Papers by Elizabeth Smith
Culture, Health & Sexuality, 2011
To my family for your kindness, especially my mother Maureen Fisher and my sisters Tanya Ahmed an... more To my family for your kindness, especially my mother Maureen Fisher and my sisters Tanya Ahmed and Tamina Levy. Thanks to Mulka for being part of my life and to Yvonne and Meredith Johnson for being part of his. For providing the grounds for optimism, and even happiness, thanks to Sarah Franklin. ars who have shown in different ways how happiness is used to justify oppression. Feminist critiques of the figure of "the happy housewife," black critiques of the myth of "the happy slave," and queer critiques of the sentimentalization of heterosexuality as "domestic bliss" have taught me most about happiness and the very terms of its appeal. Around these specific critiques are long histories of scholarship and activism which expose the unhappy effects of happiness, teaching us how happiness is used to redescribe social norms as social goods. We might even say that such political movements have struggled against rather than for happiness. Simone de Beauvoir shows so well how happiness translates its wish into a politics, a wishful politics, a politics that demands that others live according to a wish. As she argued: "It is not too clear just what the word happy really means and still less what true values it may mask. There is no possibility of measuring the happiness of others, and it is always easy to describe as happy the situation in which one wishes to place them" ([1949] 1997: 28; second emphasis added). I draw on such critiques of happiness as a way of asking questions about the happiness wish. We need to draw on such critiques now, as a way of responding to the worldliness of this now. Why happiness, why now? We could certainly describe this now as a "happiness turn." The Promise of Happiness is written in part as a response to this turn. lo INTRODUCTION The Happiness Turn What do I mean by "the happiness turn"? It is certainly the case that numerous books have been published on the science and economics of happiness, especially from 2005 onward. 2 The popularity of therapeutic cultures and discourses of self-help have also meant a turn to happiness: many books and courses now exist that provide instructions on how to be happy, drawing on a variety of knowledges, including the field of positive psychology, as well as on (often Orientalist) readings of Eastern traditions, especially Buddhism. 3 It is now common to refer to "the happiness industry": happiness is both produced and consumed through these books, accumulating value as a form of capital. Barbara Gunnell (2004) describes how "the search for happiness is certainly enriching a lot of people. The feel-good industry is flourishing. Sales of self-help books and CDs that promise a more fulfilling life have never been higher." The media are saturated with images and stories of happiness. In the UK, many broadsheet newspapers have included "specials" on happiness and a BBC program, The Happiness Formula, was aired in 2006. 4 This happiness turn can be described as international; you can visit the "happy plant index" on the World Wide Web and a number of global happiness surveys and reports that measure happiness within and between nation states have been published. 5 These reports are often cited in the media when research findings do not correspond to social expectations, that is, when developing countries are shown to be happier than overdeveloped ones. Take the opening sentence of one article: "Would you believe it, Bangladesh is the happiest nation in the world! The United States, on the other hand, is a sad story: it ranks only 46th in the World Happiness Survey." 6 Happiness and unhappiness become newsworthy when they challenge ideas about the social status of specific individuals, groups, and nations, often confirming status through the language of disbelief. The happiness turn can also be witnessed in changing policy and governance frameworks. The government of Bhutan has measured the happiness of its population since 1972, represented as Gross National Happiness (GNH). In the UK, David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, talked about happiness as a value for government, leading to a debate in the media about New Labour and its happiness and "social well-being" agenda. 7 A number of governments have been reported to be introducing happiness and well-being lo I N T R O D U C T I O N as measurable assets and explicit goals, supplementing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with what has become known as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). 8 Happiness becomes a more genuine way of measuring progress; happiness, w e might say is, the ultimate performance indicator. Unsurprisingly, then, happiness studies has become an academic field in its own right: the academic journal Happiness Studies is well established and a number of professorships in happiness studies now exist. Within academic scholarship, we have witnessed a turn to happiness within a range of disciplines, including history, psychology, architecture, social policy, and economics. It is important to witness this turn, reflecting not simply on happiness as a form of consensus but on the consensus to use the word happiness to describe something. Some of this work has been described under the rubric of "the new science of happiness." This is not to say that the science of happiness is itself new; many of the key texts in this area offer revivals of classical English utilitarianism, in particular, the work of Jeremy Bentham with his famous maxim of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." As Bentham explains in A Fragment of Government "it is the greatest happiness of the greater number that is the measure of right and wrong" ([1776] 1988: 3). Bentham is himself drawing on an earlier tradition, including the work of David Hume as well as Cesare Beccaria and Claude Adrien Helvetius. The science of happiness shares a history with political economy: just recall Adam Smith's argument in The Wealth of Nations that capitalism advances us from what he might call "miserable equality" to what w e could call "happy inequality" such that "a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniences of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire" ([1776] 1999: 105). Of course, nineteenth-century utilitarianism involves an explicit refutation of such a narrative, in which inequality becomes the measure of advancement and happiness. Bentham, following Alexander Wedderburn, describes the principle of utility as dangerous for government: "a principle, which lays down, as the only right and justifiable end of Government, the greatest happiness of the greatest number-how can it be denied to be a dangerous one? dangerous to every Government, which has for its actual end or object the greatest happiness of a certain one" ([1776] 1988: 59). Despite this belief that every persons happiness should count equally (the happiness of many refuses to elevate the
Sex work has enjoyed a wealth of sociological interest over the last three decades. However, sexu... more Sex work has enjoyed a wealth of sociological interest over the last three decades. However, sexual pleasure experienced by women sex workers with their clients has been largely missing from the conversation. This article seeks to redress this gap by looking at the qualitative narratives of nine women who were working in sex work in Victoria, Australia in 2009. By viewing these narratives through Foucault's power/ knowledge/discourse nexus, together with his later work on ethics of care of the self, it posits that sex worker women draw on and resist various discourses around intimacy, performance, and pleasure in regards to their sex work and their personal lives. With this interplay in mind, the analysis supports the third feminist perspective that sex work is a complex space where dominant and subjugated discourses mingle to produce myriad experiences traversing the exploitation/empowerment binary represented by the feminist sex wars.
