This study is based on 14 months of ethnographic research in a New England strip club featuring female fully nude dancers and primarily male patrons. The male patrons, some of whom are marginalized (economically and socially) and some of whom are not, all come to collectively dominate women workers in the context of the club. The Lion's Den is designed for male patrons to act out and confirm their sense of masculinity and heterosexuality. Typically money, prestige, and power are correlated in jobs, however in the case of strip clubs they are not. In The Lion's Den though stripping is the central activity of strip clubs and the strippers I interviewed make on average $10,000 more annually than the male workers, they fall at the bottom of the work hierarchy in terms of their relative authority and status. In these exchanges there is a tension between strippers' and patrons' wants and needs. These exchanges occur in a context in which interactions are structured by the collective dominance of male patrons and male workers and a social organization of the work that devalues and demeans strippers. While strippers use a variety of coping mechanisms and resistance tactics an examination of these techniques shows the majority women are overwhelmingly unsuccessful in resolving the troubles of stripping work.

Mexico and South Korea share many structural features, yet exhibit diverse patterns in income inequality and human well being. Between 1960 and 1990, the South Korean economy grew rapidly, retaining relative equality in income and enhancements in mass well being, while, in Mexico, in spite of impressive rates in economic growth for decades, income inequality remained substantial. The hypothesis of this study is that state autonomy is key to understanding economic and social outcomes in Mexico and South Korea. States that are autonomous from both internal and external coercion have the potential to enact growth-oriented and more equitable policies. Economic growth and income equality in peripheral countries are contingent upon the state, the internal class structure, and the world economy. Peripheral states that are free from undue pressure from the ruling class and core countries can exercise relative autonomy, and then have the potential to achieve both growth and equality. However, most peripheral countries are like Mexico, which, because they do not enjoy relative autonomy from the ruling class and global capitalism are unable to achieve economic growth and equality mutually. As a consequence of Japanese colonization, South Korea inherited a strong state and underwent a genuine land reform program, leading to a weak and unorganized agrarian elite, which remained ineffective in challenging state policies. In the 1960s and 1970s, South Korea assumed a crucial political position as a bulwark against international communism in East Asia, which further enhanced state autonomy. Both Japanese colonialism and the Cold War shaped South Korea's political economy. Mexico, on the other hand, remained vulnerable to both international capitalism and its internal elite class. Though Mexico underwent a long period of revolution, the class structure remained unchanged, and Mexico never attained a level of political and ideological importance to the United States, remaining vulnerable to U.S. economic interests. Unlike the South Korean state, the Mexican state failed to escape internal and external coercion, and was unable to achieve relative autonomy from international capitalism and its internal elite class, and thus was unable to effectively mandate policies that were beneficial for growth and equity.

The rhetoric against immigration in the United States mostly focuses on the economic threat to low-educated native-born men using a singular labor market competition lens. In contrast to this trend, this dissertation builds on a large body of previous work on job queuing and ethnic competition, as well as insights gained from the studies on female labor force participation and the outsourcing of care work. By exploring regional differences in the wage effects of immigration across 100 metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2007, I argue that immigration is an intersectionally dynamic localized source of wage inequality and equality. The first chapter provides an overview of the current literature concerning the wage effects of immigration on native-born workers. The second chapter asks empirically whether immigration is related to regional differences in the gender wage gap, and finds that the gap is narrower in cities with higher concentrations of migrant domestic workers. In chapter three, I focus on native-born women only and investigate how within-women inequalities are mediated, unchanged, or sustained through immigration by race, class and motherhood. In the fourth chapter, I discuss the benefits and limitations of fixed- and random-effects models, and advocate for the use of hybrid-effects models for intersectional scholars who consider social inequality to be a multidimensional experience across time and space. Ultimately, I conclude that the wage effects of immigration are the result of gendered, raced and classed queuing processes, as well as changes in household production decisions. Findings presented in this dissertation advance empirical and theoretical debates on the linkage between immigration and within-country wage inequality by arguing that the wage effects of immigration are intersectionally dynamic. The policy implications of my dissertation are twofold. First, the binary treatment of native-born workers against immigrants is misguided because immigration intersects with other sources of inequality. Secondly, the continued reliance on the market-based care, as opposed to publicly provided care, increases the labor market vulnerability of some native-born workers.

