Giving voice: A personal essay on the shape of sociolinguistics

From the vantage point of 21 years editing the Journal of Sociolinguistics, I survey and assess the shape of our field. I identify six strands or trends that I see in play over that time: language and society, social theorization, the centralization of style, diversification, new orthodoxies and a sense of history. I advocate in particular for a sociolinguistics of voice, especially so the voices that are unheard or muffled in society may be given an audience. In closing I pay tribute to the exceptional colleagues with whom I have worked on the Journal over these years.     

Effluence, “waste” and African Humanism: extra-anthropocentric being and human rightness*

Abstract

I propose a extra-anthropocentric contextualisation of normative human rights as human rightness. To undo the normative construction of the human, I turn to a theory of the effluent. I argue effluent communities, defined as communities who have never depended on the state, re-envision normative human rights. Effluent communities suggest the necessity for a rethinking of the centrality of the state in Butlerian conceptions of precarity and grievability, since effluent communities have never found the state to be a source of such security. Further, I observe that this decentring of the state points to limitations in forms of postcolonial critical resistance that pose the state (be it colonial or postcolonial) as an adversary; or simply deconstruct the impossibility of the state’s support of the human through postmodernist scepticism. I analyse Mphahlele’s specific reading of African Humanism, demonstrating that it offers a way to grieve material being that is extrinsic to the lenses of the state, racially inflected abjection and subject/object-human/non-human animal binaries. Rather than name a set of effluent communities, I propose an exemplary bearing witness to the material dying/dead, instantiating what is commonly regarded as waste, if not toxic dirt, as the occasion for a practice of extra-anthropocentric human rightness.     

Private thoughts and public actions:: A commentary on articles dealing with ethical issues in evaluation

This commentary represents a personal reaction to seven articles on ethical issues in evaluation. The author of the commentary begins with two assumptions: (1) Professional evaluators might not have the vocabulary and constructs to analyze their thoughts and actions in ethical terms, and (2) professional evaluators have often confronted troubling situations that probably contain ethical issues embedded within them. Consequently, she queries the seven articles individually and collectively in terms of the following questions: 1. What is the range of ethical problems I might encounter as an evaluator; and how do I recognize the ethical characteristics of professional dilemmas? 2. How do I describe troubling evaluation problems I have encountered that seem to have an ethical component? 3. What are some approaches I have used or might use in thinking about a proper course of action? 4. How do I know if, in a given situation, I have behaved ethically? 5. Where do we go from here?     

Measuring opportunity inequality with monetary transfers

In this paper I consider the problem of measuring opportunity inequality when monetary transfers are possible. First, I consider the case in which agents have common evaluations (or identical preferences), as in the previous literature. I then propose an extension to the heterogeneous case. In both cases I identify an appropriate egalitarian benchmark relative to which inequality can be measured, and I establish that this yields a theory of measurement analogous to that of income inequality. Consequently, the introduction of money (or an infinitely divisible commodity) avoids the difficulty reported in Ok (J Econ Theory 77:300–329, 1997). The results of the paper are immediately applicable to the measurement of multidimensional economic inequality including economies with indivisible goods.     

“I Am Not a Prostitute”: How Young Black Women Challenge Street-based Micro-interactional Assaults

ABSTRACT

Few scholars have examined the collective experiences of young African American women living in the inner city and their strategies for navigating daily life there. I draw on nearly two years of field research in Central East Oakland, CA, to provide an ethnographic account of the daily experiences of poor young black women in urban public space¹. I uncover a particular and routine type of public encounter, street-based micro-interactional assaults, that follow a pattern and are shaped by an act or a threat of sexual violence. I also examine how poor black women feel about and negotiate these events while trying to maintain their own safety.     

Coming Out as “We 3”

Abstract

Using an academic letter format, I use a blended-method-ological approach of personal ethnography and qualitative case study to assess the three-partner, gay male relationship and the role of parental support. In working to understand better the relational “We 3,” I first provide an account of my relational experience with two other men. I discuss the process of our coming together and then make a methodological turn to provide insights from both e-mail and face-to-face interviews with one set of parents who have supported their gay son in his three-partner relationship. As I, personally, have not had an in-depth conversation with my own parents regarding this issue, I use the parental case study to bridge an academic conversation regarding the negotiation of what might be termed a second or relational coming out process with parents. Finally, I discuss how insights from the first, personal coming out process provided the parents with tools to keep the conversation going and to support their son's relational coming out as a “We 3.”     

