Divine Development: Transnational Indian Religious Organizations in the United States and India

This article examines how Indian Americans’ religious organizations send not only financial remittances to India, but also social remittances that shape development ideologies. Comparing Indian‐American Hindu and Muslim organizations, I find both groups draw from their socioeconomic experiences in India and use their position as elite immigrants in the United States to identify and empower their respective religious constituencies in India and overturn different social relations (not just religious practices). Hindu Americans draw from their majority status in India to overturn India's lower position in the world system and support poverty alleviation efforts within a neoliberal development framework. Indian‐American Muslims draw from their poor status in India to overturn economic inequities within India by shifting India's development rhetoric from identity to class. Collective religious identities (expressed through organizations) not only affect the intensity of immigrants’ development efforts, but also their content and ideology. These findings urge us to fold transnational religious organizations into contemporary discussions on migration and development.     

Transnational politics at the edges of sovereignty: social movements,crossings and the state at the US–Mexico border

This article documents the history of border crossings among a group of social movement activists located in southern Arizona. By comparing two types of US–Mexico border crossings separated ten years apart, the article explores how political groups become ‘transnationalized’ and in relation to what kinds of ‘states’. By contrasting the shift from a state‐centric movement to a transnational coalition, the case study analyses why, in the later period, political activists were no longer able to identify the same kind of state. In chronicling the disappearance of one kind of state formation and the emergence of a transnational one, this research argues that globalization—rather than simply reflecting a decline of the nation state—is a process entailing not only new forms of transnational political activism but also new forms of the state.     

La constitution d'une élite du Welfare dans la France des années 1990

A neo-elitist interpretation of the relations between the governmental and administrative elites helps us understand new power relations at the top of the French state. Light is shed on the formation, during the last twenty years, of a “welfare state elite”, which has arisen around decision-making in the social service sector. An analysis of changes in social policies shows how an elite that has shared the same purposes in collective action has gradually asserted its identity as a group. With a very coherent view of public policies and of relations with the authorities exercising oversight (Cour des Comptes, IGAS), this elite has proven capable of exercising a strong influence over policy-making. Its institutionalization is corroborated by the long careers in this sector that lead to controlling professional know-how. In brief, a unified elite has arisen that might well leave lasting marks on the future of the French welfare state.     

Atencingo Revisited: Political Class Formation and Economic Restructuring in Mexico's Sugar Industry1

Abstract Sugarcane growers have had a close relationship to the state since the 1940s when a series of decrees established a heavy state intervention in the sugar industry, which then became highly regulated. Growers became loyal to the state in exchange for low but secure incomes and other social guarantees. After the introduction of economic liberalism in Mexico during the mid-1980s (called "neoliberalism" in Mexico), the sugar industry became largely de-regulated, and sugar mills were reprivatized. This article explores the process of political class formation in the sugarcane region of Atencingo, in the state of Puebla. Whether cane growers posit peasant, proletarian, or peasant-entrepreneurial demands is examined, as is the character of organizations and alliances that direct producers have established since the 1930s (oppositional, popular-democratic, or bourgeois-hegemonic). This paper documents the emergence of a peasant-entrepreneurial class and presents initial results from a survey questionnaire administered in 1995. Rather than offering an economic argument based on a narrowly defined class position, this explanation emphasizes the prevailing regional cultures, the forms of state intervention, and the types of leadership-the crucial mediating determinations that explain political outcomes in Atencingo and other regions of rural Mexico.     

Transnational class formation and spatialities of power: the case of elite competition in Bolivia

In this article, I argue that the neoliberal and counter‐neoliberal transitions in Bolivia secured the power of transnational capital within the country. In the 1980s and 1990s, Bolivia's mining elite used neoliberal strategies to undermine the interests of the country's agricultural elite and pursued a marriage of convenience with transnational capital that allowed both to enter state‐monopolized spaces of investment in mutually beneficial ways. In Bolivia's counter‐neoliberal turn, leftist social movements and political parties removed the elite from power but were dependent on transnational firms to help them use the country's natural resource wealth to fund programmes of socioeconomic change. Engaging theories of the transnational class formation, I assert that scholars need to acknowledge how different capitalist class fractions have distinct spatialities of power. In particular, it is necessary to distinguish between global elites that participate in local circuits of accumulation and local elites that participate in global circuits of accumulation.     

