Sorting Sexualities

Sorting Sexualities
Author: Stefan Vogler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2021-05-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 022677676X

Introduction -- Kissing cousins : queerness, crime, and knowing -- Seeing sexuality like a state -- Forensic psychology, complicit expertise, and the legitimation of law -- Insurgent expertise and the hybrid network of LGBTQ asylum -- Asylum seekers and signs of queerness -- Sex offenders and the detection of deviance -- Queer subjects and the construction of risky countries -- Sexual predators and the constitution of dangerous individuals -- Conclusion : sexuality, science, and citizenship in the twenty-first century.

The Quest for Sexual Health

The Quest for Sexual Health
Author: Steven Epstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2022-03-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226818179

Offering an entryway into the distinctive worlds of sexual health and a window onto their spillover effects, sociologist Steven Epstein traces the development of the concept and parses the debates that swirl around it. Since the 1970s, health professionals, researchers, governments, advocacy groups, and commercial interests have invested in the pursuit of something called "sexual health." Under this expansive banner, a wide array of programs have been launched, organizations founded, initiatives funded, products sold—and yet, no book before this one asks: What does it mean to be sexually healthy? When did people conceive of a form of health called sexual health? And how did it become the gateway to addressing a host of social harms and the reimagining of private desires and public dreams? Conjoining "sexual" with "health" changes both terms: it alters how we conceive of sexuality and transforms what it means to be healthy, prompting new expectations of what medicine can provide. Yet the ideal of achieving sexual health remains elusive and open-ended, and the benefits and costs of promoting it are unevenly distributed across genders, races, and sexual identities. Rather than a thing apart, sexual health is intertwined with nearly every conceivable topical debate—from sexual dysfunction to sexual violence, from reproductive freedom to the practicalities of sexual contact in a pandemic. In this book Steven Epstein analyzes the rise, proliferation, uptake, and sprawling consequences of sexual health activities, offering critical tools to assess those consequences, expand capacities for collective decision making, and identify pathways that promote social justice.

Sex in Canada

Sex in Canada
Author: Tina Fetner
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2024-02-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0774869534

What do we do in the bedroom? Do other people do the same? How often? Who with? Movies and the internet seem saturated in sex, but it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction, and real talk about our own sexual lives can feel uncomfortable. Sex in Canada pulls the covers off, breaking through myths with frank talk and hard facts. Tina Fetner delves into sex among singles and couples, marriage and monogamy, hooking up and committed relationships, guided by the results of her one-of-a-kind survey of adults aged eighteen to ninety. She shows us how the social forces that shape our lives also nudge our sexual behaviour into patterns that reflect the world around us. In applying the tools of social science to a formerly taboo topic, Sex in Canada offers the most accurate picture to date not just of Canadians’ sex lives but of why we act the way we do.

Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement

Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement
Author: Marc Stein
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2022-11-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000685721

Now in its second edition, Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement provides an accessible overview of an important and transformational struggle for social change, highlighting key individuals and events, influential groups and organizations, major successes and failures, and the movement’s lasting effects and unfinished work. Focusing on four decades of social, cultural, and political change in the second half of the twentieth century, Marc Stein examines the changing agendas, beliefs, strategies, and vocabularies of a movement that encompassed diverse actions, campaigns, ideologies, and organizations. From the homophile activism of the 1950s and 1960s through the rise of gay liberation and lesbian feminism in the 1970s to the multicultural and AIDS activist movements of the 1980s, this book provides a strong foundation for understanding gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer politics today. This new edition reflects the substantial changes in the field since the book’s original publication eleven years ago. Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement will be valued by everyone interested in LGBTQ struggles, the politics of movement activism, and the history of social justice in the United States.

Kids in Cages

Kids in Cages
Author: Emily Ruehs-Navarro
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2024-11-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816553823

In recent years, the plight of immigrant children has been in the national spotlight. A primary issue of concern is the experience of child migrants in detention by the U.S. government. The authors in this volume approach the topic of child migrant detention from a range of perspectives. Some authors, particularly those who provide a legal perspective, chronicle the harms of detention, arguing that despite governmental assurances of child protection, detention is fundamentally a state-sanctioned form of violence. The social scientists in the volume have worked closely with detained youth themselves; in these chapters, authors highlight the ways in which youth survive detention, often through everyday acts of resistance and through the formation of temporary relationships. Practitioners including psychologists, activists, and faith leaders look at forms of resistance to detention. From retheorizing psychological interventions for detained youth to forming hospitality homes that act as alternatives to detention, these practitioners highlight ways forward for advocates of youth. At the heart of these narratives lies a crucial debate: the tension between harm-reduction strategies and abolition. This interdisciplinary work brings together voices from the legal realm, the academic world, and the on-the-ground experiences of activists and practitioners. Contributors Stella Akello Jessica Alaniz Aireen Grace Andal Samuel Arroyo Corey Brost Lina Caswell Muñoz Marisa Chumil Patricia Crowley Iman Dadras Sarah J. Diaz Sandra Espinoza Jacqueline Florian Michael Gosch Darlene Gramigna Lisa Jacobs Katherine Kaufka Walts Corinne Kentor Jenn M. Lilly Kathlyn Mulcahy Jennifer Nagda Vida Opoku Silvia Rodriguez Vega Emily Ruehs-Navarro Herlin Soto-Matute Luis Edward Tenorio Jajah Wu

