Collapsing the Boundaries? Fatherhood,Organization and Home‐Working

In the modern western world, the discursive construction of fatherhood and everyday fathering practices has been underpinned by the spatial separation of work from home, of public from private. However, increasing numbers of employees are now working from home and a disproportionate number of these are men with young children. This article draws on new empirical research to examine the implications for fathers and for organizations as home‐working disrupts earlier spatial configurations of fatherhood and fathering practices. The article concludes that as the spatial boundaries between home and work collapse, new accommodations between fatherhood/fathering and organization are emerging. However, these are underpinned by a traditional gender division of labour in the household. More broadly, these findings confirm the inadequacy of static distinctions between public and private, showing that while such distinctions are still used to mark space and time, this is relational, contingent and unstable.     

The duty to care and the need to split

This paper arises out of psychoanalytically oriented consultancy to teams of staff in the helping professions where there is a statutory 'duty to care'. It takes as its premise the seemingly paradoxical hypothesis that workers may need to split off part of their emotional experience in order to preserve their own mental health and provide reliable services to their clients. I argue that while a professional 'duty to care' requires us to be emotionally 'in touch', the demands of our clients together with the demands of the institutional response to the 'duty to care' cause us to split off parts of our awareness. I also argue that provided the splitting does not become extreme we are doing no more or less than the rest of society. In other words, there is a degree of 'normal splitting' which numbs our awareness of danger and destructiveness and seeks to protect us from too much anxiety and pain. Yet if professional workers are charged with the responsibility of assessing risk and acting accordingly for the protection of all concerned they need ways of being 'in touch' (re-integrating the splits) for some or enough of the time. Finally, I will describe ways of being 'in touch', illustrating the difficulty and the pain of re-integrating the splits and some of the insights that can arise out of this work with examples from my consultancy work.     

Social identity and alcohol in young adolescence: the perceived difference between youthful and adult drinking

This paper examines the evolving social identities of young adolescents in regard to alcohol and drinking culture in Norway. Detailed analysis of 29 focus group interviews and 32 individual interviews with 12–13-year-olds reveal a thorough negative attitude towards alcohol, especially when enjoyed by young people. Young adolescents found young people to be too irresponsible and immature to drink, while adults were portrayed as capable of enjoying alcohol without losing control or experiencing other negative effects. Through symbolic boundary work, they distanced themselves from adolescents who drank. The young adolescents rejected the idea that drinking alcohol was a sign of maturity; instead, they exhibited maturity by distancing themselves from drunk adolescents. We discuss how these findings reflect the participants’ socio-cognitive development, and how symbolic boundaries are often drawn against those closest in social distance. We conclude that boundaries between ‘adolescents’ and ‘adults’ are fundamental when understanding emerging adolescent social identities, especially when it comes to drinking and drinking culture.     

Transcending Existing Traditions of Sociology—A Review of Fei Xiaotong’s Reflections on Sociological Method in His Old Age*

费孝通晚年有关中国社会学方法论的思考开启了超越社会学既有传统的崭新空 间, 这笔精神遗产值得进一步阐释。在费孝通看来, 中国传统文化和智慧中深藏着的 许多观念性资源, 诸如天人合一、将心比心等, 都需要做进一步的界定, 并应以此作 为超越社会学既有传统的支点。

关键词: 费孝通 反思 社会学传统界限

In his old age, Fei Xiaotong’s reflections on Chinese sociological method opened up new room for transcending the existing traditions of sociology. His spiritual legacy is well worth further explanation. According to Fei, traditional Chinese culture and wisdom embodies a wealth of concepts, such as “harmony between nature and man,” “mind for others” and so on, all of which need further definition and should be used as fulcrums for the transcending of sociological traditions.     

