Tina Miller, Making Sense of Fatherhood: Gender, Caring and Work. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2011, 214 pp. $US 29.99 paper (978-0-521-74301-3), $US 85.00 hardcover (978-0-521-51942-7)
At the heart of feminist scholarship are questions about the obstacles to egalitarian gender relations. The consequences of motherhood for individual women are chief among those obstacles in advanced capitalist countries (although they vary by class, race and location). Motherhood involves 24/7 responsibility that very few fathers (living with women) ever take on, it entails housework, it significantly handicaps women in the labour force, and it often transforms women’s identity. Because parenthood usually moves heterosexual couples to adopt more conventional household patterns, many scholars aiming to assess the extent of gender inequality in families have focused on whether men are sharing housework and child care.
In Making Sense of Fatherhood, British sociologist Tina Miller explores how fatherhood is changing and whether fathers’ increased “involvement” in infant care represents the “undoing of gender.” Read more
CJS Blog publishes news about the Canadian Journal of Sociology, including abstracts of forthcoming articles, and links to advance versions of book reviews.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Review: Momin Rahman on A Short History of Celebrity
Fred Inglis. A Short History of Celebrity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, 322 pp. $US 29.95 hardcover (978-0-691-13562-5)
Fred Inglis has written a broad historical account of celebrity from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. However, he really ends his discussion in the late 1970s and pays only cursory attention to contemporary forms of celebrity culture. Therein lies both the central attraction and problem with this book: it provides an eclectic journey through western culture from the era of modernity with interesting illustrative examples but it fails to provide a coherent explanation of celebrity as a category, or how that category has been transformed by the social forces that Inglis describes. Moreover, his evident disdain for contemporary mass culture, and the related expansion of celebrity culture within it precludes an informative understanding or critique of celebrity in contemporary times. Read more
Fred Inglis has written a broad historical account of celebrity from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. However, he really ends his discussion in the late 1970s and pays only cursory attention to contemporary forms of celebrity culture. Therein lies both the central attraction and problem with this book: it provides an eclectic journey through western culture from the era of modernity with interesting illustrative examples but it fails to provide a coherent explanation of celebrity as a category, or how that category has been transformed by the social forces that Inglis describes. Moreover, his evident disdain for contemporary mass culture, and the related expansion of celebrity culture within it precludes an informative understanding or critique of celebrity in contemporary times. Read more
Review: Victoria Kannen on Love, Sex, and Disability
Sarah Smith Rainey, Love, Sex, and Disability: The Pleasures of Care. Disability in Society. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2011, 197 pp. $US 49.95 hardcover (978-1-58826-777-1)
In Sarah Smith Rainey’s Love, Sex, and Disability: The Pleasures of Care, she invites readers to reimagine notions of intimacy, care-work, and the body. Her text is a study of how dominant (and often problematic) narratives of care and intimacy of disabled/nondisabled couples are circulated in social discourse and the counter-narratives that these couples offer. Using popular culture representations, autobiographical reflections, and the analysis of focus group discussions, Rainey explores the intersections of care and intimacy for partnered relationships where one person is disabled (in the case of this work — physically disabled) and the other (seemingly) nondisabled. Her strategy here is clear: she endeavours to confront stereotypes of victimization and valorization where care and disability intersect in order to disrupt the limited (and often heteronormative) understandings of intimacy and the “able-bodiedness of love.” Read more
In Sarah Smith Rainey’s Love, Sex, and Disability: The Pleasures of Care, she invites readers to reimagine notions of intimacy, care-work, and the body. Her text is a study of how dominant (and often problematic) narratives of care and intimacy of disabled/nondisabled couples are circulated in social discourse and the counter-narratives that these couples offer. Using popular culture representations, autobiographical reflections, and the analysis of focus group discussions, Rainey explores the intersections of care and intimacy for partnered relationships where one person is disabled (in the case of this work — physically disabled) and the other (seemingly) nondisabled. Her strategy here is clear: she endeavours to confront stereotypes of victimization and valorization where care and disability intersect in order to disrupt the limited (and often heteronormative) understandings of intimacy and the “able-bodiedness of love.” Read more
Review: Lesley Andres on Transitions from School to Work
Ingrid Schoon and Rainer K. Silbereisen, eds., Transitions from School to Work: Globalization, Individualization, and Patterns of Diversity. The Jacobs Foundation Series on Adolescence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 408 pp. $US95.00 hardcover (978-0-521-49068-9)
In this edited book, the authors collectively examine the many contours of the transition from school to work. In fact, many chapters go beyond what is suggested in the title by recognizing simultaneous multiple transitions, of which the school-to-work transition is merely one. In the introductory chapter the editors set the tone for the book, offering a “unifying framework for the study of transitions in times of social change.” Read more
In this edited book, the authors collectively examine the many contours of the transition from school to work. In fact, many chapters go beyond what is suggested in the title by recognizing simultaneous multiple transitions, of which the school-to-work transition is merely one. In the introductory chapter the editors set the tone for the book, offering a “unifying framework for the study of transitions in times of social change.” Read more
Review: Robert Hiscott on The Changing Canadian Population
