NARRATIVES AND THE CONSTITUTION OF A COMMON IDENTITY: THE KAREN IN BURMA

This research was conducted in an informal school located in Thailand at the border with Myanmar (Burma) and supervised by the Karen National Union (KNU). The KNU has claimed and fought for political autonomy and independence from the Burmese government for more than a half century. The authors examine how, in their narratives about what it means to be Karen, future Karen leaders try to deal with challenges to a sense of Karen unity and “groupness,” and to the legitimacy of the Karen struggle. One important challenge is the substantial cultural, religious, linguistic, and geographical internal diversity. Establishing a coherent Karen identity among the different subgroups is a continuing struggle for Karen leaders. Another is the negative labeling of the KNU as stubborn people and violent terrorists. These labels endanger the political project, the international reputation, and the local attractiveness of the KNU.     

CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND THE STUDY OF DEVIANCE

In this work I argue that the study of deviance as distinct from crime is no longer a productive specialty in sociology. I attribute the cause of the demise of the field to its over reliance on the assumption of cultural relativity. In contrast to the relativist position, I argue that behavior that causes harm will be more likely to be condemned by public opinion and that there will be less variation in attitudes toward behaviors that cause more harm. Using data from the General Social Survey, I find support for the hypothesis that a “deviant” sexual behavior that can have a victim, extramarital sex, will be more consensually condemned than “deviant” sexual behaviors that do not have victims, premarital sex and homosexual sex. I recommend that future research focus on the study of values, as the validity of cultural relativity can be empirically evaluated.     

PUBLIC PEDAGOGY AS CULTURAL POLITICS: STUART HALL AND THE CRISIS OF CULTURE

This article argues that Stuart Hall's work provides an important theoretical framework for developing an expanded notion of public pedagogy, for making the pedagogical central to any understanding of political agency, and for addressing the primacy of public pedagogy and cultural politics in any viable theory of social change. Hall's work becomes particularly important not only in making education crucial to the practice of cultural studies, but also in providing a theoretical and political corrective to recent attacks on cultural politics, which cut across ideological lines and include theorists as politically diverse as Harold Bloom, Richard Rorty and Todd Gitlin.     

THE BODY, IDENTITY, AND SELF:

Serious chronic illness undermines the unity between body and self and forces identity changes. To explicate how the body, identity, and self intersect in illness, one mode of living with impairment, adapting, is explicated in this article. Adapting means altering life and self to accommodate to bodily losses and limits and resolving the lost unity between body and self. It means struggling with rather than against illness. The process of adapting consists of three major stages: (1) experiencing and defining impairment, (2) making bodily assessments and, subsequently, identity trade-offs, as ill people weigh their losses and gains and revise their identity goals, and (3) surrendering to the sick self by relinquishing control over illness and by flowing with the experience of it. Adapting seldom occurs only once. Rather chronically ill people are forced to adapt repeatedly as they experience new losses. The data consist of 115 interviews about experiencing chronic illness and 25 more focused interviews about the body in chronic illness. The strategies of grounded theory provided the methods for completing the analysis.     

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AS CONTESTED GROUND IN AN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION: WORKER PERCEPTIONS AND SATISFACTION IN THE USPS

Many prior efforts have examined the personal characteristics of workers or the structural features of an organization that impact job satisfaction. By contrast, we examine organizational culture in the context of "high-performance work systems." We analyze the organizational culture of the United States Postal System, as it is presented in key organizational documents and perceived by workers. It is argued that a viable theory of job satisfaction in the modern workplace must treat worker perceptions, which spring from an organizational culture that is both prescribed and lived.     

