A. H. Halsey
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199266609
- eISBN:
- 9780191601019
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199266603.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
Who among their British and foreign colleagues are held by the professors of sociology in Britain in the highest esteem either as teachers (‘mentors’) or the most notable contributors (‘models’) to ...
More
Who among their British and foreign colleagues are held by the professors of sociology in Britain in the highest esteem either as teachers (‘mentors’) or the most notable contributors (‘models’) to the subject in the twentieth century? The answers are based on a professorial survey (see Ch. 8 and Appendix 1) and on a citation analysis of the three main British journals of sociology (BJS, Sociology, and Sociological Review).The leading ‘mentors’ in the twentieth century have been British. The leading ‘models’ have been German, French, or American. Among the Britons only Anthony Giddens offers a serious challenge to these foreign luminaries.Less
Who among their British and foreign colleagues are held by the professors of sociology in Britain in the highest esteem either as teachers (‘mentors’) or the most notable contributors (‘models’) to the subject in the twentieth century? The answers are based on a professorial survey (see Ch. 8 and Appendix 1) and on a citation analysis of the three main British journals of sociology (BJS, Sociology, and Sociological Review).
The leading ‘mentors’ in the twentieth century have been British. The leading ‘models’ have been German, French, or American. Among the Britons only Anthony Giddens offers a serious challenge to these foreign luminaries.
Andrew Witmer
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195342536
- eISBN:
- 9780199867042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342536.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
During the second half of the nineteenth century, American intellectuals found much to argue over in the writings of Auguste Comte. A French social theorist generally credited as the founder of ...
More
During the second half of the nineteenth century, American intellectuals found much to argue over in the writings of Auguste Comte. A French social theorist generally credited as the founder of modern sociology, Comte grounded his Positivist philosophy in a theory of history predicting the demise of theism and the triumph of naturalistic science and humanistic religion. Debates over Positivism peaked in the United States between the 1860s and 1880s, and became entangled with arguments over Darwinism and the alleged battle between religion and science. Most Americans dismissed Comte's predictions that belief in God would vanish, but his theories won over a small group of important thinkers, clothed Enlightenment attacks on traditional religion in the garb of scientific neutrality and historical inevitability, spurred on the academic secularizers who sought to reduce religion's public influence, and emerged during the middle decades of the twentieth century as a commonplace of modern sociology.Less
During the second half of the nineteenth century, American intellectuals found much to argue over in the writings of Auguste Comte. A French social theorist generally credited as the founder of modern sociology, Comte grounded his Positivist philosophy in a theory of history predicting the demise of theism and the triumph of naturalistic science and humanistic religion. Debates over Positivism peaked in the United States between the 1860s and 1880s, and became entangled with arguments over Darwinism and the alleged battle between religion and science. Most Americans dismissed Comte's predictions that belief in God would vanish, but his theories won over a small group of important thinkers, clothed Enlightenment attacks on traditional religion in the garb of scientific neutrality and historical inevitability, spurred on the academic secularizers who sought to reduce religion's public influence, and emerged during the middle decades of the twentieth century as a commonplace of modern sociology.
Mari Armstrong-Hough
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469646688
- eISBN:
- 9781469646701
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469646688.001.0001
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
Over the last twenty years, type 2 diabetes skyrocketed to the forefront of global public health concern. In this book, Mari Armstrong-Hough examines the rise in and response to the disease in two ...
More
Over the last twenty years, type 2 diabetes skyrocketed to the forefront of global public health concern. In this book, Mari Armstrong-Hough examines the rise in and response to the disease in two societies: the United States and Japan. Both societies have faced rising rates of diabetes, but their social and biomedical responses to its ascendance have diverged. To explain the emergence of these distinctive strategies, Armstrong-Hough argues that physicians act not only on increasingly globalized professional standards but also on local knowledge, explanatory models, and cultural toolkits. As a result, strategies for clinical management diverge sharply from one country to another. Armstrong-Hough demonstrates how distinctive practices endure in the midst of intensifying biomedicalization, both on the part of patients and on the part of physicians, and how these differences grow from broader cultural narratives about diabetes in each setting.Less
Over the last twenty years, type 2 diabetes skyrocketed to the forefront of global public health concern. In this book, Mari Armstrong-Hough examines the rise in and response to the disease in two societies: the United States and Japan. Both societies have faced rising rates of diabetes, but their social and biomedical responses to its ascendance have diverged. To explain the emergence of these distinctive strategies, Armstrong-Hough argues that physicians act not only on increasingly globalized professional standards but also on local knowledge, explanatory models, and cultural toolkits. As a result, strategies for clinical management diverge sharply from one country to another. Armstrong-Hough demonstrates how distinctive practices endure in the midst of intensifying biomedicalization, both on the part of patients and on the part of physicians, and how these differences grow from broader cultural narratives about diabetes in each setting.
Marta Iñiguez de Heredia
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781526108760
- eISBN:
- 9781526124203
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526108760.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Everyday resistance, peacebuilding and state-making addresses debates on liberal peace and the policies of peacebuilding through a theoretical and empirical study of resistance in peacebuilding ...
