From “Swinging Hard” to “Rocking Out”: Classification of Style and the Creation of Identity in the World of Drumming

This article takes a social constructionist approach to the study of a seldom considered subculture—the “world” of drumming. I describe this subculture from both the “etic” and “emic” perspectives, showing how drummers and drumming are perceived and experienced by the musicians themselves (insiders) as well as the “outside” public. The main focus is on the drummers' intersubjective “mental maps” of their world, specifically exploring how they create musical and personal identities by adhering to a rigid classification scheme surrounding “styles” of drumming. I demonstrate how drummers use drumming equipment, personal appearance, education, and “purist” attitudes to separate styles of drumming and to construct distinct social selves. Of special interest is how drummers are cognitively socialized into “thought communities” which teach and reinforce attitudinal and behavioral norms. I conclude with a discussion of the possibilities of applying my analytical framework to other worlds of music and art, as well as some forms of occupational and avocational specialization.     

Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft

In tandem with the technological advancement of immersive virtual environments, digital games have evolved into complex social worlds where people play collaboratively to achieve individual‐ and group‐oriented goals. The massively multiplayer online games genre has received international attention for the large numbers of users that commit a significant amount of time and effort to online play. Play styles within such game worlds are diverse, but “raiding” is generally considered among gamers and scholars alike to be the most challenging form of collaborative play. Like other forms of social activity, raiding is predicated on players' abilities to successfully coordinate individual lines of action. Yet the vast majority of raiders are not physically copresent during their collaborative efforts. Using Couch's theory of coordinated action as an interpretive frame, we explore the computer‐mediated process of raiding in the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft by analyzing ethnographic data and audio/visual recordings of gameplay. Our study expands Couch's theory of coordinated action in two ways. First, we demonstrate how individuals and groups simultaneously engage in multiple forms of coordinated activity (e.g., conflict and cooperation). Second, we reveal two semiotic layers of coordinated action—the “subject‐subject” (i.e., intersubjective) layer that is facilitated through the game's user interface, and the “subject‐object” layer that comprises players' interactions with the user interface itself. Our study thus considers the potential of Couch's theory for the study of computer‐mediated communication and nonhumans in interaction.     

Sociology and Art: An Interview with Howard S. Becker

This is an interview with Howard S. Becker, and the focus is sociology and art. In this interview, Howard S. Becker talked about many interesting and important topics such as his sociological lineage, his difference with the estheticians Arthur Danto and George Dickie, traditional sociologist of art such as Lukacs and Goldmann, his Tactile Art Group, the universality of his art worlds, Richard A. Peterson and his production of culture perspective, the sociology of “sociology of art” in America, French sociologists of art, and his own art life, and so on.     

RACIALIZED AUTHENTICATION: Constructing Representations of the Florida Highwaymen

This article explores how art world professionals and cultural publicists construct representations of a group of “rediscovered” black artists, who painted from the end of the Jim Crow era to the present. Examining their writings, statements from interviews, and their interactions with audiences at public events, I show how they represented the artists as both exotic self‐taught artists and achievers of the American Dream. I introduce the term “racialized authentication” to frame a branch of racial rhetoric through which the various actors draw from both traditional racial stereotypes and new racism ideology to construct authentic artists. In conclusion, I address how these findings have implications for the integration of contemporary research on race and sociological studies of art worlds.     

Parenting,Uncertainty, and Expert Advice: How Privileged American Families Work with Private Counselors in Their Children's College Race

This article uses privileged families who hire Independent Educational Consultants (IECs) as an instance to examine how privileged parents collaborate with individuals whom they consider educational experts to support their children in the college race. We argue that advantaged parents' anxieties about their children have created a market for IECs who provide expert advice in order to mitigate the uncertainties that these parents experience and to manage various goals that they want to achieve at an important turning point in their children's lives. Drawing primarily on interviews with parents who work with IECs, we introduce the concept of “collaborative cultivation” to analyze the processes whereby advantaged parents rely on the expertise and expert status of private counselors to cope with their and their children's vulnerability in the college race while at the same time preparing their children for the unknown future. The parental method of “concerted cultivation” reveals how elite parents rely on individuals they perceive as experts to establish “bridges” between their own social worlds and the academic worlds that appear to beyond their control. This bridging labor points to the myriad cultural beliefs enacted to justify the child‐rearing goals that privileged parents wish to accomplish by working with IECs.     

