Giselle Newton
Biographic Data
| ID | 307327 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Giselle Newton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Giselle |
| FAMILY NAME | Newton |
| SIGNATURE | NEWTON G |
| AFFILIATIONS | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2883-335X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Between discovery and responsibility: Facebook groups and the intimate practices of donor-conceived peers
Facebook groups remain popular among individuals with a specific health condition or marginalised identity. Existing research has documented the benefits of online support groups, yet little work has explored how intimacy develops through these interactions and shapes discourses of responsibility and activism. Drawing on interviews with 28 Australian donor-conceived adults, we conceptualise experiences within Facebook groups through the lens of c…
Displaying family on the DNA platform
Direct-to-consumer DNA platforms are significant yet overlooked social media platforms through which millions of users worldwide shape their identities. DNA platforms sort and match users using genetic data, creating novel familial ‘networked publics’ and reinforcing ‘genetic thinking’. Drawing on the concept of ‘family display’, we interpret the accounts of 23 Australians who had distinct motivations for engaging with DNA platforms and differing…
Direct-to-Consumer Dna Platforms & Digital Displays of Family
The family genealogy industry has seen exponential growth in recent years, in large part due to the rise of direct-to-consumer DNA testing platforms. To some extent, ancestry-oriented DNA platforms function like other social media networks, connecting users in intimate publics. Yet they differ in that rather than ordering users by social relationships such as friendship, individuals are displayed according to how many centimorgans they share. In …
Sprouting sideways: Queer Temporalities and Kinship in Donor Conception
Temporal constructs are central to reproduction and kinship, as epitomised by the pervasive concept of the biological clock within public imaginaries. While queer scholarship has problematised linear models of kinship and reproductive temporality, the specific temporalities associated with donor-conceived families have received less scholarly attention, despite the increasing prevalence of these family structures. In this article, we explore the …
Buying Time: Incurable Prognosis, Temporal Uncertainty and the Costs of Metastatic Breast Cancer
Understandings of living well with incurable, life‐limiting disease are limited. This article examines how living with a ‘contracted future’, albeit of uncertain duration, affects how one spends time (wisely) in the present and plans future time. Mobilising the concept of timescapes and interviews with women with metastatic breast cancer, we examined how an incurable prognosis shaped how women experienced time, what meanings they ascribed to time…
On the sensations of direct-to-consumer DNA testing: Realisations, resemblance and relationships
The field of genealogy has rapidly evolved with the rise of direct-to-consumer DNA testing, a digital technology with the potential to disrupt previously held understandings of family history. Recent theorisation in the sociology of personal life provides a useful lens to attune to potent sensations and affinities sparked by direct-to-consumer DNA testing. Our analysis focuses on the accounts of three donor-conceived people – Thomas, Simone and A…
Is There Anything Else You’d Like to Tell Us About Your Experience?’ Orientations Towards Listening to Open-Ended Survey Responses
While survey research design tends to prioritise closed questions with predetermined responses, many surveys conclude with an open-ended ‘anything else you would like to tell us?’ question. This question, designed to elicit feedback or create opportunities for respondents to share additional information, offers significant potential for insight into respondents’ experiences. Yet, the extent to which these open-ended data are listened to remains o…
From lived experience to lived expertise: How donor-conceived witnesses claim and sustain epistemic authority
Scholars in pragmatics have long been interested in how knowledge is construed, contested and legitimised. Much recent work in pragmatics has focused on developing more detailed theoretical understandings of epistemic positioning and epistemic authority, including in institutional contexts which are typically characterised by knowledge asymmetries and power inequalities. Yet the relational consequences of epistemic positioning have received littl…
The incurable self: Negotiating social bonds and dis/connection with metastatic breast cancer
As the culture of silence that once surrounded cancer has gradually given way to greater public awareness, normative visions of what cancer survivorship should entail have proliferated. These visions emphasise positivity and perseverance in pursuit of cure. While these visions provide comfort to many, for people with metastatic cancer, the emphasis on cure can undermine their sense of belonging to the broader collective of people living with canc…
Situated Talk: A method for a reflexive encounter with #donorconceived on TikTok
There is a pressing need to facilitate sensitive conversations between people with differing or opposing views. On video-sharing app TikTok, the diverse experiences of donor-conceived people and recipient parents sit uneasily alongside each other, coalescing in hashtags like #donorconceived. This article describes a method 'Situated Talk' which uses TikToks to facilitate a reflexive encounter, drawing on three areas of scholarship: media ethnogra…
Truth, Proof, Sleuth: Trust in Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing and Other Sources of Identity Information among Australian Donor-Conceived People
The digital age is characterised by unprecedented access to technologies to understand our bodies, genetics and family histories. The last decade has seen a growing uptake of direct-to-consumer DNA testing, which is (re)shaping individuals' identity narratives. Drawing on data from a national online survey with Australian donor-conceived people (N = 91) and semi-structured interviews (N = 28), we conceptualise DNA results as a genetic narrative t…
