Protest and profanation: Agrarian revolt and the little tradition,Part II

Conclusion Perhaps one reason why political scientists and historians generally overlook the moral and political ideas of the little tradition is that both, unlike the anthropologist, tend to concentrate on the written record-the product, par excellence, of the great tradition. The little tradition achieves historical visibility only at those moments when it becomes mobilized into dissident movements which pose a direct threat to ruling elites. It is for this reason that I have had to rely so heavily on evidence from millenial revolts in constructing my argument. Yet it seems to me that there is a shadow history which remains to be written for almost every mass movement in the Third World.Consider, for example, the case of nationalism. There is evidence that the meaning of independence at the base of many nationalistic movements diverged markedly from its meaning to the intelligentsia who nominally led them. David Marr concludes that in Vietnam salvation from the foreigner was taken by the peasantry to include salvation from hunger, tenancy, and taxes (emphasis added). For the Filipino peasantry, Sturtevant claims that ... independence took on miraculous connotations. Some barrio dwellers began to look forward to the anticipated condition as a panacea for everything from hook worms to hacenderos. It is only when the nationalist legions elude the control of their erstwhile leaders that this shadow history and its participants move into the spotlight. Much the same may be said about communist and socialist movements which are apt to look radically different from the village than from the national headquarters. If it is worth writing religious history and sociology with the beliefs and values of its mass adherents in mind, then it is worth writing the history and sociology of political movements in the same spirit. The enterprise is important not only because it uncovers the experienced history (what French historians would call mentalité populaire) of most actors but also because it is likely to reveal the whole substratum of ideas and values which represent a human potential that is only rarely tapped.In this analysis of the little tradition and popular religion in Europe and Southeast Asia, my point has been to demonstrate that, among the peasantry in most complex agrarian societies, one can find a pattern of profanations-symbolic reversals of the existing social order. The idiom in which they are expressed is, almost universally, religious. Much as the official religious doctrine is selected, reworked, and profaned in little tradition cults, so is the existing political order symbolically negated in popular millenial traditions.For the most part, as we have stressed, these symbolic reversals are an undertone, a counterpoint, to dominant religious and political ideas. When outside forces or natural disasters appear to overwhelm the peasantry and play havoc with the normal categories of experience, however, this alternative world may chart a new course of action and open up new possibilities. This alternative symbolic world is constructed, we must not forget, largely in reaction to what might be described as the historic process of modernization-the creation of a bureaucratic state, the penetration of a market economy, the replacement of custom by law-a process experienced by much of the world's peasantry. It is out of the turmoil and pain of this transformation that the need for a redemptive community grows. How else are we to comprehend a religious symbolism of liberation that displays so many similarities across time, space, culture, and religion?If this examination of peasant religion and politics has revealed anything, it is surely that there is no such thing as a perfect ideological hegemony which socializes subordinate classes to accept either their fate or the values which ordain that fate. In fact, it would appear that the growth of oppression dialectically produces its own negation in the symbolic and religious life of the oppressed. At the very least this negation generates a new resistance to socialization and moral instruction from above. At most, it represents the normative basis for rebellion and revolution. As Lucien Goldmann has pointed out, human action ... can no longer be defined by its actual reality without reference to the potential reality which it seeks to bring into being. We can do no better in closing than to quote Marx on religion, including a passage that is, alas, usually taken out of context: Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. If the production of values is a political weapon in the class struggle, then the religious profanations of popular religion are no less a weapon than the doctrines of the high church.

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Reprise

This article attempts to offer a rebuttal to some of the criticisms advanced by the authors of the three rejoinders to my article “Black Polygamous Family Formation.” It focuses on the nature, meaning, and conceptualization of a polygamous pratice whereby a legally married man takes on a second consensual mate, begins a second family, and lives with it in coexistence with the first family. Both African and African-American patterns are explored to see what the fundamental differences or similarities are between these two patterns of plural marriages—or what I call “polygynous relationships.”     

Dangerous Knowledge: The Political,Personal, and Epistemological Promise of Feminist Research in Management and Organization Studies

Feminism is a theoretical perspective and social movement that seeks to reduce, and ultimately eradicate, sexist inequality and oppression. Yet feminist research remains marginal in the most prestigious management and organization studies (MOS) journals, as defined by the Financial Times 50 (FT50) list. Based on a review of how feminism is framed in these journals (1990–2018), we identify three overlapping categories of how feminism is represented: (i) as a conceptual resource which is used to address specific topics; (ii) as an empirical category associated with the study of specific types of organization or organizing practice; and, rarely, (iii) as a methodology for producing knowledge. While feminist knowledge exists beyond these parameters, such as in the journal Gender, Work & Organization, we suggest that the relative absence of explicitly feminist scholarship in the most prestigious MOS journals reflects an epistemic oppression which arises from the threat that feminism presents to established ways of knowing. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's work, we use the ‘sweaty concept’ of dangerous knowledge to show how feminism positions knowledge as personal, introducing a radical form of researcher subjectivity which relies on the acknowledgment of uncertainty. We conclude by calling for the epistemic oppression of feminist scholarship to be recognized and redressed so the potential of feminism as a way of knowing about organizations and management can be realized. This, we argue, would enable feminist research praxis in MOS to develop as an alternative location of, in bell hooks' term, healing that challenges the main/malestream.     

