Objectification as negotiation: reexamining the agency of targets

Why and under what conditions do individuals participate in their own physical objectification? Literature across disciplines acknowledges such conditions exist but has limited capacity to specify when and how a person might participate in her own objectification. This article argues that a target of objectification, under certain conditions, can accept objectification in pursuit of another goal. This conception is counterintuitive given that existing approaches sometimes treat the targets of objectification as lacking agency. However, by obscuring this agency such accounts further the same objectification they highlight as problematic. This article offers a positive model of objectified targets’ agency. This model, called “Negotiated Objectification,” serves as an analytical tool that scholars can leverage in feminist academic debates over objectification. The utility of the model is illustrated using three examples: FEMEN’s topless protests; the politics of the Muslim headscarf; and women’s body writing in support of the Israel Defense Forces. The article concludes by considering the implications of women’s agency in each case for debates over the role of agents under objectification.     

Shall we marry? Legal marriage as a commitment event in same-sex relationships

This study is a part of an exploratory study of 50 married and unmarried same-sex couples in Massachusetts conducted by the Wellesley Centers for Women following legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in 2004. This article examines whether and how legalization of same-sex marriage impacted same-sex partners' commitment to one another, presentation to others as a couple, and treatment as a couple by others. Roughly one-quarter of the couples studied chose not to mark their commitment with ceremonies of any kind, while nearly three-fourths of the couples had either commitment (non-legal) ceremonies, legal weddings, or both. While decisions to legally marry largely were based on gaining legal protections, unforeseen impacts on self and relationships with family, friends, and the larger society revealed multiple layers of meaning. Implications of the study for public policy and social change are discussed.     

A semi-markov approach to stochastic compartmental models

In the past, various methods using either differential equations or differential-difference equations have been used to analyze stochastic compartmental models. In this paper a semi-Markov process approach is used to provide a framework for analyzing such models. The distribution function of the number of particles in each of the compartments is derived along with the stationary distributions. Various models found in the literature arising from biological and reliability applications are analyzed here using the semi-Markov process technique.     

Conflict Versus Consensus Strategic Orientations Among Environmental NGOs: An Empirical Evaluation

Israeli environmental non-government organizations (ENGOs) are assessed in light of Resource Mobilization Theory, introducing a new method for dividing ENGOs according to strategic orientation. Based on a national survey, 85 groups are categorized as consensus ENGOs that seek understanding aim at finding common grounds, or as conflict ENGOs working “outside the system.” Results show that conflict ENGOs are more grassroots in orientation and consensus ENGOs are more professionalized. Conflict ENGOs operate primarily in local arenas. Consensus ENGOs appear more stable, with larger annual budgets and paid staff, but with fewer registered members. Consensus ENGOs enjoy a wider variety of income sources; receive more funding from government, foreign, and private donations; and have a broader range of self-generated income sources. Conflict ENGOs depend more on membership fees. Both groups are highly dependent on foundation grants. In general, greater resources are associated with consensus activity than among organizations utilizing conflict tactics.     

Leadership in Collaborative Community Health Partnerships

This article examines key leadership issues in community health partnerships. We assert that leadership in a partnership is differentiated from that in a traditional, hierarchical organization in that participation is voluntary and egalitarian and often entails cooperation by organizations with different cultures and agendas. Partnership leaders, accordingly, often lack formal control over members and their actions. Using qualitative analysis of 115 site‐visit interviews of participants in four partnerships in the Community Care Networks demonstration program, we identify and discuss five themes of collaborative leadership: systems thinking, vision‐based leadership, collateral leadership, power sharing, and process‐based leadership. We then discuss the multiple challenges that collaborative leadership faces in a community health partnership.     

Trans-organizational management: the new frontier for social work administrators

This paper has presented a basic thesis: we cannot rely on institutional rearrangement as our primary vehicle of systemic change. By doing so, we would be repeating the mistakes of the 1960s by instituting changes that will not result in fundamental and log term improvements to societal human services systems. Change can only flow from recognition that there are two types of management that must co-exist: institutional and trans-organizational. In public and nonprofit social work agencies, the former is almost the sole focus of administrative knowledge and skills. Slowly, all the human services (Jaeger, Kaluzny & Magruder-Habib, 1987) are beginning to concentrate on trans-organizational systemic arrangements. Increasingly, social work administrators are acquiring knowledge++ and ability in trans-organizational management. It is a prerequisite for the fundamental systemic changes required by the new demographics of the next decade and the next century.