1,721,069 research outputs found
Older adults’ experiences of ageing, sex and HIV infection in rural Malawi
No full textThis thesis contributes to understanding two demographically important phenomena: African ageing, and the ageing of the African HIV epidemic. Building on the body of interpretivist demography that privileges context and meanings, it explores older adults’ experiences of becoming old, sexuality and living with HIV in rural Malawi. The research uses a constructivist grounded theory framework. It is based primarily on data produced using repeat dependent interviews (N=135) with older men and women(N=43). These are supplemented by fieldwork observations, as well as data from a three-month multi-site pilot study, interviews with HIV support groups (N=3), and key informant interviews (N=19) and policy documents. The thesis identified sets of meanings surrounding old age and ways of discussing ageing that, taken together, formed an analytical framework. The framework is focused on the importance of maintaining an ‘adult’ identity and draws insights from sociological
and psychological identity theories. The adult identity was aligned with personhood. It was situated within the body-centred livelihood system of rural Malawi, and associated
with physical production. Old age was understood to limit productivity and thereby an individual’s adult identity. This thesis argues that ostensibly contradictory narratives
about ageing experiences can be understood as rhetorical strategies respondents employed to maintain their adult identities. A central tenet of the thesis is that the adult
identity (and its childlike counter identity) influenced older adults’ broader experiences and behaviours. This framework is used to explore ageing, as well as sex and HIV
infection. The grounded understandings of older adults’ experiences developed in the thesis are presented against dominant understandings of the situation of older adults
documented by the academe and in policy and programmatic arena emerging in Malawi. The findings highlight the centrality of wider experiences of ageing for older adults’
experiences of sex and HIV, as well as the broader importance of identity for understanding demographic behaviours and processes. In addition, they demonstrate
how grounded theory and repeat dependent interviewing can be used within demographic studies to produce nuanced analytical accounts of the experiences that are
most salient for the population of interest
HIV prevalence and sexual behaviour at older ages in rural Malawi
No full textResearch on HIV infection and sexual behaviour in sub-Saharan Africa typically focuses on individuals aged 15–49 years under the assumption that both become less relevant for older individuals. We test this assumption using data from rural Malawi to compare sexual behaviour and HIV infection for individuals aged 15–49 with individuals aged 50–64 and 65 and over years.Although general declines with age were observed, levels of sexual activity and HIV remained considerable: 26.7% and 73.8% of women and men aged 65þ reported having sex in the last year, respectively; men’s average number of sexual partners remained above one; and HIV prevalence is significantly higher for men aged 50–64 (8.9%) than men aged 15–49 (4.1%). We conclude that older populations are relevant to studies of sexual behaviour and HIV risk. Their importance is likely to increase as access to antiretrovirals in Africa increases. We recommend inclusion of adults aged over 49 years in African HIV/AIDS research and prevention efforts.<br/
Sex in older age in rural Malawi
No full textThis paper examines how older adults living in rural Malawi explain and understand their sex lives. We present sex in this setting as a field in which broader understandings of ageing, aged identities, and conceptions of person- or adulthood in older age are played out and constructed. Qualitative data were collected from men (N =20) and women (N =23) aged 50 to around 90 using in-depth multiple dependent interviews (N =135) between 2008 and 2010. The giving and receipt of sexual pleasure was considered natural and God-given. Primarily understood as a matter of ‘power’, sex was on the one hand, beneficial to older bodies, but on the other, not accessible to such bodies. Declining sexual frequency was associated with declining desire for sex, or frustration stemming from continued desire for sex. These discourses emerged from the way the ageing body was constructed as a weakened body, incompatible with understandings of adulthood based on physical productivity. Older men and women used sex to discursively respond to these challenges to their adulthood in two ways. Firstly, sex was used to confirm strength, physical productivity, and therefore, identity as an ‘adult’. Secondly, adulthood itself was redefined as being based on moral, rather than physical productivity, and refraining from sex was used to demonstrate wisdom, self-control and therefore their ‘adult’ identity. Our results provide in-depth understanding of the ways constructions of ageing and sex can influence complex experiences of marital and non-marital sex in older age. We contribute to debates on sexuality in the gerontological literature by moving discussion beyond the presentation of continued sexuality as somehow exceptional or an indicator of successful ageing. Finally, in a setting of considerable HIV prevalence at older ages, our results challenge a preoccupation with fertility and chronological age in the collection of sexual health data in Africa
Examining the Notion of Informed Consent and Lessons Learned for Increasing Inclusion Among Marginalised Research Groups
No full textThis chapter examines some of the barriers to obtaining informed consent to participate in research studies from those who are deemed vulnerable, disadvantaged, marginalised and underrepresented in research. First, the chapter examines the underlying principles of informed consent, before examining the challenges presented by formalised and regulated informed consent procedures in contexts in which data collection processes are fluid and potential research participants have differing needs. Finally, the chapter examines the notions of trust and researcher responsibility and their significance for negotiating and maintaining a non-formalised form of consent. We argue that these procedures serve to enhance, rather than diminish, participant autonomy.In order to illustrate the challenges and solutions of obtaining informed consent, we present research carried out with a group of predominately African migrants aged 50 and older, and living with HIV in a socio-economically disadvantaged area of East London, UK. We examine the challenges presented by utilising standardised, informed consent procedures, by which respondents to an anonymous questionnaire and participants in a series of focus group discussions were required to give written and signed consent. The case study illustrates how underlying assumptions about the nature and acceptability of approaches to verifying consent for research participation can exclude or include participation from populations who are typically excluded for research. Here, adults with uncertain immigration status, poor literacy, poor English language, poor mental and physical health, felt stigmatised or suspicious of the consenting requirements. Drawing on our experiences, we argue that the model of written informed consent, in some cases can and where possible, should be exchanged for other forms of informed consent such as implied consent in order to include groups that we often know the least about, such as marginalised groups
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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