Born This Way

Born This Way
Author: Joanna Wuest
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2023-09-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0226827526

The story of how a biologically driven understanding of gender and sexuality became central to US LGBTQ+ political and legal advocacy. Across protests and courtrooms, LGBTQ+ advocates argue that sexual and gender identities are innate. Oppositely, conservatives incite panic over “groomers” and a contagious “gender ideology” that corrupts susceptible children. Yet, as this debate rages on, the history of what first compelled the hunt for homosexuality’s biological origin story may hold answers for the queer rights movement’s future. Born This Way tells the story of how a biologically based understanding of gender and sexuality became central to LGBTQ+ advocacy. Starting in the 1950s, activists sought out mental health experts to combat the pathologizing of homosexuality. As Joanna Wuest shows, these relationships were forged in subsequent decades alongside two broader, concurrent developments: the rise of an interest-group model of rights advocacy and an explosion of biogenetic and bio-based psychological research. The result is essential reading to fully understand LGBTQ+ activism today and how clashes over science remain crucial to equal rights struggles.

The Oxford Handbook of Expertise and Democratic Politics

The Oxford Handbook of Expertise and Democratic Politics
Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 593
Release: 2023-05-05
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0190848944

In the last several decades, there has been a surge of interest in expertise in the social scientific, philosophical, and legal literatures. While it is tempting to attribute this surge of interest in expertise to the emergence and consolidation of a "knowledge society," "post-industrial society," or "network society," it is more likely that the debates about expertise are symptomatic of significant change and upheaval. As the number of contenders for expert status has increased, as the bases for their claims have become more diverse, and as the struggles between these would-be experts intensified, expertise became problematic and contested. In The Oxford Handbook of Expertise and Democratic Politics, Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz have brought together a broad group of scholars who have engaged substantively and theoretically with debates regarding the nature of expertise and the social roles of experts to examine these areas within sociology and allied disciplines. The analyses take an historical and relational approach to the topic and are motivated by the sense that growing mistrust in experts represents a danger to democratic politics today. Among the topics considered here are the value and relevance of the boundary between experts and laypeople; the causes and consequences of mistrust in experts; the meanings and social uses of objectivity; and the significance of recent transformations in the organization of the professions. Bringing together investigations from social scientists, philosophers, and legal scholars into the political dimensions of expertise, this Handbook connects interdisciplinary work done in science and technology studies with the more classic concerns, topics, and concepts of sociologists of professions and intellectuals.

Asylum and Conversion to Christianity in Europe

Asylum and Conversion to Christianity in Europe
Author: Lena Rose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2024-05-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1350407895

Drawing together previously disjointed scholarship on the topic of asylum and conversion from Islam to Christianity, this book shows how boundaries of belonging are negotiated between Middle Eastern ex-Muslim asylum seekers, church representatives, lawyers, legal decision-makers and policymakers. With case studies from European countries such as Germany, Austria, Finland and Sweden, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach including ethnographic and other qualitative research, discourse analysis and case law analysis, to explore the complexities of the phenomenon of asylum and conversion from Islam to Christianity. This book is an authoritative resource for academic scholars in fields as diverse as migration and refugee studies, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, law and socio-legal studies, as well as legal and religious practitioners.

The Color of Asylum

The Color of Asylum
Author: Katherine Jensen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2023-09-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226828441

"In 2013, the world watched as Syrians desperate to escape a brutal war fled the country. Brazil took the remarkable step of instituting an open-door policy to all Syrian refugees. Why did Brazil-in contrast to much of the international community-offer asylum to any Syrian who would come? And how do Syrians differ from other refugee populations seeking status in Brazil, and why? In The Color of Asylum, Katherine Jensen provides an ethnographic look at the process of asylum seeking in Brazil, uncovering the different ways asylum seekers are treated and the racial logics behind their treatment. She focuses on two of the largest and most successful groups of asylum seekers: Syrian and Congolese refugees. While they obtain asylum status in Brazil at roughly equivalent rates, their journey to that status could not be more different. While Syrians travel to Brazil on visas and in airplanes, most Congolese refugees reach Brazil as stowaways on ships. Congolese migrants wait in long lines in unbearable heat to see immigration officials, while Syrians go through an expedited process. And while Syrian migrants reported a relaxed and comfortable environment while meeting with immigration officials, Congolese migrants were met with distrust and suspicion as they recounted the harrowing and traumatic stories of life in their home country. As Jensen shows, Syrians are treated so differently from other asylum seekers because the Brazilian state recognizes them as white. This dates back to Brazilian immigration policy that followed the abolition of slavery. Eager to "whiten" its population, Brazil welcomed a first wave of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants-a precedent that would affect the nation's policy toward Syrian refugees in the twenty-first century. On the other hand, anti-black racism shapes the experiences of Congolese and other African refugees and entrenches racial inequalities-even among those deemed worthy of safe haven. Jensen's comparative study arrives at an unexpected conclusion, however: even when migrants do obtain asylum status, Jensen finds that their lives remain largely unchanged, marked by struggle and discrimination"--