Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews最新文献

{"title":"Afropolitan Projects: Redefining Blackness, Sexualities, and Culture from Houston to Accra","authors":"W. McKinney","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317","url":null,"abstract":"Crisscrossing the Atlantic between Accra and Houston, Anima Adjepong’s Afropolitan Projects: Redefining Blackness, Sexualities, and Culture from Houston to Accra offers a refreshing engagement with the quotidian practices and politics that enable a new generation of African migrants to find meaning and assert their place in the world. Adjepong’s examination of the emergent Afropolitan subjectivity through the experiences of interlocutors residing in Ghana and the United States challenges assumptions about the nature of diaspora and transnational migration within the African context. Afropolitan Projects recasts migration, its motivations, and its locales on both sides of the Atlantic and thoroughly breaks from the deep historical traumas of the Middle Passage epistemology and more contemporaneous framings that dichotomize African migrants into refugees and upwardly mobile opportunityseekers. Hence, Adjepong’s extensive ethnographic observations in Houston and Accra and critical analyses of material culture and political projects capture the centrality of aesthetics and assemblage of oftentimes contradictory ideologies of sexuality, race, and belonging. Afropolitan Projects is organized into three sections, with Chapters One and Two elaborating the experiences of Afropolitans residing in Houston, Chapters Three and Four focused on those living in Accra, and, finally, Chapters Five and Six tackling the careful negotiation of sexual, gender, race, and class politics in both settings. In Chapter One we are introduced to an ethnically diverse Ghanaian community residing in Houston. Adjepong demonstrates how their interlocutors disrupt disparaging representations of Africa and migrants by forming civic associations that showcase the vibrancy of their ethno-national heritage and alignment with neoliberal American values. Couched in a discourse that lauds diversity and middle-class valorization of work ethic, participation in civic associations adds meaning and structure to contemporary migration experiences and places Afropolitans within the urban Houston landscape. In Chapter Two, Adjepong focuses on the religious projects of the Houston-based Ghanaian community and the alignment of Ghanaian and American theological traditions. Adjepong reveals the limits of Afropolitan inclusivity through vignettes crafted from interviews and observations of outwardly secular organizations that nonetheless serve to restrict subjectivity within an overtly Christian valence, drawing attention to the exclusion of Muslims and sexual minorities. Beginning in Chapter Three, Adjepong pivots to Accra and engages the Afropolitan Ghanaians who chose to return to advance their careers, effect social change, and explore Afropolitan aesthetics in art and culture. To the Afropolitans residing in Accra, the city embodies contradictions that enable them to give form to their transnational subjectivity. Contradictions exist between universality and parochialism, progress and tradition","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"315 - 316"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47495480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns","authors":"Michele Wakin","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317f","url":null,"abstract":"Turkey’’ (p. 91). The new movements aim to help new immigrants, the homeless, and other disadvantaged groups. According to Ciftci, the Labor and Justice Platform and Anti-capitalist Muslims promote Islamic justice as their platform of resistance against government corruption. On the other hand, Ciftci’s interviews with Turkish youth show that they are primarily concerned with justice and feel that justice could be established in a secular democracy; yet their understanding of justice is strongly tied to Islam. The interview data reveal that Turkish youth express a belief in a just ruler who maintains fairness. Although Ciftci attempts to provide context for the variation in youth perspectives about democracy and justice, it is unclear why they value a secular democracy even though their vision of social justice is guided by Islam. Perhaps more context about their socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, gender, and religiosity variations could explain this. Also, since this is a discussion of youth perspectives, there also needs to be a reference to parental or family influence on their attitudes about democracy. Youth are highly impressionable, and more context about their social environment and demographic information would help to frame their perspectives. There seems to be an abrupt departure from the qualitative analysis of the Turkish case study in Chapters Seven and Eight, which take a different methodological and locational turn. Chapter Seven provides statistical data testing Muslims’ religiosity and support for democracy, and Chapter Eight provides a discussion of the Arab Spring and perceptions about justice in Muslim societies outside of Turkey. While these two chapters examine information about the variation in Muslim attitudes about democracy, they might provide more context for the analysis if the data were integrated with the qualitative data of the case study of Turkey rather than as separate chapters. This would make the data easier to follow and compare. Overall, Ciftci provides a focused and well-written account of Turkish experiences with democracy and justice. This book could be used in advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate-level courses on Islamic Studies or Political Sociology. Scholars could use this book to advance their research on Islamist movements and the revival of Islam in contemporary Muslim societies.","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"326 - 328"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44476202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"In Too Deep: Class and Mothering in a Flooded Community","authors":"Larry G. Morton II","doi":"10.1177/00943061231181317r","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231181317r","url":null,"abstract":"point to finish the paragraph discussing other studies that note that \"long driving\" impacts the liver and that there are health tolls. But then the focus in the following paragraph turns to 2019 ADA suits against Uber and Lyft. Maybe there are no answers to these questions. But since the researchers were at the NYTWA, perhaps someone in charge of the archives, or a New York City oncologist, could explain the potential link? Or perhaps they should not even raise the questions, just note that this document suggested that driving led to more considerable health concerns than previously expected? I also found the conclusion, subtitled \"Drivers in the Time of COVID-19,\" to be somewhat misleading. There’s much more focus on California’s AB-5, which presumed workers to be employees rather than independent contractors, and the resulting Proposition 22 (which created a third category of worker outside the dichotomy of 1099 and W-2 classification). AB-5 did go into effect at the start of 2020, but describing this chapter as focusing on the Covid impact—especially when there’s minimal mention of this—feels odd. There’s much more focus on the pandemic in Chapter Two, on financializing drivers’ lives, than in this final chapter. Those concerns aside, I found this book to be an interesting read that provides a unique framework for examining the exploitation of drivers’ labor—and selves—in the Uber economy.","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"350 - 351"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43432451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A DnaA-dependent riboswitch for transcription attenuation of the <i>his</i> operon.","authors":"Yuan Yao, Hongwei Sun, Wurihan, Gegeheng, Gezi, Kirsten Skarstad, Lifei Fan, Morigen","doi":"10.1002/mlf2.12075","DOIUrl":"10.1002/mlf2.12075","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Transcription attenuation in response to the availability of a specific amino acid is believed to be controlled by alternative configurations of RNA secondary structures that lead to the arrest of translation or the release of the arrested ribosome from the leader mRNA molecule. In this study, we first report a possible example of the DnaA-dependent riboswitch for transcription attenuation in <i>Escherichia coli</i>. We show that (i) DnaA regulates the transcription of the structural genes but not that of the leader <i>hisL</i> gene; (ii) DnaA might bind to rDnaA boxes present in the HisL-SL RNA, and subsequently attenuate the transcription of the operon; (iii) the HisL-SL RNA and rDnaA boxes are phylogenetically conserved and evolutionarily important; and (iv) the translating ribosome is required for deattenuation of the <i>his</i> operon, whereas tRNA^His strengthens attenuation. This mechanism seems to be phylogenetically conserved in Gram-negative bacteria and evolutionarily important.</p>","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"26 1","pages":"126-140"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10989985/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90543384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Untangling the Ties That Bind","authors":"R. Braunstein","doi":"10.1177/00943061231172094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231172094","url":null,"abstract":"Over the course of a career, sociologists study a wide range of phenomena. To an outsider, this may appear to reflect a scattershot approach to selecting research topics. But there is often a sociological throughline— a running theoretical concern or question that animates project after project, whether we recognize it or not. Each specific case allows the researcher to look upon that question from a new angle, like a jeweler appraising a cut gem. In Inventing the Ties That Bind: Imagined Relationships in Moral and Political Life, Francesca Polletta shows us her throughline—the theme that has run through her research on subjects ranging from the civil rights movement to a postSeptember 11 deliberative forum to debtsettlement agents. Chapter by chapter, she introduces readers to new cases, turning them like gems toward the light, so we can see each facet for ourselves. The argument that runs through the book is deceptively simple, but its implications are profound: as we enter new social interactions, we draw from a set of culturally familiar and recognizable relationship schemas in order to help us smoothly navigate the new setting. As Polletta writes, we ‘‘transpose the behavioral expectations of familiar relationships to new situations’’ (p. 5). These relationship schemas are distinct from the actual structure of our relations with others or the textured emotion of our specific relationships. They are templates for the kind of relationship one may have with a group: like family or friendship or coworkers or exchange partners. Each template prescribes the kind of communication that is appropriate (intimate and self-disclosing, say, or detached and formal), the expectations one can have of others, the proper distribution of roles and responsibilities, and the like. They serve, Polletta writes, ‘‘as a kind of moral compass, indicating the kind of behavior that was right and appropriate’’ (p. 9). Each schema is also historically specific: not only has the meaning of each kind of relationship evolved, but our ability to imagine certain relationship schemas as good fits for certain settings has also changed significantly over time. For example, imagine if your supervisor at a new job introduced you to your new colleagues by explaining, ‘‘we’re like a family here.’’ If you took her at her word, this may lead you to adopt a relatively informal style of interaction, to ask for and expect flexibility from colleagues, and to freely share personal information (and maybe even food from the communal fridge!). But perhaps this was just an offhand comment and not an accurate reflection of the group’s culture. Your colleagues may imagine themselves enmeshed in a very different kind of relationship—more like a sports team, perhaps, or a military unit. Each relationship schema carries different expectations. When people situate themselves within the same imagined relationship schema, this can facilitate group cohesion; but a mismatch between expectations can prod","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"199 - 202"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43631713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Social Side Effects of the Pill: “Gendered Compulsory Birth Control” and Reproductive Injustice","authors":"Jane Pryma","doi":"10.1177/00943061231172094c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231172094c","url":null,"abstract":"In the COVID-19 era, an old social problem has reemerged under new circumstances: whose bodies should bear the risk and responsibility of sustaining our social lives? Should we attempt a return to pre-mitigation-measures ‘‘normal,’’ if it places immunocompromised people at heightened risk? Does mandating vaccines infringe on individual rights, or does it ensure others’ rights to health by dampening rates of transmission? While the COVID-19 virus is new, the questions it raises about medical technologies, health justice, collective responsibility, and individual rights are not. The anti-vaccination movement’s genderblind call to protect bodily choice against COVID-19 vaccine mandates overlooks numerous public health initiatives that have enlisted women to bear the side effects of medical technologies that mitigate biological risks to others’ health and social wellbeing. The HPV vaccine, for instance, was promoted first in the United States for girls and young women, even as men are also carriers of and susceptible to the virus (Wailoo et al. 2010). Like vaccines, prescription contraceptive technologies come with potential risks and side effects, yet women are routinely asked to weather the discomfort of their use in the service of their sexual partnerships’ reproductive autonomy. Cultural beliefs about the rights enabled and constrained by medical technologies profoundly shape how people understand their bodily autonomy and responsibility. Krystale E. Littlejohn’s Just Get on the Pill: The Uneven Burden of Reproductive Politics exposes the gendered beliefs and practices around contraceptive technologies that inform public health approaches to reproductive rights but counterproductively impede reproductive justice. Prescription contraception, once primarily seen as a technology of women’s empowerment, has, beginning with Dorothy Roberts’s Killing the Black Body (1997), been shown to be a tool both of liberation and of social control. Birth control has a coercive history, especially for women of color, trans and nonbinary people, and those with disabilities. However, since Kristin Luker’s 1975 book Taking Chances: Abortion and the Decision Not to Contracept, few works have explored how women, in their own words, rationalize contraceptive decisions, making sense of birth control’s relationship to their autonomy, agency, and responsibility to others. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision underscores the relevance of critically examining who is held accountable for unintended pregnancy and how sexual partners navigate contraceptive decision-making. While published before the 2022 Dobbs decision, Just Get on the Pill provides timely interpretative analysis of the ways contraceptive technologies, and their use, reproduce cultural scripts around gendered behavior and responsibility, leading to gender inequities. As Littlejohn compellingly argues, Just Get on the Pill: The Uneven Burden of Reproductive Politi","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"211 - 214"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48673211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Residues: Thinking through Chemical Environments","authors":"S. Aguiton","doi":"10.1177/00943061231172096c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231172096c","url":null,"abstract":"‘‘Residues are the Anthropocene’’ (p. 15) is the provocative yet thoughtful statement that illustrates the proposition of the book Residues: Thinking through Chemical Environments, by Soraya Boudia, Angela Creager, Scott Frickel, Emmanuel Henry, Nathalie Jas, Carsten Reinhardt, and Jody Roberts. This short, fascinating, and stimulating essay invites us on an analytical and empirical journey to understand the ‘‘world-making power’’ (p. 123) of chemicals and their aftereffects in the long run, aftereffects that compare in scale and depth with anthropogenic climate change. Residues is written by seven prominent European and U.S. historians, sociologists, and Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars who specialize in the study of the material, social, and political life of chemicals. But the book is not an edited volume where each chapter is authored by one or two researchers: it is written as one consistent essay, which makes it a powerful intellectual proposition rather than a more classical collection of papers. It was made possible by a collaboration over a long period of time (since 2010), which brought the authors together in meetings and joint sessions at international conferences, and in writing workshops organized across the United States, France, and Germany. The book is organized in five sections. The introduction coins the concept ‘‘residues’’ and illustrates how it can contribute to environmental STS. The second chapter studies the legacy of residues, their persistence in time. The third chapter is dedicated to accretion, the geographies of residues, and their dissemination in space. The fourth chapter focuses on the apprehension of residues, the way they are made objects of knowledge and of concern by various social agents. Ultimately, the concluding chapter proposes ‘‘residual materialism’’ as a framework to study chemical environments. The introduction demonstrates that the bureaucratization of chemicals, which relies on quantification and data production from industrial and public bodies alike, can be understood as a form of regulatory inaction. Global chemical production figures are so high that they can be paralyzing, contributing to making regulation seem unreachable; while the regular dispute over the quality of data in regulatory circles can contribute to maintaining the status quo. To offer a new framework, the book theorizes the politics of chemicals with the concept of residues: deriving ‘‘from the Latin residuum, meaning ‘something remaining’ . . . the residues we follow in this book are at once a byproduct of extractive and industrial technology, history, and organization and also catalysts escaped from the lab, landfill, or the mine and urging into existence new biological, chemical, geological and sociotechnical worlds’’ (p. 8). This focus on residues has methodological implications, calling for innovative approaches to trace the chemical dispersion and its effects on material environments, bodily experiences, and in","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"225 - 227"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41717589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Policing Protest: The Post-Democratic State and the Figure of Black Insurrection","authors":"Deena A. Isom","doi":"10.1177/00943061231172096z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231172096z","url":null,"abstract":"that the U.S. 2020 election was fair and free, or even lose 10 stubborn pounds after going on an ice cream fast for six months, we can, perhaps, change how we feel about it all, if we just manufacture the ‘‘right’’ mindset of confidence. As Organ and Gill note, confidence is an affective technology of self, operating through emotions, feelings, and desires. It works by diverting people’s attention from institutional problems that are hard to solve to individual ones that we think we might be able to influence. For example, if after scrolling through a social media platform replete with fit influencers, we feel dumpy and ugly, messages that say ‘‘confidence is the new sexy,’’ ‘‘love your body,’’ and ‘‘feel confident in your own skin’’ sound right. Who doesn’t want to ‘‘feel comfortable’’ with oneself? But in addition to the fact that the path toward actually feeling better about oneself is not well articulated (how do I feel confident when I don’t feel confident?), these admonitions do nothing to change the root of the problem, which is that most media bodies are unnaturally thin and doctored. Similarly, each chapter carefully explores confidence messaging in a particular sphere: body image, at work, in sex and relationships, in mothering, and in a transnational context. Threaded throughout Confidence Culture are observations about the gendered quality of confidence messaging. In particular, the authors note how confidence messaging appropriates and then waters down feminist goals into something less political and thus less threatening to patriarchy. For example, it devolves equality and liberation to empowerment, sisterhood to friendship, and rage into passion. The authors conclude Confidence Culture by exploring a path ‘‘beyond confidence,’’ and especially the role of social justice in such an endeavor. They reiterate the main paradox of confidence messaging: that no matter how warm, loving, and encouraging it sounds, the foundational assumption of confidence culture is that people, particularly women, are to blame for their problems. The authors note, ‘‘the confidence cult redirects attention from the brutal effects of patriarchal capitalism to women’s ‘selfinflicted wounds’ and their responsibility for healing them . . . . women’s individual ‘toxic baggage’ is treated as self-generated and unconnected to a culture of normalized pathologization, objectification, surveillance, blame, and hate speech directed at women’’ (p. 144). Original and well argued, Confidence Culture is an essential intervention in feminist media scholarship by illuminating a new form of domination politics. To reiterate, contemporary exhortations to confidence are problematic not because the authors (or anyone) believe confidence is bad, but because they encourage individual solutions to social problems. By making visible the manipulations of confidence messaging, the authors have done much to clear some of the confusion it generates and help steer westerners away from pl","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"266 - 268"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44399942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Canada at a Crossroads: Boundaries, Bridges, and Laissez-Faire Racism in Indigenous-Settler Relations","authors":"Sofia Locklear","doi":"10.1177/00943061231172096g","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231172096g","url":null,"abstract":"well (especially their spatial and social locations within cities and within the movement), which was not always available and created some distance for the reader. The sense of detachment was also present in the first two chapters and the conclusion, where lots of direct quotes from other scholars and sources made the flow feel disrupted. Although as someone who is interested in space and protest dynamics, I appreciated the book’s spatial focus, it was at times hard to follow the author’s approach to spatial dynamics. For instance, at the beginning, the book seems to attend to space as an important element of social activism, and not merely activism that is entirely about spatial politics. Later in the book, however, almost all examples of movement spaces and spatial tactics are related to movements that are primarily or entirely focused on the right to the city type of issues. Furthermore, the complexities of the relation between movement scenes and movements’ outcomes could be discussed in a more nuanced way. As one example, Creasap mentions that during her fieldwork, urban processes in Malmö mirrored those that Stockholm and Göteborg went through decades before—mainly getting rid of the working-class neighborhoods through development and gentrification and, consequently, displacing long-term residents and activists. She introduces the concepts of ‘‘fragile’’ and ‘‘fledging’’ scenes in Stockholm and Göteborg respectively and explains how these scenes are spread out, lack centrality, connectivity, and visibility, and thus, are less influential compared to the scene observed in Malmö. Creasap implies that the fragile and fledging scenes are results of the demise of social movements that tried (but failed?) to preserve space in Stockholm and Göteborg, which in turn makes them less influential at the time of research. While her discussion of how these dynamics impact orientation to the future and forging solidarities was compelling, it was harder to see the movement scenes weaknesses as only spatial (and a measure of centrality, connectivity, and visibility) and not more broadly related to current urban politics and movements’ position within current power structures. Overall, the book is an important reminder of how considering and studying movement scenes (or more broadly, movements’ spatial and temporal dynamics) can enhance our understanding of social movements, activism, and urban contexts. The movements of the past decade, including the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement, among others, have shown us once again the importance of physical spaces. The book can help in thinking through these spatial dynamics in a more global context, something that in the last paragraph of her book Creasap rightfully calls our attention to.","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"232 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42496014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Latinas on the Line: Invisible Information Workers in Telecommunications","authors":"Sharla N. Alegria","doi":"10.1177/00943061231172096jj","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231172096jj","url":null,"abstract":"and candidates, accidently or otherwise. Importantly, the authors find that these participatory boosts were not limited to ideological extremes, nor did they favor the center-left or center-right. The proverbial rising tide lifted all ships. Finally, they find that the national context has mixed results on the relationship between social media and political participation. For example, they find that the effects of electoral mobilization efforts via social media are larger on users’ participation in partycentric political systems than candidatecentric ones. However, they also find that the structure of the media system didn’t always influence political participation. In the concluding chapter of the book, the authors grapple with what their results mean for democratic theory and democracy. There are no easy answers here, and the chapter is worth a close read. The overriding message, however, is that we can exhale and perhaps wring our hands less vigorously. Social media aren’t just toxic bubbles filled with content that radicalizes the most politically extreme among us. For the average user, social media offer a diverse and rich political information ecosystem in which most users—one way or another—will be exposed to political ideas. If anything, there is reason to be optimistic about the role of social media in political participation because it reduces participation gaps by engaging the disconnected and giving them a voice in democratic processes. Hopefully, other researchers will follow Vaccari and Valeriani’s lead and focus less on the political extremes and more on average social media users, who constitute the bulk of the citizenry. Latinas on the Line: Invisible Information Workers in Telecommunications, by Melissa Villa-Nicholas. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2022. 158 pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9781978813717.","PeriodicalId":46889,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews","volume":"52 1","pages":"285 - 287"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47524878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}