Online Lightning Talks
Intentional Social Media Disclosure of Visible vs. Invisible Disability: Differences and Motivations
Virtual Lightning Talk William Myhill
Persons with disability report a range of stigmatized experiences such as exclusion from opportunities, doubts of ability, verbal and physical abuse, portrayals of dangerousness, and inaccessible programs, services, and environments. Those with less visible disabilities often choose to ‘pass’ as not having a disability in contexts where their disability would not become obvious in order to avoid stigmatizing experiences. Yet in the United States and several other Western nations, disability often must be intentionally disclosed in order for an individual to benefit from the protections of disability civil and human rights laws. The social media platforms of the present information and communication age present opportunities for many with disability to create online identities that minimize or erase their disabilities. In this pilot study using an online survey, it was hypothesized that persons with more visible disabilities would report intentionally disclosing their disability using social media platforms at the same rate as those with less visible disabilities. For instance, a person who uses a wheelchair for mobility or a white cane for navigation would choose to pass at rates similar to how a person with a learning disability or mental health impairment might. However, results found a significant difference in the rates of disclosure between respondents with more and less visible disabilities. Additional survey questions provide insight into why people with disability do (e.g., advocate for disability rights) or do not (e.g., avoid being viewed as needy, unintelligent, or blameworthy) disclose disability online, to whom, and on what social media platforms.
Community Health Trainers, Occupational Identity, Boundary Work and the Importance of Having Time
Virtual Lightning Talk Adam Evans, Geoff Middleton, Lee Crust, Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson, Rachel Williams, Hannah Henderson
The introduction of community-based Health Trainers (HTs) in the United Kingdom (UK) has been described as one of the most innovative developments in recent Public Health policy. HTs are tasked with reducing health inequalities in disadvantaged local communities by encouraging clients to develop healthier lifestyles. There is wide variation in the specifics of HTs' roles, however, and this health occupation is currently under-researched, despite being of considerable sociological research interest in relation to occupational identity construction and 'identity work'. HTs' inter-professional interactions with other health professionals are of particular interest. To explore in-depth HTs’ experiences of working in this challenging yet somewhat nebulous role, a qualitative study was undertaken with twenty-five HTs working in England. To theorise the findings, we employ a novel combination of symbolic interactionist perspectives on identity work and boundary work. In this study, we focus particularly on ‘vocabularic’ and ‘associative’ identity work, to explore HTs’ boundary work with other health workers and services. Time emerged as a salient distinguishing feature in this community health role. Understanding the potential health benefits of the long-term, time-intensive support work undertaken by this community health group is of much sociological and also health policy interest.
What's Cooking? : Cooking Shows Happy Diversity Versus Real Experiences in Restaurant Kitchens
Virtual Lightning Talk Mariana Rodriguez
In the last ten years, cooking shows and food focused TV channels have become hugely successful worldwide, showing ‘democratic’ representations of people with a diversity of genders, ethnicities, and ages rarely seen before (Ketchum 2005). However, it is important to analyse to what extent this seemingly equal power-geometry corresponds to the reality of people working in the food industry in global cities such as Los Angeles or Sydney. The plethora of happy faces in these reality shows – somewhat reminiscent of Disneyland’s It’s a small world – lies in stark contrast to the reality of restaurant workers in ‘the-back-of-house’ who are often used as a workforce coerced into accepting low wages and hard working conditions (Wilson 2018). Nepali immigrant communities in Australia have become a reliable workforce for the Australian food industry, similar to the experience of recent Latino/a arrivals in the U.S.A., recreating what Cantazarite (2000) calls “brown-collar” work. In this paper I explore the disconnection between representation and reality in television shows such as Master Chef Australia and suggest that underneath the equal power-geometry they promote lies an asymmetrical global reality that point to an often ignored dark side of global people flows.
Mobile Banking is Enabling the Poor without a Bank Account to Bank
Virtual Lightning Talk Gireesh K. Gupta
M-banking or mobile-banking is enabling the destitute of the world to do banking from anywhere and at any time, especially for those without a bank account. Unlike in the past when the impoverished stashed their hard-earned money in the house unsafely, they can now have a pseudo bank account. With their mobile phones, they can check account balance, pay remotely for goods and services, deposit funds into the account, and transfer funds from one account to another account. Mobile banking is empowering the poor with independence and self-reliance, and at the same time enabling them to manage their finances without having an account in an intimidating affluent bank located far away in the suburbs or major cities. The brick-and-mortar banks can be intimidating to the disenfranchised because the bank employees may scorn them for their poverty and lack of education and sophistication. The focus of this study is to research the M-PESA mobile banking service available to the poor in Kenya, what it is, how it works - and then analyze if it is actually helping the poor.
