This book demonstrates the symbolic centrality of servants in Brazilian intellectual discourse (fiction, memoirs, conduct literature, and journalism) over the course of one century--from the aftermath of the abolition of slavery (1888) to late twentieth-century maids' testimonies. It explores demeaning images of servants to examine the ways intellectuals reconciled the colonial legacy of servitude with Brazil's modernization. While the first chapters examine the discourse of 'the servant problem, ' revealing the elite's power anxieties vis-a-vis post-abolition transformations of domestic social contracts, later chapters explore new nuances of cross-racial conflicts facing contemporary servants' grassroots movements and the increase in female white-collar employment.

This volume provides a novel and relational sociological approach to the study of EU civil society. It focuses on the interactions and interrelations between civil society actors and the forms of capital that structure the fields and sub-fields of EU civil society, through new and important empirical studies on organized EU civil society.

How did so many Punjabi immigrants come to find themselves behind the wheels of so many New York City taxi cabs, and what do their stories have to teach us about how immigrants must navigate life in a new society? Diditi Mitra analyzes how race and class influence settlement patterns in the United States, based on her extensive interviews with 59 Punjabi taxi drivers, organizers of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, laywers who represent drivers in taxi courts, owners of taxi fleets, and an official of the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission. What emerges is an unprecedented exploration into how society shapes the 'choices' made by immigrants as they adapt to America.

This Festschrift is published in honor of Alex C. Michalos, a great scholar and inspiration to many upcoming and famous academics and practitioners. The Festschrift celebrates his lifelong, outstanding scientific and cultural contribution to Quality of Life Research. It contains contributions written by the most prestigious and renowned scholars in the field of social indicators research and quality of life studies. Taken together, the contributions from scholars around the world reflect Michalos' stance that even though there may be differences in individual scientific positions, the language in the field of quality of life has no limits and boundaries.

Volta Redonda is a Brazilian steel town founded in the 1940s by dictator Getulio Vargas on an ex-coffee valley as a powerful symbol of Brazilian modernization. The city's economy, and consequently its citizen's lives, revolves around the Companha Siderurgica Nacional (CSN), the biggest industrial complex in Latin America. Although the glory days of the CSN have long passed, the company still controls life in Volta Redonda today, creating as much dispossession as wealth for the community. Brazilian Steel Town tells the story of the people tied to this ailing giant - of their fears, hopes, and everyday struggles.

This text offers a fresh look at Taiwan's state workers in from the postwar period to the present day and examines the rise and fall of labor insurgency in the past two decades. Challenging the conventional image of docile working class, it unearths a series of workers resistance, hidden and public, in a high authoritarian era.

Originally published between 1959 and 1975 these 4 volumes are by one of the 20th Century's foremost sociologists. The ideas of power, resistance, conflict, historical change, openness, freedom and uncertainty pervade this set and make the works as relevant now as when they were originally published. In addition they: Examine the structures of power in which political process takes place. Offer a critique of historical sociologists whilst discussing the problems of the 20th Century and how to solve them. Provide a cross-over with political and philosophical perspectives as well as sociological ones.

Reframes the story of modern Ethiopia around the contributions of the Oromo people and the culturally fluid union of communities that shaped the nation's politics and society. Although the Oromo are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, their history has been distorted in order to buttress twentieth-century notions of a homogeneous Ethiopian state. The Other Abyssinians tells the story of the Oromo people's contribution to modern Ethiopia, tracing their experiences from the early nineteenth century onward and detailing the varied interactions of Oromo groups throughout the Ethiopian highlands. Focusing on the historic provinces of Wallo and Shawa, this well-researched work elucidates the importance of these territories in the creation of Ethiopia and the history of the Oromo. It casts the Oromo as Abyssinians and central in all aspects of modernEthiopian life, while making a case for Ethiopia, a nation without a colonial legacy, as an example of indigenous African identity formation that challenges notions of "tribal" or ethnic identities. Author Brian J. Yates details the cultural practices that integrated the populations of the highlands into the Abyssinian group; in addition, he analyzes the political structures that evolved concurrently. The book, notably, utilizes a community-based framework to underscore the fluidity of modern national identity. All in all, the work offers a close study of Ethiopian modernization policies and illuminates how Africans might have crafted their nations without the legaciesof colonialism.

