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Recent years have witnessed a proliferation in the number of products receiving specialized ethical certification labels, even though scholars have underscored that the actual effects of such labels are not well understood. (Luetchford 2012) In the area of coffee in particular, case studies have highlighted that Fair Trade labeling seems to operate in unexpected ways, beyond its straightforward financial incentives. This has led to a call for deeper investigation into the specific mechanisms—particularly the extra-economic and social processes—through which Fair Trade acts on coffee growers and their communities. This is seconded by recent studies that have noted a lack of equality between men and women members of Fair Trade co-operatives, in stark contrast to the label’s advertised aims of advancing gender equity and women’s development. (Bacon 2010; Lyon 2008) This friction has contributed to the emergence of separate, all-women’s Fair Trade co-operatives in coffee-growing regions around the globe, and the specialty marketing of their coffee (e.g., Café Femenino and Las Hermanas from Nicaragua) as specifically empowering for women. (Fair Trade USA 2012; Bacon 2010; Lyon 2008) Yet, as with other ethical labels, the actual processes through which these women’s co-operatives affect their members is under-studied and in need of deeper ethnographic investigation. (Hanson et al. 2012; Lyon 2008) In order to address these gaps in the literature, this study captures the complex social processes set in motion by Fair Trade through a comparative ethnography of a traditional mixed men and women’s co-operative and a newer, all-women’s co-operative in neighboring coffee-growing communities in northern Nicaragua. This research positions the sociological construct of social capital as a robust theoretical lens capable of illuminating diverse dynamics within these groups and their larger structural contexts. The use of social capital theory not only allows access to critical and unexplored insights into the “associational life” created by Fair Trade co-operatives, but also presents an opportunity to explore a “strategic site” of social capital in action and extend the theory by addressing debates surrounding its oft-contested definitions and relationship to gender. (Putnam 2000:60; Portes 2010:2; Burawoy 1998) Specifically, this research examines three perspectives on social capital: Bourdieu’s (1986) resource framework, Coleman’s (1988:108) description of social capital as a platform or “appropriable social organization,” and Putnam’s (2000) notion of social capital as trust. Further, this study critically interrogates the characterization of social capital as a kind of “women’s capital,” and its promotion as both a means and an ends to gendered empowerment. (Maclean 2010:498) In pursuit of these aims, this research both draws on and adds to the literature in the areas of ethical consumption and Fair Trade studies, economic sociology, the sociology of globalization, gender theory, gender and development, men and masculinities, local and transnational feminist movements, empowerment frameworks, and the social determinants of health. This extended case method ethnography links microprocesses to macroforces, through a localized understanding of globalization—in this case the impact of Northern ethical consumption practices and ideologies on producer communities in the Global South. In addition, as an applied ethnography in the tradition of public sociology, this study provides analysis that is useful not only to scholars, but could directly inform further setting-appropriate development efforts.

Economic sociologists have long produced rich accounts of the economy’s embeddedness in social relations and the hybridity of contemporary governance architectures. However, all too often, they contented themselves with merely disenchanting a liberal ontology that divides the social world into neatly differentiated spheres, such as the state and the economy or the public and the private. In this dissertation, I argue that this is not enough. If we want to understand actually existing economic government, we also need to attend to the consequences of its persistent violation of the precepts of liberal order. This dissertation does so by accounting for the simultaneity of the Federal Reserve’s rise to the commanding heights of the US economy and the repeated, multi-pronged controversies over it. I contend that together, the Fed’s ascendance and the controversies surrounding it are symptomatic of the contradictions inherent to a liberal mode of governing ‘the economy’ which, on the one hand, professes its investment in a clear boundary between the state and the economy but which, on the other hand, operationally rests on their entanglement. Its embeddedness in financial markets exposes the Fed to attacks that it is either colluding with finance or that it unduly smuggles in political considerations into an otherwise apolitical economy. In response, to secure its legitimacy as a neutral arbiter of market struggles, the Fed needs to invest in autonomization strategies to demonstrate that it is acting neither in the interests of capital nor on behalf of partisan politicians but in the public interest. Its autonomization strategies in turn feed back onto the modes of embeddedness and governing techniques the Fed deploys, often resulting in new controversies. Combining insights from economic sociology and the sociology of expertise, the perspective developed in this dissertation thus foregrounds the persistent tension between embeddedness and autonomy and the sequences of reiterated problem-solving it gives rise to.Based on extensive archival research and interviews with actors, I reconstruct three such sequences in the Fed’s more-than-a-century long quest for embedded autonomy in three independent but related empirical essays. The first focuses on the decade immediately following the Federal Reserve System’s founding in 1913. It traces how the confluence of democratic turmoil in the wake of World War I, its hybrid organizational structure, and an alliance with institutionalist economists led Fed policymakers to repurpose open market operations from a banking technique into a policy tool that reconciled different interests. This made it possible to take on a task no other central bank had attempted before: mitigating depressions. This major innovation briefly turned the Fed into “the chief stabilizer” before it failed to fulfill this role during the Great Depression. The essay thus adds a critical, oft-forgotten episode to the genealogy of the Fed’s ascendancy and the rise of central banks to the foremost macroeconomic managers of our time. The second essay most explicitly develops the theoretical argument underlying this dissertation and applies it to a practice that has been all but ignored in the scholarship on central banking and financial government: bank supervision. Emphasizing its distinctiveness from regulation, I reconstruct how the Fed folded supervision into its project of governing finance as a vital, yet vulnerable system over the course of the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st. I especially focus on the Fed’s autonomization strategies in the wake of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis and its internal struggles which resulted in a more standardized, quantitative, and transparent supervisory process centered around the technique of stress testing. However, the Fed’s efforts to reassert its autonomy and authority have in the meantime become attacked themselves. The essay traces these controversies, and subsequent reforms, to the present day, further demonstrating the recursive dynamic of the Fed’s quest for embedded autonomy. The third essay finally zooms in on a single event during the Great Financial Crisis: the first major public stress test run by the Fed and the Treasury between February and May 2009. By reconstructing its socio-technical assembling in detail and comparing it to the failures of stress tests run by European agencies between 2009 and 2011, I show that the stress test’s success rested on a reconfiguration of the state’s embeddedness in financial circuits, allowing the Treasury’s material and symbolic capital to back the exercise and the Fed to function as a conduit that iteratively gauged and shaped its audiences’ expectations as to what a credible test would look like. This made it possible to successfully frame the test as an autonomous exercise based on expertise. Probing the structural, socio-technical, and performative conditions of the Fed’s claims to legitimacy, the essay thus resolves the ‘mystery’ (Paul Krugman) how a simulation technique could become a watershed event in the greatest financial crisis in a lifetime.