Barry Edmonston and Eric Fong, eds., The Changing Canadian Population. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011, 384 pp. $34.95 paper (978-0-7735-3794-1), $95.00 hardcover (978-0-7735-3793-4
The Changing Canadian Population uses secondary analysis of Canadian census data to explore population change. It begins with "Canada’s Population Context," covering patterns of population growth as a function of primary demographic determinants of fertility, mortality and migration, age and sex composition (including patterns in dependency ratios), and trends in the number and size of Canadian households (including housing tenure and affordability). Part 2 examines "Social Stratification" focusing on a range of socio-economic status measures pertaining to education, employment (encompassing participation rates, labour force status, occupation and industry), and income (specifically, the incidence of low income in the Canadian population). Part 3 explores "Population Distribution and Migration" … Read more
The Changing Canadian Population uses secondary analysis of Canadian census data to explore population change. It begins with "Canada’s Population Context," covering patterns of population growth as a function of primary demographic determinants of fertility, mortality and migration, age and sex composition (including patterns in dependency ratios), and trends in the number and size of Canadian households (including housing tenure and affordability). Part 2 examines "Social Stratification" focusing on a range of socio-economic status measures pertaining to education, employment (encompassing participation rates, labour force status, occupation and industry), and income (specifically, the incidence of low income in the Canadian population). Part 3 explores "Population Distribution and Migration" … Read more
Monday, September 5, 2011
Review: Kevin Walby on New York Hustlers
Barry Reay, New York Hustlers: Masculinity and Sex in Modern America. Encounters: Cultural Histories. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2010, 208pp. $US 35.00 paper (978-0-7190-8008-1), $US 90.00 hardcover (978-0-7190-8007-4)
New York Hustlers is a work of cultural history. Although not explicitly written for them, the book will nonetheless be relevant to sociologists interested in sex and gender, as it explores the “instability” and “untidiness” of categories of sexuality. Empirically, Reay’s book examines paid sex between men in New York during the middle of the twentieth century. More than a foray into sex between men and the slipperiness of labels, this book casts Alfred Kinsey’s research on male sexuality in new light by following one of Kinsey’s key informants: Thomas Painter. Read more
New York Hustlers is a work of cultural history. Although not explicitly written for them, the book will nonetheless be relevant to sociologists interested in sex and gender, as it explores the “instability” and “untidiness” of categories of sexuality. Empirically, Reay’s book examines paid sex between men in New York during the middle of the twentieth century. More than a foray into sex between men and the slipperiness of labels, this book casts Alfred Kinsey’s research on male sexuality in new light by following one of Kinsey’s key informants: Thomas Painter. Read more
Monday, August 29, 2011
Review: Nathan Young on Experts
Nico Stehr and Reiner Grundmann. Experts: The Knowledge and Power of Expertise. Key Ideas. New York: Routledge, 2011, 148 pp. $110.00 hardcover (978-0-415-60803-9)
Experts is published as part of Routledge’s “Key Ideas” series that emphasizes short, poignant essays on important and topical issues in the social sciences. The best books in this series (notably Deborah Lupton’s Risk, 1999) manage to both critically review the field and present an original argument that goes beyond existing works. Stehr and Grundmann’s book does just this. Read more
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Article: An Accelerating Divergence? The Revisionist Model Of World History And The Question Of Eurasian Military Parity
An Accelerating Divergence? The Revisionist Model Of World History And The Question Of Eurasian Military Parity: Data From East Asia
Tonio Andrade
Abstract
Over the past few years, this journal has hosted a debate central to world history and historical sociology: Joseph M. Bryant’s bold assault on the revisionist model of global history and the revisionists’ equally trenchant defense. A key point of disagreement concerns Europeans' relative military advantages vis-a-vis Asians. Both sides cite literature from historians’ Military Revolution Model, but each takes different lessons from that literature. The revisionists see a slight military imbalance in favor of Europe but deny that it reflects a general European technological lead. Bryant believes that the European technological lead is significant and reflects a more general modernizing trend. This article tries to resolve the disagreement by appealing to data from East Asia. First, it argues that recent work in Asian history points to what we can call a Chinese Military Revolution, which compels us to place the European Military Revolution in a larger, Eurasian context: not just western European but also East Asian societies were undergoing rapid military change and modernization during the gunpowder age. Second, it adduces evidence from a new study of the Sino-Dutch War of 1661-1668 (a war that both Bryant and the revisionists cite, each, again, taking divergent lessons) to come to a more precise evaluation of the military balance between China and western Europe in the early modern period: western cannons and muskets didn’t provide a discernible advantage, but western war ships and renaissance forts did. The article concludes that the revisionists are correct in their belief that Asian societies were undergoing rapid changes in military technology and practices along the lines of those taking place in western Europe and that the standard model Bryant defends is incorrect because it presumes that Asian societies are more stagnant than is warranted by the evidence. At the same time, the article argues that counter-revisionists like Bryant are correct in their belief that military modernization was proceeding more quickly in Europe than that in Asia, which may indicate that the counter-revisionists are correct on a basic point: there was an early divergence between the west and the rest of Eurasia. At first this divergence was slight – so slight, indeed, that it probably left little clear evidence in the noisy and poor early modern data we have available. But the divergence increased over time. Thus, we can speak of a small but accelerating divergence.
