Creating “Community”? Preparing for Bushfire in Rural Victoria

The term “community” has a long and contested lineage in social analysis and debate. This lineage, however, is not generally recognized in policy and public debates on community and bushfire in Australia. “Community” is thought to be central to bushfire preparedness in Australia, especially in rural areas, but what “community” actually means in this context is vague at best. There is an ever‐present tension between the use of “community” as a reference to locality, a “sense of community” as experienced by residents, and the use of “community” as a rhetorical tool by governments and state agencies. We argue that a rigorous analysis of the concept of “community” is critical to an understanding of the processes involved in preparing for the challenges associated with disaster, in this case bushfires. These broader issues are supported by research (a series of surveys, interviews, and focus groups) carried out with residents living in (predominantly rural) bushfire‐prone areas in the state of Victoria, Australia. Ultimately, we assert that social participation and social networks are likely to be the crucial aspects of community that play a central role in effective bushfire preparedness.     

Re-discovering the social: neo-liberalism and hybrid practices of governing in rural natural resource management

Since the 1980s, natural resource management (NRM) in rural Australia has been underpinned by rationalities and technologies of governing that constitute agricultural landscapes and resource managers in economically rational terms. While it is tempting to interpret these forms of regulation as part of a broad shift away from social forms of governing, this paper argues that ‘the social’ remains of crucial significance in understanding how both natural environments and the capacities of individuals to manage these environments are constructed. Drawing upon recent work in the Foucauldian-inspired literature on governmentality and, in particular, Stenson and Watt's (Urban Studies 36(1) (1999) 189–201) concept of hybrid governance, this paper examines how particular representations of ‘the social’ are assembled through strategies of NRM. Using the National Landcare Program (NLP) and Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) as examples, we consider how ‘social’ data is being incorporated into resource management strategies, and how this re-shapes both ‘the social’ and NRM as domains of governance. While the NLP and NHT incorporate concerns about social responsibility, they define these in terms of the capacity of individuals to respond to changing economic circumstances. This effectively defines land managers as socially and ecologically responsible only to the extent that they have the managerial capacities to pursue economically ‘rational’ practices. In concluding, we argue that hybrid practices of governing are indeed evident in NRM in Australia and that the concept of ‘hybrid governance’ requires further attention in understanding how rural spaces are made knowable and shaped as objects of knowledge.     

Ethnic conflict,group polarization,and gender attitudes in Croatia

We examine the sources of traditional gender attitudes during a period of social conflict and change. Using survey data from Croatia (Center for the Investigation of Transition and Civil Society, 1996; N= 2,030) we explore the relationships between war‐related experiences, in‐group and out‐group polarization, and two dimensions of gender attitudes: policy attitudes (e.g., attitudes toward divorce and abortion) and gendered family roles (e.g., attitudes toward the division of household labor). We argue that ethnic conflict promotes in‐group polarization (i.e., attachment to the Croatian nation) and out‐group polarization (i.e., distrust of “others”), which lead to a resurgence of traditional values, including traditional gender attitudes. We also examine the effects of childhood socialization, individual resources, and interpersonal familial ties on gender attitudes. Results support the conflict‐group polarization model and indicate that out‐group polarization has the most powerful effect on both gendered family role attitudes and policy attitudes for men and women. In‐group polarization does not affect gender attitudes, however.     

Social capital and intimate partnership in later life: A gendered perspective on 60+ year-old Israelis

The gendered meaning of the repartnering process and the social capital mechanisms that facilitate it were examined by means of in-depth interviews with 32 Israelis 60 years and older. Two central themes emerged from the interviews. The first theme relates to the interviewees’ gendered perceptions of the change in their social capital between partnering relationships. The second theme concerns respondents’ recognition of the new partnership as social capital. These themes reflect the gendered dynamics in the use of social capital for repartnering in old age. The study also illustrates the complexity of ‘social capital’ as a concept and addresses its relevance for the elders’ well being.     

Achievement-related attitudes and the fate of “at-risk” groups in society

What causes poverty and how does an individual escape it? Factors such as intelligence and social class background are thought to be important. However, a number of economists have argued that an individual’s profile of achievement-related attitudes (ARAs) like work-orientation and conscientiousness might play a role in social success and failure. Part of their attraction is that these attitudes are regarded as responsive to nurturing and may be especially significant for those individuals with few formal skills to offer the labour market. The NCDS longitudinal dataset was interrogated to assess whether ARAs predicted an individual’s earnings measured almost two decades later. Results indicated that ARAs explain a good deal of variance in earnings, particularly for “at-risk” males. Social policy implications are discussed.     

