Biological Pre‐emption: “Race”, Class,and Genomics

Genomics is a complex field of study involving researchers and practitioners immersed in the social milieu from which their genetic theories and comprehensions in part emerge. Genomic researchers' embeddedness in social formations with distinct ideologies predisposes them to construct hypotheses about genetics with value‐laden assumptions. Given genomics' inseparability from social influences this article explores how its use with marginalized groups has eugenic implications. Several important links between eugenics and genomics are identified suggesting eugenic implications in genomics.     

Changement climatique : Dynamiques scientifiques, expertise, enjeux géopolitiques

In less than thirty years, climate change became a both scientific and geopolitical crucial stake, concerning a great variety of research groups, epistemic communities, and political actors. An international organisation of scientific assessment- the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC)- played a key role in the domain and tends to become a paradigmatic model for other international scientific assessments. In this paper, we wanted to analyse this evolution of climate change regime, the IPCC, and the feedbacks of this evolution in France on the climate sciences community.     

Essay Review: Marital Therapy, Monogamy, and Menagés

Fitzgerald, R. V. Conjoint Marital Therapy .
Foley, V. An Introduction to Family Therapy .
Smith J. & Smith L. Beyond Monogamy .     

Self‐Structure,Identity, and Commitment: Promise Keepers’ Godly Man Project

We address current debates related to identity theory and the organization of the self by examining how a sample of men involved in the Promise Keepers movement construct, maintain, and organize their identities. Our qualitative analysis shows that these men have undertaken a continuous project of gender identity work to become godly men. We find that the Promise Keepers movement provides these men with both the ideological and the organizational resources that enable them to sustain their godly man identity. This “master identity” becomes enmeshed with other identities and is used to modify and reorganize those identities, restricting potential identity conflicts. The result is a relatively harmonious self structure. More generally, we identify several criteria for defining the master identity concept and highlight its potential for advancing identity theory.     

Race/Ethnicity and Stop‐and‐Frisk: Past,Present, Future

Scholarly debates surrounding stop‐and‐frisk typically assess the effectiveness and lawfulness of stop‐and‐frisk. Notwithstanding these efforts, recent reviews have excluded some recent research that addresses its impact on racial and ethnic immigrants. Understanding how the practice of stop‐and‐frisk affects racial and ethnic immigrants is worth including in reviews of these policies, considering the recent growth of research involving crime and immigrants that largely finds that immigration does not result in higher levels of crime. This review includes recent work showing that overall enforcement – stops and arrests – is higher in immigrant communities despite their lower levels of criminal involvement and recent work exploring differences among first‐generation and second‐generation immigrants in perceptions of police stops. Finally, some suggestions for the future of stop‐and‐frisk research are considered.     

Assisting Parents and In‐Laws: Gender,Type of Assistance,and Couples’ Employment

We use 1995 MIDUS data (n = 2,085) to assess whether the gender gap in help persists across different types of help (unpaid task assistance, emotional support, financial assistance) to parents and in‐laws. We also examine whether joint employment patterns influence levels of help. Persistent gender differences are identified in levels of emotional support to parents and in‐laws: Women spend more time than men giving this help. There are no gender differences in levels of unpaid task assistance or financial assistance to parents or in‐laws. Individuals in single‐earner couples, however, provide greater levels of unpaid task assistance to in‐laws and financial assistance to parents than individuals in dual‐earner couples. Furthermore, financial assistance to parents is positively linked to work hours.     

“Blood,Guts, and Gore Galore:” Bodies,Moral Pollution,and Combat Trauma

This article is based on interviews with U.S. veterans diagnosed with combat‐related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In remembering war, the veterans consistently described grotesque death and injury. These stories of “blood, guts, and gore” were often closely associated with negative moral evaluations of war, which included outright moral claims, moralistic allusions, and expressions of moral emotions. I argue that memories of grotesque death and injury “code” combat as moral pollution, and as these veterans present it, combat pollutes every soldier who passes through it. Furthermore, this classification represents a modern moral culture in which the body is sacred, subject to sustained ritual cleanliness and to strict prohibitions against encroachment by others. A mutilated body is severely disordered and filthy, and when a product of human design, it represents an extremely cruel trespass. Consequently, mutilated bodies are doubly polluted and can code combat as negative in the extreme. This article illustrates that personal traumatic memories are sociologically and historically organized, that the traditional religious ideas of purity and pollution still order moral life, and that autobiographical memory can be approached as a classificatory structure.     

