‘Family ideology’: identification and exploration

The issue of ‘family ideology’ has been systematically ignored by a majority of ‘family¹ scholars whilst it has been taken for granted by a minority. The following study arises from the author's attempts to explore the issue of alternative theoretical approaches to the analysis of family life’.² Increasing numbers of contemporary researchers concur in recognising the diversity of ‘family forms’ and the inappropriateness of speaking of ‘The Family’.³ Despite these recognitions many researchers find themselves re-adopting the term ‘The Family’ in their discussions and especially in the titles of their work. For example. Segal clearly recognises that the ‘traditional family model’ no longer reflects the reality of our lives (1983, 11) and yet the title of her book is What is to he done about THE FAMILY? (emphasis added). One reason for the re-importation of the idea of ‘The Family’ may be found in the rather limited nature of previous conceptualisations of ‘family ideology’. With the exception of Barrett (1980), recognitions of ‘family ideology’ tend to be conceptualised in terms of sets of partisan beliefs supporting a particular ‘family form’. Thus the concept of ‘The Family’ is rarely regarded as being problematic in itself, rather attention is paid to the presumed virtues or deficiencies of the particular form of ‘The Family’ which is assumed to be prevalent. Notwithstanding the recognition of ‘family diversity’ or the inappropriateness of the term ‘The Family’, nearly all discussion becomes a straightforward attack upon, or defence of. ‘The Family’.⁴ Only very rarely does analysis avoid this trap and question whether ‘The Family’ really exists to be attacked or defended; thus Collier et al. have asked ‘Is there a Family?’ (1982) and the present author has asked ‘Do we really know what “The Family” is?’(Bernardes, 1948a). The objective here is to identify and explore a specific conceptualisation of ‘family ideology’. The aim is to avoid engaging in attacks upon, or defences of, ‘The Family’ but rather to address the ideological context of such debates themselves, especially in respect of the assumed existence of ‘The Family’. It is hoped that this approach will stimulate a much more critical examination of ‘family ideology’ and the concept of ‘The Family’. More generally, the attempt to conceptualise ‘family ideology’ in this much broader sense is seen as a pre-requisite for the development of an alternative theoretical approach to the analysis of ‘family life’.     

Violence in the name of god? A framing processes approach to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

Since summer 2014, the insurgent group ‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’ (ISIS) has become a major concern for international politics and global security due to its rapid territorial gains, violent operations and the propagation of Salafi-jihadist ideology. This study aims to enhance the academic understanding of ISIS by demystifying the ideological reasoning behind its use of violence. It therefore investigates the link between structural factors that served ISIS’s evolution, its ideological outlook and the significance of this ideology to legitimize violent action. As its theoretical basis, the study employs framing processes within the study of social movements. Methodologically, discursive frame analysis serves to explore the relation of ISIS’s ideology to structural events and experiences to better understand how the group justifies violence. Therefore, the study draws on audio speeches and issues of the magazines Dabiq and Dar al-Islam published by ISIS, which are examined on the rhetoric of othering, collective identity and justifying violence. It is argued that ISIS constructs a collective action frame which creates a social reality that bestows the group with a rationale for action. ISIS’s ideology, based on Islamic symbolism, presents an interpretative lens which assigns meaning to the structural environment of ISIS’s emergence. In this context, violence is justified as a necessity to defend Islam and as an obligation for the true Muslim believer. The discussion concludes that ISIS’s ideology legitimizes the very existence of the group and conceals its mundane struggle for power, territory and wealth through reference to divine authority.     

Constructing and Deconstructing the Body Malleable through Mother–Daughter Interactions

This interpretive study explores how mothers and their adolescent daughters respond to and interact about the body malleable ideology, or cultural discourses that normalize thinness and promote the body as changeable. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 mothers and their daughters. Grounded theory analysis revealed two responses to the body malleable ideology—the acceptance or rejection of the body as a malleable object. Participants expressed ambivalence about this ideology and related cultural discourses. Further, through their interactions, mothers and daughters both constructed and deconstructed the ideology of a malleable body. Three patterns of dyadic experience were identified: Pattern A, in which both the mother and daughter accepted the body malleable ideology, Pattern B, in which both the mother and daughter rejected the body malleable ideology, and Pattern C, in which the mother rejected and the daughter accepted the body malleable ideology. In taking an in-depth look at the cases of three dyads, we explore defining characteristics of these patterns. We also present a grounded theory model developed to illustrate relationships discovered in this study.     

