Sonet-1: Social network analysis and modeling system

SONET-I is a preliminary but completely operational version of a package of computer programs for the analysis of social structure. The programs were written to implement a strategy for the analysis of social networks which the authors have developed over the past several years. The conceptual basis for the research method has its origins in graph theory on the one hand and in anthropological studies of social organization — especially kinship studies — on the other. The method can, in fact, be seen as a graph theoretic formalization and generalization of kinship-based methods of social analysis often associated with British social anthropology.     

New Methods for Describing What People Think*

Sociological research on what people think has been hampered by inadequate methods. These inadequacies are illustrated by Coleman's survey research and Burner's participant observation study. The ethnoscience approach in anthropology is developing improved methods for studying cognitive content, and the usefulness of these methods is illustrated by research on (1) wedding ceremonies, (2) kinship terminology and (3) norms and social change.     

Ethnographic Approaches to Race,Genetics and Genealogy

In recent years, there has been a technological advance and commercial boom in genetic technologies and projects, including a renewed scientific interest in the biological status and genetic constitution of race. This article provides an overview of sociological approaches to the study of race and genetics, and argues that these analyses should pay detailed critical attention to laypeople's engagements with the new genetic technologies. Drawing upon growing bodies of ethnographic literature within anthropology, geography and sociology, this paper unravels the complex and ambivalent ways in which laypeople think about the biological and genetic constitution of racial identities. Two specific bodies of literature are examined. First, the new kinship studies within anthropology that explores laypeople's engagements with the new reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization. Second, laypeople's uses of genealogical technologies that claim to trace family ancestries, including racial descent and ethnic origins.     

Kinship Care: A Cultural Resource of African American and Latino Families Coping with Parental Substance Abuse

SUMMARY

This paper examines kinship care as a cultural resource used by African American and Latino families coping with substance abuse by a family member. Although there is a growing body of literature on kinship care, there are no conceptual or empirical studies that have drawn or built on cultural similarities between these two groups of ethnic minority families. A framework that prioritizes cultural assessment and relevance in using familial and cultural resources is proposed to assist practitioners confronted with the demographic realities of working with social, clinical and ethnocultural complexities when serving ethnic minority families. The framework is based on practice implications raised by recent studies on kinship care and from the perspective of pertinent cross-cultural and anthropological literature.     

‘It's capitalism on coke!’: From temporary to permanent liminality in organization studies

In recent years, organization studies have become increasingly aware of the concept of liminality. In our review and critique of this reception of liminality in organization studies, we emphasize that liminality involves a fundamental suspension of ordinary social structures. Although the prevailing use of the concept in anthropology as well as in organization studies has conceptualized liminality as a temporary state, we focus on permanent liminality. Yet the idea of permanent liminality leads to an inevitable paradox, because the concept, by definition, is a temporary state. Conceptualizing liminality as a constant state of social limbo, we show that the paradox in permanent liminality stems from the impossibility of drawing clear distinctions between different social spheres, especially as they apply to modern work–life. Examining a case study about a management consultant, we illustrate the paradox of liminality in terms of a zone of indistinction between work and life as it is reflected in an empirical self-narrative about a consultancy ‘lifestyle’. We further link these findings to a possible transition from disciplinary societies to societies of control.     

Kinship Reconsidered: Research on a Neglected Topic

This article reviews the recent history of kinship research, noting the relative neglect of the topic in recent decades. The lack of scholarly and empirical work on kinship has been hampered by both the absence of survey and qualitative research on contemporary kinship practices. The author focuses on what is known and not known about how individual put into practice kinship in the standard, nuclear form of the family. There is surprising in attention to the ceremonial family and, little is know about how families draw boundaries and construct kinship on ritual occasions in the literature. The author concludes by suggesting research strategies for examining both how kinship is constructed and practiced in the United States and in other advanced economies.     

Foster Care to Kinship Adoption: The Road Less Traveled

ABSTRACT

Although a rather extensive literature concerning informal kinship care and kinship foster care has emerged over the past 30 years, much less is known about the children and families involved in kinship adoption. This article pays particular attention to recent research that investigates placement decisions and outcomes for former foster children adopted by relatives. This review suggests conclusions similar to broader reviews, in that kinship placement tends to show some consistently favorable outcomes across a range of study populations and methods. Financial need may be the greatest concern for relatives who adopt. The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 expands adoption subsidies and provides states with the option of providing ongoing subsidies to certain relatives who take guardianship of family members from the foster care system. However, relative caregivers often are not well informed about financial supports afforded them by federal and state policies. Specialized programs for kinship adoptive families are still limited. Much of the growth of kinship placement has been due to the absence of other placement options for many children and value-based decision making that places a premium on kinship, rather than on evidence of the advantages of kinship adoption.     