Full Text: PDF
Tonio Andrade
Abstract
Over the past few years, this journal has hosted a debate central to world history and historical sociology: Joseph M. Bryant’s bold assault on the revisionist model of global history and the revisionists’ equally trenchant defense. A key point of disagreement concerns Europeans' relative military advantages vis-a-vis Asians. Both sides cite literature from historians’ Military Revolution Model, but each takes different lessons from that literature. The revisionists see a slight military imbalance in favor of Europe but deny that it reflects a general European technological lead. Bryant believes that the European technological lead is significant and reflects a more general modernizing trend. This article tries to resolve the disagreement by appealing to data from East Asia. First, it argues that recent work in Asian history points to what we can call a Chinese Military Revolution, which compels us to place the European Military Revolution in a larger, Eurasian context: not just western European but also East Asian societies were undergoing rapid military change and modernization during the gunpowder age. Second, it adduces evidence from a new study of the Sino-Dutch War of 1661-1668 (a war that both Bryant and the revisionists cite, each, again, taking divergent lessons) to come to a more precise evaluation of the military balance between China and western Europe in the early modern period: western cannons and muskets didn’t provide a discernible advantage, but western war ships and renaissance forts did. The article concludes that the revisionists are correct in their belief that Asian societies were undergoing rapid changes in military technology and practices along the lines of those taking place in western Europe and that the standard model Bryant defends is incorrect because it presumes that Asian societies are more stagnant than is warranted by the evidence. At the same time, the article argues that counter-revisionists like Bryant are correct in their belief that military modernization was proceeding more quickly in Europe than that in Asia, which may indicate that the counter-revisionists are correct on a basic point: there was an early divergence between the west and the rest of Eurasia. At first this divergence was slight – so slight, indeed, that it probably left little clear evidence in the noisy and poor early modern data we have available. But the divergence increased over time. Thus, we can speak of a small but accelerating divergence.
Full Text: PDF
Article: Parental Traffic Safeguarding At School Sites: Unequal Risks And Responsibilities
Parental Traffic Safeguarding At School Sites: Unequal Risks And Responsibilities
Arlene Tigar McLaren, Sylvia Parusel
Abstract
Based on a comparison of two public elementary schools located on the east and west sides of Vancouver, British Columbia, the paper explores the effects of spatial and social contexts on parents’ school traffic safety practices. By taking into account the dynamics of gender and social class in different geographies of mobility at the two schools, we illustrate how parents’ (especially mothers’) daily concerns, practices and volunteerism reflect unequal risks and responsibilities in safeguarding children from motorized traffic. We also suggest that despite geographical differences and social inequalities, auto-centred environments and traffic safety governance create remarkably similar parental mobility concerns at the two schools, reflecting the stratifying effects of automobility. Our analysis of the troubling effects of the automobility system underscores the importance of acknowledging how parental traffic safety practices contribute to the illusion of traffic safety and to the necessity of challenging auto hegemony.
Full Text: PDF
Arlene Tigar McLaren, Sylvia Parusel
Abstract
Based on a comparison of two public elementary schools located on the east and west sides of Vancouver, British Columbia, the paper explores the effects of spatial and social contexts on parents’ school traffic safety practices. By taking into account the dynamics of gender and social class in different geographies of mobility at the two schools, we illustrate how parents’ (especially mothers’) daily concerns, practices and volunteerism reflect unequal risks and responsibilities in safeguarding children from motorized traffic. We also suggest that despite geographical differences and social inequalities, auto-centred environments and traffic safety governance create remarkably similar parental mobility concerns at the two schools, reflecting the stratifying effects of automobility. Our analysis of the troubling effects of the automobility system underscores the importance of acknowledging how parental traffic safety practices contribute to the illusion of traffic safety and to the necessity of challenging auto hegemony.
Full Text: PDF
Article: The Shift From Victim To Deviant Identity For Those Diagnosed With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
What Once Was Sick Is Now Bad: The Shift From Victim To Deviant Identity For Those Diagnosed With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Erin Dej
Abstract
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is constituted by different networks and institutions. I demonstrate that while the symptoms associated with FASD do not differ from childhood to adulthood, their conceptualization and thus societal and governmental responses to individuals with FASD changes dramatically. This work is theoretically grounded in Rose’s work on psy-identities and Hacking’s concept of a looping effect, which suggests that the way an individual and their associates make sense of an identity manipulates the identity itself. In order to unpack the reconstruction of the FASD identity in adulthood, I have identified two linked but distinctive loops – that of the promising child and the deviant adult. These two loops help conceptualize the different institutions, stakeholders and knowledges that take interest in the ‘FASD child’ and those that constitute the ‘FASD adult’ identity within the criminal justice system.
