Symbolic Boundary Work Research Articles

Symbolic boundary work: Jewish and Arab femicide in Israeli Hebrew newspapers.

We analyze 391 news reports in Israeli newspapers between 2013 and 2015, covering murders of women and their family members by other family members and intimate partners. We compare articles where the perpetrators and victims are Jewish to those where the perpetrators and victims are Palestinian citizens of Israel (henceforth PCI). We found that articles tend to provide much more details about Jewish culprits than about PCI ones. As for ascribed motives, most murder cases by Jews were framed as an outcome of individual personality or the pathology of the culprit. Conversely, when Palestinian citizens were the killers, culture and tradition were invoked as the main motives. We suggest that the routine work of narration that the Israeli media preform when covering femicide is a case of political use of cultural stereotypes to gain moral ground in the intractable conflict between Jews and Palestinians.

Labour Migration, Employer Preferences and Symbolic Boundary Work

A critical stream of scholarship from North America and Europe, on employer preferences for low-wage labour migrants, suggest that the discourse of ‘the migrant work ethic’ works as a euphemism for the exploitability of this mobile, flexible and deferent workforce. In this article, we combine the literature on employer preference and the symbolic boundary approach, to tackle the question of how employer preference for the ‘migrant work ethic’ gains legitimacy. Drawing upon in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork within the fruit and vegetable industry in Norway, we detail how employers narrate the declining employability of the domestic working class, and how migrant workers ascend into the ‘good worker’ category. The recruitment and hiring decisions of the employers form part of a broader moral economy of establishing boundaries to the categories of desirable and undesirable workers. We document how employers establish legitimacy for their recruitment preferences through this boundary work. We argue that this boundary work gains its legitimacy as part of a wider moral economy of ‘employability.&rsquo

The Symbolic Boundary Work of Incels: Subcultural Negotiation of Meaning and Identity Online

ABSTRACT This article explores the boundary work of incels (involuntary celibates), to counter negative media coverage and online ridicule. Attempting to claim rational status, incels have created alternative information channels that reframe their situation of involuntary celibacy as a legitimate life circumstance. I examine the symbolic boundaries within the incel subculture, using the Incel Wikipedia page as a specialized encyclopedia for their online milieu. After describing the incel worldview and subcultural identity, I analyze how incels engage in boundary work to differentiate and solidify their status – categorizing themselves and other people. The article draws on theories of narrative and cultural criminology to present how incels negotiate their identity by establishing symbolic boundaries that exclude out-groups such as women, sexually successful men, and mainstream society. It concludes by considering how boundaries within the in-group are based on degrees of inceldom, gender, and violent actors. As a site of resistance, the boundary work of the incel wiki reveals how the social incel identity is formed and given meaning by contrast to symbolic others. I argue that narrative and cultural criminology can help us unravel the online ecosystem by analyzing the negotiation of external and internal subcultural boundaries.

Foreigner, migrant, or refugee? How laypeople label those who cross borders

AbstractIn this article, we seek to exercise reflexivity in migration research by looking at the symbolic boundary work that sustains laypeople’s understanding and use of specific labels. We do so through a qualitative, cultural sociological investigation of migration attitudes in Czechia. We explore the labels foreigner, migrant, and refugee, commonly used labels in Czech migration discourse. In short, we argue that research participants rely on different grounds for boundary work, informed by available cultural repertoires, when characterizing foreigners, migrants, and refugees. While boundary work related to the label foreigner calls upon criteria of citizenship and perceived cultural closeness, the boundary work concerning the other two labels—migrant and refugee—involves the moral criteria of deservingness. Our study addresses three major shortcomings in migration studies. First, the opinions of laypeople influence public policies and approaches to migration, yet in-depth qualitative studies of migration attitudes are scarce. Second, even though migration attitudes shape the character of the receiving context for people who cross borders, how laypeople engage with labels remains understudied. Finally, we heed the call for a ‘reflexive turn’ in migration studies, arguing that researchers must remain reflexive, not only about labels they use, but also how such labels are understood and used by research participants.

