Contrastando los crecientes niveles de interés en espacios e imágenes más allá del campo de la geografía, este artículo (re-) introduce un trabajo previo sobre la semiótica de los mapas emprendidos por geógrafos en la década de los 60. Se destacan en este trabajo las limitaciones en los datos, el propósito y el contexto cultural en las que el usuario interpreta los códigos y convenciones de un mapa, que siguen siendo relevantes para la interpretación de mapas – nuevos y viejos – cuarenta años después. Aprovechando las aportaciones de la geografía a la semiótica de los mapas, el artículo procede a examinar el concepto de las divisiones sociales urbanas como se representa en las imágenes de los mapas. Utilizando una pequeña cantidad de imágenes de mapas, incluyendo dos de los mapas más ampliamente conocidos de la división social urbana en Europa y América del Norte, se analiza el papel del contexto, los datos y el propósito en la generación e interpretación de mapas. Al presentar los ejemplos cronológicamente, el artículo muestra que si bien los avances en la recolección y manejo de datos han permitido que los investigadores combinen diversas variables sociales en mapas de la división social, e interactúen con imágenes de mapas, el trabajo de geógrafos sobre la semiótica de los mapas no es menos relevante hoy en día que cuando fue propuesto por primera vez hace cuarenta años.
This guide accompanies the following article: Mark Frezzo, 'Sociology and Human Rights in the Post Development Era', Sociology Compass 5/3 (2011): 203–214, 10.1111/j.1751‐9020.2011.00361.x.Author's introductionThe founding of the Thematic Group on Human Rights and Global Justice in the International Sociological Association in 2006 and the Section on the Sociology of Human Rights in the American Sociological Association in 2008 testify to the emergence of the sociology of human rights as a distinct field of research and teaching. In a nutshell, the field involves the analysis of (a) the social conditions under which human rights treaties and laws are drafted, debated, implemented, and enforced, and (b) the manner in which human rights treaties and laws constrain and/or enable nation‐states, societies, communities, and individuals. This entails explaining the social impact of a series of United Nations documents: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which created a framework for the implementation of human rights across the world; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), which outlined first‐generation rights to liberty and security of the person; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966), which outlined second‐generation rights to equality and third‐generation rights to solidarity. In the postwar period, these documents became important reference points not only for the UN and its member nations, but also for national liberation movements in the global South. More recently, these documents have guided the undertakings of non‐governmental organizations (including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) and social movement organizations in responding to poverty, inequality, exclusion, and environmental degradation. In sum, the sociology of human rights draws on such fields as the sociology of law, development sociology, political economy, environmental sociology, organizational sociology, and social movement research in explaining 'rights effects'.Author recommendsWhile Micheline Ishay's The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008) offers the authoritative account of the origins and evolution of human rights doctrine, Judith Blau and Alberto Moncada's Human Rights: A Primer (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2009) serves as an excellent introduction to cutting‐edge thinking on economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights in the present day.Jackie Smith's Social Movements for Global Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) and Clifford Bob's edited volume, The International Struggle for Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) explain how popular movements in the age globalization have reinterpreted old rights, invented new rights, and, in the process, forged transnational coalitions with non‐governmental organizations and, in some cases, with UN agencies.Roland Burke's Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010) offers great insights into the role of the global South – or what used to be known as the 'Third World'– in reinterpreting and expanding the human rights canon.Online materialsIn analyzing the reinterpretation of the human rights canon, sociologists examine a number of primary sources from the UN: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm). More recently, the World Social Forum's Charter of Principles (http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/main.php?id_menu=4&cd_language=2) has become an important touchstone for social movement organizations challenging neoliberalism.In the last few years, scholars have made substantial progress in institutionalizing the social scientific study of human rights. This mission statements of the Thematic Group on Human Rights and Global Justice in the International Sociological Association (http://www.isa‐sociology.org/tg03.htm) and the Section on the Sociology of Human Rights in the American Sociological Association (http://www.asanet.org/sections/humanrights.cfm) capture the essence of the sociology of human rights. In 2009, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which represents all of the social and natural science disciplines in the US, launched its Science and Human Rights Program (http://shr.aaas.org/) to promote human rights through scientific discovery. The program's website contains a wealth of information on AAAS activities in four areas: Engaging Scientists (http://shr.aaas.org/Programs/program_engaging.htm), Applying Science (http://shr.aaas.org/Programs/program_applying.htm), Conduct of Science (http://shr.aaas.org/Programs/program_conduct.htm), and Science as a Human Right (http://shr.aaas.org/Programs/program_article15.htm).Sample syllabus: sociology of human rightsCourse descriptionIn recent years, sociologists have joined legal scholars, political scientists, and philosophers in debating the nature and scope of human rights. In keeping with their training, sociologists explore the social conditions under which human rights legislation is drafted, interpreted, enforced, and violated. In addition, sociologists examine how the conferral of rights affects the conduct of societies, communities, and individuals. In the process of explaining how rights—understood as claims made on governments and other institutions—'circulate' among different social actors, this course examines a series of questions. How has the concept of human rights evolved from the Enlightenment to the present day? How have inter‐governmental organizations (IGOs), non‐governmental organizations (NGOs), and social movement organizations (SMOs) promoted human rights? What is the connection between human rights and democracy? What are the prospects for a rights regime on a global scale?Course objectivesThis course introduces students to the sociology of human rights – a growing field in academia. In becoming conversant in the scholarly debates on human rights, students will acquire a technical vocabulary: first‐generation rights (pertaining to liberty); second‐generation rights (pertaining to equality); and third‐generation rights (pertaining to solidarity). In addition, students will learn to apply the tools of sociology to the following phenomena:
Historical conflicts over human rights. Networks of IGOs, NGOs, and movements pushing for new rights. Advocacy of human rights and processes of democratization. Proposals for a human rights regime on a global scale.
Course readings
Donnelly, Jack (2003). Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. Ishay, Micheline (2004). The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era.
Course schedule Week 1: What is the sociology of human rights?
Discussion of Syllabus and Objectives. Introduction to the Study of Human Rights.
Week 2: Human rights in the enlightenment and the industrial revolution
Discussion of Reading: Ishay, 1–14 and 63–116, 117–72.
Week 3: Human rights in the 20th century
Discussion of Reading: Ishay, 173–244.
Week 4: Globalization, human rights, and social movements
Discussion of Reading: Ishay, 245–314.
Week 5: Human rights in the 21st century
Discussion of Reading: Ishay, 315–55.
Week 6: Defining rights
Discussion of Reading: Donnelly, 7–37.
Week 7: Group rights
Discussion of Reading: Donnelly, 89–106 and 204–41.
Week 8: Global human rights regime?
Discussion of Reading: Donnelly, 127–54.
Weeks 9 and 10: Implementing human rights in the 'Real World'
Class Project on human rights, development, and global governance.
Focus questions
Explain the three generations of human rights. Be sure to cover the following themes: liberty, equality, and solidarity; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966). Explain the debate on universalism and relativism. Why is the debate important? Explain Ishay's argument about the role of social movements in promoting human rights. In light of Ishay's book, what it your assessment of the prospects for a more robust and enforceable human rights framework? How would you go about deepening human rights on a global scale? How does Donnelly's theoretical analysis of human rights relate to Ishay's historical analysis of human rights? To what extent are they complementary? How does Donnelly handle the debate on universalism and relativism? How does Donnelly explain group rights? How does he handle the problem of self‐determination? In your view, how has Donnelly contributed to the sociology of human rights? In light of Donnelly's work, what are your expectations and hopes for the sociology of human rights?
<p>O artigo examina os fatores associados à satisfação das comunidades atendidas pelo Programa Mais Médicos do Brasil (PMMB), a partir de pesquisas quantitativas realizadas pelo Ministério da Saúde e pela Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais em 2014, ano em que tal programa se iniciou. A abordagem se deu por meio de entrevistas face a face, realizadas com amostras de usuários e não usuários desse programa e residentes, tanto nos municípios atendidos quanto naqueles inscritos, mas ainda não contemplados. As entrevistas foram realizadas em mais de 700 municípios, segmentados em 7 subgrupos segundo os critérios: 20% de pobreza, capital, G100, baixa renda e alta vulnerabilidade econômica, região metropolitana, quilombolas, distrito sanitário especial indígena (DSEI) e demais localidades, totalizando mais de 18.000 informantes. Para a análise das variáveis relacionadas à avaliação do Mais Médicos, foram elaboradas estatísticas descritivas e inferenciais. Demonstra-se, na fase inicial do programa, a presença majoritária de médicos intercambistas cooperados (cubanos), a alta experiência dos profissionais envolvidos com a atenção básica à saúde, a boa qualidade do atendimento médico e sua forma mais humanizada, tendo como determinante a relação entre médico e usuário para a avaliação positiva do programa. Conclui-se que o Mais Médicos atingiu os objetivos de levar atendimento aos municípios de alta vulnerabilidade social, onde ainda não havia médicos ou seu número era pequeno, e que o programa tem potencial para a reconstrução do conceito da Atenção Básica à saúde.</p><p><strong>PROGRAMA MAIS MÉDICOS DO BRASIL: the centrality of the doctor-patient relationship for satisfaction with the program </strong></p><p>The article examined the factors associated with the satisfaction of the communities served by the Mais Médicos do Brasil Program (PMMB), based on quantitative research carried out by the Ministry of Health and the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 2014, the year in which this program started. The approach occurred through face-to-face interviews, conducted with samples of users and non-users and residents in municipalities registered, but not yet covered. The interviews were carried out in more than 700 cities, segmented into 7 subgroups according to the criteria: 20% of poverty, capital, G100, low income and high economic vulnerability, the metropolitan, quilombolas, special indigenous sanitary district (DSEI) and other locations, totaling more than 18,000 informants. For the analysis of the variables related to evaluation of Mais Médicos, were elaborated descriptive statistics and inferences. Demonstrates, in the initial phase of the program, the majority presence of doctors cooperated (Cubans), the high experience of professionals involved with the basic attention to health, the good quality of medical care and your more Humanized, with the decisive relation between doctor and user to the positive assessment of the program.. It is concluded that the Mais Médicos reached the goals of bringing service to the municipalities of high social vulnerability, where there was still no doctors or your number was small, and that the program has potential for the reconstruction of the concept of the basic attention to health.</p><p>Keywords: Public policy. Mais Médicos Program. Basic care. Communities.</p><p><strong>PROGRAMME MAIS MÉDICOS DO BRASIL: la centralité de relation médecin-patient pour la satisfaction du programme </strong></p><p> L'article examine les facteurs associés à la satisfaction des communautés desservies par le "Programa Mais Médicos do Brasil" (PMMB), sur la base d'une recherche quantitative réalisée par le ministère de la Santé et l'Université Fédérale de Minas Gerais (UFMG) en 2014, année d'initiation de ce programme. L'abordage a été réalisée au moyen des interviews en personne, réalisés avec des échantillons d'utilisateurs et de non-utilisateurs de ce programme et de résidents, dans les villes desservies et dans ces qui sont inscrites, mais ne sont pas encore visées. Les interviews ont été réalisées dans plus de 700 villes et villages, ont été segmentées en 7 sous-groupes par les critères suivants: 20% de pauvreté, la capitale familiale, G100, un faible revenu et une grande vulnérabilité économique, région métropolitaine, quilombolas, District Sanitaire Spécial Autochtone (DSEI), ils totalisant plus de 18 000 informateurs. Pour l'analyse des variables liées à l'évaluation de Mais Médicos ont été élaborées des statistiques descriptives et inférentielles. Dans le début du programme, il y a une présence majoritaire de médecins en échange coopératif (cubains), la grande expérience des professionnels impliqués dans l'attention de base à la santé, la bonne qualité des services médicaux et leur forme plus humanisée, ce qui détermine l'évaluation positive du programme c'est principalement la relation entre le médecin et le patient. Nous concluons que le programme Mais Médicos a atteint l'objectif de prendre en charge les villes de forte vulnérabilité sociale, où ils n'y avait pas de médecins ou le nombre était faible, et que le programme pouvait potentiellement reconstruire le concept de attention à la santé primaires.</p><p>Mots-clés: Politique publique. Programa Mais Médicos. Attention basique. Communautés.</p>
Author's IntroductionOver the last 25 years, the environmental justice movement has emerged from its earliest focus on US social movements combating environmental racism to an influential global phenomenon. Environmental justice research has also undergone spectacular growth and diffusion in the last two decades. From its earliest roots in sociology, the field is now firmly entrenched in several different academic disciplines including geography, urban planning, public health, law, ethnic studies, and public policy. Environmental justice refers simultaneously to a vibrant and growing academic research field, a system of social movements aimed at addressing various environmental and social inequalities, and public policies crafted to ameliorate conditions of environmental and social injustice. Academia is responding to this social problem by offering courses under various rubrics, such as 'Race, Poverty and the Environment, Environmental Racism, Environmental Justice', 'Urban Planning, Public Health And Environmental Justice', and so on. Courses on environmental justice offer students opportunities to critically and reflexively explore issues of race and racism, social inequality, social movements, public/environmental health, public policy and law, and intersections of science and policy. Integrating modules on environmental justice can help professors engage students in action research, service learning, and more broadly, critical pedagogy.This article offers an overview of the current state of the field and offers a range of resources for teaching concepts of environmental racism, inequality and injustice in the classroom.Author recommendsPellow, D. and R. Brulle 2005. Power, Justice and the Environment : a Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.The primary focus of this edited collection is to offer a 'Critical Appraisal' of the environmental justice movement. The articles in this book are strong, focused on broad areas of: critical assessment, new strategies, and the challenge of globalization.Downey, L. and B. Hawkins 2008. 'Race, Income, and Environmental Inequality in the United States.'Sociological Perspectives51: 759–81.This article is an effective overview of the current sociological literature on environmental inequality using quantitative methods.L. Cole and S. Foster 2001. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Ris of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York: New York University PressThe primary focus of this book is an overview of the US Environmental Justice Movement. Unique in itself, the authors, an activist lawyer and law professor, offer a well‐written overview of the movement.Taylor, Dorceta E. 2000. 'The Rise of the Environmental Justice Paradigm: Injustice Framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses.'American Behavioral Scientist43: 508–80.A leading environmental justice scholar discusses the issue of injustice framing.Morello‐Frosch, R. A. 2002. 'Discrimination and the Political Economy of Environmental Inequality.'Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 20(2002): 477–96.In a critique that focuses on the political economy of place, geography, and ethnic studies, Morello‐Frosch integrates relevant social and legal theories with a spatialized economic critique to formulate a more supple theory of environmental discrimination that focuses on historical patterns of industrial development and racialized labor markets, suburbanization and segregation, and economic restructuring.Pastor, Manuel, Rachel Morello‐Frosch, James Sadd, Carlos Porras and Michele Prichard 2005. 'Citizens, Science, and Data Judo: Leveraging Secondary Data Analysis to Build a Community‐Academic Collaborative for Environmental Justice in Southern California,' in Methods For Conducting Community‐Based Participatory Research For Health, edited by Barbara A. Israel, Eugenia Eng, Amy J. Schulz and Edith A. Parker. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass.Exemplary reflexive analysis of the power of research as intervention in environmental justice struggles.Online materials
25 stories from the Central Valley: http://twentyfive.ucdavis.edu Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta: http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/ US EPA Environmental Justice: http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/ Environmental Justice of Field Studies: University of Michigan: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/environmentaljusticefieldstudies/home Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment: http://www.crpe‐ej.org/ National Black Environmental Justice Network: http://www.nbejn.org/ Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative: http://www.ejcc.org/ Environmental Justice Project: http://ej.ucdavis.edu/
Sample syllabus
Ethnic Studies 103: Environmental Racism
Fall 2008
Instructor: Traci Brynne Voyles
Contact Information: tvoyles@ucsd.edu
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday 11:00‐12:30, SSB 240 and by appointment
Purpose: This course is designed to explore issues germane to environmental racism and environmental injustice, particularly focusing on the theoretical and material implications of social constructions of identity (race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) and nature that lead to the degradation of racialized environments, bodies, and communities. In this course, we will explore case studies of environmental injustice, theories of body, space, nation, and colonialism; and think through possibilities for resistance, sovereignty, and environmental justice. The course materials are derived from ethnic studies, environmental justice studies, and feminist theory to provide multiple interdisciplinary perspectives on the state of race, inequality, and environment.