More
Everyday resistance, peacebuilding and state-making addresses debates on liberal peace and the policies of peacebuilding through a theoretical and empirical study of resistance in peacebuilding contexts. Examining the case of ‘Africa’s World War’ in the DRC, it locates resistance in the experiences of war, peacebuilding and state-making by exploring discourses, violence and everyday forms of survival as acts that attempt to challenge or mitigate such experiences. The analysis of resistance offers a possibility to bring the historical and sociological aspects of both peacebuilding and the case of the DRC, providing new nuanced understanding of these processes and the particular case.Less
Everyday resistance, peacebuilding and state-making addresses debates on liberal peace and the policies of peacebuilding through a theoretical and empirical study of resistance in peacebuilding contexts. Examining the case of ‘Africa’s World War’ in the DRC, it locates resistance in the experiences of war, peacebuilding and state-making by exploring discourses, violence and everyday forms of survival as acts that attempt to challenge or mitigate such experiences. The analysis of resistance offers a possibility to bring the historical and sociological aspects of both peacebuilding and the case of the DRC, providing new nuanced understanding of these processes and the particular case.
Manar H. Makhoul
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474459273
- eISBN:
- 9781474480765
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474459273.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
Palestinian citizens in Israel are part of the Palestinian nation that was scattered and divided during the 1948 War (Nakba, a catastrophe), amidst which Israel was founded. Today, Palestinian ...
More
Palestinian citizens in Israel are part of the Palestinian nation that was scattered and divided during the 1948 War (Nakba, a catastrophe), amidst which Israel was founded. Today, Palestinian citizens in Israel are not part of the emancipatory movement of Palestinians outside of Israel. The primary question, then, that this book aims to address relates to understanding the transformation in Palestinian discourse, from that which spoke of national self-determination, to a discourse that is not coherently nationalist. The study of literature aims to provide a view ‘from within’ onto Palestinian discourse. Incorporating almost the entire corpus of Palestinian novels published in Israel between 1948 and 2010, the book aims to deal with the widest possible spectrum of representation. This choice aims to complement existing sociological and literary analysis on Palestinians in Israel.
The book is divided to three chapters, corresponding to political periods in the life of Palestinians in Israel (1948−1967; 1967−1987; and 1987−2010). In the first period, Palestinians in Israel adapt to life under military rule, but they also undergo a process of modernization that aimed, so they believed, to facilitate their integration in Israeli society. Since the late 1960s, during the second period, Palestinians start to question the implications of modernization on their society, highlighting the ambivalence of their life in Israel. In the third period, Palestinians in Israel start to contemplate ‘solutions’ for this ambivalence, or alienation, bringing to the fore issues relating to their relationship with Israel as well as Palestinians across the border.Less
Palestinian citizens in Israel are part of the Palestinian nation that was scattered and divided during the 1948 War (Nakba, a catastrophe), amidst which Israel was founded. Today, Palestinian citizens in Israel are not part of the emancipatory movement of Palestinians outside of Israel. The primary question, then, that this book aims to address relates to understanding the transformation in Palestinian discourse, from that which spoke of national self-determination, to a discourse that is not coherently nationalist. The study of literature aims to provide a view ‘from within’ onto Palestinian discourse. Incorporating almost the entire corpus of Palestinian novels published in Israel between 1948 and 2010, the book aims to deal with the widest possible spectrum of representation. This choice aims to complement existing sociological and literary analysis on Palestinians in Israel.
The book is divided to three chapters, corresponding to political periods in the life of Palestinians in Israel (1948−1967; 1967−1987; and 1987−2010). In the first period, Palestinians in Israel adapt to life under military rule, but they also undergo a process of modernization that aimed, so they believed, to facilitate their integration in Israeli society. Since the late 1960s, during the second period, Palestinians start to question the implications of modernization on their society, highlighting the ambivalence of their life in Israel. In the third period, Palestinians in Israel start to contemplate ‘solutions’ for this ambivalence, or alienation, bringing to the fore issues relating to their relationship with Israel as well as Palestinians across the border.
Lisa Rose Mar
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199733132
- eISBN:
- 9780199866533
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733132.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, World Medieval History
This work traces several generations of Chinese “brokers,” ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada. At the time, most Chinese could not vote and many ...
More
This work traces several generations of Chinese “brokers,” ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada. At the time, most Chinese could not vote and many were illegal immigrants, so brokers played informal but necessary roles as representatives to the larger society. Brokers’ work reveals the changing boundaries between Chinese and Anglo worlds and how tensions among Chinese shaped them. By reinserting Chinese back into mainstream politics, this book alters common understandings of how legally “alien” groups helped create modern immigrant nations. Over several generations, brokers deeply embedded Chinese immigrants in the larger Canadian, U.S., and Chinese politics of their time. On the nineteenth-century Western frontier, Chinese businessmen competed with each other to represent their community. By the early 1920s, a new generation of brokers based in social movements challenged traditional brokers, shifting the power dynamic within the Chinese community. During the Second World War, social movements helped reconfigure both brokerage and race relations. Based on new Chinese language evidence, this book recounts history from the “middle,” a view that is neither bottom up nor top down. Through brokerage, Chinese wielded considerable influence, navigating a period of anti-Asian sentiment and exclusion throughout society. Consequently, Chinese immigrants became significant players in race relations, influencing policies that affected all Canadians and Americans.Less
This work traces several generations of Chinese “brokers,” ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada. At the time, most Chinese could not vote and many were illegal immigrants, so brokers played informal but necessary roles as representatives to the larger society. Brokers’ work reveals the changing boundaries between Chinese and Anglo worlds and how tensions among Chinese shaped them. By reinserting Chinese back into mainstream politics, this book alters common understandings of how legally “alien” groups helped create modern immigrant nations. Over several generations, brokers deeply embedded Chinese immigrants in the larger Canadian, U.S., and Chinese politics of their time. On the nineteenth-century Western frontier, Chinese businessmen competed with each other to represent their community. By the early 1920s, a new generation of brokers based in social movements challenged traditional brokers, shifting the power dynamic within the Chinese community. During the Second World War, social movements helped reconfigure both brokerage and race relations. Based on new Chinese language evidence, this book recounts history from the “middle,” a view that is neither bottom up nor top down. Through brokerage, Chinese wielded considerable influence, navigating a period of anti-Asian sentiment and exclusion throughout society. Consequently, Chinese immigrants became significant players in race relations, influencing policies that affected all Canadians and Americans.
