Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317o
A. Abdelhamid
Contested Legitimacies: Repression and Revolt in Post-Revolutionary Egypt offers a novel reading of contentious politics in post-coup Egypt. The book successfully documents Egypt’s recent protest history in great detail, particularly two episodes that have been central in ‘‘influencing the trajectory of contentious dynamics’’ in post-revolutionary Egypt (p. 62). These are the resistance tactics against the July 3, 2013 military coup, spearheaded by the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL), and those of the Popular Campaign to Protect the Land (PCPL) in 2016, against the transfer of two Egyptian islands to Saudi Arabia. However, author Jannis Julien Grimm has done so much more than lay out the events of these episodes. By engaging with the concepts of ‘‘strategic interaction, discursive contestation, and political subjectivation’’ (p. 28), Grimm analyzes rich primary and secondary data to emphasize the ‘‘situatedness and contingency of social change’’ (p. 22). Unlike mainstream accounts that make clear-cut distinctions between the different contenders in Egypt’s postrevolutionary political arena, Grimm illustrates the inherent instability of discourses that shape the ever-shifting conduct and alliancemaking strategies of these contenders. In the introduction, Grimm presents his main argument: Contentious politics in Egypt in the past decade have centered on struggles around competing conceptualizations of Egyptian identity, and these are played out in ‘‘the performative and discursive interaction of diverse coalitions of contenders and their authoritarian counterparts’’ (p. 19). Crucial in these interactions is the role of ‘‘behaviors, strategies, and emotions’’ (p. 22) that sometimes result in successful coalition-forming across difference and at other times reinforce authoritarian practices. Grimm rejects prominent readings of counterrevolution in Egypt as a ‘‘journey back to square one’’ devised by ‘‘the wit of Egypt’s elites and the machinations of a deep state’’ (p. 35). He rejects the predetermined outcome of revolution in authoritarian contexts that these prominent readings purport. Instead, he underlines the contingency of the conditions of possibility based on how players and their political projects interact with one another. In Chapter Two, Grimm elaborates on this last point by employing a ‘‘constructivist approach’’ (p. 44) that centers the agency of different players, rather than resilient authoritarian structures, in determining the effectiveness of ‘‘cross-class and cross-ideological mobilization’’ (p. 46). Within this theoretical framework, the extent to which mobilization is successful is ‘‘understood as symptoms of subjectivation processes’’ (p. 49). The emphasis on agency allows for a nuanced understanding of the ways in which resistance informs the formation of new subjectivities and changes the conditions of possibility for the various contenders. By using discourse theoretical approaches, the book is very effective
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Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317y
Thomas Kemple
binary may reinforce a ‘‘sloppy reverse essentialism’’ that glosses over the tremendous diversity of southern cities (p. 61). As he thoughtfully observes, the South—and the southern city—is not a ‘‘homogeneous space or a stable ontological category’’ (p. 63). In turn, Murray usefully problematizes the conventional distinction between northern and southern cities, arguing that the borders that supposedly separate them are ‘‘inherently unstable, porous, mutable, and often indecipherable’’ (p. 62). In addition to this concern with cities beyond the core, Many Urbanisms also seeks to advance the scope of global-city theorizing by pushing for the incorporation into this framework of oft-overlooked urban spaces with less legitimate ‘‘world-class aspirations’’: that is, cities that are commonly referred to as ‘‘shrinking,’’ ‘‘declining,’’ and ‘‘noncompetitive’’ (pp. 91–125). As argued, ‘‘urban shrinkage’’ is a widespread (yet undertheorized) phenomenon, and one that affects large numbers of cities not only in postindustrial regions in North America and Europe, but also in Japan, India, South Africa, and beyond—with potentially more than a quarter of all cities around the world fitting into this category during the last decade of the twentieth century (pp. 102– 108). In addition to arguing for appreciation of the diverse forces that may cause decline, Murray argues against the scholarly tendency to view declining cities as ‘‘aberrations’’ vis-à-vis their booming and seemingly more global counterparts. Instead, as he notes, ‘‘Decline . . . is part of the inherent unevenness of capitalist investment in urban space’’ (p. 110). It is also a major cause of our current age of illiberal, anti-democratic tumult, a topic that goes unexplored here. Much of the text is devoted to elaborating this and three other categories of global cities, the latter consisting of the aforementioned ‘‘globalizing cities with world-class aspirations’’ (again, consisting of the usual success cases), ‘‘sprawling megacites of hypergrowth’’ (mostly located in the global South), and recent cases of ‘‘instant urbanism’’ (including Dubai and Doha—which would also seem to fit into the ‘‘world-class’’ category). While the four categories are distinct in numerous ways, Murray also convincingly argues that they are interrelated insofar as they represent, per the subtitle, ‘‘divergent trajectories of global city building.’’ Whatever one makes of this categorization scheme—and given his attention to nuance, Murray stresses that it is only a ‘‘first approximation’’ (p. 65)—there is clearly value to his effort to situate the particularities of distinct cases and types vis-à-vis a broader, universal story in which all cities must navigate the structural exigencies of our global age (though here, a deeper focus on how, exactly, global capitalism produces ‘‘unevenness’’ in terms of outcomes would be welcome). Readers who seek solutions will not find many here, and there is indeed something determini
{"title":"Durkheim’s Contributions to Social Anthropology in L’Année Sociologique","authors":"Thomas Kemple","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317y","url":null,"abstract":"binary may reinforce a ‘‘sloppy reverse essentialism’’ that glosses over the tremendous diversity of southern cities (p. 61). As he thoughtfully observes, the South—and the southern city—is not a ‘‘homogeneous space or a stable ontological category’’ (p. 63). In turn, Murray usefully problematizes the conventional distinction between northern and southern cities, arguing that the borders that supposedly separate them are ‘‘inherently unstable, porous, mutable, and often indecipherable’’ (p. 62). In addition to this concern with cities beyond the core, Many Urbanisms also seeks to advance the scope of global-city theorizing by pushing for the incorporation into this framework of oft-overlooked urban spaces with less legitimate ‘‘world-class aspirations’’: that is, cities that are commonly referred to as ‘‘shrinking,’’ ‘‘declining,’’ and ‘‘noncompetitive’’ (pp. 91–125). As argued, ‘‘urban shrinkage’’ is a widespread (yet undertheorized) phenomenon, and one that affects large numbers of cities not only in postindustrial regions in North America and Europe, but also in Japan, India, South Africa, and beyond—with potentially more than a quarter of all cities around the world fitting into this category during the last decade of the twentieth century (pp. 102– 108). In addition to arguing for appreciation of the diverse forces that may cause decline, Murray argues against the scholarly tendency to view declining cities as ‘‘aberrations’’ vis-à-vis their booming and seemingly more global counterparts. Instead, as he notes, ‘‘Decline . . . is part of the inherent unevenness of capitalist investment in urban space’’ (p. 110). It is also a major cause of our current age of illiberal, anti-democratic tumult, a topic that goes unexplored here. Much of the text is devoted to elaborating this and three other categories of global cities, the latter consisting of the aforementioned ‘‘globalizing cities with world-class aspirations’’ (again, consisting of the usual success cases), ‘‘sprawling megacites of hypergrowth’’ (mostly located in the global South), and recent cases of ‘‘instant urbanism’’ (including Dubai and Doha—which would also seem to fit into the ‘‘world-class’’ category). While the four categories are distinct in numerous ways, Murray also convincingly argues that they are interrelated insofar as they represent, per the subtitle, ‘‘divergent trajectories of global city building.’’ Whatever one makes of this categorization scheme—and given his attention to nuance, Murray stresses that it is only a ‘‘first approximation’’ (p. 65)—there is clearly value to his effort to situate the particularities of distinct cases and types vis-à-vis a broader, universal story in which all cities must navigate the structural exigencies of our global age (though here, a deeper focus on how, exactly, global capitalism produces ‘‘unevenness’’ in terms of outcomes would be welcome). Readers who seek solutions will not find many here, and there is indeed something determini","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"362 - 364"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49162081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317c
Kimberly E. Fox
that quantifiable numbers would not have. Indeed, the interviews she presents convincingly detail the serious physical and emotional impacts of discriminatory behavior toward Navajo people, while also demonstrating the ubiquity of these experiences. While Bennett occasionally stretches the boundaries of well-established terminology for understanding discriminatory behavior against Native people, this practice makes sense when considering the paucity of research on the subject. Put simply, there is a lot of work to do to bring the body of research on Native American hate crime victimization to a level comparable to research on other groups, and that requires the broad application of existing subjects. This is a book that takes a critical first step in doing that, by bringing attention to previously overlooked patterns in racially motivated crimes directed at Native American people.
