Sociology Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 579–601.

Printed in the United Kingdom © 2000 BSA Publications Limited

books reviewed

News Culture
Stuart Allan
Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999, £45.00 (£13.99 paperback), ix229 pp.
(ISBN 0-335-19956-9)

Allan’s book is part of a series,‘Issues in Cultural and Media Studies’, which he edits. It aims to
‘provide a lively, topical and comprehensive introduction’ together with ‘important insights into
how new modes of enquiry might be established’ (Foreword). Accessibility is embodied in the
series format. News Culture is a well-made and well-designed book, with a useful glossary of terms
and suggestions for further reading with each chapter. It is also unusually up-to-date, citing recent
academic sources and discussing media texts dated less than a year before publication.
The opening chapters are historical. First, Allan interestingly recounts the rise of ‘objective’
reporting in newspapers, and its consequences for journalism’s professional and institutional
claims and, second, the rise of radio and television news in the United Kingdom and United States.
The next three chapters deal with the ‘cultural politics’ of news, for instance the discursive
construction of credibility by choice of informant and style of presentation. Two concluding
chapters deal with ‘The gendered realities of journalism’ and ‘ “Us and them”: racism in the news’.
To be both wide in sweep and penetrating in analysis is a difficult objective, and the book does
not achieve it. There is – ironically – a problem of audience. No doubt the publishers wanted some
North American content, but only the chapter on radio and television history pursues this in
detail. Elsewhere comparisons are occasional and uneven, as with the discussion of US
‘supermarket tabloids’, which have no real British equivalent. Nor is the ‘address’ always fitted to a
book for newcomers to the issues. In an attempt to cover the ground Allan sometimes reverts to
bullet-pointed paragraphs of telegraphic density. When discussing the ‘new modes of enquiry’, by
contrast, the register is of an academic journal article, speaking to the already converted.
Allan is right to avoid tedious catalogues of, for example, the structure and powers of the
bodies that regulate British broadcasting, but there is not enough factual background. To
understand media messages and the ideological work that news media do, which is the pivot of the
book, some material of this kind is essential. For example, the Press Complaints Commission does
not appear in the index. Presumably an American reader would be at least as interested as a British
reader in a brief account of the structure of the British newspaper market: that there is a national
press, say, and that the party political alignment of papers is a crucial aspect of their branding.
Perceptively analysing a classic passage from the Daily Mail, Allan describes it mildly as ‘ “mid-
market”in its appeal’ and ‘ “respectable”in its mode of address’ (p. 154). Locating the Mail as
Conservative, systematically pro-patriarchal family and anti-feminist would have strengthened
his argument: in a consumption-driven capitalist economy its investment in a conventional
gender division of labour is multiplex.
The unresolved issue of the impact of media on the audience must be one of the most dismal
in the whole of social science. Allan’s chapter on the audience is – mostly – lively and accessible:
how does media consumption fit into our everyday routines? Do people take The Sun seriously?
But the chapter gives no hint of the fierce and politicised controversy over the issue, notably in
relation to children and violence in visual media. Moreover, Allan hovers somewhere between
endorsing the ‘active reader’/agency and an analytic frame which focuses on structure. This 579
580 Books Reviewed

uncertainty pervades the rest of the book. On the one hand there is extensive and approving
discussion of authors who argue that new media underpin the structures of dominance, like Hall
and colleagues in the United Kingdom and Hallin in the United States. On the other, the chapters
on race and gender imply that the presence of enough right-thinking and tenacious employees
who are women or from minority ethic groups would change the culture of news organisations.
Structural disadvantage disappears from view.
Why, finally, does a book declared as future-oriented says nothing at all about internet-based
sources of information? More important even than regulators’ or media organisation’s own web-
sites, is access to more-or-less current ownership information from, for example, The Newspaper
Society for the UK regional press or the Columbia Journalism Review for transnational
corporations.

University of Nottingham meryl aldridge

Dis/Agreeing Ireland: Contexts, Obstacles, Hopes

James Anderson and James Goodman (eds.)
London: Pluto Press, 1997, £45.00 (£14.99 paperback), xx284 pp. (ISBN 0-7453-1275-6)

Dis/Agreeing Ireland should be required reading for Mo Mowlam, Tony Blair and the ranks of
British civil servants who have seen it as their job to hinder rather than facilitate a settlement in
Ireland. It is a searching examination of the background to the conflict in Ireland and the problems
confronting those in favour of peace. But it is not content to engage in critique alone; many of the
authors also point the way with practical solutions which could advance the cause of a settlement.
Editors Anderson and Goodman open and close the book and contribute an individual
chapter each. They argue that the nationalist project has failed and that solutions require us to
think beyond what they call the ‘zero-sum game’ of territorial imperatives. But notably Anderson
and Goodman and almost all of the contributors to this book are not simply referring to Irish
nationalism in the way of mainstream pundits, politicians and journalists. They also mean the
nationalist projects of both the British government and the unionists in the North. It is in this that
the book is strongest, with a number of chapters advancing complementary arguments in analyses
of the economy, British and Irish nationalism and the role of Europeanisation.
Denis O’Hearn advances the argument that the economy of Northern Ireland is doing
comparatively worse than the Southern economy. We should not, however, be sanguine about this
but insist on a wider transformation of economic organisation than just North-South integration.
Liam O’Dowd contributes an account of the much neglected role of British nationalism in
Northern Ireland, by which he means both the nationalism of the British government and of
unionism/loyalism. Typically, this is forcefully argued but gently written and highlights the extent
to which even the British left suffers from attacks of British nationalism to which they are
oblivious. O’Dowd specifically mentions Eric Hobsbawm as a case in point. Robbie McVeigh
makes a characteristically trenchant argument for recognising the colonial legacy as a key
animator of the conflict of the last thirty years. Ronnie Munck provides a critique of the recent
strategy of the republican movement and James McAuley surveys loyalist attitudes to peace.
Rosemary Sales gives an account of the role of women in the peace process and Christine Bell
examines women’s participation in politics. Bell analyses how gender issues in the Northern
Ireland context are ignored or trivialised in the media, politics and academia. This provides a
splendid introduction to her thoughtful account of the problems of feminism in the context of the
colonial and class hierarchies.
 Books Reviewed 581