Lisa Rose Mar
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199733132
- eISBN:
- 9780199866533
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733132.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, World Medieval History
In 1924, Robert Park, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, directed a study that asked: Were Asians more like blacks or whites? To find the answer, Anglo American researchers interviewed ...
More
In 1924, Robert Park, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, directed a study that asked: Were Asians more like blacks or whites? To find the answer, Anglo American researchers interviewed Chinese from British Columbia to California, starting with Vancouver, Canada. West Coast Chinese felt that Park’s answer could not be left to chance, so they mobilized the Chinese community to steer the researchers in a specific direction. Brokers hoped to win white scholars’ sympathy as well as to turn the power of social science against anti-Chinese policies. Chinese regarded the study as a battle of wits, a battle that the researchers did not know they were fighting. This meeting would help shape a pivotal set of ideas about immigration and race that would become known as the Chicago School of Sociology.Less
In 1924, Robert Park, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, directed a study that asked: Were Asians more like blacks or whites? To find the answer, Anglo American researchers interviewed Chinese from British Columbia to California, starting with Vancouver, Canada. West Coast Chinese felt that Park’s answer could not be left to chance, so they mobilized the Chinese community to steer the researchers in a specific direction. Brokers hoped to win white scholars’ sympathy as well as to turn the power of social science against anti-Chinese policies. Chinese regarded the study as a battle of wits, a battle that the researchers did not know they were fighting. This meeting would help shape a pivotal set of ideas about immigration and race that would become known as the Chicago School of Sociology.
Stephen P. Turner and Carlos Bertha
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195165272
- eISBN:
- 9780199784554
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165276.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter discusses pedagogical uses of Durkheim that serve to make sense of obligation by enabling students to see how these and related moral concepts are based on, and express, actual moral ...
More
This chapter discusses pedagogical uses of Durkheim that serve to make sense of obligation by enabling students to see how these and related moral concepts are based on, and express, actual moral feelings and bear on actual moral experience. The chapter looks at a course taught by this bookʇs author to a multidisciplinary audience, including students interested in political philosophy, sociological theory, and political theory. The discussion centres on a four-week section of the course devoted to Durkheim, which focused on readings from Pickering's Sociology of Religion. The course readings also included substantial material from selections in Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life.Less
This chapter discusses pedagogical uses of Durkheim that serve to make sense of obligation by enabling students to see how these and related moral concepts are based on, and express, actual moral feelings and bear on actual moral experience. The chapter looks at a course taught by this bookʇs author to a multidisciplinary audience, including students interested in political philosophy, sociological theory, and political theory. The discussion centres on a four-week section of the course devoted to Durkheim, which focused on readings from Pickering's Sociology of Religion. The course readings also included substantial material from selections in Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
Teun Zuiderent-Jerak
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029384
- eISBN:
- 9780262329439
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029384.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Health, Illness, and Medicine
This book considers the question of how the direct involvement of social scientists in the practices they study can lead to the production of interesting sociological knowledge. It draws together two ...
More
This book considers the question of how the direct involvement of social scientists in the practices they study can lead to the production of interesting sociological knowledge. It draws together two activities that are often seen as belonging to different realms: intervening in practices and furthering sociological understanding of them. The common separation of these domains partly stems from disciplinary self-understandings within sociology as either ‘detached’ or ‘engaged’. Situated Intervention proposes that this debate is unproductive for discussing the role of social sciences in relation to their fields. Philosophers of science such as Ian Hacking have argued that natural sciences benefited tremendously from broadening their scholarly mode from theorizing about the world to intervening through experiments Adhering to an objectivist and theorizing image of scholarship within sociology thereby risks loosing a mode of knowledge production that has proven highly productive in the natural sciences. Furthermore, experimental interventions prove relevant for discussions about the normativity of sociological research. These matters are explored by analyzing organizational change projects in healthcare: the development of a hemophilia care center, pathways for hematology and oncology at an outpatient clinic, redesigning oncology care and elective surgery in sixteen hospitals, and evaluating a quality improvement collaborative in long-term care. These experiments invariably lead to the surprising production of sociological knowledge as well as producing novel normativities. The analysis thereby shows that, through situated intervention, sociology not only has more to offer to the practices it studies, but also has more to learn from it.Less
This book considers the question of how the direct involvement of social scientists in the practices they study can lead to the production of interesting sociological knowledge. It draws together two activities that are often seen as belonging to different realms: intervening in practices and furthering sociological understanding of them. The common separation of these domains partly stems from disciplinary self-understandings within sociology as either ‘detached’ or ‘engaged’. Situated Intervention proposes that this debate is unproductive for discussing the role of social sciences in relation to their fields. Philosophers of science such as Ian Hacking have argued that natural sciences benefited tremendously from broadening their scholarly mode from theorizing about the world to intervening through experiments Adhering to an objectivist and theorizing image of scholarship within sociology thereby risks loosing a mode of knowledge production that has proven highly productive in the natural sciences. Furthermore, experimental interventions prove relevant for discussions about the normativity of sociological research. These matters are explored by analyzing organizational change projects in healthcare: the development of a hemophilia care center, pathways for hematology and oncology at an outpatient clinic, redesigning oncology care and elective surgery in sixteen hospitals, and evaluating a quality improvement collaborative in long-term care. These experiments invariably lead to the surprising production of sociological knowledge as well as producing novel normativities. The analysis thereby shows that, through situated intervention, sociology not only has more to offer to the practices it studies, but also has more to learn from it.