Revisiting the Creating of Settings

I begin by briefly indicating the personal experiences that stimulated me to write the book. I do so because I have come to believe that crucial to the creation of a setting is the range and substance of the leaders' personal and cognitive past experiences in and with complicated settings, and I would also include the length of time of past experience. The shorter the time span of past experience, the more difficult the process will appear, independent of outcome judged by criteria of success or failure. If I had to bet, I would have to say that the shorter that time span, the quicker the criteria for failure will be recognized and the higher the frequency of the death of the setting. I say that not because a longer time span of past experience necessarily indicates that appropriate conclusions have been drawn or that increased age means increased wisdom. What it does mean is that the chances that conclusions appropriate to the creation of a setting have been learned are somewhat higher. Overall, however, the rate of failure is very high. The setting may remain in existence, but its initial purpose may have been long discarded or drastically changed. One could argue that there are instances when these changed purposes should have been discarded. The fact is that we do not know and probably will never know because, as I later indicate, the creation of settings is not likely to be an area of investigation.     

Sincere voting in models of legislative elections

An assumption of sincere voting for one's most preferred candidate is frequently invoked in models of electoral competition in which the elected legislature consists of more than a single candidate or party. Similarly, such an assumption is more-or-less implicit in many normative discussions of the relative merits of alternative methods for electing a representative assembly. Voters, however, have preferences over policy outcomes—which are determined by the ex post elected legislature—and not over candidates per se. This paper examines the extent to which the sincere voting assumption is legitimate in a wide class of strategic models of legislative elections. The finding is negative, and this has direct implications for the interpretation of conlusions drawn from models—formal or otherwise—which impose sincere voting as an assumption.This paper is a revised version of CalTech Social Science Working Paper #637, and was written while I was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Much of the paper is a result of the efforts of John Ledyard to understand what I was trying to say about the problem. I am extremely grateful for his help, and for his insistence that I look for a theorem and not simply a set of examples. I am also grateful to Kim Border for providing the structure of a proof for one of the results. Despite their imput, I retain all responsibility for any remaining errors and ambiguities.     

Burnout: The end of the line or a signal for change?

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explore my own experiences and professional choices through an examination of the concept of burnout in social work.

I have set out to use some aspects of the research and theory about the concept of burnout and relate them to the particular circumstances of my case. After a brief introduction and examination of what burnout is, I divide the paper into three sections dealing with the social and historical factors in burnout, the individual factors and the organizational factors.

I have attempted to show a connecting thread throughout, linking the various factors through the theme of disillusionment. It appears that the problem of dealing with omnipotence and accepting reality are as germane to this topic as they are to the individual's development. I have also attempted to draw an analogy between the factors that may aid this developmental task and organizational factors which can contribute to or help prevent burnout.     

Premarital Sex,Premarital Cohabitation,and the Risk of Subsequent Marital Dissolution Among Women

Using nationally representative data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, I estimate the association between intimate premarital relationships (premarital sex and premarital cohabitation) and subsequent marital dissolution. I extend previous research by considering relationship histories pertaining to both premarital sex and premarital cohabitation. I find that premarital sex or premarital cohabitation that is limited to a woman's husband is not associated with an elevated risk of marital disruption. However, women who have more than one intimate premarital relationship have an increased risk of marital dissolution. These results suggest that neither premarital sex nor premarital cohabitation by itself indicate either preexisting characteristics or subsequent relationship environments that weaken marriages. Indeed, the findings are consistent with the notion that premarital sex and cohabitation limited to one's future spouse has become part of the normal courtship process for marriage.     

