This thesis aims to investigate how, and under what circumstances, intimacy in grandparent-grandchild relationships is enabled, enacted and sustained in the early years of grandchildren. Previous work on emotional closeness of grandparent-grandchild relationships suggests that grandmothers and maternal grandparents are more likely to feel stronger bonds with their grandchildren, and that grandparents with a good quality of relationship with parents and living geographically close to grandchildren have greater opportunities to develop a strong emotional tie. The majority of previous research involves data on perceptions of closeness of grandparents focusing on one of their grandchildren or by young adult grandchildren reporting on closeness with a specific grandparent. In addition, qualitative research with grandparents indicates the diversity of ways they exercise agency, and involvement in the life of grandchildren, as well as gendered changes in grandfatherhood. However, there has been limited scholarly attention given to practices of intimacy, emotions and masculinities in grandparent-grandchild relationships, and the ways grandparents interpret and negotiate intimate relationships with their grandchildren amid changes in individual, familial and relational aspects over time. This study uses quantitative data to examines the extent to which individual, family and socio-structural factors influence the mothers' perception of emotional closeness of the relationship of an infant child with four types of grandparents. This is supplemented by qualitative data on grandparents' views of closeness with all their grandchildren. There is a limited scholarly literature on the relation of grandparents' lived experiences, and shared normative understandings, and a sense of being close and special to their grandchildren. The 'practices of intimacy' approach highlights the significance of practices of everyday life enacted by individuals in relation to others in building the quality of being close, and the processes through which individuals attach meaning to such practices. This approach is adopted to understand the diversity of ways grandparents interpret and do intimacy with their grandchildren. The thesis aims were achieved through a mixed methods research process combining secondary data analysis of the Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) study and in-depth interviews with 24 cases of grandparents (12 solo, either with a grandmother or grandfather, and 12 with couple). GUS maps the emotional closeness of grandchild-grandparent relationships through the grandchild's mother's perception. Analysis revealed that perceived emotional closeness was more likely if the grandparent had social contact with the mother, lived geographically close, and looked after and engaged in outings more regularly with the infant child. In general, social contact and propinquity impacted less on grandmothers, particularly maternal grandmothers, and more on paternal grandfathers. Also, looking after grandchildren on a regular basis was distinctly salient for grandmothers, whereas going more frequently on outings was more salient for grandfathers than grandmothers. As regards practices of intimacy, grandparents emphasised the importance of communication through verbal, bodily and relational forms enacted through a large variety of activities in the daily living related to forms of caring, playing and spending time together, which construct a sense of emotional closeness. The study suggests that intimate grandparent-grandchild relationships are intersected by moral understandings of 'good grandparenting', which are challenged or find contradictions in lived experiences of grandparenting that produce asymmetrical emotionalities among grandchildren, and ambivalences in relation to children and grandchildren. The study suggests that grandparents reflect on their emotionality, and enact embodied emotions, depending on relational and family circumstances, and throughout changes in the relationship with their grandchildren as they get older. The study shows that grandfathers engage in emotional forms of caring, which may challenge hegemonic masculinities, and that the relation between masculinities and practices of intimacy are troubled, particularly in the event of parental divorce.

In this modern landscape where families are spending increasing time living separately, due to parental separation, work travel, and illness, current communication technologies do not fully support the needs of intimate family communication in families with young children, aged two to nine. Prolonged separation, without intimate communication, can damage parent and child relationships, impacting on intimacy, bonding, and a child’s mental health and wellbeing. Care and play activities are the main methods used to build bonds between parent and child. These are hard to replicate with ubiquitous communication technologies when families are separated. Ubiquitous technology, such as the telephone, is easy to use but does not offer engaging ways for a child to interact. Skype (video call), has a higher potential for engagement due to its multimodal nature (audio and visual), therefore is more emotionally expressive. However, to ‘Skype’ someone, a child requires adult support, as the technology is more complex to use than that of a telephone. Thus, neither the telephone or Skype fully meet family needs for communication. Parental-child separation was looked at within parental separation, work travel and illness, to explain how intimacy can be achieved through technology mediated communication systems. Following a Participatory Action Research methodology, utilising methods such as co-design, co-creation, and participatory design, the research discusses five small-scale studies as well as the Trace project, which was the main study of this research. This research addresses communication issues between families through textile-based communication systems which enable intimacy and bonding. It highlights the importance of intimate communications and offers a list of preferred modes of communication for scattered families (multimodal disparate objects that allow for synchronous or asynchronous communications with either the same modes or different modes of input and output). It also outlines key methods for designing new technologies suitable for use in family research (inclusive methods such as co-design, co-creation and participatory design). A better understanding of the participant families’ emotional needs was achieved, by allowing them to become active participants at every stage of the design process (planning, acting, observing, and reflecting), thus producing considerate technologies for remote family communications.