Shari Dworkin
- Published in print:
- 1942
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479806454
- eISBN:
- 9781479819683
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479806454.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Health, Illness, and Medicine
Although the first AIDS cases were attributed to men having sex with men, over 70 percent of HIV infections worldwide are now estimated to occur through sex between women and men. In Men at Risk, ...
More
Although the first AIDS cases were attributed to men having sex with men, over 70 percent of HIV infections worldwide are now estimated to occur through sex between women and men. In Men at Risk, Shari L. Dworkin uses sociological thinking (masculinity studies, feminist thought, and intersectionality) to critically evaluate public and global health programming in HIV prevention to date. She highlights how heterosexually-active men have been overlooked in behavioral HIV prevention programming both domestically and globally. The book also centrally challenges common notions of gendered vulnerability and HIV risk by meticulously detailing how and why heterosexually-active men are indeed “at risk” of HIV and AIDS. She highlights interview data collected from men who participated in a relatively new type of health programming with men known as “gender transformative.” She examines the promises and limitations of gender-transformative health programming with men by detailing how men who participate in such programs respond to being asked to change in the direction of increased gender equality in the name of health. Paying simultaneous attention to men’s voices and multi-racial feminist thought, she makes promising suggestions for the next generation of HIV prevention programming by calling for masculinities-based structural interventions that are also empowering to women.Less
Although the first AIDS cases were attributed to men having sex with men, over 70 percent of HIV infections worldwide are now estimated to occur through sex between women and men. In Men at Risk, Shari L. Dworkin uses sociological thinking (masculinity studies, feminist thought, and intersectionality) to critically evaluate public and global health programming in HIV prevention to date. She highlights how heterosexually-active men have been overlooked in behavioral HIV prevention programming both domestically and globally. The book also centrally challenges common notions of gendered vulnerability and HIV risk by meticulously detailing how and why heterosexually-active men are indeed “at risk” of HIV and AIDS. She highlights interview data collected from men who participated in a relatively new type of health programming with men known as “gender transformative.” She examines the promises and limitations of gender-transformative health programming with men by detailing how men who participate in such programs respond to being asked to change in the direction of increased gender equality in the name of health. Paying simultaneous attention to men’s voices and multi-racial feminist thought, she makes promising suggestions for the next generation of HIV prevention programming by calling for masculinities-based structural interventions that are also empowering to women.
Connor J Fitzmaurice and Brian J. Gareau
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300199451
- eISBN:
- 9780300224856
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300199451.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
Walking through nearly any grocery store, contemporary American consumers are bound to encounter organic food. At any of the myriad of farmers’ markets that have sprung up in cities and small ...
More
Walking through nearly any grocery store, contemporary American consumers are bound to encounter organic food. At any of the myriad of farmers’ markets that have sprung up in cities and small communities across the United States, shoppers can expect to see claims about the provenance and farming practices employed to grow everything from prized heirloom tomatoes to seemingly mundane heads of garlic. But behind the scenes, critical scholarship has shown that organic farming increasingly resembles the industrial food system organic pioneers set out to challenge. Faced with the pressures of the modern agricultural economy many farmers have conventionalized, intensifying how they farm in the face of tremendous competition and cost. Beyond the organic labels, emblazoned on products at the supermarket and the glistening bushel baskets arrayed in market stalls, are farmers, many of whom are trying to do their best to achieve sustainability in today’s food system. This book offers a glimpse into this world, through an ethnography of a small New England farm and the people who work in its fields. It sheds light on how small-scale farmers navigate the difficult terrain between ideals of sustainability and the economic realities of contemporary farming. Using new theories of economic sociology, this book moves beyond the current debates about the conventionalization of organic agriculture. Instead, it takes a relational approach to organic practices—investigating the complex ways market pressures, moral and emotional attachments, privilege, and personal relationships intersect to shape the everyday experiences of agriculture for today’s organic farmers and their consumers.Less
Walking through nearly any grocery store, contemporary American consumers are bound to encounter organic food. At any of the myriad of farmers’ markets that have sprung up in cities and small communities across the United States, shoppers can expect to see claims about the provenance and farming practices employed to grow everything from prized heirloom tomatoes to seemingly mundane heads of garlic. But behind the scenes, critical scholarship has shown that organic farming increasingly resembles the industrial food system organic pioneers set out to challenge. Faced with the pressures of the modern agricultural economy many farmers have conventionalized, intensifying how they farm in the face of tremendous competition and cost. Beyond the organic labels, emblazoned on products at the supermarket and the glistening bushel baskets arrayed in market stalls, are farmers, many of whom are trying to do their best to achieve sustainability in today’s food system. This book offers a glimpse into this world, through an ethnography of a small New England farm and the people who work in its fields. It sheds light on how small-scale farmers navigate the difficult terrain between ideals of sustainability and the economic realities of contemporary farming. Using new theories of economic sociology, this book moves beyond the current debates about the conventionalization of organic agriculture. Instead, it takes a relational approach to organic practices—investigating the complex ways market pressures, moral and emotional attachments, privilege, and personal relationships intersect to shape the everyday experiences of agriculture for today’s organic farmers and their consumers.
