Within the entrepreneurial city, a distinctive organizational and spatial environment has emerged that serves to manage the activities of dispossessed populations, referred to here as an organizational ghetto. Previous studies overlook these novel formations and obscure their central role in structuring the otherwise chaotic social relations of unhoused individuals into routine processes that organize the urban environment: the urban structuration of homelessness. Drawing on archival materials, in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation, this study examines the internal and external mechanisms that (re)produce the social relations which constitute Nashvilles organizational ghetto (the Lafayette district) comprised of a rescue mission, a drop-in center, a free clinic, and three day labor agencies with an emphasis on its inner workings. My central claim is that the organizational milieus caretakers cultivate are the foundational building blocks of a spatial structure that (re)produces internal staff-client relations which extend in time and space to shape and bound routine aspects of homeless mens survival in the larger urban milieu. Caretakers distribute life-sustaining resources to envelop homeless men in the reciprocal bonds required to construct religious community and intercede the redemptive power of God. These moral economies of care are the central mechanisms of the organizational ghettos recurrent self-production. Caretakers religious schemas which shape the meaning and purpose behind their transmutation of goods and services into conduits of religious authority (moral alchemy) are the districts central organizing principles. Day labor agencies co-opt these staff-client relations through their recruitment, deployment, and management of homeless employees by way of a job-allocation queue an auxiliary mechanism that structures the situation of otherwise unemployable men into a routinized employment practice that creates provisional order out of chaos vis-à-vis the transmutation of transience into a reliably contingent workforce (fiscal alchemy). Secondarily, I reveal how these internal mechanisms are reinforced from without by a variegated regime of entrepreneurial governance, including urban authorities redevelopment schemes and interdictory strategies of boundary maintenance as well as the local welfare states retrenchment strategies and devolution of managerial authority. Links between the districts daily operations and the broader political culture account for Lafayettes (re)production, revealing the rolling inertia of relegatory space.

In this dissertation I examine the impact that international migration has on immigrant parents and their family arrangements through the study of Chinese transnational families residing in Nashville, Tennessee. I argue that transnational parenting arrangement is a family strategy adopted by Chinese immigrants to manage difficulties that they encounter as first-generation immigrants in the United States. It is first and foremost a response to structural constraints that limit these immigrants opportunities in the host country. In addition, transnational family arrangements allow Chinese immigrant families to maintain some degree of cultural continuity in the face of international migration by re-connecting with the grandparents (who are left in the home country) and re-involving them in the lives of the younger generations. I also find that the experience of transnational parenting is gendered, and notions of parenthood go through redefinition and reconstruction during this process.

This dissertation intervenes at the nexus of the literatures on social movement framing, transnational activism, and feminist theory through an analysis of frame variation within the contemporary transnational womens movement. Using a feminist methodological approach and drawing on multiple data sources, including an original dataset of online texts of movement organizations and participant observation of transnational activist meetings, I undertake three interrelated analytical endeavors. First, I illuminate the heterogeneity of framing strategies among a representative sample of transnational feminist organizations; second, I show how organizational characteristics such as resources and identity combine to influence the framing strategies of transnational feminist organizations; finally, I demonstrate how transnational feminist organizations use collective action frames as discursive tools in their efforts to address intramovement differences. In addressing these concerns, I extend existing research on transnational social movements and framing, much of which relies on case studies, by providing a theoretically grounded, systematic analysis that employs a comparative design. As part of this endeavor, I examine the interplay of structural and cultural forces at the meso-level, and ultimately argue for an inclusive perspective that recognizes the continued importance of resource mobilization theories, even in studies where the cultural aspects of movements (e.g., framing) are central. In so doing, I generate theoretical, substantive, and methodological insights of interest to scholars of social movement framing and transnational activism, and also to feminist theorists.

In this dissertation, I examine the social world of deep brain stimulation and its use in the treatment of people with movement disorders, including Parkinson's Disease, Essential Tremor, and Dystonia. Through ethnography, in-depth interviews, and document analysis, I track the biomedical, social, and interactive processes that lead patients to seek and accept deep brain stimulation treatment. I then follow patients as they learn to live with their devices, and track the way these devices impact relations with self and other. I also compare the use of this technology to cardiac pacemaker devices. I found that many patients integrate their device into self, making the technology transparent, mundane, and unremarkable.

