Studying one's own in the Middle East: Negotiating gender and self-other dynamics in the field

This article uses examples of the experience I had in the field as an indigenous researcher in Turkey in order to problematize claims to knowledge. I contend that for researchers who are positioned as relative “insiders,” whether indigenous or bicultural, such aspects of the researcher identity as gender, class, professional and relationship status are made especially salient, perhaps even more so in Middle Eastern contexts. I also argue that while indigenous status can be both empowering and restricting, the insider/outsider position can be employed as a useful vantage point for “rethinking the familiar.” I discuss with examples how this position informed my researcher role and my perspective on what is traditional.     

Mindful Ethics: Comments on Informant-Centered Practices in Sociological Research

In this article, I introduce the concept of “mindful ethics” to describe my experiences as a feminist qualitative researcher who has confronted ethical dilemmas in my sexuality research. Mindful ethics is informed theoretically by mindful inquiry, grounded theory, ethics in practice, and ethically important moments. Mindful ethics has been useful in dealing with ethical considerations throughout all stages of my sexuality research. Shifting my attention to the takenfor-granted social contexts and circumstances surrounding informants’ life experiences has helped me deal with ethical concerns that otherwise may have resulted in harm to informants.     

Interaction Ritual Chains and the Mobilization of Conscientious Consumers

Markets for “socially responsible” products are comprised of activists who lead protests, organize boycotts, and promote the consumption of these goods. However, the ultimate success of these movements is dependent upon the support of a large number of consumers whose self-professed values often contradict with their own purchasing patterns. Consumer support of socially responsible products cannot be explained by consumer culture theories, which privilege identity, attitudes, and behavior, or mass consumption theories, which emphasize location and advertising’s influence on consumption patterns. These perspectives are informative but unable to explain why some consumers will only buy socially responsible products while others with similar value systems possess much more contradictory consumption patterns. I extend Collin’s theory of “Interaction Ritual chains” to show that rituals and emotions—more than identity or coercive advertising—explain how ethical consumers are mobilized. I show how face-to-face interactions between consumers and producers produce solidarity and motivate support for the Fair Trade movement. This paper employs a micro-sociological approach to contribute to studies of ethical consumption in three notable ways: 1) it emphasizes the importance of “contexts” and is able to explain contradictions in consumer behavior; 2), it contributes to our understanding of “brand communities” by describing the micro-sociological processes that both help to build these communities and create value within the products that organize these groups; and 3) it offers the potential to develop a predictive model for the purchasing patterns of consumers.     

A mexican American woman encounters sociology: An autobiographical perspective

I attempt to show how my ideas about bureaucracy and Mexican American culture are a product of my life history and how I worked out key features of these ideas in teaching sociology at a small university. This was made possible because strategic sponsors helped me as an “outsider” to become a kind of “insider” within that social milieu. Her fields of interest are bureaucracy, family, social psychology and race and ethnic relations. She is currently writing a monograph on Mexican American family life.     

Much ado about Goffman

“The claim that all the world’s a stage is sufficiently commonplace for readers to be familiar with its limitations and tolerant of its presentation.” (Goffman 1959, 72, 254) “Given that the logic of privatization....now odiously shapes archetypes of citizenship, [and] manages our perceptions of what constitute the ‘good society’....it stands to reason that new ethnographic research approaches must take global capitalism not as an end point of analysis, but as a starting point.” (Kincheloe and McLaren 2000, 304) “My abhorrence of neoliberalism helps to explain my legitimate anger when I speak of the injustices to which the ragpickers among humanity are condemned. It also explains my total lack of interest in any pretension of impartiality, I am not impartial, or objective...[this] does not prevent me from holding always a rigorously ethical position.” (Freire 1998, 22)     

All the News that’s Fat to Print: The American “Obesity Epidemic” and the Media

In the last twenty years scientific, medical, and public health interest in obesity has skyrocketed. Increasingly the term “epidemic” is being used in the media, medical journals, and public health policy literature to describe the current prevalence of fatness in the U.S. Using social scientific literature on epidemics, social problems, and feminist theories of the body, this paper traces the historical emergence of the “obesity epidemic” through an analysis of 751 articles on obesity published in The New York Times between 1990 and 2001. Through the identification and analysis of three discursive pairings I argue that the “obesity epidemic” is a part of a new breed of what I call “post-modern epidemics,” epidemics in which unevenly medicalized phenomena lacking a clear pathological basis get cast in the language and moral panic of “traditional” epidemics. I show how this moral panic together with the location of the problem within the individual precludes a more macro level approach to health and health care delivery at a time when health care services are being dismantled or severely cut back.

