The Winter of the Arab Spring in the Gulf Monarchies

The Arab spring was quickly chilled in the Gulf states where monarchies proved more resilient in the face of political challenges than post-revolutionary states in North Africa and the fertile crescent. Money explains some of this resilience but so does the willingness to use the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council to apply deadly force against unarmed protestors in Bahrain, where severe repression of the Shiite majority continues and casts its shadow over the hopes of dissenters, young and older, for political opening in these authoritarian states.

La primavera árabe se enfrió rápidamente en los estados del golfo en donde las monarquías demostraron mayor resistencia frente a los retos políticos que los estados posrevolucionarios en África del norte y el arco fértil. El dinero explica algo sobre esta resistencia, pero también la disposición de usar el auspicio del Consejo de Cooperación del Golfo, para aplicar una fuerza mortal contra los manifestantes desarmados en Bahrein, en donde una represión severa de la mayoría chiíta continúa y proyecta una sombra sobre las esperanzas de los disidentes jóvenes y mayores, para la apertura política en estos estados autoritarios.

“阿拉伯之春”在海湾国家很快就冷却了,那里的君主政体证明比北非和新月沃地一带的后革命国家适应能力更强。在巴林,可以部分解释这种适应能力的除了财富,还有在海湾合作委员会庇护下对手无寸铁的抗议者使用致命武器的意志,在那里什叶派多数的严厉镇压在持续,并给广大反对者们对威权国家政治开放怀有的希望投下了阴影。     

NEWS MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGICAL RISKS: The Case of Pesticides after Silent Spring

The 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring vaulted pesticide risks to a prominent place on the media agenda. This article reports on a study of the relative weight of attention given by the New York Times to alarming or reassuring messages about pesticides in the immediate aftermath of Silent Spring . Theoretically, it uses a combination of inductive and deductive approaches to explain the empirical findings. Three models of media coverage are examined: conflict theory, sensationalism, and problem frame. These models are employed chronologically as analysis revealed a complicated pattern of coverage which first highlighted, then downplayed, risk.     

The Silent Killer:

No abstract available for this article.     

The Silent Backdrop: Colonial Anxiety at the Border

Through the categorization of movers, states determine and fix the belonging of migrants and thereby reproduce the nation‐state system as a global reality. Some movers, however, are deemed illegible and must be identified, labelled and thus brought within the system. This paper unpicks the legal consequences of a “coloniality of power” (Quijano, 2000) embedded within the border system as a whole. The paper demonstrates this process through a post‐colonial examination of Somali migration and the application of the 1951 Refugee Convention at the UK border. The Somali migrant, like his colonized predecessor, is constructed as an unreliable informant of him/herself; a “lying native” (Bhabha, 1994) whose identity can be ‘discovered’ by the tools of the enlightened West.     

Unsettling Standards: The Biological Age Controversy

One key debate within the sociology of aging and the life course over the past decade has been focused on understanding the extent to which there has been a shift from a reliance on chronological age to segment the life course and ascertain age‐specific norms, values, and expectations toward a destandardized life course in advanced economies. In this, little attention has been devoted to the infrastructural processes that would support such a transition: the technologies, standards, and conventions that would, in practice, equip a personalized, individualized management of the life course. This article focuses on one of such standards, “biological age” (BA), and the 40‐year controversy around the method and purpose of its measurement. Drawing on published research and archival and interview data collected in Europe and North America, the article suggests that the persistent uncertainty surrounding BA measurements is structured by differing interlocking relationships between normative ideals of the life course and methodological approaches to knowledge making to understand and manage the relationship among aging, health, and illness. Understanding this controversy and the configuration of normative and epistemic conventions that underpin its dynamic provides a unique lens on the complex interweaving relationship between expertise, scientific and technological standards, and social, normatively embedded age identities in contemporary societies.     

Abortion Counselling in Britain: Understanding the Controversy

This article reviews literature from a number of disciplines in order to provide an explanation of the political controversy attached to the provision of abortion counselling. It will show how this is an area of health policy debate in which women's reproductive bodies have become a setting for political struggle. The issue of abortion counselling in Britain has undergone a number of discursive shifts in response to political manoeuvring and changing socio‐legal framing of abortion. In particular, the article shows how much of the controversial reframing of abortion counselling was a tactical shift by political actors opposed to abortion per se, and this work is critiqued for not contextualising abortion. The article then focuses on women's abortion experiences and discusses research that shows how women's decision‐making processes, and responses to an abortion, are related to gendered socio‐cultural contexts: the extent to which women having an abortion feel they have transgressed societal norms and values, for example, is likely to affect their abortion experiences. Finally, it is suggested that providing a non‐judgemental context, and challenging negative discourses on abortion, may be the most effective way of minimising the possibility of negative emotions.     

