Neither proscience nor antiscience: Metasociology as dialogue

This paper defends metasociology against the attacks of a particular brand of metasociological critique done in the name of scientific progress. The proponents of scientific progress often argue that metasociology does not contribute anything of substantial value to the progress of sociology as a science. In contrast, we argue that this view of metasociology is not terribly well informed. We suggest that metasociology should be thought of as a dialogue with other nearby disciplines and with contemporary political and moral conversations about the social world. One job of metasociology is to expose the assumptions of sociologists so as to make them more aware of where they stand in relation to other contemporary dialogues. We also argue that for metasociology to be taken seriously as dialogue, we must give up certain pretensions. The social grounds for metasociology as dialogue rest on epistemic relativism and, more importantly, on judgmental relativism.     

Children,Crime, Policy and Practice: Neither Welfare nor Justice

In February 1993 when the Prime Minister proclaimed that ‘society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less’, and the Home Secretary referred to ‘really persistent nasty little juveniles’ (Daily Mail, 22 February 1993), they set the tone for subsequent policy and practice in relation to children in trouble. It is a policy and practice which in ‘condemning more’ and ‘understanding less’ rides roughshod over the welfare needs of children and negates their claims to justice. Moreover, the representation of children as ‘really persistent nasty little juveniles’ has apparently served to legitimise the harsh excesses of government responses. This paper challenges such ‘legitimacy’ and calls for a fundamental change in the policy and practice relating to children in trouble.     

Neither clear nor present: The social construction of safety and danger

Perceptions of safety and danger are “intersubjective”—products of social construction, collective agreement, and socialization. While objective danger certainly exists, perceptions of danger do not derive directly from observation of the empirical world. The objective environment provides only inconsistent and ambiguous information, permitting ample room for socially constructed beliefs. Three cognitive frameworks—the Cautious, Confident, and Neutral frameworks—organize perceptions of safety and danger. Each framework begins with a default assumption about safety and danger and “marks” certain items as different from this default. In shaping expectations, these frameworks also contribute to perceptions of horror, humor, excitement, and fear. Finally, I use these frameworks to analyze the psychological concept “phobia” as a sociological phenomenon.     

The redefinition of family farming: agricultural restructuring and farm adjustment in Waihemo, New Zealand

The process of agricultural restructuring embarked upon by the New Zealand government in the mid-1980s precipitated a period of financial hardship for many of the nation's farmers. It was not uncommon for families to adapt major adjustment strategies in order to maintain the viability of their enterprise at this time. Drawing upon a detailed case study of farm-level responses in a small rural locality, this paper argues that farm adjustments employed during and since this period have altered the character of family farming in the area in fundamental ways. Such change has been evident in the increasing heterogeneity of farm structure, and the alteration of farming goals and household labour arrangements, together with the evolution of local cultural norms. These transformations not only raise important questions about the future structure and sustainability of family farming in the area, but also inspire a conceptual reconsideration of the family farm unit as traditional linkages between the farm enterprise, household and property are weakened.     

Neither global nor local: Heterogeneous connectivity in spatial network structures of world migration

For a long time, geographic regions were considered the dominant spatial arbiter of international migration of people. However, since the late 1970s, many scholars have argued that movements reach beyond contiguous regions to connect distant, dispersed, and previously disconnected countries across the globe. The precise structure of world migration, however, remains an open question. We apply network analysis that incorporates spatial information to international migration-stock data to examine what multilateral structures of world migration have emerged from the interplay of regional concentration (local cohesion) and global interconnectedness (global cohesion) for the period 1960–2000. In the world migration network (WMN), nodes represent countries located in geographic space, and edges represent migrants from an origin country who live in a destination country during each decade. We characterize the large-scale structure and evolution of the WMN by algorithmically detecting international migration communities (i.e., sets of countries that are densely connected via migration) using a generalized modularity function for spatial, temporal, and directed networks. Our findings for the whole network suggest that movements in the WMN deviate significantly from the regional boundaries of the world and that international migration communities have become globally interconnected over time. However, we observe a strong variability in the distribution of strengths, neighborhood overlaps, and lengths of migration edges in the WMN. This manifests as three types of communities: global, local, and glocal. We find that long-distance movements in global communities bridge multiple non-contiguous countries, whereas local (and, to a lesser extent, glocal) communities remain trapped in contiguous geographic regions (or neighboring regions) for almost the whole period, contributing to a spatially fragmented WMN. Our findings demonstrate that world migration is neither regionally concentrated nor globally interconnected, but instead exhibits a heterogeneous connectivity pattern that channels unequal migration opportunities across the world.     

