“We have nothing to hide”: Legitimacy narratives,researcher positionality and the ethics of accessing the Dutch deportation apparatus

This article presents a reflection on the contentious access negotiations involved in researching the Dutch deportation apparatus. Previous studies described how hostility towards researchers and the opacity within migration control regimes more generally lead to difficulties for conducting academic research. This article instead relies on a self-reflexive account of two successful access negotiations to question what acquiring access tells us about the workings of migration control, and what consequences entering into a relationship with powerful actors has for academic knowledge production. I argue that granting access as such serves an important function for the deportation apparatus, as it helps to legitimise state power and assert their moral authority. By selectively facilitating access and enabling scrutiny by researchers, journalists and the wider public, I argue that the deportation apparatus strategically performs transparency and “voluntary accountability.”     

Outcomes in the sociology of mental health and illness: where have we been and where are we going?

Sociologists of mental health and illness have traditionally used outcome measures that they have obtained from other disciplines, especially psychiatry and psychology. These include official statistics, symptom scales, and diagnostic measures. Answers to the central sociological question of how social arrangements affect mental health might require the development of explicitly sociological outcome measures. This introduction provides an overview of several issues that arise in grappling with this question. These include whether symptom scales or diagnoses best capture the mental health consequences of social arrangements; when single or multiple outcomes are necessary to compare the consequences of social arrangements across different groups; if sociologists should explore the positive as well as the negative consequences of social forces; and when sociological attention should be directed toward social-level as well as individual-level outcomes. The papers in this symposium that follow provide more detailed analyses of each of these issues.     

Moving away from globalization and the “flattening” of Social Work: Preserving Context in International Efforts

Contextual awareness has been a professional trademark and has differentiated social work intervention from other professions. Context in social work has traditionally included tangible and intangible factors such as an intimate understanding of the cultural milieu, familiarity with local history, languages, traditions, and sensibilities. The current concern is that given the forces of globalization and managerialism, social work practice and education in many countries have distanced themselves from addressing context in curriculum building and have become mechanistic in program design and delivery. This paper contrasts the concepts of internationalization and globalization. The authors concur with the perspective that the movement to globalize society was the result of economic forces and unfortunately spread into culturally embedded fields such as social work. They propose that globalization in social work has changed the direction of former efforts at internationalization, which were designed primarily to develop cross-national perspectives on human experiences. After a review of current trends in globalization, the authors offer cautionary words about well-intended efforts that can easily become educational frameworks imposed from the outside, with the power of disrupting cultures.     

Criminology and war: where are we going and where have we been?

Although the metaphor of war (e.g., the war on terror, war on crime, war on drugs) figures prominently in contemporary criminological discourse, criminologists have generally lagged behind other disciplines in studying the reality of war and its implications for crime, punishment, and ideology. In this essay, I first consider potential reasons for criminology's limited role in studying war and make the case for why war warrants a more central place in criminological discourse. Subsequently, I trace some of criminology's early contributions to the study of war in two domains—(a) legal responses to war and (b) the link between war and crime—and reflect upon ways in which the discipline can both broaden its purview and draw from its own intellectual history to engage more critically with the subject of war.     

“You have to do something”: Snoring,sleep interembodiment and the emergence of agency

Although the sociology of sleep is a growing subfield, little is known about agency in the context of sleep. This article contributes to the sociological literature by showing how different types of agency emerge as a result of sleep interembodiment (i.e., experiencing sleep partners’ bodies as intertwined). The study draws on qualitative data generated through in-depth interviews with 70 snorers and 20 sleep partners of snorers. Interviews were conducted in Israel and were analysed following constructivist grounded theory principles. Results indicate that two types of agency coexist and, in fact, co-constitute one another: The first type, herein termed material agency, reflects the post-humanist tradition, which conceptualizes agents as entities (whether human or nonhuman) that alter a state of affairs by making a difference in another agent's action. This type of agency exists in both wakefulness and throughout periods of sleep, as the snorer’s body acts and interacts with a partner's body in ways that engender significant change in their lives, relationships, and actions. In contrast, the second type, herein termed reflexive agency, reflects the humanist tradition, which regards agency as individuals' creative and assertive capacities motivated by intentionality and reflexivity. This type of agency declines significantly during stages of deep sleep but re-emerges in response to partners' actions. The article adds to the literature by refining the concept of agency and elucidating its relationship to both accountability and interembodiment. In addition, the article provides much-needed empirical evidence showing how “personal responsibility” for health, as required by neoliberal discourses, is invoked within families, specifically with regard to sleep. This study therefore shows how certain macro-level structures of neoliberalism are enacted and reinforced within micro-level interactions.     

