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Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race Sujatha Fernandes Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews 2013 42: 109 DOI: 10.1177/0094306112468721cc

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service and industrial sectors. The first gener- The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and ation of Filipino immigrants struggled for Migration in Filipino America, 1898–1946,by and soon (in 1906) attained the right, as U.S. Rick Baldoz. New York, NY: New York nationals, to unlimited entry into the United University Press, 2011. 301pp. $25.00 paper. States. The author skillfully shows how Fili- ISBN: 9780814791097. pinos were clearly agents, and not merely LANNY THOMPSON victims, in this process: they were active in University of Puerto Rico, Rı´o Piedras both class struggles, to obtain better wages [email protected] and conditions, and legal battles, to achieve right of entry into the United States. Even though they gained the right to unre- This book begins with the creation of the col- stricted immigration, Filipinos confronted ony of the Philippines in 1898 and ends with other legal barriers regarding interracial national independence in 1946. However, the marriage, property rights, and naturalization book does not center upon either; instead, it as U.S. citizens. In addition, local govern- focuses on the economic, political, and legal ments also attempted to police the color struggles of Filipino immigrants in the Unit- line by passing laws enforcing social segrega- ed States. The book is organized chronologi- tion. In general, the legal issues were compli- cally, although there is some overlap of peri- cated by two principal factors. First, the laws ods across chapters. The first chapter deals were not always created with Filipinos in with the racial politics of empire and the mind and the existing racial categories did establishment of the Philippines as a colony not easily apply. Indeed, part of the strategy of the United States. This lays the ground- of Filipinos was to argue that they were out- work for the analysis of the political econo- side of the laws that were erected explicitly my of Filipino immigration (1900s–1920s) in against Afro-Americans, Mexicans, and the second chapter. The next chapter deals ‘‘Asiatics,’’ namely, Chinese and Japanese. more specifically with social and legal bar- Second, the interests of local ‘‘nativists’’ often riers that Filipinos confronted during the conflicted with those in agribusiness or the first three decades of the century. Chapter federal government. On the one hand, the Four is a study of violence directed against nativists sought to preserve white privilege, Filipinos in the late 1920s and early 1930s. dominance, and the color line; they opposed Finally, last two chapters deal with the polit- Filipino immigration. On the other hand, ical negotiations for independence, the par- agricultural enterprises were in favor of Fili- ticipation of Filipinos in the Second World pino workers, although they also sought War, and the consequences for immigrants ways to divide and conquer them whenever in the United States. workers organized and pressed for better The colonization of the Philippines working conditions. In addition, the federal resulted in the creation of a new legal catego- government was obliged to concede some ry: the U.S. national, that is, those persons degree of legal and naturalization rights to owing allegiance to the United States because Filipinos. In the international sphere, it was they were at the same time citizens of one of not good politics to simply exclude them as its colonies. However ‘‘nationals’’ were not ‘‘aliens’’ in U.S. society.Especially interesting full-fledged citizens of the United States, is the analysis of the diverse and often con- and this initially led to considerable confu- tradictory positions of the local nativists in sion about their rights to entry and to work. towns, counties, and states, the economic This ambiguous political status set the stage interests of agribusiness in the region, and for the immigration of Filipinos who came the laws and policies of the federal govern- to work in agri-business, first in Hawaii and ment. In addition, the full range of actions then to the western and southwestern states. and strategies of Filipinos on different fronts Later, Filipinos would also find work in is fully explained.

63 Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 64 Reviews

The author includes an excellent discus- experience and in this respect the sociological sion of the racial dimensions in the definition analysis is superb. This book on the political of Filipinos as a ‘‘social problem’’ by domi- economy and politics of Filipino immigration nant groups. During the 1920s and 1930s, to the United States is an excellent study of nativists began to interpret Filipino immigra- the paradoxes and contradictions of racial- tion as a social problem, focusing upon ized citizenship. issues of public health, interracial sex, devi- ant sociality, labor competition, and political radicalism. Local officials and newspapers Homeless in Las Vegas: Stories from the Street, were active in defining and attempting to by Kurt Borchard. Reno, NV: University of segregate immigrants while the local popu- Nevada Press, 2011. 239pp. $24.95 paper. lace often resorted to riots and vigilante vio- ISBN: 9780874178371. lence. Beginning in the late 1920s, violence erupted sporadically all along the west coast CHAD R. FARRELL up through the early 1930s and this brought University of Alaska Anchorage many issues to national attention. Nativists [email protected] considered Filipinos to be ‘‘aliens’’ and tried to exclude them, by any means necessary, ‘‘They should have a ‘beware of people’ sign from social, political, and economic partici- when you enter this city’’ (p. 171), exclaims pation. Filipinos responded in creative a homeless subject in Kurt Borchard’s eth- ways: labor organizing, legal test cases, alli- nography set in Las Vegas. The author con- ances, and so on. ducted in-depth interviews with 48 homeless By the 1930s the movement for indepen- persons in 2005 and 2006 and one gets a sense dence in the Philippines converged with local that such a sign would do little good warding and federal interests in controlling immigra- off newcomers. Las Vegas is a powerful mag- tion. The Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934) estab- net, attracting those who seek riches, excite- lished a ten-year probationary period that ment, opportunity, and a new start. This is would culminate in full independence and a book about those who get much more it also prepared the way for limiting immi- (and much less) than they bargained for. At gration of citizens from what would eventu- times engrossing and too often exasperating, ally (1946) become an independent country. it provides a flawed yet layered look at home- However, World War II soon complicated lessness in Sin City. the process. In the United States, Filipino Homeless in Las Vegas is Borchard’s second immigrants were recruited to serve in the book about homelessness in Vegas, so he armed forces and in the Philippines regular knows the ground well. He takes the reader and guerrilla units were organized under outside the ‘‘homeless corridor’’ where U.S. command. The author argues that the homeless services are concentrated into loyalty shown by Filipinos to the United niches less visible to tourists and authorities. States’ war effort was the basis of their claims Unfortunately, the book is sometimes as for veterans’ benefits and for the naturaliza- meandering and disorganized as the lives tion of veterans as U.S. citizens. of its subjects. Too often the author’s sub- Although the book is not systematically stantive discussion of the broader implica- comparative, it frequently introduces com- tions of his encounters is characterized by parisons with Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, tangential self-revelation, flighty supposi- and occasionally Puerto Rican immigrants. tion, and jumbled overreach. This adds considerable depth to the legal dis- For example, he introduces Jessi—a dis- cussions. The book is well researched, using abled Native American female—to illustrate a wide range of newspapers, legal cases, Con- the array of obstacles faced by racial minori- gressional debates, and legislation. Many of ties and the need for childhood educational the issues raised by the Filipinos were fought programs. This seems straightforward, yet out in the courts, but the book always contex- a few pages prior to this discussion Jessi tualizes these cases and never becomes too has confided that she previously attended legalistic. The author is very conscious of college, owned a home, and worked as the class and gender aspects of the Filipino a medical technician. In other words, her

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 65 narrative is completely at odds with much of homeless persons apparently falling through the discussion used to contextualize it. Jessi’s the cracks? It is unclear. Perhaps it is a bit pathway to homelessness appears to stem unfair to expect such a deep analysis of the from the trauma of a car accident resulting local social service infrastructure in an ethno- in an amputated leg. This would seem an graphic study. However, given that one of excellent opportunity to discuss the crushing Borchard’s primary stated goals is to reveal burden of healthcare costs and the special the ‘‘key failure in many bureaucracies difficulties involved for those who are both designed to help the homeless’’ (p. 3) it is homeless and physically disabled. Instead, incumbent upon him to flesh out the institu- Borchard shoehorns a puzzling discussion tional realities rather than simply presuming of racial inequality and at-risk youth into them to exist. his conclusion. Borchard is far more effective when depict- Borchard seems as preoccupied with the ing the labyrinthine Las Vegas labor market. emotional well-being of his homeless sub- Nearly all of his homeless subjects mention jects as their material circumstances. Bruce, the struggle to secure proper forms of identi- camping in an open field near a casino, fication and certification to work in the city. sums up the numbing effects of homeless- Ricky, who seeks employment in the resort ness: ‘‘The more you are homeless, you feel casino industry, circumnavigates the city to yourself less’’ (p. 78). This emotional focus obtain a health card, a Sheriff’s card, and an is fully in line with the stated aim to docu- alcohol management card. And, of course, ment the ‘‘individual lives and voices’’ of each of these cards requires its own docu- homeless people but in places it approaches mentation. Kevin takes sporadic cash-only the absurd. In one harrowing encounter, construction jobs as he desperately waits for Kevin, a muscled ex-con, admitted murderer, a social security card and certified birth cer- and avowed member of the Aryan Brother- tificate to be mailed to him. Gary’s gaming hood, threatens to lynch the researcher. It is card is pulled after nearly two decades of a terrifying moment and Borchard distin- dealing poker and he promptly ends up on guishes himself by diffusing a dangerous sit- the streets. Chuck struggles to get a Nevada uation. However, his subsequent policy pre- state driver’s license for his job. It is little scription—empathy training in prisons—is wonder so many of Borchard’s subjects even- baffling. tually turn to panhandling, petty theft, gam- In other places, this spotlight on psycho- bling, and other forms of shadow work to logical states is more grounded but still has supplement their income. a reductionist tendency. Regarding homeless Despite its scattershot approach, one con- individuals with severe mental health prob- sistent theme emerging throughout the lems, Borchard posits that community men- book is the interplay of forces conspiring to tal health centers should provide ‘‘esteem- make homelessness invisible in a tourist- building’’ for homeless schizophrenics and based urban economy. This is rooted in part he professes the need for shelters to foster in local siting decisions that concentrate a ‘‘positive self-image.’’ However, brief social service agencies miles away from icon- glimpses inside the shelters suggest that ic tourist destinations like the Vegas Strip. they are barely able to maintain a modicum There is also the selective enforcement of of hygiene and safety in the face of a surging anti-panhandling and camping ordinances homeless population. Space and resources which funnels the ‘‘visible’’ homeless into would seem to be the major priorities here. marginalized areas. Finally, there are the As for mental health services, Borchard actions of the homeless themselves, who provides the reader with little information often seek to conceal their status from poten- about the actual state of affairs in Las Vegas. tial employers, law enforcement, the public, Are there any community mental health pro- and even their own families. Borchard grams in Las Vegas? Well, they are apparent- reveals how many of those who have recent- ly ‘‘weak or nonexistent’’ but the reader is ly become homeless—not yet broken down never told which. Are they underfunded? and visibly tattered by life on the streets— Maybe, probably. Are there systemic failures subsist in plain sight by ‘‘blending in.’’ Casi- that account for so many mentally ill nos and coffee shops become ‘‘public’’

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 66 Reviews resources where they can pass for tourists demands of advocacy movements succeed and access temporary shelter, free wireless, or fail. In the process, he stresses more specif- cheap food and drinks, and a sense of nor- ic aspects that have played a particularly mality. Given the housing collapse that important role in some cases, such as the rocked Las Vegas and many other cities in international reputation and prestige that the years since Borchard’s fieldwork, it is rea- states want to build or maintain, the role of sonable to suspect that these newly invisible messengers and the similarity of attributes homeless have multiplied. between them and gatekeepers, the impor- tance of perceived costs, and the impact of shaming efforts. Moral Movements and Foreign Policy,byJoshua Working with an interesting and helpful W. Busby. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge typology of situations with regard to the pos- University Press, 2010. 327pp. $31.00 paper. sibility of movement success intersecting ISBN: 9780521125666. costs and values, Busby analyzes four cases of transnational campaigns dealing with dif- MARCO GIUGNI ferent issue areas: international economics University of Geneva and development (debt relief), environment [email protected] (climate change), public health (HIV/ AIDS), and justice/security (the Internation- Why do some campaigns by principled al Criminal Court). In addition, he looks at advocacy groups succeed in some places these campaigns in comparative perspective and fail in others? The question addressed in across seven democracies: Canada, France, this book is simple, but providing an answer Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, to it is a more difficult endeavor. Moral Move- and the United States. This two-fold compar- ments and Foreign Policy does an excellent job ison is conducted systematically across the in doing so. The book’s main argument is four case studies, showing how the combina- that movement success depends on the com- tion of the three factors mentioned above has bination of three main factors: the material led to success or failure of the campaigns. incentives facing states, the cultural reso- Each of the four case study chapters is nance of the movements’ messages, and organized in a similar fashion, which makes the presence of policy gatekeepers. In brief, the reading comfortable and the line of argu- it argues that movement success rests on mentation easy to follow. The chapters start a blend of low costs, high value fit, and sup- with an overview of the campaign at hand, portive policy gatekeepers. Translated into then provide a partial explanation based on the social movement jargon, this means material interest and show its limits (whose that social movements may have a chance general contours are also outlined in the the- to influence policy decision-making when oretical chapter), followed by a more com- the costs are not too high and above all are plete explanation stressing the framing/ not perceived as being too high, when move- gatekeepers argument (again, outlined in ment leaders frame the issue in a way that it more general terms in the theoretical chap- fits the country’s dominant values, and ter), and by a more detailed discussion of when political opportunities are favorable some relevant national cases showing how and do not pose too many obstacles at the the more specific aspects have played a cru- domestic level. cial role in these cases. Joshua Busby shows that states sometimes There is more than one reason to praise this act against their own material self-interest book. Firstly,the book examines the impact of when a given issue is framed in a way that transnational movements and campaigns. it fits the country’s values and when policy This is all the more important as most of the gatekeepers view them as important. He existing studies of the consequences of social points out the limits of interest-based explan- movements focus on national-based move- ations, yet without rejecting them complete- ments. At the same time, the author shows ly, and suggests that a framing-meets-gate- the importance of local or domestic factors keepers or framing/gatekeepers approach for the success of transnational campaigns. provides a better explanation of why the Secondly, the book is firmly comparative,

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 67 both across issue areas and across countries. concerns in favor of individual institutional Since comparative analyses, especially on actors. Secondly, more references to the social these two levels, are still a rare supply in movement literature would have contributed this field, this is a very welcome addition more explicitly to another major strength of to this literature. Thirdly and perhaps most this book, namely the fact that it bridges importantly, the book goes beyond interest- two bodies of work that too often travel on based and simplistic cost/benefit accounts separate tracks. The analyses provided in of social movement outcomes to show the this book draw heavily on social movement importance of moral motivations and altru- theory—most notably, on the framing and istic behavior. Yet, the author avoids throw- political opportunity approaches—yet with- ing the baby out with the bath water and out fully acknowledging it. Doing justice to considers explanation based on self-interest these works and literature would only have as incomplete rather than incorrect. He made the book stronger. shows the limits of this kind of explanation, but considers costs and material incentives as part of a broader framework that puts The Inequalities of Love: College-Educated Black framing and political opportunities at center Women and the Barriers to Romance and Family, stage. by Averil Y. Clarke. Durham, NC: Duke This book, however, could have been even University Press, 2011. 409pp. $26.95 paper. better, had Busby considered more seriously ISBN: 9780822350088. its potential ‘‘bridging’’ function. Indeed, perhaps the main criticism that one could SHIRLEY A. HILL address to this excellent book is that, while University of Kansas dealing with the outcomes of social move- [email protected] ments, it largely – if not entirely – ignores pre- vious work by students of social movements. In a book the author likens to a ‘‘chick flick,’’ The latter, for example, is not discussed in love, marriage, and childbearing take center Chapter Two, which is where the author stage to explain the inequalities that African lays out his theoretical framework for the American women experience. Averil analyses to follow in subsequent chapters. Clarke’s central arguments are that love mat- Although one is not necessarily expecting ters when shaping productive and reproduc- the often tiresome ‘‘review of literature’’ sec- tive relations, that African American women tion, the book could have improved with face significant disadvantages in pursuing explicit references to the social movement love and marriage, and that inequality schol- literature. ars should shift their focus from money to To be sure, blaming an author for not hav- love to better understand class formation ing used the concepts and terminology ones and maintenance. The Inequalities of Love is wishes to read and is familiar with would based on 58 in-depth interviews with col- be quite an illegitimate criticism if not that lege-educated black women under the age doing so would have made the book and of 50 and the analysis of national quantita- analysis even stronger. This lack of reference tive data, which allows the author to com- to prior work on the outcomes of social move- pare college-educated women across racial ments, made mainly by sociologists, but also lines and African American women across by political scientists, has two negative con- social class lines. The quantitative data pro- sequences in my view. Firstly, some of the vides the big picture of trends among wom- interesting arguments put forward in the en in education, marriage, fertility, abortion, book have in fact already been made in prior and a host of other interesting factors, but work, and this could have been acknowl- the richness of the interviews pushes us edged more explicitly. To make the most beyond assumptions easily (and often erro- striking example, one of the main explanato- neously, Clarke argues) drawn from the ry factors, namely the role of gatekeepers, or quantitative data. Intersectionality theory veto players, sounds similar to the concept of provides the framework for the book: love political opportunity structures, only named inequalities are shaped and maintained differently and less enmeshed with structural within the context of gender, racial, and class

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 68 Reviews inequalities, especially as they unfold in which women are eligible for such relation- institutional hierarchies. But Clarke draws ships, and black women face the choice of liberally from a range of social theories— a love/sex drought or engaging in the very stratification, Bourdieu, Merton, feminist— behaviors they disapprove of. The conflict to craft her argument that love matters and between their beliefs and their behaviors to question conventional theoretical resulted in sporadic and ineffective contra- wisdom. ceptive use, and resorting to induced abor- The first chapter of the book explores how tion as ‘‘back stage work’’ to preserve their the interviewees came to pursue a college class identities. But in the end, their mar- education. Clarke uses their narratives to riage/family/reproductive lives look more construct a typology of motivations, but like those of low-income black women than points out that the women rarely fell into their white and Hispanic college-educated a single category. Some were motivated by counterparts. a racial logic (e.g., the ‘‘status seekers’’ and Racial isolation, gender-based romantic ‘‘stigma avoiders’’); they sought a college rules, and the pursuit of class credentials to education to escape persistent negative avoid racial stigma all restrict black women’s images of black women that depict them as access to love. Moreover, these experiences irresponsible, immoral, hypersexual, and unfold within the contexts of other social overly fertile. The economy of love in their and institutional hierarchies—families, edu- families also mattered: nurturing families cational institutions—that also constrain were the source of status attainment for their choices. Clarke argues that the complex many (‘‘prominent people pleasers’’), but inequalities that effect African American dysfunctional families also fostered the women are rarely captured by stratification desire for self-sufficiency and independence theorists, as their emphasis on social class, (‘‘conforming escape artists’’). The decision rational choice, and productivity ignores to pursue college also unfolded within the unequal access to love, marriage, and child- context of structural factors such as being bearing. Feminist theory also often falls short recruited into college preparatory programs in its analysis of family, childbearing, and or affirmation action initiatives. The ‘‘money love as burdens that impede educational logic’’ inequality scholars use to explain col- and economic advancement of women. lege attainment, Clarke argues, ignores the Such thinking negates women’s desire for actual experiences and processes that lead families and children; moreover, romantic to the creation of class categories, especially love and childbearing may actually push how they are informed by factors such as women toward greater attainment. love. Clarke presents a persuasive case for the In the remaining five chapters Clarke ways in which love matters in understanding delves more deeply into her argument of inequality. Class advantage does not always love as a salient factor in creating and main- lead to social power, especially for black taining inequalities, starting with the depri- women who cannot distance themselves vation that African American women experi- from the symbolism associated with black ence when forming families. Much of the bodies or gender inequities in the pursuit of deprivation derives from cultural images love. This book complicates the simple and representations of blackness, which con- ‘‘shortage of marriageable black men’’ theory struct black women as socially undesirable used to explain the marriage decline among and form the basis for creating elite feminine African Americans by providing an integrat- identities—identities that are not available to ed look at the romantic goals of women with- black women. The middle-class African in the context of class, gender, and racial con- American women in this study struggled to straints. Class is not achieved solely in the signify by their behaviors that such racial productive arena, but also through love, mar- images are inaccurate: they saw non-marital riage, and family. The book may be criticized sexuality and childbearing as wrong and for excluding the love narratives and goals of stigmatizing and wanted stable, committed, black men and for being, at times, somewhat monogamous relationships. But in hetero- redundant. The strengths of the book, how- sexual relationships, it is men who decide ever, far outweigh its weaknesses. It is

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 69 theoretically rich and compelling. Detailed by the economic principle of neoliberalism. statistical analyses of national data are com- The inequalities of knowledge acquisition bined with fascinating narratives from inter- are imposed in manifold ways including in viewees in ways that reveal processes that the workplace, family, schools, and disci- underlie class formation and maintenance. pline of sociology. Moreover, the author aims to move inequali- In the first two chapters, Connell calls our ty scholarship in a new direction—the con- attention to how the principle of neoliberal- sideration of inequalities in love and repro- ism in global and state governance advances duction. The book is an excellent choice for the post-feminist ideology of gender neutral- scholars and teachers in the fields of gender, ity, which is an ideology that she rightfully family studies, and social inequality. links to the celebration of the individual and self-reliance in neoliberalism. In her dis- cussion, she asserts that the advancement of Confronting Equality: Gender, Knowledge and gender equality has been wrongfully pur- Global Change,byRaewyn Connell. Cam- sued under the guise of gender neutrality, bridge, UK: Polity Press, 2011. 191pp. leading to positive and negative results but $22.95 paper. ISBN: 9780745653518. ultimately resulting in the denial of gender differences. Gender neutrality, for instance, RHACEL SALAZAR PARREN˜ AS can result positively in the destigmatization University of Southern California of stay-at-home fathers but it can negatively [email protected] result in downplaying the persistence of gen- der inequalities. It can also absolve the state Confronting Equality is Raewyn Connell’s of needing to ensure gender equality thereby latest contribution to the social sciences. becoming complicit in the maintenance of Connell’s field-defining works have broad- gender inequalities, including for instance ened our understanding of masculinities, dealing with sexual harassment at schools. gender as a social construction, and among In Chapter Three, Connell provides a case others the sociology of knowledge. In this study of gender neutrality and an illustration book, Connell examines the impacts of and of how the principle of neoliberalism trans- challenges brought by the culture and politics forms social realities. She looks specifically of neoliberal globalization to the achievement at the case of parenting and the division of of equality.Bringing together previously pub- labor in the family. It is in this chapter that lished journal articles, she uses empirical Connell finally provides us with a working research as well as intellectual work pro- definition of neoliberalism, which she sees duced in the global metropole and periphery as ‘‘the project of transformation under the to analyze the intersections of gender, knowl- sign of the free market that has dominated edge production, and globalization in the era politics in the last quarter-century’’ (p. 41). of neoliberalism, meaning free enterprise, free Drawing from multiple studies on the family, competition and self-reliance. Connell observes that neoliberalism pro- Confronting Equality covers a wide spec- motes de-gendering but that this process nei- trum: the question of neoliberalism as a ther eliminates nor exacerbates gender divi- gender-neutral principle, the role of the fam- sions—instead it configures gender. These ily in neoliberal regimes, and education or configurations lead to new anxieties about more generally knowledge acquisition in masculinity, redefine mothering for both the neoliberalism. One can initially struggle to working and middle class, and involve great figure out the overall argument of the book tensions. Connell does not offer a conclusion and how the chapters link with one another. about parenting but steers scholars to reckon It is a wide reaching book best described as with market forces when examining the fam- a social scientific examination of knowledge ily today. acquisition in the contexts of economic glob- In the next two chapters, Connell turns to alization and political neoliberalism. Its previous studies to examine the politics of major contribution is its illustration of the neoliberalism in education. The discussion inequalities embedded in knowledge acqui- moves away from gender and the analysis sition, which Connell sees as exacerbated of neoliberalism’s advancement of gender

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 70 Reviews neutrality. In these chapters, she instead pays of neoliberalism. In the first part of the closer attention to class inequities, looking at book, she explores the heightening of gender the schooling of working-class families in neutrality in neoliberalism and in the second New South Wales, Australia and the case of part she addresses the inequalities that under- teachers. What we learn from these chapters pin the sociology of knowledge. This is is the exacerbation of class exclusion in glob- a thought-provoking book that I recommend, al neoliberalism, the standardization of edu- written with political urgency, which advan- cation and the lesser flexibility given teach- ces our core understanding of inequality. ers—realities that potentially hurt the learning environment of poorer students. In the latter portion of the book (Chapters Renewal in the French Trade Union Movement: Six to Nine), Connell embarks on a discussion A Grassroots Perspective,byHeather of the sociology of knowledge. Chapter Six Connolly. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010. looks at ‘‘intellectual workers,’’ Chapter Sev- 248pp. $60.95 paper. ISBN: 9783034301015. en at sociology as a discipline, and Chapters Eight and Nine at the knowledge produced KENNETH H. TUCKER,JR. by two social theorists Paulin Hountondji Mount Holyoke College (from the global South) and Antonio Negri [email protected] (from the margins of the global North). These last chapters are best described as an exami- It is not news that unions are in trouble nation of the valuation of knowledge in our throughout the Western world. Buffeted by global society and provide a critical reading the onslaught of neo-liberalism and privat- of the constitution of inequality in this valua- ization, unions face an uncertain future at tion. In Chapter Six, Connell explores the best. So what should they do to regain character of intellectual work in neoliberal- strength in this illiberal era? Heather Con- ism and the labor process of knowledge pro- nolly explores how militants in one union duction, questioning the notion of a ‘‘free’’ in France, the railway workers of the Fe´de´ra- thinker and calling attention to the hierar- tion des Syndicats Solidaries, Unitaires et De´m- chies of knowledge sources. In Chapter Sev- ocratiques (SUD), have attempted to revital- en, she continues to establish the existence ize worker activism. of a ‘‘metropolitan hegemony.’’ In the next France has always been an interesting case two chapters, she highlights the works by for the study of union activism, for it has two marginalized knowledge sources, Houn- combined radical ideas, from communism tondji from the global South and Negri from to revolutionary syndicalism, with a history the subjugated class of the global North. She of strikes, yet exceedingly low rates of union pushes readers to utilize the noncanonical membership. Current trade union member- perspectives of these theorists and credits ship is under 10 percent of the workforce, Hountondji for calling to question Eurocen- and over half of union members are concen- tric knowledge production and Negri for trated in the public sector, in protected his critical reading of world capitalism that nationalized industries like the railway and comes from his perspective ‘‘below.’’ She the post office. Unions have progressively then ends with a semiautobiographical chap- lost members throughout the years. Yet ter in which she reflects on her own social union membership has never been high in activism, calling for a critical need for public- France, in part because collective bargaining ly-engaged intellectual work in the era of covers 90 percent of workers, whether they neoliberalism, the need for intellectual work are unionized or not. In this context, unions to engage a vast range of inequalities, and have historically relied on a core of activists the need to blend practicality and utopianism rather than mass membership. in the construction of knowledge. Connolly engages in ethnographic research Confronting Equality is best described as to examine how the SUD-Rail is responding to a sociological query into the ethos of neolib- the enormous challenges that it faces. Her spe- eralism and its relevance to our under- cific focus is on the role of these union activists standing of inequality. There are two in constructing and sustaining collective inter- significant strands to Connell’s discussion ests and solidarity among workers. She draws

