Showing papers in "The Sociological Review in 2013"

Poverty talk: how people experiencing poverty deny their poverty and why they blame ‘the poor’

Abstract: Drawing on life history interviews with sixty men and women in north-east England who were caught up in ‘the low-pay, no-pay cycle’, this article describes how people living in poverty talk about p...

The sexuality-assemblage: desire, affect, anti-humanism

Abstract: Two theoretical moves are required to resist the ‘humanist enticements’ associated with sexuality. Post-structuralism supplies the first, showing how the social produces culturally specific sexual ...

Moving beyond the Janus Face of Integration and Diversity Discourses: Towards an Intersectional Framing:

Abstract: This paper proposes the need to move beyond current integration and diversity discourses (and their practices). It argues that whilst purportedly aiming to attack social divisions, on the one hand, these are underpinned by binary and essentialized constructions of these very divisions, on the other. They thereby reinforce notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. In order to retain their more progressive concerns with heterogeneity and inclusion, the paper brings into focus an intersectional approach that considers the complex and irreducible nature of belonging and social hierarchy. The paper also considers the potential of notions of solidarity and interculturalism in dealing with some of the social issues involved.

Agency as vulnerability: accounting for children's movement to the streets of Accra

Abstract: This paper considers the agency of children moving to the streets of Accra, Ghana's capital city. A much used but largely unexamined concept, agency is nevertheless commonly deployed in childhood studies as a means to stress the capacity of children to choose to do things. In the literature on street and working children, and a cognate area of study concerned with children's independent migration, this has involved accounts of children's agency made meaningful by reference to theories of rational choice or to the normative force of childhood. It is our argument that both approaches leave unanswered important questions and to counter these omissions we draw upon the arguments of social realists and, in particular, the stress they place on vulnerability as the basis for human agency. We develop this argument further by reference to our research with street children. By drawing upon the children's accounts of leaving their households and heading for Accra's streets, it is our contention that these children do frame their departures as matters of individual choice and self-determination, and that in doing so they speak of a considerable capacity for action. Nevertheless, a deeper reading of their testimonies also points to the children's understandings of their own vulnerability. By examining what we see as their inability to be dependent upon family and kin, we stress the importance of the children's perceptions of their vulnerability, frailty and need as the basis for a fuller understanding of their agency in leaving their households. © 2013 The Author. The Sociological Review © 2013 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review.

In search of the mechanisms conducive to class differentials in educational choice: a mixed method research

Abstract: This paper inquires into the mechanisms conducive to social class differentials in educational choice in Flanders (the Northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) using both quantitative data gathered from parents (N = 1339) and qualitative data gathered during two focus groups with pupils (N = 16). Unlike most of the previous studies, this study takes into consideration all three theoretical perspectives that have driven research on class differentials in educational choice so far, namely cultural reproduction theory, rational action theory and the notion of social capital. Logistic regression analysis shows that self-selection does also occur in Flanders and that the effect of parental SES cannot be explained by a specific measure of cultural capital centred on knowledge of the educational system, nor by measures of social capital. What emerges most clearly from this study is that pupils' perception of their choice process is powerfully framed by deep-rooted conceptions about the educational alternatives available to them. Furthermore, children's choices seem to be delimited by parents' opinions of which educational alternatives were acceptable, and which ones not. Our study calls for future research to take the wider context of decision-making processes more explicitly into account.

Parents' Hopes and Expectations for Their Children's Future Occupations:

Abstract: Qualitative research has generated important insights into the intersection of social class, parental values and children's experiences of education and their role in the reproduction of inequaliti...

Visitors to modern and contemporary art museums: towards a new sociology of ‘cultural profiles’

Abstract: Sociologists traditionally focus on the power of socio-economic variables as drivers of attendance at museums. However, this research runs the risk of a certain socio-economic reductionism which fails to register the aesthetic dimensions of cultural consumption. To remedy this, I propose a new focus on cultural profiles beyond the prism of SES, which allows us to better interpret the role of the art museum visit in visitors' daily life. The cultural profile is defined as a set of cultural, creative and leisure preferences and activities, towards various forms of art, which classify and can be classified. I use multiple correspondence analysis to examine the nature of cultural profiles among visitors of six museums of modern and contemporary art in Belgium. Six different cultural profiles are defined, each a ‘bricolage’ of different classifying registers that structure and define practices and tastes. My approach allows us to reconcile and elaborate current interests in cultural sociology about the relatio...

