CJS Blog

Review: Bonnie Fox on Gender, Caring and Work

2011-09-08T15:57:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Momin Rahman on A Short History of Celebrity

2011-09-06T15:48:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Victoria Kannen on Love, Sex, and Disability

2011-09-06T15:42:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Lesley Andres on Transitions from School to Work

2011-09-06T15:36:00.001-04:00

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

Review: Robert Hiscott on The Changing Canadian Population

2011-09-06T10:41:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Kevin Walby on New York Hustlers

2011-09-05T17:43:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Nathan Young on Experts

2011-08-29T11:19:00.000-04:00

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

Comment on Andrade — Jack A. Goldstone

2011-07-02T16:18:00.002-04:00

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Article: An Accelerating Divergence? The Revisionist Model Of World History And The Question Of Eurasian Military Parity

2011-07-02T16:17:00.000-04:00

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.

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Article: Parental Traffic Safeguarding At School Sites: Unequal Risks And Responsibilities

2011-07-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

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.

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Article: The Shift From Victim To Deviant Identity For Those Diagnosed With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

2011-07-02T16:13:00.000-04:00

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.

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Review: Catherine Tuey on The Matter of Death

2011-06-04T12:06:00.000-04:00

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

Review essay: Peter Baehr, "Imagining Sociological Theory"

2011-05-28T14:13:00.001-04:00

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

Review: Janice Aurini on The Making of an Adolescent Elite

2011-05-27T14:41:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Liliana Riga on The Sociology of War and Violence

2011-05-27T11:46:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Toni Calasanti on The Older Man’s Experience of Widowhood

2011-05-26T18:30:00.002-04:00

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

Review: Herbert C. Northcott on The Study of Dying

2011-05-26T12:54:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Rita Samiolo on Knowledge and Ethics in the Financial World

2011-05-26T10:09:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Pat and Hugh Armstrong on Residential Care Transformed

2011-05-25T17:41:00.000-04:00

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

Review: Arthur Frank on Simmel, The View of Life

2011-05-24T19:29:00.000-04:00

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

Review essay: Melissa Milkie "Parenting in a Gendered World"

2011-02-20T21:59:00.000-05:00

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

Review: Matthew Gill on Framing Finance

2011-02-19T10:23:00.001-05:00

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

Review: Rod Beaujot on Men, Women, and Household Work

2011-02-19T10:03:00.001-05:00

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

Review: Kevin Walby on Emotionalizing Organizations

2011-02-19T09:54:00.000-05:00

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

Review: Matthias Gross on Young & Matthews, The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada

2011-02-19T09:47:00.001-05:00

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

Compte rendu: Jonathan Roberge sur Nathalie Heinich

2011-02-01T14:17:00.000-05:00

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

Comment: A Public Health Perspective On HPV Vaccination

2011-01-06T18:56:00.000-05:00

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.
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Article: Gendered Practices in the Online Pro-Eating-Disorder Community

2011-01-06T18:51:00.002-05:00

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.
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Article: Income and area effects on voluntary association membership

2011-01-06T18:47:00.001-05:00

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.
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Article: Women's Environmental Work as Cultural Change

2011-01-06T18:39:00.004-05:00

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.

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Compte rendu: La société canadienne en débats

2010-12-21T08:56:00.000-05:00

Alain Faure and Robert Griffith. La société canadienne en débats : What holds Canada together? Paris : l’Harmattan, 2008, 224 pp. 20.90 € (2296059309)

Cette collection de chapitres rédigés par treize auteurs est le fruit d’une série de conférences tenue par des géographes français sur l’« impensé » de l’unité canadienne. La question qui figure en sous-titre de cet ouvrage, « What holds Canada together? » reçoit plusieurs réponses, qui toutes s’articulent autour de la pluralité des forces qui contribuent à l’unité canadienne. Une unité certes mythique et instable, mais construite sur des bases étonnamment pérennes : cycles politiques, culturels et géographiques récurrents, équilibres plus ou moins calculés entre groupes linguistiques majeurs, inclusion sinon réussie du moins promises aux nouveaux arrivants et groupes minoritaires, et politiques sociales égalitaires mais disputées. Lire plus

Compte rendu: Les Assistés sociaux

2010-12-20T22:57:00.001-05:00

Michel Messu. Les Assistés sociaux, suivi de l’Assurance d’assistance. Coll. « Res Socialis ». Fribourg : Academic Press Fribourg, 2010, 283 pp. 36,00 € (978-8271-1057-5)

Gageons que la dernière publication de Michel Messu, professeur de sociologie à l’université de Nantes et spécialiste des politiques publiques sociales, ne passera pas inaperçue dans le champ de l’assistance sociale. L’ouvrage est composé de deux parties distinctes : l'une issue de sa recherche doctorale et déjà publiée 1991, Les Assistés sociaux, et l'autre inédite, intitulée L’Assurance d’assistance, dans laquelle il critique la vision française « enchantée » de l’histoire de l’assistance sociale et défend la thèse du renforcement continu de l’État social depuis 1945. Contrairement aux discours pessimistes sur le déclin irrémédiable de l’État-providence, récurrents depuis la fin des années 1980, la protection accordée aux personnes assistées sociales serait, selon Messu, bien plus développée qu’il y a deux décennies … Lire plus

