Power and identity in theory and practice

Power is often theorised in a way that equates its meaning with A's control over B. Alternatively, it is regarded as a universal transformative capacity. In which case, power is conceptualised in terms of its accomplishment of social order. The central objective of this paper is to expose the contribution and limitations of existing functionalist, action theoretic, radical and relational conceptions of power. This is done by attending to the significance of identity securing strategies in the reproduction of power relations. Highlighting the relevance of this identity dimension, we argue that individuals’ attempts to distance and protect themselves from their ‘powerlessness’ can have important, self-defeating consequences in respect of the reproduction of asymmetrical relations of power. Connecting the search for independence to the preoccupation with securing a stable and valued sense of identity, we explore how this preoccupation sustains the very structural conditions that promote insecurity. Our thesis on power and identity is then applied and illustrated through a critical discussion of relevant aspects of two recent labour ethnographies: Nichols and Beynon's Living with Capitalism and Willis's Learning to Labour.     

Toward A Renewed Sociological Jurisprudence: From Roscoe Pound to Herbert Blumer and Beyond

This article, based on the Distinguished Lecture presented on August 21, 2001, at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction in Anaheim, California, proposes a synthesis of Herbert Blumer's macrosociological perspective on the race question with Roscoe Pound's philosophy and science of law (i.e., his so‐called sociological jurisprudence), Joseph Tussman's and Jacobus tenBroek's juridical methodology, and Philip Selznick's sociology of responsive law. The compound so produced will help to establish a foundation for a praxiological sociology of American constitutional law. The article focuses on the problem of legislative‐made “classifications” and their relations to the legitimate public purposes entailed in the enactment of statutes, laws, and decrees. Such classifications become problematic when they are said to be “underinclusive,” “over‐inclusive,” or both in seeking to effect their aims. Strategic research sites for this issue are racial and ethnic classifications that single out one or a limited cluster of racial or ethnic groups for special benefits (“affirmative action”) or restitution (“reparations”). Calling for a reinvigoration of Pound's pragmatic approach to sociological jurisprudence, I show how Blumer's analysis of the “color line”—when seen in relation to the original intent of the makers of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth post‐Civil War Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and, using Tussman's and tenBroek's showing of how such categorizations might be both methodically evaluated and applied to the challenged classifications—provides grounds for reconsidering whether the latter are instances of “reverse discrimination” and, hence, violations of the constitutional requirement of “equal protection of the law.” The science of law is a science of social engineering having to do with that part of the whole field which may be achieved by the ordering of human relations through the action of politically organized society. —Roscoe Pound, Justice According to Law We did not hold it necessary to wait for nature to put a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and we shall not much longer hold it necessary to wait for nature to dig the legal canals that will give security to neglected human interests which clamor for recognition and protection. —Roscoe Pound, “Juristic Problems of National Progress”     

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.     

Redefining the American Revolutionary: Gabriela Mistral on José Martí

Abstract

This essay criticizes the historical investment of Martí's readers in a discourse that values conservative, sexually unambiguous femininity and masculinity. The essay grapples with the vituperative register of José Martí's misogyny in order to reveal another version of the American revolutionary. Drawing on one of his earliest feminist critics, Gabriela Mistral, I show how corporeal tropes in Martí's rhetoric betray instances of empathy with emerging alternative practices of femininity and masculinity. Assisted by Mistral's overlooked and overtly gendered critique, this essay limns a tropical Martí — an embodied, sensual, demonumentalized poet who plays with language. In readings of Mistral's several essays devoted to Martí, the essay shows how Mistral's Martí represents an alternative to the heroic masculinism and violent militarism of a longstanding revolutionary American tradition.     

