Once in Parkland,a Year in Hartford,a Weekend in Chicago: Race and Resistance in the Gun Violence Prevention Movement

Generally ignoring firearm‐deaths by suicide, “common sense” divides gun violence into two distinct types of phenomena: urban gun violence and mass shootings. At a cursory level, these phenomena seem distinct because of the difference in the number of victims killed during a particular shooting, rather than subtypes co‐creating a master category defined by gun violence. As a result, gunshot deaths of black and brown bodies in urban settings, which constitute the majority of deaths by gun violence after suicide, are viewed as routine whereas gunshot deaths in suburban settings are extraordinary and worthy of outrage. In this article, we draw on ethnographic observation to compare protest vigils in urban communities comprised predominantly of people of color, in suburban areas that are mostly white, and at the national level in order to uncover the racialized processes of symbolic classification by which this “commonsense” view is produced and how it is challenged by activists. We use the framework of cultural pragmatics to analyze these vigils, making visible the racialized forms of domination that structure activism and, we contend, ultimately divide gun violence into two distinct phenomena rather than constituting a master category. We argue that cultural pragmatics provides a way to understand what it means to challenge culture as emphasized by the multi‐institutional politics approach to social movements.     

That “Every Man for Himself” Thing: The Rationales of Individualism Among the Urban Poor

Individualism is a frequently referenced but seldom inspected topic within urban poverty literature. Residents of low‐income communities may internalize their social immobility by perceiving status to be determined by choices, behaviors, and psychological or moral shortcomings, but scholars generally depict such individualistic outlooks as only a byproduct of more predominant community dysfunctions. As a result, individualism—an ambiguous and confounding concept at all social strata—can assume an especially disapproving tenor when applied to the urban poor, often connoting qualities of defensiveness, ignorance, and quixotic hope. In this article, I draw from ethnographic fieldwork in Houston's Fifth Ward community to explore individualism's meanings and utility within a context of compromised prospects for positive self‐determination. I explain how defensiveness against vulnerability, violence, and volatile relationships is just one rationale for individualism that is exercised alongside other, still structurally framed rationales (i.e., expressive and meritocratic) on the viability of social mobility.     

Constructions of local culture and impacts on domestic violence in an Australian rural community

Studies of domestic violence in rural areas have predominantly focused on barriers that keep women trapped in abusive relationships. The literature has frequently suggested that rural culture influences the incidence of domestic violence, the forms it takes, and how it is experienced. Yet there is surprisingly little research on how rural culture plays out in relationships between women and men who experience domestic violence. The study described in this paper explored local culture in a South Australian rural community and how it affected women's experiences of, and men's perpetration of, domestic violence. It found several local cultural discourses that bore on the issue, including self-reliance, pride, privacy, belonging and closeness, family, and Christianity. The power and influence of these discourses made it difficult to name and challenge domestic violence. The paper concludes with the argument that it is important to acknowledge and understand the values and beliefs of rural women and men when developing effective and appropriate responses to rural domestic violence. There is a need to move away from universal understandings of a rural culture to acknowledge discourses that have power and strength within a community so that we can sensitively challenge discourses that silence domestic violence.     

Gun violence exposure and trauma among rural youth

This study compared rural youth exposed to gun violence and rural youth not exposed to gun violence on a number of variables: anger, anxiety, dissociation, depression, posttraumatic stress, total trauma, violent behavior, parental monitoring, and levels of violence in the home, school, and community. One-fourth (25%) of the rural youth in this study reported having been exposed to gun violence at least once. Youth exposed to gun violence reported significantly more anger, dissociation, posttraumatic stress, and total trauma. In addition, youth exposed to the violence of guns reported significantly higher levels of violent behaviors and exposure to violence in other settings and also reported lower levels of parental monitoring. The present study contributes to the growing body of literature addressing the stereotype that rural communities are not immune to the violence of firearms. This stereotype acts as a barrier to mental health practice, research, and policy issues in rural communities.     

Policing “Domestic Disturbances” in Small Towns and Rural Communities: Implications for Officer and Victim Safety

