The Global Sociology Blog

Time to dust-up our treatises on dependency theory: Food Colonialism Increasing Africa’s Hunger Crisis – Worldpress.org via kwout The agricultural policy of the European Union is major source of contestation in developing countries because of the double standards it uses. The EU has enormous subsidies extended to Big Corn and exercises protectionist rules against agricultural [...]

For posts like these that are just too hilarious not to be shared. And yeah, I’m tagging this post "gender". Lance Mannion: No more modular furniture, ever! A photo essay in real time via kwout And then, it gets better… or worse… oh, just go read the whole thing.

Salma Hayek breastfeeds an African baby: I think the attention paid to this is more revealing about our racist unspoken attitudes and gender insecurities regarding breastfeeding. A martian visiting Earth would probably think that breastfeeding has magical properties based on the debates we have about it, between the breastfeeding fundamentalists, the "cachez ce sein que [...]

Randall Collins, “Rituals of Solidarity and Security in the Wake of Terrorist Attack”, Sociological Theory, 22:1, March 2004, pp. 53 – 87. Randall Collins is, of course, well-known for his work on social theory and symbolic interactionism. In this article, he focuses on the rituals of solidarity displayed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks [...]

In a previous post, I summarized an article by Ronaldo Munck which explained the relevance of Karl Polanyi’s analysis. A few days ago, the Sociology Lens had a short post on the related matter of embeddedness: Humans and the “Laws” of the Market « Sociology Lens via kwout The prevalence of the conception of the [...]

I don’t know, but based on this Bureau of Labor Statistics, posted on the Speaker of the House blog, and reproduced on the Rachel Maddow Show, there are reasons to be pessimistic:

I have mentioned before how much I like science-fiction and how much I think good SF is good sociology. In a recent post, A Very Public Sociologist shows us that the opposite is true as well: bad SF = bad sociology, but bad SF also deserves a sociological theory of its own. A Very Public [...]

He is probably one of the best commentators on labor and business issues. He created the Left Business Observer and is well-known among real progressives. Bookmark and update your news readers. Rant on the TARP overhaul « LBO News from Doug Henwood via kwout

This seems interesting Social Determinants of Health « BackStage via kwout I am sure many of us have tried our own version of the sociological monopoly. Well, Kate Rossiter and Kate Reeve have actually done it with a focus on health. www.TheLastStraw.ca – Description via kwout The training videos give a better idea of how [...]

Women’s bodies… sexual object, public property, commercial item. Let’s review: Virginity Montclair SocioBlog: Use It and/or Lose It via kwout Buzz… Wrong answer: to contribute voluntarily to an oppressive system (the patriarchy) does not make the system any less oppressive. Upgrading somewhat one’s dominated status compared to others in the dominated category in the field [...]

So, the French Minister of Immigration came up with a (<snark>) brilliant (</snark>) idea: encourage illegal immigrants to snitch on their smugglers in exchange for legal temporary residency. Le Monde interviews sociologist Smaïn Laacher, a specialist on immigration, on the possible impacts and chances of success of this policy. As always, for Laacher, such a [...]

Via Historiann (again!), GayProf provides us with the decoder to students evaluation (NSFW): Center of Gravitas: Break the Code via kwout As they say, read the whole thing.

Does this ring a bell? "We feel compelled to report to the American people that the business and financial foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur— companies [...]

I have mentioned before that Stephanie Coontz is the only person worth reading when it comes to marriage and family issues, especially since she’s pretty much the only one with access to Big Media. Via Historiann, Stephanie Coontz has an op-ed in the New York Times today, on the impact of parenting on happiness. I [...]