Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Five Interconnections Of Race And Class, Michael Billeaux-Martinez, David Calnitsky

Sociology Publications

This paper proposes a five-part empirical typology of interconnections of race and class. We describe the mechanisms whereby (1) race is a form of class relation; (2) race relations and class relations reciprocally affect each other; (3) race acts as a sorting mechanism into class locations; (4) race acts as a mediating linkage to class locations; and (5) race interacts with class in determining other outcomes. Rather than insisting on one or another mechanism as the overarching framework for conceptualising the interconnections between race and class, we propose a theoretical integration of all five within a functionalist model. The model …

The Profits Of (The Critique Of) Patriarchy: On Toxic Masculinity, Feminism, & Corporate Capitalism In The Barbie Movie, Bryant W. Sculos

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This article explicates the political, social, economic, and cultural contribution of Barbie (2023). Through a critical and normative analysis of four different prominent reviews of the film, this essay explores the quality of discourse surrounding Barbie, with particular emphasis on its feminist critique of toxic masculinity and lack of a coherent criticism of capitalism.

The Provenances And Postscripts Of 1989, Jokubas Salyga

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The books under review exemplify some of the finest recent work on the historically informed political economy of Central and Eastern Europe. While different in their conceptual frameworks and geographical foci, the titles converge in the advancement of nuanced and convincing arguments, displaying both theoretical acuity and empirical depth to great effect. Bartel, Fabry, and Pula all share a resolute dedication to illuminating the under-explored provenances of neoliberalism and/or globalization in the region, that predate the annus mirabilis of 1989. Their contributions situate the ‘Eastern bloc’ states within the contours of evolving global political economy and the existential crises engulfing …

The Solidarity Economy: A Way Forward For Our De-Futured World, Julie Matthaei, Matthew Slaats

The Journal of Social Encounters

As society contends with the ongoing economic, environmental and political crises perpetuated by racist patriarchal ecologically-destructive capitalism, there is a need to look beyond forms of inequality to the opportunity of solidarity. While histories of mutuality and reciprocity have long been present in economies around the world, it is in the last thirty years that global movements have begun to coalesce under the framework of the solidarity economy. This framework asserts a path forward towards a just and sustainable post-capitalist future, based in cooperation and care.. We begin by exploring how the solidarity economy framework and movement have been making …

America Without A Minimum Wage: Why The Federal Minimum Wage Should Be Abolished, Zachary Cary

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

Minimum wage policy may be the greatest economic policy issue where the common man has a strong opinion. Nearly every person has a view of how minimum wage policy should be enacted, whether it be in raising the federal minimum wage, changing the scope of authority in the federal government, or another policy. However, in discussing any kind of policy, the key details of the policy must be discussed in the framework of both how it would be affected and how it would impact its stakeholders. In this policy analysis, the Iron Triangle of Public Policy – the key executive …

Anxiety In The Capitalism Of Late Modernity, Toyo Kawabata

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The logic of capitalism affects both individuals and society. Alienation augments existential anxiety in the current precarity capitalism, which keeps urging competition among individuals to survive in capitalism and grow more. Excessive individualism, materialism, and consumerism in capitalism may weaken social ties and lower self-recognition, augmenting the existential anxiety of individuals. Losers in capitalism aggravate their anxiety whereas even winners may keep being anxious in the never-ending competition in capitalism. As long as people are kept engaged in capitalism, the pressure of the competition leads to a vicious cycle that keeps inducing anxiety, which signifies the precarity of capitalism. Existential …

Path To Utopia, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

The way to survive in the Anthropocene and transform the world is to end capitalism. Humanity must stop commodifying everything and reifying its value for consumption for the sake of power and survival. The way to do this is through love. This is an inquiry into methods and processes for confronting and transforming the planetary destruction caused by capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism among other phenomena. This paper challenges the idea that it is unrealistic to believe that love can change the world. It posits that loving is caring and caring is the way humanity will shift consciousness so that capitalism …