This thesis comprises three chapters on topics in development economics. The first chapter studies access to maternal healthcare in markets with vertically differentiated public and private providers. The second chapter studies the efficacy of induction stoves in reducing indoor air pollution in rural households when faced with erratic power supply. Finally, the third chapter studies the role of financial incentives in correcting disparities in sex ratios. All three chapters study the context of India but are representative of important development issues in low-income countries. The first chapter titled "Equilibrium Effects of Subsidizing Public Services" studies one of India's largest welfare schemes Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) that incentivized pregnant women in India to access institutional maternal care at public hospitals. We argue that governments can make complementary investments to improve welfare gains from large scale policies. JSY did not improve health outcomes despite a substantial increase in the take-up of institutional care. We document three equilibrium responses that explain this policy failure. First, JSY led to a mismatch of risk across health facilities -- high-risk mothers sorted out of highest quality care at private facilities. Second, in line with the literature, public sector quality deteriorated as a result of congestion. This resulted in lower quality care for both marginal as well as infra-marginal patients at public hospitals. We show that only mothers with high socio-economic status adapted to the worsening quality of care at public hospitals by sorting into more expensive private hospitals. Third, despite increased competition, private hospitals maintained high prices, crowding out riskier and poorer mothers. We do not find evidence that private hospitals improved healthcare quality to justify higher prices. The second chapter titled "Electric Stoves as a Solution for Household Air Pollution" is an interdisciplinary field-based research study that studies the role of reliable electricity in inducing rural Indian households to switch away from dirty cooking fuels towards a clean cooking technology, induction cookstoves, thereby reducing the exposure to high levels of indoor air pollution. We collected minute-by-minute data on electricity availability, electric induction stove use, and kitchen and outdoor particulate pollution in a sample of rural Indian households for one year. Using within household-month variation generated by unpredictable outages, we estimate the effects of electricity availability and electric induction stove use on kitchen PM2.5 concentration at each hour of the day. Electricity availability reduces kitchen PM2.5 by up to 50 ??/?3, which is between 10 and 20 percent of peak concentrations during cooking hours. Induction stove use instrumented by electricity availability reduces PM2.5 in kitchens by 200-450 ??/?3 during cooking hours. The final chapter titled "Can Large-Scale Conditional Cash Transfers Resolve the Fertility-Sex Ratio Trade-off? Evidence from India" studies a large-scale conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme Ladli Laxmi Yojana that offered cash incentives to households upon the birth of girl children. The policy also offered substantial incentive for investing in girls' education. In my evaluation of the Ladli Laxmi Yojana in Madhya Pradesh, India. I find that financial incentives aimed at the girl child increased average fertility by about 0.15 children per household (on baseline average of 0.93 children) children per household and improved sex-ratio by 3%. This points to the well known fertility-sex ratio trade-off. Moreover, these effects are quite opposite to a similar CCT scheme in Haryana (Anukriti, 2018) suggesting context dependence of such policies.