Crimmigration and militarization: Policing borders in the era of social control profitability

As no other time in U.S. history, policing involves a wide variety of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, with a unified mission of patrolling the 2,000‐mile U.S.‐Mexico border in the name of national security. As a culturally and socially diverse geographic setting, the U.S.‐Mexico border has intertwined notions of ethnicity, race, and skin color with citizenship, community safety, and national security. Invariably, this geographic, economic, political, and social boundary has the power to shape the experience of not only law enforcement officers, but also border communities. The multiple issues that exist along the U.S.‐Mexico border provide a more nuanced view of the challenges involved in patrolling the border and policing communities, while seeking to respect privacy and honor international treaties and human rights. Subsequently, with pressing shifts in demographics, police tactics, border security, and social control profitability, in the midst of globalization, the central objective of this article is to further delineate, through analysis of existing data, the dynamics of border policing in the twenty‐first century.     

The Interactive Relationship Between Class Identity and the College Experience: The Case of Lower Income Students

To probe the role that college context plays in influencing the class-based aspects of identity for lower income students, we interviewed 30 lower income students, 15 from an elite college and 15 from a state college. Significant disparities of wealth between students at the elite college heightened awareness of class, and led to feelings of intimidation, discomfort, inadequacy, deficiency, exclusion, and powerlessness among lower income students, feelings that were less prevalent among state college students. Students at both colleges acquired new forms of cultural capital and coped with class-based discontinuities between who they were before college and who they were becoming, but these issues became heightened for the elite college students.     

Gated Communities in Mexico City

ABSTRACT

Based on long-term field research, this article addresses the issue of gated communities in Mexico City as a specific form of the crisis of public space and urban order in a stratified society. By comparing different forms of “gated community,” the paper shows their common characteristics in spite of their morphologic differences. Living in segregated residential spaces in Mexico City is a complex social process which is not only the result of the fear of crime but also a way to escape from urban disorder, to set up islands of social homogeneity and to experiment with new forms of local government.     

Weighty matters: control of women's access to physical strength

This paper gives an account of the social forces exerted to contain women’s interest and access to weightlifting, and a muscular strength usually associated with masculinity. Weightlifting can create formidable physical strength but without the visible, physical displays of body building. The significance of weightlifting women’s lack of visibility is important and alters the social dynamic of their experience of physical strength. The study relies on in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with 16 elite women weightlifters. They recount how disciplined, different and empowered they perceive themselves to be. Drawing together the weightlifting women’s illuminative epiphanic moments ( Denzin, 1989 , 1992 , 1993 ) revealed the close association of strength with force and, the social expectation that, not only is powerful physicality used to dominate others, but it is also expected to be male. Women’s access to domination is contained through the gendered nature of gym space and a masculine approach to training. Strength training is not only a source of selfidentity, but it is also a site of collective experience and enforced norms of affective behaviour. The paper concludes that it is important for women to be supported in their challenge in this arena.     

Responsible mothers and normal children: eugenics, nationalism, and welfare in post-revolutionary Mexico, 1920-1940

This article examines the emergence of the eugenics movement in Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s and explores the ways in which eugenicists and physicians participated in the creation of a new paternal order focused on motherhood, sexuality, and child welfare. I analyze this transformation as part of a broader process of medicalization and state expansion that recast understandings of reproduction, heredity, childhood, and the female body during the post-revolutionary period. I argue that eugenics, and the related puericulture movement, played a critical role in the emergence of novel forms of governmentality, the nationalization of women, and the neutralization of anterior forms of patriarchy in modern Mexico. The article contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the meaning of motherhood, the standardization of elementary school education, and the formation of welfare states in Latin America.     

