Doing Time in Space: Line‐Joining Rules and Resultant Morphologies1

Waiting lines are spatial configurations of people that store information about time of arrival until it is recapitulated as order of service. Someone joining a line has an interest in assuming a position that will be seen as recognizably “in line,” particularly by those arriving later. When physical constraints are few—such as in 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, the site for this research—this is normally accomplished through conformity with the line’s recent trajectory. However, conflict between normally congruent line‐joining rules can occasion a sharp turn; an example is when a self‐identifying group joins the line, muddying the geometry and creating uncertainty as to what should happen next. Further, the normal rules for line formation can misfire, giving rise to mutant lines with multiple “tails” and an impaired capacity for encoding time into space. Alternatives to waiting lines are considered and judged less efficient and more likely to be judged unfair, particularly given the expectation that rewards will be proportional to investments.     

Race,Diversity, and Membership Duration in Religious Congregations*

It has long been noted that religious congregations tend to be racially homogenous. Previous case studies assert that members of a numerical minority group face individual and organizational pressures that lead them to leave congregations faster than majority members. This can create a constant pull toward homogeneity despite congregational efforts to diversify. Building on theory in organizational ecology, we test this assertion using national, multi level data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey. The analysis shows that members of a numerical minority do have shorter durations of membership than majority members and that the gap between the two increases with the size of the majority.     

Time,Space, and Memories

ABSTRACT

This article traces the ways that gendered and generational family practices were remembered across time in the context of working-class homes in Victorian Britain. Two everyday domestic objects—the father's chair and the grandfather clock—are examined and analyzed, drawing on John Gillis' work on ritualized family spaces and contested notions of time (Gillis 1996). Both these objects resonate with the contested use of domestic space and the layered meanings of family time in working-class lives, not least because both are often remembered in autobiographical accounts of home and family. The special place of the father's chair highlighted the feminizing of the home and accompanying development of rituals to welcome and ensconce the father in his domestic domain each day. The sound of clocks underpinned the bringing together of industrial time, separating leisure and work for those at school or employment away from home, and at the same time conveying the cyclical nature of family life and its everyday routines from day to day, year to year, and generation to generation. Memories of chairs and clocks embedded in autobiographies offer important evidence about the images, sounds, and sensory experiences that resonated most powerfully when remembering and composing the hierarchies and tensions of working-class family life.     

Brokerage in the Sacred Sphere: Religious Leaders as Community Problem Solvers in Rural Malawi1

Religious leaders in Sub‐Saharan Africa do not just deal with the spiritual needs of members but are also heavily engaged in dealing with social problems and material needs. Although true elsewhere, the realities of limited state infrastructure and an increasingly diverse religious landscape make it crucial for religious entrepreneurs to deal with material problems if they hope to gain adherents. This article applies the concepts of problem solving and brokerage ( Burt, 2005 ; Knoke, 1990 ) to a case study of religious leaders in Balaka, a small town of rural Malawi. I argue that religious leaders solve problems in three major areas—material infrastructure, activities and organization, and healthcare—and that they are able to do so at least partly because of their connections to various overlapping secular and religious networks. I focus both on the provision of material resources and the facilitation of effervescent experiences in order to advance a fuller understanding of the experience of poverty and the ways leaders in poor communities work to solve problems.     

Space, Time, Space-Time and Society

This paper discusses the concept spacetime in the context of some traditional notions of space and time in sociological and anthropological literature. The paper argues that the concept of spacetime, together with other post-Newtonian insights, can provide a useful metaphor with which to interpret societal phenomena. The paper concludes by illustrating the argument with a brief review of the ethnohistory of a Caribbean territory.     

Diversity,Macrosociology, and Religious Belonging: Using Mixed-Level Models in Examining Spatial Variation and the Closed Community Thesis

Abstract

In the past decade, a number of researchers have been interested in both the predictors and causal effects of civic involvement (Blanchard 2007; Funk 1998; Putnam 1993; Putnam 2000; Tolbert, Lyson, and Irwin 1998). Considerable attention has been paid to the effect that religious involvement has on the development of closed and tight-knit communities (Blanchard 2007; Iannaconne 1988, 1994; Porter and Brown 2008; Putnam 1993; Wuthnow 2002). The diversity of friendships gives us a good proxy for the degree of closeness created by existing in-group dynamics formed as a consequence of closed social communities. Data from the 2000 Social Capital Benchmark Survey, concerning individuals from 41 localities across the United States, was used in this analysis (Roper 2000). Furthermore, local-level variables concerning the rate of religious adherence were introduced as a way of better understanding potential multilevel effects. My findings support a number of these, showing that religious group membership significantly lowers an individual's diversity of friendships when compared to the effect of belonging to other groups.     

