Academic odyssey: The training of an African sociologist

This article describes my experience of graduate training in sociology at an elite American university. As an African, I faced cultural and intellectual pressures to adopt white middle class cultural norms and a Eurocentric worldview. The article critiques American sociology, including symbolic interactionism, the sociology of the Third World and the study of race and ethnic relations. I describe my personal encounter with American racism and the process that led me to conduct research on black immigrants. I argue that my exposure to American sociology and experience of American society transformed me into a black marginal sociologist, specializing in teaching and research on the African-American experience in the New World. His forthcoming book,Becoming Black American, is being published by AMS Press.     

The Shelf Life of a Disaster: Post‐Fukushima Policy Change in The United States And Germany

How can large‐scale disasters prompt policy change beyond the local environment in which they occurred? Working at the intersection of political sociology, disaster studies, and cultural sociology, we introduce the concept of the shelf life of a disaster to analyze the short and limited impact of Fukushima Daiichi on U.S. nuclear energy policy and its vitality within Germany. American media, nuclear industry representatives, regulators, and policy makers contributed to a tepid political environment for policy change by expanding symbolic distance from Fukushima, focusing on U.S. superiority to Japanese infrastructures. While this technicist orientation was evident in Germany as well, its distancing effects were offset by a conjunction of mechanisms that packaged Fukushima as a precursor to an inevitable German nuclear catastrophe.     

Zen and the art of aut-ethnography: a tribute to Robert M. Pirsig

With the passing of Robert M. Pirsig, I felt that it was an appropriate time to write a tribute to his work and the influence it has had on my own theorising in regard to autistic ways of being. This reflection utilises the concept of an ‘aut-ethnography’ to examine passages that I had highlighted word by word when I first read Pirsig’s book: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. These fragments contain links to a number of theoretical ‘lines of flight’ within my own work and that of others, from his concepts of dynamic ‘quality’ to his discussion on the tension between scientific method and lived experience.     

Disasters and Social Inequalities

In this article, I review recent research on the relationship between social inequalities and disasters, focusing on the areas of social vulnerability to disaster and social inequalities in disaster recovery. I highlight how race, class, and gender structure the disaster experience such that marginalized populations are most vulnerable to the negative consequences of a disaster and face significant challenges in recovery. Then, I discuss the next steps for advancing disaster studies. First, scholars should work to develop improved methodologies for disaster research. Second, theoretical work on defining, theorizing, and classifying disasters is needed. Finally, the field should incorporate other intersectional dimensions of social inequality into the study of disasters.     

Cultural studies as praxis: (making) an autobiographical case

This autobiographical essay ‘takes cultural studies personally’, drawing on experience, identity and the personal to indicate how and why the author is proponent of and is working on developing a model of cultural studies as social justice praxis despite the constraints academia in general and of the university as an institution in particular. The paper travels roughly from the author’s student and teacher days in Sierra Leone through his graduate student days in Canada to his current role as university teacher in the USA. He selectively concentrates on his experience as a teacher of literature (and African multi-role utilitarianism), education and cultural studies (using one of his cultural studies courses and students’ questions about the utility of cultural studies as example), his shifting and overlapping racial/ethnic identities (African/black) and the politics of identity, and his thoughts on the place of theory in cultural studies and a black approach to theory (black ambivalent elaboration) as contributory factors. While this account acts in its own way as an argument for conceptualizing cultural studies as praxis, the primary focus is more modestly on my own autobiographical account as a specific case. In fact, an autobiographical approach is employed precisely to be specific and in the attempt to avoid the pitfalls of over­generalization and the authority of authenticity.     