THE HOLOCAUST AS RECURRING REALITY: VICTIMIZATION THEMES AND JEWISH AMERICAN ETHNIC IDENTITY FORMATION

Drawing on sociological studies that document the regularity through which marginalized ethnic groups construct an ethnic identity, this article examines identity formation in the Jewish American context. A content analysis of 100 short stories written between 1946 and 1995 demonstrates how victim-oriented identities are created out of the more mundane experiences of everyday life. These stories, which were intended for consumption by Jewish American readers, describe daily life within the Jewish American community and, with surprising regularity, bring issues of victimization into the imagined experience for their readers. In addition, the analysis shows how Jewish American short story writers present the Holocaust, victimization, and anti-Semitism as contributing heavily to the processes of identity formation within the community. The discussion of the data concludes by arguing that, as the Jewish American community becomes further removed from the events of World War II, the Holocaust is becoming a more salient recurrent reality in the formation of a Jewish American identity that is increasingly tied to issues of victimization.     

SELF-CONTROL,POLITICAL IDEOLOGY,AND MISBEHAVIOR: UNPACKING THE EFFECTS OF CONSERVATIVE IDENTITY

Survey data collected from a southwestern metropolitan area indicate that self-defined politically conservative individuals are less inclined to commit criminal or deviant acts than their liberal or moderate counterparts; however, results from multivariate analyses indicate that measures of self-control and pressure to conform all reduce the effects of political conservatism to nonsignificance. In general, the relationship between political ideology and misbehavior appears to be partly spurious and partly indirectly attributable to the effects of other social and situational factors. Moreover, responsiveness to pressures to conform is not due to self-control. The results provide some challenge to traditional interpretations of misbehavior but they also confirm an important part played by structural/contextual variables.     

INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AND THE VELOCITY OF MONEY: A CENTURY OF EVIDENCE

We study common features in the income velocity of money, income, and interest rates for Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Sweden and Norway using annual data from 1870. The recently developed and refined techniques of testing for cointegration are employed.
The evidence suggests there is a unique long-run relationship in velocity but not in income and interest rates. Moreover, we find that only a model which includes institutional change proxies is properly specified. We argue that the evidence is best interpreted in the context of common historical developments in the respective countries' financial systems.     

USING GENDER: THE PERSONAL,INTERPERSONAL, AND EMOTIONAL STRATEGIES OF DOMESTIC LABOR

Traditional research on domestic labor has conceptualized work done in support of the home as one of the quintessential ways of “doing” gender. New directions in gender and ritual theory raise the possibility that domestic labor may also be about strategy, usefulness and intentions. Through interviews with 24 married couples, I explore the subjective experiences of men and women as they “do” their domestic labor. I find that while husbands and wives are continuing to do gender as a response to interactional accountability demands, they also “use” domestic labor as a vehicle through which they (1) reciprocally craft their gender identity, (2) symbolically communicate with their spouse, and (3) garner emotional energy. Furthermore, the men and women strategically mobilized specific tasks that are most useful in achieving these goals inside their unique dyadic schemas. Through these narratives, I explore the possibility that men and women not only do gender but they can use gender as well.     

RIVERINE CROSSINGS: GENDER,IDENTITY AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL MYTHIC NARRATIVE IN THE CRYING GAME

The Crying Game's central, tragic theme of warrior/lovers caught between their love for one another and loyalty to their respective factions has significant roots in early Celtic mythology. The elegaic theme of potential lovers forced into ill-fated combat that frames the film's events also, significantly, bears the weight of the film's most unambiguous political commentary, when Fergus speaks directly to the picture of Jody in Dil's apartment, telling him: ‘You should have stayed at home.’ This sad remonstration, which clearly lays responsibility for the chain of causality that has led to so much suffering not with Jody, but with the British state, is similar in quality to Cu Chulainn's lament as he contemplates his meeting with Ferdia. When we listen carefully for ways in which Celtic mythical themes underlie and nuance the film's events, different rhythms emerge, accenting different beats.     

SOURCES OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT: THE EFFECTS OF INTERNAL LABOR MARKETS AND WORKER VALUES

Data from the 1991 General Social Survey and National Organizations Survey are used to assess how organizational commitment is structured by one “demand side,” organizational-based factor, firm internal labor markets, and one “supply side,” individual-based factor, the values/preferences of workers. Findings indicate that organizational commitment is best explained by the joint influence of these two factors rather than by their independent effects. Specifically, firms with internal labor markets are conducive to the development of high levels of organizational commitment to the extent that what they offer, namely, opportunities for career-status and long-term employment “fit” what workers desire: job security and possibilities for promotion with their current employer. We offer directions for future research that may shed additional light on the manner in which internal labor markets and the values/preferences of workers may structure organizational commitment.     

