Contesting Psychiatry, Social Movements in Mental Health – By N. Crossley

Book reviews

Billig, M. Laughter and Ridicule: Towardsa Social Critique of Humour Sage 2005 264pp. £65.00 (hardback) £20.99 (paperback)

The aim of this book is to rehabilitateridicule. This project will not easily winwidespread acceptance, because it takescritical aim at some cherished notions aboutthe nature of humour. Humour is usuallythought to be inherently good, and thisbelief has no place for the laughter ofridicule. ‘Laughing with’ is the ideologicallysupported norm, but its opposite – laughingat – is universally deplored. Against thistrend, Michael Billig presents the carefullyargued thesis that ‘humour, in the form ofridicule, lies at the heart of social life’ (p.236) and is crucial to sustaining the socialorder.

Billig opens his case with a mocking cri-tique of contemporary faith in the inherentgoodness of humour, a position that helabels ‘ideological positivism’ (p. 5). Hefollows with a very skillful intellectualhistory of the major humour theories fromPlato to Freud. This section, which takes upthe bulk of the book, pays particular atten-tion to thinkers’ treatment (or non-treatment, as the case may be) of ridicule.Formerly, philosophers took it for grantedthat the essence of laughter was mockery – aview usually termed ‘the superiority theoryof humour’. From the eighteenth centurysuperiority theories fell into disfavour, beingreplaced by ‘incongruity theories’, which

locate the source of humour in cognitiveprocesses, and by ‘relief theories’, whichfocus on emotional processes. In part, thesemodern theories distinguished the intellec-tual and kindly wit of the theorists’ socialcircle from the crude and sadistic laughter ofthe unlettered classes.

The humour theories of Henri Bergsonand Sigmund Freud receive extendedtreatment. Bergson stressed that laughterhad the social function of correcting mal-adaptive behaviour. Freud argued that werarely know why we laugh. The ideology ofhumor allows us to claim that we laughbecause a thing is inherently funny, butBillig, following Freud, argues that thisbelief is a ‘rhetorical spray’ (p. 25) thatenables us to repress the currently unaccept-able motives of mockery and ridicule.

Today, incongruity and relief theoriesdominate humour research, but both treathumour purely as a matter of psychology. Inthe third part of the book Billig returnshumour to the social realm. First, he arguesthat laughter itself is a communicativebehaviour that is both learned and artful.Moreover, laughter is significant onlybecause the possibility of unlaughter exists –the latter being an extremely useful conceptthat refers to a display of not laughing wherelaughter might be expected.

Finally, Billig presents his thesis thatlaughter, in the form of ridicule, is central tosocial life. Having prepared the way byshowing that ridicule has not always been

© London School of Economics and Political Science 2007 ISSN 0007-1315 print/1468-4446 online.Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,MA 02148, USA on behalf of the LSE. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-4446.2007.00162.x

The British Journal of Sociology 2007 Volume 58 Issue 3

the pariah that it is today, he turns to Goff-man’s observation that embarrassment isthe key to the maintenance of the socialorder. Noting that what is embarrassing tothe subject is often amusing to the onlooker,Billig suggests that embarrassment is alsolearned behaviour, and that it is ridicule thatteaches us when we should be embarrassed.This claim is supported by observations ofparents laughing at the mistakes of children.If readers find that this evidence is scant, orthat Billig has overstated the importance ofridicule, the point of Billig’s argument is thatsocial scientists have been lead by the blan-dishments of ideological positivism toneglect the topic.

Billig confesses that he does not person-ally enjoy jokes, and readers will not findmany jokes in this book. What they will find,instead, is a very well written work thateffectively critiques the ideological basis formost research and writing about humour.Assuch, this book should be required readingfor anyone seriously interested in the topic.

Moira SmithIndiana University

Cavadino, M. and Dignan, J. PenalSystems: A Comparative Approach SagePublications 2006 380 pp. £75.00(hardback) £24.99 (paperback)

In the Forward to Penal Systems, DavidDownes points out the pitfalls faced byundertaking comparative studies in thisarea. Cavadino and Dignan have provedthat these pitfalls can be avoided. The maintheoretical argument that underpins thisskilful work is that countries which are gen-erally similar in their economies, culture, lan-guage and politics are likely to resembleeach other in penality. The authors havechosen broadly, ‘western’ developed indus-trial democracies as the basis for their com-parisons – England and Wales, France,Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden,Finland, the USA, Australia, New Zealand,South Africa and, exceptionally, Japan. Inorder to understand and explain the simi-

larities and differences between these coun-tries, Cavadino and Dignan developed aparticularly useful and intelligible typologyof four ‘family groupings’ based on thedominant form of economic and social struc-ture in each country: Neo-liberalism, conser-vative corporatism, social democraticcorporatism and oriental corporatism. Theythen proceed to examine the extent to whichmaterial, cultural and ideological factorshelp to explain differences in the form ofpenalty encountered in the different familygroups.

Cavadino and Dignan devote a chapter toeach of the countries in turn and trace howhistorical, social, economic and politicaldevelopments during the twentieth centuryresulted in changes in penal legislation andpunishment philosophies and how thesechanges affected the imprisoned adult malepopulation. Each chapter is organizedaround the general concept of ‘penal crisis’and penal legitimacy.Their findings illustratestriking differences between penal ideolo-gies and ensuing penal practices and,although the main thrust across the majorityof the countries exhibits a significant movetowards increased punitiveness, the excep-tions demonstrate that spiralling rates ofimprisonment need not necessarily be con-sidered inevitable.

The authors then proceed to explorewhether youth justice followed a similarpattern. Using the same four categories ofpolitical economy, they traced the develop-ments in youth justice. Comparing youthjustice systems was particularly challengingbecause it involved a consideration of eachcountry’s concept of the age of criminalresponsibility, the definition of ‘youth’ andthe institutional arrangements and pro-cesses underpinning their different penalphilosophies. Despite some minor empiricaldifferences, the authors concluded that adultand juvenile systems were both cruciallyinfluenced by the social economic and politi-cal context within which they operate.

Cavadino and Dignam completed theircomparative analysis by examining thestatus of private sector involvement in the

496 Book reviews

© London School of Economics and Political Science 2007 British Journal of Sociology 58(3)

provision of penal facilities and they againdiscovered a similar pattern emerging ineach of the ‘family groupings’. For example,those exhibiting more pronounced neo-liberal tendencies had moved rapidlytowards privatizing a wide range of prisonand other penal services whereas in the thirdgroup of social democratic countries therewas little or no interest in penalprivatization.

The authors admit, in conclusion, that,although their analysis has highlighted defi-nite links between penalty and the differenttypes of political economy, this pattern is farfrom watertight when viewed in an historicalcontext. On the other hand, they believe thatthe current penal crisis in the majority ofcountries studied seems likely to continueunless there is a more rational and informedpublic debate about punishment.

This book provides the reader with a fas-cinating insight into the factors that helpedshape penal philosophies and approaches topunishment across a variety of differentcountries. In the light of the proportionatelyhigher increases in female imprisonment inmany countries over the past decade, theabsence of any reference to gender wassurprising. Notwithstanding this omission,this book remains a hugely important bookfor students of criminology, comparativestudies and penal systems in general but itdeserves also to be read by a wider audience,particularly those involved in policy devel-opment and sentencing.

Barbara MasonLondon School of Economics

and Political Science

Coyle, A. Understanding Prisons: KeyIssues in Policy and Practice OpenUniversity Press 2005 200 pp. £60.00(hardback) £18.99 (paperback)

From the beginning the author makes itclear that the focus of UnderstandingPrisons is on policy and practice and not thesociology of prisons. Although the mainemphasis is on England and Wales there are

also some interesting comparisons withpenal practices in other jurisdictions.

Coyle starts by arguing that prisons do notexist in a vacuum but are symbolic institu-tions that reflect society’s changing attitudestowards punishment. He traces the historyof the modern prison from the end of trans-portation to the present day and comple-ments this narrative with an authoritativediscussion on how the organization of theprison system evolved from the era of localprisons to the current centralized organiza-tion driven by corporate objectives and keyperformance indicators.

The book provides an insight into thecharacteristics of the current male andfemale imprisoned population outlininghow different categories of prisoner aretreated, including remands, those who areconvicted, young offenders and thoseserving life sentences. The author covers thecomplex topic of early and conditionalrelease in a fashion that is easy to read andeasy to understand and links the confusionin the public’s mind about the actual timethat prisoners serve to the ongoing debateabout the purpose of imprisonment.

Coyle’s examination of the changing roleof the prison officer from that of turnkey,through the rehabilitative era characterizedby the introduction of Borstals, to the morerecent emphasis on security and control,complements earlier academic work onprison officers, (Thomas, J.E. The EnglishPrison Officer Since 1850:A Study in Conflictand Liebling A. and Price, D. The PrisonOfficer). He argues that the role will con-tinue to be problematic because of anongoing ambiguity about the purpose ofimprisonment. So it is that current trainingprocedures for new recruits cover the topicof interpersonal skills but the main emphasisis on matters of security and discipline andhow to control violent prisoners.