The role of marriage in linguistic contact and variation: Two Hmong dialects in Texas1

The role of marriage in linguistic contact and variation has been under‐represented in sociolinguistic research. In any practice‐based analysis, individual interactions and relationships are crucial. Therefore, marriage relationships – small but intense communities of practice – deserve variationist attention for their role in dialect construction and identity. This investigation of cross‐dialectal marriages explores how dialect practices and choices are negotiated between partners. The results show the importance of viewing this linguistic behavior in terms of community ideology, culture, and individual choice, rather than primarily as a matter of the amount and intensity of contact. Likewise, the study shows how less commonly studied minority communities can bring new insights to the study of dialect acquisition and linguistic contact. Specifically, this investigation focuses on marriages between speakers of two different dialects of Hmong, a Hmong‐Mien language of Southeast Asia. On the basis of home visits to ten Hmong immigrant households in Texas, the study analyzes lexical and phonetic contrasts and ethnographic interviews. Results suggest that macro‐level shifts in Hmong social organization and gender roles are being reflected and constructed by gendered, marriage‐level dialect practices. The linguistic behavior in these marriages is best viewed as a matter of community ideology in tension with individual choice: individual wives are choosing to challenge the traditional Hmong ideology regarding language behavior in cross‐dialect marriages.     

Synthesis,or a new problematic in economic anthropology

Conclusion This essay is not the place to provide a thoroughgoing critique of the neo-Marxist articulationist school. This will be done elsewhere. I have pointed out in this essay that previous use of the notions of strategizing man and situational logic was to introduce substantive elements into formal considerations of the decision making process. It would seem, however, that it may be more useful to ally situational logic with production theory in order that the micro-macro gap in analysis is bridged. This may ensure that the systemic preoccupations of neo-Marxist theory in anthropology has an actor situation perspective as a caveat. My main concern, however, is with a realistic perspective on the various issues, implications, and contentions of the methodology polemics in economic anthropology. Of the two alternatives posed at the beginning of the essay it is evident that I am in favor of discarding the fragmented segments of current orthodoxy in economic anthropology, finding it more fruitful to develop the problematic introduced by the French school of historical materialism. This school of thought has the potential to provide an integrated approach simply by asking different questions.

---

     

Managerialism in social welfare: Proposals for a humanitarian alternative–an australian perspective

In Australia, New Zealand, and Europe over the past twenty years, control over social work has been nurtured by deregulatory economic policies and by alleged efficient management. A particular form of management practice, called managerialism, has involved doing more with less and treating public-sector agencies as though they were no different from private for-profit corporations. This practice has incurred huge social costs in terms of cutbacks in services, scapegoating of vulnerable people, lowering of staff morale, and contributing to stress-related illness. A humanitarian alternative to managerialism requires a social work practice in which relationships are characterized by openness and humour, by a workplace culture which is free of fear, and values are agreed in consultation with the users of services. This alternative ideology and practice promotes the treatment of people as citizens rather than clients or consumers.     

'Out of Place', 'Knowing One's Place': space, power and the exclusion of disabled people

Disabled people are marginalised and excluded from 'mainstream' society. In general, our understanding of the processes of exclusion is grounded in time and history. In this paper, it is argued that space, as well as time, is instrumental in reproducing and sustaining disablist practices. Disability has distinct spatialities that work to exclude and oppress disabled people. Spaces are currently organised to keep disabled people 'in their place' and 'written' to convey to disabled people that they are 'out of place'. Furthermore, social relations currently work to spatially isolate and marginalise disabled people and their carers. Disability is spatially, as well as socially, constructed. It is contended that an understanding of society's reaction to, and the experiences of, disability should be framed within an approach that combines a spatialised political economy with social constructivism. Unlike neo-Marxist approaches this approach is centred on notions of power rather than capital. Using this approach, the spatialities of disability are explored.     

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM THE FRENCH DEMOCRACY

We provide a test of the impact of voters' political ideology on economic growth and of the role of preferences for government size as a transmission channel. We focus on France from the beginning of its stable democratic experience in 1871. A move of voters' ideology to the right increases economic growth over the total observation period. However, the growth effect of ideology is mediated by voters' preferences for government size only during the post‐World War II period. For reverse causality concerns, we use the political ideology of other historical democracies as an instrument variable for France's ideology. (JEL E6, O43, H11)     

The dialectics of politics and aesthetics in the Chinese Korean dance drama,the spirit of Changbai Mountain

This article explores the relationships between the political aspirations and aesthetic endeavours expressed in the Chinese Korean dance drama, The Spirit of Changbai Mountain, and how they relate to the political, cultural and ethnic identity of this migrant community. The nationality policies and socialist ideology of cultural production in China give shape to this dance drama, which depicts a collective history of the Korean minority as full members of the Chinese multi-ethnic socialist state. While political conformity is explicitly stated in the accompanying Chinese prose, more subtle, poetic expressions of different emotions are articulated through the non-verbal medium of dance and music whose meanings are drawn from the shared experiences specific to this ethnic community. Additionally, the aesthetic differentiation made by the Chinese Korean artists between their dance and those of their homelands illustrates how Korean tradition is identified and interpreted in this diaspora to define their cultural hybridity. It is suggested that the performance of The Spirit of Changbai Mountain is simultaneously a political and aesthetic event in which a variety of aspirations and identities are expressed in dialectics. These dynamics can also be understood in terms of a discursive field of power which underpins the production and consumption of minority/diaspora performance in general.     