大通境内的明长城考释

本文考述了大通境内的“明边墙就是明代修筑在青海的明长城”,并对其修筑和维修时间等进行了考辨。     

A combinatorial study of two-periodic random walks

Two-periodic random walks have up-steps and down-steps of one unit as usual, but the probability of an up-step is α after an even number of steps and β = 1 ? α after an odd number of steps, and reversed for down-steps. This concept was studied by Böhm and Hornik^{[2 Böhm, W.; Hornik, K. On two-periodic random walks with boundaries. Stoch. Models 2010, 26, 165–194.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]}. We complement this analysis by using methods from (analytic) combinatorics. By using two steps at once, we can reduce the analysis to the study of Motzkin paths, with up-steps, down-steps, and level-steps. Using a proper substitution, we get the generating functions of interest in an explicit and neat form. The parameters that are discussed here are the (one-sided) maximum (already studied by Böhm and Hornik^{[2 Böhm, W.; Hornik, K. On two-periodic random walks with boundaries. Stoch. Models 2010, 26, 165–194.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]}) and the two-sided maximum. For the asymptotic evaluation of the average value of the two-sided maximum after n random steps, more sophisticated methods from complex analysis (Mellin transform, singularity analysis) are required. The approach to transfer the analysis to Motzkin paths is, of course, not restricted to the two parameters under consideration.     

Depoliticising literature,politicising diversity: ethno-racial boundaries in Dutch literary professionals’ aesthetic repertoires

Although still a neglected area, over the years a growing body of sociological research on the position of ethno-racial minorities in Western artistic fields has emerged. With this article we aim to contribute to this research area by focusing on ethno-racial diversity in the Dutch literary field. Through in-depth interviews, we analyse how gatekeepers mobilise specific cultural repertoires and by doing so draw ethno-racial boundaries when discussing acquisition, assessing quality and positioning themselves in the literary field. We argue that literary publishers and other professionals (selectively) employ an ‘old school’ modernist repertoire that especially values the formal aspects of literary products, by which non-white writers and publishers concerned with diversity are often positioned in an identity politics framework. Their work is said to take in a less prestigious ‘political’/’subjective’ position rather than a ‘literary’/‘universal’ one. As such, this paper informs on how gatekeepers’ practices shape the position of non-white authors in the Dutch literary field.     

The inner circle: Building bridges or boundaries between researchers and practitioners

An epistemological and methodological approach, The Change Laboratory, is analysed to determine which forms of distributing knowledge are apparent during cross-cultural research. Distributing knowledge is intricately related to methodological design, to researchers’ and practitioners’ life experiences and to roles of power. The article concludes that research conducted across cultures necessitates careful analysis of the power found within forms of distributing knowledge. This power is derived from a tacit belief that certain knowledge is only available to those within a given circle or that it is available to those outside a given circle without alteration.     

How to Be a Good Alcoholic

Alcoholism is not one singular thing. It takes many forms, some more dignified and less destructive than others. This article explores how people drinking in the early hours of the day in bars present themselves and their relationship with alcohol and alcoholism. By means of ethnographic data, I analyze their strategies in dealing with the deviant use of alcohol. I find that the early morning drinkers use distinctions along three dimensions: managing drunkenness, taking breaks from drinking, and claiming certain motives for drinking. These distinctions are used in order to position oneself on a normative scale of different types of alcoholics.     

Apathy and Antipathy: Media Coverage of Restrictive Immigration Legislation and the Maintenance of Symbolic Boundaries

Although the government no longer explicitly establishes boundaries of whiteness, it continues to play a central role in shaping symbolic boundaries between immigrants and nonimmigrants through immigration lawmaking. However, the salience of these boundaries may depend on how the media disseminate them to the public. In this study, we investigate media framing of immigration lawmaking using an original data set of news coverage of six of the most widely recognized exclusionary immigration bills and laws at different levels of government. Two patterns emerged from an iterative frame analysis. First, in their coverage of frames critical of these bills and laws, outlets devoted more attention to the effects of exclusionary legislation for nonimmigrants. Second, in their coverage of frames supportive of the restrictive legislation, outlets provided more space to those who openly associated immigrants with criminality and terrorism. Regardless of outlets’ seemingly neutral stance toward restrictive legislation, their disparate coverage of exclusionary lawmaking demonstrates apathy and antipathy toward immigrants, which has repercussions for the maintenance of inequality.