Does Anti‐Hispanic Bias Motivate Opposition to Non‐English Languages?*

Contemporary political debates about language policy in the United States focus on three primary policy issues: bilingual education in public schools, English‐only legislation, and the access of non‐English speaking citizens to political rights. Using the “Multi‐Ethnic United States” module from the 2000 General Social Survey (GSS), this article tests multiple attitudinal, behavioral, demographic, and contextual hypotheses for how Anglos and African Americans view bilingual policy issues. We examine the role of linguistic contact, self‐interest, group threat, and discriminatory views of Latinos, finding that the latter—as measured by the “Three Ds” (Derogation, Disrespect, and Distance)—are the strongest predictors of attitudes toward bilingualism. Distance (social distance from Latinos) is consistently significant, disrespect (doubts about Latino contributions to the United States.) is mostly significant, and derogation (Latino stereotypes) is occasionally significant. Also, political ideology and knowledge of a non‐English language play important roles in the formation of favorable bilingualism opinions. However, the self‐interest and group threat variables were largely insignificant. Taken together, these findings indicate the importance of understanding how policy views may be structured by opinions about out‐group individuals and cultures. Language can serve as a proxy for immigrants themselves, as negative attitudes toward Latinos are associated with negative attitudes toward bilingualism.     

Aux limites du paradigme de la distribution : l’écoute des appels de détresse et le traitement de la souffrance des suicidaires,du téléphone à l’e-mail

How can a telephone hotline for helping the suicidal be seen as a distributed practice and collective skill? Based on fieldwork, this research reviews the paradigm of distributed action by broadening it to activities that imply not only cognition but also moral and emotional dimensions. Two limits of this paradigm are discussed. The first, illustrated with the shift from telephone calls to electronic mail, bears on the capacity for analyzing the development of activities; it leads to a discussion of the differences and similarities between distributed cognition and activity theory. The second has to do with covering up the political dimension of distributed cognition: how do the persons involved in an activity perceive what they do and act on their perceptions — how are they “concerned”? This case study of a counseling hotline by telephone and E-mail raises questions about the performative nature of the words used to express suffering.     

The Turn from “What” to “How”: Garfinkel's Reach Beyond Description

John Heritage described Harold Garfinkel's central question as “how do social actors come to know, and know in common what they are doing and the circumstances in which they are doing it.” The case of Agnes illuminates the methods by which members produce intelligible actions and recognizable—even “natural”—gender orderliness. With this central interest as a starting point, this article offers some observations about transgender women in prison and their creative adaptation to life behind bars.     

Voting and Social Inclusion in Sweden

Three decades ago, Sweden extended municipal and provincial voting privileges to non‐citizen residents arguing that it would increase political influence, interest and self‐esteem among foreign citizens. The aim of this paper is to explore the act of voting as a measure of social inclusion by comparing voting propensities of immigrants (people born outside Sweden), their descendants (born in Sweden) and native Swedish citizens (those who have citizenship through jus sanguine) while controlling for a range of socio‐economic, demographic characteristics, contextual factors and a set of “hard” and “soft” social inclusion related variables. In particular we focus on the impact of citizenship acquisition ‐‐ does the symbolic act of attaining citizenship result in increased voting participation on the part of Swedish residents who are not citizens by birth. We use the Swedish 2006 electoral survey matched to registry data from Statistics Sweden to assess the correlates of voting by Swedish‐born and immigrant residents. Using instrumental variable regressions we estimate the impact of citizenship acquisition. We find that acquisition of citizenship makes a real difference to the probability of voting. Immigrants who naturalise are in general far more likely to vote than those who do not.     

Rehearsals in Citizenship: BBC Stop‐Motion Animation Programmes For Young Children

This paper examines new managerial discourses and practices in which the dialectic of labour is reconstructed as a series of acts of self‐understanding, self‐examination and “self‐work”, and through which the “self qua self” is constituted as the central object of management technologies. We interrogate concepts such as “excellence”, “total quality”, “performance”, “knowledge”, “play at work” and “wellness” in order to decipher the ways in which managerialism deploys what we term therapeutic habitus, and projects a new horizon of “human resourcefulness” as a store of unlimited potentialities. We invoke management’s wider historical–cultural context to situate managerialism within the framework of modernity as a cultural epoch whose main characteristic is what we term “derecognition of finitude”. It is the modern synthesis — with the “self” at the centre of its system of values — that provides the ground for current elaborations of subjectivity by managerialism. The paper examines how current vocabularies and practices in organizations use “work” to rearticulate discursively the human subject as an endless source of performativity by configuring work as the site of complex and continuous self‐expression. Management thus acquires a new discursive outline: instead of appearing as an authoritarian instance forcing upon workers a series of limitations, it now presents itself as a therapeutic formula mediating self‐expression by empowering individuals to work upon themselves to release their fully realized identity.     

