Becoming a subject to oneself is a challenge. To make the task somewhat more meaningful, I have presented a narrative that builds on experiences that are likely to resonate with other scholars from the Global South. In the academic journey from separation to synthesis, I have had the good fortune of collaborating with scientists from young students to renowned scholars, to whom I owe immense gratitude. I chose to modify the given metaphor of a pillar to better suit my orientation both to my inner self and to the outside world.

Becoming a subject to oneself is a challenge. To make the task somewhat more meaningful, I have presented a narrative that builds on experiences that are likely to resonate with other scholars from the Global South. In the academic journey from separation to synthesis, I have had the good fortune of collaborating with scholars from young students to renowned scholars, to whom I owe immense gratitude. I chose to modify the given metaphor of a pillar to better suit my orientation both to my inner self and to the outside world.

My early intellectual development was nurtured by liberal-minded English parents, a French lycée and a Western “classics” curriculum to approach communication through literature and history. But my university introduction to psychology was framed as experimental science. Personal relationships and political awakening in early adulthood prompted me to migrate to a newly decolonized African nation, where all my children were raised. My early publications focused on explaining the performance of African children on Western measures of cognition in terms of measurement bias. In the 1970s my personal agenda of integration into Zambian society motivated closer attention to ways in which sociocultural context influences plurilingual discourse and conceptualization of intelligence. As a sojourner in the USA in the 1990s, I collaborated with American colleagues in a multi-method study of early literacy development in an ethnically diverse city. We theorized that the intimate culture of a child’s family filters wider cultural influences on individual development. Application of science to policy for support of children’s development needs to engage with their families’ ethnotheories.

This chapter explores the definition of the notion of ‘family’ from an EU law perspective. The chapter first acknowledges the variable geometry of the family, and the absence of a uniform category of ‘family’ in EU legal norms. The chapter then shows that, despite the fragmentation of sources and the modulation of family circles, the way in which the EU characterises a person as a ‘family member’ obeys a form of logic and expresses a certain rationality. Borrowing from the work of Morgan and his notion of ‘doing family’, the chapter demonstrates that in addition to the de jure family members, other persons are counted as family members on the basis of them ‘behaving’ like family members. Barbou des Places concludes that ‘family members’ is a defined category of EU law: it designates the groups of people who are assumed to perform – or asked to prove that they do perform – different functions like education, care, protection and socialisation. It is subsequently emphasised that these roles are central because they contribute to a broader ambition, namely, participating in the cohesion of the whole of European society.

Families have the potential for causing harm and can play a part in the onset of mental health problems. Women’s behaviour is judged by a different set of standards to that of men. Parents still socialise girls differently from boys. The pressures of family life chip away at our confidence and self-esteem and powerfully influencing our ability to make successful adult relationships. Girls and women may be told that they are ‘hysterical’ or ‘out of their mind’ when their emotional response is quite justified by what is happening to them. However, life pressures can also trigger mental illness, and family stress such as living in poverty and with domestic violence can make this worse. Girls and young women experience much more sexual abuse during childhood than boys – the sheer extent of which was not acknowledged in the past. Improving material and psychological support to families is a mammoth task, but what is within our power, among our own friends, families and communities, is to do something when we suspect that young women are experiencing trauma and abuse – believing, helping and supporting them to find someone to share their stories with who is trustworthy and skilled.

Sexuality is one of the few curricular areas so constrained by policy that it often fails to resemble the topic students are interested in learning about or address the pressing concerns to which it was supposedly oriented. Focused on prevention of various sorts – and this often means prevention of all sexual activity, especially for youth – the more positive lessons about what sexuality can be for self-identity, relationality, community-building, and political life remain unaddressed. Though sexuality education has attempted to address the public goods of population health and individual development, too often it has done so without making clear concepts of gender, sex, ethical relationships, pleasure, and community. This chapter traces tensions in sexuality education from the start of its status as part of the official public school curriculum in the late nineteenth century to current debates that continue to shape how sexuality is defined and taught. We highlight continuities and ruptures that have characterized the global spread of sex education, showing how much of what happens in the Global South is shaped by legacies of colonialism and American political priorities. The chapter concludes by considering emerging challenges and opportunities for progress in sex education.

