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While 'economic development' projects have long been proposed and supported by local growth machine elites, technological change has affected the social desirability of large projects in three ways. First, large development projects-we examine water transportation-have grown in size, meaning that backers often seek public funding. With increased size and the need for external funding, many years or decades can elapse by the time a project can be conceived, politically supported, funded, and built. Second, during that time, the technology of the industrial sector in question may have changed radically-to the point that the project can be obsolete, or rapidly nearing obsolescence, by the time it is actually completed. Third, the massive size of the project may also mean that even if the project is obsolete as well as environmentally harmful, we may find ourselves unable to undo it or the environmental damage that it has caused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Although many observers have interpreted Hurricane Katrina's damage to New Orleans as a case of nature striking humans, we draw on the sociological concept of the growth machine to show that much of the damage resulted instead from what humans had done to nature—in the name but not the reality of “economic development.” Methods. We triangulate findings from multiple qualitative techniques, including first-hand fieldwork, interviews, and analyses of historical records. We focus on a particularly telling illustration: the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a transportation canal. Results. Although the canal was widely predicted to deliver prosperity, it mainly created environmental damage, destroying wetlands that had formerly protected New Orleans from hurricanes. Despite enthusiastic predictions about its economic importance—plus millions of dollars in ongoing federal investments—the “outlet” was used by only a dozen of the ships for which it was designed during the entire last year before Katrina hit. Conclusions. This was clearly not a case of an “enduring conflict” between the environment and the economy; it was a case where economic benefits to a tiny number of beneficiaries created profound costs to the environment, and to humans in turn. Claims about supposed “economic benefits” from environmentally harmful projects need to be examined more closely in other contexts, as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disaster studies have made important progress in recognizing the unequally distributed consequences of disasters, but there has been less progress in analyzing social factors that help create "natural" disasters. Even well-known patterns of hazard-creation tend to be interpreted generically - as representing "economic development" or "capitalism" - rather than through focusing on the more specific dynamics involved. We illustrate this point with two recent and well-known cases of flooding - those in the upper Mississippi River Valley and in the Katrina-related devastation of New Orleans. In the former case, damage was caused in part by building the very kinds of higher and stronger flood walls that were shown to be inadequate in the latter. In the New Orleans case, a more important factor in the death and destruction was the excavation of a transportation canal. In both cases, and many more, the underlying causes of damage to humans as well as to the environment has involved a three-part pattern, supported by the political system - spreading the costs, concentrating the economic benefits and hiding the real risks. In very real senses, these have been floods of folly, created not just by extreme weather events, but by deadly and avoidable patterns of political-economic choices. Comparable patterns appear to deserve greater attention in other contexts, as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the impact of the Buffalo Creek, West Virginia flood on February 26, 1972 on the survivors. The sudden collapse of the massive refuse pile dam of Pittston Co. unleashed 132 million gallons of water and coal waste materials on the unsuspecting residents of Buffalo Creek. The rampaging wave of water and sludge traveled down the creek in waves of between twenty and thirty feet and at speeds sometimes approaching thirty miles per hour. Buffalo Creek's sixteen small towns were devastated by the deluge, over 125 people were killed, and over four thousand survivors were left homeless. Some 615 survivors of the Buffalo Creek flood were examined by psychiatrists one and one-half years after the event, and 570 of them were found to be suffering from an identifiable emotional disturbance.

According to the author, the book "Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution." by Anthony F.C. Wallace is a book of large dimensions. It is large in size, occupying close to 500 tightly written and tightly printed pages. It is also large in scope and large in spirit, so much so that it almost seems unfair to try to convey its substance in the space of a short review. But the study is superb in many ways and deserves a serious effort. Rockdale is a village in Eastern Pennsylvania that was once the site of a small cluster of cotton mills. Every detail, Wallace unearthed became a link in a chain that stretched further and further into the past, further and further out into the larger American countryside, until Rockdale became something of a symbol for the rest of the nation, a miniature stage on which the drama of the "Industrial Revolution in America" was played out. It was a time when craftsmanship still mattered, when kinship still mattered, and the sound and feel were different.