Full Text: PDF
Erin Dej
Abstract
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is constituted by different networks and institutions. I demonstrate that while the symptoms associated with FASD do not differ from childhood to adulthood, their conceptualization and thus societal and governmental responses to individuals with FASD changes dramatically. This work is theoretically grounded in Rose’s work on psy-identities and Hacking’s concept of a looping effect, which suggests that the way an individual and their associates make sense of an identity manipulates the identity itself. In order to unpack the reconstruction of the FASD identity in adulthood, I have identified two linked but distinctive loops – that of the promising child and the deviant adult. These two loops help conceptualize the different institutions, stakeholders and knowledges that take interest in the ‘FASD child’ and those that constitute the ‘FASD adult’ identity within the criminal justice system.
Full Text: PDF
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Review: Catherine Tuey on The Matter of Death
Jenny Hockey, Carol Komaromy and Kate Woodthorpe, eds., The Matter of Death: Space, Place and Materiality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 272 pp. $US 85.00 hardcover (978-0-230-22416-2).
The Matter of Death: Space, Place and Materiality is an apt title to this edited collection on death, dying and disposal. The editors play on the concept of “matter” in order to present multiple perspectives on the meaning, management, and especially the materiality of death. Their central argument is that the absence, or “hidden” nature of death materializes its presence and so challenges the idea that the sequestration of death contributes to peoples’ fear of it and its taboo status. This collection is a welcome addition to the death studies literature because it provides novel ways to think about death, dying and disposal. Read more
The Matter of Death: Space, Place and Materiality is an apt title to this edited collection on death, dying and disposal. The editors play on the concept of “matter” in order to present multiple perspectives on the meaning, management, and especially the materiality of death. Their central argument is that the absence, or “hidden” nature of death materializes its presence and so challenges the idea that the sequestration of death contributes to peoples’ fear of it and its taboo status. This collection is a welcome addition to the death studies literature because it provides novel ways to think about death, dying and disposal. Read more
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Review essay: Peter Baehr, "Imagining Sociological Theory"
Charles Turner, Investigating Sociological Theory. London & Los Angeles: Sage, 2010, 216 pp. $US 42.95 paper (978-1-84920-375-3), $US 99.95 hardcover (978-1-84920-374-6)
Conceptually rigorous, rich in content, grounded in wide and deep reading, thoughtfully written and judicious, Charles Turner’s new book is a major addition to sociological theory. Even its limitations are instructive. Read more
Conceptually rigorous, rich in content, grounded in wide and deep reading, thoughtfully written and judicious, Charles Turner’s new book is a major addition to sociological theory. Even its limitations are instructive. Read more
Friday, May 27, 2011
Review: Janice Aurini on The Making of an Adolescent Elite
Shamus Rahman Khan, Privilege: The Making of Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, 248 pp. $US 29.95 hardcover (978-1-4008-3622-2)
Privilege takes us into the world of St. Paul’s, an exclusive boarding school, to examine the new American elite. In this well written ethnography, Khan returns to his alma mater as a teacher and researcher and discovers a transformed institution. Gone are the minority student dorms and (overt) expressions of old money and connections. In its place, the school prides itself on its racial diversity, the inclusion of women, and scholarships that allow superb disadvantaged students an education at St. Paul’s. Years after graduating, Khan finds himself in a school that eschews notions of “who you are” in favour of “what you’ve done.” Read more
Privilege takes us into the world of St. Paul’s, an exclusive boarding school, to examine the new American elite. In this well written ethnography, Khan returns to his alma mater as a teacher and researcher and discovers a transformed institution. Gone are the minority student dorms and (overt) expressions of old money and connections. In its place, the school prides itself on its racial diversity, the inclusion of women, and scholarships that allow superb disadvantaged students an education at St. Paul’s. Years after graduating, Khan finds himself in a school that eschews notions of “who you are” in favour of “what you’ve done.” Read more
Review: Liliana Riga on The Sociology of War and Violence
Sinisa Malešević, The Sociology of War and Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 376 pp. $US 29.99 paper (978-0-521-73169-0), $US 95.00 (978-0-521-51651-9)
The Sociology of War and Violence is at once powerful social theory and excellent comparative-historical sociology. Malesevic’s central claim is that sociological theories — particularly those based on ideological organization and the bureaucratization of coercion — offer a useful understanding of war, modernity and social change. He argues that large-scale collective violence is predicated on both a structural, organizational capacity and a legitimizing ideology. Malešević retrieves the neglected “militarist” dimensions in classical social theory, Max Weber in particular … Read more
