Javier Auyero

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Description

This course offers a hands on experience on ethnographic fieldwork. We will learn about ethnography as a craft, read a few exemplary works, and then launch ourselves into the fascinating, complicated, exhilarating task of conducting observations and interviews. Take this class if you are willing to “get dirty” in real research – i.e. if you are willing to spend time observing/talking to others.

Required Texts and  Readings

Desmond, ON THE FIRELINE

Lareau, UNEQUAL CHILDHOODS

Auyero, INVISIBLE IN AUSTIN

Weiss, LEARNING FROM OTHERS

Emerson, WRITING ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDNOTES

Lareau, LISTENING TO PEOPLE

Grading Policy

3 SETS OF FIELDNOTES

2 INTERVIEWS

2 BOOK REPORTS

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

This course introduces students to some of the most relevant, controversial, and puzzling issues in contemporary society: inequality, residential segregation, mass protest, incarceration, migration, environmental suffering, etc. We will debate about these issues using concrete, 'real life' examples from the Americas: heat-related death in Chicago, student participation in the Civil Rights movement, gender inequality and socialization, growing up undocumented, social polarization in Austin, the drama of evictions, police violence in the U.S. etc. Together, all these cases will help us to figure out the specific contribution that different social sciences (sociology, anthropology, and political science) can make to the understanding of our surroundings and of ourselves.

 Description:

This reading-intensive seminar has four major objectives: 1) to become familiar with some classic and contemporary ethnographies, 2) to acquaint students with the methodological tenets of ethnography, 3) to consider theoretical and epistemological issues in ethnographic research, 4) to discuss narrative strategies in ethnographic writing.

 Throughout the semester will we read ethnographic texts that study different objects from a variety of theoretical perspectives. We will submit these works to a generative reading, that is, we will take the analytic, epistemological, and methodological tools these ethnographies provide to think about our own research objects.

 After the first two introductory sessions, each class will be organized around a set of questions. To each text we will ask: What theory or theories are being used/refined/extended? Is the ethnographic study warranted? Is the ethnographic warrant clearly established? Are the methodological tools well delineated? Is the puzzle/enigma clearly defined? How strong/weak are the links between theoretical claims and empirical evidence? How well is the ‘native’s point of view’ captured/reconstructed? How well is the narrative organized? How is the balance between data gathered from interviews and from observations? How lively or engaging is the narrative? How do you feel as a reader?

 Evaluation:

Seminar participants are required to write a final paper (10 pages max. 1,5 space) on topic to be discussed.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Description:

The course provides the student with an introduction to the study of some key issues in the urban life. The larger focus of this class is inequality in urban space, with particular emphasis on specific cities in the United States. Topics to be discussed in this class:

-       Formation and transformation of U.S. cities and suburbs

-       Residential Segregation and gentrification

-       Migration to U.S. metropolitan areas

-       Crime

-       Environmental injustice

-       Poverty

-       Housing

-       Sex Work

 Student will read and discuss a series of articles and books. As part of the requirements, there will be TWO group projects (3 students per group). Students will be asked to do research on a case of environmental injustice and to “go to the field” to find images/voices of gentrification in Austin. Both projects will be presented orally in class.

Students with Disabilities

Any student with a documented disability who requires academic accommodations should contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 471-6259 (voice) or 1-866-329-3986 (Video Phone) as soon as possible to request an official letter outlining authorized accommodations.