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 71 on sociological theories of framing to explore membership crises, as are the other French how activists create ways of understanding labor organizations. and interpretation that promote working- These militants attempted to implement class interests. She finds that union activists direct action at the local level, but confronted are indeed important in framing the interpre- a number of problems familiar to anyone tation of injustice among workers, encourag- who studies union activism. They faced ten- ing group cohesion and identity, and inciting sions between worker participation and and legitimizing collective action maintaining organizational efficiency and SUD militants are but the latest group of a clear decision-making process. There were worker activists upset with the seeming also tensions between attempts to represent inability of French labor organizations to the particular interests of workers and wider promote radical social change. The French working-class claims for social change. labor movement has been characterized by The most interesting part of the book, and rivalry between competing unions for work- the most distressing, is Connolly’s study of ers throughout much of its history. The SUD the discourse and actions of working-class emerged in the late 1980s in opposition to militants. SUD-Rail activists were very what its members considered to be the aware of the problem of bureaucracy, and reformism and bureaucratization of the two often discussed ways that they could avoid major French labor unions, the Confe´de´ration becoming bureaucrats. They often discussed generale du travail (CGT) and the Confe´de´ra- how to promote strikes and worker demon- tion Francaise De´mocratique du Travail strations, while also looking for new activists (CFDT). The SUD grew fairly rapidly after who could bring in novel ideas for the union. its formation in 1988, wishing to remake They truly believed in the power of grass- the confrontational identity of French union- roots unionism and participatory democracy, ism. It adopted a federal structure organized self-consciously constructing their identities on the basis of occupation or company, while as union activists in opposition to the reform- emphasizing local union activism, as did the ism of the CGT. Yet they ultimately failed to revolutionary syndicalists. The union criti- attract a mass membership. Tensions cized the privatization craze as a movement between old and new generations of acti- away from a public sector ethic focused on vists, and between those committed to local what is best for society towards a consumer- action and those militants more responsive ist approach concentrating solely on profits. to national trends, contributed to this prob- The SUD has also attempted to forge links lem. Pressures on the union to negotiate with other social movements, such as the with the state, and the seemingly inevitable social justice movement, to integrate the process of the professionalization of the demands of labor into a broader context. union leadership, were also factors. But ulti- Connolly focuses specifically on the activ- mately, Connolly writes, workers were just ities of militants in the SUD-Rail union. Rail- not interested in joining the union. She cites way workers have traditionally been among the famous free rider problem as a major rea- the most highly unionized sectors of the son for the lack of participation, for workers French labor force, and among the most mil- benefited from the actions of the unions, itant. SUD-Rail activists have tried to revive whether they were members or not. the spirit of early twentieth century French It is hard to say if Connolly contributes revolutionary syndicalism, by emphasizing much to our knowledge of trade unions, direct action, a strong working-class identity, beyond some ethnographic data on the a suspicion of political parties, and participa- beliefs of activists. She recognizes that a study tory democracy and agency at the local level. of workers who are not leaders, and how they While the movement has been partially suc- approach union activism, could contribute cessful in resurrecting languages of class much to our understanding of the fate of work- struggle and direct action, and organized ers in France. Finally, the book reads much like some previously unorganized workers, on a dissertation, and could have benefited from the whole the SUD-Rail is struggling with a rewrite and attention to editing.

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 72 Reviews

improving well-being, while many other fac- The Economics of Enough: How to Run the tors have more powerful impacts than Economy As If the Future Matters,byDiane income on happiness. (See, for example, the Coyle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 2012 World Happiness Report, edited by John Press, 2011. 346pp. $24.95 cloth. ISBN: Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey 9780691145181. Sachs). ANDERS HAYDEN Coyle likewise attacks the increasingly- Dalhousie University prominent argument that environmental [email protected] challenges can be addressed by turning away from economic growth without reduc- ing well-being. Instead, she asserts that the A series of crises now confronts many con- growth we need, which until now has been temporary societies: climate change and eco- unsustainable, will have to be sustainable in logical unsustainability, growing public debt the future, through measures such as green in the wake of the financial crisis and bank taxes that incorporate environmental exter- bailouts, socially corrosive inequalities, and nalities into prices and better statistical meas- the depletion of trust and social capital. ures that capture the depletion of ‘‘natural Diane Coyle sees a common theme tying capital.’’ This has been the mainstream view together these challenges: the need to ensure since the 1987 Brundtland Report on sustain- that our actions today do not come at the able development; however, Coyle does not expense of the future. engage with the data, produced by environ- Coyle, a Harvard-trained economic con- mental sociologists and others, showing the sultant, proclaims that, ‘‘We’ve reached the inadequacy to date of this project of decou- point of Enough.’’ She highlights the way in pling growth from environmental impacts. which the United Kingdom, United States, In light of such evidence, it seems unwise to and other nations are living beyond their dismiss, as Coyle does, the idea that a turn means environmentally and financially, leav- away from prioritizing growth might be ing the bill for today’s consumption to those needed. who follow. Solutions, she argues, require The idea of ‘‘Enough’’ notwithstanding, new social norms and institutions that there are few limits to the range of issues embody a longer-term view. They also that Coyle addresses. For example, a chapter require reforms to increasingly dysfunc- on ‘‘Trust’’ manages, within a few pages, to tional political systems that seem incapable touch on the flawed institutions of global eco- of solving any of the core problems or of nomic governance, the importance of face-to- engaging citizens in informed debate about face contact in cities, racial diversity and the difficult decisions ahead. affirmative action, and whether govern- Despite the book’s title, Coyle does not ments should collect taxes via payroll deduc- actually believe that we can ever have tion. Some readers might find this breadth enough in one important sense—that is, impressive; others will find themselves wish- with regard to economic output. She rejects ing the author had shown greater restraint the new ‘‘conventional wisdom’’ that GDP and focus. Prospective readers should also growth and happiness are unrelated in be aware that the book does not provide orig- already-affluent societies. Coyle draws, for inal scholarship, but rather reviews the avail- example, on recent studies concluding that able literature—at times quite thoroughly— a link is still evident between happiness in building her argument. and GDP (in logarithmic form) in most coun- The book is at its strongest—or at least tries—although not in the United States, most in line with this reviewer’s ideological where increasing inequality has excluded predilections—in its denunciation of grow- so many people from the benefits of growth. ing inequality, the ‘‘social contagion’’ of Coyle concludes decisively that growth and excess incomes in the economy’s upper rea- happiness are linked, but this is unlikely ches, and the ‘‘sham’’ of bonuses with no to be the last word on that debate. identifiable link to individual performance. There remains considerable evidence that Coyle identifies two main, standard explana- income has diminishing marginal utility in tions for rising inequality: globalization and

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 73 technological change. She adds that we do of recent economic thought on a wide range have a choice in how to respond to these of issues, even if it does not provide fully sat- forces—some countries, including Germany, isfying answers to the question, outlined in France, and Denmark, have seen reductions the sub-title, of ‘‘How to Run the Economy in inequality since 1990. However, a tension As If the Future Matters.’’ exists between her suggestions to limit these inequalities by reining in excess at the top and her call to scale back social entitlements, Transatlantic Conversations: Feminism as such as public pensions, to strengthen govern- Travelling Theory, edited by Kathy Davis ments’ long-term budgetary pictures. Indeed, and Mary Evans. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, she seems to buy into some of the more alarm- 2011. 237pp. $99.95 cloth. ISBN: 97807546 ist claims about the sustainability of public 78359. finances, quoting a bond trader on the grow- ing reluctance in the markets to purchase ANAHI´ VILADRICH U.K. and U.S. debt, and implying that these Graduate Center, CUNY two countries face fates similar to Greece, [email protected] Spain, and Portugal. In fact, markets continue to snap up British and American bonds at low Kathy Davis and Mary Evans conceived this short- and long-term interest rates. collection of essays as a natural outcome The book concludes with a 30-page ‘‘man- from their role as editors of the European ifesto,’’ which is unlikely to inspire the Journal of Women’s Studies—which was masses to take to the streets. Its mildly born as an attempt to counter-act the over- reformist proposals not only aim to give spread dominance of U.S. feminist theory greater weight to the future, but also to amid the field of women studies. From the ‘‘strengthen the moral dimension of capital- very introduction, the editors acknowledge ism.’’ Perhaps most significant, although that the book’s underlying framework is not original, is the call to supplement GDP (and despite their best intentions) Euro- with new statistical indicators that measure centric and Anglo-centric, as it mostly wealth more comprehensively. Another pro- resulted from conversations held between posal with the potential to shift political the United States and the United Kingdom. debate and priorities—by providing a coun- Central to their main approach lies the issue terweight to short-term political pressures— of translation: the fact that the official lan- is the creation of institutions with a duty to guage in the ‘‘global North’’ is English makes give voice to the interests of future genera- even more evident the uni-directionality that tions. Coyle also emphasizes the need to privileges Anglo-spoken countries, with the encourage savings over current consump- United States in the lead, as the mainstream tion—especially high-carbon consumption. intellectual force. While some of her proposals are sensible, Halfway between a self-reflexive analysis others are bound to cause some head-scratch- and a conceptual undertaking, the writers ing, such as: ‘‘Make the old-fashioned virtue in this volume map out their evolving femi- of public service a priority in implementing nist voices through multi-theoretical and the inevitable cuts in public expenditure and empirical layers of meaning across the Atlan- reforming the provision of services’’ (p. 295). tic. And the strength of this book precisely Coyle believes the pendulum has swung rests on its authors’ attempts for translation too far in a market fundamentalist direction, toward building accountable scaffolds to but she is quick to warn against a return to make sense of their personal and geographi- the statism of 1970s Britain, and ultimately cal realities. By no means this volume aims at does not stray far from economic orthodoxy. universalizing its scope; on the contrary, Indeed, there could be greater acknowledge- Davis and Evans invite us to ask: what is ment of the role that mainstream economics unique to European feminism(s) and, at the has played in the various crises she highlights. same time, shared with women academics The Economics of Enough is an ambitious, in the United States? Is there anything dis- thought-provoking, but uneven book. Soci- tinctive in European feminist scholarship? ologists may find it to be a useful overview How to bring the commonalities among

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 74 Reviews women’s different voices in the United States contextualizing (namely translating to Amer- and Europe? ican scholars) what is specific about their Sixteen succinct and powerful essays by ‘‘exotic’’ areas of the world include critiques writers from different disciplines, genera- on the U.S. lack of analysis of the global tions, and locations joined the editors in struggles for reproductive freedom and devising a challenging, and accomplished, social justice movements outside its frontiers. book project. Although not all chapters are The chapters also reflect upon the contri- as successful in providing powerful take- butions to social theory on both sides of the home messages, the collection overall suc- Atlantic, including the pluses and minuses ceeds in offering a multi-vocal feminist quilt of each region regarding the advancement for the expression of women’s academic of specific political and intellectual agen- and political voices across the Atlantic. The das—from queer studies to gender equality writers in this volume build upon their intel- and racial justice. For example, rene´e hoog- lectual and professional trajectories that land’s essay conspicuously observes that place themselves somehow between the cen- while the field of racial and ethnic studies is ter and the periphery of feminist scholarship. more accepted as a prism for the examination In doing so, this collection concocts a pristine of gender inequalities in the United States kaleidoscope that reveals the enduring dif- than in Europe, European scholars are more ferences within and across nation states. Situ- eager to embrace broader advocacy agendas ated in different geographical sites (from in support of queer studies and gay civil Western to Eastern Europe) the authors’ nar- rights. ratives show dissimilar, albeit complemen- The authors’ political engagement towards tary, standpoints that make this volume pursuing a feminist standpoint, both within unique. and outside the academy, is the main topic Divided into three inter-connected themes, of the second part of the book in which critical the book’s first part follows the biographical theory is framed by empirically-grounded trajectories that led the contributors to define, research and political platforms in support and become, feminist scholars in complex of gender equality and social justice. For ways. While the editors, and many of the instance, Ann Phoenix’s striking essay revis- authors, acknowledge that the core of main- its her own contradictory path towards stream feminist paradigms have mostly trav- becoming a black British feminist. The eled from the United States to Europe (with broader East-West racial conversations are little circulation of European ideas back to germane to her political involvement with the United States), this does not mean that both U.S. black feminist writings and ‘‘third those on the European side have had their world’’ discussions on social and racial (in) voices subsumed to American scholarship. justice in the United States. Under the spells of European thinkers from Throughout the book, a few of the chapters Julia Kristeva to Simone de Beauvoir, to crit- revisit the uneven ways through which their ical theorists including Althusser, Gramsci, authors’ feminist trajectories actually suf- and Poulantzas, the chapters’ eclectic agen- fered from the contradictory processes, and das are not absent of critiques of the West. ongoing struggles, involving the fights for Therefore, it is not surprising to learn how lit- gender equality in their countries of birth. tle is known in the United States about the For instance, the striking essay by Maria Gar- contributions of women from the other sides cı´adeLeo´n reveals, in first person, the dra- of the world on gender theory, third-world matic sociopolitical transition that took place feminist contributions, and political practice. in Spain (beginning in the mid-1970s) Grounded counter-narratives to the ‘‘glob- between the conservative Franco’s govern- al womanhood’’ mantra in this book are ment and the subsequent progressive Span- uttered by those at the European borders, as ish era that welcomed principles of gender in Andrea Peto¨’s essay that retraces her intel- equality amid women’s rising professional lectual path, initially as an historian, while careers. In this vein, Gul Ozyegin retraces growing up in the 1960s in communist Hun- her family history in Turkey, where she gary, and later becoming a feminist scholar in grew up under the spells of Western modern- Germany. The essays’ common tropes of ization and ideals of gender equity in the

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 75 labor force, amid a patriarchal upbringing in which women were supposed to be domesti- Tacit Subjects: Belonging and Same-Sex Desire cally caste and submissive. Veronica Prava- among Dominican Immigrant Men,byCarlos delli, who was born to a traditional Italian Ulises Decena. Durham, NC: Duke family, portrays a similar trend by revealing University Press, 2011. 309pp. $23.95 paper. the tensions of coming of age in a country ISBN: 9780822349457. where gender clashes are the norm, with KATIE L. ACOSTA women becoming pioneering subjects in the Tulane University public world albeit remaining as subsumed [email protected] (and sexualized) objects in the social imagi- nary, including the national media. The chal- Scholars interested in intersections of race, lenges exemplified by these authors also class, sexualities, and migration will be speak to existing gendered tensions between rightfully engaged by Carlos Decena’s Tacit the domestic and public spheres both in Subjects, a much awaited and formidable Europe and in the United States. For instance, addition to this nascent field of research. Kelly Coate’s essay challenges the dual Decena’s book is divided into three main meaning of ‘‘writing in the dark’’ both as sections, the first focusing on the partici- a metaphor of working on marginalized pants’ moves to New York City and their (feminist) topics in American academia, ongoing connections to the island. In the sec- and as a claim for finding one’s own time to ond section, Decena focuses on the impor- write. tance of the body as a tool used for commu- The third and final part of book explores nication, legitimacy, and boundary work, the transformations of theoretical concepts while the final section focuses on sexual across the Atlantic, including the conun- practices and contested relationships within drums involving the ‘‘big three’’ (i.e., gender, the activo/pasivo paradigm (Almaguer race, and class) in different locations. In 1993) and, more generally, within an ideol- a way, terms that were initially framed in ogy of machismo. Each section begins with the United States have achieved both global a short auto-ethnographic vignette in which and localized meanings that differ from the Decena shares with the reader pieces of his ones with which they were originally crafted. own life as a Dominican gay immigrant In the end, this book offers women’s real sto- man and, thus, connects his experiences ries eager to enchant the reader with their with those who participated in his study. In personal telling of their coming-of-age as so doing, Decena provides a rare and deeply professional women, feminist scholars, and personal account of the ways in which he, as advocates. Far from providing a ‘‘one-size- researcher and participant, interprets the fits-all’’ recipe, the book offers a provocative related findings. lens with which to explore the authors’ Decena begins by revisiting the concept of multi-locality while reflecting on their own a sujeto tacito or a tacit subject, that which struggles toward finding their unique (and remains unspoken albeit understood, which shared) conceptual voices. he previously outlined in an earlier article (Decena 2008). In this book, Decena expands upon this concept, noting that tacit subjects helped these men maintain connections with their families through a mutual under- standing that sexual matters were private and not to be discussed in a familial setting. Decena cautions that tacit subjects are not equated to or read as an individual’s sexual repression, but rather should be seen as tak- ing ownership of one’s own sexuality and determining the means by which sexuality is discussed within the family. By establish- ing the aforementioned differentiation, this

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 76 Reviews pivotal chapter becomes the point of depar- switching, a way for participants to commu- ture for the remainder of the study. nicate as they move throughout the different Decena pays an extraordinary amount of worlds they straddle. Sexual practices attention to language in his book, making it became one of the places in which Decena initially clear that language is never transpar- notes that the participants challenged mascu- ent, neither his nor that of his participants. linity. He relays their distancing from Domi- The author demonstrates an astute ability nicanidad and the machismo attached to it to unpack language, both in English and in by establishing a precedent for sexual reci- Spanish, paying meticulous attention to the procity and equality in bed. He also points multiple and myriad meanings behind his to the racist stereotypes met by most men in respondents’ words and the ways in which the United States which scripted them as the limitations of language can, at times, the Dominican macho and, regardless of truncate understanding. Decena fluctuates desire, shaped their sexual negotiations. frequently between the two Spanish-lan- Decena’s work is a provocative scholastic guage forms of the verb ‘‘to be’’ (ser and piece which pushes the boundaries of acade- estar). The verb ser translates more literally mia to include more ‘‘tacit subjects’’—both into an English version that implies a stable, ideological and human. Decena is bold, in unchanging, and invariable constant. Estar, that he does not apologize for the frank however, is not as easily or directly translat- image his participants depict of their fellow ed into English. While also meaning ‘‘to be,’’ Dominicans or the hierarchies they create to estar subtly implies a way of being that is not distance themselves from others whom permanent or static. Decena uses estar often they perceive to be undesirable. Rather, in the work to evoke the essential idea of Decena unpacks the meanings behind the identities in transit. The distinction between boundaries and links created by those in his these verbs, although often difficult to estab- study, focusing on their perceptions of other lish in English-language translations, is both Dominicans in relation to their own positions vital and rich in meaning. It reminds the as marginal, working-class, immigrant peo- reader of movement as a recurring theme ple attempting to advance based on a social in the book, particularly reminiscent of the status hierarchy in a host country. Tacit Sub- participants’ moves, before and after migra- jects is clearly a must read for any scholar tion, in and out of Dominican worlds, het- interested in race, class, sexualities and erosexual worlds, gay and bisexual worlds, migration. and worlds of family. Decena himself moves fluidly back and forth between English and Spanish. While he consistently provides References translations, it is unfortunately likely that much of the richness with which he manipu- Almaguer, Tomas. 1993. ‘‘Chicano Men: A Cartog- lates language will be lost for the monolin- raphy of Homosexual Identity and Behavior’’ gual reader. Pp. 255–73 in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Another important theme explored in Reader, edited by Henry Abelove, Michele Decena’s work is ‘‘the straightjacket of mas- Aina Barale, and David Halperin. New York, culinity.’’ The author recounts the constraints NY: Routledge. felt by those he interviewed to perform mas- Decena, Carlos U. 2008. ‘‘Tacit Subjects.’’ GLQ: A culinity as a means for financial survival. Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 14: 339–59. Decena notes how the straightjacket of mas- culinity also shaped the sexual exchanges and intimate friendships among his study participants. He contrasts what he refers to as the serious, masculine image these men give off in public spaces with an image of effeminacy which they sometimes evoke with one another as a way of creating intima- cy and proximity. At this point, Decena pro- vides an analysis of the nuances of code

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a family portrait taken in New Jersey with Divided by Borders: Mexican Migrants and an out-of-date picture of a Mexico-resident Their Children,byJoanna Dreby. Berkeley, child ‘‘pasted in,’’ migrant mothers remem- CA: University of California Press, 2010. ber their children as they were and miss see- 311 pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520260900. ing them change in real time. Because routine R.S. OROPESA phone calls home are poor substitutes for Pennsylvania State University continuous contact, some children may cre- [email protected] ate emotional distance from absent mothers who yearn for closeness. Of course, such experiences are not limited to mothers. Cor- Migration from Mexico is a perpetually roborating video evidence of this account of salient public issue on both sides of the bor- the malaise accompanying out-of-synch lives der. The Mexico-born population in the Unit- can be found in an interview of a migrant ed States is 11–12 million persons, including father in the documentary Farmingville.He 5–6 million undocumented migrants who describes himself with sadness as a ‘‘blind send billions of dollars ‘‘home.’’ However, man’’ because of his inability to visualize the story of this migration must go beyond a growing son in Mexico from his voice on counts of the individuals per se to the fami- the phone. The passage of time at different lies in which they are socially embedded. speeds for those who lead different lives in The prevailing social science narrative starts different places is not emotionally neutral. with a description of migration as a strategic This description alludes to the primary decision that reflects the interests of families objective of elucidating how various inequal- in spreading economic risks by sending ities affect family relationships. Specifically, members abroad. Families are also vital for expectations about parents’ responsibilities marshaling resources that surmount barriers to children are structured around gender. to both leaving home and maintaining trans- Migrant fathers must provide financially national relationships that can pave the way and those who are either unable or unwilling for those who might follow in the footsteps of to send money home may withdraw from pioneer migrants. their children’s lives. As the socio-emotional This narrative misses the human drama in anchors of families, mothers carry a heavier families that is created by tensions between ‘‘moral burden’’ to be with their children. aspirations, emotion-laden bonds, and Migrant mothers must manage guilt about expectations about fulfilling responsibilities leaving children who may resent them for to others from afar. Joanna Dreby’s Divided doing so and inflict emotional pain by calling by Borders: Mexican Migrants and Their Chil- their grandmother caregivers ‘‘mama.’’ dren is a compelling ethnographic inves- Those who separate from their husbands or tigation that re-focuses attention on this who start new families abroad are in an drama, especially on parent-child relation- even more difficult position when dealing ships. Based primarily on fieldwork con- with children who may fear the loss of emo- ducted with undocumented Mexican adults tional commitment from competing loyal- in New Jersey and the children of migrants ties. When separation occurs, some fathers and their grandparent caregivers in Mexico, may take advantage of the opportunity to this study provides an intimate portrait of fill the resulting vacuum (at least until form- how the costs of living apart unfold over ing a union with another woman who can time. This is the story of what happens pick up the slack). when married and single parents migrate, Although even familiar descriptions of and when children are asked to join them. gendered parenting dilemmas will resonate The book is structured around chapters with many readers, Dreby’s attention to that offer case studies and chapters that pur- children’s perspectives is particularly fresh. sue analytic themes. For example, the initial Children’s views are structured less around case study suggests that lengthy separations gender than age. Children apparently shift create mismatches between how mothers from an attitude of indifference to an attitude and their children remember one another. of resentment toward migrant parents as Poignantly conveyed by the reproduction of they get older. Because this adds to the

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 78 Reviews emotional baggage migrant parents must a multi-faceted data collection strategy carry, children have some leverage in dealing involving in-depth interviews, in-school sur- with them. Older children also have greater veys, and interviews with school personnel, freedom under the supervision of grand- this effort better illuminates the possible mother caregivers who typically are careful channels through which some problems not to undermine the child’s parents and may emerge than their prevalence because are often lax in monitoring. This lack of of the research design (e.g., only 12 families mooring increases the chance that children were followed over time). Moreover, an orig- will become ‘‘troubled youth’’ who perform inal research design that excludes non- poorly in school. Still, perspectives mature migrants cannot show that children’s prob- during the transition to young adulthood as lems there are due to migration. Collectively, children accumulate experiences in their these issues make it difficult to evaluate own romantic relationships and come to claims about the inadequacies of perspec- understand their responsibilities as men tives which draw attention to processes asso- and women. Young men who are less suc- ciated with cultures of migration and fami- cessful in school realize that migration is lism. Lastly, a secondary goal was to reveal a route to employment. Young women the human impact of immigration policies. increasingly realize that it is a viable option It is hard to separate the effects of immigra- in the context of marriage. Thus, the migra- tion from the effects of immigration policies tion cycle begins anew. described as ‘‘exacting an unbearable toll Divided by Borders offers important on families.’’ Nevertheless, such character- insights into the ongoing costs of migration izations will resonate with the already con- for fathers, mothers, and children. The verted—those who favor a more humane implication that the costs for parents evolve approach to immigration policy. They will over time, partly in response to the stance of fail to move those who focus selectively on children, exposes models of the migration evidence of the resiliency of families, or process which assume that different family who feel that angst among the undocument- members have the same interests, the same ed population is in the national interest if it costs, or that costs are static. In this vein, it increases the likelihood of eventual family is hard to walk away from this work reunification in Mexico. without realizing how sterile commonly- In closing, this exceptional study reveals used analytic terms like ‘‘costs’’ are when the complexities of undocumented migrants a richer language exists for capturing the as humans who are more than ‘‘arms’’ for psychological downside of migration. digging ditches and carrying someone else’s This study is also praiseworthy for eviden- kids. Divided by Borders will likely serve as tiary reasons. Less ambitious undertakings a touchstone for future research on families might have focused solely on parents in with children who are both here and there. New Jersey, but the adoption of an origin- destination research design that includes children in Mexico provides a necessary van- Corporate Wrongdoing and the Art of the tage point for developing an understanding Accusation,byRobert R. Faulkner. New of how lives are affected by geographic sepa- York, NY: Anthem Press, 2011. 192pp. ration. Moreover, some ethnographies that $32.95 paper. ISBN: 9780857287946. are primarily narratives in the investigator’s own words require considerable trust on the ARI ADUT part of the reader. This is not an issue here. University of Texas, Austin Dreby is able to maintain the reader’s trust [email protected] by liberally showcasing her subjects’ voices as evidence, despite the obvious challenges This book is a very original study of public of doing so when respondents refuse to be accusation. By using sundry media sources, recorded. LexisNexis, and Dow Jones interactive cor- Several limitations that reveal avenues for porate archives, Robert R. Faulkner gener- future research should be mentioned. ates and analyzes an impressive data set con- Although insights are generated from sisting of over a thousand public accusations

