The Global Sociology Blog

Via Kerim Friedman (again!), Brahmins and Untouchables at Google: Workers Leaving the Googleplex from Andrew Norman Wilson on Vimeo. As the post notes, “In September 2007 I was hired jointly by Transvideo Studios and Google, both headquartered in Mountain View California. Transvideo had a contract with Google and took care of 100% of their video [...]

Via Africa is a Country (a site you should bookmark), get your puke bag: Yup, it is the South African version of “Real Housewives of (Wherever)”. “In Helen Zille’s Western Cape, MTV is currently filming, “Clifton Shores,” a reality TV series about a group of mostly white, young people (four Americans and three South Africans [...]

So, I was reading this the other day: “The women of the US military will still be wearing trousers, but from now on they might actually fit. In a move which highlights the changing nature of traditional gender roles, the Pentagon is road testing its first ever range of combat uniforms designed specifically for female [...]

As many US states prepare to take away the rights of women, and as a British PM makes a sexist ass of himself, look at what is happening in supposedly less enlightened countries. Item 1: “Rwanda is today launching a cervical cancer vaccination programme for all its 12 to 15 year-old girls – the first [...]

Holy !@#$. Seriously. I guess this is the next stage in the controversy that followed the World Cup fiasco (which was discussed here). The political fall-out is this: it’s the Blacks and the Arabs that caused the mess in South Africa. There are too many of them in the French national team. Let’s impose a [...]

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending a speech by über-feminist Susan Faludi of Backlash and The Terror Dream fame (if you haven’t read these books, then, what are you waiting for?). So, here is what I got from her speech. Faludi started with the assertion that everyone acknowledges that feminism is successful. Liberals would [...]

Of course, this should be called “keep the brown-skinned people out of white Europe”, but let’s just call it a revision of the Schengen border treaty. It sounds much nicer. It is no surprise that this is proposed by France’s Sarkozy and Italy’s Berlusconi. It is one thing to cheer on the revolutions in the [...]

I think this (French) website is a great idea. After all, common discourse, especially in the US, is that women who have had abortions should cower in shame, never speak of it, or only speak of it that the most terrible decision they’ve ever made, and how horrible they felt about it, etc. Well, these [...]

It has been a while since I was able to dig up a few socblogs from around the world, but thanks to the strong presence of Brazilian sociologists on Twitter, I have a couple: Caminhos da sociedade | Blog de Ciências Sociais via kwout Which, I guess would translate into “sociological paths“ And then, Observatório [...]

First, read this: “Female genital mutilation (FGM) horrifies – and bewilders – westerners who find it incomprehensible that a mother would allow her daughter to be so brutally amputated with all the risks of infection, difficult childbirth and deprivation of sexual pleasure. What this film does is to show how custom – even when violent [...]

Via Mashable:

A few days ago, Antonio Casilli wrote this: “Who wants to appropriate the so-called « eHealth revolution » and put it to commercial use? Just have a read through this scary bit of pharmacom fireside chat freshly published on The Pharmaceutical Executive Magazine website – then we’ll talk. The Empowered Patient – Pharmaceutical Executive Thus spoke Sarah [...]

Via Kerim Friedman, a list of items found on specific McDonald’s menus in different parts of the world. For instance: Korokke Burger in Japan McRice Burger in Malaysia McPaneer Wrap in India As Kerim notes, it is a good example of cultural globalization. Actually, as I wrote on my website, it is a good illustration [...]

This is a sad day for sociology as we hear of the death of Harold Garfinkel. I had a love/hate relationship with Harold Garfinkel’s work. Studies in Ethnomethodology had a profound influence on my sociological education, but man, was that book a pain to read, especially at a time when there was no French translation [...]

So long, Sarah Jane Smith. SJS (as brilliantly portrayed by Elisabeth Sladen, RIP) was the best early companion to the Doctor because she was not a naive young thing. She didn’t just run around, shouting “Doctor, watch out!” or “Doctor, look!” throughout the episodes. She was the one and true precursor to Rose Tyler, Martha [...]