“We are all Hizbullah now”: narrating the Party of God

This essay is the first examination of the literary output of the Lebanese political party and militia Hizbullah. It examines a series of little-known fiction and non-fiction texts including novels, memoirs and autobiographies by Hizbullah fighters, supporters and sympathisers. At the same time, it seeks to place such Hizbullah narratives within the context not only of the Party’s media strategy but of the publishing industry in Lebanon more widely. The essay also argues that Hizbullah narratives consistently explore a cluster of key themes including the Karbala tragedy, Anti-Zionism and, in particular, the “infitah” or “Lebanonisation” of the Party. In conclusion, the essay argues that narratives of Hizbullah reflect the Party’s own gradual evolution over its 30-year existence from a purely sectarian group to a broader resistance movement that attracts support from across the religious and political spectrum.     

If there had been no synagogue there,they would have had to invent it: the case of the Birobidzhan “religious community of the Judaic creed” on the threshold of perestroika

The Birobidzhan Jewish religious community, officially registered on 15 December 1946, was the only one recognised by the Soviet authorities in the USSR's Far East. During the first years of its activity the community represented a unique case – perhaps the only case in the country – of linkage between a synagogue and the Soviet party and economic establishment on the local level. However, the persecutions of the early 1950s and several anti-religious campaigns later resulted in the Birobidzhan religious community falling into to a very sorry condition. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Regional Executive Committee even decided to cancel the registration of the community and remove it from the books. At the same time, after the 1984 large-scale celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR), the central Soviet authorities found that Birobidzhan “clericals” could serve the purposes of the Soviet agitation and propaganda apparatus, as confirmation of the absence of any oppression of Judaism in the JAR. As a result, the chairman of the Regional Executive Committee of Russian origin was removed from his position and a new chairman of Jewish origin was appointed. Furthermore, for the first time in decades, not counting the construction of the temporary synagogue at the Olympic village in Moscow in 1980, Soviet municipal authorities took an active part in the establishment of a Jewish house of worship.     

Forget “militarization”: race,disability and the “martial politics” of the police and of the university

This article investigates the limits of the concept of militarization and proposes an alternative concept: martial politics. It argues that the concept of militarization falsely presumes a peaceful liberal order that is encroached on by military values or institutions. Arguing instead that we must grapple with the ways in which war and politics are mutually shaped, the article proposes the concept of martial politics as a means for examining how politics is shot-through with war-like relations. It argues that stark distinctions cannot be made between war and peace, military and civilian or national and social security. This argument is made in relation to two empirical sites: the police and the university. Arguing against the notion that either the police or the university have been “militarized,” the article provides a historical analysis of the ways in which these institutions have always already been implicated in martial politics – that is, of producing White social and economic order through war-like relations with Indigenous, racialized, disabled, poor and other communities. It concludes by assessing the political and scholarly opportunities that are opened up for feminists through the rejection of the concept of militarization in favor of the concept of martial politics.     

“We,the polish nation”: Ethnic and civic visions of nationhood in post-communist constitutional debates

Theory and Society -     

“We are on air now”: the emotionality of video-recording in the institutional setting

Abstract

This article engages with the practice of video recording in social research. We draw on our research of institutional talk to explore the emotionality of video recording in the context of the studied situations. Drawing on insights from Collins’ theory of interaction rituals, we demonstrate a variety of situational moments in which different participants negotiate the presence of a video camera. Our analysis reveals the emotional aspects of negotiating and appropriating the presence of such technologies by all parties involved in the research process. We contribute to and extend the growing body of literature that discusses the meaning of technology for social research by emphasizing the emotionality of using video cameras in social and research practices.     

Alcohol and Sexual Health Behavior: “What We Know and How We Know It”

Alcohol, despite salutary associations with sexuality, has been implicated in sexual health problems. This review examines the relationship between alcohol and outcomes related to sexual health. Methodological considerations limiting causal assertions permissible with nonexperimental data are discussed, as are advantages of experimental methods. Findings from laboratory experiments are reviewed evaluating causal effects of acute alcohol intoxication on a variety of outcomes, including sexual arousal, sexual desire, orgasm, and sexual risk behaviors related to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Several variables exerting mediating and moderating influences are identified. It is concluded that acute alcohol intoxication is capable of exerting a causal impact on multiple constituent components of sexual responding related to sexual health. Both alcohol expectancy and alcohol myopia theories have been supported as explanations for these causal effects. Furthermore, for sexual risk behavior, noteworthy recent developments include research highlighting the importance of women’s sexual victimization history and men’s condom use resistance. Limitations and implications associated with this body of research are also discussed.     

