savvonerie carpet in the same room. What I never wanted to see again was the rubbed-fur collar of the lady in front.Sunday’s crowd was typically English, Good tempered, and full of Cockney wit, and, if you choose to take your pleasures in the mass, it is as good a company as any to be in. (Seager, “We Look” 3)In a description of Dublin and the Dubliners, Seager describes the food-laden shops: “Butchers’ shops leave little room for customers with their great meat carcasses hanging from every hook. … English visitors—and Dublin is awash with them—make an orgy of the cakes that ooze real cream, the pink and juicy hams, and the sweets that demand no points” (Seager, “English” 6). She reports on the humanity of Dublin and Dubliners, “Dublin has a charm that is deep-laid. It springs from the people themselves. Their courtesy is overlaid with a real interest in humanity. They walk and talk, these Dubliners, like Kings” (ibid.).In Paris she melds the ordinary with the noteworthy:I had always imagined that the outside of the Louvre was like and big art gallery. Now that I know it as a series of palaces with courtyards and gardens beyond description in the daytime, and last night, with its cleverly lighted fountains all aplay, its flags and coloured lights, I will never forget it.Just now, down in the street below, somebody is packing the boot of a car to go for, presumably, on a few days’ jaunt. There is one suitcase, maybe with clothes, and on the footpath 47 bottles of the most beautiful wines in the world. (Seager, “When” 3)She writes with a mix of awe and ordinary:My first glimpse of that exciting vista of the Arc de Triomphe in the distance, and the little bistros that I’ve always wanted to see, and all the delights of a new city, […] My first day in Paris, Ma’am, has not taken one whit from the glory that was London. (ibid.) Figure 2: Helen Seager in ParisIt is my belief that Helen Seager intended to do something with her writings abroad. The articles have been cut from The Argus and pasted onto sheets of paper. She has kept copies of the original reports filed whist she was away. The collection shows her insightful egalitarian eye and a sharp humour, a mix of awesome and commonplace.On Bastille Day in 1950, Seager wrote about the celebrations in Paris. Her article is one of exuberant enthusiasm. She writes joyfully about sirens screaming overhead, and people in the street, and looking from windows. Her article, published on 19 July, starts:Paris Ma’am is a magical city. I will never cease to be grateful that I arrived on a day when every thing went wrong, and watched it blossom before my eyes into a gayness that makes our Melbourne Cup gala seem funeral in comparison.Today is July 14.All places of business are closed for five days and only the places of amusement await the world.Parisians are tireless in their celebrations.I went to sleep to the music of bands, dancing feet and singing voices, with the raucous but cheerful toots from motors splitting the night air onto atoms. (Seager, “When” 3)This article resonates uneasiness. How easily could those scenes of celebration on Bastille Day in 1950 be changed into the scenes of carnage on Bastille Day 2016, the cheerful toots of the motors transformed into cries of fear, the sirens in the sky from aeroplanes overhead into the sirens of ambulances and police vehicles, as a Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, as part of a terror attack drives a truck through crowds of people celebrating in Nice.Gwen HughesGwen Hughes graduated from Emily Macpherson College of Domestic Economy with a Diploma of Domestic Science, before she travelled to England to take up employment as senior lecturer and demonstrator of Parkinson’s England, a company that manufactured electric and gas stoves. Hughes wrote in her unpublished manuscript, Balkan Fever, that it was her idea of making ordinary cooking demonstration lessons dramatic and homelike that landed her the job in England (Hughes, Balkan 25-26).Her cookbook, Perfect Cooking, was produced to encourage housewives to enjoy cooking with their Parkinson’s modern cookers with the new Adjusto temperature control. The message she had to convey for Parkinsons was: “Cooking is a matter of putting the right ingredients together and cooking them at the right temperature to achieve a given result” (Hughes, Perfect 3). In reality, Hughes used this cookbook as a vehicle to share her interest in and love of Continental food, especially food from the Balkans where she travelled extensively in the 1930s.Recipes of Continental foods published in Perfect Cooking sit seamlessly alongside traditional British foods. The section on soup, for example, contains recipes for Borscht, a very good soup cooked by the peasants of Russia; Minestrone, an everyday Italian soup; Escudella, from Spain; and Cream of Spinach Soup from France (Perfect 22-23). Hughes devoted a whole chapter to recipes and descriptions of Continental foods labelled “Fascinating Foods From Far Countries,” showing her love and fascination with food and travel. She started this chapter with the observation:There is nearly as much excitement and romance, and, perhaps fear, about sampling a “foreign dish” for the “home stayer” as there is in actually being there for the more adventurous “home leaver”. Let us have a little have a little cruise safe within the comfort of our British homes. Let us try and taste the good things each country is famed for, all the while picturing the romantic setting of these dishes. (Hughes, Perfect 255)Through her recipes and descriptive passages, Hughes took housewives in England and Australia into the strange and wonderful kitchens of exotic women: Madame Darinka Jocanovic in Belgrade, Miss Anicka Zmelova in Prague, Madame Mrskosova at Benesova. These women taught her to make wonderful-sounding foods such as Apfel Strudel, Knedlikcy, Vanilla Kipfel and Christmas Stars. “Who would not enjoy the famous ‘Goose with Dumplings,’” she declares, “in the company of these gay, brave, thoughtful people with their romantic history, their gorgeously appareled peasants set in their richly picturesque scenery” (Perfect 255).It is Hughes’ unpublished manuscript Balkan Fever, written in Melbourne in 1943, to which I now turn. It is part of the Latrobe Heritage collection at the State Library of Victoria. Her manuscript was based on her extensive travels in the Balkans in the 1930s whilst she lived and worked in England, and it was, I suspect, her intention to seek publication.In her twenties, Hughes describes how she set off to the Balkans after meeting a fellow member of the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW) at the Royal Yugoslav Legation. He was an expert on village life in the Balkans and advised her, that as a writer she would get more information from the local villagers than she would as a tourist. Hughes, who, before television gave cooking demonstrations on the radio, wrote, “I had been writing down recipes and putting them in books for years and of course the things one talks about over the air have to be written down first—that seemed fair enough” (Hughes, Balkan 25-26). There is nothing of the awestruck traveller in Hughes’ richly detailed observations of the people and the places that she visited. “Travelling in the Balkans is a very different affair from travelling in tourist-conscious countries where you just leave it to Cooks. You must either have unlimited time at your disposal, know the language or else have introductions that will enable the right arrangements to be made for you” (Balkan 2), she wrote. She was the experiential tourist, deeply immersed in her surroundings and recording food culture and society as it was.Hughes acknowledged that she was always drawn away from the cities to seek the real life of the people. “It’s to the country district you must go to find the real flavour of a country and the heart of its people—especially in the Balkans where such a large percentage of the population is agricultural” (Balkan 59). Her descriptions in Balkan Fever are a blend of geography, history, culture, national songs, folklore, national costumes, food, embroidery, and vivid observation of the everyday city life. She made little mention of stately homes or buildings. Her attitude to travel can be summed up in her own words:there are so many things to see and learn in the countries of the old world that, walking with eyes and mind wide open can be an immensely delightful pastime, even with no companion and nowhere to go. An hour or two spent in some unpretentious coffee house can be worth all the dinners at Quaglino’s or at The Ritz, if your companion is a good talker, a specialist in your subject, or knows something of the politics and the inner life of the country you are in. (Balkan 28)Rather than touring the grand cities, she was seduced by the market places with their abundance of food, colour, and action. Describing Sarajevo she wrote:On market day the main square is a blaze of colour and movement, the buyers no less colourful than the peasants who have come in from the farms around with their produce—cream cheese, eggs, chickens, fruit and vegetables. Handmade carpets hung up for sale against walls or from trees add their barbaric colour to the splendor of the scene. (Balkan 75)Markets she visited come to life through her vivid descriptions:Oh those markets, with the gorgeous colours, and heaped untidiness of the fruits and vegetables—paprika, those red and green peppers! Every kind of melon, grape and tomato contributing to the riot of colour. Then there were the fascinating peasant embroideries, laces and rich parts of old costumes brought in from the villages for sale. The lovely gay old embroideries were just laid out on a narrow carpet spread along the pavement or hung from a tree if one happened to be there. (Balkan 11)Perhaps it was her radio cooking shows that gave her the ability to make her descriptions sensorial and pictorial:We tasted luxurious foods, fish, chickens, fruits, wines, and liqueurs. All products of the country. Perfect ambrosial nectar of the gods. I was entirely seduced by the rose petal syrup, fragrant and aromatic, a red drink made from the petals of the darkest red roses. (Balkan 151)Ordinary places and everyday events are beautifully realised:We visited the cheese factory amongst other things. … It was curious to see in that far away spot such a quantity of neatly arranged cheeses in the curing chamber, being prepared for export, and in another room the primitive looking round balls of creamed cheese suspended from rafters. Later we saw trains of pack horses going over the mountains, and these were probably the bearers of these cheeses to Bitolj or Skoplje, whence they would be consigned further for export. (Balkan 182)ConclusionReading Seager and Hughes, one cannot help but be swept along on their travels and take part in their journeys. What is clear, is that they were inspired by their work, which is reflected in the way they wrote about the places they visited. Both sought out people and places that were, as Hughes so vividly puts it, not part of the Cook’s Tour. They travelled with their eyes wide open for experiences that were both new and normal, making their writing relevant even today. Written in Paris on Bastille Day 1950, Seager’s Bastille Day article is poignant when compared to Bastille Day in France in 2016. Hughes’s descriptions of Sarajevo are a far cry from the scenes of destruction in that city between 1992 and 1995. The travel writing of these two women offers us vivid impressions and images of the often unreported events, places, daily lives, and industry of the ordinary and the then every day, and remind us that the more things change, the more they stay the same.Pesman writes, “women have always been on the move and Australian women have been as numerous as passengers on the outbound ships as have men” (20), but the records of their travels seldom appear on the public record. Whilst their work-related writings are part of the public record (see Haysom; Lancaster; Riggal), this body of women’s travel writing has not received the attention it deserves. Hughes’ cookbooks, with their traditional Eastern European recipes and evocative descriptions of people and kitchens, are only there for the researcher who knows that cookbooks are a trove of valuable social and cultural material. Digital copies of Seager’s writing can be accessed on Trove (a digital repository), but there is little else about her or her body of writing on the public record.ReferencesThe Argus. “Goodbye Ma’am.” 26 May 1950: 1. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22831285?searchTerm=Goodbye%20Ma%E2%80%99am%E2%80%99&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.“Exotiq Cosmetics.” Advertisement. Woman 20 Aug. 1945: 36.Golding, Peter. “Just a Chattel of the Sale: A Mostly Light-Hearted Retrospective of a Diverse Life.” In Jim Usher, ed., The Argus: Life & Death of Newspaper. North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing 2007.Haysom, Ida. Diaries and Photographs of Ida Haysom. <http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/MAIN:Everything:SLV_VOYAGER1637361>.“Healing Cycles.” Advertisement. Woman 27 Aug. 1945: 40. Hughes, Gwen. Balkan Fever. Unpublished Manuscript. State Library of Victoria, MS 12985 Box 3846/4. 1943.———. Perfect Cooking London: Parkinsons, c1940.Lancaster, Rosemary. Je Suis Australienne: Remarkable Women in France 1880-1945. Crawley WA: UWA Press, 2008.Pesman, Ros. “Overseas Travel of Australian Women: Sources in the Australian Manuscripts Collection of the State Library of Victoria.” The Latrobe Journal 58 (Spring 1996): 19-26.Riggal, Louie. (Louise Blanche.) Diary of Italian Tour 1905 February 21 - May 1. <http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/MAIN:Everything:SLV_VOYAGER1635602>.Seager, Helen. “Ballet Dancers Backstage.” The Argus 10 Aug. 1944: 10. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11356057?searchTerm=Ballet%20Dancers%20Backstage&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=194>.———. “The Baroness Who Finds Knitting Exciting.” The Argus 1 Aug. 1944: 9. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11354557?searchTerm=Helen%20seager%20Baroness&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=194>.———. “English Visitors Have a Food Spree in Eire.” The Argus 29 Sep. 1950: 6. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22912011?searchTerm=English%20visitors%20have%20a%20spree%20in%20Eire&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “From Helen in London.” The Argus 20 June 1950: 3. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22836738?searchTerm=From%20Helen%20in%20London&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “Helen Seager Storms Paris—Paris Falls.” The Argus 15 July 1950: 7.<http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22906913?searchTerm=Helen%20Seager%20Storms%20Paris%E2%80%99&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “We Look over Blenheim Palace.” The Argus 28 Sep. 1950: 3. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22902040?searchTerm=Helen%20Seager%20Its%20as%20a%20good%20a%20place%20as%20you%20would%20want%20to%20be&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “West End Hair-Do Was Fun.” The Argus 3 July 1950: 3. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22913940?searchTerm=West%20End%20hair-do%20was%20fun%E2%80%99&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “When You Are in Paris on July 14.” The Argus 19 July 1950: 3. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22906244?searchTerm=When%20you%20are%20in%20Paris%20on%20July%2014&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.

Abstract: Nowadays, Vietnamese women are participating actively in parts of the economy that were previously deemed male domain. Women are involved in business activities at all levels in Vietnam, making significant contributions to the economic development of the country. By December 2011, there were 81,226 small and medium enterprises headed by women, accounting for 25% of the total number of enterprises in the country (GSO, 2013). In Vietnam, despite recent economic development, socio-cultural and legal barriers are still very difficult for women since the general perception in society is that a woman’s main duty is to be a good housewife and mother and they are also often perceived as weak, passive and irrational (VWEC, 2007). Even though the studies related to women entrepreneurship development are quite extensive, amongst them only a limited number of researches on the role of legal and socio - cultural barriers on women entrepreneurs in the context of Vietnam have been investigated. Thus, supported by the World Trade Institute (WTI) in Bern, Switzerland, the researchers have chosen this as the subject of this study. Based on a quantitative survey of 110 companies in Hanoi and adjacent areas, the research has taken legal and socio - cultural barriers and explored their effect on the development of women entrepreneurship in the context of Vietnam in order to indicate how women entrepreneurs perceive the impact of socio-cultural factors, economic impacts, and policy reforms on their entrepreneurial situations and initiatives, and to then provide policy implications for promoting women’s entrepreneurship and gender equality in Vietnam. Keywords Entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurs, gender equality, Vietnam References Acs, Z. & Varga, A. (2005) ‘Entrepreneurship, agglomeration and technological change’, Small Business Economics, 24, 323---334. Avin, R.M & Kinney, L.P (2014). Trends in Female Entrepreneurship in Vietnam Preliminary paper presented at the 23th Annual Conference on Feminist Economics sponsored by IAFFE, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana, June 27-29, 2014.Avin, R.-M., & Kinney, L. P. (2014) ‘Trends in Women entrepreneurship in Vietnam’, 23rd Annual Conference on Feminist Economics, Ghana: 27 – 29 June.Bruton, G. D., Ahlstrom, D., & Obloj, K. (2008). Entrepreneurship in emerging economies: where are we today and where should the research go in the future. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 32(1), 1–14.Bunck, J. M. (1997) Women and Post Cold War Socialism: the cases of Cuba and Vietnam, 7th Annual Meeting, Association for the Study of Cuban Economy, University of Miami, Knight Center, Hyatt Hotel, August 7-9 1997 Central Population and Housing Census Steering Committee (2010), The 2009 Vietnam Population and Housing Census: Completed Results, Statistical Publishing House, available at: http://vietnam.unfpa.org/webdav/site/vietnam/shared/Census%20publications/3_Completed-Results.pdf Chari, M. D., & Dixit, J. (2015). Business groups and entrepreneurship in developing countries after reforms. Journal Of Business Research,68, 1359-1366.Djankov, S. , R. L. Porta , F. Lopez-de-Silanes and A. Schleifer (2002) The Regulation of Entry, Quarterly Journal of Economics CXVII (1): 1-37Food and Agricultural Organisation and United Nations Development Programme (2002) ‘Gender Differences in the Transitional Economy of Vietnam: Key Gender Findings – Second Vietnam Living Standards Survey, 1997 – 1998’. Vietnam: Food and Agricultural Organisation and United Nations Development Programme. Available at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac685e/ac685e00.htm [Accessed 7 December 2015].Fuentelsaz, L., González, C., Maícas, J., & Montero, J. (2015). ‘How different formal institutions affect opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship’. Business Research Quarterly, 18(4), 246-258. Gallup, J (2004) The wage labor market and inequality in Vietnam. In Economic growth, poverty, and household welfare in Vietnam edited by Paul Glewwe, Nisha Agrawal, and David Dollar. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) (2014), Population and employment Report 2014Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. (2013). Vietnam report 2013. United Kingdom. Retrieved from: www.gemconsortium.orgHampel-Milagrosa, A., Pham, H., Nguyen, Q., and Nguyen, T. (2010) ‘Gender-Related Obstacles to Vietnamese Women Entrepreneurs’. Vietnam: United Nations Industrial Development Organisation and Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Available at: http://www.un.org.vn/en/publications/publications-by-agency/doc_details/294-gender-related-obstacles-to-vietnamese-women-entrepreneurs. html [Accessed 7 December 2015].Hang, T.T.T. (2008), “Women’s leadership in Vietnam: opportunities and challenges”, Signs, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 16-21. Hirschman, C. and V. M. Loi (1996) Family and Household Structure in Vietnam: Some glimpses from a recent survey, Pacific Affairs Vol 69 (No. 2 (Summer 1996)): 229-249Hoang, B.T. (2010), “Rural employment and life: challenges to gender roles in Vietnam’s agriculture at present”, paper presented at the FAO-IFAD-ILO Workshop on Gaps, Trends and Current Research in Gender Dimensions of Agricultural and Rural Employment: Differentiated Pathways Out of Poverty Rome, 31 March-2 April 2009, available at: www.fao-ilo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/fao_ilo/pdf/Papers/16_march/Thinh_final.pdf Hoang, C., Hoang, C.L.T.S, Nguyen, T.P.C, Ngo, T.P.L, Tran, T.N, Vu, T.L (2013), The women’s access to land in contemporary Vietnam. UNDP Report 2013Hoskisson, R. E., Eden, L., Lau, C.M., &Wright, M. (2000). Strategy in emerging economies. Academy of Management Journal, 43(3), 249–267.ILO (2011) ‘Creation of an enabling environment for women entrepreneur in Vietnam: Mainstreaming gender issues in government policy on enterprise development’, Hanoi.International Finance Corporation (2006) A National Survey of Women Business Owners in Vietnam. Joint survey with Gender and Entrepreneurship Markets (GEM) and the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility (MPDF), Washington, DC, IFCInternational Labour Organisation (2007) ‘Women’s Entrepreneurship Development in Vietnam’. Vietnam: International Labour Organisation.International Labour Organization and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs of Vietnam (2010), The Informal Economy in Vietnam, ILO/MOLISA, Hanoi.Kibria, N. (1990) Power Patriarchy and Gender Conflict in the Vietnamese Immigrant Community, Gender and Society Vol 4 (No 1 (March 1990)): 9-24 Luke, N. , S. R. Schuler , B. T. T. Mai , P. V. Thien and T. H. Minh (2007) Exploring Couple Attributes and Attitudes and Marital Violence in Vietnam, New York, Sage PublicationsMai thi Thanh Thai, Nguyen Hoang Anh (2016): The impact of culture on the creation of enterprises (2016), Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, Vol.9, No.1, pp.1 – 22McChesney, F. (1987) Rent extraction and rent creation in the economic theory of regulation, Journal of Legal Studies 16 de Soto, H. (2000) The Mystery of Capital: Why capitalism Triumphs in the west and Fails everywhere Else, New York, Basic BooksMinniti, M. (2010) ‘Women entrepreneurship and Economic Activity’, European Journal of Development Research, 22, pp. 294 – 312.Nguyen, B. (2011) ‘The Changes of Women’s Position: The Vietnam Case’, International Journal of Innovative Interdisciplinary Research, 1, pp. 126 – 138.Nguyen, B. (2012) ‘Abortion in Present Day Vietnam’, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2 (1), pp. 56 – 61.Nguyen, C., Frederick, H., & Nguyen, H. (2014). Female entrepreneurship in rural Vietnam: An exploratory study. International Journal Of Gender And Entrepreneurship, 6(1), 50-67. Nijssen, E.J. (2014), Entrepreneurial Marketing: An Effectual Approach, Routledge, New York, NY.Raven, P., & Le, Q. (2015). Teaching business skills to women: Impact of business training on women’s microenterprise owners in Vietnam. International Journal Of Entrepreneurial Behaviour And Research, 21(4), 622-641. Rubio-Bañón, A., & Esteban-Lloret, N. (2015). Research article: Cultural factors and gender role in female entrepreneurship. Suma De Negocios Terrell, K., and Troilo, M. (2010) ‘Values and Women entrepreneurship’, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 2 (3), pp. 260 – 286.Thanh, H.X., Anh, D.N. and Tacoli, C. (2005), “Livelihood diversification and rural-urban linkages in Vietnam’s red river delta”, Discussion Paper No. 193, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), available at: http://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/fcnddp/193.htmlThe World Economic Forum (2015) ‘The Global Gender Gap Report 2015’. Switzerland: The World Economic Forum. Available at: http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/ [Accessed 8 December 2015].Thi, L. (1995) Doi Moi and female workers: a case study of Ha Noi, in: V. M. Moghadam (ed.), Economic reforms, women's employment and social politics, Helsinki, World Institute for Development Research Tien, P. N. (2010) Overarching view of Gender Equality in Vietnam”, 2010, Conference on Commemoration of International Women’s Day 2010, “Beijing + 15, Looking back, reaching forward, Gender Equality and Women Empowerment 15 years after the Fourth World Conference on Women, Ha Noi, 12 March 2010.United Nations Development Programme (2012) ‘Women’s Representation in Leadership in Vietnam’. Vietnam: United Nations Development Programme.United Nations Development Programme (2015) ‘Human Development Report 2014’. USA: United Nations Development Programme. Available at: http://hdr.undp. org/en/content/human-development-report-2014 [Accessed 10 December 2015].United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). (2010). Gender related obstacles to Vietnamese Women Entrepreneurs. Vienna, Austria.Vietnam Women Entrepreneurs Council (2007) Women’s entrepreneurship development in Vietnam. International Labor Organization, Vietnam.Vuong, H., and Tran, D. (2009) ‘The Cultural Dimensions of the Vietnamese Private Entrepreneurship’, The IUP Journal of Entrepreneurship Development, 6 (3 & 4), pp. 54 – 78.VWEC (2007), Women’s Entrepreneurship Development in Vietnam, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Report, Vietnam Women Entrepreneurs Council, available at: www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@asia/@ro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_100456.pdf Williamson, O. (2000) ‘The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking ahead’, Economic Literature, 38, pp. 595 – 693.World Bank (2011a) ‘Vietnam Country Gender Assessment’. USA: World Bank. Available at: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2011/11/15470188/vietnam-country-gender-assessment [Accessed 7 December 2015]. World Bank (2011b). 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La diagnosi prenatale (DP) è considerata quasi evento centrale in gravidanza. Oltre alle ragioni cliniche, come la disponibilità di tecniche diagnostiche che indagano la conoscenza di correlazioni tra difetti genetici e disordini morfo-funzionali, ve ne sono altre, peraltro importanti, di ordine culturale le quali inducono una massiccia richiesta di ricorso alla DP. Il rischio collegato alle procedure invasive rappresenta uno dei problemi etici della DP. Perciò, di recente si è resa disponibile una possibilità di ottenimento delle medesime informazioni sul feto e, di conseguenza, diagnostica delle malattie senza entrare a contatto diretto col feto, utilizzando soltanto un campione di sangue materno. Al contrario, una importante probabilità di danneggiare o di indurre aborto grava sulle tecnologie invasive come, ad es., nel prelievo dei villi coriali e, in misura minore, nell’amniocentesi. Sulla DP non invasiva, gli Autori presentano una sintetica analisi medica ed etica, argomentando in merito alla possibilità di evitare la trasformazione di queste tecnologie diagnostiche in strumenti di selezione eugenetica, attraverso le seguenti considerazioni: 1. la DP non invasiva dovrebbe essere eseguita solamente sotto indicazione medica; 2. il ricorso alle tecniche meno invasive dovrebbe essere riservato ai casi di dubbio (falsi positivi/negativi); 3. l’informazione sui risultati di DP dovrebbe essere completa e precisa e la coppia dovrebbe essere accompagnata anche dopo la diagnosi, mentre il medico dovrebbe lavorare con la donna/coppia tentando di spiegare che la condizione clinica del bambino non deve prevaricare mai il valore della sua vita; 4. infine, la donna o la coppia dovrebbero essere tempestivamente informate e rassicurate sulle diverse modalità di cura/assistenza e di supporto per il figlio. ---------- Prenatal diagnosis (PD) is considered as almost central event of pregnancy. Besides medical aspects, like the availability of diagnostic techniques of the knowledge of correlation between genetic defects and morphofunctional disorders, there are important cultural reasons for so intensive request of PD. The risk linked to invasive procedures of PD is one of the ethical problems concerning PD. For this reason, a possibility has been recently available to obtain the same foetal information and, consequently, to diagnose some diseases without any direct contact with foetus using only a sample of maternal blood, that is non invasive PD. On the contrary, a relevant probability to loose a chid is a considerable side effect of invasive procedure, as chorionic villous sampling or amniocentesis procedures, with different levels of risk. About this issue, the Authors present a short medical and ethical analysis of non invasive PD, arguing about the possibility to avoid the transformation of these diagnostic technologies into ulterior instruments of eugenics, through the following considerations: 1. non invasive PD should be possible only under medical indications; 2. the less dangerous invasive technologies should be apply when there is a doubt about false positive or negative results; 3. the information on the results of PD should be complete and precise, and the couple should be accompanied during post-diagnostic time, while the medical doctor should work with woman or couple trying to explain that clinical condition of the foetus would never overcome the value of his/her life; 4. finally, woman or couple should be ensured in a short time of different kinds of available care and support for child.

In the past few decades many economists who situate themselves in the Mengerian Tradition have tried to come to grips with the fol- lowing question: what is the relationship between Austrian Eco- nomics and Public Choice? Can a common ground be established between the two? To the extent that the Virginia school of Public Choice emerged out of the Chicago public finance tradition1 (James Buchanan was a student of Frank Knight), one would doubt that —except for a broadly shared classical liberal outlook— the two research programmes can have many things in common. In their book An Austro-Libertarian Critique of Public Choice economists Thomas di Lorenzo and Walter Block (2016) demonstrate, in fact, how scholars within this tradition rely on too much neoclassical formalism that leads them to part company with both Austrians and Libertarians at the level of positive and normative analysis. Similar criticisms were brought forward by Murray Rothbard (1960), Hans Hermann Hoppe (1993; 2001; 2004) and Joseph T. Salerno (2014). Rothbard, in particular, was appalled at the attempt by Buchanan and Tullock to use the framework provided by neoclassical economics (built upon mechanical physics and embed- ded in a positivist methodology that insists on the importance of starting with unrealistic assumptions for constructing models that possess predictive value) to build a value-free political analysis that, in contrast with “orthodox political theory”, viewed the state, ultimately, as just another type of voluntary agency within the broader division of labour2. For this reason, Rothbard (2011: 932) concluded that “this ‘economic approach’ to politics far from the great advance they think it is… is the death knell of all genuine political philosophy.” Despite all these conceptual errors, however, as Peter Boettke and Edward J. López (2002:112) point out, Public Choice, intended as the extension and application of the economic way of thinking to the study of collective decision-making, has stressed the impor- tance of methodological individualism as well as a “commitment to the unification of the social sciences on the foundation of a rational choice model”. At its very basis, “The public choice school of economic thought”, writes Walter Block (2005), “is dedicated to the notion that political choices and decision making may be prof- itably studied using the tools of economic analysis”, an idea that can indeed find resonance in the work of most Austrian econo- mists. In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises (1949), in fact, presents Economics as a part of a broader social science (Praxeology) that is devoted to the study of all processes of human action and interac- tion (thus including both political action and interaction). “Ludwig von Mises”, in the words of Jesús Huerta de Soto (2009: 251), “was one of the most important forerunners of the School of Public Choice, which studies, using economic analysis, the combined behaviour of politicians, bureaucrats and voters. This approach, which today has reached a high level of development under the auspices of theorists like James M. Buchanan (winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1986), fits in perfectly with the broad prax- eological conception of economics developed by Mises, who con- sidered that the goal of our science was to build a general theory of human action in all its varieties and contexts (including, therefore, political actions)”. In his Estudios de Economía Política, Jesús Huerta de Soto (2004) stresses, in particular, Mises (1944) book on Bureaucracy as a mod- ern precursor of Public Choice. In this book, Huerta de Soto under- lines, Mises (1944) develops, as a by-product of his theorem of the impossibility of rational economic planning under socialism, a comparative theoretical analysis between profit management and bureaucratic management. In The English Constitution Walter Bage- hot (1873: 165) aptly observed that while “a bureaucracy tends to under-government, in point of quality; it tends to over-govern- ment, in point of quantity” for “functionaries are not there for the benefit of the people, but the people for the benefit of the function- aries.” What Mises accomplished was to ground Bagehot’s empiri- cal observation on sound economic reasoning, placing the blame on the methods in use within the government sector and not in the individuals themselves: “The fault is not with the men and women who fill the offices and bureaus. They are no less the victims of the new way of life than anybody else. The system is bad, not its sub- ordinate handy men” (Mises, L 1944: 17). In spite of the above disagreements among various Austrian economists regarding the complementarity of both approaches, the following essay will try to underline the importance of ground- ing the insights of Public Choice within the theoretical framework developed by the Austrian school when it comes to analysing pub- lic policies. The basic argument is that Austrian Economics pro- vides the only correct foundation of Public Choice Economics and that the latter’s empirical consideration regarding narrow political interests on the part of politicians and bureaucrats, if supple- mented by the essentialist and dynamic depiction of the market process that characterizes the Mengerian tradition, can provide an important analytical framework that allows to weigh the incentive structure of different political arrangements as well as (and this is more important still) a thymological tool that enables one to see the invisible intentions behind proposed public policies. As a thy- mological tool Public Choice analysis, grounded on the Austrian dynamic conception of the market process, might prove of extreme value both to entrepreneurs (who can better anticipate the evolu- tion of public policies and therefore employ their ingenuity to anticipate such circumstances) and to historians (who will be able to engage in a more realistic process of revisionism)3. The paper will be divided into five sections. In section 1 we will briefly define and examine what is meant with the term public pol- icy and define both its nature and scope. Section 2 will dive into an analysis of Public Choice and show how it revolutionised the way in which social scientists in general and economists in particular have approached the democratic political process. Section 3 will high- light some of the main drawbacks of the neoclassical model of equi- librium on which Public Choice rests and show how the Austrian theory of the market process, driven by competition and entrepre- neurship, provides a more solid foundation for analysing, for exam- ple, the behaviour of legislators, rent-seeking actors and the voting public. Section 4 will analyse the topics of Competition and Monop- oly as well make an excursus into the real historical origins of Anti- trust to show how the use of a unified Austrian-Public Choice framework can enrich our understanding from both a theoretical and historical perspective. A conclusion will end the paper.

The old “Is the glass half empty or half full?” question does more than just illustrate a person’s proclivity for pessimism or for optimism. It alerts us to the possibility that the same real world phenomena may be interpreted in entirely different ways, with very real consequences. It is this notion that I apply to the way fat sex and thin sex are conceptualised in the larger social consciousness. While sexual, romantic and/or intimate acts between people where at least one individual is fat (Fat Sex) are deemed atypical, abnormal, fetishistic and even abusive (Saguy qtd. in Swami & Tovee 90; Schur qtd. in Prohaska 271; Gailey 119), such encounters between able-bodied individuals who are thin or of average weight (Thin Sex) are deemed normal and desirable. I argue in this article that this discrepancy in how we label and treat fat and thin sexuality is unjustified because the two domains are more similar than distinct. Given their similarity we should treat similar aspects of both domains in the same way, i.e. either as normal, or as fetishistic based on relevant criteria rather than body size. I also argue that fat prejudice and thin privilege underlie this discrepancy in modern western society. I finally conclude that this causes significant personal and social harm to both fat and thin individuals.Fat Sex – The Fetishized NormalHanne Blank, in writing of her foray into publishing body positive material exploring fat sexuality, speaks of the need for spaces that acknowledge the vitality and diversity of fat sex; not in fetishistic and pornographic portrayals of Big Beautiful Women offering themselves up as an object of desire but reflecting the desires and sexual experiences of fat people themselves (10). If there are a 100 million people in America who are obese according to BMI standards, she argues, they represent a whole array of body sizes and a lot of sexual activity, which she describes as follows:Fat people have sex. Sweet, tender, luscious sex. Sweaty, feral, sheet-ripping sex. Shivery, jiggly, gasping sex. Sentimental, slow, face-cradling sex. Even as you read these words, there are fat people out there somewhere joyously getting their freak on. Not only that, but fat people are falling in love, having hook-ups, being crushed-out, putting on sexy lingerie, being the objects of other people’s lust, flirting, primping before hot dates, melting a little as they read romantic notes from their sweeties, seducing and being seduced, and having shuddering, toe-curling orgasms that are as big as they are. It’s only natural. (15)Such normalcy and diverse expression, however, is not usually portrayed in popular media, nor even in much scholarly research. Apart from body positive spaces carved out by the fat acceptance movement online and the research of fat studies scholars, which, contextualises fat sexuality as healthy and exciting, in “the majority of scholarship on this topic, fat women’s sexual behaviors are never the result of women’s agency, are always the result of their objectification, and are never healthy” (Prohaska 271).This interpretation of fat sexuality, the assumptions associated with it and the reinforcement of these attitudes have much to do with the pervasiveness of fat prejudice in society today. One study estimates that the prevalence of weight based discrimination in the US increased by 66% between 1996 and 2006 (Andreyeva, Puhl and Brownell) and is now comparable to gender and race based discrimination (Puhl, Andreyeva and Brownell). This is not an isolated trend. An anthropological study analysing the globalisation of notions of fat being unhealthy and a marker of personal and social failing suggests that we have on our hands a rapidly homogenising global stigma associated with fat (Brewis, Wutich and Rodriguez-Soto), a climate of discrimination leading many fat people to what Goffman describes as a spoiled identity (3).Negative stereotypes affecting fat sexuality are established and perpetuated through a process of discursive constraint (Cordell and Ronai 30-31). “’No man will ever love you,’ Weinstein’s grandmother informs her (Weinstein, prologue), simultaneously offering her a negative category to define herself by and trying to coerce her into losing weight – literally constraining the discourse that Weinstein may apply to herself.Discursive constraint is created not only by individuals reinforcing cultural mores but also by overt and covert messages embedded in social consciousness: “fat people are unattractive”, “fat is ugly”, “fat people are asexual”, “fat sex is a fetish”, “no normal person can be attracted to a fat person”. Portrayals of fat individuals in mainstream media consolidate these beliefs.One of the most loved fat characters of 1990s, Fat Monica from the sitcom Friends is gluttonous, ungainly (rolling around in a bean bag, jolting the sofa as she sits), undesirable (Chandler says to Ross, “I just don’t want to be stuck here all night with your fat sister!”), and desperate for sex, affection and approval from the opposite sex: “the comedic potential of Fat Monica is premised on an understanding that her body is deviant or outside the norm” (Gullage 181).In Shallow Hal, a film in which a shallow guy falls in love with the inner beauty of a fat girl, Hal (Jack Black) is shown to be attracted to Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) only after he can no longer see her real fat body and her “inner beauty” is represented by a thin white blond girl. All the while, the movie draws laughs from the audience at the fat jokes and gags made at the expense of Paltrow’s character.Ashley Madison, a website for married people looking to have an affair, used the image of a scantily clad fat model in an advertisement with the tagline “Did your wife scare you last night?”, implying that infidelity is justified if you’re not attracted to your partner, and fatness precludes attraction. And a columnist from popular magazine Marie Claire wrote about Mike and Molly, a sitcom about two fat people in a relationship:Yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. (Kelly)It is the prevalence of these beliefs that I call the fetishisation of fat sexuality. When fat bodies are created as asexual and undesirable, it gives rise to the rhetoric that to be sexually attracted to a fat body is unnatural, therefore making any person who is attracted to a fat body a fetishist and the fat person themselves an object of fetish.The internalisation of these beliefs is not only something that actively harms the self-esteem, sexual agency & health and happiness of fat individuals (Satinsky et al.), but also those who are attracted to them. Those who internalise these beliefs about themselves may be unable to view themselves