Negotiating race and place in the Garifuna Diaspora: Identity formation and transnational grassroots politics in New York City and Honduras

This paper is an exploration of the relations between the politics of identity and the socio‐economic and political processes of the current era of globalization. Using ethnographic material from the transnational grassroots organizations of the Garinagu—an Afro‐Indigenous population living in transnational communities between Central America and the US—I show the multiple ways that they articulate their identity between and among the tropes of “autocthony,” “blackness,” “Hispanic,” “diaspora,” and “nation.” This construction and negotiation of identity is intimately connected to the negotiation of rights vis‐à‐vis nation‐states and international political bodies, where ideologies of race, ethnicity, nation, and citizenship carry with them different implications for rights and belonging. I argue that the complexities of this case point to the uneven processes of globalization, within which the power to define the ideological terrain of economic and political struggles is still profoundly unequal.     

Anchors,Habitus, and Practices Besieged by War: Women and Gender in the Blockade of Leningrad

As war challenges survival and social relations, how do actors alter and adapt dispositions and practices? To explore this question, I investigate women's perceptions of normal relations, practices, status, and gendered self in an intense situation of wartime survival, the Blockade of Leningrad (1941–1944), an 872‐day ordeal that demographically feminized the city. Using Blockade diaries for data on everyday life, perceptions, and practices, I show how women's gendered skills and habits of breadseeking and caregiving (finding scarce resources and providing aid) were key to survival and helped elevate their sense of status. Yet this did not entice rethinking “gender.” To explore status elevation and gender entrenchment, I build on Bourdieu's theory of habitus and fields to develop anchors: field entities with valence around which actors orient identities and practices. Anchors provide support for preexisting habitus and practices, and filter perceptions from new positions vis‐à‐vis fields and concrete relations. Essentialist identities and practices were reinforced through two processes involving anchors. New status was linked to “women's work” that aided survival of anchors (close others, but also factories and the city), reinforcing acceptance of gender positions. Women perceived that challenging gender relations and statuses could risk well‐being of anchors, reconstructing gender essentialism.     

Embodying the breach: (In)securitization and ethnographic engagement in the US

In this commentary, the author offers three related perspectives regarding (in)securitization: first, an overview of ongoing discussions taking place among US‐based ethnographers of colour about the effects of surveillance on ethnography; second, an example of the impact that (in)securitization may have on the researcher/researched relationship in contemporary ethnographic research; and third, an extension of Garfinkel’s notion of the “breach” within the current sociopolitical context. Throughout this essay, the author calls for a greater sense of connection to and solidarity with those “vulnerable subjects” that we engage with ethnographically.     

Anti‐Racism in Movement: Afro‐Brazilian Afoxé and Contemporary Black Brazilian Struggles for Equality

This paper examines the Afro‐Brazilian afoxé as a form of cultural struggle that critically contests narratives and practices that reproduce racial inequality in contemporary Brazil. Through their afoxé in the interior of São Paulo, the Orùnmilá Cultural Center mobilizes Afro‐Brazilian knowledge and cultural practices to challenge culturalist treatments of Afro‐Brazilian “difference” in the management and representation of carnaval. I explore how such treatments reflect broader state‐orchestrated attempts to undermine black anti‐racism and the implementation of substantive policies to address racial inequality in various spheres, including education and culture. The afoxé and the Orùnmilá Center's broader work constitute an important, contemporary means through which black organizations in Brazil make visible and vocal public claims for representation and self‐determination. Such work pushes policy‐makers and academics to reinterpret the terms of black inclusion vis‐à‐vis subaltern or “other” cultures, historical experiences, perspectives, and participation in societal transformation.     