Logistics: You can reach me by email, in my office hours, or by appointment at any time during the quarter. I respond to students' emails by 10 am every weekday; I do not answer students' emails on weekends.
I do not accept late assignments or assignments submitted electronically.
This syllabus is subject to change; any changes will be announced well in advance in class or by email.
Please refer to the UCSD Principles of Community (http://www.ucsd.edu/principles) for guidelines on standards of conduct and respect in the classroom. I reserve the right to excuse anyone from my classroom at any time for violating these principles.
Required Texts
1. Luke Cole and Sheila Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement, NYU Press, 2000.
2. Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, South End Press, 2005.
3. Rachel Stein, Ed., New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality, and Activism, Rutgers University Press, 2004.
4. Al Gedicks, Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations, South End Press, 2001.
5. Ana Castillo, So Far from God, Tandem Library Books, 1994.
These texts are available on campus at Groundwork Books.
Assignments and Evaluation
30 points: Attendance and reading responses
20 points: Unit 1 Case Study Project and Paper
20 points: Unit 2 Paper
10 points: The View from UCSD Project
20 points: Unit 3 Paper
Unit 1 Project For this project, you will work both in a group (4 people MAX) and individually. Ten points will be earned by doing a group presentation of your assigned case, explaining to the class in 4–6 minutes the who, what, when, where, and how of your case. Your group will produce a 1 page, bullet‐pointed informative analysis of the case in a style that could or would be distributed publicly. NO POWERPOINTS OR MEDIA THAT DOES NOT FIT ONTO THE 1 PAGE—on the 1 page, however, you can use graphics to convey major points about the case.
The remaining 10 points will be earned by turning in a 500‐word paper that links this case to the course readings and lectures. A prompt for this paper will be distributed one week before it is due.
Unit 2 Paper (1000–1250 words) The prompt for this paper will be distributed one week before it is due. The prompt will require you to critically analyze course readings, lectures, and discussions from Unit 2.
The View from UCSD For this project, you will present a creative project of your choosing that explores themes of environmental racism and injustice from your viewpoint – that is, of a UCSD student. What is the relationship of UCSD as an academic institution to environmental injustice? How can (or how have) UCSD students contest and resist the perpetuation or funding of environmental injustices by their academic institutions? This project can be poetry, visual art, activist literature (i.e. brochures, web sites, pamphlets, etc.), political cartoons, activist alert bulletins, journalistic articles or photographic essays, etc.
Unit 3 Paper (1000‐1250 words) The prompt for this paper will be distributed one week before it is due. The prompt will require you to think cumulatively about the course and apply materials and key themes from Units 1 and 2 to the readings, lectures, and discussions from Unit 3.
Unit 1: What's the Problem Here? Case Studies in Environmental Racism and Environmental Injustice In this unit, we will explore cases of environmental injustice through four major frameworks that will be used throughout the course:
1. The social construction of identity and power (of race/racism, gender/patriarchy, sexuality/heteronormativity, etc.);
2. The intersectionality of identity and power;
3. The relationality of privilege and inequality; and
4. The transnational or global nature of modern political–economic structures
9/26 Fri: 1st DAY – Introductions
No reading due
Week 1 ER Frameworks: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Nation
9/29 Mon:
Cole and Foster, pp. 1–33
10/1 Wed:
Cole and Foster, pp. 34–53
10/3 Fri:
Cole and Foster, pp. 54–79
Week 2 Relationality and Globalization
10/6 Mon:
Cole and Foster, pp. 80–102
10/8 Wed:
Cole and Foster, pp. 103–133
10/10 Fri:
Cole and Foster, pp. 134–166
Week 3
10/13 Mon: Environmental Racism Case Studies
Due: Unit 1 case study project and paper
Unit 2: A User's Guide to Environmental Justice Studies: Analytic Frameworks and Theoretical Possibilities This unit moves us from the material effects of environmental racism and injustice to the analytic frameworks and theoretical possibilities of environmental justice studies. In this unit, we will read, discuss, and develop theories about how racialization and naturalization work together, what role the environment plays in colonial encounters, and how to re‐imagine what we mean by 'nature', 'race', and 'body'.
10/15 Wed:
Stein, pp. xiii‐20
10/17 Fri: ss
Stein, pp. 21–62
Week 4 Ecocriticism
10/20 Mon:
Stein, pp. 63–77
10/22 Wed:
Stein, pp. 78–108
10/24 Fri:
Stein, pp. 109–138
Week 5 Colonialism
10/27 Mon:
Stein, pp. 225–248
10/29 Wed:
Smith, pp. ix‐34
10/31 Fri:
Smith, pp. 55–78
Week 6 Indigeneity and Sovereignty
11/3 Mon:
Smith, pp. 137–176
11/5 Wed:
Smith, pp. 177–192
11/7 Fri:
Due: Unit 2 paper
UNIT 3: Decolonize This! Modes of Resistance to Environmental Injustice This unit is dedicated to the all‐important question of where to go from here? Now that we understand the material and theoretical ins and outs of environmental racism and injustice, how can and how is it being contested, resisted, and undone?
Week 7 Social Movements
11/10 Mon:
Geddicks, pp. vi‐14
11/12 Wed:
Geddicks, pp. 15–40
11/14 Fri:
Geddicks, pp. 127–158
Week 8 The Politics and Poetics of EJ Resistance
11/17 Mon:
Geddicks, pp. 159–180
11/19 Wed:
Geddicks, pp. 181–202
11/21 Fri:
Castillo, pp. TBA
Week 9 Poetics
11/24 Mon:
Castillo, pp. TBA
11/26 Wed: NO CLASS
11/28 Fri: NO CLASS
Week 10 Conclusions and EJ Futures
12/1 Mon:
Castillo, pp. TBA
12/3 Wed:
Castillo, pp. TBA
12/5 Fri: LAST DAY—Conclusions
Due: View from UCSD Project
Unit 3 Paper due on or before Tuesday, December 9, at 11am, in my office (SSB 240)
Guidelines for written assignments:
*Please note: more specific requirements for content, quality, and style will be included with each prompt.
The three papers required for this course must be:
–Typed
–Stapled
–Submitted on time
Please include a header with:
–Your name
–The name of the assignment (e.g. 'Unit 2 Paper')
–A word count
Please do not include:
–A title
–The assignment prompt
Majoring or Minoring in Ethnic Studies at UCSD
Many students take an Ethnic Studies course because the topic is of great interest or because of a need to fulfill a social science, non‐contiguous, or other college requirement. Often students have taken three or four classes out of 'interest' yet have no information about the major or minor and don't realize how close they are to a major, a minor, or even a double major. An Ethnic Studies major is excellent preparation for a career in law, public policy, government and politics, journalism, education, public health, social work, international relations, and many other careers. If you would like information about the Ethnic Studies major or minor at UCSD, please contact Yolanda Escamilla, Ethnic Studies Department Undergraduate Advisor, at 858‐534‐3277 or yescamilla@ucsd.edu.
OptionalFocus questions
What are the roots of environmental inequality? What are the major policy debates within the field of environmental justice? How has environmental justice academic writing and environmental justice activism changed since the 1980s? What accounts for these changes? What are the relationships between academic research, environmental justice, and the politics of knowledge production, more broadly? How are these relationships complicated by factors such as race, class, and gender? What challenges do researchers interested in environmental justice face and why? What are the challenges faced by environmental justice activists that can be informed by EJ research?
Seminar/project idea25 Stories Project: Teaching Tools available in the Summer 2009 http://www.twentyfive.ucdavis.edu Use these teaching tools to introduce the environmental justice movement in classroom settings. Tools may be used individually or in combination with one another.Below, you will see that we have organized the tools by the intended purpose of the activity. In considering which to use, it may be helpful to look over the 'Why Do It' section of the directions for the tool you are looking at for an indication of how this activity might fit within your course material.
Purpose Teaching tool
Getting to know the group's experience of the environment Share squares Environmental experience in pictures Circles of my self
Defining environmental justice Where is the environment and what do people do there? Environmental justice defined
Researching your place in the environment Mapping your community My town, your town Data detective
Learning from the life‐stories of others Environmental justice stories Circles of my self
Combining tools for lesson planningEach teaching tool fits into one (or more) of the categories above. Combine tools from different categories to create lesson plans for your class or workshop.For example, in a 50‐min class session you could combine the following tools:
Help the group get to know each other with 'Share squares'. Explore various understandings of the environment with 'Where is the environment and what do people do there?' and then Analyze women's real‐life experiences with stories and questions relevant to your class with 'Environmental Justice Stories'.
