Intersecting viruses: a clarion call for a new direction in diversity theorizing

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 811-821
Author(s):  
Stella M. Nkomo

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provoke diversity scholars to think about the implications of the confluence of the racial disparities in the effects of the Coronavirus and the persistence of racial inequality for a new direction of theorizing in the field.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon three major analogies between the Coronavirus and the virus of racism, the author discusses their similarities as a means to think about why racism persists despite efforts to eradicate it. The history of racism in the United States forms a key part of the discussion.FindingsThe current theoretical tools diversity scholars primarily use to address racial inequality in organizations may only at best mitigate, not eradicate, racism in organizations. There is a need to direct theoretical development toward the concepts of racialization and deracialization.Research limitations/implicationsThe views and proposals for new theorizing reflect the author's positionality and biases. It also relies on three of the many possible analogies that can be made between racism as a virus and the Coronavirus.Practical implicationsUnderstanding racism through the lens of racialization and deracialization can help organizations and the leaders of them to identify the structures that embed racism and also how to change them.Social implicationsUnderstanding racism and processes of racialization is critical to achieving racial equality. Organizations are one of the main societal institutions that shape and perpetuate the racism and inequality among African-Americans and other people of color experience. Awareness of the continuing effects of racism is critical to anticipating how virus pandemics increase the vulnerability of marginalized racial groups to greater health risks and precariousness.Originality/valueThis essay provokes diversity scholars to engage in reflexive discomfort about the current path of theorizing in the field. It suggests ways that the concept of racialization can be used descriptively and normatively to theorize racism in organizations. In addition, it proposes deracialization as a frame for supplanting the ideology of White supremacy and theorizing nonracial organizations.

Author(s):  
Whitney Hua ◽  
Jane Junn

Abstract As racial tensions flare amidst a global pandemic and national social justice upheaval, the centrality of structural racism has renewed old questions and raised new ones about where Asian Americans fit in U.S. politics. This paper provides an overview of the unique racial history of Asians in the United States and analyzes the implications of dynamic racialization and status for Asian Americans. In particular, we examine the dynamism of Asian Americans' racial positionality relative to historical shifts in economic-based conceptions of their desirability as workers in American capitalism. Taking history, power, and institutions of white supremacy into account, we analyze where Asian Americans fit in contemporary U.S. politics, presenting a better understanding of the persistent structures underlying racial inequality and developing a foundation from which Asian Americans can work to enhance equality.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Peacock

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself. Design/Methodology/Approach – Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s. Findings – Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits. Originality/Value – This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison E. Robertson ◽  
Silvia R. Cianzio ◽  
Sarah M. Cerra ◽  
Richard O. Pope

Phytophthora root and stem rot (PRR), caused by the oomycete Phytophthora sojae, is an economically important soybean disease in the north central region of the United States, including Iowa. Previous surveys of the pathogenic diversity of P. sojae in Iowa did not investigate whether multiple pathotypes of the pathogen existed in individual fields. Considering the many pathotypes of P. sojae that have been reported in Iowa, we hypothesized multiple pathotypes could exist within single fields. In the research reported herein, several soil samples were collected systematically from each of two commercial fields with a history of PRR in Iowa, and each soil sample was baited separately for isolates of P. sojae. Numerous pathotypes of P. sojae were detected from both fields. As many as four pathotypes were detected in some soil samples (each consisting of six to eight soil cores), which suggests that a single soybean plant could be subjected to infection by more than one pathotype. This possibility presents important implications in breeding resistant cultivars and in the management of PRR. Accepted for publication 14 July 2009. Published 8 September 2009.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1169-1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Jervis

Among the many issues raised by James Lebovic's perceptive review are two that strike me as crucial: the relationships between intelligence and social science and those between intelligence and policymaking. The first itself has two parts, one being how scholars can study intelligence. Both access and methods are difficult. For years, diplomatic historians referred to intelligence as the “hidden dimension” of their subject. Now it is much more open, and Great Britain, generally more secretive than the United States, has just issued the authorized history of MI5 (see Christopher Andrew, Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, 2009). Since the end of the Cold War, the CIA has released extensive, if incomplete, records, and the bright side (for us) of intelligence failures is that they lead to the release of treasure troves of documents, which can often be supplemented by memoirs and interviews. But even more than in other aspects of foreign policy analysis, we are stuck with evidence that is fragmentary. In this way, we resemble scholars of ancient societies, who forever lament the loss of most of the material they want to study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-23
Author(s):  
Ron Scapp

