Caitríona Ní Laoire

A Matter of Life and Death? Men, Masculinities and Staying ‘Behind’ in Rural Ireland

This paper is set within the context of a growing interest in the gendered nature of rurality and of rural life, and in particular in the context of an emerging literature on rural masculinities. It focuses on rural men and in particular on the phenomenon of rising male rural suicide rates. The paper reviews existing research in order to ascertain the validity of popular claims of high and rising suicide rates among young men in rural Ireland, and explores possible explanations for this phenomenon. It draws on medical and psychological literature but sets this material in a wider geographical context, focusing on processes of contemporary rural restructuring and the oft-cited masculinity crisis. The paper concludes that in order to understand the processes behind rising male suicide rates, we need to understand the struggles for power and identity that are going on in places, and the movements of people in and out of places. Therefore geography and gender studies can contribute to a greater understanding of the phenomenon, suggesting that this is an area that merits further interdisciplinary research.

Introduction: Childhood and migration — mobilities, homes and belongings

This article introduces a special issue on childhood and migration. It argues that understandings of the ways in which children form belongings and attachments are enhanced by conducting research with children who migrate or who live mobile and transnational lives. The articles in this collection highlight the mobile and translocal nature of children’s lives, from different perspectives and in different global and migration contexts. Taken together, they make a number of key contributions to an emerging literature on the lives of migrant, mobile and diasporic children and young people. They emphasize the situated and contextualized nature of migrant children’s negotiations of home and belonging. In particular, the collection explores children’s and young people’s constructions of home and belonging, often negotiated in contradictory or challenging circumstances and frequently destabilizing powerful assumptions about the nature of migration, mobility and childhood, such as ideals of childhood based on notions of residential fixity.

Children's Roles in Transnational Migration

There are important gaps in our knowledge about children who migrate. Even in societies which employ technologically sophisticated systems for monitoring and measuring migration, data on child migrants are incomplete and focused on specific groups of vulnerable children and young people. The lack of data and research on processes underpinning child migration and on the experiences of children who migrate are rooted in hegemonic Westernised assumptions about, and constructions of, childhood, family migration, and migration in general. Migrant children are represented as passive, needy and different; their accounts of themselves and their lives are silenced through adultist discourses about migration decision-making and experiences. The papers in this special edition of JEMS challenge these constructions of migrant children by focusing on the childrens experiences in a multiplicity of migratory contexts. Presented first at the international conference ‘Children and Migration: Identities, Mobilities, Belonging’ organised by the Marie Curie Migrant Children Project at University College Cork, Ireland, in April 2008, the papers showcase emerging research which challenges the adult-centric nature of migration research and policy.

Using visual methodologies to explore contemporary Irish childhoods

Drawing on the use of children-centred visual research methods, primarily artwork and photography, in Irish primary schools, this article compares the use of artwork and photography as visual methods and outlines the theoretical frameworks within which the data produced can be made meaningful. The ways in which the social worlds of migrant children both converged with, and diverged from, those of children who were born in Ireland are also explored.

Young farmers, masculinities and change in rural Ireland

Abstract This paper explores the changing nature of masculine identities among young fanners in contemporary Ireland. Contemporary agricultural restructuring processes involve increased competitiveness and the introduction of a business ethos to farming. The paper explores the ways in which rural masculine identities are responding to these changing social structures and values. It is based on a series of interviews with young farmers in one locality in the south‐west, which aimed at exploring their values, goals and identities. This small case‐study highlights the existence of a traditional‐modern dualism in rural masculine identities, underlain by the persistence of conventional masculinism. However, in response to the challenges of contemporary agricultural restructuring, there is evidence of the emergence (or resurrection) of a more open and flexible type of masculinity among young farmers, drawing on an interplay of alternative agricultural narratives and traditional agrarian ideology.

'YOU'RE NOT A MAN AT ALL!': MASCULINITY, RESPONSIBILITY, AND STAYING ON THE LAND IN CONTEMPORARY IRELAND

This paper explores some of the competing pressures at work in the lives of a particular group of Irish men, that is, young male farmers working in different types of farming regions in Ireland. As the economic and social landscape of farming is undergoing transformation, reducing the attractiveness and viability of farming as an occupation, there is, simultaneously, a strong association between constructions of farming masculinity and staying on the land. The paper explores some of these tensions. Farming masculinities are bound up with a sense of cultural and familial responsibility, which is attached to maintaining the family farm, but it is increasingly difficult to fulfil these responsibilities in the current environment. This can lead to stress and anxiety on the part of young farmers. It is argued that the construction and negotiation of farming masculinity is spatially contingent, reflecting local and regional geographies of gender.