Musical Ties That Bind: Nostalgia,Affect, and Heritage in Festival Narratives

Affective heritage embracement, a collective narrative of nostalgia, is identified at two popular music festivals. “MusicFest” embraces a tradition of “Red Dirt” country music through performance (music festival), whereas the “Walnut Valley Festival” embraces a bluegrass/folk musical heritage through performance and participation (musicians' festival). The symbolic importance of musical interaction is explored to highlight the experienced emotionality that leads to the affective ties that bind these otherwise temporary communities. This collective narrative reveals the various functions of nostalgia wherein collective sentiment both reflects and creates the perceived authentic experiences of festival attendees.     

Fabricating Japaneseness? The Identity Politics of Young Designers and Artists in Global Cities

The present study explores the identity politics of young Japanese designers and artists working across national boundaries today. It addresses the following research questions: (i) Do young designers and artists aim to produce works with “universal” appeal or strategically make use of “Japaneseness”? (ii) Do they develop new transnational identities or regard themselves as “Japanese”? and (iii) Who do they think has the power to label their works as “Japanese” in the art worlds? For this purpose, I conducted in‐depth interviews with professional designers and artists who have migrated from Japan to London, New York, or Paris. The results show that most designers and artists who were interviewed indeed aim to produce works with “universal” appeal, while only a few respondents attempt to strategically express “Japaneseness” in their works. However, regardless of whether they make use of “Japaneseness” or not, all respondents regard themselves as “Japanese” without developing new transnational identities. Even so, they do not search for or hold onto Japaneseness; but rather the media, as well as a certain part of the art world, persistently attempt to emphasize “Japaneseness,” due to the structure of the art world, where whiteness continues to be the “norm.” While designers and artists are increasingly oriented toward creating works with new forms and values through the transnational production system, gatekeepers and legitimators of the art world continue to fabricate “the nation” and reinforce boundaries of national culture.     

Paying Homage to the Father: C. Wright Mills and Radical Sociology*

Radical sociologists have, in general, failed to produce a substantive social theory out of which their critique of society can be mounted. The only alternative to what is perceived as conservative Structural-Functionalism are diverse forms of Marxism, which as yet have not been synthesized into any cohesive model that can posit an adequate notion of social structure, without, at the same time, sacrificing the active, volitional side of man. This article attempts to show that there is in C. Wright Mills' total works a comprehensive model of man, society, and their interrelationship in history; and that this model can provide the structural perspective “radical sociology” currently lacks.     

Negotiating and Practicing Performance: An Ethnographic Study of a Musical Open Mic in Brooklyn,New York

This qualitative study explores amateur musicians and their performance negotiations at a weekly “open mic” in Brooklyn, New York. These musicians and their performance negotiations are juxtaposed against the larger cultural structures of musical scenes and musical art worlds. Opportunities and pathways are few for amateur musicians to practice and negotiate the craft of performance. This study examines the negotiation of the presumed boundaries between musical practice and performance within an open mic scene constructed by and for amateur musicians who are marginal to the larger musical art world.     

Constructions and reconstructions of self in virtual reality: Playing in the MUDs

There are over 300 multi‐user games based on at least 13 different kinds of software on the international computer network known as the Internet. Here I use the term “MUD “ to refer to all the various kinds. All provide worlds for social interaction in a virtual space, worlds in which you can present yourself as a “character,” in which you can be anonymous, in which you can play a role or roles as close or as far away from your “real self as you choose.

In the MUDS, the projections of self are engaged in a resolutely postmodern context. Authorship is not only displaced from a solitary voice, it is exploded. The self is not only decentered but multiplied without limit. There is an unparalleled opportunity to play with one's identity and to “try out” new ones. MUDS are a new environment for the construction and reconstruction of self.     

