Toward a Sociology of “Security”

Security as a phenomenon has come to occupy increasing social energy and thus merits sociological attention. But the question of how to go about studying “security” is somewhat vexing, because the concept of “security” is both highly polysemous (Ranasinghe 2013) and one that can potentially be located within a wide spectrum of social sites, ranging from the feelings of individuals to the practices of states. I suggest that we must first clarify what we are talking about when we talk about “security.” Here, I present several ideas for fully articulating the concept.     

The Inseparability of “Career” and “Personal” Counseling

In this article it is argued that “career” and “personal” counseling should not be viewed as different types of counseling because: (a) the holistic philosophy of counseling emphasizes helping “whole” persons whose lives contain many important and meaningful roles; (b) recent research on the implications of gender and race for career development further demonstrates the inseparability of our career and “personal” lives; and (c) there are numerous commonalities in the “career” and “personal” counseling process.     

Designating Dependency: The “Socially Inadequate” in the United States, 1910–1940

This article examines the use of “socially inadequate” as a label for the dependent poor in the United States, 1910–40. It analyses the dense meanings that were given to this term and the political significance that the label “socially inadequate” gained in relation to sterilization and immigration policy. The article explores the role played by eugenicist, Harry Laughlin, as a label maker for the term and a moral entrepreneur in relation to the problem of dependency. It argues that “socially inadequate” was a stigmatising designation for members of perceived deficient groups, whom were seen as falling below the normal or acceptable standards of society and were, as such, viewed as undeserving of the status of citizen. Finally, it contends that the negative moral and emotional judgments encoded into definitions of the “socially inadequate” can be situated within the history of the derogation of dependency, understood as economic reliance on the state or charity, in the United States.     

“His” and “her” marriage expectations: Determinants and consequences

This article uses couple‐level data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N= 2,263) to investigate factors associated with unmarried parents’ expectations about marriage and the association between their expectations and subsequent union transitions. In most couples, both partners expect to marry, and their shared expectations are the strongest predictor of marriage and separation following their child's birth. Although men's expectations are somewhat more consequential for union transitions, marriage and relationship stability are more likely when at least one parent expects to marry. Factors such as children from previous relationships, distrust, conflict, and shared activities are also associated with union transitions. Findings about how expectations and other factors relate to marriage and separation may inform new marriage promotion initiatives.     

“Hikikomori” and Dependency on Family: Focusing on Father–Son Relationships

Hikikomori is a Japanese term referring to the condition of being “shut‐in” or someone with that condition. Japanese national surveys indicated that the total number of hikikomori is over one million. This paper seeks to elucidate the “hikikomori” problem faced by families and connect those microscopic experiences to a macroscopic common problem related to some social backgrounds of Japanese society. For the study, I examined statistical data from national and KHJ (a nationwide organization of hikikomori families) surveys, and case studies of fathers of hikikomori sons. One of the main findings was that the common problem of families with hikikomori people is not the shut‐in condition of them, but the “dependency” of these adult‐aged children. Fathers' attempts to reduce the dependency included encouraging their sons to secure stable employment or connect them to adequate social security, such as public assistance. However, these efforts are often ineffectual because of social structural backgrounds: transformation of the labor market, inadequate social security, and the infinite duty of family to sustain children. This paper also focused on the policies of the “Japanese model of welfare society” as a political factor that reinforced the family dependency by developing a combination of workfare regime and familialism. The Japanese model of welfare society assumes that the employment of men as breadwinners would be stable. Instability of the employment of men makes the model dysfunctional. The expansion of the hikikomori problem as a family dependency problem is evidence of the dysfunction of the model.     

