New book: Making Meaning Out of Mountains by Mark Stoddart

Making Meaning Out of Mountains
The Political Ecology of Skiing
Mark Stoddart
UBC Press

In Making Meaning out of Mountains, Mark Stoddart draws on interviews, field observations, and media analysis to explore how the ski industry in British Columbia has helped transform mountain environments and, in turn, how skiing has come to be inscribed with multiple, often conflicted meanings informed by power struggles rooted in race, class, and gender. Corporate leaders promote the skiing industry as sustainable development, while environmentalists and some First Nations argue that skiing sacrifices wildlife habitats and traditional lands to tourism and corporate gain.  Read more

Call for Papers - McGill Sociological Review

The McGill Sociological Review, a peer reviewed journal managed by graduate and postdoctoral students, is publishing a volume on Nationalism, Nations, and States. You can read the call for papers here. Submissions are due by March 30th.

Ecofeminism, hegemonic masculinity, and environmental movement participation

Mark C. J. Stoddart & D. B. Tindall
Ecofeminism, hegemonic masculinity, and environmental movement participation in British Columbia, Canada, 1998-2007: “Women always clean up the mess” Sociological Spectrum 31, 3, 2011, Pages 342 - 368
DOI: 10.1080/02732173.2011.557065
Abstract
This article draws upon two waves of interviews with environmental movement members in British Columbia, Canada, in order to examine participants' interpretations of the relationship between gender and environmental politics. Four claims emerge from this analysis. First, our results support the notion that there is an affinity between environmental politics and feminism. Second, despite recent critiques of ecomaternalism and the dual subjugation of nature and women within ecofeminism, these discourses remain useful as interpretive resources for research participants. Third, while ecomaternalism is a recurrent theme, it appears to be declining in relative importance as a discursive resource. Finally, notions of hegemonic masculinity are becoming more salient as an interpretive framework. While the first two claims emphasize continuity in participants' interpretive framework, the latter findings describe shifts in participants' understandings of gender and environmental politics.

CFP: Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, a peer-reviewed volume published by Emerald Group Publishing/JAI Press, encourages submissions for Volume 33 of the series. This volume will have both thematic and open-submission sections and will be guest edited by Jennifer Earl (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Deana Rohlinger (Florida State University). For the open-submission/non-thematic section, submissions appropriate to any of the three broad foci reflected in the series title will be considered.

The special section of Volume 33 will focus on "new" and "old" media in social movements, conflicts, and change. We encourage submissions on the relationship between older media (e.g., newspapers, books, music, radio and network and cable television) and social movements, conflicts, or change, or between "new" media (e.g., the Web) and social movements, conflicts, or change.

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change (RSMCC) is a fully peer-reviewed series of original research that has been published annually for over 30 years. We continue to publish the work of many of the leading scholars in social movements, social change, and peace and conflict studies. Although RSMCC enjoys a wide library subscription base for the book versions, all volumes are now published both in book form and are also available online to subscribing libraries through Emerald Insight. This ensures wider distribution and easier online access to your scholarship while maintaining the esteemed book series at the same time.

RSMCC boasts quick turn-around times, generally communicating peer reviewed-informed decisions within 10-12 weeks of receipt of submissions.

To be considered for inclusion in Volume 33, papers should arrive by May 16, 2011.

Send submissions as a WORD document attached to an email to BOTH Jennifer Earl and Dena Rohlinger, guest RSMCC editors for Volume 33, at jearl@soc.ucsb.edu and drohling@fsu.edu.

Remove all self-references (in text and in bibliography) save for on the title page, which should include full contact information for all authors. Include the paper's title and the abstract on the first page of the text itself. For initial submissions, any standard social science in-text citation and bibliographic system is acceptable.

RSMCC Website

CFP: Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism

Forging the Nation: Rituals and Performances in the (Re)production of Nations
The Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) is holding its 21st Annual Conference, entitled “Forging the Nation”, from the 5th – 7th of April 2011 at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The fundamental purpose of this conference is to address the role of performances and rituals in the production and reproduction of national identity. This is an important issue for the study of nations and nationalism, however, it remains under-theorised. It is therefore the intention of the conference to gain a deeper understanding of this issue by moving beyond written texts.

We are delighted to announce our confirmed plenary speakers:
Professor Jeffrey Alexander (Yale)
Professor Carol Duncan (Ramapo)
Dr. Jon Fox (Bristol)
Professor Anthony Smith (LSE)
Additional plenary speakers to be announced soon.

For additional enquiries, please email asen.conference2011@lse.ac.uk

Click here to see the call for papers

Music videos!

Thanks to Bill Carroll, my call for social movement music (Sociology needs blues songs!) has been answered, twice:

So Said Tony Hayward


Do we pull the monster down?

New publications

Two new publications by CNSIMC members:

Mark Stoddart and David Tindall, 'We've Also Become Quite Good Friends': Environmentalists, Social Networks and Social Comparison in British Columbia, Canada. Social Movement Studies 9, 3: 253 - 271

Abstract: Social networks influence social movement recruitment and individuals' ongoing participation in social movement organizations. In this article, we use a qualitative approach to explore the meaning of social networks for environmental movement participants in British Columbia, Canada. Our analysis draws on interviews with 33 core members of the movement. Environmental group participation creates multiplex social networks, encompassing work, leisure and friendship. Social movement networks are conduits for information exchange among environmental groups and they amplify the political power of individual participants. Ties to government workers and forest company management are more intense - based on frequency of contact - than ties to forestry labour or First Nations groups. However, forestry workers and First Nations are viewed more positively than government or forest company management. This illustrates how the intensity of social network ties can be distinguished from the subjective meanings attached to them by network participants.

Kathleen Rodgers, 'Anger is Why We're All Here': Mobilizing and Managing Emotions in a Professional Activist Organization. Social Movement Studies 9, 3: 273 - 291.

Abstract: The emotions involved in social activism are central factors in the recruitment to, motivation for, and sustainability of social movements. But this perspective on the role of emotions within social movements contrasts with studies of emotions within mainstream organizations where employees are called on to manage their own emotions and those of others. Thus, while much social movement research focuses on how activists actively cultivate emotional expression, these ideas rarely intersect with the organizational research that examines how a diminished quality of working life may result from the need for employees to modify, suppress or emphasize emotions. Using in-depth interviews with activists at Amnesty International, this article bridges this theoretical divide by examining emotional labour and emotional regulation among paid activists in a professional social movement organization. I explore the ways in which employees struggle with the emotional component of their work and the implications of these emotions for the quality of their working life, the stability of such organizations and the maintenance of social movements.