The authors of this book demonstrate that compared to other citizens, ambivalent partisans perceive the political world accurately, form their policy preferences in a principled manner, and communicate those preferences by making issues an important component of their electoral decisions.

Exploring the difficult and contested sites of deindustrialized society on the brink of transformation to either heritage or wasteland, this volume looks at the creative ways that such sites are (re)used and suggests that they are not always merely abject or abandoned. As a result, our understanding of the meanings given to left over spaces is enhanced by an examination of the ways they are used. Ambivalent heritage sites are not always recognized for their potential, although artists and people from different recreational activities, such as industrial sites and parkour, use and experience these places in different ways. The contributors introduce fresh ideas on how to approach these sites and the people invested in them, employing multidisciplinary methodologies from archaeology and heritage studies to ethnography and sociology. Through the use of Northern-European case studies such as a former sanatorium, a prison and the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, the reader gains a new perspective on these sites of contestation, which are cherished despite their problematic status. The conclusion is that due to the rapid societal change we are experiencing in the contemporary world, heritage professionals must start to acknowledge and deal with the difficulties that ambivalent heritage sites pose.

In the early twenty-first century, comparisons between the modern civil rights movement and the movement for marriage equality reached a fever pitch. These comparisons, however, have a longer history. During the five decades after World War II, political ideas about same-sex intimacy and gender nonconformity—most often categorized as homosexuality—appeared in the campaigns of civil rights organizations, Black liberal elected officials, segregationists, and far right radicals. Deployed in complex and at times contradictory ways, political ideas about homosexuality (and later, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender subjects) became tethered to conceptualizations of Blackness and racial equality. In this interdisciplinary historical study, Jennifer Dominique Jones reveals the underexamined origins of comparisons between Black and LGBT political constituencies in the modern civil rights movement and white supremacist backlash. Foregrounding an intersectional framing of postwar political histories, Jones demonstrates how the shared non-normative status of Blackness and homosexuality facilitated comparisons between subjects and political visions associated with both. Drawing upon organizational records, manuscript collections, newspaper accounts, and visual and textual ephemera, this study traces a long, conflicting relationship between Black and LGBT political identities that continues to the present day.

The paradox of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia The Obama administration's pivot-to-Asia policy establishes an important place for Southeast Asia in U.S. foreign policy. But Washington's attention to the region has fluctuated dramatically, from the intense intervention of the cold war era to near neglect in more recent years. As a consequence, countries in Southeast Asia worry that the United States once again will become distracted by other problems and disengage from the region. This book written by an astute observer of the region and U.S. policy casts light on the sources of these anxieties. A main consideration is that it still is not clear how Southeast Asia fits into U.S. strategy for Asia and the broader world. Is the region central to U.S. policymaking, or an afterthought? Ambivalent Engagement highlights a dilemma that is becoming increasingly conspicuous and problematic. Southeast Asia continues to rely on the United States to play an active role in the region even though it is an external power. But the countries of Southeast Asia have very different views about precisely what role the United States should play. The consequences of this ambivalence will grow in importance with the expanding role of yet another outside power, China.

During a life that spanned ninety years, Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) witnessed dramatic and intensely debated changes in the gender roles of American women. Mary Titus draws upon unpublished Porter papers, as well as newly available editions of her early fiction, poetry, and reviews, to trace Porter’s shifting and complex response to those cultural changes. Titus shows how Porter explored her own ambivalence about gender and creativity, for she experienced firsthand a remarkable range of ideas concerning female sexuality. These included the Victorian attitudes of the grandmother who raised her; the sexual license of revolutionary Mexico, 1920s New York, and 1930s Paris; and the conservative, ordered attitudes of the Agrarians. Throughout Porter’s long career, writes Titus, she “repeatedly probed cultural arguments about female creativity, a woman’s maternal legacy, romantic love, and sexual identity, always with startling acuity, and often with painful ambivalence.” Much of her writing, then, serves as a medium for what Titus terms Porter’s “gender-thinking”--her sustained examination of the interrelated issues of art, gender, and identity. Porter, says Titus, rebelled against her upbringing yet never relinquished the belief that her work as an artist was somehow unnatural, a turn away from the essential identity of woman as “the repository of life,” as childbearer. In her life Porter increasingly played a highly feminized public role as southern lady, but in her writing she continued to engage changing representations of female identity and sexuality. This is an important new study of the tensions and ambivalence inscribed in Porter’s fiction, as well as the vocational anxiety and gender performance of her actual life.

