Brothels as families: Reflections on the history of Bombay's1 kothas

Abstract

Feminist theory typically locates prostitution outside the ambit of familial institutions. In particular, sex radical feminists and some feminist historians cast prostitution as an alternative to heteronormative domesticity. This article stresses the continuities between families and brothels in their structures of affection, obligation and domination. Given that brothels have often been sites of residence in South Asia, the question I address is, to what extent have brothel relations mirrored conventional family roles? In doing so, I offer a caution against universalizing work as a category for framing and understanding commercial sex. I begin the article by explaining the need for greater specificity in transnational feminist conversations about prostitution, and pointing out absences in sex radical and feminist historical accounts. I then analyze brothel life in 1920s Bombay drawing on annual reports of social work organizations, testimonies from high court cases, police files, census figures and anecdotal accounts. I demonstrate how families facilitated the entry of women and girls into prostitution, and how kinship – both actual and fictive – legitimized participation in the sex trade. Within brothels, familial roles provided a ready-made hierarchy that secured the loyalty and obedience of subordinates. I close by showing how brothels functioned as alternate, rather than alternative, residences, especially for those sent there by their families.     

The Paradigm Shift: Pornography Research,Sexualization and Extreme Images

In this paper, I focus on what has been called a paradigm shift in pornography research, driven by the development of particular theoretical and political concerns and by changing material conditions, and on the academic work that has emerged from this. I describe the current situation where studies in the area are more diverse than ever before, while public debate continues to draw on a relatively limited approach based on a concern with what media ‘does’ to behaviour. I outline two areas in particular which currently dominate public and political discussions; namely the sexualization of mainstream media and ‘extreme’ imagery on the fringes of culture, and suggest ways in which these present new challenges and opportunities for developing pornography research.     

The new genetics: professionals' discursive boundaries

In this paper we examine new genetics professionals’ accounts of the social context of their work. We analyse accounts given in interview by an ‘elite’ group of scientists and clinicians. Drawing on the work of Gilbert and Mulkay (1984), we consider interviewees’ discourse about knowledge, exploring the way in which they separate science from society through the use of what we have called the ‘micro/macro split’. We then go on to consider the reasons for such a discursive boundary, exploring the interviewees’ wider discourse about expertise and responsibility for the social implications of the new genetics. We argue that interviewees’ discursive boundaries allow them to appeal variously to their objectivity, to dismiss bad science and to characterize the public as ignorant. However, these discursive boundaries are permeable and flexible, and are employed to support the new genetics professionals’ role in guiding education and government policy, whilst at the same time deflecting ultimate responsibility for the use of knowledge on to an abstract and amorphous society. Responsibility is flexibly embraced and abrogated. These flexible discursive boundaries thus promote rather than challenge the cognitive authority of new genetics professionals as they engage in debates about the social implications of their work. We end by challenging the replication of these discursive boundaries, noting some of the implications of such a critique for evaluation of the new genetics.     

Work,Bodies and Boundaries: Talking Sexual Harassment in the New Economy

This article examines sexual harassment in the context of the new economy and highlights the manner in which the changing nature of work — and in particular the acknowledged rise of sexualized ‘body work’ — troubles conventional understandings of what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace and the means to address it. Using data from a small‐scale qualitative study of service workers and professional employees, we explore the ways in which those definitions of sexual harassment now fail to match participants' accounts of their working lives. We examine sexual harassment in the context of the rise of service roles that require forms of increasingly sexualized ‘body work’ from employees, increased demands for workers to ‘self‐manage’, and new flexible modes of employment that blur the boundaries between being ‘on’ and ‘off’ the job. We conclude that these ‘new’ modes of work may provide the conditions for the revival of ‘old’ stories which limit the capacity of individuals to recognize and label behaviours as ‘sexual harassment’.     

Social Skill and the Theory of Fields

The problem of the relationship between actors and the social structures in which they are embedded is central to sociological theory. This paper suggests that the "new institutionalist" focus on fields, domains, or games provides an alternative view of how to think about this problem by focusing on the construction of local orders. This paper criticizes the conception of actors in both rational choice and sociological versions of these theories. A more sociological view of action, what is called "social skill," is developed. The idea of social skill originates in symbolic interactionism and is defined as the ability to induce cooperation in others. This idea is elaborated to suggest how actors are important to the construction and reproduction of local orders. I show how its elements already inform existing work. Finally, I show how the idea can sensitize scholars to the role of actors in empirical work.     

Opting Out (Without Kids): Understanding Non‐Mothers' Workplace Exit in Popular Autobiographies

Since the term appeared in 2003, popular media and academics have been interested in the phenomenon of ‘opting out’ — elite women choosing to leave their jobs to stay at home with their children. Although it is unclear whether the opt‐out revolution actually exists, this conversation has resulted in a wealth of scholarship on women leaving successful jobs to care for their children, particularly how maternity might be a graceful time to exit gendered organizations. However, there is not scholarship considering women without children who opt out of the dominant career model. In this study, I look at three popular autobiographies of women who left successful careers to pursue alternative work (farming, baking). I found that the women sought meaning in their work, control over their labour process, and a new definition of success. These narratives provide broader insight into the constraints of the dominant career model and gendered organizations as well as the particular difficulties for non‐mothers to opt out.     

