In Dubious Battle: A Case Study of the New Labor Transnationalism
Year of Dissertation:
2011
IN DUBIOUS BATTLE:
Intersecting Systems of Oppression: Race, Class, and Gender Differences among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Hate Crime Victims
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Victoria Pitts-Taylor
Drawing on intersectionality theory, hate crime studies, and feminist and sexuality research, this dissertation project employs an intersectional approach to examine race, class, and gender differences among an interview sample of 44 people who experienced violence for being perceived as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). In contrast to previous studies of LGBT hate crime victims, which have focused on the psychological effects of bias-motivated violence, this dissertation examines the sociological components of hate crime. In particular, this dissertation builds on research questions that have been explored in the hate crime literature - specifically, how LGBT people evaluate the severity of their violent experiences and how they determine whether violence is based on their sexuality or gender identity. Results are based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews, conducted in New York City, and reveal significant differences along the lines of race, class, and gender. White gay men, for instance, generally expressed certainty as to the cause of their violent experiences, while LGBT people of color sometimes expressed uncertainty because they could not be sure whether racism had also played a role. Moreover, with regard to evaluating the severity of their violent experiences, middle-class white respondents were more likely than low-income people of color to perceive their violent experiences as severe, even though the latter experienced more physical violence than the former. By employing an intersectional approach to examine these research questions, this dissertation augments our understanding of the ways in which LGBT people perceive their violent experiences, revealing how forms of anti-LGBT violence are linked with institutional power structures such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. Entrenched in the disciplinary crossroads of sociology, criminal justice, and feminist and sexuality studies, this dissertation suggests that the social position of LGBT people plays a significant role in structuring their experiences of hate-motivated violence.
Becoming Normal: The Social Construction of Buprenorphine and New Attempts to Medicalize Addiction
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Barbara Katz Rothman
Drawing on theories about the social construction of knowledge and the sociology of the body, this dissertation analyzes the social construction of buprenorphine, a medication being used to treat addiction to opioids, to better understand the processes of medicalization. Buprenorphine was central the passage of the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000, a law which overturned an almost one hundred year prohibition preventing physicians from prescribing narcotics for the treatment of addiction in an office-based setting. Buprenorphine is seen by many as central to moving addiction treatment into the medical mainstream. Using documents from government regulators, industry, and addiction researchers, I show that there are many different "buprenorphines," each being strategically constructed and deployed to serve different political and economic interests. I also use qualitative interviews with individuals taking buprenorphine to examine the ways in which their embodied experiences of the medication shape and are shaped by different discourses about buprenorphine, addiction, and addiction treatment. I show how buprenorphine and medical theories of addiction act as a new system of constraint, while allowing new possibilities for agency and action. I conclude with a discussion of how the discourses about and embodied experiences of those taking buprenorphine challenge but also reflect the larger sociopolitical context in which they are contained. This research builds upon and challenges existing theories about the medicalization of social problems.
City Nights: The Political Economy of Postindustrial Urban Nightlife
Year of Dissertation:
2009
This study examines the impacts that broad economic and political forces have had on neighborhoods in postindustrial cities. As urban economies have shifted from being production-based to consumption-based, industries that were peripheral to city growth, such as forms of entertainment (i.e. nightlife, shopping, cultural activities), are today central. As a result, city governments have taken great steps towards encouraging private investment in and economic development that is based on these sectors. The very physical and cultural makeup of the contemporary city has been reconfigured as city centers and downtowns have become sites for large-scale entertainment projects. Another significant development has been the construction of nightlife scenes in gentrifying neighborhoods. Through the case of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a formerly disinvested slum that has become one of New York City's premiere areas for nighttime entertainment in bars as well as a desired neighborhood for real estate actors and wealthy residents, this study analyzes the effects that "neighborhood nightscapes" have on the social relations, residents, and cultures in contemporary cities. While the development of nightlife and the intertwined processes of gentrification are often lauded as benefits for the improvement of neighborhoods and the growth of cities, an in-depth, critical analysis reveals a number of issues that they cause. New bars that have opened on the Lower East Side since the 1990s have formed dense concentrations throughout the neighborhood that emphasize the consumption of their nightlife experiences as well as material products. This has transformed the Lower East Side into a destination for a wide array of nighttime activities for new residents and visitors from both within and outside of the city. While neither a formal public-private partnership nor a state-led effort, its many bars opened as a result of a liquor licensing policy based on economic development and in conjunction with the city's consumption-based growth initiatives and the neighborhood's gentrification. New forms of social control have been implemented by the local state and police to handle disorderly conditions generated by nightlife scenes and protect urban nightlife's image as a place for safe consumption. For Lower East Side residents, however, the development of the nightscape has had significant negative impacts--damaging their quality of life, fraying their civic bonds with local government and communal bonds with business owners, and resulting in social and cultural displacement. As an example of a common urban development, the neighborhood nightscape of the Lower East Side serves as an analytical lens for understanding the local impacts of broad economic and political changes occurring in postindustrial cities.