Negotiating Ambiguous Substance Use: UK newspaper representations of self-prescribing medicinal cannabis use in the 1990s

This paper examined representations of medicinal cannabis users in UK newspapers, 1990–1998. It is important to understand the significance of these newspaper articles during this early stage of the growing cultural normalisation of medicinal cannabis use, in the UK, which is not documented in the existing literature. This is a very different period in relation to access to information for members of the public because it was before the widespread use of the internet. The significance of these dates is also that I started interviewing medicinal cannabis users in 1998, which led to Coomber et al. (2003). Very significantly, almost half of the participants in that article indicated that newspapers were the source of the idea that cannabis was medicinally useful and that this accounted for why they began to use it medicinally. What was in those newspaper articles that encouraged this view? In the current article, I examined 60 newspaper articles about medicinal cannabis use, using a thematic analysis which also draws on aspects of critical discourse analysis. I report on the process of symbolic boundary work which negotiates the ambiguity of individuals portrayed as social insiders but who used cannabis. The representations within the articles emphasized the social insider characteristics of medicinal cannabis users, emphasized their genuine illnesses/impairments, but interestingly also articulated misunderstandings by the journalists which contributed to a positive portrayal.

Exploring Moral Categorizations and Symbolic Boundaries Around People Living With HIV in a Correctional Setting.

For people living with HIV, correctional facilities, such as jails, prisons, and remand centers in Canada are complex environments at the intersection of health, justice, social, and criminal systems. Turning toward experiences, I explore my stories and observations of working with people living with HIV as a registered nurse in a large correctional facility in Western Canada. Based upon a narrative understanding of experience, I inquire into these stories and observations through the application of Mary Douglas' theoretical work on purity versus impurity and Michèle Lamont's symbolic boundary work. I engage in a reflective dialogue with the newfound meanings and understandings produced and discuss significant personal, practice-based, social, and policy-based insights within the context of my nurse researcher-practitioner role. This dialogue draws attention and raises questions about social practices, HIV-related stigma, correctional nursing, and the particularities of life evident within correctional facilities. Clinical implications for correctional nurses are discussed.

The Civil Savage: How Young People Living Rurally ‘Do’ Distinction at Regional Festivals in the Netherlands

Building on previous work about cultural informalisation and the growing urban–rural divide in western democracies, this article studies symbolic boundary work as performed by white youths living in rural areas in the Netherlands. We conducted a micro-sociological analysis of how these youths celebrate regional festivals in the Netherlands, and particularly the meanings they attach to their affective displays of intoxication and sexuality. We show how distinction is ‘done’ here by many of these youths taking pride in drinking too much beer, sexual directness and impropriety, which they argue are expressions of conviviality and down-to-earthness. In doing so, they appear to be finding dignity and redemption in an image of themselves as savages and reappropriating it as part of their own ‘civility’, contrasting their revelry with what they perceive to be urban, middle-class snobbery.

‘A brother is more than a neighbour’: Symbolic boundary work in Czech pro-migration discourse

ABSTRACT Since 2015, the latest so-called migration crisis has become a major discursive topic in the EU, even in countries like Czechia, which have not received many migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers. While researchers have looked at anti-migration discourses in the country, highlighting the ways in which symbolic boundaries around migrants are brightened, there exists a gap in looking at the other side, namely, how migrant rights advocates legitimate the potential acceptance of migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers. In this article, we adopt a cultural sociological approach to explore how two Czech initiatives to accept refugees, including Syrian orphans, variously blur and solidify symbolic boundaries. Our findings show that the migrant rights advocates involved in these two initiatives, who gained the attention of decision makers, follow mainstream discursive narratives, legitimating the acceptance of refugees based on similar arguments and symbols (both religious and security based) as those instrumentalised by the opponents of migration.

