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Torture is a particular form of violence--either physical or emotional--that is inflicted by state actors or with state permission to obtain confession, punish, intimidate, coerce, or inflict persecution by a person in a state or official capacity (United States et al. 1988). Refugees, who flee persecution by crossing international borders, have often experienced torture and psychological and physical forensic examination and affidavits of torture often form the basis of asylum claims to obtain refugee status. By definition, refugees cross international borders fleeing persecution. The persecution that refugees flee often includes torture. Current estimatess suggest a torture prevalence rate of suggest a refugee torture prevalence rate of at least 44% among refugees resettled in the United States, although there is significant variation within and between specific refugee populations (Keller 2002)(XXX). The emergent literature in psychology and psychiatry on torture prevalence and its impact on refugee mental health is often disconnected from torture as a form of political violence that defines literatures in international relations, political sociology, anthropology, and political science. While the former describe the likelihood of associated health outcomes like post-traumatic stress disorder, the later describe the conflict or violence the other dominant literatures on torture in political sociology, international relations, law, and political science that focus on torture as state power. This literature tends to focus on the global, regional, or national political contexts from which refugees flee. While torture is an inherently social act, there has been little work to mediate the psychological and geopolitical literatures on torture: how do violent contexts from which refugees flee shape refugees' expectations of states, logic of state engagement and social action in resettlement? That is, is there aThere has been very little on how individual experiences of torture and state sponsored violence shape future state engagement; that is, there has been insufficient research on the habitus of torture. ? Moreover, there has been little research on how survivors of torture make sense of their experiences of torture as they navigate social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Description: The twentieth century witnessed the proliferation of infrastructure and technology to manage water resources. By the 1980's, the "big dam era" ended, yet scholars are now observing a "return to infrastructure." High volume ocean-water desalination has emerged as a surprising supply-side solution to water scarcity built on the back of a risk/power sharing Public Private Partnership (PPP) paradigm. Desalination plants are time consuming to build and criticized for negative environmental impacts. Using archival and ethnographic data, this paper addresses desalination by examining processes revolving around the completion of the Claude "Bud" Lewis desalination plant near San Diego, CA. The paper shows that the neoliberal U.S. context of water management (state devolution, financing issues, and public services privatization) gave rise to desalination as a viable solution through PPPs, whereby initial costs are shifted to private sector firms and the facility can be purchased decades later by the public agency. The transnational dimension of these projects is important because they are trans-scalar, crossing multiple levels of social and political action forming the foundation for the contestation of the infrastructure. The analysis adds a ripple to the notion of ecological modernization - that society would transition to a situation wherein nature's position in capitalist society would be strengthened, although the economic order would remain largely intact. Desalination is not so much the next installment in a modernization project, but rather the U.S. context shows these PPPs are recuperative. It represents an effort to deal with the risks of problems that modernity has produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a set of new concepts to define and explain qualitative phase changes in the institutional logic of societies based on the paradigmatic lens that informs the scripts by which institutionalized social action is justified. These legitimation logics are the rooted in what I term the kinship-paradigm (social action justified by the rightful enaction of reciprocal roles), the sovereignty paradigm (social action justified on the basis of posited essential difference), and the systems paradigm (social action justified by the fact of its adherence to standardized processes and protocols). These are expanded, umbrella terms influenced by the kinbased mode of production, tributary mode of production, and capitalist and socialist mode of production concepts from the world-systems school, but attempt to explain an even wider field of action than the exchange-centered existing terms. The applicability, advantages and constraints of the concepts are evaluated in an examination of two of the seminal historical cases of transition from one phase to another; the "modernization" processes of the U.S. and Japan between 1865 and 1945. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Playwriting is mainly a means of entertainment or education. In this article I argue that playwriting and performance can act as a powerful form of activism that bridges academic work and public engagement. I focus on my experiences writing and producing a stage production based on my research about anti-racism and queer intersections in Toronto. This methodological discussion is contextualized within the current political moment of growing anti-intellectual sentiment that positions work in the humanities as irrelevant and elitist. Playwriting as a method of knowledge mobilization for findings from my research emerged from interviews with members of Toronto's rainbow community, those who work with queer-focused organizations, and community organizers. I found through conversations with participants that academic forms of knowledge mobilization, such as publishing in peer-reviewed journals, would not necessarily be accessible to community members or appropriate for encouraging discussion and social action at the local level. Participants suggested a range of social action strategies in relation to linking anti-racism and queer social issues, most of their suggestions centered on increasing understanding through discussion and the value of the arts in their social organizing. I decided to meet the challenge of engaging in effective knowledge mobilization that would be in service to the rainbow community by developing a stage production called We without You that focuses on the opinions and experiences of participants. I found that producing a stage production based on academic research had powerful social effects that are not possible through tradition knowledge dissemination methods, such as publishing. This article encourages academics to engage with anti-intellectual sentiments and position their work as useful and relevant to social issues and publics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current political debate over the incorporation of refugees who have arrived in Germany since 2013 frequently revolves around cultural differences, in particular differences pertaining to values. These differences are suspected to hamper social integration on both, an individual and societal level. Sociological accounts of values in principle warrant the assumption that different value orientations might promote conflict over sensitive issues of social coexistence, both in terms of the structure of values and their assumed consequences for social