The Sociology of War and Violence is at once powerful social theory and excellent comparative-historical sociology. Malesevic’s central claim is that sociological theories — particularly those based on ideological organization and the bureaucratization of coercion — offer a useful understanding of war, modernity and social change. He argues that large-scale collective violence is predicated on both a structural, organizational capacity and a legitimizing ideology. Malešević retrieves the neglected “militarist” dimensions in classical social theory, Max Weber in particular … Read more
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Review: Toni Calasanti on The Older Man’s Experience of Widowhood
Deborah K. van den Hoonaard, By Himself: The Older Man’s Experience of Widowhood. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, 176 pp. $45.00 hardcover (978-1-4426-4109-9)
Deborah van den Hoonaard seeks to close gaps in research on how widowers make sense of their situations, and how men “often … attempt to highlight their masculine selves.” Despite the relative rarity of widowers and their general disinterest in interviews, van den Hoonaard managed to speak with twenty-six men aged 60 and over … Read more
Deborah van den Hoonaard seeks to close gaps in research on how widowers make sense of their situations, and how men “often … attempt to highlight their masculine selves.” Despite the relative rarity of widowers and their general disinterest in interviews, van den Hoonaard managed to speak with twenty-six men aged 60 and over … Read more
Review: Herbert C. Northcott on The Study of Dying
Allan Kellehear, ed., The Study of Dying: From Autonomy to Transformation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 298 pp. $US 29.99 paper (978-0-521-73905-4), $US 75.00 hardcover (978-0-521-51767-6)
This collection of twelve essays addresses the question, “What is it like to die?”. It focuses on the dying process that unfolds in the minutes, hours, days, and sometimes weeks or months before death. In particular this book examines the physical, psychological, behavioural, social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of the experience of dying. The authors are scholars and clinicians who represent a range of disciplines, including social and behavioural studies, veterinary medicine, biomedicine including psychiatry and neurobiology, palliative medicine, nursing, sociology and demography, history, philosophy, art, literature, popular culture, theology and religion. Read more
This collection of twelve essays addresses the question, “What is it like to die?”. It focuses on the dying process that unfolds in the minutes, hours, days, and sometimes weeks or months before death. In particular this book examines the physical, psychological, behavioural, social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of the experience of dying. The authors are scholars and clinicians who represent a range of disciplines, including social and behavioural studies, veterinary medicine, biomedicine including psychiatry and neurobiology, palliative medicine, nursing, sociology and demography, history, philosophy, art, literature, popular culture, theology and religion. Read more
Review: Rita Samiolo on Knowledge and Ethics in the Financial World
Matthew Gill, Accountants’ Truth: Knowledge and Ethics in the Financial World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, 208 pp. $US 35.00 paper (978-0-19-960310-7), $US 99.00 hardcover (978-0-19-954714-2)
The financial system has been shaken to the core, yet its institutions prove largely impermeable to attempts to question and reform them. Matthew Gill’s book has the merit of opening one of the system's many “black boxes” that even a fast growing body of academic research in the sociology of finance has been quite reluctant to address: accounting. The numbers based on which markets operate, their mundane production by bookkeepers, their validation by audit and assurance experts, as well as the various valuation methods which elaborate on such numbers in order to derive so-called “decision-relevant information,” are still largely taken for granted by sociologists. Gill’s book is a refreshing exception. Read more
The financial system has been shaken to the core, yet its institutions prove largely impermeable to attempts to question and reform them. Matthew Gill’s book has the merit of opening one of the system's many “black boxes” that even a fast growing body of academic research in the sociology of finance has been quite reluctant to address: accounting. The numbers based on which markets operate, their mundane production by bookkeepers, their validation by audit and assurance experts, as well as the various valuation methods which elaborate on such numbers in order to derive so-called “decision-relevant information,” are still largely taken for granted by sociologists. Gill’s book is a refreshing exception. Read more
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Review: Pat and Hugh Armstrong on Residential Care Transformed
Julia Johnson, Sheena Rolph and Randall Smith, Residential Care Transformed: Revisiting ‘The Last Refuge’ (Basingstoke UK: Palgrave Macmillam, 2010)
This is an important book. It addresses key issues about the quality of residential care for the elderly, about “institutional” life more broadly, and especially about methodologies and ethics in social science research. After a brief background sketch, we start with the related methodological and ethical issues. Read more
