This article analyses how emotio-spatial distances in informal caring are experienced by Finnish women who are employed and simultaneously caring for an ageing relative. The article's research questions are: how do spatial distance and proximity shape informal carers' emotional responses to caring? What kinds of emotion do spatial 'distance' or 'proximity' evoke in the interview accounts of informal carers? The article draws on theorisations regarding emotional geographies of care. The data consists of two focus group interviews with a total of 12 women who were combining employment with caring. The analysis shows that spatially proximate carers have difficulty detaching from caring, whereas spatially distant carers experience feelings of worry and insecurity regarding the well-being of their care partner. However, in some cases spatial distance also functions as a way for carers to set limits on the amount and intensity of care. The article illustrates the complex ways emotions enter and shape caringscapes, i.e. the spatio-temporal frameworks of care. The analysis also highlights gendered dynamics both among (potential) carers and in care partnerships, and how these dynamics are reflected across varying distances.
In 2017, Finnish celebrity Sini Ariell published a blog post titled "F*** this shit" in which she revealed her difficult feelings as a mother of a newborn baby. Attracting attention from Finnish media, the post went viral. Through the empirical analysis of affective reactions to the post on an anonymous online discussion board, we explore how the limits of the public expression of negative maternal feelings are negotiated and maintained, but also challenged. Our results highlight the normative, even punitive dynamics of the digital intimate public, as commenters on the discussion board often argued that struggles and unhappiness during motherhood should not be made public but dealt with in private. However, ambivalences and supportive comments suggested the possibility to challenge norms surrounding motherhood and widen the discussion of difficulties and inequalities in motherhood and family life. Based on our analysis, we argue that affective articulations of anger, anxiety and exhaustion may challenge the digital intimate public's "infrastructure of happiness", and they thus have political potential to disrupt the ideals of good motherhood and address the affective struggles that mothering often entails.
Tarkastelemme artikkelissamme kotihoidon työntekijöiden teknologian käyttämiseen liittyviä tunteita ja syitä niiden takana. Tutkimuskysymyksemme ovat: 1) Millaisia tunteita kotihoidon työntekijät liittävät työssä käyttämäänsä teknologiaan? 2) Millaisia syitä kotihoidon työntekijöiden tunteiden taustalta on havaittavissa? Artikkelimme perustuu vuonna 2019 kerättyyn kyselytutkimusaineistoon ja sen avokysymykseen, joka koskee työssä käytettyyn teknologiaan liittyviä tunteita. Tarkastelemme niiden 819 vastaajan vastauksia, jotka ovat ilmoittaneet pääasialliseksi toimipaikakseen kotihoidon. Analysoimme tutkimusaineiston aineistolähtöisellä sisällönanalyysillä. Analyysimme osoittaa, että vastauksissa painottuivat kielteisiksi mielletyt tunteet, kuten turhautuminen, epävarmuus ja suuttumus. Toisaalta aineistossa näkyi melko paljon myös myönteisiä tunteita, kuten iloa ja innostusta teknologiasta. Osa vastaajista kuvasi sekä myönteisiä että kielteisiä tunteita. Kielteiset tunteet eivät kuitenkaan kohdistu niinkään itse teknologiaan vaan sen käyttöön liittyviin olosuhteisiin, kuten teknologian toimimattomuuteen sekä kotihoidon heikkoihin työskentelyolosuhteisiin ja työntekijöiden aikapaineisiin.
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. Design/Methodology/Approach: Case study was applied as a research strategy. Local and national level statistics were used to explore the use of childcare services. Documents regarding the decision-making and administration of childcare in the city were analysed to distinguish the local policy changes during the time period. These documents include city budgets and records from the two municipal boards that have held the administrative responsibility of local childcare policy. The analysis of the data was conducted by using document analysis and feminist content analysis as a methodological framework. Findings:The results show that the overall development in local childcare policy has been towards cutbacks in childcare services and benefits, and towards the marketisation of childcare services. The city has also implemented new, locally specific childcare policies, which constitute a hybrid form of marketisation and neofamilism. Together these developments are creating a new local gender contract, which goes beyond the past previous traditional or modern models. This new local gender contract for women is defined as that of 'entrepreneurial homemaker'. Originality/Value: This paper contributes to the research on local social policy by identifying the role of local childcare policy in reshaping the gender contract in a Nordic context. This paper advances the theorisation of the concept of gender contract by introducing the 'entrepreneurial homemaker' model of gender contract.
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