Cultural Studies in Black and White

Political intervention is deeply etched in the history and theory of Cultural Studies. The vehicle of intervention is typically understood as textual and the measure of success as ‘has it changed the world?’ This graphic and textual essay argues for and enacts thinking of and practising intervention more innovatively and more modestly: as equally extra-textual, and as a site for experimentation in the folds among theory, practice, and the quotidian. The author’s original black and white charcoal and pastel images are paired with text to explore the potential for an articulation of the visual and the textual to engage, convey, actualize, and produce concepts and insights of Cultural Studies. In evocative images and accessible language it enacts a new mode of engaging the theory and practice of Cultural Studies, specifically engaging concepts of articulation and assemblage, movement and things, questions of identity, the importance of affect, the power of transformation, youth cultures and resistance, The Black Lives Matter movement and matters of race, the struggles of women, the challenge of overcoming culturally engendered hatred of difference, and the difficulties of negotiating change in the precarious circumstances of contemporary culture.     

中国青年文化景观的形成轨迹与引导理路

中华人民共和国成立以来,特别是改革开放以来,青年文化发展出现服从与反思、解放与迷茫、理性与矛盾勾勒的变迁图景,也反映出新时代青年文化的发展趋向。新时代的青年文化景观既具有青年文化的预见性与超越性、进取性和建构性、理想性和生活性等共性特征,又突出表现为雅俗共赏、进退有度、家国兼顾的时代特性。新时代,应注重从个人追求与社会理想的统一、独立思想与过硬本领的统一、青春热情与社会担当的统一几方面入手,突出政治引领、思想引领、责任引领在青年文化引导上的关键作用,推动青年文化持续向前发展。     

"Disease Incarnate": Biopolitical Discourse and Genocidal Dehumanisation in the Age of Modernity

Abstract  This paper traces the development of the concept of the outgroup as a biological threat, and the relationship of this concept to the practice of genocide. The biopolitical discourse which emerged in the modern period made the practice of genocide conceivable, and constructed genocide as justifiable and as necessary. Two developments in the modern period are highlighted: firstly, the conception of the boundaried and ethnically homogenous nation-state, and secondly, new biological theories about race, and about the spread of disease. Discourse emerging from the biological sciences dehumanised outgroups both literally and metaphorically. This dehumanisation, in combination with the ideal of the homogenous nation-state and the new technologies of population, provided a justification and a motivation for genocide, and a model of implementation. Conceptions of the nature of dehumanisation as a process are examined, with specific reference to the role of language and metaphor, and to concepts of hygiene, purity and contamination. Particular attention is paid to eugenics and Social Darwinism, to the role of physicians in genocide, and to the relationship between medical and military vocabularies. The features of this discourse, its persistence, and its commonality in otherwise widely different genocidal episodes, are exposed through an examination of four twentieth-century genocides (Armenia, Nazi genocide, Cambodia, and the former Yugoslavia).     

后现代思潮对我国青少年的影响与对策

出于反思"现代性"而出现的后现代主义,目前已经发展成"带有西方色彩"的全球性社会思潮。它反对理性主义、整体主义、中心主义,主张多元价值取向,注重人文关怀,具有否定的全面性与不彻底性、价值取向的无中心性、传播形式的灵活性与多样性、行为表现的随意性等特点。后现代主义在一定程度上有助于培养我国青少年的批判性思维,有助于青少年的天性成长,但也往往易于模糊青少年的是非判断标准,侵蚀青少年积极有为的责任担当,诱使青少年养成享乐主义的生活习惯。为此,需要从强化社会主义核心价值观的引领作用、加强对西方后现代思潮的理论研究、加强人文精神和心理健康方面的教育、引领网络与大众传播方向等方面做文章。     

Perspektiven der Politischen Soziologie

On the basis of a concept of politics as social action and conflict, which focuses on the institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation of power, the article argues for a political sociology which is interdisciplinary, methodology pluralistic, ‘eurodecentric’, and which focused on seven areas of research: the invention of non-state forms of power and their relations to the state, war, representation and legitimacy, the relationships between religion and politics, globalisation, and the rise of ‘subpolitics’, NGOs and the local.     