This is an important book. It addresses key issues about the quality of residential care for the elderly, about “institutional” life more broadly, and especially about methodologies and ethics in social science research. After a brief background sketch, we start with the related methodological and ethical issues. Read more
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Review: Arthur Frank on Simmel, The View of Life
Georg Simmel, The View of Life: Four Metaphysical Essays with Journal Aphorisms. Translated by John Andrews and Donald Levine, With an introduction by Donald Levine and Daniel Silver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010, 240 pp. $US 35.00 hardcover (978-0-226-75783-4)
Not least among the editorial decisions for which readers of this seminal publication can be grateful are the quotations that serve as back-cover blurbs. The first quotes the critical theorist Max Horkheimer, in 1956: “Georg Simmel is the only sociologist one can read anymore.” The second quotes the University of Chicago urban sociologist, and Simmel’s student, Robert E. Park: “Although Simmel has written the most profound and stimulating book in sociology, in my opinion … Read more
Not least among the editorial decisions for which readers of this seminal publication can be grateful are the quotations that serve as back-cover blurbs. The first quotes the critical theorist Max Horkheimer, in 1956: “Georg Simmel is the only sociologist one can read anymore.” The second quotes the University of Chicago urban sociologist, and Simmel’s student, Robert E. Park: “Although Simmel has written the most profound and stimulating book in sociology, in my opinion … Read more
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Review essay: Melissa Milkie "Parenting in a Gendered World"
Bonnie Fox, When Couples Become Parents: The Creation of Gender in the Transition to Parenthood. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009, 334 pp. $35.00 paper (978-0-8020-9184-0), $75.00 hardcover (978-0-8020-9183-3)
Gillian Ranson, Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, 214 pp. $28.95 paper (978-1-4426-0358-5)
Babies create dramatic life changes for adults, arguably the most striking of the life course, and for sociologists, they create a theoretically rich arena in which to examine gender. The birth of a baby impels women and men to negotiate and renegotiate how to earn and care for the next generation, and as they do this, gender relations and inequalities come into sharp focus. Two recent books, When Couples Become Parents: The Creation of Gender in the Transition to Parenthood, by Bonnie Fox, and Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting, by Gillian Ranson, take up important sociological questions intimately embedded in how rearing children affects adults’ lives in a gendered society. Read more
Gillian Ranson, Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, 214 pp. $28.95 paper (978-1-4426-0358-5)
Babies create dramatic life changes for adults, arguably the most striking of the life course, and for sociologists, they create a theoretically rich arena in which to examine gender. The birth of a baby impels women and men to negotiate and renegotiate how to earn and care for the next generation, and as they do this, gender relations and inequalities come into sharp focus. Two recent books, When Couples Become Parents: The Creation of Gender in the Transition to Parenthood, by Bonnie Fox, and Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting, by Gillian Ranson, take up important sociological questions intimately embedded in how rearing children affects adults’ lives in a gendered society. Read more
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Review: Matthew Gill on Framing Finance
Alex Preda, Framing Finance: The Boundaries of Markets and Modern Capitalism. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 328pp. $US 25.00 paper (978-0-226-67932-7), $US 65.00 hardcover (978-0-226-67931-0).
In the eighteenth century, Alex Preda observes, financial speculators were socially marginalized. They were thought to undermine government, to divert resources away from productive activity, and to weaken the moral order by severing consumption from work. These critiques live on, of course, but many of those who would previously have been described as speculators are now able to describe themselves as investors. Framing Finance shows how the distinction between speculation and investment developed in financial market actors’ favor during the nineteenth century, not least as a result of the increasing credibility, and then authority, of their own self-interpretations. Read more
In the eighteenth century, Alex Preda observes, financial speculators were socially marginalized. They were thought to undermine government, to divert resources away from productive activity, and to weaken the moral order by severing consumption from work. These critiques live on, of course, but many of those who would previously have been described as speculators are now able to describe themselves as investors. Framing Finance shows how the distinction between speculation and investment developed in financial market actors’ favor during the nineteenth century, not least as a result of the increasing credibility, and then authority, of their own self-interpretations. Read more
Review: Rod Beaujot on Men, Women, and Household Work
Judith Treas and Sonja Drobnic, eds. Dividing the Domestic: Men, Women, and Household Work in Cross-National Perspective. Studies in Social Inequality. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010, 280 pp. $US 50.00 hardcover (987-0-8047-6357-8).