1. IntroductionOver the last decade, increased attention has been paid to terrorism, particularly to the new wave of terrorist groups, fundamentalist movements, and extremist organisations such as Al‐Qaeda. September 11 marked the beginning of a turbulent phase in which states face a new kind of threat made up of a complex network of insidious revolutionary and nationalist forces. Such transformations have given rise to an unprecedented number of publications. However, both political violence and terrorism remain sources of endless disputes and controversies because of their political implications. At the same time, in the scientific community, terrorism studies lack conceptual and methodological uniformity. In his article, Domenico Tosini synthesises and discusses some major findings from this research. Courses using such a review will be confronted with the four major topics that any analysis of terrorism, to be comprehensive, should take into account: the definition of terrorism; its history and classification; its explanations; and an assessment of the consequences of counterterrorism policies.2. Literature recommendations Bjørgo, Tore (ed.) 2005. Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Realities and Ways Forward. London, UK: Routledge.In this book, based on the analysis of numerous case studies (e.g. Palestinian armed groups, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, right‐wing extremists, state terrorism and state‐sponsored terrorism), experts in political violence examine the preconditions for the emergence of different types of terrorist organisations and the main factors that sustain terrorist campaigns. Cole, David 2003. Enemy Aliens: Double Standard and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism. New York, NY: The New Press.Thanks to its analysis and evaluation of the consequences of counter‐terrorism measures, David Cole's Enemy Aliens is one of the most rigorous discussions of how states (like the United States since 2001) often combat terrorism by adopting emergency powers (such as the special detention at Guantanamo Bay), which, in turn, risk undermining civil liberties. della Porta, Donatella 1995. Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Based on empirical research that compares the origins and development of left‐wing terrorism in Italy and Germany between the 1960s and the 1990s, della Porta offers a middle‐range theory of political violence that combines an analysis of the political opportunities and ideological frames exploited by armed groups, a profile of their organisational structures, and an investigation of the typical patterns underlying their recruitment processes. Gambetta, Diego (ed.) 2006. Making Sense of Suicide Missions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.In this book, a number of distinguished social scientists, while examining the use of suicide missions by political and religious groups (such as the Japanese Kamikaze, the Tamil Tigers, Palestinian organisations, and Al‐Qaeda), specify and discuss the most important methodological questions associated with definitions, data collection, and explanations concerning this form of political struggle. Hoffman, Bruce 2006. Inside Terrorism. New York, NY: Colombia University Press.The book introduces the most important issues of terrorism studies: the controversial problem of the definition of terrorism; a history of terrorism, from anti‐colonial struggles to international terrorism; an examination and explanation of the most recent waves of religious extremists and suicide terrorism; an analysis of the ways terrorist groups exploit old and new media such as the Internet; and, finally, an overview of the strategies, tactics, and organisational aspects of modern and contemporary terrorism. Horgan, John 2005. The Psychology of Terrorism. London, UK: Routledge.Horgan presents a critical analysis of our understanding of terrorist psychology; many shortcomings emerge, particularly the limitations of personality theories in attempting to explain militancy. Based on interviews with terrorists, the book considers the most relevant psychological and social factors underlying involvement and engagement in political violence, and the process of leaving terrorist organisations. Kalyvas, Stathis 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Scholars generally distinguish between terrorism and other forms of violence against civilians – tactics of guerrilla warfare or insurgency in civil wars, for example. However, this work makes a relevant contribution to terrorism studies. Kalyvas clarifies the rationality and micro‐processes of interactions during armed conflicts that account for indiscriminate and selective uses of violence against civilian populations by political actors. Kushner, Harvey W. 2003. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. London, UK: Sage.One of the most accurate and exhaustive dictionaries focusing on terrorism, with more than 300 entries concerning terrorist groups, key events, people, terms, and statistics, as well as biographical, historical, and geographical information. Free access is available at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) (http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/eBooks.asp). Laqueur, Walter 2002. A History of Terrorism. London, UK: Transaction Publishers.Along with Laqueur's Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study (London: Transaction Publishers, 1998), this constitutes a pioneering history of armed organisations, from nineteenth century Europe, to the anarchists of the 1880s and 1890s, to the left‐wing clashes during the 20th century, and up to the most recent terrorist groups. Pape, Robert A. 2005. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York, NY: Random House.Over the last decade, suicide terrorism has become an alarming political threat and a crucial challenge for social scientists. In his work, which compares a number of organisations responsible for suicide attacks, Pape rejects the explanation of suicide terrorism based on religious fundamentalism. He argues for a correlation between the use of this tactic and specific kinds of groups engaged in separatist campaigns or in struggles for liberation from foreign occupiers. Ranstorp, Magnus (ed.) 2007. Mapping Terrorism Research: State of the Art, Gaps and Future Directions. London, UK: Routledge.In this book, distinguished scholars of terrorism studies discuss state‐of‐the‐art field research. In exploring new trends in this area – the most important questions about the explanation of recent terrorist organisations such as Al‐Qaeda, and about counterterrorism – these essays shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of our current knowledge of political violence. Reich, Walter (ed.) 1998. Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.This is another seminal work on terrorism, bringing together some of the most well known experts in political violence. The variety of approaches used in the explanations of terrorist organisations and in the analysis of counterterrorism paves the way for a real interdisciplinary setting, which is absolutely crucial once the multi‐faceted nature of terrorism is clear. Sageman, Marc 2004. Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Based on the analysis of biographical data for nearly 200 members of global Islamist extremism (of which Al‐Qaeda is a part), Sageman accounts for the origins and developments of this movement and specifies the crucial role played by social networks in the recruitment of individuals as Islamist militants. Wilkinson, Paul 2006. Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London, UK: Routledge.Wilkinson examines major trends in international terrorism and liberal democratic responses. On the one hand, the book introduces the specificity of terrorism and offers a classification and explanation of the most important types of armed groups. On the other, in approaching how states deal with terrorist threats, this work discusses forms of counterterrorism, by taking into account their impact on the rule of law and on the protection of civil liberties.3. Online materials Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (AISI) (Agency for Internal Information and Security)(http://www.aisi.gov.it)The Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (AISI) is the branch of Italian Intelligence tasked with collecting and analysing information about any criminal and terrorist threat to security. Among other activities, the AISI distributes its own periodical, Gnosis, online, where a chronology of international as well as domestic terrorist attacks since 2004 (currently updated through 2007) is available. Counterterrorism Blog (http://counterterrorismblog.org)The Counterterrorism Blog is a multi‐expert blog devoted to providing a one‐stop gateway to the counterterrorism community. It offers, among other things, overnight and breaking news, with real time commentary by experts; reports on terrorist organisations; discussions of long‐term trends in counterterrorism; and summaries of and discussions about US and international law. Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) (http://ccrjustice.org)Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights organisations, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non‐profit legal and educational organisation dedicated to protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also offers information about important issues related to counterterrorism (e.g., the prolonged battle in defence of civil liberties associated with the special detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba). Global Terrorism Database (GTD)(http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd)The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open‐source database on terrorist incidents around the world since 1970 (currently updated through 2004). It includes systematic data on international as well as domestic terrorist attacks. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the attack, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and (when possible) the identity of the perpetrator. Another important database, the Terrorism Knowledge Base (TKB) at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) (http://www.mipt.org/TKB.asp), has recently ceased operations and elements of the system have been merged with the GTD. Information on terrorist groups is now available at the Terrorist Organization Profiles (http://www.start.umd.edu/data/tops). Human Security Report Project
(HSRP) (http://www.hsrgroup.org)The HSRP conducts research on global and regional trends in political violence, exploring their causes and consequences, and then making this research accessible to the policy and research communities, the media, educators, and the interested public. The HSRP's publications include the Human Security Report, the Human Security Brief series, and the Human Security Gateway. The recent Human Security Brief 2007, online, makes a relevant contribution in discussing the methodological issues associated with collecting data on terrorism and offers a comprehensive overview of terrorist incidents in the last decade. Middle East Media Research Institute
(MEMRI) (http://www.memri.org)The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media with respect to a variety of topics including terrorism. MEMRI provides translations of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish media, as well as analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious tendencies in the Middle East. A new section, the MEMRI's Islamist Websites Monitor Project, was launched in 2006 as part of the Jihad & Terrorism Studies project. Its aim is to keep Western audiences informed about the phenomenon of jihadist sites on the Internet, which are used by terrorist groups and their sympathisers to spread their extremist messages, to raise funds, and to recruit activists. Uppsala Conflict Data Project
(UCDP) (http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/UCDP)The Uppsala Conflict Data Project (UCDP) collects data on armed conflicts around the world. A global conflict database is now available online. Data are useful for systematic studies of conflict origins, dynamics, and resolution. Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS)(http://wits.nctc.gov)The Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) is the National Counterterrorism Center's (NCTC) database of terrorist incidents. NCTC serves as the primary organisation in the United States government for integrating and analysing all intelligence pertaining to terrorism and, at the same time, as the central and shared knowledge bank on terrorism information. Based on WITS, the NCTC provides an annual report and statistical information about terrorist incidents. Additional Online Resources Scores of additional organisations and centres (too many to list) conduct and disseminate research on issues related to armed conflicts, terrorism, terrorist groups, security, and counterterrorism. What follows is a list of some other key organisations and centres, with links to their websites:Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)(http://www.aspi.org.au)Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies (CATS)(http://www.fhs.se/en/Research/Centers‐and‐Research‐Programmes/CATS)Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)(http://www.csis.org)Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV)(http://www.st‐andrews.ac.uk/~wwwir/research/cstpv)IntelCenter(http://intelcenter.com)International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)(http://www.pvtr.org)International Crisis Group (ICG)(http://www.crisisgroup.org)International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)(http://www.iiss.org)International Policy Institute for Counter‐Terrorism (ICT)(http://www.ict.org.il)Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT)(http://www.mipt.org)Saban Center at the Brookings Institution(http://www.brookings.edu/saban.aspx)Senlis Council(http://www.senliscouncil.net)Southern Poverty Law Center(http://www.splcenter.org)Terrorism and Homeland Security at RAND Corporation(http://www.rand.org/research_areas/terrorism)Terrorism Research Center (TRC)(http://www.terrorism.org)Transnational Radical Islamism Project at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment(http://www.mil.no/felles/ffi/english/start/research/Analysis_Division/_TERRA)United States Institute of Peace(http://www.usip.org/index.html)4. Sample syllabus Course Title: A Sociological Analysis of Terrorism and Counterterrorism Course Description In this course, we will explore the most relevant issues around terrorism and counterterrorism policies. Although we will largely approach this topic from a sociological perspective, this study is quite interdisciplinary. Consequently, we will be reading works from other academic disciplines, including history, psychology, political science, and economics. There are four major areas that any analysis of terrorism, to be comprehensive, should take into account: the definition of terrorism; its history and classification; its explanations; and an assessment of consequences related to counterterrorism. After an introduction to terrorism research (part 1), we will discuss the controversies related to the definition of terrorism (part 2) and to data collection (part 3), both necessary for an understanding of tendencies concerning terrorist incidents. A historical overview (part 4) will give us some preliminary information about the variety of terrorist campaigns – information that prepares us for the next exercise (part 5): grouping terrorist organisations by different types. Looking in more depth at the evolution of terrorism in the last decade, we will examine the case of Al‐Qaeda (part 6), and how this and other organisations exploit old and new media, especially the Internet (part 7). The next chapter will be the explanation of terrorism, that is, the specification of the main psychological, political, cultural, and religious factors underlying the emergence of a terrorist organisation and the unfolding of a terrorist campaign. Suicide terrorism will be used as a case study. More specifically, we will approach terrorism by examining the motivations and rationality of terrorist organisations (part 8), of the communities that support them (part 9), and of those who join them (part 10). We end the course by focusing on both the legal (part 11) and strategic (part 12) implications of counterterrorism measures adopted since 2001. Course outline and reading assignments Part 1. Terrorism Research An overview of the most important approaches to the study of terrorism and of the strengths and weaknesses of available analyses. Bjørgo, Tore 2005. 'Introduction' (pp. 1–15) and 'Conclusions' (pp. 256–264) in Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Realities and Ways Forward, edited by Tore Bjørgo. London, UK: Routledge. Crenshaw, Martha 2000. 'The Psychology of Terrorism: An Agenda for the 21st Century.'Political Psychology 21 (2): 405–420 (Doi: 10.1111/0162-895X.00195). Ranstorp, Magnus 2007. 'Introduction: Mapping Terrorism Research – Challenges and Priorities.' Pp. 1–28 in Mapping Terrorism Research, edited by Magnus Ranstorp. London, UK: Routledge. Silke, Andrew 2004. 'An Introduction to Terrorism Research.' Pp. 1–29 in Research on Terrorism: Trends, Achievements and Failures, edited by Andrew Silke. London, UK: Frank Cass. Sinai, Joshua 2007. 'New Trends in Terrorism Studies: Strengths and Weaknesses.' Pp. 31–50 in Mapping Terrorism Research, edited by Magnus Ranstorp. London, UK: Routledge. Turk, Austin T. 2004. 'Sociology of Terrorism.'Annual Review of Sociology 30: 271–286 (Doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110510). Wilkinson, Paul 2007. 'Research into Terrorism Studies: Achievements and Failures.' Pp. 316–328 in Mapping Terrorism Research, edited by Magnus Ranstorp. London, UK: Routledge. Part 2. What is Terrorism? A discussion of one of the most controversial issues, the definition of terrorism, focusing on its political and methodological implications. Aly, Waleed 2008. 'The Axiom of Evil.'The Guardian, 8 July, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/08/nelsonmandela.terrorism (last accessed: 8 July 2008). Hoffman, Bruce 2006. Chapter 1 (pp. 1–42). Inside Terrorism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. della Porta, Donatella 2004. 'Terror Against the State.' Pp. 208–16 in The Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, edited by Kate Nash and Alan Scott. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. Schmid, Alexander P. 2004. 'Frameworks for Conceptualising Terrorism.'Terrorism and Political Violence 16 (2): 197–221 (Doi: 10.1080/09546550490483134). Tilly, Charles 2004. 'Terror, Terrorism, Terrorist.'Sociological Theory 22 (1): 5–16 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00200.x). Tosini, Domenico 2007. 'Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat', Sociology Compass 1 (2), 664–681 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00035.x). Wilkinson, Paul 2006. Chapter 1 (pp. 1–19). Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London, UK: Routledge. Part 3. Collecting Data on Terrorism Incidents An introduction to the challenges and solutions to the collection of terrorism data, a preliminary and crucial aspect of any scientific analysis. Buchalter, Alice R. and Glenn E. Curtis 2003. Inventory and Assessment of Databases Relevant for Social Science Research on Terrorism. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division Library of Congress, http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/frd (last accessed 10 June 2008). Enders, Walter and Todd Sandler 2006. Chapter 3 (pp. 52–83). The Political Economy of Terrorism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lafree, Gary 2007. 'Introducing the Global Terrorism Database.'Terrorism and Political Violence 19 (2): 181–204 (Doi: 10.1080/09546550701246817). HSP 2008. Human Security Brief 2007. Dying to Lose: Explaining the Decline in Global Terrorism. Simon Fraser University, Canada: Human Security Report Project, http://www.humansecuritybrief.info/HSRP_Brief_2007.pdf (last accessed 15 June 2008). Part 4. Waves of Terror: The Evolution of Terrorism A look at terrorism from a historical perspective in an attempt to identify continuities and discontinuities in the use of political violence. Abrahms, Max 2006. 'Why Terrorism Does Not Work.'International Security 31 (2): 42–78 (Doi: 10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.42). Duyvesteyn, Isabelle 2004. 'How New Is the New Terrorism?'Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 27 (5): 439–454 (Doi: 10.1080/10576100490483750). Hoffman, Bruce 2006. Chapters 2–4 (pp. 43–130). Inside Terrorism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Jenkins, Brian 1975. International Terrorism: A New Mode of Conflict. Research Paper n. 48, California Seminar on Arms Control and Foreign Policy. Kaplan, Jeffrey 2007. 'The Fifth Wave: The New Tribalism?'Terrorism and Political Violence 19 (4): 545–570 (Doi: 10.1080/09546550701606564). Laqueur, Walter 2002. Chapters 1–2 (pp. 3–78). A History of Terrorism. London, UK: Transaction Publishers. Münkler, Herfried 2005. Chapter 5 (pp. 99–116). The New Wars. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Rapoport, David C. 2004. 'Modern Terror: The Four Waves.' Pp. 46–73 in Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Great Strategy, edited by Audrey Cronin and J. Ludes. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Reed, Donald J. 2008. 'Beyond the War on Terror: Into the Fifth Generation of War and Conflict.'Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31 (8): 684–722 (Doi: 10.1080/10576100802206533). Part 5. Typologies of Terrorist Movements An overview of the complex task of classifying terrorist organisations on the basis of characteristics such as political objectives, ideological frames, and the cleavages between them and their enemies. Goodwin, Jeff 2006. 'A Theory of the Categorical Terrorism.'Social Forces 84 (4): 2027–2046. Gunaratna, Rohan and Graeme C. S. Steven 2004. Chapter 1 (pp. 1–98). Counterterrorism. Santa Barbara, CA: Abc Clio. Schmid, Alexander P. and Albert J. Jongman 1988. Chapter 2 (in collaboration with M. Stohl and P. A. Fleming, pp. 39–60). Political Terrorism. London, UK: Transaction Publishers. Tosini, Domenico 2007. 'Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat.'Sociology Compass 1 (2), 664–681 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00035.x). Wilkinson, Paul 2006. Chapter 2 (pp. 20–38). Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London, UK: Routledge. Part 6. Al‐Qaeda and its Affiliates: Ideologies, Strategies, Structures A sociological look at the ideological, strategic, and organisational aspects of Al‐Qaeda's terrorism from the 1980s to its most recent campaign in Iraq. Al‐Zayyat, Montasser 2004. The Road to Al‐Qaeda. London, UK: Pluto Press. Gunaratna, Rohan 2002. Chapters 1–2 (pp. 21–126). Inside Al‐Qaeda. New York, NY: Berkley Books. Pape, Robert A. 2005. Chapter 7 (pp. 102–125). Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York, NY: Random House. Sageman, Marc 2004. Chapters 1‐2 (pp. 1‐60). Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hafez, Mohammed M. 2007. Chapters 1–5 (pp. 35–162). Suicide Bombers in Iraq. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Part 7. Terrorism and the Media An exploration of the ways that terrorist organisations exploit old and new media, especially the Internet, as communicative channels (for staging their attacks, threats, demands, and propaganda) and as instrumental tools (for fund raising, coordination, and recruitment). Hoffman, Bruce 2006. Chapters 6–7 (pp. 173–228). Inside Terrorism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ICG 2006. In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency. International Crisis Group: Middle East Report No 50, 15 February, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3953&l=1 (last accessed 5 February 2008). Rogan, Hanna 2006. Jihadism Online: A Study of How Al‐Qaeda and Radical Islamist Groups Use Internet for Terrorist Purposes. Norwegian Defence Research Establishment: FFI/RAPPORT‐2006/00915, http://rapporter.ffi.no/rapporter/2006/00915.pdf (last accessed 5 June 2008). Sageman, Marc 2008. Chapter 6 (pp. 109–123). Leaderless Jihad. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Weimann, Gabriel 2006. Chapters 3–4 (pp. 49–145). Terror on the Internet. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Part 8. Terrorist Organisations and Their Logic An examination of the political objectives and ideologies of terrorist organisations and an overview of the rationality and strategies underlying their decision‐making in relation to the political opportunities and military events shaping their environment. Boyns, David and James David Ballard 2004. 'Developing a Sociological Theory for the Empirical Understanding of Terrorism.'American Sociologist 35 (2): 5–26 (Doi: 10.1007/BF02692394). Crenshaw, Martha 1998. 'The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behaviour as a Product of Strategic Choice.' Pp. 7–24 in Origins of Terrorism, edited by Walter Reich. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Gambetta, Diego 2006. 'Can We Make Sense of Suicide Missions?' Pp. 259–299 in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Hafez, Mohammed and Quintan Wiktorowicz 2004. 'Violence as Contention in the Egyptian Islamic Movement.' Pp. 61–88 in Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, edited Quintan Wiktorowicz. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Kalyvas, Stathis 2006. Chapters 6–7 (pp. 147–208). The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kramer, Martin 1998. 'The Moral Logic of Hezbollah.' Pp. 131–157 in Origins of Terrorism, edited by Walter Reich. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Pape, Robert A. 2005. Chapters 3–5 (pp. 27–60). Dying to Win. New York, NY: Random House. Tosini, Domenico 2009. 'A Sociological Understanding of Suicide Attacks.'Theory, Culture & Society (Forthcoming). Part 9. Mechanisms of Social Support A discussion of the economic, cultural, and political conditions which make possible the support for, and collaboration with, terrorist organisations by members of certain communities. Cook, David and Olivia Allison 2007. Chapters 1–5 (pp. 1–85). Understanding and Addressing Suicide Attacks: The Faith and Politics of Martyrdom Operations. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. Chernick, Marc 2007. 'FARC‐EP: From Liberal Guerrillas to Marxist Rebels to Post‐Cold War Insurgency.' Pp. 51–120 in Terror, Insurgency, and the State, edited by Marianne Heiberg et al. Philadelphia, PA: University Pennsylvania Press. Hashim, Ahmed S. 2006. Chapter 2 (pp. 59–124). Insurgency and Counter‐Insurgency in Iraq. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kalyvas, Stathis 2006. Chapter 4 (pp. 87–110). The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Merari, Ariel 2005. 'Social, Organizational and Psychological Factors in Suicide Terrorism.' Pp. 70–86 in Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Realities and Ways Forward, edited by Tore Bjørgo. London, UK: Routledge. Pape, Robert A. 2005. Chapters 6–8 (pp. 79–167). Dying to Win. New York, NY: Random House. Part 10. Social Networks and Recruitment An analysis of the motivations behind the process of joining terrorist organisations and of the role played by group dynamics and social networks. della Porta, Donatella 1995. Chapter 7 (pp. 165–186). Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sageman, Marc 2004. Chapters 4–5 (pp. 99–173). Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia, PA: University Pennsylvania Press. Horgan, John 2005. Chapter 3 (pp. 47–79). The Psychology of Terrorism. London, UK: Routledge. Khosrokhavar, Fahad 2005. Chapter 3 (pp. 149–224). Suicide Bombers. London, UK: Pluto Press. Pedahzur, Ami 2005. Chapters 6–7 (pp. 118–181). Suicide Terrorism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Stern, Jessica 2003. Chapter 9 (pp. 237–280). Terror in the Name of God. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publisher. Wintrobe, Ronald 2006. Chapters 5–6 (pp. 108–157). Rational Extremism: The Political Economy of Radicalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Part 11. Counterterrorism I: Legal Implications An overview of the emergency powers of antiterrorism legislations and 'special measures', and an analysis of their legal impact on the protection of human rights. Cole, David 2003. Chapters 1–5 (pp. 17–82). Enemy Aliens. New York, NY: The Free Press. Haubrich, Dirk 2003. 'September 11, Anti‐Terror Laws and Civil Liberties: Britain, France and Germany Compared.'Government and Opposition 38 (1): 3–29 (Doi: 10.1111/1477-7053.00002). Parker, Tom 2005. 'Counterterrorism Policies in the United Kingdom.' Pp. 119–148 in Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror, edited by Philip B. Heymann and Juliette N. Kayyem. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Tosini, Domenico 2007. 'Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat', Sociology Compass 1 (2): 664–681 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00035.x). Part 12. Counterterrorism II: Strategic Limitations An examination of the most important counterterrorism policies adopted since 2001, with special reference to the occupation of Iraq, and an assessment of their advantages and risks for combating and preventing terrorism. Nesser, Peter 2006. 'Jihadism in Western Europe After the Invasion of Iraq: Tracing Motivational Influences from the Iraq War on Jihadist Terrorism in Western Europe.'Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29 (4): 323–342 (Doi: 10.1080/10576100600641899). Pape, Robert A. 2005. Chapter 12 (pp. 237–250). Dying to Win. New York, NY: Random House. Silke, Andrew 2005. 'Fire of Iolaus: The Role of State Countermeasures in Causing Terrorism and What Needs to Be Done.' Pp. 241–255 in Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Realities and Ways Forward, edited by Tore Bjørgo. London, UK: Routledge. Smelser, Neil J. 2007. Chapter 6 (pp. 160–199). The Faces of Terrorism: Social and Psychological Dimensions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tosini, Domenico 2007. 'Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat', Sociology Compass 1 (2): 664–681 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00035.x). Wilkinson, Paul 2006. Chapters 5–6 (pp. 61–102). Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London, UK: Routledge.5. Films and videos Al‐Qaeda Film on the First Anniversary of the London Bombings. 2006 (17 min)(http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/215/1186.htm)Excerpts from a message from 2005 London bomber Shehzad Tanweer and statements by Al‐Qaeda leaders Ayman Al‐Zawahiri and Adam Gadahn, posted on http://www.tajdeed.net.tc on 8 July 2006. A typical example of the communicative use of the Internet by Islamists in their attempt to frame terrorist attacks as legitimate acts of martyrdom, committed by courageous Muslims in defence of their brothers and sisters in occupied Muslim lands (e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine). Al‐Qaeda Leader in Iraq Abu Musab Al‐Zarqawi's First Televised Interview. 2006 (17 min)(http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/344/1118.htm)A video posted by the Islamist web forum http://www.alsaha.com on 25 April 2006, in which the Al‐Qaeda commander in Iraq Abu Musab Al‐Zarqawi (killed by an airstrike on 7 June 2006) outlines all the typical condemnations (by Islamist extremists) of the Iraq occupation by the US‐led coalition, and calls for a jihad against its forces and allies. Propagandising the military capabilities of Al‐Qaeda, the video culminates in footage of Al‐Zarqawi with masked fighters, firing an automatic weapon, and 'new missiles' developed by 'the brothers'. Al‐Arabiya TV Special on the Culture of Martyrdom and Suicide Bombers. 2005 (7 min)(http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/215/807.htm)Excerpts from a show about the culture of martyrdom, aired on Al‐Arabiya TV on 22 July 2005. The documentary investigates some of the most relevant religious and political justifications and symbolic representations among Islamist extremists in favour of suicide attacks. In particular, it looks at the Palestinian organisations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and at the Lebanese Hezbollah. The film includes an interview with Maha Ghandour, the wife of Salah Ghandour, who was responsible for a suicide attack carried out in 1995 on behalf of Hezbollah against an Israeli military convoy. Battle For Haditha. 2007 (93 min)(http://www.nickbroomfield.com/haditha.html)In this film, the director Nick Broomfield looks at the dramatic events surrounding an incident that occurred in Haditha, Iraq, when 24 Iraqis were allegedly massacred by US Marines, following the death of a Marine in a bombing perpetrated by Iraqi insurgents. The harsh reality of the war is viewed from three perspectives: that of the US troops, the insurgents who committed the attacks, and a civilian Iraqi family. Iranian Animated Film for Children Promotes Suicide Bombings. 2005 (10 min)(http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/215/906.htm)Including excerpts from an Iranian animated movie for children, aired on IRIB 3 TV on 28 October 2005, this film is an example of the mechanisms of de‐humanization of the enemy (the Israelis), based on a tale of the ferocious murder of innocent people by Israeli soldiers. This incident is followed by a bomb attack framed as an act of martyrdom by young militants in revenge of the previous assassination. Paradise Now. 2005 (91 min)In his film, the director Hany Abu‐Assad focuses on the final days of two Palestinian militants as they prepare to carry out a suicide attack in Tel Aviv. Once childhood friends Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) are offered such an attack, they feel a sense of purpose in serving their people's cause, whereas a young Palestinian woman, after learning of their plan, tries to dissuade them from carrying out their missions. Paradise Now has been viewed as a controversial attempt to examine the motivations of suicide bombers. The Reach of War: Sectarian War in Iraq. 2006 (7 min)(http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/12/28/world/20061228_SECTARIAN_FEATURE.html)The New York Times journalist Marc Santora reports on some of the most violent and bloody effects of the sectarian violence perpetrated in Iraq during the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, which has followed the occupation by the US‐led coalition. The Road to Guantanamo. 2006 (92 min)(http://www.roadtoguantanamomovie.com)Directed by Michael Winterbottom, the film tells the story of four friends beginning a holiday in Pakistan. Through a series of interviews and news footage, the film shows how they end up in Afghanistan, where are then captured by American forces and kept in harsh conditions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for over 2 years. The Role of Foreign Fighters in the Iraqi Jihad. 2006 (9 min)(http://www1.nefafoundation.org/multimedia‐original.html)In this video, NEFA Foundation expert Evan Kohlmann documents the phenomenon of foreign fighters in Iraq and their role within the Sunni insurgency. The video includes footage of senior figures from Abu Musab al‐Zarqawi's terrorist group (including Lebanese, Saudi, and Kuwaiti nationals) and scenes from Al‐Qaida training camps in Iraq. The Suicide Bomber. 2005 (12 min)(http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july‐dec05/bombers_11‐14.html)In this debate aired on PBS on 14 November 2005, three experts (Mia Bloom, Mohammed M. Hafez, and Robert A. Pape) discuss what motivates suicide bombers and their terrorist organisations, with special reference to the 2005 hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, where a female militant joining these attacks was found alive after her bomb failed to detonate. The Terrorist Propaganda (three videos): Indexing Al‐Qaeda Online. 2005 (6 min)(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1) Without the Video, It's Just an Attack. 2007 (5 min)(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/video/2007/09/28/VI2007092800608.html) Al‐Qaeda's Growing Online Offensive. 2008 (14 min)(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/article/2008/06/23/AR2008062302135.html)Over the last decade, terrorist propaganda on the Internet has increased dramatically. In these videos, experts discuss how insurgent groups, in particular Islamist extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan, are using new media to spread their messages worldwide, to chronicle their operations (including the assembly and emplacement of roadside bombs targeting US forces), to recruit, and to raise money.6. Focus questions
What challenges do researchers interested in terrorism studies face and why? What are the most important theoretical and methodological weaknesses in current terrorism research? How can we define terrorism? What political controversies affect the definition of terrorism? When comparing different terrorism data sets, what kinds of diagnoses can we make on the tendencies of terrorist incidents in the last decade? How has terrorism changed in history? Based on the literature concerning Al‐Qaeda's ideology, strategies, and structures, what continuities and discontinuities can we identify with respect to previous forms of terrorism? When dealing with the explanation of terrorism, what are the most significant factors to be taken into account? How can we learn from the current literature on suicide terrorism in order to build a comprehensive model for its explanation? Given the legislative and military responses to September 11 and subsequent attacks (e.g. the 2005 London bombings), what have been the legal consequences affecting our societies and the strategic implications for combating and preventing terrorist violence?