Sexual Harassment and the Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge

It is not uncommon for women researchers to experience sexualized interactions, sexual objectification, and harassment as they conduct fieldwork. Nevertheless, these experiences are often left out of ethnographers’ “tales from the field” and remain unaddressed within our discipline. In this article, we use women's experiences with harassment in the field to interrogate the epistemological foundations of ethnographic methodology within the discipline of sociology. Based on more than 50 qualitative interviews, we examine three “fixations” of contemporary ethnography that inform women ethnographers’ understandings of and reactions to harassment in the field. These fixations are solitude, danger, and intimacy. Our data show that these fixations not only put researchers in danger but also have implications for the construction of ethnographic knowledge. They contribute to silence surrounding sexual harassment, and are motivated by and reproduce androcentric norms that valorize certain types of fieldwork. We argue that acknowledging and analyzing experiences with harassment and other unwanted sexual attention in the field is part of a more fully developed understanding of ethnographic research itself.     

Norms and Survival in the Heat of War: Normative Versus Instrumental Rationalities and Survival Tactics in the Blockade of Leningrad1

When war challenges civilian survival, what shapes the balance between normative and instrumental rationalities in survival practices? Increasing desperation and uncertainty can lead civilians to focus on their own material interests and to violate norms in the name of survival or gain—to the detriment of the war effort and of other civilians. Do norms, boundaries against transgressions, and considerations of collective interests and identities persist, and, if so, through what mechanisms? Using diaries and recollections from the 872‐day Blockade of Leningrad (1941–1944)—an extreme case of wartime desperation—this article examines how three forms of cultural embeddedness shape variation in the strength of norms against calculative, instrumental rationality. Proximity and empathy with others, the structure of norms and analogies to legitimate instrumental practices, and reflexivity vis‐à‐vis war and others’ response interact dialectically with the war context to shape variation in violating norms and rationalizing transgressions. Theft of food and cannibalism, which involve tactics of survival or gain that also risk the well‐being of victims (theft) or violation of a powerful taboo (cannibalism), demonstrate the weakness of norms on the margins but their power when core norms or other real, visible individuals are threatened.     

A Fractured Transnational Diaspora: The Case of Zimbabweans in Britain

Millions of Zimbabweans living abroad have been described as an emerging diaspora. However, there has been little attempt to question their designation as a diaspora, or indeed, to engage with the more theoretically informed and conceptually rich literature on diaspora. The assumption in this categorisation relies heavily upon popular usage of the term diaspora among Zimbabweans themselves both abroad and in the homeland. However, instead of suppressing discussion by simply pronouncing them “a diaspora”, it is important to examine whether or not they constitute a diaspora. Drawing on the concepts of diaspora and transnationalism and on the author’s multi‐sited ethnographic research in the United Kingdom (hereafter, “Britain”), the article examines how the diaspora was dispersed, how it is constituted in the hostland and how it maintains connections with the homeland. What factors influenced people’s decisions to migrate into the diaspora and how can these phases be classified? What types of migration patterns characterise Zimbabweans’ migration to Britain? The study explores the origin, formation and articulation of the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain, providing a conceptual and theoretical interpretation of the social formation vis‐à‐vis other accounts of global diasporas. The findings of this study suggest that Zimbabweans abroad are a fractured transnational diaspora. The scattering of Zimbabweans evinces some of the features commonly ascribed to a diaspora such as involuntary and voluntary dispersion of the population from the homeland; settlement in foreign territories and uneasy relationship with the hostland; strong attachment and connection to the original homeland; and the maintenance of diverse diasporic identities. The study represents a contribution to our knowledge of the Zimbabwean diaspora in particular and to the field of diaspora and transnational studies in general.     

Single Mothers “Do” Family

This paper explores how single mothers both incorporate others into family life (e.g., when they ask others to care for their children) and simultaneously “do families” in a manner that holds out a vision of a “traditional” family structure. Drawing on research with White, rural single mothers, the author explores the manner in which these women both endorse their children’s attachment to other caregivers and maintain boundaries around issues of discipline and attachment vis‐à‐vis these others. The author demonstrates that single mothers are willing to share this protected realm of family life with a new man (a fiancé or cohabiting boyfriend) as they pursue the goal of what has been called the “Standard North American Family.”     

