Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Sociology in 2012"

Habitus, Hysteresis and Organizational Change in the Public Sector

Abstract: This paper examines the daily struggles of unionized employees whose municipal workplace was undergoing major change influenced by New Public Management. In-depth interviews with 45 front-line service providers revealed widespread frustration with working conditions and relationships with management. We interpret this response as an embodied expression of hysteresis, a term that Bourdieu used to describe the gap between changing field conditions and habitus. We argue that organizational change posed challenges for these workers because it produced a rupture between their taken-for-granted ways of being a “good” public servant (i.e., public service habitus) and what was expected of them after restructuring. Moreover, on the basis of gendered occupational class differences in employees’ practices, we suggest that hysteresis is itself a socially-structured phenomenon that reflects the tacit calculation of what was possible (or not) for workers occupying specific positions within the stratified order of the organization.

Self-perceived Integration of Immigrants and their Children

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine whether there are intergenerational differences in the self-perceived integration of immigrants. The analysis disentangles this relationship from the effects of ethno-racial status and other individual-level characteristics. In addition, it examines the effects of neighborhood socio-demographic composition, such as living in an ethnic enclave. The study merges data from the 2001 Canadian Census and the post-censal Ethnic Diversity Survey. The study focuses on two dimensions of self-perceived integration, sense of belonging and feelings of discomfort living in the host society. The core finding is that the relationship between immigrant generation and integration is complex. This relationship is conditional on ethno-racial status and neighborhood of residence. The findings question “straight-line” theories of intergenerational progress and demonstrate the need to use a fine-grained approach for understanding the integration process.

Comparing Climate Change Coverage in Canadian English and French-Language Print Media: Environmental Values, Media Cultures, and the Narration of Global Warming

Abstract: This article compares how climate change is presented in English- and French-language print media in Canada. In recent years, climate change has become an increasingly divisive issue, with the media playing a central role in the promotion of competing claims and narratives in the public sphere. Using concepts from environmental sociology and the sociology of journalism, we examine content from six English- and two French-language newspapers from 2007-2008 (N=2,245), and find significant evidence of both convergence and divergence across the language divide. Among the most significant findings are differences in how complexity is handled: English outlets present diverse coverage that is highly compartmentalized, while the French newspapers present a narrower range of coverage but with thematically richer articles that better link climate change issues to the realms of culture, politics, and economy.

Student Volunteering in China and Canada:Comparative Perspectives

Abstract: While many of the theoretical frameworks for volunteering have been developed and empirically tested in the west, our understanding of volunteering in non-Western countries, such as China, is relatively limited. Nevertheless, in recent decades enormous efforts have been made by the Chinese government to encourage and support volunteering among its citizens, especially youth. Chinese youth are volunteering in greater numbers in response to these initiatives. Given the strongly state-led nature of volunteering in China, as opposed to the voluntary, more citizen-initiated nature of volunteering in Western societies, this paper seeks to understand the impact of these contextual differences on student volunteering. Using data from 1892 questionnaires completed by university students in China and Canada, we examine differences in their volunteering. The findings show clearly the impact of the differences in socio-political structures that are reflected in the nature of students’ volunteer participation and perceived benefits.

Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Second Edition with an Update a Decade Later

Abstract: Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Second Edition with an Update a Decade Later. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011, 480 pp. $US 24.95 paper (978-0-520-27142-5) The second edition of Annette Lareau's award-winning Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life was released in 2011, adding more than 100 pages of new material. At its heart, the second edition tells two stories--one empirical, and the other a cautionary tale of qualitative methods. In the first edition of Unequal Childhoods, Lareau demonstrated that working-class and poor families enacted the "Accomplishment of Natural Growth." Their children participated in few, if any organized leisure activities, and had extensive interactions with kin. Parents used directives in speaking to children, and saw a clear boundary between the activities of adults and children. Regardless of race, working-class and poor parents did not tend to intervene with institutions on their children's behalf. In contrast, middle-class parents supported "Concerted Cultivation," developing children's talents through organized leisure activities and lessons, eliciting children's thoughts, and actively intervening in institutional settings. Lareau began her data collection for Unequal Childhoods in 1989, intensively observing twelve families between 1993 and 1995. The passage of time takes nothing away from this new edition, nor does it mitigate the impact or resonance of its findings. The book's lasting contribution is Lareau's conclusion that the childrearing patterns persist over time. Unlike in the 1990s, when she interviewed schoolteachers and other relevant adults, Lareau was unable to triangulate her family interviews with other data, and did not complement her interviews with intensive visits, naturalistic observations, nor interviews with employers, college professors, or others. For the second edition, she conducted 2-hour interviews with each of the 12 young adults (6 white, 5 African-American, 1 biracial), and usually interviewed at least one parent and a sibling. The follow-up interviews with the twelve original children tell the most important story of the second edition: how their lives unfolded from the age of nine or ten. Lareau offers a detailed qualitative panel study of sorts, documenting life trajectories of the twelve children--now aged 19-21--and the larger patterns their stories illuminate. Lareau questioned whether the class-based differences in childrearing she witnessed when the children were younger persisted into adulthood. The answer is a resounding "yes." Some of these youth struggled--academically and otherwise--to graduate from high school, as four of the eight working-class and poor students dropped out. Others, with talent and determination to attend college, were not able to make the transition. Working-class and poor parents desperately wanted their children to attend college, but lacked the resources, connections, and know-how to effectively help their children with the labyrinthine American college application process. Despite their and their parents' hopes for college attendance, only one of the eight working class or poor youth persisted as a college student. Six are living with family members and working full-time in a variety of jobs, with one working-class girl married and a full-time homemaker. Three out of the four middle-class children studied graduated from high school, and are attending Ivy League colleges. The remaining student, Melanie Handlon, whose academic struggles were chronicled in the first edition of Unequal Childhoods ultimately abandoned community college for cosmetology school, leaving her parents disappointed, and her mother wishing she had intervened more in Melanie's schooling. The second edition of Unequal Childhoods is a testament to the lasting effect of parents' intervention in institutional settings. Middle-class parents took it upon themselves to actively manage and monitor their children's transition from high school to college. …

