Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations Copyright (c) 2013 Boise State University All rights reserved. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs Recent documents in Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations en-us Sat, 23 Mar 2013 01:37:38 PDT 3600 Neutralizing Protest: The Construction of War, Chaos, and National Identity through US Television News on Abortion-Related Protest, 1991 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/31 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/31 Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:04:21 PDT Ginna Husting State of Discord: The Historic Reproduction of Racism in Highland Peru http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/30 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/30 Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:19:51 PST This article adds to a small but growing call to return racial analyses to the investigation of indigenous Latin America. Applying critical race theory to the broad sweep of Peruvian history, I find that, rather than a holdover from the past, dominant groups have regularly revitalized the system of racialized rule, providing it with new resources to adapt it to changing circumstances and the diverse challenges pushed by native peoples. In particular, while colonization established an overt system of indirect rule to maximize wealth extraction from natives, and subsequent governments adapted rather than abandoned this form of governance that secures racial domination through fragmenting natives ethnically. This rereading of Peruvian history better enables an identification of both the structural and daily ways through which racism is reproduced. I conclude with suggestions for future research that will help flesh out the general framework I provide here.

]]> Arthur Scarritt Essentializing Authoritarianism: Implementing Neoliberalism in Highland Peru http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/29 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/29 Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:09:37 PDT In order to help understand how neoliberalism generates new forms of localized governing and social control, this article investigates the major differences between the Peruvian government's 1995 Land Law legislation, and how the state actually implemented the new policy. The article argues that, contrary to the letter of the Law, the shape of the institutions set up to implement it uniquely served the interests of local elites and made them the proxies of the neoliberal state. Moreover, by incorporating rural villages in an essentialized way, the Law enables and pushes these new state agents to govern in a more overtly coercive and authoritarian manner.

]]> Arthur Scarritt Linking Empirical Data to Continuous-Time, Continuous-State Computer Simulation http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/28 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/28 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:37:59 PST A schism exists between the empirical testing of dynamic models and the dynamic modeling of social theory Although the methods of longitudinal data analysis are powerful, important problems persist in the collection and analysis of data. A method of testing dynamic models is introduced that counters some of the problems of stochastic models. The empirically parameterized, computer-assisted, continuous-time, continuous-state deterministic simulation method provides strengths not available with other methods. the use of meta-analysis and computer simulation allows the analysis of time shapes and general tends, while keeping independent the theory formalization, methods, and data used to test the theory.

]]> Steven B. Patrick The Dynamic Simulation of Control and Compliance Processes in Material Organizations http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/27 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/27 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:35:03 PST Computer simulation is a tool of multiple uses. One is the ability to dynamically model theories and discover unexpected interactions and outcomes. A propositional theory of organizational control, based on the work of Collins (1975, 1988), is modeled and simulated here. The verbal theory synthesizes other theories to explain how formal organizations attain and maintain compliance from members. The modeling and simulation of Collins' theory discovers a number of interesting and informative, but unexpected, outcomes. While the control processes of organizations do produce stable compliance, this compliance is punctuated by episodic periods of noncompliance that increase in frequency and duration over time, resulting ultimately in the breakdown of the control process.

]]> Steven Patrick On the Uses of Computer-Assisted Simulation Modeling in the Social Sciences http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/26 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/26 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:31:16 PST Robert Hanneman et al. Differences in Inmate-Inmate and Inmate-Staff Altercations: Examples from a Medium Security Prison http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/25 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/25 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:12:51 PST Inmate violence is a major concern for correctional organizations. Most research on violence lump together inmate-inmate and inmate-staff violence and attempt to understand them from a single perspective. This article posits that inmate-inmate and inmate-staff violence are different phenomenon. Data from a medium security prison is used to understand the relationship between inmate-inmate and inmate-staff violence and other variables. Inmate-inmate altercations are related to structural and interpersonal variables. Inmate-staff altercations are related to the extent to which inmates are involved in social relationship with other inmates and see the correctional staff as a physical threat to them. variables. Inmate-staff altercations are related to the extent to which inmates are involved in social relationship with other inmates and see the correctional staff as a physical threat to them. variables. Inmate-staff altercations are related to the extent to which inmates are involved in social relationship with other inmates and see the correctional staff as a physical threat to them.

]]> Steven Patrick Current Tobacco Policies in U.S. Adult Male Prisons http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/24 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/24 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:30:22 PST The current national trend in the restriction of smoking and use of tobacco products is extending to the prison system. At the same time that city, state and the federal governments are limiting smoking in public places and businesses, state and federal prison systems are limiting use in correctional facilities. The data for this paper was collected by mail from departments of correction in the fifty states, the District of Columbia and the federal Bureau of Prisons. The results show a continuing trend in tobacco limitation policies at male prisons within the U. S. Several states totally ban all tobacco and only a few still allow generally unlimited use. Limitation policies range from segregation into smoking and nonsmoking areas to the banishment of inmates and staff to smoking areas outside prison buildings.