More than Humor: Memes as Bonding Icons for Belonging in Donor-Conceived People
Memes are a key feature of participatory digital cultures and have been found to play an important role in collective identity formation. Limited scholarship has explored the role of memes within closed communities, where perceived privacy and trust may impact the ways users demarcate the in-group (us) and out-group (them) through humor. This article draws on analysis of semi-structured interviews with Australian donor-conceived people (people co…
(How) Will it end? A qualitative analysis of free-text survey data on informal care endings
The health and social ‘after-effects’ of caring are well established, yet the way carers experience pathways out of caring remains under-researched. In this article, we analyse qualitative free-text responses ( n = 1,746) from a national survey of Australian carers to explore current and former carers’ concerns, opportunities and preferences around care endings. Our thematic analysis derived three key findings: (1) anticipation and fears for the …
The ‘Search-for Method’: Examining Instances of Support in Facebook Groups for Donor-Conceived People
Facebook groups represent an important resource for donor-conceived people to access information, seek advice and share their experiences with their peers. Limited research has considered how donor-conceived people create supportive relationships with peers through social media or how this form of social support contributes to donor-conceived people’s health and wellbeing. This work in progress outlines the ‘search-for method’, a practical user-l…
Truth, Proof, Sleuth: Trust in Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing and Other Sources of Identity Information among Australian Donor-Conceived People
The digital age is characterised by unprecedented access to technologies to understand our bodies, genetics and family histories. The last decade has seen a growing uptake of direct-to-consumer DNA testing, which is (re)shaping individuals' identity narratives. Drawing on data from a national online survey with Australian donor-conceived people (N = 91) and semi-structured interviews (N = 28), we conceptualise DNA results as a genetic narrative t…
More than Humor: Memes as Bonding Icons for Belonging in Donor-Conceived People
Memes are a key feature of participatory digital cultures and have been found to play an important role in collective identity formation. Limited scholarship has explored the role of memes within closed communities, where perceived privacy and trust may impact the ways users demarcate the in-group (us) and out-group (them) through humor. This article draws on analysis of semi-structured interviews with Australian donor-conceived people (people co…
The incurable self: Negotiating social bonds and dis/connection with metastatic breast cancer
As the culture of silence that once surrounded cancer has gradually given way to greater public awareness, normative visions of what cancer survivorship should entail have proliferated. These visions emphasise positivity and perseverance in pursuit of cure. While these visions provide comfort to many, for people with metastatic cancer, the emphasis on cure can undermine their sense of belonging to the broader collective of people living with canc…
Situated Talk: A method for a reflexive encounter with #donorconceived on TikTok
There is a pressing need to facilitate sensitive conversations between people with differing or opposing views. On video-sharing app TikTok, the diverse experiences of donor-conceived people and recipient parents sit uneasily alongside each other, coalescing in hashtags like #donorconceived. This article describes a method 'Situated Talk' which uses TikToks to facilitate a reflexive encounter, drawing on three areas of scholarship: media ethnogra…
From lived experience to lived expertise: How donor-conceived witnesses claim and sustain epistemic authority
Scholars in pragmatics have long been interested in how knowledge is construed, contested and legitimised. Much recent work in pragmatics has focused on developing more detailed theoretical understandings of epistemic positioning and epistemic authority, including in institutional contexts which are typically characterised by knowledge asymmetries and power inequalities. Yet the relational consequences of epistemic positioning have received littl…
The ‘Search-for Method’: Examining Instances of Support in Facebook Groups for Donor-Conceived People
Facebook groups represent an important resource for donor-conceived people to access information, seek advice and share their experiences with their peers. Limited research has considered how donor-conceived people create supportive relationships with peers through social media or how this form of social support contributes to donor-conceived people’s health and wellbeing. This work in progress outlines the ‘search-for method’, a practical user-l…
(How) Will it end? A qualitative analysis of free-text survey data on informal care endings
The health and social ‘after-effects’ of caring are well established, yet the way carers experience pathways out of caring remains under-researched. In this article, we analyse qualitative free-text responses ( n = 1,746) from a national survey of Australian carers to explore current and former carers’ concerns, opportunities and preferences around care endings. Our thematic analysis derived three key findings: (1) anticipation and fears for the …
More than Humor: Memes as Bonding Icons for Belonging in Donor-Conceived People
Memes are a key feature of participatory digital cultures and have been found to play an important role in collective identity formation. Limited scholarship has explored the role of memes within closed communities, where perceived privacy and trust may impact the ways users demarcate the in-group (us) and out-group (them) through humor. This article draws on analysis of semi-structured interviews with Australian donor-conceived people (people co…