action. However, only little is known about the actual values of refugees who have recently arrived in Germany. Comparative values research suggests that immigrants from culturally distant countries increase value heterogeneity. In contrast, acculturation and assimilation theories argue that values are not static constructs, but subject to change and transformation, possibly already at the early stages of the migratory process. Moreover, refugees might differ considerably from the population in their countries of origin due to self-selection processes. Using data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP survey, a representative panel of refugees who have arrived in Germany between 2013 and 2016, and from the World Values Survey, the present study investigates differences in liberal democratic and gender equality values between refugees from Middle Eastern and North African countries and German citizens. Results indicate that refugees from almost all countries we investigated show higher levels of agreement to these values than German citizens. The only exception are values of secularism, for which we find lower levels of agreement amongst refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of embodiment has long been sociology's inscrutable asses' bridge. It remains so despite decades of interest in the body and more than a few young Turks having taken a crack at it. This paper argues that no solutions with staying power exist because scholars have only sought to reinvent the square wheel: no one has learned from earlier mistakes, and no one has tried to recover parts of the solution earlier authors worked out. To make headway requires moving forward from back, starting with Parsons. He, more than anyone, set the terms for solving the problem. He did by laying it out as one of abstraction and realism emphasizing syntheses of cultural, structural, and psychological elements. Regarding abstraction, only some aspects of the body influence, or are influenced by, social action and social life. Those are the only aspects social science needs to abstract. Others can be left out, much in the way sociologists filter out from explanations, atoms, hydrogen bonds, meiosis, kreb cycles, and all other necessary but not sufficient conditions. On the other hand, the part of the bodily substrate that is socially influential and relevant--what Parsons came to call "behavioral organism"--must be an object of abstraction that is realistically calibrated to the substrate's consequential properties. Such properties, in turn, must be analyzed in terms of their mutually conditioned interrelationships with culture, structure, and social-psychological components. Parsons provided an abstract framework for these things--all of which are necessary for studying embodiment. But, the framework was fundamentally flawed. While he laid down the proper path to solving the problem and took several crucial steps toward that end, to go further we also need to abandon specific aspects of his framework, for example its abiding "functionalism". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance is broadly understood as a spectrum of action that includes ritualized behavior, habitual practices, play, and theatrical events. Performance theory is an ensemble of frameworks and intellectual traditions, drawn together across anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies, by their shared focus on the embodied construction of social reality, knowledge, and solidarity. Curiously, performance theory has historically concerned itself with performance success, perhaps due its focus on the productive and creative potential found in performative action. Theories of performance help us to understand social action in terms that account for and draw from the contributions of feminist and relational theories of action, meaning-making, and consensus-building. Theorizing failure considers the potential of performances of undoing, vulnerability, privation, world-unmaking, silence, and absence. In this paper, I propose a tri-part model of performance failure: critical reflexive failure, routinized nonreflexive failure, and multi-perspectival failure. This model leverages performance and performative theories to conceptualize failure for frameworks of culture and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is predicated on scholar activism. Principally, it seeks to represent unaccompanied minors' (UAMs) narratives as a form of resistance. Working within a framework in which knowledge is understood as a vehicle for social action, and through the adoption of cocreation of an epistemological model, the paper challenges representations that portray unaccompanied minors as passive victims. The paper represents the lives, the views and experiences of UAMs as caught between international and humanitarian ideals and nativist populism. In its discussion of methodological approaches utilised in this study, the paper gives recognition to the sociology of childhood within a framework of scholar activism and child narratives. Based on data from in-depth qualitative interviews and focus groups with 50 UAMs from Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, this paper helps plug an important gap in the literature in the context of child well-being as related to this group of children. This study is part of a 25-nation research network focused on children's subjectivities around child well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the interface between interactional conduct and sociopolitical change, and makes the case for social action design as an underutilized index of change. This approach is exemplified through the case of samesex marriage, whose social standing shifted from marginality to mainstream acceptance within a relatively short period. Using journalistic interview data and in particular questionresponse sequences addressed to U.S. politicians regarding their position on samesex marriage (e.g., Do you support legalizing samesex marriage nationwide?), the paper charts measurable shifts in the manner in which positioning questions were broached and pursued by journalists across more than two decades, and considers how such behavioral shifts both reflect and contribute to the mainstreaming of marriage equality in the U.S. Political positioning questions and their sequelae thus provide a novel window into perceptions of the evolving sociocultural landscape on controversial issues of public importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is theory? Specifically, what is sociological theory? This question has long been a topic of interest to sociologists, and has inspired a large body of literature. I argue that in seeking to answer this question, sociology must look outside its disciplinary boundaries, and consider 'theory' as something that is not just particular to sociology, but as something that all of the sciences share. Moreover, I argue that in seeking a definition of sociological theory, we must consider the commonalities in the role that theory plays across the many branches of science. I argue that presenting a logical argument for what action is, how it is caused, and going on to attribute a subject to that action is one of the primary purposes of theory. Moreover, I posit that differences across disciplinary boundaries lie in determining the subject of that action. I argue that there are striking parallels in the structure of theoretical arguments, so conceived, across disciplines. As an example of this approach, I focus my analysis on the philosophical and metaphysical works of René Descartes (1596--1650); whose ideas regarding the nature of existence shaped the progression of western philosophical and physical thought. I argue that the under-analyzed theoretical work