Required Texts:

Invisible in Austin

Evicted

AVAILABLE AT THE COOP

 SCHEDULE (readings marked with an * are available in CANVAS)

WEEK ONE: Our City

 Reading Invisible in Austin (chapters TBA)

 WEEK TWO: City Stuff

 Readings:

Logan “Life and Death in the City”*

Ghaziani “Lesbian Geographies”*

Sullivan and Ledesma “Same Trailer, a Different Park”*

Weitzer “Prostitution: Facts and Fiction”*

Rank “As American as Apple Pie: Poverty and Welfare”*

 WEEK THREE: Crime, Race, and Punishment

 Readings: Sampson “Rethinking Crime and Immigration”*

Alice Goffman’s “On the Run” American Sociological Review *

Documentary: “13”

WEEK FOUR: Housing and Destitution

Reading: Evicted

 WEEK FIVE: ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE

 Viewing: Gasland

Reading: Obach “A Fracking Fracas Demonstrates Potential.”*

 WEEK SIX: GLOBAL CITIES

 Goldman and Longhofer “Making World Cities”*

Dhawan “Mumbai Sleeping”*

Ali “Permanent Impermanence”*

 Grading Policy:

 60% of your grade: THREE QUIZZES

20% of your grade: Group projects

20% of your grade: Class attendance

Description:

This reading-intensive seminar has four major objectives: 1) to become familiar with some classic and contemporary ethnographies, 2) to acquaint students with the methodological tenets of ethnography, 3) to consider theoretical and epistemological issues in ethnographic research, 4) to discuss narrative strategies in ethnographic writing.

 Throughout the semester will we read ethnographies that study different objects from a variety of theoretical perspectives. We will submit these works to a generative reading, that is, we will take the analytic, epistemological, and methodological tools these ethnographies provide to think about our own research objects.

 After the first two introductory sessions, each class will be organized around a set of questions. To each text we will ask: What theory or theories are being used/refined/extended? Is the ethnographic study warranted? Is the ethnographic warrant clearly established? Are the methodological tools well delineated? Is the puzzle/enigma clearly defined? How strong/weak are the links between theoretical claims and empirical evidence? How well is the ‘native’s point of view’ captured/reconstructed? How well is the narrative organized? How is the balance between data gathered from interviews and from observations? How lively or engaging is the narrative? How do you feel as a reader?

 Evaluation:

Seminar participants are required to write a final paper (10 pages max. 1,5 space). The final paper should answer at least TWO of the questions we have used as guides during our regular sessions to review at least THREE of the required books (one of them, should be a new reading – see suggested list below).

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

The course provides the student with an introduction to the study of the city and the suburbs. The larger focus of this class is inequality in urban space, with particular emphasis on specific cities in the United States. Topics to be discussed in this class:

-       Formation and transformation of U.S. cities and suburbs

-       Residential Segregation and gentrification

-       Migration to U.S. metropolitan areas

-       The social structure of ‘natural disasters’

-       Sex work in major cities

-       Drug trafficking and consumption

-       Crime

-       Gang violence

-       Environmental injustice

-       Evictions

Student will read and discuss a series of articles and books and will be asked to “go to the field” to find images/voices of gentrification in Austin – should be a fun collective project.

Required Texts:

INVISIBLE IN AUSTIN

EVICTED

SELECTION OF ARTICLES. Examples.

On Crime: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/chicago-shootings-district-11.html?_r=0

On gentrification and segregation: http://projects.statesman.com/news/economic-mobility/

Grading Policy:

40% of your grade: Final exam (multiple choice or paper).

20% of your grade: Class presentation on assigned readings

20% of your grade: Class assignment (PHOTO PROJECT on IMAGES OF GENTRIFICATION)

20% of your grade: Class attendance

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Course Descripton:

This course has four major objectives: *to become familiar with some classic and contemporary ethnographies to acquaint students with the methodological tenets of ethnography to consider theoretical and epistemological issues in ethnographic research

 *to put some data production techniques (observant participation, in-depth interviews, and life-stories) into practice. *Throughout the semester will we read ethnographies that study different objects from a variety of theoretical perspectives. We will submit these works to a generative reading, that is, we will take the analytic, epistemological, and methodological tools these ethnographies provide to think about our own research objects. *Since learning to do ethnography is essentially a practical task, a craft that must be learned in practice, as part of the requirements students will be asked to develop a research project and conduct preliminary observations, write fieldnotes, and conduct two interviews. The final product should be a first draft of a research project that uses ethnography as a major data-production technique.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Description:

This reading-intensive course is not a theory seminar. During the semester we will discuss some of Bourdieu’s key notions as they become articulated in the craft of research and writing – in Bourdieu’s own work and that of others. We will combine close reading of Bourdieu’s theoretical and empirical work with monographs that explicitly intend to put some of his ideas to work in social scientific research. We will begin with an overview of Bourdieu’s life work and scholarly trajectory and with a close inspection of his “epistemological preliminaries.” Here we will examine his approach to the construction of sociological objects (as different from existing social phenomena) and his dissection of the “scholastic point of view” as a key obstacle in the understanding and explanation of practice. After inspecting classical influences in Bourdieu’s work and his attempt to critically transcend extant dichotomies that prevent a full account of social action, we will delve into the most important and fruitful notions (habitus, field, reflexivity, capital, symbolic violence, etc.) as expressed in his own writings and as they are enacted in existing empirical research. We will conclude with an overview of Bourdieu’s public interventions against the destructive effects of neoliberalism. The underlying objective of the seminar is to learn how to think and conduct sociological research with (or even against) Bourdieu.

 The course follows a mixed lecture-seminar format, combining formal presentations, short lectures, and group discussion. The requirements are threefold:

1) Weekly electronic reading notes: the day before formal class meeting by 10 AM, participants will post on canvas reading notes (three short paragraphs maximum). These notes should include: one paragraph outlining possible connections between the assigned readings (if there is more than one) and one paragraph of questions/topics you would like to discuss in class.

2) Active participation in class discussions, including two short oral presentations on a given set of readings. Presentations should be done in groups of two.

3) A term paper of no more than 15 pages. The paper should take the form of a research proposal that uses some of the theoretical, analytical, and/or methodological tools we discussed during the semester. Term paper topics should be submitted for approval by the instructor by week 8 (one page abstract).

 Before the beginning of the semester, please watch

Sociology is a martial art (documentary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlWf6ejbBGw

Description: 

This course provides a broad introduction to present-day Latin American politics and society. During the semester, we will focus on drug-trafficking and urban destitution in Brazil and Mexico, party politics, collective action, and environmental suffering in Argentina, the current political situation in Chavez’s Venezuela, and migration from Central American and the Caribbean to the United States. In each case, we will study what is specific to the national histories of each country and what can be analyzed as common to the history and present reality of the sub-continent.   

Texts:

Robert Gay. Lucia. Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer’s Woman

Javier Auyero. Routine Politics and Collective Violence

Javier Auyero and Debora Swistun. Flammable. Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown.  

Course Requirements:

Since the class is organized around lectures, discussions of the required readings, group presentations, and films ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.There will be FIVE quizzes (10 questions each) on the assigned readings. Dropping your lowest score, the sum of the remaining FOUR stands for 50% of your final grade. There will also be a final exam (10 page paper). Note on grades: If your final grade (addition of FOUR best quizzes and final) is: 100-93, then your grade is an A; 92-90, then your grade is an A --; 89-85 then you grade is a B +; 84-80 then your grade is a B; 79-76 then your grade is a C; 75-65 then your grade is a D; 64 or below is an F.50% of your grade: Best four of five quizzes50% of your grade: Final examYou can earn extra-credit by doing oral presentations on assigned readings  

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Readings in Ethnography

Course Description:

This reading-intensive seminar has four major objectives: 1) to become familiar with some classic and contemporary ethnographies, 2) to acquaint students with the methodological tenets of ethnography, 3) to consider theoretical and epistemological issues in ethnographic research, 4) to discuss narrative strategies in ethnographic writing.

