Sensitive Cowboys

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Pfaffendorf
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Young Men ◽  
White Men ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Past ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Class Youth

In the past few decades, a multi-billion-dollar “therapeutic boarding school” industry has emerged for America’s troubled upper-class youth. This article examines the therapeutic models prominent in these programs and the ways they conflict with dominant notions of masculinity. Using in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork inside a Western therapeutic boarding school, I show how privileged young men navigate this masculinity dilemma by constructing hybrid masculinities that incorporate qualities associated with femininities and subordinate masculinities. However, these qualities are incorporated strategically and in ways that reproduce and obscure privileges associated with students’ positions as young, upper-class, white men. Using hybrid masculine styles that include humility, commitment to service, and open emotional expression, students re-assert dominant positions as leaders and as “better” men in contrast to various others.

Wayward Elites: From Social Reproduction to Social Restoration in a Therapeutic Boarding School

2019 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Pfaffendorf
Keyword(s):  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Therapeutic Discourse ◽  
The Past ◽  
Boundary Maintenance ◽  
New Form ◽  
Class Youth

In the past few decades, a multi-billion-dollar “therapeutic boarding school” industry has emerged largely for America’s troubled upper-class youth. This article examines the experiences of privileged youth in a therapeutic boarding school to advance social restoration as a new form of social reproduction. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork inside a Western therapeutic boarding school for young men struggling with substance abuse, I explore how students leverage a stigmatized, addict identity in ways that can restore privilege. Findings suggest that students engage in social restoration by constructing an overarching restorative narrative that works through three mechanisms: (1) experiential reframing, (2) appropriated therapeutic discourse, and (3) boundary maintenance through “othering.” Using these narrative strategies, students are able to transform a stigma into a symbolic marker of character that they use to reclaim privileged positions and dominant roles. This process of social restoration illuminates previously unexamined issues at the intersections of power and privilege, stigma, and inequality.

Memory Practices in the Classroom

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Ahlrichs ◽  
Katharina Baier ◽  
Barbara Christophe ◽  
Felicitas Macgilchrist ◽  
Patrick Mielke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
History Education ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Past ◽  
Online Videos ◽  
Memory Practices

This article draws on memory studies and media studies to explore how memory practices unfold in schools today. It explores history education as a media- saturated cultural site in which particular social orderings and categorizations emerge as commonsensical and others are contested. Describing vignettes from ethnographic fieldwork in German secondary schools, this article identifies different memory practices as a nexus of pupils, teachers, blackboards, pens, textbooks, and online videos that enacts what counts as worth remembering today: reproduction; destabilization without explicit contestation; and interruption. Exploring mediated memory practices thus highlights an array of (often unintended) ways of making the past present.

Privilege Accumulation Among Upper Middle-Class Youth in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minor Mora-Salas ◽  
Orlandina de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Mexican Families ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
Class Background ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Class Youth

This chapter demonstrates how upper middle-class Mexican families mobilize a vast array of social, cultural, and economic resources to expand their children’s opportunities in life and ensure the intergenerational transmission of their social position. The authors analyze salient characteristics of families’ socioeconomic and demographics in the life histories of a group of young Mexicans from an upper middle-class background. Many believe that micro-social processes, especially surrounding education, are key to understanding how upper-class families mobilize their various resources to shape their children’s life trajectories. These families accumulate social advantages over time that accrue to their progeny and benefit them upon their entrance to the labor market.

scholarly journals A City Too Busy to Remember? Aging, Structural Violence, and the Politics of Forgetting in Atlanta’s Gentrification

