Sociology of Culture Commons^™

Exploring The Space Between Healers: A Narrative Approach To Understanding The Relationship Between Traditional Healers And Biomedical Practitioners In Kwazulu-Natal, Marisa Delsignore

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Despite playing essential and parallel roles in the lives of patients, there exists a frictional, imbalanced relationship between traditional healers and Western doctors in South Africa. While national policy encourages a seamless system rooted in both Western science and indigenous knowledge, biomedical institutions are hesitant to accept traditional medical practices, which are based on less tangible and more spiritually-oriented elements. This research project turns to these two ideologically different entities to assess their perspectives on the roles of themselves and the other within the context of the South African health system.

Responses from semi-structured interviews with seven health practitioners from …

Who And What Is Amazigh? Self-Assertion, Erasure, And Standardization, Alexis Colon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research focuses on the identity of the indigenous peoples of Morocco, or the Amazigh. While this culture has endured different iterations of colonization, self-assertion and activism in favor of preserving culture and improving conditions for Amazigh can often be viewed as controversial to the elites of Morocco. This controversy, however, does not stop Moroccans from proclaiming their Amazigh background or portraying their culture. This paper aims to describe qualitative data taken from numerous interviews on the subject of self-identification of Amazigh and different hopes and expectations for the continuation of the language and culture of Amazigh among common peoples.

Examinando La Relación Entre El Ecoturismo Y La Migración En La Nevería, Pueblos Mancomunados, Oaxaca / Examining The Relationship Between Ecotourism And Migration In La Nevería, Pueblos Mancomunados, Oaxaca, Thomas Canny

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Los proyectos ecoturísticos en los Pueblos Mancomunados de la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca son un ejemplo de organización comunitaria para disminuir la emigración y mejorar la calidad de vida. Esta investigación intenta de analizar los cambios en el fenómeno migratorio del pequeño pueblo de La Nevería por medio de entrevistas personales con pobladores, y trazando la historia del proyecto ecoturístico que han implementado en su comunidad.

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The ecotourism projects in the Mancomunados Towns of the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca are an example of community organization to reduce emigration and improve the quality of life. This research tries to analyze …

The Making Of A Construct: Lessons From 30 Years Of The Kogut And Singh Cultural Distance Index, Ilya R. P. Cuypers, Gokhan Ertug, Pursey Pmar M.A.R. Heugens, Bruce Kogut, Tengjian Zou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The 30-year anniversary of Kogut and Singh’s (1988) groundbreaking study that introduced the concept of cultural distance and its accompanying measure provides the opportunity to take stock of what makes for a good construct. We organize our discussion around the issues of concept, algorithm, and data to clarify and gauge their contribution, before highlighting the impact of their work more generally. Many of the challenges raised by critical observers focus on one of these three dimensions. As there is value in looking systematically at the construct from concept to data, we set out the argument of the index and discuss …

Something Old, Something New: Historicizing Same-Sex Marriage Within Ongoing Struggles Over African Marriage In South Africa, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This article examines contemporary struggles over same-sex marriage in the daily lives of black lesbian- and gay-identified South Africans. Based primarily on 21 in-depth interviews with such South Africans drawn from a larger project on post-apartheid South African marriage, the author argues that their current struggles for relationship recognition share much in common with contemporaneous struggles of their heterosexual counterparts, and that these commonalities reflect ongoing tensions between more extended-family and more dyadic understandings of African marriage. The increasing influence of dyadic understandings of marriage, and of associated ideals of romantic love, has helped inspire same-sex marriage claims and, in …

Honor And Violence: An Account Of Feuds, Duels, And Honor Killings, John Thrasher, Toby Handfield

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

We present a theory of honor violence as a form of costly signaling. Two types of honor violence are identified: revenge and purification. Both types are amenable to a signaling analysis whereby the violent behavior is a signal that can be used by out-groups to draw inferences about the nature of the signaling group, thereby helping to solve perennial problems of social cooperation: deterrence and assurance. The analysis shows that apparently gratuitous acts of violence can be part of a system of norms that are Pareto superior to alternatives without such signals. For societies that lack mechanisms of governance to …