The book also includes a number of chapters by activists, which is welcome. Jerry Fitzpatrick
denounces Labour party policy from within the party, but then suggests that Labour just might
make the difference this time, especially since key sections of the British political elite and –
crucially – financial capital now have a stake in a resolution to the conflict. Conor Foley of
Amnesty International describes the human rights deficit, situating his analysis in between a short
report of his experience as a legal observer at the attempt of the Protestant Royal Black Preceptory
to march through the nationalist village of Bellaghy in South Derry.
There is little on racism (in any of its variants) and sectarianism and nothing substantive on
culture in the book. However, these are minor quibbles in a book which takes its inquiry seriously
and hopes to contribute to a brighter tomorrow. Overall, it shows the prospects for a postcolonial
social science of the Northern Ireland conflict are bright. Although very good books on the
Northern Ireland conflict were written before the peace process emerged, this book does bear the
marks of its historical period. It would be difficult to imagine this book having been produced
even five years ago. The ceasefires and the peace process have themselves opened a space in which
Northern Ireland may be debated openly. For too long Northern Ireland has been ignored by
British social science and those who have written about it have often found it difficult to express
themselves freely without the stigma of ‘terrorist stooge’ being applied by colleagues, the media or
even government ministers. Dis/Agreeing Ireland provides a consistent and coherent, critical and
engaged social science. British social science take note.

Stirling University david miller

Between Cultures: Continuity and Change in the Lives of

Young Asians
Muhammad Anwar
London: Routledge, 1998, £58.00, (£16.99 paperback), xiii212 pp.
(ISBN 0-415-04648-3)

Professor Anwar provides a description of changing attitudes, experiences and relationships

between generations among young British people of South Asian origin and their parents. He
focuses on change in the ethnic community’s attitude to education, employment, housing and
family relationships. He also relates these to changes in attitudes and behaviour within the United
Kingdom in general, particularly racial discrimination and harassment of the South Asian
community.
This study is based on considerable long-term work by Anwar and others. In 1975, Anwar
undertook a national study of relationships between generations in the Asian community in the
United Kingdom. He conducted further research in 1983–84, and most recently conducted
ethnographic research in Birmingham in the early 1990s. He incorporates a considerable amount
of statistical data from other surveys, most recently that produced in 1997 by the Policy Studies
Institute. He includes summary statistical tables from relevant censuses and other surveys. This
quantitative data is further explicated by a selection of quotations from interviews with young
South Asians and their parents.
Attitudes among the different ethnic communities (Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and
African Asian) and religions (Muslim, Sikh and Hindu) are contrasted. Some material on the white
and Afro-Caribbean community is included. Selections from interviews with professionals who
582 Books Reviewed

work with the South Asian community are also discussed and analysed. His chapters on policy
makers and community political activity, like his discussion of the ethnic community, are firmly
based on empirical research.
Anwar presents a longitudinal description of changes in the South Asian community: he
reports that parents have become more tolerant of differing attitudes towards social and cultural
issues, while children attempt to combine elements of both cultures. This is not discussed within a
context of more theoretical material concerning immigration, ethnicity or social change.
The book does not address questions of cultural translation, inter-ethnic mobilisation and
communication, hybridity and creolisation. Ignoring this work, which highlights (and frequently
documents) the fluidity and indeterminacy of ethnic differences weakens the book. Anwar
contextualises his description of differences in generational attitudes by describing the
demographic, economic and political differences between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s.
There is little discussion of contemporary arguments within ethnic communities over issues of
essentialism versus cross-cultural and multi-ethnic alliances. This seems to me to ignore a
considerable amount of data as well as theory.
This work does not make a theoretical contribution to current debates on ethnicity and social
change. It is, however, a sound, solid, extensive summary of quantitative work over the past twenty
years, and will be extremely useful to other workers in the field.

University of Kent at Canterbury wenonah lyon

Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice

Rosalind S. Barbour and Jenny Kitzinger (eds.)
London: Sage 1998, £40.00 ( £15.99 paperback), xiii225 pp. (ISBN 0-7619-5568-2)

Focus groups have received considerable press coverage due to their use in political campaigns and
image management. This leaves the method with an image problem itself in terms of its use in
academic research. The collective objective of the articles in this book is to defend the use of focus
groups, making varied claims for their potential uses. But the editors also caution against the use
of a ‘formulaic approach which fails to develop the full potential of this method’ (p. 1). They claim
that social scientists risk ‘uncritically adopting market researchers’ models of such research’ (ibid).
The introductory chapter gives a broad overview of the basics of using focus groups. The
editors take a flexible and inclusive approach to focus groups (giving no fixed definition of what a
focus group is) and stress that they are best used in order to explore experiences, opinions, wishes
and concerns (p. 5). They cover issues such as the combination of focus group research with other
methods; what size focus groups should be; where they should be held; how to get participants;
how to deal with gatekeepers; initiating discussions; researcher skills; the status of the researcher;
transcription versus notetaking; and ethical and political issues.
Many of these questions are further elaborated by other authors in the book and a particular
strength of the book is the way in which it allows for the presentation of rich and diverse case-study
material. Lynn Michell, for example, provides compelling evidence of the need to combine focus
groups with other forms of information gathering. In her research with children on social
hierarchies, she found that the lowest status girls, excluded from general social life, were
unsurprisingly excluded from the focus groups. However, in one-to-one interviews they opened
up and gave moving accounts of their experiences. In a different context, that of conducting focus
 Books Reviewed 583