A commentary on the recent assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which the author situates the attack in the longer history of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, patriarchy, and unfettered capitalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
April A. Estrada ◽  
Marcelo Gottschalk ◽  
Stephanie Rossow ◽  
Aaron Rendahl ◽  
Connie Gebhart ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTStreptococcus suisis a significant cause of mortality in piglets and growing pigs worldwide. The species contains pathogenic and commensal strains, with pathogenic strains causing meningitis, arthritis, endocarditis, polyserositis, and septicemia. Serotyping and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) are primary methods to differentiate strains, but the information is limited for strains found in the United States. The objective of this study was to characterize the diversity of 208S. suisisolates collected between 2014 and 2017 across North America (mainly the United States) by serotyping and MLST and to investigate associations between subtype and pathotype classifications (pathogenic, possibly opportunistic, and commensal), based on clinical information and site of isolation. Twenty serotypes were identified, and the predominant serotypes were 1/2 and 7. Fifty-eight sequence types (STs) were identified, and the predominant ST was ST28. Associations among serotypes, STs, and pathotypes were investigated using odds ratio and clustering analyses. Evaluation of serotype and ST with pathotype identified a majority of isolates of serotypes 1, 1/2, 2, 7, 14, and 23 and ST1, ST13, ST25, ST28, ST29, ST94, ST108, ST117, ST225, ST373, ST961, and ST977 as associated with the pathogenic pathotype. Serotypes 21 and 31, ST750, and ST821 were associated with the commensal pathotype, which is composed of isolates from farms with no known history ofS. suis-associated disease. Our study demonstrates the use of serotyping and MLST to differentiate pathogenic from commensal isolates and establish links between pathotype and subtype, thus increasing the knowledge aboutS. suisstrains circulating in the United States.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Bagwell

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relevance of the mixed embeddedness thesis (Kloosterman, 2010; Rath and Kloosterman, 2002) to businesses with a more transnational mode of operation. Design/methodology/approach Interviews with the owner managers of a sample 24 Vietnamese businesses in London were undertaken to develop an understanding of how micro (individual resources: social, financial and cultural/human capital, and history of migration), meso (local, regional and national markets) and macro (politico-institutional) factors in the UK and overseas influenced business development. Findings The findings illustrate how business development is influenced not just by the interaction of the local (UK) opportunity structure and the entrepreneur’s resources, as suggested by the mixed embeddedness thesis, but also by institutional regimes, economies and markets in key countries of the diaspora, and the interaction of these. The extent to which new transnational opportunities can be exploited, however, depends on access to the necessary local and transnational forms of capital. Practical implications The empirical evidence presented is used to present a re-working of the mixed embeddedness thesis to provide a framework for understanding the drivers of transnational entrepreneurship. Originality/value The paper presents new empirical knowledge of transnational activity amongst the UK Vietnamese business community – a little known refugee community. Conceptually, the paper offers a theoretical development of the mixed embeddedness thesis to enable it to provide an explanation of transnational entrepreneurship amongst new migrant communities.


mBio ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward W. Davis ◽  
Javier F. Tabima ◽  
Alexandra J. Weisberg ◽  
Lucas Dantas Lopes ◽  
Michele S. Wiseman ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTRathayibacter toxicusis a species of Gram-positive, corynetoxin-producing bacteria that causes annual ryegrass toxicity, a disease often fatal to grazing animals. A phylogenomic approach was employed to model the evolution ofR. toxicusto explain the low genetic diversity observed among isolates collected during a 30-year period of sampling in three regions of Australia, gain insight into the taxonomy ofRathayibacter, and provide a framework for studying these bacteria. Analyses of a data set of more than 100 sequencedRathayibactergenomes indicated thatRathayibacterforms nine species-level groups.R. toxicusis the most genetically distant, and evidence suggested that this species experienced a dramatic event in its evolution. Its genome is significantly reduced in size but is colinear to those of sister species. Moreover,R. toxicushas low intergroup genomic diversity and almost no intragroup genomic diversity between ecologically separated isolates.R. toxicusis the only species of the genus that encodes a clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) locus and that is known to host a bacteriophage parasite. The spacers, which represent a chronological history of infections, were characterized for information on past events. We propose a three-stage process that emphasizes the importance of the bacteriophage and CRISPR in the genome reduction and low genetic diversity of theR. toxicusspecies.IMPORTANCERathayibacter toxicusis a toxin-producing species found in Australia and is often fatal to grazing animals. The threat of introduction of the species into the United States led to its inclusion in the Federal Select Agent Program, which makesR. toxicusa highly regulated species. This work provides novel insights into the evolution ofR. toxicus.R. toxicusis the only species in the genus to have acquired a CRISPR adaptive immune system to protect against bacteriophages. Results suggest that coexistence with the bacteriophage NCPPB3778 led to the massive shrinkage of theR. toxicusgenome, species divergence, and the maintenance of low genetic diversity in extant bacterial groups. This work contributes to an understanding of the evolution and ecology of an agriculturally important species of bacteria.


Author(s):  
Matt Garcia

In September 1962, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) held its first convention in Fresno, California, initiating a multiracial movement that would result in the creation of United Farm Workers (UFW) and the first contracts for farm workers in the state of California. Led by Cesar Chavez, the union contributed a number of innovations to the art of social protest, including the most successful consumer boycott in the history of the United States. Chavez welcomed contributions from numerous ethnic and racial groups, men and women, young and old. For a time, the UFW was the realization of Martin Luther King Jr.’s beloved community—people from different backgrounds coming together to create a socially just world. During the 1970s, Chavez struggled to maintain the momentum created by the boycott as the state of California became more involved in adjudicating labor disputes under the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA). Although Chavez and the UFW ultimately failed to establish a permanent, national union, their successes and strategies continue to influence movements for farm worker justice today.


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