Between the Procedural and the Substantial: Democratic Deliberation and the Interaction Order in “Occupy Middletown General Assembly”

This article analyzes interaction from an intentional, self‐reflexive democratic meeting of ordinary citizens—a “General Assembly” from the 2011 Occupy Movement—to explore two competing theories of democracy: Habermas's democratic deliberation and Mouffe's agonistic pluralism. The group's rational ideals and procedures for democratic deliberation approximate those of Habermas's “ideal speech situation,” but appear limited in their capacity to ensure Habermasian understanding or consensus. Intertwined with these rational procedures are practices best explained in terms of what Goffman called “face‐work”—the ways in which participants maintain a working consensus of mutual acceptance and respect in conversation. These face‐work procedures—rather than sincere, rational intentions—help constitute the civility necessary for rational deliberation and participation. Such symbolic valuing of self and other provide interactional grounds for the liberty and equality of agonistic democratic conversation as conceived by Mouffe.     

Measuring Social “Informatization”: A Factor Analytic Approach*

Some scholars have argued that we are witnessing a new social revolution—social “informatization”—that is comparable in scope and impact to that of the Industrial Revolu‐tion of the eighteenth century. Others have argued that it is a much more modest phase in the ongoing development of communication and information‐processing technology. While there are a number of reasons for disagreement about what exactly “informatization” is, and what its impact will be, two are paramount: (1) conceptual imprecision, and (2) issues of measurement. Using factor analysis, this study aims to clarify its conceptualization, and, then, rather than focusing on a single dimension (e.g., technological or economic), it will develop a comprehensive multiple‐indicator measure that captures the economic, technological, and size (stock) dimensions of social informatization. We find that this measure of social informatization strongly correlates with the general level of socioeconomic development. This result implies that social informatization may be a more continuous and cumulative process than a disjunctive or discontinuous “revolution.”     

Ethnic Community and Ethnic Boundaries in a “Sauce‐Scented Neighborhood”1

This article investigates the problem of ethnic boundary making in a changing context. Our case is Boston’s North End, a historically Italian neighborhood undergoing changes to its social and physical environment, making the ethnic definition of neighborhood identity and belonging more difficult though not less salient. Consequently, participants in the workings of the neighborhood—residents, business owners, politicians—face challenges of both boundary placement (who is Italian and who is not?), as well as cultural content (what does it mean to be “Italian”?). Rather than viewing Italian ethnicity as simply weakening over time, we argue that the North End shows ethnicity is in a stage of category divergence, where the still‐dominant ethnic identity is juxtaposed not against another ethnic out‐group, but at various times against boundaries of class and race, commercial and community values, even city political boundaries. Drawing on ethnographic research and in‐depth interviews, we describe three group identity frames that illustrate these processes and reveal how Italian ethnicity continues to animate discourse and action in the neighborhood.     

Privacy,Publicity, and Accountability of Self‐Presentation in an On‐Line Discussion Group*

Although the anonymous condition of on‐line interaction seems to provide space for the experiment of decentered, fluid, and multiple forms of identity, the disembodied on‐line identity often entails the fallout of accountability of self‐presentation. This article explores the nature of self‐presentation in cyberspace by conducting a case study of an on‐line discussion group. Specifically, it deals with the issue of disembodiment and accountability of on‐line identity in a close connection to the feature of the obliteration of the public/private boundary in the group. This study inquires into the following questions: “What techniques, if any, do members of the group employ to conceal their identity information?”; “Under what circumstances do members voluntarily disclose their identity information?”; “How do participants probe others’ identity cues and thus construct pattern knowledge about them?”; and “How should differences/similarities between on‐line self‐presentation and face‐to‐face identity styles be addressed?” In doing so, this article, on the one hand, tries to integrate the dynamics of participants’ active “identity probing” as an important interaction dimension to the study of on‐line self‐presentation that has so far heavily worked on the processes of identity concealment and self‐disclosure. On the other, referring to literatures on identity styles in off‐line settings, it addresses similarities of and differences between patterns of on‐line/off‐line self‐presentation.     

Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark: Bringing Capitalism back into the ‘New’ History of Capitalism

A growing number of historians are self‐identifying as historians of capitalism, a new subfield within the discipline, and have produced research on interesting new questions that transcend the subfields of economic, business, social, cultural, and political history. Ironically, what is missing from the “new” history of capitalism is any serious engagement with the new subfield's central character—capitalism, which instead is simply assumed despite being a contested concept. The implications are not trivial and include making unfalsifiable claims, unwittingly implying that capitalism is totalizing, and reproducing rather than exposing ahistorical understandings of the concept.     