Social work organizations-constructive or destructive

Abstract

Are social work organizations constructive or destructive? What can they, or could they, be? I assume that the conference theme of loss and growth has been addressed in relation to work with children and families. That theme is present in my thoughts, too, some of which I hope to share with you. Social workers work within an organization, whose nature must inevitably affect how they can work with children and families. This is an underlying assumption of this paper, although you may find it elaborated at times. At a very simple level, for example, if the organization is suffering loss - loss of resources, personnel, of value, regard or esteem, loss of security or conviction or direction - any worker will have a different task when working with a child suffering loss than if the organization was secure and optimistic. The inner self would have a different, internalised core to receive projections, distortions or rejection.     

Coexistence not Reconciliation: From Communal Violence to Non-Violence in North Maluku,Eastern Indonesia

Cultural approaches to reconciliation, those based on ‘traditional’ practices for peacemaking, have attracted the attention of scholars looking at post-conflict regions in Indonesia. Numerous observers have pointed to the revitalisation of the Tobelo adat notion of hibualamo in the province of North Maluku as a successful example of this approach. This paper disputes those conclusions and explores local strategies for peacebuilding and reactions to these strategies in post-conflict North Halmahera. I compare grassroots understandings of ‘reconciliation’ with those of the local elite behind this revitalisation effort. I also debate the concept of reconciliation as it has been applied to the region. Applying the concept of reconciliation, with its connotations of a positive peace, to the post-conflict situation in North Maluku is more of an idealistic view of the potentialities for peace than an actual reflection of reality. I suggest it is more appropriate to describe the situation as one of coexistence or negative peace.     

Seeing through transparency: Performativity,vision and intent 1

Abstract

This paper engages with debates around transformations in the production and circulation of images and the changes in modes of perception that these offer. Paul Virilio (1991, 1994) has argued that technological developments have produced a shift in the site of meaning‐production from the material reference space of the image (print or celluloid) to the time of visual contact by the viewer. I consider what significance these temporalities have in relation to social difference, and I develop debates around the performative to consider how the viewer is constituted in visual performativity. This focus on time and performativity opens up questions of how vision may constitute the agency, intention and responsibility of the viewer. Drawing on an example of visual irony in advertising, I explore how the temporal suspension of meanings allows for a suspension of the terms of intent and responsibility. This visual performative accesses and reworks the terms of social difference and privilege in what I have called ‘retroactive intentionality’.     

Standpoint theory and middle-range theorizing in International Sociology

This paper responds to Julian Go's Lecture “Thinking against Empire. Anti-colonial Thought and Social Theory.” It proceeds in two parts: I first follow Go's invitation to read and reread Mabel Dove Danquah and Frantz Fanon and explore what their work contributes to our understanding of state-forms. I then examine the terms of Go's invitation more closely. I contrast Go's juxtaposition of imperial sociology on the one hand and anti-colonial sociology on the other hand, with the broader range of theoretical traditions and methods, which a practice-oriented sociology of sociology and an international history of sociology would highlight. I raise the question what “standpoint” adds to the authors Go discusses and the broader range of scholars who have engaged with post-colonial contexts in their research at this point in time. Calling for consideration of the anti-colonial standpoint is a particular choice, which has a distinctive heritage in Hegelian-Marxian projections of the social whole and is in tension with either deep exploration of particular thinkers or the middle-range theorizing that Go also seems to endorse. Defined at a level of abstraction that is “above” (or underneath) actual conversations in a range of fields and subfields, it can appear as a “test” for scholars who have long engaged with post-colonial contexts, which can have unintended consequences when coupled with the institutional power and asymmetric insularity of Anglo-American academia.     

Homelessness in Sweden–discussion,patterns, and causes

In a number of countries in Western Europe and in North America homelessness has come to the fore once again over the last 15-20 years, a fact to which many books and surveys bear witness. In a number of countries, organizations have been formed both for and by the homeless.¹Newspapers sold on the street to promote the cause of the homeless are becoming an increasingly common sight.²Despite this trend there is at present still no generally acknowledged explanation of the cause of homelessness and we do not know whether the causes are the same in the social democratic European welfare states, in the USA and Canada, or in countries with a poorly developed welfare system. Nor do we know whether homelessness for the individual is a short-term or permanent state. This article highlights Swedish homelessness. It is based on the results of a research project which I ran from 1993 to 1998.³The article has three objectives. First, I wish to provide a brief presentation of the issue of Swedish homelessness using, among other things, a study of how the media have dealt with the issue. Secondly, I wish to discuss the pattern of homelessness in Sweden and provide an explanation of why the length of homelessness varies. Thirdly, I wish to highlight the question of how we explain why people can be homeless in a country where social welfare and housing policies have, decade after decade, been directed at eradicating housing problems. The last two questions were highlighted in a case study conducted by me in Malmö, the country's third largest city.     

