August 11 | August 12 | August 13 | August 14

Thematic Session. Creating Knowledge: Cross-disciplinary Thinking and Research

Sun, Aug 13 - 8:30am - 10:10am

Session Organizer: Catherine Silver (Brooklyn College, CUNY)
Presider: Neil G. McLaughlin (McMaster University)
Panelist: Patricia T. Clough (CUNY Graduate Center)
Panelist: Carol Sanger (Columbia Law School)
Panelist: Catherine Silver (Brooklyn College, CUNY)
Panelist: Myra Strober (Stanford University)

The panel discusses the use of cross disciplinary thinking and research in the creation of knowledge. Panelists present papers that analyze their engagement in cross disciplinary work based on the interplay of a variety of disciplines--economics, law, biology, cultural studies and psychoanalysis--with sociology.

Thematic Session. Equity Gaps in the Western Hemisphere

Sun, Aug 13 - 8:30am - 10:10am

Session Organizer: Mauricio A. Font (The Graduate Center and Queens College, CUNY)
“Politics and Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean" Evelyne Huber (Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), John D. Stephens (University of North Carolina), Francois Nielsen (University of North Carolina), Jenny Pribble (University of North Carolina)
"Civil Society and Inequality" Bernardo Sorj (UFRJ (Brazil))
“Making Space for Civil Society: Evidence from Ten Brazilian Municipalities” Gianpaolo Baiocchi (University of Massachusetts-Amherst), Patrick G. Heller (Brown University)
“Social Development in Brazil” Mauricio A. Font (The Graduate Center and Queens College, CUNY)
Discussant: Peter B. Evans (University of California, Berkeley)

This session explores patterns of inequality and related policy and theoretical issues in the Western Hemisphere. It considers the role of civil society and local governments in addressing equity gaps.

Thematic Session. Gated Communities: Privileged Places, Ghettos, or Ethnic Enclaves?

Sun, Aug 13 - 8:30am - 10:10am

Session Organizer and Presider: Gregory D. Squires (George Washington University)
The Globalization of the Gated Community Edward Blakely (University of Sydney)
The Positive Functions of Gated Communties in Society: Community Lost or Community Gained? Karen Danielsen (Virginia Tech)
A New Plantation Society? Notes from the South's Low Country William W. Falk (University of Maryland)

This session will focus on spatially bounded communties with respect to their extensiveness, composition, relations with other types of neighborhood formations, and underlyling origin (or causes) and sources of change in these communities.

Thematic Session. The State and Its Boundaries

Sun, Aug 13 - 10:30am - 12:10pm

Session Organizer: Sharmila Rudrappa (University of Texas at Austin)

Presider: Mounira Maya Charrad (University of Texas, Austin) c
Creating Boundaries: State Building and Kin-based Solidarities in the Middle East Mounira Maya Charrad (University of Texas, Austin)
Transnational Challenges, State Recoveries? Marriage and Sexual Citizenship in/across the United Arab Emirates and Egypt Frances Hasso (Oberlin College)
Symbolic Power and State Boundaries Mara Loveman (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Talking Like the State: Expert Witness Testimonies in Court Sharmila Rudrappa (University of Texas at Austin)

Notions of borders and boundaries are especially central to characterizing state sovereignty in two ways: 1) the boundaries between state and civil society, and 2) the state's separation from others, in an international system of nation-states. This panel methodically examines the issues of borders and boundaries of the state, through looking at culture, symbolic power, religion and marriage, and social movements. Mounira Charrad re-considers the relationship between culture and the state in the Middle East, and suggests that kin-based solidarities, which are a primary feature of Middle Eastern culture, has shaped the process of state formation. Frances Hasso focuses on the tensions produced for the United Arab Emirates and Egyptian states by transnational migrations and marriages, and how these states have responded to these threats to their ideal of sovereignty. Mara Loveman's paper discusses how "symbolic power" helps conceptualize the boundaries of the state; she shows how nineteenth-century states accumulated symbolic power, and in so doing, naturalized a certain range of practices as "state practices," which have come under attack in recent years. Sharmila Rudrappa interrogates the role of expert witnesses in courts. Though expert witnesses posit themselves as neutral actors who represent the truth of science, they occupy a crucial social location between the plaintiff and the court of law, or state. In the process of providing expert testimony, the paper argues, expert witnesses come to be possessed by the state, thus raising questions of where the self begins, and where the state ends. The collective aim of these papers is to rethink the boundaries of the state, to reveal the continued significance of the state.

