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    Palliative Care, Intimacy, and Sexual Expression in the Older Adult Residential Care Context: "Living until You Don't"
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2022-10-12) Cook C; Henrickson M; Schouten V
    Commonly, frail older adults move to residential care, a liminal space that is their home, sometimes a place of death, and a workplace. Residential facilities typically espouse person-centred values, which are variably interpreted. A critical approach to person-centred care that focuses on social citizenship begins to address issues endemic in diminishing opportunities for intimacy in the end-of-life residential context: risk-averse policies; limited education; ageism; and environments designed for staff convenience. A person-centred approach to residents’ expressions of intimacy and sexuality can be supported throughout end-of-life care. The present study utilised a constructionist methodology to investigate meanings associated with intimacy in the palliative and end-of-life care context. There were 77 participants, including residents, family members and staff, from 35 residential facilities. Analysis identified four key themes: care home ethos and intimacy; everyday touch as intimacy; ephemeral intimacy; and intimacy mediated by the built environment. Residents’ expressions of intimacy and sexuality are supported in facilities where clinical leaders provide a role-model for a commitment to social citizenship. Ageism, restrictive policies, care-rationing, functional care, and environmental hindrances contribute to limited intimacy and social death. Clinical leaders have a pivotal role in ensuring person-centred care through policies and practice that support residents’ intimate reciprocity.
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    Sex, story, and intersubjectivity : Bakhtin, Mahy, and patterns of imaginative acceptance : a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Massey University, Albany Campus, Aotearoa/New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2012) Warmington, Julian J P
    Margaret Mahy is a household name in Aotearoa/New Zealand and has achieved a state of prominence and celebration internationally for the consistency and depth of quality of her writing for children and adolescents. Mikhail Bakhtin is finding increasing favour amongst Western literary critics recently, coincidentally following the rise of children’s literature as an area of expansion of study and recognition of worth. One microcosm within that expanding field of study is the ideological nature of novels written for children and adolescents. Tracing the ideological within the novel is a major preoccupation of Bakhtin’s work. Children’s literature has always been a site of ideological struggle as has been demonstrated by Lurie, Zipes, and others, often with regard to classic children’s stories or the original nature of fairy tales and their retellings. At the date of publishing this study, however, few critics have applied a Bakhtinian reading to Mahy’s literature. The results, however, have been revealing and worthwhile for those who have. The two writers share many concerns and interests including recognition of the novel as a potent force for change. Supported initially by theoretical concepts offered by Jerome Bruner and Roland Barthes, who would appear to agree with Bakhtin and Mahy as to the importance of narrative and its openness to interpretation, this study then applies Bakhtinian theoretical ideas to a set of four of Mahy’s works. Following an introductory chapter, the first text to be studied in this light is The Changeover, followed by The Tricksters, Alchemy, and The Haunting. These texts share use of gothic imagery, occupation of the genre of magical realism, and a plot wherein young women negotiate the establishment of new identities within their families. Given the nature of such a setting and subject matter, each chapter examines in turn representations of relationships key to each narrative. This is with regard to the central themes of the nature of developing sexuality, stories written and told about self and other, and the process by which the messages and understanding of each are negotiated by the maturing protagonist.
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    AC/DC : a study in art, gender and popular culture : an exegesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Fine Arts at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2009) Syme, Gemma
    This thesis began as an artistic investigation into the politics of identity and sex/sexuality. The main ideas that run throughout this exegesis position themselves within Nicolas Bourriaud’s ideas in the book Postproduction, and also around a parafeminist ideology. Within this I focus on popular music culture, the body, video and performance art, and visual representations of the body. I pay particular attention to the female body, and look into ideas of conventional social norms and how people challenge these. I look into the work of several female artists who deal with the visual representation, and also look at figures within popular music culture. Within band culture I look into how the band can be used as a vehicle to disseminate ideas wider audience. Art and music culture have fed off of each other for generations and can provide valuable strategies within each context for thinking beyond social norms. The remix can be used as a tactic to decode forms and narratives in popular culture. This can be used to investigate representations of identity within a space that is in a constant state of flux. This is particularly useful as a parafeminist strategy because it allows a context in which to question, rather than answer. As a result of this study I have found that there are no concrete answers when it comes to identity and sexuality, but can conclude that conventional gender representations and signifiers of identity can be remixed into different scenarios and narratives that can challenge social norms.
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    "In our house we're not terribly sexual" : exploring the barriers to supporting intellectually disabled people in the area of sexuality and intimacy : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2008) Hamilton, Carol Anne
    How support workers enable, regulate or constrain the sexual expression of intellectually disabled people who live in service agency group homes is the subject of this thesis. A general literature search of what intellectually disabled people currently experience in their lives, including their experiences in the area of sexuality and intimacy, begins this investigation. Secondly, an extensive literature review of the support role, incorporating an appraisal of past and current issues related to the support position in general and to the area of sexuality support in particular, was completed. What intellectually disabled people themselves would like in relation to sexuality and intimacy support was included in this section. Thirdly, a review of research studies focussing on the operation of the support position within service agency systems was undertaken. These explorations revealed a high degree of reluctance on the part of workers to provide assistance in the sexuality area, despite a proven necessity for support to be made available to the intellectually disabled people they worked with. Review research studies suggested a variety of causal factors in explanation of this reluctance. These suggestions link to two meta-reason positions. Failure to prove support either stemmed from individual worker’s inactions due to ignorance and/or incompetence, or from wider systemic failures on the part of agency services to positively value and support this key service role in this area. However, little if any analysis of the possible influence of the broader social, emotional and cultural contexts, in which the concepts ‘sexuality’ and ‘(intellectual) disability’ are located, could be found in the studies reviewed. Eleven in-depth interviews were conducted with front-line support workers about their sexuality support practice. Preliminary readings of the interview texts revealed a similar reluctance on the part of the workers concerned to assist those they worked with in this area. Interview texts were then subjected to a post-modernist inspired, interpretive discursive analysis. This analysis uncovered and tracked how key power/knowledge effects inherent in the terms ‘(intellectual) disability’, ‘sexuality’, ‘gender’ and ‘desire’ inhering in the concept of an ‘ideal (sexual) couple’ interweave to shape the ‘no support necessary’ practice responses held in worker’s interview talk. From this exploration it is suggested that research studies of workers’ practices as an aspect of the promotion of change in support outcomes in the sexuality support area need to go beyond the parameters of recommendations that stem from considerations of either individual or systemic limitation alone. It remains a convincing point to suggest that poorly performing workers need retraining in this area and the overall value of the support role within service organizations needs reshaping. However, future research recommendations also need to engage more directly and effectively with the effects of the wider social and emotional “ideal (sexual) couple” ambiguities that also influence worker’s lack of assistance in this complex and sensitive support area. The use of a post-modern perspective as a helpful conceptual tool in unpacking the power these ambiguities hold within the support position is offered as a productive way forward for future research and practice development.