{"title":"Research Handbook on Work-Life Balance: Emerging Issues and Methodological Challenges","authors":"Kimberly E. Fox","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317c","url":null,"abstract":"that quantifiable numbers would not have. Indeed, the interviews she presents convincingly detail the serious physical and emotional impacts of discriminatory behavior toward Navajo people, while also demonstrating the ubiquity of these experiences. While Bennett occasionally stretches the boundaries of well-established terminology for understanding discriminatory behavior against Native people, this practice makes sense when considering the paucity of research on the subject. Put simply, there is a lot of work to do to bring the body of research on Native American hate crime victimization to a level comparable to research on other groups, and that requires the broad application of existing subjects. This is a book that takes a critical first step in doing that, by bringing attention to previously overlooked patterns in racially motivated crimes directed at Native American people.","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"321 - 323"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49594157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317ee
Joseph O. Baker
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Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317k
Laura Halcomb
in the book. DiMaggio states that he selected ‘‘some of the most salient uprisings of the 2010s as related to the rise of American plutocracy’’ (p. 11). While this works for the Tea Party and the Economic Justice movement, it is less convincing for Black Lives Matter (a movement focused on racism and criminal justice) and the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump campaigns (which were presidential campaigns, not social movements). Indeed, the chapter on the presidential campaigns feels particularly out of place. Presidential campaigns are different media and public attention-generating machines than social movements, and so the whole chapter feels even more removed from the rest of the book. This chapter is also the longest, and the section on the Trump campaign is the same length as the BLM chapter. The book also makes no effort to compare the different movements. While there are brief comparisons within campaigns, there is no organized comparison of media coverage, public support, or outcomes between, for example, the Tea Party and the Economic Justice movement. We get glimpses of connections (e.g., Table 4.1 comparing media coverage counts), but not including a chapter that stitches the findings from these chapters together or at least a more fleshed-out conclusion (the book’s conclusion is only five pages) feels like a missed opportunity. Another missed opportunity is DiMaggio’s engagement with theory throughout the book. He begins the book by using citations in mainstream political science journals to point out that social movements are an overlooked aspect of the political process. While this may be true, there is a full literature on social movements, including several journals devoted to the subject, in sociology. The author does nod to some of these theories, briefly summarizing resource mobilization, political opportunity, and disturbance theories in the introduction; but his approach through the rest of the book feels almost atheoretical, acknowledging concepts and theories in passing but never explaining how the movements fit (or fail to fit) their expectations. Political science and social movement studies have a lot to say to one another, and it would have been exciting to see DiMaggio use these cases to integrate concepts and ideas on media coverage of social movements, the relationship between public opinion and movements, the policy impacts of movements, and social movement partyism—by scholars like Edwin Amenta, Jon Agnone, Paul Burstein, and Paul Almeida—into the American politics literature. Even to see him engage with the literature on the Tea Party, early Black Lives Matter, and anti-Trump mobilization that already existed at the time of writing would have been insightful for deepening our understanding of these cases and how they connect with a longer history of protest and activism in American society. In summary, DiMaggio’s book provides a good overview of a wide range of social movements over a very short amount of space. The