Urban Rhythms: Mobilities, Space and Interaction in the Contemporary City:

Abstract: This insightful collection of papers on the contemporary cityscape explores the rhythms of urban flows, temporalities and interactions. It interprets the city as a complex whole, interwoven with networks and constant movement, and offers case studies of global metropolises from Manchester to Rio de Janeiro, Cardiffto Jakarta. Wide-ranging interdisciplinary analysis Combines urban theory with informed empirical research Includes studies of cities across the urbanizing world, from Rio de Janeiro to Jakarta A profound and engaging commentary on the constantly evolving rhythms of the city

Medicalized mothering: experiences with breastfeeding in Canada and Norway

Abstract: This paper explores infant feeding practices and experiences of mothers in Canada and Norway, two countries where breastfeeding rates are relatively high. Based on interviews with 33 Canadian mothe...

Climate, Class and Culture: Political Issues as Cultural Signifiers in the US:

Abstract: Since the 1970s, social scientists have argued that general pro-environmental attitudes have diffused throughout American society, rendering socio-demographics largely irrelevant in predicting supp...

No Right Time: The Significance of Reproductive Timing for Younger and Older Mothers' Moralities:

Abstract: Drawing on a small qualitative study of younger and older mothers, this article argues that the timing of motherhood is significant for the construction of classed maternal moralities. It is based on qualitative data generated during a year of fieldwork, with a group of mothers who had their first child when particularly younger or older than average. My discussion of mothers' accounts highlights the multitude of different ‘right’ times mothers evoked and their struggles to reconcile them. In particular I identify there were two normative and conflicting discourses about the ‘right’ time for motherhood the narrative of appropriately timed motherhood and the discourse of generational right time. This article highlights the classed dimensions of normative discourses about the timing of motherhood and draws attention to the lifecourse dis-synchronicities which these two groups of women faced around becoming a mother, especially the older group for whom this had important intergenerational consequences.

Reshaping tradition? Women negotiating the boundaries of tradition and modernity in Hong Kong and British families

Abstract: In debates on social change and personal life, modernity has generally been conceptualized in opposition to tradition, though some have pointed to the persistence of traditional values and practices within modern family relations. In this paper we seek to extend these debates beyond their largely Eurocentric context. Drawing on a comparative qualitative study of women and social change in Britain and Hong Kong, we argue for an understanding of the traditional and the modern that takes account of the ways in which tradition is reshaped in the context of modernity. The accounts of young adult women and their mothers in Hong Kong and Britain reveal varied interpretations of family obligations and practices in relation to normative ideals of family life in each context. We consider how configurations of family life deemed ‘modern’ are inflected by the differing traditions and histories of Hong Kong and British society and argue that these differences are not only cultural, but also attributable to the materia...

Points of departure: listening to rhythm in the sonoric spaces of the railway station

Abstract: This paper argues that rather than simply enabling studies of regulation and embodiment, rhythm can facilitate reintegration of the apparently separate dimensions of mobile experience enabling them as Cresswell says to ‘make sense together’. Taking a critical lead from Lefebvre’s engagement with Lacan, it argues that in order for this to happen a more active and reflexive sense of listening to rhythm is needed than that provided by Lefebvre. Drawing on a conception of listening developed by Ihde, Nancy and Labelle the paper concludes by exploring some ways in which the rhythms of the railway station produce experiences which are simultaneously affectively embodied and deeply socially and culturally meaningful.

Sociology and the virtual: interactive mirrors, representational thinking and intensive power

Abstract: This article explores the role of images in the workings of contemporary power. It examines one of the central ways in which sociology has approached images as representations and proposes an alternative understanding of images through the concepts of interactivity, intensity and the virtual. Focusing on the examples of three interactive mirrors, one a piece of artwork, another designed to be located in a designer shop and the other a medical mirror for tracking ‘vital signs’, it suggests that the mirrors emphasize the screen and, in so doing, disrupt a notion of images of representations. Images are instead brought to life; intensively experienced rather than extensively read. The article engages, first, with the increasing prevalence of screens and, second, with the moves in sociology towards theorizing the value of the concept of the virtual. Arguing that images are felt and lived out, the article seeks to contribute to how sociology has dealt with, and might further develop, the concept of the virtual as a productive way of understanding the relationships between images, screens, power and life.

Public Duty and Private Prejudice: Sexualities Equalities and Local Government:

Abstract: Rather than critiquing social institutions and practices that have historically excluded lesbians and gay men, as did earlier social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, since the 1990s the politics of sexuality has increasingly been about demanding equal rights of citizenship. These citizenship demands have, at least to a degree, been answered via a raft of recent legislation in the UK including the Adoption and Children Act 2002, Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004, and by associated changes in policy making and practice that emphasize ‘Equality and Diversity’. In this article we consider how the implementation of sexualities equalities policies is related to processes of privatization and individualization. This is illustrated by using sexualities equalities work in local government as a case study to indicate how processes of change and resistance are aided by these processes. The article draws on findings from a study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equalities initiatives in local government in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which examined the views of those who now have a public duty to implement recent legislative and policy shifts and are obliged to develop equalities initiatives concerning ‘sexual orientation' and ‘gender reassignment’.