From ‘sustainable rural communities’ to ‘social sustainability': giving voice to diversity in Mangakahia Valley, New Zealand

Despite widespread interest in the notion of sustainability, little progress has been made towards an understanding of its social dimensions. Nonetheless, the concept of ‘sustainable rural communities’ is embedded in popular, policy and academic discourses, where the needs of ‘rural communities’ are usually equated with those of farm families. Our ethnographic research in Northland, New Zealand illustrates the diverse interests to be found within ‘rural communities'. Interviews and participant observation were undertaken between August 1995 and July 1996 in the Mangakahia Valley. The increasing divergence in the ethnic, class and occupational makeup of the population has brought with it complexities in terms of what can be said to contribute to ‘sustainable rural communities'. We suggest that ‘sustainable rural communities’ be treated as a folk category, and instead, social science discourse should resort to the broader concept of social sustainability, which will have a locally defined content, not a universal definition, but will include elements of livelihood, social participation, justice and equity.     

A critique of ‘new’ rural local governance: The case of gender in a rural Australian setting

Over the past decade rural social scientists have demonstrated significant interest in documenting the new forms of governance emerging in rural and regional areas. However, little attention has been given to examining the gendered aspects of these new arrangements. This paper takes up the issue of gender and governance in rural areas by reporting on the establishment, membership and practices of a new governing organisation in a local government area in a small rural township in Australia. Men hold almost all positions on the 19-member board of this institution charged with facilitating development in the shire. This is not surprising, given women's exclusion from the male-dominated networks from which appointees are selected. While this numerical dominance is important, it is not just the presence of men's bodies that is of concern to this paper. Also of interest is the way in which hegemonic discourses of masculinity are privileged by board members. This includes an emphasis on competition, entrepreneurialism, and aggression, and a focus on economic concerns over and above social issues. In conclusion, there may be a lot that is ‘new’ in the governance of contemporary Western rural nations, but what is not is that these forms of governance are gendered, just as the traditional state has always been, in a way that excludes women and feminine subjectivities.     

Presidential Address: Heroes,Warriors, and Burqas: A Feminist Sociologist's Reflections on September 11

My presidential address looked back at the gendered imagery of American heroes and warriors, Muslim terrorists, and oppressed Islamic women as they appeared in comparatively sophisticated media sources in the first 6 months after September 11. The imagery was conventionally gendered, but the actions of women and men reported in the same sources showed multiple gendering—heterogeneity within homogeneity. Making this multiplicity of gendering visible blurs and undermines gender lines and the inequities built on them. The social constructions of heroism, masculinity, and Islamic womanhood are core parts of the gender politics of September 11, a politics deeply embedded in the current debates over the causes and consequences of terrorism and war.     

You are who remembers you. Detecting leadership through accuracy of recall

We measured interpersonal perception accuracy by focusing on the relationship between actors’ centrality and their ability to accurately report their social interactions. We used the network measures of actors’ betweenness centrality and degree centrality to identify the most prominent members by correlating ego-perception and alter-perception in a “non-reciprocity” type of misalignment. We found a positive correlation between actors’ centrality and their centrality as assessed by senior management, and a negative correlation between actors’ centrality and their accuracy in recalling interactions. Underreporting social interactions may represent a third way of measuring the importance of members and finding the most influential actors.     

Conflicting rationalities, knowledge and values in scarred landscapes

Incorporating public or local preferences in landscape planning is often discussed with respect to the difficulties associated with accurate representation, stimulating interest and overcoming barriers to participation. Incorporating sectoral and professional preferences may also have the same degree of difficulty where conflicts can arise. Planning theory calls for inclusiveness and collaboration, ideally egalitarian, and analysis of the process often uses case study scenarios that may offer examples for practice and further research. Much of the literature takes case studies in urban landscapes as the starting point for discussion and little is known of the collaborative process in rural landscapes, especially damaged landscapes such as those that may occur after extreme resource extraction. In this paper, we use industrially mined, or ‘cutaway’, peatlands as illustrative examples of the remaining ‘scarred’ landscapes. Using narratives of ‘knowledge-holders’ as iterative examples, we explore the perspectives of key actors within scarred landscape after-use planning. It is shown that though there is agreement that community ‘stakes’ are important, there are conflicts relating to the exact level of collaboration or to the extent that it is necessary at all. Traditional sectoral approaches predominate with community level narratives following established pathways. The prevailing rationalities revolve around protectionism and differing opinions of knowledge. Where a policy vacuum exists in relation to after-use of damaged landscapes, the resulting conflict may be an impediment to non-tokenistic stakeholder collaboration.     