To the Dark Side and Back: The Administrative Odyssey of an Academic Sociologist with Lessons Learned

My first semester as a tenure-track faculty member at a mid-size university began ignominiously and suggested that my academic career might be short-lived. It began with a blistering memo that was stridently critical of the academic dean’s policy which led to being taken to the proverbial woodshed. Other less serious episodes followed which put me at odds with the “administration.” Yet I have spent more than a third of my career in administrative positions, including a stint in the provost’s office (as an assistant vice chancellor), and only recently returned to faculty status. Over the course of my academic career I have noticed that a large number of academic sociologists have taken administrative positions in academia beyond that of the department chair. This paper will explore this phenomenon and discuss the reasons members of the ‘debunking’ discipline assume administrative roles. I will address this issue within the context of my personal odyssey in administration and how the sociological perspective and imagination has contributed to working in the ‘dark side’ of academia. Finally, I will discuss lessons learned and recommendations for the aspirant administrators among the ranks of academic sociologists.     

Contested memory: Notes on Robert K. Merton’s“the Thomas Theorem and the Matthew Effect”

Conclusion Merton’s 1995 article shows the sociological complexity of a question that appears on the surface to be a simple one: Who wrote,“ If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”? Yet, simple things can be stated simply: the evidence for W. I. Thomas’s authorship of this sentence is far from conclusive; therefore I believe it should be attributed to both authors of the book in which it appears. It is ironic that Merton, having spent much of his professional career studying the role of citations in science, bears some responsibility for the lack of credit Dorothy Swaine Thomas has received regarding these words. This incident should therefore act as a cautionary tale about what happens when we stray too far from the scholarly practice of documenting our sources, even though we may believe we have good reasons for doing so. I am averse, however, to conclude my response to Merton’s article on a strident note. My hope is that this episode will help us move toward a“new era” of not the politically but the scholarly correct citation. It would be a pity if this issue leads to citation wars where old scores are settled and political correctness wins out over scholarly civility. On this point, I am sure Merton and I can both agree.     

A unionist’s perspective on the future of American unions

In summary, I do not see a major change in American unions over the next decade. The exception is further consolidation of national unions through mergers and affiliations which will change the makeup and increase the effectiveness of the unions involved. It behooves us all who love freedom and democracy to do what we can to assure strong and viable unions in America. We in the labor movement do not believe that we can have a free society and a high standard of living without free and effective unions. In this regard, I conclude with a statement made in 1945 by my first boss, Philip Murray, president of the United Steelworkers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations: “American democracy cannot survive in an atmosphere of insecurity, joblessness, and poverty. When people are at work at high wages, prosperity is continuous. To return to an era of low wages is to invite unemployment and catastrophe from which no segment of the population, no matter how apparently secure, will escape. We dare not allow mass misery and unemployment to overtake us again.”     

Is the U.S. unique in the decline of private sector unionism?

The U.S. is not unique in the decline of private sector unionism. Contrary to assertions of the “unique school,” unionism in the private sectors of Canada and Western Europe has also declined and for the same reason, structural changes in the labor market. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” Sherlock Holmes. I acknowledge in particular the critique of my colleague, Neil Sheflin. I thank, too, for their useful comments, Larry Adams of the U.S. Department of Labor, Noah Meltz, of the University of Toronto, Alexander Troy, and my colleagues Jack Cullity, Stanley Kaish, and Peter Loeb. I appreciate the research support received from the Research Council, the International Program, and the Dean of the Graduate School — Newark of Rutgers University.     

What is a problem?