The contributions of this book examine contemporary dynamics of migration and mobility in the context of the general societal transformations that have taken place in Europe over the past few decades. The book will help readers to better understand the manifold ways in which migration trends in the region are linked to changing political-economic constellations, orders of power and inequality, and political discourses. It begins with an introduction to a number of theoretical approaches that address the nexus between migration and general societal shifts, including processes of supranationalisation, EU enlargement, postsocialist transformations and rescaling. It then provides a comprehensive overview of the political regulation of migration through border control and immigration policies. The contributions that follow detail the dynamic changes of individual migration patterns and their implications for the agency of mobile individuals. The final part challenges the reader to consider how policies and practices of migration are linked to symbolic struggles over belonging and rights, describing a wide range of expressions of such conflicts, from cosmopolitanism to racism and xenophobia. This book is aimed at researchers in various fields of the social sciences and can be used as course reading for undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses in the areas of international migration, transnational and European studies. It will be a beneficial resource for scholars looking for material on the most current conceptual tools for analysis of the nexus of migration and societal transformation in Europe.

2012 Americo Paredes Book Award Winner for Non-Fiction presented by the Center for Mexican American Studies at South Texas College Selected as a 2012 Outstanding Title by AAUP University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries This is Olivia's story. Born in Los Angeles, she is taken to Mexico to live with her extended family until the age of three. Olivia then returns to L.A. to live with her mother, Carmen, the live-in maid to a wealthy family. Mother and daughter sleep in the maid's room, just off the kitchen. Olivia is raised alongside the other children of the family. She goes to school with them, eats meals with them, and is taken shopping for clothes with them. She is like a member of the family. Except she is not. Based on over twenty years of research, noted scholar Mary Romero brings Olivia's remarkable story to life. We watch as she grows up among the children of privilege, struggles through adolescence, declares her independence and eventually goes off to college and becomes a successful professional. Much of this extraordinary story is told in Olivia's voice and we hear of both her triumphs and setbacks. We come to understand the painful realization of wanting to claim a Mexican heritage that is in many ways not her own and of her constant struggle to come to terms with the great contradictions in her life. In The Maid's Daughter, Mary Romero explores this complex story about belonging, identity, and resistance, illustrating Olivia's challenge to establish her sense of identity, and the patterns of inclusion and exclusion in her life. Romero points to the hidden costs of paid domestic labor that are transferred to the families of private household workers and nannies, and shows how everyday routines are important in maintaining and assuring that various forms of privilege are passed on from one generation to another. Through Olivia's story, Romero shows how mythologies of meritocracy, the land of opportunity, and the American dream remain firmly in place while simultaneously erasing injustices and the struggles of the working poor. A happy ending for the maid's daughter: Hector Tobar's profile of Olivia for the LA Times

Since the Gilded Age, social scientists, middle-class reformers, and writers have left the comforts of their offices to "pass" as steel workers, coal miners, assembly-line laborers, waitresses, hoboes, and other working and poor people in an attempt to gain a fuller and more authentic understanding of the lives of the working class and the poor. In this first, sweeping study of undercover investigations of work and poverty in America, award-winning historian Mark Pittenger examines how intellectuals were shaped by their experiences with the poor, and how despite their sympathy toward working-class people, they unintentionally helped to develop the contemporary concept of a degraded and "other" American underclass. While contributing to our understanding of the history of American social thought, Class Unknown offers a new perspective on contemporary debates over how we understand and represent our own society and its class divisions.

This pioneering book provides the first systematic historical analysis of occupational and social mobility in England. Using a collection of over 10,000 marriage certificates to examine inter-generational change, and almost 500 autobiographical texts and abstracts to explore the dynamics of career mobility, it shows how the development of the nineteenth-century economy was accompanied by rising rates of mobility, which made English society more 'open' while at the same encouraging a distinct process of working-class formation.

This original and timely text is the first published research from the UK to address the neglected topic of the increasing (and largely enforced) settlement of Gypsies and Travellers in conventional housing. It highlights the complex and emergent tensions and dynamics inherent when policy and popular discourse combine to frame ethnic populations within a narrative of movement. The authors have extensive knowledge of the communities and experience as policy practitioners and researchers and consider the changing culture and dynamics experienced by ethnic Gypsies and Travellers. They explore the gendered social, health and economic impacts of settlement and demonstrate the tenacity of cultural formations and their adaptability in the face of policy-driven constraints that are antithetical to traditional lifestyles. The groundbreaking book is essential reading for policy makers; professionals and practitioners working with housed Gypsies and Travellers. It will also be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, social policy and housing specialists and anybody interested in the experiences and responses of marginalized communities in urban and rural settings. Royalties for this book are to be divided equally between the Gypsy Council and Travellers Aid Trust.

Research into the impact of the First World War on European societies has recently begun on a major scale and Dr Waites has been one of the pioneers in this field in Britain. His book considers the War's effects on such major issues as popular images of class, the distribution of income and wealth in society, social relations within the working class, class consciousness and the educational experiences of children from different backgrounds. This study is noteworthy not only for its wide range of hitherto unpublished sources, but also for its attempt to bring social theory to bear upon the study of class relations in England during the first of this century's total wars.

