Performing Identity: The Public Presentation of Culture and Ethnicity among Filipinos in Hawai'i

This paper interrogates the relationship between place and identity among Filipinos in Hawai'i. In the paper, I analyze Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa, one of numerous events and productions in Hawai'i and elsewhere in the United States that celebrated the centennial anniversary of Philippine independence from Spain in 1998. I argue that Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa illustrates one of the ways in which recent immigrants, particularly young Filipinos (theatrically) perform narratives which produce and distribute ideas and ideologies about community, culture and identity. Borrowing from Myerhoff, I understand cultural productions like Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa as types of “definitional ceremonies” which dramatize cultural and ethnic identity claims, constructing and enacting what it means to be “Filipino” and at the same time addressing issues of power, voice and visibility.     

Moving Beyond Housing: Service Implications for Veterans Entering Permanent Supportive Housing

As a result of efforts to end homelessness among U.S. veterans, more former service members are entering permanent supportive housing (PSH). While PSH has been successfully used to house homeless veterans, more research is needed about services beyond housing placement and retention. This study uses the Gelberg–Andersen behavioral model for vulnerable populations to determine associations between predisposing, enabling, and need characteristics and recent service use (i.e., services to satisfy basic needs, occupational development, financial, healthcare, mental health) among unaccompanied homeless veterans (N?=?126) entering PSH in Los Angeles. Among the significant findings, as indicated using univariable logistic regression models, were veterans who had incarceration histories were more likely to utilize basic needs services, compared to those without incarceration histories. Veterans who received an honorable discharge were more likely to utilize occupational development services, compared to veterans with other discharge statuses. Veterans who had a case manager were more likely to utilize mental health services than those without a case manager, while those who received social security were less likely to utilize mental health services compared to veterans who did not receive social security. Veterans who met criteria for a psychological disability and veterans who met criteria for probable PTSD were more likely to use basic needs services and mental health services than veterans who fell below these thresholds. Clinical implications for social workers including “equal access to services,” “enhancing economic stability,” “providing safe and affordable housing with trauma-informed services,” and “training service social workers to deliver well-informed linkages and services” are discussed.     

A Social Comparison Perspective of Treatment Seeking by the Homeless

The homeless will readily list ailments they claim to have, yet they will also claim that such ailments are not a problem and do not warrant treatmente In an attempt to understand this apparent paradox, data from a sampLe of homeless individuals were re-analyzed from a social comparison perspective. It was hypothesized that increased entrenchment in homelessness (increased isolation from “nonhomeless” environments and further involvement in the homeless environment) — operationalized by longer time spent on the street and a greater number of street friends — would lead homeless individuals to alter their perceptions of what constitutes a problem worthy of treatment. Results supported this hypothesis, in direction, and in almost all tests conducted. The involvement of adaptation level theory in such a social comparison process and the implications for intelVention and treatment are discussed.     

The Construction of Historical Equivalence: Weighing the Red and Brown Scares

Whether two events “belong together,” cognitively and in terms of collective memory, requires that we develop classification strategies. Historical equivalence refers to the perception that two events, separate in space and time, belong to the same cognitive category, or speak to the same issues. They are “good to think together.” Rejecting a radical constructionism that suggests that everything is a matter of ontological preference, I argue, following Gubrium (1993) , that interactionists should prefer a cautious naturalism. While interests and resources affect the presentation of historical claims, an obdurate reality permits the evaluation of empirical claims of comparability. To determine historical equivalence, we need to examine events in light of their magnitude, metaphorical continuity, analogous causation, and comparative effects. To examine the construction of historical equivalence, I discuss the similarities and differences between the Red Scares of 1919 and the late 1940s and the Brown Scare of the early 1940s. What you choose as an historical analogy begins and ends the conversation. —Elazar Barkan, “On Accepting Historical Responsibility: Refugees and the Right of Return” (2004)     

“Whose Side Are We On?” Revisited: Narrative Power,Narrative Inequality,and a Politics of Narrative Humanity

In 1967, Howard S. Becker gave a widely discussed and polemical presidential address entitled “Whose Side Are We On?” Here he introduced the idea of the hierarchy of credibility. Briefly reviewing the article, I suggest a little of how the world has moved on since then. The core of my analysis links symbolic interactionism to ideas of narrative power, narrative inequality, and narrative othering, sketching out a frame of generic forms of narrative power: domination, exclusion, negotiation, and resistance. I stress the dynamics of the subordinated standpoint and narrative othering. Drawing from a wide range of empirical examples where these processes are featured, I suggest many of us tacitly work with such ideas in our studies. I end by returning to Becker's question—Whose side are we on?—and answer: the side of humanity. Just what we mean by humanity raises contentious value claims, especially in these posthuman times. But understanding our humanities and the value challenge they pose provides the necessary prerequisite for answering Becker's question. From this, political action can flow, and a politics of humanity can be cultivated.     

