Tatyana Kotzeva

Contextual shifts in Bulgarian women's identity in the face of infertility

The article discusses the experiences of women facing infertility and infertility treatment in Bulgaria with a focus on identity construction. A theoretical framework invoking an understanding of identity as a social and contextual phenomenon, contingent upon local interpersonal relations and cultural meanings, informs our study. We use semi-structured interviews, which are analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Using this method, we have identified the following overarching themes: Identity as Incomplete, Absent or Invisible; Identity as Present but Separate; Identity Shifts Through Dis/Embodiment; Identity as Nurtured and Nurturing. The study delineates the contextual identity shifts in the social and medical settings and the extent to which the women we interviewed experienced themselves as separate, autonomous and agentic. We discuss some of the possible interpretations of these findings, invoking the meanings and metaphors of the individual and the relational available in Bulgarian culture and societal values.

Social discourses, women's resistive voices: facing involuntary childlessness in bulgaria

Abstract The article discusses the way in which culturally available discourses of the expected transition to motherhood are negotiated in womens narratives of living with involuntary childlessness in Bulgaria. We follow the meanings that the situation holds for the women and the ways in which they creatively appropriate, transform, and resist culturally available discourses in the process of constructing their narratives and identities. For the purpose of this analysis, we use the Listening Guide Method of interviewing and interpretation of interview transcripts. For the women we interviewed in Bulgaria, both subtle and explicit forms of resistance were evident. They protest stigma and mistreatment through voicing their anger, and they also appeal to social change through organized action. Childless women in Bulgaria are slowly changing the available cultural images of infertility, as well as the models of womanhood, introducing more societal options.

Career Priority Patterns

This research examined correlates of three career priority patterns – career‐primary, modified career‐family, and career‐family – among 218 managerial and professional women in Bulgaria. Data were collected using questionnaires completed anonymously. It attempted to replicate similar research conducted in Canada. Although career‐family women worked fewer hours per week, and were less involved with their jobs than were career‐primary women, many of the differences observed in the Canadian sample were absent in the Bulgarian sample. Offers possible explanations for the differences in the two studies.

Patterns of Priority in Careers among Managerial and Professional Women in Bulgaria: Costs of the Mommy Track?

This study examined correlates of patterns of priority in careers, anchored at the extremes by career-primary and career-family orientations, among 218 managerial and professional women in Bulgaria. Data were collected using anonymously completed questionnaires to replicate similar research conducted in Canada. Career-family women were more likely to be married, have more children, work fewer extra hours per week, been with a present employer for a longer period of time and reported less job involvement than did career-primary women. There were no differences on job and career satisfaction or on measures of psychological well-being. Many of the relationships present in the Canadian sample were absent in the Bulgarian sample.

The ecological awareness of Bulgarian industrial managers

SummaryOver 600 industrial managers in Bulgaria were individually interviewed to determine their ecological awareness and their attitudes towards the environment. The interviews took place at an unusual time in 1990 when these managers were beginning to move from a position of government control and interference, but were becoming affected by a situation of increasing economic difficulties. Various specific profiles of environmental awareness of the managers were registered, depending on the technologies used by their industrial enterprise, the degree to which the labour force was acquainted with the environmental hazards, and the pressures from the ecological movements and legislature.Unfortunately, at the time of the interviews, few of teh managers-despite two-thirds of their industrial enterprises being strong or intermediate polluters-were under serious pressure to resolve their ecological problems, and many (44 percent) were unaware of these problems. Repeated studies of this nature will hopefully demonstrate improvements in the ecological awareness of the managers which may result from legislative and educational measures proposed, in part, by the authors.