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In 2016, by moving from armed struggle to collective reincorporation, Colombian women ex-guerrilleras of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) – the farianas – reconfigured the ‘combatant’ identity by leaving their weapons and engaging in post-war politics with their own feminist vision: insurgent feminism. Drawing upon feminist ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the north-east of Colombia in 2019 and 2022, this article has two interlinked objectives. First, through the lenses of embodiment and affects, it explores the challenges and contradictions of transiting from an armed organisation to a civilian identity for women militants. From there, the article then uses the continuum of militancy to explore the (ongoing) consolidation of farianas’ insurgent feminism and the tensions emerging in this endeavour. In doing so, the article contributes, theoretically, to the inclusion of emotions and embodiment in the theorisation of reincorporation and, empirically and politically, to the construction of knowledge and practice about insurgent feminism.
Inheritance provokes mixed emotions and feelings for people who engage in this ‘family practice’ (Monk, 2014; 2016). Inheritance can be a way of ‘doing’ and ‘displaying ‘family’ but can also be a way of un/making families (Edwards and Canning, 2023). The aim of this article is to explore how care experienced people ‘feel their way through’ (Ahmed, 2014) inheritance. We do this by triangulating findings from informal empirical research we undertook on social media with an analysis of the broader literature on inheritance contained within blogs, autobiographies and museum exhibitions about care experience. We make two key arguments. The first is that inheritance can be attributed as a source of feeling for care experienced people. We consider how our question on social media immediately sparked negative ‘emotional expressions’ (Bericat 2016), related to feelings of exclusion, loss and anger of inheritance not being of relevance to them. The quote in our article title – ‘Is this a joke?’ – was an expression from a person who responded to our research. Second, we argue that while marginalised and absent within orthodox inheritance practices, care experienced people are ‘feeling subjects’ (Bericat, 2016), who derive new forms and ways of creating and (re)imagining inheritance from the emotions associated with being ‘othered’ by inheritance practices. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s (2014: 4) question: ‘What do emotions do?’, we show that care experienced people ‘feel their way through’ and ‘do’ different things with the emotions they attribute to inheritance to forge new inheritances.
A case is made in Chapter Six that if any nation state is to be adjudged a ‘healthy society’, the analysis must be extended as a matter of urgency to incorporate analyses of unequal global relations. Reference is made both to shifts in the global economy of significance for health and health care beyond the English and UK experience, and to contemporary concerns around climate change. World systems theory is introduced to help theorise the linkages between high-income core, middle-income semi-peripheral and low-income peripheral countries.
This article discusses the emotional micro-politics of belonging and the ways this is negotiated and contested in the everyday space of the school by young people themselves. To do so, I draw on Clark’s micro-politics of emotions and Hochschild’s feeling rules to explore how power and status determine how everyday citizenship boundaries are drawn and felt. The empirical data come from 14 focus groups conducted in three secondary schools in Flanders, with 89 students aged between 13 and 19 years old. The results show that a sense of belonging was often constrained by a politics of exclusion influenced by societal norms and power dynamics, both inside and outside the school setting, which fostered feelings of fear, mistrust, resentment, and misrecognition among the youth. These experiences cultivated collective emotions and a dynamic sense of belonging, which involved forming social bonds with peers and teachers with whom they shared similarities, but also with people who were willing to embrace the differences.
In Chapter Five the diagnosis of the fractured society provides an expedient starting point for discussing the British government’s response to the COVID pandemic. A critique of government policy focuses on issues of delay, strategy, efficiency and effectiveness, and trust. It is argued that corruption was rife and that the visitation of COVID comprehensively exposed the wounds and fractures of UK society in the 21st century. In this sense it can be seen as a natural ‘breaching experiment’.
In the concluding Chapter Twelve attention is directed at the role of sociology in pursuing a post-fractured society. The six sociologies presented earlier are revisited, with special attention paid to foresight and action sociologies. It is argued that if sociologists as a community are to effectively address and engage with major contemporary problems around health, wellbeing and the notion of a healthy society, they must be prepared to commit to actively opposing the ideologies of vested interests.
Can society be healthy, and how? Is Britain a ‘healthy society’ in the 21st century?
When people ponder health, they usually consider the health of the individual, but individuals co-exist in a social environment so attention should be placed on the health of communities and populations.
Re-examining health, healthcare and societal health using the latest data and research, this book provides a clear, accessible account of the current state of play. Addressing definitions of health in individuals, communities and populations, definitions of society itself, changes in health over time and the contribution of healthcare to health and longevity, it also suggests ways of effectively tackling obstacles to improving health and healthcare in 21st century Britain.
Chapter One sets the scene by introducing the concepts of health and health care and goes on to consider historical and comparative data on international rates and causes of mortality. Low-, medium- and high-income countries are distinguished and their distinctive health profiles discussed. These data give a point of reference and departure for the ensuing chapters. Six types of sociology are also outlined, each offering its own agenda and approach to the study of health-related phenomena. This sextet includes ‘foresight’ and ‘action’ sociology, which call for an extension of orthodox sociological theory and research.
In the Introduction the complexity of defining and addressing the health of populations is discussed and it is argued that there is a need to see populations and societies as more than aggregates of individuals. This leads to a brief consideration of the concept of social structure and its causal powers, with a special emphasis on the role of social class. In considering people’s health, the importance of focusing on ‘condition’ as opposed to ‘opportunity’ is stressed and this is illustrated using a research study on social mobility in the UK. Working with the notion of a ‘healthy society’ is commended, and the foci and contents of the books’ chapters are indicated.
