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This paper presents a day in the life of the Walnut Lake Curling Club. The reflexive analytic story is crafted from ethnographic research undertaken in 18 curling clubs across rural Canada. Contrary to a growing tendency toward individualized and privatized leisure, curling clubs in rural Canada remain sites for shared leisure. Building on recent efforts to position leisure sites as third places, the paper enhances an understanding of curling clubs' construction, dynamism and fluidity. Ethnographic approaches are offered as presenting opportunities to comprehend how third places are constructed, particularly within the changing context of leisure in rural life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most western industrialized societies voluntary organizations play a large role in the delivery of amateur sport programs. Despite their importance in this area, sport sociologists still know little about the structure and processes of these organizations. One process that is being increasingly used to describe the development of this type of organization is that of bureaucratization. This paper examines the process of bureaucratization and the emergence of its corresponding organizational form, bureaucracy, in a Canadian voluntary sport organization. The paper provides a chronological account and analysis of the emergence of bureaucratic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present comparative qualitative data on the influence of patients on the relationship between health professionals and hospitals in France and Canada. We elaborate specifically on a typology that depicts the structural influence of patients in terms of open and closed communities. Our analysis reveals some key differences between the open and closed communities across the two countries. Health professionals in open communities in France were able to establish a stronger relationship with patients than those in Canada. Professionals in France described a weaker connection with their colleagues than in Canada, and this may be one of the triggers of stress, burnout and high turnover. There were more similarities among closed communities in Canada and France. Conceptualizing the structural influence of patients in terms of open and closed community ideal types is a useful heuristic device that moves the implicit and explicit influence of patients to the foreground of the analysis of the relations between health professions and organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the organizational demands of the native policing environment are examined to analyze their effects on native policing arrangements and the constraints and linkages that govern innovation and reform at the levels of policy and program development. It is argued that, as environmental conditions vary and change, current methods of organizing and delivering native police services will become increasingly problematic. Some of the key principles and issues that underlie policing models are discussed and examined in the native context. It is concluded that a community-based approach to policing is a promising strategy that may uniquely serve the interests and requirements of particular native communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of the police as news sources in Canada. Analysis focuses on the ways in which the police patrol the regions of their organization to which journalists can have access, and on the forms of enclosure they effect over knowledge about their activities. The analysis builds upon theoretical foundations laid by Goffman and Giddens regarding privacy and revelation, illustrating that their social psychological formulations can be extended to the organizational and sociological levels. A typology is developed to distinguish police practices in back region enclosure (secrecy), back region disclosure (confidence), front region enclosure (censorship), and front region disclosure (publicity). Journalists' efforts to overcome the spatial, social and cultural barriers erected by the police are delineated. Consideration is given to the ways in which journalists police the police: how news texts 'play back' into the police organization and affect relations and practices there, including renewed efforts to patrol the facts. The process is shown to be equivocal and problematic, respecting the fact that information is the most difficult thing to guard because it can be taken without leaving its place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]