as sexual and engage with their own bodies in a pleasurable manner, or to view themselves as attractive, perhaps discounting any assertions to the contrary. In a study designed to investigate the relationship between body image and sexual health in women of size, one participant revealed:I’ve had my issues with T as far as um, believing that T is attracted to me…because of my weight, my size and the way I look. (Satinsky et al. 717)Another participant speaks of her experience masturbating and her discomfort at touching her own flesh, leading her to use a vibrator and not her hands:Like, I don’t, I don’t look down. I look at the ceiling and I try to – it’s almost like I’m trying to imagine that I was thinner. Like, imagine that my stomach was flatter or something like that, which sounds bizarre, but I guess that’s what I’m trying to do. (Satinsky et al. 719)Others stay in bad marriages because they believe they wouldn’t find anyone else (Joanisse and Synnott 55) or tolerate abuse because of their low self-esteem (Hester qtd. in Prohaska 271).Similarly, men who internalise these attitudes about fat find it easier to dehumanise and objectify fat women, believe that they’d be desperate for sex and hence an easy target for a sexual conquest, and are less deserving of consideration (Prohaska and Gailey 19).On the other hand, many men who find fat women attractive (Fat Admirers or FA’s) remain closeted because their desire is stigmatised. Many do not make their preference known to their peer group and families, nor do they publicly acknowledge the woman they are intimate with. Research suggests that FA’s draw the same amount of stigma for being with fat women and finding them attractive, as they would for themselves being fat (Goode qtd. in Prohaska and Gailey).I do not argue here that all fat individuals have spoiled identities or that all expressions of fat sexuality operate from a place of stigma and shame, but that fat sexuality exists within a wider social fabric of fat phobia, discrimination and stigmatisation. Fulfilling sexual experience must therefore be navigated within this framework. As noted, the fat acceptance movement, body positive spaces online, and fat studies scholarship help to normalise fat sexuality and function as tools for resisting stigma and fetishisation.Resisting Stigma: Creating Counter NarrativesGailey, in interviews with 36 fat-identified women, found that though 34 of them (94%) had ‘experienced a life of ridicule, body shame and numerous attempts to lose weight’ which had an adverse effect on their relationships and sex life, 26 of them reported a positive change after having ‘embodied the size acceptance ideology’ (Gailey 118).Recently, Kristin Chirico, employee of Buzzfeed, released first an article and then a video titled My Boyfriend Loves Fat Women about her relationship with her boyfriend who loves fat women, her own discomfort with her fatness and her journey in embracing size acceptance ideologies: I will let him enjoy the thing he loves without tearing it down. But more importantly, I will work to earn love from me, who is the person who will always play the hardest to get. I will flirt as hard as I can, and I will win myself back.Books such as Wann’s Fat!So?, Blank’s Big Big Love: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them), Chastain’s Fat: The Owner’s Manual and her blog Dances with Fat, Tovar’s Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion, as well as Substantia Jones’s fat photography project called The Adipositivity Project are some examples of fat activism, size acceptance and body positive spaces and resources. The description on Jones’s site reads:The Adipositivity Project aims to promote the acceptance of benign human size variation and encourage discussion of body politics, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that's normally unseen. When fat individuals create personal narratives to resist stigmatisation of fat sexuality they confront the conundrum of drawing the line between sexual empowerment and glorifying fat fetishism. To see one’s own and other fat bodies as sexual, normal and worthy of pleasure is one way to subvert this fetishism. One would also take seriously any sexual advances, seeing oneself as desirable. The line between normal expression of fat sexuality and the wide spread belief that fat sex is fetishistic is so blurred however, that it becomes difficult to differentiate between them, so it is common to ask if one is being sexual or being an object of fetish. There is also the tension between the heady sense of power in being a sexual agent, and the desire to be wanted for more than just being a fat body.Modern burlesque stage is one arena where fat bodies are being recreated as sexy and desirable, offering a unique resource to ‘fat performers and audience members who want to experience their bodies in new and affirming ways’. Because burlesque is an erotic dance form, fat women on the burlesque stage are marked as ‘sexual, without question or challenge’. The burlesque stage has a great capacity to be a space for transforming sexual identity and driving changes in audience attitudes, creating a powerful social environment that is contrary to mainstream conditions in society (Asbill 300).The founder and creative director of “Big Burlesque” and “Fat-Bottom Revue” the world’s first all-fat burlesque troupe, however, notes that when she started Big Burlesque there were a couple of “bigger” performers on the neo-burlesque circuit, but they did not specifically advocate fat liberation. ‘Fat dance is rare enough; fat exotic/erotic dance is pretty much unheard of outside of “fetish” acts that alienate rather than normalise fat bodies’ (McAllister 305).In another instance, Laura writes that to most men her weight is a problem or a fetish, constraining the potential in relationships. Speaking of BBW (Big Beautiful Women) and BHM (Big Handsome Men) websites that cater to Fat Admirers she writes:As I’ve scrolled through these sites, I’ve felt vindicated at seeing women my size as luscious pinups. But, after a while, I feel reduced to something less than a person: just a gartered thigh and the breast-flesh offered up in a corset. I want to be lusted after. I want to be wanted. But, more than this, I want to love, and be loved. I want everything that love confers: being touched, being valued and being seen.That sexual attraction might rely wholly or partly on physical attributes, however, is hardly unfamiliar, and is an increasing phenomenon in the wider culture and popular media. Of course, what counts there is being thin and maintaining the thin state!Thin Sex: The Normalised FetishUnlike the fat body, the thin body is created as beautiful, sexually attractive, successful and overwhelmingly the norm (van Amsterdam). Ours is a culture fixated on physical beauty and sex, both of which are situated in thin bodies. Sexiness is a social currency that buys popularity, social success, and increasingly wealth itself (Levy). Like fat sex, thin sex operates on the stage set by the wider cultural ideals of beauty and attractiveness and that of the burden of thin privilege. Where stigma situates fat sexuality to abnormality and fetish, thin sexuality has to deal with the pressures of conforming to and maintaining the thin state (vam Amsterdam).Thin individuals also deal with the sexualisation of their bodies, confronting the separation of their personhood from their sexuality, in a sexual objectification of women that has long been identified as harmful. Ramsey and Hoyt explore how being objectified in heterosexual relationships might be related to coercion within those relationships. Their evidence shows that women are routinely objectified, and that this objectification becomes part of the schema of how men relate to women. Such a schema results in a fracturing of women into body parts dissociated from their personhood , making it easier to engage in violence with, and feel less empathy for female partners (in cases of rape or sexual assault). (Ramsey and Hoyt) What is interesting here is the fact that though aspects of thin sexuality are recognised as fetishistic (objectification of women), thin sex is still considered normal.Thin Sex, Fat Sex and 50 Shades of OverlapThe normalisation of sexual objectification -- society for the most part being habituated to the fetishistic aspects of thin sex, can be contrasted with attitudes towards comparable aspects of fat sex. In particular, Feederism, is generally viewed within scholarly discourse (and public attitudes) as ‘a consensual activity, a fetish, a stigmatised behaviour, and abuse’ (Terry & Vassey, Hester, Bestard, Murray as qtd. in Prohaska 281). Prohaska argues that Feederism and Diet Culture are broadly similar phenomena that elicit tellingly opposing judgements. She reports that the culture of feederism (as analysed on online forums) is a mostly consensual activity, where the community vocally dissuades non-consensual activities and any methods that may cause bodily harm (268). It is mostly a community of people who discuss measures of gradual weight gain and support and encourage each other in those goals. This, she argues, is very similar in tone to what appears on weight loss websites and forums (269). She contends, however that despite these parallels ‘the same scrutiny is not given to those who are attempting to lose weight as is placed upon those who do not diet or who try to gain weight’ (269).She notes that whereas in judging feederism emphasis is on fringe behaviours, in evaluating diet culture the focus is on behaviours deemed normal and healthy while only disorders like anorexia, bulimia, and pill using are judged fringe behaviours. This disparity, she claims, is rooted in fat phobia and prejudice (270).In comparing the dating sections of feederism websites with mainstream dating sites she notes that here too the nature of ads is similar, with the only difference being that in mainstream sites the body size preference is assumed. People seeking relationships on both kinds of sites look for partners who are ‘caring, intelligent and funny’ and consider ‘mutual respect’ as key (270).This is similar to what was revealed in an article by Camille Dodero, who interviewed a number of men who identify as fat admirers and delved into the myths and realities of fat admiration. The article covers stories of stigma that FA’s have faced and continue to face because of their sexual preference, and also of internalised self-hatred that makes it difficult for fat women to take their advances seriously. The men also create BBW/BHM dating websites as more than a fetish club. They experience these online spaces as safe spaces where they can openly meet people they would be interested in just as one would on a normal/mainstream dating site. Even if most women fit the type that they are attracted to in such spaces, it does not mean that they would be attracted to all of those women, just as on match.com one would look over prospective candidates for dating and that process would include the way they look and everything else about that person.Attempting to clear up the misconception that loving fat women is a fetish, one of the interviewees says,“Steve, over there, has a type,” gesturing wanly at a stranger in a hockey jersey probably not named Steve. “I have a type, too. Mine’s just bigger. He may like skinny blondes with bangs and long legs. I like pear shapes with brown hair and green eyes. I have a type—it just happens to be fat.” Besides, people aren’t fetish objects, they’re people. “It’s not like having a thing for leather.” (Dodero 3)ConclusionAnalysis of the domains of thin and fat sex shows that both have people engaging in sexual activity and romantic and intimate relationships with each other. Both have a majority of individuals who enjoy consensual, fulfilling sex and relationships, however these practices and desires are celebrated in one domain and stigmatised in the other. Both domains also have a portion of the whole that objectifies relationship partners with immense potential for harm, whether this involves sexualisation and objectification and its related harms in thin sex, objectification of fat bodies in some BBW and BHM circles, and the fringes of feederism communities, or non-body size specific fetish acts that individuals from both domains engage in. Qualitatively, since both domains significantly overlap, it is difficult to find the justification for the fetishisation of one and the normativity of the other. It seems plausible that this can be accounted for by the privilege associated with thin bodies and the prejudice against fat.Our failure to acknowledge such fetishisation of normal fat sex and normalisation of the fetishistic aspects of thin sex creates huge potential for harm for both groups, for it not only causes the fragmentation of effort when it comes to addressing these issues but also allows for the rich vitality and diversity of “normal” fat sex to wallow in obscurity and stigma.References Andreyeva, Tatiana, Rebecca M. Puhl, and Kelly D. Brownell. "Changes in Perceived Weight Discrimination among Americans, 1995–1996 through 2004–2006." Obesity 16 (2008): 1129-1134.Asbill, D. Lacy. "'I’m Allowed to Be a Sexual Being': The Distinctive Social Conditions of the Fat Burlesque Stage." The Fat Studies Reader, eds. Sondra Solovay and Esther Rothblum. New York: New York UP, 2009. 299.Blank, Hanne. Big Big Love, Revised, A Sex and Relationship Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them). New York: Celestial Arts, 2011.Bogart, Laura. Salon 4 Aug. 2014.Brewis, A.A., A. Wutich and I. Rodriguez-Soto. "Body Norms and Fat Stigma in Global Perspective." Current Anthropology 52 (2011): 269-276.Chirico, Kristin. My Boyfriend Loves Fat Women. 25 Feb. 2015.Cordell, Gina, and Carol Rambo Ronai. "Identity Management among Overweight Women: Narrative Resistance to Stigma." Interpreting Weight: The Social Management of Fatness and Thinness, eds. Jeffery Sobal and Donna Maurer. Transaction Publishers, 1999. 29-48. Dodero, Camille. Guys Who Like Fat Chicks. 4 May 2011.Prohaska, Ariane, and Jeannine A. Gailey. "Achieving Masculinity through Sexual Predation: The Case of Hogging." Journal of Gender Studies 19.1 (2010): 13-25.Gailey, Jeannine A. “Fat Shame to Fat Pride: Fat Women’s Sexual and Dating Experiences.” Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society 1.1 (2012). Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1963.Gullage, Amy. "Fat Monica, Fat Suits and Friends." Feminist Media Studies 14.2 (2012): 178-89. Jacqueline. "I'm The 'Scary' Model in That Awful Ashley Madison Ad." 11 July 2011. Online. 24 May 2015.Jones, Substantia. The Adipositivity Project. n.d. Kelly, M. "Should 'Fatties' Get a Room? (Even on TV?)" 2010.Levy, Ariel. "Raunch Culture." Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York: Free Press, 2005. 7-45.McAllister, Heather. "Embodying Fat Liberation." The Fat Studies Reader, eds. Sondra Solovay and Esther Rothblum. New York: New York UP, 2009. 305.Prohaska, Ariane. “Help Me Get Fat! Feederism as Communal Deviance on the Internet.” Deviant Behaviour 35.4 (2014). Puhl, Rebecca M., Tatiana Andreyeva, and Kelly Brownell. "Perceptions of Weight Discrimination: Prevalence and Comparison to Race and Gender Discrimination in America." International Journal of Obesity 32 (2008): 992-1000.Ramsey, Laura R., and Tiffany Hoyt. "The Object of Desire: How Being Objectified Creates Sexual Pressure for Women in Heterosexual Relationships." Psychology of Women Quarterly (2014): 1-20.Satinsky, Sonya, et al. "'Fat Girl Complex': A Preliminary Investigation of Sexual Health and Body Image in Women of Size." Culture, Health and Sexuality: An International Journal for Research, Intervention and Care 15.6 (2013): 710-25.Swami, Viren, and Martin J. Tovee. “Big Beautiful Women: The Body Size Preferences of Male Fat Admirers.” The Journal of Sex Research 46.1 (2009): 89-86.Joanisse, Leanne, and Anthony Synnott. "Fighting Back: Reactions and Resistance to the Stigma of Obesity." Interpreting Weight: The Social Management of Fatness and Thinness, eds. Jeffery Sobal and Donna Maurer. New York: First Transaction Printing, 2013. 49-73.Van Amsterdam, Noortje. "Big Fat Inequalities, Thin Privilege: An Intersectional Perspective on 'Body Size'." European Journal of Women's Studies 20.2 (2013): 155-69.Weinstein, Rebecca Jane. “Fat Sex: The Naked Truth”. EBook, 2012.

Estilos de vida de los clientes y calidad de servicio de la asociación de comerciantes agro artesanal San Borja Dora Alejandrina Polo Cerna Universidad Nacional Federico Villarreal DOI: https://doi.org/10.33017/RevECIPeru2011.0044/ RESUMEN La presente investigación titulada: Estilos de vida de los clientes y calidad de servicio de la asociación de comerciantes agro artesanal de San Borja (ACMSB), tuvo como objetivo general determinar la relación que existe entre los estilos de vida de los clientes y la calidad de servicio de los empresarios de la ACMSB; los objetivos específicos fueron: Identificar los estilos de vida de los clientes; conocer la percepción de los clientes respecto a la calidad de servicio de los empresarios de la ACMSB. El método general utilizado fue el método científico, los instrumentos fueron dos cuestionarios Servqual y estilos de vida. La muestra compuesta de 171 clientes, varones y mujeres mayores de 18 años, cuyo consumo supero los S/.10.00 y que el día de la encuesta se encontraban comprando bienes y servicios en las instalaciones de la ACMSB, se incluyeron a las empleadas del hogar y se excluyeron a clientes mayores de 80 años. La hipótesis fue: Existe relación entre estilos de vida y la calidad de servicio de los clientes de la ACMSB. Para el análisis de datos se hizo uso de la estadística descriptiva y para la prueba de hipótesis el análisis inferencial. La prueba de Pearson arroja 0.746 que significa que existe una relación de 74% entre calidad de servicio y estilos de vida de los clientes de la asociación de comerciantes agro artesanal del San Borja. El estilo de vida de los clientes de la ACMSB es el moderno; este resultado coincide con los hallazgos de Arellano [1] quien reporto que el estilo de vida moderno es el preponderante en nuestro país. El hallazgo encontrado por De Soto [2] que los recién llegados del campo a la ciudad, encontraron un muro impenetrable de reglas, que los marginaban de las actividades sociales y económicas legalmente establecidas, en los que era sumamente difícil entrar a negocios formales, se ha logrado superar; puesto que estas micro y pequeñas empresas son viables, legales y están siendo muy bien vistos por los clientes. Mayor argumento constituye el reporte estadístico del INEI [3], que informa que la actividad comercial tuvo un crecimiento del 10,96 % , esto es una tendencia positiva en la mayoría de sus rubros componentes, destacándose entre otros, la venta minorista de alimentos, a través de las cadenas de supermercados e hipermercados y grandes almacenes. Se concluye que las empresas del sector retail en especial de la ACMSB, están reinventando estrategias en torno a la satisfacción del cliente y son conscientes de la invasión de las grandes cadenas de supermercados e hipermercados y grandes almacenes. Esta investigación servirá como base para futuras estrategias a adoptar por los empresarios de la ACMSB, a fin de mantener a los clientes satisfechos, con alta calidad de servicio. Descriptores: estilos de vida, clientes, calidad de servicio, asociación de comerciantes agro artesanal San Borja. ABSTRACT This research entitled: Lifestyle and quality customer service the business assocation artisanal agro San Borja (ACMSB), generally aimed at determining the relationship between the lifestyles of our customers and quality service employers in the ACMSB, the specific objectives were: To identify the lifestyles of our customers, know the customer perception about the quality of service for entrepreneurs ACMSB. The general method used was the scientific method, the instruments were two questionnaires Servqual and lifestyles. The sample consists of 171 clients, men and women over 18, whose consumption exceeded the S/.10.00 and the day of the survey were buying goods and services ACMSB facilities are included domestic workers and excluded clients over 80 years. The hypothesis was: There is a relationship between lifestyle and quality of service for customers ACMSB. For data analysis was done using descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing for inferential analysis. Pearson test sheds 0,746 which mean there is a ratio of 74% between service quality and lifestyles of customers in the traditional agro business association of San Borja. The lifestyle of the customers is the modern ACMSB, this result agrees with the findings of Arellano [1] who reported that the modern lifestyle is preponderant in our country. The finding found by De Soto [2] that the newcomers from the countryside to the city, found an impenetrable wall of rules, that marginalized social and economic activities legally established, in which it was extremely difficult to get into formal business was has been overcome, since these micro and small businesses are viable, legal, and are still very well regarded by customers. Major argument is the statistical report INEI [3], which reports that business grew by 10.96%, this is a positive trend in most of its component items, highlighting among others, retail food through supermarkets and hypermarkets and department stores. It concludes that companies in the retail sector especially the ACMSB are reinventing strategies around customer satisfaction and are aware of the encroachment of large chains of supermarkets and hypermarkets and department stores. This research will serve as a basis for future strategies to be adopted by employers in the ACMSB, in order to keep customers satisfied with high quality service. Keywords: lifestyle, customers, service quality, artisanal agro business association San Borja.