The media myths of prisons as eithertotally dangerous places or ‘holiday camps’are dispelled by Coyle’s detailed descriptionof a daily life pervaded by a monotony ofroutine, a boredom of inactivity, a paucity offacilities and a distress at being separated

Book reviews 497

British Journal of Sociology 58(3) © London School of Economics and Political Science 2007

from family and friends. He touches on dis-cipline, including the purpose and impact ofincentive and earned privileges schemes andthe various responses to incidents of vio-lence, but he also adds another dimension byexploring how disciplinary procedures workand how prisoners’ complaints have beenaffected by decisions of the European Courtof Human Rights.

The concluding chapter looks to thefuture role of prisons. Echoing one of LordWoolf’s recommendations after the 1990prison riots, it argues for smaller prisonsorganized on a local basis with closer ties tothe community which would provide anopportunity to redefine the nature ofimprisonment.

This book is something of a tour de forcein that it not only provides an historicalaccount of all aspects of prisons in Englandand Wales but it also presents the readerwith an up-to-date report on developmentsin the early years of the twenty-first century.As such, it makes an important contributionto the literature on penal practices.Although it is aimed mainly at criminologystudents, it will be valued by many of thoseinterested in punishment and prisons andthe social and political changes that shapesociety’s attitude towards them.



Crossley, N. Contesting Psychiatry, SocialMovements in Mental Health Routledge2006 229 pp. £21.99 (paperback)

This book generated an intense sense of déjàvu. It presents an analysis of fifty years ofpopular resistance to psychiatry and mentalhealth services in the UK, organized andinterrogated through an analytical frame-work derived from social movement theory.Nick Crossley writes with lucidity and eru-dition that informs the text while not gettingin the way of the essential story. The result-ant whole is both an important record of themany groups that made up this period of

ferment, and also an insightful and illumi-nating analysis of the way in which suchgroups are generated and change.

The first two chapters set the theoreticalscene. Crossley draws on earlier work of hisown to set out a working model for under-standing social movements, drawing heavilyof a modifed version of Smelser’s model,which he argues has stood the test of time inthis field (Smelser, Theory of CollectiveBehaviour, 1962). This is composed of sixparts. Social movements, and movementorganizations, he argues, are shaped bystructural conduciveness, structural strain,discursive formation, trigger events, mobiliz-ing structures, and third parties. This modelis then applied in the subsequent sevenchapters which review chronologically theemerging eras of protest and reform thathave characterized this field (or ‘field of con-tention’ as he characterizes it).

The field itself has witnessed a consider-able variety and development of movementsover the fifty year period covered by thebook. Crossly classifies this into five types: amental hygiene movement, a civil rightsmovement, an anti-psychiatry movement, apatients/users’ movement, and finally ananti-liberalism/radicalism movement. Thesehave unfolded sequentially over time,although of course they make reference totheir own and to each others’ history as theyhave evolved. Within these five types, Cross-ley covers some twenty two differentorganizations. And the point of the book isto apply the modified Smelser framework toexplaining and accounting for the way in thewhich the overall field has evolved.

All this is accomplised in a controlled andeconomical style, such that there are fewgrounds for criticism. However there aresome. The first is that while the theoreticalterrain is developed very carefully and com-pletely in the first two chapters, there is rela-tively little return to it subsequently. Withineach chapter there is a brief reference to theway in which the theory confirms Crossley’saccount of the movement’s organizationaldevelopment, but the adequacy or perfor-mance of the theory itself is not addressed.

498 Book reviews


Towards the end of the book, the narrativetakes increasing precedence, such that thetheory is almost eclipsed in favour of thestory. The book in that sense is quite unbal-anced, and needs a final chapter whichreturns to the detailed theoretical discussionof the first chapters to reflect upon thestrengths and weaknesses of the theoryadopted, and any suggestions that mighthave been generated to develop or modify(or reject) the Smesler model.

A second point would be to note thatwhile some reference is made to theGerman and especially Italian experience,these ‘fields’ are not included in the book(nor the American field) as sites for enquiry.While this might be justified on the groundsthat they are only relevant in so far as theyaffected the UK field, it does leave the bookwith a decidedly parochial flavour. Somegroups were really only a handful, even onlyone or two, activists, with ephemeral effects.Nevertheless, this is a useful book, perhapsmore for the documentary evidence it pre-sents of this field than for the advances insocial movement theory that it claims.

Nick ManningUniversity of Nottingham

Edwards, P. and Wacjman, J. The Politicsof Working Life Oxford University Press2005 316 pp. £60 (paperback)

The nature of employment (and the peopledoing it), as well as the workings of organi-zations, and economic systems, have allchanged dramatically over the last fiftyyears. How do we make sense of thesechanges, and what are the implications forthe people involved in them? This excellentand ambitious book addresses thesequestions. It is addressed to a ‘notionalperson . . . living in one of the core capitalisteconomies of the USA, Western Europe orAustralasia . . . having an intelligent but notnecessarily tutored interest in the world ofwork’ (p. 7).

At the core of the book is an argumentabout ‘connections and contradictions’ –

both the links between individuals, careers,organizations, and their global environment,as well as the contradictions betweencontrol and commitment, profit and safety,and so on. The book takes a ‘bottom-up’approach, earlier chapters discussing thenature of employment, careers, work-life‘balance’, and performance, moving upthrough discussions of organizations, power,decision-making, markets and globalization.

As would be expected from two distin-guished academics with track records inempirical research, this book is extremelywell argued and referenced. A frequenttheme is that many of the more sweepingassumptions that have been made aboutwork, and related issues, are only partiallyvalid. For example, the organizational careerhas not by any means disappeared (althoughindividuals’ commitment and loyalty havebeen severely strained), and ‘globalisation’is not sweeping the world – it is neither aninevitable nor a uniform process.

The authors are critical of authors such asSennett, Beck and Giddens who have iden-tified radical changes in work in ‘reflexivemodernity’ (or whatever) as compared withthe past. As they argue, such authors tend tooffer ‘essays rather than cases backed withevidence’, to assume that ‘the past’ is itselfunproblematic, and to bestow an inevitabil-ity on the processes and conditions theyidentify (thus downgrading the impact ofhuman agency). These are criticisms withwhich I would very much agree. However,one of the reasons for the popularity andinfluence of the somewhat apocalyptic asser-tions of writers such as Sennett, Giddens andBeck lies in these very critical points –sweeping statements are easy to grasp,‘newness’ is in itself attractive, and too muchdetail has a tendency to make one’s headhurt. Whilst it might be unfair, challenging-seeming academic soundbites are alwaysgoing to achieve more coverage thancarefully-reasoned and well substantiatedarguments.

So it is likely that this book will have moreappeal to students and academics ratherthan the ‘notional person’ it is targeted at.

Book reviews 499


They will indeed find it a mine of informa-tion, comment, and useful references. This isa work of political economy in the very bestsense, exploring and giving an account of theglobal development of the capitalist systemwhilst refraining from futurology or unwar-ranted generalization. Nevertheless, thisvery restraint might be a possible source ofweakness.Amongst other things, the authorsgive a persuasive account as to why the firmis, increasingly, defined largely as a body inpursuit of ‘shareholder value’, and the nega-tive consequences that flow from this. Nev-ertheless, they refrain from prescriptivesolutions (which might include, for example,a greater degree of regulation at thenational and supranational level), butrather, emphasize the tensions and contra-dictions inherent in this particular definitionof the firm. The focus of the last chapter,which is on the increasing emphasis on cor-porate social responsibility and businessethics, might be seen as giving some sort ofaccount of constraining possibilities on theactivities of firms. However, such actions arevoluntary, and dependent on the predilec-tions of key individuals. Ironically, therefore,the authors might be seen as endorsing theclaims as to increasing ‘individualization’that have been developed by the authorsthat they so rightly criticize.

Rosemary CromptonCity University

Fuller, S. The New SociologicalImagination Sage 2006 240 pp. £70.00(hardback) £21.99 (paperback)

Steve Fuller has written an important bookbut he has given it the wrong title. The bookis important because it deals with a funda-mental question: what it means to be humanin the twenty-first century. The title is a mis-nomer because Fuller says little about soci-ology as such. Instead of being an update ofC. Wright Mills’ robust perspective on soci-ology – how to pursue it – how not to pursueit – The New Sociological Imagination isessentially a work of critical philosophy, a

Christian socialist call to arms against neo-Darwinism and its denigration of theuniqueness of human beings. Freneticdigressions, compressed genealogies, anddense prose will leave undergraduatesfloundering. Yet this text has more insightand integrity than most you will read thisyear.

Fuller’s bête noire is Peter Singer, thephilosophical champion of animal liberationand the standard bearer of Leftist neo-Darwinism. (Richard Dawkins and E. O.Wilson also receive a drubbing.) In Singer’swritings, Fuller spies an attempt to reorientthe Left’s political priorities towards thenatural world. ‘De-centering’ humanitymight appear to be an admirable goal. ButFuller grasps a disturbing downside. Singer’smission, itself a popularization of develop-ments in evolutionary biology, genetics, andbiotechnology, has two noxious implications.First, the neo-Darwinist debunking ofhumans is coalescing with a libertarian ethicof choice to produce a ‘casualization of thehuman condition’ (pp. 12, 13 and 143).Human life is deemed increasingly plasticand expendable. Abortion, euthanasia, andgenetic manipulation trump a basic rever-ence for human life in all its forms. Second,efforts to improve the welfare of non-humananimals are made at the expense of improv-ing the welfare of humanity at large. Thevery notion of humanity becomes a philo-sophical chimera, a hopeless case at that.Fuller does not claim that the pursuit ofhuman or animal welfare is a zero-sumgame. His point is more subtle.A view of theworld which discriminates, on the basis ofsentience, between better human beings andworse, the really valuable from the less valu-able, has lost sight of what marginal peoplecan teach us. It has abandoned the project ofhuman inclusiveness, decency and kindness.And, ironically, a perspective that seesHomo sapiens on a continuum with non-human life is all too likely to devalue theformer. Why? Because it is easier to becomea vegetarian or buy organic foods or save thewhale than it is to staunch poverty, increasedrinking water, or confront oppression. As

500 Book reviews


such, future emotional energy is more likelyto be diverted into areas where satisfactionsare most immediate for their partisans.Where humanity is metaphysically down-graded it stands to reason that scarceresources are better invested elsewhere.