Cultural Diversity., Public Space,Aesthetics and Power

In this paper we argue that issues of inclusion and exclusion to public space can be examined by invoking the principle of “aesthetics”. Those that are aesthetically pleasing, tasteful, or desirable are allowed in public spaces, yet these characteristics are defined through social and cultural mechanisms. Differences between cultural groups in terms of body movement, proximity relationships, definition of personal space, clothing, and other visible features, are evaluated and judged through the filter of power relations. Numerous non‐European migrants who reside in the North experience discrimination as a result of being “visible foreigners”. They are not welcome in public areas and they do not meet the prevalent aesthetic standards, defined by the dominant discourse around aesthetics. This trend obstructs the development of multicultural coexistence and the possibility of transnationalism. In order to realise cultural expression for all, we extend an invitation to scrutinise power inequalities by means of multicultural educational programs.     

Facilitating the Career Development of Minorities: Doing it Differently This Time

Although the early vocational educators were committed to social change, they inadvertently reinforced differences between social groups. Counselors today have a unique opportunity to effect social change. Demographic shifts suggest that minorities who are educationally and occupationally prepared will face fewer racial barriers in the future labor market. To prepare minority students to take advantage of anticipated demographic shifts, counselors will need to avoid the same inadvertent mistakes made by their predecessors. To accomplish this, counselors can recommit to career education and counseling, ensure equal access to their services, and alter the context of their interventions.     

Moving through Time and Space: Performing Bodies in Derry, Northern Ireland

Abstract  This paper examines the embodied remembrance of Bloody Sunday (1972), when thirteen civilians were shot dead by British soldiers while peacefully marching against internment. The work of Paul Connerton represents a crucial analytical starting point in a growing number of studies examining the body as site of memory. While Connnerton's theorisation has been very influential and persuasive, I argue that there is some scope for improving his ideas about the changeability of bodily memory and the Bloody Sunday case represents an interesting empirical example of how embodied remembrance reflects and responds to transformations in the wider socio-political context.     

Migrants and Changing Urban Periphery: Social Relations, Cultural Diversity and the Public Space in Istanbul's New Neighbourhoods

This study examines the dynamics of socio-cultural change in a peripheral neighbourhood in Istanbul, an "edge city" that is ethnically mixed, culturally heterogeneous, socially differentiated and spatially multi-functional. One major focus in the study is the changing nature of social relations in traditional groups. Though kinship, hemşeri (place of origin) and neighbourhood solidarity is still crucial in the lives of the migrants, participation in these groups becomes more voluntary and the ties among members less obligatory. Secondly, the ethnic and religious groupings in the neighbourhood are not always exclusive, authoritarian and patriarchal communities. What generally appears as rigid communitarian fragmentation is often one of cultural diversity for the residents of the locality. The associational pluralism that exists in the neighbourhood enables people to claim multiple ethnic, religious, political and cultural identities. Thirdly, though they compare unfavourably with their middle class counterparts in the city, the new neighbourhoods provide greater opportunities and more public space for interaction among the members of the locality than for instance, the rural communities. The study also questions the often taken-for-granted image of a rigidly polarized city in view of empirical evidence that indicates the multiple and complex economic and political links between the new neighbourhoods and the broader urban society. Finally, isolation from middle class areas in the city does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of the whole peripheral urban population from urban life, urban institutions and urban culture. These become increasingly present in the new neighbourhoods and available for the majority of the residents. The main conclusion is that Istanbul contains a number of such edge cities, which have powerful integrating and urbanizing influences on individuals.     