The seventeen authors of this excellent collection have produced a very unified volume on the division of domestic work. Just as the division of housework is asymmetric by gender, so is the division of labour in Sociology, as represented here by 13 women and 4 men authors. The authors do not use the same definition of domestic work, and thus the introductory chapter on “why study housework” does not define the concept, nor do we know if it includes child care and household maintenance, in the view of the editors. … The overview chapter by Judith Treas provides an excellent theoretical statement, starting with rational choice, and constraints, then going to gender ideology and relative resources, and finally to gender in the institutional context of the broader society. All chapters are theoretically informed and empirically based. Read more
The seventeen authors of this excellent collection have produced a very unified volume on the division of domestic work. Just as the division of housework is asymmetric by gender, so is the division of labour in Sociology, as represented here by 13 women and 4 men authors. The authors do not use the same definition of domestic work, and thus the introductory chapter on “why study housework” does not define the concept, nor do we know if it includes child care and household maintenance, in the view of the editors. … The overview chapter by Judith Treas provides an excellent theoretical statement, starting with rational choice, and constraints, then going to gender ideology and relative resources, and finally to gender in the institutional context of the broader society. All chapters are theoretically informed and empirically based. Read more
Review: Kevin Walby on Emotionalizing Organizations
Barbara Sieben and Åsa Wettergren, Emotionalizing Organizations and Organizing Emotions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2010. 295 pp. $US 105.00 hardcover (978-0-230-25025-4)
Sociologists have recently shown great interest in emotions, passions, sentiments, and feelings, evinced by the publication of numerous books, articles, and edited volumes. Emotionalizing Organizations and Organizing Emotions contributes to this growing body of literature. Sociological interest in emotions follows a considerable period of time during which emotions were assumed to be of scholarly interest to psychologists alone. Read more
Sociologists have recently shown great interest in emotions, passions, sentiments, and feelings, evinced by the publication of numerous books, articles, and edited volumes. Emotionalizing Organizations and Organizing Emotions contributes to this growing body of literature. Sociological interest in emotions follows a considerable period of time during which emotions were assumed to be of scholarly interest to psychologists alone. Read more
Review: Matthias Gross on Young & Matthews, The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada
Nathan Young and Ralph Matthews. The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada: Activism, Policy, and Contested Science. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010, 312 pp. $34.95 paper (978-0-7748-1811-7), $85.00 hardcover (978-0-7748-1810-0)
Does cultivating freshwater and saltwater fish populations under controlled conditions instead of harvesting wild fish make practices of aquaculture or aquafarming part of the solution to the decline of global wild fisheries? Or does the farming of fish, shrimp, oysters or algacultures foster overfishing and pose unacceptable risks to ecological integrity and human health? In their engaging book, The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada: Activism, Policy, and Contested Science, Nathan Young and Ralph Matthews analyze a classical clash between proponents of a novel technique and the critical stance that points to its unintended (mainly negative) side effects. Read more
Does cultivating freshwater and saltwater fish populations under controlled conditions instead of harvesting wild fish make practices of aquaculture or aquafarming part of the solution to the decline of global wild fisheries? Or does the farming of fish, shrimp, oysters or algacultures foster overfishing and pose unacceptable risks to ecological integrity and human health? In their engaging book, The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada: Activism, Policy, and Contested Science, Nathan Young and Ralph Matthews analyze a classical clash between proponents of a novel technique and the critical stance that points to its unintended (mainly negative) side effects. Read more
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Compte rendu: Jonathan Roberge sur Nathalie Heinich
Nathalie Heinich. Guerre culturelle et art contemporain. Une comparaison franco-américaine.
Paris: Hermann, 2010, 179 pp. 26 € paper (978 2 7056 7063)
Les travaux de Nathalie Heinich sont aujourd’hui connus par un cercle qui dépasse de beaucoup celui des initiés à la sociologie de l’art. … Pour le dire succinctement, Nathalie Heinich apparaît maintenant comme une incontournable de la sociologie française, sinon mondiale. Dans ce dernier opus, elle expose les résultats d’une enquête menée aux États-Unis il y a une quinzaine d’années, mais dont l’auteure assure qu’ils ont gardé toute leur actualité — aussi parce que ces résultats sont comparés avec d’autres issus du contexte français. La question au cœur de l’ouvrage est alors la suivante : pourquoi et comment l’art se voit-il rejeter de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique; qu’en est-il, autrement dit, des « grammaires axiologiques partagées par les acteurs d’une même culture » face aux défis représentés par l’art au sein de la cité. Lire plus
Paris: Hermann, 2010, 179 pp. 26 € paper (978 2 7056 7063)
Les travaux de Nathalie Heinich sont aujourd’hui connus par un cercle qui dépasse de beaucoup celui des initiés à la sociologie de l’art. … Pour le dire succinctement, Nathalie Heinich apparaît maintenant comme une incontournable de la sociologie française, sinon mondiale. Dans ce dernier opus, elle expose les résultats d’une enquête menée aux États-Unis il y a une quinzaine d’années, mais dont l’auteure assure qu’ils ont gardé toute leur actualité — aussi parce que ces résultats sont comparés avec d’autres issus du contexte français. La question au cœur de l’ouvrage est alors la suivante : pourquoi et comment l’art se voit-il rejeter de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique; qu’en est-il, autrement dit, des « grammaires axiologiques partagées par les acteurs d’une même culture » face aux défis représentés par l’art au sein de la cité. Lire plus
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Comment: A Public Health Perspective On HPV Vaccination
A Public Health Perspective On HPV Vaccination: Response To The HPV Vaccination Campaign: A Project Of Moral Regulation In An Era Of Biopolitics
Liane Macdonald, Shelley Deeks, Carolyn Doyle
CJS 35, 4 (2010): 627-632
Abstract
Connell and Hunt’s critique (2010) raises important questions and concerns about human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in Canada. We offer a public health perspective on several key issues, including the merits of implementing population-based HPV vaccination programs in Canada; the time-sensitivity of HPV vaccination; and, the non-judgmental approach to sexual health promotion for youth championed by Canadian public health organizations.