ABSTRACT The brick and mortar environment has for many years been the cornerstone of the process to acquire goods. As a cornerstone of the process to acquire goods, the brick and mortar environment has undergone several evolutions each promising and serving as the pinnacle of what brick and mortar environments can be. Within the last two centuries those reincarnations have led to three recognizable forms. The first is the rise of the stand alone department store, a form made iconic by companies such as Macy's (originally R.H. Macy & Co) and S. H. Kress & Co (simply known as Kress). The stand alone department store then gave way to large big box retailers such as Target, Linens & Things, and Wal-Mart, however many of those department stores have reinvented themselves as the anchor stores of the newest incarnation of the brick and mortar environment, the shopping mall. The indoor mall has served as a platform through which to combine many of the previous forms of brick and mortar environments such as traditional single store fronts with large department stores. Traditionally brick and mortar stores have only needed to compete with themselves and despite offering a wealth of advantages for consumers, consumers have began to use electronic commerce (e-commerce) as a secondary or primary way to acquire goods. This has been accelerated by the increasing consumer trust in e–commerce only retailers like Amazon or Alibaba. These competition elements have contributed to the total demise of many brick and mortar retailers or the extreme downsizing of some retailer's number of brick and mortar locations and even the widespread failure of many indoor shopping malls. The purpose of this study was to discover and detail how the careful design of the built environment can yield a viable and effective brick and mortar store design that presents itself as not only a place to complete the consumer process but serves as an indicator of a consumer's lifestyle. To do this, the study was conducted in phases. The first phase was to create a knowledge base that could be used to build upon for a design solution. The first component of the base examined the current state of brick and mortar commerce and e-commerce. Secondly, as the chief competitor to brick and mortar is e-commerce, a platform had to be discovered or created that could successfully deliver those e-commerce elements. The platform was omni-channel retail. The third component of the base was to research the elements this author deemed was necessary to create a successful retail environment. The second phase was to develop an original research component that provided the author a deeper insight. The original research component was predicated on the framework of the consumer purchase process; information gathering, product acquisition, and product support. The third phase was to develop a program for design as well as completing the design of the retail store. The retail store was placed in a single storefront space located in a popular indoor mall in Tallahassee, Florida. As this author's approach was to ensure the brick and mortar environment would be part of the consumer's lifestyle, the product types chosen were those that are necessary for sports with a strong social component. The space contains products that are essential to the sports of cycling, running, and yoga. This study determined that niche markets provide a home for brick and mortar stores as these markets contain the consumer base that is most likely to use the brick and mortar space beyond a venue in which to complete the consumer process. Consumers often purchase retail items that are an extension or indicator of their lifestyles and it is important that a retail space allow elements of this lifestyle to be expressed. This creates a renewed viability in the retail environment that importantly has no equal in the e-commerce environment. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Interior Design in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Summer Semester 2015. / July 9, 2015. / Branding, Channel, Interior, Omni, Retail, Social / Includes bibliographical references. / Marlo Ransdell, Professor Directing Thesis; Jim Dawkins, Committee Member; Jill Pable, Committee Member.

This dissertation is a comparative study of guilds at a time when the guild system was supposedly in decline. It is not a study of decaying institutions, however, but of successful ones. It compares the structure and function of four guilds--shoemakers, joiners, barbers and millers--in the early decades of the seventeenth century. These guilds represent a cross-section of the small businessmen and artisans of Augsburg and reflect the variety of form and activity that existed in the city. The dissertation is based on archival sources that are largely unknown and untouched. Most important of these are the petitions to the City Council written by or about guildsmen and guilds. These sources allow us to go beyond the tax books and guild regulations that form the principal sources for most guild histories. This study also utilizes these traditional sources, but expands upon them with the petitions to examine how the guilds actually functioned on a daily basis (the four guilds produced fifteen to twenty petitions a month). The petitions are invaluable to the social historian, for they are among the few collections of documents in the pre-modern era that speak with the voice of the common man. The guild system in the seventeenth century was not dead; it was not even ill. Contrary to nearly every pronouncement on early modern guilds, the evidence shows that city, guild and guildsmen generally understood one another and worked well together. The system did not work flawlessly or without friction, but it did function successfully. The success came from the ability of the guilds to adapt to changing circumstances, the ability of the city to concern itself with the minutiae of its business life, and the willingness of the guildsmen to communicate their problems and desires to the government. The guilds were a vital part of the city; they were not excessively conservative, they were not backward, they were not behind the times; rather, they were in close harmony with the urban environment that sustained them.