Fuller elicits an abstract sociology fromhis prognostication. Sociology is distinctfrom biology in recognizing human agents tobe public creatures, able to create artificial‘corporations’ – such as the Church, univer-sity, and enterprise – that go beyond kinadvantage and genetic self-interest. Sociol-ogy, attuned to the character of group life, isalso connected to a political project: social-ism, particularly that species of socialismwhich sees a prominent role for the inter-ventionist state. Fuller prizes socialismbecause he believes that only a muscularpolity can arbitrate on the side of humanbeings as a whole against those who woulddiminish them. Only a socialist state, heappears to believe, would be in a position todefend universalism and stymie the worst oftechno libertarianism. Socialism, after all, isnothing if it is not a collective project ‘abovethe self-interest of individuals and theirloved ones’ (p. 140).

Fuller is right to worry about the ‘casual-ization of the human condition’, a transvalu-ation of values in which a healthy pig isworthy of greater moral consideration thana terminally sick cancer patient, a healthydolphin more deserving of life than a brain-impaired infant. He is right to alert us to thebroader contrast – and alternative –between ‘anthropic’ and ‘karmic’ percep-tions of the world, the first emphasizingMan’s centrality, the second his transience.But Fuller’s integral (as distinct from his-torical) coupling of sociology and socialismis tendentious, and not only because thatequation would debar from the disciplinepeople who see sociology as an epistemicfield rather than a political vocation. Themore statist socialism has become, the lessinclusive it has shown itself to be. Bolshe-vism sought to create ‘the new man’ even ifit required killing many categories of people– kulaks, capitalists, deviationists – who were

never considered to be real humans in thefirst place.

Fuller says he wishes to champion Redagainst Green. But the deepest, if unac-knowledged, source of his rigorous compas-sion is Black. I hear in his thinly secularizeddefense of humanity not Saint Simon’s pro-gressivism but St. Paul’s stringent demands,in Corinthians 13, to ‘love’ others – theGreek agape misleadingly translated as‘charity’. Steve Fuller believes he is advanc-ing a socialist idea but it is the RomanCatholic Church that is today most in tunewith his elegy, insisting repeatedly on limits,prohibitions, and, above all, the universalvalue of human life. Bereft of its metaphysi-cal grounding, the ‘project’ of humanity is awatery brew. Invigorated with the sacred itbecomes something else: the obligation tocare for each other, express solidarity withthe oppressed, and extend kindness to allwho need our help.

Peter BaehrLingnan University, Hong Kong

Kruttschnitt, C. and Gartner, R. MarkingTime In The Golden State: Women’sImprisonment in California CambridgeUniversity Press 2005 200 pp. £40.00(hardback) £16.99 (paperback)

Many academics argue that the periodbetween the 1960s and the 1990s encom-passed some of the most significant changesin American penal policy. Marking Time inthe Golden State sets out to explore thesechanges and in particular, their effect onfemale offenders. The authors concentratedinitially on the Californian Institute forWomen (CIW) which was the only femaleprison in the State in the 1960s. Using thefirst large scale study of women in prisoncarried out in CIW in 1965 (Ward, D. andKassebaum, G. Women’s Prisons: Sex andSocial Structure) they compare the findingsof that study with their own research on thesame prison in the 1990s. They extended thescope of their research to encompass a newprison for women, the Valley State Prison

Book reviews 501


for Women (VSPW) which opened in Cali-fornia in 1995 and is said to be the largestprison for women in the world.

Kruttschnitt and Gartner begin by analys-ing and explaining the move from the reha-bilitative model of punishment which hadcharacterized Californian corrections in the1960s before it gradually gave way to whatGarland called ‘the new culture of crimecontrol’ (The Culture of Control: Crime andSocial Order in Contemporary Society), sym-bolized by the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘threestrikes and you’re out’ legislation of the1990s. They show how the imprisonedfemale population increased more thantenfold, and how this growth was accompa-nied by a penological shift away from anydirect concern for women’s specific needs toan emphasis on gender equity in policy andpractice.

The comparison between the 1990s CIWand VSPW highlighted the punitive shiftmost starkly. Whereas CIW continued torecognize some aspect of women’s indi-vidual needs, VSPW was focused on servingthe wider prison system. This typified thenew penological era in which ‘system man-agement, resource allocation, cost benefitcalculation and organisational efficiency’(see Garland, D. ‘Penal Modernism andPostmodernism’ in Blomberg and CohenPunishment and Social Control) are thepredominant goals. At VSPW a strict anddisciplined regime reinforced the punitivenature of the prison and there was a lackof any therapeutic or other supportiveprogrammes.

Kruttschnitt and Gartner found that agreater proportion of women in VSPWvoiced negative views about the regime, staffand other prisoners compared to CIW ineither period, although their experience ofprison life as painful, anomic and punitivewas very much the same over time andbetween prisons. On the other hand theirexperiences were not monolithic but contin-gent and in many respects the products of aparticular historical context.

In the final analytical chapter, the authorsreprise the theoretical discourse of the

‘golden age’ of prison sociology wherewomen’s behaviour was depicted as a func-tion of their sex roles in the wider societyand more recent academic studies wheretheir behaviour was more likely to be seenas a function of agency. They draw on boththese approaches but expand their analysisto use quantitative data from their ownsurveys embellished by the prisoners’ depic-tions of how they do time. They concludedthat women respond to imprisonment inthree predictable ways: by accommodation;by a refusal to adapt; or by seclusion: butwhilst these three styles transcend specificprison environments, it is the particulars ofthese environments that shape preciselyhow women will behave.

By illustrating how temporal and institu-tional factors can shape prisoners’ responsesto incarceration, Marking Time in theGolden State provides an invaluable addi-tion to the literature on femaleincarceration. It also bridges the gapbetween macro-theoretical prison scholar-ship and microstudies of particular prisonenvironments to illuminate how politicalshifts in punishment become a lived realityto those on the receiving end. In so doing, itwill be of interest to those studying gender,the uses of historical data, the comparativemethod and others who have a more generalinterest in imprisonment as a keystone ofcoercive control in modern society.



Grosby, S. (ed.) A Fragment of aSociological Autobiography: The Historyof My Pursuit of a Few Ideas, by EdwardShils Transaction Publishers 2006 220 pp.£30.50 (hardback)

This book, edited and introduced by StevenGrosby, is a work of piety in the best sense ofthe word, based on the editor’s personal andintellectual fellowship with one of the majorfigures of sociology in the mid-twentiethcentury. Edward Shils was born in 1910, the

502 Book reviews


son of Russian Jewish parents in Philadel-phia, and attended the Universities of Penn-sylvania and Chicago. He was a publicintellectual, in many ways complementary toDaniel Bell, also of Jewish parentage, and atdifferent times the topics in which they wereinterested overlapped, for example, the endof ideology (and a subsequent acrimoniousdebate, mostly from those who thought italive and well), and the nature of the sacred.For Shils there was always a question markover the end of ideology.

In Fragment, Edward Shils sets the themesthat engaged him in their personal contextand academic environment. The two maincentres of his mature activity were Chicagoand Cambridge, England, but he spent timeat London University, in particular theLondon School of Economics, and wasdeeply engaged by the German tradition.Asyou might expect with such a background,he absorbed the classics of European litera-ture as well as European sociology, and hisown writing reflected his reading in itsclarity, its range of reference, and undercur-rent of (mostly) genial humour. His mindpurred like a large engine at dusk and foundits natural expression in the long discursiveessay.

Readers of Fragment will get a good ideaof a brilliant, expansive mind and personal-ity at work, and know more about the atmo-sphere in which the major debates of thetime were conducted. They will also beamused by a number of sketches of charac-ters, like Talcott Parsons and Karl Man-nheim, and some acerbic dismissals of majorreputations. Max Weber (with the Germans)lies at the centre of Shils’ intellectual uni-verse, while Durkheim (with the French) liesat the periphery.

Anyone interested in theory will beinformed and entertained by Shils’ accountof his collaboration with Talcott Parsons onToward a General Theory of Action (repub-lished in 2001, with a new Introduction, bysomeone much influenced by it, NeilSmelser). This work is the only one in whichShils is not easily accessible. In retrospect,Shils thinks it a worthwhile enterprise, and

(maybe) an impossible ambition. He pro-foundly admired Parsons as a decent manrather too intent on fitting the world intosets of four-fold boxes.

