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社會學·國際頂刊

Sociological Research Online

最新目錄與摘要

期刊簡介

SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ONLINE

Sociological Research Online（簡稱SRO）是經同行評審的國際期刊，旨在促進社會學研究者之間迅速展開不限制主題和方法的交流。該期刊發表高質量的應用社會學研究，重點關注理論、實證和方法的討論，也會涉及對當前政治、文化和思想議題的辯論。SRO發表的文章將社會學分析方法應用于公眾和個人關切的問題，展現了社會學研究和理論所具有的廣泛的社會相關性及其對理解當代社會問題的重要意義。

Sociological Research Online 為季刊，最新一期（Volume 29 Issue 4, December 2024）分為“Articles”“Sociology in Action”“Beyond the text”“Book Reviews”“SRO Thank You to Referees 2024”五個欄目，共計23篇文章，詳情如下。

原版目錄

SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ONLINE

原文摘要

SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ONLINE

Articles

Between Breaking Bad and Big Brother: Social Class and Television Preferences in Croatia

Kre?imir Krolo, ?eljka Tonkovi?, Dina Vozab

This article addresses TV preferences as a marker of class divisions both as a type of embodied cultural capital and as a pattern of consumption within the local and global cultural structure in Croatia. Data analysis is extracted from the survey ‘Social Stratification in Croatia: Structural and Subjective Aspects’, conducted on a nationally probabilistic sample of adult Croatian citizens. Factor analysis discovered two main dimensions of television preferences: reality spectacle and foreign fiction preferences, which were recognised as indicators of localised and globalised culture preferences. Further analysis established that these factors are also structured along the class positions of the respondents. Using multiple regression analysis, data suggest the conclusion that the working class prefers TV content in the domestic language and heavy on popular entertainment programming (soap operas, talent, and reality shows). However, the dominant class repudiate ‘lowbrow’ TV content, which highlights class divisions in the cultural field. The analysis sheds light not only on how class positions structure these preferences but also on the important role of age, gender, and music taste play in the formation of television preferences.

Independent Celebrant-Led Wedding Ceremonies: Translating, Tweaking, and Innovating Traditions

Sharon Blake, Rebecca Probert, Tania Barton, Rajnaara Akhtar

This article explores ceremonial design of independent celebrant-led wedding ceremonies in England and Wales. It draws on a qualitative study which involved focus groups with celebrants and interviews with individuals who have had an independent celebrant-led wedding ceremony. Six factors are described which influenced how couples translated and tweaked traditions or innovated ceremonial elements: faith, heritage, values, kin, informality, and temporality. In line with a bricolage process, it is suggested that the keeping of and minor adaption of traditions through the personalisation offered by independent celebrant-led wedding ceremonies may support inclusion of relationship practices such as interfaith couplings and blended families. Examples of kinship display-work and self-display-work were found throughout participant accounts of their wedding ceremonies. It is proposed that both may act as an important means by which the needs of individuals for whom a religious or belief framework is not prioritised over other contexts of identification can be met in a wedding ceremony. Further research is needed to explore the transferability of these findings to larger samples, as well as specific sub-populations.

Hoof Work: The Feminisation of Donkeys in Ethiopia

Martha Rose Geiger

This article explores how gendered divisions of labour manifest across species lines. It applies a feminist, more-than-human intersectional approach, building on previous work on animal labour. The vital labour donkeys do with and for humans and their contributions to multispecies societies have been under-recognised and under-theorised. Drawing on empirical research conducted in central Ethiopia on the human-donkey relationship, findings reveal the multiple ways human gender and class coalesce to shape the kinds of labour performed and social relations among women, men, and donkeys across urban and rural environments. At the nexus of these intersecting forces, equivalence is drawn, by research participants themselves, between women and donkeys. Women and donkeys are aligned and othered, differentiated from men, a dynamic that results in the feminisation of donkeys and mutual marginalisation of women and donkeys and exposes male violence perpetrated on both groups. The article contributes empirical insights into human-donkey relations and interspecies labour and offers theoretical considerations of more-than-human intersectionality.

