Funerals and families: locating death as a relational issue

Situated at the intersection of the Sociology of Death and Sociology of the Family, this paper argues that the organization and funding of funerals is an overlooked and available lens through which to examine cultural and political norms of familial obligation. Drawing on interviews with claimants to the Department for Work and Pensions’ Social Fund Funeral Payment, the paper shows how both responsibility for the organization and payment of a funeral is assumed within families, and how at times this can be overridden by the state. In highlighting the tension between reflexive choice and political norms of family espoused in this policy context, it supports Gilding's ( 2010 ) assertion that understanding family practice through reflexivity alone neglects the institutions and conventions within which ‘doing’ family takes place. In so doing, the paper further makes a case for families and relational negotiations and tensions to be more explicitly included within sociological understanding(s) of death more generally.     

The role,practice and training of unregulated birth workers in Australia: A mixed methods study

Background

In Australia, the provision of homebirth services by unregulated birthworkers (doulas, ex-registered midwives, traditional midwives and lay workers) has increased. Accessing a homebirth with a registered midwife via mainstream services is limited. Concern is growing that new legislation aimed at prohibiting unregulated birthworkers practice may result in homebirth going underground.

Mandatory, preferred, or discretionary: how the classification of domestic violence warrantless arrest laws impacts their estimated effects on intimate partner homicide

Warrantless arrest laws for domestic violence (DV) are generally classified as discretionary, preferred, or mandatory, based on the level of power accorded to police in deciding whether to arrest. However, there is a lack of consensus in the literature regarding how each state's law should be categorized. Using three classification schemes, this study examined whether variations among these schemes impact research outcomes by analyzing the effects of discretionary, preferred, and mandatory warrantless arrest laws on intimate partner homicide (IPH). Variations in classification schemes and in the dates of law passage presented in the literature resulted in differing estimated effects of the laws.     

Leader character, ethos, and virtue: Individual and collective considerations

Character is an indispensable component of leadership and its development, and thus warrants future research focus. Before a purposeful research stream on character can proceed, however, it is critical that we fully define and conceptualize the character construct (the ontological basis) and then consider how we might best measure this construct and test it across a diverse array of contexts (the epistemological basis). We pursue these ends by first unpacking the definition of leader character and then by posing a series of questions. Following our initial thoughts related to the locus of character and how leader character is transmitted to and received by followers, we proceed by discussing how character relates to or serves as an antecedent to exemplary leadership styles, how character is contextualized, and how character is developed.     

Computer systems in addiction treatment programs: Availability and implications for program evaluation

Addiction treatment programs have been slow to adopt computerized information systems. Little systematic data exist on programs' technological infrastructures and use of electronic databases to store and analyze client information. Likewise, there is little information available on counselors' access to and use of the Internet for learning about new treatment techniques. Drawing upon data obtained in 2002–2003 from nationally-representative samples of publicly- and privately-funded addiction treatment centers and their counselors, this article describes the current state of the field in terms of data system availability and Internet usage. The availability of client-level databases is variable but continues to evolve. Programs maintaining electronic client data appear to be at an advantage for implementing outcomes monitoring activities. While counselors' access to computers is high, their use of the Internet and the NIDA website is low. The implications of these findings, and directions for future research, are discussed.     

Urban multiculture and everyday encounters in semi‐public,franchised cafe spaces

This paper engages with an emergent literature on multiculture and concepts such as conviviality and negotiation to explore how increasingly ethnically diverse population routinely share and mix in urban places and social spaces. As part of a wider ESRC funded, two‐year qualitative study of changing social life and everyday multiculture in different geographical areas of contemporary England, this paper draws on participant observation data from three branches of franchised leisure and consumption cafe spaces. We pay particular attention to the ways these spaces work as settings of encounter and shared presence between groups often envisaged as separated by ethnic difference. Our findings suggest that corporate spaces which are more often dismissed as commercial, globalized spaces of soulless homogeneity can be locally inflected spaces whose cultural blandness may generate confident familiarity, ethnic mixity, mundane co‐presence and inattentive forms of conviviality.     

Shame and Pride in How to Look Good Naked

Most academic work exploring the makeover genre has argued that TV “experts” draw on a narrative of humiliation to push the participant to adopt more appropriate forms of feminine appearance. However, shows like How to Look Good Naked, while sharing the problematic logics of the makeover, are qualitatively different in tone and style from more aggressive shows. We extend emerging analyses which argue that makeover shows can be read as reflecting struggles for recognition by demonstrating that TV “experts” can also interrupt processes of mis-recognition by offering alternative symbolic systems of interpretation of the body by which the body can be recognised, visible and valued. We argue that humiliation is not the only point of affective engagement for audiences of these shows, while wanting to avoid the seductive illusion that this makes the shows more empowering or less malevolent. We conclude that in failing to embrace the wide variety of affective mechanisms by which we might be able to appreciate the popular appeal of reality TV, we do a disservice to female audiences and women participants, as well as limiting our own theoretical insights.     

Transformative capacity, information technology, and the making of business 'experts'

This paper explores the making of experts and the basis of claims to expertise in corporate organisational settings. The performance of expertise within organisations is increasingly associated with the implementation and use of integrated business information systems which purport to abstract the world into an informational form to make businesses run more efficiently. We argue that as these systems are put to work to replace the calculations of human experts, we are required to rethink how expertise is constituted as a political and performative process. We focus on the provisos and qualifications that surround the use of calculative techniques and the worries and scepticism over the correctness, accuracy and interpretation of numbers and figures derived from systems of calculation. Rather than identifying expertise as the capacity to make calculations and to abstract ‘representations’ from the ‘real world’, a job increasingly done by information systems, we find expertise being performed in the transformation of things of different orders which enables representations to be returned to the world through allusions to their transformative effect.     

Counselor Turnover in Substance Abuse Treatment Centers: An Organizational-Level Analysis

This article draws on institutional and ecological perspectives on work and organizations to develop a workplace level model of variation in voluntary counselor turnover rates across privately funded substance abuse treatment centers in the United States. Results show that participatory management structures reduce turnover rates principally by promoting organizational commitment. The analysis also tests hypotheses regarding the effects on turnover rates of other relevant theoretic domains of treatment center structure and organization. We discuss theoretical implications of the findings and suggest directions for future research.