As one reads Fragment, the controversiesof the time, political and academic, comevividly alive, and it would be interesting toknow what resonance Shils’ characteristicthemes have today. In my case, his discussionof Tradition, and his analysis of Center andPeriphery have long fructified in my intellec-tual biography. His comments on the shockcolleagues expressed over his interest in tra-dition and the sacred revives memories ofhow it used to be. One of the fiercest battlesraged over the article he wrote with MichaelYoung in the 1950s on ‘The Meaning of theCoronation’, not a subject one was thenallowed to take seriously. There was alsodebate over his reformulation of the notionof charisma.

Shils’ enquiries into the nature of the uni-versity and the academic vocation are stillremarkably relevant, for example, TheOrder of Learning, but maybe the discussionin The Torment of Secrecy of issues raised bythe McCarthyite agitation is less so. What inparticular remains open-ended and stillunresolved is the theme that engaged him inhis later years concerning the nature of con-sensus, solidarity and collective self-consciousness. The open-ended questionremains ‘Who do we think we are?’

David MartinUniversity of London (L.S.E.), and

Liverpool Hope University

Hammersley, M. Media Bias in ReportingSocial Research? The Case of ReviewingEthnic Inequalities in EducationRoutledge 2006 224 pp. £65.00 (hardback)

This was an interesting, and somewhat dif-ferent, book to review. It is essentially amonograph, providing a very close anddetailed analysis of how one particularreport was picked up and represented withthe print and broadcast media following itspublication.

Book reviews 503


The report in question was by Gillbornand Gipps (1996), a review of literature andevidence pertaining to educational achieve-ment among ethnic groups in Britain. AsHammersley notes, an understanding of theways in which research findings are inter-preted and re-represented within the mediais an issue of interest because of the weightor influence associated with social researchin public life.

As a brief guide to the structure of thebook, the Introduction section containssome interesting and useful literaturearound ‘the media’ and sets out sociologicalperspectives on representation and report-ing in the media (notably of issues aroundethnicity). Chapter One provides an incred-ibly detailed description of the review itself(down to the arguments made within itsvarious sections and even the layout, colourand font size! – hence no need for readers toactually be familiar with it to start with) andtraces the production of the review throughpress release and press conference. ChapterTwo describes the ways in which the findingsof the Review were picked up and reportedon the radio (notably the Today programmeand News at One). Chapter Three examinestelevision news coverage and the rather sub-stantial Chapter Four considers press cover-age, across national, ethnic minority andlocal newspapers. Interesting points aremade regarding the nature and amount ofcoverage across different publications,including the ways in which the balance ofemphasis varied (and hence conveyed differ-ent messages about the reviews findings).Chapter Five provides ‘conclusions’, askingquestions around accuracy and distortion,setting out different potential interpreta-tions and arguing for caution in relation tomoving ‘too rapidly to judgements aboutdistortion’ and seeking ‘to explain what hashappened in terms of the ideology model’(p. 155). The final chapter is an epilogue, inwhich Hammersley asks questions about themedia, democracy and social science – all ofwhich would appeal to various audiences,not least social science academics andresearchers.

The only slight reservation that I hadafter reading the book is that it draws on aslightly old review as the exemplar text.Undoubtedly the Gillborn and GippsReview is a very important and pertinenttext to choose (and a good rationale isincluded in the introduction for this forthose not already familiar with it) – and Ihave no issue with its selection in thatsense. It is just that the passage of timesince its publication (and the related cover-age) made me want to ask more questionsabout the current situation, now, withregard to the representation of socialresearch pertaining to issues of ethnicity. Itmade me wonder, for instance, about theways in which the race relations field hasshifted since 1996 (e.g. Macpherson Report;9/11; debates around the hijab, to name justa few) – what would these mean today forthe issues raised by the book? And whatabout the rapid ways in which ‘the media’is evolving? Whilst these might not changethe core messages of the book, I wouldhave liked some more contemporary point-ers to help readers move forward.

Finally, in terms of audience, the book isperhaps primarily aimed at sociologists ofthe media – whom I imagine will welcomeit as a useful and interesting addition. Yetits appeal is not limited to this field – as asociologist of education, I found myselfreflecting on some of the messages inthe book in light of the all pervadingemphasis these days on ‘dissemination’ and‘user engagement’ in current social science– and also in terms of my experience ofsending out press releases to ‘disseminatefindings’ from my own projects. I alsowondered if perhaps it might be usefulfor colleagues in funding councils andgovernment departments to reflect on someof the issues raised. But then again, Iimagine that the translation of complexarguments from social science monographsinto policy and practice is a wholeother question and area for enquiry initself!

Louise ArcherKings College, University of London

504 Book reviews


Howson, A. Embodying Gender Sage 2005192 pp. £60.00 (hardback) £20.00(paperback)

One of the first things that strikes thereader about Embodying Gender is itsimpressive scope. Drawing upon sociology,philosophy and feminist theory, the book isa veritable Who’s Who of scholarship onthe body, exploring sociological under-standings of the body, the impact of thebody on sociology, the conceptual frame-works through which the body has beenaddressed and the relationship betweenfeminist theorizing and sociological analy-sis. A central theme of the book is the rela-tionship between materiality and text, andit is premised on the claim that ‘the processof textual production within the academicmode has the potential to efface the body’smateriality’ (p. 10). The book explores whatHowson sees as the difficulties of reconcil-ing the sociological focus on the richnessand specificity of social life with what shedescribes as the ‘flattened, abstract catego-ries of philosophical analysis’ (p. 11), con-cluding with an emphatic advocacy for a‘pragmatic sociology of the body whichapproaches embodiment with an eye forthe social implications of a range ofdifference, divisions and inequalities forwomen rather than through entangle-ment with the internal logic of theoryand unremitting immanent critique’ (p.152).

The book begins by outlining body con-cepts within the field of sociology, exploringthe ways in which those sociologicalapproaches have engaged with feministdebates. The second chapter considers thecontributions of feminism to understandingsof embodiment and its role in the produc-tion of gender, exploring the wider projectacross a range of disciplines to reconsiderthe relationship between the body andgender. Chapter 3 focuses on a shift fromconceptualizing the body in terms of experi-ence to the body as an object of theory, pri-marily via the work of Foucault and asevidenced in the writings of feminist theo-

rists working within a post-structuralistframework, which she argues risks the over-textualization of the body and constrains theconceptual utility of gender. Chapter 4 takesup this critique in relation to the relianceupon Lacanian psychoanalytic categories inthe ‘new feminist philosophies of the body’(p. 127), which Howson argues generates a‘body suspended in time and space’, andwhich ‘pushes embodiment out of frame’(p. 130).

At the heart of the book’s argument is aconcern that textual methodologies andabstract theorizing constitute a panderingto the privileging of theory within aca-demia, rendering that style of writing andthinking ‘a luxury that few women canafford’ and which ‘may be a luxury accruedonly by the relative institutional security oftenured academics in prestigious researchuniversities’ (p. 134). But perhaps moreimportantly, she also argues that the femi-nist philosophies of the body ‘contribute tothe development of disciplinary theory butnot significantly to a feminist project thathas at its heart the production of knowl-edge for women’ (p. 141); instead, sheargues that ‘knowledge produced in thisfield is knowledge for feminists’ (p. 141).For Howson, this goes against the grain ofa feminist commitment to women outsideof the academy, arguing that abstractionand relative inaccessibility of the new phi-losophies of the body in feminism ‘diminishthe political potency of feminism and maskits relevance to women’ (p. 141). It is anargument that presumes, perhaps problem-atically, both a separation between womenwithin and outside of the academy, and aparticular understanding of the goal of aca-demic feminism. However, in spite of thesereservations, the book both demonstratesand invites critical engagement with a widerange of theoretical positions, pulling thedifferent strands of body scholarshiptogether in interesting and challengingways. As such, it constitutes a valuable con-tribution to this burgeoning field.

Karen ThrosbyUniversity of Warwick

Book reviews 505


Jacobs, Bruce A. and Wright, RichardStreet Justice: Retaliation in theCriminal Underworld CambridgeUniversity Press 2006 115 pp. £14.99(paperback)

What happens when the formal codes ofcriminal justice are abandoned? In inter-viewing fifty-two active street offenders,Jacobs and Wright get to the heart of theissue in a gripping study which explores thesocial dynamics of DIY street justice andexamines the issue of violent retaliationwithin the inner-city neighbourhood.Exploring the intersection of violent crimeand informal codes of social control, oftenperceived by the criminal justice system andthe media to be amorphous acts of wantonbehaviour, this exemplary study criticallyhighlights the ways in which retaliatoryresponses are often calculated and emotiverational choice activities. With the abandon-ment of the formal criminal justice system,replaced with versions of ‘natural law’, theauthors argue that acts of street vengeanceare enforced via the ‘. . . inequalities ofwealth, status, and prestige guarantee thatthe benefits of formal justice will be moreavailable to some people than others’ (p.134).