Postmodern Swing Dance and Secondary Adjustment: Identity as Process

In this article, the author describes activities of strategic consumption that members of a postmodern swing dance scene utilized to construct identity. He deploys Goffman's category of “contained secondary adjustment” for describing social interactions that are moments of purposeful resistance designed to usurp (while also being lodged within) organizational and/or institutional claims and constraints for identity and self. Specifically, the article describes swing dancers' presentations of unique selves, thrift store shopping, tavern socializing, and swing dancing. Swing dancers utilized these secondary adjustments to resist the dictates of corporate‐driven and mass‐mediated claims and constraints for “mainstream” consumer identities. These secondary adjustments add up to an “identity distancing,” which is the individual's and/or group's purposeful distancing and separation from other identities or groups associated with popular culture. Describing the swing dancers' secondary adjustments reaffirms the symbolic interactionist stance that identity construction is a durable social interactional process.     

Homelessness in Ottawa County Michigan: The “Gap” Population

Abstract

Homelessness has gained increasing attention since the 1980s in the United States. And the numbers of individuals and families experiencing homelessness are growing, with a 20,000 person, or 3% increase, from 2008 through 2009 (“State of Homelessness,” 2011). In spite of persistent investigation and activism on how to prevent and end homelessness, there is not agreement on what causes homelessness or how to stop it (McNamara, 2009). What is apparent, however, is that the homeless population is not homogenous. Therefore, the standard models of service, whether from governmental or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), end up neglecting the needs of portions of the population of people who face homelessness. Governmental and non-governmental service providers have recognized the existence of the unique sub-populations of people who are homeless and are attempting to understand and meet the needs of people outside the prevailing understanding of homelessness. This project works with a collaborative of such service providers through a multiple methodological approach to generate better understanding on the two key areas necessary to create models of service for people who are in the “gap” subsector of the homeless population. First, investigation was undertake to learn systematically who is included in the “gap” population among the homeless community, or, in other words, what traits those who continue to cycle in and out of homelessness, and thus are part of this “gap” population, share. Secondly, the project explores what organizations are currently serving these people, and how are they doing so. In other words, this project also ask what are the trends or practices that exist nationally and locally for serving people who fall into this category of homelessness? Findings suggest central traits including mental illness, substance abuse and a history of incarceration as factors spanning members of the “gap” population. Though there are caveats and practices to be avoided, these people are surviving or even thriving through the service primarily of faith-based non-governmental organizations, unfettered by the policy and funding constraints of governmental entities.     

New Hobos or Neo-Romantic Fantasy? Urban Ethnography beyond the Neoliberal Disconnect

This article describes an anomalous social space within the field of homelessness in San Francisco, that of “pro” recyclers, homeless men who spend much of their time collecting recyclables for redemption. Unlike the panhandlers, broken shelter-dwellers and small-time hustlers of San Francisco’s Tenderloin and other skid row zones, the recyclers orient much of their existence around work. By working within a unique economic niche provided by the state-supported recycling industry, and by drawing on support from sympathetic residents and advocates, the recyclers create an unusual homeless subculture which, as they themselves argue, has more than a little in common with the hobo jungles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To interrogate the sociological (and political) implications of this case study I use Loïc Wacquant’s eloquent manifesto against sociological “neo-romanticism.” While agreeing with some of Wacquant’s analysis, I argue that his emphasis on the moralism of contemporary urban ethnographers blinds him to the very real concerns with morality and ethics among poor people themselves. The recyclers’ concerns with mutual respect and the pleasures of labor represent, I believe, not post hoc justifications of desperate survival strategies, but a dogged, often passionate collective effort to create a truly different experience and understanding of homelessness itself.     

THE LIMIT OF THE DISCURSIVE: A Critique of the Radical Constructionist Approach to Family Experience

To date, the postmodernist approach to family experience which considers the actor's use of discourse rather than external sociocultural forces as primordial in constituting domestic reality has become an intellectual stream which sociologists can hardly ignore. Using the Gubrium–Holstein model as an exemplar for a “more sophisticated” postmodernist approach to constructing family experience, this article attempts to outline a critique of radical constructionism which overemphasizes the discourse of actors as artfully producing reality as featured in the notions of “doing things with words” and “talking reality into being.” The critique is mainly based on the works of Schutz and Garfinkel, of which Gubrium and Holstein claim their own model share “abiding concern,” and is further supplemented by the work of Bourdieu. This article carries a commitment to rebuking the postmodernist emphasis on the discursive by highlighting that the prepredicative structure of the lifeworld—which is nondiscursive in nature—constitutes the primordial, albeit insufficient, basis of the nomos pertaining to experience as constituted.     