The Persistence of the University Dream: Class and Social Mobility as Projected by Students at a Chilean University

Félix Rojo-Mendoza, Denisse Sepúlveda, Sánchez, Fernando Baeza Rivas

Higher education is considered an important dimension for building more egalitarian societies. However, despite the social value assigned to it, international evidence indicates that the social status of students’ families continues to prevent significant mobility in the social structure. In Chile, despite policies to increase access to higher education, the university system continues to reproduce inequalities of origin through selection, separating elite students from low-income students. In this context, little is known about the perception that university students have of the role that these institutions play in social mobility, especially for those of more disadvantaged social origins. This article explores and describes the persistence of the university dream among Chilean’s students at the Catholic University of Temuco, the Chilean educational institution with the highest percentage of poor students in the country, analyzing it on the understanding that aspirations represent idealist targets of the desired social class, while expectations represent realistic goals regarding the expected social class. Based on a statistical analysis of survey data from 209 students, results show that students’ family origin does not prevent them from projecting themselves as part of a higher class, with the university acting as an agent that dynamizes positions to favor greater homogeneity in the future social structure. In addition, postgraduate degrees are defined as a catalyst for future social mobility. Finally, the future tensions between the still-hegemonic meritocratic discourse and the reality of the social space that these students will occupy are discussed.

‘Vulnerability’ at Work: Instrumental Vulnerabilities Among Software Professionals

Vanessa Ciccone

As a self-improvement discourse, ‘vulnerability’ brings a compelling promise for software workplaces around engendering productivity, innovation and creativity among employees. While critical studies have interrogated various self-improvement discourses, less is known about how workers respond to and negotiate these discourses in professional contexts. This article asks how workers of North American software companies construct vulnerability. It finds that constructions instrumentalize vulnerability in the workplace as the exposure of failures, mistakes and knowledge gaps to enact organizational resilience. Drawing from interviews, the article discusses the implications of these constructions.

‘I’ve Wondered Why Am I Here?’ Expectations of Old Age and the Ageing Body in a Longitudinal Study of a Dance Group

Anna Goulding

Mainstream expectations of older age place pressure on individuals––both negative discourses focused upon frailty and isolation and successful ageing narratives that emphasize physical and mental exercise. This article considers whether older people can challenge damaging narratives through participating in the practice of modern dance. Over the course of 4 years, action research and ethnographic-based methods were used as the author worked with a dance company of seven members aged 69 to 89 as they created a modern dance piece. Data included fieldnotes, transcripts of individual interviews and group discussions and a video of the performance. A thematic analysis was applied. Moving away from a health perspective, the literature on ageing and lifestyle is advanced by in examining how the group’s creativity should be understood and valued. Participants went from presenting as active agers to developing a more accepting attitude towards their ageing body. The performance refashioned the space as a site of intergenerational connectivity as the dancers and audience co-produced narratives around the artistry of the older body. An original contribution to the work on embodiment is made by revealing how older men and women use dance differently to negotiate the ageing body. Findings have wider implications for research on inclusion by showing how the embodied practice of dance helps subvert expectations of older age.

Transnational Affect and the Making of a Moral Public: The War on Drugs in the Philippines

Paul-Fran?ois Tremlett

In 2019, IBON International and the Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines UK (CHRP-UK) made preparations for some relatives of some of the victims of former Philippine President Duterte’s war on drugs to travel to meet members of the European Parliament as well as diasporic and other publics in Europe and the UK. At the same time, the play Tao Po! – ‘Is Anybody There?’ – a dramatic monologue exploring different perspectives of those involved in Duterte’s drug war including those of victims and perpetrators, was touring Europe. These affectively saturated actions and performances were accompanied by social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, among other platforms, using hashtags such as #Stopthekillingsph and #Warondrugsph. I juxtapose two very different interpretations of these actions and performances. On the one hand, I frame them as elements of a political strategy performed to solicit particular affective responses as a means of assembling a transnational public that could bring international political pressure to bear on the Duterte regime. On the other hand, I suggest that these actions were performed to cultivate a sense of belonging to a moral public. I conclude by arguing that the enactment of affects such as grief and loss – affects which are constitutive of the war on drugs – suggests a model of social and political change that works from the bottom-up, with affective experience as the primary catalyst.

With God We Distrust! The Impact of Values in Conspiracy Theory Beliefs About Migration in Serbia

Türkay Salim Nefes, Jasna Milo?evi? ?or?evi?, Milica Vdovi?

Immigrants are a popular target of conspiracy theories. Despite the urgent relevance of the topic all around the world today, the number of studies on conspiracy theories about migrants and immigration is limited. Helping to fill this important gap in the academic literature, the research analyses conspiracy theory beliefs about migrants and immigration in contemporary Serbia through survey data from a nationally representative sample (N?=?1199). Expanding on the Weberian theory of rationality, the study proposes that people’s values about national sovereignty, social conservatism, and religiosity influence their predispositions to believe in conspiracy theories about migrants and immigration. The findings corroborate the argument by showing a statistically significant link between people’s political, social, and religious values and responses to conspiracy theories. The article concludes that values could play a significant role in people’s adoption of conspiracy theories.