Angela Stroud
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469627892
- eISBN:
- 9781469627915
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627892.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Ethical Issues and Debates
Although the rate of gun ownership in U.S. households has declined from an estimated 50 percent in 1970 to approximately 32 percent today, Americans' propensity for carrying concealed firearms has ...
More
Although the rate of gun ownership in U.S. households has declined from an estimated 50 percent in 1970 to approximately 32 percent today, Americans' propensity for carrying concealed firearms has risen sharply in recent years. Today, more than 11 million Americans hold concealed handgun licenses, an increase from 4.5 million in 2007. Yet, despite increasing numbers of firearms and expanding opportunities for gun owners to carry concealed firearms in public places, we know little about the reasons for obtaining a concealed carry permit or what a publicly armed citizenry means for society. Angela Stroud draws on in-depth interviews with permit holders and on field observations at licensing courses to understand how social and cultural factors shape the practice of obtaining a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Stroud's subjects usually first insist that a gun is simply a tool for protection, but she shows how much more the license represents: possessing a concealed firearm is a practice shaped by race, class, gender, and cultural definitions that separate "good guys" from those who represent threats. This work goes beyond the existing literature on guns in American culture, most of which concentrates on the effects of the gun lobby on public policy and perception. Focusing on how respondents view the world around them, this book demonstrates that the value gun owners place on their firearms is an expression of their sense of self and how they see their social environment.Less
Although the rate of gun ownership in U.S. households has declined from an estimated 50 percent in 1970 to approximately 32 percent today, Americans' propensity for carrying concealed firearms has risen sharply in recent years. Today, more than 11 million Americans hold concealed handgun licenses, an increase from 4.5 million in 2007. Yet, despite increasing numbers of firearms and expanding opportunities for gun owners to carry concealed firearms in public places, we know little about the reasons for obtaining a concealed carry permit or what a publicly armed citizenry means for society. Angela Stroud draws on in-depth interviews with permit holders and on field observations at licensing courses to understand how social and cultural factors shape the practice of obtaining a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Stroud's subjects usually first insist that a gun is simply a tool for protection, but she shows how much more the license represents: possessing a concealed firearm is a practice shaped by race, class, gender, and cultural definitions that separate "good guys" from those who represent threats. This work goes beyond the existing literature on guns in American culture, most of which concentrates on the effects of the gun lobby on public policy and perception. Focusing on how respondents view the world around them, this book demonstrates that the value gun owners place on their firearms is an expression of their sense of self and how they see their social environment.
Deborah Jump
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781529203240
- eISBN:
- 9781529203264
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529203240.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Social Groups
There is an assumption in criminal justice that boxing will immediately work to reduce offending among young men. Many practitioners cite discipline and respect as the desisting elements inherent in ...
More
There is an assumption in criminal justice that boxing will immediately work to reduce offending among young men. Many practitioners cite discipline and respect as the desisting elements inherent in a boxing gym. Undoubtedly, these discourses do exist, yet, what if the discipline and the respect garnered in the gym are used for other purposes that are not always conducive to the desistance process? This book will unpick how effective boxing actually is in reducing violent attitudes, and how to ensure that the messages in the gym environment do not support negative attitudes often found outside the ring. Using classic desistance literature (Giordano 2002; Maruna 2001), I make suggestions that are grounded in evidence and theory. Using case studies, and life history interviewing drawn from a psychosocial perspective (Jefferson and Hollway 2000; Gadd 2007; Maruna 2001), this book builds on techniques that uncover the more clandestine reasons for choosing boxing. Working within this psychosocial framework, the desire and the appealing nature of boxing, more often than not, comes from a place of anxiety rather than strength. I will present arguments that suggest boxing’s appeal lies in its capacity to develop ‘physical capital’ (Wacquant 2004), and prevent repeat victimisation. Using case studies, I will reveal stories of men’s victimhood, either via gang violence, domestic violence, or structural disadvantage. I will tell the story of how boxing reshaped their identities and self-concepts, and how the gym came to represent a fraternity and a ‘island of stability and order’ (Wacquant 2004). Additionally, I will present arguments that suggest that boxing is not a panacea for all social ills, and while it has its benefits, it also has a darker side that is coterminous with hyper- masculine discourses of violence, respect, and avoidance of shame.Less
There is an assumption in criminal justice that boxing will immediately work to reduce offending among young men. Many practitioners cite discipline and respect as the desisting elements inherent in a boxing gym. Undoubtedly, these discourses do exist, yet, what if the discipline and the respect garnered in the gym are used for other purposes that are not always conducive to the desistance process? This book will unpick how effective boxing actually is in reducing violent attitudes, and how to ensure that the messages in the gym environment do not support negative attitudes often found outside the ring. Using classic desistance literature (Giordano 2002; Maruna 2001), I make suggestions that are grounded in evidence and theory. Using case studies, and life history interviewing drawn from a psychosocial perspective (Jefferson and Hollway 2000; Gadd 2007; Maruna 2001), this book builds on techniques that uncover the more clandestine reasons for choosing boxing. Working within this psychosocial framework, the desire and the appealing nature of boxing, more often than not, comes from a place of anxiety rather than strength. I will present arguments that suggest boxing’s appeal lies in its capacity to develop ‘physical capital’ (Wacquant 2004), and prevent repeat victimisation. Using case studies, I will reveal stories of men’s victimhood, either via gang violence, domestic violence, or structural disadvantage. I will tell the story of how boxing reshaped their identities and self-concepts, and how the gym came to represent a fraternity and a ‘island of stability and order’ (Wacquant 2004). Additionally, I will present arguments that suggest that boxing is not a panacea for all social ills, and while it has its benefits, it also has a darker side that is coterminous with hyper- masculine discourses of violence, respect, and avoidance of shame.