Anti-Queer Microaggressions Towards Queer Black Men, Camisha D. Fagan, Anna Smedley-López

McNair Poster Presentations

Microaggressions are reoccurring derogatory messages that degrade and/ or discredit one’s identity. While invisible and unknown to many, they remain visible and apparent to those impacted by them. The research questions for this project are: (1) What microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within larger society? (2) To contrast with larger society, what microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within Black communities? By conducting focus groups, I will examine the intersectional microaggressions that Queer Black males experience in their own community, as well as document microaggression that they experience in larger society. After conducting my focus groups, I will be …

Inclusive Place-Making In Spartanburg, Sc: Amplifying Latinx Voices Through Community-Based Research, Marianna Gonzalez, Kathleen Hughes, Mayra Lomeli-Garcia, Sandra Lopez, Laura H. Barbas-Rhoden, Christine S. Dinkins

Community Based Research

In response to a growing local interest in “place-making” work, our team developed and carried out a research project centered on the ideas of inclusive place, community, and health, with a focus on the inclusion of the growing Latinx community in the Spartanburg area. The project is a first step in what we imagine to be a long arc of community-based research and is in response to the desire of community collaborators for better information to inform their decision-making, particularly with regard to inclusion of Latinx residents. The long-term arc of the research will be shaped by ideas from community …

Introduction To Sociology Zero-Cost Syllabus, Mateo Sancho Cardiel

Open Educational Resources

This syllabus will help you to create your OER Introduction to Sociology course. The course is designed in order to create connections with the news, with classic and contemporary cinema and with hot topics in our everchanging society, making it a useful tool to engage students beyond the conventional approach to the content.

Being With Friends And The Potential For Binge Drinking During The First College Semester, Lizabeth A. Crawford, Katherine B. Novak

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In this prospective study, we assess the relationship between being with high school friends during the college transition and binge drinking. Across analyses (n = 489), the presence of high school friends during the college transition was associated with reduced binge drinking at the end of the first college semester among individuals at risk for this behavior because they drank in high school, associated alcohol use with the student role, or engaged in binge drinking at the beginning of the fall term. This is consistent with research linking social integration to behavioral regulation and suggests the presence of high …

The Politics Of Apolitical Culture. The Cia And The Congress Of Cultural Freedom, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Making It Pay To Be A Fan: The Political Economy Of Digital Sports Fandom And The Sports Media Industry, Andrew Mckinney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a series of case studies and sociological examinations of the role that the sports media industry and mediated sport fandom plays in the political economy of the Internet. The Internet has structurally changed the way that sport fans access sport and accelerated the processes through which the capitalist actors in the sports media industry have been able to subsume them. The three case studies examined in this dissertation are examples of how digital media technologies have both helped fans become more active producers and consumers of sports and made the sports media industry an integral and vanguard …

The Patterns And Prosecutions Of Media Leakers, Julia M. Lipkins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper examines the cases of government employees who are responsible for the disclosure of confidential information to the press, known as media leakers. I claim that the government and media leaker engage in a series of patterned responses, which leads to both the disclosure of information, and prosecution of the leaker. More specifically, I demonstrate how the government’s executive branch manages a game of leaks, in which ‘illegitimate’ leakers are separated from elite officials who also leak, but are often spared from prosecution because they are considered ‘legitimate’ players of the game. Although the boundaries surrounding ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ …

Insecure Hegemony: The Cultural Construction Of 'Righteous Retaliation' In The Hunt For Osama Bin Laden, Marisa Tramontano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines the American “authorized discourse” about the hunt for and killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to better understand it as an episode in American cultural hegemony maintenance. Through a structural hermeneutic analysis of presidential speeches and widely-circulated national strategy documents, high distribution news coverage, and entertainment media, alongside one-on-one interviews and focus groups, I illuminate the symbolic mechanics by which the death of Osama bin Laden was constructed as righteous and legitimate retaliatory violence in response to the unprompted, offensive violence of the 9/11 attacks.

