Racialising emotional labour and emotionalising racialised labour: Anger, fear and shame in social welfare by Yasmin Gunaratnam & Gail Lewis

It has been a while since we met up. How about we meet up next on 5th June from  4 pm – 6pm 

Room number -  Birley 0.2  Didsbury Campus

We are now based in Disbury Campus http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/travel/didsbury/

The paper  for this session is - Racialising emotional labour and emotionalising racialised labour: Anger, fear and shame in social welfare by Yasmin Gunaratnam & Gail Lewis. 

If you need a copy of the paper send me an email. 

If you have any papers/book chapters you would like to discuss do send them to us. 

St Dymphna Seminars

The St Dymphna Seminars was created in 2012 to provide a safe and open environment for those with an interest in mental health to  discuss issues relating to practice and experience. Inspired by the models of community care in traditions established at Gheel, the seminars aim to educate and reveal aspects of living with mental illness and perspectives on predominant models and treatments that are rarely shared. It is hoped that these seminars will also provide an arena for conflicting stances to witness the reality behind the ideology.

Here is t link to the website. 

http://theswordandfettereddevil.wordpress.com/about/

The Discrimination and Abuse of Trans* Women

"In spite of a more understanding & diverse world, often supported by robust equality legislation, Trans Women are still too often marginalised, discriminated against, excluded from services and from female spaces, at a much greater incidence than the general female population. They are too often denied services, excluded, abused, violently attacked and even murdered. ( At least one a day around the world) Our discussion today will introduce the basics of Trans Awareness, the incidents and causes of discrimination, the abuse & violence this community regularly suffers and the consequent devastating effect on individuals.We will also discuss how this unacceptable behaviour can be changed and suggest some actions for improving the acceptance and respect for all Trans* women. Although we are focusing on Women today, Trans Men, particularly at the start of their transition suffer equally from abuse, attack and murder."

Interesting discussion tonight. Here is a link to the recording of the event click here.  Some of the issues that came up were of sexuality, of how trans* women and men are thought of as asexual or their sexuality is not adequately understood, which problematises  the definition of homosexuality. 

The link between gender and sexuality was also explored and also how one's awareness of gender is formed earlier than one's idea of sexual orientation.  What are your thoughts? would love to hear from you. 

click here to visit the event page

Rachel Mann- Dazzling Darkness

To follow up from the previous post on the Dazzling Darkness event. Interesting discussion about finding meaning and G-d in darkness and a journey through self exploration and choosing between two rights and sometimes two wrongs. Rachel talks about her options and her all too human struggles which make her work universal.

Here is an audio recording of the event today. Rachel read out excepts from her book and a few of her poems.

click here to hear the recording

A big thank you to Reverend Rachel Mann for sharing her work with us and to all those who attended the event and participated.

Rachel Mann is a Church of England priest and is Resident Poet at Manchester Cathedral. Her work – on rock music, poetry and theology – has been widely published in magazines, anthologies and newsprint. 

Here is a link to her  website

Troubling Gender: The Question of Multiple Identities

Reminder - The deadline for abstracts for Troubling Gender: The Question of Multiple Identities, a one-day interactive conference at the on the topic of intersectional feminism, is 24th February 2013.

We are also very excited to announce the keynote speakers for the conference:

Dr. Bridget Byrne (University of Manchester), who is known for her work on the politics and culture of social class, ‘racial’ and gendered identities. In 2006, Byrne authored ‘White lives: the interplay of ‘race’, class and gender in everyday life’ which was based on her earlier research into the construction of white identity in Britain.

Professor Avtar Brah (Birkbeck, University of London), the author of the influential ‘Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities’ which offered a new approach to the study of ‘difference’ and ‘commonality’ within the context of feminism and anti-racism. More recently, Brah co-wrote the article, ‘Ain’t I A Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality’ with Professor Ann Phoenix, which explored the intersections of gender, ‘race’ and sexuality with social class and argued that studying these intersections allows a more complex and dynamic understanding than a focus on social class alone.

In addition to the paper sessions, we will also be running workshops addressing issues of gender and age, neo-colonialisms and transnationalism, and the identity politics of research, as well as a roundtable discussion. Registration for the conference will open at the beginning of March. The cost will be £5 - £8 on a sliding scale. This includes lunch and a post-conference drinks reception.

The Conference is on Friday 24th May at the University of Sheffield. For more information, visit: http://troublinggender.wordpress.com/

Rachel Mann- Dazzling Darkness

Dazzling Darkness  is a true story about searching for one's authentic self in the company of the Living God. Rachel Mann has died many 'deaths' in the process, not the least of which was a change of sex, as well as coming to terms with chronic illness and disability.

Through these experiences she has discovered that darkness is as much a positive place as a negative one, inhabited by the Living God – the Dark God, the Hidden God. This is the God many of us, because we try to make our lives safe and comfortable, are too afraid to meet. This is the God who is most alive in those things we commonly associate with the Dark – failure, loss and brokenness.

The Christian church has legitimated certain ways of talking about God – male, fatherly, monarchical and so on. Many believe these descriptors tell the exhaustive truth about God. In accepting the complexity of her sexuality and identity, Rachel Mann has been able to explore with a greater freedom what God might look like to an 'unconventional creature' like her.

Rachel Mann is a Church of England priest and is Resident Poet at Manchester Cathedral. Her work – on rock music, poetry and theology – has been widely published in magazines, anthologies and newsprint