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 79 of corporate malfeasance made over two dec- obtain, they are statistically, relatively speak- ades. These charges are about the business ing, not very frequent. In Faulkner’s data set, transactions of more than 400 high-capitali- 45 percent of the accusations implicated only zation companies in the United States. one-fifth of the companies. Despite the high Faulkner usefully differentiates among number of accusations collected by the four types of announcements of wrongdoing: author and their seeming heterogeneity, innuendo, admonition, accusation, and closer analysis reveals that they involve indictment. Despite their different logics, only three principal themes: misrepresenta- these types are often interconnected by dis- tion, misdirection, misuse, or circumvention tinct social processes. Accusation is defined of government processes and procedures. as a ‘‘publicly expressed and perspicuous Public charges of corporate wrongdoing statement of alleged wrongdoing that affixes often cause more moral outrage than convic- blame on the supposed offender’’ (p.7). tions. Faulkner argues that ‘‘in white-collar According to Faulkner, accusations play an and corporate crime, by the time the sentenc- essential function in economic markets inso- ing arrives, the aura of gravitas and moral far as they constitute initial public warning seriousness is exhausted’’ (p.10). Finally, signals about transgressive business conduct. this book makes a signal contribution to The author convincingly argues that accu- the study of opportunism insofar as it sation is a social form with an autonomous emphasizes the supply-side of ‘‘interest- logic. It is not simply a response to a trans- seeking with guile,’’ while most social scien- gression. This is why Faulkner stresses the tists and commentators tend to make symbolic work underlying the production demand-side arguments on this topic. of an accusation—hence the title of the As Faulkner compellingly argues, corpo- book. According to him, the art of producing rate accusations have their own logic and a public allegation entails: ‘‘(1) focusing on an sociological patterns. But his book does an explicit market-based tie, (2) stripping away equally good job of analyzing how the connotations that are favorable and nuanced, denunciatory disclosure of corporate wrong- (3) abbreviating or leveling the public denun- doing also reveals quite a bit about the cul- ciation into concise message, and (4) attribut- ture and moral order of capitalism. The ing or casting explicit blame’’ (p. 9). Faulkner transgressions of market rules throw into then embarks on a quantitative study of the full relief the implicit, taken-for-granted pre- different market-ties that corporate accusa- suppositions of action in the economic tions involve. He differentiates among the world. Furthermore, Faulkner successfully following types of accusations: (1) accusa- shows that corporate scandals are often not tions of wrongdoing in and around the cor- only about straightforward illegal acts but poration; (2) accusations involving rivals, also about broken promises and other viola- industry peers, and competitors; (3) accusa- tions of social expectations. tions involving suppliers of resources, goods, This book should be of great value to eco- services, and commercial banks; (4) accusa- nomic sociologists, criminologists, and soci- tions involving buyer of products, customer ologists of culture. Anyone interested in con- of resources, clients of services, and investors flict or the seamy side of American capitalism in securities and pension funds; (5) accusa- would also learn much from it. tions involving investment banks, analysts, advisers, rating agencies, and the Registered Investment Community; and (6) accusations involving government officials and federal, state, and local regulators. Corporate Wrongdoing and the Art of the Accusation says very important things about the multiple meaning and uses of accusa- tions in different contexts and their frequen- cy. Here are some of the interesting findings. Despite the high-level publicity that the fifth and sixth types of accusations usually

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corruption and large-scale political violence. Are Muslims Distinctive?: A Look at the Both economic inequality and violent crime Evidence,byM. Steven Fish. New York, are less prevalent in Muslim countries than NY: Oxford University Press, 2011. 385pp. they are elsewhere. On the other hand, the $27.95 paper. ISBN: 9780199769216. social conditions for women are poorer in ZIAD MUNSON Muslim countries than in non-Muslim coun- Lehigh University tries. Muslim countries are also more likely [email protected] to be home to authoritarian political regimes. And the majority of most deadly terrorist attacks are committed by Islamists (and most Are Muslims Distinctive? addresses the of those who die in such attacks are Muslims deceptively simple question of how Islam in predominantly Muslim countries). affects individuals and societies. Are Mus- The general analytic strategy of each chap- lims more personally pious than others? ter follows the classic pattern of most quanti- Are they more tolerant of crime or corrup- tative journal articles: present the data, show tion? Do Muslim societies treat women less bivariate relationships, explain multivariate equally? Are they less democratic? The prem- statistical models, and provide a short dis- ise of M. Steven Fish’s book is that most work cussion of the results. Fish is a careful meth- focused on such questions brings more heat odologist who clearly explains the measures than light to these issues, selectively culling he uses at the beginning of each chapter, data that fits preconceived notions of Islam including both their strengths and weak- rather than a dispassionate and comprehen- nesses. A key strength of the book is his mul- sive survey of the available information. tivariate approach, including regular use of This book is an attempt to provide such a sur- multi-level modeling. For each topic, he vey, through attitudinal data coupled with takes into account a wide array of potentially a wide variety of country-level data drawn confounding independent variables. So for from many sources. Six substantive chapters example, he begins Chapter Two by docu- focus on a particular area in which there menting that far more Muslims consider exists significant public discussion of how themselves a ‘‘religious person’’ than do Muslims might be distinctive: personal reli- non-Muslims, but that this difference largely giosity and views toward religion in politics, disappears once age, gender, education level, social capital and tolerance, corruption and and the overall proportion of religious peo- crime, large-scale political violence and ter- ple in the society are accounted for. Muslim rorism, social inequality, and democracy. countries may appear to have more cor- Some of these questions are explored at the ruption than non-Muslim countries in bivar- level of individual attitudes. Contrary to iate measures, but this pattern is entirely stubborn stereotypes, Fish finds little evi- explained by their lower overall levels of eco- dence that Muslims differ much in their atti- nomic development in the multivariate mod- tudes toward the separation of religion and el. Fish tests the robustness of his findings politics. He also finds that they are no more with alternate measures and data sources in religiously devout than members of other many places throughout the book. Overall faiths, and they are just as likely to be mem- he devotes far more space to issues of data bers of voluntary associations as anyone availability, data quality, the range of avail- else. They are less tolerant of atheism than able measures, and model specification non-Muslims, but also less tolerant of politi- issues than do most monographs. Fish also cal corruption. Consistent with other stub- displays a magisterial command of the liter- born stereotypes, Muslims do exhibit more ature on his topic. Each of the chapters con- sexist views toward women. tains extensive citations to work in that Other questions are explored at the societal area, and he carefully parses it all to identify level, comparing predominantly Muslim the key debates and potential hypotheses and non-Muslim countries. Muslim coun- about the role of Islam. tries, he finds, enjoy about the same overall As the author acknowledges several times, level of social capital as the rest of the world, the book is almost entirely descriptive. The and suffer from about the same amount of goal is to identify patterns using robust

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 81 statistical analysis, rather than explain the causes of those patterns. Fish shares some Race and Justice: Wrongful Convictions of African of his explanatory hunches in each chapter, American Men,byMarvin D. Free, Jr., and but does not explore them in any systematic Mitch Ruesink. Boulder, CO: Lynne way. In several places he looks for differences Rienner Publishers, 2012. 333pp. $68.00 between the Bible and Quran that might cloth. ISBN: 9781588268105. explain the divergence between Christians JOE FEAGIN and Muslims on topics such as personal reli- Texas A&M University giosity and gender equality (he finds none). [email protected] The discussion of his finding that predomi- nantly Muslim countries have significantly In this original and interesting book, Marvin less open political systems is perhaps the Free and Mitch Ruesink provide an impor- most interesting of the book, as he explores tant compendium of 343 known wrongful many possible reasons for the pattern and conviction cases involving African American ultimately finds no evidence for any of men over recent decades. While a few other them. It is a refreshingly honest analysis— recent books (Alexander 2010) have exam- both devastating to many extant explana- ined the extensive racialization of the U.S. tions for authoritarian Muslim states yet criminal justice system and its intentional open about the lack of any plausible alterna- focus on black men, no book yet has focused tive explanation. so centrally on the wrongful convictions of It is a bit disappointing that Fish relies black men. exclusively on quantitative data. The pat- The authors here use a narrative method to terns he identifies might be fleshed out examine in some detail many actual cases of more with the inclusion of some other data wrongful convictions (with an appendix list- sources, including the numerous ethnogra- ing all cases), thereby providing very useful phies and interview-based studies that exist accounts not only for those teaching about on the different topics he covers. Inclusion the treatment of African Americans in the of such data would not only enrich the find- criminal justice system but also for future ings, it would allow him to overcome some of researchers seeking important data to devel- the limitations in the measures he uses in the op a broader conceptualization of these cases quantitative models. than the authors provide here. The intended audience for the book is Drawing on multiple databases—such as also not completely clear. The book argues those connected with various innocence and convincingly that more basic quantitative justice legal projects—they examine known descriptive data on the role of Islam in the wrongful convictions overturned by new evi- world is needed. For social scientists, though, dence or DNA testing, not by legal technical- the descriptions of the data and methods will ities. For each case analyzed in some detail, seem too basic. For interested readers outside they examine what factors were important of the academy, on the other hand, the careful in generating the wrongful conviction, with attention to data measures and statistical a recognition of the likelihood of multidi- models will seem tedious. mensionality. They accent the factors of wit- But both of these points are minor quib- ness error, police and prosecutorial miscon- bles. Overall the book is packed with careful- duct, informants with an incentive to lie, ly developed and described empirical results forensic errors, insufficient evidence, and that will serve as important baseline refer- perjury by criminal justice officials. ence material for a wide variety of scholars. In their interesting descriptive data tables, It is a valuable set of analyses for those work- the states with the most known wrongful ing on issues of religion and Islam as well as convictions are the large population states the broader issues of inequality, social capi- of Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, New York, tal, democracy, and violence. and California, although as the authors point out these are also states that have generally gotten more attention from the media and organized groups working on wrongful

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 82 Reviews convictions. The most common offenses some modest links to the relevant social sci- alleged in these wrongful conviction cases ence literatures, would have strengthened are actual/attempted murder and actual/ the book and its conclusions. In my view attempted sexual assault (including rape). that addition would also have made it more They provide substantial chapters with useful for criminology and racial relations numerous narrated examples of these two courses. main types of cases, as well as additional Thus, in this last chapter they revisit the chapters on cases involving wrongful convic- ‘‘war on drugs’’ that emerged in the Reagan tions in regard to drug offenses, robbery, and era, yet offer little sociological assessment of other offenses. Their descriptive breakdowns the relationship of the extensive and inten- of the dimensions of these wrongful convic- tional racialization of that so-called war— tion cases should be of interest to many social and the consequent expansion and rework- scientists and policymakers. ing of the U.S. criminal justice system—to One interesting finding in their review of the pattern of many wrongful convictions of cases of those wrongly convicted for actual black men. They provide a brief discussion and attempted murder is that the most com- of racial profiling in connection with wrong- mon problem is witness error. They also ful conviction cases, but again do little link- found that the murder victims in these ing of that racial profiling to the larger context wrongful conviction cases were much more of systemic racism. One does not need to do likely to be white than for all murder cases a large-scale theoretical analysis to make involving black men. these important interpretative links, especial- The authors provide a short and somewhat ly given the substantial extant social science disappointing final chapter that assesses too literatures on systemic racism they could briefly the sociological and policy implica- have used in setting their important data in tions of their findings. With an eye to the that larger context. issue of reducing wrongful convictions, For example, their data show how often they offer a savvy but terse summary of the a white racial framing of black men is central absence of black prosecutors and other pros- to the discrimination against them in the ecutors of color, as well as of lawyers of color, criminal justice system. This racial framing in the criminal justice system. And they note is periodically demonstrated in their data how the use of peremptory strikes and other for white witnesses and jurors, and even means of exclusion intentionally keep many more importantly for the key white actors blacks from serving on juries. They briefly and agents in the criminal justice system. revisit other inadequate or discriminatory Since there are few blacks among the prose- policing and court practices—including cutors, other key attorneys, senior police offi- poor witness identification procedures, the cers, and other important criminal justice use of ‘‘snitches’’ inclined to lie, and prob- decisionmakers, the dominance of the old lematical defense counsels. A few important white racial framing of black men as likely policy and research recommendations are criminals, inferior, undeserving of legal pro- made: more centralized data collection sour- tections, or in need of social control is not sur- ces, preserving data on wrongful convic- prising. The role of these important white tions, looking at wrongful convictions for actors and agents in the creation and perpet- less serious violations, and a study of convic- uation of a systemically racist criminal justice tions of black women. system is made clear in their data. In their opening chapter, Free and Ruesink In my view these white actors and agents discuss the limitations of their data and need to be named as such and intensely ana- explicitly say they will not examine the ‘‘larg- lyzed for their actual and possible racial er issues of institutionalized racism’’ because framing and discrimination. As the authors that would require an historical and sociolog- periodically suggest, the issues their wrong- ical overview of racial relations and criminal ful conviction narratives raise are much larg- statutes in the United States. Still, a few more er than the troubling particular cases, and pages in their concluding chapter on the sub- now it is well past time for social scientists ject of systemic discrimination and malprac- and other researchers to take the analytical tice in the criminal justice system, with step of assessing in empirical and theoretical

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 83 detail why and how the construction and book. Methodologically, he relies on the anal- operation of the criminal justice system itself ysis of the Berkeley Research Program in is centrally white-crafted and fundamentally Religion. The principal thesis of this work white-controlled. stresses that a religious renaissance is taking place or has already done so in these Muslim societies. The author points out that Muslim Reference piety is socially constructed which explains well why it differs in these societies. For Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow. New instance, Muslim piety in Kazakhstan is York, NY: New Press. very different from the rest of the other coun- tries (p. 96). Hassan explores the relation between Inside Muslim Minds,byRiaz Hassan. Islam and politics. He found a range of polit- Carlton, AU: Melbourne University Press, ical systems: military dictatorship, commu- 2008. 380pp. $45.00 paper. ISBN: 97805228 nism, monarchy, theocracy, national secular- 54817. ism, and democracy. In contrast to the common view in the West, the author MAHMOUD DHAOUADI presents an argument in favor of democracy University of Tunis in Islam. Democracy is an appropriate sys- [email protected] tem for Islam because humans enjoy the sta- tus of God’s vicegerency and at the same The review of Inside Muslim Minds is timely time Islam deprives the state of any divinity. after the 2011 Arab Spring and September Thus, Islam locates ultimate authority in the 11, 2001. Riaz Hassan presents a cultural and hands of people (p. 130). The massive popu- social psychological profile of Muslim minds lar political upheavals of the 2011–2012 Arab and behaviors in seven Muslim countries: Spring called for democracy as a priority. So Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malay- the Islamist parties who won elections in the sia, Pakistan, and Turkey. He deals with sev- Arab countries would not have the peoples’ eral major themes in the book’s ten chapters: support if they marginalized democracy. Islamic consciousness, patterns of religious After the political mind, the author turns commitments, jihad and conflict resolution to the Muslim mind and institutions: ‘‘I was in Muslim societies, political order and reli- particularly interested in exploring differen- gious institutions, expressions of religiosity ces in attitudes towards key Islamic institu- and blasphemy, veiling, patriarchy and hon- tions and the sociological factors producing or killing, globalization and Islamic Ummah these differences’’ (p. 131). He discovered (worldwide Muslim community), philan- the armed forces to be the most trusted in thropy and social justice, Islam and civil soci- the public mind in Malaysia, Pakistan, and ety and mutual suspicions. Egypt (p. 136). As to trust in religious institu- Three streams of Islamic consciousness are tions, he makes two major conclusions: trust identified: the Apologetics who resist the increase in religious institutions is often asso- destructive effects of modernity and Western ciated with increased trust in institutions of knowledge monopoly, Wahabism which is the state in all seven countries, and the inte- a religious movement of the eighteenth cen- gration of religion and the state might not tury desirous to rid Islam of all corruptions always be in the best interests of Islamic insti- and aberrations, and Salafism which has tutions and the religious elite. Consequently, been often used interchangeably with trust in religious institutions might also be Wahabism. Salafism calls upon Muslims to eroded (p. 149). This remark appears to con- return to the original textual sources of the tradict the famous orthodox contention of Qur’an. Islam: ‘‘Islam is deen wa dunia = Islam is a reli- Hassan has surveyed 6,300 respondents gion and a way of life.’’ from the seven countries. This is probably Veiling, patriarchy, and honor killing are the first attempt to map quantitatively the underlined. Hassan stresses what he calls different aspects of Muslim religiosity. This misogynist attitudes in Muslim culture (p. constitutes the main contribution of his 175). He makes a historical social analysis of

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 84 Reviews conditions leading to these phenomena. He will chart their own patterns on distinctive concludes that these conditions have affected religious, political, economic, social, and the Muslim consciousness about the status, cultural orientations appropriate to the his- the role, and position of Muslim women. In tory and temperament of their people the first two centuries of Islam, the Qur’anic (p. 230). injunctions did not prevent women from Distributive justice in Islam is raised in the praying with men. They were expected to book as both an economic and spiritual act. dress modestly, yet they were not asked to Some see zakat as a conservative measure wear veils. However, by the end of the sec- of the redistribution of wealth, while others ond century of the Muslim calendar, women interpret it as a symbol for the creation of were forbidden to pray in public assemblies ideal ummah: a fellowship of shared faith and over time mosque attendance became and the belief that doing good things does male dominated (p. 182). matter (p. 247). The author explains the strict cultural val- As to the idea of civil society, the author ues and rules towards women because they concludes that movements toward a civil are perceived as the embodiment of sexuality societyaregainingmomentumintheMus- itself. In his view, veiling, honor killing, and lim world (p. 263). The Arab Spring impact patriarchy could be interpreted as the out- is likely to encourage the processes of come of mismanagement of sexuality in civil society in societies calling for more Muslim societies (p. 215). Personally, I was democracy. a witness of strange behavior implicitly relat- The book ends its study by indicating the ed to the mismanagement of human sexuali- presence of equal mutual suspicions between ty in rural Tunisian communities: daughters the Muslim world and the Christian West. and sons were not supposed to hold their Yet, he fails to show that Muslims are more babies/children or talk to them in the pres- prone to dailogue than Western Christians, ence of their fathers in particular (patriar- because Muslims know Western languages chy). However, change is taking place in and believe in Christianity more than West- rural Tunisia in favor of more relaxed atti- erners know the native Muslim languages tudes towards sexuality. and believe in Islam. The partial and the The prevailing attitudes of the surveyed full sharing of these two cultural symbols Muslim countries are not identical toward between peoples are seen as green visas for veiling, patriarchy,and honor killing. The lat- societies and civilizations’ dialogues.* ter is more widespread in the Middle East than in North Africa and it is practiced also among Arab Christians in Egypt, Jordan, * Dhaouadi, M. 2010. ‘‘The Arab-Muslim World and the Palestinian Territories. Thus, honor Set to Dialogue and to Clash with the West: A killing is rather a cultural value. The author Cultural Perspective,’’ Dirasat: Human and believes that the general trend of change in Social Sciences, 37(2): 523–29. the Muslim world will have its impact on veiling, the seclusion of women, and patriar- chy(p.216).Yet,Islamicrevivalismwiththe Arab Spring is likely to slow this change. The concept of ummah in the globalization age is expected to lead to the strength of Islamic ummah in the future, not as a unified and unitary community, but as a differentiat- ed one consisting of separate ummahs that represent different Islamic regions. Five cen- ters are identified: Arabic Middle Eastern Islam, African Islam, Central Asian Islam, South-East Asian Islam, and the Islam of the Muslim minorities in the West. This development might give legitimacy to the emergence of regional ummah poles which

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in Germany. Ho¨hn and Moon thereby pro- Over There: Living with the U.S. Military vide a context that integrates the remaining Empire from World War Two to the Present, essays which cover a range of locales, issues ¨ edited by Maria Hohn and Seungsook and historical periods. Moon. Durham, NC: Duke University Michiko Takeuchi examines postwar Japan Press, 2010. 453pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN: (1945–1952), focusing on the intersection of 9780822348276. the sexual aggression of occupying military GREGORY HOOKS forces and racial, class, and above all, gen- Washington State University dered inequalities in Japan. To avoid a harsh [email protected] occupation and to protect ‘‘good’’ Japanese women (i.e., women from elite families) from the sexual advances of GIs, the leaders Maria Ho¨hn and Seungsook Moon have cre- of postwar Japan ‘‘gave’’ the American occu- ated a unique and splendid volume. They piers thousands of comfort women (i.e., advance a provocative claim: the United women from disprivileged classes and stra- States has created and continues to maintain ta). Takeuchi provides a nuanced account a global empire. Through a network of mili- that documents the agency of sex workers, tary bases, the United States has unmatched the contradiction of U.S. policy regulating global reach. For host (occupied) nations, the sexuality of GIs, and comparisons with the impacts of bases are pervasive, extending the colonial sex policies of occupying forces to the most intimate social relations. This in Europe and Asia before and after World claim is provocative because it flies in the War II. face of U.S. self-perception as being a singu- Donna Alvah focuses on U.S. military fam- larly benign world power. This claim is also ilies. At the end of the Cold War, military provocative for sociology. If Ho¨hn and planners displayed greater acceptance of Moon are correct, sociology (and related dis- families on military bases. These shifts have ciplines) have been remiss. Instead of exam- had contradictory results. Some military ining this global empire to understand planners believe that having families with impacts on U.S. society and on host (occu- troops boosts morale. Moreover, it reduces pied) nations, sociologists have treated these the need for the U.S. military to participate bases as local anomalies (or have ignored in procuring sex workers to satisfy the sexual them altogether). Ho¨hn, Moon, and contribu- appetites of hyper-masculinized soldiers. tors provide compelling evidence to support Other military planners express concern their claims. that family-centered overseas military bases Edited volumes typically exhibit uneven- have resulted in less effective and less aggres- ness in focus and quality. Over There is the sive military forces; they advocate a remascu- exception. In addition to their co-authored linization of the military. introduction and conclusion, Moon and Robin Riley discusses the ‘‘hidden sol- Ho¨hn authored six chapters. Moon’s essays diers’’ of the 1990s and 2000s—women examine: (1) the regulation of sexuality employed to manufacture weapons in the (U.S. military and Korean sex workers) U.S. defense industry. These war-workers from 1945–70, (2) the contradictions and ten- disassociated the products they manufac- sions between U.S. and Korean soldiers as tured from the grisly carnage these weapons reflected in the discourse of Korean soldiers, produced (stressing instead their contribu- and (3) contemporary abuse and violence tions to ‘‘national defense’’). They also against transnational camptown women emphasized that paid employment allowed (perpetrated by U.S. soldiers and by Korean them to care for their children and other business owners). With a focus on Germany, dependents. Thus, their identities centered Ho¨hn examines: (1) sexuality, soldiers, and on caretaking, not warmaking. policies in postwar Germany, (2) changes in Two chapters draw on ethnographic field- German perceptions of U.S. soldiers over work. Christopher Nelson focuses on Oki- time, and (3) the manner in which U.S. racial nawa, specifically on the artistic and cultural politics and racism of the 1970s played out in representations of and resistance to U.S. the sexuality and politics of troops stationed occupation. Chris Ames explores the dreams

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 86 Reviews and struggles of Okinawan women involved terms with the empire that the United States with GIs. Throughout decades of occupation, built and continues to maintain. these relationships have been discouraged, at times formally and, at all times, informally. Many Okinawans assume that these women Where Are All the Good Jobs Going?: What are on a continuum with sex workers; the National and Local Job Quality and Dynamics U.S. military places institutional barriers to Mean for U.S. Workers,byHarry J. Holzer, such relationships. Ames examines strate- Julia I. Lane, David B. Rosenblum, and gies that Okinawan women have used to Fredrik Andersson. New York, NY: Russell navigate marginality in their own culture Sage Foundation, 2011. 212pp. $24.95 paper. and in the military organization. ISBN: 9780871544582. Jeff Bennett examines the abuse and tor- ture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (Iraq)—abu- ARNE L. KALLEBERG ses based on a highly gendered and sexual- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ized degradation. By situating these abuses [email protected] in the context of aggressive sexuality, mascu- linity, and conquest that permeate U.S. occu- Unemployment and the lack of jobs have pying forces, Bennett links these contempo- dominated policy debates in recent years in rary tragedies to the experiences of nations the United States. Nevertheless, concerns that the United States has occupied since about the quality of work remain a source World War II. of distress for millions of people, especially This is an outstanding collection, it can those who are trapped in low-wage jobs. enrich a wide range of graduate and upper There has been no shortage of speculation division courses. It would be a lost opportu- about what is happening to job quality, rang- nity were this book pigeonholed and restrict- ing from those who maintain that good jobs ed to research and pedagogy focused on the are disappearing, to scholars who argue military and peace studies. This book makes that the United States does not have enough a novel and compelling claim that the good workers to compete in the global econo- dynamics at overseas military bases reflect my and to create broadly shared prosperity. the contours of U.S. politics and culture—if In Where Are All the Good Jobs Going?, four in a distorted fashion. The United States economists provide empirical evidence that fought wars in the name of democracy; its sheds light on many aspects of the debate overseas empire was also justified in these about job quality in the United States. They terms. But U.S. foreign policy condoned address critical questions such as: what are authoritarianism at the national level. In the the trends in the availability of good jobs? vicinity of its bases, the U.S. military assisted Which workers are more likely to get—and and supervised the recruitment, commodifi- lose—good jobs? And, how do trends in cation, and regulation of sex workers. These job quality differ by time period and local policies reflected patriarchal, homophobic labor markets? Their answers to these ques- and racist fault-lines in U.S. society. Over tions are based on a unique and massive There does not treat these issues in a one-sid- data set on firms and individuals, the Longi- ed manner, with the United States imposing tudinal Employer Household Dynamics its will on complacent and passive victims. (LEHD) data compiled by the U.S. Census Rather, these essays provide a textured Bureau. Their analysis covers individual examination of the interplay and negotia- workers and their employers in a variety of tions between an occupying army and an industries in twelve states over a period of occupied land and people. twelve years (1992–2003). In an era of globalization, sociology has The authors’ analyses of the correlates and moved beyond assuming static and free- trends in job quality rely heavily on the esti- standing nation-states. Now, increased mation of ‘‘fixed effects’’ for every firm and emphasis is being placed on the permeability every worker. Their measures of job quality of borders and flows of people and goods. To are estimates of the wages that a firm pays fully understand the global order and global the average worker (controlling for workers’ processes, it is also necessary to come to individual skills and characteristics), while