Experiencing ‘Illegality’ as a Family? Immigration Enforcement,Social Policies,and Discourses Targeting Mexican Mixed‐Status Families

Mexican mixed‐status families have been front and center in embroiled national debates about the place of undocumented immigrants and their citizen family members in this country. These families face unique obstacles, including possible family fragmentation caused by deportation, challenges to birthright citizenship, and they are often targeted by anti‐immigrant elected officials and political pundits that perpetuate a racialized discourse that casts even citizen children in these families as an abomination of US citizenship. Therefore, “illegality” may be a familial experience that can be endured by citizens and non‐citizens alike. Despite their unique vulnerabilities, researchers know very little about how mixed‐status families experience belonging in the country while managing possible tensions and inequalities shaped by immigration status. In this article, I review the research on punitive immigration enforcement and the scholarship on social policies and discourse targeting mixed‐status families. I conclude by reviewing new directions in sociological research and suggest avenues for research that may examine mixed‐status families' subjectivities, belonging, and negotiations of family relationships.     

Thinking with the Mind,Syncing with the Body: Ballet as Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Interaction

Symbolic interactionist theory describes self‐consciousness as arising through symbolic interaction. I use one empirical case, ballet training, to suggest that symbolic interaction can, by producing self‐consciousness, cultivate unself‐consciousness. Using in‐depth interviews with twenty‐three individuals reporting on training experiences in six countries and twenty‐three American states, I show that dancers can learn, through self‐conscious symbolic interaction, how it feels to embody what an audience sees, as they strive to train their bodies to portray an institutionalized aesthetic. The embodiment of technique facilitates a markedly unself‐conscious “flow” experience while performing. In contrast, having an acute awareness of embodying an incompatible physiology inhibits flow and often motivates dancers to self‐select out of ballet. These interactionist sources of “nonsymbolic” interaction both evoke and suppress “mind” through social interaction.     

Coming Out of the Coffin: Life‐Self and Death‐Self in Six Feet Under

This article discusses how the dominant approach to life and death as binary structures in American society influences the social construction of the self. Through the analysis of the television series Six Feet Under, we identify two types of selves: a “life‐self” and a “death‐self.” Questioning this binary, we offer the concept of “transitory movements” to suggest instead that a “waltzing” movement between life and death endows the self with meaning and stands at the core of the self‐work of agents. Finally, we discuss the implications of our analysis for scholarship on the self and on the sociology of death.     

Representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the Discourse of Lafcadio Hearn Studies

The purpose of this article is to analyze representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the discourse of research on Lafcadio Hearn (“Hearn studies”) from pre‐war Japan. The nature and construction of nationality will be analyzed by examining where the representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” intersected. During the 1900s, researchers in the field of Hearn studies recognized that “Japan” lacked—and thus sought—a universality similar to what existed in “the West.” The tone of the discourse shifted during the 1910s through 1920s however, and what came to be emphasized was “Japan's” peculiarity. By the 1930s through 1940s, “Japan” aimed to show to “the West” a new universality that was different from what existed in Europe and America. Yet simultaneously, in order to legitimize its representation of its self, “Japan” portrayed “the Periphery” as an object that was both excluded and absorbed or appropriated into that image. On the one hand, “Japan” received and internalized the Orientalist viewpoint of “the West.” In fact, “Japan” was always conscious of its self‐image as something to display to “the West.” On the other hand, in order to create that self‐portrayal, both a representation of “the Periphery” and a reflection from that same “Periphery” were essential. While representations of “Japan” were produced, reproduced, and reinforced through interactions with “the West” and “the Periphery,” the intersecting behavior of these three entities also points to a residual ambiguity in “Japan's” nationality. By analyzing the discourse in Hearn studies, this paper reveals how the interaction between “Japan” and the two others of “the West” and “the Periphery” helped construct and destabilize its nationality.     

“My God Wants Me to Live Simply”: The Constructed Selfhood of Faith‐Based Simple Livers

This study examines how participants in the faith‐based voluntary simplicity movement, referred to here as “Simple Livers,” draw on the complex interactions of ideology and emotions as they construct a moral identity focused on social change. Drawing on qualitative data from participant observation and interviews, I examine the use of moral repertoires—combinations of principles, practices, and feelings, including guilt, pride, and frustration, grounded in both the Christian faith and the tenets of voluntary simplicity. I engage with the new literature on lifestyle movements to argue that the moral repertoires of Simple Livers reinforce these ideologies, resulting in the construction of an over‐conforming moral self.     