Kyle McGee (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748697908
- eISBN:
- 9781474416061
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748697908.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
Thirteen essays exploring Bruno Latour's legal theory from a variety of disciplinary perspectives – including a chapter by Bruno Latour responding to the arguments and critiques offered in each ...
More
Thirteen essays exploring Bruno Latour's legal theory from a variety of disciplinary perspectives – including a chapter by Bruno Latour responding to the arguments and critiques offered in each chapter. This book develops an exciting new vision for legal theory combining analytical tools drawn from Latour's actor-network theory developed in works like Science in Action, Reassembling the Social and The Making of Law with the philosophical anthropology of the Moderns in An Inquiry into Modes of Existence to blaze an entirely new trail in legal epistemology. Bruno Latour's writings in science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology and philosophy are well-known, but only rarely has his work in law been appreciated as a core element, and still less as an obligatory passage point for students and scholars of law. This collection demonstrates the urgency with which both of those omissions must be reconsidered.Less
Thirteen essays exploring Bruno Latour's legal theory from a variety of disciplinary perspectives – including a chapter by Bruno Latour responding to the arguments and critiques offered in each chapter. This book develops an exciting new vision for legal theory combining analytical tools drawn from Latour's actor-network theory developed in works like Science in Action, Reassembling the Social and The Making of Law with the philosophical anthropology of the Moderns in An Inquiry into Modes of Existence to blaze an entirely new trail in legal epistemology. Bruno Latour's writings in science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology and philosophy are well-known, but only rarely has his work in law been appreciated as a core element, and still less as an obligatory passage point for students and scholars of law. This collection demonstrates the urgency with which both of those omissions must be reconsidered.
Jerome P. Baggett
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479874200
- eISBN:
- 9781479857395
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479874200.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Based primarily on in-person, telephone-based, and e-mail interviews with more than five hundred American atheists, this book, situated within the discipline of sociology, uncovers the vast diversity ...
More
Based primarily on in-person, telephone-based, and e-mail interviews with more than five hundred American atheists, this book, situated within the discipline of sociology, uncovers the vast diversity of attitudes that exists among atheists today. In doing so, it shows that everyday atheists typically have more nuanced views on religion than do best-selling New Atheist authors; they rely on their feelings as well as their critical thinking when making sense of their nonbelief; and, rather than being members of various atheism-related groups and communities, they generally ground their identities as atheists by participating within an “imagined community” of putatively like-minded others. Moreover, even though atheists are typically understood by the wider public in negative terms, as people who do not believe in God, this book attempts to understand them in more positive terms. Looked at more closely, rather than simply rejecting God and religion, they are actually embracing lives marked by what they deem as integrity, open-mindedness, and progress.Less
Based primarily on in-person, telephone-based, and e-mail interviews with more than five hundred American atheists, this book, situated within the discipline of sociology, uncovers the vast diversity of attitudes that exists among atheists today. In doing so, it shows that everyday atheists typically have more nuanced views on religion than do best-selling New Atheist authors; they rely on their feelings as well as their critical thinking when making sense of their nonbelief; and, rather than being members of various atheism-related groups and communities, they generally ground their identities as atheists by participating within an “imagined community” of putatively like-minded others. Moreover, even though atheists are typically understood by the wider public in negative terms, as people who do not believe in God, this book attempts to understand them in more positive terms. Looked at more closely, rather than simply rejecting God and religion, they are actually embracing lives marked by what they deem as integrity, open-mindedness, and progress.
Ali Meghji
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781526143075
- eISBN:
- 9781526150424
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526143082
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This book analyses how racism and anti-racism influences Black British middle class cultural consumption. In doing so, this book challenges the dominant understanding of British middle class identity ...
More
This book analyses how racism and anti-racism influences Black British middle class cultural consumption. In doing so, this book challenges the dominant understanding of British middle class identity and culture as being ‘beyond race’.