A obra de Al Berto insere-se em quadro estético no qual se recupera uma dicção mais afetiva e sentimental, se cultiva uma tônica no contato com a realidade mais imediata e se estreita (e também se embaralha) os vínculos entre vida e arte. Para melhor delinear esse contexto, evocam-se alguns conceitos teóricos tais como os de autenticidade, de poesia sentimental e ingênua ou ainda o de coincidência ou não ente poema e poesia. Uma das questões de fundo fulcrais e aglutinadoras das características supracitadas é a intimidade ou, melhor, uma escrita da intimidade, que é atravessada pelas tensões e impasses do espaço biográfico contemporâneo. Como estratégia analítica, organiza-se a dissertação a partir dos dois movimentos constituintes da sondagem íntima: a objetivação do sujeito e a subjetivação dos objetos. Assim sendo, busca-se, primeiramente, discutir a noção de narcisismo poético e explicitar o processo de constituição daquilo que o poeta denominou de texto-corpo e suas figurações: pequeno demiurgo, o centro sísmico do mundo, monge noctívago e o último habitante. Especificamente neste momento do trabalho, conceitos como os de trauma e abjeto auxiliam na leitura dos poemas. Na sequência, investiga-se a relação do sujeito poético, atento e solitário, com seus objetos cotidianos, que são considerados como sinais da realidade e do próprio indivíduo. Articula-se a essa análise o repetido uso estilístico de enumerações e inventários, manifesto de forma bivalente: uma, como expressão da fragmentação do mundo e, outra, como discurso de desconstrução e resistência. A estrutura da dissertação, portanto, tem caráter complementar se considerada em suas partes: tanto em uma quanto em outra, o que está em questão é a possibilidade de uma escritura da intimidade apresentada paradoxal e simultaneamente enquanto presença e ausência do real, enquanto afirmação e negação de uma subjetividade, enquanto assimilação e deslocamento dos lugares canônicos das escritas de si. / The work of Al Berto is inserted in an aesthetic framework which recovers a more emotional and sentimental poetic diction, places greater emphasis on the contact with immediate reality and narrows and blurs the limits between life and art. In order to clearly outline this context, we also evoke some questions such as the concept of authenticity, of sentimental and naïve poetry, or that of concurrence or not between poem and poetry, among others. One of the background issues related to these traits is intimacy or the writing of intimacy, which is full of tensions and dilemmas in the contemporary biographical space. The analytical structure of the dissertation is based on the two movements of the self-questioning intimacy: objectification of the subject and subjectification of objects. Thus, we primarily seek to discuss the notion of poetic narcissism and elucidate the process of constitution of the so-called \"text-body\" and its figurations: \"small demiurge\", \"the seismic center of the world\", \"the nocturnal monk\" and \"the last inhabitant. Trauma and abjection are concepts that help us read the poems in this specific part of the study. Finally, we investigate the relations of the attentive and lonely poetic subject to his everyday objects regarded as signs of reality and of the individual himself. We also articulate this analysis with the stylistic use of enumerations and inventories in a bivalent form: a) as an expression of the fragmentation of the world and another, and b) as a discourse of deconstruction and resistance. Hence, the structure of the dissertation should be considered in its complementary chapters: both deal with the writing of intimacy paradoxically and simultaneously regarded as presence and absence of the real, or as affirmation and denial of subjectivity, or even as assimilation and displacement of canonical writings of the self.