7. SeminarsParticipants will be divided into small groups of about three persons. Each group will be asked to make a contribution to a sociological analysis (either written or presented) of a specific armed organisation, such as:Al‐Gama'a Al‐IslamiyyaAl‐QaedaAl‐Qaeda in IraqAl‐Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (formerly Salafist Group for Call and Combat)Ansar Al‐SunnahAnsar Al‐IslamArmed Islamic Groups (GIA)Army of GodAum ShinrikyoChechen separatistsEgyptian Islamic JihadEuskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA)HamasHezbollahIrgun Zvai LeumiIrish Republican Army (IRA)Islamic Movement of UzbekistanJemaah IslamiyahKashmiri separatistsKu Klux Klan (KKK)Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)Lashkar‐e‐JhangviLibyan Islamic Fighting GroupPalestinian Islamic JihadPalestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)Red Army Faction (RAF)Red Brigades (BR)Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)Taliban.For each armed organisation, each group will examine the following aspects:
data on its attacks – including information that justifies the label of 'terrorist organisation'; a historical account of its origins and developments; an analysis of the strategy underlying its terrorist campaigns; a clarification of its social support and collaboration (if any); a profile of its militants and patterns of recruitment; a discussion of the counterterrorism policies adopted by states and their impact on the terrorist organisation.
Note * Correspondence address: Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Research, Piazza Venezia 41 – 38100 Trento, Italy, +39 0461 881324; +39 0461 881348 (fax); +39 347 2329219 (mobile); Email: domenico.tosini@soc.unitn.it http://portale.unitn.it/dpt/dsrs/docenti/tosini.htm
This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew W. Hughey, 'The Janus Face of Whiteness: Toward a Cultural Sociology of White Nationalism and White Antiracism', Sociology Compass 3/6 (2009): 920–936, 10.1111/j.1751‐9020.2009.00244.xAuthor's introductionOver the past 20 years, the study of white racial identity has received in‐depth, interdisciplinary attention. Under sociological scrutiny, the study of whiteness has traversed quite a few stages: from understandings of whiteness as a category replete with social privileges, as a mere reflection of non‐racial (often class‐based) dynamics, to its most recent turn that emphasizes the contextual and intersectional heterogeneity of whiteness. Because of the increased attention to context and political disputes, the study of whiteness has never been more amenable to cultural analysis than it is today. Hence, an emphasis on different white racial formations that span a political spectrum – from conservative to liberal and racist to antiracist – is now dominant. In this vein, white nationalists and white antiracists represent the distinct polarities of contemporary inquisitions into white racial identity. Motivated by this academic milieu, this guide offers an overview of the major scholarship that address white nationalism & white antiracism, appropriate online materials, and examples from a sample syllabus. Together, these resources aim to assist in understanding the general processes and contexts that produce 'whiteness' and imbue it with meaning, the social relationships and practices in which white racial identity identities become embedded, and how whiteness simultaneously possesses material and symbolic privileges alongside diverse and seemingly antagonistic experiences.Author recommendsThe complexity of whitenessMcDermott, Monica and Frank L. Samson 2005. 'White Racial and Ethnic Identity in the United States.'Annual Review of Sociology 31: 245–61.Any contemporary apprentice of the sociological study of white racial identity should read this essay. Monica McDermott and her student Frank Samson combine to provide a robust overview of the literature. They walk the tightrope of balancing both a broad coverage of the literature with the depth that key studies necessitate. In so doing, they put a finger on the key dilemma of studying white racial identity today: 'Navigating between the long‐term staying power of white privilege and the multifarious manifestations of the experience of whiteness remains the task of the next era of research on white racial and ethnic identity' (2005: 256).Duster, Troy 2001. 'The 'Morphing' Properties of Whiteness.' Pp. 113–33 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by E. B. Rasmussen, E. Klinenberg, I. J. Nexica and M. Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.In this essay – part of a larger volume on whiteness that I also recommend – Duster synthesizes disparate approaches to the study of whiteness. Demonstrating how some scholars understand white racial identity as a contextual and cognitive category ('fluid'), while some frame whiteness as a structural and fixed category of material privileges ('frozen'), Duster asks 'who is right?' He answers via the metaphor of whiteness‐as‐water. In one moment, whiteness can morph into vapor as a contextual and unstable identity, while the next moment it can instantly transform into a harsh and unyielding form of ice‐like privilege. Duster's essay is an excellent retort for those who argue that we should move 'beyond' race to the utopian realm of color‐blind individualism. Duster demonstrates, although the example of the supposedly egalitarian New Deal, that while race is socially constructed, the legacy of racism remains a historically reproduced and real social fact – denying the existence of race perpetuates racial inequality. Duster closes the chapter with a personal anecdote that grounds the historical example in modern, interactional, and everyday life.Perry, Pamela 2002. Shades of White: White Kids and Racial Identities in High School. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Perry gives us two ethnographic studies in one – that of two northern California high schools: one located in a predominantly white, if economically diverse, suburb, the other situated in a multiracial urban community. Perry persistently and systematically probes the complexities of white racial identity in the practices and discourses of the youth attending these high schools. She finds that whites in the predominantly white, suburban high school do not see themselves as a unique race and take their racial identity for granted – they understand distinctly white practices as normative rather than as constitutive of a subjective worldview. In contrast, the whites at the multiracial, urban high school possess a more critical and comparative view of race and their own place in the racial order. In sum, Perry argues that whiteness is a set of complex, contradictory, and multiple subject positions.Wray, Matt. 2006. Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Matt Wray brings the tools of cultural sociology viz‐á‐viz'symbolic boundaries' to the interrogation of the moniker White Trash. Wray problematizes this relatively normalized term to question its origins and how it persists. Drawing upon literary texts, folklore, diaries, medical articles, and social scientific analyses from the early 1700s to the turn of the 20th century, Wray documents the multiple meanings that were projected onto poor rural whites in the United States. Of particular import, Wray demonstrates how white supremacist ideas about class and region became dominant through public health campaigns and eugenic reformations. Impoverished whites found themselves the targets of officials and activists who framed them as 'filthy' or "feebleminded," and thus a threat to the purity and supremacy of the white race. This text is particularly informative for its demonstration of how white supremacist logic was not only focused on racial 'otherness' but used the axes of class and location to directly demarcate and attack those seen as 'white' yet somehow racially deficient and unworthy.Winant, Howard 2004. 'Behind Blue Eyes: Whiteness and Contemporary U.S. Racial Politics.' Pp. 3–16 in Off White: Readings on Race, Power, and Society, edited by Michelle Fine, Lois Weis, Linda C. Powell and April Burns. New York, NY: Routledge.In applying his now classic approach formulated in concert with Michael Omi (Racial Formations, 1986), Howard Winant applies the 'racial projects' thesis to whites: 'I think it would be beneficial to attempt to sort out alternative conceptions of whiteness, along with the politics that both flow from and inform these conceptions. … focusing on five key racial projects, which I term, far right, new right, neoconservative, neoliberal, and new abolitionist' (2004: 6). Hence, Winant maps a theory of white identity formation onto a bifurcated 'culture war.' Labeling this phenomenon 'racial dualism as politics,' Winant advances a paradigm in which whiteness is undergoing 'a profound political crisis.' Winant's essay is especially important for those that wish to emphasize the heterogeneity of white racial identity, as he provides Weberian‐like 'ideal types' for the comprehension of the racial‐political landscape.Hughey, Matthew W. (forthcoming 2010). 'Navigating the (Dis)similarities of White Racial Identities: The Conceptual Framework of "Hegemonic Whiteness."'Ethnic & Racial Studies.In this work, I build upon many of the aforementioned studies. Like Pamela Perry (2002) I dive into two ethnographic sites, but of much different breed. To interrogate how whiteness might be akin to 'vapor and ice' (Duster 2001) and to provide a robust answer to the dilemma of the 'long‐term staying power of white privilege' (McDermott and Samson 2005) alongside the 'political crisis' of whiteness (Winant 2004), I studied a white nationalist and white antiracist organization. Combining over fourteen months of field observations, in‐depth interviews, and content analysis of documents, I found that the varied political and overt ideological orientations of both groups masked striking similarities in how both groups made meaning of whiteness. In particular, these similarities were guided by a collective reliance on reactionary, racist, and essentialist scripts, latent worldviews – and like Wray (2006) – symbolic boundaries. The realization that there remains a shared 'groupness' to outwardly different white identities has the potential to destabilize the recent trend that over‐emphasizes white heterogeneity at the expense of discussion of power, racism, and discrimination. As a resolution to this analytic dilemma, this article advances a conceptual framework entitled 'hegemonic whiteness.' In this model, white racial identity formation is understood as an ongoing process in which (1) racist, reactionary, and essentialist ideologies are used to demarcate inter‐racial boundaries and (2) performances of white racial identity that fail to meet those ideals are marginalized and stigmatized, thereby creating intra‐racial distinctions within the category 'white.'White supremacy & nationalismDobratz, Betty A. and Stephanie L. Shanks‐Meile 1997. The White Separatist Movement in the United States: 'White Power, White Pride!' Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.This is a good place to begin with the study of the white separatist, nationalist, and supremacist movements in the United States. The book is primarily descriptive and quickly debunks the stereotype that the movement is tied to an uneducated and Southern cadre of disenfranchised men. The authors interviewed more than 125 white separatists, attended white power rallies and other white separatist meetings, and examined much of the movement‐generated literature. A major strength of the text is the demonstration of key divisions within the white supremacist movement, most notably religious ideology and views toward gender. However, this high note is often bookended by their overdependence on journalistic‐like description rather than sociological explanation.Zeskind, Leonard. 2009. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. New York, NY: Farrar Straus Giroux.This book is a critical companion to Dobratz and Shanks‐Meile (1997). Beginning in the 1950s and taking the reader into the contemporary moment, the text affords a sprawling account of the shifting currents in white nationalism. In both meticulous detail and incredible breadth, the 645‐page tome was composed from Zeskind's 15‐year‐long research of the white nationalist movement – describing in detail how the movement has somewhat successfully moved from the shadows of a stigmatized racist identity to wear the mask of a more 'button‐down' and gentile white nationalism.Ferber, Abby L. 1998. White Man Falling: Race, Gender, and White Supremacy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.Abby Ferber does an excellent job of illuminating white nationalist publications like White Patriot and White Power to clarify not only the racial, but the intersectional weltanschauung of white male nationalists. In so doing, Ferber demonstrates how the concept of 'race' has evolved alongside the development of the white supremacist and nationalist movements. Ferber's empirically based critique unpacks the still‐growing ideological assertion that white men are now the quintessential victims of the social order, and she convincingly demonstrates the repercussions of their attempts to re‐assert white male power. I would be remiss if I did not also point the reader to her follow‐up study: Home‐Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004). Other notable mentions in this vein include Kathleen Blee's Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002) and Jessie Daniels'White Lies: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in White Supremacist Discourse (New York, NY: Routledge, 1997).Berbrier, Mitch 2000. 'The Victim Ideology of White Supremacists and White Separatists in the United States.'Sociological Focus 33: 174–91.In much the same vein as Ferber, Mitch Berbrier demonstrates how white victimization ideologies are a growing, but not yet central, facet of white supremacist and separatist organizing. Rather, discourses of racial victimization are put to the service of larger concerns in white supremacist activism: for example, either to activate a sense of urgency in the perceived loss of white racial pride and self‐esteem, or to convince outsiders (and potential members) that they are living in time of white 'genocide.' I also recommend Berbrier's 1998 Social Problems article entitled '"Half the Battle": Cultural Resonance, Framing Processes, and Ethnic Affectations in Contemporary White Separatist Rhetoric.'White antiracismBonnett, Alastair 2000. Anti‐Racism. London and New York, NY: Routledge.This is a valuable text for those wishing to understand both the historical trajectory of, and current variation within, the antiracist movement. Bonnett first traces anti‐racism's philosophical historicity through thinkers such as Comte, Montaigne, and Du Bois. After delineating the theoretical underpinnings of the movement, Bonnett then outlines the spatial variation of antiracism to uncover the networked relationships between Brazil, China, France, the US, and the UK, to name just a few examples. In this vein, while the text does not explicitly focus on white anti‐racism, a large portion of the book directly challenges the dominance of the Eurocentric variations of anti‐racism, as it even briefly surveys the outgrowths of anti‐racism in the form of multiculturalism, anti‐Nazi/anti‐fascist movements, and the 'local' activist organizations that purport to represent marginalized communities. While the book takes on a large subject matter, its relatively small size often falls short of giving each subject the attention it deserves. Still, the book serves as an excellent overview.Apthecker, Herbert 1993. Anti‐Racism in U.S. History: The First Two Hundred Years. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.Like Bonnett's text (2000), this book does not explicitly center on white antiracism, but much of the examples used by the late Marxist historian are drawn from white abolitionists and activists. In fact, recovering the lost history of whites whom rejected racist rationales for the 'peculiar institution' of slavery and in turn, evidenced a remarkable degree of racial egalitarianism, appears the impetus for Aptheker's decision to compose the book. Overall, the text remains a tour de force of the pervasiveness of both white racism and its white resistance, as it covers the intersection of racism, sexuality, labor, the political ideologies of Grégoire, Banneker, & Jefferson, religion, the effects of the civil war, and emancipation.Srivastava, Sarita 2005. '"You're Calling me a Racist?" The Moral and Emotional Regulation of Antiracism and Feminism.'Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 31(1): 29–62.This article demonstrates how the dominant practices and discourses of emotional expression shape antiracist debates over what constitutes a proper antiracist approach. By showing how the predominant mode of discussion in many antiracist organizations is hinged to the disclosure of personal experiences and emotion, Srivastrava demonstrates that this mode constricts the ability to produce organizational or structural change. Accordingly, white antiracist discussion groups often devolve into a setting in which the focus shifts from fighting racism to that of quelling the emotional turbulence of white participants – a pattern that unintentionally reestablishes a focus on white well‐being and privilege.Niemonen, Jack June 2007. 