Missing persons and social exclusion

Abstract: The concept of social exclusion is used to explore the relationship between people and groups who are socially and economically disadvantaged and the phenomenon of going missing. Police data about missing persons are compared to census data to determine whether groups who experience family dissolution, labour market exclusion, and other forms of disadvantage and social exclusion are overrepresented among missing persons compared to the general population. The analysis shows that disadvantaged youth, women, Aboriginal people, people who are not in the labour force, unemployed people, and homeless people are all overrepresented among missing persons. People occupying the intersections of multiple high risk categories are at particularly high risk of going missing. Linking missing persons with the concept of social exclusion shows that social and economic disadvantage lead directly and indirectly to peoples’ disappearances. (133 words)

'Political Activist as Ethnographer', Revisited

Abstract: In this essay I revisit and expand upon George Smith’s landmark article, “Political Activist as Ethnographer” (1990). Political activist ethnography (PAE) is a specialized form of institutional ethnography (IE) that has not received nearly enough attention in the twenty years since the original publication of Smith’s article. In an effort to revisit and bolster this research approach, I provide an overview of IE/PAE and critically engage with three recent commentaries on PAE, and along the way I offer a novel interpretation of this approach as well as an example of its application from my own ongoing research.

Libertarian Populism, Neoliberal Rationality, and the Mandatory Long-form Census: Implications for Sociology

Abstract: This article argues the Canadian government’s decision in 2010 to eliminate the mandatory long-form census constitutes a mobilizing appeal to libertarian populism commensurate not only with neoliberal concepts of individualism, private property, and the role of the state, but also with a redefinition of what counts as valid argumentation and a legitimate basis for making knowledge claims. This rationale has implications for sociological research and theory, for the profession of sociology, and for a sociological vision of society.

Ageing Populations in Post-Industrial Democracies: Comparative Studies of Policies and Politics

Abstract: Pieter Vanhuysse and Achim Goerres, eds., Ageing Populations in Post-Industrial Democracies: Comparative studies of policies and politics. London and New York: Routledge, 2012, 272 pp. $135.50 hardcover (978-0415603829) We are living in the midst of change. Population ageing and economic challenges are putting great pressure on governments today. The current state of our global world creates somewhat unique circumstances to address these challenges that are experienced by many developed countries. This review of Ageing Populations in Post-Industrial Democracies, an edited book by Pieter Vanhuysse and Achim Goerres, praises the attempts made to understand these changes in the political arena. Below I describe the central findings and arguments, as well as note strengths and weaknesses. Ageing Populations in Post-Industrial Democracies aims to understand and explain how the political and policy responses will be or are structured in relation to population ageing. It includes 11 comparative essays of two to 31 OECD countries, written by 12 European and American scholars. Pieter Vanhuysse and Achim Goerres open this collection by mapping the field of generational politics and policies among 30 OECD countries. Vanhuysse and Goerres argue that while demographic trends among these countries are universal, their respective welfare states are heterogeneous. The subsequent essays in this book tease out similarities and differences using a variety of research methods, both quantitative and qualitative. The increasingly large proportion of older people in democratic societies potentially makes them a powerful group in the political domain. In Chapter 2, Sean Hanley studies this phenomenon by examining the success of pensioners' parties over the past two decades in 31 Western and Central Eastern European countries. Pensioners' parties lack political presence in Canada and the United States, and hence, these countries are not included. Canadian and American readers may be confused as to what these parties are until they read Hanley's overview of the development of pensioners' parties in Europe over the past few decades. Using qualitative comparative analysis methods, relative success is present in Western and Central Eastern countries that spent a high proportion of welfare on pensions and have adequate levels of self-organization among the old. Additional contributing factors varied between Western and Central Eastern countries that reflect their institutional political contexts. Another gauge of gray political power is whether mainstream parties court older voters. Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba examines this influence in Chapter 3 through a textual analysis of party manifestos and media messages, as well as labor policies in Japan, Germany, and Italy--countries with some of the highest proportions of older persons in the world. Findings contrast the elderly power hypothesis because political parties across the left-right wing spectrum demonstrate a willingness to be unfavorable towards older individuals in these countries, albeit in different ways. Sciubba argues that in the context of globalization, political parties and policy makers experience greater pressure from economic challenges than from their large older electorate. This argument is also supported in Chapter 4 with respect to the implementation of an unpopular reform among voters. In Chapter 4, Martin Hering examines how Germany and the United Kingdom, two countries with different political contexts, successfully implemented recent reforms to increase retirement ages. Hering argues this similar outcome had three conditions: An expert commission first raised intergenerational equity issues to the government and pushed for an increase in retirement ages, policy makers were concerned with curbing the rising spending on pensions as well as protecting low-income earners, and a coalition was formed among political parties as a blame avoiding strategy. …

