Nonmarket networks among migrants: evidence from metropolitan Bangkok,Thailand

This paper examines the nonmarket interactions among migrants in the urban labor market of Bangkok, Thailand. We test whether the population size and the labor-market performance of previous migrants have externalities to new migrants who have moved from the same province of origin. Our empirical results, which control origin fixed effects, time fixed effects, and origin- and year-specific correlated shocks, show that (1) the relative population size of previous migrants in the market decreases the employment probability of new migrants (substitution effect), (2) the employment probability of previous migrants increases that of new migrants (positive externalities), and (3) when the employment probability of previous migrants is high, however, the scale effect becomes positive, which demonstrates a threshold in the informational scale economies. The results imply that positive informational scale effect dominates negative substitution effect when the efficiency of previous migrants is sufficiently high in the destination labor market.

“The Story of My Life”: AIDS and ‘Autobiographical Occasions’

Talk and ‘telling’ have assumed prominent roles in preventing HIV and promoting life with the disease at the start of the twenty-first century. Our concern in this paper is to show how social structures and circumstances shape the narrative productions of HIV positive patients whose lives are institutionally managed. We consider what ‘telling’ means when young women with few economic resources are encouraged or mandated to talk about themselves by case managers, researchers, therapists, welfare workers, and clinic staff. We organize our analysis around three such ‘autobiographical occasions’: disclosures to intimate partners prompted by agents of the state; employment opportunities in which women are hired to tell others about living with HIV as peer educators or outreach health workers; and research interviews. We argue that storylines about living with HIV have been laid down by powerful social actors whose illness experiences do not reflect those of many poor patients. These formulations constitute an ‘archive’ which organizes institutional practices and discourses. These matter not only because they provide patients with a language through which to render their actions meaningful, but because they shape the everyday experience of HIV outside the clinic, the welfare office, and the therapy session.

Rapid Emotional Contagion and Expressive Congruence Under Strong Test Conditions

The present research examined whether the observation of emotional expressions rapidly induces congruent emotional experiences and facial responses in observers under strong test conditions. Specifically, participants rated their emotional reactions after (a) single, brief exposures of (b) a range of human emotional facial expressions that included (c) a neutral face comparison using a procedure designed to (d) minimize potential experimental demand. Even with these strong test conditions in place, participants reported discrete expression-congruent changes in emotional experience. Participants’ Corrugator supercilii facial muscle activity immediately following the presentation of an emotional expression appeared to reflect expressive congruence with the observed expression and a response indicative of the amount of cognitive load necessary to interpret the observed expression. The complexity of the C. supercilii response suggests caution in using facial muscle activity as a nonverbal measure of emotional contagion.

Age and Gender Differences in Decoding Basic and Non-basic Facial Expressions in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

This study examined age and gender differences in decoding nonverbal cues in a school population of 606 (pre)adolescents (9–15 years). The focus was on differences in the perceived intensity of several emotions in both basic and non-basic facial expressions. Age differences were found in decoding low intensity and ambiguous faces, but not in basic expressions. Older adolescents indicated more negative meaning in these more subtle and complex facial cues. Girls attributed more anger to both basic and non-basic facial expressions and showed a general negative bias in decoding non-basic facial expressions compared to boys. Findings are interpreted in the light of the development of emotion regulation and the importance for developing relationships.

An Examination of Factors Affecting Perception of Workplace Discrimination

This study investigates perceptions of workplace discrimination among racial minorities in Canada. Specifically, the study examines how objective experiences of disadvantage and expectations for equity influence racial minorities’ perceptions of discrimination. The results indicate that while both of these factors affect perceptions of discrimination, expectations for equity may be especially important. Although new immigrants are among the most disadvantaged groups in the Canadian labor market, they are less likely to perceive discrimination than longer term immigrants, who may have higher expectations for equitable treatment. Education also increases the perception of discrimination among immigrants, perhaps due to the higher expectations of educated immigrants. Lastly, objective income inequity is not found to be related to perceived discrimination.

The Demand for Labor: An Analysis Using Matched Employer–Employee Data from the German LIAB. Will the High Unskilled Worker Own-Wage Elasticity Please Stand Up?

This paper uses matched employee–employer LIAB data to provide panel estimates of the structure of labor demand in western Germany, 1993–2002, distinguishing between highly skilled, skilled, and unskilled labor and between the manufacturing and service sectors. Reflecting current preoccupations, our demand analysis seeks also to accommodate the impact of technology and trade in addition to wages. The bottom-line interests are to provide elasticities of the demand for unskilled (and other) labor that should assist in short-run policy design and to identify the extent of skill biases or otherwise in trade and technology.

Polarization and convergence in academic controversies

Not many years ago both anthropology and political science experienced internal disputes—in the first case over the publication of a book accusing a noted anthropologist of endangering indigenous subjects and in the second over the nature of the field. While the first led to polarization, the second produced a partial convergence and modest reforms. This article examines the two processes and seeks the key mechanisms that produced those differences, closing with a call for broadening the study of contentious politics to cover non-public controversies like the ones examined in this article.

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Theorizing the institution: foundations,duality, and data

Although a central construct for sociologists, the concept of institution continues to elude clear and full specification. One reason for this lack of clarity is that about 50 years ago empirical researchers in the field of sociology turned their gaze downward, away from macro-sociological constructs in order to focus their attention on middle-range empirical projects. It took almost 20 years for the concept of the institution to work its back onto the empirical research agenda of mainstream sociologists. The new institutional project in organizational sociology led the way. Since then, scholars in this tradition have achieved a great deal but there is still much more to accomplish. Here, future directions for research are considered by reviewing how the concept of the institution has come to be treated by mainstream philosophers, sociologists of science and technology studies, and social network theorists.

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A Measure of Justice: The Rabinal Human Rights Movement in Post-War Guatemala

This article explores one region’s struggle for human rights and legal justice in post-war Guatemala. Rabinal—a target of state-directed genocide in the 1980s—suffered one of the highest fatality levels of the war. In the post-war era, Rabinal human rights activists have led the struggle to demand exhumations of mass graves, build memorials, and push for criminal investigations and trials. Despite some important local victories, few of those responsible for the violence have received punishment. But that does not mean this movement is a failure. Instead, this article highlights the cultural, expressive and inprocess benefits of mobilization. Rabinal activists have restored their sense of agency and confirmed their collective identity as fighters for legal justice. Meanwhile, this local mobilization has contributed to Guatemala’s uneven process of democratization.