Rhythm and Noise: The City, Memory and the Archive:

Abstract: Henri Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis, while typically loose and underdeveloped as a work, offers a highly suggestive way of thinking about mobility and pattern within spatiality, and also alerts our attention to the importance of temporal rhythms. This paper is concerned with the rhythms of history within the city, notably how heritage gets made, remade and unmade within the city as a form of archive. Comparing Lefebvre's concept of rhythm to that of noise in Michel Serres (notably in his book Genesis), I explore the meaning of urban heritage – in which the past is made present – analysing how the past can interrupt the present within the city and how that opens up possibilities for critical reception and potential alternative urban futures.

Political parties' perceptions and uses of anti‐Semitic conspiracy theories in Turkey

Abstract: Despite its ever-present and at times escalating significance, conspiracy theory is an under-researched topic in the social sciences. This paper analyses the political influence of conspiracy theories by drawing on semi-structured interviews with the representatives of four major political parties from the Turkish parliament about widespread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories regarding Donmes (converts). The findings indicate that right-wing political parties problematize the secret character of the Donme community and use the conspiracy theories to express their own ontological insecurities emerging from the Sevres syndrome. Left-wing and liberal parties conversely dissociate themselves from the conspiratorial rhetoric. The research concludes that the political parties reject or accept the conspiracy theories rationally and in alignment with their own ontological insecurities; by doing so, they pragmatically confirm their individual ideological perspective.

Class, Culture and Politics: On the Relevance of a Bourdieusian Concept of Class in Political Sociology:

Abstract: Even though contemporary discussions of class have moved forward towards recognizing a multidimensional concept of class, empirical analyses tend to focus on cultural practices in a rather narrow sense, that is, as practices of cultural consumption or practices of education. As a result, discussions within political sociology have not yet utilized the merits of a multidimensional conception of class. In light of this, the article suggests a comprehensive Bourdieusian framework for class analysis, integrating culture as both a structural phenomenon co-constitutive of class and as symbolic practice. Further, the article explores this theoretical framework in a multiple correspondence analysis of a Danish survey, demonstrating how class and political practices are indeed homologous. However, the analysis also points at several elements of field autonomy, and the concluding discussion therefore suggests the need for further studies.

Gendered and Classed Activist Identity in the Russian Oppositional Youth Movement

Abstract: This article examines how activist identity is constructed in the Russian opposition youth movement Oborona. The research is based on fieldwork among youth activists in Moscow and St Petersburg. Th...

The ‘animal‐advocacy agenda’: exploring sociology for non‐human animals

Abstract: This paper focuses on sociology and the study of human non-human animal relations. Using as a catalyst referees' comments on a previous paper about experiments using non-human animal subjects, in this present paper three problematics are identified and discussed. These problematics centre on the ‘acceptable’ content of sociological inquiry, the ‘permissibility’ of advocacy-oriented sociology, and the ‘admissibility’ of non-human animal-advocacy to advocacy-oriented sociology. The three problematics are explored through the lens of reflexive and critical sociology. Two central questions are raised: first, should sociology include the study of non-human animals and secondly, can sociology advocate for non-human animals? The paper concludes with an affirmative response to both of these questions. The paper ends by stressing that sociology has so much to offer the study of human non-human animal relations. Professional sociologists have a key role to play in enabling this work to move from margins to centre in published sociology.

No time out: mobility, rhythmicity and urban patrol in the twenty‐four hour city

Abstract: This paper is about the twenty-four hour city and analyses this phenomenon with the assistance of a case study dispersed across (temporally and spatially) twenty-four hours spent moving in, around and with the city centre of Cardiff, UK. Reporting from a continuous twenty-four hour period of fieldwork the paper describes the round-the-clock work of a range of urban patrols – street sweepers, Police Community Support Officers and outreach workers – who, in various ways, contribute to the maintenance of the social and physical fabric of the city centre. Describing the seemingly disparate activities of these patrols, we make an argument for an attention to the polychronic mobility practices in and through which the street-level politics of space, movement and time are produced and negotiated. Indeed, the circulations of these patrols throws up a supporting cast of vulnerable street-populations – the homeless, street drinkers and street-based sex workers. Here, then, we juxtapose our description of this quotidian city with the imagery and politics of the ‘24-Hour City’ in pointing to a nuanced (rather than adversarial) and mobile (rather than static) relationship between need and vulnerability and the management of space, time and mobility in the city centre.