When Bourgeois Utopias Meet Gentrification: Community and Diversity in a New Urbanist Neighborhood*

Abstract

Scholars have recently begun to explore how social and politically liberal gentrifiers make sense of the classed and racial inequalities linked to gentrification. In this article I ask how residents of one new urbanist “bourgeois utopia”—the Mueller Development in Austin, Texas—experience and give meaning to their neighborhood in a context of gentrification. Drawing on 31 in-depth interviews I explain how new urbanism has reimagined and marketed “diversity” and “community” to middle-class and wealthy consumers and provides these to affluent people as neighborhood amenities. I show how residents draw on diversity ideology and multicultural capital to neutralize what they see as their neighborhood’s role in gentrification. In doing so this article adds to our theoretical understanding of how contemporary urban development exploits pursuits for the social good as rhetorical tools to assuage privileged guilt while promoting profitable enterprises.     

DIY Entrepreneurship? – Self‐reliance for Women Refugees in Australia

In this paper, we call for a re‐examination of the self‐reliance ideology based on a neoliberal perspective to make policies for refugee women's (self‐)employment and integration. We use a social constructionist perspective to conduct a narrative analysis of data from the lived experience of twelve women refugee entrepreneurs. Three prominent themes emerge from the women’s own narratives of their entrepreneurial journey – self‐reconstruction, social capital, and resilience. Our findings reveal the complexities of self‐reconstruction and socialization as experienced by refugee women entrepreneurs – for whom “push” factors take precedence over “pull” factors with the explicit understanding that the onus is on them to survive with their own resilience. We argue that offering people hope of a new life means offering them meaningful choices, built on forms of economic activity whose sustainability over the long term is evidenced by the positive supports available to make sure economic activity succeeds.     

Human Rights: What the United States Might Learn from the Rest of the World and,Yes, from American Sociology

The U.S. Constitution includes civil and political rights—as individual rights—but does not include what is internationally understood to be “human rights,” namely rights we enjoy as equals, including economic, social, and cultural rights, and protections for vulnerable persons, such as children, minorities, mothers, and refugees. The United States has not ratified any international (United Nations) or regional (Organization of American States) human rights treaty, is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, and is no longer a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It might be concluded that Americans do not know what human rights are. It is more complicated than that. While opinion polls show that Americans often endorse individual rights—e. g., the rights of women—they do not frame them as being interdependent or being within the purview of government. Can we conclude that human rights have no place in the United States? Not at all. This article concludes by showing that many U.S. institutions of higher learning have programs in human rights and that some academic associations, including the American Sociological Association, recognize human rights.     

Place attachment and political orientation: The case of localists in Hong Kong

This study extends the application of place attachment, which is widely used in environmental science research, to the field of political and civic studies. It compares place attachment between citizens with different political orientations and citizenship identities. In addition to its “cognitive” aspect, this study includes an “affective” dimension that has rarely been featured in the extant literature. Our findings, based on a telephone survey of 607 Hong Kong residents, confirm that place attachment is composed of both cognitive and affective dimensions. Besides, the mean score of self-identified “localists” and “Hong Kongers” on place attachment was significantly lower than that of “centrists” and those with no political orientation, as well as those who identified themselves as “Chinese Hong Kongers,” respectively. The weak place attachment among the localists amid Hong Kong's tremendous social and political challenges is most alarming, which highlights the need for policy makers to quickly address the issue.     

Police Unions and the Politics of Democratic Security and Order in Postcolonial India

State attempts to ensure a secure liberal democratic order through legal regulation and enforcement may work to prevent harm, provide public resources, or realize civic and human rights. Such attempts may also increase generalized risk of harm, reinscribe social inequality, circumscribe citizenship or instigate mass protest. These contradictory forces and relations, and their conditions of possibility—what we may call broadly the “politics of democratic security and order”—tend to be analyzed through the lens of government impositions on, and opposition to, the general public, for example focusing on how anti-terrorism legislation violates peoples’ civil liberties. This article addresses the politics of democratic security and order from a different and under-theorized angle that troubles the assumed opposition between a powerful state apparatus and subjugated citizens’ rights: namely, special restrictions placed on the rights of security enforcement agents themselves. Through ethnographic and archival research in India on attempts to form police unions—which are legally banned by a parliamentary act, yet politically active in many states of the country routinely touted as “the world’s largest democracy”—I demonstrate how conflicts related to these organizations may create new possibilities for mass politics, state-society alignments, and legal advocacy for civic and human rights, even as extant laws, regulations and, perhaps most importantly, public discourses around security and police discipline place extraordinary constraints on the political subjectivity of state security actors.