groups with already established lesbian groups, Clare Farquhar and Rita Das argue that it is
difficult to predict what subject matter will prove to be ‘sensitive’. They also argue that focus
groups may be suitable for potentially ‘sensitive’ research as they have the potential to dilute power
relations between the researcher and researched and enable research participants to ‘interview’
each other.
Issues of power and the nature of participation are also developed in other articles. Rachel
Baker and Rachel Hinton reflect on two research projects undertaken in Nepal, and Sue Wilkinson
examines the potential of focus groups for feminist research. Baker and Hinton are cautiously
optimistic about the potential for participation. Wilkinson is even more positive, suggesting that
focus groups can enable non-hierarchical research – although she does not deal with the issues
previously raised by Lynn Michell concerning the structures of hierarchy within the focus groups
themselves. Other articles, particularly that by Lai-Fong Chiu and Deborah Knight concerned
with obtaining views of minority groups, deal with the issue of the researcher him/herself and
particularly the impact of race.
The book also tries to fill a gap or scarcity in the literature by dealing with how the gathered
material should be analysed. Jane Frankland and Michael Bloor take the reader through the
processes involved in analytic induction or deviant case analysis. Whereas, using a very different
approach, Jenny Kitzinger and Clare Farquhar present an analysis of ‘sensitive moments’ within
focus groups and emphasise the importance of being attentive to what is silenced as well as what is
said in a group. In an article by Greg Myers and Phil Macnaghten, focus group material is also
analysed using conversational analysis.
These differing approaches to the analysis of focus groups highlight the ways in which the
method can be used for different purposes and under different theoretical frameworks. This
suggests a potential problem about the framing of the book. Whilst the book achieves its objective
in making the case for the use of focus groups in qualitative research, it does raise certain questions
about the treatment of one method in isolation. Focus groups are one of a bundle of methods
available to qualitative research and there is insufficient evidence of its uniqueness as a method or
approach. The book raises many issues which would be relevant to all social researchers and it
seems a shame that, by dealing with this one method alone, the book excludes many potential
readers.

University of Sussex bridget byrne

The Ethnographic Self – Fieldwork and the Representation of

Identity
Amanda Coffey
London: Sage, 1999, £45.00 (£15.99 paperback), ix180 pp. (ISBN 0-7619-5267-5)

This text moves beyond standard and traditional methodological texts by challenging the
collective assumptions that the researcher should remain distant from the research participants
and site to maintain objectivity. The aim of the book is to assert the need for comprehensive
narratives of research experiences in the field. Coffey addresses the relatively unspoken issues
surrounding ‘the impact of the self on the research process and the impact of the research process
on the self ’ (p. 6). As such it is addressing an important gap in the literature surrounding the
relationship between the self and fieldwork.
584 Books Reviewed

The text is arranged thematically with Coffey’s own empirical research experiences
interwoven into the debates. Theoretically, it is founded upon the ideas which are influenced by
the development of ethnography, referring in some instances to feminism and postmodernism.
The first chapter serves as an illustrative overview of the presence and marginality of the
researcher self. It emphasises that personal and emotional references by the researcher are rarely
regarded as appropriate in textual presentations. Chapter 2 acts as the foundation for the
following debates and argues for ‘the overt positioning of the researcher self, as an intrinsic part of
the fieldwork’ (p. 18). The traditional ideas of over-familiarity and strangeness whilst undertaking
research in the field are questioned through a consideration of the tension between ethnographers
and methodologists. However, it is unclear as to whether Coffey is arguing for ethnographic or
methodological epistemologies. The analytical debates on familiarity and strangeness are carried
into Chapter 3 where field relations are discussed. Chapter 3 is a comprehensive synopsis on the
nature, construction, establishment and difficulties of social relations within the field. I believe
that these chapters can be equated to the early stages of the research process when decisions have
to be made about the researcher’s role and field relations.
In contrast the following two chapters could represent the tangible considerations made in the
field. Chapters 4 and 5 are founded upon the argument that the researcher self is inevitably
embodied in the fieldwork and can be epistemologically productive. In Chapter 4 the management
of the researcher’s body and external appearance is explored, as it is seen as an instrument of
cultural reproduction, whereas Chapter 5 discusses the concept of sexuality and its role in
establishing and sustaining identities. Coffey asserts that exploring sexuality in the field creates an
improved comprehension of the personal and emotional elements of fieldwork, highlighting the
importance of the researcher self.
Chapter 6 diverges from the concepts of the researcher self and body by exploring the
relationship between love, romance and ethnography. Coffey draws together material, which is
discussed in other contexts, to feed her original analogies and cliché’d sayings. In this she suggests
alternative concepts for the future study of the relationship between fieldwork, the personal and
the self.
The writing-up phase discussed in Chapter 7 defines the manner in which the researcher self
has been and can be embodied in the textual presentation of ethnographic work. Coffey argues
that understanding and representing the researcher self in the field and textual presentation
produces an improved method of knowing. As a conclusion Chapter 9 is a succinct but adequate
overview of the themes and debates running throughout the text.
My main criticism is that Coffey fails to place and bring into the discussion classic
ethnographic monographs and how they could have represented and acknowledged the self.
Nevertheless, throughout the text there is a varied use of work by contemporary ethnographers
interwoven with that of methodological writers, which creates a stimulating altercation. There is
much critical discussion by methodologists on the presence of the researcher in the field, but
Coffey’s text goes beyond supplementing these outmoded debates by creating a new debate on the
self.
In conclusion, it is an interesting and thought-provoking book aimed at those about to
embark upon ethnographic research and those in the field. This text successfully makes a
substantive claim for representing the researcher self within ethnographic work and its textual
presentations. It therefore creates a place for the researcher self in future ethnographic and
qualitative research.

University of Warwick sally-anne barnes

 Books Reviewed 585

The Sociology of Consumption

Peter Corrigan
London: Sage, 1997, £45.00 (£15.99 paperback), vii198 pp. (ISBN 0-7619-5011-7)

Consumerism – As a Way of Life

Steven Miles
London: Sage, 1998, £40.00 (£15.99 paperback), viii174 pp. (ISBN 0-7619-5215-2)