The right to respect for family life is one of the most important and closely protected rights that children possess. It is widely recognised that loving, secure and stable relationships with trusted carers are fundamental to a child’s well-being and development. Family relationships are also vital to a child’s sense of identity and place in the world. Despite the importance of the right to family life, its application in practice can undermine the very relationships that it seeks to protect. The mutual nature of the right to family life means that it is particularly susceptible to attempts by adults to clothe their own interests in the language of children’s rights. This chapter explores the right to family life and the extent to which it protects biological relatedness, legal parenthood and practical relationships of care and responsibility. Particular attention is given to child arrangements disputes, adoption and post-adoption with birth families.

The question of how far the law should intervene in family life to protect children’s rights is controversial. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises the primary responsibility of parents for their children and the value to children of being brought up in a family that nurtures and protects them. Nevertheless, the reverence given to the place of family also comes with risks to children. While parents are usually best placed to protect their children’s interests, the privacy of family life allows parents to tyrannise, abuse and neglect their children. Legal and political responses are often strongly influenced by notions of family privacy and parental autonomy that discourage interference with family life and instead promote the authority of parents, leaving children vulnerable in the private sphere of the family. This chapter explores the ambivalent current law on parental responsibilities and the rights of children. This is best seen in the law on physical punishment, where parental freedom is prioritised despite substantial evidence of its harmful effects and recognition of children’s right to equal protection from assault in international law.

This chapter discusses the right to respect for ones family life and the right to marry as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, other Council of Europe instruments, in EU law and in international instruments. Attention is also paid to topics such as adoption, legal parentage, best interests of the child and same-sex marriage. In the final section, a short comparison between the different instruments is made.

In this chapter we discuss another behavior-based personal intervention, namely role balance. Role balance involves engaging in balanced activities— balanced between maintenance activities (those designed to maintain role functioning and meet basic needs) and flourishing activities (those designed to allow the individual to meet growth needs). Specifically, we describe some maintenance and flourishing activities that are essential to creating role balance in work life and nonwork domains (e.g., family life, health and safety, love life, financial life, social life, leisure life, and cultural life). We then discuss how instructors can implement the role balance principle in workshops designed to train employees how to increase work-life balance.

This chapter investigates how the challenging questions and tensions caused by migrants and their universalist claims for inclusion, have been approached and resolved in liberal democracies. By regarding the development of populism as a real and dangerous political phenomenon that has significant traction, the chapter asks whether populism adds something new to this approach and resolution. More specifically, does populism add some distinctiveness that we should be more sensitive to? With reference to the requirement that the state has to provide justifications for measures that affect individuals, the chapter asks how the tensions between exclusion versus inclusion and particularism versus cosmopolitanism, have been adjusted. It concludes that the adjustment has been in favour of exclusion and particularism. The concern that arises is that populism might further shape this adjustment to the point where the balance is completely tipped in favour of exclusion and statism. This raises general concerns about the nature of the community and its organizing liberal values.

This chapter investigates how the challenging questions and tensions caused by migrants and their universalist claims for inclusion, have been approached and resolved in liberal democracies. By regarding the development of populism as a real and dangerous political phenomenon that has significant traction, the chapter asks whether populism adds something new to this approach and resolution. More specifically, does populism add some distinctiveness that we should be more sensitive to? With reference to the requirement that the state has to provide justifications for measures that affect individuals, the chapter asks how the tensions between exclusion versus inclusion and particularism versus cosmopolitanism, have been adjusted. It concludes that the adjustment has been in favour of exclusion and particularism. The concern that arises is that populism might further shape this adjustment to the point where the balance is completely tipped in favour of exclusion and statism. This raises general concerns about the nature of the community and its organizing liberal values.

