June 2012
Rebekah Burroway and Michael Schwartz, State University of New York at Stony Brook, $7,000, Business Unity and the Collective Action of Large U.S. Corporations Faced with Protests, 2000-2010. Drawing on insights from social movement research, class theory, unity theory, organizational sociology, and economics, this research explores how large corporations in the U.S. respond to social protest directed against them. Although social movement and class theory have developed rich understandings of collective action, current research typically treats corporations as isolated actors responding individually to protest opposition. The project uses multi-level models, dyadic network analysis, innovative automated text analysis software, and a variety of archival data sources.
Andy Clarno, University of Illinois-Chicago, $5,000, The Empire’s New Walls: The Politics of Security in South Africa and Palestine/Israel. Through an analysis of walled enclosures in Johannesburg and Jerusalem, this project attempts to explain the proliferation of separation walls in the early 21st century. To carry out this research on the different forms of enclosure in these two societies, the PI uses a multi-method approach bringing together the tools of comparative urban ethnography and comparative historical sociology. The data collection focuses on four areas: the relationship between neoliberal restructuring and the political transitions in each state, the growth of marginalized populations, the politics of security, and the production of walled enclosures.
Sarah Damaske, Pennsylvania State University, $6,000, Gender, Inequality, and Unemployment: Men’s and Women’s Differing Social and Economic Costs. Since the 1950s, women and men have experienced similar rates of unemployment, yet there are surprisingly few studies of the differences between men’s and women’s experiences of unemployment or of the effects of their unemployment. This study will investigate differences in how working-class men and women experience job loss, negotiate possible returns to work, and navigate the familial effects of unemployment. By using a combination of qualitative interviews and audio diaries, the PI hopes to suggest policies intended to improve men’s and women’s life chances in the post-industrial economy.
Claire Laurier Decoteau, University of Illinois-Chicago, $7,000, Opening Pandora’s Box: The Vaccine-Autism Controversy and the Social Construction of American Biomedicine. A series of congressional hearings and vaccine court hearings has determined there is no causal link between common childhood vaccinations and the development of autism, and yet a recent study in Pediatrics found that one in 10 parents of young children refuse or delay vaccination. This project seeks to understand the connection between fears of the so-called “autism epidemic” and the increasing popularity of alternative vaccination scheduling for young children. The PI will utilize multiple qualitative techniques to explore parental decision making amongst a diverse group of new parents.
Steve Lopez, Ohio State University, $6,916, Downward Mobility in the “Lesser Depression”: Material, Relational and Attitudinal Responses. Within the current context of economic depression and vulnerability, this study will examine workers’ responses along three dimensions: material responses or practical adaptations to the actual or potential loss of income and wealth; attitudinal responses (i.e., changing aspirations, beliefs, and attitudes); and relational responses to others, including spouses, partners, children, peers, etc. as they struggle to adapt to or anticipate straitened circumstances. With the assistance of six graduate students, the PI will conduct extended, semi-structured interviews with 150 downwardly-mobile workers and use multi-method data analysis strategy of qualitative immersion and content coding for comparative analytic purposes.
Lizabeth Zack, University of South Carolina Upstate, $6,200, Another Shade of Green: Environmental Activism in Jordan. Despite evidence that activists and civil society groups have emerged across the Middle East over the past 20 years to address a variety of environmental challenges, research on political activism in the region has focused on Islamist movements and other popular campaigns against authoritarian rule. This project will look closely at grassroots and civil society campaigns around environmental issues in Jordan, drawing on information from newspapers, organizational websites, interviews, and government documents. The analysis focuses on the activists, their complaints and demands, how they mobilize, the role civil society plays in addressing environmental concerns in the region, and the outcomes and impact of movement efforts.
December 2012
Mikhail Balaev, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, $7,000, Who Rules America Revisited. This research focuses on the power elite in the 21st century and proposes to document and analyze the corporate backround and network ties of senior government employees before and after they hold their government appointment. The PI will examine the affiliations of the senior executive government officials (SEGOs), defined as presidential appointees from 2004 to 2012. SEGOs’ employment and board memberships prior to and after their executive political offices will be coded in a set of variables that measure the type, sector, and industry of the organizations. This data collection includes identifying and coding not previously researched documents data from a variety of sources such as Financial Disclosures and Ethics Agreements letters. The project will use the collected information to develop a new database on the interlocking directorate ties for U.S. presidential appointees.