#IamaRefugee: Social Media Resistance to Trump's ‘Muslim Ban’

Abstract Immediately after newly inaugurated President Trump issued Executive Order 13769 in 2017, commonly referred to as the ‘Muslim ban’, people around the world engaged in widespread resistance in a variety of ways, including through a relatively new forum: social media. While scholars have examined counterframing and symbolic boundary-work in resistance movements, little is known about impact social media platforms may have on these narratives. Accordingly, in this article, we explore how actors engage in boundary-work and counterframing through the use of social media. Using Twitter posts containing ‘#IamaRefugee’ as our data, we find that activists engaged in different dimensions of boundary-work in opposition to Trump’s ban including creating boundaries between the immoral ‘them’ and moral ‘us’; challenging the boundaries between supposedly threatening refugees and the dominant group; and strengthening the bond of those in opposition to Trump’s policies and rhetoric by reinforcing the messages of solidarity. We argue that this boundary-work culminated in direct calls for mobilization. The implications of our findings are meaningful to scholarship on refugee studies, social movements, and framing and to those interested in opposing problematic elite framing.

Making “bad trips” good: How users of psychedelics narratively transform challenging trips into valuable experiences

BackgroundWe study the significance of stories about bad trips among users of psychedelics. Drawing on narrative theory, we describe the characteristics of such stories and explore the work they do. MethodsIn-depth qualitative interviews with 50 Norwegian users of psychedelics. ResultsAlmost all participants had frightening experiences when using psychedelics and many described these as bad trips. The key feature of a bad trip was a feeling of losing oneself or going crazy, or ego dissolution. Most users said that these experiences could be avoided by following certain rules, based on tacit knowledge in the subcultures of users. Possessing such knowledge was part of symbolic boundary work that distinguished between drug culture insiders and outsiders. Some also rejected the validity of the term bad trip altogether, arguing that such experiences reflected the lack of such competence. Finally, and most importantly, most participants argued that unpleasant experiences during bad trips had been beneficial and had sometimes given them deep existential and life-altering insights. ConclusionBad trip experiences are common among users of psychedelics. Such experiences are often transformed into valuable experiences through storytelling. Bad trip narratives may be a potent coping mechanism for users of psychedelics in non-controlled environments, enabling them to make sense of frightening experiences and integrate these into their life stories. Such narrative sense-making, or narrative work, facilitates the continued use of psychedelics, even after unpleasant experiences with the drugs.

Battle of the classes: news consumption inequalities and symbolic boundary work

ABSTRACT Previous research has revealed a connection between news consumption and class, both in terms of how much and what kind of news is consumed. By deploying a cultural sociological perspective on how young people from different class positions make sense of their differences, this study breaks new ground in the study of news use and inequality. Focus group interviews with young working-class and middle-class people show how social groups mobilize differences in news consumption to draw symbolic boundaries between each other. The moral economy surrounding “productive” or “unproductive” approaches towards news and journalism is a venue that allows social groups to construct an other, over whom a sense of social, cultural, and moral superiority can be maintained. The study takes the understanding of news consumption inequalities beyond the standard concern with gaps in knowledge and participation by locating news consumption inequalities in relation to symbolic struggles between social groups.

Drug Control Policy, Normalization, and Symbolic Boundaries in Amsterdam’s Coffee Shops

Abstract This study examines the relationship between drug control policy, normalization and symbolic boundary work among drug traders. Taking from interviews with 50 personnel in Amsterdam’s coffee shops, we find that Dutch drug policy shapes their understanding of what comprises morally acceptable drug use and sales. Conversely, the rules set by the state also guide personnel’s definitions of what is morally unacceptable: using hard drugs or committing predatory crimes. To normalize their own involvement with cannabis, personnel must identify potential rule breakers and criminals. To do so, they construct symbolic boundaries differentiating themselves from these persons. We conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of our findings for normalization and symbolic boundaries and by suggesting a potential negative secondary impact of cannabis decriminalization or legalization: the further marginalization of hard drug users.