Compte rendu: La politique de la stupéfaction

2010-12-15T21:47:00.000-05:00

Nicolas Carrier (2008), La politique de la stupéfaction. Pérennité de la prohibition des drogues, coll. « Le sens social », Rennes : Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 376 p., 19,00 €, ISBN 978-2-7535-0591-9

Proposer « une théorie du droit qui soit en mesure d’interpréter la pérennité de la prohibition des drogues, cela en considérant le droit pénal tant au plan de son autonomie que de celui de ses rapports de dépendance avec des formes, des logiques, des jeux de langage distincts et du juridique et du droit. » Cette formule (p. 132) dit bien l’ambition de l’ouvrage. Celui-ci est le fruit de deux démarches complémentaires. D’une part, un vaste inventaire des concepts et modèles théoriques susceptibles d’être mobilisés dans cette interprétation, Lire plus

Review: William Ramp on The Intellectual Pursuit of the Sacred

2010-12-12T17:10:00.000-05:00

Alexander Tristan Riley. Godless Intellectuals: The Intellectual Pursuit of the Sacred Reinvented. New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010, 328 pp. $US 95.00 hardcover (978-1-84545-670-2)

The title of this engaging work might seem paradoxical, but while the intellectuals it describes may have been godless, they were deeply concerned with some of the central issues addressed by religion. In explaining how, Riley gives us an historical sociology of a stream of Durkheim-influenced thinking that has only recently gained recognition, and indeed, is still ignored in certain quarters. His Durkheim is one whose approach, ideas and preoccupations, mediated through the French cultural avant-garde, neglected, and re-appropriated in various ways, had a formative influence on French post-structuralist thought, and thence on the wider world of letters. Read more

Review: Raymond Arthur on Youth Justice Systems

2010-12-12T17:08:00.000-05:00

Jane B. Sprott and Anthony N. Doob. Justice for Girls? Stability and Change in the Youth Justice Systems. Adolescent Development and Legal Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 232 pp. $US 37.50 hardcover (978-0-226-77004-8)

Sprott and Doob aim to use female juvenile offending as “a lens through which one can better observe, and thus, understand” the youth justice systems of the United States and Canada. The purpose of this comparative approach is to help in unravelling the puzzle of girls, juvenile crime and the criminal justice system. Virtually all literature on juvenile offending focuses on male participation in juvenile offending behaviour. Read more

Review: Mervyn Horgan on Anthropology and Social Theory

2010-12-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

Sherry B. Ortner. Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006, 200 pp. $US 21.95 paper (0-8223-3864-5), $US 74.95 hardcover (0-8223-3811-4)

Practice theory stands as one of the most significant theoretical developments in the social sciences over the last half century. In Anthropology and Social Theory, Sherry Ortner sets out to show how, when well-grounded in original empirical research, practice theory throws new light on questions of culture, power, agency and subjectivity. Read more

Review: Jim Cosgrave on The Contemporary Goffman

2010-12-12T17:04:00.000-05:00

Michael Hviid Jacobsen, ed. The Contemporary Goffman. Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought. New York: Routledge, 2010, 396 pp. $US 95.00 hardcover (978-0-415-99681-5)

In his contribution to The Contemporary Goffman, Charles Lemert asks: “Who, in his day, would have thought that Erving Goffman’s writings would endure as long as they have?” While there is no question that sociological interest in the work of Goffman persists, The Contemporary Goffman contributes to appraising and sustaining Goffman’s oeuvre by emphasizing its contemporary significance. Appearing 50 years after the publication of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, it also presents a case for considering Goffman’s oeuvre and sustained focus on the Interaction Order as classic within the sociological canon. Read more

Review: Karen Hughes on Gender, Family and Unemployment in Ontario’s Great Depression

2010-12-12T16:42:00.001-05:00

Lara Campbell. Respectable Citizens: Gender, Family and Unemployment in Ontario’s Great Depression. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009, 304 pp. $29.95 paper (978-0-8020-9669-2), $65.00 hardcover (978-0-8020-9974-7)

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse, there has been a surge of interest in the Great Depression, with several economic history books vaulting to the top of bestseller lists. While Lara Campbell likely never anticipated such keen interest in her chosen subject, her book is certainly a welcome addition, appearing when public and scholarly interest in the events of the Great Depression is at an all time high. Campbell’s account is highly engaging and readable, offering new insights into the gendered dynamics of economic crisis as it played out in the lives of women and men living in Ontario in the 1930s. Focusing on the economic hardship faced by families, and the role of individual protest and collective action in redefining welfare and citizenship, Respectable Citizens offers a vivid, perceptive analysis of a unique period in Canadian history … Read more