Thematic Session. Muslim Immigrants in Western Societies

Sun, Aug 13 - 10:30am - 12:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Mehdi Bozorgmehr (City College, and Graduate Center, CUNY)
Parallel Lives? Muslims and Multicultural Citizenship in 21st Century Britain Deborah Phillips (University of Leeds)
From Cultural Difference to Religious Profiling: Muslims in the European Context Valerie Amiraux (European University Institute)
Dutch Muslims in the Political Arena Frank Buijs (University of Amsterdam)
The Paradox of Muslim American Integration in the 21st Century Anny Bakalian (Graduate Center, CUNY), Mehdi Bozorgmehr (City College, and Graduate Center, CUNY)

This session will explore various patterns of incorporation, or lack thereof, of Muslim immigrants in Europe and the U.S. It will particularly focus on the post-9/11 era, including bombings in Madrid and London, uprisings in France, and other incidents in Netherlands and Sweden, etc. It will explore their root causes and consequences, including the role of the state in responding to these crises. By addressing a very timely and topical issue in a comparative perspective, it is hoped this panel will contribute to a better understanding of these complex sociological issues.

Thematic Session. Sexualities in the 21st Century: Changing Boundaries, Changing Practices

Sun, Aug 13 - 10:30am - 12:10pm

Session Organizer: Joshua Gamson (University of San Francisco)
Presider: Suzanna Danuta Walters (Indiana University)
Sexual Literacy: Recent Trends and Findings Ruth Westheimer (New York University)
Sex and intimacy in the United States: Past, present, and future Edward O. Laumann (University of Chicago)
Sexuality and sexual identities in the age of visibility Suzanna Danuta Walters (Indiana University)

This panel considers major trends in the social organization of sexual knowledge, practices, and identities, with special attention to shifting normative boundaries.

Thematic Session. Women's Rights and Human Rights (co-sponsored with Sociologists without Borders)

Sun, Aug 13 - 10:30am - 12:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Catherine Zimmer (University of North Carolina)
Panelist: Kathleen O. Slobin (North Dakota State University)
Panelist: Manisha Desai (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)
Panelist: Tanya Maria Golash-Boza (University of Kansas)
Discussant: Catherine Zimmer (University of North Carolina)

The session panelists will explore the varying views of women’s and human rights, illuminating how the two overlap with or diverge from one another internationally.

Thematic Session. Globalization and Civil Society: Transgressing Boundaries in Theory, Research, and Practice

Sun, Aug 13 - 12:30pm - 2:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Jackie Smith (University of Notre Dame)
The Global Civil Society Yearbook and Efforts to Map Global Civil Society Helmut K. Anheier (University of California, Los Angeles)
Anthropological Insights into Borders and Civil Society Hilary Cunningham (University of Toronto)
Globalizing Civil Society on the Ground, the Work of Rights and Democracy, Montreal Diana Bronson (Rights and Democracy), Carole Samdup (Rights and Democracy)

Panelists have been asked to offer their perspectives on themes of borders and global civil society from a variety of perspectives. The panel seeks to highlight important Canadian voices on these themes, and it considers how global change challenges our attempts to understand civil society. In addition, panelists will discuss how sociological work might better relate to the information needs of those seeking to foster a vibrant, globally networked, civil society.

Thematic Session. Great Divides: The Changing Organization of Marriage and Consensual Unions

Sun, Aug 13 - 12:30pm - 2:10pm

Session Organizer: Judith A. Seltzer (University of California-Los Angeles)
Panelist: Linda Burton (Pennsylvania State University)
Panelist: Gillian A. Stevens (University of Illinois)
Panelist: Megan M. Sweeney (University of California-Los Angeles)

The transformation of marriage as a social institution reflects long term change in economic opportunities and cultural shifts. Delayed marriage, cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing, and high rates of union dissolution point to change in the obligations of marriage and to change in the bases of couple solidarity. These changes in marriage and other couple relationships affect all aspects of contemporary family life. This thematic session considers the sources of change in couple relationships, intermarriage, racial and ethnic variation in couple relationships, and gender differences in the meaning of marriage.

Thematic Session. Tempered Radicalism and Institutional Entrepreneurship: Transgressing Boundaries

Sun, Aug 13 - 12:30pm - 2:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Debra Ellen Meyerson (Stanford)
Panelist: Debra Ellen Meyerson (Stanford)
Panelist: Maureen Scully (University of Massachusetts-Boston)
Co-Author: David Levy (University of Massachusetts-Boston)
Panelist: Andrew J Hoffman (Boston University)
Co-Author: jennifer howard-grenville (boston university)
Panelist: Marc J. Ventresca (University of Oxford)

The session will explore contrasting formulations of change within the context of institutions. The speakers in this session will present and compare theories of institutional agency and change at different levels of analysis.