‘Settling back’? A biographical and life-course perspective on Ireland's recent return migration

Abstract This paper uses a biographical and life-course perspective to explore some of the key narratives of return among return migrants to Ireland, focusing in particular on the themes of family, child-rearing, relationship breakdown and ‘settling down’. The ways in which return migrants use the concept of life-course transitions in order to make sense of and narrate their migration stories is explored. I argue that their narratives reflect a normative association of life stage with place, and that return migration reflects the ways in which key events in the individual life course transitions and family life cycles of 1980s emigrants have intersected with processes of economic and social transformation in Ireland. This occurs within the context of heteronormative and kinship-based ideals of Irish culture and of powerful myths of return. The data used in the paper is taken from the Narratives of Migration and Return research project, a north–south cross-border project which assembled an oral archive of ...

‘Contracted out’: some implications of the casualization of academic labour in geography

This paper presents the initial findings of a survey of geographers working on fixed-term or other temporary contracts (FTCs), with particular reference to their characteristics, achievements and employment conditions. The results suggest that job satisfaction among contract geographers is related to career stage, and that structural features of the academic labour market combine to restrict many highly qualified academic staff to FTCs for longer than may be appropriate. This phenomenon is highly gendered, with women over-represented among the more junior ranks of contract staff and men dominating the senior ranks. Prolonged employment on FTCs can result in negative effects on the health, welfare and personal finances of many contract staff, and also on staff morale and productivity. The paper concludes that underlying structural inequalities in the academic labour market need to be addressed.

‘Girls just like to be friends with people’: gendered experiences of migration among children and youth in returning Irish migrant families

The gendered nature of children and young peoples experiences of migration are explored in this paper, drawing on research with children in Irish return migrant families. The paper focuses on the ways in which gender dynamics both reinforce and complicate the childrens complex social positionings in Irish society. It explores the gendered nature of the childrens and young peoples everyday lives, relationships with peers and negotiations of identity, through a specific focus on the role of sport, friendship and local gender norms in their lives. I suggest that gender articulates with other axes of sameness/difference in complex ways, shaping the opportunities for social participation and cultural belonging in different ways for migrant boys and girls.The gendered nature of children and young peoples experiences of migration are explored in this paper, drawing on research with children in Irish return migrant families. The paper focuses on the ways in which gender dynamics both reinforce and complicate the childrens complex social positionings in Irish society. It explores the gendered nature of the childrens and young peoples everyday lives, relationships with peers and negotiations of identity, through a specific focus on the role of sport, friendship and local gender norms in their lives. I suggest that gender articulates with other axes of sameness/difference in complex ways, shaping the opportunities for social participation and cultural belonging in different ways for migrant boys and girls.

Narratives of ‘Innocent Irish Childhoods’: Return Migration and Intergenerational Family Dynamics

There is growing recognition of the significance of circular and return migration in contemporary global migration flows. Although many return moves involve adults accompanied by their children, these migrant children are a relatively invisible and under-researched group. In this article I explore the experiences of children who have moved to Ireland with their Irish return-migrant parent(s)—a group who were born and spent part of their childhoods in Britain, the US and elsewhere, and who, as part of the Irish return-migration phenomenon of the late 1990s–2000s, have moved ‘home’ with their parent(s) to a country with which they have strong, yet often ambiguous, ties. Using participative research methods with children and parents in some of these families, I explore the interrelation of notions of childhood, identity and place in the return narratives of both the parents and the children. Irish return migration is often constructed in terms of home-coming and is assumed to involve the unproblematic reinsertion of Irish nationals in their home country. I argue that, related to this, the notion of ‘innocent Irish childhoods’ permeates familial narratives of return migration. Adult return migrants construct their own and their childrens migrations around this particular idyllisation. I reflect on the ways in which children in return-migrant families relate to this notion, and may challenge but also reproduce these idealised narratives of return. In this way, I show that involving children as active research participants can highlight internal dynamics in migrant families and challenge hegemonic constructs of return migration.There is growing recognition of the significance of circular and return migration in contemporary global migration flows. Although many return moves involve adults accompanied by their children, these migrant children are a relatively invisible and under-researched group. In this article I explore the experiences of children who have moved to Ireland with their Irish return-migrant parent(s)—a group who were born and spent part of their childhoods in Britain, the US and elsewhere, and who, as part of the Irish return-migration phenomenon of the late 1990s–2000s, have moved ‘home’ with their parent(s) to a country with which they have strong, yet often ambiguous, ties. Using participative research methods with children and parents in some of these families, I explore the interrelation of notions of childhood, identity and place in the return narratives of both the parents and the children. Irish return migration is often constructed in terms of home-coming and is assumed to involve the unproblematic reinse...