Throughout the semester will we read ethnographies that study different objects from a variety of theoretical perspectives. We will submit these works to a generative reading, that is, we will take the analytic, epistemological, and methodological tools these ethnographies provide to think about our own research objects. To each text we will ask: What theory or theories are being used/refined/extended? Is the ethnographic studied warranted? Is the ethnographic warrant clearly established? Are the methodological tools well delineated? Is the puzzle/enigma clearly defined? How strong/weak are the links between theoretical claims and empirical evidence? How well is the ‘native’s point of view’ captured/reconstructed? How well is the narrative organized? How is the balance between data gathered from interviews and from observations? How lively or engaging is the narrative? How do you feel as a reader?

BEFORE the semester begins, students should have read these three classic ethnographic texts:

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Death Without Weeping. Philippe Bourgois, In Search of Respect. Paul Willis, Learning to Labor.

WEEK ONE

Jorge Luis Borges. “Funes, his Memory.”

Edgard Allan Poe. “A Descent into the Maëlstrom.”

Michael Burawoy, “Introduction,” “Reconstructing Social Theories,” and “The Extended Case Method,” in Ethnography Unbound.

David Snow, Calvin Morrill and Leon Anderson. “Analytic Ethnography” Ethnography 4 (2).

Clifford Geertz. The Interpretation of Cultures. [Chapter 1 and 15]

Clifford Geertz. Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. [Chapter 3].

 Recommended:

Robert Alford. The Craft of Inquiry. [Introduction, Chapters 1-3, 5].

Pierre Bourdieu et al.The Craft of Sociology. [pp. 1-77]

Judith Stacey. “Can there be a Feminist Ethnography?” Women’s Studies International Forum 11(1).

WEEK TWO

Jack Katz. “From How to Why: On Luminous Description and Causal Inference in Ethnography,” Parts I and II. Ethnography 2 (4) and 3 (1)

Jack Katz. “Ethnography’s Warrants”. Sociological Methods and Research 25(4):391-423.

Jack Katz. "A Theory of Qualitative Methodology: The Social System of Analytic Fieldwork."; In Contemporary Field Research. Robert Emerson, ed. pp. 127-148.

Diane Vaughan. “Theorizing Disaster. Analogy, Historical Ethnography, and the Challenger Accident.” Ethnography 5 (3).

Recommended:

Walton, John. "Making the Theoretical Case," in What is a Case? By Charles Ragin and H. Becker. Cambridge U. Press 1992.

Harper, Douglas. “Small N’s and Community Case Studies,” in What is a Case? By Charles Ragin and H. Becker. Cambridge U. Press 1992.

 WEEK THREE

Desmond, Matthew. On the Fireline.

WEEK FOUR

Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis. Ground Wars. Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns.

WEEK FIVE

Comfort, Megan. Doing Time Together.

WEEK SIX

Benzecry, Claudio.  The Opera Fanatic.

WEEK SEVEN

Gowan, Teresa. Hobos, Hustlers, Backsliders

WEEK EIGHT

Shapira, Harel. Waiting for José. The Minutemen’s Pursuit of America.

WEEK NINE (Ethnographies in article form)

Matthew Mahler, Tyson Smith, Loic Wacquant, Steven Lopez, and Javier Auyero

WEEK TEN

Prieur, Annick. Mema’s House, Mexico City. On Transvestites, Queens, and Machos Chicago University Press, 1998. [Introduction, chapters 1, 2, 4, and Concluding Notes]

WEEK ELEVEN

Gould, Deborah. Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP's Fight against AIDS .

Recommended (you will need to incorporate at least one for your final paper): Bestor, Theodore. Tsukiji. The Fish Market at the Center of the World (recommended). Hautzinger, Sarah. Violence in the City of Women. Police and Batterers in Bahia, Brazil. Pine, Jason. The Art of Making Do in Naples. Contreras, Randol. The Stickup Kids. Gupta, Akhil. Red Tape. Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in India.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

URBAN SOCIOLOGY

The course provides the student with an introduction to the study of the city and the suburbs. The larger focus of this class is inequality in urban space, with particular emphasis on specific cities in the United States (New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles) and in Latin America (Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires). Topics to be discussed in this class:

-       Formation and transformation of U.S. cities and suburbs

-       Residential Segregation

-       Migration to U.S. metropolitan areas

-       The social structure of ‘natural disasters’

-       Sex commerce in major cities

-       Drug trafficking and consumption

-       Gang violence

-       Environmental injustice

Description: 

This course provides a broad introduction to present-day Latin American politics and society. During the semester, we will focus on drug-trafficking and urban destitution in Brazil and Mexico, party politics, collective action, and environmental suffering in Argentina, the current political situation in Chavez’s Venezuela, and migration from Central American and the Caribbean to the United States. In each case, we will study what is specific to the national histories of each country and what can be analyzed as common to the history and present reality of the sub-continent.   

 Texts:

Robert Gay. Lucia. Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer’s Woman

Javier Auyero. Routine Politics and Collective Violence

Javier Auyero and Debora Swistun. Flammable. Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown.  

 Course Requirements:

Since the class is organized around lectures, discussions of the required readings, group presentations, and films ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.There will be FIVE quizzes (10 questions each) on the assigned readings. Dropping your lowest score, the sum of the remaining FOUR stands for 50% of your final grade. There will also be a final exam (10 page paper). Note on grades: If your final grade (addition of FOUR best quizzes and final) is: 100-93, then your grade is an A; 92-90, then your grade is an A --; 89-85 then you grade is a B +; 84-80 then your grade is a B; 79-76 then your grade is a C; 75-65 then your grade is a D; 64 or below is an F.50% of your grade: Best four of five quizzes50% of your grade: Final examYou can earn extra-credit by doing oral presentations on assigned readings  

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

The course provides the student with an introduction to the study of the city and the suburbs. The larger focus of this class is inequality in urban space, with particular emphasis on specific cities in the United States (New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles) and in Latin America (Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires). Topics to be discussed in this class:

-       Formation and transformation of U.S. cities and suburbs

-       Residential Segregation

-       Migration to U.S. metropolitan areas

-       The social structure of ‘natural disasters’

-       Sex commerce in major cities

-       Drug trafficking and consumption

-       Gang violence

-       Environmental injustice

Description: 

This course provides a broad introduction to present-day Latin American politics and society. During the semester, we will focus on drug-trafficking and urban destitution in Brazil and Mexico, party politics, collective action, and environmental suffering in Argentina, the current political situation in Chavez’s Venezuela, and migration from Central American and the Caribbean to the United States. In each case, we will study what is specific to the national histories of each country and what can be analyzed as common to the history and present reality of the sub-continent.   

 Texts:

Robert Gay. Lucia. Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer’s WomanJavier Auyero. Routine Politics and Collective ViolenceJavier Auyero and Debora Swistun. Flammable. Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown.  

 Course Requirements:

Since the class is organized around lectures, discussions of the required readings, group presentations, and films ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.There will be FIVE quizzes (10 questions each) on the assigned readings. Dropping your lowest score, the sum of the remaining FOUR stands for 50% of your final grade. There will also be a final exam (10 page paper). Note on grades: If your final grade (addition of FOUR best quizzes and final) is: 100-93, then your grade is an A; 92-90, then your grade is an A --; 89-85 then you grade is a B +; 84-80 then your grade is a B; 79-76 then your grade is a C; 75-65 then your grade is a D; 64 or below is an F.50% of your grade: Best four of five quizzes50% of your grade: Final examYou can earn extra-credit by doing oral presentations on assigned readings  

This reading-intensive course is devoted to review past and present ethnographic analyses of the nature and experiences of poverty and marginality in Latin America and in the United States, to examine some of the most controversial issues and debates, and to explore the emerging research topics north and south of the border. 

Meets with LAS 325/40120

Description: 

This course provides a broad introduction to present-day Latin American politics and society. During the semester, we will focus on drug-trafficking and urban destitution in Brazil and Mexico, party politics, collective action, and environmental suffering in Argentina, the current political situation in Chavez’s Venezuela, and migration from Central American and the Caribbean to the United States. In each case, we will study what is specific to the national histories of each country and what can be analyzed as common to the history and present reality of the sub-continent.   