Drug Control Policy, Normalization, and Symbolic Boundaries in Amsterdam’s Coffeeshops

This study examines the relationship between drug control policy, normalization, and symbolic boundary work among drug traders. Taking from interviews with 50 personnel in Amsterdam’s coffeeshops, we find that Dutch drug policy shapes their understanding of what comprises morally acceptable drug use and sales. Conversely, the rules set by the state also guide personnel’s definitions of what is morally unacceptable: using hard drugs or committing predatory crimes. To normalize their own involvement with cannabis, personnel must identify potential rule-breakers and criminals. To do so, they construct symbolic boundaries differentiating themselves from these persons. We conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of our findings for normalization and symbolic boundaries and by suggesting a potential negative secondary impact of cannabis decriminalization or legalization: the further marginalization of hard drug users.

Navigating the Tensions of Normative Masculinity: Homosocial Dynamics in Australian Young Men’s Discussions of Sexting Practices

Building on research identifying sexting as an important aspect of contemporary youth cultures, this article critically explores the ways that homosocial bonding is bound up with, and produced in the context of, young adult men’s discussions of sexting. Drawing on a focus-group study with 37 undergraduate young men based in Melbourne, Australia, we find both deviations from and continuations with the literature that has emphasised men’s homosocial bonding as being predicated on women’s sexualisation and subordination. Discussions of sexting prove to be a site where young men navigate being ‘lads’ prioritising homosocial relations over relations with female partners and objectifying women to demonstrate masculine status, while simultaneously wanting to be respectful men who call out bad behaviour and emphasise trust and mutuality in their relations with women. We make sense of this by drawing on the concepts of ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ homosociality, and by attending to the symbolic boundary work that the young men undertake. In our concluding discussion, we consider the potentially productive, disciplinary role of – and limits to – digital technologies in regulating the production and performance of young masculinities that still rely on the articulation of hierarchies that legitimate gender inequality, even when young men espouse progressive views.