{"title":"Living Worth: Value and Values in Global Pharmaceutical Markets","authors":"Laura Halcomb","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317k","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317k","url":null,"abstract":"in the book. DiMaggio states that he selected ‘‘some of the most salient uprisings of the 2010s as related to the rise of American plutocracy’’ (p. 11). While this works for the Tea Party and the Economic Justice movement, it is less convincing for Black Lives Matter (a movement focused on racism and criminal justice) and the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump campaigns (which were presidential campaigns, not social movements). Indeed, the chapter on the presidential campaigns feels particularly out of place. Presidential campaigns are different media and public attention-generating machines than social movements, and so the whole chapter feels even more removed from the rest of the book. This chapter is also the longest, and the section on the Trump campaign is the same length as the BLM chapter. The book also makes no effort to compare the different movements. While there are brief comparisons within campaigns, there is no organized comparison of media coverage, public support, or outcomes between, for example, the Tea Party and the Economic Justice movement. We get glimpses of connections (e.g., Table 4.1 comparing media coverage counts), but not including a chapter that stitches the findings from these chapters together or at least a more fleshed-out conclusion (the book’s conclusion is only five pages) feels like a missed opportunity. Another missed opportunity is DiMaggio’s engagement with theory throughout the book. He begins the book by using citations in mainstream political science journals to point out that social movements are an overlooked aspect of the political process. While this may be true, there is a full literature on social movements, including several journals devoted to the subject, in sociology. The author does nod to some of these theories, briefly summarizing resource mobilization, political opportunity, and disturbance theories in the introduction; but his approach through the rest of the book feels almost atheoretical, acknowledging concepts and theories in passing but never explaining how the movements fit (or fail to fit) their expectations. Political science and social movement studies have a lot to say to one another, and it would have been exciting to see DiMaggio use these cases to integrate concepts and ideas on media coverage of social movements, the relationship between public opinion and movements, the policy impacts of movements, and social movement partyism—by scholars like Edwin Amenta, Jon Agnone, Paul Burstein, and Paul Almeida—into the American politics literature. Even to see him engage with the literature on the Tea Party, early Black Lives Matter, and anti-Trump mobilization that already existed at the time of writing would have been insightful for deepening our understanding of these cases and how they connect with a longer history of protest and activism in American society. In summary, DiMaggio’s book provides a good overview of a wide range of social movements over a very short amount of space. The ","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"335 - 337"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46715713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317u
Dilip M. Menon
{"title":"The Politics of Decolonial Investigations","authors":"Dilip M. Menon","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317u","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317u","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"355 - 356"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42649663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317x
Kevin Funk
In this highly readable and sharply argued volume, Martin J. Murray—a professor of urban planning and sociology at the University of Michigan—both criticizes the interdisciplinary field of urban studies for its tendency to develop would-be universal theories and conceptual frameworks that rely exclusively on global North cases, and offers an alternative categorization scheme. The latter, designed with inclusivity in mind, aims to make sense of the complex and contradictory, but also interrelated, trajectories of cities around the world. Contrary to the seemingly hegemonic ‘‘global cities’’ paradigm, which—in his rendering— presupposes a linear path to globality (p. 26), Murray seeks to capture a messier reality in which cities of vastly different sizes, aspirations, and prospects are all mutually imbricated with global processes, though in diverse ways. Seeking to strike a balance between the general and the particular, the author thus calls for a ‘‘rethinking’’ of urban theory that entails