Helping Professionals and Forced Returnees: A Framework of Practice
Virtual Lightning Talk Kaltrina Kusari
Social workers are committed to social justice, yet social justice continues to remain an elusive term in social work practice with migrant populations. Indeed, recent migration trends have raised critical questions underscoring existing knowledge of the experiences of forced migrants. Among others, social workers report feeling underprepared to work with displaced populations, especially rejected asylum seekers whose experiences remain largely hidden. This population has shown a consistent rise in recent years, but their voices are seldom reflected in social work research or social policies that directly impact their lives. Among these policies is repatriation, or the right to return to one’s country of origin. Repatriation is the preferred policy solution to migration crisis for the United Nations despite a significant body of research which substantiates that repatriation is not a durable solution. Considering that this discrepancy between the preference for repatriation and the experiences of rejected asylum seekers is a social justice issue my study was grounded in postcolonial theories and employed Critical Discourses Analysis to explore the involuntary repatriation of rejected asylum seekers from Kosovo. Findings from semi-structured interviews with rejected asylum seekers suggest that this population often lacks access to basic social services and desires re-emigration rather than repatriation. Responding to calls for models of practice which guide the work of helping professionals with forced returnees, this discussion builds upon study findings centering dominant discourses to develop a framework across micro, mezzo, and macro levels of practice.
Self-evaluation at the Technical University of Cotopaxi and Its Impact on Continuous Improvement and Quality Assurance
Virtual Lightning Talk Juan José Vizcaíno-Figueroa, Marco Veloz
The processes for evaluating the quality of higher education in Ecuador dates back to a decade ago, taking the evaluation covered in Constituent Mandate No.14 as a milestone. As a result of this process, universities were classified into five categories according to their level of performance. The Technical University of Cotopaxi was placed in category C, that is, in the third of five possible ones. In order to improve its qualification, the University requested the external evaluation in 2015, but the results achieved kept it in the same category. This measure led to a series of circumstances that forced the Higher Education Council to resolve its intervention, which lasted until November 2017. During this process, the University made several adjustments to both the substantive functions and administrative processes. At the end of this intervention, an institutional self-evaluation was carried out that served to show a significant improvement with respect to the 2015 re-categorization. However, progress focused on quantitative factors, leaving aside aspects such as participatory management, self-criticism, and the collective construction of a culture of continuous improvement. To fill this gap, a self-assessment of careers was implemented with a methodology designed to involve all university actors. The objective of this work is to systematize the results obtained in this process and compare them with the historical data to determine the level of incidence in the change of paradigm on the continuous improvement and assurance of the quality.
Inter-rituality: An Anthropological Study of the Roles, Meanings, and Functions of Rituals in Contemporary Iran
Virtual Lightning Talk Alireza Hassanzadeh
Inspired by Julia Kersiteva and Mikhal Bakhtin, the conceptual term of inter-rituality serves as a model for the perception of Iranian rituals’ meaning and functions in Iran’s contemporary era. Inter-rituality consists of a state in which identity is created through the polyphonic and dialogical meaning of rituals. Applying such an interpretation offers a means by which the rituals’ dynamic forms and contents can be examined in a given country over the course of recent decades both in verbal and behavioral forms. On one hand, cultural diversities, which are embedded in the diachronic and synchronic elements that exist in Iranian informal societies and communities cultures and sub-cultures, can be taken as the source of Iranian inter-rituality. On the other hand, the agencies of meaning silenced groups such as women and youth comprise the key social actors who create meaning and discourses, and therein have polyphonic and dialogic implications for and functions within Iranian rituals. This article firstly atomizes and synchronizes the ethnographic case of the Iranian fire feast, Nourouz and Moharam rituals, through interviews with ritual participants and celebrants. It then illustrates how inter-rituality emerges as a polyphonic form, a key feature of identity in contemporary Iran. Under this circumstance and over the course of history, this trend has resisted any force that has tried to apply monophonic meanings to rituals and to reduce Iranian culture to a formal form without diversity and agency. Methods applied to gather the ethnographic data in this study include interviews with key-actors and participant observation.
Happy or Not? Roots of Student Satisfaction in Class Sessions
Virtual Lightning Talk Matthew Metzgar
Businesses and organizations are turning to fast feedback devices that measure consumer satisfaction. These standalone devices often have four or five different smiley-face buttons that can quickly gauge consumer sentiment. This instructor has piloted the use of a smiley-face survey tool that is used at the end of each class session. This session highlights the instructor’s results of the tool across different sections and across time. Initial results are very intriguing, suggesting the role of the instructor may play a lesser role in student happiness for a given class. Data from classes and sample email exchanges are presented.
Becoming Nature: The Human/nature Dilemma in Contemporary Western Culture
Virtual Lightning Talk Melusine Martin
The human/nature dualism that stems from the nature/culture divide is a Western concept that defines humans and nature as separate and distinct. For instance, we often think we are superior to plants or that cities and wilderness are opposite. The human/nature dualism is being challenged by researchers who are seeking a new way to define humans’ relationship with nature. Increasingly people’s beliefs around nature are shifting, coming from a feeling of separation from nature to an identification with it. ‘We are nature’ has become a prevalent idea in environmental discourses today. Yet within this process of identification to nature, we are still holding on to separatist beliefs related to the human/nature dualism. The idea of wilderness is one of them, it depicts wilderness as a place where humans are visitors, a place that loses its wild characteristic in the presence of human beings. While many persons are ready today to believe that they are nature, their logic reveals an apparent paradox as far as the notion of wilderness and their sense of humanhood in general are concerned. This paper illustrates the research I did as part of my doctoral studies following a qualitative methodology, deriving data from a survey of 220 participants, all persons living an eco-conscious and eco-friendly lifestyle in Australia and in the United States.
