Johanna Crane examines the devastating health effects of incarceration in US prisons, which dramatically deteriorate rates of physical and mental…
Understanding KatrinaMore Collections >
Much has been said and written about Katrina in the last few weeks, but one glaring omission has been not incorporating the perspective of environmental…
It is generally accepted among environmental geographers that there is no such thing as a natural disaster. In every phase and aspect of a disaster…
In the public imagination, natural disasters do not discriminate, but are instead “equal opportunity” calamities. Hurricanes may not single out victims by their race, class,…
Recent posts
Democracy Papers
Measuring Party Leadership Effectiveness in the US Congress
by Jason M. Roberts
Jason Roberts, a Negotiating Agreement in Congress grantee of the SSRC’s Anxieties of Democracy program, asks: How might we know whether the leadership of majority parties in the US Congress achieve their goals, and why? To measure the effectiveness of party leaders, Roberts first compares how much of a party’s publicly stated policy agenda is actually addressed through legislation. Second, he measures how well parties in the majority retain control in the House over somewhat arcane procedures that are essential for pursuing party goals.
Sexuality & Gender Studies Now
Sex Trafficking and the Social Construction of Race
by Brian Donovan
For our “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series, Brian Donovan, a 2000 dissertation fellow of the SSRC’s Sexuality Research Fellowship Program (SRFP), explains how narratives of sex trafficking and coercion have historically been racialized in the United States. Building on his SRFP-funded research on the Progressive Era’s antiprostitution efforts, which were fueled by fears of “white slavery,” he links this racialized rhetoric of the early twentieth century to contemporary messaging on antitrafficking efforts.
Insights
Death Insurance: The PCC and the Protection of Life in the Twilight
by Graham Denyer Willis
Should life insurance be better imagined as “death insurance”? Graham Denyer Willis examines how the large number of people across the globe who lack access to formal insurance markets prepare for the impact that the death of a family member will have on their lives. In particular, Willis looks at how the PCC, a powerful criminal organization in Brazil, provides a form of insurance when its members are killed or incarcerated. In doing so, he reflects on how contemporary forms of capitalism, racial discrimination, and state violence create radically different relationships to “insurance.”
From Our Fellows
IDRF Photo Competition 2019
by Items Editors
The International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) Photo Competition is offered every year to IDRF recipients. Prizes are awarded for the best single photo, the best self-portrait, the best photo essay, and the best video following a vote by IDRF fellows and staff.
Sexuality & Gender Studies Now
Boys Still Being Boys: Sexual Victimization Research and the Persistence of Gendered Accounts
by Karen G. Weiss
In recent years, the increasing prominence of the #MeToo movement has raised awareness about sexual harassment and assault and their dynamics, most recently exemplified by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Using this incident as a springboard, Karen Weiss explains in this piece for our “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series how “gendered accounts,” or the ways people excuse or defend inappropriate social behavior, exacerbate the victimization of those who have experienced sexual assault or harassment.
Sexuality & Gender Studies Now
Understanding Sexuality and Social Divisions—Then and Now
by Arlene Stein
A 1997 postdoc fellow of the SSRC’s Sexuality Research Fellowship Program (SRFP), Arlene Stein details her SRFP-funded research on antigay social mobilization in rural Oregon in the late 1990s for our “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series. Stein studied how some individuals, whom she calls conservative moral entrepreneurs, persuaded these communities to attribute their worsening economic situation to “elites” and, in particular, gay and lesbian people. Reflecting on this research, Stein asserts the importance of sexuality research and how it can help us understand current political and social dynamics.
Insights
Where Do Black Lives Matter? Police Violence and Antiracism in France and the United States
by Jean Beaman
Jean Beaman presents some of her research into race and police violence, and the response to such violence, in France. Explicitly putting recent French incidents and patterns in comparative perspective with those involving law enforcement and African Americans in the United States, Beaman finds some similarities and many differences in how social mobilization against police violence is framed and carried out. In particular, she focuses on how French republicanism makes it more difficult to organize around claims based on the status of marginalized social identities (black, Muslim) as compared to the role played by BlackLivesMatter in the United States.
Sociolinguistic Frontiers
Language Ideology Revisited
by Jillian R. Cavanaugh
Jillian Cavanaugh’s contribution to “Sociolinguistic Frontiers” tells the story of the emergence of the concept of “language ideologies” that mediate “between the social practice of language and the socioeconomic and political structures within which it occurs.” The concept became an embedded component in analyzing the treatment of minority languages and dialects, and how power relations can be revealed through everyday language use. Today, rather than an overarching framework, language ideology has evolved into a critical point of departure for understanding the intersection between language and various forms of inequality that also require other intellectual tools to fully grasp.