Gender and Tobacco in (Globalizing) Asia – Exorcizing the Ghosts of Dualistic Thought?

This paper investigates the intersections between tobacco, gender and globalizing Asia. I argue that binary tropes like modernity/westernization‐tradition and masculinity–femininity are incessantly invoked in a burgeoning tobacco‐control literature focused on Asia. This tends to reify discursive and material gendered smoking stereotypes, as well as their underlying asymmetrical power relations. Responding to this I chart out three ways in which dualistic gender ideologies can be rethought. Firstly, I attend to varieties within gender categories to account for more nuanced articulations of gender identities. I do this by demonstrating the co‐imbrication between polyvalent masculinities and smoking practices. Secondly, I am attuned to intersecting facets of smoking subjectivities – situated within a specific Asian cultural fabric – that complicate the easy conflation of masculinity with power, and femininity with disempowerment. Lastly, I contend that fleshing out the embodied aspects of gendered smoking practices can assist us in confounding polarized gender categories and their associated attributes. I conclude my paper with a discussion on the uneasy relationships between Asia, Westernization, gender and a possible move away from a Western‐centric dualistic thinking.     

The Influence of Term Limits on the Electoral Success of Women

ABSTRACT

In this paper I develop a theoretical approach that rehabilitates identity as a political and interpretive, not essentialist, category. To this end, I explore versions of feminist standpoint theory developed by Nancy Hartsock and Alison Jaggar. While these versions of standpoint theory have marked the significance of experience and knowledge for feminist practice, their conception of subjectivity is too unified and, therefore, creates problems for addressing the epistemological implications of “difference.” For this approach to feminist subjectivity, power relations of race, class, and nation are “differences” which are viewed as threatening endless fragmentation or promising plurality. Alternatively, following Norma Alarcon's theory of multiple-voiced subjectivity, I argue that relations of power produce complex subjectivities situated within multiple, intersecting axes of power: race, class, sex, gender, nation. These relations of power mark the terrain of experience as an interpretive field for the production of knowledge and collective identity. This approach shifts the interpretation of experience and knowledge from a paradigm of essentialism, fragmentation, and pluralist difference to a paradigm of accountability and coalition.     

Grieving for mestizaje: alternative approaches to Maya identity in Yucatan,Mexico

This article takes as its point of departure the highly contested theoretical terrain of ‘Maya’ identity in Yucatan, Mexico. Set in the physical terrain of a state psychiatric hospital, this article uses a framework of identity culled from the narrative of a young woman, ‘Claudina’, committed to its wards, to argue that being ‘in-between’ categories of ethnic identity, an experience she characterises as a painful sense of ambiguous loss, can be fruitfully analysed using an analytical framework of ethnic identity introduced by Claudina herself. Specifically, I argue that categories of identity culled from Claudina's story – mestizaje and elegancia – represent a valuable opportunity to think about how power dynamics and relationships operate in situations of ambivalent identities and social suffering. To this end, I use Claudina's language as a point of departure for understanding the lived experience of everyday life in Yucatan today.     

Micro-entrepreneurship,new media technologies,and the reproduction and reconfiguration of gender in rural China

This article explores the connections between micro-entrepreneurship, new media technologies, and gender in rural China. Based on fieldwork among diverse individuals engaged in agricultural and non-agricultural micro-entrepreneurship, I examine how uses of technology in economic production become the site for the reproduction and/or reconfiguration of gender hierarchies. Grounding my analysis in feminist and critical theories of technology, I investigate the gendered uses and discourses of new media technologies that emerge from three types of entrepreneurial spaces: physical places where micro-entrepreneurship is based on new media technologies, such as internet cafés and mobile phone shops; virtual realms where new media technologies potentially facilitate entrepreneurship, including text messaging and various websites; and virtual spaces where informal learning and sharing take place via mediated networks formed around common occupations. I argue that in the context of entrepreneurship, even among women and men who are young and have migration experience, deeply entrenched gendered power differentials produce unequal access to capital and social networks, and hence uses and understandings of technology. Although engagement with technology has opened up new spaces for economic enhancement and the rearrangement of conventional gender norms, such engagement does not overcome – indeed, in many cases reproduces – gendered power relations.     