Drawing on an array of theoretical approaches including classical sociologists Karl …

Decriminalization Of Prostitution Policy: Amnesty International Punishes A Dissenting Member, Marcia R. Lieberman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In 2016, Marcia Lieberman, a local group coordinator for Amnesty International, USA, was expelled by the board of directors for speaking out publicly against the new Policy on the Decriminalization of Sex Work. Amnesty used a little-known rule that prohibits a member from publicly opposing a position that Amnesty has taken. Lieberman writes about her experience and her view that Amnesty violated its fundamental principle of protecting free speech to silence her dissent.

“People You May (Or May Not) Know:” Usage Intensity, Status Motivation, And Intimate Self-Disclosure As Predictors Of Bridging Social Capital On Facebook, Ryan Paul Castillo 2209867

The Hilltop Review

Drawing on the concept of social capital, this study examines the impact of usage intensity, status motivations, and intimate public self-disclosure on Facebook users’ informational access and feelings of general social support. Survey data collected from a random sample of undergraduate Facebook users (n=583) were used to test several hypotheses predicting perceptions of bridging social capital. A multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model revealed significant positive associations between both Facebook usage intensity and status motivations, and perceptions of bridging social capital, while no significant relationships were found between various forms of intimate self-disclosure in public channels and perceptions of …

The Price Of Sociality, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Jonathan Birch's The Philosophy of Social Evolution, published by Oxford University Press.

Race, Xenophobia, And Punitiveness Among The American Public, Joseph O. Baker, David Cañarte, L. Edward Day

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

We outline four connections between xenophobia and punitiveness toward criminals in a national sample of Americans. First, among self-identified whites xenophobia is more predictive of punitiveness than specific forms of racial animus. Second, xenophobia and punitiveness are strongly connected among whites, but are only moderately and weakly related among black and Hispanic Americans, respectively. Third, among whites substantial proportions of the variance between sociodemographic, political, and religious predictors of punitiveness are mediated by levels of xenophobia. Finally, xenophobia is the strongest overall predictor of punitiveness among whites. Overall, xenophobia is an essential aspect of understanding public punitiveness, particularly among whites.

Treating Resistance As Data In Qualitative Interviews, Dimitra Kizlari, Kalliopi Fouseki

The Qualitative Report

Scientific interviews provide a useful resource for qualitative researchers studying people’s perceptions on contemporary phenomena. This article contributes to the large body of literature on qualitative interviews by investigating a rather common but under-reported pattern in interviews, that of resistance. Resistance is a form of power that the participant maintains and can exercise at any moment. The phenomenon knows various expressions from a refusal on the side of the participant to sign the consent form to question dodging or embellished accounts. Two case studies are used to underpin the basic argument that resistance in interviews may be a valuable finding …

Different Choices: A Public School Community’S Responses To School Choice Reforms, Amanda U. Potterton

The Qualitative Report

In the United States, state and federal reforms increasingly encourage the expansion of school choice policies. Debates about school choice contrast various concepts of freedom and equality with concerns about equity, justice, achievement, democratic accountability, profiting management organizations, and racial and class segregation. Arizona’s “market”-based school choice programs include over 600 charter schools, and the state’s open enrollment practices, public and private school tax credit allowances, and Empowerment Scholarships, (closely related to vouchers), flourish. This qualitative analysis explores one district-run public school and its surrounding community, and I discuss socio-political and cultural tensions related to school choice reforms that exist …

Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description Of Marginalized Histories, Annie Tang, Dorothy Berry, Kelly Bolding, Rachel E. Winston

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Influenced by the radical archives movement, panelists discuss their (re)processing projects for which they wrote or rewrote descriptions in culturally competent approaches. Their case studies include materials regarding underrepresented peoples and historically oppressed groups who are marginalized from or maligned in the archival record. Targeted to processors, this session aims to teach participants to apply their cultural competencies in writing finding aids through an introduction to cultural competency framework, the case study examples, and a short audience-participation exercise.

Yardwork: A Biography Of An Urban Place By Daniel Coleman, Vivian M. Hansen

The Goose

Review of Daniel Coleman's Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place.

A Land Not Forgotten: Indigenous Food Security & Land-Based Practices In Northern Ontario By Michael A. Robidoux And Courtney W. Mason, Tonia L. Payne Ph.D.