Racial,Ethnic, and National Boundaries: Sexual Intersections and Symbolic Interactions

Sex and race are strained, if not strange, bedfellows. Sexual depictions and denigrations of racial, ethnic, and national “others” and the regulation of in‐group sexual behavior are important mechanisms by which ethnic boundaries are constructed, maintained, and defended. Race, ethnicity, and the nation are sexualized, and sexuality is racialized, ethnicized, and nationalized. The sexual systems that prop up ethnic boundaries and define ethnic identities and communities tend to be inherently conservative blueprints for ethnosexual living. These systems stress endogamy, heterosexuality and reproduction under the rubric of traditional, often patriarchal family life for ethnic group members and tend to demonize and denigrate the sexuality of those outside ethnic boundaries or of those within ethnic communities who do not conform to heteronormative, heteroconventional models of sexuality. I present several examples of the intersections of race, ethnicity, nationalism, and sexuality/ies from U.S. and international settings, and I argue that the symbolic interaction between ethnicity and sexuality is central to their mutual constitution.     

Emigration dynamics in Bangladesh

This study of emigration dynamics opens by noting that emigration is one of the most dynamic economic and social elements in Bangladesh. The history of emigration from Bangladesh is sketched, and the level and trend of emigration is described for various destinations (especially the UK, the Middle East and North Africa, and Japan) and in terms of the socioeconomic background of migrants, channels of migration, occupations, the potential level of emigration, and applications for US Visas. The next section of the report presents the economic and demographic setting in terms of the gross national and domestic products, quality of life, the size and distribution of the population, the labor force, literacy, unemployment and underemployment, urbanization, internal migration, poverty, and income distribution. The discussion then centers on the sociopolitical setting and such factors as unmet basic human needs, the demand for expatriate workers, and emigration policy. It is concluded that the desperate economic situation in Bangladesh has combined with the demand for expatriate workers and the development of institutions to facilitate emigration. The result is increasing interest in emigration, which is fueled by mass communication highlighting the differences between the quality of life in Bangladesh and abroad.     

Locating Footbinding: Variations across Class and Space in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century China*

In this article I look at footbinding as a social and cultural practice embedded in the daily life conditions of women and their families. I sketch a picture of variations based primarily on regional and class differences in nineteenth and early twentieth century practices of footbinding and in efforts to eradicate them. The period in question is one of interest precisely because it is a time of transition. I look simultaneously at footbinding as a practice and as a target of criticism, defense, and transformation. This allows me to consider the ways in which it was practiced by women to represent, shape, and constrain their own, their daughters,' and their families' cultural, social, economic, and political lives. Relying largely on missionary journals, personal histories, diaries, and travel writing, I examine the practice and the demise of footbinding in various social and spatial locations. Although sources which permit a close look at embedded social practices of footbinding are scarce, it seems clear that both the practice of various forms of footbinding and the process of its eventual demise involved strategies, conflicts, and habits which differed along gender, class, and geographic lines of distinction. I suggest that the variety of forms the practice of footbinding took in lived experience of women's social lives is not incidental to its conceptualization and meaning, but rather central to it.     

Book Reviews

Berg, Ivar and Kalleberg, Arne L. Sourcebook of Labor Markets: Evolving Structures and Processes
Boyne, R. Risk
Castells, Manuel and Himanen, Pekka The Information Society and the Welfare State: The Finnish Model
Glasius, Marlies, Kaldor, Mary and Anheier, Helmut (eds) Global Civil Society 2002
Handel, Michael J. The Sociology of Organizations: Classic, Contemporary, and Critical Readings
Klinenberg, Eric Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
Moss, Pamela and Dyck, Isabel Women, Body, Illness: Space and Identity in the Everyday Lives of Women with Chronic Illness
O'Hearn, Denis The Atlantic Economy: Britain, the US and Ireland
Perrow, Charles Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of Corporate Capitalism
Sharot, Stephen A Comparative Sociology of World Religions: Virtuosos, Priests, and Popular Religion
Sklair, Leslie The Transnational Capitalist Class
Wagner, Peter Theorizing Modernity: Inescapability and Attainability in Social Theory     