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 87 indicators of worker quality are the market The authors’ empirical results rely on var- value of the skills and other attributes that ious assumptions regarding the estimation of workers can take with them as they move fixed effects. Many of these are technical from one firm to another. The authors divide points but some have important substantive these estimated firm- and person-fixed implications. In particular, as the authors effects into quintiles: firms in the top quintile point out, estimating fixed effects from panel have good jobs and those in the bottom quin- data depends mainly on individuals who tile have bad jobs; while workers in the top change firms, a difficulty that is exacerbated and bottom quintiles of person effects are by the relatively short time periods analyzed. the most and least skilled, respectively. Esti- Moreover, fixed-effects estimates would not mating these fixed effects enables the explain why a worker’s wages would change authors to assess changes in job quality other than attributing it to their changing from the points of view of both employers firms. To illustrate, consider a situation and individual workers. where firm A promotes skill acquisition Analyses based on these estimates of firm among its workers, perhaps through an and individual worker fixed effects yield extensive training program in which workers a number of important results. The authors participate as they progress upwards on job find that good jobs did not disappear ladders within the firm. This increase in skills between 1992 and 2003, though their charac- is not recorded as skill acquisition, however, ter and location have changed: there are now unless the worker moves to firm B and takes fewer good jobs in manufacturing and more with them the skills acquired in firm A. Fur- in professional services and finance. There thermore, any increase in this worker’s skills has also been a growing polarization between is assumed to result from the actions of firm good and bad jobs, with jobs in the middle B, not A, since firm B is paying the worker growing more slowly than those at the the higher wages. Hence, firm B may be extremes. Polarization in job quality was more likely to be regarded as a ‘‘higher job greatest in metropolitan statistical areas quality’’ employer than A, despite the fact (MSAs) with one million or more residents, that A boosted the worker’s skills. Similarly, which is likely due to the expansion of both it is challenging to disentangle factors that high-quality professional and low-paying might enhance a person’s skills while work- service jobs (which are often filled by low- ing for a particular employer (such as con- skilled immigrants), in larger MSAs. More- tinuing education or better developed net- educated workers are better able to obtain work contacts) from practices that the firm well-paid jobs, supporting the view that hav- itself may use to develop a worker’s skills. ing good skills is increasingly necessary in In addition, these heavily data-driven order to obtain good jobs. When less-educat- analyses do not specify in much detail the ed workers lose good jobs involuntarily, they social and economic forces that generate the are now less able than in the past to obtain changes in job quality that the authors jobs of comparable quality. observe. Their fixed-effects estimates are The authors’ empirical findings under- ‘‘black boxes’’ that need to be unpacked in score the necessity for policy interventions order to understand more precisely the to focus on both the demand and supply mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of sides of the labor market. Addressing prob- employment and labor markets. This repre- lems of low-wage employment requires eco- sents a pressing challenge as well as great nomic and labor market policies that create opportunity for sociologists to contribute to good jobs directly through the use of various the debate over job quality by identifying ‘‘carrots’’ (e.g., subsidies to firms that pro- the institutional and organizational factors vide more training or upward promotion that may account for firm effects, and the paths) and ‘‘sticks’’ (e.g., raising minimum social forces that contribute to workers’ wages and/or benefits); as well as the imple- acquisition of human and social capital. Soci- mentation of more active labor market poli- ologists’ (and economists’) efforts to address cies that enhance the education and skills of a variety of timely and urgent issues related workers so that they are able to fill the good to organizational inequality and labor mar- jobs that become available. kets will find much to learn from this book’s

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 88 Reviews valuable empirical intervention into the topic Written for a largely academic audience of job quality and the gold mine of data rep- who may be already familiar with using resented by the LEHD. web-based interfaces, Disability and the Inter- net readers will surely discover new infor- mation thanks to Jaeger’s detailed descrip- Disability and the Internet: Confronting tion of the many issues. One interesting a Digital Divide,byPaul T. Jaeger. Boulder, section on e-government (Chapter Three) CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012. describes the impact of the U.S. federal gov- 225 pp. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781588268280. ernment as the largest producer of online content in the United States. Yet most of ASHLEIGH THOMPSON the federal websites violate accessibility City University of New York guidelines. The digital divide becomes [email protected] a democratic divide when people with dis- abilities are cut off from civic participation, In this very well-researched book, Paul T. social services, and information needed for Jaeger argues that access to the Internet is daily living. no less than a human and civil rights issue. Other discussions of interest include rele- While the Internet and its related technolo- vant laws, international efforts toward gies hold the potential to be tremendous tools access, social networking and gaming, of inclusion, Jaeger cites that people with dis- course management software, and the histo- abilities access and use the Internet at rates ry and role of public libraries providing that are half of the general population. His accessible materials and online services. Jae- reasoning, perspectives, and examples prove ger also breaks down how Internet-related thorough and compelling. technologies affect people across the gamut While highlighting different facets of the of disability labels. Not unlike conflicts in digital divide, each chapter adds to Jaeger’s the built environment, features like touch case detailing the systematic societal exclu- screens that provide access to some people sion of people with disabilities. On one may inhibit access for others. As such, hand some of these trends stem intuitively a decentralized disability community does from the data: Internet access is largely tied not come together for advocacy about partic- to socioeconomics, and people with disabil- ular access issues. Unfunded government ities statistically have higher levels of unem- mandates and the low statistics on usage by ployment and lower levels of education than people with disabilities all contribute to the the general population. But people with dis- dilemma being described. These sections abilities prove dissimilar from other Internet- depict a complex, avoidable situation. Born- disadvantaged demographics. For people in accessible technologies incorporated during rural areas, for example, special programs the design phase would cost nearly nothing may be enough to bridge the gap. For people compared to modifications made later on to with disabilities, barriers of cost and access rapidly changing systems. are magnified by technological barriers built Disability and the Internet includes much of into the Internet and its related systems. the information a reader would expect in Jaeger explains the aspects of exclusion terms of issues relating to technology. But and segregation that result: without the Inter- unexpected are the interspersed treatments net people with disabilities are limited in of disability history, the disability rights terms of interactions related to their personal movement, and Disability Studies frame- and social lives, commerce, communications, works. Jaeger’s deftly-handled synopsis of government, employment, and education. theoretical perspectives, including the medi- Through this lens, Internet access for people cal, social, postmodern, minority group and with disabilities is tightly connected to social diversity models, provides a good stand- justice concerns about their participation in alone overview for a reader unfamiliar broader society. Jaeger’s authorial voice, with disability issues. The inclusion of theo- impassioned and political, gives these rolling ry strengthens the book’s social justice claims an edginess and punch. premise.

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Because there is so much content, this book would benefit from being broken down into The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing shorter chapters that hold together more Identities,byPaul Jones. Liverpool, UK: tightly. As the book arduously makes the Liverpool University Press, 2011. 195pp. case for access, Jaeger poses counterargu- $39.95 paper. ISBN: 9781846310775. ments, but these anti-Internet moments reg- WENDY SIMONDS ister as missteps. He posits that increased Georgia State University presence online may result in people with [email protected] disabilities having decreased visibility in society, which in turn could actually erode In The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing efforts toward integration. The author also Identities, Paul Jones makes the case for mentions that excessive use of the Internet thinking about architecture as a politicized, has been linked causally to a variety of commercial, symbolic project that demon- disabilities. strates a range of cultural ideologies and con- But in terms of teaching, these thematic flicts. Jones presents an alternate view of the tensions could spark meaningful class dis- built environment from what practitioners cussion. This book is meticulously cited yet and historians of architecture tend to pro- not overtly complicated or technical, and mote, in which architecture is seen as a series inherently interesting to many a web- of timeless works of artistic genius. In Jones’ addicted college student. The title would be words: ‘‘The highly aestheticized discussions well placed on an undergraduate syllabus: that characterize much of the symbolic capi- our students will be the ones to design future tal at stake in architectural theory and prac- technologies. Change in this sector begins tice can lead to an apolitical vision of architec- with them. ture in which a disconnect exists between As disability affects the general population architectural form and wider social ques- increasingly with age, baby boomers who uti- tions’’ (p. 21). He seeks to address this lize technology presently may also find this ‘‘disconnect.’’ topic important. This point is one major tri- Jones recounts several architectural ‘‘case umph of the book: Disability and the Internet studies’’ that feature ‘‘starchitects’’ engaging thoroughly discusses its subject and makes with state, public, and corporate interests— a case for its relevance to most any reader. and the resulting ‘‘iconic’’ structures that Educators, employers, government officials, have and have not emerged from these nego- technologists, designers, researchers, policy tiations. The projects Jones considers include: makers, and Internet users with and without London’s Millenium Dome Project by disabilities all have something to contribute Richard Rogers, Daniel Libeskind’s Ground to advocacy. Jaeger’s urgent claim is clearly Zero Master Plan, Will Alsop’s design for expressed again at the conclusion of the a landmark building in Liverpool, Rem Kool- book: people with disabilities are in a civil haas and Jean Nouvel’s European Union’s rights moment not unlike previous efforts Brussels Capital of Europe project, and Nor- for equal access to education and employ- man Foster’s reconstruction of the Reichstag ment. Until the Internet and related technol- in Berlin. Jones documents how conscribed ogies are fully accessible, people with dis- architects are because they have to appease abilities will be excluded from the Internet and appeal to various stakeholders in order age. to obtain the capital necessary to accomplish their art. Jones situates the stories of these projects within a broader socio-historical account of iconic European and American architecture that goes back to the Victorian Era. His accounts demonstrate how political ideologies—ranging from imperialism to multiculturalism—get debated, sensational- ized, and represented in the stories of these landmark building design projects.

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The book is exceedingly well researched; institutional interactions that shape public clearly Jones immersed himself in the litera- space (and produce such self-presentational ture and theory of the fields he discusses tendencies among architects). (art and architectural history and theory). Jones also could have revealed more about He also draws on popular critical responses his own views of the architects and buildings and journalistic accounts of the cases he he writes about; he tends to draw heavily on describes, but not enough to make the stories the work of other scholars to critique specific as engaging as they might be. More behind- projects, and to save his moralizing for the the-scenes information and more biographi- field in general. Jones’ strongest recommen- cal detail would have spiced up the drier bits. dation is this: ‘‘A shift away from the archi- Jones’ critical approach reiterates many of tectural object at the centre of critique, to be the theoretical tenets of Howard S. Becker’s replaced with engagement with the social Art Worlds (2008 [1982]), but that work is function of architecture —including its wider not referenced here. It was also surprising politics and economy—would pave the way not to see mention of recent works on the for a more critical architecture that, con- politics of public art and architecture, such nected to wider social and political realities, as Alison Young’s Judging the Image: Art, Val- could contribute to social action that chal- ue, Law (2005) and Cher Krause Knight’s lenges existing social relations rather than Public Art: Theory, Practice, and Populism assisting in the legitimation of their repro- (2008). But as far as I know, there is no other duction’’ (p. 166). Jones is prone to long- book by a sociologist that discusses recent windedness and vagueness of this sort. and current architecture in these terms. How to accomplish this shift remains unclear Jones interrogates the institutional struc- and difficult to envision, especially given the tures of architecture some ways, most nota- global capitalistic power dynamics Jones bly in terms of class-based power relations, has chronicled throughout his book. He but not others. His analysis could have shows that architecture is an elite enterprise reached out in more sociological directions. embedded in the intersections of several elit- For instance, discussion of the institutional ist institutions, and unraveling this power production of elite and non-elite archi- structure seems far more complicated than tects—how architecture schools feed elite wishing it were not so. firms—would have provided useful knowl- The Sociology of Architecture will be a useful edge of the field as an occupational hierarchy resource for scholars interested in the poli- comparable to other elite professions that tics of art (architecture in particular), in pervasively impact social life. Jones makes how cultural and social change affect the no mention of the race or gender of starchi- built enviroment, and for anyone engaged tects, who are nearly all white Western in the creation of public art or architecture. men. An analysis of race and gender politics within the field of architecture would have been worthwhile. NAFTA and the Politics of Labor Trans- Perhaps unsurprisingly, starchitects often nationalism,byTamara Kay. New York, NY: come across as slick, elitist, egotistical opera- Cambridge University Press, 2011. 310pp. tors who craft what they say to win politi- $29.99 paper. ISBN: 9780521132954. cians’ and competition judges’ favor, as they jockey for large-scale commissions. Rem STEPHANIE LUCE Koolhaas (whose buildings I love) sounds City University of New York particularly self-aggrandizing and craftily [email protected] competitive. Ought one love buildings any less upon learning their creators are arrogant The U.S. labor movement was born as an capitalist accommodators who want to be immigrant workers movement, but despite celebrities? (I guess not?) Jones does not this, and despite a number of successful take up this issue; as mentioned, he does cross-border collaborations over the years, not focus on the architects’ private lives. He mainstream unions were mostly anti- is concerned with their public words, and immigrant and nationalist for much of the how what they say exemplifies the twentieth century. For example, as late as

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1986, the AFL-CIO supported the Immigra- between this shift and the relationships built tion Reform and Control Act which estab- through the work around NAFTA and the lished sanctions for employers found hiring NAALC . immigrant workers. According to Kay’s findings, unions that This history might suggest that the emer- were more vulnerable to foreign trade may gence of the North American Free Trade have been more likely to build transnational Agreement (NAFTA) in the late 1980s would relationships in the fight around NAFTA; lead to a vocal and hostile campaign on the also, unions with ‘‘progressive leaders’’ part of U.S. unions against Mexican workers were more likely to build transnational rela- and unions. As Tamara Kay shows in NAFTA tionships even if their unions were not vul- and the Politics of Labor Transnationalism, nerable to foreign trade. Yet one union that that did not quite happen. Instead, NAFTA stands out for its racist campaign against created a ‘‘Transnational Trade-Negotiating NAFTA was the Teamsters, which at that Field’’ (p. 22) which led to an increase in col- time was under the leadership of the progres- laboration between U.S., Mexican, and sive reformer Ron Carey. Kay discusses this Canadian unions. A number of unions complicated case and notes that while Carey worked together across borders first in and the Teamsters leadership worked to pro- a (failed) attempt to defeat the bill, and mote an internationalist view that did not next in their efforts to influence the presi- scapegoat Mexican workers, others saw the dent’s ‘‘fast-track’’ authority and to include Teamsters rhetoric as among the most racist a side agreement covering labor rights in among the labor movement. Kay then char- the agreement. Kay says that the Transna- acterizes the Teamsters in the United States tional Trade-Negotiating Field helped con- as one that did not have progressive leader- stitute transnational actors and interests. ship. The Teamsters have had a history of The labor side agreement to NAFTA, the contentious internal politics, with sharp divi- North American Agreement on Labor Coop- sions between the ‘‘reformers’’ and the ‘‘old eration (NAALC), went into force along with guard,’’ and the Carey years were no excep- NAFTA in 1994. The NAALC included 11 tion. Although Carey won the presidency, core labor principles along with new institu- ‘‘old guard’’ Teamsters were still in charge tions and mechanisms for dealing with viola- of large Locals, and also still held some staff tions of those principles. Although most positions. This makes it difficult to measure observers agree that the mechanisms created what counts as a ‘‘progressive leadership.’’ via the NAALC are ineffective, Kay argues Furthermore, union leaders might be ‘‘pro- that the process created a ‘‘Transnational gressive’’ on broader social justice issues, Legal Field’’ (p. 22), ‘‘a North American labor but authoritative and hierarchical in regards rights regime’’ (p. 100), and new legal mech- to internal union democracy. But if ‘‘progres- anisms that furthered the transnational rela- sive leadership’’ is a key variable in explain- tionships between certain unions. ing unions’ willingness to build transnation- Kay argues that while some U.S. unions al relationships, is there a role for rank-and- failed to take advantage of the opportunities file union members, particularly those in created by the NAALC or relied on racist a hierarchical union? arguments in an effort to defeat NAFTA, While Kay’s cases are instructive, the others were able to build new relationships implications for current trade agreement and create new openings for organizing negotiations are not as clear. The United through the side agreement. Unions worked States has passed a slew of trade agreements together across borders to file complaints to since NAFTA, and is currently pushing one the respective authorities created under the of the most ambitious regional trade agree- NAALC. In some cases unions worked ments ever—the Trans Pacific Partnership directly to assist each other’s organizing (TPP), with very little apparent opposition efforts or even work on joint projects. Fur- or intervention from the U.S. labor move- thermore, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, ment despite grave concerns from some the AFL-CIO went on to an historic shift in unions in partner countries. Does this sug- its position on immigration and orientation gest that even the U.S. unions with progres- toward globalization. Kay sees a direct link sive leaders have concluded that there is little

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 92 Reviews space to influence such agreements without Bangladesh looks at these different patterns a fight over fast-track authority, or that the of global migration by focusing on both the openings created by the NAALC or other long-term permanent settlement of Bangla- labor standards offer too little benefit? Is deshis in the United Kingdom and the United there something unique about NAFTA and States and the more recent movements of the relationships created with neighboring temporary contract workers from Bangla- countries, as opposed to potential union desh to the Gulf Cooperation Council partners in TPP countries? (GCC) countries and Malaysia. In any case, the questions raised by Kay’s Kibria is also interested in the ‘‘surge of research are as relevant today as they were religiosity’’ and ‘‘the expansion of Islamic when NAFTA was first negotiated. Unions movements’’ that she sees sweeping ‘‘across must resolve how to work together in a global the Muslim world’’ since the late twentieth economy if they are to survive, and the les- century. The main stated focus in her book sons here are vital. Social movement scholars is the interaction between these two ele- will also benefit from Kay’s nuanced analysis ments: ‘‘global migrations’’ on the one hand of the impacts of globalization. Not all unions and ‘‘Islamic revival’’ on the other, and are the same, and not all international agree- she approaches this complex topic through ments create the same kinds of openings. ‘‘a study of movements from the Muslim- This book offers a number of key insights majority country of Bangladesh to different for labor and social movement scholars, as parts of the world...’’ (p. 1). More specifical- well as activists. The cases here show that ly, Kibria looks at how diasporic Bangladeshi globalization and trade do not have to neces- Muslim families ‘‘organize their community sarily pit workers against workers, or unions life and make sense of their place in the against unions, but can in fact create new world’’ with ‘‘particular attention to the spaces to organize. Kay also makes the case dynamics of Muslim identity’’ among them that we cannot evaluate NAFTA in a simplis- (p. 2). There is a third theme in Kibria’s study: tic way, but need to examine the complex the effect of diasporic life experiences of her impacts on union organizations over time. subjects on what she describes as ‘‘the reli- gious landscape of Bangladesh today’’ (p. 3). The book consists of seven chapters. The Muslims in Motion: Islam and National Identity introduction situates Kibria’s research within in the Bangladeshi Diaspora,byNazli Kibria. larger questions of contemporary discourse New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University on Muslims and Islam in the West, and the Press, 2011. 167pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: location of Bangladesh in a global hierarchy 9780813550565. of states. The second chapter offers a brief overview of the history and politics of Ban- MAHUA SARKAR gladesh that Kibria argues is important to Binghamton University, SUNY understand ‘‘the migration experience’’ of [email protected] Bangladeshis. In the following four chapters, Kibria takes up her three main case studies: The end of the twentieth century has long-term Bangladeshi migration to the Unit- brought a significant intensification in what ed States and Britain, and temporary contract scholars such as Nevzet Soguk and Saskia migrants in the GCC countries (Bahrain, Sassen have called ‘‘global migrancy.’’ Migra- Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the tion of human beings is of course not new, but United Arab Emirates), and Malaysia. Some as Stephen Castles has pointed out, unlike two hundred in-depth interviews with Ban- earlier moments of large-scale human move- gladeshi (im)migrants and their families, as ments across state borders, this new phase well as her many insights from extended par- has engulfed the entire world. A significant ticipant observation among diasporic Ban- portion of trans-border migration now gladeshi communities, constitute the core of occurs within the global South, and not just the empirical material that Kibria considers from the South to the more conventional des- in these central chapters. In the concluding tinations of the wealthy North. Nazli Kibria’s chapter, Kibria briefly addresses the question book on transnational migrants from of the impact of return migration on

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 93 contemporary Bangladeshi society, especial- from an unresolved tension resulting from ly on changing ideas about religiosity. the author’s decision to emphasize the ques- Two key constructs form the bulwark of tion of Islamic revival and Muslim-ness Kibria’s analysis of Bangladeshi transnation- among Bangladeshis abroad, while relegat- al migrant experiences: the relations between ing global migration to the status of context. the sending and receiving countries, and It is understandable why Kibria wants to what she calls the ‘‘global national image’’ write about a topic as important as Islam of the sending country. The latter, Kibria sug- and its impact on diasporic populations, gests, ‘‘can be a vehicle of racialization, or the but the empirical material Kibria presents ongoing construction of migrants as different in her book speaks far more insistently to and inferior in an intrinsic sense...[in] the issues of migration. Even her two key analyt- receiving society...’’ (p. 8). It can also have ical constructs—‘‘global national image’’ and serious implications for how migrants from ‘‘inter-state inequality’’—relate to the prob- any destination society are viewed in terms lems of being Bangladeshi, not Muslim, in of ‘‘their perceived potential for effective a more affluent receiving context. incorporation into it’’ (pp. 5–6). One of It also bears noting that constructs such as Kibria’s key contentions in the book is that ‘‘global national image’’ and ‘‘interstate the negative global national image of Bangla- inequality’’ are too broadly and imprecisely desh evokes specters of ‘‘poverty, political defined to have much traction in explaining invisibility, and corruption’’ (p. 42). And the specific forms of discrimination faced this, according to Kibria, is a reason why by Bangladeshi migrants in different receiv- immigrants, especially in the second genera- ing contexts. Consequently, we are left with tion, turn to Islam as a source of pride and questions about how Bangladeshi Muslim affirmation. However as she usefully experiences are substantively different from observes, while Islam serves as a refuge for experiences of migrants—permanent and the first generation Bangladeshi immigrants temporary—from other non-Western loca- both in Britain and the United States, for tions, who face discrimination based on class, the second generation it can be either a basis ethnicity,gender, sexuality,even if not Islam/ for alternative ‘‘political and social integra- religion. Minimally we need some discussion tion,’’ as in the case of the United States here of the specific mechanisms/institutions (pp. 78–9), or a resource to fight back against that mediate between these large constructs the dominant racist ideology of the receiving and their effects on migrants. society, as it obtains in Britain (pp. 105–6). The book also remains largely descriptive This study is valuable in terms of the in its scope. Kibria does have insights—at wealth of information it presents and the times excellent ones—that hint at larger theo- insights that the ethnographic material retical implications of her study, but she does yields. Of particular interest in this respect not distill them adequately for her readers. are Kibria’s discussions of the sharp fall in For instance, she mentions the different uses professional status, the loss of family social of religion by the second generation in the capital, and leveling of social class that United States and Britain, but she does not sit- many middle-class Bangladeshi migrants to uate them explicitly within the debates over the United States routinely experience (pp. assimilation versus pluralism that are com- 36–41), the growing significance of religion monplace within the literature on migration. as both a resource against majoritarian rac- Or, for instance, she mentions the kinds of ism and a source of intergenerational ten- prejudice that second generation Banglade- sions, especially as it begins to challenge shis sometimes demonstrate against new the primacy of kinship in organizing dia- arrivals from the homeland (p. 91), but she sporic sociality (pp. 104–112), and the diffi- does not comment on the internalized racism culties that short-term contract migrants and explicit modernizationist discourses that face in relating their often desperate and pre- clearly underpin these attitudes. Similarly, carious life experiences while abroad to fam- her brief comparison of the Bangladeshi dia- ily and kin in Bangladesh (pp. 139–141). sporic communities in the United States and And yet for all its promises, and perhaps Britain (pp. 111–112), while rife with promises, because of them, the book seems to suffer does very little justice to a complex question.