This dissertation analyzes the relationship between élites and urban spaces with the aim of creating a profile of municipal patronage of art and architecture in Italian cities during the late republican period (2nd and 1st centuries BCE). Starting from a discussion of the methods and the terms previously used by scholars (euergetism, munificence, etc.), the research delves into the civic and urban histories of Italian cities to study the interactions between monuments and society. With the aid of a substantial epigraphic dossier – as well as archaeological and literary sources – I discuss the actors, the processes, and the cultural aspects behind the construction of public buildings and monuments in late Hellenistic Italy. At the center of the work stand three case studies (Aquileia, Praeneste, and Pompeii), each offering a peculiar perspective on the topic. Thanks to the close reading of these cases, I offer new readings and conclusions on various problems connected with the social and economic history of Italian communities, the relationship between Rome and the Italian allies, and the development of Italian urbanism in the context of the Roman hegemonic expansion.

This dissertation studies three topics related to different types of network effects in financial economics. The first chapter, "Of Coupons and Cargo - International Debt, Production, and Trade," quantifies the relationship between firms' supply chain networks and financing decisions. Most multinational corporations raise a significant amount of debt capital outside their home country. In contrast to prevailing evidence, access to deeper financial markets cannot explain this phenomenon in its entirety, as international debt issues carry higher spreads than securities concurrently issued domestically. Novel data on the universe of fixed income securities, subsidiary locations, and shipment-level trade flows from seventeen countries, is used to understand the drivers of international debt issuance. On the extensive margin firms raise debt in exactly those markets which play a key role in their supply chain (through subsidiaries, suppliers, or customers). Tests on the intensive margin indicate that firms adjust the face value of debt outstanding in a given country following exogenous changes in their operating exposure. These results are consistent with firms using international capital markets to hedge their exposure to fluctuations in exchange rates. The second chapter, "Did You Catch the Game Last Night? - Peer Group Effects in Sell-Side Analyst Forecasts," assesses the reaction of sell-side equity analysts to sentiment shocks, as well as how such non-financial information permeates through social networks. We identify a source of peer group influence that is plausibly orthogonal to information provision, yet nonetheless affects economic decision-making: the shock to an equity analyst of their undergraduate college football team winning the NCAA Championship Game. We find that analysts' forecasts respond positively to their undergraduate school's football team winning the NCAA final. We then show that the shock of 'winning' spreads within an analyst's brokerage, positively influencing the forecasts of their colleagues. Brokerages where the degree of this diffusion is greater have lower female representation in their analyst teams, as well as lower ESG scores. The third chapter, "Sharing is Caring? - Knowledge Diffusion in Researcher Networks," focuses on the effects of social networks in innovation. Social interactions are at the core of many economic processes, including research and development. Yet their contribution to innovation is not well understood. A novel dataset on more than 19,000 economists linked to more than one million unique research projects and fifty million tweets (#EconTwitter) is used as laboratory to explore the relationship between different social interactions and research outcomes. Results suggest that interactions play a dominant role in the idea generation phase of research and a lesser one in the context of ongoing projects. They seem to matter little for completed research projects. More socially active scholars are more productive, as measured by the number of papers written, and their working papers are more visible (i.e., downloaded more frequently). A working paper being endorsed leads to an increase in downloads by 20%. However, indicative of a trade-off in spending their valuable time, these projects are less impactful based on citation measures.

