What We Should Want with History: A Meditation on Cultural Studies,Methodology, and Politics

This essay evaluates two of the central problems for Cultural Studies as a field: how to generate methodologically rigorous scholarship that is also politically useful; and how to productively use models and theory in the practice of history. Beginning with conversations about the place of (disciplinary) history in Cultural Studies, this essay explores one of the legendary debates in the field: between E. P. Thompson, Perry Anderson, and (at least in theory) Louis Althusser. Though the debate centered on the degree to which the English Civil War could be termed a “bourgeois revolution,” Thompson's fundamental critique concerned Anderson's use of abstract models in history. However, the distinctions Thompson makes are not nearly as clear‐cut in practice – particularly when we look at Ellen Meiksins Wood's attempt to intervene on Thompson's side in her 1991 book The Pristine Culture of Capitlism. Wood's understanding of capitalism relies on an abstract conceptualization of that mode of produciton that is ironically similar to that of Althusser and Anderson. Arguing this as an illustratration of the importance of explicit models and methods, the essay develops Richard Johnson's account of Marx's use of abstraction and theory in his own historical scholarship. Marx's framework is then deployed to reconsider the English Civil War in realation to a key contemporary concern: the origins of copyright and intellectual property. It ends by advocating for what I term anarchic abstraction: a conscious, rigorous, politically‐committed, and dialectical attention to the order and determinations of history with no strict hierarchy given in advance.     

Gender attitudes,sexual violence,and HIV/AIDS risks among men and women in Cape Town,South Africa

This study examined gender attitudes and sexual violence‐supportive beliefs (rape myths) in a sample of South African men and women at risk for HIV transmission. Over 40% of women and 16% of men had been sexually assaulted, and more than one in five men openly admitted to having perpetrated sexual assault. Traditional attitudes toward women's social and gender roles, as well as rape myths, were endorsed by a significant minority of both men and women. Multivariate analyses showed that for men, sexual assault history and rape myth acceptance, along with alcohol and other drug use history, were significantly related to cumulative risks for HIV infection. In contrast, although we found that women were at substantial risk for sexually transmitted infection (STI), including HIV, women's risks were only related to lower levels of education and alcohol use history. We speculate that women's risks for STI/HIV are the product of partner characteristics and male‐dominated relationships, suggesting the critical importance of intervening with men to reduce women's risks for sexual assault and STI/HIV.     

A History of Psychological Research into the Runaway Phenomenon: From Delinquent to Street Kid

Abstract

A PsychINFO search and literature review revealed five major movements in the psychological study of runaway youths in the 20th century. These movements were: (i) A conceptual shiftfrom the study of running away as a behavior of delinquents to the study of runaways whose behavior is often delinquent. (ii) The influence of the Great Depression and subsequent changes from models of intellectual deficit and psychopathology to broader, multi-causal explanations, including running away as a normal reaction to adverse conditions. (iii) The sharp decline of publications related to runaways in the 1950s and reversion to deficit models. (iv) the influence of the Counterculture movement and return of multi-causal and normalized models of running away behavior. and (v) the cultural creation of the “street kid”.     

Groundwater denitrification capacity and nitrous oxide flux of former fringing salt marshes filled with human-transported materials

While former salt marsh sites filled with human transported material (HTM) have altered the surface marsh ecosystem, if artificial drainage is absent, subsurface conditions may continue favorable for denitrification, a microbial process reducing nitrogen (N) export to estuaries. We used piezometer networks to evaluate the in situ groundwater denitrification capacity and nitrous oxide (N₂O) flux (with ¹⁵N-enriched nitrate-N via the push-pull method) in four former fringing salt marshes topped by HTM along the Rhode Island coast, U.S.A. Groundwater at these sites commonly interacted with the buried marsh horizon and the HTM. In situ groundwater denitrification capacity site means ranged from 15.2 to 71.7 μg?N?kg^?1d^?1 with no significant differences between sites due to high intrasite variability. The site with the highest and most consistent denitrification capacity also had HTM of the finest texture and highest soluble organic carbon. Three of four sites had minimal N₂O flux [mean N₂O:(N₂O + N₂)?=?0.082] while the final site had N₂O generation rates up to 52.5 μg?N?kg^?1?d^?1. The site with the highest N₂O contributions also had the lowest ambient groundwater nitrate-N indicating lack of priming for N₂O reduction to N₂. Former salt marshes with HTM deposits may still have the capacity for substantial groundwater denitrification capacity, similar to that observed in undisturbed salt marshes, but may also contribute substantially to global N₂O emissions. For both salt marsh restoration and greenhouse gas mitigation efforts, attention should be given to ensuring that a tidally-driven, fluctuating water table regularly intercepts the buried organic horizons of the filled salt marsh.     

Between skepticism and empowerment: the experiences of peer research assistants in HIV/AIDS,housing and homelessness community‐based research

People living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) in Canada are a highly researched population, yet their inclusion in the research process is minimal. Community‐based research (CBR) has become a recognized tool for addressing issues of power and exclusion within researcher/community relationships by inviting the community's equitable involvement as research partners. Within the context of HIV/AIDS research, this includes a commitment to the Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GIPA) at all stages of the research process. One way of adopting GIPA principles within CBR is through providing employment, research training, and capacity building opportunities for PHAs as peer research assistants (PRAs). Drawing on data from two in‐depth focus groups with seven PRAs from the Positive Spaces, Healthy Places: Community‐based Research Study, this paper will highlight important methodological practices for academic and community‐based researchers who are working with and supporting PRAs.     

Making a Mormon?: Peacemaking in U.S. Press Coverage of the Mormon Baptism for the Dead

In the Mormon doctrine of posthumous baptism, people can be invited into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) community through baptism even after their death. When it was reported that the LDS had baptized Jewish Holocaust victims, this caused an uproar in the American Jewish community. The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Victims deemed the Mormon practice disrespectful and inappropriate. This study analyzes the news coverage of the negotiations between the group and the Mormon church. While such negotiations would typically be ripe for conflict-privileging coverage, news coverage of these negotiations actually emphasized peacemaking. Using the lens of narrative theory, this study found that, in reporting on negotiations between American Jews and Mormons, the press attempted to mend relations rather than emphasize conflict.     

The Role of Social Context in Students' Anticipatory Reaction to a “Fighting Word”

Abstract

On May 11, 1996, ValuJet flight 592 crashed in the Florida Everglades killing all 105 passengers and five crew members. The technical cause of the crash was a fire that erupted after one or more oxygen generators exploded in a cargo compartment. Governmental investigations have indicated that both ValuJet and SabreTech (an airline maintenance company) failed to comply with a host of regulations concerning the presentation, storage, and transportation of hazardous materials by air. More generally, however, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been found to be negligent in its oversight of airlines by not adequately monitoring the general safety of commercial aircraft as well as by its refusal to institute safeguards and guidelines that would have protected passengers and crews from crashes like that of flight 592. This paper follows the tradition of state-corporate crime theorizing and research by identifying the organizational and structural forces that contributed to the ValuJet crash. This includes an examination of the FAA's contradictory roles as both regulator and supporter of the airline industry, as well as a discussion of both ValuJet's and SabreTech's violations of federal air safety regulations.     

The Insurgent Pedagogues: Bowles and Gintis In The Classroom

Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life, by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976, 340 pp. R7,20 (paperback).