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The book focuses overwhelmingly on the problem of how Bangladeshis think they Restoring Democracy to America: How to Free are being constructed and how they fashion Markets and Politics from the Corporate their identities in response to these percep- Culture of Business and Government,byJohn tions. While there is undoubtedly much that F.M. McDermott. University Park, PA: is useful and defensible in these perceptions, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010. analysis of empirical evidence, other than the 481pp. $69.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780271037240. interviews with migrants themselves, might BERND BALDUS have enriched the study considerably. Wher- University of Toronto ever the book departs from its specific preoc- [email protected] cupation—for instance, in the brief historical account of migration from Sylhet to Britain in During the formative decades of sociology in Chapter Five, or in the discussion of the con- the nineteenth century, social inequality was ditions in which temporary contract workers its dominant topic. The turbulence of that in the GCC countries and Malaysia must century, as well as the apparent success of function—the book gains welcome breadth the natural sciences in finding ‘‘laws’’ led ear- that helps contextualize issues of identity ly sociologists from Comte, Spencer, Sumner, formation. and Durkheim, to look for determining tech- Finally, a word about method: as men- nical, biological, or functional causes which tioned already above, Kibria presents an could explain social inequality as a natural impressive amount of ethnographic materi- and beneficial feature of all societies. The al. While this is clearly the principal strength unspoken corollary was that there was no of the book, it is hard not to wish for a closer point in looking for alternative forms of social reading of the texts, and greater self-reflexiv- organization and distribution. Even Marx, ity about the situated-ness of the knowledge for all his calls for class struggle, felt the being produced through these interviews. needto enlisthistoricalnecessity as a midwife For instance, in the preface, Kibria very to assist the birth of a communist society. astutely points out that her family connec- These ideas left an enduring mark of subse- tions ‘‘opened doors to people and places’’ quent sociological work. (p. xiii). However, in her analysis she does John McDermott’s book departs from this not reflect on the dialogic contexts of her tradition. It begins with a critical historical interviews or the situated-ness of the knowl- outline of the growth of capitalism and edge they produce. As qualitative research- democracy from the nineteenth century to ers have often pointed out, interviewees the late 1960s. This period of ‘‘the great can over-align themselves with what they advance’’ combined increasing economic perceive as the interviewer’s positioning. prosperity with the growth of middle-class While Kibria is surely aware of this contin- cadres, and with substantial gains in work- gency of ethnographic research, a little dis- ing-class political participation. But it also cussion about the process, not just in the field saw the beginning of trends that would her- but also at the moment of writing, would be ald its end: the emergence of large corporate a welcome addition. conglomerates which eventually invaded former state monopolies such as postal serv- ices, prisons, military contracting, and finan- cial services. The cadres now joined with elites to consolidate their privileges and became more conservative. Elections increas- ingly produced semi-representative bodies guided by corporate objectives which they could at best modify and make less socially toxic. By the 1970s, the consolidated interests of corporate elites, governments, and mana- gerial and administrative cadres had pro- duced a new ‘‘intersection society’’ which

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 95 dismantled post-World War II social policies, resource, elites rely on force, a ‘‘police-indus- stifled the protest and liberation movements trial complex’’ of public and private security of the 1970s, and reduced the power of work- forces which, in the United States, has grown ers and unions. to twice the size of its armed forces, and to Part Two of the book analyzes this intersec- nearly half the pre-Iraq War defense budget. tion society more closely. McDermott argues The third and longest part of the book that it is becoming more integrated and hier- offers proposals for disentangling this archical and exerts increasing administrative ‘‘hyperdysfunctional’’ intersection of eco- and ideological influences over less powerful nomic and political power. McDermott sug- segments of society. Classes are replaced by gests that this can only be achieved through hierarchically structured life courses which basic political, social, and economic reforms channel different social groups into prescrip- which can bring about long-term change. tive templates of employment, income, con- These include the creation of a formal ‘‘orga- sumption, and cultural and political partici- nizational infrastructure’’ of activists and pation. These differ from careers in that experts who define common purposes, they cover the entire life span and have dis- work toward democratic projects, and act tinct entry points, income stages, and social- as a counterweight to increasingly ineffectu- ization and education periods for workers, al partisan politics. He also suggests reform- middle management, and corporate execu- ing an increasingly militarized police by tives. Opportunities for choice and for bringing its operations under the control of upward movement for working-class chil- a civilian-dominated board chosen by jury dren exist but decline significantly after the selection instead of election or administra- school years. These formalized life-course tive appointment. McDermott’s most inter- patterns are in turn based on an unequal dis- esting proposals concern the restructuring tribution of ‘‘socially potent assets’’ such as of corporations, employment and political wealth, family position, social connections, process. He suggests replacing a corporate and education. These assets allow competing model that is still based on control by a single elites to form elite sub-societies which stabi- private owner with a fundamentally differ- lize their position and keep out mutual ent organization which recognizes the rivals. Their shared interests arise less as increasing interdependence of private and advance plans than as fluctuating ‘‘precipi- public spheres of business, and the need for tates’’ of internal conflicts and of opportuni- participation by employees, government, ties to impose costs on weaker third parties. consumers, and environmental organiza- Their largest and most powerful members tions in corporate decisions. A corporate provide institutional and ideological guid- charter of social responsibility could recon- ance to which lower levels generally defer. cile interests of owners, employees and pub- Their interests also become embedded in lic and, by including environmental con- the government: policies which contravene cerns, of future generations. It would be their goals are defined as ‘‘controversial,’’ administered by a board of directors, half of and popular demands and feedback are whom consist of public representatives poorly transmitted. A simplistic populism selected by a jury panel process, the other provides a democratic veneer that legiti- half of a licensed professional management mates elite privileges and mobilizes popular trained in both technical and ethical issues. support. Firms would have to file corporate impact The stability of elite networks is enhanced statements about their activities, and compli- by rings of defense: social inertia, accommo- ance would be enforced by courts, not gov- dation structures which suggest that elites ernments. McDermott suggests equally fun- work on behalf of at least some interests of damental employment reforms. Unions lower groups in society, and ideologies and should be organized along vocational lines media images which portray alternative and should move beyond wages and hours social structures as dangerous steps into toward a more comprehensive interest in anarchy while creating ‘‘socially induced workers’ lives from first job to retirement, superstitions,’’ such as the infallibility of including vocational training and counsel- markets and the ‘‘private sector.’’ As a last ing, and assistance in planning children’s

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 96 Reviews education and career. Low-wage and fran- contributes to collectively-achieved results, chise workers should be organized by and how these results should be distributed town, city, and county to increase their bar- among those involved. gaining power to pressure local government, The same holds true for McDermott’s sug- schools and employers. Pools of day-work on gestions for reform. It is not often that a book demand could offer a liveable wage that offers a comprehensive, detailed and well replaces welfare and food stamps. McDer- thought-out vision of new ways of organiz- mott’s final proposals concern reforming ing production, administration, and distribu- international and national economic and tion. Some of these are already successfully political institutions, including a transnation- practiced in other parts of the world: the Ger- al economic parliament, and replacement of man co-determination system, to mention the current elected U.S. Senate with one just one, incorporates many of McDermott’s appointed by a jury system to make it more ideas for employee involvement in industrial representative and resistant to private pres- governance. Apart from their specific merits, sure groups and lobbies. these proposals counteract what is perhaps This is a wide-ranging and stimulating the most basic presumption of all inequality book, although it gets occasionally lost in structures: that the current order of things is arcane details and in McDermott’s reminis- the only feasible way of organizing the socie- cences of his 1960s history as a political activ- ty in which we live. ist and union steward. His suggestion that current social divisions are based on the pos- session of socially potent assets and are Instrumental Community: Probe Microscopy reflected in distinct life course patterns goes and the Path to Nanotechnology,byCyrus beyond the concept of social capital as C. M. Mody. Cambridge, MA: The MIT a generic functional resource, and is con- Press, 2011. 260pp. $36.00 cloth. ISBN: firmed by life course research which shows 9780262134941. the early branching and the progressive con- striction of opportunities for entire segments RICHARD M. SIMON of the population. McDermott also grapples Jacksonville State University with the theoretical question of contingency [email protected] and intent in the growth of elite networks, and of functional and harmful consequences Nanotechnology has become a watchword of their actions. This is an important problem, in many scientific circles, including the though it is not entirely resolved. He is at social scientific circles that resolve them- pains to avoid conspiratorial views of elites selves to keep close tabs on the frontiers of and elite power, but describes corporate net- the interfaces of science and society. The works in other passages as having a ‘‘pro- term is a catchall that has come to encompass found and continuing (influence over) cul- any research or engineering that operates in tural change.’’ Similarly, McDermott sees the scale of nanometers (in increments of elites as basically necessary because they per- one billionth of a meter). Nanoscale research form essential organizational and leadership has been both celebrated and vilified for its tasks for which their privileges ‘‘constitute potential applications. Nanotechnologies a recompense.’’ But he also maintains that that could be used to treat disease at the cel- the gap between what they give and take lular level, for example, could conceivably be can get too large, and that their influence converted into stealthy and deadly weapons can become ‘‘harmful.’’ Even if McDermott’s in the wrong hands. Instrumental Community book does not resolve these issues, it identi- is simultaneously a history of this conse- fies important problems that are frequently quential new field, and an attempt by Cyrus overlooked in the study of inequality: the cir- Mody to contribute to sociological theories cuitous route that brings elites to power, of science and technology. the ethical and political consequences that As Mody explains, the science of the very follow from an accurate accounting of small predates the coinage of the label ‘‘nano- the reasons for their ‘‘success,’’ and the technology’’ (among crystallographers, for more general question of what and who example), though its current formulation

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 97 has been shaped by the invention and appli- instrument, arguing that the applicability of cations of probe microscopy. The dizzying this technique to myriad research programs variety of probe microscopy variants and is what accounts for the characteristics of spinoffs (which Mody handles deftly)—scan- its network of scientists as simultaneously ning tunneling microscopy, atomic force innovators and adopters of probe micro- microscopy, Kelvin probe force microscopy, scopes. But it is unclear whether, and to and so on—have in common a physical probe what extent a research community orga- that scans the surface of a sample, producing nized around a technology differs in struc- nanoscale images, and in some cases yielding ture or function from a research community atomic resolution. The development of the organized around a theory or idea, or even if scanning tunneling microscope, the first the two can be distinguished either empiri- probe microscope, earned Gerd Bining and cally or theoretically. Mody seems to imply Heinrich Rohrer the Nobel Prize in physics that they cannot, stating that probe micros- in 1986. Instrumental Community is largely copy ‘‘blurs any distinction between science a history of probe microscopy (as the book’s and technology’’ (p. 6), but if this is the case, subtitle suggests) and how its practitioners then the emphasis that he places on it as an forged both the instruments and the net- instrument (assumedly in contrast to an works that gave rise to nanotechnology. idea or a theory) is dubious. It may be that That the developers and early practi- Mody would consider scientific communi- tioners of probe microscopy had to build ties organized around a theory as similarly machines and networks of people to use ‘‘instrumental,’’ in both senses that he uses them is the source of Mody’s concept of this term, but he does not say this. In any ‘‘instrumental community.’’ To Mody, event, his claims that an instrumental com- instrumental communities are networks of munity ‘‘is a network of individuals who scientists who are connected by their com- view their involvement with a particular mon interest in an instrument that has type of instrument and/or instrumentality potential applications for their research. as ratifying their connection to other nodes Instrumental communities both develop in the network’’ (p. 10), and that probe technologies and develop research agendas microscopists ‘‘saw themselves as doing derived from those technologies. Hence, something in common with other probe the technologies become instrumental to microscopists around the world’’ (p. 10) is research programs, and the ‘‘instrumental’’ a basic assumption made about scientific in instrumental communities takes on a dou- specializations by sociologists, and does ble meaning: a network of researchers who not contribute substantively to our under- develop a technology (i.e., an instrument), standing of their dynamics. and who also come to depend on that same However, Mody makes a more specific technology to do meaningful research in oth- claim about the contributing factors to the er substantive areas (i.e., the technology success of scientific specializations which becomes instrumental). are a welcome corrective to recent research While Mody’s assessment of early probe on scientific ‘‘movements’’ (Frickel and Gross microscopy as an instrumental community 2005; Parker and Hackett 2012) that claims is compelling, the extent to which it adds their success is a function of the extent to to sociology’s understanding of scientific which these communities can create consen- research is questionable. ‘‘Instrumental com- sus and stymie outside perspectives chal- munities’’ are defined similarly to what soci- lenging this consensus. These studies tend ologists have conceptualized as scientific to focus narrowly on the earliest stages of specializations for decades. However, while development of specializations and ignore sociologists have tended to focus on the processes of diffusion after basic premises social dynamics of the development and have been institutionalized. In contrast, institutionalization of research topics broad- Mody demonstrates that the success of probe ly defined (making few theoretical distinc- microscopy was tied directly to its flexibility. tions between applied and basic research), Probe microscopy became standard fare in Mody places particular emphasis on the many different sciences, not because there relevance of probe microscopy as an was wide consensus as to how to use it or

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 98 Reviews even what it produced, but because scientists how Party members responded to medical in other specializations could adapt it to their discrimination by actively fighting for bio- own needs, and assign to it their own mean- medical integration, alternative knowledge ings as they saw fit. This highlights the fact paradigms, and equitable healthcare. Just as that scientists partake in multiple specializa- the Panther’s novel epistemologies and tions simultaneously, and these inherent research frameworks brought light to the overlaps, and the inter-network connections systematic embeddedness of black bodies that they imply, must be accounted for in and souls in their communal, institutional, any study of what contributes to the contin- and political economic contexts, Nelson’s ued success of specializations beyond their analysis of this unique brand of health activ- fragile early stages. Proponents of actor-net- ism not only locates the Party’s strategies and work theory (some of whom Mody cites but challenges in its vibrant historical context but does not discuss in detail) have studied how also advances our understanding of how the facts and artifacts are adopted and adapted production of knowledge and identity is according to users’ interests, but this litera- always situated in interlocking processes of ture (usually associated with explaining the racism, structural violence, and biomedical social construction of scientific facts) is sel- inequalities. Body and Soul shows that, far dom connected to the fate of scientific spe- from being an essential biological condition, cializations. Mody provides a tantalizing health is a prism for shifting dynamics of link between these two literatures, but his power and resistance. failure to engage them leaves the task of inte- The book opens with a look at a 1972 con- gration to future researchers. If anyone ference in which the Black Panther Party proves up to the challenge, Instrumental drove home their commitment to serving Community will be essential reading. the black community body and soul. This meeting, at the apogee of the Party’s exis- tence, had Panthers engaged in everything References from food and clothing distribution to scien- tifically characterizing violence and poverty Frickel, Scott, and Neil Gross. 2005. ‘‘A General as fundamental health issues. In fact, the Par- Theory of Scientific/Intellectual Movements.’’ ty conducted a wealth of independent biolog- American Sociological Review 70(2): 204-232. ical and social research in the areas of epide- Parker, John N., and Edward J. Hackett. 2012. miology and preventative medicine. Nelson ‘‘Hot Spots and Hot Moments in Scientific Col- uses its organizers’ cry for universal free laborations and Social Movements.’’ American healthcare and its implementation of sickle Sociological Review 77(1): 21-44. cell anemia screens as a window into the Party’s dual emphasis on revolution and medical activism. For the Panthers, self- Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the determination went hand in hand with Fight Against Medical Discrimination,by a deeper engagement of the biomedical Alondra Nelson. Minneapolis, MN: sphere. University of Minnesota Press, 2011. 289pp. Nelson goes on to make a number of key $24.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780816676484. empirical interventions, by showing that the Black Panther Party was a part of a larger CATHERINE BLISS movement toward medical civil rights. The Brown University Panthers drew on a legacy of health activism [email protected] forged within slavery and Jim Crow to devel- op strategies for institution building, integra- Body and Soul is a vivid look at the relation- tion, and the generation of authoritative ship between health, politics, and race knowledge. The Party also synced with glob- through an insightful exploration of the al discourses that framed health as an Black Panther Party’s health social move- inalienable right, as in the World Health ment of the 1960s and 1970s. Alondra Nel- Organization’s 1948 charter. The Panthers son’s original analysis disrupts staid notions sutured these discourses to fight for univer- of inequality and its discontents by showing sal healthcare and an antiracist social order.

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Following in the footsteps of movements like oppositional scientific discourse based on the United Negro Improvement Association sociological reasons for violence. Forming and National Association for the Advance- a legal plenary with other ‘‘rainbow coali- ment of Colored People, the Party spawned tion’’ organizations, the Panthers successful- self-made and self-run medical facilities, ly barred the center’s establishment and spearheaded policymaking and litigation to drew public attention to the medicalization integrate the medical workforce, and created of behavior. national health awareness programs that Nelson frames these interventions as would empower laypeople to become a response to social movements scholarship. experts over their own health. Nelson’s treat- She uses novel readings of civil rights litera- ment of these movements illuminates the full ture and ethnography of ‘‘trusted experts’’ scope of their interwoven genealogies, which to critique analysts who have depicted the stretch from pre-Antebellum to contempo- civil rights movement as separate from rary years. health social movements. She asks sociolo- Body and Soul then moves on to reveal the gists to instead unearth the alternative never before examined organizational healthcare systems and knowledge bases dynamics of the Party’s clinical domain. that oppressed communities have generated Inspired by revolutionaries like Mao Tse in response to their conditions, and to ana- Tung, Frantz Fanon, and Che Guevara, the lyze these responses in terms of their linkages Black Panther Party made health praxis cen- to broader social justice struggles. Relatedly, tral to their social justice platform. It propa- Nelson urges sociologists to consider the gated community service centers as an alter- impact the Black Panther Party has had on native to the Afro-nationalist and War on the emerging health social movements of Poverty agendas that did nothing to subvert the 1970s and 1980s and subsequent health the capitalist underpinnings of the medical- justice frameworks. The Panthers would industrial complex. The Party mobilized become an essential foundation for the ‘‘tacit against medical exploitation with a coalition coalition’’ of experts and activists that suc- of contemporary movements, such as the cessfully compelled the U.S. federal govern- Young Lords Party. Nelson carefully demon- ment to mandate the inclusion of women strates that the network of free clinics they and minorities in all public agencies and established implemented the Party’s nation- publicly-funded research. al guidelines, while remaining committed to It is from this critical vantage point that local divisional politics. Clinics also embod- Nelson offers the theoretical gem of the citi- ied the nested principle of health and human- zenship contradiction: the process by which ity by offering meals and holistic healthcare formal rights fail to bear substantive gains in conjunction with political training. in an unequal society. Nelson argues that Finally, Body and Soul details how the when institutions, elites, and gatekeepers Black Panther Party created a robust health prevent minorities from access to the basic science to counteract what members saw as rights and resources that are needed to obtain medical genocide on blacks and the poor. equal standing, formal rights like enfran- In their sickle cell disease campaign, the chisement are not enough to bring racially Panthers made strides in clinical care while subordinate groups to full citizenship. More arming community members with better theoretical speculation along these lines understandings of genetics and disease. would have been helpful. The book’s find- Their efforts not only provided richer ings could have been read along the grain knowledge about the genotypic and pheno- of the sociology of race and gender, thereby typic nature of diseases that disproportion- leading to contributions regarding classifica- ately affected the black community, but tion and identification processes in the battle also shifted the balance of power from scien- for health equality. How did the Party’s own tific to lay expertise in fighting such dis- classification processes and strategic essenti- eases. In the Party’s campaign against alisms impact the character and status of a UCLA ‘‘biology of violence’’ center that its knowledge? Also, given that women promised to target racial minorities in genet- were the backbone of clinical efforts, how ic and therapeutic research, it created an did different subject positions or identity

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 100 Reviews standpoints affect the proliferation of scien- a series of regression models that test this tific alternatives? The book also could have hypothesis by measuring the effects of chang- been more deeply analyzed in terms of the ing state tax and local policies on mortality, sociology of science, knowledge, and tech- property crime, violent crime, high school nology. In notes, Nelson gestures toward dropouts, births to unmarried mothers, and a key finding regarding the ‘‘biomedicaliza- obesity, all measured annually at the state tion’’ of society. The Party’s ‘‘brokering’’ of level. The authors compute the taxes owed science and healthcare suggests that biome- by the poor, and show that increases in these dicalization in the form of bodily optimiza- tax obligations are associated with small but tion and health-centrism has a longer dure´e nontrivial increases in every poverty-related than heretofore acknowledged. More explic- social problem on their list. The causal mech- it analysis of self-determined empowerment anism is simple: taxation deprives poor peo- through healthcare would do much to draw ple of resources that might allow them to pro- out the broader implications of the Party’s tect their health, stay in school, and avoid actions. Despite these remaining questions, crime. the book is full of deft analyses and bold These models are carefully specified, and linkages between domains too often exam- the causal inferences are generally persua- ined separately: race, science, and social sive, though there is plenty more qualitative movements. Body and Soul is sure to become and micro-level quantitative work to be required reading in all these areas, and to done filling in the picture. Some of the vari- spawn further research that takes seriously ance that is here attributed to punitive tax the interdependence of health and politics policies might be attributable to punitive in an unequal society. shifts in welfare policies that happened in the same times and places, but this is a ques- tion for future research. Specialists will want Taxing the Poor: Doing Damage to the Truly to inspect the details for themselves. In any Disadvantaged,byKatherine S. Newman case, anyone who believes that taxing the and Rourke L. O’Brien. Berkeley, CA: poor is harmless now has to shoulder the bur- University of California Press, 2011. 212pp. den of proof. $21.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520269675. Another great contribution of this book is to refocus the attention of sociologists on per- ISAAC WILLIAM MARTIN sistent regional disparities in poverty and University of California, San Diego suffering. Many late-twentieth-century clas- [email protected] sics in the sociology of poverty concern the northern, urban poor—Newman and It does not come as news to sociologists that O’Brien’s subtitle alludes to Wilson’s cele- fiscal policy is one of the most important brated study of poverty in rust-belt cities— influences on the incidence, depth, and but it should come as no surprise to sociolo- severity of poverty. Until now, however, the gists that the highest rates of poverty, the sociology of poverty and public policy has highest rates of poverty-related hardship, focused on spending policy. Poor people and the most punishing tax policies faced pay taxes, too, of course; and with Taxing by the poor are in the American South, espe- the Poor, we finally have a worthy sociologi- cially in rural places. cal study of the impact of tax policy on the The book includes an excellent historical lives of the poor. overview of how this pattern evolved. The Katherine S. Newman and Rourke L. authors show that southern states intro- O’Brien document regional differences in duced regressive tax policies after Recon- tax policy regimes in the United States, and struction ‘‘in order to force blacks to go to argue that these differences help to explain work for wages rather than engage in self- regional differences in the incidence of pov- sufficient farming’’ (p. 12). The regressivity erty-related hardship and social problems. of southern tax systems was then com- The core hypothesis of the book is that taking pounded by state sales taxes introduced dur- money away from poor people harms their ing the Great Depression, and by tax prefer- well-being. The centerpiece of the book is ences for business meant to lure industry

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 101 south after the Second World War. Once put Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). In the in the place, regressive tax policies tended last ten years there have been at least a half- to stick, because southern states instituted dozen sociology dissertations concerned constitutional limitations on the taxation of with TANF, and, to the best of my knowl- property—in some cases, fully a century edge, none on the EITC. And this, as New- before the better-known property tax revolt man and O’Brien point out, is the tax policy of the 1970s—and constitutional supermajor- that has received the most attention from ity requirements that were intended to pro- scholars of poverty! tect the privileged by making it difficult for In short, Taxing the Poor is pathbreaking the majority to raise any taxes on income or and, more of us should follow that path to property. find out how far it will take us. There is This chapter could stand alone as a concise much more we need to know about how tax- introduction to the literature on the history of es affect the lives of the poor for good and ill. taxation in the American states. It is critical for the argument of Taxing the Poor because it lends plausibility to the assumption that Immigration and Women: Understanding the regional differences in tax policy are exoge- American Experience,bySusan C. Pearce, nous causes of contemporary problems. We Elizabeth J. Clifford, and Reena Tandon. can be pretty sure that hardship is respond- New York, NY: New York University Press, ing to tax policy and not vice versa, because 2011. 309pp. $26.00 paper. ISBN: 978081 the relevant tax policies are unresponsive to 4767399. contemporary conditions. They are in the grip of the heavy hand of the past. SILVIA PEDRAZA The book concludes with a call for the fed- University of Michigan eral government to take over the financing [email protected] and administration of TANF and Medicaid, and for states to reform their tax systems for To this day, the predominant image of the benefit of the poor. The authors reject the immigrant is that of a male pauper. the argument that progressives in the United Thus, Immigration and Women is a welcome States ought to aim for a Swedish-style com- opportunity for Susan Pearce, Elizabeth Clif- bination of heavy taxes on consumption ford, and Reena Tandon to contribute to our and generous social spending; they are skep- knowledge of the gendered nature of migra- tical of such arguments because, they write, tion through interviews. Pearce, Clifford, ‘‘we don’t believe the guarantee of progres- and Tandon engaged in a mixed-method sive spending as an antidote to new con- quantitative and qualitative study: a demo- sumption taxes is ironclad enough’’ (p. 156). graphic description derived from the Census Certainly in the current American political and American Community Survey regard- climate it is hard to imagine a grand bargain ing immigrant women, and in-depth inter- that would couple heavy consumption taxes views (with some participant observation) with increases in social provision. It is also of immigrant women. The authors derived hard to imagine welfare spending becoming their sample carefully. The women they fully nationalized. In the short run this book interviewed were adults who were at least is unlikely to change policy. 18 years of age when they immigrated to But it may have a salutary influence on the United States. This age cutoff was sociology. Students of poverty in our disci- a wise choice because those who immigrate pline, with a few exceptions, continue to at younger ages resemble the native-born focus on just a few politically salient pro- in values and attitudes, since (depending grams on the spending side of the budget. on their actual age and circumstances at This focus is myopic. To offer one illustrative the age of migration) they are re-socialized example: if ‘‘welfare’’ is the colloquial Amer- in the new society to which their families ican English word for means-tested cash migrated. Adult immigrants, however, assistance, then the largest welfare program were completely socialized in another coun- in the United States is not Temporary Assis- try and another culture and bring those tance for Needy Families (TANF), it is the experiences and values with them to their

