In recent years, the men's fashion magazine has become a new media genre that attracts lots of attention. The sales, advertisements, and publications of the men's fashion magazine have reached a remarkable performance. Most important of all, men's fashion magazines not only provide the male readers with content about appearance beauty but also mold the male readers into a new kind of masculinity called ¡¥New Man¡¦. The ¡¥New Man¡¦ masculinity means that men can feel more comfortable to take some gender practices to improve their appearance beauty, such as putting on make-up, applying skincare products and so on. Researches about men's fashion magazine in Taiwan mostly focus on market performance, and the notion and practice of male readers are ignored. This present study drawn on the audience in everyday life theory, also employed the masculinity theory based on the sociologist R. W. Connell and the view of fluid identity (multiple subjectivities) based on the poststructuralist feminists. This study applied a methodology of qualitative in-depth interview with 6 male participants, tried to find the relation between men¡¦s fashion magazine and everyday gender practices of the readers. The study found that when the male readers interpret the ¡¥New Man¡¦ image in the men's fashion magazine, they do negotiate the mainstream masculinity discourse in their everyday life. Their negotiation involves their unequal investment in multiple subjectivities in everyday life. The study also found that men's fashion magazine is a text that can mediate the masculinity discourse, so the everyday gender practices of readers regarding the magazine text are their negotiation of masculinity as well. The male readers read men's fashion magazine and take ¡¥New Man¡¦ gender practices (ex. applying skincare products, putting on make-up, and taking care of figure) to create their own unique masculinity which exclude from femininity. In conclusion, the new version masculinity (New Man) does overlap the old one (mainstream or traditional masculinity), which not only shows the diversity of masculinity but also provide the male readers with some space to exert their agency and negotiate the meaning of ¡¥what it means to be a male¡¦.

This ethnographic work is about the aesthetic, habitual, and sentimental registers of some Bosnian Muslims’ (Bosniaks) daily lives in post-war Sarajevo. It addresses the ages-old themes of Bosnians’ multiple belongings and the question of political subjectivity through lived experience with a particular focus on the contemporary urgency to generate Bosniak national and religious subjectivity. It attends to the affective surplus of mundane scenes that convey the disconcerting drama of conversion to Islam, the nervous accumulation of new Islamic sensibilities, the vibrant ethos of Yugoslavism, the politically vulnerable but habitually engrained identity of Bosniannes, shared memories of the recent war, and the sustenance of the material and sentimental textures of domestic and communal life. Attending to the eventful character of the daily life enables the work to detail and test the existing frames of understanding Bosniaks (such as Nationalization and Islamization) and to further explore the potentialities of lived experience that escape existing regimes of representation. / text

Merkinei XVIII a. buvo nelengvas. Tuometinėje LDK teritorijoje vyko nuolatiniai karai su kaimyninėmis valstybėmis, siautė ligų epidemijos. Tačiau teigiamos reikšmės miesto raidai turėjo magdeburginių teisių bei laisvių suteikimas. Tai paskatino ryškesnį miestelio pakilimą bei vystymąsi. Be to, daugiau teisių įgavo ir patys miestiečiai. / The 18th century in Merkinė was not easy. At that time in the territory of the Great Duchy of Lithuania suffered from constant battles with neighbor countries and epidemic diseases. However, the positive impact on town’s development had the conferment of Magdeburg laws. The latter induced the growth and progress of the town whilst townsfolk gained more rights.

The young child’s experiences of living with cancer are crucial to providing evidence based care. The overall aim of this thesis was to explore and describe experiences of health and functioning in the everyday life of young children with cancer, over a three year period from diagnosis, to provide insights and suggestions to improve evidence based care. The first and second papers in the series of four for this thesis used a qualitative content analysis to describe the child’s experiences shortly after diagnosis and six and 12 months later. The third paper used mixed methods to identify a comprehensive set of ICF-CY codes describing everyday health and functioning in the life of the young child with cancer. The fourth paper used the identified comprehensive set of ICF-CY codes to follow changes in everyday health and functioning over the study’s entire three year period from diagnosis. Entry into the health-illness transition was characterised by trauma and isolation. Health and functioning in everyday life was utterly changed and physical difficulties were at their peak. The passage through transition was characterised by an active striving on the part of the child to make a normal everyday life of the cancer experience. Difficulties affecting health and functioning in everyday life decreased and changed during the trajectory, though feelings of loneliness prevailed. A new period of stability in the child’s post treatment life was seen from two years after diagnosis and onwards, with (re)-entry to preschool/school and other social activities. However, an increase in difficulties with personal interactions with others and access to, and support from healthcare professionals was seen. Variances were seen within individual children’s’ trajectories. In summary it can be stated that the everyday life of young children with cancer changes over time and health care services are not always in phase with these changes. Young children living with cancer want to be participatory in their care and to have access to their parents as protectors. They need access to and ongoing contact with peers and preschool. Although physical difficulties in living an everyday life with cancer reduce over time, new difficulties emerge as the child post cancer treatment re-enters society. A structured follow-up throughout the cancer trajectory and not just during active treatment is necessary. A child-centered philosophy of care would guide the child towards attainment of health and well-being. Both the child’s own perspective and a child’s perspective as described by adults caring for them should be seen on a continuum, rather than as opposites. This view could help ensure that young children become visible and are listened to as valuable contributors to care planning. Knowledge of health-illness transition can be useful in illustrating everyday health and functioning through long term illness trajectories.