Musical Fusion as Contextualized Boundary-Play: Samba Jazz in New York City

Musical Fusion as Contextualized Boundary-PlaySamba Jazz in New York City Marc M. Gidal (bio) Music scholars regularly address "fusion" and "boundaries" together because fusion implies combinations of musical elements and practices whose distinctions help define categorical boundaries, musical or extra-musical. To explain jazz-rock-funk fusion during the 1970s, for example, Kevin Fellezs defined his topic accordingly: "For my purposes fusion will refer to a merging of jazz, rock, and funk music aesthetics and practices and the subsequent (or, better, the further) blurring of these large-scale genre boundaries in articulation with other musical traditions […]"1 Deborah Pacini Hernandez addressed intersections of hybridity, identity, and boundary-work to study "innovative blends" in US "Latino popular music": Despite—and sometimes because of—their interstitial position within the United States' racial imaginary, Latinos' personal and collective hybrid genealogies have served to facilitate the bridging and crossing of musical borders. Indeed, Latinos have generated an extraordinary variety of innovative blends of Latin American, African American, and Euro- American aesthetics, bringing into dialogue with each other in multiple overlapping and intersecting ways.2 To expand this approach, we could frame creative acts of musical fusion and discourses about them through the lens of the sociological concept "symbolic boundary-work," in the sense that they express and bridge differences, symbolic and social.3 Boundary-awareness can happen during boundary-crossing activities that may produce fusions, as well as boundary-maintenance that may favor authenticity. When listeners notice musical combinations that challenge their categorical expectations such as an album that, as Jennifer Lena explains, "is not obviously located within one or another position in the classification system, sociologists will refer to it as a boundary object."4 The dismissive quip that fusing jazz with other genres amounts to "confusion"—asserted by, for example, "jazz purists" about jazz-rock fusions and Indian classical "traditionalists" about Indian-jazz fusions—illustrates judgments about boundary-crossing as well [End Page 52] as the subjectivity of evaluation.5 To juxtapose the terms "musical fusion" and "boundary-work" might, at first glance, seem to combine opposite intentions: the former implies mixture and the latter separation. However, sociologists have explained that studies of symbolic boundary-work examine degrees of flexibility, types of interactions, and effects under the umbrellas of "boundary properties (i.e. permeability, salience, durability, and visibility) as well as mechanisms 'associated with the activation, maintenance, transposition or the dispute, bridging, crossing and dissolution of boundaries.'"6 As I summarized elsewhere, sociological studies of boundary-work through music often correlate musical tastes of listeners/consumers with social stratification, expanding upon Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction; and, by contrast, ethnomusicologists have drawn on symbolic boundary-studies when relating music-making practices with issues of social-group identity.7 To adjust sociological terms for music studies, the "work" in boundary-work might be stated in creative-artistic terms as practice, process, performance, or play. To this end, I suggest that boundary-play suits the variety of boundary- conscious "fusing activities" that musicians use and that audiences, critics, and scholars interpret.8 I use "play" in a broad sense to embrace playing music, creative play, and social play in relation to identity, culture, and society. In short, musical fusion features playful mediations of symbolic and social boundaries. Depending on the context, musicians, listeners, and scholars apply their understandings of categorical similarities and differences when recognizing musical practices that seem borrowed and combined, and when interpreting musical meaning in boundary-play. In this article I explore four interrelated points through a case study of samba jazz, a type of Brazilian-jazz fusion, as played and interpreted in New York City, with comparisons to interpretations of Brazilian jazz in Brazil. My first point is that musical fusion can be explained as symbolic boundary-work, which I am calling boundary-play for its creative-artistic implications. Second, boundary- play can encompass a wide range of musical interactions between and within categories (traditions, genres, styles, etc.), and relates to musicians' multiple competencies, affinities, and identities. Third, the different contexts of musical fusions can influence interpretations of boundary-play even if descriptions of musical fusions may be the same or similar. Specifically, interpretations of Brazilian jazz in Brazil...

Diasporic stances, homeland prisms: representing diaspora in the homeland as internal negotiation of national identity

ABSTRACTThis paper suggests that images and stances associated with the diaspora in the homeland culture offer a unique prism through which internal tensions in homeland collective identity may be dissected and understood. We believe it is worthwhile to broaden the spectrum of inquiry of recent research on quantifiable diaspora economic and political involvement in homeland nation-states to the inherently fluid, abstract realm of cultural representation. The paper implements this research orientation by offering a preliminary discussion of homeland-construed representations and stances of the diaspora, based on the case study of Israel. Israel is a particularly useful case for our purposes because of the degree to which the diaspora serves as a ‘significant other’ for the homeland national culture. Our claim is that two main prisms, or frames of reference, which we label as ‘minority stance’ and ‘authenticity,’ designate Israeli views of its diaspora that prove fundamental to Israeli national self-definition. The degree of authenticity ascribed in Israeli culture to representations and practices associated with the diaspora is contingent on the positive or negative value attributed to them as embodying a ‘minority stance,’ that is, to the diaspora giving central importance to its environing host society in its own identity and self-understanding. Using Greek culture as a comparative point of reference, we suggest that these prisms may be but two examples of various homeland ‘filters’ on the diaspora experience – filters which pertain to the homeland society’s ongoing internal negotiations of identity and symbolic boundary-work.

“I’m Not Your ‘Typical’ Military Wife”: The Construction of Gender and Agency Through Stereotypes

Within the institution and military community, civilian wives of service members occupy complicated roles. On the one hand, wives are undisputedly crucial to the functioning of their service member husbands. However, wives are simultaneously considered subordinate to their husbands within the military and extended community. Indicative of this attitude are the divisive stereotypes of military wives that range from lazy and irresponsible, to overly rank-conscious and entitled. Based on combined in-depth interviews from two samples of military wives, this article investigates how the women navigate the military spouse role within the institutional, community-oriented context of the military. Specifically, we ask, how do these women construct gender and exercise agency when drawing on the stereotypes of wives within the community? By utilizing such mechanisms as symbolic boundary work, gender policing, and stereotyping, women both reify stereotypes of the military spouse and exert agency in creating the military spouse identity for themselves.

