Creating Accessible Queer Community: Intersections and Fractures with Dis/Ability Praxis

This article explores the intersections and fractures that disability theory and activism present to queer community. The authors begin by drawing upon a multiple axis approach from feminist theory, then discuss the problem of defining disability and queer. They then explore the intersections and fractures of these identities and theories, hoping to raise awareness among queer activists and scholars and introduce them to conceptual and practical tools. In particular, disability studies offers a way to reconceptualize and ground theory and practice in the messiness of real bodies and to make visible the mythic normate against which cultural Others are defined.     

Making Minorities: Cultural Space,Stigma Transformation Frames,and the Categorical Status Claims of Deaf,Gay, and White Supremacist Activists in Late Twentieth Century America

This article compares the efforts of movement activists in three dissimilar groups to replace a stigmatized status with a valued one by portraying their groups as resembling established minorities (claims of contiguity in cultural space) and as differing from groups stigmatized as deviant (claims of distance). The most common claims assert similarity to African Americans, and frequently incorporate civil rights themes (exemplifying frame diffusion). Tactically, these minority status claims exploit both the resonance of cultural pluralism and state recognition of minorities. Strategically, minority status framing enables stigmatized groups to claim legitimacy without changing — simultaneously asserting both normality and difference.     

Habermas and green political thought

Conclusion My principal ecocentric objection to Habermas's social and political theory has been that it is thoroughly human-centered in insisting that the emancipation of human relations need not require or depend upon the emancipation of nature. Although Habermas has moved beyond the pessimism and utopianism of the first generation of Critical Theorists by providing the conceptual foundations of the practical and emancipatory cognitive interests, he has, as Whitebook points out, also markedly altered the spirit of their project. Yet it is precisely the spirit of the early Frankfurt school theorists, namely, its critique of the dominant imperialist orientation toward the world (rather than its critique of a simplistically conceived idea of science) and its desire for the liberation of nature, that is most relevant to - and provides the most enduring Western Marxist link with - the ecocentric perspective of the radical Greens.

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Max Weber,critical theory,and the administered world

The sociological perspectives of Max Weber and the Frankfurt School have been viewed as polarities in much of the recent literature. The Frankfurt sociologists were advocates of a neo-Marxism that stressed dialectical reasoning and rejected the notion of value-neutrality. Weber adhered to the canons of causal logic and cultivated the ideal of objectivity in social research. Notwithstanding these theoretical and methodological differences, Weber and the advocates of critical theory arrived at surprisingly similar conclusions about the fate of the modern world. Weber saw the advent of a bureaucratic iron cage which would effectively negate the role of the individual, while the Frankfurt sociologists posited the onset of an administered world in which human activity would be smothered in an ever-expanding network of management and control. Given these commonalities, a revision of the standard evaluation of Weber and critical theory is suggested.     

Sociology of “primitive societies,” evolutionism,and Africa

Sociology of primitive societies has revised its earlier views about kinship, lineage, or lineage mode of production. It attempts now to show that lineage did not pervade African precolonial societies and that other relations, such as capitalist and class relations, were also present. This article seeks to reestablish, contrary to the revisionist view, the centrality of lineage in African precolonial societies to allow for a paradigmatic shift that repudiates evolutionism and brings precolonial societies back to the center of the African debate. Because in such a reoriented debate Africa ceases to be marginalized and on the fringes of other historical experiences, the shift allows, paradoxically, the integration of scholarship on Africa into universal social theory.     

The Nomothetic-Idiographic Issue: Some Roots and Recent Trends

A review of the history of the nomothetic-idiographic issue suggests that the problem of the uniqueness of the individual is secondary in this context to that of the right approach to the study of the human person. Idiographic approaches emphasize the need for an unmutilated conceptualization of psychological processes. The requirements of this unmutilated kind of research need to be integrated with those of nomothetic science asking for the controlled gaining and analyzing of information regarding psychological processes. One form of such a kind of integration is represented by biographical studies based on semistructured interviews and a systematic qualitative and quantitative analysis of their contents. Findings from such research as especially related to developmental and personality psychology are reported here by summarizing a series of studies conducted at the University of Bonn.     

Words of power: The power of words

Conclusion The original hapiness of words (Foucault) is gone ; there are no innocent languages (Barthes) anymore. All are related to social experiences, because a language originates in and has its primary reference to the everyday life. (Berger and Luckman, 1967, p.38) Any language is related to a given society, and both language and society are shaped by history. Obviously, American and French histories have been quite different.     