Debra Meyerson’s paper builds on her research on individuals who, due to marginalized identities or interests, are situated on institutional fault lines. Using a variety of tactics of and skills, these “tempered radicals” look for opportunities to legitimate their interests and identities and shake loose the grip of the prevailing institutional order. Maureen Scully and David Levy’s paper fills gaps in the literature on institutional entrepreneurship focusing on the potential and constraints on agents deploying strategies to shift fields. Their paper points to the relevance of the concept of hegemony and offers a coherent account of ‘strategies for the weak.’ Andrew Hoffman and Jennifer Howard-Grenville’s paper examines how corporations act as agents of change on social issues such as poverty, environmental or human health, and community development. Their research focuses on the organizational and institutional levels of analysis, drawing attention to the recursive relationship between the corporation’s position in a field and the actions it takes on social change. Marc Ventresca uses the case of emerging social activist organizations in China to explore how 1) context continues to shape institutional change, in this case recognizing the Chinese state as a complex, often contradictory field of bureaus and actors, and 2) strategies by a new class of agencies to shift and redirect the authority of the state actors.

Thematic Session. The NAS Committee on Women’s Employment and Related Social Issues Report, Two Decades After: Sex Segregation in Today’s World

Sun, Aug 13 - 12:30pm - 2:10pm

Session Organizer: Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (Graduate Center, City University of New York)
Presider: William T. Bielby (University of Pennsylvania)
Achieving Equality for Women in the Labor Market: How Much Progress? Heidi Hartmann (Institute for Women’s Policy Research)
Plumbers, Firefighters, Technicians: What Happened to the Women? M. Brigid O'Farrell (The George Washington University)
Essentialism and the Future of Gender Inequality David B. Grusky (Stanford University)
From Structured Segregation to Subtle Bias William T. Bielby (University of Pennsylvania)
Mechanisms of Inequality in Higher Education Patricia A. Roos (Rutgers University)
Discussant: William T. Bielby (University of Pennsylvania)

More than 20 years ago a Committee on Women’s Employment, set up by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), issued a report documenting the ways in which women and men were segregated in the workplace in sex-labelled jobs. Today, after much legislation and activism, sex segregation continues, although changes have been made. This session will consider the continuing problems of desegregating the workplace.

Thematic Session. Discipline and Hybridity

Sun, Aug 13 - 12:30pm - 2:10pm

Session Organizer: Neil L. Gross (Harvard University)
Session Organizer: Scott Frickel (Tulane University)
Panelist: Andrew Abbott (University of Chicago)
Panelist: Craig Calhoun (Social Science Research Council)
Panelist: Joan H. Fujimura (University of Wisconsin)
Panelist: Margaret R. Somers (University of Michigan)
Panelist: George Steinmetz (University of Michigan)
Discussant: Neil Gross (McGraw-Hill, Inc.)

In recent decades, systems of knowledge production have undergone extensive transformation. Hybridized knowledge regimes have become institutionalized and now compete regularly for authority with academic disciplines. These changes have redefined expertise, expanded its scope, and multiplied its audience(s). What does the proliferation of hybrid knowledge forms mean for disciplines and for the universities, colleges, and medical schools that traditionally house them? Rather than evaluating their merits, panelists will offer ways of conceptualizing these and related phenomena.

Thematic Session. Social Boundaries and the Jews: Outsiders, Insiders, and Intermediaries

Sun, Aug 13 - 2:30pm - 4:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Paul Burstein (University of Washington)
Boundary maintenance and stratification: Jews in comparative and historical perspective Calvin Goldscheider (Brown University)
Like Everyone Else But Different: Jews as Multicultural Models? Morton Weinfeld (McGill University)
Who's a Jew in an Era of High Intermarriage? Joel Perlmann
Discussant: Paul Burstein (University of Washington)

For many hundreds of years, Jews occupied a unique position in the worlds of both Christianity and Islam. They were the quintessential outsiders–sometimes second-class citizens, often a pariah people, a group whose existence served, in part, to define the boundaries of the dominant groups. Yet small groups of Jews, at least, were also insiders, playing significant roles in many societies as court physicians, sources of capital and business skills, mapmakers, etc. More than other groups, Jews moved across social and other boundaries in ways important for the cultural and economic development of Europe, bringing Islamic science and mathematics to the West and acting as proto-capitalists bringing money, goods, and information from one part of Europe to another. In some ways, Jews didn’t fit within conventional social boundaries at all–sometimes seen as a race, sometimes not, not strictly a religious group in the way Christian denominations were, yet not simply an ethnic group either. This session will focus on boundaries between Jews and other groups in the modern world, on the shifting nature of those boundaries, and on the place of Jews as outsiders and insiders in contemporary societies.