Deconstructing Categories: The Exposure of Silent Racism

Although racism remains an enduring social problem in the United States, few white people see themselves as racist. In an effort to study this paradox, the research discussed here explores racism among those in the “not racist” category. Eight focus groups were conducted in which twenty‐five well‐meaning white women talked openly about racism; subsequently, the women kept journals to record their thoughts on racism. Findings indicate that silent racism pervades the “not racist” category. “Silent racism” refers to negative thoughts and attitudes regarding African Americans and other people of color on the part of white people, including those who see themselves and are generally seen by others as not racist. An apparent implication of silent racism inhabiting the “not racist” category is that the historical construction racist/not racist is no longer meaningful. Moreover, data show that the “not racist” category itself produces latent effects that serve to maintain the racial status quo. I propose replacing the oppositional either/or categories with a continuum that accurately reflects racism in the United States today.     

Meaning of Political Controversy in the Classroom: A Dialogue Across The Podium

The abstract value of academic freedom is enjoyed (or not) in concrete settings, as interactional and emergent experiences. We examine classroom political controversy in our experiences, understandings, and values, using grounded theory methods and collective autoethnography by a team of five teachers and students. Our data were generated through electronic and face‐to‐face dialogues. Our analysis, guided by a symbolic interactionist and constructionist framework, yields a picture of Controversy in Action, whereby we navigate Barriers to Open Discussion and Costs of Controversy. Results highlight insights into taken‐for‐granted meanings unexamined in day‐to‐day classroom interaction. We attend to the relevance of the local context in which our classrooms are embedded and the interactional, meaning creating work that goes on in those classrooms, as we negotiate controversy.     

Silent dark: the orders of silence

ABSTRACT

This article examines anxiety, arguing that it is a systemic feature of neoliberalism which regenerates the economy and acts in a conservative manner, thereby effectively preventing social change. Anxiety is explored using psychoanalytic theory to extend Foucault’s conception of neoliberal governmentality as proposed in his lectures on neoliberalism at the Collège de France. Relying on Foucault’s notion of governmentality as an analytic perspective, this article does not present the economy or the state as the origin of power in neoliberalism. Rather, these are seen as mediums of power, whereas the anchorage point of power relations is understood to be a particular form of governmentality. In neoliberalism, this anchorage point of power is largely supported and strongly characterised by anxiety. While examining the psychic life of power in neoliberalism, I avoid positioning and thus analysing anxiety either on the individual or the macro level of society. Rather, showing that anxiety exposes the weakness of such clean divisions, it is argued that neoliberal subjects are nowadays governed through anxiety.     

The Recovered Memory Controversy: A Representative Case Study

The recovered memory controversy has been an ongoing debate within the mental health profession for the past two decades. Disagreement remains in the field over the veracity of “forgotten” memories of childhood sexual abuse that are recalled or recovered during therapy. At the heart of the controversy are the concepts of repression and dissociation as well as the impact traumatizing events have on the encoding of memory. This article provides an overview of the central factors in the longstanding debate and presents a detailed clinical case study involving independent corroboration of memories of childhood sexual abuse recovered during treatment, which the author believes provides additional support for the potential veracity of recovered memories.     

On the Ethnicisation of New Zealand Politics: The Foreshore and Seabed Controversy in Context1

As a case study, the author looks at developments since 2003 in the controversy around the ownership of the New Zealand foreshore and seabed. She argues in favour of a detailed analysis of the relationships between the minority and majority populations and their impact on internal tensions and mobilisation, as well as on the development of ideologies. The article identifies key factors, moments and processes in recent New Zealand history that combined and had the effect of emphasising ethnic differences and polarising the relationships between the minority and majority populations. The analysis relies on Eric Schwimmer's work, in particular on his definitions of ‘real competition’ and ‘symbolic competition’.     