Lying about running: The functions of talk in a scene

The running scene rests upon a system of beliefs (a code) about the qualities of running performances. Membership in the scene entails the interrelated use of conversational forms and the presentation of a team identity. The forms consist of nomic talk, ritualized lying and code truth telling. Within each form, the runner may lie about or manage information regarding running performances in order to construct, maintain or attack the system of beliefs. The lie, then, plays a major role in the scene as a device of social interaction.     

Touristic authenticity,touristic angst,and modern reality

The tourist has become the symbol of a peculiarly modern type of inauthenticity. This paper explores the criticisms that have been directed at the reality experiences of the tourist. In so doing, the following inexhaustive typology of touristic realities is developed: 1) the first-order or true tourist, 2) the second-order or Angst-ridden tourist, 3( the third-order or anthropological tourist, and 4) the fourth-order or spiritual tourist. Each of these types represents a progressively more intense search for reality through travel. Each is, however, criticized for participating in its own form of inauthenticity.After exploring the reality experiences and criticisms of each of these travellers, the paper turns the tables on the cultured despisers of tourism to argue that perhaps the lowly first-order tourist is not so inauthentic after all. True, this traveller may not be having a real heroic adventure, but such is not the goal. Rather, the reality experienced by the first-order tourist is a pleasurable liberation from the normal concerns of everyday life which simultaneously reaffirms commitment to that reality. Quite frequently the first-order tourist is less concerned about having a real experience in the visited place than in experiencing family and friendship relationships-relationships completely ignored by the anti-touristic tourists in their search for authenticity in someone else's reality.The author would like to thank Peter L. Berger, Harry C. Bredemeier, Warren I. Susman, and M. Kathy Kenyon for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. This research was supported in part by NIMH grant no. 5 T32 NH14660.     

Legitimating impotence: Pyrrhic victories of the modern environmental movement

The strengths and limitations of the modern environmental movement are assessed, using a contextual analysis, with a framework drawn from pragmatic analysis. Empirical summaries from recent policy-making supported by the movement: in community-based recycling, local toxic waste movements, and water pollution control document the fact that the movement has indeed developed some sustainable resistance in policy-making in the U.S. and at the Rio Conference. But it has also ignored those consequences of environmental protection which degrade the living conditions for many people of color and other low-income groups. The movement's failure to form enduring coalitions for linking environmental protection to social justice limits the movement's power, by permitting disempowered groups to be mobilized in opposition to environmental protection. We outline an alternative strategy, built around sustainable legitimacy, which will require changes in the composition and program of environmental movement organizations.     

How epoch making are high technologies? The case of biotechnology

This paper is a commentary on the current tendency among sociologists to embrace the notion that high technologies will be revolutionary or epoch making. The implicit neo-Schumpeterian logic of these claims is detailed, and a preliminary framework for empirical examination is developed for the case of biotechnology. Available evidence suggests that biotechnology, because it will be applied primarily in declining sectors of the economy and is mainly a substitution technology, is unlikely to be an epoch-making technical form. The implications of these observations for sociological reasoning about new technologies and technological change are discussed.     

“Marrying off” children as a developmental stage

Conclusion Marrying off the children is an important developmental stage in adulthood. Part of the very long and complex stage described by Erik Erikson as Generativity vs. Stagnation, this stage, like many earlier life stages, can be understood to give rise to a normative adult crisis that is destabilizing and anxiety-provoking. The marriage of one's offspring requires an ongoing transformation of parental narcissism, part of a developmental process that is intrinsic to parenthood. Issues of selfesteem are revived and reworked during this period. Traditional theory looks to oedipal rivalry or drive conflict of some kind to explain the anxiety at this time. An expanded understanding of narcissism, provided by Kohut and Elson has given us a broader view of these phenomena.The experience of hurt and sadness at a time when there is reason to celebrate can be a profoundly lonely and bewildering experience. As informed clinicians we can alleviate some of the loneliness and guilt about these feelings by understanding the challenge to the self that the marriage of adult children may represent.     

Structure and process in interpersonal “distancing”

The present paper focuses on awho-why-where-when-how-what-whom structural model of interpersonal distancing. The term distancing denotes either approach or avoidance movement along an intimacy-immediacy dimension. This dimension itself is defined as an integration across proxemic, kinesic, paralinguistic, and linguistic interpersonal modalities. Parallels are drawn between the concepts of intimacy disequilibrium and cognitive dissonance; the latter deals with attitude-behavior discrepancies and the former with attraction-approach discrepancies. A compensatory model is expanded acrosswho's partners as well as across his sensory modalities, and the concept of intimacy overload is offered as a clarifying tool for the social refractoriness and information overload explanations appearing in various aspects of the literature.Paper presented at the Symposium on Some New Approaches for Studying and Measuring Interpersonal Communication, 82d Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, September 1974.The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Department 1229, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey, in the writing of this paper. Much of the work was supported by NSF Grant 2852A at Wayne State University.     