eschewing ‘‘unwarranted generalizations, sweeping universals, and unhelpful abstractions’’ (p. 63) in favor of more nuanced and context-sensitive theorization and concepts. While certain facets would benefit from further elaboration, his critiques and substantive proposals are cogently presented and argued. Accordingly, overall, this book provides an insightful and helpful overview of (and response to) the transdisciplinary literatures on global cities. Murray’s principal target is what he refers to as ‘‘conventional [or, alternatively, ‘mainstream’] urban studies,’’ a phrase that features in the title of the first chapter and appears dozens more times throughout the text (though he does not offer a sufficiently precise definition for this label, nor a clear delineation of whose work fits therein). In Murray’s estimation, this ‘‘conventional’’ scholarship has focused on discovering (and measuring) the universal traits that embody, and make possible the development of, successful ‘‘global cities.’’ In this way, ‘‘scholars in these paradigmatic frameworks have—perhaps inadvertently—triggered a competitive urge among local growth coalitions that, in the rhetoric of city boosterism, seeks to find ways to advance in the ranked hierarchy of aspiring world-class cities’’ (p. 26). One such figure who is singled out here is Richard Florida, whose arguments concerning eliteand culture-led urbanization have been both extraordinarily influential and ‘‘deeply contentious,’’ as the author acknowledges (pp. 49–50). However, the fact that Florida’s work has been heavily criticized within urban studies and beyond raises the possibility that such understandings are perhaps not quite so hegemonic among scholars, even if they are heavily influential among urban elites the world over (p. 50). Nevertheless, it is clear that there are indeed recurring scholarly tendencies ‘‘to pigeonhole cities into preestablished [and normatively charged] categories and classification schemes’’ (p.
在这本可读性强、争论激烈的书中,密歇根大学的城市规划和社会学教授马丁·j·默里(Martin J. murray)批评了城市研究的跨学科领域,因为它倾向于发展完全依赖全球北方案例的准通用理论和概念框架,并提供了另一种分类方案。后者在设计时考虑到包容性,旨在理解世界各地城市的复杂和矛盾,但也相互关联的轨迹。与看似霸权的“全球城市”范式相反,Murray试图捕捉一个更混乱的现实,在这个现实中,规模、抱负和前景截然不同的城市都与全球进程相互交织,尽管方式不同。为了在一般和特殊之间寻求平衡,作者呼吁对城市理论进行“重新思考”,避免“毫无根据的概括、笼统的普遍和无益的抽象”(第63页),而倾向于更细致入微、对语境敏感的理论和概念。虽然某些方面还有待进一步阐述,但他的批评和实质性建议已被令人信服地提出和论证。因此,总的来说,这本书对全球城市的跨学科文献提供了一个有见地和有益的概述(和回应)。穆雷的主要目标是他所说的“传统的(或者说是‘主流的’)城市研究”,这个短语在第一章的标题中出现,在全文中出现了几十次(尽管他没有为这个标签提供一个足够精确的定义,也没有清楚地描述谁的作品适合这个标签)。在默里看来,这种“传统”的学术研究侧重于发现(和衡量)体现成功的“全球城市”的普遍特征,并使其发展成为可能。通过这种方式,“研究这些范式框架的学者们——也许是无意中——在地方增长联盟中引发了一种竞争的冲动,在城市支持者的修辞中,寻求在有抱负的世界级城市的排名等级中取得进步的方法”(第26页)。理查德·弗罗里达(Richard Florida)就是这样一位人物,正如作者所承认的那样,他关于精英和文化主导的城市化的观点既具有非凡的影响力,又“极具争议性”(第49-50页)。然而,佛罗里达的研究在城市研究内外受到了严厉批评,这一事实提出了这样一种可能性,即这种理解在学者中可能并不那么霸道,即使它们在世界各地的城市精英中有很大的影响力(第50页)。然而,很明显,确实有反复出现的学术倾向“将城市划分为预先建立的[和规范的]类别和分类方案”(第26页),反过来,通过-à-vis“成功的”全球城市建设(例如,纽约,伦敦和巴塞罗那)的通常参考点来判断它们。穆雷的大部分不满与这些理解中嵌入的以欧洲为中心(因此是错误的普遍)的观念有关,由于大多数当代城市增长发生在全球南方,特别是在非洲和亚洲,这一事实尤其成问题。虽然这样的批评肯定不是新的,但穆雷令人信服地更进一步,同时对“南方理论”本身的概念提出了问题(第60页)。正如他若有所思地观察到的那样,“对去殖民化和去西方化城市理论的呼吁并没有超出对现有分析框架和主导思想的广泛批评”,随着越来越多的注意力转移到全球南方,“必须非常小心地避免将全球南方的城市定位为理解21世纪城市主义的新范例”(第61页)。一个危险,正如他正确地指出的,是评论361
{"title":"Many Urbanisms: Divergent Trajectories of Global City Building","authors":"Kevin Funk","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317x","url":null,"abstract":"In this highly readable and sharply argued volume, Martin J. Murray—a professor of urban planning and sociology at the University of Michigan—both criticizes the interdisciplinary field of urban studies for its tendency to develop would-be universal theories and conceptual frameworks that rely exclusively on global North cases, and offers an alternative categorization scheme. The latter, designed with inclusivity in mind, aims to make sense of the complex and contradictory, but also interrelated, trajectories of cities around the world. Contrary to the seemingly hegemonic ‘‘global cities’’ paradigm, which—in his rendering— presupposes a linear path to globality (p. 26), Murray seeks to capture a messier reality in which cities of vastly different sizes, aspirations, and prospects are all mutually imbricated with global processes, though in diverse ways. Seeking to strike a balance between the general and the particular, the author thus calls for a ‘‘rethinking’’ of urban theory that entails eschewing ‘‘unwarranted generalizations, sweeping universals, and unhelpful abstractions’’ (p. 63) in favor of more nuanced and context-sensitive theorization and concepts. While certain facets would benefit from further elaboration, his critiques and substantive proposals are cogently