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 102 Reviews new home. These they partly retain and Miami. The interviews were conducted partly shed, as their interviews show. They face-to-face and respondents chose to give both assimilate to their new home and new the interview with their real name or with culture, while they retain some ties to the a pseudonym. This mix of ethnicities, locales, old. and occupations makes the interviews they In creating their sample, Pearce et al. made gathered particularly valuable. In addition, another wise choice. Since there have always at the end of each thematic section, the been two immigrant Americas—one work- researchers made the effort to extrapolate ing-class and the other professional—the from the interview data its policy implica- researchers also chose to interview women tions—their contribution to public sociology. who exemplified both. Contemporary migra- Immigration and Women has both strengths tion involves a larger professional, well-edu- and weaknesses—empirically and theoreti- cated component than in the past, but both cally. Empirically, a major strength is that types of jobs are represented. The researchers the interview materials are rich, have a great interviewed 89 immigrant women: domestic deal of depth, and are well presented. The workers, entrepreneurs, professionals (such authors write simply and well, engagingly; as lawyers, doctors), artists, activists, and they allow their subjects to speak while those in what they call atypical occupations. weaving their quotes into the larger points Still another wise choice in creating their they are making. This way of presenting sample was that the researchers interviewed the interviews follows from the interpretive women who came through regular (legal) tradition of the social sciences that focus on means as well as women who came through the subjective, intended meaning of the peo- irregular (illegal) means; those who followed ple whom one is trying to understand. At the their husbands and families as well as those same time, they are careful not to speak who could only be said to be ‘‘gender pio- ‘‘for’’ them, but as they put it, ‘‘to help neers’’; those who left their countries to bet- amplify voices and to illustrate their hetero- ter their economic situation as well as those geneity’’ (p. 12). This they do well. who left as refugees, looking for freedom. Many of the issues the researchers tackle in Gathering the data on the women’s immi- this book are illuminated by these in-depth grant lives (before arriving to this country interviews. For example, Pearce et al. use and while already here), the authors focused the interviews to show that the difference on the structural causes of migration as well between documented and undocumented as on the agency of the immigrants them- immigrants is at times not as stark as many selves. As I tried to underscore in the past imagine it to be; rather than two different (Pedraza 1991), both gender and migration groups of people, they are often the same are topical areas through which sociologists people at different stages of their process of can try to link structure and agency, macro migration. While the point has been made and micro. Yet it remains true that the socio- in the past by other researchers, the authors logical tradition has been better at highlight- show it through the interviews: women ing structural constraints than at explaining who lose their legal status (e.g., having been agency. Pierce et al. define agency not only students with a visa), becoming undocu- as resistance (as is usually the case) but also mented; women who did not have a legal sta- expand the notion to encompass creativity, tus (e.g., border crossers) and become legal, relocation, reinvention of the self, leadership, through marriage to a U.S. citizen or an and responsibility for relationships. This employment-based visa. Likewise, it has makes for a welcome addition to our under- long been known that the root problem with standing of agency. establishing small businesses where immi- Another wise choice in creating their sam- grants can become self-employed is the prob- ple was that they sought women (through lem of capitalization. Pearce et al. show this snowball and convenience sampling) who through their interviews the creative ways represented the ethnic groups that were con- in which these immigrant women made centrated in particular places—such as Mex- good on their culture, their know-how, and icans and Iranians in Los Angeles, Vietnam- their values as resources to become self- ese in Houston, Haitians and Cubans in employed, contributing to the sharp increase

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 103 in self-employment among women. Even Still, while these are not small problems, more, their focus on women artists is valu- Immigration and Women brings rich interview able. Sociologists have never regarded the materials for us to consider and a broader content of artwork as data on the social pro- definition of agency than was available. As cesses they study. Pearce et al. show that it a result, it contributes a great deal to our is also a form of data, as we can see in the deeper understanding of the gendered nature pieces that they include and analyze. These of migration, as well as the ways in which are the strengths of this work. human beings marshal their personal resour- The work, however, is not without its limi- ces to reconstruct their lives. I recommend it. tations. Its claim that the gendered nature of migration has not been studied is overstated. When I first collected that literature over 20 Reference years ago, that was the case. But since then the study of women and migration has mush- Pedraza, Silvia. 1991. ‘‘Women and Migration: the roomed, as a generation of historians and Social Consequences of Gender.’’ Annual social scientists recorded and analyzed their Review of Sociology 17: 303–25. lives. The literature review of this work does not capture it well. Moreover, while the authors stress ‘‘the feminization of migra- Queer Company: The Role and Meaning of tion’’, missing from this work is the recogni- Friendship in Gay Men’s Work Lives,byNick tion that some migration flows are female- Rumens. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. dominated (e.g., the Irish over the course of 205pp. $99.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781409401919. the nineteenth century), others are male- dominated (e.g., that of Italians then and BARRY D. ADAM Mexicans always, as befits a labor migration), University of Windsor and others are gender-balanced (e.g., the [email protected] family migration of refugees, whether Jewish or Cuban). Such recognition needs to be both This well-written and insightful book posi- theoretical and empirical. tions itself as part of a research literature Theoretically, to answer the question of that seeks to move beyond sociological preoc- why the Irish exodus of the nineteenth centu- cupation with couples and families in order ry was dominated by women one needs to to bring relations of friendship to the scholar- read the work of Hsia Diner, who tells us ly table. Male friendship as a cultural ideal in why Ireland became a country that turned English society seems to have foundered in its back on its women, and why the kin chain the eighteenth century with the elevation of migration progressively became a female the heterosexual couple and a concomitant chain of mothers, daughters, sisters, and homophobic policing of male bonding as it cousins. This was due not only to the devas- began to fall under suspicion of ‘‘sodomy.’’ tating famine at mid-century but also to the In our era, the iconic emotionally-crippled late industrialization of Ireland, in compari- male has dominated a great deal of research son to other European countries, together on men in relationships. Now of course the with a cultural pattern of late marriage, space of male intimacy is largely governed high rates of celibacy, and an inheritance sys- by the ‘‘gay’’ label in advanced industrial tem where only the oldest male could inherit societies, so gay men provide a particularly land. Empirically, to understand the femini- valuable vantage point for the rediscovery zation of migration we need to have more of male friendship. As the author notes, than descriptive, easily available data from friendship can play a particularly large role the census; we need to have a demographic in the lives of gay and lesbian people, espe- analysis of individual-level data that estab- cially when families of origin are rejecting lishes the incidence of the feminization or uncomprehending. among various immigrant groups, as just A lot is squeezed from this qualitative noted, asking and answering questions to study of 33 men in middle- and working- which the data can reply. class occupations in the United Kingdom.

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All but one is white; racialization is a relatively uncommon occurrence given addressed in terms of friends and workmates that most gay workers find few if any gay col- of the interviewees. Overall this study shows leagues in their immediate surroundings. In a great diversity of workplace friendships many cases, gay workers must look else- and few dominating themes. Separate chap- where for gay friends and potential romantic ters are devoted to the friendships of gay attachments. Those who do find gay col- workers with heterosexual men and women. leagues, it seems, have a wide range of rela- Perhaps not surprisingly, these relationships tionships from the solitary to the competitive. are typically the most important workplace Much has been garnered from this book’s relationships, if only because they dominate 33 interviews, but the evidence is stretched the work milieu. Occasionally relationships too thin when dealing with the lesbian with heterosexual men and women even friends of gay men in the workplace, as it is stray into the sexual realm. This study based on a single case. This kind of relation- explores and troubles the popular literature ship is framed largely in terms of the need on the supposedly easy and natural link to remedy the sexism of gay men, without between gay men and straight women, much of a foundation for genuine friend- where ‘‘gay men are positioned as sexually ship—this treatment does not begin to get at neutral observers and gender representa- the real diversity of friendships that can and tives speaking for and of the category of do exist between lesbian and gay co-workers. ‘men,’ a position that is deeply problematic’’ Finally, the book invokes the utopian (p. 115). Particularly interesting are the promise of gay men’s friendships ‘‘as a dis- instances where it is not the impact of the het- cursive schema for remodelling depersonal- eronormative organization on gay men that ized male-to-male relations in the work- is most noteworthy, but rather the apparent place’’ (p. 154), even as it is clear-eyed about permission that the presence of gay men in the less-than-utopian practices of everyday the workplace gives straight men to expand workplace friendships recounted in an inter- the boundaries of expressive masculinity, view as ‘‘gay men’s identities are divided and sometimes to the surprise and even discom- multiple, with many gay men choosing to fort of their gay colleagues. disassociate themselves from other gay men There are instances of conflict and trucu- in the workplace’’ (p. 151). Work and home lence in the workplace, particularly when are largely presumed to be opposing catego- heterosexual men refuse the authority of ries, but this book brings to light the very women or gay men in management posi- human relations that emerge in the work- tions, but overall it may be indicative of the place and contribute to our understanding current state of lesbian, gay, and bisexual of the nexus between sexuality, intimacy, relations in the United Kingdom that little and friendship on one hand—and the work- overt discrimination emerges in this portrait place on the other. of the workplace. At the same time, there are a number of indicators of the ways in which often ‘‘gay-friendly’’ organizations neverthe- The African American Struggle for Secondary less reproduce an organizational heteronor- Schooling, 1940–1980: Closing the Graduation mativity that constrains gay and lesbian Gap,byJohn L. Rury and Shirley A. Hill. workers. In some instances, gay workers New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press, report feeling pressure from employers to 2012. 261pp. $36.95 paper. ISBN: live up to a newer stereotype of being witty, 9780807752777. charming, and creative—qualities that may even be marketed to clients. This new con- MELISSA F. WEINER struction of gay workers as a particular College of the Holy Cross kind of asset, especially in industries where [email protected] taste and esthetics are marketable commodi- ties, seems to be an emergent demand of the John L. Rury and Shirley A. Hill use a wide twenty-first century workplace. array of qualitative and quantitative data to One chapter treats the friendships of gay provide a sweeping account of African workers with other gay men at work, American efforts to improve secondary

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 105 education within their own communities, Segregated urban black schools lacked furni- challenges they faced, and the long-term ture, laboratory equipment and textbooks, or improvements in educational and socioeco- received them second-hand from white nomic attainment that resulted. Encapsulat- schools, and were overcrowded due to the ing forty years of educational progress in many rural families who sent their children the United States, zeroing in on the South to live with urban relatives for a chance at and then shifting to the North, where the a better education. urban educational drama would gain so After documenting the educational condi- much attention, the authors are attuned to tions facing black high school students on the differences in social class, gender, and the eve of World War II, Rury and Hill describe urban/rural divide that not only account extensively the equalization and integration for differences in attainment but also shape campaigns that occurred throughout the demands for education. Throughout the South. These efforts significantly improved book, the power of black communities in the quality and quantity of educational broadening their children’s educational opportunities for many rural black children, opportunities features prominently. by building new facilities, upgrading exist- Addressing the United States as a whole, ing ones, decreasing class sizes, expanding with a particular emphasis on the South, curricular offerings, creating regional high Rury and Hill combine a vast array of qualita- schools with busses to collect students, and tive andquantitative data to provide aholistic elongating the school year. Yet true equaliza- account of black education during this forty- tion in spending or opportunities compared year period. The authors integrate findings to those available to white students never from yearbooks, black newspapers, and oral occurred, especially since many schools con- histories from archival repositories around tinued to lack accreditation. With Brown v. the country with interviews and IPUMS Board of Education looming large, attention data, to present regression models compar- shifted toward court-mandated integration. ing factors predicting black and white high Although beneficial for black students seek- school attendance and completion. Although ing to gain access to quality education, black a bit unclear how the specific archival sources communities lost longstanding schools fea- and cities were chosen, the multitude of turing caring teachers with high academic empirical sources used to generate a deep standards who imparted knowledge neces- understanding of the experiences with segre- sary to gain access to colleges and succeed gation and efforts to improve education dur- in a racist society. Transferred to formerly ing these decades is a clear strength of the all-white schools, black youth encountered book. segregated extracurricular activities, racist The expansive review of educational con- teachers, tracking systems, and rising disci- ditions in southern schools highlights both plinary rates that maintained privileges of the substandard facilities in rural areas and whiteness in ‘‘integrated’’ schools. the ‘‘good schools’’ in urban ones. Integrat- Highlighting the impact of the great ing existing literature with primary source migration on education, Rury and Hill docu- data reveals anew for readers familiar with ment the urban schools’ inabilities to provide these problems the extent to which black stu- adequately for the dramatic increase in black dents in the rural South contended with high school students seeking to avail them- crumbling buildings, a lack of facilities such selves of better educational opportunities in as toilets or running water, a lack of qualified Gary, Chicago, Los Angeles, Newark, Cleve- teachers and administrators, and schools land, Baltimore, and New York. Integrated held in shacks or homes, churches, and busi- schools located between black and white nesses, with two-year secondary schools neighborhoods and those in the heart of often grafted onto existing elementary black neighborhoods quickly became over- schools. Urban schools, though considerably crowded, and existing whites used transfer better than rural schools, with expansive cur- programs designed to integrate schools to riculums, highly qualified teachers and create all-white educational enclaves. administrators from the black middle class, Throughout the book, the authors describe were nevertheless inferior to those of whites. protests by whites seeking to curtail African

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American enrollment in schools, and black Closing with the 30-plus years after the end efforts to gain access to white schools and of the focus of the book, the authors briefly improve resources within them. Shedding address changes in economic structures that light on protest by whites in the North is have led to the continued decline in quality a welcome addition to the literature that of urban education and educational stagna- largely focuses on the virulent racism faced tion for black students. Noting the irony of by highly public integration efforts in the integrated schools being more prominent in South. In addition, Rury and Hill describe the South and segregation the largest prob- protests by black students in the North linked lem in the North, they advocate communi- to the larger civil rights movement that ty-based programs to address the multitude sought both equal resources in their schools of factors impacting educational attainment. alongside culturally relevant curriculum In addition they return to the power of black and more black teachers and administrators. communities to promote social change, the For scholars looking to develop more in- determination of black students who sought depth examinations of these protests, as is quality education in the face of considerable deserved, the footnotes will be a treasure obstacles, and the centrality of improvements trove of data with which to begin. made during the integration era to the devel- Perhaps most enlightening is Rury and opment of the black middle class. Hill’s succinct and well-argued critique of This book is destined to become the read- the ‘‘urban crisis’’ (as well as ‘‘stay in school’’ ing list for social scientists, historians, and campaigns) in education that obscured the educational scholars and policy students dramatic increases in educational attainment interested in African American secondary leading to the significant growth of the black education and minority education broadly. middle class. Highlighting that this term It is also essential reading for graduate or came into use only when black students undergraduate courses in these fields, or entered the schools, the authors reveal this for those readers simply interested in learn- political language as a tool used by whites ing as much as possible about the history to impede integration, particularly given of black secondary education from only the empirical evidence showing African one book. American graduation rates increasing during this time, and steadily converging with whites. This discourse of crisis justified the The Production of Modernization: Daniel Lerner, increase of black students’ punishment in Mass Media, and the Passing of Traditional the form of suspensions and expulsions Society,byHemant Shah. Philadelphia, PA: and reinforced beliefs about blacks’ intellec- Temple University Press, 2011. 218pp. tual inferiority and violent tendencies, and $69.50 cloth. ISBN: 9781439906248. subsequent abandonment of many urban schools by boards who believed black stu- MARWAN M. KRAIDY dents neither willing to work for, nor deserv- University of Pennsylvania ing of, an education equal to whites. [email protected] Rury and Hill’s data throughout the book demonstrates the structural factors of Widely known as ‘‘the Bible of moderniza- poverty impacting African American attain- tion theory,’’ Daniel Lerner’s 1958 book ment and how, through their own efforts, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing African Americans nevertheless dramati- the Middle East, continues to haunt academic cally increased their access to educational and political debates. In The Production of opportunities and attainment. Indeed, Modernization: Daniel Lerner, Mass Media, when compared to white students with and the Passing of Traditional Society, Hemant both parents in the home and those who Shah explains why that is the case, in an owned their own homes, African Americans account grounded in thorough and exten- graduated at rates similar to, or greater than, sive research, drawing on a variety of insti- whites. And among those in poverty, African tutional, archival, and personal sources. Americans were more likely to graduate than The book is well written and clearly orga- whites. nized. Four chapters tackle Lerner’s ideas

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 107 and work in the various institutional settings respectability in society at large. These social of his career, with Chapter Two exploring scientists, by developing notions such as Lerner’s work at the Psychological Warfare ‘‘Third World,’’ or ‘‘new nations,’’ also set Division, Chapter Three his work at Stanford, the ground for a consideration of the world Chapter Four his tenure at Columbia, and as a non-differentiated Other. Chapter Five his years at the Massachusetts Finally, Lerner was influenced by racial Institute of Technology. The concluding and liberalism—as Shah underscores, Lerner’s sixth chapter explains the remarkable lon- was one of the very first theories of social gevity of Lerner’s ideas. The book’s central change grounded in ‘‘mutable cultural char- contribution is its deep and nuanced telling acteristics rather than immutable racial of ‘‘how Passing of Traditional Society came ones’’ (p. 4), making The Passing of Traditional together—historically, intellectually, geopo- Society a progressive work for its period. litically, culturally—... and then considers And yet, to contemporary ears Lerner’s dic- the extent to which Lerner’s ideas influ- tum that ‘‘what the West is, the Middle East enced development communication as an seeks to become’’ is unequivocally ethnocen- academic field’’ (p. 8). tric. In this regard it is useful to recall that Based on approximately three hundred according to Lerner, the media compelled surveys conducted in 1951 and 1952 in each Middle Eastern Muslims to chose between of Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and ‘‘Mecca and mechanization,’’ in a battle Syria, Lerner elaborated a social-psychologi- that he saw Mecca losing and mechanization cal theory of modernization in which people winning (how would Lerner have reacted to were classified in one of three categories: tra- the Islamic mobile phone, which rings at ditional, transitional, and modern. In this the- prayer times and has a compass pointing to ory in which being modern is tantamount to Mecca!). The notion of empathy, and the tra- adopting Western values and behaviors, the ditional-transitional-modern trichotomy in mass media play a critical role because by themselves are not necessarily problematic. triggering empathy, a key concept for Lerner, They basically say the same thing that they were the motor of the modernization some transnational cultural studies scholars process. say about media and the imagination. They Shah identifies three forces that shaped also echo much contemporary advertising Lerner’s thesis: Cold war geopolitics provid- and marketing lingo about the power of ed funds for Lerner’s project because it could the ‘‘aspirational’’ in luring the consumer help fend off the appeal of communism in the to products. It is rather the directionality of countries under study. The surveys were empathy, the one-sidedness of the way that funded by Voice of America with the objec- the imagination is supposed to work, that tive of mapping radio-listening habits in the is objectionable. Middle East to better counter Radio Moscow. Lerner’s focus on culture, rather than biol- Lerner’s theory, then, is best understood as ogy, as a shaper of human behavior echoes a product of the Cold War and superpower what Gunnar Myrdal euphemistically called rivalry in what was then called the Third the ‘‘American dilemma,’’ in which he World. Liberal democracy and market eco- referred to the clash between American nomics were the bedrock of Lerner’s theo- ideals of equality and American racist practi- ry—‘‘the ability to buy things and vote were ces. A paternalistic liberalism that called on among the clearest indicators of a modern whites to help their black brethren achieve nation’’ (p. 4). their full potential was proposed as a remedy. The rise of behavioral science in America in In international relations scholarship of the the inter-war years (1919–1938) encouraged era, ‘‘brown’’ peoples of the Third World social-scientific studies of social and cultural were substituted for the American Negro, patterns, with communication emerging as mutatis mutandis, and the West took the place a central concern. If early American social sci- of liberal whites in offering a helping hand entists were perceived to be irrelevant to pub- that would lead non-Western people to lic issues, then contributing to (first the war modernity, the passport to access being the effort against the Nazis) the Cold War would adoption of putatively Western values and burnish their credentials and cement their practices. It is useful here to recall the

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 108 Reviews fundamental contradiction inherent to neo- who seek to know what it was like to live conservative understandings of the Arab and work in an historically important com- world. On the one hand, Arabs only under- munity when new social forces were sud- stand the language of violence; on the other denly reshaping the city. hand, they are deserving of democracy. In Beyond its value for future generations, Shah’s words, Lerner’s book ‘‘in some however, the book is also a measured critique ways epitomizes these American trends in of the urban planning policies that create racial thinking’’ (p. 23). heavily subsidized luxury high-rise cities With a publication date of April 2011, Shah within the city. Since this genre of develop- must have read the final proofs of his book ment, which Smithsimon addresses as months before the beginning of the Arab a form of suburbanization within the city, is uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, occurring throughout urban America, the and Bahrain. The resonance of Western book provides insights into how such places media coverage of the uprisings with Lern- work as communities and what their conse- er’s ideas would not have escaped Shah, quences tend to be for social relations and who noted the eerie resonance of George W. class inequality in the larger city. Bush’s Greater Middle East initiative with With a population of about 12,000 resi- Lerner’s ideas—and subtitle: ‘‘Modernizing dents and still growing, Battery Park City is the Middle East.’’ Reading Shah’s book as a mixed-use community area located along the Arab uprisings continue to unfold, one the Hudson River above Battery Park. At its cannot fail to appreciate how Lerner’s ideas center is a commercial node of high-rise continue to inform Western understandings office buildings, the World Financial Center. of socio-political change in the Middle East, The community was physically joined to in which information technology, Western the World Trade Tower complex by large influence and Islam, rather than human footbridges that crossed West Street, a contin- agency and local struggles, predominate. uation of Manhattan’s old West Side High- way which effectively separates Battery Park City from other downtown areas, September 12: Community and Neighborhood although not from adjoining Tribeca. Smith- Recovery at Ground Zero,byGregory simon reviews the tendentious history of Bat- Smithsimon. New York, NY: New York tery Park City’s creation as an isolated University Press, 2011. 285pp. $24.00 paper. ‘‘urban fortress,’’ of the type so cogently crit- ISBN: 9780814740859. icized by Jane Jacobs and defended by finan- ciers like David Rockefeller and mega-plan- WILLIAM KORNBLUM ner Robert Moses. The story is complicated Graduate Center, CUNY and as Smithsimon tells, it has a lot to do [email protected] with the politics of social class, which ensured that the community would be large- Gregory Smithsimon has produced a com- ly homogeneous and upper middle-class or pelling ethnographic account of how resi- rich (although these terms are difficult to dents of Battery Park City in lower Manhat- define in a city where the average two-bed- tan came together to heal and rebuild their room apartment costs well over a million community after the attack on the Twin Tow- dollars). As a result, the experience of resi- ers on September 11, 2001. His book is com- dents with the 9/11 attacks is not addressed mendable as a community study of a very until Chapter Four. The wait is made worth- particular type of urban place, and it achieves while by the high quality of the ethnographic an extremely important goal of such studies: material the author presents in that chapter, it becomes a primary historical document in and in his subsequent analysis of how resi- the growing literature about responses to dents and community leaders dealt with the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. In the disaster. doing so, it takes a place with other commu- Damage was severe in the community.Tox- nity studies that have endured, like Middle- ic smoke kept many away from their apart- town and The Urban Villagers, and which con- ments for months, and the disruption to com- tinue to inform new generations of scholars munity organizations and informal groups

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 109 was even worse—it has lasted for years while ‘‘the aggressiveness of the critique became the 9/11 memorial, the new office tower, and both less supported by what I learned and many buildings of Battery Park City itself more difficult to level at a social structure including the Winter Garden where many that was composed of actual people I knew community cultural events are held, had to and liked and whose opinion mattered to be rebuilt. The majority of residents never me.’’ He realized as well that ‘‘ethnography returned; newcomers have largely replaced had almost always been used by urban soci- them by now. But in some ways, Smithsi- ologists to study disadvantaged people they mon’s informants tell him, the tragedy wished to valorize, not privileged people helped strengthen their attachments to each they sought to criticize, and for good reason: other and to the place itself. The availability such an intimate method is ill-suited to of parkland and commons of different kinds invective’’ (p. 31). Readers are fortunate in the enclave also encouraged a renewed that these lessons have helped Gregory sense of community. ‘‘Both the already-exist- Smithsimon produce an outstanding book ing urban quality and the exclusive aspect of about affluent people in an exclusive urban Battery Park City,’’ Smithsimon writes, ‘‘con- enclave that they share with the greater pub- tributed to a sense of community space that lic as well. His account renders them in their residents valued in their recovery and during particular time and place, without pandering the reconstruction of their community (p. to their sense of entitlement or to their entire- 133). ly human complaints and conceits. At this writing, the new 1 World Trade Center (once called the Freedom Tower) is rising quickly above the memorial to victims Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism of 9/11. A major new transit hub, designed to and the Persistent Power of Race,byJoe Soss, replace the subway station that was also Richard C. Fording, and Sanford F. destroyed in the attack, is ready for use. A Schram. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago difficulty Smithsimon faced in the writing, Press, 2011. 368pp. $25.00 paper. ISBN: which he deals with quite gracefully, is that 9780226768779. some of the story of rebuilding community in Battery Park City remains to be told. As SUJATHA FERNANDES he conducted interviews and made observa- Queens College, CUNY tions at innumerable community meetings, [email protected] the residents were still facing serious disrup- tion in their daily lives while the construction ‘‘Neoliberalism’’ and ‘‘paternalism’’ are two and re-construction was taking place around terms that are not often paired together. them. How the new buildings and rebuilt Most scholars have conceptualized neoliber- facilities will alter their community’s life alism as a rolling back of the paternalist, wel- remains an open question, but Smithsimon fare state. By contrast, in this book Joe Soss, cannot be faulted on this score because he Richard Fording, and Sanford Schram argue has left few stones unturned in his effort to that neoliberalism and paternalism emerged present a balanced and nuanced account of together in American politics and promote community building as it is occurring in a shared disciplinary project. They contend this fascinating part of the city. that rather than retreating, the state under Smithsimon brings a welcome evenhand- neoliberalism is marked by expansions of edness to his research. ‘‘I had begun,’’ he social programs targeting the poor. admits, ‘‘with the intention of writing a cri- The authors see what they term the ‘‘new tique of it [Battery Park City] as a privatized paternalism’’ informing poverty governance space and faux-urban citadel, expanding on as distinct from earlier forms including slav- the postmodern urbanists’ critique with ery and colonialism. The new paternalism is observations from an in-depth study of the rooted in a language of rights and empha- place.’’ As often happens among ethnogra- sizes civic obligations as the basis of an egal- phers who practice their craft and science, itarian political order. It is a variant of neo- his perspectives changed in the field. As he conservatism, finding solutions to perceived got to know the residents more personally, social disorder in directive social programs

