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This paper reports on the use of aerial photographs to study the social structure of a dairy farm neighborhood in St. Lawrence County, New York. The paper compares information from aerial photographs of farmsteads and farm work to data gathered in a sociological survey. I examine how the visual data compares to other sociological information; how photographs, in this research, amplify, supplement, or contextualize nonvisual data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the official response to graffiti writing in New York City throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century. Drawing from a variety of documents, such as newspaper articles, political press releases, internal memos and government reports, I show that the city’s reaction to graffiti constitutes a moral panic and that the significance of this response can be discerned when interpreted in the context of theoretical insights developed by urban sociologists. On this basis, I argue that moral panics, or at least a sub-set of panics, may be central to negotiating the social conflict that accompanies the ways in which (urban) space will be put to use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the study of carceral citizenship in the United States by offering one of the first academic efforts to appraise the opinions of people with criminal records about "collateral consequences," the civil restrictions attached to convictions. In thirty-two extended interviews with people visiting a reentry-support organization in New York City, participants were asked what they thought the rules ought to be across multiple policy areas, and whether they would like to engage in each activity if the law permitted them to. Emphasizing themes of personal change, fairness, and the difficulty of living with a record, interviewees strongly rejected automatic, permanent restriction of gun rights, access to public housing, and the ability to work. Mindful of risks of harm, however, many endorsed focused limits, while arguing for universal access where they did not see threats to safety. Interviewees spoke often of personal transformation in criticizing permanent barriers. But consistent with research on the content of reentry narratives and with literature on responsibilization in the U.S. criminal-legal system, interviewees tended to frame the potential for change in a demanding way, as a possibility rather than a presumption, and a striking number volunteered comments about the primary role of individual responsibility in navigating life with a record. The results enhance theories of responsibilization in the carceral state, showing the prominence of specific ideas about personal transformation, the tension between belief in change and concern for community safety, and the importance of civic inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnography has become a useful method in procuring sensitive infonnation from the 'hidden population' who may not be accessed with quantitative survey techniques. Researchers are generating huge amounts of qualitative/textual data. Qualitative data require careful planning in storage, coding retrieval, and analysis. Personal computers have solved data management problems, but data analysis remains problematic. The paper describes some qualitative data management and analytic problems faced by a team of ethnographers engaged in a longitudinal epidemiological study of cocaine and crack distribution/abuse in New York City. Ethnographic data was collected through multisession open-ended interviews with more than one hundred cocaine/crack dealers and extensive field-notes were kept Compared to other programs, a hypertext software - Folio Views - was more useful in solving (a) data management and (b) analytical pmblems. Authors used this software to handle more than twenty-five thousand pages of texts; search and sort the database by any words or codes; and retrieve relevant textual materials needed to complete comparative and thematic analysis. Authors analyzed the data from outsiders' point of view (etic) as well as from the viewpoint of the subject populations (emic). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how former prisoners of color conceptualize their political, social, and economic futures and how these conceptualizations relate to the racialized social structural obstacles encountered upon reentry and decisions to re-engage criminal labor. I find that, presented with similar post-prison challenges, excarcerated men take several approaches when reentering society. I argue that the differences among their approaches lie in their varying interpretations of how they can act as individuals against and within their social structural limitations. Their decisions to rejoin or forfeit participation in criminal economies are thus shaped by experiences confronting the limitations of material conditions but also emerge from their critiques of racialized structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports results from a qualitative study that examined gay/bisexual men's experiences of living with HIV infection. Unstructured interviews from a diverse sample of 139 men were analyzed to examine how men coped with AIDS-related stigma. The qualitative study from which the data drawn was designed to examine gay men's experiences of living with HIV infection as a chronic illness. One-hundred and forty-four men were accrued. These men had been identified through self-referral in response to advertisements, flyers and community outreach efforts. Eligible were HIV-positive gay and bisexual men between the ages of 20-45 who lived in the greater New York metropolitan area and who had not injected drugs within the past two years. Cases were quota sampled to provide approximately equal numbers of African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and non-Hispanic whites. These three ethnic groups were chosen because available epidemiologic data indicated that they accounted for the large majority of AIDS cases in New York City.