Toward a sociology of global comparative placemaking

I call for a globally informed sociology of comparative placemaking that integrates historical and contemporary processes and includes the ephemeral, institutional, and personal. By placemaking, I am referring to the explicit or tacit cooperation among people to create, maintain, and give meaning to places in space through bodily occupation given differential resources and constraints. I review select place, space, and community-based literature about urban, Black, migrant, LGBTQ, and international populations to think about how we can build upon and integrate multiple theoretical, methodological, and epistemological insights to form an explicit placemaking research agenda. A US focus on neighborhoods contrasts with a comparative examination of global urban networks, social polarization, and transformation of the built environment in the interdisciplinary field of global urban studies (Ren, 2018). I argue for a placemaking research agenda that bridges insight from US Urban Sociology with Global Urban Studies to consider how various structures and actors constrain and facilitate place projects. With a globally reaching and comparatively informed sociology of placemaking, we can illuminate our multi-structured story of place and agency in context. We can answer questions about how and why we co-create and are simultaneously disciplined by the process of creation.     

屈原之死的现象学思考

关于诗人屈原之死历来是一个颇有争议的论题。本文认为 ,古人对屈原死亡的关注方式于考察诗人自杀事件的意义是值得怀疑的 ,力图回到作者文本本身 ,以现象学本质直观的研究视野对屈原自杀事件作一全新的审视 :通过分析屈原诗歌文本中作者潜在的体验模式 ,认为屈原自杀的终极根源在于其深刻的追问精神与存在根据缺失的无法超越之间的深刻张力     

葬礼:面对死亡的社会安排 ———城市环境下葬礼仪式浅析

通过实地观察和对殡仪馆工作人员的访谈，描绘了天津市城市内部现有的国家规范框架下葬礼仪式的具体过程以及附着在这个框架下的民间习俗的现状，试图通过对国家规范框架下的“正式”葬礼仪式及与其相对的“非正式”仪式——家庭告别仪式的程序形式的简略描述，展现在城市中普通个人的葬礼基于公共环境和家庭环境不同场景所采用的不同仪式过程。这是民间习俗对规范仪式的补充，同时也是“正式”规范对这种“非正式”实践的通融和消化。在描述现状之外，作者试图讨论蕴含在葬礼仪式中，不同死亡个体的葬礼仪式形式、规模及参与者等方面的区分所展现出的一种社会对死亡个体生前所处社会结构地位的认同，这种认同不仅反映了仪式所处社会背景的秩序和结构，也强化了这个社会的秩序和价值判断标准。     

再论《国殇》与《九歌》

《九歌》是屈原在民间“九歌”基础上写定的 ,可以认为是屈原所作或创造的。《国殇》是为牺牲的楚国将士而举行驱鬼活动的主祭歌。《国殇》以外的《九歌》其他篇 ,主要是表现对九位天神地的恭敬、赞美和依恋 ,《九歌》中的神、巫、人、鬼关系 ,就是一个由人和巫迎请神、送行鬼魂的过程     

《红楼梦》80回前后死亡描写之比较

本文主要讨论的是《红楼梦》中重要人物死亡描写的前后比较,以及书中关于死亡意象描写的前后比较。得出的结论是由于作家的生死观、侧重点、创作意图的不同,前80回与后40回中死亡描写的手法是不同的。     

The Representation of the Family’s Voice in Serious Case Review Reports of Child Maltreatment

Australia and the United Kingdom have mandatory systems of case reviews, which are conducted whenever a child known to welfare or health services has died or been seriously harmed due to maltreatment. In the United Kingdom those conducting case reviews are required to involve family members in their deliberations. This study employed discourse analysis to examine the representation of family voices in 41 Overview Reports of Serious Case Reviews undertaken in England and published during 2014. The findings revealed that the contributions of family members were generally relegated or their legitimacy undercut by the positivist framing of most overview reports. However, the research also identified how the framing of family contributions within an interpretivist paradigm could engender highly complex understanding of deficiencies in child protection systems and lead to crucial new learning for professionals.     