Among others, the term “problem” plays a major role in the various attempts to characterize interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity, as used synonymously in this paper. Interdisciplinarity (ID) is regarded as “problem solving among science, technology and society” and as “problem orientation beyond disciplinary constraints” (cf. Frodeman et al.: The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010). The point of departure of this paper is that the discourse and practice of ID have problems with the “problem”. The objective here is to shed some light on the vague notion of “problem” in order to advocate a specific type of interdisciplinarity: problem-oriented interdisciplinarity. The outline is as follows: Taking an ex negativo approach, I will show what problem-oriented ID does not mean. Using references to well-established distinctions in philosophy of science, I will show three other types of ID that should not be placed under the umbrella term “problem-oriented ID”: object-oriented ID (“ontology”), theory-oriented ID (epistemology), and method-oriented ID (methodology). Different philosophical thought traditions can be related to these distinguishable meanings. I will then clarify the notion of “problem” by looking at three systematic elements: an undesired (initial) state, a desired (goal) state, and the barriers in getting from the one to the other. These three elements include three related kinds of knowledge: systems, target, and transformation knowledge. This paper elaborates further methodological and epistemological elements of problem-oriented ID. It concludes by stressing that problem-oriented ID is the most needed as well as the most challenging type of ID.     

Appropriate Therapeutic Care for Families with Pre-Pubescent Transgender/Gender-Dissonant Children

In recent years, a new phenomenon has been observed in U.S. culture, that of pre-pubescent children transitioning socially from one gender role to another, with the support of their families. As this phenomenon becomes more widespread, families, schools and other institutions will turn to mental health care professionals for guidance in navigating new territory. Such children have often been assessed for gender identity disorder; the traditional treatment plan for those so diagnosed included attempts to steer their gender behavior in more “gender-appropriate” directions. Allowing such children to self-actualize, viewing their behavior as indicative of innate identity, is a relatively new approach. This paper will focus on the social worker’s or therapist’s role in helping pre-pubescent children and their families, should the families decide identity actualization is the path they would prefer.     

Neither clear nor present: The social construction of safety and danger

Perceptions of safety and danger are “intersubjective”—products of social construction, collective agreement, and socialization. While objective danger certainly exists, perceptions of danger do not derive directly from observation of the empirical world. The objective environment provides only inconsistent and ambiguous information, permitting ample room for socially constructed beliefs. Three cognitive frameworks—the Cautious, Confident, and Neutral frameworks—organize perceptions of safety and danger. Each framework begins with a default assumption about safety and danger and “marks” certain items as different from this default. In shaping expectations, these frameworks also contribute to perceptions of horror, humor, excitement, and fear. Finally, I use these frameworks to analyze the psychological concept “phobia” as a sociological phenomenon.     

Control in craft work: The case of production potters

This paper examines the social organization of a craft profession (as opposed to an art world), namely production pottery. The analysis focuses on control as the important dependent variable and examines features of the social organization that may influence the amount of control that a production potter has over matters such as work schedule, product and choice of marketing outlets. One conclusion is that stratification along a time dimension (i.e. the length of time that one has been in the profession) is an important independent variable influencing amount of control. The paper concludes with a brief analysis of the controversy surrounding the concepts of “art” and “craft” as members of the study perceive this distinction. I would like to express my gratitude to Robert R. Faulkner who was a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. Special thanks to him for having carefully read and commented upon the various drafts of this paper.     

The ethics of deception in social research: A case study

Using data from a study on courtship through personal advertisements, I argue that Kai Erikson's classic case against disguised observation is flawed. Certain kinds of deception are necessary to gather certain data in certain settings. I placed bogus ads in a personal column to obtain and analyze responses. The data would have remained inaccessible—indeed, many of the responses would not have existed in the first place—without some measure of deception. While deception was used, no risk whatsoever was posed to respondents. I further argue that several of Erikson's criteria of risk do not separate ethical from empirical questions; informants use very different criteria in evaluating the risk of harm to them posed by social research that sociologists use. The question of exploitation is more complex, since it has to be weighed against how much of an effort my respondents made and hence, what it is exactly that I took from them. A “panel of judges” decided that most of my male (but not my female) respondents would not have gotten dates with my hypothetical ad placers, and that the research method I used was not especially unethical.     