Research demonstrates that Black students deserve teachers who utilize culturallyresponsive pedagogy (CRP) and antiracist pedagogy to offer a high-quality education that is both engaging and affirming of their culture and life experiences. Unfortunately, many Black students are instead forced to navigate schools that do not center their culture or ways of knowing, but rather perpetuate the racism embedded within the U.S. education system. In suburban schools in particular, Black students rarely have access to teachers who represent their racial and cultural backgrounds, and this lack of representation and understanding amplifies the need for CRP and antiracist pedagogy. Further, existing research shows that preservice and current teachers rarely have access to the training and staff development that would prepare them to utilize these pedagogies (Warren, 2018). To offer the field more understanding about how teachers become culturally responsive and antiracist, this study explores the process that suburban public school teachers progress through to adopt these pedagogies, and the factors that inform this process. This study is informed by a theoretical framework that includes critical race theory, BlackCrit, and sociocultural context, and builds on the existing scholarship on Black students’ schooling experiences, teacher-student relationships, and CRP and antiracist pedagogy. Drawing on this existing research, I utilized qualitative data to explore suburban teachers’ perspectives, experiences and sense-making related to the process of becoming culturally responsive and/or antiracist. I conducted one-on-one interviews with 15 teachers who represent different racial/ethnic backgrounds, as well as a range of grade levels (K-12) and academic subjects. The participants all self-identify as educators who are committed to becoming culturally relevant and/or antiracist educators. They currently teach, or previously worked directly with, Black students in public suburban schools in the NYC metro area. The data from this study yielded three major takeaways. First, I found that the process of becoming a teacher who embodies culturally responsive and antiracist pedagogies is a journey that is informed by several factors, including lived experiences, key people that influence growth, and exploration of one’s own racial identity. To offer a clear illustration of how teachers progress through this process, I map the journey by offering specific details about the perspectives and practices that align with the beginning, middle and advanced phases of the journey. Importantly, this journey is nonlinear and unending, as being culturally responsive and antiracist requires continual learning and growth. Second, I find that strong teacher-relationships based in care play a key role in my participants’ journeys to adopting culturally responsive and antiracist pedagogies. I also find that teachers utilize unique approaches when demonstrating care and building relationships with Black students, as the teachers understood that Black students have unique experiences in school settings, especially those in suburban contexts. Further, I found that several factors inform teachers’ relationship-building approaches, with personal experiences and relationships being the most impactful. Importantly, I also find that when teachers work to build strong teacher-student relationships while also progressing through their journeys to adopting CRP and antiracist pedagogy, the relationships and pedagogies reinforce one another. The last key finding from this study explores the barriers that teachers encounter in their journeys to adopting culturally responsive and antiracist pedagogies. While the data demonstrated that several participants have successfully progressed through the journey to the point where they can now effectively implement CRP and antiracist pedagogy, I found that participants also faced two major barriers that impede their ability to effectively implement these pedagogies within their school contexts. The first barrier is the lack of focus on CRP and antiracist pedagogy in both teacher education and professional development sessions, including a lack of focus on the connection between student-teacher relationships and these pedagogies. The suburban contexts that the participants work within pose a second barrier, as the environments are rarely welcoming or conducive to work intended to advance racial equity. This study’s findings point to several implications for the field, including a need for changes to policy and practice, as shifting our schools toward becoming culturally responsive and antiracist requires significant support and resources. The findings also point to several opportunities for future research to further build the field’s knowledge about preparing teachers for CRP and antiracist pedagogy. Once our field knows more about this process, research such as this will help to better prepare teachers to offer Black students a high-quality education.

Current research tends to describe loneliness among the elderly as an individual issue, focusing on psychological or biological causes and negative effects on health. This dissertation lays the groundwork for an alternative, sociological approach. Drawing on the model developed by Durkheim in his study of suicide, the argument operates on three levels. First, it critically examines the dominant analytical framework for studying loneliness, highlighting the influence of concepts and methods inherited from psychology. Next, it contextualizes loneliness historically, tracing through the archives of international organizations (especially the ILO, the WHO, and the Council of Europe) the emergence of policies that contributed to loosening intergenerational ties and isolating the elderly from the rest of society. Finally, the dissertation introduces an innovative quantitative approach based on data from a major European telealarm provider. These "organic" data, derived from real-life settings rather than conventional survey-based research, reveal the macrostructure of the phenomenon. Taken together, the findings point to the need to reconceptualize loneliness not as mere absence of interpersonal connections but as a misalignment of the individual with group norms, especially norms related to time. This has both theoretical and practical implications in terms of the nature of the phenomenon and the types of interventions needed to address it.

SOCIAL WORK / MA(SS) (SOCIAL WORK)

This thesis explores the potential of video as a research tool for anthropologists in the recording of a single ritual. The study examines interactions between ethnographers, informants and viewers. The thesis reveals the capacity of video to make possible close, detailed readings of performance in terms not originally anticipated by the researcher. Archival storage of the video recording allows for critique and assessment of the research. The case study chosen in which to test the potential of \ dcso as a research tool was a woman's 'initiation' r^L'ial (called inton jane) in Shixini in the Eastern Gape (in what was, until recently, the independent homeland of Transkei). Historically, the ritual was supposedly held at the time of a girl's first menstruation, this being the physical symbol of her transformation into adulthood. Ritual seclusion served to effect an accompanying social transformation in preparation for marriage. Paradoxically, in the late 1980's, it was older women and mothers, already married and well past the age of first menstruation, who were undergoing the ritual seclusion and symbolic marriage. The study explores this paradox with the goal of understanding the purpose of the ritual in contemporary times. By recording large segments of the ritual on video, and subjecting the footage to a close analysis of verbal and non-verbal aspects of performance, both the ritual and the merits of video as a research tool could be examined. Video was utilised, in an interactive research process, as an information elicitation tool. The analysis of the recorded text of the ritual brings to the fore elements which make what is apparently a paradox understandable. The elements which explicate the paradox were not anticipated when the research commenced, and in all likelihood would have eluded a researcher who did not have the benefit of the incidental capture on video. The thesis reveals the enormous Contribution video can make to research and suggests that video has an important contribution to make to the discipline of anthropology.