In March 2020, co-authors burrough and Starnaman with Technical Director Dale MacDonald had just finished collaborating on a work of computational art, A Kitchen of One’s Own, for The Photographers’ Gallery in London. In this essay we discuss the genealogy of our Zoom performance, Epic Handwashing for Synchronous Participation, which was an extension of two earlier projects—one that was derailed due to COVID-19, and the other that resulted from our pivot towards reflecting on the pandemic experience. Our performance was a response to, and offered a collaborative moment of reflection on, the uncertain moment in time of living in a global pandemic and understanding our experience through participatory art. A Kitchen of One’s Own was commissioned for “Data/Set/Match”—a year-long program dedicated to analysing, interpreting, and visualising image datasets (burrough, Starnaman, and MacDonald). The image dataset we interpreted is Epic Kitchens’ 2018 collection. Epic Kitchens is a dataset of videos collected by a group of researchers whose participants create non-scripted recordings of daily activities in kitchens. It is the largest known dataset produced using first-person vision. Researchers assign each recorded action with a verb like “wash”, “peel”, “toast”, or “rub” to describe and categorise the event. Our project juxtaposed the videos from Epic Kitchens with quotes from a dataset created by Starnaman with research assistant Alyssa Yates. This work was scheduled for installation on the approximately nine by nine-foot media wall, viewable to the public inside the gallery and to passersby on the street in London’s SoHo neighborhood. However, the work was not sent until May because of the COVID-19 lockdowns in London and Dallas. Thus, feeling trapped and frustrated in our respective homes, totally separated by quarantine, but close in distance, we responded to our historical moment with art. Figure 1: xtine burrough and Sabrina Starnaman with technical direction by Dale MacDonald, A Kitchen of One’s Own, single frame on the media wall seen from Ramilles Street. The Photographers’ Gallery, London, October 2020. A Kitchen of One’s Own explored personal and domestic kitchen spaces as mundane, politically-charged, and inspirational (fig. 1). The familiar, comforting space of the home kitchen became charged with domestic tropes of the pandemic: hand washing, sanitising, and cooking. We explained, A Kitchen of One’s Own is a speculative remix that confronts Epic Kitchens, a dataset of first-person cooking videos, with quotes from articles and social media posts on sexual harassment in professional and domestic kitchens, podcasts about the kitchen as a political space, and reflective texts by women authors about food and cooking. (burrough, Starnaman, and MacDonald, “Kitchen”) Taking inspiration from our Kitchen project, we pivoted for audiences online with a browser-based project, Epic Hand Washing in a Time of Lost Narratives. This project (fig. 2) showcases 68 videos found in Epic Kitchens’ 2018 dataset that had been tagged by researchers with the keywords “wash” or “hand”, which burrough and MacDonald optimised for the web browser and republished in a showcase on Vimeo (burrough, Starnaman, and MacDonald, “Epic”). Starnaman and burrough developed a new dataset of complementary quotes for this iteration including selections from literature written during or about pandemics such as the bubonic plague and the global influenza pandemic of 1918-19. Figure 2: Epic Hand Washing in a Time of Lost Narratives. Browser-based project for The Photographers’ Gallery and Unthinking Photography. March 2020 (https://unthinking.photography/projects/epichandwashing/). We developed Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation (fig. 3) as a Zoom performance of our browser-based project for a virtual engagement session at the Electronic Literature Organization’s (ELO) conference in the summer of 2020 (burrough and Starnaman, “Epic”). In this article, we illustrate these projects as a series of interrelated investigations, and centre on the Zoom performance, Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation. We then reflect on the way these works engage a range of public audiences and participants. Figure 3: xtine burrough and Sabrina Starnaman, Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation. Virtual engagement session and participatory performance hosted on Zoom for the ELO conference. This still frame shows a final group performance of hand washing at 21:56 (the complete session was 27:32). July 2020. Blurring Boundaries: Audiences, Participants, Maintenance, and Labour Our past projects demonstrate our commitment to participatory creative practices in which the boundary between audience members, performers, and participants is blurred in the generation of the work of art. Our earliest collaboration, The Laboring Self, was an installation of cardboard cut to the shape of virtual workers’ hands. We collected tracings of hands from workers on Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk work platform and laser-cut them from recycled Amazon boxes. In the gallery we invited participants to inscribe or embroider the hands with statements about work before adding them to The Laboring Self installation. Audience members shared their stories, sentiments, anxieties, and hopes about the labour they perform in their everyday lives on hands that crowded a wall space during the span of the exhibition (fig. 4). This work was inspired by Mierle Laderman Ukeles's 1970s feminist performances in maintenance art, which elevated care-taking and everyday “maintenance” activities to the platform of fine art. In Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!, Ukeles confronts the boundary between her everyday performance as a mother, woman, and artist. In particular, with regard to maintenance, Ukeles proposes to “simply do these maintenance everyday things, and flush them up to consciousness, exhibit them, as Art” (qtd. in Burnham). So too, we exhibited the hands of hidden workers to bring visibility to the invisible and asked audience members to become participants by putting on view their own reflections on the various forms of labour they embody. Figure 4: xtine burrough and Sabrina Starnaman, The Laboring Self, installation view approximately 8 by 10 feet. The Dallas Museum of Art Center for Creative Connections. October 2017-January 2018. For our more recent Zoom-based performance, Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation, we again focus on the hands of our audience members-turned participatory performers. As Ukeles used her hands to wash the steps of an urban museum, turning often invisible labour visible through performance, we sought to make the private act of hand washing—an act of personal protection and civic duty—a public performance in the digital town square. The individual hand, which has been central to our work in the past, synecdochally represents the worker, or in this case the person-turned-public-health-citizen. In a world of ubiquitous Zoom calls, the focus is almost always on our faces, our bodies cut off around the shoulders or mid-torso. Hands are but a fleeting on-screen guest. Yet, for this performance, our hands were at the centre of the screen, standing in for our physical effort and existential fear. Directions for Participants Before our performance, we shared this set of directions with participants: Prepare to wash your hands on Zoom in real time by setting up a camera to live stream or recruit a person to film you near your sink. Log into the Zoom link provided. Wash your hands on camera for 20 seconds while we read along with your performance. Notes from the Live Event On 18 July 2020, about 24 people participated in our event as solo participants, as couples, and as families on one Zoom call. The invitation to this project included the instruction to be camera-ready for hand washing at any household sink, so our participatory public entered the call from their kitchens and bathrooms. Before our formal introduction, a couple of tech-savvy kids drew on the Zoom screen (fig. 5), initiating a spirit of playfulness that the adults on the call stepped right into. While we had anticipated this event would elicit a sense of communal action, we were not prepared for just how community- and play-starved we all were. Figure 5: Opening Title Slide, Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation. ELO Virtual Engagement Session. 18 July 2020. We set the stage for the performance by introducing Epic Hand Washing in a Time of Lost Narratives, our spring 2020 browser-based project, and gave participants a moment to click through it and to read the texts we had culled for our database of “pandemic quotes” (burrough and Starnaman, “Epic Hand Washing Text Dataset”). Then we explained that our facilitator and Zoom host, John Murray, would be calling on the participants one at a time to wash their hands, while we took turns reading quotes from our archive. The first participant quietly washed their hands, and the pairing of our first quote created a serious tone: “so, at the bidding of the queen, they washed their hands, and all took their places…” (Boccaccio 26). However, the rhythm of the call and response, and the joy of witnessing each other in our various households across the globe, lightened the experience. We, along with participants, reveled in the intimate hygienic dance of hand washing at kitchen sinks and bathroom vanities; one after another we shifted our presence to another person’s living quarters and joined them at the sink. This was a truly mixed, global group. Scholars and artists for whom ELO is a disciplinary home rubbed virtual shoulders with our friends and their own friends who would not have attended ELO otherwise. This event replicated the same kind of shared experience across time and space that the archive of pandemic and hand washing texts elicited. These texts bring humanity together through the calamity of plague and disease, allowing for a sense of larger community, and that is exactly what we saw on the screen: human experience mediated by the screen in conversation with writers across time and connected by the word. Moreover, this event took place in July 2020, a time of “early pandemic”, a time when the complete unknown of the epidemic had given way to the acceptance of quarantining, but before the exhaustion and cynicism of The Long Confinement and Zoom fatigue had fully set in. Thus, we saw an enthusiasm to connect and play with the medium in a way that might have been impossible eight months later. Synchronous Participation as a Performance While the complete performance is archived on the ELO website, we have excerpted a clip from the performance for analysis (burrough and Starnaman, “Excerpt”). It is a 2:15 clip from the middle of the performance, during which we took turns reading quotes from our database while participants washed their hands on camera, one at a time. We showcase this selection of the performance to highlight the repetition embedded in the script. Our directions for participants and our moderator, John Murray, became repetitive mantras throughout the performance, while the reading of the quotes gave participants space to wash their hands. We read four quotes for each participant, which we measured to leave approximately thirty seconds of time for hand washing. We wanted participants to wash their hands for at least 20 seconds, following the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) guidelines, and we predicted that there would be moments when we would begin reading but participants would not yet be washing their hands. Since their performances were out of our control, we decided to read for slightly more than twenty seconds for each participant. From 0 to 22 seconds, Sabrina and our moderator, John Murray, enact the transitional directions between participants. At the start of the clip, Sabrina thanks the participants who have just finished washing their hands—our friends’ twin children, Cora and Henry, who fill the screen in Zoom’s Spotlight mode until eight seconds. The twins are at a double-vanity, washing their hands in coordinated outfits, and moving towards separate towels at the left and right sides of the screen at six seconds. At eight seconds Sabrina is spotlighted. She directs our moderator with the same “set-up phrase” that we repeat throughout the performance: “please mute everyone but us and the next selected hand washer, and don’t forget to change the spotlight to them. When you’re ready, announce who will begin washing their hands.” From 12 to 22 seconds participants are visible in Gallery View while John announces that Tina Escaga will wash their hands next (fig. 6). From 0:22 to 1:07 Tina appears in Spotlight mode. The screen is filled with Tina in the bathroom washing their hands with a white bar of soap. The next set of four quotes are read by xtine, as we watch Tina perform hand washing: "Can we not contrive that he somehow wash himself a little, that he stink not so shrewdly?” (Boccaccio 149). “We are now close to a well, which is never without the pulley and a large bucket; ’tis but a step thither, and we will wash him out of hand” (Boccaccio 149). “Among the drawbacks of illness as matter for literature there is the poverty of the language” (Woolf 33). “English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache” (Woolf 34). Figure 6: Tina washes their hands at the sink with a white bar of soap. From 1:01 to 1:29 xtine thanks Tina, repeats the set-up phrase to John, and John announces that Renee Carmichael is the next performer. The spotlight shifts from Tina to xtine to Gallery View to Renee. From 1:29 to 2:00 Renee appears at their kitchen sink and washes their hands in Spotlight mode as Sabrina can be heard reading the following four quotes: “We’ve not seen anything of the sort before...” (Camus 6). “The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits” (Camus 1). “It becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love, battle, and jealousy among the prime themes of literature” (Woolf 32). “They determined to attach him to the rope, and lower him into the well, there to wash himself...” (Boccaccio 149). From 2:00 to 2:15 Sabrina thanks Renee, repeats the set-up phrase, and John announces “OK, next up, Leo”. From 2:00 to 2:07 we see Sabrina in Spotlight mode, at 2:07 to 2:15 participants are visible in Gallery View, and though this clip ends at 2:15, in the full-length documentation of the performance, Leo is next seen in the Spotlight. In this short clip, it is evident that the repetition of the performance directions sets the stage for our audience / guests / performers, who voluntarily came to this ELO virtual engagement without prior rehearsal. Cora and Henry, Tina, and Renee are prepared with the camera near their sinks and wash their hands for the complete duration of our reading. Tina and Renee (and all of our adult participants) are seen in the video wearing headphones or earbuds for their performance. Our directions did not advise this, but we were encouraged to see that the participants thought ahead about their technical engagement. We also did not advise participants to turn off the water while they were scrubbing their hands. If we were to restage the event, we would include this for water sustainability purposes. It should not be so surprising to us, but we are still amazed at how thoroughly all of our participants washed their hands. Clearly, our performers had watched the directions provided by the CDC for washing viral matter from our bodies. Conclusion Our original project A Kitchen of One’s Own had viewers peering into the recorded kitchen scenes of anonymous participants in person at The Photographers’ Gallery or through the gallery window on Ramillies Street in SoHo, London. Viewers watched the private actions of strangers in their kitchens while being presented with various texts. Some offered descriptions of sexual harassment in often famous professional kitchens and others, the meditations of women about the significance of creation in their home kitchen. This developed an exploration of the significance of women’s experience in place. While fewer people were able to visit the gallery installation, A Kitchen of One’s Own, in London due to the pandemic, many people viewed Epic Hand Washing in a Time of Lost Narrative online. Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation put the audience in the domestic space while sharing the historic, traumatic experience of a pandemic, dislocated across time. It invited an entirely online audience to experience a live performance of hand washing at the sinks of strangers and friends, fully mediated through screens on both sides. Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation did exactly what we named it to do—engage people in a live, synchronous elevation of a mundane human action in a personal, yet ubiquitous space to a work of art, while experiencing the asynchronous voices of people who had already lived through global pandemics. This iteration offered us the embodied experience we had originally envisioned for A Kitchen of One’s Own. As a result of the pandemic, people in technologically connected communities are intimately familiar with the online interactive public that was once the realm of digitally savvy producers and users. This reality thus broadens the audience for our online projects. Our previous browser-based art and archive project An Archive of Unnamed Women was largely visited at workshops and conference presentations that we hosted. In previous projects like The Laboring Self, which was installed at the DMA and in the lobby of the California State University, San Marcos library, we transformed library patrons into a participatory-art public. In a moment of transformation, Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation reinvented the pedestrian action of hand washing, like turning an ordinary visit to the library into an encounter with art. Similarly, it reinvented the ubiquitous act of hand washing into a live-for-Zoom performance. We are intrigued by transformation, and this shows in the way we accompany a project though many different forms before moving on to something completely different; our work is iterative by nature. A Kitchen of One’s Own germinated from our project An Archive of Unnamed Women, which pairs images of unnamed women from the New York Public Library with textual selections from fiction by women about women (“Archive of Unnamed Women”). That project engaged the archive and sought to reclaim these women from the obscurity of history. A Kitchen of One's Own took us into the kitchen, exploring what it means for women to labour and create in kitchens, both in ease and amid the duress of sexism and sexual harassment, through videos paired with text. With the pandemic arising in the U.S. and Europe in Spring 2020, we were swept up into the shared confusion, and like so many, we sought to make sense of a moment so catastrophic. We turned to writers of the past who had endured plagues and epidemics to help us gain clarity, creating a video and text synthesis that again allows for speculative meaning-making through fortuitous pairings. Presently, we are evolving this project from pandemic to enlightenment, with an iteration that takes up as inspiration the Instructions for the Zen Cook by thirteenth century Zen Master Eihei Dōgen Zenji. Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation is an iterative work arising from the tensions of a time in transformative upheaval. It was one way we sought to make sense and bring people together in a playful experience that was beyond easy understanding. References Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Filippo and Bernardo Giunti: 1370-71. Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf Edition. <http://flc.ahnu.edu.cn/__local/7/E7/75/6AB8DEBA692DD0CF6790CA70701_26DE4EC2_17EED4.pdf?e=.pdf>. Burnham, Jack. “Problems of Criticism IX: Art and Technology.” ArtForum (Jan. 1971). <http://www.artforum.com/print/197101/problems-of-criticism-ix-art-and-technology-38921>. burrough, xtine, and Sabrina Starnaman. “Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation.” Electronic Literature Organization Virtual Engagement Session. July 2020. <http://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2020/live/events/12>. ———. “Excerpt of ELO Virtual Engagement, ‘Epic Hand Washing for Synchronous Participation’ (2:15).” Vimeo, 19 May 2021. <http://vimeo.com/xtineburrough/elo-zoom>. ———. The Laboring Self. Dallas Museum of Art Center for Creative Connections. Oct. 2017 to Jan. 2018. <http://dma.org/visit-center-creative-connections-community-projects/laboring-self>. ———. Epic Hand Washing in a Time of Lost Narratives: Text Dataset. Mar. 2020. <http://drive.google.com/file/d/1hSV-9l_ETTOruBpI-NCOChjuPtprlZue/view>. ———. An Archive of Unnamed Women. Browser-based project. Oct. 2019. <http://visiblewomen.net/unnamed-women/index.html>. burrough, xtine, and Sabrina Starnaman, with Technical Direction from Dale MacDonald. “A Kitchen of One’s Own.” The Photographers’ Gallery, 1-28 Oct. 2020. <http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/akitchenofonesown>. ———. “Epic Hand Washing.” Vimeo. <https://vimeo.com/showcase/4611141>. Camus, Albert. The Plague. Gallimard, 1947. <http://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/the-plague.pdf>. Woolf, Virginia. “On Being Ill.” The Criterion, 1926. <http://thenewcriterion1926.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/woolf-on-being-ill.pdf>.

Since the 1970s (at least), performances in which performers perform themselves, through performing stories from their lives, have been ubiquitous. This is particularly so within the 'performance art' arena, with performers ranging from Rachel Rosenthal to Annie Sprinkle to Spalding Gray to Ron Athey to Tim Miller, to Bobby Baker… In spite of the sheer number and diversity of performances of 'the self', criticism of this 'genre' tends to be negative, most often reading 'performing the self' as intrinsically, implicitly or essentially 'narcissistic', 'solipsistic' or 'egotistical'. Many artists draw all their resources from themselves and continually reflect only their own image. (Marranca 85). The dangers in autobiographical art are legion: solipsisms that interest an audience of one. (Weisberg qtd in Roth 107). This impoverished site is vulnerable to the imputation that a politics whose only sure referent is the self is hardly a politics at all [….] (Larsen 31). […] It is as often an ego show as a revelation; the virus of the 'I - Did - It - My - Way/I - Gotta - Be - Me strain afflicts the larger number of such acts, particularly in the performance art area which presents amateurish staging techniques and mini-personalities as often as original methods and subjects. (Howell 158). Solo performance is, of course a field rife with self-indulgence and incipient monumental egotism, and I have sat through as many shows demonstrating this as anyone - typically performed by frustrated and mediocre New York actors trying to jump-start their me-machines with sitcom-shallow autobiographical monologues. (Kalb 14). Performers who perform themselves, it is assumed, are only interested in themselves. Whilst it is more than possible to witness performances that may communicate or challenge little, and which appear to be 'display' windows for the performer(s), this is true of any and all performances, irrespective of which 'form' they may belong to. Simply, it is always possible to experience bad performances. There is nothing about performances of the 'self' which should make this any more (or less) likely. Critics of such performances seem to forget that, first and foremost, literal performances of the self are performances. That is, they are representational and as representations they should not be taken to be in any way real (or any more real than any other performance). In performances of the 'self', there are always, necessarily, (at least) two selves on stage at any one time – the self that is performing, and the self that is performed. (Arguably, the space between one and other is both the place and result of the creative process.) All of which begs the question, 'what is this "self" that is performed?' Of course, within autobiographical criticism, the understanding that there are two 'I's, two selves, involved in the autobiography is long accepted. What may be apparent or revealed in autobiographical performances, however, is the presence of these two 'I's, as the gap between one and the other is made visible. Whilst autobiographical literary criticism reads autobiographies as being constituted from two 'I's, autobiographical performances perform these two 'I's, in a sense containing the criticism within their very form. Autobiographical performance or performances of the 'self' are extremely well placed, then, to mark - or remark - the multiple, non-unitary constitution of the self, and the notion that the 'self', rather than being immutable, fixed, given, deep, essential - or whatever other adjective is usually tied to it - is in fact always a performance of a self (or selves). 1 This is the self as a performative construct, with that very performativity revealed in autobiographical performances that perform the self. This is the performance of performativity. In contrast to the critics noted above, in my own spectatorship of literal performances of the self, I rarely come across those that are 'merely' narcissistic, solipsistic, egotistical, etc. Rather, I would suggest that the majority of performers who play themselves display an astute self-consciousness; their representations of themselves are 'knowing'. They are also strategic, and often politically so, using them'selves' as vehicles through which to project particular social perspectives, inflected by positions of race, class, gender and/or sexuality. The 'self' is deliberately and perhaps paradoxically used in order to precisely go beyond the self, or the individual. But the 'self' in performance is no easy subject. In order that the 'individual self' is not foregrounded within the performance, it (or they, given that there is typically no singular self), is/are tactically and consciously destabilised. The performer may perform the self, but one can never be entirely sure of who the self that is being performed is, nor in fact who the performer is, as both selves keep slipping. Let me briefly put a little flesh onto this self by using one example. Bobby Baker, perhaps the most established performance artist in the UK, most typically performs herself. The various stories that Baker shares, for example in Drawing on a Mother's Experience (1988), are drawn from the life of Bobby Baker, and the person who performs these stories is Bobby Baker, so in classic autobiographical form, the writing subject is also the subject of the story - subject and object are one. However, as suggested above, between the Baker who performs, and the stories being performed, there are at least two other Baker's: the Baker who is performed and the non-performing Baker. 2 (The last of these Baker's will remain outside of this discussion.) In each performance there is what is best described as a persona, and it is this persona that Bobby Baker, the performer, performs. Complicating matters, though, this persona is presented as Bobby Baker (in the same way that performance artist Annie Sprinkle performs Annie Sprinkle). Whose stories are these, then, that are being shared with us - Bobby Baker the performing subject's, or Bobby Baker the performed subject's? And if the Bobby Baker who offers up these stories is a persona, how referential or stable or truthful can this self - and its representation - be presumed to be? There is little danger of reading the signs of the performed Bobby Baker as 'real' in that the performer has carefully selected certain mannerisms, and has exaggerated them to the extent that they have become excessive and therefore parodic. The Bobby Baker that we see performed is one that, through repeated cultural circulation, we 'know' and recognise, but who in all probability does not actually exist. The Baker we see, then, is a recognisable cultural fiction and cannot be taken to be the 'real' of anything, although her stories are positioned as 'real'. Such mannerisms include 'thriftiness', ecological awareness, domestic skill, embarrassment, self-punishment, self-deprecation, continuous apologising, and chaotic activity. Within the performance one also witnesses multiple performed Bakers. Whilst Baker (which one?) is at times a passive mother, often other 'identities' and attitudes burst through to challenge that given location. Baker can be both self-deprecating and authoritative; controlled and unpredictable; respectable and outrageous; parodic and sincere; revelatory and secretive; logical and intuitive; maternal and sensuous. And of course, both Baker's, the persona and the performer, are both a mother and an artist. In effect the culturally inscribed image of the 'housewife/mother' is simultaneously undermined by that persona (and the performer), as one prescribed image of 'Bobby Baker' - who is neat, tidy, clean, calm, organised, resourceful and self-effacing - clashes with other, more challenging images, in particular the Baker who uses food in a way that is removed from domesticity - throwing it around, creating a mess, rolling herself up in it. Alongside the doubling of Baker, there is also a multiplicity within the parodic representation, as the representations of Baker shift, and each version competes with other versions. The contradictions and ambiguities are crucially important devices in undercutting the stereotypical representation and suggesting the inherent complexity of subjectivity, of 'having' a self and of 'being' a person. In Drawing, Baker is an artist, mother, daughter, wife, demonstrator, performer. She is embarrassed, confident, skilled, incapable, calm, chaotic, controlled, intuitive. If one agrees with Foucault that confession is an apparatus through which identity is produced (Foucault 58-59), Baker confesses her 'self' in order to construct an identity that is far from singular. Complicating my reading of the 'gap' between the performer and the performed, however, there are also (importantly) moments at which the performer and performed coincide, through the act of performing. For example, in Drawing Baker's body begins to show signs of its own materiality, as she becomes hot, tired, breathless, sweaty. The image of the neat, clean, organised housewife begins to slip, as the material body of the performer seeps through. At the same time, however, it is also the persona's body, as it becomes hot, tired, breathless in its restaging of everyday activities of motherhood. In the dizziness of this coincidence and non-coincidence I finally have no idea who Bobby Baker is. She eludes me. What is left in 'her' wake, however, is an acerbically astute representation of a social environment in which mothers are routinely erased, undervalued, and 'trapped' within the domestic milieu. This performance of the self seems far from a solipsistic display. Post-script Since first seeing Bobby Baker perform in 1988, I had wondered about the remarkable appropriateness of her name, given that she is an artist whose primary material is food; and not just an artist, but a woman artist whose subject matter is her own everyday experiences. It seems an incredible act of fate or luck that Baker should be blessed with such an alliterative and illustrative moniker. In 1998, however, I read: When she was little, she wanted to be a boy, like so many girls brought up in the 1950s with the tomboys Jo in Little Women and George in The Famous Five as role models. Her name was Lindsey (itself ambidextrous), but she chose Bobby, and stayed with it. Names are obviously important [….] (Marina Warner, "Bobby Baker: The Rebel at the Heart of the Joker", 83 – 84, 1998, ). From the outset, then, Bobby Baker both is and is not Bobby Baker. Notes 1. For critical enquiries into the 'self', and how this self is implicated within autobiographical production, there are now numerous useful texts to turn to. As a useful starting point I would direct the interested reader to the various works of Sidonie Smith, and texts by Laura Marcus, and Linda Anderson. 2. Of course, following my own argument of 'performativity' everyone is always performing and to suggest otherwise would return us to the belief in an essential, individual core. The 'non-performing' Baker is no more 'real', 'knowable' or 'stable'. References Anderson, Linda. Autobiography. London: Routledge, 2001. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. An Introduction. Trans. by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin Books, 1990. Howell, John. "Solo in Soho". Performance Art Journal IV. 1 and 2 (1979/80): 152 -159. Larsen, Ernest. October Winter 1995: 31. Kalb, Jonathan, "Documentary Solo Performance: The Politics of the Mirrored Self". Theater 31.3 (2000): 13 - 29. Marcus, Laura. Auto/biographical Discourses. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994. Marranca, Bonnie,"The Self as Text: Uses of Autobiography in the Theatre (Animations as Model)". Performance Art Journal IV.1 and 2 (1979/80): 85 - 105. Roth, Moira. Ed. Rachel Rosenthal. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997. Smith, Sidonie. "The Autobiographical Manifesto: Identities, Temporalities, Politics." Autobiography and Questions of Gender. Ed. Shirley Neuman, London: Frank Cass and Co Ltd, 1991: 186-212. Smith, Sidonie. Subjectivity, Identity and the Body: Women's Autobiographical Practices in the Twentieth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Smith, Sidonie. "Construing Truth in Lying Mouths: Truthtelling in Women's Autobiography."Women and Autobiography. Washington: Scholarly Resources Inc, Martine Watson Brownley and Allison B. Kimmich, 1999: 33-52. Warner, Marina, "Bobby Baker: The Rebel at the Heart of the Joker" in A Split Second of Paradise. Eds., Nicky Childs and Jeni Walwin. River Oram Press, 1998. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Heddon, Deidre. "Performing the Self" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.5 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Heddon.html &gt. Chicago Style Heddon, Deidre, "Performing the Self" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 5 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Heddon.html &gt ([your date of access]). APA Style Heddon, Deidre. (2002) Performing the Self. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Heddon.html &gt ([your date of access]).

Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto (2005) reconceives transience and domesticity together. This queer Irish road film collapses opposition between mobility and home by uncoupling them from heteronormative structures of gender, desire, and space—male/female, public/private. The film’s protagonist, Patrick “Kitten” Braden (Cillian Murphy), wanders in search of a loved one without whom she does not feel at home. Along the way, the film exposes and exploits the doubleness of both “mobility” and “home” in the traditional road narrative, queering the conventions of the road film to convey the desire and possibilities for an alternative domesticity. In its rerouting of the traditional road plot, Breakfast on Pluto does not follow a hero escaping the obligations of home and family to find autonomy on the road. Instead, the film charts Kitten’s quest to realise a sense of home through trans-domesticity—that is, to find shelter in non-heteronormative, mutual care while in both transient and public spaces.I affix “trans-” to “domesticity” to signal both the queerness and mobility that transform understandings of domestic spaces and practices in Breakfast on Pluto. To clarify, trans-domesticity is not queer assimilation to heteronormative domesticity, nor is it a relegation of queer culture to privatised and demobilised spaces. Rather, trans-domesticity challenges the assumption that all forms of domesticity are inherently normalising and demobilising. In other words, trans-domesticity uncovers tensions and violence swept under the rugs of hegemonic domesticity. Moreover, this alternative domesticity moves between and beyond the terms of gender and spatial oppositions that delimit the normative home.Specifically, “trans-domesticity” names non-normative homemaking practices that arise out of the “desire to feel at home”, a desire that Anne-Marie Fortier identifies in queer diasporic narratives (1890-90). Accordingly, “trans-domesticity” also registers the affective processes that foster the connectedness and belonging of “home” away from private domestic spaces and places of origin, a “rethinking of the concept of home”, which Ed Madden traces in lesbian and gay migrant narratives (175-77). Building on the assumption of queer diaspora theorists “that not only can one be at home in movement, but that movement can be one’s very own home” (Rapport and Dawson 27), trans-domesticity focuses critical attention on the everyday practices and emotional labour that create a home in transience.As Breakfast on Pluto tracks its transgender protagonist’s movement between a small Irish border town, Northern Ireland, and London, the film invokes both a specifically Irish migration and the broader queer diaspora of which it is a part. While trans-domesticity is a recurring theme across a wide range of queer diasporic narratives, in Breakfast on Pluto it also simultaneously drives the plot and functions as a narrative frame. The film begins and ends with Kitten telling her story as she wanders through the streets of Soho and cares for a member of her made family, her friend Charlie’s baby.Although I am concerned with the film adaptation, Patrick McCabe’s “Prelude” to his novel, Breakfast on Pluto (1998), offers a useful point of departure: Patrick “Pussy” Braden’s dream, “as he negotiates the minefields of this world”, is “ending, once and for all, this ugly state of perpetual limbo” and “finding a map which might lead to that place called home” (McCabe x). In such a place, McCabe’s hero might lay “his head beneath a flower-bordered print that bears the words at last ‘You’re home’”(McCabe xi). By contrast, the film posits that “home” is never a “place” apart from “the minefields of this world”, and that while being in transit and in limbo might be a perpetual state, it is not necessarily an ugly one.Jordan’s film thus addresses the same questions as does Susan Fraiman in her book Extreme Domesticity: “But what about those for whom dislocation is not back story but main event? Those who, having pulled themselves apart, realize no timely arrival at a place of their own, so that being not-unpacked is an ongoing condition?” (155). Through her trans-domestic shelter-making and caregiving practices, Kitten enacts “home” in motion and in public spaces, and thereby realises the elision in the flower-bordered print in McCabe’s “Prelude” (xi), which does not assure “You are at home” but, rather, “You are home”.From Housed to Trans-Domestic SubjectivitySelf and home are equated in the dominant cultural narratives of Western modernity, but “home” in such formulations is assumed to be a self-owned, self-contained space. Psychoanalytic theorist Carl Jung describes this Ur-house as “a concretization of the individuation process, […] a symbol of psychic wholeness” (225). Philosopher Gaston Bachelard sees in the home “the topography of our intimate being”, a structure that “concentrates being within limits that protect” (xxxii). However, as historian Carolyn Steedman suggests, the mythic house that has become “the stuff of our ‘cultural psychology,’ the system of everyday metaphors by which we see ourselves”, is far from universal; rather, it reflects “the topography of the houses” of those who stand “in a central relationship to the dominant culture” (75, 17).For others, the lack of such housing correlates with political marginalisation, as the house functions as both a metaphor and material marker for culturally-recognised selfhood. As cultural geographer John Agnew argues, in capitalist societies the self-owned home is both a sign of autonomous individuality and a prerequisite for full political subjectivity (60). Philosopher Rosi Braidotti asserts that this figuration of subjectivity in “the phallo-Eurocentric master code” treats as “disposable” the “bodies of women, youth, and others who are racialised or marked off by age, gender, sexuality, and income” (6). These bodies are “reduced to marginality” and subsequently “experience dispossession of their embodied and embedded selves, in a political economy of repeated and structurally enforced eviction” (Braidotti 6).To shift the meaning of “home” and the intimately-linked “self” from a privately-owned, autonomous structure to trans-domesticity, to an ethos of care enacted even, and especially in, transient and public spaces, is not to romanticise homelessness or to deny the urgent necessity of material shelter. Breakfast on Pluto certainly does not allow viewers to do either. Rather, the figure of a trans-domestic self, like Braidotti’s “nomadic subject”, has the potential to challenge and transform the terms of power relations. Those now on the margins might then be seen as equally-embodied selves and full political subjects with the right to shelter and care.Such a political project also entails recognising and revaluing—without appropriating and demobilising—existing trans-domesticity. As Fraiman argues, “domesticity” must be “map[ped] from the margins” in order to include the homemaking practices of gender rebels and the precariously housed, of castaways and outcasts (4-5). This alternative map would allow “outsiders to normative domesticity” to “claim domesticity while wrenching it away from such things as compulsory heterosexuality […] and the illusion of a safely barricaded life” (Fraiman 4-5). Breakfast on Pluto shares in this re-mapping work by exposing the violence embedded in heteronormative domestic structures, and by charting the radical political potential of trans-domesticity.Unsettling HousesIn the traditional road narrative, “home” tends to be a static, confining structure from which the protagonist escapes, a space that then functions as “a structuring absence” on the road (Robertson 271). Bachelard describes this normative structure as a “dream house” that constitutes “a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability” (17); the house functions, Henri Lefebvre argues, as “the epitome of immobility” (92). Whether the dream is to escape and/or to return, “to write of houses”, as Adam Hanna asserts, “is to raise ideas of shelters that are fixed and secure” (113).Breakfast on Pluto quickly gives lie to those expectations. Kitten is adopted by Ma Braden (Ruth McCabe), a single woman who raises Kitten and her adopted sister in domestic space that is connected to, and part of, a public house. That spatial contiguity undermines any illusion of privacy and security, as is evident in the scene in which a school-aged Kitten, who thought herself safely home alone and thus able to dress in her mother’s and sister’s clothes, is discovered in the act by her mother and sister from the pub’s street entrance. Further, the film lays bare the built-in mechanisms of surveillance and violence that reinforce heteronormative, patriarchal structures. After discovering Kitten in women’s clothes, Ma Braden violently scrubs her clean and whacks her with a brush until Kitten says, “I’m a boy, not a girl”. The public/house space facilitates Ma Braden’s close monitoring of Kitten thereafter.As a young writer in secondary school, Kitten satirises the violence within the hegemonic home by narrating the story of the rape of her biological mother, Eily Bergin (Eva Birthistle), by Kitten’s father, Father Liam (Liam Neeson) in a scene of hyper-domesticity set in the rectory kitchen. As Patrick Mullen notes, “the rendition of the event follows the bubble-gum logic and tone of 1950s Hollywood culture” (130). The relationship between the ideal domesticity thereby invoked and the rape then depicted exposes the sexual violence for what it is: not an external violation of the double sanctity of church and home space, but rather an internal and even intrinsic violence that reinforces and is shielded by the power structures from which normative domesticity is never separate.The only sense of home that seems to bind Kitten to her place of origin is based in her affective bonds to friends Charlie (Ruth Negga) and Lawrence (Seamus Reilly). When Lawrence is killed by a bomb, Kitten is no longer at home, and she leaves town to search for the “phantom” mother she never knew. The impetus for Kitten’s wandering, then, is connection rather than autonomy, and neither the home she leaves, nor the sense of home she seeks, are fixed structures.Mobile Homes and Queering of the Western RoadBreakfast on Pluto tracks how the oppositions that seem to structure traditional road films—such as that between home and mobility, and between domestic and open spaces—continually collapse. The film invokes the “cowboy and Indian” mythology from which the Western road narrative descends (Boyle 19), but to different ends: to capture a desire for non-heteronormative affective bonds rather than “lone ranger” autonomy, and to convey a longing for domesticity on the trail, for a home that is both mobile and open. Across the past century of Irish fiction and film, “cowboy and Indian” mythology has often intersected with queer wandering, from James Joyce’s Dubliners story “An Encounter” (1914) to Lenny Abrahamson’s film Adam & Paul (2004). In this tradition, Breakfast on Pluto queers “cowboy and Indian” iconography to convey an alternative conception of domesticity and home. The prevailing ethos in the film’s queered Western scenes is of trans-domesticity—of inclusion and care during transience and in open spaces. After bar bouncers exclude Kitten and friends because of her transgenderism and Lawrence’s Down syndrome, “The Border Knights” (hippie-bikers-cum-cowboys) ride to their rescue and bring them to their temporary home under the stars. Once settled around the campfire, the first biker shares his philosophy with a cuddled-up Kitten: “When I’m riding my hog, you think I’m riding the road? No way, man. I’m travelling from the past into the future with a druid at my back”. “Druid man or woman?” Kitten asks. “That doesn’t matter”, the biker clarifies, “What matters is the journey”. What matters is not place as fixed destination or gender as static difference, but rather the practice of travelling with open relationships to space, to time, and to others. The bikers welcome all to their fire and include both Kitten and Lawrence in their sharing of jokes and joints. The only exclusion is of reference to political violence, which Charlie’s boyfriend, Irwin (Laurence Kinlan), tries to bring into the conversation.Further, Kitten uses domesticity to try to establish a place for herself while on the road with “Billy Hatchett and The Mohawks”, the touring band that picks her up when she leaves Ma Braden’s. As Mullen notes, “Kitten literally works herself into the band by hand sewing a ‘squaw’ outfit to complement the group’s glam-rock Native American image” (Mullen 141). The duet that Kitten performs with Billy (Gavin Friday), a song about a woman inviting “a wandering man” to share the temporary shelter of her campfire, invokes trans-domesticity. But the film intercuts their performance with scenes of violent border-policing: first, by British soldiers at a checkpoint who threaten the group and boast about the “13 less to deal with” in Derry, and then by members of the Republican Prisoners Welfare Association, who throw cans at the group and yell them off stage. A number of critics have noted the postcolonial implications of Breakfast on Pluto’s use of Native American iconography, which in these intercut scenes clearly raises the national stakes of constructions of domestic belonging (see, for instance, Winston 153-71). In complementary ways, the film queers “cowboy and Indian” mythology to reimagine “mobility” and “home” together.After Kitten is forced out by the rest of the band, Billy sets her up in a caravan, a mobile home left to him by his mother. Though Billy “wouldn’t exactly call it a house”, Kitten sees in it her first chance at a Bachelardian “dream house”: she calls it a “house of dreams and longing” and cries, “Oh, to have a little house, to own the hearth, stool, and all”. Kitten ecstatically begins to tidy the place, performing what Fraiman terms a “hyper-investment in homemaking” that functions “as compensation for domestic deprivation” (20).Aisling Cormack suggests that Kitten’s hyper-investment in homemaking signals the film’s “radical disengagement with politics” to a “femininity that is inherently apolitical” (169-70). But that reading holds only if viewers assume a gendered, spatial divide between public and private, and between the political and the domestic. As Fraiman asserts, “the political meaning of fixating on domestic arrangements is more complex […] For the poor or transgendered person, the placeless immigrant or the woman on her own, aspiring to a safe, affirming home doesn’t reinforce hierarchical social relations but is pitched, precisely, against them” (20).Trans-Domesticity as Political ActEven as Kitten invokes the idea of a Bachelardian dream house, she performs a trans-domesticity that exposes the falseness of the gendered, spatial oppositions assumed to structure the normative home. Her domesticity is not an apolitical retreat; rather, it is pitched, precisely, against the violence that public/private and political/domestic oppositions enable within the house, as well as beyond it. As she cleans, Kitten discovers that violence is literally embedded in her caravan home when she finds a cache of Irish Republican Army (IRA) guns under the floor. After a bomb kills Lawrence, Kitten throws the guns into a reservoir, a defiant act that she describes to the IRA paramilitaries who come looking for the guns as “spring cleaning”. Cormack asserts that Kitten “describing her perilous destruction of the guns in terms of domestic labor” strips it “of all political significance” (179). I argue instead that it demonstrates the radical potential of trans-domesticity, of an ethos of care-taking and shelter-making asserted in public and political spaces. Kitten’s act is not apolitical, though it is decidedly anti-violence.From the beginning of Breakfast on Pluto, Kitten’s trans-domesticity exposes the violence structurally embedded in heteronormative domestic ideology. Additionally, the film’s regular juxtaposition of scenes of Kitten’s homemaking practices with scenes of political violence demonstrates that no form of domesticity functions as a private, apolitical retreat from “the minefields of this world” (McCabe x). This latter counterpoint throws into relief the political significance of Kitten’s trans-domesticity. Her domestic practices are her means of resisting and transforming the structural violence that poses an existential threat to marginalised and dispossessed people.After Kitten is accused of being responsible for an IRA bombing in London, the ruthless, violent interrogation of Kitten by British police officers begins to break down her sense of self. Throughout this brutal scene, Kitten compulsively straightens the chairs and tidies the room, and she responds to her interrogators with kindness and even affection. Fraiman’s theorisation of “extreme domesticity” helps to articulate how Kitten’s homemaking in carceral space—she calls it “My Sweet Little Cell”—is an “urgent” act that, “in the wake of dislocation”, can mean “safety, sanity, and self-expression; survival in the most basic sense” (25). Cormack reads Kitten’s reactions in this scene as “masochistic” and the male police officers’ nurturing response as of a piece with the film’s “more-feminine-than-feminine disengagement from political realities” (185-89). However, I disagree: Kitten’s trans-domesticity is a political act that both sustains her within structures that would erase her and converts officers of the state to an ethos of care and shelter. Inspector Routledge, for example, gently carries Kitten back to her cell, and after her release, PC Wallis ensures that she is safely (if not privately) housed with a cooperatively-run peep show, the address at which an atoning Father Liam locates her in London.After Kitten and a pregnant Charlie are burned out of the refuge that they temporarily find with Father Liam, Kitten and Charlie return to London, where Charlie’s baby is born soon after into the trans-domesticity that opens the film. Rejoining the story’s frame, Breakfast on Pluto ends close to where it begins: Kitten and the baby meet Charlie outside a London hospital, where Kitten sees Eily Bergin with her new son, Patrick. Instead of meeting where their paths intersect, the two families pass each other and turn in opposite directions. Kitten now knows that hers is both a different road and a different kind of home. “Home”, then, is not a place gained once and for all. Rather, home is a perpetual practice that does not separate one from the world, but can create the shelter of mutual care as one wanders through it.The Radical Potential and Structural Limits of Trans-DomesticityBreakfast on Pluto demonstrates the agency that trans-domesticity can afford in the lives of marginalised and dispossessed individuals, as well as the power of the structures that militate against its broader realisation. The radical political potential of trans-domesticity manifests in the transformation in the two police officers’ relational practices. Kitten’s trans-domesticity also inspires a reformation in Father Liam, the film’s representative of the Catholic Church and a man whose relationship to others transmutes from sexual violence and repressive secrecy to mutual nurturance and inclusive love. Although these individual conversions do not signify changes in structures of power, they do allow viewers to imagine the possibility of a state and a church that cherish, shelter, and care for all people equally. The film’s ending conveys this sense of fairy-tale-like possibility through its Disney-esque chattering birds and the bubble-gum pop song, “Sugar Baby Love”.In the end, the sense of hopefulness that closes Breakfast on Pluto coexists with the reality that dominant power structures will not recognise Kitten’s trans-domestic subjectivity and family, and that those structures will work to contain any perceived threat, just as the Catholic Church banishes the converted Father Liam to Kilburn Parish. That Kitten and Charlie nevertheless realise a clear contentment in themselves and in their made family demonstrates the vital importance of trans-domesticity and other forms of “extreme domesticity” in the lives of those who wander.ReferencesAgnew, John. “Home Ownership and Identity in Capitalist Societies.” Housing and Identity: Cross Cultural Perspectives. Ed. James S. Duncan. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982. 60–97.Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. 1957. Trans. Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.Boyle, Kevin Jon, ed. Rear View Mirror: Automobile Images and American Identities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.Breakfast on Pluto. Dir. Neil Jordan. Pathé Pictures International, 2005.Cormack, Aisling B. “Toward a ‘Post-Troubles’ Cinema? The Troubled Intersection of Political Violence and Gender in Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game and Breakfast on Pluto.” Éire-Ireland 49.1–2 (2014): 164–92.Fortier, Anne-Marie. “Queer Diaspora.” Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Eds. Diane Richardson and Steven Seidman. London: Sage Publishing, 2002. 183–97.Fraiman, Susan. Extreme Domesticity: A View from the Margins. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.Hanna, Adam. Northern Irish Poetry and Domestic Space. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Jung, Carl. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. 1957. Ed. Aniela Jaffe. Trans. Clara Winston and Richard Winston. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Social Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.Madden, Ed. “Queering the Irish Diaspora: David Rees and Padraig Rooney.” Éire-Ireland 47.1–2 (2012): 172–200.McCabe, Patrick. Breakfast on Pluto. London: Picador, 1998.Mullen, Patrick R. The Poor Bugger’s Tool: Irish Modernism, Queer Labor, and Postcolonial History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.Rapport, Nigel, and Andrew Dawson. Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of ‘Home’ in a World of Movement. Oxford: Berg, 1998.Robertson, Pamela. “Home and Away: Friends of Dorothy on the Road in Oz.” The Road Movie Book. Eds. Steven Cohen and Ina Rae Hark. London: Routledge, 1997. 271–306.Steedman, Carolyn. Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987.Winston, Greg. “‘Reluctant Indians’: Irish Identity and Racial Masquerade.” Irish Modernism and the Global Primitive. Eds. Maria McGarrity and Claire A. Culleton. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 153–71.