Remembering reuel denney: Sociology as cultural studies

Selected writings from Reuel Denney’s work as a social analyst are reviewed in order to establish and highlight his often-overlooked contributions to sociology. Denney’s cultural studies of Americans at play, with specific reference to his writings on the subcultures of football and hot-rodding, and on television and the electronic media, advertising and architecture, are reviewed in examining some major themes emphasized in his sociology. These writings are discussed against the backdrop of Denney’s early life experiences drawn from his autobiography to better enable readers to gain an appreciation of his sociological thinking. The beginnings of a Denney postmodern are sketched as a conclusion to this paper’s major contention that Denney anticipated much of today’s sociology as cultural studies. As one of Reuel’s students, nearly forty years ago, I hope that this article serves not only to highlight Denney’s contributions and place within the discipline of sociology, but also that my personal recollections will serve to reveal the strong attachments we students felt toward him as our teacher, mentor, and friend. nt|mis|His teaching and research combine his interests in higher education and the professions, bureaucracy, social thought, mass media, and popular culture. His most recent book, Schooling As Entertainment: Corporate Education Meets Popular Culture, is available from Cedarreek Press.     

My Father's Other Name Is Rita

Transvestism is a misunderstood subject in the world of psychology. Most research done on transvestism is clinically investigated. This case study is unique in that I know this transvestite personally. He is my father. Therefore, my approach was from a humanistic point of view. This case study offers insights into the relational interactions and reactions from the family members of the transvestite. Further studies in cultural aspects of this psychosexual phenomenon would be greatly to our advantage. In time, transvestism may be looked upon with different eyes as the doors of androgyny begin to open wider.     

Jack Michael,Behavior Analyst

Jack Michael was the quintessential behavior analyst. Despite his reputation as a theoretician and expert in verbal behavior and on Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior, Jack was actually an applied behavior analyst in the literal sense before anyone had coined the term. Prior to becoming one of Jack’s doctoral students at Western Michigan University, I was a behavior-analytic neophyte. After I graduated and began my own teaching (modeled after Jack’s behavior-analytic method of teaching) and thinking and writing about behavior analysis, I found myself talking and thinking like Jack. He had a similar behavior changing effect not only on many of his other students, but also on others who had the good fortune to know him.     

‘THE RAIN IN SPAIN STAYS MAINLY IN THE PLAIN’

As is known, ‘the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain’ is a famous line from George Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion (1912), a witty and highly entertaining study of Victorian class distinctions and social conventions. Broadly speaking, my aim is to exploit the cultural credentials of both the work and its celebrated rhyme by using them as a rhetorical device from which to stake out the position of cultural studies within the Spanish university. The approach I will advance tries to take account of the principles listed by Cary Nelson in his cultural manifesto (1996, pp. 273–86), even though it derives more directly from the immediate conditions of higher education in Spain and specifically from my own experience as a university teacher. As I hope to demonstrate, several connections may be established between ‘the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain’ and the difficulties that arise in trying to speak/write about cultural studies. Likewise, the rhyme as well as certain details in the comedy's plot can serve as useful cultural analogies for some of the ‘meta-problems’ faced by cultural studies in the Spanish context. And more crucially, the famous line can be put to use in the classroom as a helpful, eye-opening exercise for future cultural agents or ‘producers’ (Striphas, 1998: 457). I shall therefore move from problems of discourse, to inherent power structures and finally unto the actual practice of cultural studies.     

Little Theories and Big Problems: Chicago Sociology and Ethnic Conflicts*

Since this society is oriented toward a specific theory, I thought I ought to say something about theories in general and our little theory in particular. Let me get that off of my chest. I am not overly fond of terms like “theory” and “theorist,” both of which seem to suggest the importance of the person who claims the identity more than anything else. They are pompous terms. To the extent that we are thoughtful about what we are doing and how we are going about it, all sociologists are theorists and methodologists. But if that is all we are, then we are literally people of no substance. We have no substantial knowledge of or concern for the empirical world. The little theory we share is extraordinarily empirical. It is, as one of its most prominent practitioners called it, a “grounded theory” ( Glaser and Strauss 1967 ). I confess that several years after receiving my degree I had no real sense of what symbolic interaction was and how it might differ from other theoretical orientations. Arnold Rose enlightened me on this when he asked me to submit a paper for a new collection he was editing ( Rose 1962 ). I was pleased and flattered. Rose was a mentor of mine, and I had never before been asked to contribute to an edited volume. But I was unsure of what would be appropriate for a book about symbolic interaction. I screwed up my courage and asked Arnold: “Exactly what is symbolic interaction”” He shrugged off my ignorance, turned on his heels, and muttered over his shoulder, “It is what they do at Chicago.”     

