“I Am Starting to Believe in the Word ‘Justice’”: Lessons from an Ethnographic Study on Community Courts

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-411
Author(s):  
Tali Gal ◽  
Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Intervention Program ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Community Justice ◽  
Red Hook ◽  
Community Courts

Abstract With the growing awareness of the crisis of mass incarceration and distrust toward the legal system, recent years have seen a rise in interest in specialized, problem-solving, and therapeutic courts designed to reduce incarceration and recidivism rates and enhance public trust in state authorities. Community courts have been operating in numerous jurisdictions worldwide, providing a non-adversarial platform in which repeat low-level offenders are offered a comprehensive rehabilitative and restorative intervention program. Alongside evaluations demonstrating the ability of community courts to reduce incarceration and enhance offenders’ trust, some critics have suggested that community courts jeopardize offenders’ procedural rights and result in over-criminalization of program non-completers. This Article provides a qualitative empirical examination of an Israeli community court model, inspired by the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, New York. Based on over 280 hours of observations of approximately 100 hearings and fourteen staff meetings, the findings provide an inside look at the ways in which Israeli community courts implement a range of evidence-based, democracy-oriented approaches to crime control, such as procedural justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, and community justice, in the context of community courts. The findings also point to a need to pay closer attention to how these courts continue their operation, within a broader adversarial legal framework of criminal justice. The challenges identified in this Article raise questions that are relevant to other community courts in the United States and elsewhere.

Cross-space Consumption among Undocumented Chinese Immigrants in the United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhou ◽  
Xiangyi Li
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Chinese Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Currency Exchange ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Migrants

We consider cross-space consumption as a form of transnational practice among international migrants. In this paper, we develop the idea of the social value of consumption and use it to explain this particular form of transnationalism. We consider the act of consumption to have not only functional value that satisfies material needs but also a set of nonfunctional values, social value included, that confer symbolic meanings and social status. We argue that cross-space consumption enables international migrants to take advantage of differences in economic development, currency exchange rates, and social structures between countries of destination and origin to maximize their expression of social status and to perform or regain social status. Drawing on a multisited ethnographic study of consumption patterns in migrant hometowns in Fuzhou, China, and in-depth interviews with undocumented Chinese immigrants in New York and their left-behind family members, we find that, despite the vulnerabilities and precarious circumstances associated with the lack of citizenship rights in the host society, undocumented immigrants manage to realize the social value of consumption across national borders and do so through conspicuous consumption, reciprocal consumption, and vicarious consumption in their hometowns even without being physically present there. We conclude that, while cross-space consumption benefits individual migrants, left-behind families, and their hometowns, it serves to revive tradition in ways that fuel extravagant rituals, drive up costs of living, reinforce existing social inequality, and create pressure for continual emigration.

‘To really trust [...] we had to be open with ourselves and each other’: Community building through Spring Awakening

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-111
Author(s):  
Julie K. Hagen ◽  
Jennifer Thomas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
Community Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Spring Awakening ◽  
Narrative Ethnography ◽  
The Subject

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to better understand how participation in St. Lawrence University’s (New York, the United States) production of Spring Awakening served as a means of intimate and broader community building. This narrative ethnography investigated the director and a focus group of actors involved in the production of Spring Awakening. Analyses of the data revealed four themes: content, interconnectedness, emotion and vulnerability and magic. St. Lawrence University students welcomed and embraced the language, the music and the subject matter presented to them in the content of Spring Awakening. The willingness with which the students opened up to conversation and community continued to resonate with them in an interconnectedness that seemingly had more depth and more meaning than other productions they have worked on, including other musical theatre productions.

Safe Routes to School? Black Caribbean Youth Negotiating Police Surveillance in London and New York City

2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
DERRON WALLACE
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
York City ◽  
Black Youth ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Stop And Frisk ◽  
Black Caribbean

In this article, Derron Wallace examines how Black Caribbean youth perceive and experience stop-and-frisk and stop-and-search practices in New York City and London, respectively, while on their way to and from public schools. Despite a growing body of scholarship on the relationship between policing and schooling in the United States and United Kingdom, comparative research on how students experience stop-and-frisk/search remains sparse. Drawing on the BlackCrit tradition of critical race theory and in-depth interviews with sixty Black Caribbean secondary school students in London and New York City, Wallace explores how adolescents experience adult-like policing to and from schools. His findings indicate that participants develop a strained sense of belonging in British and American societies due to a security paradox: a policing formula that, in principle, promises safety for all but in practice does so at the expense of some Black youth. Participants in the ethnographic study learned that irrespective of ethnicity, Black youth are regularly rendered suspicious subjects worthy of scrutiny, even during the school commute.

Belonging and boundaries in Little Guyana: Conflict, culture, and identity in Richmond Hill, New York

Ethnicities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 896-914
Author(s):  
Nazreen S Bacchus
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
South Asian American

Research on the assimilation of contemporary second-generation Americans has shown that ethnic enclaves are saturated with several cultural, religious, and transnational amenities that facilitate the process of immigrant integration in the United States. Missing from this research is a discussion of how middle-class, second-generation Americans use urban enclaves as a means of remaining attached to their ethnic identities. One such group with members who has achieved middle-class status and remained culturally attached to their enclave is Indo-Guyanese Americans of Indian Caribbean descent. This ethnographic study examines the ways in which second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans use familial, cultural, and religious interactions in Little Guyana to create a sense of belonging and community. As the descendants of re-migrants, their multiethnic identities are complicating their assimilation in American society. Their experiences with racialization and social exclusion from white, South Asian American, and non-co-ethnic circles have pushed them toward developing their multiethnic identity. I use the term ethnic restoration to discuss how second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans are using transnational ethnic consumption, religious institutions, and co-ethnic interactions to validate their ethnic identities and resist racialization. Their engagement in ethno-religious institutions in Richmond Hill is central to this analysis, as they embrace their Indian Caribbean identities more intensely after experiencing racialization. The findings of this research point to the need to understand why middle-class second-generation Americans are ethnically attached to urban enclaves.

