Sociology Commons^™

Aspects Of Migration And Development In Jordan, Riad Al Khouri

Faculty Journal Articles

Due to expansion of the public sector, high rates of economic growth, and demand for Jordanian workers in regional labor markets, Jordan enjoyed almost full employment from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. This resulted in labor shortages in some job categories and paved the way for importing migrant laborers, particularly Arabs, to work mainly in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations. That prosperity did not last long, however, and unemployment began to rise in the mid-1980s due to slow growth of the regional labor market and the gradual return of Jordanian expatriates from the Gulf countries (though there was no parallel …

Contemporary Migration And Transnational Families: The Case Of Somali Diaspora(S), Mulki Al-Sharmani

Faculty Journal Articles

In this paper, I argue that a central feature of Somali contemporary migration is a transnational way of life, which an increasing number of diasporic Somalis and their families are leading. Transnational families become an important space in which Somalis strategize with their relatives, pool resources, share obligations, and arrange for the movements of individual family members. This kind of transnational way of life becomes a fairly effective mechanism through which diasporic Somalis seek security, protection, opportunities for a better life, and different forms of capital for themselves and their relatives in the homeland and elsewhere. However, living transnationally is …

Lebanese Diaspora And Homeland Relations, Guita Hourani

Faculty Journal Articles

Although Lebanese emigrants have always been part of Lebanon’s life, Lebanon has not actually had a specific diaspora policy. This discussion paper will not deal with the migration process, or the motives for migration. It will focus, instead, on some selected aspects of the Lebanese diaspora and homeland relations. It will draw attention to some of the important networks connecting the Lebanese diaspora with Lebanon and will review courses of action undertaken by the Lebanese government to strengthen ties with its diaspora.

Gaaro: Nepali Women Tell Their Stories, Sarah Cramer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

“In the 1970s, women were discovered to have been “bypassed” by the development interventions. This “discovery” resulted in the growth during the late 1970s and 1980s of a whole new field, women in development (WID), which has been analyzed by several feminist researchers as a regime of representation” (Escobar, 13). This “regime of representation” was a way in which development discourse linguistically, and consequently practically, imposed a homogenized identity on these “bypassed” women, in order to bring them into development programs. This homogenizing discourse was constructed by Western development efforts and takes place by constructing all third world women as …

“Happy Dancing Natives” Minority Film, Han Nationalism, And Collective Memory, Benjamin D. Shaffer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Cinematic representations of China’s ethnic minorities have been prominent in Chinese visual culture and collective memory since the 1950s. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party led campaigns to classify China’s diverse range of ethnic groups. These social experiments inspired a number of documentary and narrative films about the ostensibly “exotic” and “colorful” non-Han peoples of China. The audience for these depictions of minorities in visual culture varied considerably. Some early documentaries fueled the rise of Han nationalism and political agendas within the Communist Party. Several narrative films had large audiences in mainstream Chinese …

Unholy Union: The Convergence Of Agendas Between The Gay Community And The Political Right-Wing In The Netherlands, Michael Wayne Perry

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The introduction of immigrants from traditionally Islamic countries has created a new dynamic within the Dutch social system. Seemingly clashing with the established facade of Dutch “tolerance”, this group of Muslim immigrants has logically found a natural enemy within right-wing political parties. However, on a more interesting level, we see that the political agenda of the gay movement has seemingly converged with the agenda of those right-wing groups. In a sense, this convergence of agendas seems odd considering the general association of the gay movement with leftist, more progressive political movements. This study intends to examine this convergence of agendas; …

The Politics Of Engagement: The Influence Of Identity On The Experiences Of Activists Involved With The Roma Community In Serbia, Becca Gardner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Debate and mystery surrounds the origin and culture of the Gypsies in Europe; however, there is no question that the space they inhabit today reflects their position of marginalization and discrimination. During the last five years, there has been a surge of activism and interest in the experiences of the Roma, largely due to the implementation of the Decade for Roma Inclusion . The Decade is a commitment among governments, intergovernmental, non-governmental organizations, and Romani civil society to address the inequality of Roma in Europe by focusing on employment, education, health, and housing within the specific context of each participating …