The Silent Message: Communication in a Family with a Dying Patient*

This paper discusses the functionality of the linguistic code in the communication processes of a family in a crisis situation and in need of concealing its plight. Basic concepts of verbal interaction are discussed to show the difficulties of any open exchange of messages within a family with a dying patient. The paper concludes with two observations from a case study.     

Crowded Advocacy: Framing Dynamic in the Fracking Controversy in New York

In the hydrofracturing controversy in New York advocates hotly contested notions of the problem, what should be done, by whom, and how. This controversy can be characterized as “crowded advocacy,” involving intense mobilization and counter-mobilization of advocates with competing perspectives. Extant theories about the expansion of advocacy organizations are unclear about how advocates’ interactions shape the policy arena, particularly when there is competition within and across multiple coalitions. This article contributes by asking: How do advocates’ interactive framing dynamics shape public discourse when advocacy is crowded? It assumes that advocacy in general, and framing in particular, evolves as advocates respond to each other. I find that competing “discourse coalitions” collectively influence public discourse by articulating divergent notions of (1) what constitutes credible knowledge, (2) who can speak with authority on the issues, and (3) what institutional arrangements should be activated to manage risks. The consequence is that advocates have to react to others' framing on these issues—to defend their knowledge, their credibility, and specific institutions, rather than arguing their case on the merits. The implication is that advocacy is not only the means of influence (strategy) but also creates the context of advocacy in particular ways in a crowded field.     

Noisy zones of proximal development: Conversation in noisy classrooms

Despite the importance of context in studies of language use, sociolinguists have ignored the impact of noise on conversational interaction. This inattention is of particular concern in classrooms where language is a learning tool. Our research on interaction in noisy settings took place in English language elementary school classrooms with students in grades 3, 5, and 7, whose first language was English. Students were observed during regular classroom activities. Employing a novel method, in which students wore ear‐level microphones, we obtained stereophonic recordings of the noise and conversation that reached each listener's ears. A dosimeter measured the noise levels in each classroom. Analyses of students’ patterns of conversation suggest that noise levels impeded the intended development of complex conversational interaction and collaborative learning. This study also questions the place of acoustics in understanding context, and the significance of the hearer's perspective in sociolinguistic studies of conversational interactions.     

Imputing Beliefs: a Controversy in the Sociology of Knowledge1

The problem of imputation - how to ascribe ideas and beliefs to groups, or to individuals on the basis of their group membership - has occasionally occupied the attention of those working in the sociology of knowledge. This article offers a critical discussion of this debate. It is argued that the various proposed solutions - idealist, empiricist, and structuralist - do not adequately tackle the problem since each assumes a deterministic model of sociological explanation, and adheres to a dualism of actor versus structure. We suggest that a theory of group formation informed by a social action perspective may offer some pointers towards taking such issues beyond self-sustaining debate between sociological idealism and objectivism.     

Hunger: The Silent Epidemic Among Asylum Seekers and Resettled Refugees

Refugees and asylum seekers face challenges after arriving in a host country. They carry the trauma that they may have experienced in their countries of origin, during fight, and in countries of asylum. Other stressors impact on their adjustment after arriving in the United States including basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. This is a retrospective review of data collected as part of a needs assessment by a program, which serves survivors of torture and refugee trauma. Asylum seekers (n=65) and refugees were compared (n=30). Asylum seekers were more apt to be from Africa (p<.001), need family reunification (p=.027), speak more languages (p<.001), suffer from political persecution (p<.001), move from place to place due to not having a permanent place to live (p=.031), and be unable to contribute to the rent (p<.001). Unadjusted, asylum seekers were also more likely than refugees to have gone to bed hungry in the previous two weeks (p<.001) or since arriving in the United States (p<.001). Refugees were more likely to be eating more food now than before feeing, and asylum seekers the opposite (p<.001). Being an asylum seeker made one 3.7 times more likely to suffer from food insecurity than being a refugee, and 5.3 times more likely to not have work authorization. Among asylum seekers, adjusting for gender, age, education, lack of permanent housing, English fluency, and self-reported health status, not having work authorization made one 5.6 times more likely to suffer from hunger. Independently, being a torture survivor made one 10.4 times more likely to suffer from hunger. Asylum seekers must wait 150 days before applying for asylum in the United States. For humanitarian reasons, mandatory-waiting periods for work authorization for asylum seekers should be eliminated.