St. Louis, where the study was conducted,has seen an exodus of middle-class andrespectable working-class citizens, takingwith them a much needed tax base andleaving behind an increasingly elderly, poorand socially excluded population in need ofexpensive social services and other forms ofassisted welfare. As the authors argue,‘Against this backdrop, serious crime andviolence flourish. St. Louis consistentlyplaces at or near the top of large U.S. cities inrates of violent crimes such as armedrobbery, aggravated assault, and homicide’(p. 8). Within such violence-prone surround-ings, retaliatory responses to real or per-ceived challenges to street villains’reputations and honour must be dealt withaccordingly in order to demonstrate ‘per-sonal competence’ (p. 125). In such environ-ments ‘the perceived availability of law will

always be low, and offenders’ reliance onself-help will remain correspondingly high’(p. 132). The major strength of the authors’work in this book is the way they ground theenacted realities of retribution, the adminis-tration of street justice and its moral justifi-cation in social settings where retaliatoryacts of violence fulfil the primal demands forjustice.

In six concise chapters the authors discussthe largely unexplained phenomenon ofcriminal retaliation from the first-hand per-spectives of the perpetrators, victims – orboth – of violent acts of street retribution. Inchapter two, Jacobs and Wright examine the‘retaliatory ethic’ held by a subculture ofstreet criminals who rarely obtain sociallyjustified ‘victim’ status. The authors unearththe significance of violent resolutions thatcriminals adopt in dealing with the conflictsthey encounter. And there is an irony here.Living in social environments awash withpolicing activities one would expect the pro-tection of the law to be readily available.Yetas Jacobs and Wright suggest; ‘. . . urbanstreet criminals, compared with their law-abiding counterparts, are much more vulner-able to crime . . . in the eyes of the law; theyare on their own when it comes to seeingjustice done’ (p. 25).

With an absence of victim status, violentretaliation acts as a tool to enforce or,re-instate an individual’s honour within hisor her community and to right real or per-ceived ‘wrongs’ experienced by streetcriminals. As criminals are often unable toturn to law enforcement agencies as victimsor for protection, the authors suggest thatsuch retaliatory responses are acts of instru-mental violence that aim to deliver‘payback’ and restore an injured party’skudos and standing within theneighbourhood. In explaining the dynamicsof informal justice the authors discuss atypology of six criminal retaliatoryresponses. These are explained as ‘Reflexive’(e.g. immediate and spontaneous retalia-tion); ‘Calculated’ (the intentional delay ofaction in order to cultivate an element ofsurprise in the retaliatory response);

506 Book reviews


‘Deferred’ (where delays in retaliating to thesituation can be caused by a number ofunforeseen factors); ‘Sneaky’ (where covertplanning and preparation are undertaken inorder to maximize the retributive effects ofthe retaliatory strike); ‘Imperfect’ (oftenaimed at someone close to the violator,intent on flushing the offender out in orderto make a direct reprisal to the perpetratormore accessible) and finally, ‘Non-Retaliation’ (for example, where violatorsremain unidentified, cannot be located or,are encountered in social settings con-ducive to acts of reprisal). However, andunsurprisingly due to the overwhelmingabsence of the formal controls of a criminaljustice system, a cycle of tit-for-tat retalia-tory violence often ensues within suchsettings.

This is an important and highly informa-tive study of a largely hidden populationand the violence that plagues it. Jacobs andWright’s study of retaliatory street justice isof considerable worth, as is their ability toexplain the branches and routes ofenmeshed acts of retaliation for thosebereft of the formal mechanisms of for-mal justice. It is a study that will be ofreal benefit to students and scholarsalike.

Rob HornsbyUniversity of York, UK

Lee, N. Childhood and Human Value OUP2006 162 pp. £55.00 (hardback) £17.99(paperback)Wolfinger, N.H. Understanding the DivorceCycle CUP 2005 180 pp. £40 (hardback)£14.99 (paperback)

Nick Lee sets out to persuade the reader ofthe importance of valuing children as indi-vidual holders of rights as exemplified inthe United Nations 1989 Convention on theRights of the Child, in what he calls theWestern industrialised world. Many adultsregard it as right that they should make deci-sions of behalf of children. Such authority isseen as natural. Children’s rights to partici-

pate in decision making remainscontroversial. Lee argues for a better under-standing of separation and its associatedpotential from separability, and the differ-ence between loving and valuing, caring andjustice. He cites the extreme position of‘honour killing’ which indicates the valueplaced on the girls position in the family butthe inability to value her as an individual tobe cared for.

The book offers a broad review of thesociological literature on the developmentof the individualistic system of humanvalue called ‘dignity’, of the historical for-mation of social classes and the role of raceand gender in attitudes towards childhood.He turns to the intimate spaces of childdevelopment as described by Gilligan andWinnicott, and the shift from institutionaldiscourse to the private domestic situa-tion to show that separability is at work ineach sphere, linking the developmentaland anti-developmental processes to thedifferences between adults and children.The second part of the book grounded inpsychological debate was more convincing.To bring the public concept of rights intothe intimate sphere of the psychology ofchildhood is a demanding task, and thisbook is a courageous attempt. However, itleaves aside law based concepts associatedwith a rights discourse of autonomy andbest interests which might have provedhelpful.

In the second book, Professor Wolfingerhas given us a scholarly but accessibleaccount of the impact of parental divorceon the marital history of adult children. Hesuggests that marriage remains the normalexpected and desired way of life for mostAmericans, but one in two marriages isnow expected to fail. While there is nolonger stigma attached to the divorceprocess, the risk of divorce is transmissibleto the next generation. Wolfinger presentsthe literature on the impact of divorce onchildren, describing the range of viewsfrom divorce as disaster to divorce as valu-able learning experience, and he acknowl-edges the negative impact on a substantial

Book reviews 507


group of children in terms of educationalattainment, future earnings, and psychologi-cal well-being. His focus is specifically onthe divorce rate among adult children ofdivorce. Using data from the GeneralSocial Survey and the National Survey ofFamilies and Households he attributes thisnot to the factors commonly associatedwith the negative impact of divorce uponchildren such as poverty, parental conflict,moving neighbourhood, losing contact witha parent etc., but to the learned experienceof the expendability of marriage. Thesechildren do not learn the relationship skillsnecessary for long term marriage, nor dothey see high levels of marital commitment.Adult children of marital divorce marryearlier, which in itself is a risk factor, asteenagers lack many of the skills necessaryto sustain a long-term intimate relationship.In addition, the mate selection process isless than optimal. They are more likely tomarry other children of divorce, and whenthey do so the likelihood of divorce for acouple who both experienced parentaldivorce is three times as likely for thosewith parents in intact marriages. For chil-dren whose parents divorced when theywere very young, the likelihood of theirown divorce increases with the number offamily transitions such as parental remar-riage or re-divorce which they experienced.Professor Wolfinger also notes a decreasein this transmission effect as divorce hasbecome more common and less stigma-tised, and as marriage rates among theseadult children are falling.

The book is immensely readable, wellinformed, and uses national survey data togood effect. But the author is aware that hehas to deal with the ‘Catch 22’ situationwhich entraps all those who use long termdata sets. He acknowledges that in order tosee the long term effects of some event, theresearcher must be patient and wait manyyears. However, the pace of social change issuch that the effects noted for one genera-tion may be very different for succeedinggenerations. Few would argue with his con-clusion that the normalisation of divorce has

benefited this generation of divorcedparents, but divorce is still tough.

Mavis MacleanUniversity of Oxford

Mouer, R. and Kawanishi, H. A Sociologyof Work in Japan Cambridge UniversityPress 2005 203 pp. £40.00 (hardback)£18.99 (paperback)

The Japanese employment system cameunder the spotlight in the postwar period.Western scholars became fascinated withthe ‘Japanese model’ and the economicmiracle it had achieved following theSecond World War. Now, after the collapseof the bubble economy and the economicstagnation of the 1990s, there is renewedinterest in assessing the organization ofwork in Japan. Mouer and Kawanishi’s bookis an attempt to better understand work andemployment relations in Japan from thesociological perspective, mainly on thepremise that individual decisions to workare influenced by larger social forces.

Throughout the book, the authors under-take analysis at the ‘meso-level’ which theydefine as ‘structures, ideas, and events atthe societal (especially national) level’ (p.xiv). But they also argue that discussions oflabour processes must consider the interac-tions across three different levels – macro-(global or international), meso-, and micro-(firm or enterprise). Using this framework,they address a number of research ques-tions. For example, they assert that thehigh-commitment ethic of Japaneseworkers cannot simply be dismissed as aninherent cultural attribute; rather, it mustconsider higher-level forces that influenceworker choices. Their analytical workhighlights the importance of organizedlabour, social policy, and managementorganizations in shaping institutionalarrangements and the structure of work inJapan.

While this approach is helpful in framingthe research questions posed, there is lack ofclarity in some parts of the book that leaves

508 Book reviews


the reader wondering which level or whichlinks the authors are discussing. Some of thequestions themselves are confusing, e.g.‘Who are the major actors shaping thechoices which Japanese workers have at themeso level?’ ‘In what meso-level context areworkways practiced in Japan?’ (p. 23).Further, since their micro-level is defined atthe level of firms and enterprises (and not atthe worker level), it is difficult to make astraightforward interpretation of the centraltheme – how meso-level forces constrain thechoices made by workers and individuals.