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 110 Reviews that foster individual competence among the attendance at training sessions, and analysis poor. The aim of the new paternalism is to of documents. They also carried out an orig- produce new kinds of self-regulating subjects inal statewide survey of WT managers. The that can integrate individuals into the varied backgrounds of the three authors mainstream. which include public policy, political science, Welfare is not done away with by the neo- and sociology also bring interdisciplinarity liberal state, rather it is reshaped to encour- to the study which is indispensible for its age welfare recipients to become self-reliant broader goals. market actors and consumers. Vouchers Taken as a whole, the book shows the cru- and choice programs reposition citizens as cial importance of both statistical and inter- consumers who seek goods from other pro- pretive methods for the study of poverty viders rather than trying to improve societal governance. The statistical and quantitative institutions. work helps draw a portrait of the bigger pic- The other central theme of this book is the ture, while the textured qualitative descrip- importance of race as a key resource in the tions fill in the frame by showing how indi- disciplinary turn. Given that overt racial vidual case workers, welfare clients, and prejudice has become illegal and racial administrators respond to and negotiate the minorities have entered the middle class, programs. The ideas could have been the authors argue that racial schemas pro- brought to life even more strongly through vide powerful cognitive structures that deepening the portrayals of individuals guide perception and choice. They develop operating within the matrix of neoliberal a model called the Racial Classification Mod- paternalist regimes (it would seem that the el (RCM) that they test in a range of contexts authors certainly had the material from their to show how racial disparities emerge in dif- many years of exposure to the WT system in ferential ways depending on the specific con- Florida) but perhaps that is a project for figurations of decision-making, policy tar- another set of scholars to undertake. gets, and political-organizational structures. Soss, Fording, and Schram conclude this One of the main case studies explored in ambitious volume by anticipating how the the book is that of the Florida Welfare Transi- current poverty governance regime might tion (WT) program. The authors explain that shift. Disciplinary governance itself came it was not selected because it typifies neolib- into being through political struggle, and eral poverty governance, but rather because they argue that it will take either convulsive it demonstrates how all of the elements of politics such as during the 1930s or 1960s to neoliberal paternalism operate together. enable another shift, or a long-term vision Florida has led the way in devolving policy forged over time. One wonders how the control to the local level, outsourcing service authors might view the current global con- provision, using information systems to vulsions that began with revolts in Wisconsin track welfare recipients, and enforcing pen- and the Middle East, and inspired the Occu- alties for noncompliance. The authors focus py movement in the United States. Might on patterns of sanctioning and clearly dem- these movements have the longevity and onstrate how these patterns have been highly traction to bring about another shift in pover- responsive to unemployment and seasonal ty governance, particularly given the focus of demands for cheap labor in the tourism the latter on unemployment, economic industry. inequality and social injustice? Regardless, One of the strengths of this book is the change depends on understanding the forces diverse range of methodologies that it com- that produce regimes of power and inequal- bines in the study of neoliberal paternalism. ity, and in this book Soss, Fording, and Soss, Fording, and Schram have carried out Schram have given us an excellent elabora- national and state level analysis through tion of those forces. the use of public opinion surveys, program data, and administrative datasets. This statis- tical analysis is combined with three years of qualitative research in the WT program, including in-depth interviews, observations,

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recognition. As a result, the precariat has The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class,by only thin attachments to work and to the Guy Standing. New York, NY: Bloomsbury political identities that ensue from it. Academic, 2011. 198pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN: Members of the precariat may be found 9781849663519. among the ranks of temporary and part- BOB RUSSELL time workers in both the private and, increas- Griffith University ingly, within the public sector. They may also [email protected] be found within new occupational groups such as call center workers or the growing groups of para-professional employees in Guy Standing employs a large canvas and such fields as law. The precariat is also well broad-brush strokes in this latest examina- represented in certain demographics, includ- tion of work and employment in the era of ing youth, which Standing sees as part of the contemporary globalization. The Precariat core of this new formation, and retirees who, takes up the impacts that globalization either by choice or compulsion, return to the is having upon labor markets, the structur- labor force. Other members include visible ing of work and the populations that are minorities, the disabled who are forced into charged with carrying it out—although the employment as a condition of receiving author’s remit extends beyond these items social benefits, an ever-increasing criminal- to also consider the social and political ram- ized population, migrants who are prevented ifications of globalization. The central thesis from practicing their occupations due to host of the book is that the globalization of eco- country licensing restrictions, and women nomic life is rapidly giving rise to a new employed in the numerous export process- social class—a class in the making—that ing zones around the globe. For Standing, Standing calls the precariat. This term the precariat is a product of the quest for derives from the noun proletariat and the numerical and functional flexibility on the adjective, precarious, so a literal translation part of firms and now the public sector. Pri- would be that the book is about those who vatization, outsourcing, and casualization are subject to insecure, precarious employ- are the main culprits behind the formation ment conditions. However, Standing of this new global social class. Other precariat appears to be unhappy with this translation. traps are related to the commercialization of Consequently, the precariat is not simply the education and the ensuing debts accumulat- lower end of the working class, or a new ed by young people who then graduate into underclass, or for that matter, dispossessed labor markets which may not require years former members of the middle class. Rather, of education. for Standing, the precariat is a distinctive Ultimately, Standing is concerned with new global class, which has yet to attain rec- understanding the political implications ognition of itself. The book may be seen as that accompany this new class in the making. part of a project whereby this class in the He puts forward two stylizations in the last making becomes a class for-itself with a pro- chapters of the book: a dystopian ‘‘politics gressive political agenda. of inferno’’ and ‘‘a politics of paradise.’’ The Standing defines the precariat in terms of former is a society organized around the con- basic forms of security, or more to the point, trol of the precariat through technological in the absence of such securities in everyday surveillance, crude forms of behavioristic life. Thus, the precariat lacks labor market social policy, and the stigmatization of the security (adequate income earning opportu- precariat or at least certain elements of it nities), employment security (protections (migrants, minorities, etc.). Combined with against arbitrary dismissal), job security (sta- the short-term time frames that precarian bility in the practice of a given occupation), existences are organized around, this makes work security (OH and S protection), skill for an ugly future complete with a politics reproduction security (training and appren- of divisiveness and the threat of neo-fascism, ticeship opportunities), income security pro- which Standing already sees emerging. tection, and finally, representational security Counterpoised to this scenario, Standing through collective bargaining and union presents his alternative, which is founded

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 112 Reviews upon a basic cash income for each citizen, a current alternative in Western societies along with quick transition from ‘‘denizen- (p. 148), strike me as misdiagnosed. One is ship’’ to full citizenship rights for all mem- left wondering what has replaced globaliza- bers of the precariat including migrants. tion, or how polities with an independent Such security would permit social actors to judiciary and periodic elections can be char- engage more fully with work as opposed to acterized as ‘‘neo-fascist’’? labor and would see more time devoted to While The Precariat suffers from numerous constructive interactive leisure as opposed theoretical ambiguities, it does provide con- to passive play. siderable food for thought and as such, The book takes the form of an extended deserves to be read, discussed, and essay, consisting of seven chapters. It culls critiqued. secondary data, mainly published statistics and polling data from around the world, which are used to bolster the theoretical Ethnographies of the Videogame: Gender, arguments that are being made. The breadth Narrative and Praxis,byHelen Thornham. of empirical examples—from Europe, Amer- Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. 207pp. ica, China and India—that the author $99.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780754679783. deploys is one of the identifiable strengths of the book, although it is necessary to SAM HAN emphasize that this material is used for Nanyang Technological University, Singapore descriptive purposes rather than a serious [email protected] testing of the ideas that are being put for- ward. The other identifiable strengths consist Sociology has been slow to take videogames of prescient descriptions of the precarian (and gaming more generally) seriously. It condition especially among youth, and does not, however, have the excuse of not intriguing theoretical distinctions in the anal- having forbears who have treated games ysis. On the former point, consider Stand- sociologically. There is, after all, Roger ing’s critique of multi-tasking, a requirement Caillois. But his bona fides as a sociologist, for many precarians as a lifestyle ‘‘without admittedly, are at the very least debatable. control over a narrative of time use, of seeing Ludology, the study of games that has come the future and building on the past’’ (p. 130). in the wake of Johan Huizinga’s important With regards to theoretical contributions, work, is an interdisciplinary endeavor distinctions between work and labor and including historians, anthropologists and, work-for-labor and work-for-reproduction more recently, media scholars—but not so provide possible openings for further much sociologists. Hence, Ethnographies of research. the Videogame is a welcomed sign of the dis- However, it is in the use of new theoretical cipline coming to grips with contemporary constructs that Standing runs into trouble. social realities. Many, beginning with the notion of a precar- Games, and specifically videogames, can iat, are underdeveloped. For instance, it is no longer be treated parochially. While ‘‘the not clear what is to be gained by substituting gamer’’ was in the mainstream viewed as a notion of the precariat in place of examin- a socially marginal figure, and thusly elided ing the remaking of working classes on a sub- with ‘‘the geek,’’ the rising availability of per- stantially different basis to those conditions sonal computers and mobile technologies, that were offered as part of the post-World and the lowering cost of these devices, in War II Fordist accord. Aggregating all of the today’s digitized world with games integrat- groups that Standing places in the precariat ed into our social networks and mobile (youth, women of the Third World, para-pro- phones, prove empirically that videogames fessionals, etc.) does a disservice to political cannot be ignored within the discipline. analysis, notwithstanding acknowledgment Indeed, part of Helen Thornham’s project that the precariat is a heterogeneous forma- is not only to bring videogames to the fore- tion. In a similar vein, asserting that the era front of sociological thinking, but also to of globalization came to an end with the argue that the practice of gaming is inherent- GFC (pp. 26, 58) or that neo-fascism is ly social. Going against the grain of much of

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 113 videogame theory which according to Thorn- the interpretive lens of ‘‘ontological narra- ham, overprivileges the game, she argues tive.’’ Influenced by the theories of Paul Ric- that gaming is not a solitary experience but oeur and Teresa de Lauretis, Thornham is a social activity. Her central argument argues that ‘‘the stories gamers construct’’ then is that ‘‘gaming needs to be reconcep- (the way in which they narrate how they first tualized, not in relation to what the game became gamers, or how often they game, or offers the gamers, but as a gendered, cor- what they do when they game) ‘‘position poreal and embodied activity, framed by, them well within a masculine tradition of log- and deeply contingent on, techno-social expe- ic, reason and causality’’ (p. 20). Women riences’’ (p. 1). In other words, her project is to gamers thus have an additional burden in decenter the game in studies of gaming. this regard. This is particularly acute in the Yet a crucial question then emerges: how to articulation of pleasure. As she notes, during study videogames beyond, as Thornham puts interviews with the women of gaming house- it, ‘‘the immediate moment of gameplay’’? holds, ‘‘female gamers’’ (her term) tend not to This of course is a matter of both theory and stake a claim in the gaming but situate them- method. Theoretically, she draws heavily selves as ‘‘simply’’ joining in. This Thornham from feminist media theory, cultural studies calls a ‘‘position of exclusion.’’ Therefore and new media theory,mainly in order to sug- gaming is ‘‘a terrain on which a certain kind gest that videogame theory has not sufficient- of gender is produced, but also...a place ly taken into consideration what Thornham where masculinity and femininity is man- refers to as ‘‘the lived relations of gaming’’ aged and negotiated’’ (p. 48). (p. 9). This includes ‘‘conversations about While many of the chapters provide stimu- gaming, the practices of gaming, and reflec- lating theoretical discussions and novel tions on gaming’’ (p. 8). Her aim is to broaden empirical data, the strongest is Chapter the focus of scholarly research on games; they Four, ‘‘The Practices of Gameplay,’’ where are not played in a vacuum. Thornham moves beyond the basic ethno- In order to study these lived relations, graphic method of participant-observation Thornham uses an ethnographic approach and interviews to employ her videotape called ‘‘interpretative ethnography,’’ which method. The analysis she provides of the she, interestingly, associates with the work recordings of gameplay ‘‘shift the focus of cultural studies scholar Ien Ang. She inves- from what is said about gaming, to the actions tigates non-familial gaming households of gaming,’’ bringing to light issues of the across the United Kingdom that play com- body in particular (p. 77). Her theory of the munally in the living room on a central gam- gaming households’ formulation of ‘‘the ing system, not alone on the PC. But she adds social’’ as physical co-presence, not gaming an interesting modification to her ethno- or talking about gaming but rather being graphic method. She interviews and observes there, is especially useful here. the subjects, and she also videotapes them. There are some points of minor weakness. She does so in order to view how bodies are First, while there are some quick asides cri- implicated in the social gaming experience, tiquing videogame theory, especially its rath- and also to play the video recordings back er limited understanding of gender, there is to the subjects to see how they narrate what very little taking-up of authors such as Alex they are seeing. The social performance of Galloway, McKenzie Wark, and Lisa Naka- gaming, she suggests, reflects the desire of mura. A full chapter devoted to this would gamers to ‘‘normalize gaming within their have substantiated her claim. Additionally, lives through a specific mode of telling which while the use of narrative theory and its con- figures it as always-already an intrinsic part nections to sociology in the writings of of their identities’’ (p. 21). Weaving between Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu is ‘‘experience and explanation,’’ this method quite unique, it deserves greater explication. allows her to explore ‘‘gamers and their hab- These are slight quibbles, as the scope of its’’ within the context of relations of the Thornham’s study is specific to gaming. body, technology and place. Lastly, while this book aims to contribute to A privileged theme throughout the study the study of the cultures of gaming and is gender, which she pays attention to via move beyond the gamer, it seems the most

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 114 Reviews glaring omission (at least in the United quantitative tools, though), the insights we States) would be the area of sports games, get from the interviews presented in the especially as the heart of Thornham’s project book are remarkable. As a network analyst, is to argue for the social nature of videogam- I almost always infer individual motivations, ing today. Although her location in the Unit- beliefs, and behavior using reference catego- ed Kingdom may be the reason for this, the ries such as race or gender. Yet, Vela- world of sports-oriented videogames, espe- McConnell shows that the connection between cially the Madden franchise, deserves some a categorical identity and an individual’s val- sort of mention. ues and beliefs is a construction not just on the Ethnographies is a book of strong argu- part of society, but also on the part of people ments made with the rare combination of studying society like, for instance, me. theoretical deftness and empirical rigor, Indeed the book offers several examples of and should be thought of as a model for friendships across boundaries. Vela- future sociological scholarship in videogam- McConnell follows a very analytical frame- ing. It will appeal to students and scholars work for organizing his qualitative data, alike of media, videogame theory, and something that makes the overarching argu- gender. ment of the book easy to follow. The heart of the book is Chapter Two, where the bulk of the data gets sliced according to the different Unlikely Friends: Bridging Ties and Diverse boundaries each couple of friends crosses: Friendships,byJames A. Vela-McConnell. status, gender, age, race, and sexual orienta- Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011. tion lines. This is also the most interesting 240pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780739148754. chapter of the book because it contains most of the interviews. The next chapter was PAOLO PARIGI more problematic (Chapter Three: ‘‘Social Stanford University Boundaries in the Context of Friendships’’). [email protected] The goal here would have been to show how these unusual couples navigate the com- In his book about unlikely friendship pat- plexity of their relationships and redefine the terns, James Vela-McConnell manages to meaning of (society-defined) boundaries. bring new material to the debate about social What Chapter Three misses, and conse- boundaries and network homophily. He quently one of the shortcomings of the does so via illuminating insights of how book, is an analysis of the institutions that race, gender, and sexual orientation organize make ‘‘unlikely friendships’’ possible. These and structure individual identities. Do we institutions are often mentioned in the inter- become friends with people who are like our- views (a local church, the family, etc.) but selves or do we become friends with people Vela-McConnell does not incorporate them who populate the same social spaces we seriously in the thread of his theoretical argu- live in? And how salient are social bound- ment. In a sense, he remains a bit too close to aries in shaping individual identities? These his dyadic data to support an argument questions are at the center of the book and about the sociological significance of bound- Vela-McConnell goes after them by using ary reinterpretation through the experiences qualitative interviews with people who of unlikely friends. Not engaging with the have been able to construct, by choice or by role of institutions reduces this chapter to fortuitous circumstance, friendship ties psychological processes occurring within across cleavages. The unit of analysis for each couple. the data Vela-McConnell collected is the Part of the reason that the author did not dyad, rather than the individual. consider institutions more deeply resides in The use of qualitative tools with network a sort of normative argument weaved concepts is quite fascinating and one of the throughout the book—that the friendships book’s main strengths. Indeed, given the the author analyzes are not just ‘‘unlikely,’’ salience of the questions the book aims to they are also ‘‘desirable.’’ The normative investigate and consequently, the vast litera- argument runs hidden through the book, ture that exists (mostly based on the use of sometimes in parallel and sometimes

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 115 intersecting the book’s main argument. The points of intersection create tensions howev- Generations at Work and Social Cohesion in er, as for example in the section that covers Europe, edited by Patricia Vendramin. New the sense of dissonance with the reference York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010. 324pp. $59.95 community (gay or African American) that paper. ISBN: 9789052016474. some of the respondents experienced. Here, MARK THOMAS Vela-McConnell quickly moves the argument York University to individual psychological factors rather [email protected] than using the sense of dissonance to say something more about those communities. While there is a wide body of research exam- The normative argument also emerges ining changing patterns of work in the early clearly in how the author constructed the twenty-first century, little attention is paid to sample of couples to interview. He used the ways in which such patterns have differ- a snowballing network approach to populate ential effects across generations. Under- his analytical dichotomies. Yet, he started standing the generational implications of the sample from his immediate circle of workplace and labor market change—partic- friends—from the vantage point of some- ularly the spread of precarious employment, body who is consciously making cross- increasing levels of unemployment, and neo- boundary friendships. While this is obviously liberal approaches to labor market policy—is an advantage given the topic under investiga- the aim of Generations at Work and Social Cohe- tion, Vela-McConnell seems to ignore the fact sion in Europe, a collection edited by Patricia that some of his interviewees clearly stylized Vendramin. In addition, the text also ques- their lives so that they had ‘‘unlikely friends.’’ tions the impact of such changes on broader To his credit, the author is very well aware of forms of social cohesion, as the contributing potential selection bias and in general, of the authors query whether growing insecurity methodological limitations of his analysis. in labor markets may provide a recipe for His upfront discussion of how he created generational tension and conflict. The empir- the sample of couples, along with the meth- ical research for the book was carried out by odological appendix, was quite refreshing researchers from six European countries and a useful read for people interested in between 2006 and 2008, who undertook indi- learning about qualitative methods. vidual narrative and group interviews with Overall, the shortcomings in the book’s respondents from three age cohorts (under data selection and argument are much out- 30, 30–50 years old, and over 50). This highly weighed by the quality of the interviews detailed text is well suited for advanced and the clarity through which the author researchers studying the generational guides the reader through the argument. impacts of changing labor markets, as well For people interested in how to reconcile net- as those interested in the social dynamics work ideas with qualitative methodology, of European employment patterns. this will be an important read. Equally rele- The text is divided into three sections. Part vant, the book talks to people interested in I provides an overview of key sociological how social boundaries reinforce individuals’ concepts to the study of generations and identities. To both audiences I would recom- work, and identifies major patterns of work- mend reading this book carefully. place and generational change in the Europe- an context. In the opening chapter, Patricia Vendramin and John Cultiaux note that grow- ing unemployment and employer demands for flexibility are common experiences across many European labor markets, meaning that work patterns are destabilized and in flux. Young workers, who are increasingly well educated, face prospects of employment that do not fully reflect their credentials, while older workers face growing precariousness

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 116 Reviews due to the erosion of longstanding forms of workers found themselves in a situation stable employment. Recognizing the central where the knowledge and experience they role that work has played historically in pro- gained in the communist era no longer had viding meaning to peoples’ lives, Lucie the same relevance, while younger workers Davoine and Dominique Me´da examine the were more suited to the emerging economic ways in which these forms of workplace practices. All generations faced the prospects change have instigated a shift in the value of rising unemployment and insecurity,how- placed on work. They find that while work ever. Looking to Italy, Adele Lebano, Maria remains an important and valued part of life Teresa Franco, and Silvana Greco describe for most, this is less so among younger gener- the labor market situation as a competition ations. Moreover, a significant number of between younger and older workers. During Europeans are expressing a desire that work the 1990s, the experience held by older gener- should occupy a less central role in their lives, ations gave them an advantage, while in quite possibly due to the erosion of job securi- more recent years, the ‘‘flexibility’’ of youn- ty and working conditions, as well as the need ger workers, as well as their willingness to to create a balance between work and non- accept a lower wage, made them more pref- work spheres of life. erable to employers. Finally, a study of Portu- Part II of the book examines these issues gal by Ana Margarida Passos, Paula Castro, through six country-specific studies. In Sandra Carvalho, and Ce´lia Soares notes a study of Belgium, John Cultiaux and Patri- that employers often view older workers as cia Vendramin note extensive differentiation experienced but inflexible, while younger in attitudes and relationships to work both workers are perceived as more likely to pro- across and within generational groups. In mote innovation. Overall, these country-spe- particular, conditions that may be quite dis- cific studies provide a highly detailed exam- ruptive for older workers (e.g., insecurity) ination of national trends that are well are considered much more normal by youn- situated within a broader European context. ger workers. A noted commonality between The final section of the text will be of inter- generations, however, is an increasing est to policymakers as well as academics, as it demand for greater balance between work raises policy solutions to both address grow- and life outside of work. Go¨tz Richter uses ing labor market insecurity and promote results from both a series of existing surveys inter-generational social cohesion. Looking and the project interviews to suggest that at the European level, Marina Monaco iden- there is ‘‘no explicitly generational con- tifies the need to combine an employment sciousness’’ in Germany (p. 125). Neverthe- strategy that promotes full employment less, the younger generation expressed and high quality work with policies that fos- a strong desire for the attainment of a high ter cooperation between generations, for degree of social security, while the older gen- example through mutual learning in the eration not surprisingly expressed a strong workplace and lifelong learning through orientation toward retirement. Presenting education and training. Finally, Anna Pon- a French perspective, Be´atrice Delay, Domi- zellini suggests that this process will require nique Me´da, and Marie-Christine Bureau stronger policies to facilitate transitions from discuss the benefits of inter-generational school to employment, welfare state provi- cooperation, particularly through older sions that promote ‘‘flexicurity,’’ and invest- workers aiding newly hired younger work- ments in human capital that support work- ers with integration into a workplace. None- ers’ transitions between different career theless, they also identify the potential for stages. With this emphasis on the central conflict between generations, particularly role of labor market institutions in shaping when younger workers are not given suffi- the experience of work, the text offers con- cient autonomy. Katalin Fu¨ leki, Orsolya Pol- crete measures through which governments, yacsko´, and Ju´ lia Vajda contextualize their employers, and unions may each play an Hungarian case study in relation to the active role in addressing the growing labor changing political regime at the end of the market insecurity faced by workers of all Cold War. Through this transition, older generations in contemporary Europe.