One of the most interesting developments to emerge out of the intersection of sociology and
cultural studies has been the growing concern with consumption. An argument shared by these
very different books is that the domain of consumption has been neglected by more traditional
forms of analysis. How has this come about? They point to the fact that both sociology and cultural
studies have historically been overly preoccupied with processes that are involved in the
production rather than the consumption of culture. However, if Corrigan and Miles are in
agreement here, they offer very different readings and trajectories that might emerge from a more
sociological concern with consumption.
Corrigan’s book is an introductory account of a variety of consumptive practices from
shopping to watching television advertising. He argues that we need a sociology of consumption
that can tell us what happens to commodities once they are purchased and brought home.
Although Corrigan does not offer a detailed theory of consumption, he does provide an account of
a variety of practices that link the consumption of goods to questions of lifestyle and the social
communication of meaning. In this reading, the goods that we consume become ‘bridges’ to a
desired lifestyle. The reason that we can never consume enough is that these lifestyles are
necessarily idealised and are more lived in fantasy than in reality. The turning of objects into
desirable commodities is a key feature of tourism, advertising and the department store. In this
Corrigan is particularly alive to the gendered aspects of consumptive experience. He points out
how women’s magazines, advertising and shopping have become pleasurable social practices in
that they have commodified different aspects of femininity. The formation of women’s (and
men’s) identity is forged through a variety of consumptive practices. In this respect, Corrigan
provides both an accessible and valuable introduction to the sociology of consumption. I am sure
that many students will enjoy his jargon-free style and the wide scope of the many of the examples
that he uses. There is a problem that Corrigan is so concerned to stress the separateness of
consumption from production that he rarely connects these dimensions to an analysis of capitalist
society. This seems to me to be a mistake. While it is important to do justice to the meanings
invested in goods by the consumer, it does seem odd to write a book on consumption while barely
mentioning its connection with the emergence of design capitalism.
No such criticism could be levelled at Steven Miles. Miles’s focus links the diverse and
meaningful arenas of consumption to how these practices might be related to the emergence of
consumerism. This makes his book into a more ambitious attempt to map the field of
consumption studies. In this respect, Miles offers the more stimulating book of the two,
identifying what he calls the paradox of consumption. By this Miles means that a more designer
oriented mode of capitalist production has obvious ties with the polysemic meanings that
consumers are able to invest in ‘symbolic’ goods. The key point here is that consumerist ideologies
are popular because they offer ‘personal freedom through economic means’. Turning to questions
of structure and agency Miles then asks whether contemporary consumer society allows for
‘individual’ forms of creativity, and how much of what we do with the goods is already decided by
wider structural processes. This issue, which productively preoccupies Miles for much of the book,
586 Books Reviewed

opens wider dimensions for the ‘critical’ sociologist beyond a concern with the communication of
inter-group meaning. Throughout Miles demonstrates that, while consumerism appears to offer a
means of self-exploration, it actually undermines more genuine forms of individualism by
propagating mass consumerism and the obscene inequalities of global capitalism.
Miles illustrates his case by pointing to the manufacture of boy bands in popular music, the
prioritisation of image over substance, and the increasing exclusion of working-class people from
premiership soccer. For Miles consumption cannot be conceived of as radically separate from
production. This is because our consumptive practices have to work within the ideological
frameworks, material spaces and resources that are all largely determined by the operation of the
market. Consumerism then is as enabling as it is constraining and encompasses the primary arena
within which we conduct our everyday life. Indeed, it is the focus upon everyday life that enables
Miles to evade some of the pitfalls of earlier generations of radical critique. Rejecting an analysis of
false needs, Miles argues that we need to attend to the pleasures and exclusions of consumption
within the broader framework of consumerism in modern capitalist society.
Miles has written a lively and spirited book that deserves a wide readership. Unlike many of
the works in the current publishing wave that has accompanied the rise of consumptive studies he
carefully ties the consumption of culture into the wider frameworks of consumer capitalism. The
problem here is that this considerable strength also contains some of the book’s major weaknesses.
While Miles provides a corrective to much that passes as consumption studies by linking the
ideological dimensions of consumerism to particular practices of consumption, more ambivalent
features are lost in this ideological gambit. Take popular music and football. Miles emphasises that
the increasing penetration of capital into these domains has led to the emergence of a mass
market. Whereas the advent of the Spice Girls has seen music reduced to a commodity, football has
become increasingly oriented around the middle-class consumer. These arguments pick up on
certain aspects while passing over others. In terms of popular music, we might also point to the
wide availability of different kinds of music, the hybridisation of different styles and the
opportunities that remain available for the promotion of aesthetic and radical sensibilities despite
aspects of commercialisation. As for football the advent of the premier league has witnessed the
exclusion of poorer sectors of the population, while witnessing an increase in the number of
female supporters and the appearance of some of the world’s best players in the English league.
Miles occasionally sacrifices some of the more complex aspects of consuming cultures at the alter
of late capitalism. Unlike Corrigan’s book, I found that the later chapters of Miles’s account could
easily be anticipated. Further, given that Miles has a particular political axe to grind, it is noticeable
that he does not try to spell out what a more just future might look like, or distinguish at least some
of the values upon which it could be based. As with a lot of books in this area Miles’s account
exhibits a political deficit.
These books then can be taken as representative of some of the best and worst features of the
sociology of consumption. While both remain important additions to the literature of the field
they also signify that more thinking needs to be done. We await an introduction to the sociology of
consumption that can adequately locate the specificity of consumption while relating it to a wider
story of the development of consumerism and citizenship. Until consumption studies can locate
the meanings we generate in our everyday practices to features of capitalism and democracy (I am
of course here raising questions of exclusion, ecology and cultural policy amongst others), the
picture that we paint will continue to be unnecessarily narrow.

University of Sheffield nick stevenson

 Books Reviewed 587

Sociology in Practice for Health Care Professionals

Ron Iphofen and Fiona Poland
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, £13.99 paperback, x262 pp. (ISBN 0-333-64576-6)

Sociological Perspectives on Health, Illness and Health Care

David Field and Steve Taylor (eds.)
Oxford: Blackwell Science, 1998, £13.99 paperback, xvi238 pp. (ISBN 0-632-04147-1)