Majority voting rules and the union success rate in national labor relations board representation elections

This paper simulates how the union success rate in representation elections would be affected if the NLRB reverted from its current simple-majority voting rule to its original majority-in-unit voting rule. Such a rule change would have altered 21 percent of decertification and 16 percent of certification victories over the period 1977–81, resulting in the loss of 180,400 actual or potential bargaining unit members for the union movement. Abstentions play an important role in election outcomes. Under the present voting rule unions have no clear advantage to “get out the vote” in decertification elections, but a clear disadvantage in certification elections. Under a majority-in-unit rule unions hold an advantage when they “get out the vote” in all representation elections. I would like to thank Mike Bognanno, Jim Dworkin, Paul Schumann, two reviewers, and the editor for helpful comments and David Wilson for excellent research assistance. I would also like to thank the NLRB for providing the election data tape.     

Pharmaceutical Intimacy: Sex,Death, and Methamphetamine

ABSTRACT

In this article, I draw from ethnographic work conducted among residents of an “in-house” drug and alcohol treatment center in Baltimore, Maryland, to discuss the relationships born of pharmaceutical (ab)use. By looking in close detail at the autobiographical accounts of one man in treatment for addiction to methamphetamine, I attempt to chart the way life and death are at times brought into close proximity, and at others wedged firmly apart, by such things as love and avoidance. My concern is with the ethics of care that emerge through the so-called “small events” in everyday relations; that so often define a life or a relationship as falling under the category “normal” or “pathological.” I ask how such things as the known demands placed on the body by the need to maintain or avoid relations, whether pharmaceutically mediated or not, come to bear on the decision to “let die” or the resurgence of moral worlds. I end by discussing the different aspects of relatedness revealed by the dependencies and alliances formed by the kinship between pharmaceuticals and humans.

In compliance with current ethical research standards, the names of all informants have been changed to assure their anonymity.     

Digital Introspection Within Learning-on-my-Own Rhetoric Among Computer Gamers

In activity theory, most studies have focused on examining learning centered around interactions with peers or mentors; but the personal learning frame centered on externalization of internal activity is yet to be fully examined. I performed an ethnographic study of a computer-mediated form of such self-teaching activity in the electronic sport game StarCraft. I found that expert players relied significantly on digitally-mediated introspection—self-examination and critique of personal practices mediated by digital archives—to reveal psychological contradictions which become new objects of learning. I argue that psychological contradiction is a useful concept for examining self-teaching activities within computerized environments.     

Mutuality in Relationships with Health Care Providers

Abstract

I have had a mobility impairment for many years and have experienced repeated trauma at the hands of medical personnel. They have withheld anesthesia and postoperative pain medication, insisting that I had no pain. Physicians have also refused to believe that I have been physically active, and have minimized the degree of impairment that I described. They hold the same biases about people with disabilities as do most people: that we are lazy and weak, and that we do not try hard enough. Despite my ongoing attempts at self advocacy, my orthopedist has made unilateral decisions about my treatment goals and the management of my diseased joints. These have caused me to wear out other joints, until I am significantly impaired and can work only a few hours a week. He then began to treat me differently, since his preconceptions prevented him from seeing me as an individual with unique abilities facing attitudinal and physical barriers. Our relationship was the only tool available to me to attempt to break down his prejudices to stop the harm he was causing me. I will describe a series of oppressive medical provider relationships. I will then demonstrate my attempts to assert myself as an essential mutual partner in decisions about my goals, and show the limitations of this approach in the presence of a great power differential.