Book Reviews

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-100
Author(s):  
Gilles Forlot ◽  
Ayhan Kaya ◽  
Andrea Gerstnerova ◽  
Ibrahim Sirkeci
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Diverse Society

Centering the Margin, Agency and Narrative in Southeast Asian Borderlands - Alexander Horstmann and Reed L. Wadley (eds.) (2006) Berghahn Books, New York, Oxford, (ISBN 1-84545-019-1, hardcover)S. AKGÖNÜL, Religions de Turquie, religions des Turcs. Nouveaux acteurs dans l’Europe élargie, Paris, Turin, Budapest, L’Harmattan, coll. «Compétences interculturelles», 2005, 193 p. ISBN : 2-7475-9489-0J. GATUGU, S. AMORANITIS et A. MANÇO (éds), La vie associative des migrants: quelles (re)connaissances ? Réponses européennes et canadiennes, Paris, Turin, Budapest, L’Harmattan, coll. « Compétences interculturelles », 2004, 280 p. ISBN : 2-7475-7053-3U. MANÇO (ed.), Reconnaissance et discrimination: présence de l’islam en Europe occidentale et en Amérique du Nord, Paris, Turin, Budapest, L’Harmattan, coll. « Compétences interculturelles », 2004, 371 p. ISBN : 2-7475-6851-2 Ch.PARTHOENS et A. MANÇO, De Zola à Atatürk: un « village musulman » en Wallonie. Cheratte-Visé, Paris, Turin, Budapest, L’Harmattan, coll. « Compétences interculturelles », 2005, 174 p. ISBN : 2-7475-8036-9L. MULLER et S. de TAPIA (éds), Un dynamisme venu d’ailleurs: la création d’entreprises par les immigrés, Paris, Turin, Budapest, L’Harmattan, coll. « Compétences interculturelles », 2005, 311 p. ISBN : 2-7475-8569-7A. ELIA, Réseaux ethnocommunautaires des Foulbé en Italie. Recherche de visibilité, logiques associatives et stratégies migratoires, Paris, Turin, Budapest, L’Harmattan, coll. « Compétences interculturelles », 2006, 115 p. ISBN : 2-296-00398-2The French in the United States, an Ethnographic Study - Jacqueline Lindenfeld (2000) Bergin and Garvey, Wesport/London, (ISBN 0-89789-903-2, paperback)What Happens When a Diverse Society is Diverse: Exploring Multidimensional Identities - Hakan G. Sıcakkan and Yngve G. Lithman (eds.) (2006) Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2006, 252 pages, (ISBN 978-0-7734-5877-2, hardcover)

Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-357
Author(s):  
Melina Lito
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Populated Area ◽  
The Past ◽  
Severe Burns ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Blunt Force Trauma ◽  
Blast Effects

Those who have been following international headlines for the past year can observe the increased prevalence of discussions on nuclear weapons, including between the United States and North Korea. In the margins of the discussions, the law and policy discussions around nuclear non-proliferation become very relevant. After all, the devastating humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons are very clear. “Studies have shown that the detonation of nuclear weapons would cause widespread death, injury and damage, especially if it occurred in or near a populated area.” There would be extensive casualties from severe burns and blunt force trauma that would occur in the moments after the detonation, as a result of blast effects and the release of thermal radiation. As such, most communities would not necessarily have the capacity to enact appropriate response mechanisms. “[A]ssessments undertaken by the ICRC have highlighted that there is a lack of capacity in most countries and at the international level to adequately respond to a nuclear detonation, and to provide assistance that would benefit a substantial portion of survivors in the aftermath.” Amid these considerations, the first-ever nuclear ban treaty, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Treaty), was negotiated in the halls of the UN headquarters in New York. Before analyzing the Treaty itself, a word on how it came about and the legal framework that preceded it.

scholarly journals Grassroots Expertise at a New York City Community Board

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Waters
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Board Members ◽  
City Community ◽  
Community Board ◽  
Technical Capacity

In New York City and across the United States, neighborhood councils established by local governments are incorporating citizen participation into decision making while engaging issues that require them to use expert knowledge. These participatory projects can be seen as a way to check the pervasive and potentially undemocratic role of expertise in society, by creating a public setting in which experts’ advice can be exposed and criticized, and in which laypeople can attempt to influence policy processes that would ordinarily be dominated by experts. This ethnographic study investigates the fine-grained human interactions as members of a New York City community board in a low-income neighborhood engage land use and housing issues. It finds that they can partially overcome the challenge of expertise by developing their own technical capacity, and that this enhances board members’ influence. But it also finds that members encounter difficulties that cannot be remedied by more technical capacity. First, board members who develop expertise still lack complementary instrumentalities, such as access to insider information. And second, they find it difficult to juggle performance of their expert role with other roles they must play in their deliberations, especially the role of representing the community, which is essential if they are to influence elected officials through public opinion.

scholarly journals Global Pandemic, Translocal Medicine

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-88
Author(s):  
Sienna R. Craig ◽  
Nawang T. Gurung ◽  
Ross Perlin ◽  
Maya Daurio ◽  
Daniel Kaufman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Qinghai Province ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Abstract This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog’s diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.

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