Torch (October 2007), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Unemployment, Women, And Taxis: A Study Of The Taxi-Sister Program In Its Test Phase, Mackenzie Israel-Trummel

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In May of 2007, the Senegalese Ministry for Family and Female Entrepreneurship in collaboration with a private car dealership, Espace-Auto, announced plans for the Taxi-Sister program, which introduced ten women into the taxi driving profession. The first ten women, who hit the streets in September 2007, are considered a test-run for the program, as the Ministry seeks to expand women’s roles in Senegalese society and presence in the economic sector. The program is considered to be both an effort to address women’s poverty and to establish a feminine presence in professions formerly reserved for men.

This study attempts to describe …

Helping Women Help Themselves: Sex Work, Health, And Development In Mahajanga, Madagascar, Rachel Pryzby

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Poverty is an inescapable reality in Madagascar, a force that permeates the lives of many Malagasy people. Approximately 75 % of the population lives below the poverty line, defined as one United States dollar per person per day . This poverty proves to be particularly cruel to women who are often illiterate, unmarried, and have children to support. In cases such as these, often the quickest and most lucrative type of work available is sex work. The proportion of sex workers (called makorelina in Malagasy and travailleuses de sexe in French ) in the city of Mahajanga is quite large—approximately …

Leprosy: A Study Of Identity Through A “Marginalized” Population, Aarti Bhatt

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

People of all different cultures use identity as a way of mediating with surrounding institutional structures and personal communities. Identity however, is not a concrete idea but a multidimensional and dynamic condition. For communities of so called "marginalized people" an identity perceived or created from the outside and imposed can have drastic implications on a person's capacity to act as an agent. Stefen Ecks argues for the value of ethnographic study from the point of view of the marginal people, going on to say that "this is of critical importance since marginality puts health most under stress when it is …

Creating Dreams, Fighting For Rights: A Study With Centro De Cultura Negra Do Maranhão, Brazil, Laura Jenks

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The history of race in Brazil is a long and complicated one which has resulted in a contemporary racial climate fraught with hidden racism and the systematic oppression of the entire black population. Because of this complex history, black movements in Brazil have struggled to gain political power and unified support from the black population. Today, the black movement is made up of many independent organizations, working in their own way to fight racism and inequality within Brazil. This research project looks at the work of one such organization of the Brazilian black movement, the Centro de Cultura Negra in …

The Decline Of Palestinian Exceptionalism: Observation Of A Trend And Its Consequences For Refugee Studies In The Middle East, Michael Kagan

Faculty Journal Articles

There has historically been a great divide at the heart of refugee policy and scholarship in the Middle East, between Palestinian refugees and all others. This intellectual and policy divide runs throughout political discourse, governmental and United Nations administration, and civil society activism. It poses a challenge to the coherency of forced migration studies in the Middle East. There is now a significant and growing inter-disciplinary literature about refugees of many nationalities in the region, but the largest and most visible refugee group in the region has been traditionally treated as “a case apart,” to borrow a phrase used recently …

From Internal To International Displacement In Sudan, Agnes De Geoffroy

Faculty Journal Articles

In the field of forced migration and refugees studies, forced internal displacement cannot be excluded as an area of interest. Internal displacement is challenging for peace construction, urban development and stability in many countries. The growing number of displaced persons is the reverse side of the international community new strategy, consisting in preventing cross-border displacement, aiming to prevent the regional spreading of instability and reducing the number of refugees. The country with the greatest number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the world is Sudan. It has more than 5 million IDPs, of which about 2 million were recently displaced …

Refugee Diet In A Context Of Urban Displacement Part Two: Selecting And Incorporating Food: Diet And Perceptions Of Risk Among Southern Sudanese Refugees Living In Cairo, Peroline Ainsworth