Unchallenged Myth: Abolish The Family And Structure, Julian Barocas

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

There are aspects of society we are taught not to question: government, education, capitalism. These are portrayed as immutable truths that, if presented with a gap in their logical system, are dependent on sidestepping them, referring to the aforementioned immutability, and relying on the status quo to keep their position as societal structures. Sophie Lewis’s most recent case for phasing out the nuclear family structure, Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care, demonstrates how the family is another one of these seemingly universal concepts. The unacknowledged reality of the family is historically one a tool of control rather than …

The Bracero Program And The Exploitability Of Migrant Workers, Kayla E. Dantona

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the exploitability of migrants working in the United States. Historically, the United States government has emphasized the economic utility of migrant workers, while ignoring their basic human rights. Policymakers have viewed these people as a disposable work force and seek to control them by generating widespread fear of deportation, racialized segregation, discriminatory treatment, and with the help of governing and policing entities willing to turn a blind eye to these injustices, as long as they continue to profit financially.

This thesis will look at the Bracero Program with a historic lens to exemplify the system of exploitation …

“A Beautiful Thing, To Not Be The Everything:” Raising A Child Within And Around Negotiations Of Capitalism, Community, And Care, Trinity A.H. Delano

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Poorest Country In The World: Critiquing U.S. Culture Through Relational Cultural Theory And The Saints., Molly Neton

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

In this thesis I critique the American socioeconomic system and culture through a multidisciplinary lens. Using the works of philosopher Karl Marx, economist Robin Kimmerer, and forensic psychologist Christopher Williams, I argue that there are three interconnected characteristics of our socioeconomic system that disincentivize us from creating growth-fostering relationships. These characteristics are the encouragement of overconsumption, the prevalence of hyperindividualism, and that people are valued for what they produce, not who they are. To counteract these characteristics, we must fight to create a Culture of Encounter, which is a culture with a radical dedication to seeing, hearing, and loving individual …

The Social Current Of Capitalist Dictatorship? Neoclassical Economic And Non-Marxist Sociological Conceptualization, Milan Z. Zafirovski

Journal of Ideology

The paper introduces the concept and social current of capitalist dictatorship to the broader sociological audience, aside from Marxist sociology. It conceptualizes, specifies and exemplifies capitalist dictatorship in the form of a mostly neoclassical economic and non-Marxist sociological conceptualization. Generally, it advances a conceptualization in terms of dictatorial rule of capital over non-capital, which it derives from neoclassical economic and non-Marxist sociological frameworks rather than the Marxist framework. Particularly, the paper conceptualizes capitalist dictatorship in terms of autocracy, oligarchy and plutocracy and kleptocracy within capitalism in accordance with neoclassical and non-Marxist frameworks. Also, it briefly outlines additional neoclassical economic and …

"Are We Done?": The Minimization Of Covid-19 And The Individualization Of Health In The United States, Cassidy R. Boe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the death toll from Covid-19 in the United States exceeds 1 million in just over two years, more variants continue to emerge, threatening more waves of Covid-19 and ultimately, more deaths. Despite this, mask use continues to decline, and one third of Americans say that the pandemic is over. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been central in publicly disseminating biomedical knowledge using Twitter. The CDC’s Twitter account (@CDCgov) shares information related to the spread of Covid-19, including mitigation measures such as mask recommendations and vaccine information. I have conducted a narrative analysis of the replies …

The Problem Of Blackness In America: Becoming When The Being Never Comes To Be, Nkiru Anyaegbunam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The problem of Blackness in America is a consequence of the historical reality and continued legacies of colonialism, the triangular trade and chattel slavery that have been facilitated through violence and capitalism. This thesis will argue that this problem that is pronounced through racialized institutional systems of violence such as mass incarceration and housing inequality, which disproportionately negatively impacts Black Americans is part of a larger discourse on the human and (mis)recognition. This violence has created a quintessential incompleteness for Black Americans who neither are recognized as citizens nor human. The problem of Blackness will be continuously grounded in this …

A Systemic Approach To Understanding Burnout Through The Lens Of The United States’ Professional Art Therapy (And Mental Health) Community: A Literature Review, Mary Welch

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Burnout among mental health counseling and art therapy professionals has long been an issue (Meyerson 1998; Prins et al., 2015; Yang & Hayes, 2020; Zeira 2021). While previous research into the causes and reduction of burnout have focused primarily on individual burnout, both in terms of psychology and workplace habits (Rollins et al. 2021), very few studies have been done examining the systemic, institutional, and cultural contributions to burnout in these professions. This paper aims to explore the connection between community standards and the current systems that intersect professional art therapy practice in the United States and the areas in …