‘It Feels Like a Big Performance’: Space, Performativity and Young Woman Skateboarders

Carrie Paechter, Lyndsey Stoodley, Michael Keenan, Chris Lawton

In this article, we apply philosophical and sociological theory to consider how young women skateboarders interact with and are affected by performative aspects of skateboarding cultures. Drawing on findings from a qualitative study of three skateparks plus other skate spaces in and around two English cities, we argue that these spaces are performative in nature and that this is frequently problematic for young woman skateboarders. We suggest that, due to their comparative rarity in these spaces, young women are put under an immediate spotlight on entry, with an expectation that they perform a competent skateboarder identity while under scrutiny from other users of the space; we examine their experiences of this. We conclude by suggesting ways that skateparks and skatespaces can be designed and used to make them more accessible to woman and girl skaters, and to other groups marginalised in skateboarding cultures.

Misbehaviour on Retreat: Rule-Breaking and the Labours of the Self

James Hodgson

Current scholarship tends to frame retreat-going, and the practices carried out therein, as emblematic of late-modern forms of self-work, understanding retreats as part of broader personal life projects of self-mastery and self-knowledge. For this article, I draw on empirical data to suggest that, although work on the self is typically the central concern for retreat-goers, they also question or outright reject the discipline of the retreat space by breaking its ‘rules’. Borrowing insights developed in the context of organisation studies, I describe two kinds of such ‘misbehaviour’ on retreat. First, I explore how retreat-goers misbehave in regards to the rules around intimacy, since sexual and erotic desire is usually discouraged but nonetheless features in retreat-goers’ experiences. Then, I explore examples of collective misbehaviour and suggest that retreat-goers often work together to ensure the retreat’s success by collaboratively breaking the rules through practices like gossip. This article contributes an understanding of how wellbeing practices might be usefully made sense of as social accomplishments, situated within the greater swathe of everyday life. But I also map out one way in which the concept of ‘misbehaviour’ might be applied to activities outside of the workplace.

Developing ‘Age-Friendly’ Communities: The Experience of International Retired Migrants

Marion Repetti, Toni Calasanti, Chris Phillipson

Over the past two decades, the need to create ‘age-friendly cities and communities’ (AFCC) has emerged as a major theme in policies aimed at improving old people’s physical and social environment. The World Health Organization (WHO) has driven this agenda through the launch in 2010 of the Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities. Support for ageing in place has, at the same time, run alongside an increase in international retirement migration, with people choosing not to age in their existing neighbourhood but rather to relocate to another country. The growth of retirement migration has occurred in the context of specialized housing and leisure-orientated developments in cheaper countries targeting retirees from richer countries. This article draws on the narratives of retirees of the UK, Switzerland, France and the USA who have relocated to Spain, Costa Rica and Mexico on a permanent basis. It highlights the reasons migrants put forward to explain the advantages of living in their new home, and what we can learn about the conditions for an age-friendly living environment. This article begins with a review of the development of age-friendly cities and communities, then outlines the concept of ‘elective belonging’ which is used to provide a framework for understanding the growth of retirement migration. Following an overview of current knowledge on retirement migration and a discussion of the methodology of the study, we present the results from interviews with retired migrants about their experiences within their new communities. Finally, we discuss the implications of our study for developing research and policies which acknowledge how age as a social status may be used as a means of fostering the integration of older people within their communities.

Young People Experiencing Multiple Mobilities: In Search of an Oasis of Youth Across Europe

Ewa Krzaklewska, Valentina Cuzzocrea

In this study, we look at those young Europeans who have undertaken more than one Erasmus stay abroad during their higher education to reflect on spaces for youth development. On the basis of 18 qualitative interviews with such Erasmus students, we propose the concept of an ‘oasis of youth’ to highlight the potential for the exploration of the self that occurs through participation in mobilities. We revisit and reassess J.J. Arnett’s concept of emerging adulthood to reflect on spaces for exploration for young people in Europe. As the analysis suggests, this ‘oasis of youth’ may symbolise a niche in which young people live out a youthful lifestyle (being), while getting prepared for the transitions to adulthood (becoming). Beyond this particular case, the concept of an oasis of youth may serve to describe the diverse social spaces that express the social value of youth allowing them to live youth momentum while in education, despite growing uncertainty and harshened structural conditions.