Texts:

Robert Gay. Lucia. Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer’s WomanJavier Auyero. Routine Politics and Collective ViolenceJavier Auyero and Debora Swistun. Flammable. Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown.  

Course Requirements:

 Since the class is organized around lectures, discussions of the required readings, group presentations, and films ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.There will be FIVE quizzes (10 questions each) on the assigned readings. Dropping your lowest score, the sum of the remaining FOUR stands for 50% of your final grade. There will also be a final exam (10 page paper). Note on grades: If your final grade (addition of FOUR best quizzes and final) is: 100-93, then your grade is an A; 92-90, then your grade is an A --; 89-85 then you grade is a B +; 84-80 then your grade is a B; 79-76 then your grade is a C; 75-65 then your grade is a D; 64 or below is an F.50% of your grade: Best four of five quizzes50% of your grade: Final examYou can earn extra-credit by doing oral presentations on assigned readings  

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Meets with LAS 325/40120

This course provides a broad introduction to present-day Latin American politics and society. During the semester, we will focus on drug-trafficking and urban destitution in Brazil and Mexico, party politics, collective action, and environmental suffering in Argentina, the current political situation in Chavez’s Venezuela, and migration from Central American and the Caribbean to the United States. In each case, we will study what is specific to the national histories of each country and what can be analyzed as common to the history and present reality of the sub-continent.
 
 
 
Required Books:
 
Robert Gay. Lucia. Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer’s Woman
Javier Auyero. Routine Politics and Collective Violence
Javier Auyero and Debora Swistun. Flammable. Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown.
 
 
Course Requirements:
 
Since the class is organized around lectures, discussions of the required readings, group presentations, and films ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.
There will be FIVE quizzes (10 questions each) on the assigned readings. Dropping your lowest score, the sum of the remaining FOUR stands for 50% of your final grade. There will also be a final exam (10 page paper). Note on grades: If your final grade (addition of FOUR best quizzes and final) is: 100-93, then your grade is an A; 92-90, then your grade is an A --; 89-85 then you grade is a B +; 84-80 then your grade is a B; 79-76 then your grade is a C; 75-65 then your grade is a D; 64 or below is an F.
50% of your grade: Best four of five quizzes
50% of your grade: Final exam
You can earn extra-credit by doing oral presentations on assigned readings
 
 

This course is an in-depth analysis of ethnographic research methods in sociology.  The goals of this course are: (1) to examine the theory and epistemology of ethnographic methods, (2) to explore the strengths and limitations of ethnographic research methods; (3) to familiarize students with classic and contemporary ethnographies; and (4) to develop skills to design and conduct ethnographic research.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Urban Sociology

MWF 2-3

WAG 420

Javier Auyero BURDINE 564

Javier.auyero@austin.utexas.edu

Office Hours MW 3-4

The course provides the student with an introduction to the study of the city and the suburbs. The larger focus of this class is inequality in urban space, with particular emphasis on specific cities in the United States (New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles). Topics to be discussed in this class:

-       Formation and transformation of U.S. cities and suburbs

-       Residential Segregation in cities and suburbs

-       Migration to U.S. metropolitan areas

-       The social structure of ‘natural disasters’

-       Sex commerce in major cities

-       Drug trafficking and consumption

-       Gang violence

Students are required to actively participate in class discussions and present parts of the readings. If you are not willing to read an average of 80 pages per week, please do not take this class.

REQUIREMENTS and GRADING: Attendance in this class is mandatory

50% of your grade: Average of five quizzes

50% of your grade: Final Exam

You can earn extra credit by doing oral presentations on the assigned readings

There will be six quizzes (10 questions each) on the assigned readings. Dropping your lowest score, the sum of the remaining five stands for 50% of your final grade.  Note on grades: If your final grade (addition of five best quizzes and final) is: 100-93, then your grade is an A; 92-90, then your grade is an A-; 89-85 then you grade is a B +; 84-80 then your grade is a B; 79-76 then your grade is a C; 75-65 then your grade is a D; 64 or below is an F.