Situated Talk: A method for a reflexive encounter with #donorconceived on TikTok
There is a pressing need to facilitate sensitive conversations between people with differing or opposing views. On video-sharing app TikTok, the diverse experiences of donor-conceived people and recipient parents sit uneasily alongside each other, coalescing in hashtags like #donorconceived. This article describes a method 'Situated Talk' which uses TikToks to facilitate a reflexive encounter, drawing on three areas of scholarship: media ethnogra…
Truth, Proof, Sleuth: Trust in Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing and Other Sources of Identity Information among Australian Donor-Conceived People
The digital age is characterised by unprecedented access to technologies to understand our bodies, genetics and family histories. The last decade has seen a growing uptake of direct-to-consumer DNA testing, which is (re)shaping individuals' identity narratives. Drawing on data from a national online survey with Australian donor-conceived people (N = 91) and semi-structured interviews (N = 28), we conceptualise DNA results as a genetic narrative t…
On the sensations of direct-to-consumer DNA testing: Realisations, resemblance and relationships
The field of genealogy has rapidly evolved with the rise of direct-to-consumer DNA testing, a digital technology with the potential to disrupt previously held understandings of family history. Recent theorisation in the sociology of personal life provides a useful lens to attune to potent sensations and affinities sparked by direct-to-consumer DNA testing. Our analysis focuses on the accounts of three donor-conceived people – Thomas, Simone and A…
Is There Anything Else You’d Like to Tell Us About Your Experience?’ Orientations Towards Listening to Open-Ended Survey Responses
While survey research design tends to prioritise closed questions with predetermined responses, many surveys conclude with an open-ended ‘anything else you would like to tell us?’ question. This question, designed to elicit feedback or create opportunities for respondents to share additional information, offers significant potential for insight into respondents’ experiences. Yet, the extent to which these open-ended data are listened to remains o…
From lived experience to lived expertise: How donor-conceived witnesses claim and sustain epistemic authority
Scholars in pragmatics have long been interested in how knowledge is construed, contested and legitimised. Much recent work in pragmatics has focused on developing more detailed theoretical understandings of epistemic positioning and epistemic authority, including in institutional contexts which are typically characterised by knowledge asymmetries and power inequalities. Yet the relational consequences of epistemic positioning have received littl…
The incurable self: Negotiating social bonds and dis/connection with metastatic breast cancer
As the culture of silence that once surrounded cancer has gradually given way to greater public awareness, normative visions of what cancer survivorship should entail have proliferated. These visions emphasise positivity and perseverance in pursuit of cure. While these visions provide comfort to many, for people with metastatic cancer, the emphasis on cure can undermine their sense of belonging to the broader collective of people living with canc…
Direct-to-Consumer Dna Platforms & Digital Displays of Family
The family genealogy industry has seen exponential growth in recent years, in large part due to the rise of direct-to-consumer DNA testing platforms. To some extent, ancestry-oriented DNA platforms function like other social media networks, connecting users in intimate publics. Yet they differ in that rather than ordering users by social relationships such as friendship, individuals are displayed according to how many centimorgans they share. In …
Sprouting sideways: Queer Temporalities and Kinship in Donor Conception
Temporal constructs are central to reproduction and kinship, as epitomised by the pervasive concept of the biological clock within public imaginaries. While queer scholarship has problematised linear models of kinship and reproductive temporality, the specific temporalities associated with donor-conceived families have received less scholarly attention, despite the increasing prevalence of these family structures. In this article, we explore the …
Buying Time: Incurable Prognosis, Temporal Uncertainty and the Costs of Metastatic Breast Cancer
Understandings of living well with incurable, life‐limiting disease are limited. This article examines how living with a ‘contracted future’, albeit of uncertain duration, affects how one spends time (wisely) in the present and plans future time. Mobilising the concept of timescapes and interviews with women with metastatic breast cancer, we examined how an incurable prognosis shaped how women experienced time, what meanings they ascribed to time…
Between discovery and responsibility: Facebook groups and the intimate practices of donor-conceived peers
Facebook groups remain popular among individuals with a specific health condition or marginalised identity. Existing research has documented the benefits of online support groups, yet little work has explored how intimacy develops through these interactions and shapes discourses of responsibility and activism. Drawing on interviews with 28 Australian donor-conceived adults, we conceptualise experiences within Facebook groups through the lens of c…
Displaying family on the DNA platform
Direct-to-consumer DNA platforms are significant yet overlooked social media platforms through which millions of users worldwide shape their identities. DNA platforms sort and match users using genetic data, creating novel familial ‘networked publics’ and reinforcing ‘genetic thinking’. Drawing on the concept of ‘family display’, we interpret the accounts of 23 Australians who had distinct motivations for engaging with DNA platforms and differing…
Psychology (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Political science (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Thematic analysis (5 works) · Anthropology (4 works) · Narrative (4 works)