La construction identitaire des jeunes francophones en situation minoritaire au Canada : négociation des frontières linguistiques au fil du parcours universitaire et de la mobilité géographique

Abstract: Cet article porte sur le processus de construction identitaire des etudiants universitaires francophones canadiens evoluant en contexte minoritaire et qui ont ete scolarises en francais au secondaire. L'angle d'approche est constructiviste, centre sur le rapport des jeunes face aux differentes categories identitaires existantes. L'analyse des parcours identitaires vecus au fil des etudes universitaires permet de constater que la majorite des jeunes interviewes (64 sur 76) s'inspirent principalement des categories opposant les Francophones minoritaires a deux majorites : les Francophones quebecois et les Anglophones canadiens. Seuls 12 repondants adoptent une vision plurielle de l'identite, une vision qui remet en question les frontieres dichotomiques entre ces groupes. La majorite des recits identitaires analyses laissent transparaitre une communalisation autour du sentiment de former une minorite francophone. Ces resultats de recherche sur les jeunes adultes remettent en perspective les recherches anterieures qui ont souligne les identites bilingues des adolescents evoluant en contexte minoritaire francophone.

Whiteness and Narratives of a Racialized Canada/US Border at Niagara

Abstract: Interviews with young White Canadian borderlanders in Niagara reveal their awareness of a racialized local Canada/US border. The analysis focuses on how they describe and trouble but ultimately legitimize, racially stratified cross border mobilities at this site. It is argued that the narratives elide racialized privilege and offer limited challenge to racialized penalty at this major node of the North American and global economy.

The Rights of Science and the Rights of Politics: Lessons from the Long-form Census Controversy

Abstract: One of the main issues in the long-form census controversy concerned the relationship between science and politics. Through analysis of the arguments and underlying assumptions of four influential and exemplary interventions that were made in the name of science, this paper outlines a normative account of this relationship. The paper nuances the science-protective ideals that critics invoked and argues that such conceptual resources are needed if science is to be protected from undue political encroachment. However, in their zeal to defend the rights of science critics claimed for it more than its due, eclipsing the value dimension of policy decisions and failing to respect the role of politics as the rightful locus of decision making for value issues. An adequate normative account of the relationship between science and politics in public policy must be capable not only of protecting science from politics but also of protecting politics from science.

Lynne Davis, ed., Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenous-non-Indigenous Relationships

Abstract: Lynne Davis, ed., Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenousnon-Indigenous Relationships. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, 426 pp. $37.95 paper (978-1-4426-0997-6) "We are all here to stay." Thus begins the 2005 statement between the British Columbia government and First Nations leadership in the province. It is certainly the orientation of Davis' edited collection. Across a wide range of case studies and reflective essays, the contributors try to envision better relations of cooperation as answers to the question: How do we live well together? A quick perusal of the table of contents might lead one to believe that this is a book on social movements and movement coalitions. Instead, Alliances is a much richer trove and the University of Toronto Press is to be commended for its willingness to publish such a large and varied text. Lynne Davis, a faculty member in Trent University's Indigenous Studies department, has put together 24 essays covering a wide gamut of indigenous and nonindigenous ways of reimagining relations. Alliances is a smorgasbord of loosely connected case studies. It can be sampled repeatedly over time and adds up to a satisfying intellectual meal. In the introduction, Davis describes three types of current relations between indigenous and nonindigenous peoples: as partners walking side-by-side, in paternalistic governance, and where indigenous partners take the lead. Relating is not as simple, of course, and the case studies are vital to identifying some of the complex tensions. For the most part, "the authors collectively point to the failure of imagination in Euro-Canadian society to move beyond its colonial past" (p. 14). Central to living well together is decolonizing. Systematic inequality cannot be overcome merely through relations between individuals or groups. Canada was created as and remains a settler society, growing out of appropriation (sometimes "legally") of indigenous lands. That we are all here to stay does not mean we simply move forward from existing positions that privilege those already advantaged by those appropriations and their consequences. As one community member explained what she learned while trying to be an ally over Aboriginal fishing disputes, "It really was the white people's job to take care of their own racism" (p. 105). Others came to understand that they had to acknowledge colonialism, and un learn habits and attitudes, and challenge institutional manifestations of racism and paternalism. Alliances originated in Davis' SSHRC-funded research and a conference held in 2006 from which many of the contributions are drawn. The chapters in Alliances range across personal reflections, individual accounts of praxis, philosophical treatises (from both Euro-Western and indigenous epistemes), and social science case studies of alliances and attempted alliances. Examples include Canadian cases such as controversies at Grassy Narrows and Caledonia, the environmentalist-indigenous coalitions on the British Columbia coast, and the labour-church-indigenous work in Owen Sound. Other examples come from Guyana, a US Hopi legal aid centre, the account of developing an American Indian Studies program in Virginia, and Native American-Bulgarian artistic collaboration. Some chapters are uncomfortable to read, such as Christian and Freeman's painfully honest frustrations with each other across years of attempts to bridge the colonized-colonizer roles into which they had been socialized. …