During the 1960s, many sociologists began to take a hard new look at the shape of the sociological enterprise itself, partly in response to challenges raised by a younger and more radical generation of students and partly in response to doubts felt by an older and more established generation of scholars. Together, these re-evaluations have resulted in a widespread suspicion that the field is experiencing a number of related crises at the political, moral and even metaphysical levels. Among these crises is one that might be called the "epistemological crisis" — it takes the form of a recognition that the conceptual underpinnings of sociology may be a good deal more slack than most people have been accustomed to thinking, that their professional house may rest on very soft methodological ground. At one level, of course, sociology is a body of knowledge, a repertory of research methods, a loosely defined territory on the academic map, a collection of literature catalogued separately on the library shelves. But at another level, it is a vague set of suppositions about social life which is absorbed into the tissues of the sociological mind and into the everyday procedures of the held largely out of awareness.

The article discusses the pros and cons of disguised participant observation as a research technique in the field of sociology. Firstly it is unethical for a sociologist to deliberately misrepresent his identity for the purpose of entering a private domain to which he is not otherwise eligible and secondly it is unethical for a sociologist to deliberately misrepresent the character of the research in which he is engaged. But disguises have the effect of establishing a stable point of reference in an otherwise hazy territory. If observations discovers that a substantial number of sociologists are uncomfortable about the practice, then those who continue to employ it will at least know where they stand in respect to the collective conscience of their discipline, and if observations state that only a scattering of sociologists are concerned about the matter, people will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that the profession as a profession has accepted the responsibility of knowing its own mind.

It is general practice in sociology to regard deviant behavior as an alien element in society. Deviance is considered a vagrant form of human activity, moving outside the more orderly currents of social life. Deviation, can often be understood as a normal product of stable institutions, a vital resource which is guarded and preserved by forces found in all human organizations. From a sociological standpoint, deviance can be defined as conduct which is generally thought to require the attention of social control agencies that is, conduct about which "something should be done." Deviance is not a property inherent in certain forms of behavior; it is a property conferred upon these forms by the audiences which directly or indirectly witness them. Sociologically, then, the critical variable in the study of deviance is the social audience rather than the individual person, since it is the audience which eventually decides whether or not any given action or actions will become a visible case of deviation. This research paper attempts to focus the attention on the sociological question: how does a social structure communicate its "needs" or impose its "patterns" on human actors?

The article presents a study on the social theory of deviance and analyses functions of deviant behavior in small groups. Deviance is defined as a "behavior which violates institutionalized expectations, that is, expectations which are shared and recognized as legitimate within a social system." Deviant behavior is a reflection not only of the personality of the actor, but the structure of the group in which the behavior was enacted. The first proposition is that groups tend to induce, sustain, and permit deviant behavior. A group sustains or permits this newly defined deviance in the sense that it tends to institutionalize and absorb this behavior into its structure rather than eliminating it. The process of role differentiation and specialization which takes place in groups has been illuminated by studies which use concepts of sociometric rank. Groups induce deviant behavior in the same sense that they induce other group qualities like leadership, fellowship, and so on. Deviant behavior may serve important functions for groups - thereby contributing to, rather than disrupting, equilibrium in the group.

Presents a response by the author to a letter to the editor on the interests of sociologists.

The article presents a comments on views of sociologist Norman K. Denzin on ethics of social research. The author feel that sociologists should not invade the privacy of other persons, no matter how genial their intentions or how impressive their scientific credentials, because the practice is damaging both to the climate of a free society and to the integrity of the profession that permits it. The author agrees that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between "private" and "public' settings in any objective fashion. The author feels that any research method is justified so long as it is designed to advance scientific knowledge and does not willfully harm human subjects. In the opinion of the author this principle would admit to the roster of legitimate research techniques not only such practices as disguised observation, but the use of wiretapping devices of one sort or another, and all the rest of the controversies that come from the new technology of espionage. The authors' main disagreement with sociologist Denzin is his assumption that what is good for sociology is inherently ethical.

This article presents the 1972 report of the Committee on Professional Ethics of the American Sociological Association. As far as the chairman of the committee is aware, the only successful transacted business of the committee during the present year was the transfer of the chairmanship from Lewis A. Coser to the chairman. The committee stands ready to serve as the occasion arises.