The book’s discussion of long workinghours is also somewhat misleading becausethis topic is placed under the chapterheading, ‘Commitment to being at work.’The fact that the Japanese work long hoursand take few vacation days says little abouttheir level of commitment. An alternativeexplanation may be that many workers,especially older workers, are ‘stuck’ in theirjobs due to an inflexible internal labourmarket setup which prioritizes hiring ofnew graduates over mid-career workers,combined with existing institutional barri-ers such as the age restrictions on job hires.Workers put in long hours for theiremployers because their outside opportuni-ties are limited, and quite possibly, becausethere still exists a work ethic which valuesworker input more than it does output. Inspite of the long hours, worker productivityin Japan is embarrassingly low amongthe OECD countries, as observed by GDPper hour worked and other aggregatestatistics.

Overall, the topics covered here are com-prehensive, updated, and highly informative.Readers will have much to learn about theongoing social changes in Japan, e.g. segmen-tation of the labour market, demographicchange and the aging population, andgrowing social inequality. The final chapteroffers some interesting insights regardingthe future of work in Japan, and the searchfor a replacement model. Many of the topicscovered here have rarely been discussedoutside of Japan. Mouer and Kawanishidocument well the Japanese literature, and

do much to open up the debate to the non-Japanese audience.

Hiroshi OnoStockholm School of Economics

Neyland, D. Privacy, Surveillance andPublic Trust Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmillan 2006 200 pp. £47.00 (hardback)

This is a book about a CCTV system in thefictitious town of ‘Burbville’. It discussesthings that happen to it, in it and around it. Itdiscusses the spatial accomplishments of itssocial and technical elements, and the arraysof materialities which form its domain. Itexamines the performativities and categorieswhich classify and direct the surveillancegaze, the inter-organizational relationsaround the system, and the reactions of thepublic to it. It also places it within broaderlegalistic and rights arenas when examiningthe compelling case of ‘MrB’, an unfortunateindividual whose attempt to commit suicidewas captured by Burbville’s CCTV systemwhich was passed to a national TV show,ironically to promote the interests of CCTV.

This multi-scalar, multi-agent, polyphonic,power-riddled dataset is explored throughthe radical symmetry and unique vocabularyof actor-network theory. The book is charac-terized by a flat ontology, which builds onface to face accounts, observations anddocumentary research. Rich datasets aresomething that the recently formed field ofsurveillance studies desperately needs.Moreover new evidence which enlightensconceptual debates surrounding privacy,trust and surveillance is of critical impor-tance, and so this volume has the potential tomake a significant contribution.

Whilst Neyland’s intellectual commit-ments are clear from the outset, his bookasks a lot of the reader. The radical reflexiv-ity he adopts necessitates the clear setting ofboundaries, but conventions concerningtheoretical and methodological expositiondo not appear to be among these. ‘Privacy’,‘trust’ and ‘surveillance’ are all major socialscience concepts, but here they are treated

Book reviews 509


as emergent ‘organizing principles’ for thedata, although not for the book itself.Readers interested in these concepts arerequired to fill in the gaps as the theoreticalconstructs become flattened by the analysis.

For example, some critical observationsare made about privacy, regarding thedrawing of boundaries around informationand access thereto. In privacy research, con-cepts of ‘access to the self’ (e.g. Altman1976) (Altman 1976) and ‘boundary’ (e.g.Westin Privacy and Freedom, Atheneum1967) are in urgent need of recasting andupdating in the context of the informationsociety. Neyland does not make any suchconnection with this literature and yet hisdata and theoretical framework would lenditself easily to such an analysis. Given thetitle of the book, such a connection would beof mutual benefit and vastly informative.The book also avoids most of the recent lit-erature on social trust, conflating it with‘identity authentication’.

Despite several moments of clarity, thebook loses itself in its own self-qualification.Its internal boundaries become confused.Like a contestant in a confessional stylereality show, it passes through several excru-ciating stages of public self examination andover-compensating self-awareness. Its con-stant cross (self) referencing means that anyprogressive sense of narrative is lost. Attimes it is elegant, modest and persuasive,and at others it resembles walking barefooton gravel. I welcome this book as a source ofempirical information, although – and tofollow in its tradition – I am left to mobilizeit in the construction of my own accounts ofprivacy, surveillance and public trust.

Kirstie BallOpen University Business School

Offe, C. Reflections on America.Tocqueville, Weber and Adorno in theUnited States Polity Press 2005 115 pp.£45.00 (hardback) £12.99 (paperback)

European inquiries into the American‘social experiment’ have regularly pursued

specific interests in, and stimulated reflec-tions on, the state of the Old World itself.Claus Offe proposes a fourfold ‘schema’ forinterpreting the ‘results and expectations’ ofsuch inquiries: European analysts eitherlocate America ‘in a positive sense aheadof Europe’; appraise the USA’s preser-vation of ‘forces and inspirations . . .exhausted or submerged in the oldcontinent’; ascertain from American condi-tions ‘negative’ portents of Europe’s owndespondent future; or, finally, portray theStates as a ‘culturally and institutionallybackward social structure’ (p. 93). The latterconclusion forms the ‘essence’ of ‘anti-Americanism’. The former three capture therespective diagnoses of three eminentEuropean modern social theorists:Tocqueville, Weber, and Adorno. Employ-ing his interpretive schema, Offe pre-sents the three thinkers’ differentimages of America and their applications toEuropean society.

Tocqueville saw America as a normativemodel for preserving liberty in the demo-cratic age. Having avoided the troublesometransition from feudalism,American democ-racy developed institutions with corre-sponding rather than destabilizing customsand attitudes. Tocqueville certainly con-ceded that ‘excessive equality’ posed thethreat of despotism and conformity: eco-nomic mobility generated anxious competi-tiveness and destroyed public responsibility;majority preferences became unquestionedlaws; economic power was concentrated; andcultural life bowed to the market. Yet coun-terforces, notably the formation of associa-tions, kept the American project successfullyen route and ahead of Europe.

To Weber, the States still enjoyed ‘thelegacy of a happier past’ (pp. 44 emphasisadded). American society preserved ele-ments of resistance to the advancing ‘expro-priation’ of the occidental subject and to itssubjugation under bureaucratic structures.American sects and associations, above all,displayed a ‘voluntaristic ethic of freedom’,valuing ‘personal qualification’ and culti-vating a ‘self-conscious, individualistic,

510 Book reviews


anti-authoritarian spirit’. However, Weber’sanalyses of various US institutions led himto suspect that America, too, would eventu-ally fall prey to the iron cage of Westernrationalization – in short, be ‘Europeanized’.

Adorno experienced America as a dis-tressing harbinger of extreme capitalisttrends. The US vitally inspired his theory ofthe culture industry as a power-house oftotal social integration and his pessimisticre-evaluation of the interplay between pro-ductive forces and relations. Europe was fol-lowing America’s tendency to homogenizepersonal, material, even intellectual lifeunder the rule of the exchange principle.Only occasionally did Adorno portrayAmerican social life approvingly, usuallywith reference to ‘the micro-level of directinteraction’ (p. 85), and, Offe speculates,with a view to promoting US democracy inpost-War Germany.

Offe provides a concise, rich account ofthree salient European socio-theoreticalperspectives on America and their implica-tions for Europe. His study of Tocqueville isreadable and evocative; his engagementwith Weber original and supported byremarkable textual detail, which is treatedwith great sensitivity. Offe’s take on Adorno,however, suffers from two shortcomings: Herepeats the popular misjudgement thatAdorno ‘increasingly muted’ his critique ofcapitalism (p. 76); and, implementing a stan-dard of intellectual command which criticaltheory cannot accept, issues a myopic cri-tique of Adorno’s failure to ‘master’ the‘ambiguities of his American experiences’(p. 92).

The three authors’ prognoses for ‘Atlan-tic modernisation’, Offe concludes, seemimplausible now. America and Europe havenot shared the same ‘evolutionary forces’.Present-day America operates as a sover-eign, omnipresent global power, demandingnew analytical approaches, for which Offeseeks to indicate possible starting points.This attempt is consistent with the book’soverall theme, but it renders Offe’s exclu-sion of, for instance, Baudrillard’s America(Bernard Grasset 1986) – a more timely

European socio-theoretical exploration ofAmerica – an unfortunate omission. Never-theless, Reflections on America will interestscholars attending to modern Europeansocial theory generally, and to sociologicalquestions concerning the USA’s relationswith Europe and the rest of the world sincethe 1800s specifically.

Matthias BenzerLondon School of Economics


Smith, D. Institutional Ethnography: ASociology For People Altamira Press 2005257 pp. £72.00 (hardback)Smith, D. (ed.) Institutional EthnographyAs Practice Rowman & Littlefield 2006263 pp. £75.00 (hardback)

In Institutional Ethnography: A Sociologyfor People (2005) Dorothy Smith lays outher reworking of ethnography. More than amethodology, Institutional Ethnography(IE) is an attempt to solve a number ofsociological dilemmas and to propose analternative. While her solutions may notconvince those sceptical of engaged sociolo-gies, I find her approach attractive andrefreshing. It does not linger on method-ological debates discussing reflexivity, butattempts to provide – in Smith’s words – asubject position for the critical knower.Clearly written, Institutional Ethnographystands out as a readable but challengingbook.

Smith’s experiences as a mother and uni-versity researcher have informed her per-spective on ethnography. She found herselfliving in separate worlds apparentlydesigned for different people; and yet shehad to navigate between them. Moreover, asa ‘single parent’ she was the subject ofcontrolling state discourses that designatedparticular families as risky or abnormal.