Faculty Journal Articles

The changes in diet and food consumption practices experienced after displacement can have serious implications for the physiological health of forced migrants and refugees, as noted in Part One.1 These changes can also express cultural loss and social dislocation; the exchange, sharing, preparation and consumption of foods carry important social and cultural values and significances that often reflect and reinforce the very modes of social organization and codes of conduct which become undermined and fractured during displacement (Counihan et al. 1997:3, see also Levi-Strauss 1978, Mead 1970, Appadurai 1981). Altering and reconstructing food consumption habits and feeding practices is therefore …

Refugee Diet In A Context Of Urban Displacement Part One: Some Notes On The Food Consumption Of Southern Sudanese Refugees Living In Cairo, Peroline Ainsworth

Faculty Journal Articles

The changes in food consumption practices experienced after displacement can have serious implications for the health of refugees. These changes can also reflect and express cultural loss and shifts in social structures and habits. Altering and reconstructing food consumption habits and feeding practices is integral to people’s adjustment to and experience of displacement. However, research on the nature and impacts of changing food consumption practices among displaced populations, particularly those living in urban areas in the developing world, is scarce. The following report describes the findings of a 12-month exploratory study that aimed to document changes in food consumption among …

State Policies On Migration And Refugees In Jordan, Francoise De Bel-Air

Faculty Journal Articles

Jordan has historically acted as a regional cross-road for migration. This role can be attributed to regional political instability forcing migrants to the country, as much as due to Jordan’s policy of openness to Arab migrants, an openness which has sustained the pan-Arabist claims of the ruling Hashemite dynasty. In recent years, however, Jordan has progressively restrained its open-door policy. The country is hosting today some 900,000 work migrants of various nationalities, some 750,000 Iraqi refugees and numerous Syrians, Lebanese, West Bank Palestinians, while an estimated 50% of the population is descendent of the naturalised Palestinian refugees of 1948 and …

The Legal Framework Of Forced Migration And Refugee Movements In Jordan, Mohamed Y. Olwan

Faculty Journal Articles

Jordan is a country of both immigration and emigration. It is a destination country for migrant Arab workers, especially Egyptians who work in occupations shunned by Jordanian citizens such as construction and agriculture, foreign domestic workers from different countries, particularly from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Philippines, and migrant workers in Jordan's qualified industrial zones (QIZs) who come from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, and China. Jordan also serves as a transit country for South East Asians recruited with fraudulent job offers in Jordan who are trafficked to work involuntarily in Iraq.

Egyptian Workers In Paris: An Ethnographic Account, Reem Saad

Faculty Journal Articles

On both sides of the Mediterranean, labour migration from North Africa to Europe is seen as a problem. At the official levels, this problem is mainly treated from a security perspective with the greatest efforts directed at closing the loopholes through which migrant labour manages to reach Northern shores. Young men from many parts of the “South” go to extreme lengths and bear great risks to get to Europe. This paper addresses the case of Egyptian labour migrants in France. This research attempts to understand this issue from the point of view of the migrants themselves, and in the context …

Demographic Profile Of Palestinian Migration, Ismail Lubbad

Faculty Journal Articles

This working paper was prepared for the Centre of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies (FMRS) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) within the overall framework of the creation of a Middle Eastern and African Center for migration and refugee studies. The lack of available border registration data - Palestinian borders in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) are controlled by Israel - has restricted research on the demography of Palestinian migration. Furthermore, demographic statistics have been a political issue in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict since the beginning of the 20th century. A number of research studies, however, have been conducted on …

Migration To And Through Yemen: The Case Of Migrant Domestic Workers, Marina De Regt

Faculty Journal Articles

Regarding migration, Yemen is primarily known as a sending country. Large numbers of Yemenis have migrated abroad in different periods of Yemen’s history, and labour migration was one of the main sources of income since the oil boom in the 1970s. Since 1990, however, Yemen has turned into a receiving country. Not only were hundreds of thousands of Yemeni migrants expelled from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States after Iraq’s invasion in Kuwait in 1990, but the political changes that took place in the Horn of Africa, in particular in Ethiopia and Somalia, in the early 1990s led to the …

