Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Sociology in 2010"

QUEER UNIONS: Same-Sex Spouses Marrying Tradition and Innovation

Abstract: 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.

Relational Activism: Re-imagining Women's Environmental Work as Cultural Change

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.

Hunger Hurts but Starving Works: A case study of gendered practices in the online pro-eating-disorder community

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.

What once was sick is now bad: The shift from victim to deviant identity for those diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder

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.

The Sociology of Agriculture in Transition: The Political Economy of Agriculture after Biotechnology

Abstract: Due to its particularities as a nature-based process, agriculture’s ‘exceptionalism’ to capitalist industrialization has garnered much debate. One of the more productive consequences of this debate has been the development of conceptual tools that account for its distinction from typical capital accumulation patterns, such as Goodman, Sorj and Wilkinson’s (1987) classic concepts of “appropriationism” and “substitutionism.” The advent of agricultural biotechnology is now testing the limits of even these more refined conceptualizations, however, as the technology’s associated proprietary framework is reorganizing many traditional agricultural practices. Drawing on empirical examples of biotechnology-induced change—e.g. restrictions on seed saving, grower contracts, and patent infringement lawsuits—this paper argues that there is a need for a new concept in political economy of agriculture theory, which I term “expropriationism.” This concept identifies several aspects of an agricultural reorganization premised on legal means to enhance capital accumulation and on separating corporate ownership from liability.

Does Economic Vulnerability Affect Social Cohersion? Evidence from a Comparative Analysis

Abstract: This article explores the relationship between social cohesion and social inequalities in Europe. The analysis is built around two main research questions: Does economic inequality exert an impact on the level of social cohesion? Does social class mediate between economic inequality and social cohesion? The comparative analysis is based on the welfare regimes perspective. In particular, I believe that welfare state is relevant because it influences both the relationship between social class and economic inequality, and the link between social cohesion and economic inequality. The empirical analysis, based on data from the “European Quality of Life Survey” collected by European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in 2003, shows that economic inequality does influence social cohesion and that social class and welfare regime are not fully able to mediate this effect.

A Widening Parental Leisure Gap: The Family as a Site for Late Modern Differentiation and Convergence in Leisure Time within Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States

Abstract: . This study assesses trends in leisure time by life-course and family characteristics in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Using national time-use data collected since the mid-1960s, it is hypothesized that important family characteristics are responsible for substantial variation in leisure time that is not recognized in accounts of leisure time among working adults or within national populations. An important finding indicates that leisure is either stable or has increased somewhat in the three Western democracies studied. Social characteristics, family and employment contexts account for considerable variation in leisure time. Findings demonstrate an increased disadvantage in leisure time among parents of young children after having controlled for social background characteristics. Analyses demonstrate the need to qualify accounts of over-work and the double-burden on available leisure time. Dependent labor theory assists in understanding the impact of changed economic relations that produce less gendered though more differentiated patterns of leisure when parenting.

Does Market Competition Encourage Strategic Action in the Private Education Sector

Abstract: This article examines whether market forces encourage private education entrepreneurs to strategically outsmart the competition in ways that improve the quality of their programs or service delivery. Based on interviews with eighty private education entrepreneurs, we find that market competition does not inform how they understand their role in the wider education sector or how they made sense of their actions. Instead entrepreneurs tie their program, hiring and customer service decisions to an ideological commitment to students and by defining themselves as educators. Drawing on the sense-making literature, we suggest that this worldview guides their actions more so than the principle of supply and demand. This paper opens the black box of private education organizations, and offers a nuanced addition to mounting research that challenges the connection between market competition and school performance.

Al-Qaeda’s Strategic Gamble: The Sociology of Suicide Bombings in Iraq

Abstract: The article analyzes the suicide campaign conducted by the Iraqi insurgency since the 2003 US-led invasion. It offers a theoretical framework to identify the factors that explain why only certain armed organizations – in particular Al-Qaeda and its allies – have mounted a terrorist campaign and indiscriminately targeted civilians, in particular the Shiite population instead of the occupying forces, by perpetrating suicide attacks instead of using other tactics. This issue certainly requires identifying a complex set of preconditions for organizing a terrorist campaign, namely the Sunni extremists’ common capacity for exploiting contingent political and social opportunities after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. However, in accounting for the specificities of Al-Qaeda’s suicide terrorism campaign this paper explores three crucial elements: the anti-systemic stand of Al-Qaeda and its allies with respect to the new political regime determined by the Anglo-American occupation; the highly asymmetric nature of the fighting between Al-Qaeda and the occupying forces, combined with Al-Qaeda’s vigilantism against the Shiites; and, finally, the efficacy of suicide attacks in terms of their military, emotional, and symbolic impacts. Keywords: Asymmetric Warfare; Instrumental Rationality; Insurgency; Pan-Islamic Nationalism; Political Opportunities; Terrorism; Suicide Attacks; Vigilantism.

Tracking Environmental Crime Through CEPA: Canada's Environment Cops or Industry's Best Friend?

Abstract: This paper examines shifts in the regulation and governance of environment crime over the 20 year period since the passage of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) in 1988, tracing its history, policies and enforcement record from 1989-2008. Documents assessed include Environment Canada’s enforcement data, Annual Reports, Reports on its Plans and Priorities, the Senate and House of Commons five-year reviews of CEPA 1988 and CEPA 1999 and the government’s response to these reviews. The purpose of the paper is to document the process and compromises that have shaped federal environmental protection, and explore the policy paralysis this has produced.

Income and Area Effects on Voluntary Association Membership in Canada

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.

Cctv surveillance and the civic conversation: a study in public sociology

Abstract: 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.

A Public Health Perspective on HPV Vaccination: Response to The HPV Vaccination Campaign: A Project of Moral Regulation in an Era of Biopolitics

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. Resume La critique de Connell et Hunt (2010) souleve d'importantes questions et preoccupations concernant la vaccination contre le virus du papillome humain (VPH) au Canada. Nous offrons une perspective de sante publique sur quelques questions cles, y compris la raisonnement pour des programmes systematiques de vaccination contre le VPH au Canada, la sensibilite au temps de la vaccination HPV, et l'approche non moralisateur ala promotion de la sante sexuelle pour les jeunes adoptes par les agences de sante publique canadiennes.

An Accelerating Divergence? The Revisionist Model of World History and the Question of Eurasian Military Parity: Data from East Asia

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.

Actors, Targets, and Guardians: Using Routine Activities Theory to Explore the 2008 Decision to Prorogue Parliament in Canada

Abstract: While a number of scholars have offered a variety of constitutional critiques and political analyses for the 2008 prorogation of Parliament, to date no comprehensive theoretical exploration has been attempted. In addition to the widespread agreement that the use of prorogation to avoid a potential non-confidence vote was problematic, some have acknowledged that efforts to undermine the role of Parliament in Canada have become routine. Combined with the role nationalistic tensions played in justifying such a profound departure from the principles of responsible government, this paper accepts and better explicates the view that the 2008 decision to prorogue Parliament constituted a ‘harm.’ Using Routine Activities Theory it explores the events before during and after prorogation based on the confluence of a motivated actor, a suitable target, and the lack of a capable guardian. While this theory frames past events in a new way, of specific value is how the theory can be used to begin to chart a course to correct what has been called a dangerous constitutional precedent.