Paying attention to the relationship between cultural capital and cultural repertoires, this book puts forward the idea that there are three black middle-class identity modes: strategic assimilation, class-minded, and ethnoracial autonomous. People towards each of these identity modes use specific cultural repertoires to organise their cultural consumption. Those towards strategic assimilation draw on repertoires of code-switching and cultural equity, consuming traditional middle class culture to maintain an equality with the white middle-class in levels of cultural capital. Ethnoracial autonomous individuals draw on repertoires of browning and Afro-centrism, self-selecting out of traditional middle- class cultural pursuits they decode as ‘Eurocentric’, while showing a preference for cultural forms that uplift black diasporic histories and cultures. Lastly, those towards the class-minded identity mode draw on repertoires of post-racialism and de-racialisation. Such individuals polarise between ‘Black’ and middle class cultural forms, display an unequivocal preference for the latter, and lambast other black people who avoid middle-class culture as being culturally myopic or culturally uncultivated.
This book will appeal to sociology students, researchers, and academics working on race and class, critical race theory, and cultural sociology, among other social science disciplines.Less
This book analyses how racism and anti-racism influences Black British middle class cultural consumption. In doing so, this book challenges the dominant understanding of British middle class identity and culture as being ‘beyond race’.
Paying attention to the relationship between cultural capital and cultural repertoires, this book puts forward the idea that there are three black middle-class identity modes: strategic assimilation, class-minded, and ethnoracial autonomous. People towards each of these identity modes use specific cultural repertoires to organise their cultural consumption. Those towards strategic assimilation draw on repertoires of code-switching and cultural equity, consuming traditional middle class culture to maintain an equality with the white middle-class in levels of cultural capital. Ethnoracial autonomous individuals draw on repertoires of browning and Afro-centrism, self-selecting out of traditional middle- class cultural pursuits they decode as ‘Eurocentric’, while showing a preference for cultural forms that uplift black diasporic histories and cultures. Lastly, those towards the class-minded identity mode draw on repertoires of post-racialism and de-racialisation. Such individuals polarise between ‘Black’ and middle class cultural forms, display an unequivocal preference for the latter, and lambast other black people who avoid middle-class culture as being culturally myopic or culturally uncultivated.
This book will appeal to sociology students, researchers, and academics working on race and class, critical race theory, and cultural sociology, among other social science disciplines.
Harry Collins
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226052298
- eISBN:
- 9780226052328
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226052328.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Based in the sociology of scientific knowledge the book describes, in real time, two potential discoveries of gravitational waves, known as the Equinox Event and Big Dog. These were made by the LIGO ...
More
Based in the sociology of scientific knowledge the book describes, in real time, two potential discoveries of gravitational waves, known as the Equinox Event and Big Dog. These were made by the LIGO and Virgo detectors. There is additional tension because the signals might have been deliberately injected into the detectors – so called ‘blind injections’. Scientific discovery is shown to depend on many kinds of decisions not normally thought of as belonging to science. The role and nature of statistics is also examined. Wider conclusions are drawn about the moral nature of science and about the methodology of the social sciences, particularly participant observation.Less
Based in the sociology of scientific knowledge the book describes, in real time, two potential discoveries of gravitational waves, known as the Equinox Event and Big Dog. These were made by the LIGO and Virgo detectors. There is additional tension because the signals might have been deliberately injected into the detectors – so called ‘blind injections’. Scientific discovery is shown to depend on many kinds of decisions not normally thought of as belonging to science. The role and nature of statistics is also examined. Wider conclusions are drawn about the moral nature of science and about the methodology of the social sciences, particularly participant observation.
Jeremy Rosen
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231177443
- eISBN:
- 9780231542401
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231177443.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
How do genres develop? In what ways do they reflect changing political and cultural trends? What do they tell us about the motivations of publishers and readers? Combining close readings and formal ...
More
How do genres develop? In what ways do they reflect changing political and cultural trends? What do they tell us about the motivations of publishers and readers? Combining close readings and formal analysis with a sociology of literary institutions and markets, Minor Characters Have Their Day offers a compelling new approach to genre study and contemporary fiction. Focusing on the booming genre of books that transform minor characters from canonical literary texts into the protagonists of new works, Jeremy Rosen makes broader claims about the state of contemporary fiction, the strategies of the publishing industry over recent decades, and the function of literary characters.
Rosen traces the recent surge in “minor-character elaboration” to the late 1960s and works such as Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. These early examples often recover the voices of marginalized individuals and groups. As the genre has exploded between the 1980s and the present, with novels about Ahab’s wife, Huck Finn’s father, and Mr. Dalloway, it has begun to embody the neoliberal commitments of subjective experience, individual expression, and agency. Eventually, large-scale publishers capitalized on the genre as a way to appeal to educated audiences aware of the prestige of the classics and to draw in identity-based niche markets. Rosen’s conclusion ties the understudied evolution of minor-character elaboration to the theory of literary character.Less
How do genres develop? In what ways do they reflect changing political and cultural trends? What do they tell us about the motivations of publishers and readers? Combining close readings and formal analysis with a sociology of literary institutions and markets, Minor Characters Have Their Day offers a compelling new approach to genre study and contemporary fiction. Focusing on the booming genre of books that transform minor characters from canonical literary texts into the protagonists of new works, Jeremy Rosen makes broader claims about the state of contemporary fiction, the strategies of the publishing industry over recent decades, and the function of literary characters.