It has long been known that structural conditions impact crime and delinquency, including gang involvement. Youth living in neighborhoods characterized by concentrated disadvantage, including deep impoverishment, intergenerational reliance on public assistance, obstinate unemployment, and disproportionately high rates of female-headed households, are more likely to be involved in gang activity. Rather than challenge this long-standing relationship between structural disadvantage and crime, this paper seeks to further parse apart the relationships among neighborhood disadvantage, race-ethnicity, and gang involvement to better understand whether neighborhood disadvantage mediates the relationship between race-ethnicity and gang membership. Another goal of this research is to explore the impact of concentrated disadvantage on gang membership at various levels of disadvantage. While it is fairly straightforward to conclude that the most advantaged communities versus underclass neighborhoods will have lower rates of gang involvement, fewer studies have paid attention to communities that fall between this dichotomy of desirable and disadvantaged areas. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the 1990 U.S. Census, this paper addresses these concerns among a nationally representative sample of African American, Latino, and white youth ages 13-21 (N= 6,991). The results of this study show that 1) neighborhood disadvantage mediates the relationship between race-ethnicity and gang membership among African Americans, but not among Latinos and 2) underclass neighborhoods are much more likely to produce gang membership than any other type of neighborhood, including communities that are affluent or have medium levels of disadvantage.

Some literature suggests that personality is genetic and thus inherent to individual psychology; as such, prior research regarding the relationship between personality and religion examines only how personality affects religion. Employing a sociological framework where the individual and environment are endogenous, this manuscript investigates how the social environment, as indicated by religion, influences personality. Using nationally representative and longitudinal data from Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) I and II surveys, I find that personality is a statistically significant correlate of religion, but the association varies widely based on the dimension of religion measured and respondentsâ age. Furthermore, analyses confirm that personality is unstable as respondents get older and that prior levels of religion predict changes in personality. I conclude by inviting sociologists and psychologists to adopt an interdisciplinary approach in future studies linking personality with religion.

SOCIOLOGY A HEADSCARF AMONG THE TURBANS: HOW POLICY ENTREPRENEURS OPTIMIZE FOCUSING EVENTS SANDRA C. ARCH Thesis under the direction of Holly J. McCammon In their Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report), the United States Department of State began ranking other countries on their efforts to combat human trafficking on an annual basis, starting in 2001 . Nigeria is the only country in Africa to sustain an upward trajectory, maintaining its Tier 1 ranking for three consecutive years without moving down. Employing a case-oriented, comparative analytic approach (e.g., Ragin 1987; Tilly 1984), this study formulates an explanation for Nigerias status as a special case, comparing the country with Ghana. Further, conceptualizing the United Nations convention in Palermo, Italy in December 2000 as a focusing event that brought attention to the issue of human trafficking, the present study analyzes the role of national elite allies in exploiting these international focusing events. The findings show that the Nigerian vice presidents wife played a key role in translating the focusing event of the United Nations conference into the political will necessary to launch a sustained national effort to combat human trafficking, resulting in the passage of anti-trafficking legislation and increased cooperation between anti-trafficking non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the state, and a network of elite allies across the country. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implication of the findings for international organizations interested in promoting the implementation of international protocols at the national level, as well as for studies of social movements in general and studies of the anti-human trafficking movement in particular.

This dissertation examines the ways educated urban Chinese youth seek out and engage American scripted TV as a vehicle of self-reflexivity and as a symbolic tool for identity work. Based on 29 one-on-one interviews with college students in Beijing, I found that Chinese youth engage American TV shows in a deeply reflexive manner. In particular, they are drawn to American television primarily because it provides an experience of authenticity that is largely absent in their own lives. This perception of authenticity involves 1) seeing American television as an authentic cultural representation featuring honest and sophisticated storytelling and 2) seeing personal authenticity an idealized existential state of being true to oneself as a distinct and admirable aspect of the American national character. By situating student narratives against the socio-cultural context of transitional urban China, my analysis highlights how cross-cultural media consumption is both highly reflexive and strategic. The study advances a more sophisticated notion of audience agency by demonstrating that viewers not only engage and interpret media through their own cultural lenses, but they dynamically use media to interrogate notions of self and society. The study also provides insights into the preoccupations and value orientations of educated urban Chinese youth, a relatively small but important cohort whose ideas and cultural orientations may shape the intersection of media and politics in China for years to come.

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