Zebra crossing: walking in two continents sharing and celebrating difference through music

I use the metaphor zebra crossing in my reflective narrative to describe my plight and struggle as a non-white person growing up and working in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the apartheid era. This article considers and compares the notions of culture, diversity and identity as I now work in a tertiary institution in Melbourne, Australia. I reflect on my teaching of African music and position myself as ‘the other’ at zebra crossings, as I create a space in multicultural Australia. By engaging in meaningful dialogue with music and culture, I contend, we do have opportunity to explore, experience and express music making and sharing globally. The inclusion and embracing of non-western music can serve as a dais for understanding and celebrating cultural difference not as distant experiences but as integral aspects of our daily lives.     

The Nuclear Power Plant as God

There is a theological meaning to the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plants. I can clarify this meaning through a sociological investigation of the significance of nuclear power in post‐war Japan. First, as preparation, I will compare the ideology of Christ to that of John the Baptist. Christ thought that we had already arrived at the Kingdom of God. This idea led to the activist aspect of Christ. Second, I will show that nuclear power was considered as a key for the gate to the Kingdom of God in Japan. We can distinguish three stages in Japan's post‐war period: the ideal, the fictive and the impossible. It was nuclear power that embodied the ideal during the first era. Third, I will explain how the Japanese fascination with nuclear power has been compatible with Japanese aversion toward it. For the Japanese, the nuclear power plant seemed to be like non‐alcoholic beer. In the fourth and fifth parts, I will prove that the nuclear disaster implies a message equivalent to Christ's announcement. Theodicy is an answer to the question of irrational misfortune in a world created by God. However the Book of Job as ultimate theodicy shows paradoxically the incompetence of God. This situation is similar to the disaster at Fukushima, which demonstrated the incompetence of nuclear power (as God). The distance between Job and Christ is short, because if God plays the role of Job himself, it becomes Christ. We will explain why Christ's message can be a call for revolutionary social movement.     

Taking Uptaking Up,or, A Deconstructionist “Ontology of Difference” and a Developmental One

This article elaborates and defends a thesis prominent in my recent book, The Formation of Reason; namely, that a human being gets to be free in the distinctive way that human beings are free through the acquisition of second nature. My treatment of this thesis in The Formation of Reason is much influenced by the philosophy of John McDowell. McDowell himself, however, is notoriously reluctant to offer a theory of second nature. In this article, I explain his reasons for taking this stance and show how, for all that, his work contains much that illuminates the idea of second nature and its relation to freedom. I make this argument by focusing on a number of McDowell's papers on Aristotle and Wittgenstein that I do not discuss in detail in my book. Finally, I consider the objection that although McDowell recognizes second nature as a property of individuals, he mistakenly rejects the idea of second nature in external form. I argue that his works do in fact contain resources to countenance second nature externalized, so long as we keep that idea insulated from the constructivist theories of normativity that McDowell rightly rejects. Understanding our thesis aright is, I maintain, a necessary condition of a compelling conception of the social dimensions of mind and of the end of education.     