of W.E.B. Du Bois bears striking parallels to Cartesian dualism, and proposes a highly developed theory of social action. I argue that the importance of Du Bois' theory of social action should not be understated, and may prove incredibly fruitful for breaking new ground in sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does communicative action work in communities that distrust the state due to existing environmental injustices? Communicative action takes a systematic approach to pragmatic knowledge by tying interaction and reflection to the institutionalization of what is learned. Habermas's acclaimed theory, though inspired by concerns of justice, does not take into account the different situations in which the deliberative endeavor takes place, particularly places that are predisposed to distrust institutions due to existing injustices. This paper combines research on deliberative democracy with that of participatory research to analyze a communitybased research project on cancer in a conservative Alabama community. I find that ample interaction and reflection prompts valid ideas, which eventually leads to the identification of well water contamination. Local action as pertains to access to clean water and cleanup of dump sites results, while regulatory institutional intervention fails to materialize, further cementing distrust in the state. I argue that an institutional optimism prevails in the current understanding of communicative action and democratic deliberation, that can be in part be remedied by more attention existing injustices and local social action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have long been interested in social problems like racism. However, these phenomena remain difficult to pin down in empirical research. This project explores 911 calls as one site where racial discrimination can be located and investigated. I use conversation analysis as my method, examining how the call unfolds to understand what actions the participants accomplish through the use of racial categories. In telephone requests for emergency services (e.g. calling 911) callers and call takers negotiate whether and how an emergency response will be dispatched (J. Whalen, Zimmerman & M. Whalen 1988, Whalen & Zimmerman 1990, Heritage & Clayman 2010). In this project I analyze 911 calls from the United States to show that both callers and call takers orient to race (as well as gender and other identity categories) as relevant to this process. Callers often volunteer racial information in their references to and descriptions of the 'problem' people they are reporting. When callers do not volunteer racial information, call takers often ask for it, either explicitly or implicitly. The racial information used by the participants becomes part of the indexical field (Eckert 2008:454) that informs the call taker's ultimate decision to dispatch services or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I investigate the interorganizational network of organizations engaged in protest activities over a 35 year period in New York State. This exploratory article represents one section of a larger analysis. Here I use social network analytics to describe, in detail, what the network looks like overall, and to examine how the network changes over time during a critical time in the history of social movement activity in the U.S. I focus on changes in whole-network measures such as density and shifts in clustering. I suggest that macro-structural network processes may impact other aspects of social movement activity. A major contribution of this work is that, while numerous studies have investigated one or several network processes within a relatively small subset of SMOs, the vastness of the dataset I use will allow me to observe multiple network processes across many movement areas, organizational types, and years. Considering the rarity of research on social network effects over time, this focus is a significant contribution of the proposed investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual-processing models of cognition have proved useful for studying social action across a wide variety of sociological domains. However, these models have primarily informed theoretical - rather than empirical - innovation. Empirical claims about automatic processing, in particular, often remain untested or are tested using survey-based, forced choice measures, due in large part to a lack of viable alternatives. We argue that the affectation misattribution procedures (AMP) is superior to forced-choice items for measuring automatic processes, both on theoretical and empirical grounds. Moreover, we propose a planned missing data approach to collecting AMP data that in many instances overcomes some of the practical concerns associated with AMPs in order to maximize the benefits of this measurement strategy for sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing understanding that collective social behaviors in general and social movements in particular are complex, dynamic systems; and that to fully understand the way social movements evolve over time we must understand the feedbacks that drive their behavior. Formal models can reveal these feedback structures by making explicit the assumed causal pathways by which action in one part of the system influences the remainder of the system. This paper describes a section of the literature of formal dynamic models of social movements by highlighting the causal influences and feedback structures that various authors consider contributory to collective action in this context. The paper reveals how models have built upon one another over the last 40 plus years in an attempt to identify and elaborate the feedback mechanisms responsible for social movement dynamics. The paper also reveals challenges faced in conceiving and constructing representations of these systems, and places where further consideration is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family is a social institution that serves many social functions. Recently, a growing body of research calls attention to the role of family as a form of microlevel risk pooling, in that members of a family can pool their economic resources and adjust their behaviors to alleviate the impact of economic insecurity that they face on the labor market. The current paper studies the withincouple inter-temporal responsiveness in labor market participation as an empirical case of within-family risk pooling. Applying fixed-effect models to NLSY79 data, I found that that among married couples, the wife tends to adjust her labor supply according to the labor market outcomes of her husband, such that if the husband earns less annual income, works fewer hours, or receives a lower hourly wage, the wife will increase the amount of annual work hours or stay in employment statuses with greater level of labor market participation. In addition, the wife's responsiveness in labor market activities is greater when there is a young child present in the household, when the family income level is in the middle range, and when wife is contributing close to half of total family income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: While much research examines the consequences of deinstitutionalization for caregivers, few studies address support mobilization strategies used by patients themselves. We examine the relationship between mental health patients' needs, their activation of network ties for health discussion, and network dynamics during the course of treatment. We hypothesize that patients strategically activate their network ties for support that matches their needs. Linking activation to network dynamics, we also propose that patients with greater needs exhaust their supportive relationships