Social and Psychological Studies

It is fair to say that the relationship between intersectionality theories and new materialisms has been characterized by tensions. Intersectional approaches have emphasized the multi-faceted positioning of subjects in relation to the classificatory power of socially constructed identity categories. Meanwhile, feminist new materialisms have foregrounded the agency of matter and argued for the relational becoming of human bodies, subjectivities, and differences beyond predefined classifications of identity. In this article we reach beyond understanding theories of intersectionality and new materialisms as mutually oppositional or exclusive. Expanding on the efforts of several feminist theorists to consider intersectionality in increasingly processual and relational terms, we propose a way of intersecting the concept of intersectionality with new materialisms. This approach 1) foregrounds the situated emergence and relatedness of embodied subjectivities and social differences and 2) draws increasing attention to the material and other-than-human elements involved in the relational emergence of intersectional differences and power relations. Our specific contribution to considering intersectionality in terms of processes and co-constitutive relations is the concept of "the middle", drawn mostly from Erin Manning and Brian Massumi. We examine social differences as resulting from repeated middles of relationally re-forming elements in connection to data gathered during an experimental embroidery study-circle organized for gender studies students at a Finnish university.

This special issue aims to rethink death, dying and mourning through theoretical and methodological modes of queering. These modes are mobilised under three overarching themes: (1) queer (necro)politics, which focuses not only on regimes and technologies that subjugate “life to the power of death” (Mbembe 2003, 39), while rendering some lives more grievable than others, but also, on queer modes of resistance; (2) posthuman ethico-politics of death, which seeks to problematise and undermine human exceptionalism, while exploring human/nonhuman relationalities in the context of death and dying; and (3) queering death and mourning, which concentrates on nonnormative practices of remembering and mourning the dead.

Situated within feminist technoscience studies and affect theory, this article explores the methodological specificities of working with Drosophila Melanogaster, commonly known as fruit flies. Based on a year of participatory observation in a fly lab, the article challenges the modernist imaginaries of laboratory work as disembodied, detached and objective. It suggests that laboratory work is instead an interactive, embodied and affective process that takes place in proximity between human and non-human, subject and object. The article therefore contributes to earlier feminist science studies arguing that doing science is an interactive, procedural, socio-cultural phenomenon. However, while most such previous works focus on issues such as connections, companionship, love and empathy, this article asks what  ethodological contributions can come from experiencing the intensity of more than human encounters that inspire undesirable feelings such as disgust.

In this article I explore human and transgenic fruit fly relations in the laboratory and in relation to everyday practices of waste management. I rely on ethnographic material collected from one year of participatory observation in an Alzheimer's laboratory in Sweden, in which scientists work with Drosophila Melanogaster, commonly known as fruit flies. Grounding myself within new materialism, posthuman theories and queer theories, I explore queer ecologies of death in the lab as a material-discursive phenomenon. I discuss how heteronormative and humanistic ideologies about 'purity' and 'pure Nature' shape the space of the laboratory and regulate waste management practices. However, as I present, the materiality of the living and dead matter problematises such fantasies of purity and pre-described categories of laboratory waste. Flies' bodies, living and nonliving, cross the boundaries between inside and outside, natural and unnatural/artificial, safe and hazardous waste, and life and death, creating queer ecologies of death. Queer ecologies of death suggest new modes of thinking about agency, (non)human and (non)living within the context of laboratory waste management that go beyond the limits of human exceptionalism and modernist hierarchical binary logic that is essential to and constitutive of the notion of purity and the imaginary of a pure nature out there.

This introduction to the Queer Death Studies special issue explores an emerging transdisciplinary field of research. This field critically, (self-)reflexively and affirmatively investigates and challenges conventional normativities, assumptions, expectations, and regimes of truths that are brought to life and made evident by current planetary scale necropolitics and its framing of death, dying and mourning in the contemporary world. It is set against the background of traditional engagements with the question of death, often grounded in Western hegemonic and normative ideas of dying, dead and mourning subjects and bodies, on the one hand; and on the other contemporary discourses on human and nonhuman death and extinction, directly linked to the environmental crisis, capitalist and post/colonial extractivist necropolitics, material and symbolic violence, oppression and inequalities, and socioeconomic , political and ecological unsustainabilities. By bringing together conceptual and analytical tools grounded in feminist materialisms and feminist theorising broadly speaking, queer theory and decolonial critique, the contributions in this special issue strive to advance queerfeminist methodologies and ontological, ethical and political understandings that critically and creatively attend to the problem of death, dying and mourning in the current environmental, cultural, and socio-political contexts.