Ambivalent Transnational Belonging in American Literature discusses the extent to which transnational concepts of identity and community are cast within nationalist frameworks. It analyzes how the different narrative perspectives in texts by Olaudah Equiano, Catharina Maria Sedgwick, Henry James, Jamaica Kincaid, and Mohsin Hamid shape protagonists’ complex transnational subjectivities, which exist between or outside national frameworks but are nevertheless interpellated through the nation-state and through particular myths about liberal, sentimental, or cosmopolitan subjects. The notion of ambivalent transnational belonging yields insights into the affective appeal of the transnational as a category of analysis, as an aesthetic experience, and as an idea of belonging. This means bringing the transnational into conversation with the aesthetic and the affective so we may fully address the new conceptual challenges faced by literary studies due to the transnational turn in American studies.

Do you often find yourself worrying that your partner might leave you, or do you fear abandonment even in a stable relationship? Maybe you experience frequent jealousy, feeling that no matter your efforts, you're just not good enough? Are you concerned about making even minor mistakes, fearing they could ruin everything? Does your relationship make you feel like you're constantly walking on eggshells? Individuals with an ambivalent attachment style typically hold others in high regard but suffer from low self-esteem. They are sensitive and attuned to their partners' needs, yet they are plagued by insecurities and anxieties about their own worth in the relationship. Adults with this attachment style usually seek constant reassurance of their value and loveability. Living with constant self-doubt and an obsessive desire for love can be draining, like being on an emotional roller coaster. In intimate relationships, adults with ambivalent attachment may try to become indispensable to their partners, believing that being needed will prevent abandonment. However, this strategy often leads to doubts about whether they are loved for who they are or merely for their utility. Anxiety about ruining potential relationships hinders commitment and can lead to isolation. While understandable, this self-protective behavior can prevent meaningful connections and a fulfilling life. This book is recommended if you recognize these patterns in your relationship, indicative of ambivalent attachment: - You often feel insecure about your partner's feelings towards you, leading to a constant need for validation and reassurance. - You experience intense fear of abandonment, even in situations where your relationship is stable. - Your need for emotional closeness feels overwhelming at times, and you might worry that your desire for intimacy pushes your partner away. - You find yourself oscillating between highs and lows in your relationship, with emotions ranging from deep affection to intense anxiety. - You are prone to feeling jealous, often stemming from your insecurities and fear of losing your partner. - You take on a disproportionate amount of responsibility and blame in your relationship, often feeling that any issues are solely your fault. - Your actions and reactions are often driven by the fear of being left alone, leading to behaviors that you might later regret. - You have a tendency to be over-attentive to your partner's moods and actions, interpreting them as signs of potential rejection or disinterest. - Despite your deep desire for a close relationship, you may unintentionally sabotage it due to your fears and insecurities. - You might find yourself in a cycle of needing reassurance, yet struggling to fully accept it when offered, as deep down, you fear it might not be genuine. If you feel in tune with this description of life, remember that it is not your fault and that because you have experienced bad situations in life, you have become sensitive and more compassionate than others. Can the ambivalent attachment style be changed? Fortunately, there are methods in this manual to identify and interrupt dysfunctional patterns and cultivate new ones that are helpful and tailored to you. It is important to do this for yourself, your loved ones and, eventually, your children. Stop that feeling of never being enough forever. Take action now.

This book explores the weird and mean and in-between that characterize everyday expression online, from absurdist photoshops to antagonistic Twitter hashtags to deceptive identity play. Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner focus especially on the ambivalence of this expression: the fact that it is too unwieldy, too variable across cases, to be essentialized as old or new, vernacular or institutional, generative or destructive. Online expression is, instead, all of the above. This ambivalence, the authors argue, hinges on available digital tools. That said, there is nothing unexpected or surprising about even the strangest online behavior. Ours is a brave new world, and there is nothing new under the sun – a point necessary to understanding not just that online spaces are rife with oddity, mischief, and antagonism, but why these behaviors matter. The Ambivalent Internet is essential reading for students and scholars of digital media and related fields across the humanities, as well as anyone interested in mediated culture and expression.

Over the last few decades, debates about policing in poor urban areas have turned from analyzing the state's neglect and abandonment into documenting its harsh interventions and punishing presence. Yet, we know very little about the covert world of state action that is hidden from public view. In The Ambivalent State, Javier Auyero and Katherine Sobering offer an unprecedented look into the clandestine relationships between police agents and drug dealers in Argentina. Drawing on a unique combination of ethnographic fieldwork and documentary evidence, including hundreds of pages of wiretapped phone conversations, they analyze the inner-workings of police-criminal collusion, its connections to drug markets, and how it promotes cynicism and powerlessness in daily life. They argue that an up-close examination of covert state action exposes the workings of an ambivalent state: one that both enforces the rule of law and functions as a partner in criminal behavior. The Ambivalent State develops a political sociology of violence that focuses not only on what takes place in police stations, courts, and poor neighborhoods, but also the clandestine actions and interactions of police, judges, and politicians that structure daily life at the urban margins.

A comparative examination of the ambivalence provoked, especially in East and Southeast Asia, by the global spread of "American" consumer culture.