A moral vision: human dignity in the eyes of the founders of sociology

Abstract: The case argued in this paper is not that the concerns of the founders of sociology are uniformly and in every particular still our own (Runciman, 2008), but that the concepts and methods used to a...

‘Life Stage Dissolution’ in Anglo-American Advertising and Popular Culture: Kidults, Lil' Britneys and Middle Youths

Abstract: The ‘long road to adulthood’ that supposedly now characterizes the period from the teens to the late twenties (for individuals in developed countries) has been the subject of much recent media and academic commentary. This paper adopts a sociological perspective to review and critique this commentary, and in particular the argument made by certain developmental psychologists that the period between adolescence and fully-fledged adulthood is now distinct enough to constitute a new stage in the life cycle known as ‘emerging adulthood’. In contrast, it is argued that, rather than anything as significant as a new life stage, what is actually happening is the erosion of established ones. To illustrate this point, the article introduces the new theoretical concept of ‘life stage dissolution’ (and its attendant bi-directional processes of ‘adultification’ and ‘infantilization’) – a blurring (or more accurately merging) process that makes it increasingly difficult for young people to differentiate and disassociate themselves from the generation immediately ahead of them, and indeed vice versa. The paper argues that, whilst this process takes a number of cultural/psychosocial forms, it is at its most prominent in contemporary Anglo-American advertising and marketing practices that actively seek to erode traditionally demarcated adult and childhood roles, differences, and oppositions as a new and distinct message within contemporary consumerism.

Olfactive frames of remembering: theorizing self, senses and society

Abstract: By analysing sensorial aspects of social memory and emotions, this paper theorizes the social significance of olfaction and other senses towards reconfigurations of self and social interactions thr...

Self-interest in Chinese discourse and practice: temporal distinctions of self

Abstract: A concept of self-interest, through which different interests relate to distinct temporal phases of selves, is examined by considering the operation of self-interest in a context in which it is frequently held to be absent. Chinese culture, frequently described as collectivist, developed intellectual traditions in which self-interest is assumed. Chinese sociologists affirm the centrality of self-interest for understanding social relationships and practices. Confucian antipathy to selfishness relates to admonishment of satisfaction of the interests of present selves against those of past selves. Variable institutional selection of distinct temporal phases of self is core to understanding major differences between Confucianism and Daoism and their respective conceptions of self-interest.

Contested urban rhythms: from the industrial city to the post‐industrial urban archipelago

Abstract: In industrial societies, dominant mechanic rhythmicalities were treated by critical thinkers and artists as forces of dehumanization and alienation. Organic rhythmicalities (bodily or cosmic ones) ...

‘Them that runs the country don't know what they're doing’: political dissatisfaction amongst members of the white working class

Abstract: There are signs that a significant number of British people do not feel that their concerns are being addressed by the mainstream parties or the political system. This paper attends to the quality ...

Disgust and distinction: the case of the jellied eel

Abstract: Drawing on a series of ethnographic encounters collected while hanging around at a seafood stand in east London, the following article aims to explore the relationship between individual expressions of distaste and the production of class, ethnic and generational forms of distinction. Starting with the visceral expressions of distaste directed towards a seafood stand, the following paragraphs draw on a combination of historical and ethnographic data rendered through a matrix of anthropological, sociological and psychoanalytic theory, to explore the role of everyday ambient experiences and the stratifying processes that cut across the lives of the city's inhabitants. Arguing against purely biological explanations of disgust, the paper explores how social histories and cultural experience inflect gut responses to the sensoria that suffuse urban environments. Moving the focus beyond the social construction of urban sensibilities, the paper goes on to develop an account of culturally inflected forms of distaste, shaping the city and the lives of its inhabitants.

Conjuring up Traditions: atmospheres, eras and family Christmases

Abstract: In this paper, we explore the ways in which family traditions, specifically those centred on Christmas, are conjured up or brought into life in people?s narrated experiences. For the twenty-seven couples participating in a study on ?family background?, such traditions were often deeply imbued with a sense of family history yet they were more than simply heirlooms or discrete bundles of practices handed down from one generation to the next. Rather, the family traditions we encountered were dynamic ? and sometimes hotly debated ? assemblages of old and new practices. The way that Christmas traditions were remembered, practiced, and experienced mattered to the people in our study because such traditions conjured up particular family eras ? past, present, and anticipated for descendent generations ? and indexed the passing of family time. They also called to mind and brought into being particular atmospheres that spoke to, or raised questions about, the moral worth of different family styles. This leads us to argue that the sociological significance of family Christmas traditions lies not so much in the detail of their content, albeit this is important, but in the ways that they are implicated in the atmospheres, eras and generational dynamics of family life.