From the ‘What’ and ‘How’ to the ‘Where’: Class Distinction as a Matter of Place

Research on the symbolic boundary work of upper- and middle-class actors has placed a greater emphasis on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of cultural consumption than on the ‘where’. However, the spaces where actors move are important: the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of marking distinction vary according to national class cultures and cultural fields. This article focuses on the ‘where’ arguing that interaction settings shape actors’ boundary work. Based upon research on Argentinean Pentecostalism, the study shows that middle-class Pentecostals switch between distinction-marking and ‘omnivorous’ performances of Pentecostalism depending on the social permeability of the spaces where they move. These insights suggest that the contextual conditions in which actors present themselves as ‘omnivores’ or ‘snobs’ deserve more attention.

Demonstrating deservingness and dignity. Symbolic boundary work among Syrian refugees

While the literature on boundary making has mainly documented variations in boundary work between groups and institutional contexts, scholars have paid less attention to boundary work in the context of unexpected dislocation of a group to a new context. This article examines how Syrian refugees in Belgium deal with a sudden loss of social status, by analysing how they draw symbolic boundaries among themselves, established immigrants and native Belgians. Drawing on 26 in-depth interviews with 39 Syrian refugees as well as on-going participant observation, we describe how our respondents use ‘comparative strategies of self’ to position themselves as dignified and worthy individuals.We present two types of moral, and two types of cultural boundary work our interlocutors engaged in. They stressed their moral worthiness by, first, distancing themselves from the bad behaviour of ‘uneducated’ refugees in reception centres, and from established immigrants in materially deprived urban neighbourhoods. Second, especially male interlocutors displayed a strong work ethic highlighting how they renegotiated their masculine worthiness in response to their loss of status and their refugee condition. In addition, they demonstrated their cultural qualities by articulating, first, their personal competences and aesthetic refinement as individuals, and, second, by highlighting the general level of education, wealth and cultural achievements of Syrian people as a whole. In sum, these four boundary-making strategies served to legitimise their presence and strengthen their position vis-à-vis other social groups such as their compatriots, established immigrants and native Belgians. In line with previous studies by Sherman (2005) and Purser (2009), we find that these moral and cultural boundaries are significant in reasserting disadvantaged individuals’ sense of dignity, whilst working against the emergence of solidarity between wider groups of immigrants in similar socio-structural positions.

Opeth not metal: making sense of the symbolic boundary work in the leisure spaces of musicians and fans

The Swedish band Opeth have had a long, sustained and successful career in the heavy metal industry. Their early albums were well-received as important contributions to melodic death metal, but the band struggled to survive. A collaboration with producer Steven Wilson on Blackwater Park (2001) gave the band an album that allowed them to build a higher profile in the metal scene, which led to signing to Roadrunner Records and becoming festival regulars. In recent years, however, lead singer and songwriter Mikael Akerfeldt has abandoned death-metal growls and metal riffs for songs that are inspired by his record collection: seventies rock and prog. In this paper, I will explore the band’s justification of their evolution into a progressive rock band through on-line interviews and my own analysis, before showing how metal fans on-line have reacted strongly (and negatively) to this evolution. In the final parts of the paper, I will analyse both the motivations of the band and the fans, which revolves around reactions to the hegemonic status of the cultural industries in modernity, and what Bauman identifies as the crisis of liquid modernity. For the band. I will argue that their search for an authentic musical identity based on vinyl nostalgia is an expression of contempt for the instrumental rationality and in-authenticity of modern metal. For the fans, I will argue their anger is the anger of Bauman’s flawed consumers in leisure spaces.