“Behind Every Great Man…”: The Male Marriage Wage Premium Examined Qualitatively

Studies across diverse national contexts reliably show that married men earn more than unmarried men, but the mechanisms responsible for this are still disputed. This article explores the male marriage wage premium from a new perspective, using longitudinal qualitative data from Russia (N = 94). Qualitative research is particularly suited to identifying underlying processes and, by analyzing men's accounts of the influence of their marital trajectories on their work, the authors were able to reexamine existing hypotheses and develop new ones. They propose 4 mechanisms that they hypothesize can influence men's work motivation and performance: premarital planning, 2 distinct “breadwinner” effects using expectancy and self determination theory, and monitoring by wives. They integrate these mechanisms within gender theory, arguing that the treatment aspect of the male marriage wage premium is an outcome of the “coproduction” of masculinity within marriage. Their recontextualization of existing theory also enables them to reveal weaknesses in the specialization hypothesis.     

Telling Others How You Live—Refining Goffman's Stigma Theory Through an Analysis of Housing Strugglers in a Homeowner Nation

This article revisits Goffman's stigma theory from the perspective of housing studies. We elaborate on Goffman's approach by exploring how housing tenure can work as a proxy for moral character. We interviewed twenty‐seven people who are excluded from access to homeownership in two cities in Norway, which is a “homeowner nation.” These individuals are unable to enter the dominant “homeowner class” for different reasons, including drug‐dependency, mental illness, refugee background, low socioeconomic status; thus, they must access housing through other tenures; private renting or social housing. To many of them, housing becomes a stigma, in Goffman terms, an “undesired differentness.” Social housing is known to carry stigma in Norway. It was thus a paradox, that those with the softest differentness—private rental—were most likely to practice (Goffman:) “information control” over their housing situation. Goffman's theoretical apparatus, and his distinction between the discreditable and the discredited in particular, helped us make this paradox comprehensible. Through this analysis, refinements to Goffman's theory were discovered. We suggest that “multiple stigmas,” which was not seen clearly by Goffman himself, should be a key notion in stigma studies. We use this notion to distinguish between possible sub‐types to the discredited‐discreditable distinction.     

Hook‐Ups and Train Wrecks: Contextual Parameters and the Coordination of Jazz Interactions

This article discusses the importance of several parameters of context integral to jazz musicians' ability to hear musical signs as meaningful, such as performers' individual backgrounds and the various other styles of music available in the aural landscape, and how those parameters influence what the musicians play. Several examples from an ongoing ethnography of jazz jam sessions suggest that context is constituted by several variables, that different variables may become salient at different times, and that different interactants vary in their ability to attend to these variables. This study thus extends and elaborates frame analysis by showing that, while an interaction frame of the sort described by Goffman (1974) may perdure, it is subject to change, and the nature of the context it provides for interactions can change whenever a new interaction is initiated.     

Durkheim's Response to Spencer: An Essay Toward Historicism in the Historiography of Sociology*

Merton has made an important distinction between the “history” any “systematics” of sociological theory, and outlined the valuable functions of the former. Most histories of sociology, however, have been “presetist” or “Whiggish” in perspective; we propose an “historicist” alternative. Within this perspective, Durkheim's response to Spencer is analyzed in three areas: (1) the relation between “individual” and “society;” (2) evolution and social change; and (3) the scope and method of sociology. In these areas, Durkheim's critical style reveals a repetitive theme which is termed “inversion.” The essay concludes by re-affirming Merton's distinction and urging that the “historicist” perspective is the most valid and useful approach to the history of sociology.     