Nation/Representation: Ethnic Classification and Mapping Nationhood in Contemporary Laos

In this article, I analyse ethnic classifications in contemporary Laos, starting with a brief review of previous policies. I first look at the ideologies that have influenced the Lao ethnic classification, namely those of the former Soviet Union, China and Vietnam. Through an analysis of the construction of the latest official census (August 2000), I suggest a close relationship between ethnic categorisation and the government's nationalist discourse, still strongly influenced by guidelines on the concept of the nation disseminated by Kaysone Phomvihane--the first President of the Lao PDR, now deceased but celebrated at present in Laos as the inspirational figure of the regime. My intention is thus to demonstrate how one technology of power in particular--the Lao population census based on ethnic criteria--attempts to map the nation's 'invisible' ethnicity through a dual process, namely the objectification of the Other ethnic groups' arbitrarily defined cultural features on the one hand, and the erasure of the dominant ethnic group's ethnicity (the ethnicity of the ethnic Lao) on the other. But this technology of power is limited, as the names and the lists of ethnic groups have remained subject to alteration every few years. Twenty years after Kaysone Phomvihane urged for a change in ethnic terminology and classification, the regime has yet to legitimise definitively the total number of ethnic groups in the Lao PDR.     

Revitalization of Local Community and Ethnicity: Nagasaki's Lantern Festival Among the Immigrant Chinese

Abstract: The Nagasaki's Lantern Festival is gaining popularity through the continued partnership between the immigrant Chinese (Kakyo) and Nagasaki city, largely owing to the ethnic Chinese revitalization movement and the distinct way of life typical in Nagasaki. Following my past research, I would like to discuss the development and modification of Nagasaki's Lantern Festival, to examine the relationship between the features specific to the Nagasaki area and the changes in the Kakyo community's sense of ethnicity amid the wave of globalization. By the Meiji period, ethnic Chinese society in Nagasaki consisted mainly of immigrants from Fu Jian province. Today the community is experiencing rapid transformation. In particular, the restoration of Sino–Japanese relations and the wave of internationalization have led to the creation of the Nagasaki Shinchi Chinatown Shopping District Promotion Association and the renewal of Chinatown for the ethnic Chinese. The Chinese Spring Festival, originally aimed toward community vitalization, not only included the Kakyo (immigrant Chinese) but the Japanese in the district and private corporations. Nagasaki was transformed not only into a strategic point for East Asia's multilateral trade, but also served as a trading center for the entire nation. But as Japanese ports opened their doors to the world after 1850, Nagasaki was reduced to only one of the local trading centers. As for overseas business, Nagasaki took advantage of its heavy industry by expanding its share in the Asian international market and has been striving in the domestic market to activate the local economy through tourism. Such strategy hinges on the rich historical and cultural resources formed and nurtured within the 400 years of relations with Asian nations. The historical merger between the Kakyo community and its cultural tradition in Nagasaki society served as one of the incentives for such development and progress. The enlargement of Nagasaki's Lantern Festival has been achieved as part of this concept of “Asian‐oriented region”, in line with the city's plan on tourism promotion.     

Economic Benefits of Self‐Employment for Canadian Immigrants

This paper evaluates the economic benefits of self‐employment in Canada for 12 groups of ethno‐racial immigrants. It tests whether or not their self‐employment earnings are higher or lower than similar groups in wage and salary employment, whether ethnic minorities earn more or less from self‐employment compared to White immigrants, and whether self‐employment earnings of immigrant groups vary by their industrial sectors of employment. Using the Canadian Census 2006, I show that self‐employed ethno‐racial immigrants earn less than White immigrants. I also show that the economic benefits of self‐employment depend on the ethno‐racial groups and the industrial mix of their self‐employment. Cet article évalue les avantages économiques du travail indépendant au Canada pour 12 groupes d'immigrés ethnoraciaux. Il teste si les revenus du travail indépendant sont supérieurs ou inférieurs aux groupes similaires au sujet de salaire et de travail avec le salaire annuel, si les minorités ethniques gagnent plus ou moins de travail indépendant par rapport aux immigrés blancs, et si les revenus du travail indépendant des groupes immigrés varient par leurs secteurs industriels de travail. En utilisant le Recensement du Canada de 2006, je montre que les immigrés ethnoraciaux qui sont indépendants gagnent moins que les immigrés blancs. Je montre aussi que les avantages économiques dépendent des groupes ethnoraciaux et du mélange industriel de leur travail indépendant.     