Smith developed a form of standpointepistemology, believing that ‘I had to avoidassenting to or recreating the divisionbetween intellect and my being as a woman,a sexual and motherly being, anchored in

Book reviews 511


her bodily being, in her everyday life andinside the society she meant to explore’(2005: 22). She attempts to overcome thelimitations of standpoint epistemology asidentity politics, arguing that standpoint isabout perspective. One can choose to take afeminist standpoint rather than being borninto it; of course, experience is likely to leadsomeone to take a particular perspective.But seeing from below (or, indeed, above) isnot only the privilege of those assigned aparticular identity.

Smith uses her experience of bridging dif-ferent subjectivities within the context ofspecific extra-local relations to develop a dis-tinctive approach to ethnography. This goesbeyond traditional ethnographic concernswith micro-situations and interactions, yetbegins with it: Smith argues that IE studiesshould begin from the concerns of socialactors and reach beyond them into the thick-ets of organisational complexity. Elsewhereshe has described how political activistsbecome frustrated with sociologists studyingthem but not their targets.For Smith,people’sexperiences enable an exploration of thepower relations within which experiences areembedded (and vice versa).

Smith stresses that she does not proposeto deploy the local as an illustration of theglobal. Instead, local knowledges define theresearchers’ problematic; they study theinstitution from the perspectives of the par-ticipants and aim to provide knowledge ofuse to them. Smith argues that this approachis distinctive from Burawoy’s extended casestudy method, because it does not involvepreconceptions about the nature of the‘macro’ and the ‘micro’. ‘It has no priorinterpretive commitment such as that whichfollows from concepts such as global domi-nation and resistance.’ (2005: 36).

It seems hard to square her disavowal of aprior concept of ‘resistance’ with her strongcommitment to a critical sociology, butperhaps part of her argument here is that weshould not separate the ‘local experiences’and the ‘global systems’, but rather inquireinto how they co-constitute each other. Sheargues that such an enquiry can prevent the

reification of theoretical categories, such asthe use of ‘bureaucracy’ ‘as if there were nochange in how large-scale organizations aregoverned from Weber’s time to our own.’(2005: 56).

Instead, Smith proposes learning fromMarx and Engels’ study of ‘actual activitiesof actual people’ (2005: 54); allying this tomore recently developed ethnomethod-ological methods. So for example the‘economy’ is an emergent property of par-ticular exchange relationships betweenactual people and things. The abstract-nessof ‘economy’ should not be seen as a con-ceptual imposition but a property arising outof the material relations that constitute it: inMarx, ‘There is no concept that is not a rela-tional term’ (2005: 60).

Smith’s sociology uses an intersubjectiveapproach, which is carried through into hertheory of language. For her, language issocial action; texts make up institutions andco-ordinate things that people do. WithinSmith’s framework, research will often studya mix of data sources including observations,interviews, and written texts. If a researcherchose to start her research in the experienceof recently released prisoners, she might goon to examine the prisoner’s experience ofinteracting with probation officers, and howprobation officers understand and opera-tionalise the texts that they use to categorizeand manage newly released prisoners.

Smith argues that a dialogic view of lan-guage can help us find a way out of recurringreflexivity problems. Understanding lan-guage as embedded in and organizing every-day life makes it both analysable and lessabstract. ‘Work’ is also demystified within anIE approach and can be applied to anyhuman striving or activity, a perspective thatagain recalls early Marx. Passive phrases(such as ‘welfare recipient’, or ‘cancerpatient’) conceal enormous amounts oflabour, no less onerous for being unpaid andunrecognised (like parenting).

I would recommend this book to anyoneresearching within the social sciences,perhaps particularly to graduate students, asit discusses methodological and philosophi-

512 Book reviews


cal dilemmas clearly and coherently whilegiving examples of socially committed real-world research.

The second title, Institutional Ethnogra-phy as Practice, aims to give readers somemore detailed accounts of what it is likeactually doing IE. It opens with DeVault andMcCoy’s useful chapter on interviews, inwhich they argue that the function of theinterview within IE is to help build accountsof ruling relations ‘from below’; so tradi-tional sociological methods such as identify-ing themes and comparing the themeswithin accounts may not be applicable.DeVault and McCoy drew upon interviewswith colleagues in writing this paper, and theexamples of strategies and pitfalls will beparticularly helpful to new researchers.

Other papers provide opportunities forthe reader to reflect upon their own experi-ence and future plans. Timothy Diamond’schapter is a fascinating insight into his deci-sion to study nursing homes using a‘women’s standpoint’ approach. I also par-ticularly liked Alison Griffith’s paper onsingle parent family discourse: Griffiths, likeSmith, has been on the receiving end of nor-malising family talk and elucidates effec-tively how it works. Marie Campbellanalyses how the notion of ‘customer’ is putto work within a Canadian long-term carehospital, having the ultimate effect ofmaking individual families pay for ‘excess’disposable briefs used by their relatives.

These four chapters in particular provideimportant insights into using IE to designresearch, and the reproduction of Smith,Mykhalovskiy, and Weatherbee’s researchproposal provides a useful additionalresource. This collection provides a valuableand readable introduction to the work ofdoing IE, but I would advise the new readerto begin with Institutional Ethnography toreally get a sense of Smith’s theoreticalperspective. The earlier book both makes iteasier to understand the individual stories inInstitutional Ethnography as Practice, andoffers an accessible and thought-provokingperspective on ongoing theoretical andmethodological debates.

Rachel AldredLondon School of Economics


Tonkiss, F. Contemporary EconomicSociology: Globalisation, Production,Inequality Routledge 2006 196 pp. £75.00(hardback) £23.99 (paperback)

This book is a welcome addition to thegrowing repertoire of innovative studies ineconomic sociology. The most significantcontribution of the book is its unique appli-cation of a wide rage of critical perspectiveson contemporary macro economic changesrelated to the three central subject mattersin economic sociology: (1) capitalism andglobalization, (2) production, and (3) classand inequality.

Since its rejuvenation in mid-1980s,research in economic sociology has over-whelmingly emphasized explanations forthe underlying social mechanisms of eco-nomic and organizational changes on indi-vidual or organizational level. Althoughthese studies have made many importanttheoretical advances on multiple fronts, suchas social networks and institutions, theyhave largely overlooked the macro changesoccurring at societal level and the impact ofthe new global economic system on differentsocieties. As such, Tonkiss’ careful examina-tion of contemporary global economic struc-ture and its implications on social andcritical perspective on economic life throughis quite refreshing.

The theoretical orientation of the book iscritical in that the author’s primary interestis examination of the structures of controland power in newly emerging global eco-nomic arrangements.Tonkiss argues that thecentral feature of the contemporary worldeconomy is the macro economic processesof capitalist restructuring. Drawing fromleading contemporary critical thinkers insociology, as well as related disciplines, suchas Immanuel Wallerstein, David Harvey,Pierre Bourdieu and Manuel Castells,Tonkiss offers an alternative account of

Book reviews 513


what economic globalization means for soci-eties ‘at the margins’.

The book is divided into three parts. In thefirst section on globalization and capitalism,Tonkiss reassesses globalization in thecontext of changing economic relations.Taking an in-depth engagement with theworld systems theory of Immanuel Waller-stein and critical geography of DavidHarvey, Tonkiss argues that economic glo-balization has brought radical socio-politicalchanges in many societies and subjectedthem to forces beyond their control. In par-ticular, the new global economic systemcreated highly unequal hierarchy amongnations that resulted in the proletarianiza-tion of the world’s workforce.

In the second section, Tonkiss discusseschanges in production process in post-Fordist societies. Rapid globalization andadvances in information and transportationtechnologies have resulted in the ‘disorgani-zation’ of industrial capitalism. The focus ofproduction processes shifted from high struc-turation to greater flexibility, and the keycommodities are no longer just tangiblegoods but also intangible assets such asknowledge and culture. The restructuring ofthe global economy toward increased flex-ibility and mobility of production processeshas resulted in a more integrated worldeconomy. However, Tonkiss argues that thebenefits of global economic restructuring aredistributed in a highly uneven manner,result-ing in the aggravation of inequality of oppor-tunity as well as inequality of outcome.

In the last section, Tonkiss elaborates onthe impact of broader socio-economicchanges on social structure, forms ofinequality and individual identities. Shesuggests that the classical concept of ‘class’which is embedded in industrial productionrelations may no longer be a meaningfulsocial category. None the less, the underly-ing mechanisms that created class struc-tures in the first place such asconcentration of power and capital, exploi-tation and systematic inequality not onlypersist but have expanded beyond nationalboundaries.

The book offers a well thought-out blendof descriptive details and critical perspec-tives on macro economic changes. Tonkissargues that the three themes of globaliza-tion, production and inequality are closelyrelated and reinforce each other – globaleconomic restructuring altered the processof production, which in turn shaped thestructure of inequality. In each stage of dis-cussion, she reflects on what the changesmean to societies at the margins. Throughthis study, Tonkiss has effectively amplifiedthe diminishing voice of critical perspectivein economic sociology.