Drawing on Canadian police data on homicide involving domestic dispute calls from 1960 to the present (n = 20), as well as on in‐depth interviews with police officers (n = 33) working in rural and remote communities, the authors reexamine the argument that police attendance at domestic disturbance calls can pose a special threat to officer safety. Although some scholarship suggests that purported risks have been overstated, the authors argue that location may be a critical factor in reducing or heightening not only risks to officers, but also to victims. Although intended as an exploratory work, situated within the context of cultural support for domestic violence in rural communities, the authors raise both interesting policy implications, as well as potential avenues for future research. En partant de données de la police canadienne sur les homicides impliquant des disputes familiales de 1960 à nos jours (n = 20), ainsi que sur des entrevues en profondeur avec des agents policiers (n = 33) travaillant dans des régions rurales et des communautés éloignées, les auteurs ré‐examinent l'argument voulant que les interventions policières lors d'appels liés à des problèmes domestiques posent un risque spécial pour les agents policiers. Même si certains spécialistes suggèrent que ces risques sont exagérés, les auteurs affirment que le lieu pourrait être un facteur important par rapport au niveau de risque pour les agents policiers, ainsi que les victimes. Même s'il s'agit d'une recherche exploratoire, se situant dans le contexte du soutient culturel de la violence domestique dans les communautés rurales, les auteurs s'intéressent à la fois aux implications en termes de gestion et aux directions possibles en termes de recherches futures.     

Pacification of Rio's Favelas and the “Pacification of the Pacification Police”: The Role of Coordinating Brokerage in Police Reform

Rio de Janeiro's drug dealer–dominated favelas are territories where the state lacks the monopoly of violence. They have historically been sites of sporadic and violent police operations. Rio's favela “pacification” program aimed to consolidate state control via the establishment of a Pacification Police Unit (UPP). This proximity policing program initially experienced mixed results in different “pacified” favelas. I take advantage of this state intervention at the urban margins to ask, what explains the positive reception of this policing initiative in some communities but not others? I concentrate my fieldwork in two communities sharing a UPP that represented extreme cases of success in terms of the program's reception by residents. I find that the coordinating brokerage of respected local organizations helps acculturate police to the community and minimize offensive police behavior, thereby “pacifying the Pacification Police.” Residents are receptive to these resocialized police who comply with local norms of respect. This police‐reforming brokerage is possible due to the high level of closure in the local network and due to a vibrant local community with a strong history of organizing. My findings emphasize the importance of considering the role of local civil society in police reform at the urban margins.     

Stability and Change in Female and Male Violence across Rural and Urban Counties, 1981–2006

Two durable criminological patterns have been higher violence rates in urban compared to rural areas and by males compared to females. To derive and evaluate hypotheses related to correspondence across place and sex groups in changes in violence trends, we draw on a spatial‐inequality perspective that attends to the geographic distribution of inequalities at the subnational scale, as well as to recent extensions of social‐disorganization theory to variation in rural and female violence rates. Our study's focus is on systematically delineating the extent and timing of change in female and male violence trends, the rural‐urban violence gap, and the gender gap. We apply epidemiological joinpoint techniques to Uniform Crime Reports arrest data from completely rural to highly urbanized settings for several violent offenses (homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and misdemeanor assault) between 1981 and 2006. Female and male violence rates in rural to urban settings generally followed the same course over 25 years. Analyses generally indicated parallel violence trends of rural and urban females and males and only subtle changes in the rural‐urban and gender gaps in serious violence. Serious violence became somewhat less concentrated in urban centers owing to more sizable urban rate declines after the mid‐1990s. In all contexts, the gender gap in assault arrests narrowed, but the female share of serious violence (homicide, robbery) remained much the same; this result suggests change in the social control of minor violence by females across rural and urban settings.     

Blurring the boundaries: Using Gamergate to examine “real” and symbolic violence against women in contemporary gaming culture

Recent controversies in gaming culture (i.e., Gamergate) highlight the lack of attention devoted to discussions of actual violence women experience in gaming. Rather, the focus is often situated on in‐game violence; however, we must extend discussions of in‐game violence and increased aggression to account for the “real world,” violent, realities of women as gamers, developers, and even critics of the medium. As such, we provide context with a brief introduction to the events of Gamergate. We then discuss the connections between the continued marginalization of women both in video games and in “real life.” Drawing from a range of sociological and ludological research, especially Bourdieu and Wacquant's conceptualization of symbolic violence, we examine the normalization of violence towards women in gaming culture. We conclude with considerations for future work involving symbolic violence and other conceptualizations of violence. This focus allows for a more impactful consideration as to why and how codified simulated violence affects marginalized members of communities. Using symbolic violence to connect trends within games to the lived experiences of women in gaming communities binds virtual experiences to “real” ones.     

Unpacking Heat: Dueling Identities and Complex Views on Gun Control among Rural Police

Using 20 semistructured interviews with police officers from a rural sheriff's department, we present what we believe is the first in‐depth examination of U.S. rural officers’ views on gun control. We find that officers possess complex views about gun control, reflecting their multiple identities as both gun‐oriented rural citizens and police who seek to control the situations they encounter at work. Specifically, we observed that rural police officers: (1) embrace a rural identity that implies support of gun rights over gun control; (2) report that police work experiences have caused them to embrace their police identity and to distance themselves from some gun‐related aspects of rural identity (e.g., they have lost interest in guns over time and have increasingly dissociated from gun‐enthusiast peers); and (3) have learned to incorporate aspects of both identities into their views on gun control, universally advocating for some gun control measures in the name of community safety, but rejecting others as part of rural ideological views about personal freedom. We discuss research and policy implications and suggest that policymakers must better appreciate the nuances and culture of rural places in order to gain rural citizens’ and rural police officers’ support for gun control legislation.     