Commodities in action: measuring embeddedness and imposing values

Recent approaches in political economy look at the effects of technology and social values on economic action. Combining these approaches with those of economic anthropologists, this article poses that the way the economy is instituted can be understood by looking at reasons actors have for participating in actor‐networks of production, distribution and consumption. Using the author's research on American recycling, this article first shows that much of the‘making’or instituting of the economy happens outside the market, through political machinations, contracts and standards. Second, it suggests that these relationships impose value upon goods differently than do market relations. The details of the recycling‘chain’show the ways actors shape the network and demonstrate that the social values that add‘economic value’to goods are not uniform, but are highly contextual. Starting from Mark Granovetter's notion of 'social embeddedness', the article explains that the measure of social embeddedness is not as important as the values imposed upon other actors through social structure in the economy. It calls for a close observation of economic action in the locales within which production takes place to understand better the‘actions‐at‐a‐distance’where the politics of technology, social movements and power create the empirical, instituted economy.     

Moses and nation-building Zora Neale Hurston's Moses,Man of the Mountain and Edward Said's Freud and the Non-European

Abstract

This article examines the significance of the representation of Moses as an Egyptian in Zora Neale Hurston's Moses, Man of the Mountain and Edward Said's Freud and the Non-European. Pairing Hurston and Said continues Said's project of seeing authors 'contrapuntally', so exposing imperialism as a neglected, if submerged, context for Hurston's response to nationalism in Moses. I argue that Hurston's novel cannot be read as a straightforward critique of race-based nationalism. Although Moses is of a different ethnic group to the Hebrews he leads, Hurston's portrayal of his rule is haunted by imperialism, in which one ethnic group exploits another. In this sense, Moses, Man of the Mountain bears the signs and strains of her struggle against racialist thinking.     

Local attachments and transnational everyday lives: second‐generation Italians in Switzerland

Many descendants of migrants grow up in the context of lively transnational social relations to their parents' homeland. Among southern Italian migrants in Switzerland, these relations are imbued with the wish to return among the first generation, a dream fostered since the beginning of their migration after the Second World War. Second‐generation Italians have developed different ways of negotiating the transnational livelihoods fostered by their parents on the one hand, and the wish for local attachments on the other. In this article I discuss how the children of Italian migrants have created their own cultural repertoires of Italianità and belonging within Switzerland and with co‐ethnic peers, and how, for some, this sense of belonging evokes the wish for ‘roots migration’, the relocation to the parents' homeland. With the example of two trajectories of local attachment and transnationalism among members of the second generation of the same origin, I question existing work on the second generation that assumes commonalities among them on the grounds of ethnicity and region of origin.     

Toward a New Understanding of Ethnic‐Racial Settings for Ethnic‐Racial Identity Development

The purpose of this conceptual article is to advance theory and research on one critical aspect of the context of ethnic–racial identity (ERI) development: ethnic–racial settings, or the objective and subjective nature of group representation within an individual's context. We present a new conceptual framework that consists of four dimensions: (1) perspective (that settings can be understood in both objective and subjective terms); (2) differentiation (how groups are defined in a setting); (3) heterogeneity (the range of groups in a setting); and (4) proximity (the distance between the individual and the setting). Clarifying this complexity is crucial for advancing a more coherent understanding of how ethnic–racial settings are related to ERI development.     

The Role of Premigration Status in the Acculturation of Chinese–Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans

Drawing from fifty in‐depth interviews, this research examines the role of existing parental language knowledge on the ethnic identity negotiation of two ethnically distinct children of immigrant groups—Vietnamese and Chinese–Vietnamese—whose families have emigrated from Vietnam to the Southern California region of the United States. While previous research focused primarily on the influence of premigration status on first‐generation immigrants, this article considers how a central aspect of premigration status (intranational ethnicity) applies specifically to the children of first generation immigrants. By taking the premigration approach of comparing the experiences of different ancestral‐origin groups from a single nation (the intranational ethnicity perspective), this analysis suggests that a family's premigration ethnic status shapes the 1.5 and second‐generation's ethnic self‐identification choices through the mediation of parental language knowledge. Specifically, for the children of immigrants with twice‐minority status (Chinese–Vietnamese Americans), parental language knowledge serves as an easy ethnic identity default during these children's early self‐identification process.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMICS OF THE ARAB SPRING