Thematic Session. Population Health: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Sociological Research on Health and Illness

Sun, Aug 13 - 2:30pm - 4:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Richard M. Carpiano (University of Wisconsin at Madison)
Session Organizer: Stephanie A. Robert (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Inflammation: A Model of How Social Determinants of Health Get Under the Skin Elliot Friedman (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Discussant: James S. House (University of Michigan)
Facing the Realities of the American Dream: Black-White Health Disparities Among Upwardly Mobile U.S. Populations Cynthia Colen (Columbia University)
Discussant: David R. Williams (University of Michigan)
Leveraging Fair Housing Policy Data, Measures, and Methods to Estimate Institutional Racism across Place Theresa L Osypuk (University of Michigan, School of Public Health)
Discussant: Stephanie A. Robert (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Smoking, Social Norms and the Emergence of a Stigmatized Identity Jennifer M. Stuber (Columbia University)
Discussant: Bruce G. Link (Columbia University)

In recent years, the emergence of population health as an interdisciplinary field has received increased attention domestically and internationally, resulting in the creation of a postdoctoral training initiative by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (The Health & Society Scholars Program) to develop a new generation of population health researchers and policy makers. This initiative has created opportunities for sociologists to collaborate with researchers from other disciplines, improving interdisciplinary endeavors toward understanding population health processes, as well as leading to a cross-fertilization of knowledge. Consequently, the boundaries of sociological understanding of health and illness are extended as well.

This session will consist of a panel of population health scientists, trained in disciplines other than sociology, who are conducting research that poses important, beneficial implications for sociological research on health. Presentations will focus on how this research can be of practical use to sociology. Each non-sociologist panelist has been paired with a discussant who is a prominent sociologist conducting population health research. This discussant will provide brief commentary regarding his/her interpretations of the implications of the panelist’s work for sociological research.

Thematic Session. Ascriptive Boundaries at Work

Sun, Aug 13 - 2:30pm - 4:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Amy S. Wharton (Washington State University)
The Persistence of Gender Boundaries in the Workplace Cecilia L. Ridgeway (Stanford University)
Unmaking Manly Men: How Organizations can Redefine the Boundaries of Masculine Identity Robin Ely (Harvard University)
From Roles to Relationships: Rethinking Ascriptive Boundaries in the Workplace James N. Baron (Stanford University)

This thematic session focuses on ascriptive boundaries within work organizations. Presenters will consider the implications of ascriptive boundaries for identity at work and career-related outcomes. They will address issues relating to the creation, reproduction, and erosion of these boundaries, especially in light of changing forms of employment and work organization.

Thematic Session. Globalizing Capital, Globalizing Labor…Globalizing Labor Movements?

Session Organizer and Presider: Daniel B. Cornfield (Vanderbilt University)
Panelist: Janice Fine (School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University)
Panelist: Steven Greenhouse (New York Times)
Panelist: Lowell Turner (School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University)

Labor movements are challenged by the global mobility of large multi-national corporations and socially diverse labor migrants. As they revitalize themselves in the face of globalization, employer resistance, and declining memberships, labor unions struggle in their re-examination and invention of a wide repertoire of inclusive organizational strategies for leveraging their power and organizing the unorganized. The 2005 rupture of the U.S. labor movement into two rival labor federations—the AFL-CIO and Change to Win—reflects the tensions within the labor movement over strategies posed by globalization for putting labor on its revitalizing path. Unions are confronting their own bureaucratic pasts, as well as protecting the collective bargaining gains of their members in the ailing manufacturing sector and discerning the social identities and employment issues of the increasingly diverse non-union labor force as unions organize low-wage workers in the rapidly growing large-corporate service sector of the economy. This inter-disciplinary panel of experts addresses these challenges, strategies, and recent innovative initiatives in revitalizing and realizing a new globalizing labor movement.