O relato a seguir retrata o entrecruzar de percursos do autor pesquisador e o autor viajante na busca de novos caminhos para compreender as práticas corporais no campo da saúde pública. O autor pesquisador, profissional de educação física, que há mais de quinze anos trabalha com práticas corporais na Saúde, vive, briga e se indigna com sua própria formação que o conduziu para um mundo prescritivo, com regras e leis bem específicas: o olhar da atividade física na prevenção de doenças num corpo segmentado. O autor viajante parte num veleiro em busca de novos ventos fazendo uso de alegorias com textos metafóricos, imagens, poesia, música e cartas. O resultado dessa mescla de percursos é um texto cartográfico com base no programa De Bem com a Vida (DBV) de São Bernardo do Campo que discute o conceito de atividade física e de práticas corporais a partir da noção de experiência de John Dewey. Avança pela intimidade na debilidade da linguagem e apresenta a ideia de espaço conceitual que norteou a implementação do programa. Em seguida, com a contribuição dos relatos autobiográficos dos educadores sociais do DBV, discute o processo de implementação do programa, seus nós, tangências e saídas e aponta características importantes para os espaços de práticas corporais. Ao final chama a atenção para o espaço de relações e para o espaço do \"entre\" como potenciais para integrar os diversos profissionais de saúde. O \"entre\" é um espaço dinâmico que nos aproxima do mundo por meio da brincadeira, do jogo sem regras, inventivo, criativo que sempre se renova e nos faz sonhar com as inúmeras possibilidades da vida. É nesse espaço que ocorrem os beijos molhados, os abraços apertados, os olhares atentos e onde, eu e você, vamos nos encontrar... Boa leitura. / The following report depicts the interweaving between the experiences of both authors in relation to their trajectory as researcher and voyager, in search of new ways to understand body practices in the field of public health. The author acting as researcher, who specializes in physical education and has worked with body practices in health for more than fifteen years, lives, fights and is angered by his experience in education which led him to a prescriptive world, with very specific rules and laws: the perspective of physical activity on diseases prevention in a segmented body. The author acting as voyager sails through allegories made with metaphorical texts, pictures, poetry, music and letters. The result of this blend of trajectories is a cartographic text based on the De Bem com a Vida (DBV) program of São Bernardo do Campo, which discusses the concept of physical activity and body practices based on John Dewey\'s notion of experience. It addresses the intimacy in the frailty of language and introduces the idea of conceptual space that guided the implementation of the program. Then, with the contribution of the autobiographical narration by the social educators of the DBV, it discusses the process of implementation of the program, its knots, tangents and outputs, and points out important aspects for the spaces of body practices. By the end, it draws attention to the space of relations and to the space of the \"in-between\" as potential features to integrate the various health professionals. The \"in-between\" is a dynamic space that brings us closer to the world through games without rules, which are inventive, creative and always renewing themselves, making us dream about the possibilities of life. It is in this space that wet kisses, tight hugs and attentive looks occur, and it is also where we are going to meet... Have a good reading.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between relational aggression and sexual satisfaction, as well as the mediating role of attachment on this relationship. Data came from the Relationship Evaluation Survey (RELATE) comprised of the matched-pair responses of 797 couples in serious dating, engaged, or married relationships. Results showed the greater the perceived relational aggression the lower the sexual satisfaction for both self and partner, regardless of gender. Additionally, it appears a more satisfying sexual relationship can occur when an individual experiences a secure attachment base and can feel confident that his/her relationship is safe. For both genders, the more relationally aggressive behaviors reported, the lower the reports of secure attachment behaviors. Implications for clinicians and future research are discussed.