“It's Only Sport”—The Symbolic Neutralization of “Violence”

Within the commodified world of professional ice hockey, athletes sell their bodily performances in return for a salary. A central feature of this transaction is the very real risk of physical injury—a risk inherent within most contact sports, but particularly so within those that feature seemingly “violent” confrontations between competitors, as ice hockey is widely reputed to do. Yet, within the spectacle of sport, where physicality can be constructed as playful and unserious, it is possible for the consequences of such action to be concealed behind a symbolic, ludic veneer. Within this article, we explore this process with a particular focus on ice hockey spectators, for whom notions of sport violence as in some important way “mimetic” of the “real” enabled their propensity to both enjoy, and find moral validation through, potentially deleterious behaviors among athletes.     

The Turn from “What” to “How”: Garfinkel's Reach Beyond Description

John Heritage described Harold Garfinkel's central question as “how do social actors come to know, and know in common what they are doing and the circumstances in which they are doing it.” The case of Agnes illuminates the methods by which members produce intelligible actions and recognizable—even “natural”—gender orderliness. With this central interest as a starting point, this article offers some observations about transgender women in prison and their creative adaptation to life behind bars.     

The Demand for Healthy Eating: Supporting a Transformative Food “Movement”

To the extent that social science scholarship engages real‐world developments it remains grounded and better able to resist elite agendas. With this in mind this article argues for the critical encounter with what I argue is the most significant struggle around food and agriculture today—the amorphous and broad‐based movement that strives to resist the further degradation of food environments and ensure healthy eating in society. This struggle is inevitably engaged with contemporary neoliberal agendas that have transformed and degraded food environments as they have privileged profit making over healthy diets. The article considers different sites where the struggle over healthy eating is taking place, both at the level of the state and more extensively in civil society. It considers the debate over bovine growth hormone in Canada and the wider efforts to turn around school food environments as examples of state‐centered and civil‐society struggles, respectively, that illustrate different dimensions of the healthy‐eating movement today. In each case the agendas of transnational food corporations are seen to be directly contradicting efforts to ensure healthy diets. The article considers some notable successes among advocates of healthy eating, in the United States and Canada and most notably in Britain, and examines some of the factors that may account for this success. Overall, I argue that this struggle has the potential to challenge the hegemony of neoliberal discourse in fundamental ways. The article concludes with a call for academics, and rural sociologists in particular, to give a much greater priority to healthy‐eating struggles, and considers a number of areas where academic practitioners can aid activists' efforts to resist the further degradation of diets and establish healthier food environments.     

Narrating Nursing Jurisdiction: “Atrocity Stories” and “Boundary‐Work”

Sociologists have long recognized that the division of labor is, at its root, a process of social interaction. Although “negotiations” figure centrally in symbolic interactionist studies of work, relatively little attention has been given to the ways in which the structure of workplace talk contributes to the social constitution of occupations. Drawing on the insights of discourse and conversation analysis, this article examines occupational atrocity stories and considers how they accomplish boundary‐work in the hospital setting. I focus on the stories British nurses told about doctors and use data generated in ethnographic research into the routine accomplishment of nursing jurisdiction. I conclude with some general observations about how the detailed analysis of stories and storytelling can contribute to the wider study of social group formation.     

Economy “versus” Environment: The Influence of Economic Ideology and Political Identity on Perceived Threat of Eco‐Catastrophe

Using data from a national survey of American adults, we examine the relationships between economic, political, sociodemographic, and religious characteristics with perception of the potential for eco‐catastrophe. We employ the treadmill of production theory to frame our understanding of views about ecological concerns, arguing that the treadmill discourse associated with economic development is hegemonic and fundamentally shapes public views of eco‐catastrophe. In line with this approach, economic ideology is the strongest predictor of attitudes about eco‐catastrophe, and its influence is conditioned by political identity. There is also significant patterning in these perceptions based on gender, race, education, and religion, but the influence of social characteristics is primarily indirect—mediated by economic ideology and political identity. These results provide useful information for addressing environmental problems in public discourse and bridging policy divides.     