I am not that Caitlin: a critique of both the transphobic media reaction to Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover shoot and of passing

In this article I discuss and critique transphobic media reactions to the celebrity Caitlyn Jenner’s 2015 Vanity Fair cover shoot. I then consider these in the light of Garfinkel, H. [1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall] concept of ‘passing’ in his celebrated case story of Agnes and argue that ‘passing’ is often conflated with ‘being out’. I argue that the two are significantly different and claim that the former is implicitly based on a public lie. I use several auto-ethnographic narratives to illustrate the argument.     

Gender and Policy Implementation: Analyzing and Predicting the Progress of Congressional Bills Targeting Homeless Women, 1977–1987

This study examines congressional policymaking and funding support for homeless women during the 1980s. Contemporary research shows that this time period marked an important demographic shift in the composition of homeless individuals in the United States, as women, children, and families comprised a larger portion of homeless populations. Using Schneider and Ingram’s (1993; 1997) Degenerative Policy Design, I used logistic regression and predicted probabilities to analyze federal congressional bills on homelessness during a 10-year period from 1977 to 1988. Results indicate that bills targeting homeless women, children, and families increased over time, but there was substantive policy action for these groups. This aligns with Schneider and Ingram’s theory that groups like homeless women, who are constructed as dependent and needy but politically powerless, garner congressional elite sympathy but no monetary resources at the national level.     

Memorial Essay: Harold Garfinkel (1917–2011): A Sociologist for the Ages

Harold Garfinkel, the founder of Ethnomethodology, died at home on April 21, 2011 of congestive heart failure. A major sociologist of the twentieth century, his contribution to many fields will undoubtedly continue to be felt for years to come. In this essay, I will discuss the origins of the term “ethnomethodology,” briefly explore ethnomethodology's relationship with symbolic interactionism, provide a biographical overview of Garfinkel's oeuvre, list some ways in which the work has had a massive influence, and end with a short discussion of Garfinkel's legacy.     

Changing the method of working with homeless people: a photovoice project in Italy

In Italy, many organizations are experimenting with the Housing First (HF) model to promote a change in how they work with homeless people. This change creates some difficulties, especially in promoting freedom of choice in people involved in the HF programs. This study explored the definition of “home” in homeless people’s points of view. The study participants were 5 homeless men involved in a HF program called “The Road Home” implemented in the city of Padua. Data were collected using Photovoice, a photographic method based on participatory action research. During the project, the participants took photographs to illustrate their definitions of “home” and then engaged in a critical dialogue about the images represented in the photographs. The results of the study showed that occupants identified the home as being related to family, friendship, cohabitation, and hope for the future. The Photovoice project provided an opportunity to promote discussions that revealed the true needs of the people involved, and in the meantime, it brought a change to the program and to the community, in addition to promoting the HF model in the community.     

Everyday territories: homelessness,outreach work and city space

This article develops a situational approach to understanding urban public life and, in particular, the production of urban territories. Our aim is to examine the ways in which city space might be understood as comprising multiple, shifting, mobile and rhythmed territories. We argue that such territories are best understood through attending to their everyday production and negotiation, rather than handling territory as an a priori construct. We develop this argument from the particular case of the street‐level politics of homelessness and street care. The experience of street homelessness and the provision of care in the public spaces of the city is characterised by precarious territorial claims made and lost. We describe some of the ways in which care work with rough sleepers is itself precarious; ‘homeless’, in lacking a distinct setting in which it might get done. Indeed, outreach work takes place within and affirms homeless territories. The affirmation of territory is shown to be central to the relationship developed between the workers and their rough sleeping clients. We also show, however, the ways in which outreach workers operate on territory not their own, twice over. Outreach work is precarious in that it is practised within, and can run counter to, other territorial productions in which the experience of urban need and the work and politics of care are entangled. In sum, this article aims to move beyond static and binary understandings by developing a mobile and situational approach to city space which recognises the intensive yet overlooked work of territorial production.     