Young women farm heads in Greek agriculture: entering farming through policy incentives

This work examines the entry of young Greek women into farming as heads of farmholdings under the relevant EU and national framework of incentives. The work is based on the analysis of available secondary information and mail-survey data secured from a sample of 128 young women established in farming during the period 1991–2000 in the region of Thessaly, Central Greece. Their responses to the system of incentives are examined initially as a whole group and then separately by focusing on two typological polar opposites, that is those women that are entering farming as a lifestyle and those entering for reasons of necessity. There is documentation of young women farmers’ use of the incentives and benefits derived there from and their assumption of a certain share in the decision-making power vis-a-vis their farmholding, the last-mentioned especially when the two typological groups are considered.     

Neither Slavery nor Abolitionism: James M. Pendleton and the Problem of Christian Conservative Antislavery in 1840s Kentucky

The case of James M. Pendleton (1811–1891) adds clarity to understandings of the relationship between slavery and Christianity in the nineteenth-century USA. A white Baptist minister in his native Kentucky throughout most of the antebellum period, Pendleton actively opposed slavery because he believed it an affront to biblical teaching and an economically fruitless way to order a society. At the same time, however, Pendleton also opposed abolitionist measures that called for immediate emancipation of slaves, both because he felt immediatism threatened social stability and because abolitionism appeared to flaunt what he saw as Christian orthodoxy. Pendleton's example shows why slavery was such a complicated issue for Southerners, as well as why abolitionism held so little sway among Southern evangelicals – even among those that wanted slavery ended.     

Chilling out in ‘cosmopolitan country’: Urban/rural hybridity and the construction of Daylesford as a ‘lesbian and gay rural idyll’

This paper advances scholarship on ‘lesbian and gay rural idylls’. A growing literature examines how ‘lesbian and gay rural idylls’ are not only produced in opposition to the urban, but are themselves urban constructs. We extend these contentions by exploring the processes of idyllisation suffusing lesbian and gay festival tourism in Daylesford, a town in non-metropolitan Victoria, Australia. We find that Daylesford’s idyllisation by the lesbian and gay tourism industry blurs the urban/rural binary, and instead hybridises rurality and urbanity in the tourism images and practices of ‘cosmopolitan country’ associated with the town. Research findings from Daylesford are analysed to examine how the dynamics of tourism marketing and festival attendance help produce and articulate this hybrid variant of the ‘lesbian and gay rural idyll’. We utilise two sets of mostly qualitative data for this inquiry: travel commentaries in the news media, and a survey conducted in Daylesford at the 2006 ChillOut Festival, Australia’s largest lesbian and gay rural festival.     

Structural considerations in the contemporary Taiwanese farm family: survival of the large family ideal

The structure of farm families in an industrializing rural area in west-central Taiwan is explored using data for 96 households in Hsiu-Shui district. The results suggest that despite modernization and social change, "the large family ideal still persists and expresses itself as a compartmental family which offers both the individual freedom of a nuclear family and the support and security of a large extended family."     

Measuring ‘neighborhood’: Constructing network neighborhoods

This study attempts to measure neighborhood boundaries in a novel way by creating network neighborhoods based on the density of social ties among adolescents. We create valued matrices based on social ties and physical distance between adolescents in the county. We then perform factor analyses on these valued matrices to detect these network neighborhoods. The resulting network neighborhoods show considerable spatial contiguity. We assess the quality of these aggregations by comparing the degree of agreement among residents assigned to the same network neighborhood when assessing various characteristics of their “neighborhood”, along with traditional definitions of neighborhoods from Census aggregations. Our findings suggest that these network neighborhoods are a valuable approach for “neighborhood” aggregation.     

Les syndicalistes de SUD-PTT : des entrepreneurs de morale ?