Each of these books aims to fill a gap in the ever-increasing literature on the sociology of health,
illness and health care. As editors of Sociological Perspectives on Health, Illness and Health Care,
Field and Taylor offer their collection as an up-to-date and in-depth ‘post-introductory’ text to the
broad field of the sociology of health and illness (pp. xi–xii). The book aims to reflect the range and
diversity of sociological approaches to the study of health and illness in contemporary Britain and
to raise conceptual and methodological points that have relevance for sociologists working in
other parts of the world. The text is, therefore, directed at readers with an existing knowledge of
sociology and its application to the field of health.
In contrast, Iphofen and Poland’s Sociology in Practice for Health Care Professionals is
designed as an alternative to more academic introductions to the sociological study of health,
illness and health care. Today, a growing body of health-care professionals are required to have
some understanding of sociology and its application to their discipline. Iphofen and Poland have
devised a text to meet this diverse range of learning needs. They describe it as a ‘work book’
(p. viii), with exercises and key questions for the reader to address on their journey,‘ a voyage
involving discovery, thought, dialogue and imagination’ (p. xi).
Breaking the book into fifteen short chapters makes it user friendly, and yet the subject matter
remains challenging. The first chapter gives a short introduction to some of the main assumptions
and theoretical viewpoints in sociology. Subsequent chapters address issues of power and
inequality, the role of waged and unwaged carers, health education, gender, ideology and social
welfare. The contemporary use of ‘classic’ concepts, such as stigma, socialisation and the sick role is
offered along with some debate surrounding risk, reproductive technologies and resource
allocation. The exercise boxes and key questions are thought-provoking and relevant. It is not the
authors’ intention to provide comprehensive coverage of the field. Thus, each chapter ends with a
short list of other sources that deal with the issues which Iphofen and Poland invite their readers to
explore.
With its clear layout and well-written text, this book covers fundamental sociological concepts
and theories and raises serious issues about health care. It succeeds in its aim of providing health-
care professionals with the potential to engage in informed, rigorous and critical analysis of the
impact of social issues in the everyday care of their patients.
Field and Taylor’s edited work, Sociological Perspectives on Health, Illness and Health Care,
also stands out as by no means a run-of-the-mill text. The contributors have international
reputations for their research. The book is divided into three sections. Part I is concerned with
problems of conceptualisation and research. Kelly and Field (pp. 3–29) argue for a reformulation
of the way chronic illness has been conceptualised by sociologists. Prior (pp. 21–38) provides a
sophisticated understanding of how psychiatric cases are routinely constructed according to
organisational requirements rather than towards some concept of the clients’ needs, symptoms or
circumstances (p. 31). Taylor and Tilly (pp. 39–57) discuss the relationship between theory and
method in the sociological interview. They offer an illustration of the implications and
possibilities for data analysis. Bolton, Fitzpatrick and Hart’s chapter,‘Researching a Public Health
588 Books Reviewed

Issue: Gay Men and AIDS (pp. 58–76), examines some of the key methodological issues involved in
undertaking policy-driven research.
Part II addresses social divisions, such as gender, childhood, old age and their impact on
health and illness. Part III, the final section, is given to the examination of the social context of
health. Here, Baggott (pp. 155–91) challenges the presumed total breakdown of the post-war
consensus on health policy. Saks (pp. 174–91) focuses on professionalism in health care. Field (pp.
192–210) discusses the changing nature of the care of dying people in the United Kingdom during
the second half of this century. James (pp. 211–29) addresses the issue of the huge proportion of
people being cared for by partners and families, and usefully points to the millions of ‘unwaged’
carers who form the very foundation of health and social care in Britain. James believes that these
carers should be brought into the broader picture of health provision. Taken together, these three
sections cover a range of theoretical issues and empirical work related to the sociology of health
and illness.
The value of this book is that each chapter brings the sociology of health, illness and health
care into the late 1990s. The book as a whole provides fresh insights into well-trodden areas of
sociology as well as an examination of virtually unresearched areas. One of the real strengths of
Sociological Perspectives on Health, Illness and Health Care is the way that this collection unpacks
the theoretical assumptions that underlie sociological analysis. The book presents the complexity
and diversity of social phenomena and provides the reader with the evidence to evaluate the
arguments that have been raised. This collection offers a deep insight and the contributors
convincingly convey their knowledge and its application for public health.

University of Nottingham elizabeth chisholm

Crime and Social Exclusion

Catherine Jones Finer and Mike Nellis (eds.)
London: Blackwell, 1998, £34.95 (£13.99 paperback), vi175 pp. (ISBN 0-631-20912-3)

Understanding Crime Prevention: Social Control, Risk and Late

Modernity
Gordon Hughes
Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998, £50.00 (£15.99 paperback), xi179 pp.
(ISBN 0-335-19940-2)

Crime and Social Exclusion is the first in a series of books especially intended to stimulate fresh
thinking by bringing a wide range of disciplines and approaches to bear on the social policy
debate. It explores aspects of social exclusion and the measures taken to reduce its impact from the
perspectives of criminology and social policy.
A link is made by the authors of two chapters between the spatial concentration of crime and
victimisation and the spatial concentration of council housing, while other chapters stress the
necessity of building a stronger sense of community, to decrease the incidence of alienation from
the community, measures which are aimed at promoting social inclusion and thus reducing social
exclusion.
The chapter entitled ‘Probation and Social Exclusion’ is an intelligent, well-written piece that
draws on both quantitative and qualitative evidence to suggest that young people on the caseload
 Books Reviewed 589