The Goose

Review of Michael A. Robidoux and Courtney W. Mason's (eds.) A Land Not Forgotten: Indigenous Food Security & Land-Based Practices in Northern Ontario.

Saying "No" To (The) Oxygen Capital? Amenity Migration, Counter-Territorialization, And Uneven Rural Landscape Change In The Kaz Dağları (Ida Mountains) Of Western Turkey, Patrick T. Hurley, Yılmaz Arı

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Diverse forms of conservation and development are transforming the material landscapes and related livelihoods of communities in rural places around the world. While many studies focus on changing protected area governance and ecotourism efforts associated with nature protection, other studies focus on residential development in areas experiencing amenity migration. We use a comparative political ecology approach that draws on key insights from the political ecology literature, first, on neoliberal protected area expansion, and, second, on exurbia that highlight the dynamics of competing rural capitalisms and reterritorialization in areas experiencing amenity migration to explore these coupled conservation and development dynamics. Drawing …

Complexities And Challenges Of Nonduality, Elizabeth Stephens

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

States of consciousness referred to as nonduality, awakening, enlightenment, moksha, peak experience, unitive states, or void states, among other terms, have garnered increasing secular attention and have become a topic of psychological and neuroscientific research. A review of the literature revealed many challenges to studying this set of states, such as inconsistent conceptualizations, a variety of models and theories, and conflicting descriptions indicating that the actual experience may not live up to the superlative descriptions found in historical texts or the expectations put forth by nondual teachers. A great deal more empirical research on this topic is needed, and researchers …

From Rock Art To Vertical Forests, Hall, Gill

Journal of Conscious Evolution

No abstract provided.

An Evaluation Of College Student Attitudes Toward Gay Adoption, Cassandra Chaney Phd, Le'brian Patrick

Faculty Publications

Given the increasing debate regarding same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption, few studies to date have examined college student attitudes regarding this topic. This qualitative study explores the sentiments of 31 college students from a large university in the southern region of the country towards gay adoption before and after viewing the documentary We Are Dad (2005). The study allowed students to provide their level of agreement or disagreement with the statements provided by respondents on a public blog site who debated both sides of this issue. In addition, students responded to the following two questions during two points in time: …

How National Culture Influences Individuals’ Subjective Experience With Paradoxical Tensions, Joshua Keller, Erica Wen Chen, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how national culture influences individuals’ subjective experience of tension when confronting paradoxical demands that arise during their day-to-day organizational experience. The paper further explores two types of paradoxical demands (task-oriented and relational-oriented) and two mediating mechanisms (tolerance for contradictions and harmony enhancement concerns) that exhibit contrary cultural effects.Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from a sample of white-collar workers in China and the USA, the authors first inductively generated scenarios with task-oriented and relational-oriented paradoxical demands and then conducted three studies where participants rated the perceived tension from the scenarios. In Study 1, they examined …

When Packaged Food Pollutes Our Body And Earth: Plastic Packaged Food Consumption And Waste Disposal Practices In The Himalayas, Jared Marsh, Jessica Shalvey

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of our field study project is to examine current waste disposal practices and food preferences in rural Himalayan agricultural communities and to communicate the results, as well as our own outside research, to the villagers in Sikkim. We hope to promote safe disposal practices of packaged plastic, to offer responsible alternatives to packaged waste disposal, and to encourage the consumption of organic, homegrown food for all ages to benefit both human and environmental well-being.

Remembering Forgotten Foods: A Collaborative Project, Azher Jaweed, Sophia Alhadeff, Claire Roberts, Avery Perkins

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Our final project aimed to validate indigenous knowledge and empower younger generations about their rich, organic farming practices while also debunking the stereotypes of American food culture. Additionally, we aimed to reverse the sense of inferiority about agricultural practices in Sikkim amongst young people. The first component will consist of a cooking activity focused around forgotten foods. The second part of the project compares the preparation process of two dishes– one made in Sikkim and the other from the United States. The first poster compares a traditional Himalayan dish with a typical American dish. The second compares the sourcing of …