Full Text: PDF
Liane Macdonald, Shelley Deeks, Carolyn Doyle
CJS 35, 4 (2010): 627-632
Abstract
Connell and Hunt’s critique (2010) raises important questions and concerns about human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in Canada. We offer a public health perspective on several key issues, including the merits of implementing population-based HPV vaccination programs in Canada; the time-sensitivity of HPV vaccination; and, the non-judgmental approach to sexual health promotion for youth championed by Canadian public health organizations.
Full Text: PDF
Article: Gendered Practices in the Online Pro-Eating-Disorder Community
Hunger Hurts But Starving Works: A Case Study of Gendered Practices in the Online Pro-Eating-Disorder Community
Krista Whitehead
CJS 35, 4 (2010): 595-626
Abstract
This paper investigates collective identity-work of Pro-eating disorder (Pro-ED) groups on the Internet. Using an adaptation of face-to-face ethnographic methods to investigate online communication (Mann and Stewart 2000), the author analyzes five collective organizing practices in Pro-ED groups that reveal a highly gendered character: 1) promoting surreptitiousness, 2) organizing in and around the realm of domesticity, 3) equating beauty with self-worth, 4) relying on friendship as a chief organizing principle, and 5) using fandom as a method of attracting and maintaining members. In spite of exceptional resistance to their activities, women in the Pro-ED community are able to achieve a collective Pro-ED identity wherein they maintain eating-disordered lifestyles. The case study presented here interrupts popular sociological understandings of collective identity mobilization as having categorically positive consequences for its members.
Full Text: PDF
Krista Whitehead
CJS 35, 4 (2010): 595-626
Abstract
This paper investigates collective identity-work of Pro-eating disorder (Pro-ED) groups on the Internet. Using an adaptation of face-to-face ethnographic methods to investigate online communication (Mann and Stewart 2000), the author analyzes five collective organizing practices in Pro-ED groups that reveal a highly gendered character: 1) promoting surreptitiousness, 2) organizing in and around the realm of domesticity, 3) equating beauty with self-worth, 4) relying on friendship as a chief organizing principle, and 5) using fandom as a method of attracting and maintaining members. In spite of exceptional resistance to their activities, women in the Pro-ED community are able to achieve a collective Pro-ED identity wherein they maintain eating-disordered lifestyles. The case study presented here interrupts popular sociological understandings of collective identity mobilization as having categorically positive consequences for its members.
Full Text: PDF
Article: Income and area effects on voluntary association membership
Income and Area Effects on Voluntary Association Membership In Canada
Laura Jane Duncan
CJS 35, 4 (2010): 573-594
Abstract
Applying multi-level modelling techniques to 2003 Canadian General Social Survey and 2001 Census Profile data , this study investigates the influence of individual income, contextual poverty and income inequality on voluntary association membership in Canada. Both individual and contextual effects on membership are uncovered, in addition to a significant cross-level interaction between individual income and area level income inequality. As individual income increases so do the odds of voluntary association membership, an effect that is fairly consistent between areas. Increases in area level poverty are associated with decreases in the odds of membership. While no main effect is found for area level income inequality, cross-level interactions indicate that the relationship between individual income and membership is moderated by area income inequality. The study findings support claims about the negative social effects of individual and contextual economic disadvantage and confirms the importance of examining contextual influences on social outcomes.
Full Text: PDF
Laura Jane Duncan
CJS 35, 4 (2010): 573-594
Abstract
Applying multi-level modelling techniques to 2003 Canadian General Social Survey and 2001 Census Profile data , this study investigates the influence of individual income, contextual poverty and income inequality on voluntary association membership in Canada. Both individual and contextual effects on membership are uncovered, in addition to a significant cross-level interaction between individual income and area level income inequality. As individual income increases so do the odds of voluntary association membership, an effect that is fairly consistent between areas. Increases in area level poverty are associated with decreases in the odds of membership. While no main effect is found for area level income inequality, cross-level interactions indicate that the relationship between individual income and membership is moderated by area income inequality. The study findings support claims about the negative social effects of individual and contextual economic disadvantage and confirms the importance of examining contextual influences on social outcomes.
Full Text: PDF
Article: Women's Environmental Work as Cultural Change
Relational Activism: Re-Imagining Women's Environmental Work as Cultural Change
Sara O'Shaughnessy, Emily Huddart Kennedy
CJS 35, 4 (2010): 551-572
Abstract
We introduce the term “relational activism” to call attention to the way that relationship-building work contributes to conventional activism (re-activism) and constitutes activism in and of itself. In so doing, we unravel Mohai’s paradox – a long-standing “ironic contrast” that notes that women’s environmental concern is not reflected in greater contributions to activism than men’s. We position relational activism as a bridging concept between re-activism and social capital. Relational activism differs from re-activism in four key areas: the role of the individual, effectiveness, motivating values, and temporal scale. To support these claims, we draw upon 26 ethnographic interviews conducted with families in Edmonton, Alberta, who strive to reduce their environmental impact.
Full Text: PDF
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