Laws,Desires, and Contaminations—Mutuality with a Price: Commentary on Paper by Taras Babiak

In this commentary on Tara Babiak's analytic work with a very disturbed, almost autistic young man, I take up the function of gender categories as defense and as potential; the power of enactments in analytic treatment; and the difficulties of homophobia in patient, analyst and culture. I focus on the uses and functions of gender and ideals of masculinity in the patient's identity. A central enactment early in the treatment gave rise to intense transference and countertransference scrutiny. I suggest the long shadow cast by this enactment, which was both hopeful and provocatively destructive. I discuss the quandaries (analytic, personal, and cultural) for the analyst working with a patient for whom phobic dread may be a defense against fragmentation and madness.     

Citizen or Subject? Blurring Boundaries,Claiming Space: Indians in Colonial South Africa

Citizenship and subjecthood are often seen as discrete, bounded categories, temporally disparate and conceptually distinct in law and in the social sciences. This paper challenges this predominant formulation by attesting that these legal categories are in fact, often, breached and blurred in identity struggles over claims to rights. Using the case of colonial Indians in South Africa, this paper argues that under conditions of colonialism, the colonized use the dual category of citizen/subject to claim rights while pledging allegiance to the power‐holders. Using historical sources such as petitions and referenda written by Indians to the colonial rulers and Gandhi's writings during his stay in South Africa, I explore the implications of this slippage between subject and citizen, thus contributing to the existing literature on colonial law and colonial resistance, the politics of citizenship, race relations and the politics of difference and identity.     

Gender Category and Gender Status: A Critical Distinction

Gender has been of explicit analytical interest in sociology for decades. Despite its centrality to the field, “gender” eludes conceptual specificity in significant ways, such as lacking distinction between gender category (identification as a man, woman, nonbinary, etc.) and gender status (the state of being cisgender or not). I contend that the cisgender status is a rich site of interpersonal and institutional power that has been understudied. This work forwards the concepts of gender category and status as analytical tools to help explore key elements of gender interaction and structure, such as cisness. I argue cisness must be teased out via the express distinction between gender category and status, and I provide empirical evidence from 75 interviews with various gendered actors (i.e., cisgender men, cisgender women, transgender men, transgender women, nonbinary individuals) to demonstrate the applied purchase of my findings.     

Editorial

Most gender and development researchers and practitioners are not used to focusing upon men, men's sense of masculinity, and the relevance of that for development. While discussion of gender has tended to dwell upon women as they relate to various issues, only recently have debates on economic and social policy, as well as the future of the family, begun to examine and accommodate men's gender identity. Men and masculinity, however, need to be studied if power relations between men and women are to be changed for the better, and the potential of individuals of both sexes is to be realized. Development research and practice have tended to marginalize the issues of men and masculinity, while researchers from other disciplines such as sociology, cultural studies, and anthropology have increasingly shown interest in studying men's gender identity and roles. This article discusses some of the relevant published literature in sections on linking the practical with the ideological; men's roles as biological fathers, economic providers for families, and social fathers; status, power, and violence; readjusting the sexual division of labor; men's attitudes on fertility; and harnessing men's potential.     

Stereotypes and National Identity: Experiencing the “Emotional Brazilian”

In this article, I examine how stereotypes are deployed in the process of experiencing national identities. Specifically, I analyse how a group of Brazilian academics who have studied in Europe and the United States have dealt with stereotypical notions of Brazilians as “warm people” who establish friendship “easily.” Ideas about a “greater emotionality,” which were often seen as negative from a European colonial perspective, are embraced and re-signified by them as a positive feature of Brazilian national identity, particularly when compared to the supposed “closed nature” of some Europeans. I argue therefore that the presence of such stereotypes contributes to reinforce a subjective sense of Brazilianess and also reveals the negotiations of power relations in the process of elaborating Brazilian national identity.     