REQUIRED BOOKS (you can purchase them at University Co-Op, or any online store)

Reading Package (Blackboard) Readings marked with [BB]

Bourgois, P. In Search of Respect

Venkatesh, S. Gang Leader for a Day

Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. Doméstica. Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence

CLASS SCHEDULE

Weeks One and Two: Introduction: Inequality, Segregation; Suburbanization

Required Reading:

“Life and Death in the City: Neighborhoods in Context,” by John Logan (BB)

“Fences and Neighbors: Segregation in Twenty-First-Century America,” by John Farley and Gregory Squires (BB)

“The Rise of the Creative Class,” by Richard Florida (BB)

Weeks Three and Four: Environmental Inequality

Required Reading:

“Welcome to Our Town. Wish We Weren’t Here,” by Susan Saulny (BB)

“Texas Lawsuit Includes a Mix of Race and Water,” by Ralph Blumenthal (BB)

“Poor, Black and Dumped On,” by Bob Herbert (BB)

“Environmental Inequality and Environmental Justice,” by Michael Mascarenhas (BB)

“In the Midst of Garbage and Poison,” by Javier Auyero and Débora Swistun (BB)

“Exposed and Confused,” by Javier Auyero and Débora Swistun (BB)

Weeks Five and Six: Disasters

Required Reading:

“Denaturalizing Disaster: A Social Autopsy of the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave,” by Eric Klinenberg (BB)

“Leaving New Orleans: Social Stratification, Networks, and Hurricane Evacuation,” by Elizabeth Fussell (http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Fussell)

“The Geography of Social Vulnerability: Race, Class, and Catastrophe,” by Susan Cutter (http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Cutter)

“Toxic Soup Redux: Why Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Matter after Katrina,” by Julie Sze (http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Sze)

“There’s No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster,” by Neil Smith (http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Smith)

Documentary: Still Waiting

Week Seven: Gangs

Required Reading:

Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh (Introduction, Chapters One and Two)

Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh (Chapters 3 and 4)

Weeks Eight and Nine: Drug Violence, Crime, and Mass Incarceration

Required Reading:

In Search of Respect, by Philippe Bourgois  (Preface to the 2003 Second Edition, Introduction and Chapter One)

In Search of Respect, by Philppe Bourgois (Chapters 2-6)

“On The Run: Wanted Men in a Philadelphia Ghetto,” by Alice Goffman (BB)

Week Ten: Sex Work

Required Reading:

“Vice Careers: The Changing Contours of Sex Work in New York City,” by Alex Murphy and S. Venkatesh (BB)

“A Perversion of Choice: Sex Work Offers Just Enough in Chicago’s Urban Ghetto,” by Eva Rosen and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh (BB)

Weeks Eleven and Twelve: Domestic Work

“Doméstica. Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence,” by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (Preface to the 2007 edition, Preface to the First Edition, Chapters 1-5).

Film: Bread and Roses

Please check back for updates.

Sociology of Domination

Javier Auyero

FALL 2009 Tuesdays 3 PM – 6 PM

Power and domination are terms frequently used in sociological research but their very definition remains controversial in social theory. This seminar seeks to examine various (both classical and contemporary) theoretical understandings of power and domination and to study diverse ways in which these concepts have been deployed in empirical research. The seminar is opened to beginning and advanced graduate students.

FORM

The course follows a mixed lecture-seminar format, combining formal presentations, short lectures, and group discussion. The requirements are threefold:

1.  Weekly electronic reading notes: every Tuesday before 9 AM, participants will submit reading notes (1 single space page maximum) to the instructor and to each other by e-mail. These notes should include: a brief summary of the main points of the readings; a couple of paragraphs outlining possible connections between the assigned readings; a paragraph of questions/topics you would like to discuss in class

2.  Active participation in class discussions, including two short oral presentations on a given set of readings. Presentations should be done in groups of two.