大学生党员网络影响力研究

随着网络技术的日新月异,特别是网络使用的普及,探讨利用网络技术深化党建工作成为一种新的趋势,探索大学生党员网络影响力建设将为基层党建工作积累新的经验。大学生党员在网络政治、网络道德、网络文化及网络交际方面的影响力对引导大学生积极正面地对待网络热点、网络舆论,引导大学生树立正确的世界观、人生观和价值观具有积极意义。     

Work–Life Balance for Fathers in Globalized Knowledge Work. Some Insights from the Norwegian Context

This article takes as its point of departure the introduction of a new flexible time regime in parts of working life. There has been increased focus on how knowledge work in particular is developing into total commitment organizations where employees put in more and more time at work. Using two case studies from law and computing companies the article focuses on the organization of work and the organization of time in globalized knowledge organizations, and what effect this has on the time practices of male employees who are fathers. In the same period the Nordic countries have introduced state incentives and regulations that aim to help fathers achieve work–life balance. The article also discusses whether this is a fruitful policy, or whether fathers working in flexible time cultures need more deregulation, individual choice and flexible policy measures.     

New ethnicities online: reflexive racialisation and the internet

In this article we analyse the emergence of Internet activity addressing the experiences of young people in two British communities: South Asian and Chinese. We focus on two web sites: http://www.barficulture.com and http://www.britishbornchinese.org.uk , drawing on interviews with site editors, content analysis of the discussion forums, and E‐mail exchanges with site users. Our analysis of these two web sites shows how collective identities still matter, being redefined rather than erased by online interaction. We understand the site content through the notion of reflexive racialisation. We use this term to modify the stress given to individualisation in accounts of reflexive modernisation. In addition we question the allocation of racialised meaning from above implied by the concept of racialisation. Internet discussion forums can act as witnesses to social inequalities and through sharing experiences of racism and marginalisation, an oppositional social perspective may develop. The online exchanges have had offline consequences: social gatherings, charitable donations and campaigns against adverse media representations. These web sites have begun to change the terms of engagement between these ethnic groups and the wider society, and they have considerable potential to develop new forms of social action.     

Does the online collection of ego-centered network data reduce data quality? An experimental comparison

We analyze whether differences in kind and quality of ego-centered network data are related to whether the data are collected online or offline. We report the results of two studies. In the first study respondents could choose between filling out ego-centered data through a web questionnaire and being probed about their network in a personalized interview. The second study used a design in which respondents were allocated at random to either online or offline data collection. Our results show that the data quality suffers from the online data collection and the findings indicate that this is the consequence of the respondents answering “mechanically”. We conclude that network researchers should avoid to simply copy traditional network items into a web questionnaire. More research is needed about how new design elements specific for web questionnaires can motivate respondents to fill out network questions properly.     

Differentiating selves: middle‐aged gay men in Manchester's less visible ‘homospaces’

Scholarship on gay bars/‘villages’ has overshadowed study of ‘homospaces’ (gay fields of existence) less available/inaccessible to a wider public – websites, saunas and social/support groups. Based on interviews with 27 men aged 39–61 living in Manchester, this article addresses what middle‐aged gay men's accounts of these particular homospaces say about their experiences of age/ageing and how relations of ageism work within them. Specifically, I focus on how study participants use ‘ageing capital’ in these fields to differentiate themselves from their younger counterparts in three ways. First, ageing capital is implicated in capitulation to gay ageism and a reverse ageism – visible in accounts of differentiation from the ‘superficial,’ reckless ways of sexualized space that participants associated with younger gay men. Second, it was visible in accounts of resistance to/questioning of gay ageism – strategies that could make sexualized homospaces more habitable. Third, ageing capital was implicated in negotiation with ageing/gay ageism – visible in ambivalent stances hovering between compliance and resistance – towards ageing and ageism, which could reinforce constraints on uses/display of the body. The first and third accounts indicate the multidirectional character of gay ageism, limits on the deployment on ageing capital and show how middle‐aged men can undermine their generational claims to represent a more authentic form of gay male embodiment. En route, I also complicate stereotypical thinking that gay social/support groups represent more inclusive, empowering space whilst overtly sexualized spaces of the ‘gay scene’ represent the opposite.     

Facebook Bras and #digitalharems: Fantasies of Mimesis and the Transgressions of Aliaa Elmahdy and Amina Sboui

Abstract

This article presents a horizontal reading of Aliaa Elmahdy's and Amina Sboui's corporeal interventions alongside the efficacy of digital platforms in order to consider how algorithmic and normative protocols related to content filtering on social media amplify certain forms of political communication while prohibiting others. I argue that readings of Elmahdy's and Sboui's bodily politics through the lens of liberal feminism rely on what I call discourses of mimetic networking, where particular mediated events become reterritorialized as part of an archival knowledge of ‘Arabness’. This is done through the organization of data via hashtagging and content moderation, and through rhetorics of techno-optimism that mirror ‘first contact’ narratives which gender, racialize, and flatten complex and fluid engagements with new media in non-US/European contexts. The article concludes with a consideration of how the persistence of their corporeality relays with both normative and programmatic parameters online to make alternative visions of communication possible.     

