Dana Fennell

Learning to Live with OCD: Labeling, the Self, and Stigma

Researchers have long questioned relationships among self-conceptions, “mental illness,” and stigma. This article looks at these issues through the lens of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), as minimal research has focused on the lived experience of OCD. We examine the impact of OCD on constructions of identity and the management/resistance of stigma. We do this through in-depth interviews with an untraditional Internet-based sample. We find respondents experience a crisis of self that leads them to a variety of strategies to deal with self-stigma, experienced stigma, and anticipated stigma.

Marketing Science The Corporate Faces of Genetic Engineering

The controversy over genetically engineered foods can be seen as a struggle over knowledge, whose version of truth will be accepted. Drawing off frameworks from social studies of science, the following is a qualitative content analysis of the corporate ideology of “life science” companies. The texts of five companies, from the time period of 2000 to 2003, are analyzed. Somewhat paradoxically, companies attempt to juggle the multiple tasks of branding/selling a unique product while acting as a teacher to the general public and presenting seemingly unbiased and objective knowledge. Companies rely on many of the discursive tactics previously outlined by researchers, while appearing to modify them somewhat to respond to public controversy. However, although it has been asserted that modern times have created a postmodern society where science loses its grand authority, companies work to reaffirm modern notions of science as progress even though claiming they are engaging in dialogue with the public.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in the Media

Scholars have long been concerned that mass media depictions of those with mental disorders foster stigma. Research is needed extricating how particular disorders are represented and perceived, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This article examines what images of obsessions and compulsions exist in the media, and how persons interpret these. It employs two methods: qualitative in-depth interviews and content analysis. Data indicate the media represents obsessions and compulsions in distinguishable ways that both reinforce and complicate common media stereotypes of those with mental disorders—fostering a stigma hierarchy and having contradictory effects on mental health literacy.

The Well-Being of Industrial Workers: A Quantitative Assessment of the Dominican Case

This paper examines the influence of gender and industrial employment on two dimensions of well-being. An analysis based on the 1996 DHS survey showed the non-significant effects of the two variables on material wealth and housing quality. Key factors in increasing household well-being were urban location, household labor, and education. Urban location showed the largest positive effect on well-being. The Chi-square test showed a significant relationship between free trade zone employment and access to durable goods (P ≤ 0.5). These findings show the larger impact of specific demographic conditions on womens well-being, favoring contextual analysis over exploitation and opportunity frameworks.

Pole studios as spaces between the adult entertainment, art, fitness and sporting fields

Abstract Taking an ethnographic approach, this article examines how pole is taught and embodied within pole studios. Pole studios stand at the nexus of the expansion of pole dance from the field of adult entertainment into the fitness industry, sporting world, and more. This article argues that pole studios serve as “spaces between fields” where pole is undergoing standardisation and production as fitness activity, sport, art, and erotic dance. Although divides exist, this study illustrates ways that pole studios can serve as a bridge connecting those fields. Studios in effect produced pole as a multifaceted activity by: offering specialised courses (e.g. fitness versus erotic pole dance classes), teaching leveled classes in the basics of poling that were hybridised and built students’ bodily capital in diverse ways without stigmatising them, and being ambiguous when discussing potential audiences. Such helps explain pole’s continued development. It also demonstrates the usefulness of Eyal’s concept of spaces between fields for scholars of sports and leisure studying shifts in the nature and function of physical activities.

Theorizing Complementary and Alternative Medicines: Wellbeing, Self, Gender, Class

instance. When the use of the concept of institution becomes too inclusive it risks explaining less and less, and it is also not convincing to argue that all kinds of institutional exceptions or ignorance are due to the naivety or overconfidence of the entrant. This assumption rather seems to be an expression of a political naivety of the authors. One of the most interesting chapters of the book is the one that applies social movement theory. The authors of this chapter have conducted a comparative case study of 11 different oil and gas pipeline projects in 16 countries. In the analysis, they single out five causal factors: threat, opportunity, resources, prior conflict, and compensation to explain the emergence of an organized opposition to these projects. They apply Ragins’ model for comparative qualitative analysis in a very illuminating way. The results indicate that there are several causal pathways to political conflicts. The most important factors were found to be threat and opportunity, which according to the authors is somewhat surprising in the light of previous assumptions within social movement theory. The volume as a whole is rich in terms of empirical material, and most of the chapters apply sophisticated methods for the analysis of qualitative case studies. But its contribution to a theoretical understanding of processes of globalization is limited. Perhaps the institutional approach may bring new insights to project managers. And the book has a clear managerial perspective: several of the chapters end with a section on advice to managers. From a more general perspective, however, understanding the concept of institution is not improved by its application to the study of global projects. On the contrary, the weaknesses of a too-inclusive use of this concept become even more obvious. Theorizing Complementary and Alternative Medicines: Wellbeing, Self, Gender, Class, by Eeva Sointu. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 253pp.

Explorations of Silence in the Religious Rituals of Buddhists and Quakers

90.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780230309319.

Ignorant or knowledgeable: Farmers speak out on consumers and biotechnology

This paper is a participant-observation-based study of one Quaker and three Buddhist groups. Using a sociological framework, it explores silence as actively practiced in religious ritual. It demonstrates the usefulness of employing multiple continuums to analyze practices, including a speech–silence continuum, a body movement–body stillness continuum, and a thinking–not thinking continuum. Even when silence is seen as active, it may be construed as functioning to turn people inward and away from each other. Instead, this paper demonstrates how silence for these groups is not necessarily socially isolating. For instance, participants not only learned, practiced, and reflected on silence together, but drew connections between the practice of silence and changes in everyday social interactions, including bringing compassion into these. Some persons referred to realizing a sense of interconnectedness in the silence akin to a Meadian fusion.

Ethnic variation in health and the determinants of health among Latinos

The issue of genetically engineered food problematizes the spheres of expert and lay knowledge. The outcome of debates over biotechnology affects the very food people eat. Somewhere between the “lay public” and certified experts/researchers are farmers. It stands to question what their role should be over the direction of biotechnology. Further, farmers have a relationship with consumers themselves. Do they see consumers as having legitimate knowledge and concerns that they need to be aware of, or do they write off consumers as a lay, ignorant public? Conventional growers employ many techniques and arguments that work to explain away consumer complaints regarding biotechnology. They assert a sphere of influence to themselves, that of uncertified experts. In contrast, consumers are viewed as ignorant of farm issues. However, growers struggle some over the consumers’ role, because they may also believe in a consumers’ right to knowledge and influence in the market (demand and supply). Therefore, growers have mixed responses to the idea of labeling genetically modified products for consumers. On the other hand, organic/sustainable growers as a group have more direct connections with consumers, and benefit from consumers having knowledge about production practices. There is some evidence that organic growers define for themselves a sphere of expertise like the conventional growers, and they do question consumers’ knowledge over agricultural issues. However, compared to conventional growers, as a group they treat consumers as more knowledgeable, and grant consumers more of a role in technological decision-making.