By all appearances: thoughts on colonialism,visuality and racial neoliberalism

ABSTRACT

In a Montreal neighbourhood in the fall of 2013, a community mural celebrating ‘diversity, adversity and solidarity’ was vandalized: the image of a Black woman was spray-painted white. In this paper, I take the events and discourses surrounding this incident and my personal responses to them as a starting point for examining the racialized politics of visual representation. Using critical race-class analysis informed by contemporary theories of Black visuality, I consider dynamics of Black invisibility and visibility in Canada and consider the role visual texts play in reinforcing, reproducing, and resisting racialized social relations. I argue for caution regarding politics of representation, and consider Black and Indigenous art practices for the creative forms of resistance to colonial-capitalist ideology and visual logics they offer.     

The racialized patterns of police violence: The critical importance of research as praxis

The tragic killing of George Floyd at the hands of the police resulted in hundreds of thousands of protestors marching in the streets demanding change. The call for change criticized the killing of Blacks by law enforcement and challenged White supremacy as an institution of social control and racial violence. A key component of the marches and protests was a message to the residents of the United States: “Black Lives Matter.” As society grapples with a reckoning, researchers studying police violence for the past 6 decades have been empirically and theoretically debating the reasons why use of force by law enforcement continues to have a higher proportion of Black and Brown victims compared to Whites. Although the research on fatal police killings was studied by only a small number of individuals prior to 2014, after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri the research in different areas of the country increased rapidly as did the forms of analysis and research disciplines making their own contributions. The Washington Post and Guardian news agencies established that deaths at the hands of the police were occurring for at least 900 to 1100 individual deaths per year for which firearms resulted in the greatest cause of death. As US government agencies failed to produce a national data source on police involved killings, the media took a leading role in providing greater national understanding. The authors examine what role academic researchers contribute to the discussion for solutions, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds. As protestors march, lawyers sue and defend, and politicians create new forms of legislation, researchers need to play a more important role initiating critical studies, making sense of the data, and providing a theoretical framework for which police violence can be understood. This article will provide an overview of the literature on racialized police violence, point out key patterns involving racial and ethnic disparities, and emphasize how researchers can play a more important role in advocating for change.     

Serious case reviews: The lived experience of Black children

Despite the many high‐profile Black child deaths in England, race as a factor remains a largely underexplored factor of serious case reviews (SCRs). Evidence from analysis of SCRs indicates that race receives limited attention, or is virtually absent. Given that the main function of SCRs is to provide opportunities for learning lessons to improve practice, the way in which issues of race and culture may influence child protection processes for Black children is therefore of critical importance. In this article, we employ content analysis to examine the extent that race and cultural factors are considered in SCRs involving Black children. It is argued that race is often an important factor influencing Black children's experiences of abuse and neglect, as well as their encounters in the child protection system. This article therefore poses two key questions: (a) What questions are asked about race, ethnicity, and culture in SCRs concerning Black children? (b) How did the SCRs extract lessons to be learnt for improving practice to safeguard Black children? By extending the analysis of race and ethnicity in SCRs, this article furthers our understandings of the needs of Black children in the child protection system.     

“Still Looking for My Jonathan”: Gay Black Men's Management of Religious and Sexual Identity Conflicts

This article looks at homosexual Black men who are heavily involved in fundamentalist African-American churches. These men describe themselves as “out as same-sex loving individuals” even though the messages preached by their church leaders and the doctrines of their churches are, at the very least, heterosexist, but more likely to be stridently anti-homosexuality. Not only do these men attend the churches they are parts of, but they are viewed as leaders in these churches in positions ranging from associate pastor to director of facilities management. The study uses structured interviews to understand how these men manage the conflict between a committed gay identity and a strong religious identity that says the two cannot coexist.