Rewriting the history of Chinese families in nineteenth-century Australia.

The nineteenth-century Chinese population in Australia was made up mostly of men, drawing many commentators to the conclusion these men faced an absence of family life, resulting in prostitution, gambling, opium use and other so-called vices. Recent research has, however, expanded and complicated our knowledge of Chinese families in New South Wales and Victoria, particularly concerning the extent to which Chinese men and white Australian women formed intimate relationships. This article traces the origins of the misconceptions about Chinese families in nineteenth-century Australia, and considers how new directions in scholarship over the past decade are providing methods for enlarging our knowledge. It argues that instead of being oddities or exceptions, Chinese-European families were integral to the story of Australia's early Chinese communities.

The two worlds of race revisited: a meditation on race in the age of Obama.

Nearly fifty years ago, the American Academy organized a conference and two issues of its journal "Daedalus" on the topic of "The Negro American." The project engaged top intellectuals and policy-makers around the conflicts and limitations of mid-1960s liberalism in dealing with race. Specifically, they grappled with the persistent question of how to integrate a forced-worker population that had been needed but that was socially undesirable once its original purpose no longer existed. Today, racism has been discredited as an idea and legally sanctioned segregation belongs to the past, yet the question the conference participants explored -- in essence, how to make the unwanted wanted -- still remains. Recent political developments and anticipated demographic shifts, however, have recast the terms of the debate. Gerald Early, guest editor for the present volume, uses Barack Obama's election to the presidency as a pretext for returning to the central question of "The Negro American" project and, in turn, asking how white liberalism will fare in the context of a growing minority population in the United States. Placing his observations alongside those made by John Hope Franklin in 1965, Early positions his essay, and this issue overall, as a meditation on how far we have come in America to reach "the age of Obama" and at the same time how far we have to go before we can overcome "the two worlds of race."

Doing psychology, doing inequality: rethinking the role of psychology in creating and maintaining social inequality.

The relationship between psychological disciplines and inequality has been a subject of great scholarly interest in the last several decades. Most works on the subject analyze macro features of psychological disciplines (mainly their evaluative tools, theoretical assumptions, and disciplinary power) and criticize them as biased against minorities. This paper re-examines the relationship between psychology and inequality from a micro, face-to-face standpoint. Drawing on close observations of 33 placement committees in which professionals from various psychological fields (psychology, social work, school counseling, etc.) discuss children's eligibility for special education services, it portrays the actual doing of psychology as an inconsistent and malleable endeavor. In contrast to the macro-oriented research on the relationship between psychology and inequality, it shows that in actual face-to-face interactions, professionals use different types of folk concerns that often exchange formal evaluative criteria, theoretical assumptions or professional authority in final placement decisions. By revealing the different folk considerations professionals use to sort and analyze working- versus middle-class parents, this project adds an essential layer to scholarly understanding of the relationship between psychological practice and inequality.

Changing conceptions of mental distress among Somalis in Finland.

This article examines how the conceptions, expressions and treatment of mental distress are changing among Somalis living in Finland. The data derive from two focus group interviews with Somali seniors and two individual interviews with Islamic healers. Conditions conceptualized by the Finnish biomedical system as mental disorders, are seen by most Somalis as spiritual and/or social problems. Somali migrants face new sources of suffering and new ways of interpreting them. Consequently, traditional conceptions of mental distress both persist and change. Islamic understandings of healing, including notions of jinn spirits and treatment, continue to be important in exile.

Communal violence and child psychosocial well-being: qualitative findings from Poso, Indonesia.

This exploratory study examined the health care system in relation to communal violence-related psychosocial wellbeing in Poso, Indonesia, as preparation for conducting a cluster randomized trial of a psychosocial intervention. We employed focus groups with children (N = 9), parents (N = 11), and teachers (N = 8), as well as semi-structured interviews with families affected by communal violence (N = 42), and key informants (N = 33). An interrelated set of problems was found that included poverty, an indigenized trauma construct, morally inappropriate behavior, inter-religious tensions, and somatic problems. Participants emphasized social-ecological interactions between concerns at different systemic levels, although problems were mainly addressed through informal care by families. The programmatic and research implications of these findings are discussed.