'Antiracist Education in Theory and Practice: A Critical Assessment.'The American Sociologist 38(2): 159–77.With critical aplomb, Jack Niemonen interrogates the pedagogical, curricular, and organizational claims of 'antiracist education'– an endeavor largely tied to liberal, white, and 'multicultural advocates.' Operationalized through a study of approximately 160 papers recently published in peer‐reviewed journals, Niemonen finds that the dominant forms of 'antiracist education' are far from sociologically grounded, empirically based accounts of the significance of race, but 'embodies the confessional and redemptive modes common in evangelical Protestantism' (164). Picking up on a key contradiction endemic to a large percentage of white antiracist literature, whites are often framed as 'inherently racist' yet are prodded to constantly seek paths to redemption and salvation. Informing my own work, Niemonen demonstrates how antiracist educators often employ a myopic and reductionist 'culture war' view of the world in which battle lines are drawn between the 'good and bad' whites. Aside from the fact that Niemonen's scathing critique sometimes borders on a kind of evangelicalism in its own right, his overview of the literature does afford the prescient observation that a great deal of antiracist activism is built on abstract moralism rather than sociological empiricism.O'Brien, Eileen 2001. Whites Confront Racism: Antiracists and Their Paths to Action. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.O'Brien's work is a survey of white antiracist activists from across North America. The book is a nice counterpoint to Niemonen's (2007) findings, as O'Brien finds that many white antiracists are quite savvy in their ability to avoid the typical options of 'being a nonracist' or devolving into emotional turmoil associated with 'white guilt'; many of the whites demonstrate large variation in how they combat modern racism. Of import, O'Brien shows that these whites' affiliations with antiracist organizations – and even their lack thereof – can play a crucial role in their approach to their antiracist activism. As such, O'Brien shows that a more critical white antiracist approach is evolving; one that frames race as a 'social construction' and which unpacks the individual, institutional, and cultural forms of racism.Online materialsPublic Broadcasting Service, 'Race – The Power of an Illusion' http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00‐Home.htm Starting from the supposition that 'Race is one topic where we all think we're experts', the series, readings, video, and ability to directly ask questions of experts in the field (e.g.: historian George M. Fredrickson and biological anthropologist Alan Goodman) together help to debunk many of the core beliefs that undergird the modern white supremacist and nationalist movement. In so doing, the program helps to show how social, economic, and political conditions, rather than biological make‐up, disproportionately channel advantages and opportunities to whites.Public Broadcasting Service, 'From Swastika to Jim Crow' http://www.pbs.org/itvs/fromswastikatojimcrow/index.html The website includes a video, discussion guide, and multi‐chaptered narrative on the little‐known story of German refugee scholars, who were expelled from Nazi Germany, migrated to the United States south and faced oppression from US white supremacists, and found employment at historically black colleges and universities. The resources therein illuminate the intricate web of politics, migration, nationalism, the contextual construction of racial and ethnic identity, and racism & antiracism.'Racism Review' http://www.racismreview.com/blog/ Launched in 2007, 'Racism Review' is produced and maintained by Joe R. Feagin (Texas A&M University) and Jessie Daniels (CUNY‐Hunter College). Contributors to the blog are scholars and researchers from sociology and a number of other social science disciplines across North America. Many of the articles center on the topics of white racial identity, racism, and antiracism, and aim to serve as credible and reliable sources of information for journalists, students, and members of the general public who seek evidence‐based research and analysis.Southern Poverty Law Center http://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 as a small civil rights law firm, and today the website for the SPLC is internationally known as a clearing‐house for critical information, and perspectives on, white supremacist and white nationalist groups.Sample syllabus'Sociological Perspectives on Whiteness'Overview of the courseThis course investigates the social construction of race through an exploration of white identity, both theoretically and empirically. It includes an investigation of the historical genesis of white identity, its intersection with political movements and organizations, the relation of whiteness to race, ethnicity, class, gender, nation, and how whiteness is understood in popular culture, and the sociological mechanisms by which it is reproduced, negotiated, and contested.Lecture 1 – Introduction to Race as a Social ConstructionHaney López, Ian F. 1998. 'Chance, Context, and Choice in the Social Construction of Race.' Pp. 9–16 in The Latino/a Condition: A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. New York, NY: New York University Press.Urciuoli, Bonnie 1996. 'Racialization and Language.' Pp. 15–40 in Exposing Prejudice: Puerto Rican Experiences of Language, Race, and Class. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Duster, Troy 2001. 'The 'Morphing' Properties of Whiteness.' Pp. 113–133 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by E. B. Rasmussen, E. Klinenberg, I. J. Nexica and M. Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Lipsitz, George 1998. 'The Possessive Investment in Whiteness.' Pp. 1–23 in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Lecture 4 – The Creation of 'White Ethnics'Jacobson, Matthew Frye 2001. 'Becoming Caucasian: Vicissitudes of Whiteness in American Politics and Culture.'Identities 8(1): 83–104.Roediger, David R. 1994. 'Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of "White Ethnics" in the United States.' Pp 181–198 in Towards the Abolition of Whiteness. New York, NY: Verso.Sacks, Karen Brodkin 1994. 'How did Jews Become White Folks?' Pp 78–102 in Race, edited by Steven Gregory and Roger Sanjek. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Roediger, David R. 1999. 'Irish‐American Workers and White Racial Formation in the Antebellum United States.' Pp 133–163 in The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. New York, NY: Verso.Lecture 6 – Colorlessness and Color‐blindness as a Defense of WhitenessAnsell, Amy E. and James M. Statman 1999. '"I Never Owned Slaves:" The Euro‐American Construction of the Racialized Other.'Research in Politics and Society 6: 151–73.Gallagher, Charles A. 2003. 'Playing the White Ethnic Card: Using Ethnic Identity to Deny Contemporary Racism.' Pp. 145–158 in White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism, edited by Ashley Doane and Eduardo Bonilla‐Silva. New York, NY: Routledge Press.Bonilla‐Silva, Eduardo. 2003. 'The Central Frames of Color‐Blind Racism.' Pp. 25–52 in Racism Without Racists. New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield.Lecture 7 – Learning WhitenessConley, Dalton. 2001. 'Universal Freckle, or How I Learned to Be White.' Pp. 25–42 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica, and Matt Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Giroux, Henry A. 1998. 'Youth, Memory Work, and the Racial Politics of Whiteness.' Pp 123–36 in White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America, edited by Joe L. Kincheloe, Shirley R. Steinberg, and Nelson M. Rodriguez, and Ronald E. Chennault. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.Hall, Kim Q. 1999. 'My Father's Flag.' Pp. 29–35 in Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Reflections, edited by Chris J. Cuomo and Kim Q. Hall. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.Williams, Patricia J. 1997. 'The Ethnic Scarring of American Whiteness.' Pp. 253–63 in The House that Race Built: Black Americans, U.S. Terrain, edited by Wahneema Lubiano. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.Lecture 12 – Whiteness in Popular Culture and Everyday LifeDeloria, Philip 1999. Playing Indian. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Hughey, Matthew W. 2009. 'Cinethetic Racism: White Redemption and Black Stereotypes in "Magical Negro" Films.'Social Problems 56(3): 543–77.Lott, Eric 1995. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Lecture 13 – White Privilege and the Future of White PeopleHaney López, Ian F. 1998. 'Choosing the Future.' Pp. 404–7 in The Latino/a Condition: A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. New York, NY: New York University Press.Winant, Howard 2001. 'White Racial Projects.' Pp 97–112 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica, and Matt Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.West, Cornel 1997. 'I'm Ofay, You're Ofay: A Conversation with Noel Ignatiev and William "Upski" Wimsatt.'Transition 73(7): 176–98.Yúdice, George 1995. 'Neither Impugning nor Disavowing Whiteness Does a Viable Politics Make: The Limits of Identity Politics.' Pp. 255–85 in After Political Correctness: The Humanities and Society in the 1990s, edited by Christopher Newfield and Ronald Strickland. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.[The construction of this syllabus is indebted to Bethany Bryson (James Madison University), Wende E. Marshall (University of Virginia), and Jennifer Roth‐Gordon (Brown University)]
Author's introductionOver the last 20 years, there has been a technological advance and commercial boom in genetic technologies and projects. These developments include a renewed scientific interest in the biological status and genetic constitution of race. This aspect of genetic research is of interest to sociologists and others working in the field of race and ethnicity studies. While the consensus among sociologists is that race is a social construction with no biological foundations, innovations in genetic research have pushed sociologists and other social scientists to reflect upon the ways in which ideas of biology mediate everyday understandings of race. Anthropologists, cultural geographers and sociologists have begun to study the complex and ambivalent ways in which laypeople think about the biological and genetic constitution of racial identities. Central to this area of inquiry has been analysis of laypeople's engagements with the new reproductive technologies, such as IVF. In addition, social scientists have begun to study laypeople's uses of genealogical technologies that claim to trace family ancestries, including racial descent and ethnic origins. Ultimately, such studies enable a deeper understanding of the social construction of 'race', and in the course of so doing provide an important research avenue to challenge racism.Author recommendsWade, Peter 2002. Race, Nature and Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. London: Pluto Press.In this book, Peter Wade argues that anthropological studies of kinship provide a lens to think about how ideas of nature and culture mediate the formation of racial identities. Drawing upon studies from within anthropology, Wade contends that an increasing emphasis upon the 'gene' at the everyday level does not necessarily signify a growing genetic/biological determinism in laypeople's conceptions of race and human nature. Rather, he suggests anthropological studies that explore the biological and social 'origins' of persons can be deployed to unpack 'everyday' understandings of the relationship between ideas of 'race', 'nature' and 'culture'. In his review of anthropological approaches to the study of 'race', Wade (2002, 15) writes that, 'People…move between the biological and the social, the given and the developing, the permanent and the changeable, in ways that blur the boundary between them'.Skinner, D. 2006. 'Racialized Futures: Biologism and the Changing Politics of Identity.'Social Studies of Science 36: 459–88.In this paper, David Skinner examines sociologists' and scientists' reflections on the social and ethical implications of recent research on race and genetics. He argues research on race and genetics has led to both utopian and dystopian visions of the future: 'one in which scientific racism is revived, the other in which science finally abolishes race thinking'. Skinner contends that detailed critical attention needs to be paid to existing notions of relatedness, personhood and nature/culture, to understand the implication of genetic science on racial thinking.Franklin, S. and S. Mckinnon (eds) 2001. Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.This book provides a collection of articles that represent the diversity of perspectives that constitute the 'new kinship studies' within anthropology. Chapters by Kath Weston, Charis Thompson and Signe Howell focus explicitly upon how ideas of biology, blood and culture mediate the formation of racial identities within everyday and popular discourses. In this vein, Thompson explores how kinship ideologies become reconfigured by people who take‐up the opportunities offered by the new reproductive technologies, for example, ova and sperm donation. In so doing, Thompson's study illuminates the ways in which these recent clinical practices have opened a space for anthropologists to examine how ideas about biogenetic and social relatedness within families and across generations become intersected with ideas about the inheritance of ethnic and racial identities.Wade, Peter (ed.) 2007. Race, Ethnicity and Nation: Perspectives from Kinship and Genetics. Oxford: Berghahn, New York.This book brings together a collection of essays written by scholars who worked collaboratively for 3 years exploring everyday articulations of race, ethnicity and genetics across Europe in the face of innovations in genetic science. The book draws upon a rich array of anthropological studies of 'assisted reproduction, transnational adoption, mixed‐race families, Basque identity politics and post‐Soviet nation‐building' to explore how ideas of race, ethnicity, nation and nature are lived and experienced by people within differing European social contexts.Tyler, Katharine, 2009. 'Whiteness Studies and Laypeople's Engagements with Race and Genetics.'New Genetics and Society 28 (1): 36–48.In this paper, Tyler proposes a research strategy for examining laypeople's thoughts and reflections on innovations in the science of race and genetics. While some sociologists have shown a reluctance to engage in such discussions, Tyler argues that social scientists need to take such views seriously. To do this, the paper brings together an anthropological approach to the study of scientific literacy and recent scholarship in the field of Whiteness studies. The combining of these literatures raises a set of interesting and sometimes uncomfortable questions about the ways in which social scientists and research participants contribute to the reproduction of White power and dominance in Western societies.Online materials'Ten commandments' of race and genetics issued, Science in Society http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14345‐ten‐commandments‐of‐race‐and‐genetics‐issued.html This website describes 10 'guiding principles' for the scientific community in relation to research on race and genetics. These principles were written by a multidisciplinary group including geneticists, psychologists, historians and philosophers. At the end of the principles are reflections from readers of the New Scientist. Motherland: A Genetic Journey, BBC Documentary, Director Archie Baron; Producer Tabitha Jackson http://www.rootsforreal.com/motherland_en.php The programme analysed the DNA of 228 Black African Caribbean descent men and women living in the United Kingdom. The research participants were selected on the criteria that they had two generations of paternal and maternal grandparents that were of Black African Caribbean descent. Twenty‐six percent of the Black male participants were told that their Y chromosome, inherited through the male line, traced them back to a European ancestor. The tests also showed that mitochondria DNA that is inherited through the maternal line affiliated many of the research participants with ancestors from African tribal groups. The documentary follows the journeys of three research participants who used their newly acquired genetic kinship to interrogate either their Black/African or their White/European ancestry, depending on which aspect of their identity was important to them. In this regard, the viewer is left with the impression that an individual's DNA can be objectively coded, separated and divided into its racially distinct component parts. However, when the research participants embarked on their journeys to forgotten African and Caribbean ancestral