Tamworth, Australia's ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rurality, and resident reactions

Since the 1970s, Tamworth has become well known as Australia's ‘country music capital’. Its annual Country and Western Music Festival has become the leading event of its type in Australia, attracting over 60,000 visitors every year. The festival, and country music more generally, have become central to the town's identity and tourism marketing strategies. This article discusses the social constructions that have surrounded Tamworth's transition to ‘country music capital’—of the ‘rural’, and of ‘country’—within the context of debates about the politics of place marketing. Textual analysis of promotional material and built landscapes reveals representations of rurality (or ‘senses of the rural’). In their most commercial form, representations of rurality converge on a dominant notion of ‘country’, quite different from the ‘countryside’ and ‘rural idyll’ in England. This dominant, or normative ‘country’ forms the basis of imagery for the festival, the Town's marketing strategy, and associated advertising campaigns by major sponsors. It is predominantly masculine, white, working class and nationalist. But links between musical style and discourses of place are complex. Colonial British histories, Celtic musical traditions and North American popular culture all inform ‘country’ in Tamworth, dissipating nationalist interpretations. Normative constructions also contrast with other, heterogeneous ruralities in Australia, that include the lived experiences of rural Australians, and on stage—in country music—where multiple ‘ruralised’ identities are performed. Even those who stand to benefit from place promotion have been uncertain about country music and ‘the country’, because of associated discourses of Tamworth as ‘hick’ and ‘redneck’. In the final section of the paper, reactions of residents to constructions of Tamworth as country music capital are discussed, via the results of a simple resident survey. In contrast to previous studies of the disempowering politics of place marketing, Tamworth residents were on the whole supportive of the new associations and images for the town, despite ‘hick’ connotations, as it has become a centre for ‘country’, and for country music. Reasons for this are explored, and resistances discussed. The result is a complex and entangled politics of national identity, gender, race and class, where meanings for place are variously interpreted and negotiated.     

Childlessness and Women Managers: ‘Choice’, Context and Discourses

Childlessness is increasing and might reflect acceptance of diversity, scope for individual choice and a creative ‘social imaginary’ about being feminine without being a mother. Childlessness also appears to have a contextual manifestation arising from the recognition that the long‐hours work culture in many organizations does not support appropriate parenting. A qualitative study of Australian managers reveals the contradictory discourses of childlessness around enlightened equality, maternalism, an elusive, ideal ‘work–life balance’ and individualism. The article explores a contextually nuanced, dynamic, generative theory of agency which does not hinge on the mother–child dyad, in explaining women managers’ choices to remain childless.     

Mother–Adolescent Conflict: Adolescent Goals,Maternal Perspective‐Taking,and Conflict Intensity

Younger and older adolescents were interviewed about their goals in recent disagreements with their mothers. Six goals were identified: instrumental (simply gaining their immediate desire); dyadic concern; achieving emotional support; autonomy; dominance; and nonengagement (avoidance of conflict). Younger adolescents reported significantly more instrumental and significantly fewer emotional support and dominance goals than did older adolescents. Maternal perspective‐taking predicted more dyadic concern and fewer dominance goals, as well as more nonengagement goals for younger adolescents. Dominance goals mediated the effect of maternal dyadic perspective‐taking on conflict intensity for older adolescents.     

Legal Ruralism and California Parole Hearings: Space,Place, and the Carceral Landscape*

This article discusses the important relationship between rurality and criminal justice processes, drawing on field observations and in-depth interviews with parole commissioners to argue that California's physical carceral landscape profoundly shapes lifer parole hearings. First, commissioners report that prisons' location in rural areas affects the rehabilitative resources available, which are seen as an important aspect of their readiness for release. Location and perceived rurality of prisons shape commissioners' perception of the inmates at various institutions, creating implicitly different standards for inmates housed at different prisons. Second, spatiality and rurality influence parole commissioners' work lives, exacting a toll that includes onerous travel, early burnout, and challenges to assembling a diverse board. Together, these findings underscore the importance of legal ruralism to the relationship between spatial and carceral landscapes.