Jeffrey Shantz, Active Anarchy: Political Practice in Contemporary Movements

Abstract: Jeffrey Shantz, Active Anarchy: Political Practice in Contemporary Movements. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011, 180pp. $us 60.00 hardcover (978-7391-6613-0). In Active Anarchy, Jeff Shantz details a number of case studies that demonstrate the influence of anarchism on contemporary social movements. Although the case studies provide a somewhat limited scope--they stem from the late 1990s and early 2000s and focus almost exclusively on activities in Toronto, Canada--Active Anarchy is a useful contribution to a number of recent sociology texts that underline the participatory and egalitarian principles that have made anarchism a prominent influence on movements that aim for radical social transformations. To contrast with typical caricatures of anarchism as a menacing and chaotic disorder, Shantz provides a detailed analysis of anarchist practices. He illustrates the nuanced and principled commitment of anarchists in their efforts at "organizing, publicizing, and putting their bodies on the line" (p. 112). Grounding contemporary case studies in literature from the classical anarchist tradition, Shantz relates how anarchist movements are motivated by sentiments of "mutuality, conviviality, affinity, and affection" (p. 127) that aspire to build new communities and institutions. Unlike the fictitious anarchist menace often promoted by police and media, anarchist movements are better exemplified by their commitment to others through community building, an opposition to violence (state and non-state), and respect for life and freedom. Active Anarchy aims to detail what Shantz calls "everyday anarchy." He says that "rather than take an approach that views anarchism as a political or revolutionary movement that 'enters into' specific social struggles, I address those anarchists who emphasize the immanent anarchy in everyday practices of mutual aid and solidarity" (p. 2). Shantz avoids discussions that are overly-theoretical or uncritical celebrations of anarchism by offering case studies that demonstrate how anarchism draws on previous traditions but can "also innovate and experiment" (p. 153). In focusing on practices of everyday anarchism, he positions his work against many of the recent ethnographies on anarchism in the global justice movement. Shantz argues that much of the focus of academic literature on anarchism is simply "a jumping off point" for discussions of political theory (p.3) or as "a metaphor for anti-globalization politics more broadly" (p. 24). While Active Anarchy pays tribute to many of the new manifestations of anarchism, Shantz is skeptical towards political expressions of anarchism that take the shape of lifestyle-politics. He is careful to acknowledge some positive elements of new movements, but his identification with "class struggle anarchism" is prominent throughout the text; so much so that there are points in his narrative where his primary antagonists are not capitalists, or the church or the state: they are contemporary anarchist writers like David Graeber and Richard Day. These authors (and others) have detailed the influence of anarchism within the Global Justice Movement, relying on a complex analysis of power and domination that places class within a mix of oppressive structures and practices of contemporary capitalism. Shantz clearly disagrees with their lack of class struggle emphasis. Shantz cautions against the lifestyle-oriented politics of affinity, noting that some contemporary writers have ignored the "renewal of explicitly class-struggle oriented forms of anarchism that have emerged recently as contemporary anarchists come up against limits in the politics of affinity" (p. 42). To underline the class-struggle practices of everyday anarchism, Shantz explores a number of anarchist-inspired projects; from long-term free schools and info shops, to short-term black blocs and street reclamations. Throughout seven case study chapters, he examines the limits and possibilities of affinity-based organizing and consensus decision-making processes, and provides ethnographic accounts of DIY politics, punk movements, book making, dumpster diving, and direct action tactics. …

Donald R. Songer, Susan W. Johnson, C.L. Ostberg, and Matthew E. Wetstein, Law, Ideology, and Collegiality: Judicial Behaviour in the Supreme Court of Canada