Review: Sally Lindsay on Freedom and Disability in a Community Group Home

2010-12-12T16:38:00.001-05:00

Jack Levinson. Making Life Work: Freedom and Disability in a Community Group Home. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010, 304 pp. $US 22.50 paper (978-0-8166-5082-8), $US 67.50 hardcover (978-0-8166-5081-1)

Jack Levinson’s book describes a year-long ethnography of a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities. This book is important because in the sociological literature relatively little attention has been paid to people with intellectual disabilities. Most of the research on group homes focuses on homeless or troubled youth, and very little is known about the inner workings of a group home for people with intellectual disabilities. Levinson’s book addresses these gaps in the sociology and disability studies literature. Read more

Review: Hoffbauer and Ramos on Opp's Theories of Political Protest

2010-12-12T08:51:00.002-05:00

Karl-Dieter Opp. Theories of Political Protest and Social Movements: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, Critique, and Synthesis. New York: Routledge, 2009, 448 pp. $US 45.95 paper (978-0-415-48389-6), $US 150.00 hardcover (978-0-415-48388-9)

Theories of Political Protest and Social Movements sets out to identify the explanatory power of dominant social movement theories in accounting for political protests. In doing so, the book highlights the implicit and under-theorized links between micro and macro level social movement perspectives, and identifies how they influence one another. Opp argues that current theoretical approaches should be integrated to gain a better understanding of protest actions and movement outcomes, and that such integration can be achieved by adopting a structural-cognitive model. Read more

Review: Arthur Frank on Norbert Elias

2010-12-12T08:46:00.002-05:00

Norbert Elias. The Loneliness of the Dying AND Humana Conditio. Edited by Alan Scott and Brigitte Scott. Chester Springs PA: University College Dublin Press / Dufour Editions, 2010, 192 pp. $US 99.95 hardcover (978-1-906359-06-5)

The present volume includes one of Elias’s most frequently cited books, The Loneliness of the Dying, published in German in 1979 and in English in 1985. The other text, Humana Conditio, was published in German in 1985 as an expansion of lectures that Elias gave at the University of Bielefeld on the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II. The present publication is the first English translation. … The Loneliness of the Dying analyzes how peculiarities of contemporary social structure have produced characteristic problems for dying. The book’s interest is not the observation that dying persons are lonely, but rather understanding why this loneliness is predictable, if not at all inevitable. Read more

Review: Will van den Hoonard on Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences

2010-12-11T17:26:00.001-05:00

Zachary M. Schrag. Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965–2009. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, 264 pp. $US 45.00 hardcover (978-0-8018-9490-9)

Ethical Imperialism is about the power exercised by federal ethics regulators and ethics committees in American universities (and hospitals). This power has stymied social research through broken promises, the exclusion of social researchers from decision making, threats and suspensions, distrust, and reliance on medical and psychological practices to nullify the concerns of social researchers. Read more.

Review: John Goyder on Social Status and Cultural Consumption

2010-12-11T17:23:00.013-05:00

Tak Wing Chan, ed. Social Status and Cultural Consumption. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 290 pp. $US 95.00 hardcover (978-0-521-19446-4)

Social Status and Cultural Consumption is a good testament to the effectiveness of the International Sociological Association in fostering international collaboration through its research committees. As explained in the Acknowledgments page, Tak Wing Chan’s book is largely a product of RC 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility. This edited collection presents studies from Great Britain, the United States, France, Chile, Hungary and the Netherlands. I think the choice of countries reflects interest and activity levels within RC 28 more than either a random or a theoretically-informed sample of counties, but the six do present sufficient variation to convince the reader that social inequality indeed has something to do with the sorts of entertainment people seek out. Read more.

Review: Harris Ali on Racism, Disease and a Media Panic

2010-12-11T17:19:00.001-05:00

Charles T. Adeyanju. Deadly Fever: Racism, Disease and a Media Panic. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2010, 136 pp. $15.95 paper (978-1-55266-341-7)

In this empirically detailed and theoretically informed case study, Charles T. Adeyanju demonstrates how a moral panic initiated by a potential infectious disease outbreak reveals the mechanisms, nature, and extent to which racism operates in Canada. Read more

Review: Thomas Crosbie on The Culture of Military Innovation

2010-12-10T17:10:00.001-05:00

Dima Adamsky. The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010, 248 pp. $US 25.95 paper (978-0-8047-6952-5), $US 65.00 hardcover (978-0-8047-6951-8)

Dima Adamsky’s The Culture of Military Innovation is an account of how one intellectual paradigm, called the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), rose and fell in the militaries of the USSR, USA and Israel. Adamsky characterizes it as an empirical and theoretical contribution to the third, constructivist wave of strategic culture scholarship. This subdiscipline has made various attempts to identify culture, instead of rationality, as “the pivotal intervening variable” in military development. The study distinguishes itself within its subdiscipline for its excellent sources (archival material from all three countries and interviews in Israel), skillful argumentation, and very intelligent case selection. Read more

Review: Danielle Soulliere on Re-Thinking Men

2010-12-10T10:26:00.002-05:00

Anthony Synnott. Re-Thinking Men: Heroes, Villains and Victims. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009, 306 pp. $US 124.95 hardcover (978-0-7546-7709-3)

