How do you tell the difference between a “good kid” and a “potential thug”? In Dangerous or Endangered? , Jennifer Tilton considers the ways in which children are increasingly viewed as dangerous and yet, simultaneously, as endangered and in need of protection by the state.Tilton draws on three years of ethnographic research in Oakland, California, one of the nation’s most racially diverse cities, to exam ...
Images of diamonds appear everywhere in Americanculture. And everyone who has a diamond has a story to tell about it. Ourstories about diamonds not only reveal what we do with these tinystones, but also suggest how we create value, meaning, and identity through ourinteractions with material culture in general. Things become meaningful through our interactions with them, but how dopeople go about making meaning? What can we learn from an ethnogr ...
Examines why African care workers feel politically excluded from the United States Care for America’s growing elderly population is increasingly provided by migrants, and the demand for health care labor is only expected to grow. Because of this health care crunch and the low barriers to entry, new African immigrants have adopted elder care as a niche employment sector, funneling their friends and relatives into this occupation. Ho ...
An ethnographic investigation into the dynamics between space and security in countries around the world It is difficult to imagine two contexts as different as a soccer stadium and a panic room. Yet, they both demonstrate dynamics of the interplay between security and space. This book focuses on the infrastructures of security, considering locations as varied as public entertainment venues to border walls to blast-proof bedrooms. Around t ...
The troubling dynamic of the American home care industry where increased independence for the elderly conflicts with the well being of caregivers [b][/b]Paid home care is one of the fastest growing occupations in the United States, and millions of Americans rely on these workers to help them remain at home as they grow older. However, the industry is rife with contradictions. The United States spends a fortune on medical care, yet devotes comp ...
An intellectual history of America's water management philosophy Humans take more than their geological share of water, but they do not benefit from it equally. This imbalance has created an era of intense water scarcity that affects the security of individuals, states, and the global economy. For many, this brazen water grab and the social inequalities it produces reflect the lack of a coherent philosophy connecting people to the planet ...
When Joe Biden attempted to compliment Barack Obama by calling him “clean and articulate,” he unwittingly tapped into one of the most destructive racial stereotypes in American history. This book tells the history of the corrosive idea that whites are clean and those who are not white are dirty. From the age of Thomas Jefferson to the Memphis Public Workers strike of 1968 through the present day, ideas about race and waste ha ...
A new vocabulary for Disability Studies Keywords for Disability Studies aims to broaden and define the conceptual framework of disability studies for readers and practitioners in the field and beyond. The volume engages some of the most pressing debates of our time, such as prenatal testing, euthanasia, accessibility in public transportation and the workplace, post-traumatic stress, and questions about the beginning and end of life.Each of the ...
Wal-Mart is America’s largest retailer. The national chain of stores is a powerful stand-in of both the promise and perils of free market capitalism. Yet it is also often the target of public outcry for its labor practices, to say nothing of class-action lawsuits, and a central symbol in America’s increasingly polarized political discourse over consumption, capitalism and government regulations. In many ways the battle over W ...