Carolyn Chen, Northwestern University, $7,000, Zen and the Art of Modern Corporate Productivity: Asian Religions and Instrumental Spirituality. This study focuses on how religious practices are secularized, transformed, and utilized in a different context. Specifically, it will examine how corporations use Asian religious practices, such as meditation, mindfulness, and yoga, in an attempt to improve the productivity of their employees. Data will be collected through 150 in-depth interviews with professionals, managers, and spiritual practitioners; observations of corporate wellness programs; and content analysis of corporate literature. In short, this project offers an analysis of the relationship between work, self, and spirituality in a postindustrial economy.
Ashley Currier, University of Cincinatti, Joëlle Cruz, Clemson University $7,000 for Diffusing LGBT Rights: U.S. Foreign Policy and LGBT Organizing in Côte d”Ivoire. This pilot project will investigate whether and how U.S. foreign policy on LGBT rights has affected gender and sexual diversity organizing in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia. Specifically, this project asks how interested groups in two African nations respond to a positive U.S. stance on LGBT rights. The project will compare responses in Côte d’ Ivoire (a benign political climate) and Liberia (a hostile political climate) by pro- and anti-LGBT activists and responses by political leaders. In addition, the study asks how different groups, such as LGBT activists, anti-LGBT activists, religious authorities, and political officials and parties, have responded to the policy. Finally, the author hopes to gain an understanding of how do gender and sexual diversity politics intersect with human rights norms.
Kim Ebert, North Carolina State University, $6,993, The Role of Policy, Media, and Local Context in Shaping Symbolic Boundaries between Foreign- and Native-Born Groups. According to the author, the government plays a central role in defining the boundaries between immigrants and non-immigrants. These definitions have implications for the maintenance of racial and ethnic inequality. The author contends that in many cases, boundaries between native and foreign-born group stemming from immigration policy only become meaningful when they are disseminated to the public by means of the media. This research will investigate the relationship among immigration policymaking at different levels of government. The study examines three general areas : a 10 year analysis of trends regarding the purpose of the policies (receptive vs. exclusionary); an analysis of local newspapers framing of policymaking, and finally an analysis of whether these boundaries get translated into social boundaries between immigrants and non-immigrants.
Chunping Han, The University of Texas at Arlington, $6,997, Psychological Well-Being in Reform-Era China. This project is a sociological study of psychological well-being in reform-era China. According to the author, the sociological research on subjective well-being is far less extensive and systematic than what has been done by psychologists and economists. Specifically, the author intends to explore the definition, description, and the explanation of social and psychological sources of life satisfaction and psychological distress in transitional China. The author suggests that the results (based on in-depth interviews) will also shed light on policies and practices conducive to subjective well-being during large-scale, dramatic social and economic shifts that have occurred in China, and ultimately can be used to compare “transitional societies” with “developed societies.”
John W. Mohr, University of California- Santa Barbara and Amin Ghaziani, University of British Columbia, $2,000, Measuring Culture. The purpose of this grant is to convene a conference entitled “Measuring Culture.” The conference will bring together quantitative and qualitative scholars to discuss the difficulties related to measuring culture in order to forge a new set of common understandings towards measurement practices and theories as they relate to cultural analysis. Citing findings from other fields, the PI argues that small conferences are indispensible for paradigmatic shifts to take place. Based on this view, the PI states that forging common understand through a small conference format will move the sociology of culture forward and a coherent sub-field of scientific sociology. The result of this small conference should result in a special issue of Theory and Society or an edited volume.
Tiffany Taylor, North Carolina State University and Elizabeth Seale, State University of New York College at Oneonta, $5,760, Race and Place: A Comparative Case Study of Welfare-to-Work Service Delivery in North Carolina and Ohio. The purpose of this study is to compare welfare-to-work service delivery in rural counties of two states that serve different populations (North Carolina’s welfare population is predominantly black while Ohio’s is predominantly white). The study allows an examination of race, place and service in which rural poverty is particularly understudied. The focus will be on the challenges faced by agencies and organizations in both states and the place of race in how government employees implement TANF. The project will combine rural marginalization and critical race theory on welfare stigma to understand how both race and location interact to play a role in the potential effectiveness of welfare-to-work programs. The PIs will use these funds to code data from their interviews of case managers.