Thematic Session. Mass Murder: What Causes It? Can It Be Stopped? A CONTEXTS Forum

Sun, Aug 13 - 2:30pm - 4:10pm

Session Organizer: James M. Jasper
Session Organizer and Presider: Jeff Goodwin (New York University)
Panelist: Randall Collins (University of Pennsylvania)
Panelist: Katherine Shelley Newman (Princeton University)
Panelist: James Ron (Johns Hopkins University)

Panelists will discuss various forms of mass murder, their causes, and possible means of prevention. Among the questions addressed: What are the "root causes" of mass murder? Do different forms of mass murder have similar causes? Are there common means of preventing various forms of mass murder? Are we likely to see more or fewer instances of mass murder in the future?

Thematic Session. Boundaries in Social Science Theory

Sun, Aug 13 - 4:30pm - 6:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (Graduate Center, City University of New York)
Toward a Theory of Boundary Making Michele Lamont (Harvard University), Andreas Wimmer (UCLA)
Inequality, Boundaries and Poverty Traps Charles Tilly (Columbia University)
An Interactionist View of Boundaries and Borders Arthur L. Stinchcombe (Northwestern University)

Thematic Session. Transnational Social Networks?

Sun, Aug 13 - 4:30pm - 6:10pm

Session Organizer: Wenhong Chen (University of Toronto)
Presider: Barry Wellman (University of Toronto)
Session Organizer: Barry Wellman (University of Toronto)
Presider: Wenhong Chen (University of Toronto)
Fragmented Families and Informal Grassroots Organizations: Stories of Transnational Migration as a Segue into Network Theory Patricia Andrea Landolt (University of Toronto), Luin Goldring (York University)
Transnational Networks and Immigrant Integration Eric Fong (University of Toronto), Xingshan Cao (Department of Sociology, University of Toronto)
Migration and Tourism Networks: Network Visualization Miguel Centeno (Princeton University), Sara R. Curran (University of Washington)
Transnational practices and global party formation in world history Ellen R. Reese (Univ of California-Riverside), Rebecca L. Giem (University of California-Riverside)
Discussant: David A. Smith (University of California-Irvine)

This session focuses on transnational social networks. Transnationalism refers to a multi-local process involving connections to two or more societies and border-crossing social, economic, political, cultural, and religious activities. Border-crossing networks are a fundamental characteristic of transnationalism in a variety of ways. In this session, we will discuss the following issues:

• How do transnational social networks facilitate or constraint individuals, communities, and organizations to cross and transcend social, cultural, and geographic boundaries?
• What are the characteristics of transnational networks? How does the dialectic of global and local play out in transnational social networks?
• How do class, ethnicity, and gender affect the participation in transnational social networks in a globalized world?
• How are transnational social networks built and cultivated? What are the roles played by nation states and other macro social institutions in this process?
• How do media, culture, and transnational imagery affect transnational social networks?

Thematic Session. Boundaries, Identity, and Social Agency

Sun, Aug 13 - 4:30pm - 6:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Hanna Herzog (Tel-Aviv University)
Panelist: Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (University of Southern California)
Panelist: Adriana Kemp (Tel Aviv University)
Panelist: Elisa P. Reis (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ))
Panelist: Sigal Goldin (Haifa University)
Muslim Women against Islam: A Comparison of Necla Kelek in Germany, Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the Netherlands and Irshad Manji in Canada Gokce Yurdakul (University of Toronto)

The burgeoning literature on globalization has put a strong emphasis on the modes in which flows of capital, commodities, ideas and people yield to the blurring of the binaries of modernity while at the same time bringing to the fore the workings of new great divides. The session will focus on the modes in which boundaries (social, political, symbolic, economic) rearticulate in the wake of neo-liberal policies and multi-cultural sociological realities.

Thematic Session. Class Boundaries in Comparative Perspective

Sun, Aug 13 - 4:30pm - 6:10pm

Session Organizer and Presider: Deborah S. Davis (Yale University)
Hybridity,Globalization, and Compressed Development: Implications for Class Formation and Class Conflict in Post-Socialist China Alvin Y. So (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Pun Ngai (Hong Kong Univ. of Science & Tech.)
Distinction, Class, and the Construction of Occupational Boundaries: Case of Air Traffic Control Diane Vaughan (Columbia University/SIPA)
Macro and Micro-Gender Boundaries in Canada and Japan Bonnie H. Erickson (University of Toronto), Kakuko Miyata (Meiji Gakuin University)
Discussant: Yu Xie (University of Michigan)