Min-Dong Paul LeeCornell University

Tonkiss, F. Space, the City, and SocialTheory Polity Press 2005 170 pp. £50.00(hardback) £15.99 (paperback)

Sociologist Fran Tonkiss gives us a wonder-fully eclectic but focused book about socialrelations and spatial process in the US city.Her book skillfully spatializes the sociologyof the US city that distinguishes itself from aspate of similar endeavors. Tonkiss seizesupon seven key themes – community andsolitude, spaces of difference, public space,ascendant gentrification, the gendered andsexualized city – and demonstrates theirsimultaneous embeddedness within andconstitution via space. Her agenda is bold: toshow the inseparability between humanmade space and social process. The goal isnothing less than to ground Henri Lefebve’snow widely heralded spatial project, apotentially daunting task which Tonkissadroitly accomplishes.

Each of the seven chapters is an easy,coherent read. Chapter 1 examines the senseof community in this contemporary city. Asrevealed, solitude in this city continues to bewidely obtainable, a result of individualsnavigating a Balkanized, splintered city amiddesires for human connectedness and socialinteraction. Chapter 2 focuses on the inti-mate connections between spatial bordersand economic, cultural, and social divisions.

514 Book reviews


Cities sectionalized, formally and informally,pervasively demarcate established andevolving social divisions. Chapter 3 examinesthree aspects of urban public spaces: socialexchange, collective usage, and informalencounter. Here new classed, racialized, andgendered divides organize organized bydegree of access and attainability. Chapters 4and 5 turn to the elusive arena of discursivethought and symbolic worlds. The empiricalcenterpieces, gentrification and the gender-ing and sexing of spaces, are revealed aspotent symbolic processes whose workingsand legitimacy are tied to offerings ofcomplex chains of symbolic associations.Chapters 6 and 7 conclude the book with acritical appraisal of how people make spacesfor themselves through everyday practicesand imaginative spatial strategies.

The strengths of this book are numerous.Perhaps most importantly, it carefullyunearths multiple and nuanced ties betweensocial process and spatial form in this city.The city and its parts are decisively mapped,framed as societal processes, and decon-structed through the lens of a complex andomnipresent space. Tonkiss gives us muchmore than the spatial makes the social andthe social make the spatial. This simple dia-lectic is opened up as a mutual presuppos-edness and as an ontological inseparability.Social worlds become a kind of cauldron –turbulent realities composed of diverseinteracting forces and processes – that areconstituted through everyday actions. In thisway, Tonkiss offers a careful re-interpretingof the city that moves beyond static,a-spatial formulations. The author neverlapses into a spatial fetishism, all the whilebeing acutely attuned to this force’s pres-ence and influence.

In this context, Tonkiss is not shy abouttaking on age-old debates in sociology: citiesas sites for unique social realities, commu-nity in the city, stories and narratives consti-tuted in the urban, cities as places ofdifference and division. But these traditionalarguments are not rehearsed, they arere-cast. Central to this is a strategic applica-tion of important and diverse urban theo-

rists whose ideas are typically not foundunder one book cover, e.g., Michel deCerteau, Manual Castells, Michel Foucault,W.J. Wilson, Loic Wacquant, Ed Soja, MikeDavis, and Peter Saunders. The result is acollapsing of traditional polarities anddebates that have plagued sociology and thesocial sciences: structure–agency, economy–culture, city–society, uniqueness–generaliza-bility, production–consumption.The US city,here, emerges as a pulsating, critical site forchallenging problems and possibilities thatneeds more attention and focus.

All of this said, two small caveats. First,readers should know that this book is aninterpretive enterprise. For anyone lookingfor new data sets or rigorous methodologicalofferings, disappointment will follow.Second, like any book, this one imposes itsown mix of presences and absences whichultimately illuminates but also conceals. Inthe casting of shadow, most notably, theimmense implications of the findings forpublic policy are never addressed.Thus,thereis much here to help inform debates aboutcontroversial current policy – gentrificationas public-sector initiative, space-making andnew neoliberal economic realities, access topublic space and government actions, cityredevelopment for whom? – which remainunexamined. But these are small points andto be expected for this kind of researchundertaking. Most importantly,Tonkiss givesus an important text that will help readersre-imagine the US city as a contentious sitewhose social struggles ands social possibili-ties continue unabated.

David WilsonUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Verweij, M. and Thompson, M. (eds)Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World:Governance, Politics and PluralPerceptions Palgrave Macmillan 2006 288pp. £47.50 (hardback)

How many methods have we in sociologythat we can apply to any group or society,with regard to any aspect and indepen-

Book reviews 515


dently of time? Few indeed; probably noneat all. This is, however, exactly what thegrid/group method of representing culturalbias (often referred to as ‘cultural theory’)purports to be doing. Mary Douglas, whodeveloped the original idea of dividingsocioculture into four perpetual socialbiases, liked to remind that it is not atheory; it is a method. This book shows howpowerful the method is.

If one combines the four biases (individu-alist, hierarchical, egalitarian and fatalist),one has a complete representation of howsocial divisions are culturally expressed inany debate on any specific issue. ClumsySolutions is a demonstration against what isoften considered best practice in policy-making and analysis. The thesis is crystalclear: any process of participation anddecision-making that does not represent atevery stage all biases, will simply fail. Clear-cut, ‘elegant’ solutions, based on single con-ceptual metrics (e.g. cost versus benefit) arein fact anything but elegant. They are socio-culturally brutal, hence doomed. On thecontrary, solutions that appear to be‘clumsy’, based on heterogeneous elementsand indifferent to formal distinctions (e.g.between facts and views), are sociallyrobust, thus really efficient and viable.

It is part of contemporary sociology tohave the critical intuition that policies oftenachieve the opposite of what they intended.We now know why this intuition is right.Thechapters of this book, each with a robustcase to make, explain how and why manywell intended policies fail and how that canbe avoided.An impressive range of concretepolicy examples is used to show how takinginto account all four biases, the fatalistsbeing passively included, leads to a model ofpolicy implementation and governance, thatallows both efficient operation and dynamiccompetition between the parts of anysociety.

Five chapters are devoted to ‘clumsy’successes. With the necessary effort forclarity and order, one can fail magnificentlyin the most laudable objectives. Forexample, one can lose time by establishing

an expensive and unworkable protocol tosave ‘the environment’ (Kyoto, ch. 2); lackpower despite the immense hydroelectricpotential of the Himalaya (Nepal, ch. 3);achieve high racial segregation via strictanti-discrimination laws (The Netherlands,ch. 4); produce mafia-based economiclooting via Harvard-led transition to con-temporary market governance (Russia, ch.5); impose car seat belts on false premises(everywhere, ch. 6). Clumsy approaches areunfortunately rarely attempted, often as alast resort, when a series of elegant solutionshave failed, thus giving way to a demand forchange.

However, the authors argue in the nextfive chapters that there is hope and that inte-grating dissonance and disorder into policy-making seems to work in the rare caseswhere it happens. A simple case is abortionlegislation in France, introduced in 1975.More out of disingenuous institutionaldesign than out of principled attachment tosocial pluralism, the solution to a highly con-troversial issue was that pregnant womencan legally have an abortion during the first10 weeks of pregnancy only if they are ‘indistress’ or if there is ‘an emergency’, that isa reason that overcomes the foetus’s ‘rightto life’. Subject to a 10-day period duringwhich counselling and information on statesupport is provided, the abortion can takeplace. The ‘clumsiness’ of the solution lies inthe fact that the law does not specify eitherthe meaning of ‘distress’ and ‘emergency’ orany institution that verifies the plausibilityof the woman’s declaration that she is insuch circumstances. The absolute symbolicworth of prenatal life is preserved via thedemand for a grave and solemn reason toproceed. In practice, however, the decisionremains strictly with the pregnant woman.As the authors note, ‘Despite appearances,[political] controversies are not typicallyzero-sum games. Most citizens are not moralextremists. They are satisfied as long as theyknow that the law respects their social ori-entations and world views; they do not insistin addition that it should reject other peo-ple’s orientations and world views.’ (p. 170).

516 Book reviews


The theorist will earn from this work asmuch as the practitioner. Firstly, this is animportant publication from an epistemo-logical point of view. The editors announcetheir ambition to link ‘cumulative, practical,dynamic social and political theory’ to ‘adja-cent disciplines such as social neuroscience,the study of human complex systems, gametheory and evolutionary biology’ (p. viii).The claim as such is unsettling for most soci-ologists but efficiently defended by thework. Complexity, the sociologist’s centralwatchword, receives its lettres de noblesse viapolicy studies!

There is still some room for improve-ment. Besides proofreading problems (e.g.‘Polyani’ instead of Polanyi), the approachof the cultural biases in the book seemsstatic whilst in fact the four biases depend

at each time on the relativity of the socialposition of their bearers. The same actor,individual or collective, may apply differentbiases according to the context; forexample, one can be an intransigent indi-vidualist as a corporate ‘rainmaker’ and astaunch egalitarian when in a queue or in ahospital bed, all three on the very sameday.

In an ideal world, everyone that has evena remote relation to policy and decisionmaking would keep a well-worn copy of thisbook always at hand. But for the time being,anyone eager to look at an adequatelycomplex model for governance that satisfiessociology’s stringent standards might use-fully turn to this volume.

Michalis LianosUniversity of Rouen, France

Book reviews 517


Contesting Psychiatry, Social Movements in Mental Health – By N. Crossley

Documents

Transcript of Contesting Psychiatry, Social Movements in Mental Health – By N. Crossley