By the time you read this, it will be wrong. Things seemed to be moving so fast in these first days after airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania earth. Each certainty is as carelessly dropped as it was once carelessly assumed. The sounds of lower Manhattan that used to serve as white noise for residents—sirens, screeches, screams—are no longer signs without a referent. Instead, they make folks stare and stop, hurry and hustle, wondering whether the noises we know so well are in fact, this time, coefficients of a new reality. At the time of writing, the events themselves are also signs without referents—there has been no direct claim of responsibility, and little proof offered by accusers since the 11th. But it has been assumed that there is a link to US foreign policy, its military and economic presence in the Arab world, and opposition to it that seeks revenge. In the intervening weeks the US media and the war planners have supplied their own narrow frameworks, making New York’s “ground zero” into the starting point for a new escalation of global violence. We want to write here about the combination of sources and sensations that came that day, and the jumble of knowledges and emotions that filled our minds. Working late the night before, Toby was awoken in the morning by one of the planes right overhead. That happens sometimes. I have long expected a crash when I’ve heard the roar of jet engines so close—but I didn’t this time. Often when that sound hits me, I get up and go for a run down by the water, just near Wall Street. Something kept me back that day. Instead, I headed for my laptop. Because I cannot rely on local media to tell me very much about the role of the US in world affairs, I was reading the British newspaper The Guardian on-line when it flashed a two-line report about the planes. I looked up at the calendar above my desk to see whether it was April 1st. Truly. Then I got off-line and turned on the TV to watch CNN. That second, the phone rang. My quasi-ex-girlfriend I’m still in love with called from the mid-West. She was due to leave that day for the Bay Area. Was I alright? We spoke for a bit. She said my cell phone was out, and indeed it was for the remainder of the day. As I hung up from her, my friend Ana rang, tearful and concerned. Her husband, Patrick, had left an hour before for work in New Jersey, and it seemed like a dangerous separation. All separations were potentially fatal that day. You wanted to know where everyone was, every minute. She told me she had been trying to contact Palestinian friends who worked and attended school near the event—their ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds made for real poignancy, as we both thought of the prejudice they would (probably) face, regardless of the eventual who/what/when/where/how of these events. We agreed to meet at Bruno’s, a bakery on La Guardia Place. For some reason I really took my time, though, before getting to Ana. I shampooed and shaved under the shower. This was a horror, and I needed to look my best, even as men and women were losing and risking their lives. I can only interpret what I did as an attempt to impose normalcy and control on the situation, on my environment. When I finally made it down there, she’d located our friends. They were safe. We stood in the street and watched the Towers. Horrified by the sight of human beings tumbling to their deaths, we turned to buy a tea/coffee—again some ludicrous normalization—but were drawn back by chilling screams from the street. Racing outside, we saw the second Tower collapse, and clutched at each other. People were streaming towards us from further downtown. We decided to be with our Palestinian friends in their apartment. When we arrived, we learnt that Mark had been four minutes away from the WTC when the first plane hit. I tried to call my daughter in London and my father in Canberra, but to no avail. I rang the mid-West, and asked my maybe-former novia to call England and Australia to report in on me. Our friend Jenine got through to relatives on the West Bank. Israeli tanks had commenced a bombardment there, right after the planes had struck New York. Family members spoke to her from under the kitchen table, where they were taking refuge from the shelling of their house. Then we gave ourselves over to television, like so many others around the world, even though these events were happening only a mile away. We wanted to hear official word, but there was just a huge absence—Bush was busy learning to read in Florida, then leading from the front in Louisiana and Nebraska. As the day wore on, we split up and regrouped, meeting folks. One guy was in the subway when smoke filled the car. Noone could breathe properly, people were screaming, and his only thought was for his dog DeNiro back in Brooklyn. From the panic of the train, he managed to call his mom on a cell to ask her to feed “DeNiro” that night, because it looked like he wouldn’t get home. A pregnant woman feared for her unborn as she fled the blasts, pushing the stroller with her baby in it as she did so. Away from these heart-rending tales from strangers, there was the fear: good grief, what horrible price would the US Government extract for this, and who would be the overt and covert agents and targets of that suffering? What blood-lust would this generate? What would be the pattern of retaliation and counter-retaliation? What would become of civil rights and cultural inclusiveness? So a jumble of emotions came forward, I assume in all of us. Anger was not there for me, just intense sorrow, shock, and fear, and the desire for intimacy. Network television appeared to offer me that, but in an ultimately unsatisfactory way. For I think I saw the end-result of reality TV that day. I have since decided to call this ‘emotionalization’—network TV’s tendency to substitute analysis of US politics and economics with a stress on feelings. Of course, powerful emotions have been engaged by this horror, and there is value in addressing that fact and letting out the pain. I certainly needed to do so. But on that day and subsequent ones, I looked to the networks, traditional sources of current-affairs knowledge, for just that—informed, multi-perspectival journalism that would allow me to make sense of my feelings, and come to a just and reasoned decision about how the US should respond. I waited in vain. No such commentary came forward. Just a lot of asinine inquiries from reporters that were identical to those they pose to basketballers after a game: Question—‘How do you feel now?’ Answer—‘God was with me today.’ For the networks were insistent on asking everyone in sight how they felt about the end of las torres gemelas. In this case, we heard the feelings of survivors, firefighters, viewers, media mavens, Republican and Democrat hacks, and vacuous Beltway state-of-the-nation pundits. But learning of the military-political economy, global inequality, and ideologies and organizations that made for our grief and loss—for that, there was no space. TV had forgotten how to do it. My principal feeling soon became one of frustration. So I headed back to where I began the day—The Guardian web site, where I was given insightful analysis of the messy factors of history, religion, economics, and politics that had created this situation. As I dealt with the tragedy of folks whose lives had been so cruelly lost, I pondered what it would take for this to stop. Or whether this was just the beginning. I knew one thing—the answers wouldn’t come from mainstream US television, no matter how full of feelings it was. And that made Toby anxious. And afraid. He still is. And so the dreams come. In one, I am suddenly furloughed from my job with an orchestra, as audience numbers tumble. I make my evening-wear way to my locker along with the other players, emptying it of bubble gum and instrument. The next night, I see a gigantic, fifty-feet high wave heading for the city beach where I’ve come to swim. Somehow I am sheltered behind a huge wall, as all the people around me die. Dripping, I turn to find myself in a media-stereotype “crack house” of the early ’90s—desperate-looking black men, endless doorways, sudden police arrival, and my earnest search for a passport that will explain away my presence. I awake in horror, to the realization that the passport was already open and stamped—racialization at work for Toby, every day and in every way, as a white man in New York City. Ana’s husband, Patrick, was at work ten miles from Manhattan when “it” happened. In the hallway, I overheard some talk about two planes crashing, but went to teach anyway in my usual morning stupor. This was just the usual chatter of disaster junkies. I didn’t hear the words, “World Trade Center” until ten thirty, at the end of the class at the college I teach at in New Jersey, across the Hudson river. A friend and colleague walked in and told me the news of the attack, to which I replied “You must be fucking joking.” He was a little offended. Students were milling haphazardly on the campus in the late summer weather, some looking panicked like me. My first thought was of some general failure of the air-traffic control system. There must be planes falling out of the sky all over the country. Then the height of the towers: how far towards our apartment in Greenwich Village would the towers fall? Neither of us worked in the financial district a mile downtown, but was Ana safe? Where on the college campus could I see what was happening? I recognized the same physical sensation I had felt the morning after Hurricane Andrew in Miami seeing at a distance the wreckage of our shattered apartment across a suburban golf course strewn with debris and flattened power lines. Now I was trapped in the suburbs again at an unbridgeable distance from my wife and friends who were witnessing the attacks first hand. Were they safe? What on earth was going on? This feeling of being cut off, my path to the familiar places of home blocked, remained for weeks my dominant experience of the disaster. In my office, phone calls to the city didn’t work. There were six voice-mail messages from my teenaged brother Alex in small-town England giving a running commentary on the attack and its aftermath that he was witnessing live on television while I dutifully taught my writing class. “Hello, Patrick, where are you? Oh my god, another plane just hit the towers. Where are you?” The web was choked: no access to newspapers online. Email worked, but no one was wasting time writing. My office window looked out over a soccer field to the still woodlands of western New Jersey: behind me to the east the disaster must be unfolding. Finally I found a website with a live stream from ABC television, which I watched flickering and stilted on the tiny screen. It had all already happened: both towers already collapsed, the Pentagon attacked, another plane shot down over Pennsylvania, unconfirmed reports said, there were other hijacked aircraft still out there unaccounted for. Manhattan was sealed off. George Washington Bridge, Lincoln and Holland tunnels, all the bridges and tunnels from New Jersey I used to mock shut down. Police actions sealed off the highways into “the city.” The city I liked to think of as the capital of the world was cut off completely from the outside, suddenly vulnerable and under siege. There was no way to get home. The phone rang abruptly and Alex, three thousand miles away, told me he had spoken to Ana earlier and she was safe. After a dozen tries, I managed to get through and spoke to her, learning that she and Toby had seen people jumping and then the second tower fall. Other friends had been even closer. Everyone was safe, we thought. I sat for another couple of hours in my office uselessly. The news was incoherent, stories contradictory, loops of the planes hitting the towers only just ready for recycling. The attacks were already being transformed into “the World Trade Center Disaster,” not yet the ahistorical singularity of the emergency “nine one one.” Stranded, I had to spend the night in New Jersey at my boss’s house, reminded again of the boundless generosity of Americans to relative strangers. In an effort to protect his young son from the as yet unfiltered images saturating cable and Internet, my friend’s TV set was turned off and we did our best to reassure. We listened surreptitiously to news bulletins on AM radio, hoping that the roads would open. Walking the dog with my friend’s wife and son we crossed a park on the ridge on which Upper Montclair sits. Ten miles away a huge column of smoke was rising from lower Manhattan, where the stunning absence of the towers was clearly visible. The summer evening was unnervingly still. We kicked a soccer ball around on the front lawn and a woman walked distracted by, shocked and pale up the tree-lined suburban street, suffering her own wordless trauma. I remembered that though most of my students were ordinary working people, Montclair is a well-off dormitory for the financial sector and high rises of Wall Street and Midtown. For the time being, this was a white-collar disaster. I slept a short night in my friend’s house, waking to hope I had dreamed it all, and took the commuter train in with shell-shocked bankers and corporate types. All men, all looking nervously across the river toward glimpses of the Manhattan skyline as the train neared Hoboken. “I can’t believe they’re making us go in,” one guy had repeated on the station platform. He had watched the attacks from his office in Midtown, “The whole thing.” Inside the train we all sat in silence. Up from the PATH train station on 9th street I came onto a carless 6th Avenue. At 14th street barricades now sealed off downtown from the rest of the world. I walked down the middle of the avenue to a newspaper stand; the Indian proprietor shrugged “No deliveries below 14th.” I had not realized that the closer to the disaster you came, the less information would be available. Except, I assumed, for the evidence of my senses. But at 8 am the Village was eerily still, few people about, nothing in the sky, including the twin towers. I walked to Houston Street, which was full of trucks and police vehicles. Tractor trailers sat carrying concrete barriers. Below Houston, each street into Soho was barricaded and manned by huddles of cops. I had walked effortlessly up into the “lockdown,” but this was the “frozen zone.” There was no going further south towards the towers. I walked the few blocks home, found my wife sleeping, and climbed into bed, still in my clothes from the day before. “Your heart is racing,” she said. I realized that I hadn’t known if I would get back, and now I never wanted to leave again; it was still only eight thirty am. Lying there, I felt the terrible wonder of a distant bystander for the first-hand witness. Ana’s face couldn’t tell me what she had seen. I felt I needed to know more, to see and understand. Even though I knew the effort was useless: I could never bridge that gap that had trapped me ten miles away, my back turned to the unfolding disaster. The television was useless: we don’t have cable, and the mast on top of the North Tower, which Ana had watched fall, had relayed all the network channels. I knew I had to go down and see the wreckage. Later I would realize how lucky I had been not to suffer from “disaster envy.” Unbelievably, in retrospect, I commuted into work the second day after the attack, dogged by the same unnerving sensation that I would not get back—to the wounded, humbled former center of the world. My students were uneasy, all talked out. I was a novelty, a New Yorker living in the Village a mile from the towers, but I was forty-eight hours late. Out of place in both places. I felt torn up, but not angry. Back in the city at night, people were eating and drinking with a vengeance, the air filled with acrid sicklysweet smoke from the burning wreckage. Eyes stang and nose ran with a bitter acrid taste. Who knows what we’re breathing in, we joked nervously. A friend’s wife had fallen out with him for refusing to wear a protective mask in the house. He shrugged a wordlessly reassuring smile. What could any of us do? I walked with Ana down to the top of West Broadway from where the towers had commanded the skyline over SoHo; downtown dense smoke blocked the view to the disaster. A crowd of onlookers pushed up against the barricades all day, some weeping, others gawping. A tall guy was filming the grieving faces with a video camera, which was somehow the worst thing of all, the first sign of the disaster tourism that was already mushrooming downtown. Across the street an Asian artist sat painting the street scene in streaky black and white; he had scrubbed out two white columns where the towers would have been. “That’s the first thing I’ve seen that’s made me feel any better,” Ana said. We thanked him, but he shrugged blankly, still in shock I supposed. On the Friday, the clampdown. I watched the Mayor and Police Chief hold a press conference in which they angrily told the stream of volunteers to “ground zero” that they weren’t needed. “We can handle this ourselves. We thank you. But we don’t need your help,” Commissioner Kerik said. After the free-for-all of the first couple of days, with its amazing spontaneities and common gestures of goodwill, the clampdown was going into effect. I decided to go down to Canal Street and see if it was true that no one was welcome anymore. So many paths through the city were blocked now. “Lock down, frozen zone, war zone, the site, combat zone, ground zero, state troopers, secured perimeter, national guard, humvees, family center”: a disturbing new vocabulary that seemed to stamp the logic of Giuliani’s sanitized and over-policed Manhattan onto the wounded hulk of the city. The Mayor had been magnificent in the heat of the crisis; Churchillian, many were saying—and indeed, Giuliani quickly appeared on the cover of Cigar Afficionado, complete with wing collar and the misquotation from Kipling, “Captain Courageous.” Churchill had not believed in peacetime politics either, and he never got over losing his empire. Now the regime of command and control over New York’s citizens and its economy was being stabilized and reimposed. The sealed-off, disfigured, and newly militarized spaces of the New York through which I have always loved to wander at all hours seemed to have been put beyond reach for the duration. And, in the new post-“9/11” post-history, the duration could last forever. The violence of the attacks seemed to have elicited a heavy-handed official reaction that sought to contain and constrict the best qualities of New York. I felt more anger at the clampdown than I did at the demolition of the towers. I knew this was unreasonable, but I feared the reaction, the spread of the racial harassment and racial profiling that I had already heard of from my students in New Jersey. This militarizing of the urban landscape seemed to negate the sprawling, freewheeling, boundless largesse and tolerance on which New York had complacently claimed a monopoly. For many the towers stood for that as well, not just as the monumental outposts of global finance that had been attacked. Could the American flag mean something different? For a few days, perhaps—on the helmets of firemen and construction workers. But not for long. On the Saturday, I found an unmanned barricade way east along Canal Street and rode my bike past throngs of Chinatown residents, by the Federal jail block where prisoners from the first World Trade Center bombing were still being held. I headed south and west towards Tribeca; below the barricades in the frozen zone, you could roam freely, the cops and soldiers assuming you belonged there. I felt uneasy, doubting my own motives for being there, feeling the blood drain from my head in the same numbing shock I’d felt every time I headed downtown towards the site. I looped towards Greenwich Avenue, passing an abandoned bank full of emergency supplies and boxes of protective masks. Crushed cars still smeared with pulverized concrete and encrusted with paperwork strewn by the blast sat on the street near the disabled telephone exchange. On one side of the avenue stood a horde of onlookers, on the other television crews, all looking two blocks south towards a colossal pile of twisted and smoking steel, seven stories high. We were told to stay off the street by long-suffering national guardsmen and women with southern accents, kids. Nothing happening, just the aftermath. The TV crews were interviewing worn-out, dust-covered volunteers and firemen who sat quietly leaning against the railings of a park filled with scraps of paper. Out on the West Side highway, a high-tech truck was offering free cellular phone calls. The six lanes by the river were full of construction machinery and military vehicles. Ambulances rolled slowly uptown, bodies inside? I locked my bike redundantly to a lamppost and crossed under the hostile gaze of plainclothes police to another media encampment. On the path by the river, two camera crews were complaining bitterly in the heat. “After five days of this I’ve had enough.” They weren’t talking about the trauma, bodies, or the wreckage, but censorship. “Any blue light special gets to roll right down there, but they see your press pass and it’s get outta here. I’ve had enough.” I fronted out the surly cops and ducked under the tape onto the path, walking onto a Pier on which we’d spent many lazy afternoons watching the river at sunset. Dust everywhere, police boats docked and waiting, a crane ominously dredging mud into a barge. I walked back past the camera operators onto the highway and walked up to an interview in process. Perfectly composed, a fire chief and his crew from some small town in upstate New York were politely declining to give details about what they’d seen at “ground zero.” The men’s faces were dust streaked, their eyes slightly dazed with the shock of a horror previously unimaginable to most Americans. They were here to help the best they could, now they’d done as much as anyone could. “It’s time for us to go home.” The chief was eloquent, almost rehearsed in his precision. It was like a Magnum press photo. But he was refusing to cooperate with the media’s obsessive emotionalism. I walked down the highway, joining construction workers, volunteers, police, and firemen in their hundreds at Chambers Street. No one paid me any attention; it was absurd. I joined several other watchers on the stairs by Stuyvesant High School, which was now the headquarters for the recovery crews. Just two or three blocks away, the huge jagged teeth of the towers’ beautiful tracery lurched out onto the highway above huge mounds of debris. The TV images of the shattered scene made sense as I placed them into what was left of a familiar Sunday afternoon geography of bike rides and walks by the river, picnics in the park lying on the grass and gazing up at the infinite solidity of the towers. Demolished. It was breathtaking. If “they” could do that, they could do anything. Across the street at tables military policeman were checking credentials of the milling volunteers and issuing the pink and orange tags that gave access to ground zero. Without warning, there was a sudden stampede running full pelt up from the disaster site, men and women in fatigues, burly construction workers, firemen in bunker gear. I ran a few yards then stopped. Other people milled around idly, ignoring the panic, smoking and talking in low voices. It was a mainly white, blue-collar scene. All these men wearing flags and carrying crowbars and flashlights. In their company, the intolerance and rage I associated with flags and construction sites was nowhere to be seen. They were dealing with a torn and twisted otherness that dwarfed machismo or bigotry. I talked to a moustachioed, pony-tailed construction worker who’d hitched a ride from the mid-west to “come and help out.” He was staying at the Y, he said, it was kind of rough. “Have you been down there?” he asked, pointing towards the wreckage. “You’re British, you weren’t in World War Two were you?” I replied in the negative. “It’s worse ’n that. I went down last night and you can’t imagine it. You don’t want to see it if you don’t have to.” Did I know any welcoming ladies? he asked. The Y was kind of tough. When I saw TV images of President Bush speaking to the recovery crews and steelworkers at “ground zero” a couple of days later, shouting through a bullhorn to chants of “USA, USA” I knew nothing had changed. New York’s suffering was subject to a second hijacking by the brokers of national unity. New York had never been America, and now its terrible human loss and its great humanity were redesignated in the name of the nation, of the coming war. The signs without a referent were being forcibly appropriated, locked into an impoverished patriotic framework, interpreted for “us” by a compliant media and an opportunistic regime eager to reign in civil liberties, to unloose its war machine and tighten its grip on the Muslim world. That day, drawn to the river again, I had watched F18 fighter jets flying patterns over Manhattan as Bush’s helicopters came in across the river. Otherwise empty of air traffic, “our” skies were being torn up by the military jets: it was somehow the worst sight yet, worse than the wreckage or the bands of disaster tourists on Canal Street, a sign of further violence yet to come. There was a carrier out there beyond New York harbor, there to protect us: the bruising, blustering city once open to all comers. That felt worst of all. In the intervening weeks, we have seen other, more unstable ways of interpreting the signs of September 11 and its aftermath. Many have circulated on the Internet, past the blockages and blockades placed on urban spaces and intellectual life. Karl-Heinz Stockhausen’s work was banished (at least temporarily) from the canon of avant-garde electronic music when he described the attack on las torres gemelas as akin to a work of art. If Jacques Derrida had described it as an act of deconstruction (turning technological modernity literally in on itself), or Jean Baudrillard had announced that the event was so thick with mediation it had not truly taken place, something similar would have happened to them (and still may). This is because, as Don DeLillo so eloquently put it in implicit reaction to the plaintive cry “Why do they hate us?”: “it is the power of American culture to penetrate every wall, home, life and mind”—whether via military action or cultural iconography. All these positions are correct, however grisly and annoying they may be. What GK Chesterton called the “flints and tiles” of nineteenth-century European urban existence were rent asunder like so many victims of high-altitude US bombing raids. As a First-World disaster, it became knowable as the first-ever US “ground zero” such precisely through the high premium immediately set on the lives of Manhattan residents and the rarefied discussion of how to commemorate the high-altitude towers. When, a few weeks later, an American Airlines plane crashed on take-off from Queens, that borough was left open to all comers. Manhattan was locked down, flown over by “friendly” bombers. In stark contrast to the open if desperate faces on the street of 11 September, people went about their business with heads bowed even lower than is customary. Contradictory deconstructions and valuations of Manhattan lives mean that September 11 will live in infamy and hyper-knowability. The vengeful United States government and population continue on their way. Local residents must ponder insurance claims, real-estate values, children’s terrors, and their own roles in something beyond their ken. New York had been forced beyond being the center of the financial world. It had become a military target, a place that was receiving as well as dispatching the slings and arrows of global fortune. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby. "A Day That Will Live In … ?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.1 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php>. Chicago Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby, "A Day That Will Live In … ?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 1 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby. (2002) A Day That Will Live In … ?. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(1). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php> ([your date of access]).