Labour incorporation of young Southern European graduates in Mexico: the impact of the economic crisis

ABSTRACT

The 2008 economic crisis has had particularly negative effects on the youth labour market outcomes in Southern Europe. Thus, it is hardly surprising that many Southern European youngsters see migration as the only way to escape from under-employment and precariousness. In this context, the article studies the reasons for emigration to Mexico of a group of young graduates from Italy and Spain. The paper is based on 42 in-depth semi-structured interviews with young graduates, aged 29 years old or less on their arrival in Mexico. The article first explores the relevance of the economic crisis as the main reason behind the migration of this group. It is revealed that the interviewed graduates had a precarious labour incorporation back in their countries of origin, and migration appeared as a means to further their careers. Second, the paper analyses the interviewees’ labour incorporation in Mexico; in many cases this coincides with an extended university-work transition, since many of them had not secured full-time permanent jobs before their arrival in Mexico. Finally, the paper explores the interviewees’ future plans. These depend not only on their work experiences in Mexico but also on their degree of social and cultural integration in the host country.     

Moral Regulation: A Reformulation

Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer introduced the concept of moral regulation to contemporary sociological debate in their historical sociology of English State formation, The Great Arch (1985). In their work they fuse Durkheimian and Foucauldian analysis with a basic Marxist theory. However, this framework gives too limited a perspective to their analysis. I suggest that moral regulation should not be seen as a monolithic project, as merely action by and for the State, nor as activity by the ruling elite only. It should be seen as a form of social control based on changing the identity of the regulated. Its object is what Weber calls Lebensführung , which refers to both the ethos and the action constituting a way of life. The means of moral regulation are persuasion, education, and enlightenment, which distinguishes it from other forms of social control. Analyzing the social relations of moral regulation provides a useful perspective on this form of social action.     

How did the financial crisis affect the transnationality of the global financial elite? One step forward and one step back

Over the last few decades, transnational elite formation progressed hand in hand with a deterioration in national business elites. Most studies regard this process as progressive and linear. However, we argue that transnational elite formation is subject to a variety of opposing forces, and the assumed progression is not a given fact. As an intriguing case, we analyse the financial business elite with a focus on the financial crisis of 2008. This international event had substantial ramifications, including a possible external shock to transnational elite formation. To study the consequences of the crisis, we collected the board composition data of the 48 largest transnational financial companies for the period 2006–11. Changes in board composition show opposing effects. For example, transnationality increased during the crisis, but reversals appeared when national governments intervened.     

Rising Powers and Regional Orders: China's Strategy and Cross-Strait Relations

The neo-Gramscian approach has become popular within academic debates to theorize processes of global neoliberal convergence. But, it has also been challenged in the context of the ever more pronounced regionalizing tendencies of the current multipolar global order. This is especially so with the rise of China which introduces an alternative logic to regional social order formation processes from a typical neoliberal capitalist social order convergence. This paper argues, however, that a Gramscian approach can precisely account for such regional social order formation processes through the concept of regional historical blocs. This is demonstrated through a case study of the social order shaping effects that a Cross-Strait historical bloc forged between China's ‘contender state’-wielding elite bureaucracy and Taiwan's ascendant social forces has had on fostering Taiwan's internationalization toward China. This illustrates that, in addition to a broader global social order convergence process, a neo-Gramscian approach is equally useful to explain similarly defined regional social order convergence.     

Ethnic and class factors affecting mental health clinic service

Service delivery by a mental health clinic to clients from an older suburban catchment area containing both lower and middle class blacks and whites was studied. The epidemiologic method was employed, relating service delivery to the characteristics of the various population groups within the catchment. The findings indicate that low service rates for blacks were not related to ethnicity alone, but to the combination of black ethnicity and low social status; however, middle class blacks and middle class whites who entered treatment received similar service. Poor blacks had higher admission rates than poor whites with similar need indicators. In continued treatment, poor blacks received lowest service rates while minority status poor whites living in a predominantly black area received highest service rates. Social class mediated black service utilization. Severity of illness, interacting with social class and minority status mediated white service utilization. Outreach is suggested not only for poor blacks but also for poor whites, especially those living in areas in which they represent an ethnic minority.     