Rosen traces the recent surge in “minor-character elaboration” to the late 1960s and works such as Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. These early examples often recover the voices of marginalized individuals and groups. As the genre has exploded between the 1980s and the present, with novels about Ahab’s wife, Huck Finn’s father, and Mr. Dalloway, it has begun to embody the neoliberal commitments of subjective experience, individual expression, and agency. Eventually, large-scale publishers capitalized on the genre as a way to appeal to educated audiences aware of the prestige of the classics and to draw in identity-based niche markets. Rosen’s conclusion ties the understudied evolution of minor-character elaboration to the theory of literary character.
Charlotte Heath-Kelly
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781784993139
- eISBN:
- 9781526120991
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784993139.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Ethical Issues and Debates
Death is simultaneously silent, and very loud, in political life. Politicians and media scream about potential threats lurking behind every corner, but academic discourse often neglects mortality. ...
More
Death is simultaneously silent, and very loud, in political life. Politicians and media scream about potential threats lurking behind every corner, but academic discourse often neglects mortality. Life is everywhere in theorisation of security, but death is nowhere.Making a bold intervention into the Critical Security Studies literature, this book explores the ontological relationship between mortality and security after the Death of God – arguing that security emerged in response to the removal of promises to immortal salvation. Combining the mortality theories of Heidegger and Bauman with literature from the sociology of death, Heath-Kelly shows how security is a response to the death anxiety implicit within the human condition.The book explores the theoretical literature on mortality before undertaking a comparative exploration of the memorialisation of four prominent post-terrorist sites: the World Trade Center in New York, the Bali bombsite, the London bombings and the Norwegian sites attacked by Anders Breivik. By interviewing the architects and designers of these reconstruction projects, Heath-Kelly shows that practices of memorialization are a retrospective security endeavour – they conceal and re-narrate the traumatic incursion of death. Disaster recovery is replete with security practices that return mortality to its sublimated position and remove the disruption posed by mortality to political authority.The book will be of significant interest to academics and postgraduates working in the fields of Critical Security Studies, Memory Studies and International Politics.Less
Death is simultaneously silent, and very loud, in political life. Politicians and media scream about potential threats lurking behind every corner, but academic discourse often neglects mortality. Life is everywhere in theorisation of security, but death is nowhere.Making a bold intervention into the Critical Security Studies literature, this book explores the ontological relationship between mortality and security after the Death of God – arguing that security emerged in response to the removal of promises to immortal salvation. Combining the mortality theories of Heidegger and Bauman with literature from the sociology of death, Heath-Kelly shows how security is a response to the death anxiety implicit within the human condition.The book explores the theoretical literature on mortality before undertaking a comparative exploration of the memorialisation of four prominent post-terrorist sites: the World Trade Center in New York, the Bali bombsite, the London bombings and the Norwegian sites attacked by Anders Breivik. By interviewing the architects and designers of these reconstruction projects, Heath-Kelly shows that practices of memorialization are a retrospective security endeavour – they conceal and re-narrate the traumatic incursion of death. Disaster recovery is replete with security practices that return mortality to its sublimated position and remove the disruption posed by mortality to political authority.The book will be of significant interest to academics and postgraduates working in the fields of Critical Security Studies, Memory Studies and International Politics.
Eric Boynton and Peter Capretto (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823280261
- eISBN:
- 9780823281602
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823280261.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Within the humanities, specifically in the past decade, trauma theory has become a robust site of interdisciplinary work. Trauma resonates with scholars in and across disciplines and has become a ...
More
Within the humanities, specifically in the past decade, trauma theory has become a robust site of interdisciplinary work. Trauma resonates with scholars in and across disciplines and has become a trope with a distinctive significance. The scope of scholarship on trauma has always been challenged by the temporal, affective, and corporeal dimensions of trauma itself, yet it has recently been rendered all the more complex by theoretical and methodological issues that have emerged for these disciplines in their attempts to think trauma. This volume gathers scholars in a variety of disciplines to meet the challenge of how to think trauma in light of its burgeoning interdisciplinarity, and often its theoretical splintering. From distinctive disciplinary vectors, the work of philosophers, social theorists, philosophical psychologists and theologians consider the limits and prospects of theory when thinking trauma and transcendence. By bringing together scholars at the intersections of trauma, social theory, and especially the continental philosophy of religion, this volume draws attention to the increasing challenge of deciding whether trauma’s transcendent, evental, or unassimilable quality is being wielded as a defense of traumatic experience against reductionism, or whether it is promulgated as a form of obscurantism.Less
Within the humanities, specifically in the past decade, trauma theory has become a robust site of interdisciplinary work. Trauma resonates with scholars in and across disciplines and has become a trope with a distinctive significance. The scope of scholarship on trauma has always been challenged by the temporal, affective, and corporeal dimensions of trauma itself, yet it has recently been rendered all the more complex by theoretical and methodological issues that have emerged for these disciplines in their attempts to think trauma. This volume gathers scholars in a variety of disciplines to meet the challenge of how to think trauma in light of its burgeoning interdisciplinarity, and often its theoretical splintering. From distinctive disciplinary vectors, the work of philosophers, social theorists, philosophical psychologists and theologians consider the limits and prospects of theory when thinking trauma and transcendence. By bringing together scholars at the intersections of trauma, social theory, and especially the continental philosophy of religion, this volume draws attention to the increasing challenge of deciding whether trauma’s transcendent, evental, or unassimilable quality is being wielded as a defense of traumatic experience against reductionism, or whether it is promulgated as a form of obscurantism.