Adoptive parenting and the norm of family emotionality

This paper is concerned with the construction of the sense of a common bond in adoptive families. First, I clarify how adoptive families construct this sense in relation to biological families. Second, by examining features of adoptive family life, I suggest a new way of understanding non-adoptive families. Presuppositions about normal family relationships dominate the start of adoptive family life. As seen from the actors' perspective, emotional normalization is a crucial indicator of successful adoptive family life. I outline how involuntarily childless couples try to accomplish normality when applying for a child, and how achieving the assumed normality of nonadoptive families continues after adoption.I appreciate Shulamit Reinharz' careful editing, and thank her for helping me share some of my research findings with an American audience.     

Snarls,Quacks, and Quarrels: Culture and Structure in Political Process Theory

Political process theories of social movements have relied on a set of oppositions between culture and structure that has limited their capacity to capture the supraindividual, durable, and constraining dimensions of culture. The solution is not to abandon an emphasis on objective political structures in favor of potential insurgents' subjective perceptions of political opportunities, but rather to probe the (objective) resources and constraints generated by the cultural dimensions of political structures. Such a perspective would pay closer attention to the cultural traditions, ideological principles, institutional memories, and political taboos that create and limit political opportunities; and would link the master frames that animate protest to dominant political structures and processes.     

The influence of the organization on clinical practice

Almost all, if not all clinical decisions represent agency policy and organizational imperatives in action. The organization influences and shapes services, problem definition, assessment and intervention, and careers of clients. This paper explores ideas about the organizational context of practice, organizational problems and related issues, and offers suggestions for increasing the clinician's influence and effectiveness.     

Love and Sex in Constructing Identity Among Men Who Have Sex with Men

Interviews were conducted with 102 Ontario men who have sex with men who identify themselves as gay, bisexual, and not gay, concerning the meanings and satisfactions associated with their sexuality. Sexual discourses of men who identify themselves in different ways reveal some common criteria for placing self and others into the gay category. Gay, in the everyday speech of these men, appears to refer to an elaborated discourse around the potential for emotional involvement and relationships rather than a reference to an essentialized sexuality. Comparison of men who place themselves inside and outside sexual identity categories shows that many find gay identity to be a horizon of increased possibilities, rather than the limitation critiqued by queer theory. These findings are contextualized in recent debates in identity theory.     

The coming revolution of biotechnology: A critique of Buttel

Frederick Buttel was one of the pioneers in studying the social impacts of biotechnology, claiming originally that it will involve profound changes in social structure. Recently Buttel turned around his argument proposing that, rather than revolutionary, biotechnology is more a substitutionist technological form to be applied to declining sectors of the economy than an epoch-making technology. This paper provides both external and internal critiques of Buttel's new position based on the concept of the third technological revolution, looking at the impact of new technologies as a global and interrelated phenomenon, and not on an individual case-by-case basis. The concluding section suggests the necessity of bringing into the analysis those living in the Third World: 60% of this population lives from agriculture and will be affected by the deployment of agricultural biotechnologies, whether through substitutionism or through totally new products.     

An Exploratory Study of “Parasites” in Taiwan

Deriving from Parasite Single proposed by Yamada (1997), parasites in this study is redefined as those who live with and financially rely on their parents in terms of living expenses after school graduation. The current study adopts the logit model and utilizes the data from the 1999 to 2000 Taiwan Panel Study of Family Dynamics to investigate the determinants of parasites. The finding reveals that gender, age, marital status, and the value of filial piety are significantly different between parasites and non-parasites. Moreover, gender, monthly income, age and marital status are determinants of the probability of being parasites.     

New-class dissent among social-cultural specialists: The effects of occupational self-direction and location in the public sector

Recent research suggests that new-class dissent is concentrated among the social-cultural specialists Kristol identifies as the principal critics of a business culture. Kohn's research on the micro-foundations of authoritarian conservatism suggests a plausible explanation centered on the subjective effects of occupational self-direction, a variable curiously missing from other models of new-class dissent. An alternative explanation, derived from state-centered theories of the new class, points instead to the concentration of these social-sicence and arts-related occupations outside the commercial economy. Using covariance structure analysis of new survey data, this study finds that occupational self-direction entails a propensity to question systemic inequities and a reluctance to blame the victims of poverty and discrimination. The antibusiness animus of Kristol's counterelites, conversely, arises in spite of, not because of, their highly self-directed work, reflecting instead their concentration in the public and nonprofit sectors.