of the probation service are excluded, and the basis of this exclusion lies in poverty,
unemployment, social and personal insecurity, lack of access to benefits of education and training,
and housing and health problems. The authors of this chapter contend that despite their
exclusion, young people have predominantly conventional hopes and aspirations, and that there is
definite scope for a viable programme for their social inclusion. They then reveal several ways in
which the Probation Service can reduce social exclusion: by decentralising probation offices,
which should be regarded as community services; by ensuring that probation offices are open and
accessible; by the Probation Service employing a wider range of people with more diverse skills; by
the Probation Service developing supportive links; and by encouraging more research to generate
knowledge about the Probation Service and its end users. These are valid suggestions which
contain elements of common-sense, as does the contention that the Probation Service promotes
social exclusion by aiming penal policy at an individualistic level, rather than aiming it at changing
social circumstances.
Andrew Rutherford’s chapter provides a useful historical overview of the eliminative ideal,
which was used to solve present and emerging problems by getting rid of troublesome and
disagreeable people, with methods which were (and are) widely supported. Transportation –
Britain’s use of Australia, Russia’s use of Siberia and France’s use of New Caledonia and Guiana –
was explored, followed by the modern day example of the ‘three strikes’ law in California. It is a
compelling chapter which provides an account of how socially excluded people tend to be treated
within a legal and socially acceptable context.
In Understanding Crime Prevention Gordon Hughes aims to foster a broader and more critical
understanding of what crime prevention has been in the past and may become in the future. This is
presented within two closely linked analytical frames in contemporary social theory – the late
modern risk society thesis and the debate around communitarianism. Hughes states that the late
modern risk society thesis has emerged from sociological theorising on the changing nature of
society in the late twentieth century and the gradual shift away from the certainties of modernity
and the growth of fears of ‘new’ risks. Therefore, the late modern risk society thesis alerts us to the
centrality of concerns over risk and insecurity. Furthermore, he adds that it is the routine activities
of ordinary people in the mundane contexts of shared social life which are the key to successful
crime prevention specifically and to social control more generally.
In this absorbing account, Hughes examines the work of Giddens and Beck in Chapter 7.
Giddens’s views on the growth of ontological insecurity are discussed, as are Beck’s views on risk
society. Giddens is also discussed in Crime and Social Exclusion, in the chapter entitled ‘Dangerous
Futures: Social Exclusion and Youth Work in Late Modernity’, where his concept of ‘late
modernity’ is utilised as it captures both continuity and change within society. Hughes, after
exploring the work of Giddens and Beck, introduces three possible models of social control for the
future. He terms them ‘fortress cities’,‘high trust’ societies and ‘safe’ cities. He states that these
scenarios are not likely to be realised in a ‘pure’ form as presented in these models, but believes that
elements of all three are likely to resurface and converge in specific situations and locales.
The one unsatisfactory analysis in Hughes’s book concerns the examination of high-trust
societies – notably that of Singapore. This criticism is also valid for Crime and Social Exclusion,
concerning the chapter entitled ‘Framing the Other: Criminality, Social Exclusion and Social
Engineering in Developing Singapore’ by John Clammer. Both authors fail to mention the
difference between Eastern and Western moralities, and how these moralities shape attitudes
towards social policy. Eastern morality may be conceptualised in terms of honour-based systems,
whereas Western moralities may be conceptualised in terms of justice and rights. Clammer
particularly conceptualises Singaporean society through his own framework of Western-based
morality, and grounds his comprehension of that culture within gross generalisations.
590 Books Reviewed

This, however, does not stop both books being an enjoyable and educating read, and would be
particularly suited to students and researchers who wish to know more about the discourses
surrounding the topics of crime prevention and social exclusion.

University of Wales, Cardiff kiran kaur

Introduction to Therapeutic Communities (second edition)

David Kennard
London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1998, £14.95 paperback, 192 pp. (ISBN 1-85302-603-4)

Therapeutic Communities: Past, Present and Future

Penelope Campling and Rex Haigh (eds.)
London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1999, £42.50 (£15.95 paperback), 272 pp.
(ISBN 1-85302-626-3)

These are the first titles in a new series exploring issues and practice in therapeutic communities.
Kennard’s book updates the 1983 original. Whilst chapters on the history of the various types of
therapeutic communities remain relatively unchanged, the book brings the reader up to date with
new developments particularly in specialist areas, such as prisons and voluntary sector
organisations. The major difference is that whereas in 1983 therapeutic communities were
disappearing under advancing budget cuts and mental health reorganisation, today they are re-
emerging, though often in different places and for different clients. Thus we are nowadays less
likely to find therapeutic communities in hospitals, and more likely to find them in prisons, or
small housing schemes: less likely to find them embraced with new enthusiasm in Britain, and
more likely to see them developing in Italy or Greece. Kennard is well placed to provide this
update: as ex-editor of the international journal Therapeutic Communities, he has been privy to
therapeutic community developments all over the world, and meanwhile his clinical work at the
Retreat in York has kept him in touch with events as they happen. The book is thoughtfully
written, covering the arguments which have been put for and against therapeutic communities (do
they liberate their clients or brainwash them?) and detailing core concepts and practices. Some
therapeutic community variations are explained, especially the major differences between the
democratic model, used mainly for personality disorder, and the concept-based model, aimed at
drug abusers. The first edition has become an authoritative text, widely-cited and accessible to lay
and professional readers alike; this version looks set to continue in that role.
Therapeutic Communities: Past, Present and Future is addressed to those who believe that
growth and development is an essential part of being human, and that the capacity to care well for
each other is a measure of our humanity (p. 11). Twenty authors, all practitioners, describe and
reflect on therapeutic community theory and practice, and explore the difficulties and short-
comings of their work, as well as the benefits. The modern democratic therapeutic community
movement began during World War II. Psychiatrists, charged with returning men to active duty,
stopped delivering individual treatment, and began to enable the patient community to treat itself,
by encouraging here-and-now confrontations about behaviour and explorations of intra-group
tensions. The demise of therapeutic communities in the 1970s and 1980s is seen as a result of the
dispersal of care into the community and a modern preoccupation with control and predicting
dangerousness, which has decimated the time and energy available for creating therapeutic
 Books Reviewed 591

relationships. Those therapeutic communities which have survived, or recently emerged, largely
work with severe personality disorder. Research has shown that, for patients who stay the course,
this treatment can greatly improve subsequent behaviour, feelings, outlook and (importantly in
these resource-aware times) use of services. Several of the papers give detailed descriptions of the
ordinary difficulties of working with such disturbed and damaged people. These show how difficult
and slow it can be to create any kind of lasting therapeutic alliance with someone who has been
seriously abused or neglected, and who displays high levels of suspicion, destructiveness and
untrustworthiness. They show how expertly such patients can create rifts and splits in the
community, and the consequent amount of honesty and self-awareness which staff need to keep the
community together. They show, too, how sometimes none of this works, and communities seem to
fall apart, and patients leave, never to return. The phrase ‘living learning community’ is repeated by
several authors: the requirement for therapeutic communities to continually question why they are
doing things, to avoid unthinking routine and institutionalisation of activities. There is an
expectation that communities will rarely be in a state of equilibrium. The very instability of the
group, though hard to live with, is only to be expected in a community of people learning about
themselves and the consequences of their behaviour. Writers emphasise the need for tolerance
towards anti-social behaviour, since this is not just unusual in a treatment setting, but very hard to
maintain. Patients are often unpleasant, unhelpful, uncooperative, self-harming, destructive and
hurtful, and tolerance is required if this behaviour is to be examined and understood by the
community and the perpetrator. There is always the tendency for the community to drift towards
stopping it or punishing it, and this too has to be watched. A section on specialist communities
describes the particular structures and practices which have developed when working with
personality disorder, offenders and children, and two papers describe how the approach is being
used successfully with chronic schizophrenics, helping them learn to understand and manage their
illness, and develop responsibility for looking after themselves. Relating the origin of his work with
schizophrenia to the anti-psychiatry of the 1960s, Geoff Pullen underlines egalitarianism as one of
the core features of therapeutic communities. He writes:‘for me, the enduring contribution of
Laing and the anti-psychiatrists was their pointing out that differences between staff and patients
are trivial compared to what we have in common’ (p. 148). Other papers explore the cost-
effectiveness of treatment, modes of training and appropriate methods of research.
Therapeutic communities were hailed in the 1950s as an antidote to the inhumanity of the large
asylums. Today, attitudes have changed, and particularly for psychopaths and schizophrenics,
concern has swung away from the patient and towards public safety. Patients are seen as too
disturbed for ‘talk therapy’, or untreatable. Policy debates talk of ‘containment’ and ‘control’. This
collection of short, often lively, and engaging papers, points out that there are other ways to view
and treat mental and emotional disturbance, which are tried, tested and far more optimistic.