Music from Another Time – One Perth Night in 2009The following extract is taken from fieldwork notes from research into the enduring Northern Soul dance scene in Perth, Western Australia.It’s 9.30 and I’m walking towards the Hyde Park Hotel on a warm May night. I stop to talk to Jenny, from London, who tells me about her 1970s trip to India and teenage visits to soul clubs in Soho. I enter a cavernous low-ceilinged hall, which used to be a jazz venue and will be a Dan Murphy’s bottle shop before the year ends. South West Soul organiser Tommy, wearing 34-inch baggy trousers, gives me a Northern Soul handshake, involving upturned thumbs. ‘Spread the Faith’, he says. Drinkers are lined up along the long bar to the right and I grab a glass of iced water. A few dancers are out on the wooden floor and a mirror ball rotates overhead. Pat Fisher, the main Perth scene organiser, is away working in Monaco, but the usual suspects are there: Carlisle Derek, Ivan from Cheltenham, Ron and Gracie from Derby. Danny is back from DJing in Tuscany, after a few days in Widnes with old friends. We chat briefly mouth to ear, as the swirling strings and echo-drenched vocals of the Seven Souls’ 45 record, ‘I still love you’ boom through the sound system. The drinkers at the bar hit the floor for Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move on up’ and the crowd swells to about 80. When I move onto the floor, Barbara Acklin’s ‘Am I the Same Girl?’ plays, prompting reflection on being the same, older person dancing to a record from my teenage years. On the bridge of the piano and conga driven ‘’Cause you’re mine’, by the Vibrations, everybody claps in unison, some above their heads, some behind their backs, some with an expansive, open-armed gesture. The sound is like the crack of pistol. We are all living in the moment, lost in the music, moving forward and backward, gliding sideways, and some of us spinning, dervish-like, for a few seconds, if we can still maintain our balance.Having relocated their scene from England south to the Antipodes, most of the participants described on this night are now in their sixties. Part of the original scene myself, I was a participant observer, dancing and interviewing, and documenting and exploring scene practices over five years.The local Perth scene, which started in 1996, is still going strong, part of a wider Australian and New Zealand scene. The global scene goes back nearly 50 years to the late 1960s. Northern Soul has now also become southern. It has also become significantly present in the USA, its place of inspiration, and in such disparate places as Medellin, in Colombia, and Kobe, in Japan.The feeling of ‘living in the moment’ described is a common feature of dance-oriented subcultures. It enables escape from routines, stretches the present opportunity for leisure and postpones the return to other responsibilities. The music and familiar dance steps of a long-standing scene like Northern Soul also stimulate a nostalgic reverie, in which you can persuade yourself you are 18 again.Dance steps are forward, backward and sideways and on crowded dancefloors self-expression is necessarily attenuated. These movements are repeated and varied as each bar returns to the first beat and in subcultures like Northern Soul are sufficiently stylised as to show solidarity. This solidarity is enhanced by a unison handclap, triggered by cues in some records. Northern Soul is not line-dancing. Dancers develop their own moves.Place of Origin: Soul from the North?For those new to Northern Soul, the northern connection may seem a little puzzling. The North of England is often still imagined as a cold, rainy wasteland of desolate moors and smoky, industrial, mostly working-class cities, but such stereotyping obscures real understanding. Social histories have also tended to focus on such phenomena as the early twentieth century Salford gang members, the “Northern Scuttlers”, with “bell-bottomed trousers … and the thick iron-shod clogs” (Roberts 123).The 1977 Granada television documentary about the key Northern Soul club, Wigan Casino, This England, captured rare footage; but this was framed by hackneyed backdrops of mills and collieries. Yet, some elements of the northern stereotype are grounded in reality.Engels’s portrayal of the horrors of early nineteenth century Manchester in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 was an influential exploration of the birth pains of this first industrial city, and many northern towns and cities have experienced similar traumas. Levels of social disadvantage in contemporary Britain, whilst palpable everywhere, are still particularly significant in the North, as researched by Buchan, Kontopantelis, Sperrin, Chandola and Doran in North-South Disparities in English Mortality 1965–2015: Longitudinal Population Study.By the end of the 1960s, the relative affluence of Harold Wilson’s England began to recede and there was increased political and counter-cultural activity. Into this social climate emerged both skinheads, as described by Fowler in Skins Rule and the Northern Soul scene.Northern Soul scene essentially developed as an extension of the 1960s ‘mod’ lifestyle, built around soul music and fashion. A mostly working-class response to urban life and routine, it also evidenced the ability of the more socially mobile young to get out and stay up late.Although more London mods moved into psychedelia and underground music, many soul fans sought out obscure, but still prototypical Motown-like records, often from the northern American cities Detroit and Chicago. In Manchester, surplus American records were transported up the Ship Canal to Trafford Park, the port zone (Ritson and Russell 1) and became cult club hits, as described in Rylatt and Scott’s Central 1179: The Story of Manchester's Twisted Wheel.In the early 1970s, the rare soul fans found a name for their scene. “The Dave Godin Column” in the fanzine Blues and Soul, published in London, referred for the first time to ‘Northern Soul’ in 1971, really defining ‘Northern’ directionally, as a relative location anywhere ‘north of Watford’, not a specific place.The scene gradually developed specific sites, clothes, dances and cultural practices, and was also popular in southern England, and actually less visible in cities such as Liverpool and Newcastle. As Nowell (199) argues, the idea that Northern Soul was regionally based is unfounded, a wider movement emerging as a result of the increased mobility made possible by railways and motorways (Ritson and Russell 14).Clubs like the Blackpool Mecca and Wigan Casino were very close to motorway slip roads and accessible to visitors from further south. The initial scene was not self-consciously northern and many early clubs, like the ‘Golden Torch’, in Tunstall were based in the Midlands, as recounted by Wall (441).The Time and Space of the DancefloorThe Northern Soul scene’s growth was initially covered in fanzines like Blues and Soul, and then by Frith and Cummings (23-32). Following Cosgrove (38-41) and Chambers (142), a number of insider accounts (Soul Survivors: The Wigan Casino Story by Winstanley and Nowell; Too Darn Soulful: The Story of Northern Soul by Nowell; The In-Crowd: The Story of the Northern & Rare Soul Scene by Ritson & Russell) were followed by academic studies (Milestone 134-149; Hollows and Milestone 83-103; Wall 431-445). The scene was first explored by an American academic in Browne’s Identity Scene and Material Culture: The Place of African American Rare Soul Music on the British Northern Soul Scene.Many clubs in earlier days were alcohol-free, though many club-goers substituted amphetamines (Wilson 1-5) as a result, but across the modern scene, drug-taking is not significant. On Northern Soul nights, dancing is the main activity and drinking is incidental. However, dance has received less subtle attention than it deserves as a key nexus between the culture of the scene and black America.Pruter (187) referred to the earlier, pre-disco “myopia” of many music writers on the subject of dance, though its connection to leisure, pleasure, the body and “serious self-realization” (Chambers 7) has been noted. Clearly Northern Soul dancers find “evasive” pleasure (Fiske 127) and “jouissance” (Barthes v) in the merging of self into record.Wall (440) has been more nuanced in his perceptions of the particular “physical geography” of the Northern Soul dance floor, seeing it as both responsive to the music, and a vehicle for navigating social and individual space. Dancers respond to each other, give others room to move and are also connected to those who stand and watch. Although friends often dance close, they are careful not to exclude others and dancing between couples is rare. At the end of popular records, there is often applause. Some dance all night, with a few breaks; others ‘pace’ themselves (Mercieca et al. 78).The gymnastics of Northern Soul have attracted attention, but the forward dives, back drops and spins are now less common. Two less noticed markers of the Northern Soul dancing style, the glide and the soul clap, were highlighted by Wall (432). Cosgrove (38) also noted the sideways glide characteristic of long-time insiders and particularly well deployed by female dancers.Significantly, friction-reducing talcum powder is almost sacramentally sprinkled on the floor, assisting dancers to glide more effectively. This fluid feature of the dancing makes the scene more attractive to those whose forms of expression are less overtly masculine.Sprung wooden floors are preferred and drink on the floor is frowned upon, as spillage compromises gliding. The soul clap is a communal clap, usually executed at key points in a record. Sometimes very loud, this perfectly timed unison clap is a remarkable, though mostly unselfconscious, display of group co-ordination, solidarity and resonance.Billy from Manchester, one of the Perth regulars, and notable for his downward clapping motion, explained simply that the claps go “where the breaks are” (Mercieca et al. 71). The Northern Soul clap demonstrates key attributes of what Wunderlich (384) described as “place-temporality in urban space”, emerging from the flow of music and movement in a heightened form of synchronisation and marked by the “vivid sense of time” (385) produced by emotional and social involvement.Crucially, as Morris noted, A Sense of Space is needed to have a sense of time and dancers may spin and return via the beat of the music to the same spot. For Northern Soul dancers, the movements forwards, backwards, sideways through objective, “geometric space” are paralleled by a traversing of existential, “conceived space”. The steps in microcosm symbolise the relentless wider movements we make through life. For Lefebvre, in The Production of Space, these “trialectics” create “lived space”.A Sense of Place and Evolving IdentitySpaces are plastic environments, charged with emerging meanings. For Augé, they can also remain spaces or be manipulated into “Non-Places”. When the sense of space is heightened there is the potential for lived spaces to become places. The space/place distinction is a matter of contention, but, broadly, space is universal and non-relational, and place is particular and relational.For Augé, a space can be social, but if it lacks implicit, shared cultural understandings and requires explicit signs and rules, as with an airport or supermarket, it is a non-place. It is not relational. It lacks history. Time cannot be stretched or temporarily suspended. As non-places proliferate, urban people spend more time alone in crowds, ”always, and never, at home” (109), though this anonymity can still provide the possibility of changing identity and widening experience.Northern Soul as a culture in the abstract, is a space, but one with distinct practices which tend towards the creation of places and identities. Perth’s Hyde Park Hotel is a place with a function space at the back. This empty hall, on the night described in the opening, temporarily became a Northern Soul Club. The dance floor was empty as the night began, but gradually became not just a space, but a place. To step onto a mostly empty dance floor early in the night, is to cross liminal space, and to take a risk that you will be conspicuous or lonely for a while, or both.This negotiation of space is what Northern Soul, like many other club cultures has always offered, the promise and risk of excitement outside the home. Even when the floor is busy, it is still possible to feel alone in a crowd, but at some stage in the night, there is also the possibility, via some moment of resonance, that a feeling of connection with others will develop. This is a familiar teenage theme, a need to escape bonds and make new ones, to be both mobile and stable. Northern Soul is one of the many third spaces/places (Soja 137) which can create opportunities to navigate time, space and place, and to find a new sense of direction and identity. Nicky from Cornwall, who arrived in Perth in the early 1970s, felt like “a fish out of water”, until involvement in the Northern Soul scene helped him to achieve a successful migration (Mercieca et al. 34-38). Figure 1: A Perth Northern Soul night in 2007. Note the talcum powder on the DJ table, for sprinkling on the dancefloor. The record playing is ‘Helpless’, by Kim Weston.McRobbie has argued in Dance and Social Fantasy that Northern Soul provides places for women to define and express themselves, and it has appealed to more to female and LGBTQIA participants than the more masculine dominated rock, funk and hip-hop scenes. The shared appreciation of records and the possibilities for expression and sociality in dance unite participants and blur gender lines.While the more athletic dancers have tended to be male, dancing is essentially non-contact, as in many other post-1960s ‘discotheque’ styles, yet there is little overt sexual display or flirtation involved. Male and female styles, based on foot rather than arm movements, are similar, almost ungendered, and the Soul scene has differed from more mainstream nightlife cultures focussed on finding partners, as noted in Soul Survivors: The Wigan Casino Story by Winstanley and Nowell. Whilst males, who are also involved in record buying, predominated in the early scene, women now often dominate the dance floor (Wall 441).The Perth scene is little different, yet the changed gender balance has not produced more partner-seeking for either the older participants, who are mostly in long-term relationships and the newer, younger members, who enjoy the relative gender-blindness, and focus on communality and cultural affinity. Figure 2: A younger scene member, ‘Nash’, DJing in Perth in 2016. He has since headed north to Denmark and is now part of the Nordic Northern Soul scene.In Perth, for Stan from Derby, Northern Soul linked the experiences of “poor white working class kids” with young black Americans (Mercieca et al. 97). Hollows and Milestone (87-94) mapped a cultural geographic relationship between Northern Soul and the Northern cities of the USA where the music originated. However, Wall (442) suggested that Northern Soul is drawn from the more bi-racial soul of the mid-1960s than the funky, Afro-centric 1970s and essentially deploys the content of the music to create an alternative British identity, rather than to align more closely with the American movement for self-determination. Essentially, Northern Soul shows how “the meanings of one culture can be transformed in the cultural practices of another time and place” (Wall 444).Many contemporary Australian youth cultures are more socially and ethnically mixed than the Northern Soul scene. However, over the years, the greater participation of women, and of younger and newer members, has made its practices less exclusive, and the notion of an “in-crowd” more relaxed (Wall 439). The ‘Northern’ connection is less meaningful, as members have a more adaptable sense of cultural identity, linked to a global scene made possible by the internet and migration. In Australia, attachment seems stronger to locality rather than nation or region, to place of birth in Britain and place of residence in Perth, two places which represent ‘home’. Northern Soul appears to work well for all members because it provides both continuity and change. As Mercieca et al. suggested of the scene (71) “there is potential for new meanings to continue to emerge”.ConclusionThe elements of expression and directional manoeuvres of Northern Soul dancing, symbolise the individual and social negotiation of direction, place, space, identity and time. The sense of time and space travelled can create a feeling of being pushed forward without control. It can also produce an emotional pull backwards, like an elastic band being stretched. For those growing older and moving far from places of birth, these dynamics can be particularly challenging. Membership of global subcultures can clearly help to create successful migrations, providing third spaces/places (Soja 137) between home and host culture identities, as evidenced by the ‘Southern’ Northern Soul scene in Australia. For these once teenagers, now grandparents in Australia, connections to time and space have been both transformed and transcended. They remain grounded in their youth, but have reduced the gravitational force of home connections, projecting themselves forward into the future by balancing aspects of both stability and mobility. Physical places and places and their connections with culture have been replaced by multiple and overlapping mappings, but it is important not to romanticise notions of agency, hybridity, third spaces and “deterritorialization” (Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia). In a globalised world, most people are still located geographically and labelled ideologically. The Northern Soul repurposing of the culture indicates a transilience (Richmond 328) “differentially available to those in different locations in the field of power” (Gupta and Ferguson 20). However, the way in which Northern Soul has moved south over the decade via migration, has arguably now provided a stronger possible sense of resonance with the lives of black Americans whose lives in places like Chicago and Detroit in the 1960s, and their wonderful music, are grounded in the experience of family migrations in the opposite direction from the South to the North (Mercieca et al. 11). In such a celebration of “memory, loss, and nostalgia” (Gupta and Ferguson 13), it may still be possible to move beyond the exclusion that characterises defensive identities.ReferencesAugé, Marc. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. Trans. John Howe. London: Verso, 2008.Barthes, Roland. The Pleasure of the Text. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1975Browne, Kimasi L. "Identity Scene and Material Culture: The Place of African American Rare Soul Music on the British Northern Soul Scene." Proceedings of Manchester Music & Place Conference. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University. Vol. 8. 2006.Buchan, Iain E., Evangelos Kontopantelis, Matthew Sperrin, Tarani Chandola, and Tim Doran. "North-South Disparities in English Mortality 1965–2015: Longitudinal Population Study." Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 71 (2017): 928-936.Chambers, Iain. Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular Culture. London: Macmillan, 1985.Cosgrove, Stuart. "Long after Tonight Is All Over." Collusion 2 (1982): 38-41.Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977.Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. Trans. Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1892.Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989.Fowler, Pete. "Skins Rule." The Beat Goes On: The Rock File Reader. Ed. Charlie Gillett. London: Pluto Press, 1972. 10-26.Frith, Simon, and Tony Cummings. “Playing Records.” Rock File 3. Eds. Charlie Gillett and Simon Frith. St Albans: Panther, 1975. 21–48.Godin, Dave. “The Dave Godin Column”. Blues and Soul 67 (1971).Gupta, Akhil, and James Ferguson. "Beyond 'Culture': Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference." Cultural Anthropology 7.1 (1992): 6-23.Hollows, Joanne, and Katie Milestone. "Welcome to Dreamsville: A History and Geography of Northern Soul." The Place of Music. Eds. Andrew Leyshon, David Matless, and George Revill. New York: The Guilford Press, 1998. 83-103.Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.McRobbie, Angela. "Dance and Social Fantasy." Gender and Generation. Eds. Angela McRobbie and Mica Nava. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1984. 130-161.Mercieca, Paul, Anne Chapman, and Marnie O'Neill. To the Ends of the Earth: Northern Soul and Southern Nights in Western Australia. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2013.Milestone, Katie. "Love Factory: The Sites, Practices and Media Relationships of Northern Soul." The Clubcultures Reader. Eds. Steve Redhead, Derek Wynne, and Justin O’Connor. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. 134-149.Morris, David. The Sense of Space. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2004.Nowell, David. Too Darn Soulful: The Story of Northern Soul. London: Robson, 1999.Pruter, Robert. Chicago Soul. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.Richmond, Anthony H. "Sociology of Migration in Industrial and Post-Industrial Societies." Migration (1969): 238-281.Ritson, Mike, and Stuart Russell. The In Crowd: The Story of the Northern & Rare Soul Scene. London: Robson, 1999.Roberts, Robert. The Classic Slum. London: Penguin, 1971.Rylatt, Keith, and Phil Scott. Central 1179: The Story of Manchester's Twisted Wheel Club. London: Bee Cool, 2001.Soja, Edward W. "Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places." Capital & Class 22.1 (1998): 137-139.This England. TV documentary. Manchester: Granada Television, 1977.Wall, Tim. "Out on the Floor: The Politics of Dancing on the Northern Soul Scene." Popular Music 25.3 (2006): 431-445.Wilson, Andrew. Northern Soul: Music, Drugs and Subcultural Identity. Cullompton: Willan, 2007.Winstanley, Russ, and David Nowell. Soul Survivors: The Wigan Casino Story. London: Robson, 1996.Wunderlich, Filipa Matos. "Place-Temporality and Urban Place-Rhythms in Urban Analysis and Design: An Aesthetic Akin to Music." Journal of Urban Design 18.3 (2013): 383-408.