Affective method (AM) is often discussed in relation to the affective turn, new materialism, and in particular the study of material-discursive and “affective processes in relation to a certain empirical study” (Knudsen & Stage, 2015, p.1). AM takes affective encounters and bodily responses as a crucial part of knowledge production; one that can formulate new questions, research agendas, and modes of data collection and analyses (Knudsen & Stage, 2015). Affective methodology takes emotions and bodily affects such as love, disgust, intensity and desire seriously because such responses and resonances expose ethical dilemmas that are part of knowledge production processes, while simultaneously offering other modes of ethics (Mehrabi, 2018; 2016). Such methodologies are particularly essential for inclusion within the context of science and technology, which are often understood to be objective, disembodied and value free.

Alcohol abuse is generally regarded as a major risk factor for antisocial problem behaviour among adolescents. On the other hand, personal coping strategies hypothetically can be seen as protective of alcohol-related behaviour problems. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of sense of coherence (SOC) on alcohol-related behavioural problems in an SOC-alcohol intoxication model. The method of study was a cross-sectional, school-based questionnaire study of 4,305, 16- and 19-year-old adolescents. We found that both a SOC and the frequency of alcohol intoxication were independently associated with alcohol-related behavioural problems. Our model shows that the combination of these two independent factors amplifies them considerably, and adolescents with a strong SOC, despite frequent intoxication, were protected to a large degree from experiencing alcohol-related problems.

Background Social capital has lately received much attention in health research. The present study investigated whether two measures of subjective social capital were related to psychosomatic symptoms, musculoskeletal pain, and depression in a large population of Swedish adolescents. Methods A total of 7757 13-18 year old students anonymously completed the Survey of Adolescent Life in Vestmanland 2008 which included questions on sociodemographic background, neighbourhood social capital, general social trust, and ill health. Results Low neighbourhood social capital and low general social trust were associated with higher rates of psychosomatic symptoms, musculoskeletal pain, and depression. Individuals with low general social trust had more than three times increased odds of being depressed, three times increased odds of having many psychosomatic symptoms, and double the odds of having many symptoms of musculoskeletal pain. Conclusions The findings make an important contribution to the social capital - health debate by demonstrating relations between social capital factors and self-reported ill health in a young population.

Feelings of rejection and humiliation in interpersonal interaction are strongly related to aggressive behavior. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between social status, shaming experiences, gender and adolescent aggressive behavior by using a status–shaming model. A population-based sample of 5,396 adolescents aged from 15 to 18 completed a questionnaire that asked questions regarding psychosocial background, shaming experiences, social status of family, peer group and school and involvement in physical or verbal aggression at school. Shaming experiences, i.e. being ridiculed or humiliated by others, were strongly related to aggressive behavior. Social status and shaming were related in the prediction of aggressive behavior, suggesting that a person's social status may influence the risk for taking aggressive action when subjected to shaming experiences. Medium social status seemed to have a protective function in the association between shaming experiences and aggression. This study confirms the importance of further evaluation of the role of perceived social status and shaming experiences in the understanding of aggressive behavior. Moreover, the results indicate the need for different kinds of status measures when investigating the associations between status and behavior in adolescent populations. The results may have important implications for the prevention of bullying at school as well as other deviant aggressive behavior among adolescents. Aggr. Behav. 35:1–13, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Inclusion of emergency contraception in national family planning programmes is consistent with international agreements that countries should strive to ensure access to a wide range of contraceptive methods and promote voluntary, informed choice. Yet in 2005, USAID/Peru requested that its NGO grantees in Peru take a ''neutral'' position on emergency contraception in activities or materials that involve its funds. For many decades, donor countries have viewed conservative religious forces in low-income countries as an obstacle to expanding family planning programmes. Today, however, far-right organisations in the United States are having an unprecedented influence on US public policy, including in countries such as Peru. This article analyses shifts in USAID/Peru's policy on emergency contraception in Peru since 1992. In Peru today, there is widespread official and public support for making emergency contraception available. Given USAID's long support for family planning internationally and in Peru, the current policy appears to be the result of attacks by US far-right organisations carried out in synergy with sympathetic US public officials and anti-choice Peruvian allies. A2007 Reproductive Health Matters. All rights reserved.