“Revenge” and “Rescue”: Workplace Deviance in the Taxicab Industry*

This study explores taxicab drivers’ acts of “revenge” and “rescue,” some of which are expressive acts, while others are more instrumental. This article builds on earlier theories of workplace deviance, demonstrating how deviance can serve different purposes and expanding the concept of “deviance admiration” ( Heckert and Heckert 2004 ). It examines deviance in a circumstance—the taxicab industry—which introduces a tension between mandated conformity and necessary deviance: employees must conform to the employers’ rules and yet, to accomplish their jobs well, they need to abandon those rules occasionally. In addition to its theoretical contributions, this work has important practical applications for managers.     

Between “Families in Trouble” and “Children at Risk”: Historicising “Troubled Family” Policy in England since 1945

The launch of the Troubled Families Programme in 2011 has thrown into sharp relief how governments develop policies and practices to intervene in the lives of so‐called ‘troubled families’. Commentators were quick to make comparisons with historic efforts to rehabilitate ‘problem families’ in the post‐war period. However, beyond discursive similarities, there are also marked continuities in how family policies have been developed and implemented. This review narrates the rise, fall and rise of concern about ‘problem’ and ‘troubled’ families in England in the context of anxieties about child and family welfare, and the appropriate response of the state.     

Representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the Discourse of Lafcadio Hearn Studies

The purpose of this article is to analyze representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the discourse of research on Lafcadio Hearn (“Hearn studies”) from pre‐war Japan. The nature and construction of nationality will be analyzed by examining where the representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” intersected. During the 1900s, researchers in the field of Hearn studies recognized that “Japan” lacked—and thus sought—a universality similar to what existed in “the West.” The tone of the discourse shifted during the 1910s through 1920s however, and what came to be emphasized was “Japan's” peculiarity. By the 1930s through 1940s, “Japan” aimed to show to “the West” a new universality that was different from what existed in Europe and America. Yet simultaneously, in order to legitimize its representation of its self, “Japan” portrayed “the Periphery” as an object that was both excluded and absorbed or appropriated into that image. On the one hand, “Japan” received and internalized the Orientalist viewpoint of “the West.” In fact, “Japan” was always conscious of its self‐image as something to display to “the West.” On the other hand, in order to create that self‐portrayal, both a representation of “the Periphery” and a reflection from that same “Periphery” were essential. While representations of “Japan” were produced, reproduced, and reinforced through interactions with “the West” and “the Periphery,” the intersecting behavior of these three entities also points to a residual ambiguity in “Japan's” nationality. By analyzing the discourse in Hearn studies, this paper reveals how the interaction between “Japan” and the two others of “the West” and “the Periphery” helped construct and destabilize its nationality.     

“Whistleblower” or “Renegade”: Definitional Contests in an Official Inquiry

This paper addresses the interpretive dynamics of official inquiries. Beginning with an ideal-typical sketch of congressional investigations, the discussion traces a portrayal of public problems by a committee of the House of Representatives. This leads to the analysis of a hearing in which committee factions struggled to define an Air Force administrator as a “whistleblower” or a “renegade.” The hearing is understood as a “certification ceremony” that rhetorically transformed staff discoveries into allegedly definitive evidence. It is concluded that the paper's conceptual approach can be applied to diverse inquiries that combine documentary research with interrogation of witnesses to generate authoritative findings.     

Between “Here” and “There”: Immigrant Cross‐Border Activities and Loyalties

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the prevalence and determinants of cross‐state social exchanges and attachments among Latin American immigrants living in the United States. As we shall show, using data from a recent survey of Latin American migrants living in the United States, migrant cross‐state social action comes in a variety of types, with the direction of conditioning factors differing from one type to another. Moreover, social and political incorporation in the United States reduces affective ties and provision of material support, all the while facilitating other forms of cross‐state social action. Consequently, while international migrants regularly engage in trans‐state social action, the paper shows that neither transnationalism as condition of being, nor transmigrants, as distinctive class of people, is commonly found.