Language and (in)securitization: Observations from educational research and practice in conflict‐affected contexts

Spurred in part by violent conflict and natural disaster, the surge in global migration calls for renewed attention to the central role of language in everyday (in)securitization. In this brief response, I draw on my work in the Middle East and among Arabic‐speaking populations in the United States to offer some illustration of the instantiation of global, macro‐processes of (in)securitization and surveillance in the everyday micro‐practices of schooling—issues that are possible to “see” when language policy is the site of inquiry. In centring everyday communicative practice, sociolinguistics provides a distinctive entry point for examining the lived experience of this (in)securitization, by illuminating pervasive and mundane micro‐processes within the “extraordinary” and routinized social interactions of everyday schooling.     

COMMUNICATING THREAT: The Canadian State and Terrorism

Canada's position vis‐à‐vis September 11 differs substantially from the United States’ in both circumstance and rhetoric. Although Canada was not the target of the terrorist attack, the United States is Canada's closest neighbor. In the words of the Prime Minister in the weeks following September 11, the United States is “more like family than friends.” Given this, how has the terrorist threat been interpreted for and communicated to the public by the Canadian state? Through ethnographic content analyses of the documents (speeches and press releases) found on the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Web site, we consider the communications by the Canadian state with respect to the events of September 11. We analyze this information within the overarching frameworks of risk and trust. In terms of risk, we examine the Prime Minister's communications and the framing of this communication as it relates to the discourse of probable harm and/or benefit. As for trust, we consider the emphasis on reputation and how this affects the information provided and its delivery. These risk/trust underpinnings speak to the Canadian state's construction of security, security threats, and the construction of the Canadian state more generally.     

Toward a Critical Phenomenology of "Illegality": State Power, Criminalization, and Abjectivity among Undocumented Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel

Given the vast scope and magnitude of the phenomenon of so‐called “illegal” migration in the present historical moment, this article contends that phenomenologically engaged ethnography has a crucial role to play in sensitizing not only anthropologists, but also policymakers, politicians, and broader publics to the complicated, often anxiety‐ridden and frightening realities associated with “the condition of migrant illegality,” both of specific host society settings and comparatively across the globe. In theoretical terms, the article constitutes a preliminary attempt to link pressing questions in the fields of legal anthropology and anthropology of transnational migration, on one hand, with recent work by phenomenologically oriented scholars interested in the anthropology of experience, on the other. The article calls upon ethnographers of undocumented transnational migration to bridge these areas of scholarship by applying what can helpfully be characterized as a “critical phenomenological” approach to the study of migrant “illegality” (Willen, 2006; see also Desjarlais, 2003). This critical phenomenological approach involves a three‐dimensional model of illegality: first, as a form of juridical status; second, as a sociopolitical condition; and third, as a mode of being‐in‐the‐world. In developing this model, the article draws upon 26 non‐consecutive months of ethnographic field research conducted within the communities of undocumented West African (Nigerian and Ghanaian) and Filipino migrants in Tel Aviv, Israel, between 2000 and 2004. During the first part of this period, “illegal” migrants in Israel were generally treated as benign, excluded “Others.” Beginning in mid‐2002, however, a resource‐intensive, government‐sponsored campaign of mass arrest and deportation reconfigured the condition of migrant “illegality” in Israel and, in effect, transformed these benign “Others” into wanted criminals. By analyzing this transformation the article highlights the profound significance of examining not only the judicial and sociopolitical dimensions of what it means to be “illegal” but also its impact on migrants' modes of being‐in‐the‐world.     