There were large differences in the responses of Arab dictators to the Arab Spring protests. To understand these differences, I present a stylized model of how a dictator responds to mass protests for democratization in a polarized country with two ethnic or religious groups. In this model, the dictator's response crucially depends on oil revenues and his affiliation to either the majority or the minority group. I document that the model's predictions are consistent with the observed differences in the Arab dictators' responses. Hence, ethnic politics and religious divides may play an important role in political transitions and regime changes. (JEL D72, D74)     

Grieving for mestizaje: alternative approaches to Maya identity in Yucatan,Mexico

This article takes as its point of departure the highly contested theoretical terrain of ‘Maya’ identity in Yucatan, Mexico. Set in the physical terrain of a state psychiatric hospital, this article uses a framework of identity culled from the narrative of a young woman, ‘Claudina’, committed to its wards, to argue that being ‘in-between’ categories of ethnic identity, an experience she characterises as a painful sense of ambiguous loss, can be fruitfully analysed using an analytical framework of ethnic identity introduced by Claudina herself. Specifically, I argue that categories of identity culled from Claudina's story – mestizaje and elegancia – represent a valuable opportunity to think about how power dynamics and relationships operate in situations of ambivalent identities and social suffering. To this end, I use Claudina's language as a point of departure for understanding the lived experience of everyday life in Yucatan today.     

Globalization and the Politics of Indigeneity

Indigenous peoples inevitably associate globalization with imperial expansion and the colonization of their territories. One associated scholarly view is that globalization's focus on capital accumulation sets aside indigenous cultural priorities to undermine self-determining authority over lands and resources (Fenelon and Hall, 2008; Friedman, 1999; Kelsey, 2005a, 2005b; Stewart-Harawira, 2005). Alternatively, globalization is an ambiguous paradox also providing significant benefits to indigenous peoples. In two very different Pacific countries, Fiji and New Zealand, the globalization of political and jurisprudential thought on the rights of indigeneity provides a significant counter to state assertions of absolute sovereignty. Globalization creates economic opportunities to reduce indigenous dependence on the state and in its contemporary expression is less significant than domestic factors in inhibiting indigenous aspirations.

Inevitablemente, la población indígena asocia a la globalización con la expansión imperial y la colonización de sus territorios. Una visión académica asociada es que el enfoque de la globalización en la acumulación de capital, desestima las prioridades culturales indígenas para entorpecer la autoridad autodeterminante sobre la tierra y los recursos. (Fenelon and Hall, 2008; Friedman, 1999; Kelsey, 2005a; 2005b; Stewart-Harawira, 2005). Por otro lado, la globalización es una paradoja ambigua que también provee beneficios a las poblaciones indígenas. En dos países diferentes del Pacífico, Fiyi y Nueva Zelanda, la globalización del pensamiento político o jurisprudencial sobre los derechos del indigenismo, provee una lucha importante contra las afirmaciones estatales de una soberanía absoluta. La globalización crea oportunidades económicas para reducir la dependencia indígena del estado y su expresión contemporánea es menos importante que los factores domésticos que inhiben las aspiraciones indígenas.

伴随着帝国的扩张和其领土的被殖民化,土著居民无可避免地被卷入全球化中。一种相关学术观点认为,全球化对资本积累的关注不顾土著民的文化优先权,损害了土著民对土地和资源的自决权力。（Fenelon 和 Hall, 2008; Friedman, 1999; Kelsey, 2005a; 2005b; Stewart-Harawira, 2005）另一种观点认为,全球化是一种不确定的悖论, 也为土著民带来了巨大利益。在两个截然不同的太平洋国家———斐济和新西兰,关于土著民权利的政治和法律思考的全球化对国家声称的绝对主权提出了挑战。全球化为土著民减少对国家的依赖创造了经济机遇;而且在抑制土著民的权利主张方面,其当今表现作用不及国内因素显著。

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Power struggles: A sociological approach to activist communication