presented and argued. Accordingly, overall, this book provides an insightful and helpful overview of (and response to) the transdisciplinary literatures on global cities. Murray’s principal target is what he refers to as ‘‘conventional [or, alternatively, ‘mainstream’] urban studies,’’ a phrase that features in the title of the first chapter and appears dozens more times throughout the text (though he does not offer a sufficiently precise definition for this label, nor a clear delineation of whose work fits therein). In Murray’s estimation, this ‘‘conventional’’ scholarship has focused on discovering (and measuring) the universal traits that embody, and make possible the development of, successful ‘‘global cities.’’ In this way, ‘‘scholars in these paradigmatic frameworks have—perhaps inadvertently—triggered a competitive urge among local growth coalitions that, in the rhetoric of city boosterism, seeks to find ways to advance in the ranked hierarchy of aspiring world-class cities’’ (p. 26). One such figure who is singled out here is Richard Florida, whose arguments concerning eliteand culture-led urbanization have been both extraordinarily influential and ‘‘deeply contentious,’’ as the author acknowledges (pp. 49–50). However, the fact that Florida’s work has been heavily criticized within urban studies and beyond raises the possibility that such understandings are perhaps not quite so hegemonic among scholars, even if they are heavily influential among urban elites the world over (p. 50). Nevertheless, it is clear that there are indeed recurring scholarly tendencies ‘‘to pigeonhole cities into preestablished [and normatively charged] categories and classification schemes’’ (p.","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"361 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44395691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317s
H. Ono
attempted to shield the children from the potential trauma of the inevitable flooding. They made the storm preparations seem like a ‘‘fun adventure’’ (p. 65). Spouses did disagree about the level of risk of the flood, with the husbands being less concerned than their wives about the potential destructiveness of the flood. Confusion and tension are part of the storm preparation and evacuation process. However, the mothers seemed to maintain control of their homes and children during the storm preparation, with little assistance from their spouses or others. This is quite an endeavor that the mothers seemed equipped to handle. Most of the families evacuated once the flooding began. Many of the mothers considered themselves the ‘‘lead parent’’ (p. 85) during the evacuation process, with the husbands and children simply following the mothers’ directives. Only two of the 36 families were forced to evacuate to the George R. Brown (GRB) Convention Center where the disaster shelter was in place. Though the fabricated stories of rape and other violence in the Superdome in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina had long been debunked, these mothers wanted to avoid GRB at all costs due to these stories. Fortunately, these families had the finances to stay in hotels or to rent properties. Though diversity was one of the primary reasons for wanting their children to attend Bayou Oaks Elementary School, fear of those living in poverty and fear of people of color seemed to motivate them to avoid GRB at all costs. This was a striking contrast between exposure to diversity and experiencing diversity. Only a handful of the participants in this study decided to relocate after the Hurricane Harvey flood. This meant that families would either rebuild their homes or raze them. Dealing with the contractors fell on the shoulders of the mothers in most instances. The families that stayed weighed the pros and cons of that decision, with most finding the amenities of Bayou Oaks and its schools incentive enough to stay. Volunteers were numerous for help with cleanup, but getting back into their homes could take a year or more. Family impacts of the flood were not as dramatic as one might expect. This was due to the mothers’ ability to curate their families during the process of the flood and the subsequent rehabbing of their homes. Yet nearly all of the mothers related mental or physical health issues related to Harvey. Some children had trauma related to the flood, and therapy was sought out in many instances. Kimbro states that the mothers put themselves last, so they sometimes didn’t care for their health as they should have. Kimbro’s book has a clear and significant thesis. She uses a sound qualitative methodology, and her interview questions are comprehensive and ultimately informative. The book is well-organized, and the writing is clear. Kimbro shows much passion and compassion for the subject matter. She is empathetic to the mothers’ stories. I do believe that the hus