Abstract: Donald R. Songer, Susan W. Johnson, C.L. Ostberg, and Matthew E. Wetstein, Law, Ideology, and Collegiality: Judicial Behaviour in the Supreme Court of Canada. McGillQueen's University Press, 2012, 223 pp. $29.95 paperback (978-0-7735-3929-7) The Supreme Court of Canada has come to play a key role in the resolution of significant public policy matters since the creations of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. The increased political involvement of the Court appears to be part of a broader trend in democratic nations where national courts increasingly involve themselves in politics. For example, the European Convention and the European Court of Human Rights have helped with the increasing judicialization of politics in Europe. (1) Concomitant with this increased involvement has been a consciousness of "rights." In Canada, this consciousness was reflected in the establishment of the Charter of Rights and Freedom and its use by various groups to enhance their social status. For several years now Canadian scholars have been wondering if the new mandate of the Supreme Court to protect Charter rights and freedoms has initiated a greater attitudinal (i.e., ideological) disagreement among the Court's justices. (2) Given the politically charged nature of many cases that the court hears, such disagreements seem inevitable. It seems that even the justices themselves have noticed increasing conflict within the Supreme court. It was suggested by one of them in 2002, Justice Frank Iacobucci who was a member of the Court between 1991-2004, that academics needed to devote some time to understand the nature of these disagreements. (3) Law, Ideology, and Collegiality does exactly that. In chapter 1 the authors state the key argument of the book: "justice's personal ideologies affect their approach to policy issues and help explain divisions among them" (p. 4). Ideology is understood as justices' adopted political philosophies. Ideologies are said to shape justices' approach to constitutional interpretation of legal texts, balancing various interests, advocating preferred freedoms, and delimiting the appropriate scope and purpose of government's intervention in society. Two additional factors shaping justices' decisions are their legal grounding and their compatibility with the Supreme Court's norms of collegiality, i.e., considerations regarding unanimity of decisions and other institutional considerations that may even outweigh personal ideologies. The main problem of this chapter is the somewhat confusing and repetitious way in which the authors state the key arguments of the book. Chapter 2 concisely narrates the history the Supreme Court of Canada as a policymaking institution. It traces the evolution of the court from its inception in 1875 to its current status as a key institution in Canadian politics. The main pieces of information in this chapter are that for its first 75 years the Canadian Supreme Court's power was severely limited by the principle of parliamentary supremacy, and that it did not always have the ultimate say on legal and constitutional matters, and that its decisions could be sent for appeal to the Judicial Committee of Britain's Privy Council in London. Chapter 3 reviews the extant literature regarding the increasing judicialization of politics around the world. It discusses the three models that social scientists have developed to understand judicial decision making (legal, attitudinal, and strategic) and Canada's Supreme Court justices' views of these models. It also assesses the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms impact on the role of the Supreme Court of Canada in the political process, and describes the existing debate over its power of judicial review. It also discusses the methodological problems associated with measuring ideology. Stating all these somewhat unrelated themes in one chapter is a bit confusing and could have been avoided had the authors divided these themes between at least two chapters. …

Maureen Fitzgerald and Scott Rayter, Queerly Canadian: An Introductory Reader in Sexuality Studies.

Abstract: Maureen FitzGerald and Scott Rayter, Queerly Canadian: An Introductory Reader in Sexuality Studies. Canadian Scholars' Press, 2012, 585pp. $64.95. Paper 978-15513-0400-7 Queerly Canadian is the first reader to bring together specifically Canadian scholarship on queer sexualities. It is organized into ten different sections that cover the full range of Canadian society, from the level of state regulation through to social institutions such as the family, education, and contemporary cultural media; as well as chapters on the experiences of identity. Each section has between 3 and 5 original essays that have been chosen as exemplars of work on Canada, something that the editors say was their primary motivation for putting together this teaching text. In this sense, the book achieves its aim, providing a wide-ranging resource of scholarship that tells students about the Canadian queer experience, its diverse history, its divisions and its struggles. This will be a very useful text for those of us teaching in sexuality studies, both as a core text book for a class focused on the history and development of Canadian queer sexualities, and as a supplementary text for a variety of courses organized around more specific disciplinary analyses of sexual diversity such as history, law, politics, or sociology. In his introduction to the collection, Scott Rayter identifies some key themes that organize the material, particularly nationhood and identity and the universalizing tendencies in both. He indicates the ways in which the essays selected focus on these key issues and thus how the differential experiences of both First Nations' sexual diversity and those from visible minorities are illuminated in many of the chapters. This emphasis makes an important point for students about the diversity within queer Canadian identities. Whilst intersectional analysis has become a somewhat orthodox claim for much work on gender and sexuality, the essays presented here genuinely reflect the complications of an intersectional appreciation of national, racialized, and queer identities. For example, Rinaldo Walcott's reflections on black queer identity in Chapter 2 and Kerry Swanson's discussion of Kent Monkman's art in the final chapter ensure that issues of diversity within queer identities are consistently woven into the collection. Rayter also begins his overview with an anecdote that celebrates the progress of queer visibility and politics in Canada and then refers to many of the essays that caution against an uncritical celebration of queer progress. For example, in the section on the State, Tom Warner's essay (Chapter 7) points out that the influence of conservative religious movements on politics is increasing in Canada and he argues that the legal and political gains of LGBTI movements cannot be taken for granted. Indeed, the extract from Gary Kinsman's work on the policing of queers in the name of national security (Chapter 5) reminds us that the incorporation of non-normative sexualities into the nation-state is very recent. Similarly, David Rayside's chapter on the lack of progress on integrating LGBTI issues in the school sector gives the lie to the assumption that Canadian society is uniformly proceeding towards the acceptance of sexual diversity. It would be impossible to identify all of the different contributions to the field that are contained within this comprehensive ten section, thirty-six chapter volume in a single book review; suffice it to say the reader is introduced to important research while given a way to orient the different topics explored through the section headings. …

Durkheim on Moral Individualism, Social Justice and Rights: A Gendered Construction of Rights

Abstract: A standard interpretation of Durkheim’s theory of individualism is that he advocated the rights and dignity of the individual, and a social order based on the principles of equality and justice. Contemporary scholars discuss his notion of individual rights in neutral terms, as if Durheim applied it equally to both sexes, ignoring the fact that women are excluded from Durkheim’s vision of a just society. This article places Durkheim’s theory of moral individualism and social justice in the context of his views on women, and offers a critique both of his theory and its present-day interpretation. It is argued that while Durkheim refers to the “individual” in generic terms, his approach to a just social order and universal rights is essentially articulated around the male individual. While Durkheim never problematized gender inequality, he strongly objected to class stratification and proposed practical solutions to lessen economic injustices and inequality.

