My first year of graduate school was rough. Really rough. I had a hard time transitioning and moving from an undergraduate institution that I loved to a school (though I love it now) that was no where near the top of my list of schools I wanted to attend. To make matters worse, when I sought out advice from other graduate students, there was no place, no sense of community, for the graduate students to gather and discuss. When I...
Within the last decade, the grain quinoa has emerged as an alleged “super food” in western dietary practices. Health food stores and upscale grocery chains have isles dedicated to varieties of quinoa, packaged under many different brand labels, touting it to be a nutritional goldmine. A simple Google search of the word “quinoa” returns pages of results with buzzwords like “healthiest”, “organic” and “wholesome.” Vegan and health-enthusiast subcultures swear by this expensive food product, and the Food and Agricultural Organization...
When ‘A’ claims they invented ‘X’ as a sociologist of technology my default position is often to respond with scepticism: as I did when I saw this picture above. I understand why Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf would claim they invented the World Wide Web and the Internet respectively. The status of inventor gives each of them a public plinth from which they can discuss how they think digital technology should be mobilised for the benefit of society....
They’re back! All four of the original cast members of Teen Mom are returning to MTV. Their return is being heavily promoted by US Magazine, TV Guide, and People Magazine. For fans (and researchers!) it’s a super big deal. It’s a big deal primarily because Farrah chose to return. You know Farrah right – the adult entertainment star who works for Adult Video News (AVN)? Rumor has it that the producers had to do a lot of convincing to get...
(Source:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Demonstrations_and_protests_in_support_of_LGBT#/media/File:Russian_Embassy_in_Helsinki,_LGBT_pavement.jpg) In an age where millennials are starting to take primacy in the visibility of political change and its climate, especially in regards to LGBTQ advancements, the older LGBTQ generations are realizing that soon enough the millennials will need to take command of their political positions. Many of the older LGBTQ generations have been trailblazers from the start of an era known as the long 1960’s: having been there at the Stonewall riots, to now holding office positions in politics...
Is cash on the way out? In my own daily routines, I find myself using coins and notes less and less, to the point when I am often stuck for a pound coin to use the lockers at the swimming pool, or I audibly ‘tut’ when shopkeepers tell me there’s a charge for using my card. I just don’t carry cash very often. In fact, I don’t even physically use my debit card very often. I’ve got so used to...
Have you read the recent New York Times article about Bruce Jenner and about their transition? While their gender identity is not yet confirmed, media has picked up this story and gone wild with the concept of olympian turned family millionaire turned media star is now “turning” into a woman. Every time, however, that I read a new headline about this story, I get shivers up and down my spine, not to mention the amount of pure rage and disappointment...
Sweet Briar College’s Board of directors announced last week that the college will close its doors at the end of the 2014-2015 academic year. Sweet Briar is a liberal art’s women’s college located outside of Lynchburg, Virginia. Current enrollment is estimated at around 700 students. 300 faculty serve those students and the faculty to student ratio is listed as 8:1. Rising tuition rates and declining enrollments were the reasons cited for the demise of the prominent women’s college. As...
(Source:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gay_wedding_a_by_Stefano_Bolognini.JPG) What is love? Does everyone understand love as how Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines it? Starting from birth, everyone is taught to love: whether it is a family member, the family pet or a close friend. However, we are never socialized how to love an individual not related by kinship. Amorous love between two individuals is more like a trail and error process. Yet, American society would have one think falling in love is as easy as one, two, three: one...
On paper, it had all the makings of a perfect scandal – tax evasion aided by a household-name bank, the prime minister dishing out jobs to his City friends, bankers dishing out parcels of untraceable banknotes to account holders in Zurich. But, somehow, the story of HSBC’s Swiss banking arm’s ‘dodgy’ dealings let the genie out of the lamp ever-so-briefly, only for it to be sucked it again in no time at all. That particular scandal of money and politics...
Recently I returned to Quito after a short trip to the UK, where I attended the aptly named CAOS (the Centre for the Anthropology of Sustainability) conference at UCL. I also got some much needed guidance from my supervisors (Dr Evan Killick and Professor James Fairhead), and spent some wonderful time with friends and family, who I have dearly missed while I have been away on my fieldwork. While I was there, a close friend told me he had been...
In 2007, Sue introduced the idea of microaggressions- small remarks or statements that carry harmful, derogatory, and/ or discriminatory implications against a group of individuals based on their identity, whether or not those implications are intended or not. Initially this concept was utilized to understand racial microaggressions, but in 2011 Kevin Nadal applied the microaggression framework to sexual orientation. While the concept of microaggressions first appeared in the counseling field, social scientists have begun to utilize this concept to understand...
Image by Omaranabulsi https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nairobi_-_Wikipedia_Zero_-_258A0439.jpg I visited Nepal earlier this year. It was my first visit since three years earlier and I was completely taken aback by just how many people appeared to own a smartphone: even in remote areas of the country that are some of the least developed regions of the world. Upon some research, my suspicions that mobile devices are the fastest spreading technology in developing countries were confirmed. I did wonder the extent to which cell phones can...
It can be pretty difficult, sometimes, to justify your commitment to ‘ethnographic’ methods. Partly, perhaps, because most people don’t quite know what being ethnographic means. But also because ‘being ethnographic’ is often devalued by the very people with whom British social scientists are increasingly encouraged to engage as part of the ‘Impact’ agenda. I do not think I am alone among doctoral students in having struggled to explain to the ‘technical’ and policy experts I encountered during my research quite...
‘They’, we are told, are prime movers we can observe to spot future trends; like rejecting Facebook. ‘They’ have too much agency because they are doing something problematic or exotic: different to ‘us’. For example, sexting or hacking. Or ‘they’ have too little agency because they are addicted, being brainwashed or radicalised by the Internet. ‘They’ are teenagers. We are not similarly fixated by other social groups in this way. What lies behind our obsession with teenagers online?
This article is making its way through my news feed again, despite the fact that it is more than 2 years old. Fresh comments, fresh outrage from the community. Students experiencing race-based standards give interviews on NPR about how these standards make them feel and think while they are inside the classroom. To date my favorite casual observational comment about having different standards for different sets of students based on their race is, “based upon their race? The only race...
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Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy
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