Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Is massive migration from Mexico into certain areas of the United States diluting the distinctions between these two groups, or is it reproducing and magnifying cultural differences, national myths and traditions? What are the mechanisms reaffirming these exclusive national categorizations? How these categorizations get re-defined in the public discourse will have a big effect on the self-understandings of both Mexicans and Americans. Can we see a similar process among other groups e.g. between French and Algerians?

This paper studies boundary formation at three levels 1) as it affects migrants and non-migrants on everyday interactions at the micro level, 2) at the level of theory and normative arguments, and, 3) at the legal and legislative levels including policy debates and discussion in the public sphere. Analyzing some of the boundary work deployed in the last years in order to keep Mexican immigrants outside of the boundary of “the American” by the deployment of the label of “illegal”.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper goes beyond the role of state municipal annexation laws, state and local government institutions and private actors in the local economic development process to describe and analyze the role of school boundaries in the expansion of the land area across fifty large U. S. cities. Three basic types of relationship between municipal and school district annexation patterns are identified and documented. Then the causes of these patterns are examined includiing variations in state annexation laws for school districts and municipalities, the behavior of municipal governments and school districts, the nature of other incorporated local government units and demographic factors. Finally, the implications for how different central city's are perceived, the nature of the local sense of community, the nature of local citizenship, the past and potential growth of central city boundaries and populations, and the variations in the plight of central cities and their school districts are explored.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between informal relationships that connect actors across formal organization boundaries and their relative exploration performance. We propose that the informal ties that connect actors across formally defined organization boundaries generally are a better determinant of individual exploration performance than the extent to which actors have informal ties that bridge disconnected elements of the social structure. We argue that internal cross-specialization ties – ties that cross formally defined areas of specialization – are the most important mechanism by which actors access information and resources from different knowledge domains. Nevertheless, to successfully mobilize such resources across formal organization boundaries, individuals benefit from having strong indirect ties in their internal networks. In contrast, external cross-specialization ties only have a positive effect on exploration performance when actors have a minimum number of internal cross-specialization ties. External indirect ties always have a negative effect on individual exploration performance. Detailed data on 1386 informal relationships of 79 senior partners in a large management consultancy lend support to these arguments.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This essay illustrates cultural sociology's trajectory from Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital through the turn towards symbolic boundaries as a means of demarcation in contemporary American society. While Bourdieu’s cultural capital concept is one of the most important for explaining the connections between culture and inequality, the work of the symbolic boundary theorists elaborates on this foundation to illustrate the existence of various types of cultural capital and multiple cultural markets. Rather than rely on the preconceived idea of cultural capital as marker of place, symbolic boundaries theorists argue that “what counts” as a indicator of inclusion or exclusion varies across time and space. Symbolic boundary theorists question Bourdieu's emphasis on a coherent high class culture, arguing instead that contemporary American society, with increasing economic differences between social classes, often exemplifies ill-defined or blurry cultural differences. The accumulation of cultural capital or the drawing of symbolic boundaries continues to demarcate those who have access to resources from those who do not. Symbolic boundary theorists' more nuanced approach to cultural and social distinction illustrates the fluidity, permeability, and complexity of American culture and social inequality.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study investigates the manner in which people in a multicultural urban setting utilize and interpret cultural objects as part of their boundary-work project. It examines the conditions under which the interpretive use of such objects has the potential of demarcating social groups from one another and, at the same time, of providing common ground for social cohesion and identification among all members of the local social whole. Drawing on Wendy Griswold’s (1987a, 1987b, 1994) analytical model, this article suggests that only cultural objects that are characterized as weak in cultural power are capable of maintaining internal social boundaries and, at the same time, of acting as a mechanism for a symbolic crossing of these boundaries. This study illuminates the cultural process of boundaries formation and regulation through an examination of the particular case of various Jewish communities in Jerusalem and their uses of the local newspaper of Kol Ha’Ir.