University of Manchester barbara rawlings

Gender and Catastrophe

Ronit Lentin (ed.)
London: Zed Books, 1997, £39.95 (£14.95 paperback), vi282 pp. (ISBN 1-85649-446-2)

Zygmunt Bauman claims that ‘the experience of the Holocaust contains crucial information about
the society of which we are members’ (1989:xiv). He bemoans the lack of sociological inquiries into
592 Books Reviewed

the Holocaust and sees his book not as adding to specialist knowledge on the subject but as a way
of feeding that knowledge into ‘the mainstream of our discipline’ (1989:xiii).
In a way, this edited volume continues Bauman’s project but extends it in two major ways. The
first relates to the specificity of the Holocaust, and the second to its gendered character.
Lentin objects to the use of the word ‘Holocaust’ because, she says (p. 14), it ‘derives from the
Greek Holocauston and literally means “whole burnt”, which many Jews, conscious of the implicit
Christian notion of Jewish sacrifice or Calvary, reject’. The term which is used in Hebrew is ‘Shoah’.
Claude Lanzman in his long important but problematic film Shoah used the Hebrew word as the
name for his film, as part of the film’s project, which was to show the Holocaust as an event which
was completely unique to the Jews. None of the others who were murdered by the Nazis for their
origin, politics, religion or sexuality is mentioned in the film. Nor are the millions of Jews
murdered by the Nazis by other methods, more comparable to other genocides. Lentin uses in this
book the English translation of the word ‘Shoah’ – ‘Catastrophe’ – and one of the strengths of her
book is that she links the Holocaust with other ‘man-made’ genocidal catastrophes. She collected
in this volume articles about a whole range of contemporary and past catastrophes – from the war
in Former Yugoslavia to nuclear testing in the Pacific to Comfort Women in Japan in World War II
to the famine in Ireland, and more.
Lentin also argues that ‘in order to understand the full impact of extreme situations . . .
definitions of catastrophe and of genocide itself, must be gendered . . . well beyond the discursive
level’ (p. 5). She points out the specific targeting of women in many of these situations, as well as
women’s participation as benefactors or perpetrators of genocidal processes. However, she argues
against considering ‘women’ as a category of analysis across contexts.‘Patriarchal and sexist
gender relations and racism are not independent but are products of social relations of power and
subordination along different constructions of difference and identity’ (p. 5).
Lentin’s examination of women’s roles ‘between victimhood and agency’ (p. 10) is highlighted
in the other introductory article to the book, written by Joan Ringelheim, in relation to the process
of remembering itself. Ringelheim claims that because ‘gender is considered irrelevant to the
holocaust (p. 20), women survivors often have had ‘split memory’ in which specific forms of
gender persecution and molestation remained overshadowed and unstated by other
‘nongendered’ memories.
This is not the case in catastrophes that have happened towards the end of the twentieth
century. As the articles in the rest of the book demonstrate, gendered aspects of ethnic and
national conflicts in Former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland and Latin America, have been
highlighted, both as victims – of rapes and displacements – and as agents. Women’s groups and
networks have been crucial in resistance and anti-war movements during the last twenty years.
The nineteen individual articles in the book were all interesting, even if their style and level of
analysis was somewhat uneven and the sequence of presentation somewhat arbitrary. My main
disappointment with the book is that the articles as a rule focus on women without developing the
more general side of gender analysis, which would have involved an analysis of masculinity too.
However, given the general innovatory character of the book in a domain of analysis that until
recently tended to be viewed with a hegemonic gender-blind gaze, the book adds an important
contribution to the field.
Given the vast range of case studies in the book, there is only space here to give the readers
some flavour of the book in outline. The book is divided into five parts: Part I,‘Genders and
Genocides’, includes the introduction by Ronit Lentin and a discussion on the significance of
gender in memories of the Holocaust by Joan Ringelheim. Part II discusses ‘Women in a War Zone’
and includes discussions on constructions of gendered identities in the wars in Former Yugoslavia,
Guatemala and Northern Ireland. Part III,‘Captured Subjects: Displacing Women’s Bodies’,
 Books Reviewed 593

discusses effects on women of partition in the Indian subcontinent, the cultural genocide in Tibet,
nuclear testing in the Pacific and fundamentalism in Iran. In a way this part of the book looks the
most eclectic. Part IV,‘Sexualized Slaveries’, discusses ‘Comfort Women’ in Japan, women and
slavery in Brazil and black slavery. The last part of the book,‘Gendered Victimization’, deals with
the gendered effects of migration, poverty and famine in Australia, Russia, Israel, Ireland and
Bangladesh.
Together these form a wide selection of case studies from different parts of the world, making
interesting and important reading, suitable for undergraduate as well as postgraduate students.
The absence of some case studies, such as Rwanda, for instance, is regrettable, but as anyone who
ever attempted to edit a book knows, it is never possible to include all the articles one would like.

reference
Bauman, Z. 1989. Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press.