To Know Ourselves — Not

Abstract: The quest for self-knowledge has been a guiding principle throughout history. Plato acknowledged the duality of self-knowledge as both individual (the Delphic maxim “Know thyself”) and societal. “[I]f a Canadian is to seek self-knowledge that is essential for both health and wisdom, he [sic] must have access to a wider self-knowledge of his historical community and its contemporary circumstances” (Symons 1975:14). Thus began the Canadianization project which saw Canadian artists in all fields recognized; Canadian subject matter and data taught in universities, colleges, and public schools; Canadians hired as faculty at our universities; and Canadian Studies programs flourish. Census data and census making are key means by which we know ourselves as Canadians, both at present and from whence we came in families and collectively. The Census is a unique way of knowing ourselves since it enables collection of data on everyone from the most disadvantaged and hidden members of society to the best known individuals. The Census is the preeminent text for us all, particularly those who are silent or weak, to make claims for recognition. The Census is also an increasingly utilized resource for tracing ancestry, to know ourselves as descendents. In this paper, we rely on Plato’s duality of self-knowledge to explore some examples of the making of claims for recognition by groups past and present that may be lost with the cancellation of the mandatory long-form Census for 2011.

“The National Gain is Nil”: Talking About Infant Mortality in Interwar Alberta

Abstract: This paper uses the concept of biopolitics to analyze the ways in which infant mortality was talked about in Alberta between the beginning of the first world war and the beginning of the second. Material is drawn primarily from small-town newspapers. Infant mortality is understood as a form of perverse reproduction, in which life and death are unnaturally juxtaposed, threatening the integrity of the emergent polity of Alberta. The two main tropes in talking about infant mortality are military and economic, contingently linked to Alberta's experience of the first world war and of economic stress in the postwar years.

Manfred Liebel, ed., Children's Rights from Below: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Abstract: Manfred Liebel, ed.: Children's Rights from Below: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 272 pp. $87.00 hardcover (9780230302518) Significant international scholarship has recently emerged to theorize children's participatory rights. European scholar Manfred Liebel and his colleagues Karl Hanson, Ivan Saadi and Wouter Vandenhole contribute to this area by importantly conceptualizing children's rights "from below." Drawing on sociology, political science, and socio-legal studies this thirteen chapter volume focuses primarily on majority world children on the margins. Assuming readers with a degree of familiarity with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and surrounding debates, Liebel and his fellow contributors are able to deeply explore the possibilities and challenges of acknowledging and fostering children's rights from below. While advocacy for children's rights did not begin with the CRC, work in this area inevitably grapples with this significant convention. In articulating children's rights from below, Liebel and his colleagues convey mixed feelings about the CRC. On the one hand, it is a modernist document which certain groups have used to enforce a narrow, Western ideal of childhood. It was conceived by adults and it suggests that rights are bestowed from above. The CRC is also frequently undermined by state and global political and economic policies which hinder possibilities for children's rights. For instance, individualized legal rights do not always work well for children on the margins for whom rights are alien, and who believe that asking for rights shows weakness or invites reprisals. On the other hand the CRC is a flexible document which has incited significant interest in children's rights, and consequently the language of rights is emerging within children's organizing and demands. It is such children's organizing within the majority world that has most captured the attention of the authors of this book. Liebel and his colleagues draw on the sociology of childhood to counter the top-down, narrowing aspects of the CRC, arguing instead that children are actively and competently involved in what Liebel and Saadi discuss as transcendant innovations, or collective actions initiated from below. This is what they mean by rights from below, whether such participation is framed in the language of rights or not. This more localized rights work commonly emerges within contexts of marginalization and exclusion. A strength of this text is its use of many such examples of children who successfully participate and organize, including children in child headed households and in economic cooperatives. Particularly noted for discussion is the activism of working children's movements, an area most deeply explored in the chapter by Iven Saadi. Children in these movements are making their rights manifest and advocating new ones. They advocate for work, the right to choose to work, and the right to specific conditions of work, as well as for health care and education. Their more macro-level advocacy tends to arise in coalitions with adults, however, which in turn undermines their legitimacy with organizations such as the International Labour Organization as these children are then assumed to be manipulated by adults. Saadi counters that adult assistance is needed sometimes, e.g., in renting a space, but that it is the young people who are the leaders. There is tension, within the CRC and in broader discussions of children's rights, between protection and participation. Liebel and his colleagues grapple with this tension as they explore the possibilities and challenges of children's rights from below. Much child advocacy work in the twentieth century has focused on children's protection and the provision of services. Those who embrace more participatory rights worry that provision and protection rights often foster only dependency and scrutiny while limiting freedom and undermining children's capacities. …

Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes

Abstract: Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, Linda L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011, 289 pp. $19.00 paper (978-0-226-20683-7). Since its first publication in 1995, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes has become one of the seminal texts for those teaching social science students the intricacies of creating, developing, organizing, and processing fieldnotes and writing ethnographies. Written during the surge of interest in ethnographic writing during the 1980s and 90s, the authors made a valuable contribution by filling a long-standing gap in the literature of ethnographic methods training and providing beginners with an intimate understanding of how to take, organize, and develop fieldnotes. While ethnographic research itself has since receded somewhat, nonetheless, the authors were motivated to write a second edition for two fundamental reasons. First, there has been a significant increase in the publication of articles and chapters concerned with the process of writing fieldnotes which consider and incorporate reflexive insights. Second, and, more importantly, the experience of teaching another generation of students made the limitations of their original work more obvious to the authors. As such, to aid comprehension, the authors have substantially reorganized the contents of some chapters and have provided a more detailed discussion of the issues of race, class, and gender. Despite these changes, the authors' central focus remains the same: how to effectively take and maintain rigorous fieldnotes so as to turn fieldwork experiences and observations into a finished ethnography. As such, they explain how to balance observing with writing and effectively demonstrate that the recording of fieldnotes is equally as important as what is written in the text. Throughout, the authors stress that the ethnographic researcher is not just observing and recording some objective reality but, rather, is always subjectively implicated in the observations and interpretations. It comes to no surprise that the authors draw heavily from an interactionist, interpretive perspective that borrows much from the traditions of symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, and interpretive anthropology. Taking the position that writing fieldnotes is not an innate ability but rather a skill that can be learned, honed, and sharpened through study and practice, the authors demystify the process, making it very explicit by relying on numerous examples drawn from their students' actual fieldnotes, as well as their own. Following a comprehensive introductory discussion of the pivotal role of fieldnotes in conducting ethnographic research, the authors examine the complementary process of participating and observing the lived experiences of real people in natural settings and how one decides what events and interactions are deserving of attention. Here, the authors provide a detailed explanation of how these observations are transformed from mere "headnotes" into "jottings" that will serve to jog the researcher's memory when it comes to constructing more vivid descriptions of events and interactions. It is here where the how, where, and when of jottings are discussed, including the benefits and risks associated with overt and covert procedures. This discussion is followed by two chapters on strategies and tactics for writing fieldnotes that have been substantially reorganized to more closely follow the stages through which novice ethnographers pass as they learn to write their own fieldnotes. Chapter three explores the relations between an ethnographer's attention to people's interactions, processes for recalling these encounters, and writing options for presenting and analyzing them. As such, attention is given to how ethnographers remember, elaborate, and comment upon fieldnotes so as to produce a detailed written account of what they have observed in their social setting. …

Eksistensi kebijakan publik dan hukum dalam penyelenggaraan pemerintahan daerah

Abstract: ublic policy and law need each other in the implementation of local government. Both of them are in relation to public interest. In generally, public policy will be legal if it is made in a law whereas the law is a result from public policy. Furthermore, legal product without the processing of public policy will lose the meaning of its substancy. On the contrary, if the processing of public policy without legalization so, its operational dimension will be weak. Therefore, both of them are important to regulate the public interest.

Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials.

Abstract: Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. Third edition. London: Sage, 2012. 386 pp. $51.00 paperback (978-0-85702-888-4) I begin with the suggestion that Rose's book addresses slightly different topics than it claims to. Rather than an overview of visual methods per se, the book consists primarily of eight essays that analyze how some topics have been studied visually, and in some instances, how visual methods have been constructed to do so. Discussion of topic and method are generally paired. For example "compositional interpretation" is applied to fine arts paintings and films (and video games, less convincingly); visual content analysis is applied to the study of National Geographic magazine photographs; semiology (semiotics) is almost entirely devoted to the study of advertising; psychoanalysis to the study of sexual difference in film. The pairing continues with "discourse analysis I," which combines documentary or historical images with other forms of data, but it breaks down "discourse analysis II," which is a study of institutionalization of visuality rather than the study of visual methods per se. Rose's chapter on "audience studies and beyond" reviews the long tradition of television audience studies before turning to new studies, including ethnographies of family photo worlds, mass media viewing, and other forms of viewing in society. Finally, her chapter on "visual research methods" attempts to review all research in which researchers make rather than find images in thirty brief pages. The schema is presented as a table on page 45, and is easier to grasp in that form. From this perspective the book is an interesting inquiry into ways of seeing, with commentary on what visual methods work for each topic, rather than a text on methods. For example, at the end of her chapter on Discourse Analysis II she writes, "there are no methodologically explicit deployments of discourse analysis II that I know of" (p. 259). Liberating the book from an attempt to place all chapters under the umbrella of methods would, in my view, allow for a fuller appreciation of what the book does accomplish. This is especially the case since she moves through visual ethnography and other visual field methods with such alarming alacrity. Some especially noteworthy general themes include the idea that images should not and cannot be reduced to their causes or even constituent parts. There is always something greater; something in the gestalt of seeing that defies definition. The chapter on content analysis raises the interesting issue of how to code visual images, and the overview of visual semiotics questions assumptions that photos contain deep structures and messages. By using social semiotics to study the social landscapes of new Apple stores, Rose shows that semiotics may survive its disappearing subject matter of print advertising. In fact her attempt to analyze a recent ad for an Alfa Romeo automobile (p. 125) using the traditional Barthes-inspired approach, seems forced rather than illuminating. The book draws upon a huge intellectual landscape, including Freud (scopophilia), Lacan, Foucault, Sekula, and Haraway, among others. Often the chapters are deconstructions and recontextualizations of the arguments of these giants, although the spirits of some of them might appear bemused to find themselves treated as "visual methodologists." Rose defines criteria for a "critical visual analysis" which are applied to each approach. These include an admonition to look carefully at images, to understand the social basis of their making, and to include an element of reflexivity, here defined as a dialogue on how the process of making data are part of those data themselves. Interestingly enough, most of the approaches or methods covered do to not measure up to these criteria. For example, compositional analysis looks carefully at images but does not address social practices and reflexivity; content analysis also looks carefully at images but does not study the social practices of production and has nothing to do with reflexivity. …

