Cultural Discourse in Action: Interactional Dynamics and Symbolic Meaning

Cultural sociology has recently developed new tools with which to understand and analyze meaning in terms of cultural discourse. Specifically, this paper further develops the Alexanderian form of discourse analysis through application on the micro-level. Utilizing extensive ethnographic data, the mythopoetic men's movement is examined in terms of how its participants construct political meaning that motivates and guides their action. In empirical detail, these actors can be seen as creating a cultural discourse that constitutes the social movement at a fundamental level while at the same time the discourse is continually negotiated, contested, and reconfigured. Exposed is the “discourse of liberational masculinity” which is used by movement participants to challenge and confront hegemonic masculinity in American society. Examining the mythopoetic men's movement from this perspective demonstrates the analytic utility of this approach through revealing in unique ways the dynamics of morality, political belief, and perceived hegemony within this popular contemporary social movement.     

Carnal Connections: On Embodiment,Apprenticeship, and Membership

This article responds to the special issue of Qualitative Sociology devoted to the author's book, Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (vol. 28, no. 3, summer 2005). Four themes are tackled: the positioning of the inquirer and the question of social acceptance and membership; the dynamics of embodiment(s) and the variable role of race as a structural, interactional, and dispositional property; the functioning of the boxing gym as miniature civilizing and masculinizing machine; apprenticeship as a mode of knowledge transmissioin and technique for social inquiry, the scope of carnal sociology, and the textual work needed to convey the full-color texture and allure of the social world. This leads to clarifying the conceptual, empirical, and rhetorical makeup of Body and Soul in relation to its triple intent: to elucidate the workings of a sociocultural competency residing in prediscursive capacities; to deploy and develop the concept of habitus as operant philosophy of action and methodological guide; and to offer a brief for a sociology not of the body (as social product) but from the body (as social spring and vector of knowledge), exemplifying a way of doing and writing ethnography that takes full epistemic advantage of the visceral nature of social life. Response to the special issue of Qualitative Sociology on Body and Soul, vol. 28, no. 2, Summer 2005.     

Minimizing Vulnerability: Selective Interdependencies After Welfare Reform

The issue of dependency permeates the American welfare discourse. Although most of the 50 low-income women we interviewed in our research echoed the distain of dependency found in the broader welfare discourse, they overwhelmingly described actively cultivating some forms of interdependence. For example, many of the women used state childcare vouchers to channel resources into their family networks while simultaneously adhering to an ethic of family care for children. They found this reliance on state resources and family to be desirable—and in fact a sign of “independence”—because it enhanced the economic security of their families while preserving the physical and emotional safety of their children. In contrast, the women tended to view reliance on men as undesirable—a form of “dependence”—because it did not enhance their perceptions of security. Thus while the women talked about becoming independent, in fact they cultivated selective interdependencies to minimize their economic, emotional and physical vulnerability. Independence for our respondents was not a lack of reliance on others but rather the ability to provide safety and security for themselves and their children. Our analysis may sheds some light on why welfare reform efforts aimed at increasing marriage rates have been less successful than those aimed at increasing employment rates.     

My Body,Your Body: Speaking the Unspoken between the Thin Therapist and the Eating-Disordered Patient

As thin therapists, who work with eating-disordered patients, we have found that our bodies have an appreciable impact on the treatment. In this article, we discuss issues of transference–countertransference, disclosure, the use of the therapist’s self including the body, and the vicissitudes of the treatment. Patients use the therapist’s thin body in various ways: as evidence to support a number of distorted beliefs and assumptions; as a target of envy; as a container for projections and fantasies. We illustrate through case examples, the importance of including the therapist’s body in the therapeutic dialogue, so that it can be used as a tool, rather than a barrier to recovery.