The Global Sociology Blog

This is one of the very first things that students should learn in a sociology class (and the first paragraph of the first part of The Craft of Sociology): “The sociologist’s struggle with spontaneous sociology is never finally won, and he must conduct unending polemics against the blinding self-evidences which all too easily provide the [...]

Via Global Guerrillas, flash mob gone wrong… the point they all seem to miss? It was all because some dudes tried to bully a woman into performing for them. Funny how gender gets mostly evacuated from this story:

Don’t say you weren’t warned: “Information commissioner Christopher Graham is pressing ministers for new privacy safeguards in the wake of a report that suggests moves towards a surveillance society are expanding and intensifying. The study by the Surveillance Studies Network (SSN), which was requested by the Commons home affairs committee, is an update to their findings in [...]

Via The Pew Research Center: And restrictions by region: Nice graphs but they lack some crucial information (which would probably have to be plotted differently, for sure) regarding which religion is dominant in which countries and the state of minority religions. The government might not be the most hostile entity to religious minorities, but rather [...]

My students have been working on this: And then, there is this: “RAS AL KHAIMAH, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — As free economic zones grow in size and number across the globe, they are increasingly popular spots for illicit trade. Counterfeiting and money laundering can flourish in these zones, typically manufacturing and warehousing sites near ports [...]

Via the EPI:

[Disclaimer: I am an Android owner but I also have an iPad, wifi only.] You are what smartphone you own. It is yet another status signal that creates identification (in-group processes) and categorization (out-group definition). The fierce attacks in comment sections of technology websites attest to the strength of such identifications and categorizations. Smartphones have [...]

(Via) Click on the link and enjoy the interactive map: Median U.S. Household Income by State – US News and World Report via kwout

Since apparently, the culture of poverty argument (AKA: let’s blame the poor for their poverty based on their “culture”, meaning, they’re lazy, promiscuous, violent and lack self-control in temper, food and sex), I think The Real Doctor Phil has a point when he analyzes the zombie movie genre as reflection of bourgeois fear of the [...]

Interesting. I would call that countering the F!@# You conception of control. I look forward to reading the book by sociologist Lisa Dodson: “As Newton resident Lisa Dodson, a Boston College sociology professor in the thick of a research project, was interviewing a grocery story manager in the Midwest about the difficulties of the low-income [...]

Andre Gunther, over at L’Atelier Des Icônes, has a great post on visual collective representations using this as an example: For those of you unfamiliar with French culture, the painting on the left is the classical Marianne representation by Delacroix (1831), Freedom guiding The People (Marianne being the French icon, symbolizing France). The middle image [...]

So, it’s that time of the year when the new UN Human Development Report (2010) comes out, with its recent measurement and trends. Some of this stuff is never truly surprising, such as the overall rankings: Since the 1970s, the trends have been dramatic by regions. We can see who “lost” decades and who the [...]

“Dissolve” from their 2010 album Further.

Via the EPI (I can’t wait for their annual State of Working America Report):

This is not a new idea coming from Richard Sennett. He already wrote about that very topic in The Corrosion of Character. Like many other analysts, Sennett notes that Obama made a significant mistake when he did not make job creation and reducing precarization a priority of his administration (the interview was conducted before the [...]