Re-Thinking Men aims to broaden the traditional conceptualization of gender and gender relations through a lens of binary opposites through a more comparative perspective which reconsiders how men and women are more alike than different. Synnott addresses what he rightly perceives as a glaring gap in both feminist and masculinist research and scholarship, offering a humanist perspective on gender and gender relations. He concludes that this more balanced perspective is good for both women and men, moving us closer toward achieving true gender equality and justice. … Read more

Review: Randolph Haluza-DeLay on Organizing Urban America

2010-12-09T14:47:00.001-05:00

Heidi J Swarts. Organizing Urban America: Secular and Faith-based Progressive Movements. Social Movements, Protest, and Contention Series, volume 28. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008, 336 pp. $US 25.00 paper (978-0-8166-4839-9), $US 75.00 hardcover (978-0-8166-4838-2)

With the election of a former community organizer as President of the United States, the time is ripe for scholarly attention to local community organizing. Organizing Urban America is important for two reasons. First, it focuses on the local, whereas much social movement research has been at larger geographic scales. Second, Swarts highlights culture, with an expansive conception that shows how central it is to understanding movements’ dynamics, effectiveness, and links with political opportunities and the mobilization of resources. … Read more

Review: Zohreh Bayatrizi on Suicide, Foucault, History and Truth

2010-12-09T14:13:00.002-05:00

Ian Marsh. Suicide: Foucault, History and Truth. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 264 pp. $US 34.99 paper (978-0-521-13001-1), $US 95.00 hardcover (978-0-521-11254-3)

Ian Marsh’s Suicide: Foucault, History and Truth chronicles the process through which suicide, similar to motherhood, became pathological at the hands of the ‘psy’ disciplines, psychiatry in particular. Here too, hormonal imbalances and mental illness are often seen as the main culprit. Marsh’s Suicide, written in the style of a “history of the present,” begins with “mapping a contemporary ‘regime of truth’ in relation to suicide,” where the author examines how a “compulsory ontology of pathology” is produced and reproduced in professional accounts of suicide, how authority is established, objects and subjects defined, and truths disseminated. … Read more

Review: Marion Blute on Cultural and Social Selection

2010-12-09T14:05:00.003-05:00

W. G. Runciman. The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 266 pp. $US 27.99 paper (978-0-521-13614-3), $US 75.00 hardcover (978-0-521-19951-3)

W. G. Runciman (Walter Garrison Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford, Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Fellow of the British Academy) is an historical and comparative sociologist and social theorist. Along with Anthony Giddens and Margaret Archer, he is arguably one of the three most distinguished British social theorists of his time. He has a number of honourary degrees including from Oxford, he served as President of the British Academy from 2001-2004, and he is a Foreign Honourary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. As both an abbreviation and an extension of his three volume A Treatise on Social Theory (particularly of the second volume), The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection is a welcome addition to Runciman's corpus. … Read more

CFP: CJS Special Issue: “Counting and Contemporary Governance”

2010-10-08T14:39:00.000-04:00

Special Issue of The Canadian Journal of Sociology on: “Counting and Contemporary Governance”

Guest Editor:
Michael Haan, University of New Brunswick

In 1801, one of the first modern censuses in the western world was launched in the United Kingdom, motivated in part by Prime Minister Pitt's fear that Malthus's predictions about population outstripping resources signaled impending doom. At the time, only a full headcount could settle the score, helping to establish the practice of turning to numbers to solve an issue of governance. This link still exists today, which is why nearly every country counts its population.

More recently, Canada’s Conservative government stopped collecting what had previously been the mandatory long-form census data with a voluntary National Household Survey. Prime Minister Stephen Harper justified the decision as a move to increase individual liberty; detractors say that the loss of information will affect us all.

This move and the attendant political fallout has created a space for sociological reflection on the interplay between population data collection, modern governance and the politics of numbers.

Subject Coverage

Motivated by the abolishment of the long-form census, this special issue of Canadian Journal of Sociology invites contributions that address, but are not be limited to:
• What is the role of large-scale enumerations? Are they less important today than they used to be?
• Does abolishing one data collection exercise simply encourage other forms? Do these other forms already exist?
• How does data collection limit governments? Does reliance on census data, for example, constrain governance?
• Can the Harper government's decision to abolish the long-form census be read alongside a re-negotiation between Canadians and their government? Does this signify a new social contract, or a fulfillment of the original one?
• What are the implications of the change to voluntary survey for Canadian sociology?
• What political factors motivated this change in policy?

Please note that the question of whether the shift to a voluntary survey in Canada is good or bad does not appear in the above list. Authors might inevitably touch on this question, but the purpose of this special issue is to provide a space for social scientists to use this development concerning the long-form to engage in a more reflexive dialog on how or whether data collection fits into the modern governmental episteme.

