Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Canadian Muslim Voting Guide: Federal Election 2019, Jasmin Zine, Fatima Chakroun, Shifa Abbas

Sociology Faculty Publications

This guide assigns a grade to each federal political party Leader's response to identified key issues of importance to the interests of Canadian Muslims and the wider geopolitical concerns that affect Muslims globally. The criteria used to determine these grades has been based on whether a party leader's particular political standpoints and/or policy initiatives are positive or detrimental to the interests of Canadian Muslims and the wider geopolitical concerns that affect Muslims globally.

Reconsidering The Orphan Problem: The Emergence Of Male Caregivers In Lesotho, Ellen Block

Sociology Faculty Publications

Care for AIDS orphans in southern Africa is frequently characterized as a "crisis", where kin-based networks of care are thought to be on the edge of collapse. Yet these care networks, though strained by AIDS, are still the primary mechanisms for orphan care, in large part because of the essential role grandmothers play in responding to the needs of orphans. Ongoing demographic shifts as a result of HIV/AIDS and an increasingly feminized labor market continue to disrupt and alter networks of care for orphans and vulnerable children. This paper examines the emergence of a small but growing number of male …

The Dominican Grassroots Movement And The Organized Left, 1978–1986, Emelio Betances

Sociology Faculty Publications

Through their struggles for better services, grassroots movements played a large role in the process of democratization and construction of social citizenship in the Dominican Republic. The modern grassroots movement, especially in relation to the uprising of April 1984, challenged the government's neoliberal policies and opened the way for the emergence of an independent movement that confronted both left-wing parties and organized labor. However, because the gains from expanding social citizenship remained limited in the face of the Dominican state's inability to formulate socio-economic policies, the movements at best posed a worthwhile goal that Dominican society may revisit in the …

Transhumanism And Society: The Social Debate Over Human Enhancement, Stephen J. Lilley

Sociology Faculty Publications

This book provides an introductory overview to the social debate over enhancement technologies with an overview of the transhumanists' call to bypass human nature and conservationists' argument in defense of it. The author present this controversy as it unfolds in the contest between transhumanists proponents and conservationists, who push back with an argument to conserve human nature and to ban enhancement technologies.

Readers are informed about the discussion over humanism, the tension between science and religion, and the interpretation of socio-technological revolutions; and are invited to make up their own mind about one of the most challenging topics concerning the …

Beyond The Belly: An Appraisal Of Middle Eastern Dance (Aka Belly Dance) As Leisure, Angela M. Moe

Sociology Faculty Publications

Middle Eastern dance (aka belly dance) is an ancient and expressive form of movement, associated with feminine and community-based celebration and ritual. However, it is also thought of as erotic, seductive, and titillating. Despite stereotypes, belly dance appeals to contemporary women as leisure. This paper examines the intrigue with belly dance in the United States, specifically why women practice this dance form and what their involvement suggests about the gendered nature of leisure, and the need thereof, in women's lives. It also considers the possibility that belly dance may be a feminist form of leisure. Based on participant observation, journal …

Race, Gender, And Research: Implications For Teaching From Depictions Of Professors In Popular Film, 1985-2005, Mari Dagaz, Brent D. Harger

Sociology Faculty Publications

When students enter college classrooms for the first time they inevitably have preconceived images of professors. According to research on student evaluations of teaching, these preconceptions have important implications in college classrooms. This study explores one avenue through which these preconceptions are perpetuated – popular film. Using content analysis we examine popular films released between 1985 and 2005 that contain professors in either primary or secondary roles. Our findings show stereotypical depictions beyond glasses, bow ties, and tweed jackets. Specifically, we find stereotypical images of race and gender as well as an emphasis on the importance of research, sometimes at …

Battered Women, Children And The End Of Abusive Relationships, Angela M. Moe

Sociology Faculty Publications

Much work has focused on the interpersonal dynamics of violent relationships, but less is known about the specific turning points that prompt women at least to try to end them. Using a feminist standpoint method and phenomenological-based analysis of in-depth interviews with mothers in a domestic violence shelter, this article focuses on the role of children in women’s decisions to leave abusive partners. It discusses arriving at the decision, the logistics involved in leaving and planning for the future, and it presents policy and advocacy-based recommendations that are aimed at addressing the social welfare of women and children.

Illegal Alien? The Immigration Case Of Mohawk Ironworker Paul K. Diabo, Gerald F. Reid

Sociology Faculty Publications

In March of 1927 Paul K. Diabo, a thirty-six-year-old Mohawk ironworker from Kahnawake (Mohawk Nation Territory), Quebec, appeared before Judge Oliver B. Dickinson in federal court in Philadelphia to contest his deportation to Canada. According to the Department of Immigration, which had arrested him a year earlier, Diabo had violated the Immigration Act of 1924 and should be considered an illegal alien. As a member of the Rotinonhsionni (Iroquois) Confederacy, Diabo contended that he had a right to cross the international border without interference and restriction—a right, he argued, that had been recognized by the Jay Treaty of 1794. Diabo’s …

The Formation Of The Dominican Capitalist State And The United States Military Occupation Of 1916-1924, Emelio Betances

Sociology Faculty Publications

The United States policy towards the Caribbean and Central America during the 1980s repeats an interventionist pattern which occurred early in the twentieth century. Then, the United States set up strong national governments which organized export economies and local political power. Today, social and political developments in the region have outgrown the political scheme created at the beginning of the century. Thus, the recurrent United States intrusion in the region to recreate the old political structures. An historico-sociological analysis becomes necessary to place current events in perspective and shed light in understanding the pattern of regional political development.

This study …

Local Merchants And The Regional Economy Of The Connecticut River Valley, Gerald F. Reid

Sociology Faculty Publications

This paper focuses on valley/hill town interactions and regional economic processes in the upper Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Merchants, those individuals involved in the trading and movement of commodities, are an especially useful point of departure for investigating such concerns because they operated in the economic space between communities, towns, and regions. Attention to their activities is likely to tell us a good deal about economic interaction across space and" over long distances in early America and, specifically, about economic interactions between valley towns and hill towns in the Connecticut River …