home‐places, they unexpectedly discovered the entanglement of White and Black people's colonial histories and origins. In this way, knowledge of genetic ancestry when combined with social relationships and history can be put to work to undermine the idea of racially pure lines of descent within families.'Roots for Real, your ancestry discovered' http://www.rootsforreal.com/?gclid=CNbs86LYu5kCFQ00QwodliIP6A 'Roots for Real' is a commercial organisation that offers a DNA tracing service, as used in the BBC programme, Motherland, to the general public. Deploying an 'at home saliva test', this service promises to analyse individual's maternal and paternal ancestry, and match it with the company's database of samples from all over the world. A map is sent to the genealogist (i.e. the client) estimating the location of the client's ancestral origins. The website includes links to testimonies from people who have used this site, press coverage of this service and a description of 'ancient migrations'.'African American Lives 2' http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/ This website accompanies Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr, television series that traced famous African American people's ancestries back to slave times. The research deploys the same kinds of genealogical techniques used in the Motherland experiment, as well as archival and historical research. Gates' guests include Tina Turney, Morgan Freeman and Maya Angelou. The website provides information about the television series, video clips from the series, including interviews with famous African Americans, background on the scientific and scholastic research, and resources for people to learn more about their own family history and genealogy.'Oxford Ancestors Ltd' http://www.oxfordancestors.com/ Oxford Ancestors was the first provider of DNA‐based services in the UK. The founder is Professor Bryan Sykes, a geneticist at Oxford University. Through the use of a saliva test, Sykes claims to be able to trace an individual's European maternal ancestry back to one of seven 'clan mothers', who are ultimately all related to 'Mitochondrial Eve' the original mother. Catherine Nash has written extensively about the gendered and ethnic meanings embedded within the work of Bryan Sykes in the following article: Nash, C. 2004 'Genetic Kinship.'Cultural Studies 18: 1–33.Sample syllabusOverview of the courseThis course introduces students to the contemporary debates in the sociological and anthropological study of race, ethnicity and racism. Historical material, social theories and ethnographic studies will be used to illustrate the social construction of race and ethnicity and the reproduction of racial power in western societies.Lecture 1 – Meanings of race and ethnicityWhat is race? What is ethnicity? How do race and ethnicity relate to racism? The era post‐1945, it has been argued, marked a shift from 'biological racism' to 'cultural racism' in which culture, rather than biology, forms the reference point for defining identities previously seen as racial. We consider to what extent such a shift has actually taken place. We shall also examine the ways in which this shift corresponds with a change in social policy and academic debates from the use of the term 'race' to 'ethnicity'.Anthias, F. and Yuval‐Davis 1992. Racialised Boundaries. Routledge.Barker, M. 1981. The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe. Junction Books.Goldberg, D. T. 1993. Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning. Blackwells.Malik, K. 1996. The Meaning of Race. New York University Press.Wade, P. 2002. Race, Nature and Culture. Pluto Press.Post‐race: The end of race?Lecture 10 – Interracial IdentitiesWith a marked rise in the number of children of mixed parentage, there is a growing body of literature that explores the experiences and identities of the members of interracial families. This body of literature challenges simplistic understandings of 'race', nation and culture through an interrogation of what it means to be the parent of mixed‐race children and/or to grow up and claim a 'mixed' identity.Ali, S. 2003. Mixed‐Race, Post‐Race. Berg.Alibhai‐Brown, Yasmin 2001. Mixed Feelings: The Complex Lives of Mixed‐Race Britons. The Women's Press.Brah, A. and Coombes, A. 2000. Hybridity and its Discontents. Politics, Science and Culture. Routledge (see Part 1 of this book titled 'Miscegenation and Racial Purity' that include essays by Stoler, Labanyi, Phoenix and Owen, Treacher).Frankenberg, R. 1993. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. Routledge (chapter 5).Howell, S. 2001. 'Self‐Conscious Kinship: Some Contested Values in Norwegian Transnational Adoption', in Franklin, S. and Mckinnon, S. (eds), Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Duke University Press.Ifekwunigwe, J. 1999. Scattered Belongings: Cultural Paradoxes of 'Race', Nation and Gender. Routledge.Parker, D. and Song, M. 2001. Rethinking 'Mixed Race'. Pluto Press.Root, M. (eds) 1992. Racially Mixed People in America. Sage.Tizard, B. and Ann Phoenix 1993. Black White or Mixed‐Race? Race and Racism in the Lives of Young People of Mixed Parentage. New York: Routledge.Twine, F. W. 2000. 'Bearing Blackness in Britain: The Meaning of Racial Difference for White Birth Mothers of African‐Descent Children.' Pp. 76–108 in Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism, edited by H. Ragone and F. W. Twine. Routledge.Tyler, K. 2005. 'The Genealogical Imagination: The Inheritance of Interracial Identities.'The Sociological Review 53 (3): 475–94.Wilson, A. 1987. Mixed Race Children: A Study of Identity. Allen and Unwin.Zack, N. (ed). American Mixed‐Race: The Culture of Microdiversity. Rowman and Littlefield Pub.Lecture 12 – Race, genealogy and geneticsRecent research into human genetics has probed the relationship between human characteristics and the meaning of racial difference. Some social critics have warned that such research will heighten racist attitudes, whereas others argue that the new genetic research opens the way to a post‐racial future. In this lecture, we shall examine this debate and in doing so inquire into the interpretations that laypersons might hold of the relationship between race, genetics and human nature.Brodwin, P. 2004. 'Genetics, Identity and the Anthropology of Essentialism.' Pp. 116‐122 in Mixed Race Studies: A Reader, edited by J. O. Ifekwunigwe. London: Routledge.Condit, C. M, et al. 2002. 'Lay Understandings of the Relationship Between Race and Genetics: Development of a Collectivized Knowledge Through Shared Discourse.'Public Understandings of Science 2: 373–87.Cross, K. 2001. 'Framing Whiteness: The human Genome Diversity Project (As Seen on TV).'Science as Culture 10 (3).Essed, P. and D. T. Goldberg 2002. 'Cloning Cultures: The Social Injustices of Sameness.'Ethnic and Racial Studies 25 (6).Franklin, S. and Ragone, H. 1998. Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power and Technological Innovation. University of Pennsylvania Press.Franklin, S. and Mckinnon, S. 2001. Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Duke University Press.Gilroy, P. 2000. Between Camps: Nations, Cultures and the Allure of Race. Penguin.Haraway, D. 2000. 'Deanimations: Maps and Portraits of Life Itself.' in Hybridity and its Discontents. Politics, Science and Culture, edited by A. Brah and A. Coombes. Routledge.Inhorn, M. C. 2000. 'Missing Motherhood: Infertility, Technology, and Poverty in Egyptian Women's Lives.' in Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism, edited by H. Ragone and F. W. Twine. Routledge.Marks, J. 2001. 'We're Going to Tell These People Who They Really Are,' in Relative values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, edited by S. Franklin and S. Mckinnon (eds). Duke University Press.Moore, D., Kosek, J and Pandian, A. 2003. Race, Nature and the Politics of Difference. Duke University Press.Nash, C. 2002. 'Genealogical Identities.'Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20.Nash, C. 2004. Genetic Kinship. Cultural Studies 18: 1–33.Palsson, G and Haroardottir, K. E. 2002. 'For Whom the Cell Tolls.'Current Anthropology 43 (2).Reardon, J. 2001. 'The Human Genome Diversity Project: A Case Study in Coproduction.'Social Studies of Science 31 (3).Ragone, H. 2000. 'Of Likeness and Difference: How Race is Being Transfigured by Gestational Surrogacy.' in Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism, edited by H. Ragone and F. W. Twine. Routledge.Steinberg, D. L. 2000. "Reading Genes/Writing Nation: Reith, 'Race' and the Writings of Geneticist Steve Jones." in Hybridity and Its Discontents. Politics, Science and Culture, edited by A. Brah and A. Coombes. Routledge.Skinner, D. 2006. 'Racialized Futures: Biologism and the Changing Politics of Identity.'Social Studies of Science 36: 459–88.Skinner, D. 2007. "Groundhog Day? The Strange Case of Sociology, Race and 'Science'."Sociology 41: 931–44.Thompson, C. 2001. 'Strategic Naturalising: Kinship in an Infertility Clinic.' in Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, edited by S. Franklin and S. Mckinnon. Duke University Press.Tyler, K. 2007b. "Race, Genetics and Inheritance: Reflections Upon the Birth of 'Black' Twins to a 'White' IVF Mother." Pp. 33–51 in Race, Ethnicity and Nation: Perspectives from Kinship and Genetics, edited by Peter Wade. Berghahn Books.Tyler, K. 2009. 'Whiteness Studies and Laypeople's Engagements with Race and Genetics.'New Genetics and Society, 28 (1): 35–48.Tyler, K. 2008. 'Ethnographic Approaches to Race, Genetics and Genealogy.'Sociology Compass, 2 (6): 1860–77.Wade, P. 2002. Race, Nature and Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. Pluto Press.Wailoo, K. 2003 'Inventing the Heterozygote: Molecular Biology, Racial Identity and the Narrative of Sickle‐Cell Disease, Tay‐Sachs and Cystic Fibrosis.' in Race, Nature and the Politics of Difference, edited by D. Moore, J. Kosek and A. Pandian. Duke University Press.Wiegman, R. 2003. 'Intimate Publics: Race, Property, and Personhood.' in Race, Nature and the Politics of Difference, edited by D. Moore, J. Kosek and A. Pandian. Duke University Press.
Author's introductionAlthough criminologists have long dominated the field of school violence research, there has been a growing body of research by cultural sociologists in this area as well. In many ways, a cultural approach to understanding school violence has taken school violence beyond the realm of just criminal and physical acts of violence. These scholars have begun to examine verbal, emotional, sexual, and racial expressions violence, as well as violence that is perpetuated by institutions, what Bourdieu has called symbolic violence. Courses that take this perspective explore how cultural concepts, or what Swidler calls a 'cultural toolkit', can be used as a lens for analyzing the experiences and practices of school violence. This can include, for example, an examination of how the dominant American ideology of meritocracy and competition can foster fights between middle school students, or how a feminine identity might push girls to be relationally aggressive towards each other rather than physically aggressive. In this regard, cultural sociology broadens our understanding of what constitutes school violence to uncover a wide spectrum of behaviors, attitudes and beliefs that may indeed lead to more overt expressions of violence. In doing so, a cultural approach can also help educators rethink discipline policies that have been created to resolve this social problem.Author recommendsSwidler, Ann 1986. 'Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.'American Sociological Review51: 273–86.Swidler's concept of a cultural toolkit provides a strong foundation for any cultural sociology course. Swidler defines a cultural toolkit as the symbols, stories, rituals, beliefs, ideologies and practices of daily life through which people use to shape their behavior. This paper presents a broad understanding of culture, which Swidler argues is not a unified system, but rather a set of complex and changing concepts from which we select different pieces from in order to construct different strategies of actions. When considering cultural approaches to school violence, it is useful to consider this broad definition of culture.Henry, Stuart 2000. 'What is School Violence? An Integrated Definition.'Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science567: 16–30.Henry provides a definition of school violence that transcends physical violence and interpersonal violence between students to include psychological, emotional, ethical and moral violence that occurs not only between students, but also includes harm committed by teachers and organizations against students. This latter form of harm can include tracking, school security, sexual harassment, or essentially anything that hinders the creativity, learning and academic success of a student. Henry argues that school violence must include symbolic violence, which he defines as the use of authority, power, and coercion to dominate an individual or group of people.Ferguson, Ann Arnett 2000. Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Ferguson builds on Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence and Foucault's theory of disciplinary power to examine an intervention program for 'at‐risk' students, which was comprised of mainly 5th and 6th grade African‐American males. Her ethnography provides a great example of the benefit of using a cultural approach to studying violence, discipline and punishment in schools. For example, Ferguson argues that fighting among boys should be seen as a symbolic expression of masculinity and a space for boys to do emotional work, as well as a site for the production of power and a form of resistance to authority. Her work also explores how teachers and administrators can enact a form of symbolic violence onto students. She observed how the cultural behaviors of African‐American boys, for example, their use of Black English, was often translated by the teachers as 'problem behavior' and resulted in their label of 'Troublemaker'. Such labels often condemned the boys to the bottom rung of the social order and negatively impacted their academic success.Spina, Stephanie Urso, ed. 2000. Smoke and Mirrors: The Hidden Context of Violence in Schools and Society. New York, NY: Rowan and Littlefield.This edited collection examines school violence as a complicated and multi‐faceted phenomenon, exploring how political, economic, ideological and discursive practices contribute to school violence. This interdisciplinary book includes chapters from Donna Gaines, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, Stanley Aronowitz, and Paulo Freire and Donald Macedo. The authors expand the definition of violence by arguing that youth violence, adult violence and societal violence are all intricately connected, and therefore prevention of school violence would requires educators to move beyond reform that only takes place in the school system. Instead, violence prevention needs to implore a broader strategy for change that includes schools, families, communities, and beyond.Brown, Lyn Mikel 2003. Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection among Girls. New York, NY: New York University Press.Mikel Brown conducted qualitative interviews with more than 400 girls from first grade through high school who were from different economic, racial and geographic backgrounds. She begins the book by analyzing the cultural messages that girls receive in the media; messages and images that she argues provide girls with a context for fighting among their peers. She draws on Paulo Freire's notion of horizontal violence to look at how girls' meanness to other girls is a result of their struggle to make sense of gender‐saturated images of beauty and heterosexuality that often reinforce their subordinate status in the world. Girlfighting then becomes an avenue to power for young girls in a culture that is rife with sexism. Unlike many other recent books on relational aggression among girls, Mikel Brown interrogates the complicated intersections of race, ethnicity, and class as it relates to girlfighting.Casella, Ronnie 2001. 'Being Down': Challenging Violence in Urban Schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.Casella's ethnography of Brandon High School, a small city school in a diverse neighborhood in upstate New York, takes a cultural‐ecological approach to school violence, capturing systemic, interpersonal and hidden forms of violence. He provides a thoughtful critique of intervention strategies that have been created to deal with school violence, such as peer mediation programs, the use of police officers in the hallways, and D.A.R.E. programs, because these programs only address individual acts of violence and do not account for the realities of urban environments, prejudice, economic injustice and poverty that underlie and contribute to school violence.Merten, Don E. 1994. 