Notes for Prospective Authors

Papers for this special issue will be assessed in a two-step process. First, interested authors should submit an abstract to the guest editor for consideration. Only successful authors will be asked for a full manuscript. These papers should not have been previously published nor currently be under consideration for publication elsewhere, as they will undergo a peer-review process. An invitation to submit a full paper to CJS is not a guarantee of acceptance.

Important Dates

Abstracts are requested from interested parties by December 1, 2010, and the editor will then invite for a full paper with final manuscripts expected no later than: 1 July 2011

Editors and Notes

Please email (mhaan@unb.ca) or mail your abstracts to:
Michael Haan
135A Carleton Hall
Department of Sociology,
University of New Brunswick
Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3

Compte rendu: Vers la république des différences

2010-09-01T15:17:00.001-04:00

Sophie Guérard de Latour, Vers la république des différences. Toulouse, Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2009. 313 p., 24 € ISBN 978-2-85816-935-1

Le livre de Sophie Guérard de Latour, extrait d’une thèse de philosophie politique (Université de Bordeaux III), bousculera certainement les termes du débat intellectuel en France. Il pourra aussi contribuer aux débats internationaux sur le multiculturalisme. La question est la suivante : comment défendre « la possibilité d’un multiculturalisme républicain » ? Dans cette discussion, l’auteure ne tarde pas à choisir son camp. … lire plus

Article on CCTV and Public Sociology

2010-08-31T12:33:00.004-04:00

Coming soon in CJS 35, 3 (Summer 2010):
Dan Lett, Sean P. Hier, and Kevin Walby “CCTV Surveillance and the Civic Conversation: A Study in Public Sociology”

The captivating idea of ‘public sociology’ has recently been debated across the social sciences. Although the debate has raised significant questions about the status of sociological knowledge production, insufficient attention has been devoted to thinking about how sociologists concretely enter into a civic conversation through the research process. Addressing this gap in the public sociology literature, we present partial findings from a Canada-wide investigation of how public-area streetscape video surveillance systems are implemented in various communities to think through some of the implications of actually doing public sociology. Data gleaned from focused group interviews in the City of Kelowna, British Columbia are presented to explore the challenges of facilitating a civic conversation about public policy on streetscape video surveillance. Read more

Article on Globalization and Labour Market Outcomes

2010-08-31T12:30:00.001-04:00

in CJS 35, 3 (Summer 2010):
Heather Zhang and Michael R. Smith, “Exposure to Global Markets, Internal Labour Markets, and Worker Compensation: Evidence from Canadian Microdata”

Because of the fact that globalization seems, in aggregate, to be associated with rising inequality, much of the sociological literature treats the process very critically. Our results suggest a more nuanced approach. Prolonged exposure to export markets is associated with higher pay and both prolonged exposure to export markets and foreign ownership are associated with higher total compensation. Pay is substantially tied to productivity, probably through exposure to international best practices. At the same time, the presence of internal labour market traits is also associated with higher pay and higher total compensation. We conclude that it makes little sense to oppose productivity and power explanations of labour market outcomes; rather, they should be regarded as joint influences on compensation determination, consistent with the broad lesson of a "post" new structuralist sociology of labour markets. Read more

Article on Same-Sex Spouses

2010-08-31T12:27:00.001-04:00

in CJS 35, 3 (Summer 2010):
Adam Isaiah Green, “QUEER UNIONS: Same-Sex Spouses Marrying Tradition And Innovation”

Same-sex civil marriage is a focal point of debate among social conservatives, feminists, queer critics and lesbian and gay assimilationists. In this paper, I draw on in-depth interviews of thirty same-sex married spouses to explore how actual same-sex marriages relate to these debates. Among these spouses, civil marriage is perceived to provide significant legal, social and psychological resources that, in effect, consolidate the nuclear family and the institution of marriage. Yet, conversely, these spouses do not uniformly embrace traditional norms of marriage, but, rather, adopt a range of nontraditional norms and practices that, in effect, destabilize the traditional marital form. In sociological terms, however, their complexity is not surprising, as contemporary lesbians and gay men are dually socialized in the dialectic of a dominant “meaning-constitutive” tradition (Gross 2005) that valorizes (heterosexual) marriage and kinship, on the one hand, but a queer-meaning constitutive tradition that promotes sexual freedom and nontraditional gender relations, on the other. In this sense, one important sociological question for the future is the extent to which the increasing availability of same-sex marriage will transform the dialectic, eroding the structural conditions that underpin a distinctive queer meaning-constitutive tradition and, in turn, same-sex marital innovation. Read more

Review: Philippe Couton on Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora

2010-08-26T14:57:00.001-04:00

Margarita A. Mooney, Faith Makes Us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009, 302 pp. $US 21.95 paper (978-0-520-26036-8), $US 55.00 hardcover (978-0-520-26034-4)

Faith Makes Us Live is the result of an ambitious, multisite ethnography of the Haitian Diaspora in Miami, Paris and Montreal. The author, whose Ph.D. dissertation led to this book, spoke with 150 Haitian expatriates in those three cities. The result is an original, richly detailed study of one the world’s great diasporas, and one that makes a clear, well-supported argument about the role of ethnic and mainstream religious institutions in the lives and adaptation of immigrants in three very different social settings. … Read more