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low-educated workers and the increasing Coming of Age in America: The Transition to demand for technically-skilled employees Adulthood in the Twenty-First Century, edited has prolonged schooling and delayed career by Mary C. Waters, Patrick J. Carr, Maria J. attainment. Dramatic increases in the cost of Kefalas, and Jennifer Holdaway. Berkeley, post-secondary education and housing, as CA: University of California Press, 2011. well as the growing acceptance of cohabita- 242pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520270930. tion and out-of-wedlock childbearing, have JEREMY STAFF diversified pathways of residential inde- The Pennsylvania State University pendence and family formation. These are [email protected] just some of the structural and cultural changes that have made it increasingly diffi- cult to attain the big five markers of adult- Have you finished school? Do you have hood at an early age, and rattled the once a full-time job? Do you no longer reside normative script of an orderly transition to with your parent(s)? Are you married? Do adulthood. you have children? Fifty years ago, many To understand how contemporary young Americans in their early twenties would people perceive and manage this turbulent have answered ‘‘yes’’ to all of these tradi- time of life, interviewees were drawn from tional benchmarks of adult status. The tran- three existing longitudinal studies: The Chil- sition to adulthood was early and compact, dren of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, the and typically followed a neat progression New York Immigrants Longitudinal Study, from school completion to career acquisi- and the Youth Development Study. Inter- tion, and then to residential independence views took place in New York City, Saint and family formation. Yet, in Coming of Age Paul (Minnesota), and San Diego, as well as in America, we learn that twentysomethings in ‘‘Ellis’’ (a renamed town of 2,000 inhabi- today follow a much slower and more tants in rural Iowa). A total of 437 in-depth winding path to adulthood. In 2005, for interviews were conducted from the spring instance, less than 20 percent of Americans of 2002 to the spring of 2003, and all followed in their late twenties had completed school, the same interview schedule. acquired a full-time job, moved away from Several themes emerged from the inter- their parent(s) home, married, and had chil- views: first and most importantly, orderly, dren. Only one third of 30- to 34-year-olds compact, and early transitions to adulthood had experienced these ‘‘big five’’ markers were the exception. Typically, the march to of adult status. Why does it take so long in adulthood was disordered and prolonged: this day and age to become an adult? work coincided with school, marriage fol- In this terrific edited collection by Mary lowed parenthood (if it occurred at all), and Waters, Patrick Carr, Maria Kefalas, and Jen- some young adults moved back into their nifer Holdaway, we hear the voices of young parent(s) home after the completion of school adults from diverse backgrounds who are or when unions dissolved. Second, local con- coming of age in different parts of the text was key in shaping the timing and country. Their voices do not fit the stereotype sequencing of adult transitions. In rural of ‘‘slacker,’’ ‘‘twixter,’’ or ‘‘adultolescent.’’ Iowa, for instance, respondents promptly They have not retreated to their parent(s) left the family home to either pursue higher homes because they are unwilling to grow education or to start their own families and up and accept the responsibilities that come continue working in the jobs they held as with full-time work, partnerships, and par- teenagers. In New York and San Diego, enting, nor are they skirting obligations and fewer respondents left the family home due age-normative commitments because they to the high cost of housing. Third, childhood want to keep searching for the right college advantages had a long reach into adulthood. major, job, or partner. Instead, we hear sto- Successful young adults spoke of how they ries of how young people are actively striv- went to good secondary schools with small ing to establish themselves as adults in classes, and how their parents encouraged a changing landscape. For instance, the them to do well in school, attend college, decline in labor market opportunities for and prepare for a high-paying career; others

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 118 Reviews talked of how significant others in the wider community made them feel special and des- The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse: Emotion, tined for greatness. Social Movements, and the State,byNancy The chapter by Richard Settersten in par- Whittier. New York, NY: Oxford University ticular, is excellent, for he drew upon inter- Press, 2011. 260pp. $21.95 paper. ISBN: views from all four sites to determine when 9780199783311. young people started feeling like adults. CHRYSANTHI LEON For some, the subjective progression to University of Delaware adulthood is gradual, as the feeling of being [email protected] an adult becomes more realized as experien- ces and adult transitions accumulate. Other young adults identified marriage and par- Nancy Whittier’s The Politics of Child Sexual enthood as key turning points that solidified Abuse: Emotion, Social Movements, and the their adult identity. Respondents also spoke State describes thirty years of advocacy of how they felt less like adults when they against child sex abuse. The book delivers spent time with parents and siblings or a valuable challenge to explanations based when they stayed out late with old friends. in moral panic that devalue both the exis- The interviews show that attaining the tence of the problem and the efficacy of those markers of adulthood does not necessarily who have organized against it. Whittier make one feel like a full-fledged adult. gives voice to brave women and men who They also show how experiences such as vot- have insisted on their value, and who have ing, volunteering, care giving for elders, rejected excuses for child sexual abuse. Poli- owning a car, and sitting at the ‘‘adult table’’ tics will be appreciated by scholars in gender at family holiday parties can lead to subtle studies, deviance, and law and society. shifts in viewing oneself as an adult. The account of how child sexual abuse While reading the chapters, I kept thinking became and has remained such a salient con- that surely the transition to adulthood is dif- cern for culture and politics has been told ferent now. After all, the interviews were before, but not through this kind of detailed completed in 2003, long before the recent eco- interview and archival data. While past anal- nomic recession. In the concluding chapter, yses have explained the uneasy coalescence Kefalas and Carr speculate on how scripts of conservative family value movements regarding the transition to adulthood may with feminist and child protection advocacy, be changing in the post-recession world. Whittier’s data allow more nuanced under- For instance, parents may be providing standings of the many groups, goals, suc- more scaffolding for their adult children cesses, and co-optations that characterize who face limited job prospects and high lev- the social movements against child sexual els of school debt. Thankfully, the interview abuse from 1970 through 2000. Politics is schedule is included in the appendix so other organized around Whittier’s identification researchers in new contexts can use it. of five phases, which present rich new views This edited collection is one of the first to of advocates who have been criticized for document the subjective experience of young losing their critical edge. Instead, Whittier adulthood. It shows how the script for pass- shows that the various groups worked ing from teenager to adult has changed. It is with the available cultural discourses, and more disorderly and uncertain, and young a selection process (p. 15) determined which people feel that it is OK if some of these tran- tactics received widespread attention. In sitions occur at older ages, such as career particular, feminist critiques of patriarchy acquisition, marriage, and parenthood. Will and other structural arguments lost out to the ages of these big five transitions continue the pathologizing and criminalizing that to stretch further into the fourth decade of had greater resonance with politics and oth- life? We will see. But even with ever-older er public priorities. ages of these adult transitions, as Settersten In the feminist phase (1970s-1980), femi- points out, ‘‘chronological age eventually nists ‘‘sought cultural change through the becomes a sufficient condition for adult sta- creation of new knowledge about sexual tus’’ (p. 176). abuse’’ (p. 7) that fed into a feminist self-help

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 119 phase (1980–82) which challenged profes- convincing evidence of political and attitudi- sional therapy and popularized therapeutic nal change. But these do not entirely support tools. These foundational phases are impor- the broad claims. Within the text, success is tant to distinguish from the single issue self- sometimes measured as increased aware- help phase (1981–92) which was roundly crit- ness, including the achievement of recogni- icized in the wider culture and within femi- tion of male victims. But as the conclusion nist and other scholarship for its perceived discusses, this success is complicated by over-reliance on recovered memory. This the gender privilege and homophobia that spawned the countermovement (1992–2000) have prioritized male victims of Catholic which will be familiar to many in the acade- priests, for example. Other markers of suc- my and which threatened to undo much of cess include increased access to treatment the movement’s credibility and impact. But from professionals who approach survivors the post-countermovement phase (late with empathy, and new laws and policies 1990s to the present) is marked by a contin- that aim at child protection. ued politics of visibility (Chapter Seven, But we should not celebrate for long: especially pages 167–169) as well as a wing despite the intense awareness of child sexual of the movement directly involved in state abuse that certainly characterizes the current practices, including service provision. time, little evidence shows headway in The author’s forty interviews with advo- addressing the pervasive myth of stranger cates form the core of the book and, com- danger. Our continued assumption that the bined with the theoretical tools that examine biggest threats to our children are unknown social movements and the therapeutic state, monsters prevents the kind of mobilization provide a significant contribution. From we must take as a society to insist that our a work of sociology, readers would expect government invests deeply in truly preven- more explanation of the sampling frame, tative efforts, which would include empow- including a justification of the author’s con- ering and aiding families, challenging patri- tention that her subjects are representative. archy and the valorization of aggression, Readers will also notice the lack of discussion and combating sexism and sexualization of of the author’s subject position, including youth by our media. any potential biases she may bring to the research and analysis. This is an unfortunate absence, since the book’s largely optimistic References view of movement efficacy may be related to the inclination to empathize with the Finkelhor, David, and Lisa Jones. 2006. ‘‘Why impressive interview subjects, perhaps lead- Have Child Maltreatment and Child Victimi- ing to a confirmation bias. zation Declined?’’ Journal of Social Issues 62 Clearly, much has changed. However (4): 685-716. whether there is a causal link between the Leon, Chrysanthi. 2011. Sex Fiends, Perverts and particular advocacy she describes and the Pedophiles: Understanding Sex Crime Policy in salience of child victimization remains America. New York, NY: New York University unclear, especially given the historical evi- Press. dence showing that such concerns, although varying in their details, have driven law and shaped culture for decades, if not centuries (p. 7; see also Leon 2011). It would also be interesting to examine whether the overall drop in reported child abuse bears any rela- tionship to the social movements, a drop not- ed but not examined in this book (p. 216 n. 1; Finkelhor and Jones 2006) In general, Politics highlights the need for a systematic analysis of movement ‘‘suc- cess’’ and its definitions. The book begins with sweeping claims, and does provide

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failings, the authors allow in a very fluid Poor and Homeless in the Sunshine State: Down manner the poor and homeless to provide and Out in Theme Park Nation,byJames D. context and humanness to this very impor- Wright and Amy M. Donley. New tant issue, for which they are impacted but Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, rarely have any opportunity to influence (at 2011. 323pp. $39.95 cloth. ISBN: 978141 least in a positive manner). In so doing, a sec- 2842211. ond contribution of this project is that its pre- EARL WRIGHT II sentation of the qualitative research method- University of Cincinnati ology employed carefully balances the [email protected] typical academic articulation of the collec- tion of data with an effective ‘‘how to con- duct qualitative research using in-depth When people think of Florida, images of and focus group interviews’’ in such a man- sand beaches, sun-fueled outside activities, ner as to teach while informing the reader. and limitless orange groves immediately Not only does one learn about the condition come to mind. When one’s thoughts turn of the poor and homeless, they are offered more directly to the Central Florida region, guiding points on how to engage in qualita- anchored by the city of Orlando, their minds tive research while effectively teasing out wander into the realm of the ‘‘most magical data making this book suitable for upper lev- place on earth’’ and a longing for the type el undergraduate as well as graduate stu- of weather that makes one yearn to spend dents. The last, and perhaps most important, their retirement years in an area that rarely contribution of this book is its potential experiences cold weather. This imaginary impact on public policy with regard to the world of never-ending joy and happiness poor and homeless. So often our elected constructed by visitors to Orlando stands in (and unelected) officials propose, develop, stark contrast to the real world everyday and enact policies directed at politically vul- experiences of many of the region’s two- nerable groups such as the poor and home- and one-half-million residents. While the lit- less without having gained a firm under- eral distance between the Walt Disney- standing of who these people are, how they inspired American playground and fantasy- arrived at this point in their lives, and how land, and the region’s poor and homeless is scholarly research on the topic can help in relatively short, the figurative distance the development of effective public policy. between the two can be measured in light In short, policy makers would be well served years. Poor and Homeless in the Sunshine State to take into account investigations like this is a direct, thoughtful, and potentially poli- when developing legislation and/or pro- cy-impacting examination of the experiences grams so that they may have a more holistic of the poor and homeless in a region long understanding of the topic. The tradition of touted as being the ‘‘happiest place in the conducting research that may be used for world.’’ By placing the experiences of the social or public policy purposes by interested region’s most economically vulnerable pop- non-academic parties dates as far back as W. ulation at the center of their analysis, James E. B. Du Bois’ works at Atlanta University Wright and Amy Donley provide an oppor- and Charles S. Johnson’s activities at Fisk tunity for a group often spoken about, but University. The authors are following this not spoken to, to present first-hand accounts tradition and this book provides an excellent of their conditions. opportunity for politicians, policy makers, This book is a positive contribution to the and stakeholders to make informed deci- discipline for a number of reasons. First, sions on the poor and homeless, especially this project offers first-hand accounts of the in the state of Florida. poor and homeless on the specific conditions The topical foci of this book are the poor impacting their lives in a methodical, and homeless. However, its potential reach detailed and insightful manner. From addic- includes those interested in urban sociology, tion to gender differences to racism to research methods, and public policy. This notions of what defines true masculinity book can be a useful tool in urban sociology and to the possibility of overcoming personal courses as it provides first-hand accounts

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 121 and perspectives that are often little dis- debate on sustainability, more than twenty cussed, even in this topical area. While the years ago by bringing together utopias and authors offer excellent insight into the every- ideas underlying their different disciplines, day lives of its subjects (including a contem- such as the polis model of Greek political phi- porary and timely discussion on military vet- losophy, and the ideal of a medieval Italian erans) and provide insight into research hilltown, leading to a fruitful exchange methods, the authors should be commended over decades. The main result of their com- for their ability to weave into their narrative mon activities, to which the foundation of a review of the literature that makes even the Center for Sustainable Cities at their uni- the most novice expert in the field believe versity belongs, and their joint research are they are up-to-date on the major research collected in The City as Fulcrum of Global Sus- findings in the area. tainability, which can, in this respect, be In many ways the poor and homeless are regarded as an interim harvest. often reduced to numbers and percents, The point of departure is quite clear and and portrayed on television within very nar- not surprising. It consists of two branches: rowly constructed stereotypes. By filling the global sustainability movement on the their book with the voices of Central Flori- one side including its well-known obstacles da’s poor and homeless, Wright and Donley and hurdles, and the ongoing global urbani- afford them the opportunity to challenge zation on the other. While urbanization fre- and dispel myths associated with poverty quently is seen as a threat, at least a challenge, and homelessness while potentially, and cir- to a more sustainable development, the cuitously, influencing public discourse and authors regard urbanization also as a chance social policy. In short, the authors provide in this respect. Their overarching objective is a platform for a group of people who are to bring together the normative leitbild of sus- most informed, yet politically vulnerable, tainable development and the empirically on how policies directed at them actually continuing process of urbanization, includ- impact them. Many of us are hopeful that ing issues of architecture and urban plan- more scholars will follow this model. ning, governance structures, and technology. Most of the chapters, in particular the more theoretical and conceptual ones, are reprints The City as Fulcrum of Global Sustainability,by while others are original publications. The Ernest J. Yanarella and Richard S. Levine. introduction describes concisely the line of London, UK: Anthem Press, 2011. 285pp. argumentation and gives a brief but excel- $99.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780857287724. lently written overview and insight into the way of thinking of the authors. In particular, ARMIN GRUNWALD the key message is presented and explained: Institute for Technology Assessment and currently most of the sustainability activities Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe, Germany and measures are of the type ‘‘picking the [email protected] low-hanging fruits’’ which they regard as absolutely not sufficient and even counter- Usually, political science and architecture productive (Chapter Five). On the contrary, are separate fields in modern universities, they propose the more ambitious path to arranged in different faculties and depart- global sustainable development as ‘‘taking ments. Research and academic exchange the road less traveled.’’ At the heart of this across the borders of these disciplines is by alternative path they see the concept of sus- far not self-evident. Ernest Y. Yanarella, pro- tainable city-regions which is explained con- fessor of political sciences, and Richard S. ceptually and illustrated by several cases. Levine, professor of architecture, both at the The chapters are arranged within two University of Kentucky, describe the begin- parts. Part I, ‘‘Strategic Considerations,’’ ning of their common and interdisciplinary includes the theoretical and conceptual work: they crossed paths on the main cam- work of the authors. Starting by scrutinizing pus of their university and started a conver- the very idea of sustainable development sation about the idea of sustainable cities. and presenting their self-developed opera- This happened in the early stages of the tive approach in this field (Chapter One)

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 122 Reviews this concept is then applied to the field of cit- The book is well structured and well writ- ies leading to ‘‘The Sustainable Cities Mani- ten in accordance with the highest standards festo’’ (Chapter Two). One of the messages of the American tradition of scientific writ- is that sustainable development should not ing, being simultaneously precise and under- be restricted to environmentalism but must standable. Jargon has largely been avoided, include issues of social justice, the way of liv- and disciplinary borders of scientific lan- ing and quality of life (Chapter Three). This guage do not hinder the readability. The argumentation is in line with ongoing theo- authors note that their work was, up to retical developments in the field of sustain- now, better received in Europe and Asia ability where the environmental aspects are than in the United States. They hope that more and more regarded only as being part this book might improve the situation—and of a much broader picture including not I hope that their hope will be fulfilled. only social and economic but also ethical, In general, the book is a ‘‘must’’ for further cultural and political dimensions which work on sustainable development in the field have to be considered in an integrative way. of cities and urbanization, but also beyond. In The place of integration is, according to the particular, the conceptual work on sustain- authors, the city, or, more accurately, the city- able development will be of high value in oth- region. The frequent restriction on cities in er fields of sustainable development, too. their administrative extension is proved to And, last but not least: the ceterum censeo of be not adequate in analysing sustainability the book, ‘‘do not restrict yourself to picking issues because of the interactions of cities the low-hanging fruits’’ should be taken seri- with regions. Therefore the authors propose ously in many other fields for shaping our to regard city-regions as the smallest units common future. of sustainability considerations and offer a ‘‘yardstick’’ to measure and to assess their situation with respect to sustainability: the Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Sustainable Area Budget (Chapter Five). Communist Rule,byFenggang Yang. New In this way, the ground is prepared for Part York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. II, dedicated to ‘‘Sustainable Cities Around 245pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780199735648. the World.’’ Case studies include North Amer- ican cities such as Chattanooga in Tennessee, GENE COOPER Okotoks in Alberta, and the Austrian capital University of Southern California of Vienna regarding the railway station plans [email protected] complemented by considerations on the actu- al situation, current developments, and per- Religion in China is a political economic/ spectives for sustainable city-regions in China. sociological study of the post-1949 commu- In the last chapter the authors extract the nist Chinese state’s ‘‘failed’’ attempt to wean essence of the previous chapters and draw the Chinese people away from religion, and conclusions for the road ahead to sustainabil- of its subsequent attempts to regulate and ity. They regard the usual incremental control the spread of religion in China. As approaches, which are mostly restricted to such, it is noteworthy for its institutional his- ‘‘greening’’ this or that detail, as not appro- tory of religious regulation under commu- priate for really meeting the sustainability nism (p. 65ff.), and for its typology of the challenge. The ‘‘less-travelled road’’ they multiple forms of atheism (militant, enlight- propose relies on a strong understanding of enment, and mild) (pp. 45–46 and 62) that sustainability, the city-region approach and have characterized periods in which the a broad and integrative interpretation of sus- intensity of state regulatory measures has tainable development involving also social varied. It also provides excellent coverage issues. Two appendices include the Charter of the debates on the role of religion in society of European Cities and Towns Towards Sus- that took place in the Chinese academy in the tainability and the description of Emerald 1980s, the so-called ‘‘new opium war’’ (pp. City: A Role-playing Sustainability Game, 49ff. and 53). Was religion merely an ‘‘opiate which was presented in Chapter Six. The of the masses,’’ destined to wither away in appendices nicely complement the book. the face of modern science-based secular

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 123 society, or did it have something positive to and healing cults (qigong) (pp. 139–40 and contribute which might lead to its persis- 112ff.), all of which would seem to character- tence? But the book is not an analysis of the ize accurately contemporary Chinese reli- content of Chinese religion, its system(s) of gious behavior. belief, cosmology, structure, or practice, and Yang argues that the Chinese religious anyone seeking such material would be landscape is one of state-imposed oligopoly advised to look elsewhere. in which the five religions mentioned above Nevertheless, Fenggang Yang’s approach are recognized as legitimate. For Yang, recog- is somewhat innovative insofar as he nition of the phenomenon of oligopoly con- employs a market perspective to analyze stitutes an advance beyond sociological the features of state-religion relations in Chi- investigations of religion in the modern na, and characterizes that market as tripar- world, which have tended to dichotomize tite, consisting of red, black, and grey mar- the universe of state-religion relations as kets. The red market refers to the five state- either monopolistic or pluralistic (p. 160). approved religions under the control of Yang then makes the somewhat questionable ‘‘patriotic’’ associations—Buddhism, Dao- claim that ‘‘The global fact of religious oli- ism, Islam, and state-approved Protestant- gopoly makes it necessary to rethink and ism and Catholicism. The black market refers reconstruct theories of church-state rela- to churches and religious activities banned tions’’ (p. 166). Perhaps...but only in the by the state: underground pro-Vatican Cath- most superficial sense. olics for a long period (p. 99ff.), and the house Yang argues that ‘‘the triple market theory churches (p. 102), as well as a variety of shows that market forces are at work’’ ‘‘superstitious’’ practices. The grey market (pp. 122 and 178) in the sphere of Chinese refers to spiritual organizations, practi- religion. But triple market theory assumes tioners, and religious practices with ambigu- that market forces are at work. It uses the ous legal status, which may be construed as metaphor of the market to describe religious ‘‘cultural’’ (pp. 54ff. and 112), ‘‘folk reli- participation in society. And yes, as Yang has gious,’’ or ‘‘popular religious’’ (p. 23) in shown, the metaphor does work insofar as nature, and thus escape to some extent the its three ‘‘markets’’ are exhaustive of Chi- heavy hand of the state. nese religious practice, and the characteriza- This tripartite approach encompasses the tion of the behavior one might expect to find landscape of Chinese religious practice, and under conditions of shortage is certainly apt. therefore is initially appealing, and Yang However, here Yang mistakes his meta- argues that these triple religious markets phor for reality. Does it really make sense to may also be found in other nations where analyze religion and religious participation conditions are similar—the free market in terms of markets? Why call these red, for religion is restricted, and the black mar- black, and grey sectors of the religious ket repeatedly and rigorously suppressed administrative landscape markets at all? (p. 160ff.). Are they markets in anything other than Yang goes on to understand the ‘‘econo- a metaphoric sense? A slightly different per- my’’ of Chinese religion as a ‘‘shortage’’ econ- spective might describe them more appropri- omy, characterized by an artificial scarcity, ately as spheres of administrative enforce- the result of state restrictions on the opening ment. In this era when ‘‘rational choice’’ of new religious sites, churches, and temples. theories abound in the social sciences, it may In a shortage economy, consumers must wait be fashionable to characterize the practice of for supply, queue up for goods when they religion in market terms. But this exercise is become available, and often settle for substi- less than satisfying. While the model (or met- tutes in the interim or when supply runs out aphor) ‘‘works,’’ we do not accomplish any- (pp. 124–5 and 139–40). Under heavy state thing other than describing what exists, with- regulation, the supply of religion in China out actually explaining what is occurring. is suppressed, resulting in ‘‘over-crowded Rather than applaud this expansion of the churches and temples...filled beyond capac- scope of rational choice theory to include the ity’’ (p. 144), and the proliferation of substi- sphere of religion, we question whether we tute ‘‘grey market’’ folk-religious practices, learn anything new in the process.

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And finally, one minor point, on page 110, who are not already well acquainted with there is a typo which only a handful of illumi- the literature will have trouble following nati who had conducted research there might and appreciating her insights into other notice—the city of Jinhua in Zhejiang prov- authors, which at times are cryptic or pre- ince, the site of a new Huang Daxian temple, sented in passing. This is a book for those is rendered as ‘‘Jianhua.’’ who already are steeped in these debates. In general, for those who might not share Less knowledgeable readers will not gain my skepticism regarding the characterization much sense of the logic and terrain of com- of religion in market terms, the book presents peting arguments. The lectures are men- a novel approach to the study of state policy tioned more to pay tribute to colleagues with regard to religion in China that would than to convey to readers what was said. In be a useful addition to syllabi for undergrad- any case, few of those lectures can be uate or graduate seminars in Chinese or com- accessed with the author’s references, some parative politics, and to a lesser extent for of which are to websites that were taken courses on Chinese religion. In either case, it down before this book was published. would need to be profusely supplemented Yuval-Davis makes the important point with additional texts. that individuals and social movements do not select identities based on a single charac- teristic; rather they construct or interpret The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contes- themselves (and are constructed and inter- tations,byNira Yuval-Davis. Thousand preted by others) in the intersections of a com- Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2011. 252pp. plex of gender, race, class, nation, religion, $46.00 paper. ISBN: 9781412921305. kin, and locality. Yuval-Davis goes beyond the mere invocation of intersectionality to RICHARD LACHMANN show how categories are combined to assert University at Albany rights, to draw contrasts with or exclude [email protected] others, and to make claims on states or inter- national bodies. This book is strongest in the The Politics of Belonging is about the ways in many moments when Yuval-Davis brings which national identity and citizenship insight to the ways in which such intersec- have been undercut and crosscut in recent tional links are constructed and deployed. years by other sorts of identities based on Her discussions of indigenous peoples’ gender, religion, ethnicity, locality, cosmo- claims are especially insightful in showing politanism, and more. Nationalism, as the how they define land and property in very author rightly reminds us, is itself a fairly different ways from nationalist ideologies, new concept. Until a few hundred years and in showing how such claims can be egal- ago, people were subjects not citizens, and itarian or elitist, inclusive, or racist, depend- had little sense of or loyalty to the political ing on their context. Similarly, Yuval-Davis unit of which they were nominal members. brings her deep knowledge of feminist Rulers expected little of their subjects and debates and theory, to which she has been offered almost nothing in the way of rights for decades a key contributor, to show how or benefits. If and when people were asked feminist commitments to caring could who they were, or to what group they become a foundation for a new progressive belonged, their answers highlighted kin, politics, even as it has been used on other locality, or religion. Thus the era of national- occasions to justify individualistic claims. ism, which many authors take as the norm, is The author often is content to present log- in fact from the long perspective of world ical possibilities for how identities can be history a two or three century anomaly constructed, combined, and used to define which now may be coming to an end and at and challenge others. Yuval-Davis mixes least is being transformed. concrete examples with speculations on pos- Nira Yuval-Davis’ book therefore is wel- sible future identities (especially in her chap- come and needed. She has read widely and ter on caring). As a result, readers will have in addition cites lectures and conferences a hard time gaining a sense of historical she has attended. Unfortunately, readers change from this book. Yuval-Davis has

Contemporary Sociology 42, 1 Reviews 125 more to say about when theoretical argu- movements with the institutions from ments emerged than she does about when whom they seek liberation or upon whom the social movements, political entities, or they make demands and extract concessions. everyday practices those theories are sup- Yuval-Davis’ welcome and sophisticated posed to explain themselves developed. analysis of the intersections among identities Readers are not offered justifications for needs to be joined with a study of the interac- why Yuval-Davis focuses on certain loca- tions between challengers and incumbents, tions, groups or events to study. between movements and institutions. States Yet, the bases for a more historically- remain the object of many if not most grounded account of how people’s senses demands, and nations still are the terrain of belonging have changed, and how they on which many social movements recruit might change in the future, are scattered adherents and engage in politics. and under-theorized in this book. Yuval- How can we make sense of the causal rela- Davis is concerned mainly with how people tionships between the individuals and think about and construct their identities groups that are creating and recasting their and then derive claims from their senses of identities and senses of belonging, and the belonging. What is missing is an attempt to terrains on which they struggle, and the insti- address the objects of these claims. We read tutions in which identities are recognized about social movements, but they come with social benefits and obligations? We can across mainly as places and occasions for best do that through historical analysis. We asserting identities and creating feelings of see the effects of struggle, and of efforts by belonging. the powerful to impose themselves on the Yuval-Davis’ analysis would have been lives and identities of the rest, by tracing strengthened by more attention to the inter- change. The identities that Yuval-Davis enu- action between social movements and the merates exist in certain times and places. We powerful actors and institutions against need to understand when and how they whom those movements struggle. Just as emerge, change in their salience, and lose the national identities of the nineteenth and resonance. twentieth centuries were created, and can Finally, we need to understand that not all be understood only in relation to the aristoc- potential identities and collectivities are racies, corporate groups, kin networks, equally viable. Utopias are fun to envision; churches, and imperial powers that were but both our sociological analyses and our attacked and destroyed by various national- political efforts will be more fruitful if we ist movements, similarly we will gain a fuller can place future possibilities in the context understanding of the new religious identi- of the actual trajectories of past historical ties, and of the extent to which cosmopolitan, development. Yuval-Davis contributes to indigenous, or caring identities develop, by the conceptual endowment we need to tracing the interactions of those social engage in that historical analysis.

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