Within Australia, research on women and alcohol has been predominantly focussed on either large scale surveys of women’s consumption or on alcohol problems studies within treatment populations. Such research mainly draws upon the biomedical understandings of the body and the disease model of alcoholism. In contrast, this study examines the meanings and practices of alcohol use within the social contexts of women’s everyday lives. Alcohol is viewed as a part of life rather than as an excess or problem.

In current discussions about contemporary forms of spirituality, consideration is given to the question, ‘what is spirituality?’ and to exploring the range of associated beliefs and practices. Common to most discussions is the acknowledgement that the term spirituality is ambiguous and does not represent any one finite quality or thing, but rather, is a wide and somewhat identifiable set of characteristics. Some commentators suggest that contemporary spirituality, characterised by its separation from institutional forms of religion, and represented by the hallmark expression “I am spiritual, but not religious”, is an increasing phenomenon in Australian society. In view of this, there are several debates about the merits of a spirituality without explicit links to religion (in particular Christian traditions) and whether a personal spirituality can hold any real depth or purpose, or whether it just perpetuates a superficial, narcissistic focus of the self. This kind of critique pays little attention as to how spirituality, and the associated beliefs and practices, are developed and applied in an everyday sense, and how this impacts on the lives of those who subscribe to their own sense of spirituality. In this thesis, I shift the focus from analysing the merits of a personalised spirituality to exploring in depth some of the lay understandings and purposes underlying contemporary forms of spiritual practice. The primary concern of my thesis is to describe this phenomena of spiritual life as experienced by eleven younger Australian women aged 18-38 years inclusive, who considered themselves ‘spiritual’ women, yet do not necessarily identify with a particular religious denomination. At its core, and as a phenomenological study, the thesis undertakes a theoretical exploration of consciousness and the apprehension and formation of belief, meaning, and identity. Held central, and alongside the phenomenological methodology, is the feminist notion that every woman is the centre of her own experience, that any interpretations and understandings of women’s spirituality, must start with the personal. The empirical stages of research therefore focus on an exploration of the women’s personal understandings, experiences, interpretations and translations of spirituality to uncover the location and application of spirituality in everyday life. A primary factor explored throughout the thesis is the intersection between emotional experiences, meaning and purpose, and notions of spirituality. It is my assertion that grief, crisis and trauma, and the more general emotional experiences arising from everyday life, can be a driving force to embark on an exploration of the spiritual; inform personal constructions of spirituality; and provide a basis for the articulation of that spirituality, with a central purpose of alleviating emotional pain. Thus, my main thesis contention is this ‘new’ form of spirituality, as experienced and practiced outside of religious institutions, was expressed by the women in this research as a conscious and pragmatic resource applied, and developed in relation to, the various events and experiences of everyday life, and in relation to the ongoing process of developing and locating a sense of self and identity.

Maîtrise (M.A.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2002. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

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Batticaloa district on the Eastern coast of Sri Lanka has been one of the most disrupted and devastated areas of the island since civil war began in the early 1980s. Ethnically and culturally diverse, the Eastern province has been under the control of different military actors, the Sri Lankan army, the Indian Peace-Keeping Forces, and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), however, none maintained full control of the Eastern areas until May 2009 when the Sri Lankan Army successfully defeated the LTTE. Exploring the lives of Tamil communities in Batticaloa, this thesis examines the ways in which people make sense of an ‘everyday life’ shaped by conflict. Following the idiosyncratic journey of the researcher through the uncertain environment of escalating conflict and the aftermath of the tsunami, it builds up a larger picture of life, moving between accounts of everyday violence and suffering and more sustained dwelling on the particular people who are actively making it possible to endure by investing in a more humane future. In areas such as Batticaloa, where violence frames the past, present and foreseeable future, resistance in some shape or form has become a way of life. As Foucault (1976, 2003) maintains, violence which is embedded in social and material structures can create an environment where power and control saturate the routines of the ordinary, making its existence appear ‘normal’. However, from this way of life, what may emerge beyond the more obvious signs of violence, is the fact that people do keep pushing forward. Integral to this is the importance of risk, hope, and trust, which, woven through the interactions of daily activity, mark out what is possible and what is not. The chapters in this thesis, explore individuals who, in the spaces between accepted understandings of ordinary and extraordinary, work around the various controls and constraints to forge habitable spaces in which relations of trust and support can be strengthened and the future can be imagined. Starting with a focus on the relationship between personal narrative and history, I trace the experiences of a woman living through poverty, displacement, and loss. From this I suggest that it is the paradoxical existence of violence, risk, fear, friendship, and trust as worked through the endurance of daily interactions that is integral to understanding the texture of everyday life. Therefore, I argue that what can on the one hand look like a hopeless and negative picture of militancy and violence, can also, contain within it, fragments of hope and survival, captured for example, in the work of local people to reclaim space. I also deal with the complexities of the research experience in a violent environment and look at the strategies that people employ to negotiate and minimize risk in contested and militarized spaces. The second part of the thesis examines the meaning of the everyday and the ordinary through the experiences of a widow and group of fishermen, and thus challenges conventional academic writing which relates ‘normalcy’ in violence prone-areas to peace and productivity. Overall, these chapters argue that a capacity for hope, for building trust, safety, and peace, however fragile and tentative, is as much an integral part of a conflict situation as the more obvious capacity for fear and silence.