VICTIMHOOD,IDENTITY, AND AGENCY IN THE EARLY PHASE OF THE TROUBLES IN NORTHERN IRELAND

This article explores the representation of victimhood in political discourse and the relation between victimhood, identity, and political agency. The empirical material is drawn from the early days of the Northern Ireland conflict and covers the debate on internment that was in operation from August 1971 until December 1975. Both those supporting and those opposing internment drew on images of victimhood—images that were vital in the construction of legitimacy and political agency. First, the rendering of detailed stories of individual suffering and victimhood produced compassion and empathy—features legitimising the different approaches. Second, the construction of victimhood involved mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, creating “we-them” dichotomies, producing “collectives of victimhood,” which in many cases worked as a platform from which political agency could be voiced. And third, the construction of victimhood produced political truths. The victim was given a particular status embodying a particular moral integrity to determine the truths about “what had really happened,” a status that made the victim a vital agent in the political battle for “the hearts and minds.” The article stresses the importance of studying the representation of victimhood within particular historical contexts and demonstrates the complex and ambiguous effects of the representations of victimhood in violent political conflicts. The examination shows that victimhood has both humanising and dehumanising effects and, depending on the contextual framework, victimhood can create confidence, empowerment, and agency, but also disempowerment and passivity.     

CULT FICTIONS: CULT MOVIES,SUBCULTURAL CAPITAL AND THE PRODUCTION OF CULTURAL DISTINCTIONS

Using the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Sara Thornton, the paper investigates the problems of ‘writing as a fan’ through an analysis of cult movie fandom. It starts out from a critique of Jeff Sconce's work which claims that he fails to question the subcultural ideology through which fan cultures produce a sense of identity through their supposed difference from the ‘mainstream’. It then moves on to an analysis of fan writing on the ‘cult movie’, which examines not only the complex and contradictory strategies through which these writings produce a sense of subcultural identity, but also the extent to which these writings seek to construct identities through the construction of an inauthentic Other. The next section examines both exhibition practices and intellectual trends to illustrate the ways in which cult movie fandom emerged not as a reaction against the market or the academy,but rather through their historical development. Finally,the paper looks at the role of mass, niche and micro media within the production and maintenance of the scene and at the functions of rarity and exclusivity within it. In the process, the essay explores the contradictory and problematic nature of the concept of ‘mainstream, commercial cinema’, and the ways in which it is produced as the other of supposedly radical and alternative taste cultures, whether subcultural or academic.     

PERSONAL AUTHORITY IN FAMILY EXPERIENCE VIA TERMINATION OF THE INTERGENERATIONAL HIERARCHICAL BOUNDARY: PART III—PERSONAL AUTHORITY DEFINED, AND THE POWER OF PLAY IN THE CHANGE PROCESS

Present transgenerational family therapy theory is analyzed, and it is suggested that individuation is on a continuum with fusion-triangulation (family systems theory), that relational ethics are on a continuum with invisible loyalties (contextual family therapy), and that there is in fact but one continuum, so that these terms are well-nigh interchangeable. Individuation-relational ethics is presented in a (Hegelian) dialectic with intimacy; and personal authority in family experience is offered as the synthesizing construct in this dialectic. The change process in transgenerational family therapy is briefly noted. It is suggested that playfulness, including paradox and absurdity, is an effective intervention into the intense emotionality of inter generational work. A framework for and sequence of playful interventions are described.     

LANGUAGE PRACTICES AND SELF DEFINITION: THE CASE OF GENDER IDENTITY ACQUISITION*

This article empirically explores possible relationships between language practices and the acquisition of gender identity. I propose a framework for analyzing the language of social identification underlying the usage of identifying categorical terms and then use this framework to analyze segments of interaction recorded in two preschools. On the basis of this analysis, I propose a distinctively sociological theory of gender identity acquisition and suggest that the proposed analytical framework may provide the basis for a more general sociological psychology.