3.  A term paper of no more than 15 pages. The paper can criticize and contrast two or more of the authors studied, deploy their ideas in the course of an empirical research, etc. Term paper topics should be submitted for approval by the instructor by week 9 (one page abstract).

SCHEDULE (readings mark with * will be on blackboard)

Week One:

Kafka, F. The Trial.

Lukes, S. Power. A Radical View. Second Edition.

Week Two:

* M. Weber, “The Types of Legitimate Domination” in Economy and Society (pp. 212-246). 

* K. Marx, Section IV, Chapter I, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secrete Thereof,” in Capital, “Theses on Feuerbach,” The German Ideology, Part I, [Tucker, R. The Marx-Engels Reader pp. 143-200]

Week Three:

*M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” in Dialectic of Enlightenment

* H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Chapter 12, pp.437-459).

* L. Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” in Lenin and Philosophy

Week Four:

* R. Williams, Part II “Hegemony,” in Marxism and Literature.

M. Burawoy. Manufacturing Consent.

RECOMMENDED:

A.Gramsci,  Prison Notebooks [5-14; 125-239]

E.P. Thompson, “Introduction: Custom and Culture,” “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism,” in Customs in Common. S. Hall “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms.”

J. Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness. Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. 

Week Five:

M. Foucault, Selections from Discipline and Punish (pp. 3-31, 135-228, 231-256) . Selections from Power/Knowledge (“Two Lectures,” “Truth and Power”).

* D. Kirk, Schooling Bodies. School Practice and Public Discourse 1880-1950 (pp. 5-65).

RECOMMENDED:

S. Hays, Flat Broke with Children. Women in the Age of Welfare Reform.

J. Gilliom, Overseers of the Poor. Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy.

Week Six:

* M. Foucault, “Governmentality,” in The Foucault Effect.

A. Petryna Life Exposed. Biological Citizens after Chernobyl.

Week Seven:

P. Bourdieu and L. Wacquant,  An Introduction to Reflexive Sociology (pp. 1-59)

*P. Bourdieu The State Nobility (Foreword and pp. 1-53).

P. Bourdieu. Language and Symbolic Power (Editor’s Introduction, Chapters 1, 3, and 5).

RECOMMENDED:

P. Bourdieu and J.C. Passeron, Reproduction

McLeod, J. Ain’t No Making It.

Willi,s, P. Learning to Labor.

Week Eight:

P. Bourdieu. The Logic of Practice (pp.1-65).

* L. Wacquant,  “Pugs at Work: Bodily Capital and Bodily Labour Among Professional Boxers,” * “The Pugilistic Point of View. How boxers think and feel about their trade,” * “A Fleshpedler at Work.” Alford and A. Szanto “Orpheus Wounded: The experience of pain in the

professional worlds of the piano” *

RECOMMENDED:

L. Wacquant. Body and Soul.

Week Nine:

P. Bourdieu, Masculine Domination

N. Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering

GUEST: Christine Williams

RECOMMENDED:

J. Benjamin, Bonds of Love

Week Ten:

P. Bourgois and J. Schonberg, Righteous Dopefiend
* T. Gowan “The Nexus: Homelessness and Incarceration in Two American Cities.”

Week Eleven: 

J. Auyero & D. Swistun. Flammable. Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown.

G. García Marquez. No One Writes to the Colonel.

Week Twelve:

* M. Comfort “Papa’s House: The Prison as Domestic and Social Satellite”

L. Wacquant, Selections from Punishing the Poor

Please check back for updates.

This course is an in-depth analysis of ethnographic research methods in sociology.  The goals of this course are: (1) to examine the theory and epistemology of ethnographic methods, (2) to explore the strengths and limitations of ethnographic research methods; (3) to familiarize students with classic and contemporary ethnographies; and (4) to develop skills to design and conduct ethnographic research.