Moral transgression, disease and holistic health in the Livingstonia Mission in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Malawi.

This article examines ideas of morality and health, and connections between moral transgression and disease in both Scottish missionary and Central African thought in the context of the Livingstonia Mission of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in Malawi during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By concentrating on debates, conflicts and co-operation between missionaries and Africans over the key issues of beer drinking and sexual morality, this article explores the emergence of a new "moral hygiene" among African Christian communities in Northern Malawi.

Lessons from history: why race and ethnicity have played a major role in biomedical research.

Before any citizen enters the role of scientist, medical practitioner, lawyer, epidemiologist, and so on, each and all grow up in a society in which the categories of human differentiation are folk categories that organize perceptions, relations, and behavior. That was true during slavery, during Reconstruction, the eugenics period, the two World Wars, and is no less true today. While every period understandably claims to transcend those categories, medicine, law, and science are profoundly and demonstrably influenced by the embedded folk notions of race and ethnicity.

'Individual' harms, Community 'harms': reconciling Indigenous values with drug harm minimisation policy.

This paper uses data on the social context of drug-related harms in the Melbourne Aboriginal Community to inform an alternative model of harm minimisation, and discusses its potential application in programme development. The paper involves a secondary analysis of interviews and focus group discussions with 62 Community members who participated in a qualitative injecting drug use study conducted at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service in Melbourne. Individuals and families within the Melbourne Aboriginal Community experience significant levels of harm associated with injecting drug use, and face restricted access to appropriate service options. This experience of drug use contributes to a broad range of values within the Community around harm minimisation approaches to programme delivery. We propose a fundamentally distinct harm minimisation model which explicitly acknowledges this range of conflicting values, and reflects the need for a breadth of services and programmes that address these tensions. Policies and funding must support Aboriginal Communities to negotiate through these conflicting Community values to actively create spaces in the service system for both using and non-using Community members. This includes the development of regional approaches which articulate an appropriate mix of services and the roles of Aboriginal and mainstream services in their delivery.

Teresa Urrea: Mexican mystic, healer, and apocalyptic revolutionary.

This article is a study of the mystical and apocalyptic dimensions of Teresa Urrea. As explained in this article, Urrea's mystical experiences and visions are unique for their connection with a propheticapocalyptic and political worldview. This apocalyptic dimension is more than a communication of a hidden message or spiritual world; it also includes a reading of history that is catastrophic and discontinuous. The crisis and terror of history are given expression in Urrea's mystical and apocalyptic pronouncements. In particular, the chaotic and oppressive circumstances of Mexican society during the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz was confronted and denounced in Urrea's mystical and apocalyptic ministry. This apocalyptic healer castigated those culpable or even complicit with the injustices affecting the indigenous communities of Mexico during the late nineteenth century. In the case of Urrea, the transformation and healing of Church and society was an important aspect of her spiritual, healing powers. Because Urrea possessed neither arms nor the weapon of the pen, her sole weapon became her mystical experiences and the insight and healing powers that flowed from them. People of Mexico­especially indigenous groups­began to flock to her hoping that she would bring God's presence to the troubled and chaotic circumstances of their lives. Her compassion and tenderness for the afflicted as well as the apocalyptic expectations that she stirred up among the indigenous groups of Northern Mexico were enough to get this mystical-political Mexican mestiza exiled from her homeland.

The African American experience in the Islamic faith.

Disparity of health outcomes has been identified as a key concern in the health of Americans. Marginalization of the African American population may be a contributing factor. Identification of health protectors may prove key in decreasing disparities. The effect of spirituality on health is discussed. A historical overview of the African American experience in the Islam faith, from the Nation of Islam to universal Islam, is presented. A systematic assessment of the Islamic faith, with emphasis on the African American Muslim, was conducted as an assessment for a Community Health Nursing class. Leininger's Sunrise Model of Culture Care Diversity and Universality, with the ethnonursing model of data collection, served as the framework for data collection and analysis. The Islamic faith was noted to offer holistic direction for a "way of life" that promotes health and harmony of the mind, body, and soul. Implications for research were discussed.