The re-accomplishment of place in twentieth century Vermont and New Hampshire: history repeats itself,until it doesn’t

Much recent literature plumbs the question of the origins and trajectories of “place,” or the cultural development of space-specific repertoires of action and meaning. This article examines divergence in two “places” that were once quite similar but are now quite far apart, culturally and politically speaking. Vermont, once considered the “most Republican” state in the United States, is now generally considered one of its most politically and culturally liberal. New Hampshire, by contrast, has remained politically and socially quite conservative. Contrasting legacies of tourist promotion, political mobilization, and public policy help explain the divergence between states. We hypothesize that emerging stereotypes about a “place” serve to draw sympathetic residents and visitors to that place, thus reinforcing the salience of those stereotypes and contributing to their reality over time. We term this latter process idio-cultural migration and argue its centrality to ongoing debates about the accomplishment of place. We also elaborate on several means by which such place “reputations” are created, transmitted, and maintained.     

Of yarmulkes and categories: Delegating boundaries and the phenomenology of interactional expectation

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this article delineates a process through which members of an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles unintentionally delegate boundary work and membership-identification to anonymous others in everyday life. Living in the midst of a non-Jewish world, orthodox men are often approached by others, both Jews and non-Jews, who categorize them as “religious Jews” based on external marks such as the yarmulke and attire. These interactions, varying from mundane interactions to anti-Semitic incidents, are then tacitly anticipated by members even when they are not attending to their “Jewishness”—when being a “Jew” is interactionally invisible. Through this case, I argue that, in addition to conceptualizing boundaries and identifications as either emerging in performance or institutionally given and stable, the study of boundaries should also chart the sites in which members anticipate categorization and the way these anticipations play out in everyday life.     

A feminist revisiting of the insider/outsider debate: The “outsider phenomenon” in rural Iowa

This article draws upon findings from an ethnographic study of two towns in rural Iowa to examine the adequacy of the insider/outsider distinction as a guideline for evaluating and conducting ethnographic research. Utilizing feminist standpoint and materialist feminist theories, I start with the assumption that, rather than one “insider” or “outsider” position, we all begin our work with different relationships to shifting aspects of social life and to particular knowers in the community and this contributes to numerous dimensions through which we can relate to residents in various communities. “Outsiderness” and “insiderness” are not fixed or static positions, rather they are ever-shifting and permeable social locations illustrated in this case study by the “outsider phenomenon.” Community processes that reorganize and resituate race-ethnicity, gender and class relations form some of the most salient aspects of the “outsider phenomenon.” These dynamic processes shaped our relationships with residents as ethnographic identities were repositioned by shifts in constructions of “community” that accompanied ongoing social, demographic, and political changes.     

Importing Western Childhoods into a Chinese State-Run Orphanage

Since the early 1990s the Chinese government has allowed foreign humanitarian non-governmental organizations to aid children residing in official state-run orphanages. As one aspect of a larger research project on child abandonment and forms of orphanage care in contemporary China, this article examines an innovative state-civil society partnership of a Western infant special care unit housed within a large official state-run institution. The “Tomorrow’s Children” special care unit, funded and managed by middle-class Western volunteers, uses First World medical practices and universalistic ideologies of children and childhood to care for the institution’s most severely ill and disabled children. This article utilizes ethnographic methods to discuss conflicts over children’s best interests that arise between Western volunteer employers and the local working-class and poor Chinese caregivers who are expected to implement the imported practices. I contend that disagreements over appropriate childcare hinge on cultural and class-based understandings of childhood and differential access to social and financial resources. This research grounds discussions of globalization in a detailed case study by exposing the tensions and negotiations that occur at the local level in processes of transnational exchange.     

Union activity and the decline in American trade union membership

This paper extends recent research on the determinants of the decline in union membership in the United States. Using biennial state-level data for a set of years between 1958 and 1982, my model tests “union organizing,” “structural,” “management opposition,” and “public policy” hypotheses concerning union membership and suggests improved specifications of each of these hypotheses. The paper also examines the relative importance of each factor in explaining the decline in unionization. The results support each of the hypotheses and confirm previous findings that changes in the structure of the labor force are most important in explaining union membership decline.