Survivor: spectators and gladiators in the US environmental movement, 2000–2010

What motivates people to participate in which forms of environmental activism? To address this question, we revise empirical models examining environmental activism by disaggregating the outcome variable of movement participation and dichotomizing two key motivational factors. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the US General Social Survey of 2000 and 2010, this study conducts logistic regression of four forms of participation on perceived severity and sense of efficacy, while accounting for biographical availability and political engagement. Results from regression analysis show that vocabularies of motive have substantial impacts on an individual’s likelihood of: (1) signing a petition; (2) giving money; (3) joining a group; and (4) joining a protest or demonstration. Their effects are large enough to override the noticeable impacts of liberalism and education. This study also finds that the level of participation in the movement across all forms has decreased between 2000 and 2010. These findings direct our attention to the limited capacity of the public sphere to accommodate the environmental movement during the last decade, as well as to potential changes in environmental activism in the coming decades that may mobilize those previously less likely to participate.     

Warriors without spears: Africans in the South African War, 1899–1902

Black People in the South African War 1899–1902, by Peter Warwick. Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983. Pp. xiv & 224: maps, tables.     

A forgotten history,a marginalized community: Biographical narratives of Ethiopian Jews,former activists in underground organizations during the civil war in Ethiopia, 1974–1991

Despite a proliferation of studies concerning Ethiopian Jews (formerly known as “Beta Israel”) and their lives while still in Ethiopia, a topic that has not been studied enough is their lives during the turbulent period of the 1974 revolution and the civil war that followed (ending 1991). According to most existing (Israeli) literature, this group was completely cut off from these events, or at most passively affected by them. The present study, based on 17 in-depth interviews with Ethiopian-born Israelis, shows that some members of the community were indeed deeply involved in these historical events, as political activists and/or military rebels in one of two major political parties: the TPLF and the EPRP. After a short historical introduction, the study discusses the central themes that emerged from the interviews: (1) the interviewees' deep identification with universal and contemporary ideology, (2) their deep solidarity with Ethiopia and with the organizations they belonged to, (3) abandonment of revolutionary ideology and politics after arrival in Israel. The central argument in the concluding part is that this chapter in the community's history was forgotten because it did not accord with the Ethiopian Jews' intended role as reinforcement of the official Zionist narrative of the negation of exile. This oblivion meant that the community was constructed in the Israeli public imagination as pre-modern, detached from modern ideologies and characterized by a very limited worldview.     

‘We Have Certainly Saved Ourselves’: Popular Views of Masculinity during the Korean War, 1950–53

This article addresses the ways in which the American popular media, particularly middle-brow magazines, novels, and films, created a gendered interpretation of the Korean War. On the US home front, cultural commentators linked the purported 1950s crisis of masculinity to concerns that “coddled” and “overmothered” American military personnel would lack the manly vigor necessary to prevent South Korea from falling to communist forces. Ultimately, though, most of these observers insisted that in the crucible of war lay an antidote for America’s flagging masculine spirit. The so-called “police action” served as a critical terrain — both real and imagined — for debating masculinity during the Cold War. Although such optimism proved short-lived, this martial vision for boosting manliness resonated in post-war US policy and culture well beyond the three short years of the conflict.     

Diversity in the Academy: On the Growing Prominence of Race and Ethnicity in the Pacific Sociological Association, 1929–2014

This article examines issues related to the underrepresentation of faculty of color in higher education, with specific attention to the discipline of Sociology and the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA). The authors explore the role that professional organizations such as the PSA have played in promoting racial and ethnic diversity within the Sociology pipeline. Further, it provides an analytic overview of the history of conference presentations on the topic of race and ethnicity within the PSA over the last eight decades. The article proceeds in three major parts: First, is an outline of the contours of the problem of racial underrepresentation in the academy. Next, follows a content analysis of PSA programs, which indicates that race continues to be of central importance to the PSA and that the 1970s were a turning point when the PSA began to examine its role in promoting diversity in the discipline. Finally, mentorship is presented as a critical vehicle for promoting greater racial equity in the PSA and the discipline of Sociology more broadly.     

Developing selves: photography,Cold War science and ‘backwards’ people in the Peruvian Andes, 1951–1966

This article explores how social science applications of photography employed in the early 1950s to both understand and change so-called ‘backwards’ people became entangled with, and drew momentum from, the geopolitical concerns of the early Cold War. Specifically, I address the employment of photography in the Cornell-Peru Project in the Andean community of Vicos, a decade-long research experiment combining development anthropology and fashionable modernisation theory emanating out of the behavioural sciences. In addition to development activities that were to serve as the catalysts of change (agricultural improvement, health and education), researchers at Vicos were at pains to uncover and validate the inner ‘predispositions’ towards change and modernity they hoped were lurking inside villagers. Reflecting Cold War priorities and concerns, researchers sought to locate a particular developing indigenous subject – one closer to liberal capitalism (and its values of self-reliance and individualism) and away from communal nature of indigenous society that too strongly resembled Soviet models of development and collectivisation. Along with an arsenal of other psychological projective tests, researchers hoped the camera’s lens would reveal this change through such subtle cues as the rearrangement of home interiors and modifications in dress, style and comportment, as well as the development of visual literacy. Following the photographic work of famed photographer and formative visual anthropologist, John Collier, Jr., during a year at Vicos, this article ultimately explores the limitations of the behavioural sciences’ hopeful uses of photography.     

Caffeine intake is not associated with serum testosterone levels in adult men: cross-sectional findings from the NHANES 1999–2004 and 2011–2012

Objective: The association of caffeine intake with testosterone remains unclear. We evaluated the association of caffeine intake with serum testosterone among American men and determined whether this association varied by race/ethnicity and measurements of adiposity.

Methods: Data were analyzed for 2581 men (≥20?years old) who participated in the cycles of the NHANES 1999–2004 and 2011–2012, a cross-sectional study. Testosterone (ng/mL) was measured by immunoassay among men who participated in the morning examination session. We analyzed 24-h dietary recall data to estimate caffeine intake (mg/day). Multivariable weighted linear regression models were conducted.

Results: We identified no linear relationship between caffeine intake and testosterone levels in the total population, but there was a non-linear association (p_nonlinearity?p_nonlinearity?≤?.03 both) and only among men with waist circumference <102?cm and body mass index <25?kg/m² (p_nonlinearity?Conclusion: No linear association was identified between levels of caffeine intake and testosterone in US men, but we observed a non-linear association, including among racial/ethnic groups and measurements of adiposity in this cross-sectional study. These associations are warranted to be investigated in larger prospective studies.     

“I bled like you,brother, although I was a thousand miles away”: postwar Yiddish sources on the experiences of Polish Jews in Soviet exile during World War II

ABSTRACT

An estimated 230,000 Polish Jews escaped Nazi persecution during World War II by flight or deportation to the interior of the Soviet Union. This article examines early postwar Yiddish and Polish sources on their survival in Soviet exile such as poems, newspaper articles, and witness testimonies. Two sets of sources are analyzed in-depth, testimonies written by young people in Jewish Displaced Persons (DP) camps in occupied Germany and Yiddish poetry from Poland and the DP camps. The author argues that many former exiles were eager to write down their experiences. In doing so, they were aware of the complex nature of deportation and flight that characterized the experiences of Polish Jews in the Soviet Union. In their testimonies many young witnesses express their understanding that they too were “marked by the khurbn.” Whereas Yiddish poetry from the same period helps us understand how writers dealt with their own story of wartime survival outside the realm of German persecution. In their poetry they seek meaning in their own suffering and express their desire to establish a dialogue with other survivors.