New Directions in the Sociology of Collective Memory and Commemoration

The study of memory straddles a wide range of social science disciplines including sociology, psychology, anthropology, and geography. Within sociology, reviews of the literature have already been carried out, but these are now somewhat dated. This article takes the measure of recent prior research on the sociology of collective memory and commemoration by (1) proposing a classification of collective memory research; (2) organising the literature under the headings of theoretical developments, methodological strategies, and methodological challenges; and (3) offering suggestions for maximising the internal cohesion and external utility of the sub-field.     

The cultural swirl: anthropological perspectives on innovation

Abstract As the emergence of a globalized economy transforms the conditions under which economic performance and productivity growth occur, the ability to innovate has come to the fore as the key factor determining the competitive advantage of national economies, entire industries and individual firms alike. Linking the economic concern with the new products and services to more general questions of the social organization of culture, this essay sets out to explore the contribution of anthropology to an understanding of how innovation occurs. Against the backdrop of theories of cultural change and the identification of parameters that define innovative environments, anthropology enquires into how historical contingency and social agency make innovation possible. In‐depth ethnographic studies emphasize that innovation is much less dependent on the creative individual than on the interaction within social milieux that create what anthropologist Ulf Hannerz calls a ‘cultural swirl’. Such milieux appear to function best when they incorporate heterogeneous actors and are not closed systems but exposed to serendipitous encounters and exchanges with others actors and milieux.     

“I Really Belong Here”: Civic Capacity-Building among Returning Citizens

This article focuses on unlikely movement actors whose civic engagement has been understudied: people with criminal records (“returning citizens”). We present findings from 18 months of ethnographic research with members (leaders) of Fighting to Overcome Records and Create Equality (FORCE), a civic group led by returning citizens. FORCE leaders received institutional support from Community Renewal Society (CRS), a larger faith and community-based organization, to lead a rights reform movement in Chicago. Findings suggest that FORCE leaders constructed notions of kinship, recognition, and power through civic capacity-building efforts—and that social belonging was core to such capacity-building efforts. While bonding social belonging occurred as FORCE leaders formed kinship with people facing similar social and economic marginality, bridging social belonging emerged as leaders felt recognized by CRS staff organizers, affiliates, and elected officials. Bonding and bridging social belonging enabled FORCE leaders, who faced constant social exclusion in society, to experience much needed kinship, recognition, and power. Future studies should continue to uncover how local capacity-building processes have life-changing relational effects on movement participants from socially and economically marginalized groups.     

Sibling Relationships in Adoptive and Fostering Families: A Review of the International Research Literature

This paper presents a review of the international research literature published since 2005 focusing specifically on sibling relationships in fostering and adoptive families. It presents an overview of the current state of knowledge regarding sibling relationships of fostered and adopted children as well as gaps and limitations. The review concludes that while methodological advances are apparent in this body of work siblinghood is poorly conceptualised and there has been inadequate attention to the perspectives of children. The paper goes on to suggest that one possible source of insight comes from recent work undertaken within social anthropology and sociology and the application of this theoretical and methodological approach to the study of siblinghood in out‐of‐home care is considered.     

Missing Teeth: Reviewing the Sociology of Oral Health and Healthcare

Both the US Surgeon General and the World Health Organization have called for further social scientific research on the social determinants of oral health. Oral disease can have detrimental effects on quality of life, having been linked with physical, mental, and social impairments. This article reviews the recent literature pertaining to the sociology of oral health and healthcare. The purpose of this review is to summarize and revive a necessary field. In order to maintain a focus on the United States and expand into other social science disciplines, relevant anthropological works were also included. The review discusses five key areas in both the sociology and anthropology of oral health. Of the 25 included articles, research maintained a focus on the dental profession, the construction of oral health, the mouth and the social self, social factors in dental care, and cultural assumptions of oral health. While the reviewed studies have aided in closing the gap, much of the research has been conducted outside of the United States, has used oral health as a case study for larger arguments, and has not considered the role of social inequality. Future research is necessary to more fully frame oral health and healthcare in society.     

Interdisciplinary agendas in visual research: re-situating visual anthropology

In this article I review recent literature on visual research methods in the social sciences to explore two questions. First, I examine how recent interdisciplinary exchanges have portrayed the founding disciplines in visual research and representation through a focus on visual anthropology (and to a lesser degree visual sociology). Second, I critically survey the common aims and interests of academics promoting visual methods from/for their disciplines. As we delve into the “new” visual research literature, it becomes clear that contemporary visual researchers from different disciplines have common interests: reflexivity; collaboration; ethics; and the relationship between the content, social context and materiality of images. I shall argue for a more collaborative interdisciplinary approach to visual research whereby disciplines might learn from each other without seeking narrative foils to assert the supremacy of their own discipline at the expense of others.     