Torch (September 2007), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

From Brown To Busing, Elizabeth Cascio, Nora Gordon, Ethan Lewis, Sarah Reber

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

An extensive literature debates the causes and consequences of the desegregation of American schools in the twentieth century. Despite the social importance of desegregation and the magnitude of the literature, we have lacked a comprehensive accounting of the basic facts of school desegregation. This paper uses newly assembled data to document when and how Southern school districts desegregated, as well as the extent of court involvement in the desegregation process over the two full decades after Brown. We also examine heterogeneity in the path to desegregation by district characteristics. The results suggest that the existing quantitative literature, which generally either …

Editor's Note

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Race And Class In The 21st Century Through The Lens Of Hurricane Katrina: Introduction, Dorothy A. Brown

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Expanding Homeownership Opportunity Ii: The Softsecond Loan Program, 1991-2006, Jim Campen

Gastón Institute Publications

This report provides data on lending by the SoftSecond Loan Program during the most recent three-year period (2004-2006) as well as over the sixteen-year life of the program. The Mortgage Lending Committee of the Massachusetts Community & Banking Council (MCBC) has had a special interest in the SoftSecond program since its inception and has carefully monitored the performance of its loans. The report updates an earlier report prepared for MCBC by the present author in 2004: Expanding Homeownership Opportunity: The SoftSecond Loan Program, 1991-2003. Detailed information about the origins and evolution of the program, and about the details of …

Black And Latino Studies And Social Capital Theory, Pedro Caban

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship

Three and one-half decades have transpired since the establishment of the first Black, Chicano and Puerto Rican studies programs. Since then, a substantial body of scholarship on the African American and Latino experience in the USA has been produced. One area of recent scholarly interest is the origin, goals and trajectory of the Black, Chicano and Puerto Rican studies movements of the 1960s. New scholarship has generated important insights on the relationship between activist scholarship and community empowerment in the context of the 1960s nation-wide political struggle for social and racial justice. The intellectual and political need to further develop …

Gender In Politics, Sheri L. Kunovich, Pamela Paxton, Melanie M. Hughes

Sociology Research

Women’s political participation and representation vary dramatically within and between countries. We selectively review the literature on gender in politics, focusing on women’s formal political participation.

We discuss both traditional explanations for women’s political participation and representation, such as the supply of women and the demand for women, and newer explanations such as the role of international actors and gender quotas. We also ask whether women are distinctive—does having more women in office make a difference to public policy? Throughout the review we demonstrate that a full understanding of women’s political representation requires both deep knowledge of individual cases such …

An Eco-Philosophical Ecofeminist Critique Of Victimology: Examining The Anthropocentric And Speciesist Borders And Boundaries Of Victimology, Angela K. Simon

Masters Theses

This work is a critique of the anthropocentric and speciesist borders and boundaries of victimology. Essentially I challenge victimology for failing to incorporate the victimizations of non-human animals and the environment, and instead focusing narrowly on only specific forms of human victimization. I do this by examining the history of victimology and exploring how its boundaries became what they are today. Focusing on the role criminology has had in the general development of victimology. I then go on to juxtapose the limited presence of animals and the environment within criminology with their relative absence in victimology. In conjunction with this …

Systems Of Distribution And A Sense Of Equity: A Multilevel Analysis Of Meritocratic Attitudes In Post-Industrial Societies, Sheri L. Kunovich, Kazimierz M. Slomczynski

Sociology Research

Meritocratic attitudes are defined as general beliefs that education and its correlates should determine personal economic outcomes. Using the International Social Survey Project (ISSP): Social Inequality Module (1992), we examine both individual-level and country-level determinants of pro-meritocratic attitudes. According to self-interest and rational-action theories, individuals with high educational attainment and high personal income are expected to have strong meritocratic beliefs because meritocracy is in their best interest—they would gain under such a system. At the same time, both modernization and post-industrial theories imply that persons living in countries with a high degree of societal meritocracy hold stronger meritocratic beliefs than …