Rough sketch of annotation, not finished.
Three basic reactions to roommate troubles: managerial, complaint-making, and punitive.
Response in general: interactionally constituted when a troubled party takes some action to manage or change the troubling situation.
Limited use of exit because departure date is already set.
Roommate relationships are usually non-hierarchical. Sense of obligation to "get along"
1. Managerial: unilateral, carried out by troubled party, seek either to change conditions giving rise to trouble or develop way of living with or around trouble.
2. Complaint-making: bilateral, troubled party proposed that the other undertake some action to rememdy problem, contingent on the troubling party's response.
3. PUNITIVE--after concern for "getting along" is abandoned, troubled party seeks to distance or punish troubling party, either directly expressed alienation and hostility and usually returned similar attitude/response.
These three response are "ideal types"
Three different kinds of managerial responses: self-directed changes, efforts to manage the consequences of the discontent-producing situation, and unilateral rememdial efforts to prevent the trouble from recurring. "Preventitive measures" Short term withdrawal, changing habits.
Why don't they work? They may be invisible or low visibility to troubling party. When are they used? Usually in the beginning. Also when confrontation or direct complaints failed to produce change in troubling part's behavior. Later in the game, these managerial responses are more visible as signs of discontent.
Complaint making. Can take form of sarcastic comments, a request, proposal, or demand. Seeking to prevent troubling behavior in the future, either by setting a precedent or making demands clear. Success or failure depends on the response of troubling party. Successful outcomes are NOT guaranteed. Complex response cycles. Modulated accusations: "presenting discontents cautiously and politely and framing requests for change mildly in ways that minimized direct accusation of blame and wrongdoing." Anticipation that out-and-out accusation would lead to confrontation. Troublemaker must be eased, convinced, persuaded. Must be properly framed--not as an expression of misery, etc. but as a "heart-to-heart appeal to save their relationship." (502) Therapeutic--"neutral, therapy-like terms."
Punitive. Systematic exclusion, avoidance. "situational withdrawal and other managerial responses were generally isolated to one specific trouble area, leaving the overall relationship with the other more or less intact, systematic avoidance involved persistent tension and CONTROLLED RESENTMENT pervading all aspects of the relationship. Abandon efforts to remedy the trouble. Not simply to harm but also to deter. (Needles in mattress)
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Myth of the Ticking Time Bomb: Home Security
Last week, vlogger Sarah Haskins examined a ticking time bomb myth pertaining specifically to women: the myth of never being safe from an attacker. She looks at this in the way it is made into a marketable product which women feel compelled to buy protection from, lest they therefore allow themselves and their "young, innocent-looking daughter" to be assaulted by the ever-lurking intruder:
Hulu - infoMania: Broadview Security
Source: www.hulu.com
Video description: Dear Women: You are never safe. Seriously. We mean it. Hugs n' kisses, Broadview Security
Unfortunately, I can't post the video clip here--you'll just have to click it yourself. Anyway, let's talk about the norms the clip illuminates and the claimsmaking the commercial relies on. First norm--strangers are dangerous, and if you are a woman alone, they're up to only one thing--planning to assault you. Women are in constant danger of becoming victims of violence--or who knows what else! This leads us to norm number two--women need to be protected, and not just at any cost--at their own personal expense of $99 a month. The commercial presents spending the $99 for the alarm system as totally necessary, part of being a normal, responsible woman and/or mother. To not "ensure" the protection of yourself and/or your family would be reprehensible, deviant. Norm number three (which I almost referred to as my least favorite, but decided I am pretty disgusted with all of them) is that of heterosexuality as the returner of order. Haskins makes the Broadview phone call hilarious by pointing out its absurdity, but the message is clear in the commercial--the alarm frightens the burglar/intruder/potential rapist/etc. off, but peace and quiet is only restored when the "Broadview hunk" comes into the picture.
Claimsmaking--this scenario is only possible because of the "Stranger Danger" made present in our cultural imagination
Hulu - infoMania: Broadview Security
Source: www.hulu.com
Video description: Dear Women: You are never safe. Seriously. We mean it. Hugs n' kisses, Broadview Security
Unfortunately, I can't post the video clip here--you'll just have to click it yourself. Anyway, let's talk about the norms the clip illuminates and the claimsmaking the commercial relies on. First norm--strangers are dangerous, and if you are a woman alone, they're up to only one thing--planning to assault you. Women are in constant danger of becoming victims of violence--or who knows what else! This leads us to norm number two--women need to be protected, and not just at any cost--at their own personal expense of $99 a month. The commercial presents spending the $99 for the alarm system as totally necessary, part of being a normal, responsible woman and/or mother. To not "ensure" the protection of yourself and/or your family would be reprehensible, deviant. Norm number three (which I almost referred to as my least favorite, but decided I am pretty disgusted with all of them) is that of heterosexuality as the returner of order. Haskins makes the Broadview phone call hilarious by pointing out its absurdity, but the message is clear in the commercial--the alarm frightens the burglar/intruder/potential rapist/etc. off, but peace and quiet is only restored when the "Broadview hunk" comes into the picture.