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 393-393
Author(s):  
John Pothen ◽  
Keland Yip ◽  
Ellen Idler
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Aging In Place ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
The Past ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
Ongoing Development ◽  
The City ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Can forgotten stories from the past inform a city’s future? As older adults continue to live longer and comprise more of the population than ever before, the suitability of gentrifying spaces for older adults aging in place is increasingly important. Critical theories of gentrification argue that remembering the experiences of older adults in this context - experiences of suffering, resilience, and structural violence - is essential to promote changes in support aging in place. In this study, we tell a story of individual experiences, structural violence, and aging in the ongoing gentrification of one neighborhood in southwest Atlanta. We construct this narrative through a qualitative analysis of 1,500 local newspaper articles from 1950 to the present day and 10 in-depth interviews with ex-residents of the neighborhood aged 65-87. Drawing on the theory of planetary rent gaps, we frame gentrification as a class struggle between property-owners and working class residents. We highlight the city government’s role as a facilitator for property-owners through projects including the Model City initiative, preparation for the 1996 Olympics, and ongoing development surrounding the Atlanta BeltLine. We show how these projects have affected the prospects for aging in place in general and, specifically, by affecting access to healthcare services. We share this story in an effort to combat the politics of forgetting and to inform a richer, more inclusive, and more equitable future for gentrifying spaces.

scholarly journals “Mostly Rich White Men, Nothing in Common”: Latino Views on Political (Under) Representation in the Trump Era

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422199676
Author(s):  
Cristina Mora ◽  
Julie A. Dowling ◽  
Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
White Men ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
Representative Process ◽  
Depth Interviews

The idea of U.S. democracy rests on the assumption that all citizens will see their issues and needs reflected in elected officials. Yet, historically this has not been the case, as racialized minorities have been excluded and systematically marginalized from the representative process. Today, nonwhite populations remain significantly underrepresented in federal and state governments. Although scholars have examined the effects and mechanics of ethnoracial political representation, less is known about how individuals from minoritized populations perceive and make sense of political (under)representation. Drawing on a novel data set of 71 in-depth interviews with Latinos in the Chicagoland area and the San Francisco Bay, this article examines Latino understandings of representation. Our findings show that respondents view Latinos and other “people of color” as largely underrepresented amid an exceedingly white federal government. Yet Latino sentiments on the issue go beyond race, as respondents contend that class and a record of experience advocating on behalf of immigrant and working-class communities also matters for feeling represented by elected officials. Our findings make a case for bridging the sociological literature on racialization and political theories on representation, and have implications for understanding broader notions of political belonging and government trust.

“How Will You Give Back?”: On Becoming a Compañera as a Feminist Methodology from the Cracks

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124162110216
Author(s):  
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
Feminist Methodology ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Power Inequality ◽  
Depth Interviews

Issues of power, inequality, and representation in the production of knowledge have a long history in transnational feminist research. And yet the unequal relationship between ethnographers and participants continues to haunt feminist research. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork with the cooperative Sulá Batsú in Costa Rica between 2015 and 2019, in this essay I argue that centering solidarity and working through discomfort creates relationships that can reinvent and endure the persistent imbalance of power between researcher and participant. I conceptualize a solidarity-based methodology that is uncomfortable, tossing between "us and them," the objective and the subjective, akin to Gloria Anzaldúa’s “nepantla,” a liminal space of both fragmentation and unification, of both anguish and healing: a methodology from the cracks. In this essay, I reflect upon my experiences as a Puerto Rican feminist researcher focusing on Sulá Batsú, specifically on my relationship with the coop’s general coordinator. I conducted ethnographic fieldwork with the coop, including participant observation, in-depth interviews, and textual analysis of their research, briefs, blog posts, presentations, and promotional literature.

scholarly journals The challenges of donor engagement with faith-based organizations in Cameroon’s health sector: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibylle Herzig van Wees ◽  
Michael Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
International Development ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
The Past ◽  
Faith Based Organizations ◽  
The Government ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Substantial global advocacy efforts have been made over the past decade to encourage partnerships and funding of faith-based organizations in international development programmes in efforts to improve social and health outcomes. Whilst there is a wealth of knowledge on religion and development, including its controversies, less attention has been payed to the role that donors might play. The aim of this study was to describe and analyse the engagement between donors and faith-based organizations in Cameroon’s health sector, following the implementation of the Cameroon Health Sector Partnership Strategy (2012). Forty-six in-depth interviews were conducted in selected regions in Cameroon. The findings show that global advocacy efforts to increase partnerships with faith-based organizations have created a space for increasing donor engagement of faith-based organizations following the implementation of the strategy. However, the policy was perceived as top down as it did not take into account some of the existing challenges. The policy arguably accentuated some of the existing tensions between the government and faith-based organizations, fed faith-controversies and complicated the health system landscape. Moreover, it provided donors with a framework for haphazard engagement with faith-based organizations. As such, putting the implications of donor engagement with FBOs on the research map acknowledges the limitations of efforts to collaborate with faith-based organizations and brings to the surface still-remaining blinkers and limited assumptions in donor definitions of faith-based organizations and in ways of collaborating with them.