Tracing Differentiation in Gendered Leadership: An Analysis of Differences in Gender Composition in Top Management in Business,Politics and the Civil Service

The aim of this article is to discuss the relationship between the gendering of leadership positions and sector‐specific structures within politics, business and the civil service in Denmark in the context of differences between the Nordic countries and other western countries. The analysis is based on data from a survey of top male and female leaders within the three sectors. The theoretical point of departure of this article is constructivist. It looks at gender as constituted by actions in social space, orchestrated by structural processes and a symbolic order of gender. This constitutes a cultural discourse on gender reflected in gender conventions in society and in a range of possibilities of gender positioning. Expressions of this are discussed in the analysis of the patterns of difference in structural conditions for women and men in leadership positions to be found within the three sectors. The structural conditions encompass access conditions and conditions for gendered positioning and are analysed on the basis of data on social background, education, career course, family, children and distribution of housework. The analysis shows that there is a correlation between gender composition of leadership and possibilities of gendered positioning within a sector. The results are finally discussed as possible expressions of an egalitarian culture.     

Rural studies: Modernism, postmodernism and the ‘post-rural’

In response to Philo [(1992b), Neglected rural geographies: a review. Journal of Rural Studies8, 193–207), who calls for rural studies to take the study of ‘others’ more seriously, we argue the need to take postmodernism more seriously. The paper focuses upon the production of knowledge about rural areas by academics. In the narrative that we provide here, the ‘rural’ had a strong presence until Pahl's critique of the rural-urban continuum which both diminished the status of the rural and emphasised the role of class in shaping particular spaces. Newby and his colleagues applied class analysis to agriculture, likewise undermining the significance of the rural. Further applications of general social theory, such as the political economy and restructuring approaches, show how modernist rural studies seem to be fighting a losing battle to posit the indispensability of the significance of the urban-rural division as an explanation; articulating and rearticulating the divide within a whole range of processes: economic, social and cultural. Rural social scientists have woven this modernist narrative, but, as Philo shows, one effect has been the neglect of certain social groups, cultures and identities. However, in contrast to Philo, we argue that a rather fundamental reassessment of social scientific approaches to the rural is required if these ‘neglected others’ are to be satisfactorily considered. We believe a ‘sociology of postmodernism’ would offer a more reflexive perspective on the processes which give rise to ‘the rural’. We thus call for an end to the use of universal or global concepts such as ‘rural’ (or the ‘urban’) and for a concern with the way places are ‘made’. This will entail a focus on ‘power’ as certain actors impose ‘their’ rurality on others. We term this the study of the ‘post-rural’.     

Contradictions in Agrarian Ideology: Restructuring Gender,Race-Ethnicity,and Class1

Abstract Contradictions in agrarian ideology are revealed through an analysis of social dimensions of economic restructuring in rural Iowa. Data are culled from field observations and in-depth interviews with white European American residents. How rural residents cope with and make sense of the changes within their communities are two interrelated dimensions of social restructuring. The research highlights a perception of sharpening social and economic divisions within two small communities. The social and economic changes challenged residents' self-definitions, perspectives on rural community life, and previously taken-for-granted notions of gender, racial-ethnic, and class relations. Analysis of field data demonstrates contradictory ways that discourses on agrarianism and gemeinschaft serve as resources as well as impediments to social support and community development.     