A cross-cultural study was conducted during the summer of 1985. Data concerning American values, roles, and consumption patterns were collected in the Hartford area, Connecticut. The Chinese data were collected in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. The theoretical framework is one in which the constructs of value internalization and role-enactment are posited to influence patterns of consumption behavior. Preliminary results show significant variations between the two cultures; but not significant when compared among individuals within each of the two cultures. Recently developed computer program, LISREL, was then used to isolate the direction of influence between the theoretical constructs of value internalization, role-enactment, and consumption pattern. The hypothesized model that value internalization affects consumption behavior as well as role-enactment, and that role-enactment further affects consumption behavior, has been shown to be invariant for the two cultures. In other words, while the expressions of values, role-expected behaviors, and consumption patterns may be different between the U.S. and China, the motivating forces or the direction of influence between such constructs are the same. The aim of this study is to compare and understand the prevailing forces that motivate consumption patterns in two cultures quite different in their socioeconomic structures. The study also delineates various inventory of cultural and social issues as they relate to consumption in the U.S. and in China. Some basic marketing guidelines are generated that may be of use to American marketers doing business with China.

Prior research suggests that neighborhood context has an important role in shaping individuals' perceptions of generalized trust, which is an important ingredient in establishing informal social control. Since most of the empirical research focuses on the direct effects of neighborhood structural conditions, there is a rather limited understanding of how social processes affect individual levels of trust. As a result, it remains unclear whether several theoretically relevant social processes mediate the effects of neighborhood compositional features. The current study uses data from the Project of Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods--Community Survey (PHDCN-CS) to investigate whether social mechanisms, specifically fear and police efficacy, mediate the relationship between several adverse neighborhood conditions on individual-level generalized trust. The findings show that both fear and police efficacy are salient mechanisms in the neighborhood context and trust relationship. The theoretical and policy implications of the results are discussed, along with implications and directions for future research in this area. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2015. / May 8, 2015. / Fear, Neighborhood Effects, Police Efficacy, Trust / Includes bibliographical references. / Eric A. Stewart, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Taylor, University Representative; Patricia Y. Warren, Committee Member; Eric P. Baumer, Committee Member.