Effectiveness of student assistance programs in Nebraska schools.

BACKGROUND: This study investigated whether Nebraska schools with Student Assistance Programs (SAP) are associated with reduced adolescent alcohol use and a higher level of academic achievement than students from schools without a SAP. METHODS: In 1992, the Toward a Drug Free Nebraska (TDFN) survey was administered to 3,454 students in grades seven to twelve at eighty-three Nebraska schools. A second survey, the TDFN "team activity report" collected from each school's team, the presence of a SAP (n = 34 schools) or absence of a SAP (n = 49 schools). Student responses for alcohol use and academic achievements were linked with the presence of a SAP through use of a school identification number on both surveys. RESULTS: Students from schools with a SAP reported a lower use of alcohol in the last thirty days, compared with students from schools without a SAP program (p < 0.05), and they also reported a significant difference in academic achievement (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: While this study used post hoc analysis of data, the results suggest lower alcohol use and higher academic achievement among students from SAP schools. Given SAPs' popularity, these trends suggest that further research should be conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of student assistance programs.     

Relational demography in the workplace and health: an analysis of gender and the subordinate-superordinate role-set

Using data from a 2005 national survey of working adults in the United States, we examine the effects of the gender composition of the superordinate-subordinate role-set on mental and physical health measures. Subordinates' and superordinates' genders are important determinants. Men who work in gender-mixed superordinate contexts (i.e., with one male and one female superior) report lower levels of distress and physical symptoms than men who work with one male superior. Women who work with one male superior report less distress and fewer physical symptoms compared to women who work with one female superior or in gender-mixed superordinate contexts. With a few exceptions, these observations generally hold net of occupation, job sector, and an array of work-related conditions. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of predictions derived from the similarity-attraction and role congruity theories. We also outline ways that theoretical development in relational demography can be refined by a more specific focus on the demographic characteristics--especially gender--of the superordinate-subordinate role-set.     

Unraveling the effect of offender citizenship status on federal sentencing outcomes

A large body of social science literature has focused on the factors that influence sentencing outcomes within the federal court system. A neglected variable in this line of research is the citizenship status of the offender. Using the United States Sentencing Commission’s Monitoring of Federal Criminal Sentences data from 2006, the present study examines the effect of citizenship status on the likelihood of incarceration and the length of the prison sentence. This study extends previous research in three ways: first, by examining citizenship status using post-Booker data; second, exploring the differences between citizens, legal aliens, and illegal aliens rather than comparing all non-citizens to US citizens; and third, examining all offenses rather than only drug offenses. Most importantly, this study partitions the data by citizenship status to determine if the effects of race/ethnicity and other variables (e.g., type of offense and level of education) vary by citizenship status. The results demonstrate that both legal and illegal aliens have a higher probability of incarceration than similarly-situated US citizens, but that the sentences imposed on illegal aliens are shorter than those imposed on citizens. However, different results emerged when the data were partitioned by citizenship status. Judges imposed shorter prison sentences on Latino citizens, but longer prison sentences on Latino illegal aliens. These results are discussed in relation to theoretical explanations and policy implications.     

Administrative fellowships in emergency medicine

Physicians today need to be effective managers, as well as clinicians. In previous years, physicians gained managerial experience either through on-the-job training, degree programs, or continuing medical education courses. The specialty of emergency medicine began its first administrative fellowship in 1990 in California. Currently, three administrative fellowships exist nationally in emergency medicine. This article will describe the purpose of the fellowships and their curricula. Each fellowship has a different emphasis, with the goal to educate physicians who are interested in developing administrative skills to manage emergency departments or management groups or accept roles in hospital leadership. The existence of these fellowships will ideally influence the establishment of administrative fellowships in other specialties.     

Modeling Extreme Risks in Ecology

Extreme risks in ecology are typified by circumstances in which data are sporadic or unavailable, understanding is poor, and decisions are urgently needed. Expert judgments are pervasive and disagreements among experts are commonplace. We outline approaches to evaluating extreme risks in ecology that rely on stochastic simulation, with a particular focus on methods to evaluate the likelihood of extinction and quasi‐extinction of threatened species, and the likelihood of establishment and spread of invasive pests. We evaluate the importance of assumptions in these assessments and the potential of some new approaches to account for these uncertainties, including hierarchical estimation procedures and generalized extreme value distributions. We conclude by examining the treatment of consequences in extreme risk analysis in ecology and how expert judgment may better be harnessed to evaluate extreme risks.     

Ordering,Pricing, and Lead‐Time Quotation Under Lead‐Time and Demand Uncertainty

In this article, we study the newsvendor problem with endogenous setting of price and quoted lead‐time. This problem can be observed in situations where a firm orders semi‐finished product prior to the selling season and customizes the product in response to customer orders during the selling season. The total demand during the selling season and the lead‐time required for customization are uncertain. The demand for the product depends not only on the selling price but also on the quoted lead‐time. To set the quoted lead‐time, the firm has to carefully balance the benefit of increasing demand as the quoted lead‐time is reduced against the cost of increased tardiness. Our model enables the firm to determine the optimal selling price, quoted lead‐time, and order quantity simultaneously, and provides a new set of insights to managers.