On Being Not Canadian: The Social Organization of “Migrant Workers” in Canada*

Se fondant sur la méthode d'ethnographie institutionnelle de Dorothy E. Smith, l'auteure étudie l'organisation sociale de notre connaissance des gens catégorisés comme non‐immigrants ou « tra‐vailleurs migrants ». À la suite de l'étude du Non‐Immigrant Employment Authorization Program (NIEAP) du gouvernement canadien (1973), elle montre l'importance de la pratique idéologique raciste et nationaliste des États à l'endroit de l'organisation matérielle du marché du travail compétitif « canadien » dans le cadre d'un capitalisme mondial restructuré de même que la réorganisation qui en résulte des notions d'esprit national canadien. Elle montre aussi que la pratique discursive des parlementaires qui consiste à considérer certaines personnes comme des « problèmes » pour les « Canadiens » ne provient pas de l'exclusion physique de ces «étrangers » mais plutôt de leur differentiation idéologique et matérielle des Canadiens une fois qu'ils vivent et travaillent dans la société canadienne. Utilizing Dorothy E. Smith's method of institutional ethnography, I investigate the social organization of our knowledge of people categorized as non‐immigrants or “migrant workers.” By examining Canada's 1973 Non‐immigrant Employment Authorization Program (NIEAP), I show the importance of racist and nationalist ideological state practice to the material organization of the competitive “Canadian” labour market within a restructured global capitalism and the resultant reorganization of notions of Canadian nationhood. I show that the parliamentary discursive practice of producing certain people as “problems” for “Canadians” results not in the physical exclusion of those constructed as “foreigners” but in their ideological and material differentiation from Canadians, once such people are living and working within Canadian society. Expressions such as…“foreigner”… and so on, denoting certain types of lesser or negative identities are in actuality congealed practices and forms of violence or relations of domination… This violence and its constructive or representative attempts have become so successful or hegemonic that they have become transparent—holding in place the ruler's claimed superior self, named or identified in myriad ways, and the inadequacy and inferiority of those who are ruled. — Himani Bannerji.     

Gendering Resistance: Multiple Faces of the Kurdish Women's Struggle

The article explores the Kurdish women's movement in Turkey by bridging two forms of resistance: those of guerrilla women fighters and of activist women. Based on my extensive ethnographic and archival research, I ask how women under conditions of war engage in different modes of resistance. In what ways does the “heroic resistance” of guerrilla women resonate with and/or contradict the everyday, “ordinary” struggles of activist women? The potent image of the Kurdish guerrilla woman that emerged in the early 1990s is constitutive of many other modes of political subjectivities, even among women who do not or cannot become guerrillas. One of those subjectivities is that of the activist woman. My analysis suggests that women's activism opens up a middle ground of action between “heroic” and “ordinary” resistance by reconciling revolutionary politics with everyday activism around gender‐based violence, democracy, and human rights. Although both revolutionary movement participants and scholars of revolutionary resistance often contrast the “ordinary” with the realm of armed resistance, this article challenges this dichotomy. I take the two realms of resistance—the ordinary and the heroic—as the core constituents of revolutionary resistance, and I reconsider the gendered interplay between them.     

School Discipline,Race, and the Discursive Construction of the “Deficient” Student

Abstract

Research has demonstrated how, in the current era of mass incarceration, the punitive arm of the state now extends beyond traditional criminal justice structures into institutions typically associated with providing care or a social good. The negative effects of this shift have disproportionately impacted marginalized populations, particularly low-income black and Latino communities. This article examines one way that this extension has manifested in the realm of public education. Based on ethnographic data from a public Grade 6–12 Disciplinary Alternative Education Program (DAEP) in Texas, this article scrutinizes the program’s behavioral rules and disciplinary procedures. The analysis focuses on students’ introductory experience to the DAEP as a “strategic research site” to illuminate the program’s formal objectives, methods to achieve their institutional goals, and their intended effects on students. I find that the practices and procedures in place at the DAEP operate through racializing surveillance to constitute “disciplinary technologies” devoted to the transformation of “culturally deficient” students—a racialized and gendered classification—into docile bodies. Students are disciplined through punitive and rehabilitative methods premised on the discursive construction of “deficient” students and families.     

The Importance of “Empty Gestures” in Recovery: Being Human Together

What do clients/patients want or value from their encounters with healthcare providers? Based on ethnographic research conducted with individuals suffering from drug addiction and mental health issues, this article argues that clients/patients treasure “everyday” or “human” interaction with medical staff. Everydayness is accomplished through three generic social processes: **co‐silence, inclusion in back‐stage activity, and physical dramatizations of authenticity. These processes and other ordinary interactional strategies for “being human together” should be seen as vital tools for recovery.     

