The sexuality‐assemblage: desire,affect, anti‐humanism

Two theoretical moves are required to resist the ‘humanist enticements’ associated with sexuality. Post‐structuralism supplies the first, showing how the social produces culturally specific sexual knowledgeabilities. A second anti‐humanist move is then needed to overturn anthropocentric privileging of the human body and subject as the locus of sexuality. In this paper we establish a language and landscape for a Deleuze‐inspired anti‐humanist sociology of sexuality that shifts the location of sexuality away from bodies and individuals. Sexuality in this view is an impersonal affective flow within assemblages of bodies, things, ideas and social institutions, which produces sexual (and other) capacities in bodies. Assemblages territorialize bodies' desire, setting limits on what it can do: this process determines the shape of sexuality, which is consequently both infinitely variable and typically highly restricted. We illustrate how this anti‐humanist ontology may be applied to empirical data to explore sexuality‐assemblages, and conclude by exploring the theoretical and methodological advantages and disadvantages of an anti‐humanist assemblage approach to sexuality.     

Supporting the Posts in Development Discourse: Under‐development,Over‐development,Post‐development

This article seeks to introduce scholars outside of development studies to post‐development thought, and to restate its relevance and value to those working within the development field. It begins with an overview of post‐development thought and its critique of the post‐World War Two development project. Following this, specific critiques levelled at post‐development thought and various responses to these are considered. In the last section, the possibility or desirability of raising the living standards of Third World people to a level comparable to those of the First World through economically based development strategies is questioned. The article concludes by drawing attention to First World overdevelopment and the continued value of post‐development thinking in unsettling the development trajectory for either the First or Third World.     

Stories of Non‐Becoming: Non‐Issues,Non‐Events and Non‐Identities in Asexual Lives

In contrast to conventional models of positively “becoming” an identity through social interaction, this article explores the inverse, negational process of “non‐becoming,” whereby actors start but do not continue along an identity career trajectory. Through cumulative attrition, interactions and encounters at key moments create an overall pattern of non‐progression. Using asexuality as an example, we identify three main trajectory stages of non‐awareness, communicative negation and non‐consolidation, each involving interactional contingencies. With a wider applicability to other repudiated identities, this model shows how even negational symbolic social objects (non‐issues, non‐events, and non‐identities) are constituted through social interaction.     

Race/Ethnicity and Stop‐and‐Frisk: Past,Present, Future

Scholarly debates surrounding stop‐and‐frisk typically assess the effectiveness and lawfulness of stop‐and‐frisk. Notwithstanding these efforts, recent reviews have excluded some recent research that addresses its impact on racial and ethnic immigrants. Understanding how the practice of stop‐and‐frisk affects racial and ethnic immigrants is worth including in reviews of these policies, considering the recent growth of research involving crime and immigrants that largely finds that immigration does not result in higher levels of crime. This review includes recent work showing that overall enforcement – stops and arrests – is higher in immigrant communities despite their lower levels of criminal involvement and recent work exploring differences among first‐generation and second‐generation immigrants in perceptions of police stops. Finally, some suggestions for the future of stop‐and‐frisk research are considered.     

Maternal Into‐The‐Face Behavior,Shared Attention,and Infant Distress During Face‐to‐Face Play at 12 Months: Bi‐directional Contingencies

We describe a new maternal intrusion behavior, moving a toy or hand “into‐the‐face” of the infant, and we investigate its bi‐directional associations with infant‐initiated shared attention, infant distress, and infant gaze, during mother–infant face‐to‐face play at 12 months. The play was videotaped split‐screen, with infants seated in a high chair. Videotapes were coded on a 1‐sec time base for mother and infant gaze (at partner, toy, both, or gaze away); infant distress; and maternal intrusion behavior, “into‐the‐face.” We defined “infant‐initiated shared attention” as mother and infant looking in the same second at a toy that the infant‐initiated interest in. We documented that maternal into‐the‐face behavior decreased the likelihood of infant‐initiated shared attention, increased the likelihood of infant distress, and decreased the likelihood of infant gazing away. Reciprocally, infant distress and gazing away increased the likelihood of mother into‐the‐face. In moments when the dyad was engaged in infant‐initiated shared attention, mother into‐the‐face was less likely. This work documents bi‐directional contingencies in the regulation of maternal intrusion and infant behavior during face‐to‐face play at 12 months. We suggest that mother into‐the‐face behavior disturbs an aspect of the infant's experience of recognition.     

More‐than‐human families: Pets,people, and practices in multispecies households

Although humans have coexisted with dogs and cats for thousands of years, that coexistence has taken on various meanings over time. Only recently have people openly included their pets as members of the family. Yet, because of the cultural ambivalence toward animals, what it means for a pet to “be” a family member remains unsettled. Drawing from research on family practices including kinship, household routines, childhood socialization, and domestic violence, this paper considers how pets participate in “doing” family and what their presence means for this social arrangement long considered quintessentially human. Today's more‐than‐human families represent a hybrid of relations, human and animal and social and natural, rather than an entirely new kind of family. Becoming family has always been contingent on a cast of nonhuman characters, and recognition of the “more‐than‐human” can enhance sociological understanding, not only of the family but also of other aspects of social life.     

Explaining Career Decision‐Making Self‐Efficacy: Personality,Cognitions, and Cultural Mistrust

The authors explore the hypothesis that career decision‐making self‐efficacy could be affected by negative career thoughts, Big Five personality factors, and cultural mistrust in a sample of African American and Caucasian college students. Findings demonstrated that negative career thinking, openness, and conscientiousness explained a significant amount of variance in career decision‐making self‐efficacy in a general sample of college students, but no unique variance was explained by cultural mistrust in a sample of African American college students.