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Numerous studies have linked the high rates of traumatic events experienced by refugees to the elevated rate of mental health problems in these populations. A growing body of evidence has also highlighted the importance of considering postmigratory stressors when making sense of displaced person distress. This study explored the relationship between mental health and postmigratory stress for asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers in Britain. The study further examined if those refused asylum experienced elevated distress and postmigratory stress compared to those awaiting the outcome of asylum applications. Results indicated that participants (N = 97) had endured a range of pre- and postmigratory stressors and had high scores on measures of anxiety, depression, and PTSD. A postmigratory factor comprising items associated with isolation, restrictive policies, and stressors associated with having an insecure immigration status, was significantly associated with PTSD scores. This relationship remained when controlling for the variance accounted for by premigratory trauma predictors. Being refused asylum was the strongest predictor of depression and anxiety. Those refused asylum scored higher on a factor associated with barriers to accessing services. Social materialist theories of distress are drawn upon to contextualise the heightened vulnerability of those refused asylum. The paper concludes by emphasising the problems associated with taking an exclusively trauma-focussed approach when working with asylum seekers and argues for community orientated interventions to support displaced people to cope with the various stressors endured in exile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper (originally presented as the Cultural Geographies 2009 annual lecture) reflects on the agenda set out in Maps of meaning 20 years ago which sought to chart a series of new directions in cultural geography. At the core of that project was an argument about the politics of culture and the idea of cultural politics. Today, that agenda might be re-cast as an attempt to map the intersection of culture and economy or, more precisely, of political and moral economies. This paper will apply these ideas to the geographies of food where, despite relative affluence and food security, consumers in the West (and particularly in Britain) are often described as living through an 'age of anxiety'. Consumer anxieties about food have been provoked by a range of food scares and farming crises. As a result, manufacturers and retailers have struggled to re-establish consumer trust in food and governments have urged a re-connection between food producers and consumers. The paper explores the concept of consumer anxiety and draws on a series of consumer interviews and life histories with people in the British food industry to illustrate the nature of contemporary anxieties about food. The paper concludes with some reflections on the intersection of public and private anxieties as illustrated by these personal and corporate food stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I revisit Isabel Menzies's classic 'nursing paper' (I.E.P. Menzies [1960]. A case-study in the functioning of social systems as a defence against anxiety: A report on a study of the nursing service of a general hospital. Human Relations, 13, 95-121). I outline the main findings of the paper and connect it to the major theoretical developments made by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and consider the current relevance of the paper in the contemporary field of health and social care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we apply the lens of moral panic to analyse child protection social work in the UK. We suggest that many of the anxieties that beset social work are best understood as moral panics and discuss processes in which ‘claims-makers’ have introduced and amplified concerns into panics. We discuss two examples of anxieties over child endangerment: the first is concerned with the foundation of the NSPCC and its campaign for the Children’s Charter of 1889. The second is the contemporary 21st century anxiety over children and young people’s use of the Internet, exemplified in the activities of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and their ‘Children and Young Persons’ Global Online Charter’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]