Since 1988 when it was founded, the Sud-PTT Union has often used law suits as a means of action in dealings with French postal authorities. Law is a full part of its practices. This is surprising coming from a union strongly attached to a protest tradition and so symbolically hostile to any form of institutionalization. What reasons underlie this orientation? The “conflict of rules” undertaken by SUD-PTT must be seen in relation to a major change in contemporary social strife. The “antagonistic posture” is no longer limited to collective actions but extends to more institutionalized strategies. Not just technical or instrumental, this sort of action aims at bringing pressure to bear on norms and, as a consequence, on the codification of social relations and on ways of living together.     

Fathers as ‘core business’ in child welfare practice and research: An interdisciplinary review

This literature review draws from a wide array of interdisciplinary research to argue that fathers need to be included in child welfare practice and research to the same extent as mothers. Social work and child maltreatment literature highlight that fathers are often overlooked and viewed more negatively than mothers in child welfare practice. There are noteworthy theoretical and practical reasons for this poor engagement of fathers in practice. However, advances in attachment theory and recent research findings from developmental and fathering literature indicate that fathers influence their children independently from mothers and equally strongly. Further research demonstrates that fathers and father figures can be both potential risk factors and protective factors in the lives of vulnerable children. Therefore, children are placed at increased risk if dangerous fathers are not engaged, and are also significantly disadvantaged if supportive fathers are not engaged. The review concludes with practical implications for child welfare practice and research.     

Shifting values in agriculture: the farm family and pollution regulation1

It has long been acknowledged that the notion of family continuity of farm occupation through succession is one of the central tenets of the ethos of ‘family’ farming, but recent evidence suggests that it is being called into question by family members. Farming practices are being pursued in a rapidly changing world, an important feature of which is a greater level of public and political concern for protecting the rural environment. This paper examines a range of new influences affecting farming practice and environmental consciousness and the implications these have for farming values, particularly that of family succession. Using evidence from a study of dairy farm families and pollution regulation in Devon in South West England, it suggests that rural social change is providing new routes through which environmental values can flow through farm households, influencing the ways farmers understand the environmental implications of their practices, and the ways they and their families think about their long-term futures.     

‘Farming miners’ or ‘mining farmers’?: Diamond mining and rural development in post-conflict Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is currently emerging from a brutal civil war that lasted most of the 1990s, and now has the dubious distinction of being ranked among the world's poorest countries. As thousands of displaced people move back to their villages, a large proportion of the predominantly farm-based rural population are growing food crops for the first time in a decade. Alluvial diamond mining makes an important contribution to the national economy, though some would argue that Sierra Leone's diamonds are a ‘resource curse’. Drawing upon research undertaken in the 1970s and also in the post-conflict period, the paper provides a longitudinal perspective on the complex links between the farming and mining sectors. Recent field research in Sierra Leone's Eastern Province, indicates that many links between farming and diamond mining have actually been maintained despite severe dislocation. These links could play a key role in rejuvenating market-oriented food production, providing the much-needed impetus for post-war rural development. In charting a future development trajectory, the paper recognizes the urgent need for an effective management scheme for both mining and marketing diamonds, given the potentially destabilizing effect on the country of the uncontrolled exploitation of this valuable resource. In this context, a recent community-based, integrated management initiative adopted by one local NGO, the Peace Diamond Alliance, is examined. If meaningful rural development is to be achieved among desperately poor communities, development strategies must be based on a detailed understanding of the nature of inter-locking livelihoods in the agricultural and mining sectors.     

An alternative to farmer age as an indicator of life-cycle stage: The case for a farm family age index

In studies of farming, the age of the principal decision-maker (PDM) has been associated with numerous farm structural and managerial features and has been widely accepted as a good indicator of the influence of life-cycle factors on decision-making. As such, it has become an important aspect of many quantitative studies of agricultural change. However, contemporary studies of family farming demonstrate that the concept of a single PDM in family farms is becoming an anachronism as alternative enterprises, pluriactivity and the scale of family farms force more diffuse management/operating systems. This raises questions concerning whether the age of the PDM can still be taken as representative of farm structure, strategy or life-cycle stage? Using a study conducted in the Grampian Mountains region of Scotland in 2003 this note investigates the impact of using an alternative index—compiled by averaging the age of family members working on the farm. It suggests that PDM age is a relatively poor indicator of farm structural and managerial features compared to a family age index and calls for researchers to think about alternative approaches to measuring ‘age’ as an indicator.