BODY, HONOR, AND DOMINATION IN MARGINALIZED URBAN SPACES. An Ethnography of Bodybuilding in an American Black Ghetto and Thai Boxing in a French Working-Class Banlieue
Year of Dissertation:
2012
This work is a comparative analysis of ethnoracial domination and urban marginality in the United States and France that aims at studying two social spaces of relegation, the black ghetto in the U.S. and the working-class suburbs in France.
Voice and Advocacy in the Urban Ghetto
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Abstract
It's Not 'Just a Headache': The Lived Experience of Migraines in the Workplace
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
Barbara Katz Rothman
This research explores the self-reported experiences of people with migraines in the workplace by examining individuals' own accounts. Specifically, I analyze: the employment experiences, perceptions, and workplace challenges of people with migraine headaches. Using a qualitative approach, this study examines various aspects of migraines from the individual employee's perspective in order to explore different topics as they relate to the workplace. In particular, the study concentrates on factors surrounding employee disclosure of migraines at the workplace.
Incarceration, Gender, and Health: Real Men and Social Implications
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Drawing on theories of gender, race, inequality, and delinquency, this dissertation explores progressive masculinity and social exclusion among young men leaving jail. This project examines how young men, rather than matching stereotypes of hyper-masculine at-risk individuals, endorse a masculinity that is not necessarily misogynistic or violent, and does not correlate with expected risky sex behaviors, drug use, violence, and recidivism. Additionally, this project examines how social structures and policies (economy, gender, race, education, criminal justice) prevent these young men from achieving pro-social goals or experiencing the potential benefits of progressive views of masculinity.
Articulated Values, Affecting Figures: Liberal Tolerance and the Racialization of Muslims/Arabs
Year of Dissertation:
2012
This dissertation analyzes the relationship of articulations of tolerance and sympathy in US liberal media and activist discourses towards Muslims and Arabs to the process of racialization of Muslims and Arabs. These discourses produce "Muslims/Arabs" as racialized category, even as they emphasize the diversity within this category. Building on the work of scholars who have argued that anti-Muslim/Arab racism produces a homogenous Other locked into a cultural heredity, I argue that this cultural determinism actually works at the level of the population rather than the individual. I use "population racism" to refer to the racialization of Muslims/Arabs as a distinct, yet internally differentiated population perceived as having a specific distribution of characteristics. The coherence of this racialization process is evident in the relative consistency with which Muslim/Arab individuals are assessed, as more or less trustworthy or threatening, in relation to a particular set of interconnected variables. These variables include religiosity/secularism, views on gender and/or sexuality, views on tolerance, and perceived alliance with "Western" interests and values. Representations of sympathetic or tolerable Muslims/Arabs contribute to this racialization because they legitimize, reinforce, and circulate these variables of assessment.
Consuming Catastrophe: Authenticity and Emotion in Mass-mediated Disaster
Year of Dissertation:
2011
This dissertation explores the interwoven fabric of news, entertainment, advertising, and commodities through which Americans have come to experience and understand four disasters of the past decade: the September 11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the financial crisis. Chapter one examines the historical development of the consumption of disaster, from the eighteenth century excavation of Pompeii to the Space Shuttle Challenger's explosion in 1986. It argues that modern culture has increasingly come to value the seemingly fleeting aura or authenticity of mass-mediated images and mass-consumed products, and that this has contributed to the popularity of disasters in mass culture, since disasters are typically viewed as especially authentic. The importance of such authenticity is demonstrated in the second chapter, in which content analysis of television news broadcasts shows that the more immediate, authentic September 11 news coverage generated greater public trust in official risk assessments than did news coverage of the financial crisis, despite the very similar framing techniques employed in coverage of both disasters. The perceived realness of disaster allows even normally skeptical audiences to engage with disaster-related media and products in intensely emotional ways, as is demonstrated in chapter three. By examining two news broadcasts, one documentary film, and one reality television program devoted to Hurricane Katrina and the Virginia Tech shootings, the chapter argues that mass culture has increasingly adopted a kind of depoliticized, empathetic way of viewing the suffering of others. This alternative, empathetic norm is related to the rise of therapeutic, self-help culture, which is discussed in chapter four in conjunction with new forms of online commemoration. By studying digital archives devoted to September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, the chapter reveals that even new, online spaces of disaster mediation evince an individualistic, atomized version of the therapeutic ideal, in which contributing to an online archive is more about helping to heal oneself than helping to heal a community of others. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that disaster consumerism derails the communal or progressive potential of disasters by replacing them with individualistic, depoliticized acts of consumption.