Women's “Justification” of Domestic Violence in Egypt

We explored the influences of women's social learning, marital resources and constraints, and exposure to norms about women's family roles on their views about wife hitting or beating among 5,450 participants in the 2005 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey. One half justified wife hitting or beating for some reason. Women from rural areas who were exposed to domestic violence more often justified such acts. Dependent wives whose husbands had more schooling, were blood relatives, and were coresident more often justified such acts. In settings where women tended to marry at older ages, women less often justified such acts. Women's resources and constraints in marriage accounted for the largest share of the variability in their attitudes about domestic violence against women.     

Social Landscapes of the Inter‐Mountain West: A Comparison of ‘Old West’ and ‘New West’ Communities*

Abstract Rural communities have experienced dramatic demographic, social, and economic transformations over the past 30 years. Historically characterized by close links between natural resources and social, cultural, and economic structures, few of today's rural communities remain heavily dependent upon traditional extractive industries like ranching, forestry, and mining. New forms of development linked to natural and cultural amenities, including tourism and recreation, have evolved to sustain the link between community and resources. The Inter‐Mountain West region offers an excellent example of this distinction. Many of the region's rural communities have experienced substantial population growth resulting from the in‐migration of a new kind of rural resident. Their arrival, in a process some have associated with the emergence of a “New West,” has transformed rural places. However, amenity‐related social and economic structures have not occurred uniformly across space. This paper uses factor analysis and exploratory spatial data analysis to analyze demographic characteristics related to the “New West” phenomena in Inter‐Mountain West communities and the spatial patterns found in the degree of “New West‐ness” that each community exhibits.     

Swept Out: Measuring Rurality and Migration Intentions on the Upper Great Plains

Rural America has long been conceptualized as a place of out‐migration, a process that is the subject of many popular sociological works and remains a dominating narrative that describes rural life in the United States today. Population trends demonstrate this migration pattern for nearly the past century; however, emerging data paint a complex picture of migration behavior and intentions in rural areas. In this article, we utilize several measures of rurality to analyze the results of a 2012 mail survey (n = 2487) that describe the migration intentions of both rural and urban South Dakotans. Our findings show that urban residents are more likely to have intentions to migrate than rural residents, and that drivers of migration intentions appear similar in both urban and rural contexts. The survey also sheds light on the influence of community attachment, community satisfaction, quality of life, and other community strengths and weaknesses that rural and urban residents perceive in their communities. Supporting recent research on rural migration intentions, these results do not suggest high rates of out‐migration in rural areas. We discuss rural America's recent identity as a place of out‐migration, share our survey results, and discuss implications for future rural migration research.     

Agriculture and Rurality: Beginning the “Final Separation”?*

Abstract When is a farm a farm? When is rural rural? Has the issue of the rural‐urban continuum returned? Decades ago rural sociology worked itself into two blind alleys: rural‐urban differences and attempts to define the rural‐urban fringe. Although these conceptual problems eventually were exhausted, recent developments in California raise the possibility of a phoenix‐like revival, although in new form. Three cases—the success of Napa Valley winemaking and the urban crowding that has accompanied it, the explosion of wine grape acreage in neighboring Sonoma County as demand for premium wine grapes has increased dramatically, and an antibody‐manufacturing goat “farm” in Santa Cruz County—have spurred community controversies and are now generating debates over the definition of “agriculture,” whether agriculture is rural, and “When is rural rural?”     

Domestic Violence,Gun Ownership,and Parental Educational Attainment: How do They Affect the Aggressive Beliefs and Behaviors of Children?

This article explores the relationship between and effects of domestic violence, rates of gun ownership, and parental educational attainment on the aggressive beliefs and behaviors of elementary and middle school children in the state of South Carolina. The results of the current study’s statistical analyses are interpreted using a multi-theoretical framework. Recommendations to decrease rates of domestic violence and firearm accessibility, as well as methods to increase educational attainment in this state’s unique environment and the nation as a whole, are presented.     

Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Transgender Communities’ Readiness for Intimate Partner Violence Prevention

Efforts to address intimate partner violence (IPV) in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities often rely on identifying what service providers can do to better reach and serve these populations. However, assessing a community's readiness in response to the issue of IPV in LGBT communities locates the issue where outcry is most likely to occur. Utilizing the Community Readiness Model in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities in two rural and two urban communities, this study revealed a low level of community readiness to address IPV. Only vague awareness of IPV exists in these sexual orientation, gender identity, and geographic communities. The study suggests specific next steps tailored to raise LGBT communities’ readiness to address IPV from within their own communities, starting at the current low level.     

Contested communities: the refuge movement and cultural identities in Wales

This paper explores different meanings of community and cultural identity. Women involved in the refuge movement in rural Wales belong to overlapping communities: geographically located rural communities; linguistic and ethnic communities; and the gendered and occupationally based community of Welsh Women's Aid. Language is an important marker of belonging to Welsh rural communities which are under threat from an influx of non-Welsh speakers. Incoming women who are homeless as a result of domestic violence may be perceived as part of this threat. This creates a potential conflict for refuge workers, some of whom are also Welsh speakers, who represent the interests of this group of women but also belong to Welsh-speaking, rural communities. We explore the interrelation between these refuge workers, the various communities to which they belong, and how belonging or not belonging shapes their identities. We conclude that these women, in spite of the conflicting rights and interests of their various communities, negotiate a shared collective identity which owes something to all three.     

Taking guns from batterers: public support and policy implications

Federal law prohibits the purchase or possession of a firearm by persons convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence and those under certain domestic violence restraining orders. The purpose of this investigation is to examine public sentiment about the removal of firearms in the absence of a restraining order or misdemeanor conviction following domestic violence. An experimental vignette design was used in a telephone survey of a cross-sectional statewide sample of 522 community-residing adults in California. Study design and population weights were applied; the findings, thus, are a reasonable approximation for the population of California. In more than 3,500 vignettes, the abusive behavior was judged to be wrong, illegal, or should be illegal (98.7%, 73.1%, and 77.7%, respectively). Although only about one half (56.5%) of the scenarios were thought to merit the issuance of a restraining order, three fourths (77.4%) were thought to merit the removal of firearms. Multivariate analyses indicated greater support for firearms removal when the abuse involved sexual or physical abuse (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] ranged from 2.65 to 5.64) or a gun (AOR = 6.54). Men were the sole population group with significantly lower support for firearm removal following domestic violence (AOR = 0.39). The men who wanted firearms to remain did not differ from other men on any of the measured variables. In sum, there is substantial support, especially when a gun is displayed in a domestic violence incident, for policies requiring the removal of firearms from abusers.     

“There Is No Perfect School”: The Complexity of School Decision‐Making Among Lesbian and Gay Adoptive Parents

Parents influence their children's educational experiences in part via school selection. This process is particularly complex for families with multiple minority, potentially stigmatized, statuses. This qualitative study examines middle‐class lesbian and gay (LG) adoptive parents' school decision‐making. Parents' economic resources provided the foundation for how parents weighed child/family identities (children's race, LG‐parent family structure, child's special needs) and school‐related concerns (e.g., academic rigor). For White gay male‐headed families in affluent urban communities, financial resources muted racial and sexual orientation consciousness in favor of competitive academic environments. Lesbian mothers of modest economic means prioritized racial diversity more centrally. Racial diversity overrode gay‐friendliness as a consideration in lesbian‐mother families; gay‐friendliness was prioritized over racial diversity among families in conservative communities; and special needs overrode all other child and family identity considerations. For LG adoptive parent families, school decision‐making has the potential for greater tensions amidst multiple intersecting identities and fewer economic resources.     

The front lines of domestic violence. Training model for rural EMS personnel

1. Domestic violence is a major public health problem requiring committed, coordinated community response. 2. Domestic violence is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality for women and children in the United States. 3. EMS personnel play a frontline role in the critical response and prevention of domestic violence. 4. EMS education and training are requisite for safe, effective responses to domestic violence in rural communities.     

Expressive Vocabulary in Language Learners From Two Ecological Settings in Three Language Communities

This study compared multiple characteristics of girls' and boys' vocabulary in 6 different linguistic communities—1 urban and 1 rural setting in each of 3 countries. Two hundred fifty‐two mothers in Argentina, Italy, and the United States completed vocabulary checklists for their 20‐month‐old children. Individual variability was substantial within each linguistic community. Minimal cross‐linguistic differences were found in children's vocabulary size; however, differences among languages in the composition of children's vocabularies appeared possibly related to cultural valuing of different categories of words. Ecological setting differences within cultures appeared in children's vocabulary size, even when the composition of children's vocabularies was examined: Children living in urban areas were reported by their mothers to say significantly more words than children living in rural areas, particularly for Argentine and U.S. children. Girls had consistently larger vocabularies than boys. These findings are discussed in terms of contextual and child factors that together influence first language learning.