Reflexive modernization and reconstructing the Third Way: a response to Mouzelis1

Nicos Mouzelis has made a welcome intervention into the debate over Third Way theory and politics. The strengths of Mouzelis’ account are identified as being his incorporation of asymmetrical power relations and institutional imbalances into the theory of reflexive modernization, and his defence of the Left/Right dichotomy. Three interrelated criticisms are then made. The first is of a sociological reductionism which neglects the importance of ideology and politics in bringing about the processes of reflexive modernization underpinning the Third Way. Conversely, the second criticism is that Mouzelis drifts into voluntarism in the form of a conspiracy theory in his account of ‘cultural engineering from the top’ amidst the conditions of reflexive modernity. Further, it is suggested that it is not with regard to achieving ‘cultural rights’ against such top‐down engineering that the Left/Right distinction endures, but rather in relation to how the role of the market is analyzed. Thirdly, at the level of institutional differentiation and power relations, Mouzelis underestimates the extent to which market logic is able to ‘colonize’ other spheres of social life, and his regulatory proposals are insufficient to address this.     

Interethnic Romantic Relationships: Enacting Affiliative Ethnic Identities

Through in‐depth interviews with respondents who were in interethnic relationships (N = 28), the authors extended and refined a new approach to mate selection based on affiliative ethnic identities (T. Jimenez, 2010). Rather than assimilation and a breakdown of ethnic group boundaries, they found that people pursued interethnic relationships because of the ethnic differences they include. These relationships gave them access to an affiliate ethnic or multicultural identity. This perspective does not challenge but rather complements existing theories of mate selection, including the role of opportunity structures, exchange of benefits, and growing acceptance of or freedom to pursue interethnic relationships. Ethnic differences can remain central as people meet, fall in love, and marry across these differences.     

Treading Upon Separate Paths: Native American Ideology and Marxist Analysis*

Sociologists have paid much attention to the phenomenon of ideology. In particular, there have been numerous efforts to develop theories of ideology formation from a Marxist perspective. However, one finds that such efforts almost without exception deal with shared beliefs which are characteristic of western, industrial societies. Ideologies of so-called primitive societies, such as Native American tribes, remain largely neglected by Marxist analysis. This can be explained in large measure by the fact that Marxist analysis, with its emphasis on relations of production, is ill-equipped to deal with Native American beliefs. Relations of production are an appropriate focal point for explaining the ideology of the European, industrial tradition. They are not useful in accounting for Native American ideology, which must be viewed as landbased rather than production-based. Awareness of this difference leads to an appreciation of the influence of land and nature upon Native American thought.     

The World Social Forum between politics and NGOs

ABSTRACT

The WSF was established as a forum that gathered movements opposing a certain political ideology, neoliberalism, but it has refrained from openly supporting a political ideology. The WSF has empowered more radical leftish movements and thus played a role in the separation of these movements from more conventional left-wing parties that have embraced neoliberal capitalism as an undefeatable reality. Right-wing politicians have capitalized on this separation by promoting a populist rejection of capitalist elites. WSF itself has profiled itself as a forum of social movements rather than a forum of socialist movements. The article analyses to what extent the hegemonic role of NGOs in the WSF is at the roots of this apolitical positioning and to what extend rightsholder movements might have benefited from a more explicit embracement of a coherent socialist political alternative rather than the diversity that WSF has fostered as one of its central principles.     

The Bible Tells Me So: Depictions of Race,Gender, and Authority in Children's Videos

The study of what children learn from media has more recently included measures of diversity in children's programming. This article looks to what Veggie Tales, a popular children's video series, presents in terms of race, gender, and authority. The study finds that nonracialized, normative, predominantly male characters occupy positions of authority and are presented as those from which one can learn key lessons. The series also presents the main characters, those with which the child is intended to identify, as lacking in racially based signifiers, thus permitting them to occupy the position of norm. Using not only theories of children's social learning and prior research of representation in children's media, but also theory of how whiteness is defined through the identification of other and neo-Marxist deviance theory, the study connects these issues to problematize the subtle lesson that difference is suspect.     

Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan

This essay will consider gendered aspects of Cool Japan ideology as found in government‐sponsored texts and imagery, as well as in other international arenas. Although scholars have recently offered critiques of Cool Japan as a form of nationalistic nation branding, uses of an objectified femininity have rarely been included in these analyses. By displacing female innovations and creativity in cultural production to the margins, Cool Japan reifies and officially promotes male geek culture. We find general dematerialization of the producers of Cool Japan ideology, which in turn becomes characterized as creative, quirky, edgy, and benign, thus masking the way Cool Japan has been produced, critiqued, imagined and endorsed primarily by male elites in Japan and internationally. This discussion suggests that Cool Japan's otaku ethos does not include women and girls who fail to conform to a narrow model of cute femininity, thus maintaining and promoting structures of gender stratification. In addition, the global spread and government exploitation of uncomplicated cuteness (kawaii) often confounds a flat understanding of the aesthetic with a gendered perspective and its expressions in girl culture. Women and girls are contained in Cool Japan ideology, and are not usually represented as shaping, resisting, creating or critiquing Japanese popular culture.     

Young Adult Relationship Values at the Intersection of Gender and Sexuality

Recent decades have brought significant social changes in the industrialized West that may influence young adults' attitudes about intimate relationships, including changes in gender expectations and behaviors and changes in sexual attitudes and practices. We used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 14,121) to compare men to women and sexual minorities to heterosexuals on ratings of the importance of love, faithfulness, commitment, financial security, and racial homogamy for successful relationships. We found that nearly all young adults adhere to dominant relationship values inherent in the romantic love ideology; we found, however, modest but significant differences by gender and sexual identity in relationship values. Significant interactions demonstrated that gender and sexual identity intersect to uniquely influence relationship views.     

The sociology of antiracism in Black and White

This paper reviews sociological research on antiracism and suggests new directions for the field. Current research indicates although White antiracism constitutes attempts to negotiate privilege, it fails to divest from the systems of power that maintain the current balance of privilege in favor of White supremacy. In contrast, the antiracism of people of color provides some insight into attempts to secure liberation, a complete break from White supremacist power structures. I argue DuBois, Black Feminist Thought, and postcolonial sociology inform a sociology of antiracism that centers people of color rather than Whiteness. To illustrate the nuance of antiracism by people of color, I centered my study on Black antiracism. From this perspective, antiracism emerges as the set of practices that Blacks enact in everyday life to mitigate and confront hegemonic racialization. I suggest that one construct of hegemonic whiteness meant to uphold dominant racial ideology that produces emphasized blackness that facilitates symbolic and physical violence toward Blacks. Although emphasized blackness produces and reinforces constraints on Black antiracism, oppositional blackness exemplifies an ultimate form of antiracism in which Black bodies act as agents of social change through liberatory projects such as marronage and counterhegemonic knowledge production. I conclude this article with a case study of the Windward Maroons of Jamaica to illustrate oppositional blackness as the dynamics of resistance and empowerment that emerge to confront hegemonic whiteness.     

Succession of Stem Families in Rural Japan: Cases in Yamanashi Prefecture

The aim of this paper is to clarify how Japanese rural families have continued and changed from a viewpoint of generational succession. The survey from which data was collected was conducted principally in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan. Three main points will be focussed on: members, property, and ideology. Almost 40% of family members surveyed continued to live together with their parents after marriage. However, they did not necessarily succeed the family farm. The ways in which they live together and farm their land have become more diverse. It is still very common for the entire family property to be inherited and succeeded by only one child in accordance with the Ie system. Despite the fact that family structure is changing greatly in present times, many farming families continue to adopt this system of inheritance. Ideologies concerning ceremonial matters and human relationships remain strong, but have weakened with regard to land inheritance. Our results suggest that the family's desire for succession was stronger in cases where multiple generations cohabited.     

Attitudes and Acts of Sexual Aggression on a University Campus*

There is increasing understanding of the widespread extent of men's physical sexual coercion of women in this society. In this study, we document the amount of that coercion among a sample of college students. We try to explain that coercion in terms of certain valucs (traditional sex-role conceptions that amount to an ideology of gender inequality). We also try to explain that coercion in terms of attitudes towards physical sexual coercion. For purposes of this study, we measured both females’experience as victims of sexual aggression and males’experience as perpetrators of sexual aggression. We also measured both males’and females’values regarding gender inequality and attitudes regarding sexual aggression. We found that female college students in our sample had experienced a considerable amount of sexual aggression. We also found that male and female students’values regarding gender inequality and their attitudes regarding physical sexual coercion differed widely. Finally, we found strong relationships between male students’values and attitudes and their participation in sexual aggression.