“Should I Trust the Bank or the Social Movement?” Motivated Reasoning and Debtors' Work to Accept Misinformation

How can people believe corporate and state misinformation even if a social movement organization in their community has been countering this misinformation for years? Why do people knowingly accept misinformation without even being upset about it? I address these questions by analyzing ethnographic data and interviews with 84 Chilean low‐income housing debtors, whom, like many Chileans, are victims of financial misinformation. While the state and banks had significant agency in inducing the unproblematic acceptance of misinformation, debtors also played an active role in the processes. First, debtors had to decide whom to trust, which was not only a cognitive problem about evidence but also a behavioral and practical problem involving risks. Second, debtors engaged in “motivated reasoning”—affect‐driven biased information processing—to dismiss the possibility of being misinformed, to downplay the significance of misinformation, and to direct blame away from misinforming institutions. The latter two practices reduced debtors' anger about being misinformed. The findings have implications for studies of social movement framing and counterinformation, for the cognitive psychology of misinformation, and for the sociology and social psychology of acquiescence.     

Thinking Beyond the Homely: Countryside Properties and the Shape of Time

This article investigates the nature of the homely in England today. Focusing on the work of one developer—Countryside Properties—I ask what the popularity of the neo-vernacular “urban village,” and the tactics used to construct this genre, might tell us about homely ideals and demands. First considering, then dismissing, postmodern claims of the nostalgia-driven consumption of simulacra, I go on to propose that people are not deceived into purchasing the “inauthentic,” but knowingly enter into pacts with “instantly mature” environments. What matters, I suggest, is not so much surface evocation of the Past, but the constructed texture of Passed Time, and the sense of narrative evolution that this confers to both site and individual dwelling. Building on theories of “authenticity” as not inherent to things, but a quality that emerges in our environments through our relationships with them, I propose that the homely too is not an identifiable essence or “sense of place,” but an interaction of body and mind with environment. That being the case, in order to be receptive to our homely needs and desires, might environments be designed to proactively offer spaces for these to take root? Concluding, the article takes theory back to practice by considering the relevance of such ideas to housing development, and to evolving practices of inhabitation.     

Some Reflections of an Existential Approach to Education in Social Work

To look at social work education implies that we look first at the young people to whom we offer it and in doing so I feel we must ask—who are they; what are the values motivating them and what are some of the issues that have earned for them the name “new generation”? Unless we have some understanding of these motivating factors, I don't think we are in any position to presume to educate them.     

Making Sense of Neoliberal Securitization in Urban Policing and Surveillance

Grâce à une analyse historique des fonctions de surveillance de police civile, cet article examine comment la titrisation civile se déroule en traitant disciplinaire‐surveillance et de sécurité‐surveillance des pratiques distinctes et des appareils qui fonctionnent respectivement à des moyens “centripètes” et “centrifuge” et en reconfigurant triangulation de Foucault de la gouvernance d'une matrice à deux par deux: la souveraineté‐gouvernement et de la discipline‐sécurité. Cet article montre comment la titrisation de police civile s'aligne avec la transformation actuelle du gouvernement à partir d'un centripète (Keynésienne) d'une centrifuge (néolibéral) la rationalité politique. Cela revêt une importance plus large de recherche: où la rationalité politique favorise l’équilibre n'avons‐nous pas trouver une prépondérance de la discipline‐surveillance? Où déséquilibre est promu n'avons‐nous pas trouver une prépondérance de la sécurité‐surveillance? Through a historic analysis of the surveillance functions of civil policing, this article considers how securitization is taking place by treating disciplinary surveillance and security surveillance as distinct practices and apparatuses that, respectively, function in “centripetal” and “centrifugal” ways and by reconfiguring Foucault's triangulation of governance to a two‐by‐two matrix: sovereignty government and discipline security. This article shows how the securitization of civil policing aligns with the current governmental transformation from a centripetal (Keynesian) to a centrifugal (neoliberal) governmentality. This has broader research significance: where governmentality promotes equilibrium do we not find a preponderance of disciplinary surveillance? Where disequilibrium is promoted do we not find a preponderance of security surveillance?