The Perceptions of Prostitution, Sex Work, and Sex Trafficking among Young People in Spain

Carmen Meneses-Falcón, Antonio Rúa-Vieites, Olaya García-Vázquez

This article analyses the viewpoints of Spanish youth regarding prostitution, sex workers, and their opinions on what the law surrounding sex work should be. Spain is currently in the grip of a great debate, tending to adopt the punishment of sex buyers. To investigate this issue, 3126 young participants aged 16–30 were surveyed through an online questionnaire in December 2020, which consisted of 21 questions. A factor analysis revealed three distinct perceptions of prostitution falling into three categories: ‘As a choice’ (22.8%), ‘as coercive’ (27.9%), and ‘as economic necessity’ (49.3%). Correspondingly, the legal positions on prostitution varied depending on the perceptions of paid sex: viewing prostitution ‘as coercive’ was associated with the criminalisation of prostitution, while considering sex work ‘as a choice’ was related to the regulation of prostitution. In conclusion, the young Spaniards surveyed do not consider all those who offer paid sex as victims of trafficking; instead, they differentiate based on the connection between trafficking and the sex industry. These diverse perceptions contribute to policy recommendations aimed at preventing the negative consequences of prostitution, implementing harm reduction measures to safeguard sex workers, and moving beyond dichotomous policies of criminalization and regulation.

Mediating Gender Norms Through the ‘Foodies’ Culture as Romantic Emotions

Wei-Ping Chen

This study explores how intimacy is shaped through mobile-mediated dating, which is seasoned with culinary preferences and gendered conventions. Drawing on the sociological concept of mediated intimacy and attending to emotionalised culinary experiences and gendered individualism, this study asks three questions. First, how is intimacy represented by dining-dating apps? Second, how do these dining-dating apps approach ‘being single’? Third, what gender relations and what contradictions between romance and consumerism can be identified in dating that is managed by an app and that trades in intimate commodities? By analysing the advertising text, testimonials, and reviews posted online, I demonstrate that individuals are not only invited to manage their intimate life through cultural consumption but are also compelled to adopt accelerated and mediated ways of engaging. I reveal that the limited and regulated access to communicative exchanges and the extended follow-up dinner dates in dining-dating apps is related to concerns about personal and relational investment. Furthermore, I argue that dining-dating apps participate in the mediation of emotions and gender relations by introducing intimate commodities that blur the borders between individualist aspiration and gendered and classed ways of experiencing intimacy. Together, these findings provide a particularly interesting context and open up new avenues for studying intimacy, gender, and cultural consumption in sociology and media studies.

Sugar Rush or Sugar Risk? Experiences with Risks and Risk Management among Young Sugar Daters

Theresa Dyrvig Henriksen, Josefine Fr?slev-Thomsen

Sugar dating is a complex phenomenon that unfolds on a continuum between traditional dating and sex work. Existing research shows that sugar dating is often portrayed as rife with potential physical and social risks, and from a societal standpoint, it is also often characterized as a risky activity, particularly for young individuals. In this article, we investigate the emergence of these risks and how young sugar daters strategize to minimize them. The findings demonstrate that risk in sugar dating is influenced by complex social and cultural contexts, where especially the stigmatized nature and gendered storyline of sugar dating constitute risks for young sugar daters. These risks are further shaped by the cultural construction of late-modern sexuality, which favours elusive and volatile sexual relations combined with a desire to explore while being young. The young women in this study view sugar dating as a temporary activity that they do not imagine themselves engaging in when they get older. They associate sugar dating with the phase of youth, but unlike other types of youth risk-taking, sugar dating does not occur within the social context of peers. Instead, risk management in the context of sugar dating primarily becomes an individual responsibility, as involving others is perceived as carrying substantial social risks of being labelled as sexually immoral. The study underscores that risk in sugar dating does not exist in a vacuum; rather, it is intertwined with complex social and cultural contexts surrounding sugar dating. By shedding light on these intricate factors, our research contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the lived experiences and dynamics of risk management within the realm of sugar dating.

Sociology in Action

Understanding Food Assistance Through Care: Theoretical Insights

Fábio Rafael Augusto

Two theoretical perspectives have been extensively mobilized to understand the social role of food assistance initiatives, namely ‘food security’ and ‘political economy’. The main objective of this article is to develop an alternative theoretical approach that allows for more comprehensive analyses. Building on Thomas’s (1993) conceptual work on care, it is expected to encourage the development of studies that incorporate less-obvious elements that (also) characterize food assistance organizations, such as the various interactions and practices that are not directly related to food donations.