This paper proposes an alternative approach to the scholarship of activist public relations, based on the ideas of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu; notably his understanding of activism in society. Although Bourdieu is one of the most quoted sociologists in the world (Santoro, 2011; Truong & Weill, 2012), his work has only received limited attention in public relations, and has been entirely ignored within the context of activist communication. This is despite his focus on power, relationships and the role of activists in modern democracies, all of which are central themes in public relations practice and research. Based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the discipline’s prevailing, dominant, industry serving, functionalist paradigm positions public relations’ role in society as to perpetuate social inequalities. However, drawing on his ideas leads us to question if public relations skills could be equally utilized to challenge existing power imbalances in society, either in support or on behalf of those groups and individuals whose voices have been drowned out by traditional public relations efforts. The author argues that Bourdieu was not only an accomplished scholar, but also an activist in his own right. It is this combination of personal experience with academic ideas that lends weight to his scholarly work through which he urged the scholarly community to utilize their skills, knowledge and research to challenge (perceived) inequalities in society. The emergence of this type of activist academic, committed to giving voice to multiple coexisting, sometimes directly competing points of views, would arguably further justify and strengthen the existence of public relations as a scholarly discipline in its own right.     

The relationality of law and culture: Dominant approaches and new directions for cultural sociologists

Much of the cultural sociological research in law and culture falls into one of the following approaches: (1) law as a structure that enables and constrains culture; (2) culture as a structure that enables and constrains law; and (3) law as a cultural toolkit or repertoire upon which actors draw to orient strategies for action. This article briefly reviews these approaches, then, drawing from the generative socio‐legal tradition in law as culture, highlights a fourth approach. While law and culture are often analyzed as autonomous forces in ongoing contention, negotiation, and reconciliation, the socio‐legal approach conceptualizes the relationality of law and culture as constituted by ongoing contention. I argue that this relational approach may offer cultural sociologists who do not study law a framework for better analyzing how power undergirds, enables and constrains cultural meaning. I offer examples to illustrate the utility of this research agenda through three areas of interest for cultural sociologists: (1) embodiment; (2) emotions; and (3) political culture. Such an approach encourages a two‐way bridge between cultural sociology and socio‐legal studies conceptualizing culture as a dynamic system of power relations.     

“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.     

(Social) Democracy in the Blood? Civic and Ethnic Idioms of Nation and the Consolidation of Swedish Social Democratic Power, 1928–1932

This paper attempts to explain Swedish Social Democrats' consolidation of power between 1928 and 1932 through an examination of idioms of nation. Qualitative analysis of articles and editorials from a Social Democratic and a liberal newspaper is carried out. The analysis focuses on how civic, ethnic and, a mixed civic‐ethnic idiom of nation were deployed in order to expand the Social Democrats' electoral base. The Social Democrats could combine egalitarianism/democracy with ethnic nationalism because ethnic bases for the nation were more inclusive than other, especially class, bases available to them. Two challenges for the literature on nationalism and the welfare state are raised: (1) the civic‐ethnic distinction must be rethought to accommodate the Swedish case, wherein ethnic nationalism was used for “civic” ends; and (2) the focus on the Social Democrats as promoting working class interests may be misplaced given the party's mobilization on the basis of nation.     

Game Theoretical Formulations of The Olson Problem*

Abstract This paper takes up one of the basic themes of Mancur Olson's Logic of Collective Action (Harvard University Press 1965). that is a group size as a cause of suboptimal provision of collective or public goods. A general framework is developed for classifying collective action situations involving public goods provisions. This framework focuses on the two characteristics: relations between contribution and provision, and rivalness or jointness in consumption of the collective goods. This framework distinguishes six types of collective actions, for each of which a game theoretical formulation is developed to obtain. models concerning social movements against (or for) new legislations, a petition for the recall of an official, a strike, lobbying, building a lighthouse, creation of a database, etc. These models, formulated either as an N-person chicken game or as an N-person prisoner's dilemma game. are examined with respect to how a group size affects non-cooperative equilibria and their Paretooptimality. There is no group size effect in the collective action situations formulated as an N-person chicken game, while large groups may suffer from suboptimal provision of the public goods in the collective action situations formulated as an N-person prisoner's dilemma game. Two types of the group size effect in N-person prisoner's dilemmas must be distinguished. In some cases. “no contribution” is the equilibrium regardless of the group size. but increase in the group size makes the equilibrium Pareto-deficient. In other cases, increase in the group size changes the equilibrium from the Pareto-efficient one with N contributors to the deficient one with no contributors.