Reflections on The Reproduction of Mothering—Twenty Years Later

The Reproduction of Mothering attracted readers from a wide variety of backgrounds—ordinary women seeking to understand themselves; psychoanalysts and psychotherapists; feminist scholars from a range of disciplines including literature, philosophy, political theory, sociology, and anthropology; and social and cultural theorists. These reflections address all these readers. I restate what I see as the main contribution of the book, suggesting why it has had enduring appeal. In so doing, I also respond to criticisms or areas or unease articulated by feminists, social scientists, and psychoanalysts. In concluding, I point to tensions faced by feminists, psychoanalysts, and other proponents of liberatory change, between psychological Understanding and social and political advocacy.     

Knowing and Governing: The Mapping of the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector as Statecraft

Recent debate in Voluntas and elsewhere has paid a great deal of attention to the subject of mapping the nonprofit sector. However, very little attention has been paid to the ways in which the practice of mapping is a political mode of knowing and the ways in which knowing is governing. In this essay, we turn to critical theory and political anthropology in order to demonstrate how mapping as it is currently practiced is a mode of knowledge inquiry that facilitates statecraft. In light of these interdisciplinary perspectives, we wrestle with the implications of knowing—and thereby governing—voluntary collective organization in this manner. We conclude that this approach potentially disciplines the qualitative dimensions of democratic associational life and misrepresents the possibilities of social change.     

Family patterns,women's status and fertility in the Middle East and North Africa

Currently, countries in the Middle East and North Africa are in the process of changing from high to low mortality and fertility, and the present paper reviews and assesses the current state of the social science research on family patterns and women's status in these regions. In particular, it reviews literature on: 1) marriage patterns; 2) the extended family and relations internal to the family; 3) larger kinship structures; 4) the role and status of women in the larger society; and 5) divorce, widowhood, and remarriage. The author, however, believes that much of the research on family patterns lacks concern with the impact of basic structural changes in the economic and social organization of countries in the region. He concludes by offering a few suggestions about areas where research linking population dynamics with family patterns and the status of women could be usefully undertaken.     

Isolated housewives and complex maternal worlds – The significance of social contacts between women with young children in industrial societies*

This article reconsiders the picture of the mother of young children in industrialised societies as the ‘isolated housewife’, suggesting this notion is by no means straightforward. We suggest there is considerable evidence for the existence of mothers' social contacts and their significance both as ‘work’ and ‘friendship’ in industrial societies. A pre-occupation with the notion of the ‘isolation’ of ‘housewives’ has led social researchers to neglect sustained examination of the social relationships within which many/most mothers are involved on a day-to-day basis. Complexities of interpretation, for example what ‘isolation’ can actually mean, need to be drawn out from the existing literature. Evidence presented from two recent ethnographic studies shows patterned opportunities/constraints occurring in relation to mothers' social contacts within localised settings, whether through organised groups or other personal ties. The complex nature of individual women's social contacts is thus brought out. Some key questions are raised for the importance to sociology, anthropology and social policy of these apparently insignificant or invisible women's networks.     

Kinship Care for Children of a Parent With a Mental Illness

Little is known about “hidden” kinship caregivers of children of a parent with a mental illness (COPMI). An exploratory study surveyed 56 COPMI caregiver members of a kinship center administered by a school of social work in a large public university. The COPMI sample was a subset of a larger kinship caregiver study. Nearly one in four caregivers was providing COPMI kinship care. The COPMI caregivers reported numerous child behavioral crises and decreased caregiver physical and emotional health since they began providing care. Practice, policy, and research require development to increase support for COPMI caregivers and their families.     

Le panthéon eskimo et l'organisation sociale

A close study of Eskimo divinities leads us to consider the possibility that they form a divine couple rather than a trinity. It seems also that, for various historical reasons, Eskimo tradition yields two presentations of the divine couple. An analysis of the best preserved version, perhaps the more recent of the two, might reveal the lower and the upper limits of the collectivity within which interaction ought to take place. The lower limit would be shown by the prohibition of incestual relationships and the upper, by the prohibition of marriage with a stranger. These considerations, the basis for hypotheses so far, are presented in a broader research perspective, that of the ties between magic and religion.     

Factors Associated with the Decision-Making Process in Kinship Diversion

During the past two decades, child welfare professionals have given kinship care priority as the preferred least restrictive, most family-like placement option when a child has to be removed from his or her family. However, the available literature lacks investigation into what factors drive the decision to use kinship care, specifically an understanding of why some children are diverted from child welfare system (CWS) into unpaid kinship arrangements while other children enter the traditional foster care system. This study uses baseline (Wave 1) data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being II (NSCAW II), which provides information about children and caregivers in different types of kinship care. The data were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression based on the multiple imputed data files using NSCAW II weights. Results show important predictors of a child being diverted into private kinship care included the child’s age, caseworker’s educational background, and caseworker’s assessment of harm level. Important predictors of a child being diverted into voluntary kinship care included the maltreatment type, family structure, caseworker’s educational background, and caseworker’s assessment of risk level. Differentiating between the types of kinship diversion has important implications for practice and policy. Examining a variety of factors can help child welfare scholars develop a comprehensive understanding of the decision-making processes used in selecting kinship diversion for out-of-home placements.