Leaping the Abyss: The Problematic Translation of Social Research Results into Policy Recommendations

Seweryn Rudnicki, Katarzyna Wojnicka

This article argues that translating social research findings into policy recommendations may pose a significant methodological and practical challenge. Due to the current emphasis on the ‘third mission’ of universities and the ‘relevance’ of scientific knowledge, it has become more common for sociologists to engage in projects that include the development of social-research-based recommendations. This article analyses empirically an example of such a project – an extensive, European Commission–funded study about the role of men in gender equality in Europe – and shows that developing recommendations may receive lower priority than producing findings, be unguided by any specific method or approach, and operate within an ‘aura of evidence’ rather than a ‘hierarchy of evidence’. Discouraging an all-too-easy criticism, this article argues for more reflection, frameworks, and methods that could support sociologists in the development of research-based guidelines for policies.

Beyond the Text

‘Creating Poverty Chances’: Young People Confront Gambling Harms in Malawi

Otiyela Mtema, Isaac ‘Starlic’ Singano, Darragh McGee, Yamiko Yakobe, Junious Sichali, Mphatso, Makamo, Gerda Reith, Christopher Bunn

Commercialised gambling products have spread rapidly through African countries in recent years and have been woven into the everyday experiences of young people. Research to date has documented this phenomenon through conventional social science methodologies, establishing an important body of knowledge. Absent from this work is research that adopts participatory and creative methods, often argued to be particularly well suited to empowering marginalised groups to co-produce research. In this piece, we describe a co-creative participatory approach to working with 24 young people in Malawi to explore experiences of commercial gambling and its impacts on their communities. Our approach was co-developed with the young people and produced a substantial body of community interviews, photovoice pieces, and creative representations of the research findings. Here, we focus on a song written and recorded by one of the young people that draws on and represents themes of distress, addiction, poverty, and false hope, which were present in the data the young people generated across the study.

Reclaim the Night(Life) – Sexual Harassment in the Night-Time Economy: Zine Making as Method and Participant-Led Data Analysis

Ian R Lamond, Kate Dashper, Michelle Lanham, Hannah Rossmorris, Dan Lomax

This short reflective piece sets out the background to the Reclaim the (Night) Life project, an ongoing research project into sexual violence/harassment in the night-time economy of Leeds (UK). This initial output from the project, which has involved a team of five academics from the UK Centre for Event Management at Leeds Beckett University, is based on work produced at a co-creational zine-making workshop. The workshop involved a group of students, from the university, working with their lived experience and using the workshop to support them in undertaking some initial analysis of data captured from a prior online survey. Sociologically, the zine’s purpose is to share initial research findings in a way that could engage its target demographic (young women), give voice to some of their experiences, explore zine making as a form of data capture and participant-led data analysis, and act as a prevocational device for the next stages of the Reclaim the (Night)Life research project.

Book Reviews

Book Review: Tony Bennett, Habit’s Pathways: Repetition, Power, Conduct

Gordana Angelichin-Zhura

Book Review: Edited by Sonja Ganseforth and Hanno Jentzsch, Rethinking Locality in Japan

Meri? K?rm?z?

Book Review: Yi-Lin Chiang, Study Gods: How the New Chinese Elite Prepare for Global Competition

Yuhao Peng

SRO Thank You to Referees 2024

[注：以上內容均為SRO文章觀點，不代表本刊立場]

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《中國社會學學刊》（The Journal of Chinese Sociology）于2014年10月由中國社會科學院社會學研究所創辦。作為中國大陸第一本英文社會學學術期刊，JCS致力于為中國社會學者與國外同行的學術交流和合作打造國際一流的學術平臺。JCS由全球最大科技期刊出版集團施普林格·自然(Springer Nature)出版發行，由國內外頂尖社會學家組成強大編委會隊伍，采用雙向匿名評審方式和“開放獲取”(open access)出版模式。JCS已于2021年5月被ESCI收錄。2022年，JCS的CiteScore分值為2.0（Q2），在社科類別的262種期刊中排名第94位，位列同類期刊前36%。2023年，JCS在科睿唯安發布的2023年度《期刊引證報告》（JCR）中首次獲得影響因子并達到1.5（Q3）。

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