{"title":"Japan, the Sustainable Society: The Artisanal Ethos, Ordinary Virtues, and Everyday Life in the Age of Limits","authors":"H. Ono","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317s","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317s","url":null,"abstract":"attempted to shield the children from the potential trauma of the inevitable flooding. They made the storm preparations seem like a ‘‘fun adventure’’ (p. 65). Spouses did disagree about the level of risk of the flood, with the husbands being less concerned than their wives about the potential destructiveness of the flood. Confusion and tension are part of the storm preparation and evacuation process. However, the mothers seemed to maintain control of their homes and children during the storm preparation, with little assistance from their spouses or others. This is quite an endeavor that the mothers seemed equipped to handle. Most of the families evacuated once the flooding began. Many of the mothers considered themselves the ‘‘lead parent’’ (p. 85) during the evacuation process, with the husbands and children simply following the mothers’ directives. Only two of the 36 families were forced to evacuate to the George R. Brown (GRB) Convention Center where the disaster shelter was in place. Though the fabricated stories of rape and other violence in the Superdome in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina had long been debunked, these mothers wanted to avoid GRB at all costs due to these stories. Fortunately, these families had the finances to stay in hotels or to rent properties. Though diversity was one of the primary reasons for wanting their children to attend Bayou Oaks Elementary School, fear of those living in poverty and fear of people of color seemed to motivate them to avoid GRB at all costs. This was a striking contrast between exposure to diversity and experiencing diversity. Only a handful of the participants in this study decided to relocate after the Hurricane Harvey flood. This meant that families would either rebuild their homes or raze them. Dealing with the contractors fell on the shoulders of the mothers in most instances. The families that stayed weighed the pros and cons of that decision, with most finding the amenities of Bayou Oaks and its schools incentive enough to stay. Volunteers were numerous for help with cleanup, but getting back into their homes could take a year or more. Family impacts of the flood were not as dramatic as one might expect. This was due to the mothers’ ability to curate their families during the process of the flood and the subsequent rehabbing of their homes. Yet nearly all of the mothers related mental or physical health issues related to Harvey. Some children had trauma related to the flood, and therapy was sought out in many instances. Kimbro states that the mothers put themselves last, so they sometimes didn’t care for their health as they should have. Kimbro’s book has a clear and significant thesis. She uses a sound qualitative methodology, and her interview questions are comprehensive and ultimately informative. The book is well-organized, and the writing is clear. Kimbro shows much passion and compassion for the subject matter. She is empathetic to the mothers’ stories. I do believe that the hus","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"351 - 353"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49285059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317m
K. Lawler
race, ethnicity, and nation as cognitive categories that people use to classify themselves and others based on putative descent (Brubaker et al. 2004). More practically, and perhaps as the result of these conceptual issues, Segregation finds the distinctions between segregation by race versus ethnicity versus immigration hard to sustain. For example, discussions of Black Americans’ residential patterns appear in the chapter on race, but also the chapter on ethnic communities (p. 103 on the Black communities in Harlem and the south side of Chicago), as well as the chapter on immigration (p. 132 on the segregation of Black immigrant groups in New York City). It is perhaps unfair to criticize a book, though, for organizing its arguments in some way; and, for a book that aims and will surely succeed at being a reference, a structure that follows the contours of prior work—however arbitrary—makes sense.
