Punishment Vs Rehabilitation: Disintegrative and Reintegrative Shaming Rituals

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept of stigma and stigmatizing rituals, with specific reference to the applications of deviant labels and strategies to resist the negative consequences associated with adopting said labels. It will then examine disintegrative models of shaming, such as scarlet letter methods, and outline the ways these are beneficial or harmful. Finally, this will be compared with the reintegrative approach to shaming, in order to determine which model has the most to offer in the judiciary system.

It is important to begin this discussion with an operational definition of stigma. According to Goffman, as quoted by Heckert and Best (2008), stigma is a feature of an individual which is associated with stereotypes based on said attributes, which are in turn thoroughly degrading or dishonourable. In continuing his definition, Goffman identifies three major groupings of stigma, namely bodily disfigurements (such as a cleft palate), character deficiencies (such as drug addiction), and group membership (stigma based on status such as race and religion) (Heckert and Best 2008). Further, as noted by Twining, Arluke, and Patronek (2000), Goffman says that the negative consequences of stigma can include exclusion, anxiety and discrimination, but that stigmatized individuals develop interpersonal strategies to cope by lessening (or even neutralizing) it, or by evading it altogether. Finally, Herman and Miall (1990) note that labelling theory shows how, by labelling someone as a deviant, it can cause them to adopt the label and become the very thing they are labelled.

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IMF Part 2: Institution Report

You can read part 1 here
You can read part 2 here

This institution report will provide an in-depth investigation into the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It seeks to clearly outline the institutional history, purpose, membership, and projects of the IMF, as well as its governance structure and protocols. In the course of this examination, care will be paid to the IMF's complex relationship with the processes of globalization, and how it in turn impacts the institution of the state. In so doing, this will lay the foundation for a successful research design.

The history of the IMF begins with its conception in July 1944 (IMF, 2006). It was during the Bretton Woods meetings that 45 nations agreed to the kind of economic cooperation that would prevent a return to the dangerous protectionist policies of the Great Depression, such as “limiting imports, devaluing ... currencies ... and curtailing their citizens' freedom to buy goods abroad and to hold foreign exchange” (ibid.). Born in December of 1945, the IMF was tasked with ensuring exchange rate stability. The intervening decades have seen it transform itself in response to its growing membership (from an initial 29 member nations to 186 as of the 2009 inclusion of Kosovo) (Kosovo Times, 2009), as well as in response to changing world events, featuring an increased focus on crisis prevention. Initially the IMF made significant loans to industrialized economies, but in recent decades the majority have gone to developing and Newly Industrialized Countries (IMF, 2006).
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Gaudi

I rcently stumbled across a post on one of the blog's I follow about a mug designed by Antoni Gaudi. This led me to look up some of his other work. I found out that he has mostly worked with buildings as his medium of choice (rather than cups and spoons). Here are some awesome pictures from www.GreatBuildings.com, let me know what you think (or point me to others!).

Eurpeans Are Stupid Pigs?

Obviously the title of my blog has become a bit of a misnomer as school takes over my life (I hear you say - what life?), and it doesn't help when I have silly little re-posts like this one from the Financial Times (despite the fact that it is hilarious):

STUPID investors in PIGS

It isn’t just touchy government ministers in Portugal, Italy, Ireland Greece and Spain who don’t like the highly appropriate acronym PIGS to sum up the troubled regions of the eurozone (the ‘i’ seems to be used for Ireland and Italy). The FT has a near-ban on the insulting phrase, and now Barclays Capital has banned it too, for being offensive.

Luckily there’s a handy alternative for excessive borrowers (thanks Zerohedge): STUPID. It pulls together Spain, Turkey, the UK, Portugal, Italy, and Dubai. Sadly Greece, Iceland and Turkmenistan are missing…

Save your money

Image via Wikipedia

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to save a little extra cash, especially around the holidays? I would love to see a bank offering no-fee accounts, even if they lowered (or eliminated) interest payments on those accounts. Better still, this could be a state-sponsored bank, thus untethering it from the short-sighted needs of profit-hungry shareholders. Not sure, but I have a feeling that this would be in violation of NAFTA agreements... shame.

Barack Obama v George Bush: Realist Analysis

On January 20, 2009 Barack Obama took office after running on a campaign of hope and change. This essay will examine the first 10 months of his presidency, and compare it to the rule of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Several policy areas will be examined, with special focus paid to international security issues, including the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fate of the Europe-based missile defence shield within the context of a stronger Russia, and the foreign policy toward North Korea and Iran, especially as relates to their respective nuclear ambitions. Recognition will be given to the so-called Bush Doctrine, a four pillared policy framework of preemption, unilateralism, American primacy and democracy promotion, and it will be compared to the actions of Obama along these lines. Further, the major international events that occurred during the Bush and Obama presidencies will be discussed in terms of the underlying theoretical frameworks influencing them, as well as the presidents' respective foreign policy responses. From this analysis, it will be noted that there have been several course corrections between the administrations, with a renewed focus being placed on the neo-Liberal ideas of multilateralism and institution-building by Obama, even if in name only. However, it will be shown that the underlying state of the international political system is one of continuity, reflecting the dominant ideological realities of the realist/neo-realist tradition.
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Analysis of film Arguing The World

Below is something I've been working on at school. Since McMaster has essentially eaten up all my time for the past few months, I thought it might be good to post some of my work to prove I am still alive (don't people usually go bungee jumping for that same reason?). So here is my analysis of the film Arguing the World.

Arguing the World: A Marxist Analysis of the New York Intellectuals

Wesley Kellar

The film Arguing the World follows the lives of four New York intellectuals from their modest childhoods, through their early experiences with academia and their subsequent careers as influential thinkers and social commentators. This paper will begin with a summary of the film, paying special attention to the early school days of Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe and Irving Kristol, and the subsequent changes in their respective theoretical subscriptions. Following this, the film will be analyzed with reference to material relevant to the study of sociological theory, with particular focus paid to parallels with the life of Marx and connections to the Marxist paradigm. In so doing, this essay will prove the utility of the Marxist theoretical framework in the study of sociology and the world.

This section summarizing the experiences of the four New York intellectuals draws entirely from the film Arguing the World (Dorman 1998). The film begins with a discussion of the childhood of each of the four characters profiled. Each was a Jewish child growing up in New York, experiencing the burdens of poverty and discrimination. Bell came from the lower east side, Glazer was raised in the Bronx to a working-class family, Howe recalls a difficult move to the East Bronx and a resulting drop in socioeconomic status, and Kristol relates that he barely noticed his poverty in Brooklyn, because everyone he knew was also poor. These trying economic circumstances helped lay the foundation for the brilliant careers that followed. The result of their lack of money was that all four young men attended the City University of New York (CUNY), a relative dumping ground for the “smart poor” (Dorman 1998).
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