Review: Andrew McKinnon on The Promise of Salvation

2010-08-24T19:50:00.001-04:00

Martin Riesebrodt, The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion. Translated by Steven Rendall. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 228 pp. $US 37.50 hardcover (978-0-226-71391-5)

General sociological theories of religion are uncommon; good general theories of religion, even rarer. This alone means that sociologists of religion are apt to be talking about Martin Riesebrodt’s most recent book for a very long time. The most recent previous attempt at such an ambitious undertaking was Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge’s A Theory of Religion in 1987 … Read more

Compte rendu: La politique de la stupéfaction

2010-08-23T10:35:00.002-04:00

Nicolas Carrier, La politique de la stupéfaction. Pérennité de la prohibition des drogues. Coll. Le sens social. Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008. 376 p. 19 € (ISBN 978-2-7535-0591-9)

Dans un contexte de critique ouverte et abondante du régime de prohibition, la persistance de la criminalisation des usages de drogues intrigue : le système juridico-pénal tient-il compte des contestations qui lui sont adressées et, le cas échéant, comment fait-il pour s’en immuniser ? A partir de cette double question pertinente et actuelle, Nicolas Carrier, professeur à l’Institutute of Criminology and Criminal Justice de Carleton University (Canada), construit un ouvrage à la fois dense et didactique sur les grands enjeux contemporains du contrôle social, de la criminalisation, du droit et du pouvoir. … lire plus

Review: Julie Scott Jones on Constructing Theory in the Field

2010-08-23T10:06:00.001-04:00

Antony J. Puddephatt, William Shaffir and Steven W. Kleinknecht, eds., Ethnographies Revisited: Constructing Theory in the Field. New York: Routledge, 2009, 276pp. $US 44.95 paper (978-0-415-45221-2), $US 140.00 hardcover (978-0-415-452220-5).

Ethnographies Revisited sets out to explore and demonstrate how ethnographers generate and apply theory within the process of conducting ethnographic field research. The editors argue that there are numerous books on the “doing” of ethnographic research, particularly those that focus on what we could term “reflexivity.” Indeed, post-Writing Culture, it is de rigeur for ethnographers to engage in discussions of ethical, political, personal and other reflexive and reflective concerns. Such reflexivity provides important insights for researchers, students, and other audiences. However, Ethnographies Revisited takes the view that in this focus on the reflexive, the theoretical has become even more hidden from view. The central aim of the book then is to explore how ethnographers generate their theoretical frameworks and develop theoretical concepts … Read more

Review: Alan Bourke on University Education and Enlightenment

2010-08-23T09:58:00.001-04:00

Ian Angus, Love the Questions: University Education and Enlightenment. Semaphore Series, Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2009, 102 pp. $14.95 paper (978-18940337-40-2)

What is the role of the university in contemporary society? What is the purpose of a university education? What are the implications for citizenship and social awareness if their cultivation is no longer safeguarded against the market-oriented functions of the university? In keeping with the spirit of inquiry espoused throughout Love the Questions: University Education and Enlightenment, Ian Angus does not claim to have definitive answers; rather, his aim is to ensure that such questions continue being posed. Angus seeks to avoid another lament for the decline of the university … Read more

Review: Sylvia Peacock on Occupational Prestige in Canada since 1965

2010-08-23T09:49:00.001-04:00

John Goyder, The Prestige Squeeze: Occupational Prestige in Canada since 1965. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009, 236 pp. $34.95 paper (978-0-7735-3611-1), $85.00 hardcover (978-0-7735-3582-4)

The problem John Goyder depicts in The Prestige Squeeze has a long tradition in sociology, going back to Pareto, Sorokin, Marx and Weber: changes in the ranking of occupations and how they come about. With such a lot of historical baggage, new hypotheses are few and far between. Goyder offers some solid and forthright ones, befitting the current state of affairs in this field: 1. education and income are highly connected to prestige, and gender, skills, occupational presentation, and characteristics of the rater influence occupational prestige rankings; 2. higher income inequality disperses prestige ratings (while individualization caps upper echelons); 3. postmodernism has a negative impact on consensus in ratings. … Read more

Review: Vivian Shalla on Interactive Service Employment and Workplace Identities

2010-08-22T20:36:00.001-04:00

Linda McDowell, Working Bodies: Interactive Service Employment and Workplace Identities. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2009, 288 pp. $47.95 paper (978-1-4051-5978-4), $107.95 hardcover (978-1-4051-5977-7)

Working Bodies: Interactive Service Employment and Workplace Identities is testimony to both Linda McDowell’s own expertise as a researcher and theorist of work, and the tremendous output of quality scholarship on service sector employment over the past two decades. Between the covers of this beautifully crafted book is a thoughtful, innovative and thorough analysis of high-touch interactive service work that draws on numerous case studies and ethnographies, mostly from the United Kingdom, and on the author’s own original research. … Read more