Marginalized to double marginalized: My mutational intersectionality between the East and the West

Intersectionality allows better understanding of the differences between individuals' experiences. In this article, I use intersectionality to explore how my lived experience of marginalization is different from one context to another. I reflect on how the nature of intersectionality and the intensity of oppression are altered by context. Grounded in a brief reflection of my fragmented experience in two different contexts, I explore how my identities and their intersection “mutate” from the Egyptian context to the UK context. Then, I reflect on how the intensity of oppression changed with this alteration in my intersectionality. In contextualizing my intersectional experience, first I problematize viewing intersectionality as a fixed acontextual ontology. Second, as a student immigrant and racialized minority in the United Kingdom, I seek to extend intersectionality and move beyond the traditional categories of race, class, gender, religion, and sexuality to include precarity as a pivotal social category that amplifies the intensity of oppression and marginalization, especially when intersected with race and gender. Finally, in sharing my reflection as a Middle Eastern woman, I contribute my unique experiences into the conversation, and a voice that has been muted, invisibled, marginalized, and excluded from the literature.     

The Haunting of Shame: Autoethnography and the Multivalent Stigma of Being Queer,Muslim, and Single

Sociology has neglected the terrain of the gay Muslim single as a sociological phenomenon. Produced and managed via meaningful social conduct, the gay Muslim single often holds negative symbolic and cultural worth, one of lacking identification and presence. The stigma of the gay Muslim single is actively reproduced through social and power relations. I examine multiple stigmas and dichotomies by using autoethnography to illustrate the human lived experience of a gay Muslim single, who is silenced, invisibilized, and embodies a social life of “emptiness.” The gay Muslim single, bringing about a “moral panic,” confronts temporal regulations, norms, and values, notably those of heterosexual ones in everyday social life. He is cast as an “outsider,” which reinforces his stigma in everyday social life.     

Why the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster is a Man‐made Calamity

The Fukushima nuclear disaster caused by the earthquake on 11 March 2011 is a man‐made calamity because technological failures were derived from the failure of multiple social safeguards. The insufficient social safeguards can be explained by highlighting the “nuclear complex.” Institutional frameworks assured the enormous economic power of electric power companies and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Using this power, the electric power companies effectively manipulated information, maintained strong political power and constructed the nuclear complex, which has imposed an overwhelming influence on the central sphere of control at a national level and has put economic profit before safety. Regulations for safety have not been insufficient because the organization charged with nuclear safety belongs to the nuclear complex. Consequently, Regulatory Guides concerning reactors defined by the government have not accounted for catastrophic accidents. Philosopher Mori Arimasa's concept of "binary combination" provides us with an insight into a profound sociological reason for the Fukushima nuclear disaster because it highlights the immaturity of subjectivity and the root of irresponsibility in Japanese society. Binary combination is defined as a relationship between two persons that is characterized by intimacy and a vertical relation. Binary combination tends to produce a group or organization that is closed to outsiders and often shows indifference as well as insensitivity to outside opinions. In order overcome the defects of energy policy as well as the decision‐making process, and to achieve a sustainable society, it is necessary to promote an energy paradigm shift and reforms for decision‐making through the enrichment of the public sphere.     

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.     

Witnessing Things A Response to Sue Grand

I respond to Sue Grand's “Unsexed and Ungendered Bodies: The Violated Self” from my position as a cultural critic, noting in particular how Grand's case history shows that historical trauma is made manifest in everyday sensory experience. I am particularly interested in Grand's suggestion that trauma produces a “thing-self” that must be witnessed in the psychoanalytic encounter. Exploring the implications of this insight for my own investigations of cultural responses to trauma, I focus on performances of the body in lesbian public culture, ranging from the writings of Dorothy Allison, Joan Nestle, and Shani Mootoo to performances by punk rock band Tribe 8.     

Situating Children's Voices: Considering the Context When Conducting Research with Young Children

I problematise my own concept of children's voices in research by reflecting on certain practices in a study that I conducted in a kindergarten classroom in a city in Saudi Arabia. I examine the cultural and social contexts of my research by drawing on my experience of obtaining children's assent or dissent, my assumptions regarding the possibility of reducing power differentials, and finally, my understanding of the ways children voice their feelings and views. I conclude that voices manifest themselves in multiple ways that extend beyond visual or verbal media. Voices are constructed socially and are shaped culturally to reflect norms regarding how individuals should express their views and feelings within a particular setting and time.