Transformational and transactional leadership styles,followers' positive and negative emotions,and performance in German nonprofit orchestras

Although the transformational‐transactional leadership paradigm has received increased attention from the research community over the past two decades, the nonprofit sector has been largely neglected. This study provides information about the effectiveness of transformational and transactional leadership styles in the domain of German nonprofit orchestras, while exploring the role of emotions within these leadership styles. We examined musicians' perceptions of their orchestra conductors' leadership behaviors and related those behaviors to performance. Positive emotions were associated with both transactional and transformational leadership. Negative emotions partially mediated the influence of transformational leadership on performance. In combination, the results allow a more thorough and detailed understanding of effective leadership behavior in nonprofit organizations.     

Positive Development in a Disorderly World

Adolescents need to develop competencies to navigate an adult world that is complex and disorderly: a world of heterogeneous macro‐ to microecological systems containing contradictions and catch‐22s. This exploratory essay examines adolescents' conscious processes of developing pertinent competencies for pursuing goals (agency) in these kinds of “real‐world” settings. It draws on qualitative longitudinal research on youth's experiences working on arts and community projects in which they encounter the irregular dynamics of complex human systems. I describe how youth develop “strategic thinking”: executive skills for formulating strategies based on forecasting dynamics in navigating these systems. I also describe how youth learn to manage emotions (in self and others) that arise in these real‐world transactions and how they develop motivation that sustains their work toward goals. Even as we learn more about the biological hardware of development, I argue that we must study youth's conscious, proactive processes in developing their own “software” to navigate complex and disorderly human worlds.     

Sense‐making in Taiwan's tea art ritual

This paper analyzes Taiwan's contemporary public tea gatherings from the perspective of “sense-scape,” the cultural world of sensory experiences. Performing elegance by way of tea brewing, bodily gestures and movements, costumes, utensil arrangements, and spatial design represents what is innovative about Taiwan's tea art culture, often referred to as “literati tea.” As the fragrance and flavors of tea, light and shadows, sounds and music, visual presentations of utensils, and space, as well as the general atmosphere of these events are captured by the senses and organized by the emotions, they inform us about who we are and who the other is. Despite its Japanese cultural infusion and Chinese cultural legacy, which have always complicated claims of a truly Taiwanese origin, Taiwan's tea art has been eagerly adopted by mainland Chinese tea communities since the late 2000s. That a local practice and invented tradition strongly identified with Taiwan has been embraced as “traditional” cultural practice in contemporary China presents a paradox that deserves our attention.     

Gogol'’s “Portrait” Repainted: On Gary Shteyngart’s “Shylock on the Neva”

The Russian-American novelist Gary Shteyngart has frequently been called a “Gogolian” writer, usually in an attempt to explain the pedigree of his grotesque humour. This article focuses on Shteyngart’s story “Shylock on the Neva” (2002), which is a modern-day rewriting of Gogol'’s tale “Portret” [“The Portrait”]. A close analysis of Shteyngart’s text and comparison to its Gogolian model reveals a complex relation that is not necessarily centered on Gogol'’s humour. In his rewriting of “The Portrait,” Shteyngart emphasizes the inherent venality and vulgarity of Gogol'’s characters, who turn into grotesque caricatures of their prototypes. In doing so, he seems to “Gogolize” Gogol'’s tale by adding some of the absurd humour that critics have found to be lacking in “The Portrait.” By making a painting the focus of their stories, both Gogol' and Shteyngart engage in a self-reflective comment about art and the role of the creative artist. Similar to the clichéd hack-paintings of Gogol'’s painter Chartkov, artistic creation has been reduced in “Shylock on the Neva” to the production of postmodern simulacra based on stereotypes and cultural myths.     

Hostile Worlds or Connected Lives? Research on the Interplay Between Intimacy and Economy

Economic sociologists have devoted most of their attention to the activities of individuals and firms in markets. However, recent attempts have pushed for a better understanding of the relationship between intimacy and economy. Such efforts have been inspired, in large part, by Viviana Zelizer (2000, 2005). In her inquiry on the purchase of intimacy, Zelizer proposed seminal differentiations between the “hostile worlds,” “nothing but,” and “connected lives” perspectives, and advanced a cultural relational analysis of the economy. In this essay, we review research that applies Zelizer's framework, and suggest substantive and analytical avenues for future research on economy/intimacy nexus.