Review: Jennie Haw on Genetics and Society

2010-08-21T10:32:00.001-04:00

Paul Atkinson, Peter Glasner and Margaret Lock, eds., The Handbook of Genetics & Society: Mapping the New Genomic Era. Genetics and Society. New York: Routledge, 2009, 500 pp. $US 155.00 hardcover (978-0-415-41080-9)

Appearing a decade since the mapping of the human genome, The Handbook of Genetics & Society provides a timely survey of contemporary social science research on genomics. In contrast to the narrower focus of other recently published collections on the new genomics, this collection provides a comprehensive survey showing the breadth and diversity of the field. In their incisive introduction the editors argue the need to rethink bio-economies and innovation in the new genomic era. … Read more

Review: Bob Russell on Women in India’s Call Center Industry

2010-08-20T22:58:00.001-04:00

Reena Patel, Working the Night Shift: Women in India’s Call Center Industry. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010, 208 pp. $US 21.95 paper (978-0-8047-6914-3), $US 60.00 hardcover (978-0-8047-6913-6)

It will be difficult for anyone who has not recently conducted research in India to appreciate the massive social changes which the outsourcing revolution has brought to that society. Reena Patel’s excellent ethnography, Working the Night Shift does, however, succeed in conveying to readers a sense of what is involved when new customer service industries originating in the West explode on the local scene. … Read more

Review: Benjamin Muller on Surveillance

2010-08-20T22:50:00.001-04:00

Sean Hier and Joshua Greenberg, eds., Surveillance: Power, Problems, and Politics. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009, 296 pp. $32.95 paper (978-0-7748-1612-0), $85.00 hardcover (978-0-7748-1611-3)

Surveillance studies have emerged as a vibrant interdisciplinary field of scholarship, and Canadian scholars have made significant empirical and theoretical contributions to this field. Consistently paying more than just a casual nod to Lyon’s notion of “social sorting,” Haggerty and Ericson’s “surveillant assemblage,” and Haggerty, Ericson, Hier, and others’ accounts of surveillance and “visibility,” which are essential Canadian contributions to this field of research, this collection advances Canadian surveillance studies. … Read more

Review: Mark Stoddart on Environmental Justice in Canada

2010-08-20T15:30:00.001-04:00

Julian Agyeman, Peter Cole, Randolph Haluza-DeLay and Pat O’Riley, eds., Speaking for Ourselves: Environmental Justice in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009, 292 pp. $32.95 paper (978-0-7748-1619-9), $85.00 hardcover (978-0-7748-1618-2)

Speaking for Ourselves brings together scholars from across the environmental social sciences to examine the multiple forms that environmental justice takes in Canada. Prior research on environmental justice focused predominantly on the United States, where the concept gained sociological attention through research on racialized patterns of exposure to environmental risks and the social movements that organized against environmental racism. Like much American research on environmental justice, one of the recurring themes in Speaking for Ourselves is that the social justice dimensions of environmental politics often go unexamined by mainstream environmental organizations. However, the editors and contributors argue for a different understanding of environmental justice in Canada than in the United States. … Read more

Review: David Lyon on Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age

2010-08-18T19:26:00.001-04:00

Michael Warner, Jonathan VanAntwerpen and Craig Calhoun, eds., Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010, 352 pp. $US 45.00 hardcover (978-0-674-04857-7).

This book is a series of appreciative but trenchant responses to Charles Taylor’s intellectual blockbuster, A Secular Age (2007). While, like Taylor, they deal in philosophical issues, the specific perspectives include anthropology, history, political studies, sociology and theology. The challenge to sociology is profound. The new ways of conceiving the “secular,” expounded at length by Taylor, are variously explored, probed, questioned, criticized and affirmed by the authors, … Read more

Review: John Myles on Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States

2010-08-17T23:24:00.001-04:00

Kees van Kersbergen and Philip Manow, eds., Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States. Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 318 pp. $US 24.99 paper (978-0-521-72395-4), $US 80.00 hardcover (978-0-521-89791-4)

Religion, Class Coalitions and Welfare States is undoubtedly the most interesting and useful analysis of the formation of modern welfare states I have read in many a year. Once begun, I found it difficult to put the volume down and, for whatever reason, I find that is increasingly rare. As Andrew Gould writes in his cover blurb: “If you think you know everything about class coalitions and social policies, think again.” My reaction when I put the book down was: “How could we have ignored all this for so long?” … Read more

Review: Avi Goldberg on How Ordinary People Change the Middle East

2010-08-17T13:29:00.001-04:00

Asef Bayat, Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009, 320 pp. $US 21.95 paper (978-0-8047-6924-2), $US 60.00 hardcover (978-0-8047-6923-5)

In this book on social change within Arab and Muslim societies in the Middle East, Asef Bayat brings together the empirical cases and theoretical positions with which he has been engaged throughout his scholarship. Addressing debates about social development and democratization that are germane to the fields of social movements, Middle East/Islamic studies, and international relations Bayat argues that everyday social dynamics are altering societies in the Middle East in ways that are usually unacknowledged by onlookers in the West and undesired by authoritarian holders of power in the region. … Read more