Haunted by the past: transformations and daily challenges of China's prosthetics

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Chunchun Wang
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Institutional Pressures ◽  
Rehabilitation Center ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Daily Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Depth Interviews

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the transformations of prosthetic practices in China, as well as the daily experiences and dilemmas arising from the everchanging practices since 1949. On the basis of materials, this paper explores an everyday perspective to review the history of technology.Design/methodology/approachEthnography was collected with the application of participant observations, informal interviews and in-depth interviews during a 13-months study at a rehabilitation center in Chengdu, China. The literature on prosthetic manufacturing was also reviewed for this paper.FindingsChina's prosthetic technology seems to evolve from traditional to modern. However, this progressive narrative – innovation-based timeline (Edgerton, 2006, xi) – has been challenged by daily practices. Due to institutional pressures, prosthetists are in a dilemma of selectively using their knowledge to create one kind of device for all prosthesis users with a certain kind of disability, thereby regulating the physical and social experiences of prosthesis users. Besides, prosthesis users are accustomed to prostheses made with old techniques, and must correct themselves from old experiences to the daily practices recognized by the selected techniques.Originality/valueThis paper provides a cross-cultural case to reexamine Edgerton's criticism of the progressive and orderly innovation-centric technological narrative. More importantly, it reviews the history and practices of China's prosthetics from daily experiences rather than Edgerton's concentration on technology; therefore, it provides an everyday perspective for future research on technological transformations.

BOREDOM

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-454
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Social Trends ◽  
The Past ◽  
Admission Test ◽  
The One ◽  
Teenage Suicide ◽  
Drug And Alcohol ◽  
Unrealistic Expectations

Boredom kills, and those it does not kill, it cripples, and those it does not cripple, it bleeds like a leech, leaving its victims pale, insipid and brooding. Examples abound... Television, the one-eyed beast blamed for scourges ranging from immorality to declining college-admission test scores, has probably helped bring home boredom to America. It has done so by offering us a splendidly wrongheaded view of how one goes about living the good life... Boredom, at the very least, helps breed some of America's uglier social trends. The rate of teenage suicide has more than tripled in the United States since 1955, and psychiatrists across the country lay part of the blame to boredom born of unrealistic expectations and frustration. Divorce condemns nearly half of all marriages, and marriage counselors report boredom as a major cause. Drug and alcohol abuse—which has increased more rapidly in the past decade among middle and upper-class teenagers than among the less wealthy—is caused, in part, by the need to kill time.

Sekolah Islam (Islamic Schools) as Symbols of Indonesia's Urban Muslim Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Yanwar Pribadi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Islamic Schools ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract This article discusses the relationship between Sekolah Islam (Salafism-influenced Islamic schools) and urban middle-class Muslims. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the City of Serang (Kota Serang), near Jakarta, this paper argues that these conservative and puritan Muslims demonstrate their Islamic identity politics through their engagement with Sekolah Islam. The analysis of in-depth interviews with and close observations of parents of students and school custodians (preachers or occasionally spiritual trainers) at several Sekolah Islam reveals that they have attempted to pursue ‘true’ Islamic identity and have claimed recognition of their identity as the most appropriate. The pursuit of a ‘true’ Islamic identity has infused Islamic identity politics, and there is an oppositional relationship between local Islamic traditions and Salafism, as seen in Sekolah Islam. The relationship between Islam and identity politics becomes intricate when it is transformed into public symbols, discourses, and practices at many Sekolah Islam. This paper shows that through their understanding and activities at Sekolah Islam, these Muslims are avid actors in the contemporary landscape of Islamic identity politics in Indonesia. By taking examples from Sekolah Islam in Indonesia, this article unveils social transformations that may also take place in the larger Muslim world.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document