The provision of care has been widely referred to as facing a 'crisis'. International migrants are increasingly relied upon to provide care - as domestic workers, nannies, care assistants and nurses. This international volume examines the global construction of migrant care labour and how it manifests itself in different contexts.

This book explores mobile representations in government policy, literature, visual arts, music, and research and examines the methodological potential of these representations and the ways in which representations co-produce mobilities.

Since its publication in 1984, Chants Democratic has endured as a classic narrative on labor and the rise of American democracy. In it, Sean Wilentz explores the dramatic social and intellectual changes that accompanied early industrialization in New York. He provides a panoramic chronicle of New York City's labor strife, social movements, and political turmoil in the eras of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Twenty years after its initial publication, Wilentz has added a new preface that takes stock of his own thinking, then and now, about New York City and the rise of the American working class.

Research into mobility is an exciting challenge for the social sciences that raises novel social, cultural, spatial and ethical questions. At the heart of these empirical and theoretical complexities lies the question of methodology: how can we best capture and understand a planet in flux? Methodologies of Mobility speaks beyond disciplinary boundaries to the methodological challenges and possibilities of engaging with a world on the move. With scholars continuing to face different forms and scales of mobility, this volume strategically traces innovative ways of designing, applying and reflecting on both established and cutting-edge methodologies of mobility.

Both China and Europe have in recent years witnessed the emergence of new migration dynamics. In China, hundreds of millions of migrant workers help to fuel China's economic growth with their labour whislt Europe has witnessed an increase in various new forms of migration by people from within and without seeking refuge, family-reunion or work.
In all societies significantly affected by migration, governments are rushing to adjust and implement rules and institutions so as to regulate these new forms of migration. This is accompanied by strong public discourse on how to name and characterise the newcomers and how to define who is a wanted migrant and who is unwanted.
This volume systematically explores the role that boundary making plays in creating a societal understanding of current migration dynamics and, by extension, in legitimising migration regimes. By comparing recent developments in Europe and China, it reveals insights on convergent social and political practices of boundary making under divergent conditions.

Looking closely at both the slaves' and masters' worlds in low, middle, and up-country South Carolina, Larry E. Hudson Jr. covers a wide range of economic and social topics related to the opportunities given to slaves to produce and trade their own food and other goods - contingent on first completing the master's assigned work for the day. In particular, Hudson shows how these opportunities were exploited by the slaves to both increase their control over their family life and to gain status among their fellow slaves. Filled with details of slaves' social values, family formation, work patterns, "internal economies", and domestic production, To Have and to Hold is based on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, emphasizing wherever possible the recollections of former slaves. Although their private world was never immune to intervention from the white world, Hudson demonstrates a relationship between the agricultural productivity of slaves, in family situations that range from simple to complex formations, and the accumulation of personal property and social status within slave communities. By capitalizing on these opportunities for autonomy, says Hudson, slaves not only tempered some of the daily brutalities of their lives but also prepared themselves for freedom, for it was the family group that most powerfully influenced the personalities of the slaves and it was in the slave quarters that the foundations of an African American culture were established.

Rather than using a ranking system based on occupational prestige to explain social stratification through class, Burrage attempts to show how class formation can be explained through political events and decisions. Using detailed analysis of four countries, the book attempts to answer several 'mysteries' of the English class system: why did an English "intelligentsia "fail to emerge? Why was the working class reluctant to engage in violent class struggle? Why did public ownership increase class consciousness, and why could class sentiment be combined with comparatively high rates of mobility? In this distinctive and important contribution, Burrage identifies the main features of England's emerging 'classless society' - one that is centralized, intensively managed, and no longer resting on internalized social controls.

As an insight into contemporary British society, Fairness, Class and Belonging in Contemporary England is a timely ethnographic exploration of the ways in which the 'white', 'English' 'working classes' in a north Manchester neighbourhood expressed feelings of being 'ignored' and 'neglected' by local and national governments. Providing important insights into the implications of policy-making, the book focuses on local idioms and individual articulations of 'fairness', exploring governmental ideologies and policies of 'equality' to question the disparate connotations concerning these topics. Discussing what it means to be both 'fair' and a good English person and what this means for 'belonging' in this part of northern England, it seeks to specify how each narrative of 'belonging' and 'fairness' is marked and changed by the interlocking concerns and effects of geographical origin, familiarity between individuals and groups, political orientations, ethnicities, genders and shared histories of racial and cultural imaginations.

This text reflects the growing diversity of perspectives, methods and insights currently used in social stratification research. Authors discuss the following broad themes from an international perspective: the changing real and symbolic boundaries of social stratification; who benefits from rapidly changing markets; immigration, marginalization and exclusion; and modelling occupational mobility. The contributions demonstrate the changing nature of social stratification systems in today's global and fragmented economy.