SSSP Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division Fall 2021 Newsletter Contents Message from the Chair 2022 PCID Sessions 2022 Awards Member News Job Announcements For More Information ________________ Message from the Chair ________________ Dear Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division members, Congratulations to everyone who has just finished or is nearing the end of classes for Fall 2021. I hope that you are able to get a bit of rest over the holiday break and that the new year is healthy and hopeful. In the Fall 2021 newsletter, I want to highlight our upcoming sessions at the 2022 SSSP conference, the news and recent publications of members, and some tentative plans and things to look out for about the division in the coming year. First, I want to thank Elizabeth Korver-Glenn for chairing the division through multiple years of the pandemic, and for helping me transition into this role. I also want to thank everyone who has volunteered to serve on committees or organize sessions at the upcoming meetings. The amount of people volunteering to support the division has been incredibly high and I’m excited about what that means for the division’s future. The 2022 Conference is scheduled for August 5-7 in Los Angeles, CA, organized around the theme “The Sociological Reimagination: From Moments to Momentum.” Our division is organizing or co-sponsoring 10 sessions that speak to pressing issues around the country and the world. Our major thematic session is titled, “Reimagining Poverty, Class, and Inequality through a Du Boisian Lens,” and other sessions will focus on housing, labor, the welfare state, education, sex and sexuality, Black feminism, cross national comparisons, space, and mapping. Please submit your abstracts to these sessions and encourage those in your networks to do so as well. Thank you to all the members who have volunteered to organize and preside over these sessions. As things stand now, there will be an in-person division meeting during the 2022 conference. I will try to make sure there are ways for people who can’t attend in person to participate. At this meeting, I’d like to do the following things: * provide a quick rundown of the division for folks who are new or unsure how to get involved * re-visit our division’s mission statement and consider any proposed edits * review the division’s budget and solicit input on it * solicit ideas for any changes you’d like to see within the division * solicit ideas for the division’s 2023 paper sessions Finally, I just want to remind everyone in the division to consider nominating someone for the Graduate Student Paper Award and the Michael Harrington Award. Information about them is copied below. Warmly, Rahim Kurwa 2022 PCID Sessions ________________ *Thematic Session Reimagining Poverty, Class, and Inequality through a Du Boisian Lens *Regular Sessions The Impending Mortgage Crisis and Racial Inequalities in Housing Black Feminism/Black Feminist Epistemologies Reimagining Power in Labor Reconceptualizing Education After Covid 19: Creating a Better System Co-sponsored with the Educational Problems Division Comparative Analysis of Poverty and Inequality Co-sponsored with the Global Division The Welfare State and COVID-19 Co-sponsored with the Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division *Critical Dialogues Sexuality and the Welfare State Co-sponsored with the Sexual Behavior, Politics, and Communities Division and the Sociology and Social Welfare Division Exposing and Addressing Inequities of Space and Place Co-sponsored with the Sociology and Social Welfare Division Using GIS to Answer Sociological Questions Co-sponsored with the Sociology and Social Welfare Division ________________ 2022 Awards ________________ Graduate Student Paper Award Deadline: 1/15/22 The Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division (PCI) would like to reward graduate student work that addresses issues related to poverty, class, and inequality. Papers should be unpublished, original empirical works of professional quality completed during students’ graduate or undergraduate studies. Papers must be student authored; they can be authored by one or more students, but may not be co-authored with faculty or nonstudents. Papers should be no more than 30 pages in length, including notes, references, and tables. Self-nominations are acceptable. Students may submit to only one division. The winner will receive a plaque of recognition, one-year membership to SSSP, a waived conference registration fee to attend the 2022 meeting, and an additional cash prize. Send papers (with author name(s) concealed for review), electronically, to the committee chair Dr. Tracy Peressini (tracy.peressini@uwaterloo.ca). Please specify that you are submitting a paper for the Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division Student Paper Competition and include a brief cover letter (if self-nominating) or nomination letter (if nominating someone else) including the student’s contact information. Please send Microsoft Word or PDF files only. In addition, authors are required to submit their papers through the annual meeting Call for Papers online system. Michael Harrington Award Deadline: 4/1/22 The Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division (PCI) invites nominations for the 2022 Michael Harrington Award. This award will be granted to an individual, organization, faculty, or student that by their actions advances our understanding of poverty, social class, and/or inequality, and/or proposes effective and practical ways to attend to the needs of the economically marginalized and reduce class inequalities. Self-nominations are acceptable. The award will be presented at the 2022 SSSP meetings. The winner will receive a plaque at our divisional meeting, during which we will honor the work of Michael Harrington. One-page nomination letters should be sent electronically