Claimsmaking--this scenario is only possible because of the "Stranger Danger" made present in our cultural imagination
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies--Annotations!
Garfinkel, Harold. 1956. "Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies." The American Journal of Sociology 5: 420-424
This essay names and analyzes a ritual event--the degradation ceremony. Not only does the reader learn what a degradation ceremony is, but Garfinkel instructs us how to best conduct one. This is a ritual which can be found in all moralized societies--in other words, pretty much every society!
The social control "suburb" degradation ceremonies are part of is that of moral indignation. Moral indignation is instigated by public denunciations, which serve to reinforce group identity and solidarity, unity. Garfinkel compares it to a secular kind of communion--everyone partakes in it, the body of the subject of degradation is consumed to reinstate the wholeness of the group identity.
Essentially, the successful degradation ceremony results in a transformation of the total identity of a former group member. The event or offense and the subject of the degradation are made to be one and the same, totally negating the degradation subject as capable of being a member of the group.
One of the most important aspects of the successful degradation ceremony is that the denouncer must not use authority as an individual, but must speak as a member of the group--thus appealing to the collective values. That the group values (not just individual) have been violation by the degradation subject places him/her securely outside of the group.
The outcomes of the degradation ceremony will vary depending on prestige dynamics and participants, but the article lays out some pretty fool-proof guidelines. These guidelines (Garfinkel tells us in what is a little bit of a surprise ending) can also be used to dismantle and do away with the degradation ceremony.
This essay names and analyzes a ritual event--the degradation ceremony. Not only does the reader learn what a degradation ceremony is, but Garfinkel instructs us how to best conduct one. This is a ritual which can be found in all moralized societies--in other words, pretty much every society!
The social control "suburb" degradation ceremonies are part of is that of moral indignation. Moral indignation is instigated by public denunciations, which serve to reinforce group identity and solidarity, unity. Garfinkel compares it to a secular kind of communion--everyone partakes in it, the body of the subject of degradation is consumed to reinstate the wholeness of the group identity.
Essentially, the successful degradation ceremony results in a transformation of the total identity of a former group member. The event or offense and the subject of the degradation are made to be one and the same, totally negating the degradation subject as capable of being a member of the group.
One of the most important aspects of the successful degradation ceremony is that the denouncer must not use authority as an individual, but must speak as a member of the group--thus appealing to the collective values. That the group values (not just individual) have been violation by the degradation subject places him/her securely outside of the group.
The outcomes of the degradation ceremony will vary depending on prestige dynamics and participants, but the article lays out some pretty fool-proof guidelines. These guidelines (Garfinkel tells us in what is a little bit of a surprise ending) can also be used to dismantle and do away with the degradation ceremony.
Easter and Passover: On Calendars and Group Identity--Annotations!
Zerubavel, Eviatar. 1982. "Easter and Passover: On Calendars and Group Identity." American Sociological Review 2: 284-289.
Zerubavel's article posits that the dates of Easter and Passover specifically have less to do with the significance of the actual dates and everything to do with the segregation of the two holy days from each other. Calendrical differences serve to solidify group identity, as similarity among group members alone cannot accomplish this.
The paper traces historically the controversy surrounding the establishment of Easter and Passover dates to the present, a set-up which ensures that the two holidays will never coincide any closer than a full day apart. This ensured distinction preserves the separate identities of the two social groups--the dates are not arbitrary, they contrast each other purposefully.
The most central idea in the text is that this calendrical difference is symbolic. Calendars regulate the collective memory of social groups, and that different social groups have different calendars is important and essential to maintaining separate group identities.
Zerubavel's article posits that the dates of Easter and Passover specifically have less to do with the significance of the actual dates and everything to do with the segregation of the two holy days from each other. Calendrical differences serve to solidify group identity, as similarity among group members alone cannot accomplish this.