This chapter describes how people engage in new roles and activities to help achieve life balance and maintain acceptable levels of wellbeing. This is explained through the principle of diminishing satisfaction. The chapter covers many strategies that people use in various life domains: health, love, family, material, social, work, leisure, and culture.

This chapter focused on the notion that life balance can be achieved, at least partly, through engagement in social roles in work and nonwork domains. This is explained through the principle of satisfaction limits. Three strategies were described: (1) avoid putting all your egs in one basket, (2) contemplate the ideal life, and (3) assess how much time you spend in what role and reallocate time.

This chapter focuses on how people achieve life balance by actively engaging in social roles in multiple life domains such as health, love, family, material, social, work, leisure, and culture. The wellbeing effect is explained through the principle of satisfaction of the full spectrum of human developmental needs.

The chapter considers the inter-relationship between the right to life and other fundamental human rights, in particular the right to freedom from torture, to family life, to fair trial, to liberty and to security, to privacy, to peaceful assembly, and to food. While the remedy of a survivor of unlawful State action is likely to exist under the right to freedom from inhumane treatment, where the intent of State agents was to kill, a violation of the right to life may also have occurred.

Chapter 2 draws heavily on surviving letters between inmates and their loved ones, listed addresses in prisoners’ files and visitor records in order to explore the impact of separation and ways families attempted to sustain bonds across lengthy prison sentences. Through four distinct sections, it offers a fascinating insight into family relationships, domestic arrangements, expected responsibilities and obligations. The first section examines the ways imprisoned women sought to maintain contact with their loved ones and vice versa through letter writing. The second section focuses on visitors received by inmates, revealing desires and obligations within the family unit. The third section examines convict mothers’ relationships with their children, some of whom were born in prison and others of whom accompanied their mothers to penal servitude. Changes to legislation and practices across the century restricted convict mothers’ time with their offspring and, towards the end of the century, meant that women with children had to find alternative means to fulfil mothering roles. The final section considers the influence relatives and friends could have on a convict’s release. While it is apparent that family relationships could be maintained, this chapter also shows evidence of strained relationships between incarcerated women and their families and friends.

Lorenzo de’ Medici’s marriage to Clarice Orsini in June 1469 had created a precedent, for it was the first time that the Florentine mercantile and banking family had married out of Tuscany and into a family of long-established Roman aristocrats. The Milanese ambassador predicted at the time that it would give ‘the populace, as well as some of the leading citizens, plenty to talk about’, and so, too, did the lengthy wedding ceremonies.1 Only six months later, Lorenzo’s father Piero died, plunging the twenty-year-old Lorenzo into a political crisis, as he ‘hoisted his sails’ to secure his primacy in Florence, and all too soon – before the end of his first decade in power – he was at war with the pope and the king of Naples following his brother’s murder in 1478.2

Chapter 6 explores the concept of legal capacity and its relationship with human dignity and independence of persons with disabilities. It focuses on the scope and normative content of Article 12 CRPD, which requires States Parties to move away from substitute decision-making regimes to supported decision-making. The latter entails a range of positive measures to facilitate the exercise of legal capacity by all persons with disabilities. This chapter distinguishes between the concepts of legal capacity and mental capacity and examines States Parties’ obligations in relation to the legal capacity of disabled persons. It further delineates the interrelationship between Article 12 and Article 19 CRPD (on living independently and being included in the community). Finally, the chapter outlines the links between Article 12 and Article 23 CRPD (on family and reproductive rights).

Chapter 6 explores the concept of legal capacity and its relationship with human dignity and independence of persons with disabilities. It focuses on the scope and normative content of Article 12 CRPD, which requires States Parties to move away from substitute decision-making regimes to supported decision-making. The latter entails a range of positive measures to facilitate the exercise of legal capacity by all persons with disabilities. This chapter distinguishes between the concepts of legal capacity and mental capacity and examines States Parties’ obligations in relation to the legal capacity of disabled persons. It further delineates the interrelationship between Article 12 and Article 19 CRPD (on living independently and being included in the community). Finally, the chapter outlines the links between Article 12 and Article 23 CRPD (on family and reproductive rights).