Untouchable cultures: memory,power and the construction of Dalit selfhood

In the context of the philosophical literature on multiculturalism, I argue in this article that models of cultural identity based entirely on the nonvoluntary possession of a set of cultural characteristics are seriously incomplete. In particular, such models cannot address the need, among some groups, to reconstruct, invent and imagine alternative positive identities as a result of historical injustice, and to fill in the content of ‘culture’ accordingly. As an illustrative case, I survey processes of identity construction among ‘Dalits’, members of former ‘untouchable’ and other lower caste communities in India, with a focus on the role of historical consciousness and existing power relations in the imagination of Dalit culture. Dalit strategies of identity negotiation reveal the understandable need, on the part of the members of this community in progress, to produce a cultural identity that makes sense, psychologically and politically, given who they cannot imagine themselves to be, due to the fact of historical oppression. My analysis does not merely target essentialism, nor is it meant to be deconstructive of identity claims. Rather, I highlight select elements within the negotiation of Dalit identity to illustrate (1) the relevance of real historical relations of discrimination and inequality to the construction of culture; (2) the equivocal character of ‘choice’ within this process; and (3) the emancipatory possibilities provided by imagined narratives of cultural selfhood.     

Role Transitions,Objects, and Identity

Most research on role transitions, following a tradition pioneered by van Gennep, regards these major turning points in the life course primarily as times when people move between different sets of social networks. While these studies acknowledge that rites of passage occur within particular physical spaces in which material objects are present, the importance of such objects has received little attention. I explore one particular role transition—moving away to college—and illustrate that objects play a central role in how students construct their identities. Students at “Midwestern” University make strategic choices about which objects to leave at home as anchors of prior identities and which ones to bring to school as markers of new identities. Moreover, I suggest that the meanings of these two categories of objects differ by gender. I argue that this case opens up the possibility that objects play a much more central part in role transitions than social scientists have acknowledged. This study also challenges existing assumptions about different processes of identity formation. Therefore, it engenders the need for additional research about how people reinterpret objects during role transitions, and about the different meanings that objects may have for the constructions of masculinity and femininity.     

Visits to the country of origin: how second‐generation British Pakistanis shape transnational identity and maintain power asymmetries

In this article, I identify the need for more nuanced approaches to transnational emotional attachment, especially with regard to the second generation. Interviewing second‐generation British Pakistanis while on their holidays in Pakistan and comparing the findings with data collected in the UK provides a more realistic exploration of the phenomenon than would have been possible with only narratives collected before and after the trips. In contrast to current utopian views of egalitarian transnationalism negotiated at a personal level, known in the literature as transnationalism from below, I argue that the visits of second‐generation British Pakistanis perpetuate global power asymmetries. Furthermore, such visits may help British Pakistanis redefine their identity in relation to Pakistan, the UK and Islam, thus contributing to the formation of a new transnational identity. In the conclusion, I suggest that leisure visits can still carry the potential for important political and economic relations for Pakistan in times of need.     

Locating Gender in Environmental Sociology

Environmental sociology is premised on the inseparability of humans and nature and involves an analytical focus on the place of power and social inequality in shaping human/nonhuman interactions. Our purpose here is to conduct a broad overview of the place of gender in environmental sociology. We review gender‐relevant scholarship within environmental sociology and argue that to date, critical gender theorizing in the sub‐discipline is relatively undeveloped, as evidenced by theory that examines gender without considering power relations. We argue that this represents a shortcoming that should be addressed by future scholarship. In order to inform future critical gender–environment theorizing, we provide a brief review of ecofeminism and note promising examples of scholarship that takes power and inequality seriously when accounting for phenomena of relevance to women and the environment. It is likely that theorizing at the intersection of gender and the environment will become more prevalent given a growing consensus that social justice and equity are precursors to ecological sustainability; environmental sociologists could be the vanguard of critical gender–environment theory.     

Gendered Perspectives in Psychology: Immigrant Origin Youth

In this article, we contend that the field of psychology has largely failed to foreground the role of gender in its study of immigration. Here, we review studies that address gender and migration focusing on the experience of children and adolescents. We provide developmental perspectives on family relations, well‐being, identity formation, and educational outcomes, paying particular attention to the role of gender in these domains. We conclude with recommendations for future research, which include the need to consider whether, and if so, how, when, and why it makes a difference to be an immigrant, to be from a particular country, or to be female rather than male. We argue that it is important to consider socioeconomic characteristics; to consider resilience as well as pathology; and to work in interdisciplinary ways to deepen our understanding of the gendered migratory experience of immigrant origin youth.     