Answering The Call: Disrupting The Logics Of Capitalism Through Indigenous Economies, Madeline Jaye Bass

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

Capitalism, racialism, and indigenous exploitation are deeply entangled practices. In their implementation, they each rely on forms of extraction and subjugation with long-lasting impacts. Denise Ferreira da Silva uses a Black feminist practice of “reading” in order to explicate the ways lives are valued and lost within this pursuit of global capital. Despite overwhelming extraction, looking closely and reading into Indigenous lifeways and organizing practices encourages the pursuit of “otherwise worlds.” This essay uses a close reading of da Silva’s chapter on global capital, and the larger collection it comes from, as a way of exploring the economic practices of …

Decolonizing The Western Mind: Gurminder K. Bhambra, In Discussion With Albena Azmanova, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Albena Azmanova

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Unlovable Labour: Rejecting The "Do What You Love" Ideology, Trey Dykeman

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Miya Tokumitsu’s article ‘In the Name of Love’ is polemic against what she refers to as the DWYL (Do What You Love) movement that has been most recognisably popularised and transformed by Steve Jobs. She denounces this movement as an insidious ideology cleverly disguised as an uplifting lifestyle which has as its tenets labour, profit, and individualism; through her analysis of these tenets, she unveils them as alienation, erasure, and precarity, respectively. Her insights aid her in her aim to demonstrate that these ideological pillars do not support the wellbeing of the proletariat but rather reinforce the rugged structure of …

Polyamory, Gender, And Sexuality, Brooklyn Jennings

Sociology Student Work Collection

A newsletter style analysis of the contemporary mechanisms of polyamory in the U.S. This project briefly discusses polyamory in relation to gender and sexuality, relates larger systems of power to the functions of polyamory, questions the taboos of polyamory, and briefly addresses some of the limitations of academic research regarding polyamory.

Covid-19 Vaccination In Palestine/Israel: Citizenship, Capitalism, And The Logic Of Elimination, Nicolas Howard, Emily Schneider

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Despite Israel’s responsibility under international law to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics in its occupied territories, Israeli officials have refused to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through a critical discourse analysis of Israeli officials’ statements regarding Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, this paper explores how Israel evades this responsibility while presenting itself as committed to public health and human rights. We find that Israeli officials strategically present Palestinians as an autonomous nation when discussing COVID-19 vaccinations, despite Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Relatedly, Israel justifies …

The Ghost University: Academe From The Ruins, Peter Fleming

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Dream City: Post-Millennials And Millennials Navigate School, Work, And Housing In New York City, Omar Montana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the experiences of the “Post-Millennial” (those born after 1996) and “Millennial” (those born between 1981 - 1996) generations, as they pursue their dreams of studying, working and living in New York City. According to Karl Mannheim’s (1923) classic formulation, a “generation” can be perceived as a particular type of social location typified by common “patterns of experience and thought”. Through seventy-five in-depth interviews, the qualitative data revealed a social location characterized by a common pattern of “time is money” – as the German theorist Georg Simmel (1903) postulated more than a century ago – and stress as …

The Banality Of Corporate Evil, Amina Dessouki

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis critiques the notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) through tracing the multiple dynamics between a multinational corporation and a development consultancy working on a recycling project in collaboration with the Zabaleen in Mansheyet Nasser, Egypt. The thesis looks at the ways in which actors negotiate their different positions, the harmonies and discordances that unfold through various agendas coming together, the silences produced, and the ways in which structural violence is intensified under the guise of development. The thesis contrasts the detached efforts of corporate workers and development consultants with the lives of the zabaleen, who live in a …

The Voice Of The Other: The Influence Of Capitalism On The Representation Of Gender And Race In Western Classical Music, Marie Comuzzo