Ergonomic and usability analysis on a sample of automobile dashboards

This is a research study based on an analysis which sets out to identify and pinpoint ergonomic and usability problems found in a sample of automobile dashboards. The sample consisted of three dashboards, of three different makes and characterized as being a popular model, an average model and a luxury model. The examination was conducted by observation, with the aid of photography, notes and open interview, questionnaires and performing tasks with users, the bases of which are on the principles laid down by methodologies. From this it was possible to point to the existence of problems such as: complaints about the layout, lighting, colors, available area, difficult access to points of interaction, such as buttons, and the difficult nomenclature of dials. Later, the findings and recommendations presented show the need for a further, deeper study, using more accurate tools, a larger sample of users, and an anthropometric study focused on the dashboard, since reading and understanding it have to be done quickly and accurately, and that more attention be given to the study of automobile dashboards, particularly in the most popular vehicles in order to maintain the standards of usability, and drivers' comfort and safety.     

Gambling Type,Substance Abuse,Health and Psychosocial Correlates of Male and Female Problem Gamblers in a Nationally Representative French Sample

Many studies carried out on treatment-seeking problem gamblers (PG) have reported high levels of comorbid substance use disorders, and mental and physical health problems. Nevertheless, general population studies are still sparse, most of them have been carried out in the United States or Canada, and gender differences have not always been considered. Thus, the aim of this study was to describe the type of games, and psychological and physical correlates in male and female PG in a nationally representative French sample. The total sample studied involved 25,647 subjects aged 15–85 years, including 333 PG and 25,314 non-problem gamblers (NPG). Data were extracted from a large survey of a representative sample of the French general population. They were evaluated for sociodemographic variables, gambling behavior, type of gambling activity, substance use, psychological distress, body mass index, chronic disease, and lack of sleep. Overall, there were significant differences between PG and NPG in gender, age, education, employment and marital status, substance use disorders (alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, cocaine and heroin), psychological distress, obesity, lack of sleep and type of gambling activity. Although male and female PG had different profiles, the gambling type, especially strategic games, appeared as an important variable in the relationship between gender and problem gambling. This research underlines the importance of considering gender differences and gambling type in the study of gambling disorders. Identifying specific factors in the relationship between gender, gambling type and gambling problems may help improve clinical interventions and health promotion strategies.     

The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, and the Atlantic Working Class in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract This article uses the myth of the many-headed Hydra, commonly employed by members of various ruling classes around the Atlantic to describe the class struggles that surrounded them, to illuminate the history of the working class in the eighteenth century. It concentrates on two groups of workers, wage laborers (especially sailors) and slaves, two zones of the Atlantic, Europe and North America, and four moments in the history of the Atlantic working class: 1747, when, in the Knowles Riot in Boston, sailors and slaves fought the King's press gangs and in so doing created one of the central ideas of the 'Age of Revolution' 1768, when, in the London port strike, sailors, Irish coal heavers, and others pioneered one of the central ideas and activities of the modern working-class movement, the strike; 1776, when, in the American Revolution, sailors and slaves helped to instigate and win the world's first colonial war for liberation; and 1780, when, in the Gordon Riots, the polyglot working class of London liberated the prisons amid the greatest municipal insurrection of the eighteenth century. It argues that fixed, static notions of race, ethnicity, and nationality among historians have obscured a vital world of cooperation and accomplishment within a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, international working class.     