and experience more network turnover. Methodology: We draw on a dataset of new mental health patients (N=173) and their associated network members (N=4144) observed over 3 years. Random-intercept regression models test the relationship between patients' needs and (1) network tie activation for health discussion, and (2) network turnover. Findings: Although overall level of need does not predict network tie activation, mental health patients are more likely to activate network ties who provide support that matches their expressed needs for discussion, emotional, and financial support (although not instrumental or informational support). In addition, patients with elevated needs experience increased network turnover. Strategic activation and its unintended consequence together suggest a "revolving door" of support for patients in crisis. Implications: In the post-deinstitutionalization era, patients' informal social safety nets must compensate for needs that are left unmet by deficits in the formal treatment system. We find that patients seek out network members who are well-equipped to help them cope with the onset of illness. At the same time, network activation may lead to instability as high-need patients churn through supportive relationships. Future research should examine the consequences of tie activation and support needs for network dynamics in different treatment contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disaster Relief as Social Action: A Weberian Look at Post-Disaster Donation Behavior Abstract: Despite the potential benefits outside contributions can provide to disaster relief (Tierney 2003), material convergence can create substantial challenges for the relief effort, including arrival of donations that are perishable, inappropriate, or potentially useful but arrive in a form (such as loose cans instead of pallets) that create storage and sorting problems for relief workers (Neal 1993; Neal 1994). Given the disconnect between what and how much is needed versus the type and volume of donations given, there is a need to understand why people participate in disaster relief. The variety of groups who donate also calls for examination of motivational differences between these groups and its effect on donations. This research examines data collected in field observations and interviews with donations drive operators responding to Superstorm Sandy, Boston Marathon Bombing, West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion, and the May 2013 Oklahoma tornados using Weber's ideal type of social action to understand motivations for engaging in disaster relief. Data indicate that participating in disaster relief is a social action, and that it falls into different categories of social action for different groups. Affective action and value rational action emerged more frequently among groups not typically engaged in disaster relief. A variety of groups, including those with more exposure to disaster work, or whose relief efforts were a continuation of their non-disaster activity exhibited instrumentally rational action. Decisions regarding the decision to participate often fit different types of social actions than decisions as to what to donate or who to contribute to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We merge two separate and well established areas of sociological research: 1) network exchange theory, which seeks to predict the outcomes of social action in social structures, and 2) social value orientations that are preferences for outcome distributions between self and other. We present predictions for exchange relations in which different combinations of social value actors create different mixed motive exchanges. Our results have implications for how research should be designed in order to best predict how social actors behave in social structures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses how people perceive self-directed actions. Self-directed actions are behaviors performed by an individual (the actor) toward himself or herself. These behaviors include encouraging or controlling oneself. Affect Control Theory (ACT) makes predictions about behaviors and emotions based on confirmation of affective meanings. Previous research by Britt and Heise (1992) explored self-directed actions using ACT. This theory allows researchers to quantify affect and mathematically model affective processes. For this study, new affective meanings of self-directed actions were collected using a research design similar to Britt and Heise (1992) but with some improvements. The primary improvement on the previous research design is the use of a new sentence structure for behaviors that differentiates self-directed actions from social actions. These improvements produced significant differences from previously collected affective meanings and models of self-directed actions. The data indicate that actors perceive self-directed and social actions differently. In addition, new models of self-directed actions are significantly different from previous models but share similar patterns as models of social actions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that sociological concepts can prove useful to improving social intervention. Such an exercise can also contribute to deepening the meaning and mission of public sociology. The paper suggests that social services can be analyzed through understanding the political, policy, institutional, material, and social environment in which they operate. The paper suggests using the concept of 'field of social action' as an analytic tool to assess the potential of social impact in an area of social intervention. Ultimately, this perspective goes beyond focusing on single organizations or limiting the role of charities to either fulfilling government agendas or advocating for community interests. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of collective action has traditionally been framed around the question of how to initiate participation. Critical mass theory provides a solution to this problem by showing how "bandwagon" dynamics, like those found in fads, fashions, or crowd behavior, can help to explain how populations can mobilize to provide collective goods. However, successful collective action can also have a fraction of the population that does not participate - free riders - who receive the benefits of others' contributions without themselves contributing. Many of the same approaches to solving the start-up problem of collective action have been brought to bear on this second problem of free riding. The basic assumption being that increasing the incentives for participation (or the costs for defection) will eliminate free riding, and promote the collective good. I shift the focus of the problem of collective action to long term stability. In so doing, I find that the traditional assumptions about free riding may not apply. I show that weaker incentives that permit free riding can make collective action more stable - free riders may actually help to secure the long term provision of collective goods. I show that these findings generalize to many different kinds of collective behavior. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents a synthesis of neo-Functionalism and a Weberian perspective of religion. Central features from the former consist of these elements: having a systems perspective, being multidimensional, including many disciplines, integrative of other theories of religion, and being contextualized in time. From Weber, key concepts like social action, charisma and the routinization of charisma, and the sense of time or history are presented. After creating a empirical model, it is tested using the longitudinal data set, The British Household Panel Survey (1991-2007). Relative support is given to the combined theory. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the consequences of social movements typically aims to identify determinants of success, or to draw attention to ways that social movements are able to secure new benefits for constituents by gaining concessions from political authorities. Yet social movements, even those that fail to achieve their stated goals, may have an enduring impact on the communities in which they were once active. This impact may be far removed from the movement's stated goals and may be detrimental to constituents and to society at large. We identify an empirical relationship between contemporary crime rates in southern U.S. counties and Ku Klux Klan activism that occurred in the mid-1960s. We find that various measures of economic deprivation affect the crime rate, with these effects being strongest in counties where the Klan had once been active. Drawing on social movement theory and theories of crime and delinquency, we argue that Klan activism disrupted community cohesion and undermined the perceived legitimacy of legal authority in ways that helped to produce contexts that are conducive to crime within communities characterized by economic deprivation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, the work of Pierre Bourdieu has experienced ever-increasing popularity in American sociology. The period of Bourdieu's rise to prominence, however, has also witnessed the decline of a once towering sociological figure: Talcott Parsons. In lauding Bourdieu's innovativeness and vilifying of Parsons' functionalism, contemporary appraisals make it difficult to see similarities in the two theorists' work. Current reputations notwithstanding, however, Bourdieu and Parsons were similar in that they developed comprehensive theories of action as a basis for understanding larger social structures. Juxtaposition of the work of these two theorists reveals the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and suggests directions for future work in refining theories of social action. I this paper, I argue that at the micro level, Parsons creates a sharp analytical distinction between action and actor. While this allows him to create a nuanced account of social acts, it leaves him with an underdeveloped notion of the actor at the macro level. Bourdieu, through his concept of habitus, blurs the distinction between action and actor. Although his account of action is less developed at the micro level, the blurring ultimately leads to a robust depiction of macro level social action. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the conservative/individualistic and liberal/structural narratives of teen motherhood are analyzed as elements of culture that shape the ways teen mothers understand themselves, the actions available to them and the meanings of their experiences following their teen pregnancies. In the analysis these two competing discourses are conceptualized as public narratives (Somers 1994), i.e., plots or story-lines circulating in society and used by social actors as they construct personal or ontological narratives. Personal narratives of teen mothers that incorporate these two public narratives are found to affect how these women understand their social world, themselves and the actions available to them. Two case studies collected from interviews with Mexican-American women who became teen mothers ten or more years ago are used to explore how these two public narratives impact the identities and conceptions of agency of teen mothers in the years following the birth of their child. Findings indicate that the conservative/individualistic narrative of teen motherhood can lead mothers to blame themselves for difficulties they face and obscure structural barriers, while the liberal/structural narrative of teen motherhood can help teen mothers by minimizing stigma and maximizing resources designed specifically to address structural obstacles, however, it can also obscure the agency of social actors. In both cases, the disadvantages and obstacles these women faced prior to, and regardless of, their pregnancies is completely missing from their understanding of the social world. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every month residents in Portland's gentrifying neighborhoods gather for a program modeled after the "restorative justice" dialogues in South Africa. Through this community forum, the long term African-American residents explain to the new white, middle-class residents how neighborhood change, and their new neighbors' "white behaviors" are harmful for them. From whites making them feel in invisible in their own community and treating dogs better than their children, to eroding Black gathering spaces and limited access to economic opportunities, the panelists lay out racism's macro and micro manifestations through their experience. Through participant observations at these dialogues for over a year, I uncovered how information about white power and privilege is consumed, processed and articulated by white "listeners." I analyze their denial strategies, as well as their attempts to use the knowledge to live into antiracism. I consider how having white neighbors heightens People of Color's awareness about white privilege, and how whiteness ("white ears") obscures white listeners' ability to hear the intended message about white racism. Finally, I consider how cross-racial dialogue as an end in itself is not productive, and without an explicit link to social action, is not an effective tool for challenging gentrification or racism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from our ongoing research on the pro-immigrant student walkouts in March of 2006. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews with students, educators, and community activists involved in half a dozen walkouts across four Texas cities, we reconstruct students' actions and experiences just before, during, and after the walkouts. In our reconstruction of the events, we highlight four interrelated social and psychological processes that have a long, if checkered, history in the sociology of collective behavior and social movements: 1) the role of anxiety as a collective mood shaping protests; 2) the centrality of non-normative or rule-breaking collective action; 3) the spontaneous, undirected, and fluid nature of the protests; and 4) the symbolic and emotional significance of the walkouts to the students involved. These themes recall insights from the collective behavior tradition and support more recent calls by scholars to resist normalizing protest and to attend to the role of emotions and ambiguity in social protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social actors spend a substantial amount of waking hours in their everyday lives disengaged from interaction or other forms of immediate involvement with co=present others. Yet almost always, they are engaged in solitary activities or actions, i.e. doing things by themselves. My question in this paper is: what are the analytical elements of solitary action? This is an original question given the intense focus on interaction in most twentieth century theories of action. I propose a multi-element analytical framework applicable across the broadest possible range of solitary forms of activity. The pivotal element is the reflexive formation of contexts in and through solitary action. Other elements include: the presence or absence of externa; social processes that are continued or altered through solitary activity; the structuration of rnablement and constraints in solitary action; and varying degrees of social psychological involvement generated by and ivested in solitary activity. The suprisng significance of rhythm in