Studies of Mycenaean architecture describe materials, construction techniques and floor plans with less attention to the human actors occupying it. Spatial analysis offers a way to study those actors by investigating the behavior and social organization of the members of a society through their built environments. A combination of analytical techniques using space syntax and visibility graph analysis reveals Mycenaean society in its architecture. The objective methods of space syntax identify two separate groups of people in Mycenaean spaces: inhabitants and visitors. The arrangement of space in Mycenaean architecture and settlements allows or restricts encounter and interaction between these two groups and reveals the mutually reflexive principles of spatial and social organization. In the configuration of space for the possible encounters between inhabitants and visitors, Mycenaean architecture reflects either a private or a public nature. A private system is arranged for small household groups that are well integrated but segregated from the exterior, especially where residential activities are present. The restricted access and segregation of strangers demonstrates a social organization that aligns with a current interpretation that Mycenaean society practiced exclusionary socio-political strategies with restricted access to wealth and power. The presence of visitors in public buildings means permeable boundaries with the exterior but segregation in the visual field. In public spatial systems, access is restricted as much by visual depth as by multiple gates and doors controlling movement. The behavior of inhabitants and visitors, demonstrated through patterns of movement and visibility, correlates with the arrangement of space and the functions contained within the buildings. Integration of spaces within the walls of buildings, whether private or public, suggests a well integrated social group of inhabitants which may reflect the same social organization conjectured in contemporary chamber tombs. Settlement spaces appear to follow very similar principles to those revealed in architecture. Settlement space is configured to facilitate the activities that involve local inhabitants with the depth to control the movement of visitors. Spatial analysis confirms that movement is a strong organizing principle in Mycenaean spaces and it is controlled through the visual field. In revealing Mycenaean social organization as constituted in Mycenaean architecture and settlements, this study offers a way to think about the Mycenaeans themselves. Chapter 1 recounts the scholarship devoted to understanding Mycenaean society through its architecture. I introduce the sample of buildings and settlements analyzed. Chapter 2 explains the theory and methods used. A selection of spatial variables tested through space syntax and visibility graph analysis using a program called Depthmap reveal the nature of the spatial principles which in turn reflect Mycenaean social organization. Chapter 3 describes the spatial system of selected houses from Mycenae and Tiryns and suggests similarities among the structures assigned by Darcque to this group. Houses demonstrate segregation from the exterior but lack internal restrictions on movement and visibility, suggesting a well integrated group of inhabitants. Chapter 4 describes the small sample that includes the palaces at Tiryns and Pylos with the Residence at Gla. These structures have spatial features in common but are clearly differentiated from houses in that there is greater accessibility and the probability for social interaction. The larger size of the palatial spatial systems acts to restrict movement and make that movement difficult. Buildings of Darcque's intermediate category, described in Chapter 5, do not suggest a coherent and separate group but instead similarities with either houses or palaces. The entire sample is compared in Chapter 6 in which some of the variables confirm similar spatial principles. A statistical analysis of the results confirms asymmetry in the organization of Mycenaean space and establishes the correlation between the size of the system and the quality of movement. In Chapter 7, the four settlements containing the architecture analyzed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are subject to the same methods and demonstrate the application of the same spatial principles constituting the same social organization. Chapter 8 provides an opportunity to demonstrate the value and challenges of analyzing archaeological material using select houses from Akrotiri. In this chapter, I also demonstrate how the accumulated data can be used to predict the arrangement of space and to aid in reconstructing fragmentary plans using a selection of buildings from the unexcavated site of Korphos: Kalamianos. Chapter 9 concludes the dissertation summarizing the findings of this study, evaluating the methods used and suggesting directions for future research. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Classics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2015. / April 29, 2015. / Architecture, Depthmap, Mycenaean, Settlement, Space Syntax, Visibility Graph Analysis / Includes bibliographical references. / Daniel J. Pullen, Professor Directing Dissertation; Mark W. Horner, University Representative; Christopher A. Pfaff, Committee Member; Allen J. Romano, Committee Member.

The Black-White wealth gap has been a significant topic of research among social scientists studying inequality. Research on the racial wealth gap has emphasized two variables with which to measure wealth: home and business ownership. This body of research often examines relatively contemporary factors that influence racial wealth inequality. However, less attention has been paid to historical influences. Less research has assessed associations between the peculiar institution of slavery and contemporary racial wealth disparities. Because patterns of inequality are shaped over long periods of time, the historical institution of slavery is one element that likely has important implications for the racial wealth disparities we see today. Of course, wealth creation is about the accrual of assets. Yet the literature suggests that since the time of slavery African American efforts to accumulate capital have often been systematically limited.   This project aims to explore the extent to which the institution of slavery has shaped the development of contemporary levels of economic capital among Black versus White Americans. The project uses data collected from the 1860 historical census, the Census Bureau's Characteristics of Businesses: 2007, and the Census Bureau's 2007 American Community Survey. Building on prior research, I examine the association between the presence and magnitude of slavery in counties in the Southern United States and black/white differences in home and business ownership. Preliminary results show that net of other factors a historically higher slave density in a county is associated with a decrease in black business and home ownership. Conversely, for whites, an increase in slave density is associated with an increase in business and home ownership. Hence, social scientists should be attuned to how the long reach of historical institutions may be implicated in contemporary patterns of economic inequality. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / April 6, 2017. / Durable Inequality, Race, Slavery, Social History, Sociology, Wealth Inequality / Includes bibliographical references. / Daniel Tope, Professor Directing Dissertation; Patricia Warren, University Representative; John Reynolds, Committee Member; John Taylor, Committee Member.

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