While many see a nonsmoking prison system as the wave of the future, use of tobacco in prisons is still common. This research examines the official reason given for changes in tobacco policy and the alterations in prison operations that developed after restrictions were implemented. Increased tensions developed among inmates, staff and administration as a result of the new policies. For those prison systems that banned tobacco, an active black market operation developed eclipsing other contraband problems.

]]> Steven Patrick et al. Visible Landscapes/Invisible People: Negotiating the Power of Representation in a Mining Community http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/23 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/23 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:14:35 PDT On May 26 1996, two demolitions experts from Morrison-Knudsen set charges under the gigantic stacks of the former Bunker Hill smelter in Kellogg, Idaho. A contest was held to determine who would push the button and send the stacks plummeting to the ground. Lining the freeway, front porches, and rooftops of the denuded hillsides were thousands of people who came to watch the spectacle. Among them were two important factions in the community: One faction comprised those who were there to cheer the destruction of the corporate and industrial symbol that to many of the mining and union families of the Coeur d'Alenes, represented a union-busting, corporate form of greed and callousness toward human life that had characterized this valley since the latter part of the nineteenth century. The other group represented at the "Blow the Stacks" rally had lobbied hard to keep the EPA and the state from going through with their plans. This group, made up of chamber of commerce activists, preservationists, and business people who rely heavily upon the tourist trade, wanted to preserve the still-carcinogenic stacks so that they could be turned into an interpretive site for tourists. They sought the establishment of a landmark that would portray the positive aspects of the mining industry in the Silver Valley. The button was pushed; the stacks were blown and buried where they fell. A chapter in the history of this contested landscape is closed, while the cultural issues dividing the community continue.

My goal in this discussion is to examine in some detail the origin, development, and current disposition of the opposing cultural perspectives outlined above.

]]> Robert McCarl Eva Castellanoz: "A Healing...It Just Comes Your Way, Unless You Say No" http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/22 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/22 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:13:09 PDT Eva Castellanoz is a curandera -- a healer-- who has raised ten children, labored as a farmworker, and been recognized nationally as a cultural healer.

]]> Eva Castellanoz et al. Shoshone-Paiute “Pakkiata” in the Great Basin http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/21 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/21 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:10:34 PDT Ranching is a rich part of Shoshone-Paiute culture and tradition, yet the tribes' contributions to the economic development of Southeast Idaho and Northern Nevada have been largely overlooked through history.

]]> Robert McCarl Black Butte Jump http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/20 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/20 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:06:44 PDT Instead of wearing peace signs or shoulder-length hair and making a pilgrimage to Haight Ashbury, I spent the summer of 1968 wearing White logging boots and running five miles every morning, getting ready for my last summer of smokejumping.

]]> Robert McCarl Foreword: Lessons of Work and Workers http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/19 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/19 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:05:26 PDT McCarl discusses, primarily through his own personal experiences, how the oppositional techniques of cultural work itself can provide a critique of work while at the same time develop a cooperative relationship with workers to articulate views and strategies that fit their needs. The conferences and the establishment of the fund in Occupational Folklife at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill acknowledge the high standards in this field set by Archie Green, an advocate of labor studies research. In order to maintain those standards, cultural workers musk ask hard questions of themselves and their positions within the ranks of contemporary and future cultural workers.

]]> Robert McCarl Anti-Abortion Activism In The U.S. And France: Comparing Opportunity Environments of Rescue Tactics http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/17 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/17 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:16:20 PDT We explore how opportunity environments, conceptualized to include political-legal and cultural components, help explain the trajectories of movement tactics and frames employed in differing contexts. Using data from interviews, newspaper accounts, and web sites, we document how opportunity environments affected the trajectory of "rescue" tactics and frames. When abortion opponents in France attempted to block access to abortion providers in order to "rescue unborn children, " the tactic and associated frames met with a different fate than in the U.S. The legal context under which abortion was available in each nation affected the use of specific direct action tactics. Also, how abortion was culturally constructed and embedded—its "cultural opportunity structure"—affected responses to rescue by pro-life activists, the media, and the countermovement.