{"title":"To Live Is to Resist: The Life of Antonio Gramsci","authors":"K. Lawler","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317m","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317m","url":null,"abstract":"race, ethnicity, and nation as cognitive categories that people use to classify themselves and others based on putative descent (Brubaker et al. 2004). More practically, and perhaps as the result of these conceptual issues, Segregation finds the distinctions between segregation by race versus ethnicity versus immigration hard to sustain. For example, discussions of Black Americans’ residential patterns appear in the chapter on race, but also the chapter on ethnic communities (p. 103 on the Black communities in Harlem and the south side of Chicago), as well as the chapter on immigration (p. 132 on the segregation of Black immigrant groups in New York City). It is perhaps unfair to criticize a book, though, for organizing its arguments in some way; and, for a book that aims and will surely succeed at being a reference, a structure that follows the contours of prior work—however arbitrary—makes sense.","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"339 - 342"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48507155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00943061231181317hh
Carolyn Levy
result in this case is a fair bit of wheelreinventing alongside assertions that would likely puzzle experts in any of the given subfields Schutz traverses. For example, an extended section on education is based on a classic 1976 reference, while an extended discussion of labor management and managerial bureaucracy is based on contributions from 1976, 1989, and 1996. The claim of everincreasing ‘‘numbers of supervisors, overseers, checkers of various sorts, and associated staff’’ (pp. 120–21), based on decadesold sources, is not very convincing in light of two decades of research on downsizing, outsourcing, offshoring, vertical disintegration, and lean production. His brief discussion of the core concepts of social and cultural capital refers to a single, 1997 source on (rather than by) Pierre Bourdieu, while the extended discussion of professional power does not cite anything from the extensive literature on professions. The assertion that ‘‘financial capital . . . is the main foundation of people’s ability to attain professional positions’’ (p. 126) reduces complex processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage over the life course, which happen within and across institutional domains of the family, schools, the state, and the labor market, to a single variable. Noting that human, social, and cultural capital are all involved minimizes the reductionism, in principle, but after introducing the different forms of capital he does not systematically develop the analytical framework. The book is equally light on evidence, either from existing studies or from original data analysis. The discussion of poverty seems to suggest the main issue is unequal access to credit for education, again ignoring decades of literature on cumulative dis/ advantage occurring across key institutional domains of society and taking many forms (financial, psychological, institutional, etc.). He bases his entire case—that lending for education is biased toward those with a previous endowment—on private lending in the United States, failing to mention government subsidies (e.g., Pell Grants), governmentguaranteed loans, or fee-free university in many European countries. Descriptive charts on productivity, wealth inequality, income inequality, and other key topics come mainly from the work of other economists. At one point (p. 111), Schutz speculates about the size of the rentier class (based on secondary data) rather than attempt to derive an estimate based on his own data analysis. There is no attempt to provide evidential support for or tests of the theory. It is possible there is some mileage in bridging relational power-structure and gradational forms-of-capital approaches, and it is possible the theoretical framework could be used productively for empirical research, though the book does not offer any broad explanatory narrative, specific hypotheses about the drivers or contours of inequality, or guidance on how the theory might be operationalized.
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