Beyond Happy Families: A Critical Reevaluation of the Control-Resistance-Identity Triangle

In this article, the author explores the natureof contemporary organizational controls, the extent towhich they can be said to colonize employeesubjectivity, and the types of resistance which theygenerate. Labor process, psychoanalytic, critical theory,and Foucauldian perspectives are juxtaposed and a numberof similarities and divergences are noted. It is arguedthat many of these perspectives prematurely lament the end of employee recalcitrance andexaggerate the magnitude and totality of organizationalcontrols, generating over-managed and overcontrolledimages of individuals, organizations, and societies. It is proposed that a rapprochement ofpsychoanalytic and labor theory approaches can lead toan appreciation of unmanaged and unmanageable terrainsin organizations, in which human agency may berediscovered, neither as a class-conscious proletariat nor asa transcendental subject, but as a struggling, feeling,thinking, suffering subject, one capable of obeying anddisobeying, controlling and being controlled, losing control and escaping control, definingand redefining control for itself and forothers.     

Quality of Life of Afghan Immigrants in Tehran city

By 2015, there were more than two million Afghan immigrants, both legal and illegal, living in Iran. Although, over the recent years, there has been a growing interest among social scientists, policymakers and national and international institutes in investigation of the quality of life (QoL) of immigrants, research on the QoL of Afghan immigrants in Iran is still in its infancy. The present article aims to study the QoL of Afghan immigrants in Iran and identify its influential dimensions and factors. This study relies on a perception survey of 347 Afghan households in Tehran city. Based on the 5‐point Likert Scale, the mean of overall life satisfaction of the Afghan immigrants was found as 3.22, which shows satisfactory QoL of Afghan immigrants in Iran. The highest level of satisfaction, with a mean value of 3.96, is related to public transport access followed by satisfaction in social relations with friends, relatives and fellow immigrants living in Iran, and access to cultural centres such as the mosque, library, and cinema. The lowest level of satisfaction, with a mean value of 1.90, was seen at border services like entry and exit from Iran, followed by the Iranian government policy towards Afghan refugees, and saving abilities. In addition, the most important predictors of immigrants' QoL include indicators of health, security, work status, and income, which are closely interrelated with the main reasons for Afghans' immigration to Iran. After immigration to Iran, the QoL status of the immigrants has improved significantly, especially in the fields of security and education; nevertheless, their employment in jobs with low skill and income, along with the decrease in the economic growth of Iran over the recent years, have caused problems for the economic and financial status of the immigrants. The results and findings of this study will be useful for designing and implementing plans and policies necessary to improve QoL of Afghan immigrants in Iran.     

On gambling research,social science and the consequences of commercial gambling

Social, political, economic, geographic and cultural processes related to the significant growth of the gambling industries have, in recent years, been the subject of a growing body of research. This body of research has highlighted relationships between social class and gambling expenditure, as well as the design, marketing and location of gambling products and businesses. It has also demonstrated the regressive nature of much gambling revenue, illuminating the influence that large gambling businesses have had on government policy and on researchers, including research priorities, agendas and outcomes. Recently, critics have contended that although such scholarship has produced important insights about the operations and effects of gambling businesses, it is ideologically motivated and lacks scientific rigour. This response explains some basic theoretical and disciplinary concepts that such critique misunderstands, and argues for the value of social, political, economic, geographic and cultural perspectives to the broader, interdisciplinary field of gambling research.     

The Sociologies of Knowledge,Science, and Intellectuals: Distinctive Traditions and Overlapping Perspectives

This article reviews sociological approaches to the production, evaluation, and diffusion of knowledge in the arena of scholarly production – the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. At first glance, sociological approaches to scholarly knowledge production seem to congeal around the hard sciences, on the one hand, and philosophy, on the other. I eschew this polarization and construct an analytic frame of reference for analyzing the sociological dimensions of scholarly production more generally. This article maps successive phases of sociological approaches to scholarly production, by overlaying and distinguishing among theories in the sociology of knowledge, sociology of science, and sociology of intellectuals. I analyze classical theorists’ emphases on class analysis and the social function of intellectuals; mid-century adaptations of functionalism, social structure theory, and institutional theory to analyze intellectual and academic life; critical and reflexive theories, including feminist critiques of science and knowledge; recent emphases on how social movement politics and social networks influence intellectual change; theories of the university as a professional arena and a field of culture production; and studies of knowledge-making practices in group research situations. In addition to arguing for more theoretical and methodological precision in analyses of scholarly and scientific knowledge-making, I conclude with cautionary tales and future prospects for sociological studies of modern academic life.     