‘Wallbanking’, innovativeness and computer attitudes: 25–40-year-old ATM-users on the spot

Attitudes towards ‘wallbanking’ (making use of banking services through an Automated Teller Machine (ATM)) and self-reported frequency of wallbanking have been related to attitudes towards innovations and towards computers. The investigation also included the perception of advantages as well as disadvantages of wallbanking, factors that determine one's choice of a bank, man-machine problems related to the use of an ATM, and demographic factors. Using a sample of 201 respondents in the age range of 25 to 40 years, structural equation modeling revealed that wallbanking attitudes have a major influence on the frequency of using ATMs. The innovativeness attitude ‘New is wasteful’ also showed a clear negative link with the frequency of wallbanking. On the other hand, the relationship between computer attitudes and the frequency of using ATMs had to be rejected. Income and education proved to have an indirect link with the frequency of wallbanking, which refines other research findings. These results may reflect specific financial management characteristics of the age group under investigation.     

Re‐inventing the Gendered Organization: Staff Attitudes towards Women and Gender Mainstreaming in NGOs in Malawi

Gender inequality within non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) is constructed on a daily basis through the gendered norms, attitudes and practices of individuals within them. The continual re‐invention of a gendered organization ensures the maintenance of the status quo and therefore the privileging of male/masculine interests over female/feminine interests. Gender mainstreaming is an approach designed to alter the status quo and facilitate women's empowerment. In Malawi, many NGOs have adopted gender mainstreaming as a strategy to address gender inequality both within their organizations and with the communities where they work. Gender mainstreaming initiatives involve a variety of activities including hiring more women staff members, designing policies within the organization to promote gender equality and educating staff members about gender issues through training workshops. While these strategies represent important steps forward for gender equality, it is not clear to what extent these policies and initiatives are translating into meaningful change within the organization.     

Decomposing Gender Beliefs: Cross‐National Differences in Attitudes Toward Maternal Employment and Gender Equality at Home

Few cross‐national studies distinguish between different aspects of gender egalitarianism and compare them systematically. In this study, we examine cross‐national differences in attitudes toward mothers' participation in the labor market and toward gender equality within the household, using a multilevel analysis of individual data from 33 nations. The results indicate greater support for employed mothers, but a lower level of approval of gender equality at home, among residents of countries that offer women more educational and economic opportunities. We argue that macrolevel gender equality increases individuals', particularly women's, incentives to support female labor force participation. Because of a persistent belief in gender differentiation, however, macrolevel gender equality has the opposite relationship with attitudes toward altering gendered practices beyond enabling women's public sphere participation. The fewer explicit barriers to women's achievement in society, the more likely individuals will feel a need to defend gendered roles in the private sphere. That the potential harm of advocating gendered practices in the private sphere is smaller in societies with fewer impediments for women is also likely to account for the negative association between macrolevel gender equality and support for egalitarian gender roles at home.     

Explaining Men's Entry into Female‐Concentrated Occupations: Issues of Masculinity and Social Class

This article seeks to add to an understanding of why some men enter female‐concentrated occupations (and why the majority do not). Drawing on the results of in‐depth interviews with 27 men in a range of occupations, I illustrate and interpret the complex and often contradictory ways in which men approach the notion of working in female‐concentrated occupations and examine the impact that this has on their occupational outcomes. The data suggest that different attitudes to female‐concentrated work cannot in themselves explain men's presence there. Consequently I explore, with particular reference to social class, the context in which attitudes around gender, work and occupational destinations, are framed. I conclude that men's entry to female‐concentrated occupations may best be approached, not as an issue of ‘masculinity’ but as one of social mobility operating within a gendered labour market.     

The issue is human quality: In praise of children

This essay is based on the premise that quality in human life is inseparably linked to the well-being of children. In this view, the well-being of children is both the principal challenge faced by a modern society and the principal focal point tor a society “bound to move away from ‘growth’ defined as quantitative product irrespective of what and whom it is for.” Children and their needs provide an anchoring point for adult relationships that is “labor intensive” and intrinsically satisfying when set within a social context rich in enduring, reciprocal interpersonal relationships. The principal threats to the quality of social life are trends toward universalistic rather than particularistic systems for evaluating individuals, and materialistic rather than social criteria for evaluating productivity. Both these trends threaten childrearing as a valued activity. Both emphasize the “hurdensomeness” of children. Large schools and socially isolated families are the contexts in which these two trends find their most dangerous expression. A sustainable society requires a pro-family orientation if it is to meet the needs of children and thus provide for the fundamental psychic needs of adults. A variety of implications for individual action and social planning are derived from this discussion. These implications include the need to preserve and restore socially strong neighborhoods, reduce school size, and conduct “family impact analysis” as a basis for guiding decisions in the public and private sectors.     