Racial formation,inequality and the political economy of web traffic

ABSTRACT

Few studies attempt to demonstrate whether and how systemic racial inequality might form on the web. I use racial formation theory to conceptualize how race is represented, and systematically reproduced on the web, and how both may reveal forms of racial inequality. Using an original dataset and network graph, I document the architecture of web traffic, and the actual traffic patterns among and between race-based websites. Results demonstrate that web producers create hyperlink networks that steer audiences to websites without respect to racial or nonracial content. However, user navigation reflects a racially segregated traffic pattern; users navigate to racialized versus nonracialized websites (and vice versa) more than what would be expected by chance. These results, along with disparities in website traffic rankings, provide evidence of, and demonstrates how a race-based hierarchy might systematically emerge on the web in ways that exemplify disparate forms of value, influence and power that exist within the web environment.     

Empowering the activist: Using framing devices on activist organizations’ web sites

The researchers analyzed activist organization web sites to determine the framing techniques employed in their public relations messages. The macro framework for this study was based on the work of sociologists David Snow and Robert Benford, who focus on how social activist organizations frame their messages. At the micro level, the researchers examined the web sites for the presence or absence of five devices identified by Gamson and Modigliani (American Journal of Sociology 1989;95:1–37) as commonly used when framing issues.     

Social Media: Defining,Developing, and Divining

What is a social medium, and how may one moderate, isolate, and influence communicative processes within? Although scholars assume an inherent understanding of social media based on extant technology, there is no commonly accepted definition of what social media are, both functionally and theoretically, within communication studies. Given this lack of understanding, cogent theorizing regarding the uses and effects of social media has been limited. This work first draws on extant definitions of social media and subcategories (e.g., social network sites) from public relations, information technology, and management scholarship, as well as the popular press, to develop a definition of social media precise enough to embody these technologies yet robust enough to remain applicable in 2035. It then broadly explores emerging developments in the features, uses, and users of social media for which future theories will need to account. Finally, it divines and prioritizes challenges that may not yet be apparent to theorizing communication processes with and in mercurial social media. We address how social media may uniquely isolate and test communicative principles to advance our understanding of human–human and human–computer interaction. In all, this article provides a common framework to ground and facilitate future communication scholarship and beyond.     

Teil-autonome Arbeitsteams oder tayloristische Produktionslinie? Welche Erkenntnisgewinne bieten simulationsbasierte Work Design Trainings

Digitalisation, flexible job markets, new technologies and innovative forms of collaboration constitute increasing challenges for employers and the design of modern work. But how can we deal with these challenges and what do we know about the effect of good versus bad work design? Based on the job demands-resources model (JRM), we present a simulation-based training during which participants experience the effects of different work characteristics. We focus on the moderating effects of job control and job demands: The JRM assumes that job demands and job control interactively affect employee exhaustion and work engagement: Jobs with high control can buffer the strain-enhancing effect of job demands (buffer hypothesis) and increase work engagement (active learning hypothesis). We test these hypotheses in a workplace simulation during which participants have to produce ice-cream. Our results support the buffer hypothesis but not the active learning hypothesis. We discuss the added value of work design simulations for organisations, practitioners, and HR professionals.     

Managing Epistemic Risk in Forensic Science: Sociological Aspects and Issues

The last decades have seen a notable increase in the use of scientific evidence in criminal investigation, a development which has captured the imagination of the media, publics and policymakers alike. Yet behind the authoritative image of forensic science lies a highly fluid and indeterminate landscape which invites sociological interest. In what follows, I aim to provide a sense of why it holds appeal to sociology, and to also outline a more updated research agenda in the light of continuing developments and deliberation within both sociological and forensic scientific circles. This renewed agenda revolves around the topic of risk. I outline recent developments which represent new approaches to the problem of epistemic risk in forensic science. With reference to a specific example (the ‘Case Assessment and Interpretation’ method of evidence assessment), I argue for the importance of studying risk-aware practices in forensic investigation, and how these help to reveal further how forensic science can be regarded as a complicated, heterogeneous and highly socialised human activity, in stark contrast to the immutable and technologically sophisticated image often promulgated in popular accounts.     

Science as Snake Oil: Rural Development,Discourse, and the Broken Promise of Tech Jobs in Vermont

This paper examines the public conversation surrounding two failed technology businesses in rural Vermont communities, documenting a particular techno-development discourse. Engaging with the literatures of rural development and science and technology studies (STS), the paper frames this discourse as a mechanism of power exercised by private capital. It analyzes how perspectives shared in news and social media functioned to attribute financial, technological, and moral authority to developers while dividing communities and scapegoating the state. Our work highlights the need for scholars to be conscious of techno-development discourses that prioritize capital interests over community interests. Rather than using hegemonic conceptualizations of technology, we advocate for development that advances more flexible, local understandings of technology. And rather than centering high-tech development as a vehicle for extending prosperity across space, we propose that greater attention be paid to extending high wages across industrial sectors.