solitary action is an element that sometimes also must also be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I address the question of how to comprehend and explain contemporary witch hunts in the tea plantations of India. I aim towards an explanation of what structures the social action of individuals involved in instigating witch hunts. In the course of this explanation, I discuss what social factors lead to the hunts in the plantation and "who" qualifies as a "credible deviant/witch" in the community. The paper relies on qualitative methods such as interviews with accused witches, the accusers and victims of witchcraft and data from the police and newspaper archives, to explore how the fear of the scourge of the evil eye leads the entire village to participate in the hunt. Theoretically, the paper frames it arguments from theories of deviant behavior and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a global economy in light of the growing importance of information and knowledge, production and control of and access to knowledge are increasingly attracting political attention. The dominant 'maximalist rights culture' of international organisations and agreements (GATS, WIPO, TRIPS, EPA) leads to a mode of regulation of intellectual property rights (IPR) that expands the protection of intellectual property in scope and depth. But the increasing economical importance of IPR claims and their competition with civil and human rights claims and other interests leads to the emergence of new conflicts, in which the structure and scope of existing legal frameworks of IPR is contested and the dominant maximalist rights position questioned. In our paper, we focus on conflicts about two EU directives - the EU directive on the enforcement of IPRs and EU directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (Softwarepatent Directive). We examine why in the first case the decision making process followed the maximalist rights position, while in the second case the opponents of far-reaching IPRs, that represent predominantly so called weak interests, caused the failure of the directive. Starting from the assumption that, as a result of parallel decision-making structures, the differences between these decisions can not be explained at the institutional level, we argue that explanations must be searched on other levels: actor constellation, framing/argumentation, and forms of action. We focus on actor networks and show how the distinctive structure of these networks in connection with of specific collective action frames account for the opposing outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For years, scholars have studied the ways that social ties affect mobilization and participation in social movements. At the same time, there is a small but growing number of studies of disconnected individuals becoming involved in politics and civics. Research has yet to assess the role that social networks play in conjunction with other mobilizing forces. This paper, accordingly, analyzes the role that social ties and individual motivations play in mobilizing activists to work for one social movement organization. We disaggregate two specific ways that social ties mobilize activists: for direct recruitment and to legitimate activism. Our data show that both social ties and individualism play a role in mobilizing participants of social movements at almost equal levels. Contrary to what one might expect, however, we find that those activists who were mobilized through their personal connections to become activists were less likely to be working for the organization a year later versus those who came to the organization as strangers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractSymbolic interactionists and pragmatists alike have long emphasized that the meaning of any object arises out of the way one is prepared to act toward it. While I use these traditions as a stepping stone, I further incorporate social cognitive theory to explore how home-based employees act toward the material objects that populate their world. The analysis shows that home-based employees utilize a variety of personal, habitual, and emotional motivations to invest (and reinvest) single objects with meanings that give coherence to a multitude of role identities. This paper identifies these definitional practices and itemizes the sociocognitive processes through which individuals transform object meanings in service of their roles. In so doing, the paper extends previous lines of inquiry into the micro-level motivations of social action and as well as the relationship of these motivations to the emergence of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental claim in this paper is that blogging is a form of work whose initiator's sole aim is doing grassroots reporting, commenting on events, analyzing reactions to happenings and ultimately effecting social change via people-oriented actions. Opinions can be formulated on weblogs for eventual transformation into major developmental policies that have far reaching implications on the life, aspiration and future of a people. The paper integrates Schmidt's (2007) analytical model of blogging practices as a conceptual framework for advocating blogging as social action. Weblogs are influential political tool for mobilization and Nigerian bloggers made good use of this platform to educate, enlighten, and encourage eligible voters to perform their civic duties before and during the Nigerian 2007 General Elections. Blog posts from 8 January 2005 to 2 January 2008 are culled as data for this study. We also show that linguistic items encode a variety of actions. Whereas 'elect(ion)' enhances civic fulfilment, 'select(ion)' evokes apathy in the minds of electorates. Moreover, the use of 'elect(ion)' indicates citizen participation whereas 'select(ion)' is indicative of civic deprivation. These two lexical cognates express the mood and attitudes of the electorates towards the Nigerian 2007 General Elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using server logs from a weblogging system we document patterns in how people contribute, how and with whom they interact, and how long they stick around. For each participant we study the various ways they participate in the site and their position in local social networks created by social actions like invitation, comment, and association. We find builders who consistently modify their own blogs but seldom make comments or visibly interact, connectors who direct most of their energy to commenting or other visible communications, and lurkers who log in consistently yet seldom make new additions to their own blog or visibly interact with others. We describe these three types of users, document their prevalence in a Weblogging system, and study how their network position during their first month of participation shapes role they take and how long they stick around. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data collected through observation of four reading groups as they discussed books about social problems and two or three other titles, this project examines the following research questions: When do groups of readers interpret the genre of social problem books as calling for social action? What role does a reading group's local culture play in that interpretation? All four groups connected this genre to issues "in the news," however I observed three more specific interpretations: 1) This is eye-opening and horrible! I or we need to do something; 2) This is eye-opening, someone needs to do something, but not me-this doesn't apply to me; and 3) This problem is serious but we already knew about it and still need more information to know what can be done about it. Of the four groups, two produced interpretation 1 and discussed actions that they could undertake to address the problem depicted in the text. Both groups had highly personal and group oriented cultures that enabled them to determine how these texts applied to their families or communities. Groups that did not understand the work as calling for action were less personal in their orientation towards one another and towards the texts. One of these groups displayed highly critical, almost competitive attitudes toward one another and the texts. The other group focused on opinions and hypothetical situations that distanced themselves from one another and the meanings of the texts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two approaches to sociological explanation are discussedâ?”realist and interpretiveâ?”with particular attention to how they address the problem of subjectivity in social action. As a model for sociological knowledge, scientific realism pushes beyond positivism, using ontological theory to identify causal mechanisms, and producing parsimonious and generalizable explanations. The interpretive approach, however, grasps better the problem of variable subjectivity, using theory to comprehend the cultural context of action, and thus the social meanings which structure actors' motivations. A classic historical puzzleâ?”how to explain the Salem Witch Trialsâ?”is introduced as a way to make the contrast between these forms of sociological explanation concrete, and to consider their implications for research. It is argued that the interpretive approach enables a better grasp of the gendered aspect of witchcraft persecutionâ?”which, surprisingly, has remained elusive for historiansâ?”because it allows an investigation of the gendered semiotics of witchcraft in the Puritan religious imagination. The broader theoretical implication is an interpretive reframing of the concept of structural causality in sociological analysis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a methodological and analytic approach for studying the relationship between personal transition, group association, and political commitment in neighborhood activism. Focusing on a central neighborhood political institution as a heuristic device, I use ethnographic methods to demonstrate how people who initiate participation from distinct social positions in a field of neighborhood relations make use of the same political space through various pathways into and out of group association and political commitment. The result is a highly textured picture of neighborhood participation, which bridges together theories of collective action, group processes, and political commitment through a sociological perspective of individual courses of action. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results from a study of 388 individuals with disabilities who completed the "Questionnaire on Disability Identity and Opportunity." Factor analysis, cross-tabulations, and ANOVA suggest that orientations toward disability are associated with age. In particular, younger individuals are more likely to subscribe to the social model, an identity of disability pride, and a role of disability rights activism and to have greater access to inclusion in mainstream society. The paper explores the possible reasons for these findings and suggests directions for future research. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a research strategy for studying the ways in which bucket brigades, or community-based air monitoring networks with roles and responsibilities designed to facilitate air quality sampling, analysis and distribution of results, work as forms of civic action. Bucket brigades are emergent forms of civil activism, the unique property of which is the gathering of performance-based information through air quality sampling and the use of that data along social channels or levers. Compared to traditional forms of organizing activism (i.e., protests, letter writing, calls for boycotts), bucket brigades are important innovations because of the central place that gathering empirical information plays as the basis for claimsmaking and politics. Anecdotal information suggests that bucket brigades are effective ways to organize activism. Yet little systematic research has been launched to understand how they work. We attempt to remedy that lacuna by evaluating the place such community monitoring and performance-based information plays in changing the politics of regulation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the life course development of altruism, using data from a nationally representative survey and from life narrative interviews. The survey data show that participation in altruistic behaviors such as volunteering and charitable giving changes with major life transitions such as marriage, children, and retirement. These changes have a much greater effect on men's altruistic action, and the life narrative data help explain why. Women are socialized into caring roles from an early age, and their life narratives generally describe a gradual development of altruistic motivation and action. By contrast, altruistic men often tell redemption narratives in which they contrast the selfish behavior of their young adult lives with prosocial behavior in mid-adulthood. Men often cite marriage and fatherhood as important catalysts for their transformation from selfishness to altruism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The professionalization and emergence of careers in the area of humanitarian aid are relatively new developments which have yet hardly been studied. The activity in development cooperation and emergency relief, which due to relatively low salaries or voluntarism can be seen as an intersection of social activism and paid labor, has so far hardly found little attention in biographical and socialization research or in development studies. I study aid workers in a biographical perspective, in order to understand which personal, educational, professional and political developments led to their involvement in humanitarian aid and what impact this activity has had on their private and professional lives. Biographical methods are especially suitable for the analysis of socialization processes in a life-course perspective and the interaction of personal, political, and professional aspects of life. I first sketch the expansion of humanitarian aid in the past years. This is followed by a description of the sample as well as of the living and working conditions in humanitarian aid. It needs to be emphasized that these are preliminary results from an ongoing study. Finally, I contrast various paths into humanitarian activity addressing work, family and social activism. I end the paper with further research questions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The labor, environmental, economic, and health consequences of globalization have been well documented. Less clear are the ways in which the same forces of globalization that expose more and more people around the world to environmental health risks are also leading to new environmental advocacy networks that link local environmental health struggles to a global network of environmental health activism. This essay will explain some of these linkages by focusing on the evolution of one such network: the network of organizations that are part of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. The conclusion aims to raise questions about the role of international networks of environmental health activists in confronting the environmental and human rights abuses resulting from processes of globalization. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collective action repertoires that postcommunist states inherited from Leninist states for the most part discourage popular participation in politics, constrain protest mobilization and channel not only political activism but civic engagement into noncontentious forms (Johnston 2006; Johnston and Mueller 2001; Kennedy 1992; Pfaff and Yang 2001; Straughn 2005). This means that within countries making a transition from state socialism, contentious collective action is rarely a viable option for expressing disapproval of state actions. Yet a surprising wave of protest activity challenging authoritarian states and referred to as the "Colored Revolutions" has swept in recent years across several postcommunist states. This paper is devoted to understanding the role local culture played in generating one of these unexpected episodes of mass contention: the Orange Revolution. It builds on ethnographic work and interviews I conducted in 2001, 2004 and 2005, among women who participated in the cycle of protests in Ukraine that culminated in the Orange Revolution. My main theoretical aim is to extend earlier work among scholars of social movements on the articulation of "hybrid" collective action repertoires within Leninist regimes (Mueller 1999) to explore the hybrid forms collective action takes within postcommunist countries (Hrycak 2006; Hrycak forthcoming 2007a; Johnson 2005). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of function is generally regarded as a core methodological device of Parsonian action theory. "It is … entirely indispensable in sociology," as Parsons noted in one of his late programmatic essays. Instead of the label structural-functionalism he would prefer the more accurate expression "functional analysis" as suggested by Robert Merton. It was both the intellectual movement that criticized Parsons - frequently as an "arch-functionalist" - as well as the one seeking a positive reevaluation of his legacy known under the label of "neo-functionalism" that took the centrality of the concept of function for granted. This obvious common sense is contrasted by the fact that there is little explicit discussion and no systematic treatment of functional methodology in sociology. The major part of arguments pro and contra functionalism is developed around substantial assumptions in action theory such as the place of "values" or "norms" as opposed to "interests", of culture as opposed to economy, of consensus as opposed to conflict, or of supposed political implication such as an allegedly conservative strand etc. All these arguments do not touch the question of functional methodology as such. This paper aims to reconstruct the largely implicit assumptions of functionalism and argues in line with Parsons for its indispensable status for a theory of action. On the whole, functional analysis is taken as an important tool to overcome a naïve concept of causality and, consequently, a mechanistic understanding of action, particularly of the interconnectedness of action systems, their subsystems, and their respective environments. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analytical concept of "accounts" has long presented sociologists with an excellent tool for the study of talk. The authors of this article became conversant with the accounts literature during the peer review of a paper that studied tactics used by game wardens when they confronted people who had been caught violating Virginia state law. During the course of our review of the accounts literature it became apparent that accounting, while still widely discussed in the field of sociology, has become more firmly developed within other academic fields of study. Within sociology, accounting theory remains primarily anchored in the fields of deviance and criminology and has steadily drifted from its symbolic interactionist roots. Moreover, we found that one particular type of account, the "projected-empathetic" account, is almost completely neglected in the field of sociology despite the fact that it is a common rhetorical tactic used when creating account narratives. In this article we review the theoretical foundations of accounting and make suggestions for a future research program. In particular, we argue that the use of projected-empathetic and projected-hostile accounts should become a normative part of any study that uses accounts as an analytical tool. Indeed, we believe that the use of projected accounts would help re-anchor accounting more solidly in the symbolic interactionist tradition. It would also force researchers to confront the "give and take" process involved in the negotiation of accounts. We also believe that accounts should be primarily applied toward understanding explanations that are provided for mundane (as opposed to "untoward") behaviors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aggregate historical and current individual-level evidence presented here for Australia, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and the United States highlights how gender equity in the public and private spheres remains bounded by a complex and shifting mixture of individual choice and social action. It remains bounded in the public sphere stemming from institutional effects embedded earlier in industrialization when trade union movements and the Catholic Church lobbied to codify gender difference within initial state regulations and policies. Subsequent equal opportunity laws painted over the historically gendered foundation, changing the hue but not the structure of gender inequity. So as found in studies of social mobility more generally, inequity persists in the present but varies across socio-political contexts in its form. Equity within households also remains bounded, with increasing aggregate equity predicting more egalitarian divisions of domestic tasks primarily through its effects on women's, not men's housework hours. As aggregate equity increases, equity gains within the home among dual-earners appear to result from a commodification of domestic tasks. This, in turn, suggests a further class shift among women, with greater equity in the homes among more privileged couples made possible by the direct and indirect domestic production of low-wage workers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yucatán of Mexico has become a new sending region of immigration to the United States. This research will discuss the hometown association efforts of indigenous Mexican migrants in the United States and their compatriots in Maní, a small puebla located in the state of Yucatán, Mexico. The existence of transnational activity and pooled remittances in Yucatán is actually quite rare and the indigenous activism evident in Maní is not typical of the region. This research begins to explore possible reasons for the conscious construction of a transnational community in Maní when communal transnationalism does not seem to exist in other strong immigration-sending communities within Yucatán. Two factors are theorized to be important - the distinctive indigenous identity based on historical events within Maní as well as the impact of the receiving region which has a high concentration of indigenous migrants from other areas of Mexico. Together these factors help us understand why the immigrants from Maní have consciously constructed a transnational community through the establishment of an active hometown association. This preliminary research adds to two growing areas of research: one, it contributes to the empirical understanding of how the migrant's social organization intersects with the nation state and civil society; and two, this research allows an initial investigation of emerging Mayan-speaking Mexican immigrants to the United States. Both of these areas are understudied and this preliminary research will shed light on both areas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]