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Over the past several years, the physical appearance of pregnant and new mothers has been evolving within Western society. In particular, celebrity mothers who are templates for contemporary ideals within society (Tyler 2011) experience heightened levels of surveillance and normalizing practices. The shifting ideal, maternal form illustrates how the bodies of women continue to be subjected to discipline and control within society. Furthermore, the flourishing of consumer culture within some neoliberal societies pressures women to consume in order to fully realize their maternal identity. Increased articulation of individual identity through consumption, coupled with increasingly specific appearance standards, narrow the scope of what idealized motherhood embodies. In order to best investigate the issue of the shifting, ideal maternal form, various issues of tabloid magazines will be analyzed. Relying on social constructionism in conjunction with Foucault’s theories of the disciplining of docile bodies and biopower, along with Lyotard’s desire-based, libidinal economy, the literature on the public presentation of maternal bodies will be analyzed with focus on newly developed, rigorous appearance and fitness standards for mothers. Additionally, how these disciplinary practices function within neoliberal climates that champion desire-based consumption, freedom, liberty, individualism and self-subjectification will also be investigated. A cultural analysis of thirty-seven tabloid publications from 2012 to 2013 will be examined for both visual and written discourse pertaining to the cultural construction of ideal motherhood. Through this analysis the interplay between the two seemingly contradictory messages of excessive, desire-based consumption and restrictive, corporeal discipline will be explored in order to gain a better understanding of how these incongruous scripts affect the lives of mothers today. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-26 13:25:26.234

Extreme poverty is a reality facing over a billion people, and a striking contradiction is that huge disparities coexist with a relatively rapid economic growth. This thesis investigates whether economic growth reduces poverty. Through an empirical cross-sectional regression, it analyses what impact economic growth has on poverty, and what structures that possibly preserve these phenomena. The theories of Dual Economy and Human Capital are used to explain such structures that cause poverty to coexist with growth. Brazil is an example of a dual economy whose recent history is characterised by successful economic and public policies that have managed to reduce the level of extreme poverty. Structures of dualistic labour markets contribute to the preservation of the extreme poverty, thus they do have some explanatory power of the coexistence of poverty and growth. The main conclusion from the empirical results is that economic growth does indeed reduce poverty. Also the level of poverty is strongly related to decrease of poverty, in such a way that a high level of poverty is associated to a slow decrease of poverty. However, economic growth does not appear to be sufficient a tool when the level of extreme poverty is high, suggesting that well-designed policies and investments in education are needed to obtain an inclusive, pro-poor growth and thus reduce the level of extreme poverty.

With a dramatic economic growth rate of 10% per year, China, as one of the Big Emerging Markets, has drawn increasing attention from both academia and industry. Its market potential and growth rate is believed to be the top attraction for global investment. In many sectors, the increasing number of options available to consumers has led to the emergence of a consumer society in China and has further fed the development of variance in consumer behaviour. This has imposed imperatives of consumer research in China, especially market segmentation research, on both foreign multinational companies and indigenous 5 manufacturers, in order i) to identify the unique needs of consumers, to provide more desirable product/service packages, and iii) to communicate brand value via more appropriate messages to targeted consumers.