Children’s sexuality education continues to be plagued with tensions and controversies. In conseq... more Children’s sexuality education continues to be plagued with tensions and controversies. In consequence, children’s access to sexuality education is severely compromised, especially in terms of the time dedicated to this topic, the content addressed, how it is taught and by whom. Based on a study of 342 Australian parents of primary school aged children we explore: (i) parents’ perceptions of the relevance and importance of sexuality education to their primary school aged children and the discourses that inform their perspectives; (ii) parents’ views on who should be responsible for the sexuality education of young children; (iii) whether there are certain aspects of sexuality education considered more appropriate for the family to address with children; and (iv) what the implications of these findings are for sexuality education policy and practice in Australian primary schooling. Despite the controversial nature of the topic, the majority of parents in this study believed sexuality education was relevant and important to primary school children and that it should be a collaborative approach between families and schools. However, some parents/carers acknowledged that while that they believed that some topics should only be addressed at home they also indicated that this often does not happen.
This article argues that photo elicitation interviewing creates opportunities to explore the mult... more This article argues that photo elicitation interviewing creates opportunities to explore the multi-facets
of people’s lives. To do so, it draws from a PhD research project with women working in sex work in
Victoria, Australia. I argue that photo elicitation is a useful method for exploring the complexity
involved in sex work and other areas of study where intersections between various facets of life interact
to inform the meanings that individuals apply to their lives, themselves, and other people. I also
explore how the interpretations, drawn from the photos, emerge from a reflexive project between
interviewer and participant, as each bring with them their own discursive understandings of symbols,
psychology, metaphors, and analogies. In order to explore my own part in this shared meaning creation
I undertake a researcher’s autoethnography (Ellis, 1999) of the use of participant-driven photo
elicitation with sex workers. Using a layered account (Ronai, 1995) I move between memories/stories
of engagement with the participants and their narratives elicited through the method.
This article examines the question of ethical self-creation in sex work in regard to notions of g... more This article examines the question of ethical self-creation in sex work in regard to notions of gender and gendered relations. In order to explore this question, I rely on empirical research based on interviews with nine women in legal/regulated sex work in Victoria, Australia that were undertaken in 2009 as part of a PhD project. The women’s narratives are viewed through a postmodern lens that draws on the work of Foucault and his feminist contemporaries. Specifically utilising Butler’s notion of overplay and Foucault’s later work on ethics, I argue that there are possibilities for women in the sex industry to (re)create their ethical substances – or senses of self – in ways that allow them to resist appropriating dominant and stigmatising discourses about who they are, both as sex workers and as women. The findings suggest that while sex work may appear from the outside to be wholly constructed in gender-stereotyped ways, for some women, it is also a space within which gender norms can be challenged.
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Papers by Elizabeth Smith
of people’s lives. To do so, it draws from a PhD research project with women working in sex work in
Victoria, Australia. I argue that photo elicitation is a useful method for exploring the complexity
involved in sex work and other areas of study where intersections between various facets of life interact
to inform the meanings that individuals apply to their lives, themselves, and other people. I also
explore how the interpretations, drawn from the photos, emerge from a reflexive project between
interviewer and participant, as each bring with them their own discursive understandings of symbols,
psychology, metaphors, and analogies. In order to explore my own part in this shared meaning creation
I undertake a researcher’s autoethnography (Ellis, 1999) of the use of participant-driven photo
elicitation with sex workers. Using a layered account (Ronai, 1995) I move between memories/stories
of engagement with the participants and their narratives elicited through the method.
of people’s lives. To do so, it draws from a PhD research project with women working in sex work in
Victoria, Australia. I argue that photo elicitation is a useful method for exploring the complexity
involved in sex work and other areas of study where intersections between various facets of life interact
to inform the meanings that individuals apply to their lives, themselves, and other people. I also
explore how the interpretations, drawn from the photos, emerge from a reflexive project between
interviewer and participant, as each bring with them their own discursive understandings of symbols,
psychology, metaphors, and analogies. In order to explore my own part in this shared meaning creation
I undertake a researcher’s autoethnography (Ellis, 1999) of the use of participant-driven photo
elicitation with sex workers. Using a layered account (Ronai, 1995) I move between memories/stories
of engagement with the participants and their narratives elicited through the method.