听障青少年的污名及其应对策略

任何人类差异都可能成为污名的对象。在社会差别的分类审视下,听障青少年遭遇的污名类型多种多样。从综合视角来看,可分为三类:形象可怕怪异,令人恐惧;身体无用低能,形同朽木;境遇窘迫不堪,让人可怜。在面对这些污名威胁时,他们管理身体与预设的规则体系进行周旋,业已发展出三种污名应对技术:一是身体改造,常态身体的追求;二是身体装扮,秘密信息的管理;三是身体抗争,弱者的对话方式。研究此问题,不仅有利于我们走进听障群体的世界,帮助他们远离污名的困扰,也可以增加社会的相互理解、信任与支持,推动社会的和谐融合。     

Households,Families and Prospective Economic Mobility in Mexico

The study analyzed poverty as a function of households’ demographic composition using a longitudinal random sample of 4268 urban and rural households that were followed-up from 2005/6 to 2009/12 in Mexico to estimate short-term changes in living conditions. Well-being was measured as the dwelling unit’s number of rooms, water source, sanitary services, garbage disposal, and fuel. Mobility paths included not poor–not poor, poor–poor, not poor–poor, and poor–not poor. Independent variables included household composition, family characteristics, residential changes, schooling, and occupation. Female headship and older adults negatively impacted poverty, whereas economic dependents may be negatively or positively associated. Fertility incentives for low-income populations are not advisable. Working-age adults contribute only if income-generating opportunities exist locally.     

Self,Career and Nationhood: The contrasting aspirations of British and French elite graduates

There is increasing interest in the emergence of a ‘global middle class’ in which high achieving young graduates increasingly look to develop careers that transcend national boundaries. This paper explores this issue through comparing and contrasting the aspirations and orientations of two ‘elite’ cohorts of graduates. Interviews with students at the University of Oxford, England, and Sciences‐Po, France, reveal very different ambitions and allegiances. Our Oxford respondents portray their futures as projects of self‐fulfilment as they build portfolio careers by moving from job to job and from country to country with limited social allegiances – epitomizing the nomadic worker of the transnational elite. Our Parisian respondents, on the other hand, display strong allegiances to the nation, state and civic duty. Their projects of the self involve reconciling their personal aspirations with strong allegiances to France. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of these differences. It argues that the enduring role of education in the formation of national identities should not be overlooked and that more detailed research is needed on the contextual specifity of transnationalism and the (re)production of elites.     

Continuing complexity: The university careers of a scientific elite in relation to their class origins and schooling

We report on continuing research on the UK scientific elite, intended to illustrate a proposed new approach to elite studies and based on a prosopography of Fellows of the Royal Society born from 1900. We extend analyses previously reported of Fellows' social origins and secondary schooling to take in their university careers as under- and postgraduates. The composite term ‘Oxbridge’, as often applied in elite studies, is called into question, as members of the scientific elite prove to have been recruited more from Cambridge than from Oxford. Particular interest then attaches to the relation between Fellows' social origins and schooling and their attendance at Cambridge. Among Fellows whose university careers were made at Cambridge, those of more advantaged class origins and those with private schooling are over-represented, although in this, as in various other respects, including Fellows' field of study, family influences persist independently of schooling. One suggestive interaction effect exists in that being privately educated increases the probability of having been at Cambridge more for Fellows from managerial than from professional families. Private schooling leading on to both undergraduate and postgraduate study at Cambridge can be identified as the educational ‘royal road’ into the scientific elite; and Fellows coming from higher professional and managerial families alike have the highest probability of having entered the elite in this way. But the most common route turns out in fact to be via state schooling and attendance at universities outside of ‘the golden triangle’ of Cambridge, Oxford and London; and this route is far more likely to have been followed by Fellows of all other class origins than higher professional. The relation between the degree of social skew in the recruitment of an elite and the degree of social homogeneity among its members can be more complex than has often been supposed.