ALLOCATING INFECTION: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE SWINE FLU (H1N1) VACCINE

Previous research has isolated the effect of “congressional dominance” in explaining bureaucracy‐related outcomes. This analysis extends the concept of congressional dominance to the allocation of H1N1, or swine flu, vaccine doses. States with Democratic United States Representatives on the relevant House oversight committee received roughly 60,000 additional doses per legislator during the initial allocation period, though this political advantage dissipated after the first 3 weeks of vaccine distribution. As a result political factors played a role in determining vaccine allocation only when the vaccine was in particularly short supply. At‐risk groups identified by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), such as younger age groups and first responders, do not receive more vaccine doses, and in fact receive slightly fewer units of vaccine. (JEL D72, D73, I18)     

Ecological Invalidity of Existing Gaydar Research: In-Lab Accuracy Translates to Real-World Inaccuracy: Response to Rule,Johnson, & Freeman (2016)

In recent years, several empirical studies have claimed to provide evidence in support of the popular folk notion that people possess “gaydar” that enables them to accurately identify who is gay or lesbian (Rule, Johnson, & Freeman, 2016). This conclusion is limited to artificial lab settings, however, and when translated to real-world settings this work itself provides evidence that people’s judgments about who is gay/lesbian are not pragmatically accurate. We also briefly review evidence related to the consequences of perpetuating the idea of gaydar (i.e., “the gaydar myth”). Although past claims about accurate orientation perception are misleading, the work that gave rise to those claims can nevertheless inform the literature in meaningful ways. We offer some recommendations for how the evidence in past “gaydar” research can be reappraised to inform our understanding of social perception and group similarities/differences.     

Little Theories and Big Problems: Chicago Sociology and Ethnic Conflicts*

Since this society is oriented toward a specific theory, I thought I ought to say something about theories in general and our little theory in particular. Let me get that off of my chest. I am not overly fond of terms like “theory” and “theorist,” both of which seem to suggest the importance of the person who claims the identity more than anything else. They are pompous terms. To the extent that we are thoughtful about what we are doing and how we are going about it, all sociologists are theorists and methodologists. But if that is all we are, then we are literally people of no substance. We have no substantial knowledge of or concern for the empirical world. The little theory we share is extraordinarily empirical. It is, as one of its most prominent practitioners called it, a “grounded theory” ( Glaser and Strauss 1967 ). I confess that several years after receiving my degree I had no real sense of what symbolic interaction was and how it might differ from other theoretical orientations. Arnold Rose enlightened me on this when he asked me to submit a paper for a new collection he was editing ( Rose 1962 ). I was pleased and flattered. Rose was a mentor of mine, and I had never before been asked to contribute to an edited volume. But I was unsure of what would be appropriate for a book about symbolic interaction. I screwed up my courage and asked Arnold: “Exactly what is symbolic interaction”” He shrugged off my ignorance, turned on his heels, and muttered over his shoulder, “It is what they do at Chicago.”     

“Live Social Work”: How to Bring Life Back into Social Work

Abstract

In this article I discuss how professional social work can entail critical, reflexive work. This is accomplished by adapting the concept of “live sociology”. It is mainly an exploratory article, trying to raise suggestions that can be adopted and be further developed. I argue that people coming into contact with contemporary social work are sometimes reduced to being “dead” objects, as they are pinned down into static categories. The demand for developing evidence-based social work risks substantiating this tendency even further. In contrast, I claim that social work needs to move away from these kinds of explanations and instead turn towards developing “live social work”; that is to say, social work where everyday life, agency, and what people do in what context needs to be the focus, not what people are.     

Implementing an HIV Rapid Testing Intervention for Homeless Veterans in Shelter Settings within Los Angeles County,USA

Abstract

We implemented and evaluated an HIV rapid testing intervention in collaboration withthe US Department of Veterans Affairs and the Los Angeles County Department ofHealth to 1) increase HIV testing/receipt of results, and 2) increase veteran access to VA homeless services.

Ninety-seven veterans recruited in 9 shelters as part of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) emergency shelter program were randomized (2-to-1 ratio) into one of two interventional arms: rapid test (RT) arm (on-site HIV rapid testing/referral to VA homeless program) and referral arm (VA referral only).

Recruiters approached 2664 individuals; 136 (5.1%) were eligible. Ninety-seven (71.3% of those eligible) accepted enrollment. Testing rates were 100.0% in RT arm and 3.3%in Referral arm (p<0.001). Test result receipt rates were 98.5% in RT arm and 0.0% in Referral arm (p<0.001). There was no increase in visits to VA homeless programs in either arm. HIV prevalence/rate of new incidence was 1.5%. While more than half admitted high-risk behaviors in the past 12 months, 78% reported chances of HIV infection as “none” or “low” rather than “moderate” or “high.”

On-site rapid testing in homeless shelters is feasible and acceptable for testing hard-toreach and vulnerable populations. More robust outreach efforts are needed to improve linkage to care.