This article examines Peru's population policy since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development and assesses to what extent its policies and programmes have affected reproductive health and rights. It is drawn from data collected during ongoing monitoring of sexual and reproductive health policies and programmes in Peru since 1998 for the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE). Accomplishments since 1994 in Peru demonstrate good faith on the part of the government and foreign donors to make progress towards fulfilling the ICPD agenda by addressing key reproductive health concerns and promoting women's rights. Unfortunately, this progress has not been consistent. It has been overshadowed by two periods of anti-choice policies and interventions. The first, in 1996-97 under the Fujimori government, was a demographic approach that used numerical targets and undue pressure on women to accept sterilisation as the government's main poverty reduction strategy, which led to documented abuses. The second, in 2001-03 under the Toledo government, was a far-right approach that worked to limit access to essential services, including emergency contraception, condoms and post-abortion care. In spite of their contradictory nature, these two policy approaches have been the greatest obstacles to making long-lasting improvements to reproductive health and rights in Peru. A 2004 Reproductive Health Matters. All rights reserved.

Background: Despite evidence showing that adolescent-friendly health services (AFSs) increase young people's access to these services, health systems across the world are failing to integrate this approach. In Latin America, policies aimed at strengthening AFS abound. However, such services are offered only in a limited number of sites, and providers' attitudes and respect for confidentiality have not been addressed to a sufficient extent. Methods: The aim of this study was to explore the mechanisms that triggered the transformation of an 'ordinary' health care facility into an AFS in Ecuador. For this purpose, a realist evaluation approach was used in order to analyse three well-functioning AFSs. Information was gathered at the national level and from each of the settings including: (i) statistical information and unpublished reports; (ii) in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with policy makers, health care providers, users and adolescents participating in youth organisations and (iii) observations at the health care facilities. Thematic analysis was carried out, driven by the realist evaluation approach, namely exploring the connections between mechanisms, contexts and outcomes. Results: The results highlighted that the development of the AFSs was mediated by four mechanisms: grounded self-confidence in trying new things, legitimacy, a transformative process and an integral approach to adolescents. Along this process, contextual factors at the national and institutional levels were further explored. Conclusion: The Ministry of Health of Ecuador, based on the New Guidelines for Comprehensive Care of Adolescent Health, has started the scaling up of AFSs. Our research points towards the need to recognise and incorporate these mechanisms as part of the implementation strategy from the very beginning of the process. Although contextually limited to Ecuador, many mechanisms and good practices in these AFS may be relevant to the Latin American setting and elsewhere.

Background: The renewed interest in community participation in health research is linked to its potential for bridging gaps between research and practice. Its main attributes are the generation of knowledge that can lead to socially robust, long-lasting solutions and the creation of a co-learner relationship between researchers and research users. Following this philosophy, Ecohealth has evolved into a specialized framework for participatory research on the impact of pollution on ecosystems and human health. However, its principles pose considerable challenges. Its outcomes are strongly influenced by contextual factors that are impossible to control for ahead of time. This paper describes how the Ecohealth principles were applied to an epidemiological study of heavy metals exposure among indigenous communities of the Peruvian Amazon. It illustrates how knowledge generated from participatory research does not necessarily imply solving a public health problem. This study aimed to contribute to the understanding of the benefits and barriers of following the basic principles of the Ecohealth approach, and assist researchers working in similar contexts. Research process: Based upon their personal experience as participant observers, the authors describe the research process; then, they discuss the most important challenges faced, their implications, and the attempted strategies for resolution. Challenges: Challenges were grouped into four themes: (1) building trust; (2) one partnership, many stakeholders, multiple agendas; (3) being a researcher; and (4) communicating complex and unexpected findings. Conclusions: Integrating the principles of transdisciplinarity and participation posed a series of challenges to the research process that were difficult, and sometimes impossible to overcome. However, positive outcomes from this experience were the lessons learned by the different actors. Despite the lack of immediate action, it is expected that useful interventions to prevent and control lead exposure in the Corrientes population will be implemented in the medium term.