Substance use during adolescence is of particular concern because it is known to be associated with many undesirable outcomes. When an adolescent discovers that a peer is using substances, he or she is faced with a decision regarding the response to be taken (e.g., use substances with the peer, report it to authorities, tell the peer to stop). Available literature has given little consideration to this issue; therefore, the current study sought to examine the response of adolescents to discovering that a peer is using substances, within an ethnically diverse sample of 139 students from a public high school located in Florida. Since responses taken likely vary based on adolescents' own personal traits and characteristics, this study investigated how adolescents' gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, grade level, and own use or non-use of substances were related to their response to discovering that a peer is using substances. Findings revealed that those students that reported personal marijuana use were more likely to report that they would respond to peer substance use in an undesirable way (e.g., use with the peer, do nothing), and less likely to take a positive action of any sort (e.g., discuss the peer's substance use with a trusted adult, tell the peer to stop). A second purpose of this study was to examine whether or not an adolescent's relationship with the peer using drugs or alcohol (specifically, close friend versus classmate) was related to the action the adolescent takes in response to the peer's substance use. Findings revealed that overall students reported a higher likelihood that they would take a positive action of some sort if the peer using substances was a close friend than a classmate. More specifically, more students reported that they would tell a close friend to stop using substances than tell a classmate the same thing. On the other hand, students also reported that they would be more likely to use substances with a close friend than with a classmate. Implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed.

Friends are of crucial importance to lesbians� lives, their significance heightened due to lack of acceptance from blood family, work colleagues and society. Despite a proliferation of literature on lesbians� love relationships, lesbians� friendships remain understudied. In the light of theorising about widespread shifts in intimacy patterns in modern industrial societies, this thesis examines the role of friendship for contemporary lesbians. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, using lesbian feminist, feminist psychological and mainstream sociological theories to interpret lesbians� negotiations of their friendships and preoccupations with their own continually developing sense of self. The study finds that firstly, the most significant issue in negotiating friendships is deciding on a lesbian identity despite socialisation to �compulsory heterosexuality�. Friends are expected to be accepting and supportive or they are lost. Discrimination, the fact that the lover is the �best friend�, struggles with difference in lesbian communities, time constraints and a more general shift to individualism mean that community and family contacts are replaced by small, supportive and affirming friendship networks. These meet needs and within them lesbians negotiate a sense of self, but for the most part with no template of political consciousness. Secondly, while friendships are important, they are also difficult. The fluidity of the friendship relationship, blurred boundaries between friends and lovers, and women�s moral �imperative to care� all provide barriers to communication. Thirdly, while lesbians value �the relational self�, a confident sense of self is challenged when close-connected relationships sit at odds both with mainstream, heterocentric culture, and with traditional models of psychology which promote independence and separateness. Lesbians who are confident communicators, who have access to alternative feminist discourses which value relatedness, and who, together with their friends, are open to change, are able to negotiate satisfactory friendships and relationships. The study demonstrates lesbians� complex subjectivities as changing selves are negotiated through friendships, love relationships and communities, particularly through experiences of loss.

This research undertaken through photographic studio practice and theory is the culmination of a four-year study into the nature of intimacy that answers the question: How can photographic practice assist our quest for intimacy with an ideal Other? Working closely with a number of adult volunteer participants living in South-East Queensland, the work commenced by mapping the intimate relationships between people, objects and space in bedrooms. Some of the initial works dealt with notions of sexual intimacy, because this is the most common understanding of intimacy in our society today, but the bedroom is also the place for other kinds of intimacy, such as contemplation or reading, and whether we are young or old, bedrooms are also used as a repository for intimate keepsakes and mementos. Intimacy is difficult to define, and furthermore, the meaning of the term has changed over the centuries. Intimacy is not a place, or a thing, or a person. One of the better definitions, by Thomas Moore, states, ‘The word intimacy means ‘profoundly interior.’ It comes from the superlative form of the Latin word inter, meaning ‘within.’ It could be translated ‘within-est,’ or ‘most within.’ In our intimate relationships, the ‘most within’ dimensions of ourselves and the other are engaged’. Therefore, it is a feeling that we might recognise in a moment with a partner, or a particular landscape, or the thoughts evoked by an object like a photograph, and most often these feelings concern ourselves and other people. While accepting that most photography (and human experience for that matter) is not intimate, snapshot and documentary portraiture often record moments of intimacy, revealing for example, the expression of another person’s face and subverting the barriers that usually mask our inner selves. But the photography in this project refused the relatively easy option of portraiture. Instead, in its final form, it sought to develop responses from the viewer to unusual conjunctions of skin and cloth – that evoke looking, touch and shape – and by implication suggest more historic ideas of intimacy than those commonly based on sexual intimacy today. The work shows that intimacy has aspects to it that are uncanny (in the Freudian sense), that intimacy does not always have to be invested in interpersonal human relationships, and that keeping aspects of oneself from others and knowing oneself can offer a richer experience of intimacy than giving oneself in the all-or-nothing tradition of Romanticism. The research also demonstrates that scholarly and common notions of intimacy – based respectively on interpersonal relationships and sex – are often reductive and partial within a desire for an authentic experience of intimacy, because they are usually based on the binary oppositions that underpin Western thought. To counter these tendencies, the theory and practice in this research evidences a ‘middle way’ – centred on androgyny within male psychosexual development, expressed through the psychological theories of the desire between the Self and Other – that can collapse the binary oppositions of masculine/feminine and thereby offer new insights into gender, self and interpersonal relationships. These ideas are suggested by the studio practice that constitutes the final body of artworks – the Intimacy Series – plus the analytical and theoretical research that supports my conclusions, and my observations of the responses to the works by audiences at exhibitions. In my experience, the mix of pleasure, intrigue and uncertainty that audiences exhibit suggests that they are often ‘caught’ by the Lacanian gaze of the artworks, which suggests a more complex range of characteristics within intimacy than is usually recognized today.

In this qualitative study, gay and straight men's experiences in male friendships were examined in order to explore differences and similarities between the participants' construction of masculinities. A social constructionist approach to understanding human experience was utilised, through an examination of in-depth interviews with 21 men (10 straight, 11 gay). The data was interpreted following a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, utilising the lens of Gestalt therapy theory, resulting in a series of essence statements, which expressed the underlying structures of the participants' experiences of masculinity. These findings revealed constructions of masculinities which were explored in relation to the participants' close male friendships and support seeking processes. A major finding was the importance of shame as a regulating variable in the gay and straight participants' construction of their masculinity. Shame or avoidance of shame appeared to be linked to the influence of a dominant heterosexual masculine ideology. It was revealed that whilst dominant masculine ideologies were experienced as powerful 'background' beliefs, the participants were able to construct contemporaneous masculinities that were contextual and field sensitive. Thus the concept of masculinities appears inherently fluid, and changeable. Furthermore, the results indicated different definitions of friendship which appeared to be related to different constructions of masculinity. The gay participants' friendships were described in interpersonal terms compared with the straight participants' friendships which appeared more focussed on external activities. The experience of shame, or fear of the potential for shame emerged as important variables that influenced intimacy, closeness and distance in gay and straight participants' friendships and their ability to seek and receive emotional social support. The finding that men appear to seek help from male friends in ways that are consistent with their constructions of masculinity has important implications for fostering supportive interactions between men. Furthermore, an understanding of men's experiences regarding what constitutes a supportive interaction and defines intimacy appears important as these views will most likely guide their decision making processes about from whom and how they might seek support. Finally, the possibilities for constructing new masculinities are explored as men's friendships and support behaviour are both influenced by, and in turn influence, the construction of masculinities.

<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Title: ”Dating Online. Self-Marketing Through Sweden's Biggest Dating Site – Match.com”</p><p>Number of pages: 34</p><p>Author: Joanna Stokowska</p><p>Tutor: Amelie Hössjer</p><p>Course: Media and Communication Studies C</p><p>Period: Autumn term 2005</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication Studies, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University</p><p>Purpose/aim: The aim of this paper is to study the online dating phenomenon. The questions to be answered are: how do people form their personal profiles? Does the method of how one markets him/herself, within an online dating service, vary among different age groups?</p><p>Material/method: 100 personal profiles have been downloaded and analysed from Sweden's largest dating website, Match.com. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used when analysing the data.</p><p>Main results: Match.com gives clear instructions on how to form a profile. The company makes sure that the content of all the personal sites fulfils the company’s policy. The differences in how people in different age groups and of different gender advertise themselves, through profiles, are relatively small. Most of individuals tend to focus on descriptions of their personality, favourite activities and body. Interaction through the profiles (seen as channels) tends to have an intimate form.</p><p>Keywords: Dating online, personal profiles, mediated intimacy, mediated interaction.</p>