The Importance of “Empty Gestures” in Recovery: Being Human Together

What do clients/patients want or value from their encounters with healthcare providers? Based on ethnographic research conducted with individuals suffering from drug addiction and mental health issues, this article argues that clients/patients treasure “everyday” or “human” interaction with medical staff. Everydayness is accomplished through three generic social processes: **co‐silence, inclusion in back‐stage activity, and physical dramatizations of authenticity. These processes and other ordinary interactional strategies for “being human together” should be seen as vital tools for recovery.     

Identity Work,Techniques of Neutralization,and Deviance: Exploring the Relationship Among Older Adult Gamblers

This study investigates the value of techniques of neutralization in understanding how people involved in marginal to widely deviant behaviors perform identity work. Based on 33 in‐depth interviews with older adult gamblers, we show how techniques of neutralization are used to align personal and social identities. We describe the techniques of neutralizations our participants use along a continuum of gambling involvement, showing how techniques differ in variety and content and are contingent on larger narratives about appropriate behaviors, identities, and selves operating in contemporary society. Our research helps to refine sociologists' understandings of relationships between levels of involvement in deviant behaviors and identity work.     

The U.S. Economic Polity,Social Identity,and International Human Rights

In this essay, I provide some complementary perspectives on certain themes that emerge in Judith Blau's (2016) timely and insightful article, “Human Rights: What the United States Might Learn from the Rest of the World and, Yes, from American Sociology.” In response, I offer some very brief reflections structured through two prisms by which we might think further about the United States and human rights. These perspectives pick up on the core issue of Blau's article, the U.S. rejection of socioeconomic rights, and how this issue in turn relates first to the “social identity” of the United States as a whole, and second to the role of the political economy in states' recognition of human rights.     

Attitudinal and behavioral differences between cigarette users who do and do not identify as “smokers”

Objective: The current research aimed to understand differences in smoking-related identity among college students and to illustrate the distinct characteristics of nonidentified smokers (NIS). Participants: Students from 2 colleges in Massachusetts (N = 538; April 2016). Methods: Respondents reported by online survey whether or not they had smoked a cigarette in the past 30 days and if they self-identified as smokers. Nonsmokers (NIS) and identified smokers (IS) were then compared on their smoking attitudes and behavior. Results: NIS made up 12.5% of the sample and 64% of all tobacco users. NIS perceived themselves as less addicted and were more confident in their ability to quit smoking. They also were less likely to smoke alone, buy their own cigarettes, or have friends who smoked. Conclusions: College health officials can best motivate NIS to quit smoking by focusing on peer norms and the potential of long-term addiction.     

The Whitening Hypothesis Challenged: Biculturalism in Latino and Non‐Hispanic White Intermarriage

Assimilation theory holds that intermarriage between minorities and non‐Hispanic whites is a gauge of integration and assumes that minorities jettison their ethnic identification in favor of whiteness. Drawing on race relations theory to argue that intermarriage is potentially transformative for non‐Hispanic whites as well as Latinos, this article challenges assimilation theory's bias that minorities (should) undergo cultural change and that non‐Hispanic whites remain unmoved. This article uses in‐depth interviews with Latino and non‐Hispanic white married couples to assess the consequences of ethnic intermarriage from the perspectives of both partners. Interethnic partners engaged in four “ideal types” of biculturalism, running largely contrary to assimilation theory's social whitening hypothesis. Due to boundary blurring, exemplified by affiliative ethnic identity, non‐Hispanic whites can migrate into Latino culture.     

‘Us’ and ‘them’: the limits and possibilities of a ‘politics of neurodiversity’ in neoliberal times

The neurodiversity movement claims that there are neurological differences in the human population, and that autism is a natural variation among humans – not a disease or a disorder, just ‘a difference’. A ‘politics of neurodiversity’ is based on the claim that the ‘neurodiverse’ population constitutes a political grouping comparable with those of class, gender, sexuality or race. This paper considers the limits and possibilities of neurodiverse political activism, and concludes by calling for a politics of identity that does not depend on a politics of ‘us’ and ‘them’.     

从《喜福会》看美国华人的身份转变

在美国,随着近年来"亚裔研究"、"中国研究"等学科的发展,美国华裔的文学和文化成为研究热点。而身份问题更是族裔研究的重点。身份不仅是一个学术研究课题,也是少数族裔非常关心的现实问题。身份表示一个人的归属,因此身份也是美国华裔文学的重要主题之一。以美国当代华裔女作家谭恩美小说《喜福会》为例,探讨美国华裔的身份变化,揭示身份中文化、族裔和社会因素的互动关系。     

亚裔美国文学批评中的美国民族主义思想

在反叛欧洲文学价值的基础上兴起和发展起来的美国传统文学批评,把研究美国文学作为对美国理念的阐释、对美国文化的构建,与作为现实国家和一种思想概念的美国相互依存,成为美国民族主义思想的重要载体。以反叛具有深刻种族主义内涵的美国传统文学批评为起点和目标的亚裔美国文学批评,从表面上看,与前者势不两立。但是,亚裔美国文学批评坚信,亚裔美国人的族裔认同是美国民族认同的一部分,把对亚裔族裔认同的诠释,作为对美国民族认同和美国理念的再诠释和再完善,结果,相当一批亚裔作品,因与美国主题无缘,被拒之于亚裔美国文学大门之外,其批评理念的民族主义实质暴露无遗。从本质上看,无论是以文化民族主义还是以全球主义为主导的亚裔美国文学批评,都是对传统文学批评的一种承继。美国文学批评的大语境,亚裔移民后代在亚裔美国文学批评中的主导地位,学术为国家权力服务的现实,以及当今为学术而学术的风气等等,是造成这一局面的主要原因。     

城市电视台对农民工的文化关照:福建例证

改革开放后,农民工成为一个群体不断进入媒体和公众的视野。城市电视台在城镇化过程中不断建构农民工的身份,在泉州电视台"盲流—农民工—外来劳动者—新泉州人"的称谓转换中,再现了农民工身份的文化迁徙轨迹。城市电视台农民工身份建构是城市管理者、商业资本、城市电视台自身的新闻专业主义和不断走向市民阶层的农民工自我赋权共同作用的结果。城市电视台在农民工身份建构上仍存在着文化关注不足等问题,应将传递农民工文化的正能量和搭建农民工媒体平台作为城市电视台促进农民工市民化的重要手段。     

“知止”三义与文化认同

中国古代思想中有一个很重要的观念——“知止”。“回到你自己”是“知止”的根本义。这涉及到今人所关注的“认同”问题:自我的认同和文化的认同。从内容上讲,知止这一观念强调的是文明与自然的内在贯通。由此,知止的观念又展开为三重意义:回归自然、回向历史与成德知本。此三义辐辏于第二义而贯通为一体。其特点则表现为一个“复古”的历史精神。但“知止”并非故步自封,止步不前,而是要在“进”与“止”之间保持一种内在的张力和协调的关系。“知止”观念从存在实现论意义上凸显了一种历史的精神和思想文化的差异原则。这对于当代中国的文化建设,仍具有重要的理论价值和实践意义。