Locating difference: class, 'race' and gender, and the shaping of social inequalities

The current interest in difference has arisen in part because of its importance in recent recognition claims, and in part because of a belief that as a concept it can illuminate social diversity. Debates here have stressed the importance of the symbolic in the construction of social relations and social diversity, and have highlighted the relational underpinnings of diversity. In this paper we seek to take forward aspects of such an analysis by examining some issues in the shaping of difference and inequalities in the domains of gender, class and ‘race’. It is our argument that we can gain insights in these domains by better describing and theorising the mutuality of value and material social relations. The paper argues that issues of identity and difference need to be more firmly located within relational accounts of social practice, and in the nature of claims (to recognition and resources) which emerge out of different social locations. By exploring issues of difference in debates on class, gender and ‘race’, we argue that relational accounts must be placed within a perspective that also emphasises the content and patterned nature of (highly differentiated) social relations.     

Resistance Is Not Futile: Liberating Captain Janeway from the Masculine‐Feminine Dualism of Leadership

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Contesting Miss South Sudan

As South Sudan prepares for a referendum on independence in 2011, heightened nationalist expression within popular and political discourse reveals a messier and more openly disputed conception of the ideal Southern Sudanese woman. In this article I examine one site for debate in the diaspora, the US based Miss South Sudan beauty pageant. Highlighting the perseverance and power of the Woman-as-Nation discourse, I read the contest as a politically significant expression of a ‘South Sudanese’ national identity, with elements of the advertising, organization and the performance itself promoting a particularly faith, race and class based role model. This ideal is deeply politicized, linked both to the long history of conflict in Sudan and contemporary political and social shifts around gender. Miss South Sudan straddles traditional and modern notions of womanhood and women's patriotism revealing productive contestations around femininity and empowerment in the post-conflict period. This analysis highlights the troubling of gender at work in the diaspora and the conflicting visions for women in the new nation.     

Class belonging: a quantitative exploration of identity and consciousness

The recent revival in interest in class subjectivity has been largely premised on class belonging as a form of identity, eschewing talk of class-consciousness. Evidence in this debate has been mostly qualitative and focused on specific social groups. This paper uses data from the 2003 British Social Attitudes Survey to map the sense of class belonging in England and to assess the strength of class belonging when placed alongside other social identities, such as gender and nationality. The paper also explores the extent to which class identity could be conceived of as class-consciousness through its links with attitudes to redistribution and workplace relations.     

Siblingship And Continuity Of The Family In The Balinese Houseyard

This article investigates yafuni (‘witchcraft’ or female sorcery) accusations among the Maisin people living in Collingwood Bay, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. It takes as its primary case a public meeting at which two women were accused of killing a man. During the meeting, reasons for the victim's unexpected death and why he was subjected to ‘witchcraft’ were questioned and explored. While sorcery and witchcraft accusations might have violent outcomes, I argue that among Maisin they can be understood as performative rituals in which tensions and frustrations are vented in controlled ways, effectively preventing aggression and violence towards those accused. Accusations must be understood in the context of local identity politics that entail the questioning and redefining of relations and boundaries between gender, clans and cultural groups. In the case examined in this paper, the meeting provided a forum for the predominantly male accusers to re-establish gender hierarchies and social boundaries in order to restore social balance, albeit at the cost of victimising two women.     

Revisiting gendered assumptions of practitioner power: An exploratory study examining the role of social media expertise

The purpose of this exploratory study was to expand upon previous literatures in public relations power, and fill the need for more scholarship regarding practitioners’ perceptions of social media work, power, and gender. Findings from a survey of PRSA members showed that there is a gendered difference in power perception between males and females regardless of their PR roles or level of experience, but social media expertise was perceived equally between both genders. We argue that while social media expertise may serve to reduce a gendered power divide in public relations, continued critical exploration of social media and gender inequality is necessary.