Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this article I revisit the concept of habitus and locate it within a comparative and inter-disciplinary perspective. I focus most closely on Herbert Simon’s theory of action. Habitus emphasizes the idea that individuals, though they often do not think of their action as intentional, behave in an intentional manner. Through a discussion on the economic sociology literature on status and Fligstein’s political-cultural approach, I argue that this concept can be a source of fresh insights into empirical problems. The concept can be helpful when examining agents’ behavior in a context of institutional change.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper draw on research conducted for a recently completed PhD dissertation that explores the realm of cultural production associated with graphic design, understood in this context as a ubiquitous, yet largely invisible, communicative practice that nevertheless contributes substantially to the make-up of our visual culture. In doing so it invokes the conceptual apparatus of Pierre Bourdieu, particularly the notions of 'habitus,' and the (middle) class fraction he labels the 'cultural intermediaries' (or "no collar" - as opposed to white collar). In this paper I focus on defining, elaborating and ultimately complicating the notion of habitus as it applies to the professional milieu of graphic design in North America. The alternative perspective thereby developed - and informed most tellingly by strands of feminist thought - allows for the comparative evaluation of various high profile graphic design interventions versus less celebrated, but rather more numerous, instances of graphic dissent.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Abstract

News making is not random but patterned and socially conditioned systems for the reproduction of knowledge, which fits well with the existing power structures in U.S. society. Especially given the growing power of the corporate mainstream media in the United States, this research examines the ideological functions of news media’s "classifying out the world" (Hall, 1978) and "definitional control" (Schiller, 2000). It explores the systematic news framing process, in which some occurrences are selected, given meaning, and made more salient. This study analyzes U.S. newspapers’ framing of the AIDS situation in Africa, in relation to drug patents there, within the context of widespread global information imbalances. The relationship between Africa’s AIDS situation and international regulations on drug patents is highly significant, due to the fact that formerly colonized countries are largely excluded from the benefits of scientific innovations due to the reinforcing of a "postcolonial hierarchy," in terms of both world information flows and economy.
This research conceptualizes public health, specifically Africa’s AIDS -- the site of more than two-thirds of the world’s HIV-infected people -- as a social and historical construct bounded by postcolonial globalization. By applying such critical concepts as "hegemony", “intellectual authority,” "habitus," and "symbolic power” to news framing analysis, this work examines how the AIDS-drug patent issue has been culturally and socially constructed through news discourse. It criticizes the ways in which such news reporting in mainstream U.S. newspapers depicts these complex issues and compares this reporting with alternative media’s treatment of those issues.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines corporate governance and resistance to legislation. Using case studies of business responses to laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley in the United States, Bill C-46 in Canada and a raft of related reforms in Self-Regulating Professions, the paper argues that these and similar formal mechanisms fail to penetrate the crucial informal levels of social control. It probes the nature of this failure, asking why “naming, blaming and shaming” or, in Foucauldian terms, “inserting the power to punish into the soul”, has been so ineffective. Why is corporate crime not seen as immoral and unacceptable by the people who live it? What shapes the belief systems and “common sense” of powerful business actors? To understand this, the paper looks at factors that constitute “common sense”, specifically at websites, reports, surveys and other secondary sources on business behaviour, corporate culture and ethical standards. If acts proscribed by law do not reach the executive office, then formal controls - opportunities, sanctions and subjective/objective probabilities of detection – must carry the entire weight of deterrence, an impossible task. Evidence thus far indicates that a new status-quo is being negotiated, sector by sector, industry by industry, nation-state by nation-state.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Just over 100 Black and Latino students from five high poverty high schools are interviewed over time as they attempt to make the transition into college. Their approach, strategies, and interpretation of their ACT test scores are examined and the findings highlight the role of the high school context in supporting uninformed assumptions and the consequences of these assumptions on students' behavior, college decision-making, and eventually likelihood of college success. A unique framework is applied, drawing from theory and literature in three major fields: higher education (college choice process), sociology of education (cultural capital), and social cognition theory (self-efficacy).