Masters Theses

This thesis argues that in order to understand the non-representation of women and BIPOC in the Western musical canon, the analysis of their cultural musical production and reception must start in early modern period, a time heavily influenced by the establishment of capitalism. Intertwining political feminist studies, critical race theory and musicology critique, I argue that the witch hunts and the inhumane colonial practices in Africa and the America (fundamental to establish capitalism as a global system), had an important role in shaping Western musical culture as homogeneous and monolithic. Thus, I first trace the change in female customs in …

Capitalism, Migration, And Adult Education: Toward A Critical Project In The Second Language Learning Class, Alisha M.B. Heinemann, Lilia Monzó

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Migration has become both a consequence of and support structure for global racialised capitalism. A presumed source of support for the people who migrate is adult education, especially the second language learning class. However, as a state organized institution, the policies and practices that govern second-language courses serve to inculcate the ideologies and values that support a racialised capitalist system. We draw on two case examples – the U.S. and Germany – to demonstrate these entanglements. We engage Freire’s critical pedagogy wherein learning contexts encourage students to question the realities of their lives, and Foucault’s ideas regarding heterotopian places where …

A Laboratory Of Common Interest: Contesting The Economisation Of Space In Limerick City Through The Practice Of Aesthetic Work, Fiona Woods

Doctoral

This arts practice-based research [APBR] addresses a political and ethical problem, namely how a creative practice can operate contrary to the destructive, predatory forces of extractive capitalism. The research took the systemic, socio-spatial violence of enclosure and economisation as a starting point, anchored in the concrete conditions of Limerick city, to test the critical, political possibilities of collaborative, cultural work. From an examination of the ways in which lived space is subsumed under the abstractive logic of ‘the Economy’, two processes of abstraction and enclosure are isolated and examined: i) a hollowing out of publicness, captured by the lexigraph public …

Compensation, Commodification, And Disablement: How Law Has Dehumanized Laboring Bodies And Excluded Nonlaboring Humans, Karen M. Tani

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews Nate Holdren's Injury Impoverished: Workplace Accidents, Capitalism, and Law in the Progressive Era (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which explores the changes in legal imagination that accompanied the rise of workers' compensation programs. The essay foregrounds Holdren’s insights about disability. Injury Impoverished illustrates the meaning and material consequences that the law has given to work-related impairments over time and documents the naturalization of disability-based exclusion from the formal labor market. In the present day, with so many social benefits tied to employment, this exclusion is particularly troubling.

Gen Z Perspectives On Climate Change And The Future: Having The Courage To Imagine And Fight For A Better World, Isabelle Graj

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

I conducted 6 interviews with Gen Z students to investigate how they think climate change will impact their future and how they frame the issue in general. I communicate my findings and analysis with visual context through a zine, which is a form of alternative media created in the 1930s. Today, zines provide a creative approach to exchange ideas and explain contemporary culture (Gisonny and Freedman, 2006, 26). My zine is not meant to be utterly educational but rather it is meant to convey the emotion, confusion, and chaos associated with my findings. The interviews collectively created an image of …

Capitalism And The Immigrant Rights Movement In The United States, Marcel Paret, Sofya Aptekar, Shannon Gleeson

Publications and Research

Social movements are full of contradictions, and an inherent tension often emerges between reformist and radical flanks. This becomes especially true as activists attempt to draw connections between varied aims such as opposition to globalization and support for immigrants. During the 1999 Battle of Seattle, the movement focused on opposing neoliberalism (Graeber 2002) and advocating for alternative visions of globalization (Reitan 2012). Some activists also noted the hypocrisy of opening borders to capital while militarizing the borders for migrants. Yet, in the end, immigrant rights movements and their central issues did not feature prominently in Seattle or later anti-globalization efforts. …

Critical Reflections On America’S Green New Deal: Capital, Labor, And The Dynamics Of Contemporary Social Change, Alex Stoner

Journal Articles

The increasing urgency of the current climate crisis has been accompanied by a growing desire for constructive answers on how to confront the situation effectively and meaningfully. Yet, the pace of global climate change (GCC) continues to accelerate more rapidly than societal, institutional, and individual responses can be formed. The gap between increasingly sophisticated knowledge of objective biophysical threat, on the one hand, and our ability to transform society in accordance with this awareness, on the other hand, highlights the importance of ideology. Ideological barriers have become a major stumbling block for climate change activists and researchers. Focusing on the …