Multimodal Integration of Dynamic Audio–Visual Cues in the Communication of Agreement and Disagreement

Recent research has stressed the importance of using multimodal and dynamic features to investigate the role of nonverbal behavior in social perception. This paper examines the influence of low-level visual and auditory cues on the communication of agreement, disagreement, and the ability to convince others. In addition, we investigate whether the judgment of these attitudes depends on ratings of socio-emotional dimensions such as dominance, arousal, and valence. The material we used consisted of audio–video excerpts that represent statements of agreement and disagreement, as well as neutral utterances taken from political discussions. Each excerpt was rated on a number of dimensions: agreement, disagreement, dominance, valence, arousal, and convincing power in three rating conditions: audio-only, video-only, and audio–video. We extracted low-level dynamic visual features using optical flow. Auditory features consisted of pitch measurements, vocal intensity, and articulation rate. Results show that judges were able to distinguish statements of disagreement from agreement and neutral utterances on the basis of nonverbal cues alone, in particular, when both auditory and visual information were present. Visual features were more influential when presented along with auditory features. Perceivers mainly used changes in pitch and the maximum speed of vertical movements to infer agreement and disagreement, and targets appeared more convincing when they showed consistent and rapid movements on the vertical plane. The effect of nonverbal features on ratings of agreement and disagreement was completely mediated by ratings of dominance, valence, and arousal, indicating that the impact of low-level audio–visual features on the perception of agreement and disagreement depends on the perception of fundamental socio-emotional dimensions.     

Criticisms of the Dominant Perspective on Organizations*

The major criticisms of the dominant comparative structural and structural contingency approaches to organizations were examined and found to possess at least ten major limitations. These structural approaches have resulted in an emphasis on organizational efficiency, goals, consensus, statics, and constraints of the environment, size, and technology which perpetuate the status quo; but the analysis of power, change, conflicts of interest, and individual volition have been obscured. Although structural analysis has resulted in some limited abstract generalizations concerning the form of organizations, these generalizations do little to contribute to understanding organizational processes, strategic choice, and power relationships. These important aspects of organizations could be unmasked by viewing organizations as arenas of micro-individual and group interests as well as arenas through which macrosocietal, class, and multinational interests and conflicts are played out. To minimize these limitations in the analysis of organizations, triangulations of perspectives, levels of analysis, sources of data, and methodologies are suggested.     

Queer Domicide

ABSTRACT

This article examines lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) experiences of displacement, home loss, and rebuilding in the face of natural disasters. LGBT vulnerability and resilience are little studied in disaster research; this article begins to fill this gap, focusing on LGBT domicide—how LGBT homes are “unmade” in disasters. To do this, we critically read a range of non-government, scholarly, and media commentaries on LGBT experiences of natural disasters in various settings over 2004–12, including South Asia, the USA, Haiti, and Japan. Additionally, we utilize preliminary data from pilot work on LGBT experiences of 2011 disasters in Brisbane, Australia, and Christchurch, New Zealand. we find that disaster impacts are the first stage of ongoing problems for sexual and gender minorities. Disaster impacts destroy LGBT residences and neighborhoods, but response and recovery strategies favor assistance for heterosexual nuclear families and elide the concerns and needs of LGBT survivors. Disaster impact, response, and recovery “unmakes” LGBT home and belonging, or inhibits homemaking, at multiple scales, from the residence to the neighborhood. we focus on three scales or sites: first, destruction of individual residences, and problems with displacement and rebuilding; second, concerns about privacy and discrimination for individuals and families in temporary shelters; and third, loss and rebuilding of LGBT neighborhoods and community infrastructure (e.g. leisure venues and organizational facilities).