The paper traces historically the controversy surrounding the establishment of Easter and Passover dates to the present, a set-up which ensures that the two holidays will never coincide any closer than a full day apart. This ensured distinction preserves the separate identities of the two social groups--the dates are not arbitrary, they contrast each other purposefully.
The most central idea in the text is that this calendrical difference is symbolic. Calendars regulate the collective memory of social groups, and that different social groups have different calendars is important and essential to maintaining separate group identities.
Artist Activism in Response to Guantanamo
Back in September 2006, an artist group called the Wooster collective set up a life-sized Guantanamo inmate outside of the Rocky Mountain Railroad ride in Disneyland. The doll was only left up for one hour before security removed it.
So what does this art do? How did it disrupt the reigning discourses about torture? I really like the idea of exhibiting this image right in the middle of an amusement park. It certainly creates a spectacle--it really deflates the magic of Disney! I think that this art definitely suggests asking the kind of questions Mark Danner's article renders necessary. The viewer/Disneyland-goer is face-to-face with what torture looks like. The dehumanization of the torture subject is pretty evident--is such dehumanization necessary to gain "intelligence"? The Guantanamo doll shows what national security policies look like when played out on human bodies, something no longer made as public as punishment has moved away from public spectacle.
http://www.woostercollective.com/2006/09/breaking_the_story_disneyland_doesnt_wan.html
The Red Cross Torture Report--Annotations!
Danner, Mark. 2009. "The Red Cross Torture Report: What it Means." The New York Review of Books 7: 1-19
This article responds to and analyzes the International Committee of the Red Cross's report on the treatment of the fourteen "high value detainees." It uses the report to talk about the discourses around torture in the United States in general and looks at torture as something not just particular to events with the last few years, but a policy and practice with a long history.
Danner locates torture policies implemented during the Bush administration within a politics of fear--a way of thinking which values what could have happened. This way of thinking centralizes national security as something which must be protected at any cost. Such a mentality is contrasted with President Obama's measurements of the effects of torture--that the torture of these detainees and all others in the wake of 9/11 has deeply shamed the US political image and caused hatred of the US--in essence, has produced more danger.
The article makes explicit that torture is not something unique to the US or Bush administration. That the US government has carried out torture policies, Danner asserts, should not be something new to Americans--the basic storyline has been disclosed for for years. Despite these disclosures and the obvious and proven evidence that the treatment of these detainees was illegal and in violation of Geneva Convention laws, many news sources and government figures maintain that torture was used for protection of national security and needed to be done.
These conflicting ideologies and ways of measuring facts will perpetually make circles around each other and lead to repeating the same process of torture, exposure, scandal, etc. Something different must be done if torture policy is ever going to be changed. For a real policy change, Danner concludes, there must be a genuine bipartisan effort to answer two main questions about the torture of these detainees: 1) Was it necessary? and 2) Did it work?
Only after this information is collected and judged can society disrupt the myths which facilitate an acceptance of torture (i.e., the "ticking bomb" myth) and can the secrecy which surrounds torture and authorizes its use be made transparent.
This article responds to and analyzes the International Committee of the Red Cross's report on the treatment of the fourteen "high value detainees." It uses the report to talk about the discourses around torture in the United States in general and looks at torture as something not just particular to events with the last few years, but a policy and practice with a long history.
Danner locates torture policies implemented during the Bush administration within a politics of fear--a way of thinking which values what could have happened. This way of thinking centralizes national security as something which must be protected at any cost. Such a mentality is contrasted with President Obama's measurements of the effects of torture--that the torture of these detainees and all others in the wake of 9/11 has deeply shamed the US political image and caused hatred of the US--in essence, has produced more danger.
The article makes explicit that torture is not something unique to the US or Bush administration. That the US government has carried out torture policies, Danner asserts, should not be something new to Americans--the basic storyline has been disclosed for for years. Despite these disclosures and the obvious and proven evidence that the treatment of these detainees was illegal and in violation of Geneva Convention laws, many news sources and government figures maintain that torture was used for protection of national security and needed to be done.
These conflicting ideologies and ways of measuring facts will perpetually make circles around each other and lead to repeating the same process of torture, exposure, scandal, etc. Something different must be done if torture policy is ever going to be changed. For a real policy change, Danner concludes, there must be a genuine bipartisan effort to answer two main questions about the torture of these detainees: 1) Was it necessary? and 2) Did it work?
Only after this information is collected and judged can society disrupt the myths which facilitate an acceptance of torture (i.e., the "ticking bomb" myth) and can the secrecy which surrounds torture and authorizes its use be made transparent.
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