Review: Axel van den Berg on Economists and Societies

2010-08-17T10:27:00.003-04:00

Marion Fourcade, Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain, and France, 1890s to 1990s. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, 416 pp. $US 35.00 hardcover (978-0-691-11760-7)

Economists and Societies offers an institutionalist account of the national differences in the way economics is practiced, perceived and institutionalized in the US, Britain and France. It operates at the cross-roads of several recently flourishing research areas: neoinstitutionalism, the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of the professions, and economic sociology. With the latter it shares the fundamental commitment to offer “a critique of economics’ universalizing discourse.” But in this case the usual critique of the economists’ alleged one-size-fits-all approach to the real world is extended to the discipline’s own supposed universalism. … Read more

Review: Elaine Power on Children, Food and Identity

2010-08-17T10:23:00.002-04:00

Allison James, Anne Trine Kjørholt and Vebjørg Tingstad, eds., Children, Food and Identity in Everyday Life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 208 pp. $US 85.00 hardcover (978-0-230-57599-8).

Both childhood and food are the objects of considerable anxiety in the contemporary public sphere; these anxieties have been interwoven and accentuated by concerns about rising rates of childhood obesity. Public health attention has thus turned to issues such as the school food environment, children’s exposure to marketing, and children’s access to fast food. Implicit in public health debates about childhood obesity are assumptions about the nature of childhood and children’s agency (or lack thereof); the relationship between the child and the family, and the child and society; ideas of risk and responsibility; and the ways in which notions of health are implicated in contemporary constructions of identity … Read more

Review: Jeff Shantz on Global Justice Networks

2010-08-17T10:14:00.003-04:00

Paul Routledge and Andrew Cumbers, Global Justice Networks: Geographies of Transnational Solidarity. Perspectives on Democratic Practice. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009, 224 pp. $US 84.95 hardcover (978-0-7190-7685-5)

What have been called the global justice or alternative globalization movements have been identified by numerous commentators as the most significant development in anti-capitalist or anti-systemic politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet communism. Especially since the events of Seattle in 1999 (but dating at least to 1994's Zapatista uprising) the global justice movements have challenged the “End of History” triumphalism of neoliberal capitalism and posed prospects for an alternative global future based on justice and solidarity rather than profit and competition … Read more

Review: Becki Ross on Mindy S. Bradley-Engen's Naked Lives

2010-08-16T15:09:00.002-04:00

Mindy S. Bradley-Engen, Naked Lives: Inside the Worlds of Exotic Dance. Excelsior Editions. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2009, 146 pp. $US 14.95 paper (978-1-4384-2606-8), $US 45.00 hardcover (978-1-4384-2605-1)

In this slim, 146-page volume, Mindy Bradley-Engen contributes insights to a field that has expanded swiftly over the past ten years. Now a sub-genre of sexuality studies, “exotic dance” has stirred the imagination and desire of feminist sociologists, many of whom draw on personal experiences in the strip trade. Bradley-Engen adds to recent historical works and a flurry of contemporary case studies a unique focus on interaction processes and structural features … Read more

Review essay by Neil McLaughlin: Totalitarianism, Social Science and the Margins

2010-08-16T12:19:00.002-04:00

Peter Baehr, Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, and the Social Sciences. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010, 248 pp. $US 55.00 hardcover (978-0-8047-5650-1)

We can always count on wide historical learning, deep theoretical insight, close textual reading, graceful writing and sensible judgments on contemporary political issues when encountering essays, articles and books by Peter Baehr. Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and the Social Sciences is certainly no exception. Organized around the engagement of sociologists David Riesman, Raymond Aron and Jules Monnerot with Arendt’s 1951 classic The Origins of Totalitarianism, Baehr’s concise, well-written book raises big questions about Nazism, Communism, social science and, in the final, speculative chapter, radical Islam. Read more …

Review: Fiona Kay on Tamara Relis's Perceptions in Litigation and Mediation

2010-08-12T14:18:00.002-04:00

Tamara Relis, Perceptions in Litigation and Mediation: Lawyers, Defendants, Plaintiffs and Gendered Parties. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 304 pp. $US 85.00 hardcover (978-0-521-51731-7).

Tamara Relis has crafted a profoundly astute book addressing the central question: How do professional and lay actors understand and experience litigated case processing leading up to and including mediation in legal disputes? Her book offers a wealth of empirical insight to current debates on styles of law practice, formal justice versus informalism, motivations underlying why plaintiffs sue, and dispute transformation debates … Read more

Review: Gerardo Otero on William I. Robinson's Latin America and Global Capitalism

2010-08-12T14:16:00.004-04:00

William I. Robinson, Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective. Johns Hopkins Studies in Globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, 440 pp. $US 55.00 hardcover (978-0-8018-9039-0)

William Robinson's goal in Latin America and Global Capitalism is to develop a theory of global capitalism, with Latin America as his empirical referent. Because “transnational or global space is coming to supplant national spaces” (p. 7), he treats this system as if it were a world-nation-state: a global, transnational production system … Read more