Using a poststructural framework, this article critically examines how young men (13-15 years) actively fashion embodied masculine subjectivities by taking up available subject positions within discourse. The study employed semistructured focus groups and interviews with thirty-two participants from two locations in a large urban Canadian city. It is argued that young men are confronted with competing discourses of masculinity where they are simultaneously incited to work on and transform their bodies into culturally recognizable ideals, while at the same time remaining distant and aloof to the size, shape, and appearance of their bodies. Resolving this double-bind of masculinity, it is argued, remains a central task of reproducing the privileges of masculinity. This study demonstrated that young men take up, deploy, and perform discourses of normalcy, healthy active living, heterosexuality, and individualism as technologies of the self in negotiating the double-bind of masculinity. This study extends our knowledge base on the embodied experiences of young men.
In addition to challenging ideological assumptions about developmental time which may alienate youth with chronic illnesses, the results from this study suggest that attending to youth's temporal anxieties and future concerns may ultimately enhance the transition process for youth with CF and CHD.
In this paper we discuss how photovoice and words-alone methods used in a study with young people living in communities on the west coast of Newfoundland, Canada helped tell different stories of rurality. Instead of the dominant narrative of rural decline in the focus groups and interviews with youth, through photovoice young people talked more positively about their home places. Drawing on recent work on emotional geographies and combining realist and constructionist frameworks, we argue that the photographs represent culturally accepted and appropriate ways of thinking, talking and feeling about place, and that these shared affective practices provide a sense of community and continuity in a context of uncertainty in fisheries communities. It is our contention that such shared practices offer a strategy to deal with, indeed to heal, the damaging impact of the near extinction of fisheries stocks by maintaining a stable sense of self and place.
ABSTRACT. There is a growing body of research documenting the impacts of fisheries collapses on communities and fisheries workers. Less attention has been paid to the sustainable use of fisheries resources so that future generations have access to these resources, or to the creation of mechanisms that might contribute to the intergenerational continuity of recruitment of fisheries workers and the regeneration of fisheries communities. In this paper we report on young people's experiences and perceptions of fisheries employment in Newfoundland and Labrador to deepen our understanding of the resiliency of small-scale fisheries. We found that these young people's experiences of fisheries employment are extremely limited and their perceptions of the quality of fisheries work is primarily negative while, at the same time, they recognize its importance to the vitality of their communities. We argue that stock collapses and subsequent downsizing and regulatory changes in the industry have disrupted intergenerational continuity in fisheries work and shaped how young people view their communities and options.
The novel use of nanofibers as a physical barrier between blood and medical devices has allowed for modifiable, innovative surface coatings on devices ordinarily plagued by thrombosis, delayed healing, and chronic infection. In this study, the nitric oxide (NO) donor S‐nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) is blended with the biodegradable polymers polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and polylactic acid (PLA) for the fabrication of hemocompatible, antibacterial nanofibers tailored for blood‐contacting applications. Stress/strain behavior of different concentrations of PHB and PLA is recorded to optimize the mechanical properties of the nanofibers. Nanofibers incorporated with different concentrations of GSNO (10, 15, 20 wt%) are evaluated based on their NO‐releasing kinetics. PLA/PHB + 20 wt% GSNO nanofibers display the greatest NO release over 72 h (0.4–1.5 × 10−10 mol mg−1 min−1). NO‐releasing fibers successfully reduce viable adhered bacterial counts by ≈80% after 24 h of exposure to Staphylococcus aureus. NO‐releasing nanofibers exposed to porcine plasma reduce platelet adhesion by 64.6% compared to control nanofibers. The nanofibers are found noncytotoxic (>95% viability) toward NIH/3T3 mouse fibroblasts, and 4′,6‐diamidino‐2‐phenylindole and phalloidin staining shows that fibroblasts cultured on NO‐releasing fibers have improved cellular adhesion and functionality. Therefore, these novel NO‐releasing nanofibers provide a safe antimicrobial and hemocompatible coating for blood‐contacting medical devices.
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