to sssppcidharrington@gmail.com. Supplemental materials may be requested. ________________ Member News ________________ Publications Rondini, Ashley C. "“Dream like the Whites”: Disjunctures in Racial Experiences and Interpretations of Low-Income First-Generation Students of Color and Their Parents." Social Problems (2021). https://academic.oup.com/socpro/advance-article-pdf/doi/10.1093/socpro/spab061/40442596/spab061.pdf Abstract: A burgeoning body of scholarship addresses how low-income first generation (LIFG) college students, across racial groups, navigate communication with their families about their experiences of class-based dissonance at socioeconomically elite institutions. Yet, there is scant corollary research addressing how LIFG students of color navigate communication with their families regarding experiences of racial dissonance and racism on campuses that are both socioeconomically elite and predominantly white. This study examines disjunctures in familial perceptions and interpretations regarding race and racism consequent to intergenerational educational mobility for LIFG students of color, whose parents are unlikely to have had analogous experiences of complete occupational and residential immersion in socioeconomically elite and predominantly white institutional environments. This work highlights an important gap in the academic literature on first-generation students at the intersections of race, class, parental educational attainment level, and immigration dynamics. Without a race-conscious analytic lens, class-based understandings of LIFG college students and their families remain incomplete. Davis, Katrinell M. Tainted Tap: Flint's Journey from Crisis to Recovery. UNC Press Books, 2021. Abstract After a cascade of failures left residents of Flint, Michigan, without a reliable and affordable supply of safe drinking water, citizens spent years demanding action from their city and state officials. Complaints from the city's predominantly African American residents were ignored until independent researchers confirmed dangerously elevated blood lead levels among Flint children and in the city's tap water. Despite a 2017 federal court ruling in favor of Flint residents who had demanded mitigation, those efforts have been incomplete at best. Assessing the challenges that community groups faced in their attempts to advocate for improved living conditions, Tainted Tap offers a rich analysis of conditions and constraints that created the Flint water crisis. Katrinell Davis contextualizes the crisis in Flint's long and troubled history of delivering essential services, the consequences of regional water-management politics, and other forms of systemic neglect that impacted the working-class community's health and well-being. Using ethnographic and empirical evidence from a range of sources, Davis also sheds light on the forms of community action that have brought needed changes to this underserved community. Rhomberg, Chris. "Work and workers in the United States: A historic turning point?." La nouvelle revue du travail 19 (2021). https://doi.org/10.4000/nrt.10213. Abstract The extraordinary collision of crises in the United States in 2020 – biological pandemic, economic recession, and mass protests – presents a unique juncture from which to consider the development of relations of work in the United States in the first decades of the 21st century. In this article, I begin with a brief review of the peculiar institutional context of American labor and employment relations, as the setting for change. The discussion then follows along three dimensions: 1) labor markets, 2) the labor process, and 3) social reproduction. Finally, I consider the implications of recent trends for the current juncture. Rhomberg, Chris, and Steven Lopez. "Understanding Strikes in the 21ST Century: Perspectives from the United States." In Power and Protest. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-786X20210000044005 Abstract After decades of declining strike rates in the industrialized world, recent years have seen a surge of militant walkouts in the global South, political strikes in Europe, and unconventional strikes in nonunion sectors in the United States. This new diversity of strike action calls for a new theoretical framework. In this paper, we review the historical strengths and limits of traditions of strike theory in the United States. Building on the emerging power resources approach, we propose a model based on a multidimensional view of associational power, power resources, and arenas of conflict in the economy, state, and civil society. We demonstrate the utility of our approach via a case analysis of strikes in the “Fight for $15” campaign in the United States. ________________ Job Announcements ________________ Position Announcement: University of Oregon The University of Oregon is seeking applications for Executive Director (ED) of the university’s new School of Global Studies and Languages (GSL). GSL, which soft launched this fall and is still under development, brings together thirteen departments, programs, centers, and institutes across the social sciences and humanities. The ED should be a tenured scholar whose scholarship will be directly related to one or more of the disciplines that make up the School’s extensive purview. This position will be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of GSL and managing resource allocations across its units, and will have the unique opportunity to guide the new School in implementing a vision to become a top destination for students who want global careers. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are foundational principles of the School, and the ED should be committed to and experienced in bringing a DEI lens in all aspects of the School. The search committee will begin reviewing applications in early January and the position is planned to start July 1, 2022. The job is posted here: https://careers.uoregon.edu/en-us/job/527553/associate-professorprofessor-and-executive-director-of-the-school-of-global-studies-and-languages Position Announcement: Northern Arizona University The Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice invites applications for a tenure track position at the level of Assistant Professor for the Flagstaff Mountain campus starting Fall 2022. The Department has a commitment to developing a diverse faculty, and we encourage candidates from underrepresented groups as well as individuals who have experience in working with diverse student populations. In order to meet our commitments as an institution committed to the advancement and success of Native American students and a Hispanic Serving Institution, as well as to support efforts promoting justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, NAU will be making a cluster hire this year across several disciplines. Broadly, this cluster is in the areas of Latinx Studies and/or Indigenous Studies. Departments participating include Comparative Cultural Studies, Music, Anthropology, Applied Indigenous Studies, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Sociology, Women and Gender Studies, and Psychological Sciences". We seek innovative scholars who have a dynamic and productive research portfolio with documented potential for continued productivity. The position is open broadly within criminology and criminal justice. The successful candidate will have expertise in one or more of the following areas: borders and immigration, structural inequities and crimes of the powerful, racial justice, diversity and inequalities of the Southwest, impact of policing and mass incarceration on communities of color or other marginalized people, and/or community-engaged social justice. The successful candidate is expected to teach in the core curriculum of the undergraduate and graduate program and to offer courses that reflect areas of research expertise. Successful applicants must evidence a commitment to learner-centered pedagogies and to educating a diverse student population. The NAU Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice has a deeply democratic culture and values those who are committed to full participation in faculty governance and service. Application must include: : (1) a cover letter highlighting minimum and preferred qualifications for this position; (2) a curriculum vitae; (3) a research statement; (4) a teaching statement; (5) a statement highlighting commitment and/or experience to diversity, equity and inclusion; (6) unofficial transcripts of all college-level work and graduate degrees; (7) names and contact information for three references (if ABD, your committee Chair must be among the references). For more information, contact Luis Fernandez at Luis.Fernandez@nau.edu. Save all items as PDF and/or Word documents. https://in.nau.edu/human-resources/current-job-openings/ Position Announcement: University of Maine The University of Maine’s Department of Sociology seeks a dynamic, innovative scholar and teacher to join our small, collegial, undergraduate-only department at Maine’s flagship land and sea grant institution. This is a tenure-track, academic-year position at the assistant professor level in Sociology, with expertise in Criminal Justice. This position is part of UMaine’s multidisciplinary cluster hire in “Rural Community Wellbeing.” The anticipated start date is August 29, 2022. We invite applicants with expertise in issues of importance to rural communities, with a focus on criminal justice/criminology, particularly as these issues intersect with racial, gender, socioeconomic, and other forms of diversity and inequality. Candidates should be able to teach introductory and upper-level courses in criminal justice and sociology. Preference may be given to candidates who can also teach the department’s required course on research methods and who have demonstrated expertise in quantitative research methods. Our standard teaching assignment is 3-2, along with advising and mentoring undergraduate students. Faculty are expected to develop and pursue an active program of scholarly research and to engage in service on campus and professionally. Consistent with the department’s emphasis on public sociology and the university’s mission as a community engaged campus, the successful candidate will be a publicly engaged scholar. As part of a multidisciplinary cluster hire, the candidate must also demonstrate an interest in, and preferably successful experience in, collaborative interdisciplinary research, teaching, and/or grant-seeking. Required Materials: 1) a cover letter which describes your experience, interests, and suitability for the position with specific reference to the qualifications listed, 2) a resume/curriculum vitae, 3) contact information for three professional references, 4) an unofficial copy of graduate transcript(s) Additional materials, including letters of recommendation, samples of research, available teaching evaluations, and course syllabi will be requested at the second round of interviews. Review of applications will begin January 14, 2022 and continue until the position is filled. Completed applications received by January 14, 2022 will receive full consideration. https://umaine.hiretouch.com/job-details?jobID=73131&job=assistant-professor-of-sociology ________________ For More Information ________________ Annual Meeting Announcement https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/866/2022_Annual_Meeting/ 2022 Call for Papers https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/873/2022_Call_for_Papers/ 2022 Call for Resolutions https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/877/Call_for_Resolutions/ PCID Homepage https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/pageid/1237/m/464 Awards Information https://www.sssp1.org/file/2022_STUDENT_PAPER_COMPETITIONS.pdf