IntroductionFood Studies is a relatively recent area of research enquiry in Australia and Magazine Studies is even newer (Le Masurier and Johinke), with the consequence that Australian culinary magazines are only just beginning to be investigated. Moreover, although many major libraries have not thought such popular magazines worthy of sustained collection (Fox and Sornil), considering these publications is important. As de Certeau argues, it can be of considerable consequence to identify and analyse everyday practices (such as producing and reading popular magazines) that seem so minor and insignificant as to be unworthy of notice, as these practices have the ability to affect our lives. It is important in this case as these publications were part of the post-war gastronomic environment in Australia in which national tastes in domestic cookery became radically internationalised (Santich). To further investigate Australian magazines, as well as suggesting how these cosmopolitan eating habits became more widely embraced, this article will survey the various ways in which the idea of “abroad” is expressed in one Australian culinary serial from the post-war period, Australian Wines & Food Quarterly magazine, which was published from 1956 to 1960. The methodological approach taken is an historically-informed content analysis (Krippendorff) of relevant material from these magazines combined with germane media data (Hodder). All issues in the serial’s print run have been considered.Australian Post-War Culinary PublishingTo date, studies of 1950s writing in Australia have largely focused on literary and popular fiction (Johnson-Wood; Webby) and literary criticism (Bird; Dixon; Lee). There have been far fewer studies of non-fiction writing of any kind, although some serial publications from this time have attracted some attention (Bell; Lindesay; Ross; Sheridan; Warner-Smith; White; White). In line with studies internationally, groundbreaking work in Australian food history has focused on cookbooks, and includes work by Supski, who notes that despite the fact that buying cookbooks was “regarded as a luxury in the 1950s” (87), such publications were an important information source in terms of “developing, consolidating and extending foodmaking knowledge” at that time (85).It is widely believed that changes to Australian foodways were brought about by significant post-war immigration and the recipes and dishes these immigrants shared with neighbours, friends, and work colleagues and more widely afield when they opened cafes and restaurants (Newton; Newton; Manfredi). Although these immigrants did bring new culinary flavours and habits with them, the overarching rhetoric guiding population policy at this time was assimilation, with migrants expected to abandon their culture, language, and habits in favour of the dominant British-influenced ways of living (Postiglione). While migrants often did retain their foodways (Risson), the relationship between such food habits and the increasingly cosmopolitan Australian food culture is much more complex than the dominant cultural narrative would have us believe. It has been pointed out, for example, that while the haute cuisine of countries such as France, Italy, and Germany was much admired in Australia and emulated in expensive dining (Brien and Vincent), migrants’ own preference for their own dishes instead of Anglo-Australian choices, was not understood (Postiglione). Duruz has added how individual diets are eclectic, “multi-layered and hybrid” (377), incorporating foods from both that person’s own background with others available for a range of reasons including availability, cost, taste, and fashion. In such an environment, popular culinary publishing, in terms of cookbooks, specialist magazines, and recipe and other food-related columns in general magazines and newspapers, can be posited to be another element contributing to this change.Australian Wines & Food QuarterlyAustralian Wines & Food Quarterly (AWFQ) is, as yet, a completely unexamined publication, and there appears to be only three complete sets of this magazine held in public collections. It is important to note that, at the time it was launched in the mid-1950s, food writing played a much less significant part in Australian popular publishing than it does today, with far fewer cookbooks released than today, and women’s magazines and the women’s pages of newspapers containing only small recipe sections. In this environment, a new specialist culinary magazine could be seen to be timely, an audacious gamble, or both.All issues of this magazine were produced and printed in, and distributed from, Melbourne, Australia. Although no sales or distribution figures are available, production was obviously a struggle, with only 15 issues published before the magazine folded at the end of 1960. The title of the magazine changed over this time, and issue release dates are erratic, as is the method in which volumes and issues are numbered. Although the number of pages varied from 32 up to 52, and then less once again, across the magazine’s life, the price was steadily reduced, ending up at less than half the original cover price. All issues were produced and edited by Donald Wallace, who also wrote much of the content, with contributions from family members, including his wife, Mollie Wallace, to write, illustrate, and produce photographs for the magazine.When considering the content of the magazine, most is quite familiar in culinary serials today, although AWFQ’s approach was radically innovative in Australia at this time when cookbooks, women’s magazines, and newspaper cookery sections focused on recipes, many of which were of cakes, biscuits, and other sweet baking (Bannerman). AWFQ not only featured many discursive essays and savory meals, it also featured much wine writing and review-style content as well as information about restaurant dining in each issue.Wine-Related ContentWine is certainly the most prominent of the content areas, with most issues of the magazine containing more wine-related content than any other. Moreover, in the early issues, most of the food content is about preparing dishes and/or meals that could be consumed alongside wines, although the proportion of food content increases as the magazine is published. This wine-related content takes a clearly international perspective on this topic. While many articles and advertisements, for example, narrate the long history of Australian wine growing—which goes back to early 19th century—these articles argue that Australia's vineyards and wineries measure up to international, and especially French, examples. In one such example, the author states that: “from the earliest times Australia’s wines have matched up to world standard” (“Wine” 25). This contest can be situated in Australia, where a leading restaurant (Caprice in Sydney) could be seen to not only “match up to” but also, indeed to, “challenge world standards” by serving Australian wines instead of imports (“Sydney” 33). So good, indeed, are Australian wines that when foreigners are surprised by their quality, this becomes newsworthy. This is evidenced in the following excerpt: “Nearly every English businessman who has come out to Australia in the last ten years … has diverted from his main discussion to comment on the high quality of Australian wine” (Seppelt, 3). In a similar nationalist vein, many articles feature overseas experts’ praise of Australian wines. Thus, visiting Italian violinist Giaconda de Vita shows a “keen appreciation of Australian wines” (“Violinist” 30), British actor Robert Speaight finds Grange Hermitage “an ideal wine” (“High Praise” 13), and the Swedish ambassador becomes their advocate (Ludbrook, “Advocate”).This competition could also be located overseas including when Australian wines are served at prestigious overseas events such as a dinner for members of the Overseas Press Club in New York (Australian Wines); sold from Seppelt’s new London cellars (Melbourne), or the equally new Australian Wine Centre in Soho (Australia Will); or, featured in exhibitions and promotions such as the Lausanne Trade Fair (Australia is Guest;“Wines at Lausanne), or the International Wine Fair in Yugoslavia (Australia Wins).Australia’s first Wine Festival was held in Melbourne in 1959 (Seppelt, “Wine Week”), the joint focus of which was the entertainment and instruction of the some 15,000 to 20,000 attendees who were expected. At its centre was a series of free wine tastings aiming to promote Australian wines to the “professional people of the community, as well as the general public and the housewife” (“Melbourne” 8), although admission had to be recommended by a wine retailer. These tastings were intended to build up the prestige of Australian wine when compared to international examples: “It is the high quality of our wines that we are proud of. That is the story to pass on—that Australian wine, at its best, is at least as good as any in the world and better than most” (“Melbourne” 8).There is also a focus on promoting wine drinking as a quotidian habit enjoyed abroad: “We have come a long way in less than twenty years […] An enormous number of husbands and wives look forward to a glass of sherry when the husband arrives home from work and before dinner, and a surprising number of ordinary people drink table wine quite un-selfconsciously” (Seppelt, “Advance” 3). However, despite an acknowledged increase in wine appreciation and drinking, there is also acknowledgement that this there was still some way to go in this aim as, for example, in the statement: “There is no reason why the enjoyment of table wines should not become an Australian custom” (Seppelt, “Advance” 4).The authority of European experts and European habits is drawn upon throughout the publication whether in philosophically-inflected treatises on wine drinking as a core part of civilised behaviour, or practically-focused articles about wine handling and serving (Keown; Seabrook; “Your Own”). Interestingly, a number of Australian experts are also quoted as stressing that these are guidelines, not strict rules: Crosby, for instance, states: “There is no ‘right wine.’ The wine to drink is the one you like, when and how you like it” (19), while the then-manager of Lindemans Wines is similarly reassuring in his guide to entertaining, stating that “strict adherence to the rules is not invariably wise” (Mackay 3). Tingey openly acknowledges that while the international-style of regularly drinking wine had “given more dignity and sophistication to the Australian way of life” (35), it should not be shrouded in snobbery.Food-Related ContentThe magazine’s cookery articles all feature international dishes, and certain foreign foods, recipes, and ways of eating and dining are clearly identified as “gourmet”. Cheese is certainly the most frequently mentioned “gourmet” food in the magazine, and is featured in every issue. These articles can be grouped into the following categories: understanding cheese (how it is made and the different varieties enjoyed internationally), how to consume cheese (in relation to other food and specific wines, and in which particular parts of a meal, again drawing on international practices), and cooking with cheese (mostly in what can be identified as “foreign” recipes).Some of this content is produced by Kraft Foods, a major advertiser in the magazine, and these articles and recipes generally focus on urging people to eat more, and varied international kinds of cheese, beyond the ubiquitous Australian cheddar. In terms of advertorials, both Kraft cheeses (as well as other advertisers) are mentioned by brand in recipes, while the companies are also profiled in adjacent articles. In the fourth issue, for instance, a full-page, infomercial-style advertisement, noting the different varieties of Kraft cheese and how to serve them, is published in the midst of a feature on cooking with various cheeses (“Cooking with Cheese”). This includes recipes for Swiss Cheese fondue and two pasta recipes: spaghetti and spicy tomato sauce, and a so-called Italian spaghetti with anchovies.Kraft’s company history states that in 1950, it was the first business in Australia to manufacture and market rindless cheese. Through these AWFQ advertisements and recipes, Kraft aggressively marketed this innovation, as well as its other new products as they were launched: mayonnaise, cheddar cheese portions, and Cracker Barrel Cheese in 1954; Philadelphia Cream Cheese, the first cream cheese to be produced commercially in Australia, in 1956; and, Coon Cheese in 1957. Not all Kraft products were seen, however, as “gourmet” enough for such a magazine. Kraft’s release of sliced Swiss Cheese in 1957, and processed cheese slices in 1959, for instance, both passed unremarked in either the magazine’s advertorial or recipes.An article by the Australian Dairy Produce Board urging consumers to “Be adventurous with Cheese” presented general consumer information including the “origin, characteristics and mode of serving” cheese accompanied by a recipe for a rich and exotic-sounding “Wine French Dressing with Blue Cheese” (Kennedy 18). This was followed in the next issue by an article discussing both now familiar and not-so familiar European cheese varieties: “Monterey, Tambo, Feta, Carraway, Samsoe, Taffel, Swiss, Edam, Mozzarella, Pecorino-Romano, Red Malling, Cacio Cavallo, Blue-Vein, Roman, Parmigiano, Kasseri, Ricotta and Pepato” (“Australia’s Natural” 23). Recipes for cheese fondues recur through the magazine, sometimes even multiple times in the same issue (see, for instance, “Cooking With Cheese”; “Cooking With Wine”; Pain). In comparison, butter, although used in many AWFQ’s recipes, was such a common local ingredient at this time that it was only granted one article over the entire run of the magazine, and this was largely about the much more unusual European-style unsalted butter (“An Expert”).Other international recipes that were repeated often include those for pasta (always spaghetti) as well as mayonnaise made with olive oil. Recurring sweets and desserts include sorbets and zabaglione from Italy, and flambéd crepes suzettes from France. While tabletop cooking is the epitome of sophistication and described as an international technique, baked Alaska (ice cream nestled on liquor-soaked cake, and baked in a meringue shell), hailing from America, is the most featured recipe in the magazine. Asian-inspired cuisine was rarely represented and even curry—long an Anglo-Australian staple—was mentioned only once in the magazine, in an article reprinted from the South African The National Hotelier, and which included a recipe alongside discussion of blending spices (“Curry”).Coffee was regularly featured in both articles and advertisements as a staple of the international gourmet kitchen (see, for example, Bancroft). Articles on the history, growing, marketing, blending, roasting, purchase, percolating and brewing, and serving of coffee were common during the magazine’s run, and are accompanied with advertisements for Bushell’s, Robert Timms’s and Masterfoods’s coffee ranges. AWFQ believed Australia’s growing coffee consumption was the result of increased participation in quality internationally-influenced dining experiences, whether in restaurants, the “scores of colourful coffee shops opening their doors to a new generation” (“Coffee” 39), or at home (Adams). Tea, traditionally the Australian hot drink of choice, is not mentioned once in the magazine (Brien).International Gourmet InnovationsAlso featured in the magazine are innovations in the Australian food world: new places to eat; new ways to cook, including a series of sometimes quite unusual appliances; and new ways to shop, with a profile of the first American-style supermarkets to open in Australia in this period. These are all seen as overseas innovations, but highly suited to Australia. The laws then controlling the service of alcohol are also much discussed, with many calls to relax the licensing laws which were seen as inhibiting civilised dining and drinking practices. The terms this was often couched in—most commonly in relation to the Olympic Games (held in Melbourne in 1956), but also in relation to tourism in general—are that these restrictive regulations were an embarrassment for Melbourne when considered in relation to international practices (see, for example, Ludbrook, “Present”). This was at a time when the nightly hotel closing time of 6.00 pm (and the performance of the notorious “six o’clock swill” in terms of drinking behaviour) was only repealed in Victoria in 1966 (Luckins).Embracing scientific approaches in the kitchen was largely seen to be an American habit. The promotion of the use of electricity in the kitchen, and the adoption of new electric appliances (Gas and Fuel; Gilbert “Striving”), was described not only as a “revolution that is being wrought in our homes”, but one that allowed increased levels of personal expression and fulfillment, in “increas[ing] the time and resources available to the housewife for the expression of her own personality in the management of her home” (Gilbert, “The Woman’s”). This mirrors the marketing of these modes of cooking and appliances in other media at this time, including in newspapers, radio, and other magazines. This included features on freezing food, however AWFQ introduced an international angle, by suggesting that recipe bases could be pre-prepared, frozen, and then defrosted to use in a range of international cookery (“Fresh”; “How to”; Kelvinator Australia). The then-new marvel of television—another American innovation—is also mentioned in the magazine ("Changing concepts"), although other nationalities are also invoked. The history of the French guild the Confrerie de la Chaine des Roitisseurs in 1248 is, for instance, used to promote an electric spit roaster that was part of a state-of-the-art gas stove (“Always”), and there are also advertisements for such appliances as the Gaggia expresso machine (“Lets”) which draw on both Italian historical antecedence and modern science.Supermarket and other forms of self-service shopping are identified as American-modern, with Australia’s first shopping mall lauded as the epitome of utopian progressiveness in terms of consumer practice. Judged to mark “a new era in Australian retailing” (“Regional” 12), the opening of Chadstone Regional Shopping Centre in suburban Melbourne on 4 October 1960, with its 83 tenants including “giant” supermarket Dickens, and free parking for 2,500 cars, was not only “one of the most up to date in the world” but “big even by American standards” (“Regional” 12, italics added), and was hailed as a step in Australia “catching up” with the United States in terms of mall shopping (“Regional” 12). This shopping centre featured international-styled dining options including Bistro Shiraz, an outdoor terrace restaurant that planned to operate as a bistro-snack bar by day and full-scale restaurant at night, and which was said to offer diners a “Persian flavor” (“Bistro”).ConclusionAustralian Wines & Food Quarterly was the first of a small number of culinary-focused Australian publications in the 1950s and 1960s which assisted in introducing a generation of readers to information about what were then seen as foreign foods and beverages only to be accessed and consumed abroad as well as a range of innovative international ideas regarding cookery and dining. For this reason, it can be posited that the magazine, although modest in the claims it made, marked a revolutionary moment in Australian culinary publishing. As yet, only slight traces can be found of its editor and publisher, Donald Wallace. The influence of AWFQ is, however, clearly evident in the two longer-lived magazines that were launched in the decade after AWFQ folded: Australian Gourmet Magazine and The Epicurean. Although these serials had a wider reach, an analysis of the 15 issues of AWFQ adds to an understanding of how ideas of foods, beverages, and culinary ideas and trends, imported from abroad were presented to an Australian readership in the 1950s, and contributed to how national foodways were beginning to change during that decade.ReferencesAdams, Jillian. “Australia’s American Coffee Culture.” Australian Journal of Popular Culture 2.1 (2012): 23–36.“Always to Roast on a Turning Spit.” The Magazine of Good Living: Australian Wines and Food 4.2 (1960): 17.“An Expert on Butter.” The Magazine of Good Living: The Australian Wine & Food 4.1 (1960): 11.“Australia Is Guest Nation at Lausanne.” The Magazine of Good Living: Australian Wines and Food 4.2 (1960): 18–19.“Australia’s Natural Cheeses.” The Magazine of Good Living: The Australian Wine & Food 4.1 (1960): 23.“Australia Will Be There.” The Magazine of Good Living: Australian Wines and Food 4.2 (1960): 14.“Australian Wines Served at New York Dinner.” Australian Wines & Food Quarterly 1.5 (1958): 16.“Australia Wins Six Gold Medals.” Australian Wines & Food: The Magazine of Good Living 2.11 (1959/1960): 3.Bancroft, P.A. “Let’s Make Some Coffee.” The Magazine of Good Living: The Australian Wine & Food 4.1 (1960): 10. 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