'The Cultural Context of Aggression: The Transition to Junior High School.'Anthropology and Education Quarterly25(1): 29–43.Don Merten has published several articles that provide a useful framework for examining aggressive behavior from a cultural standpoint. The data from this article come from a larger ethnographic project of predominantly middle class students in a suburban area who recently transitioned from elementary to junior high school. Merten argues that middle class culture promotes and celebrates individualism, success and hierarchy, which in turn creates a culture that promotes aggressive behavior among students, because students learn that meanness can be an easy avenue for gaining power and status in the hierarchy of cliques in schools.Morris, Edward 2005. '"Tuck in that Shirt!" Race, Class, Gender and Discipline in an Urban School.'Sociological Perspectives48(1): 25–48.Morris draws on Bourdieu's classic reproduction theory to look at the relationship between cultural capital and bodily discipline as it relates specifically to clothing styles and manners. This article is based on an ethnographic study of an urban middle school in Texas that recently enlisted a 'Standard Mode of Dress' uniform policy. The regulation of dress became a constant source of conflict between the students and staff at the school, but had the most punitive effect on poor and racially ethnic minority students, whose cultural styles tended to be negatively stereotyped by the teachers. These students were more likely to punished for violating the policy, even though all social class and racial groups, to some degree, violated the policy. This harsher punishment engendered resistance and alienation among the minority students, which Morris argues had the potential of pushing these students away from school, further reproducing the very inequalities that the school was trying to change.Online materials http://nces.ed.gov/programs/crimeindicators/crimeindicators2008/ The National Center for Education Statistics puts out an annual report on indicators of School Crime and Safety. The indicators in this report are based on information drawn from a variety of data sources, including national surveys of students, teachers, and principals. The report covers not just overt forms of school violence, such as bringing a weapon to school, fighting, and teacher injuries, but also covers bullying, victimization, student perceptions of school safety, and availability and use of drugs and alcohol. http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/yrbs/index.htm The Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System is a school‐based survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The survey is conducted every 2 years and provides a representative sample of 9th through 12th graders in public and private schools in the United States. The YRBSS asks a wide variety of questions, but most relevant to school violence include self‐reported responses about behaviors that might lead to unintentional injuries and violence, such as carrying a weapon to school, being threatened by a weapon or being in a fight on school grounds. These data serve a useful comparison between student self‐reporting of violent behavior and school reporting of incidents of school violence. http://www.sshs.samhsa.gov/default.aspx The Safe Schools/Healthy Students website is a federal initiative by the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services. It provides many useful resources, including links federal reports on school safety, a list of related websites, and video podcast discussions of school violence that can be used in the classroom. http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/uslgbt/toc.htm 'Hatred in the Hallways: Violence and Discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students in U.S. Schools' is a report conducted by the Human Rights Watch. Data consists of interviews with 140 students, ages 12–21, and 130 parents, teachers, administrators and counselors across seven states, in every region of the U.S. The findings discuss a broad spectrum of violent behavior, including verbal harassment, homophobia, and physical violence. It can be useful for classroom discussion because each finding section of the report includes a 'case study' of one of the participants with direct quotes from their interview. http://www.aauw.org/research/hostile.cfm 'Hostile Hallways: Bullying, Teasing and Sexual Harassment in School' is a national report conducted by American Association of University Women on 8th to 11th grade students. The study found that 8 in 10 students experienced some form of harassment during their time in school. Both the executive summary and entire report are available to download on the website.Sample syllabusCourse outline and selected reading assignmentsSection 1: Introduction to cultural sociologyDefining CultureSwidler, Ann 1986. 'Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.'American Sociological Review 51: 273–86.Jepperson, Ronald and Ann Swidler 1994. 'What Properties of Culture Should We Measure?'Poetics 22: 359–71.Cultural Capital and Symbolic ViolenceBourdieu, Pierre and Jean‐Claude Passeron 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage.Lareau, Annette, and Elliott B. Weininger 2003. 'Cultural Capital in Educational Research: A Critical Assessment.'Theory and Society 32: 567–606.Reproduction TheoryMacLeod, Jay 1987. Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low Income Neighborhood. Oxford: Westview Press. Read Chapter 2, 'Social Reproduction in Theoretical Perspective.' Pp. 11–24 and Chapter 8, 'Reproduction Theory Reconsidered,' pp. 135–54.Cultural PedagogyGiroux, Henry 2000. 'Representations of Violence, Popular Culture and Demonization of Youth.' Pp. 93–105 in Smoke and Mirrors: The Hidden Context of Violence in Schools and Society. Edited by Stephanie Urso Spina. New York, NY: Rowan and Littlefield.Section 2: Broadening the definition of school violenceHenry, Stuart 2000. 'What is School Violence? An Integrated Definition.' Annals of the American Academy of Political and social Science 567: 16–30.Watkinson, Ailsa 1997. 'Administrative Complicity and Systemic Violence in Education.' Pp. 3–24 in Systemic Violence in Education: Promise Broken. Edited by Juanita Ross Epp and Ailsa M. Watkinson. Albany, NY: State University of NY Press.Urso Spina, Stephanie 2000. 'Violence in Schools: Expanding the Dialogue.' Pp. 1–40 in Smoke and Mirrors: The Hidden Context of Violence in Schools and Society. New York, NY: Rowan and LittlefieldCasella, Ronnie 2001. 'What is Violent about School Violence? The Nature of Violence in a City School.' Pp. 15–46 in Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy. Edited by Joan Burstyn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Elliott, Delbert S., Beatrix Hamburg, and Kirk R. Williams 1998. 'Violence in American Schools: An Overview.' Pp. 3–30 in Violence in American Schools. Edited by Delbert S. Elliott, Beatrix A. Hamburg, and Kirk R. Williams. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Newman, Katherine 2004. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. NY: Basic Books. Read Part I, Chapters 1–3, pp. 3–76.Section 3: Ideology and aggressionMerten, Don 1994. 'The Cultural Context of Aggression: The Transition to Junior High School.'Anthropology and Education Quarterly, v. 25 (1): 29–43.Willis, Paul 1977. Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Farnborough, England: Saxon House.Newman, Katherine 2004. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. NY: Basic Books. Read Part II, Chapters 4–7, pp. 77–178.MacLeod, Jay 1987. Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low Income Neighborhood. Oxford: Westview Press. Read Chapter 6, 'School: Preparing for Competition,' pp. 83–111.Devine, John 1997. Maximum Security: The Culture of Violence in Inner‐City Schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Read Chapter 1, 'Schools or 'Schools'? Competing Discourses on Violence,' pp. 19–46.Section 4: Cultural scripts – masculinityKimmel, Michael S. and Matthew Mahler 2003. 'Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence.'The American Behavioral Scientist 46(10): 1439–58.Ferguson, Ann Arnett 2000. Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Read Chapter 4, 'Naughty by Nature,' pp. 77–99 and Chapter 6, 'Getting into Trouble,' pp. 163–96.Bender, Geoff 2001. 'Resisting Dominance? The Study of a Marginalized Masculinity and its Construction within High School Walls.' Pp. 61–78 in Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Klein, Jessi and Lynn S. Chancer 2000. 'Masculinity Matters: The Omission of Gender from High‐Profile School Violence Cases.' Pp. 129–62 in Smoke and Mirrors: The Hidden Context of Violence in Schools and Society. New York, NY: Rowan and Littlefield.Section 5: Cultural scripts – femininityEder, Donna 1985. 'The Cycle of Popularity: Interpersonal Relations among Female Adolescents.'Sociology of Education 58(3): 154–65.Merten, Don 1997. 'The Meaning of Meanness: Popularity, Competition, and Conflict Among Junior High School Girls.'Sociology of Education 70(3): 175–91.Merten, Don 2005. 'Transitions and 'Trouble': Rites of Passage for Suburban Girls.'Anthropology and Education Quarterly 36(2): 132–48.Artz, Sibylle 2004. 'Violence in the Schoolyard: School Girls' Use of Violence.' Pp. 167–90 in Girls' Violence: Myths and Realities, edited by Christine Alder and Anne Worrall. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Morris, Edward W. 2007. ''Ladies' or 'Loudies'? Perceptions and Experiences of Black Girls in Classrooms.'Youth & Society 38: 490–515.Mikel Brown, Lyn 2003. Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection among Girls. NY: New York University Press.Section 6: Culture resources and school violence – languageLanguage and Symbolic ViolenceFerguson, Ann Arnett 2000. Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Read Chapter 7, 'Unreasonable Circumstances,' pp. 197–226.Youth Talk about ViolenceDiket, Read M. and Linda G. Mucha 2002. 'Talking about Violent Images.'Art Education March: 11–7.Morrill, Calvin, Christine Yalds, Madelaine Adelman, Michael Musheno, and Cindy Bejarano 2000. 'Telling Tales in School: Youth Culture and Conflict Narratives.'Law & Society Review 34(3): 521–65.Burman, Michele 2004. 'Turbulent Talk: Girls Making Sense of Violence.' Pp. 81–103 in Girls' Violence: Myths and Realities. Edited by Christine Alder and Anne Worrall. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Obidah, Jennifer 2000. 'On Living (and Dying) with Violence: Entering Young Voices in the Discourse.' Pp. 49–66 in Smoke and Mirrors: The Hidden Context of Violence in Schools and Society. New York, NY: Rowan and Littlefield.Section 7: Culture resources and school violence – clothingClothing and School Safety DebatesHolloman, Lillian and Velma LaPoint, Sylvan I. Alleyne, Ruth J. Palmer, and Kathy Sanders‐Phillips 1996. 'Dress‐Related Behavioral Problems and Violence in Public School Settings: Prevention, Intervention, and Policy—A Holistic Approach.'The Journal of Negro Education 65(3): 267–281.Stanley, M. Sue 1996. 'School Uniforms and Safety.'Education and Urban Society 28(4): 424–35.Gereluk, Dianne 2008. 'Limiting Free Speech in the United States.' Pp. 41–64 in Symbolic Clothing in Schools: What Should Be Worn and Why. New York, NY: Continuum.Brunsma, David L., ed. 2006. Uniforms in Public Schools: A Decade of Research and Debate. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.Clothing, School Policies and Symbolic ViolenceHorvat, Erin McNamara 1999. '"Hey, Those Shoes are Out of Uniform": African American Girls in an Elite High School and the Importance of Habitus.'Anthropology and Education Quarterly 30(3): 317–42.Morris, Edward 2005. '"Tuck in that Shirt!" Race, Class, Gender and Discipline in an Urban School.'Sociological Perspectives 48(1): 25–48.Ferguson, Ann Arnett 2000. Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Read Chapter 3, 'School Rules,' pp. 49–73.FilmsTough guise: violence, media, and the crisis in masculinity (2002)This Media Education Foundation film explores the relationship between popular culture and the construction of violent masculinity. Of particular relevance to this class, the film examines how the construction of masculinity relates to school shootings. The film is directed by Sut Jhally and narrated by Jackson Katz. This film could be used in the section Cultural Scripts – Masculinity.Wrestling with manhood: boys, bullying and battering (2004)This Media Education Foundation film, written and directed by Sut Jhally, examines the relationship between professional wrestling and the construction of masculinity. The film looks at how wrestling contributes to homophobia, violence against women and bullying in school. This film could be used in the section Cultural Scripts – Masculinity.School violence: answers from the inside (2000)This film originally aired on PBS''In the Mix,' a television series created by and for teens. The film examines stereotyping and conflict in schools through the eyes and voices of teenagers attending a diverse suburban high school. This film could be used in the section Cultural Resources – Language.The killer at Thurston high (2000)This PBS Frontline film focuses on Kip Kinkel, who in 1998, at the age of 15, shot his mother and father, and then opened fire at his school in Springfield, Oregon, killing two and injuring 25. He is currently serving 111 years in prison. The film provides an understanding of the tragedy through multiple viewpoints, including interviews with Kip's sister, teachers and psychiatrists. This film could be used in the section Broadening the Definition of School Violence.Mean girls (2004)Written by Tina Fey and based on Rosalind Wiseman's book, Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence, this fictional account of 'mean girls' is a film that most college students will be familiar with. Clips from the film can be used in the section Cultural Scripts—Femininity to begin a discussion about relational aggression between girls in schools. It can also be used to examine the role that racism and classism play in our public perception of violent behavior, particularly since 'mean girls' in this film tend to be constructed as white and upper class, whereas in contrast, 'violent girls' in film have historically been constructed as poor, young women of color.Project ideas1. Social Policy and Intervention. This assignment is intended to get students critically thinking about how educators approach school violence. Have students pick either a national intervention program, such as D.A.R.E., or a local school policy created to deal with school violence. Begin by analyzing how school violence is defined and what type of intervention/prevention is being proposed. Require students to use a cultural approach to understand and critique the policy. In writing the paper, students should consider the following questions. How would a cultural sociologist define violence? What types of violence are missing from this policy? How would this policy be different if it took into account a cultural approach? The book, 'Being Down': Challenging Violence in Urban Schools (2001) by Ronnie Casella provides a good background resource for completing this assignment.2. Observation Project: Clothing and School Safety. Students will begin by gaining permission to observe at a local middle school or high school. Begin by analyzing the school policy towards clothing. Some schools might have an official uniform policy, whereas others might have policies regarding certain types of clothing (i.e. gang clothing, clothing with profanity, etc.) Next, spend several days observing students in non‐classroom settings, like the hallways, cafeteria, bus or playground. Take detailed fieldnotes. Pay particular attention to the clothing that students wear, any discussion made about clothing by either students or teachers, the relationship between clothing and identity, how clothes are used as a site of resistance, and how clothes might cause conflict between students, or between students and teachers. (You may also want to informally interview students about their perception of the school's policy on clothing, how they negotiate rules about clothing, and how they see clothing policies as contributing to conflict and violence, as well as school safety.) As a class, develop a coding scheme for the fieldnotes. Each student will then individually write an analysis paper on the relationship between clothing, conflict, discipline policies, and school violence.3. Mean Girls: Examining Relational Aggression in Schools. There has been much public attention in recent years to 'mean girls.' As a class, view the film Mean Girls during the course section, Cultural Scripts – Femininity. As a class, develop an interview guide with about six open‐ended questions (i.e. What were your experiences with 'mean girls' in high school? How did you or a close friend deal with being the victim of relational aggression? To what extent did you ever participate in being a 'mean girl'? How did teachers at your school respond to relational aggression between girls?) Next, have students interview six female students using the class interview guide. Students can work individually or in groups to write a paper that compares and contrasts the social construction of mean girls in the film with the actual perceptions of mean girls from their research participants. The analysis should be grounded in the social science research that students are reading on relational aggression.