]]> Leslie King et al. Francophobia, Anti-Americanism: Narratives of the Trans-Atlantic Other in French and U.S. News on Abortion-Related Issues http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/16 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/16 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:01:09 PDT

This article examines the interplay of abortion and nationalism in French and U.S. print news discussions of abortion-related issues. U.S. news stories on RU-486 and French news stories on prolife direct action protesters are rife with qualifiers designating each issue as a foreign one. In American media, RU-486 is the French pill; in French media, protesters are American inspired/mobilized. Together, these cases constitute a site for the recurrent construction of the relation between nationhood, national identity, and moral goodness. In each case, media narratives of abortion-related issues reveal that more is at stake than reproductive rights issues. The authors argue that discourses on abortion are grounded in politics of nationalism that shore up the boundaries of the homeland and anchor the distinction between public and private spheres through a discourse of opposition to foreign cultural invaders. The articulation of moral conflict over abortion and myths of foreign origins situate the national collectivity as a good, innocent victim of corrupt outside influence.

]]> Ginna Husting et al. Neutralizing Protest: The Construction of War, Chaos, and National Identity through US Television News on Abortion-Related Protest, 1991 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/15 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/15 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:57:19 PDT This paper examines how US TV news on abortion-related protest forecloses possibilities for democracy and political action. Representing abortion-related activism as a battle, news segments portray activists, correspondents, and viewers as villains, witnesses, and victims in a tale of a nation decimated by civil war. While activists describe their work militaristically, the news's war is not the war that activists describe. News discourse represents activists as threatening the American family/community/nation. Applying Hannah Arendt's and Mary Douglas's work shows how the news eclipses public spheres by mapping a pollution narrative onto those who threaten myths of national homogeneity and proper citizenship.

]]> Ginna Husting Dangerous Machinery: "Conspiracy Theorist" as a Transpersonal Strategy of Exclusion http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/14 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/14 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:54:30 PDT In a culture of fear, we should expect the rise of new mechanisms of social control to deflect distrust, anxiety, and threat. Relying on the analysis of popular and academic texts, we examine one such mechanism, the label conspiracy theory, and explore how it works in public discourse to "go meta" by sidestepping the examination of evidence. Our findings suggest that authors use the conspiracy theorist label as (1) a routinized strategy of exclusion; (2) a reframing mechanism that deflects questions or concerns about power, corruption, and motive; and (3) an attack upon the personhood and competence of the questioner. This label becomes dangerous machinery at the transpersonal levels of media and academic discourse, symbolically stripping the claimant of the status of reasonable interlocutor—often to avoid the need to account for one's own action or speech. We argue that this and similar mechanisms simultaneously control the flow of information and symbolically demobilize certain voices and issues in public discourse.

]]> Ginna Husting et al. Sovereignty, Bio-Power, and the Global War on Terrorism http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/13 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/13 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:04:52 PDT Michael Blain On the Genealogy of Terrorism http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/12 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/12 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:03:04 PDT This chapter offers a genealogy of the concept of terrorism and a critique of the Bush Administration's rhetoric of global war. The global war on terrorism is here defined as a new mode of of imperialism and subjection by means of a global "victimage ritual". Employing a theory of how ritual discourse functions in power struggles, it describes how the discourse of terrorism legitimates the imperial politics of liberal-democratic states. The theory integrates concepts derived from Michel Foucault's studies of discourse and subjection, and Kenneth Burke's rhetorical analysis of victimage rituals and scapegoating (Blain 1976; 1988, 1994, 1995, 2005). Employing these ideas and a quantitative analysis to index 240 of President Bush's speeches (January 2001 -- August 2005), this chapter maps the dynamics of ritual victimage in the Bush Administration's global war on terrorism. My argument is presented in two steps. It begins with a genealogy of the emergence and descent of the Anglo-American discourse of "terrorism". Drawing on Foucault's method for writing a history of the present, the aim here is to describe what "is singular, contingent, and the product of arbitrary constraints" in the discourse of terrorism, that is currently treated as "universal, necessary, obligatory" (2003 [1984], 53).1 This history will link the rise of the "terrorist" to Foucaultian accounts of the emergence of liberal modes of government and knowledge (see Rose 1999; Hardt and Negri 2000). This genealogy shows how a political concept of terror first entered the English lexicon during the French Revolutionary era, providing government and imperial administrators with a practical solution to the problem of how to differentiate legitimate from illegitimate forms of political violence. Evidence from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is also employed to establish the precise etymology of the Anglo-American discourse of terrorism. By these means this chapter attempts to problematise the discourses legitimating the global war on terrorism.

]]> Michael Blain Group Defamation and the Holocaust http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/11 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/sociology_facpubs/11 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:01:24 PDT The issue of the Germans and National Socialism, Hitler and the Nazi regime, and their relationship to the Holocaust, has become a minefield of contentious battles among the "experts".

Take, for example, the question of the significance of the Jewish Question for the German masses in the Third Reich. The analyst must choose among a plurality of controversial interpretive stances, all of them implying different answers to the question, "Who was to blame?" The Nazis? The German masses? Or both?

]]> Michael Blain