“Politics have shown that the malays can change”: Corporate anthropology and the governing of entrepreneurial subjectivities in Malaysia

This paper analyses the interplay between anthropological epistemologies, industrial development and labour market policies, and the human technologies seeking to develop entrepreneurial subjectivities in Malaysia. It is argued that the ease with which conceptions of Malay subjectivity interacted with a series of mundane and practical managerial devices depended on the recast of the understanding of Malay subjectivity informed by developmental rationalities and anthropological epistemologies. This paper moreover addresses the apparent contradiction between the neo‐liberal and authoritarian political rationalities inscribed in the programs and human technologies seeking to develop entrepreneurial subjectivities.     

“From the client's point(s) of view”: How poor people perceive and evaluate political clientelism

Theory and Society -     

“Filthy rich” and “dirt poor:” social and cultural dimensions of solid waste management (SWM) in Lagos

Abstract

This paper analyses how household solid waste was perceived and handled in traditional Yoruba and contemporary Lagos society in South West Nigeria. It highlights the roles of individuals, households, changing lifestyles and diet, business cycles, residential segregation, and state and non-state actors and institutions in waste management in Lagos. The filthy rich/dirt poor divide in Lagos is epitomised by spatial segregation and social stratification, reflected by contrasting highbrow neighbourhoods and massive dumpsites in the metropolis. Central to this discussion are changing economic dynamics. The boom years were characterised by conspicuous consumption, waste and replacement while economic adversity precipitated destitution, re-use and recycling of waste, and recourse to imported second-hand clothing and household utensils. The paper recommends a multi-pronged sustainable waste management strategy for Lagos.     

Introduction: Aspiring migrants,local crises and the imagination of futures ‘away from home’

This special issue addresses the imagination of futures ‘away from home’ in a globalising world. While a growing number of migration scholars have taken into account that migration considerations are always socially embedded and culturally informed, the processes at work among a mounting number of (young) men and women throughout the world, who are convinced that a better life can only be found ‘away from home’, have been notably understudied. This special issue goes beyond the study of migration aspirations as a question of migration only. It focuses on the specific contexts (in five different countries) within which migration dreams are born, and sometimes even cultivated. It explores the sociocultural embedding of these aspirations by investigating the interpretation of local realities versus global possibilities, and examines how the aspirations of so many worldwide link up to the wider interconnections between globalisation and the sociocultural, political and economic transformations ‘back home’.     

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.     

Women, work and childcare: where have we been? Where are we going?

Working mothers who simultaneously manage a job, raise children, and maintain a home may find the endeavor to be physically and emotionally challenging. By means of a case study, this paper explores the impact of work-related injury on one mother's ability to meet the physical demands of childcare and homemaking tasks without jeopardizing her physical recovery or job security. Following a musculoskeletal injury at work, the subject received traditional occupational therapy intervention as well as specific education regarding ergonomic childcare techniques. Her ability to perform routine homemaking and childcare tasks was assessed prior to and following treatment using the ErgoMomics MOMS (Measure of Musculoskeletal Symptoms) survey. The case study suggests that educating mothers in ergonomic techniques related to vocational as well as avocational tasks may be beneficial in helping them manage the dual demands of family life and career. Additional informal interviews were conducted with twelve mothers, ages thirty-five to sixty-eight, in order to frame the case study within a wider historical perspective concerning the role of work in women's lives.     

Visual social media and affectivity: the impact of the image of Alan Kurdi and young people’s response to the refugee crisis in Oslo and Sheffield

This article focuses on the reception of the image of Alan Kurdi by a group of young volunteers in Oslo and Sheffield, and their understanding of the subsequent civic and political engagement. Methodologically, the study draws on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with a group of young volunteers who saw the photograph when it went viral on Twitter and who had followed the media coverage and participated in on- and offline activities related to the case. To analyse the views of the research participants on the Alan Kurdi case, I draw on feminist theoretical perspectives on affectivity, theoretical literature relating to news images and iconic photography, and online social movement theories. The study shows that the iconic image of Alan Kurdi offered a way of transforming complex and unsettled aspects of the refugee crisis into something concrete and understandable, contributing to galvanize affective resonance and immediate public response among the involved subjects. The infrastructure of social media, enabling the rapid global circulation of the image, contributed to shaping social assemblages to which connective emotions and common meanings were ascribed.     

Reporting disability in the age of austerity: the changing face of media representation of disability and disabled people in the United Kingdom and the creation of new ‘folk devils’

Following its election in 2010 the UK’s Coalition Government has sought to implement radical restructuring of disability-related benefits justified by reference to the financial crises of 2007/08. In this article we examine how these changes have impacted on coverage of disability in the UK media comparing and contrasting coverage of disability in newspapers in 2010/11 with a similar period in 2004/05. Our analysis suggests that disabled people have become a ‘folk devil’ and that there has been a significant change in the way that disability is reported. Newspaper coverage in 2010/11 was less sympathetic and there was an increase in articles that focused on disability benefit and fraud, and an increase in the use of pejorative language to describe disabled people. An audience reception study suggests that this coverage is having an impact on the way that people think about disabled people.