Bourdieu, the Master

Abstract: Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal, and David Wright, Culture, Class, Distinction Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2009, 311 pp $US 5595 paperback (978-0-415-56077-1), $US 15300, hardcover (978-0-415-42242-0) Elizabeth Silva and Alan Warde, editors, Cultural Analysis and Bourdieu's Legacy: Settling Accounts and Developing Alternatives Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2010, 182 pp $US 4295, paperback (978-0-415-53414-7), $US 13800, hardcover (978-0-415-49535-6) Simon Susen and Bryan S Turner, The Legacy of Pierre Bourdieu: Critical Essays, London: Anthem Press, 2011, xxix + 439 pp $US 130, hardcover (9780857287687) These volumes are ample evidence--41 authors, writing over 900--pages--of the continuing influence of Pierre Bourdieu a decade after his death in 2002 I believe Bourdieu is as great a sociologist as ever lived His biographical situation positioned him to produce what is arguably the most compelling culmination of the social science tradition that begins with Marx But Bourdieu's work may endure mostly because his limitations create openings: the gaps, assumptions, and even biases in his writing incite controversy, attempts at revision, on-going searches for updated empirical application reflecting local contingencies, and as the title of Elizabeth Silva and Alan Warde's volume puts it, alternatives The final section of Michele Lamont's chapter in Silva and Warde poses the question: "Bourdieu, good to think with?" (p 138) The affirmative response is evident in the consistent fascination and remarkable variation of these books' engagements with Bourdieu THE CASE FOR BOURDIEU Let me count six ways in which Bourdieu seized the possibilities of his temporal and spatial place in the social scientific tradition; specifically, his place in the field of sociology Bourdieu was not what he would have called an inheritor of academic capital, but he was distinctly positioned to be able to generate capital, and he utilized his position, or positionings, to maximum advantage First, Bourdieu did not think in terms of "convergence" that Talcott Parsons sets as the goal of theory in his classic The Structure of Social Action (1937) Yet Bourdieu's writing is always a dialogue with Marx, Durkheim, and Weber especially, and as the chapters in Simon Susen and Bryan Turner's collection show, many other theorists as well Bourdieu's never-completed graduate studies were in philosophy He was self-taught as an ethnographer, and as far as I can determine from the text he insisted is not an autobiography--Sketch for a Self-Analysis (published posthumously in 2007)--he learned sociological theory primarily by teaching it In the volumes being reviewed, the sole moment when Bourdieu speaks for himself other than in short quotations is in Susen's translation of a 1999 interview originally published in German Here Bourdieu recalls when he first taught Marx, Durkheim, and Weber His writing never ceased to juxtapose and adapt their ideas Second, Bourdieu's theoretical dialogue proceeds in relation to a sequence of research projects that have their apex in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, published in English in 1984 Distinction represented an ambitious attempt to survey the relationship between cultural taste and class position in France It provides the model for the equally ambitious research of Tony Bennett and his colleagues to determine how well Bourdieu's findings apply, decades later, in the United Kingdom, and more about that below What matters here is that Bourdieu's career balance between theory and research is--always arguably--unmatched, and the books under review reflect that balance, situating Bourdieu's concepts in relation to other theories and collecting new data to test his research questions Third, as Bourdieu himself emphasized, he entered the academic field at a particular time, in a particular place …

Who Counts Now? Re-making the Canadian Citizen

Abstract: This paper considers the implications of the 2010 cancellation of the Canada mandatory long-form census in terms of citizenship and the citizen-state relation. Inspecting census questions, Statistics Canada publications, and the arguments of ethnocultural groups pushing for reinstatement of the census, we find a version of citizenship rooted in ethnocultural group membership and the mosaic metaphor. The second part of this paper seeks an historical explanation for the cultural shift away from this version of citizenship that allowed for the cancellation of the census. Here we discuss the state monopolization of gambling. Inspecting advertising and government policy we find a rhetoric of counting that encourages a risk-assessing, individualized, neoliberal, and utilitarian citizen.