Doing Psychology,Doing Inequality: Rethinking the Role of Psychology in Creating and Maintaining Social Inequality*

The relationship between psychological disciplines and inequality has been a subject of great scholarly interest in the last several decades. Most works on the subject analyze macro features of psychological disciplines (mainly their evaluative tools, theoretical assumptions, and disciplinary power) and criticize them as biased against minorities. This paper re‐examines the relationship between psychology and inequality from a micro, face‐to‐face standpoint. Drawing on close observations of 33 placement committees in which professionals from various psychological fields (psychology, social work, school counseling, etc.) discuss children’s eligibility for special education services, it portrays the actual doing of psychology as an inconsistent and malleable endeavor. In contrast to the macro‐oriented research on the relationship between psychology and inequality, it shows that in actual face‐to‐face interactions, professionals use different types of folk concerns that often exchange formal evaluative criteria, theoretical assumptions or professional authority in final placement decisions. By revealing the different folk considerations professionals use to sort and analyze working‐ versus middle‐class parents, this project adds an essential layer to scholarly understanding of the relationship between psychological practice and inequality.     

Comparing Networks Across Space and Time, Size and Species

We describe and illustrate methodology for comparing networks from diverse settings. Our empirical base consists of 42 networks from four kinds of species (humans, nonhuman primates, nonprimate mammals, and birds) and covering distinct types of relations such as influence, grooming, and agonistic encounters. The general problem is to determine whether networks are similarly structured despite their surface differences. The methodology we propose is generally applicable to the characterization and comparison of network–level social structures across multiple settings, such as different organizations, communities, or social groups, and to the examination of sources of variability in network structure. We first fit a p^* model (Wasserman and Pattison 1996) to each network to obtain estimates for effects of six structural properties on the probability of the graph. We then calculate predicted tie probabilities for each network, using both its own parameter estimates and the estimates from every other network in the collection. Comparison is based on the similarity between sets of predicted tie probabilities. We then use correspondence analysis to represent the similarities among all 42 networks and interpret the resulting configuration using information about the species and relations involved. Results show that similarities among the networks are due more to the kind of relation than to the kind of animal.     

Missouri Casino Self-Excluders: Distributions Across Time and Space

According to public health research, exposure to casinos is a risk factor for disordered gambling. Consequently, casino self-exclusion programs, which provide gamblers with the opportunity to voluntarily seek limits on their access to gambling venues, can serve as a barometer of the concentration of disordered gambling in an area. This study reports on the distribution, both temporally and geographically, of 6,599 people who applied to exclude themselves from Missouri casinos between November, 1996 and February, 2004. Analyses used Microsoft MapPoint to plot the location of casinos and self-excluders (SEs) across Missouri and its constituent counties. These regional exposure analyses showed that the Western region around Kansas City is an epicenter of disordered gambling as, to a lesser extent, is the Eastern region around St. Louis. The annual number of SE enrollments increased during the first few years of the Missouri self-exclusion program and then leveled off during the later years. These findings have important implications for public health and the development of public health interventions for disordered gamblers.     

Opening Space for Clients' Religious and Spiritual Values in Therapy: A Social Constructionist Perspective

SUMMARY

Although spirituality is foundational in many peoples' lives, this dimension is often excluded from therapeutic discussions. This article explores how a social constructionist frame may alleviate the tension created by traditional beliefs concerning spirituality in therapy and foster an open, trusting, climate in which spiritual topics can be discussed. Some of the implications for training therapists in the social constructionist perspective also are considered.     

Changes in Americans’ Views of Prayer and Reading the Bible in Public Schools: Time Periods,Birth Cohorts,and Religious Traditions

I use repeated cross‐sectional survey data spanning the years 1974 to 2010 to examine changes in Americans’ views of prayer and reading the Bible in public schools. Results from logistic regression models show that support for prayer and reading the Bible in public schools was relatively high in the 1970s and that differences between evangelical Protestants and both Catholics and mainline Protestants grew from the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty‐first century. Hierarchical age‐period‐cohort models demonstrate that changes in support for school prayer are due to both period and birth cohort changes, that baby boom cohorts are relatively likely to oppose prayer and reading the Bible in school, and that growing differences in support for prayer and reading the Bible in school between evangelical Protestants and both Catholics and mainline Protestants are predominantly due to changes across birth cohorts. Although religious liberals and conservatives have become more alike in many ways, evangelical Protestants have diverged from affiliates of other major religious traditions in their support for prayer in public schools. These results are relevant to debates regarding the social impact of religious affiliation, generational differences, and Americans’ views of the role of religion in the public sphere.     

Here and Now,There and Then: Nostalgia as a Time and Space Phenomenon

This paper provides an overview of nostalgia focusing on the ways in which the nexus of time and space has been theorized. The meta‐analysis presented here highlights the complex, recursive, and nuanced features of the nostalgic experience, suggesting that nostalgia is not only directed toward the past, but also the future.