Biography as historical sociology

Conclusion William Fielding Ogburn was located on and helped to create the cutting edge of developments in twentieth-century American sociology — particularly its increasing emphasis on statistics and objectivist methodology. His life, which spanned the period within which the changes he advocated were institutionalized, can be seen as having significance as a marker of a transition. From this perspective, studying well-chosen individual lives has the same heuristic value as studying particular historical events. They can, to quote Philip Abrams, mark decisive conjunctions of action and structure;... moments of structuring at which human agency encounters social possibility and can be seen most clearly as simultaneously determined and determining. My analysis of Ogburn's advocacy of scientific sociology — one that differentiated science from both emotion and politics — reflected and reinforced his solutions to problematics in his personal life. His response to the separate spheres that defined gender relations in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, helped to construct a reflection of them in twentieth-century American sociology. It is in this way — through concrete social action within specific historical conditions — that personal life and gender shaped the intellectual and professional culture within which he lived and worked.Ogburn's life story suggests that action, particularly advocacy, is grounded, at least in part, in a personal agenda, but that personal agendas, just like any others, need to be understood sociologically. Ogburn's problem was not idiosyncratic. Indeed, it is because it was shaped by social conditions, rather than uniquely individual ones, that his solutions were more likely to be recognized, accepted, and institutionalized by his mostly male audiences. Tracing these connections within a concrete historical case, within a single biography, demonstrates how personal life is connected to action and, thus, needs to be included in any sociological theory of human agency.Ogburn's life coincided with a set of opportunities that made it possible for sociologists to gain a more prominent place in national affairs and to develop sociological knowledge in a particular direction. This development was, in turn, accompanied by the creation of a language and practice in which the scientific authority of sociology became associated with it being devoid of an appearance of politics and emotion. The emergence of this language and practice, and the beliefs on which they were based, however, cannot be explained solely by the circumstances that fostered them or the career opportunities that they made available. They reflect the practical actions of human agents within historically specific settings. But these agents must be recognized as gendered and the problematic of gendering must be incorporated into the history of American sociology.As Steinmetz has argued, the stories that we tell are important for what we do — and what we do not do — because they structure social consciousness and social action. As long as we write the history of American sociology as an ungendered narrative, we will not only misrepresent that history but we will also limit our capacity to understand and affect changes in it. Differentiation was (and is) a strategy more available to men than women and the norms and organization of professional life that embody that strategy need to be understood not as general but rather as gendered.There is a gender dimension to the history of American sociology to which more attention could usefully be given. Although the impact of political and professional interests has been widely recognized in this history, the impact of personal life in general and gender relations in particular have not been systematically incorporated into accounts of this process. Yet gender relations — and the meanings and actions that are shaped by them — are an important part of the story being told here and an important source of the energy that institutionalizing social change entails. Biography provides access to these personal and gendered dimensions of our professional history in ways that can more adequately acknowledge the complexities of the structuring process.

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Voluntarism, self-help and rural community development: Some current approaches

Within the last decade or so, there has developed an increased concern for the welfare of rural communities and for individuals within such communities. At the same time there has emerged a parallel concern for environmental matters, concerned with conservation of species and habitat and the protection of cherished landscapes and amenities. Both sectors of rural concern have been characterised by debate about the means of delivery of policies and programmes in their respective areas and, in particular, about the balance between state action and the activities of the private sector. A common thread running through such debates has been the role of what is loosely called the ‘voluntary sector’, that is the complicated mix of individuals and organisations, local and national, which involve themselves in effort, not for direct payment nor as a routine of work, but because of feelings of commitment, belief and ideology.This paper is concerned with just one aspect of this sector — that which involves social and community aspects of the lives of rural dwellers in the English countryside. Despite this restricted field, there is an attempt to see things within a broader socio-political context, such that rural voluntarism and rural self-help can be assessed not only against a wider picture of volunteering generally but also placed within a political framework, both national and local. Voluntarism and self-help cannot exist independently of the world around them, yet the very process of facing up to the wider political realities creates problems of accountability and control to the extent that some would dismiss the voluntary sector as ineffective at best or the tool of vested interests at worst.