Articles available via LSE Research Articles AbstractDrawing on interviews with 140 young British males, this paper explores the ways in which men talk about their own bodies and bodily practices, and those of other men. The specific focus of interest is a variety of body modification practices, including working out (at a gym) tattooing, piercing and cosmetic surgery. We want to argue, however, that the significance of this analysis extends beyond the topic of body modification to a broader set of issues concerned with the nature of men's embodied identities. In discussing the appearance of their bodies, the men we interviewed talked less about muscle and skin than about their own selves located within particular social, cultural and moral universes. The surfaces of their bodies were, as Mike Featherstone (1991) has argued, charged primarily with 'identity functions', allowing men to establish a place for themselves in contemporary society.Using a social psychological approach which can be characterised as a discursive analysis (Henwood, Gill & McLean, 1999;Lupton, 1998), this paper makes connections between men's private feelings and bodily practices, and broader social and cultural trends and relations. It shows that in talking about seemingly trivial questions such as whether to have one's nose pierced or whether to join a gym, men are actively engaged in constructing and policing appropriate masculine behaviours and identities; above all, in regulating normative masculinity. We identify five key discourses or 'interpretive repertoires' (Wetherell & Potter, 1992) which together construct the meanings for these men of attempts to modify the appearance of the body. The five discourses or repertoires were focused on the themes of individualism and 'being different'; libertarianism and the autonomous body; unselfconsciousness and the rejection of vanity; a notion of the 'well-balanced' and unobsessional self; and self-respect and the morally accountable body. Our analysis lends support to the claim that the body has become a new (identity) project in high/late/postmodernity (e.g. Shilling, 1993;Featherstone, 1991), but shows how fraught with difficulties this project is for young men who must simultaneously work on and discipline their bodies while disavowing any (inappropriate) interest in their own appearance. The analysis highlights the pervasive individualism of young men's discourses, and the absence of alternative ways of making sense of embodied experiences.2

In the context of current concerns about health inequalities among minority ethnic groups in the UK, this paper addresses perceptions of mental health services among members of an African-Caribbean community in a South England town. Efforts to reduce health inequalities must take account of the views of local community members on the sources of those inequalities and on local health services. The statistical existence of inequalities in diagnosis and treatment of African-Caribbeans in the UK is well-established, supported by sociological explanations of these inequalities which centre on social exclusion in a variety of forms: institutional, cultural and socio-economic. However, detailed studies of the perspectives of local communities on mental health issues and services have received less attention. In this case study of community perceptions of mental health services, we find that social exclusion comprises an explanatory framework which is repeatedly invoked by community members in describing their interaction with mental health services. Interviewees assert that experience and expectation of racist mis-treatment by mental health services are key factors discouraging early accessing of mental health services, and thereby perpetuating mental health inequalities. We conclude that participation and partnership are vital means by which to generate both the objective and subjective inclusion that are requirements for an accessible and appropriate health service.

Locating research informants in a multi AcknowledgementsOur greatest debt in this paper is to Flora Cornish, who edited the paper, and provided extensive critical comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript.We acknowledge the financial support of the Health Education Authority (now the Health Development Agency) (HEA/HDA) who funded the research. Pamela Gillies, former HEA research director, played the lead role in setting up the HEA's social capital and health research, and her intellectual leadership and support is gratefully acknowledged. Particular thanks to Moira Kelly, former HEA Research Manager, who played a key role in formulating the research proposal, in guiding the early stages of the research process and in chairing the Project Advisory Committee. It was Moira's idea that we should write this paper. Sarah Allen, Claudette Edwards, Antony Morgan and James Nazroo also served on our Project Advisory Committee, and their support is gratefully acknowledged Thanks must also be given to all those individuals who helped us in accessing research participants in our area of interest, without whom methodological reflections would not have been possible at all -in particular Bob Baker, African-Caribbean Outreach Worker, Luton Borough Council. Most of all, we would like to thank our team of research assistants whose reflections in a post-interview debriefing session allowed us to identify the different patterns that emerged in recruitment strategies within and between our communities of interest. These are Ambreen Shah, Claire O'Neill, Manzoor Khan and Shane Doheny. Thanks also go to Maria Macintyre and Nazreen Ali for their assistance.Despite our debt to these agencies and individuals, however, we emphasise that the ideas expressed in this paper are the personal views of the authors, and do not represent the views of the HEA/HDA, members of the Project Advisory Committee or other colleagues who have assisted us in various ways. 2Locating research informants in a multi-ethnic community: Ethnic identities, social networks and recruitment methods. AbstractObjectives: Recruitment of informants can 'make or break' social research projects, yet this has received little research attention. Drawing on our recent qualitative research into health and social capital in a multi-ethnic neighbourhood in South England, this paper presents a detailed analysis of the complexities encountered in recruiting research informants who described themselves as African-Caribbean, Pakistani-Kashmiri and White English.Methods: Three methods of recruitment were used: 1) advertisements and articles in local media, 2) institutional contacts through local voluntary organisations and 3) interpersonal contacts, referrals and snowballing. We compare and contrast the experiences of ethnically matched interviewers who conducted research amongst the three aforementioned ethnic groups. These experiences were recorded by means of lengthy interviewer 'debriefing questionnaires' that focused on factors that had served to help or hi...

This paper examines the impact of ethnic identity on the likelihood of peoples' participation in local community networks, in the context of recent policy emphasis on the participation of marginalised communities in such networks as a means of reducing health inequalities. Conceptually, the paper is located against the background of debates about possible links between health and social capital--defined in terms of grassroots participation in local community networks--and an interest in the way in which social exclusion impacts on social capital. The paper draws on lengthy semi-structured, open-ended interviews with 25 African-Caribbean residents of a deprived multi-ethnic area of a south England town. While African-Caribbean identity played a central role in peoples' participation in inter-personal networks, this inter-personal solidarity did not serve to unite people at the local community level beyond particular face-to-face networks. Levels of participation in voluntary organisations and community activist networks were low. Informants regarded this lack of African-Caribbean unity within the local community as a problem, saying that it placed African-Caribbean people at a distinct disadvantage--furthering their social exclusion through limiting their access to various local community resources. The paper examines the way in which the construction of ethnic identities--within a context of institutionalised racism at both the material and symbolic levels--makes it unlikely that people will view local community organisations or networks as representative of their interests or needs, or be motivated to participate in them. Our findings highlight the limitations of policies which simply call for increased community participation by socially excluded groups, in the absence of specific measures to address the obstacles that stand in the way of such participation.

Emphasis has been placed on the importance of the participation of socially excluded groups in local initiatives to reduce health inequalities in England, in `partnerships' with government. We examine potential obstacles to such participation through a case study of factors shaping local participation by residents of a deprived multi-ethnic area who describe themselves as Pakistani. We draw on three-hour interviews with 26 men and women, aged 15-67 years. Assuming that a sense of common identification is a precondition for participation in local community networks, we examine how the construction of Pakistani identities, within conditions of material and symbolic social exclusion, constrains the likelihood of widespread, representative local participation by Pakistani people in our local area of interest. No matter how significant a category such as `Pakistani' might be in statistical analyses of health inequalities, an epidemiological category of this nature cannot simply be `mapped' onto policy recommendations.