University of Greenwich nira yuval-davis

The Play of Reason: From the Modern to the Postmodern

Linda Nicholson
Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999, £14.99 paperback, vii179 pp.
(ISBN 0-335-20328-0)

The Play of Reason is a collection of articles written between 1983 and 1997 on issues of modernity
and postmodernity, gender, multiculturalism and the sociology of history. Linda Nicholson seeks
to show the defects of totalising, foundationalist and universalist theoretical frameworks. The
main target of the book is false generalisations that result from the hypostatisation of a particular
to a universal. In contrast, Nicholson emphasises that the social is characterised by a multiplicity
of intertwined differences and identities, which can only be grasped and criticised using
theoretical categories that are historical and immanent. By looking at debates, especially within
contemporary feminism, she shows that identity cannot be understood as clearly demarcated and
fixed identities, but that identities and differences intersect in multiple ways, including historical.
Thus, Nicholson rejects much of what we may call modernist theory, as well as much of liberal
thinking in terms of rights. Nicholson explicitly subscribes to a postmodern position, though she
distinguishes herself from the postmodern particularism of Jean-François Lyotard, because she
believes that we also need categories and theoretical tools to support critique of grand-scale
injustices and societal structures. In addition, identities are never closed particularities. Central to
the problems that Nicholson grapples with is the question of how to combine the particularity of
identities with the generality of political struggle. Her solution is what she calls a ‘coalition
politics’, that is, a political project in which different oppressed groups seek to find common
ground for social struggle without cancelling out their differences.
The articles, culled from writing during the past two decades, are examples of historically
oriented analyses (for instance, the family, the public/private distinction) as well as commentaries
on and critiques of debates and other theorists’ work (for instance, Karl Marx, Lawrence Kohlberg,
Charles Taylor). Although I am sympathetic to most of the readings and criticism in The Play of
Reason, the book does stay on the surface, and it appears as merely an appetiser for further
594 Books Reviewed

readings. The book does not provide a comprehensive and theoretically well-founded analysis of
the problems of modern totalising theory, and it does not provide an alternative framework. For
instance, it would have been interesting to know more about the idea of ‘coalition politics’ and how
this type of politics is related to identity as a non-essentialist category and, hence, to the formation
of identity. There are good parts to the book, though, principally the concrete historical analyses,
but – because of the format of the book – even these remain at surface level.

University of Essex lasse thomassen

Social Movements: An Introduction

Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani
Oxford: Blackwell, 1999, £15.99 paperback, x326 pp. (ISBN 0-631-19213-1)

This book provides a comprehensive overview of theory and research on social movements since
the 1970s by two of the most prominent scholars currently working in the field. The authors define
the aim of their book as ‘not a reconstruction of the “state of the art”in this field, or capable of
recognising the worth of all significant contributions in this line of research. It is, rather, an
attempt to present certain central problems of recent debates’ (p. 23). The book is an important
achievement; although not based on new research, it represents one of the most wide-ranging
surveys of social movements studies available in English. In addition to its scope, one of the best
features of this book is the inclusion of accessible and engaging sections on specific movements to
open each chapter; such sections will provide an effective way-in to the subject for new students.
While it is subtitled and marketed as an ‘introduction’ aimed at students, the book also contributes
to ongoing debates about the development of an integrated approach to social movements
analysis which would incorporate elements from the different ‘schools’ currently discernible.
However, this leads to some variation in the style and accessibility of individual chapters.
The opening chapter introduces the main theoretical perspectives on social movements which
have emerged in Europe and North America since the late 1960s: the collective behaviour, resource
mobilisation, political process and New Social Movements (NSMs) approaches. Drawing on
elements from both ‘European’ and ‘American’ traditions, the authors then propose a synthetic
definition of social movements as ‘(1) informal networks, based (2) on shared beliefs and
solidarity, which mobilize about (3) conflictual issues, through (4) the frequent use of various
forms of protest’ (p. 16). According to the authors, this definition serves to distinguish social
movements from related phenomena such as political parties, interest groups, religious sects and
isolated protest events.
The use of such an inclusive definition as a point of departure may be challenging for students
with a limited understanding of the distinct historical perspectives. Moreover, while the authors
indicate the NSM theories have been strongly criticised, later chapters tend to use the concept
fairly unproblematically (Chapter 8). In addition, other chapters use religious cults and terrorist
groups as examples of social networks and movements (Chapter 5); this sits uneasily with the
authors’ previous attempt to identify the specificity of social movements. However, these
problems are at least partly a reflection of the difficulty of constructing an integrated approach to
social movements analysis.
Following on from the definition quoted above, the authors indicate the four main ‘levels of
analysis’ of social movements in terms of which the rest of the book is structured: the structural
 Books Reviewed 595

bases of conflict, collective identity construction and symbolic production, organisational forms
and networks, and the political opportunities for protest. Each chapter combines case-studies with
theoretical analyses, focusing on the key concepts and themes in the field: social networks,
repertoires and cycles of protest, collective identities, the symbolic and cultural dimensions of
collective action, organisational forms, political opportunity structures and the impact of social
movements. However, given that this is an introductory text, the addition of a general conclusion
summarising the main issues and debates covered in the previous chapters would have been
useful.
The authors draw on an interesting array of movements from a range of European countries
as well as from the United States. However, with the exception of a very informative discussion on
protests against French nuclear testing in Mururoa (Chapter 7), most chapters focus exclusively on
movements within ‘western democracies’. In the light of the growing body of work on movements
elsewhere (which the authors acknowledge), an engagement with the important contribution of,
for example, Latin American scholars would have been welcome.
As the most up-to-date and comprehensive review of social movements studies, this book will
undoubtedly secure a wide readership. The bibliography of over forty pages is a particularly
excellent resource and will be of great value both to students and researchers.

robert gibb
University of Central Lancashire louise ryan

Caste
Ursula Sharma
Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999, £42.50 (£11.99 paperback), vi105 pp.
(ISBN 0-335-19717-5)

Ursula Sharma’s Caste is a stimulating and topical discussion of a social concept full of
controversies and arousing antithetical views among Western and Eastern sociologists. The fact
that Sharma has had the opportunity to do research in India has been significantly important. It has
helped her to place Western writers who have studied Indian caste into perspective. It has also
helped her in locating the error of transplanting a concept from its original country to another. In
Caste Sharma promises to update the theoretical field: to raise various possible dimensions of the
applicability of caste as a concept in social science discourse, to embrace the discourse that will open
up and to offer a critical exploration of the concept of caste as a tool for cross-cultural analysis.
The early chapters in this book are a precise and accessible discussion of the rationale behind
the subject which is addressed by the author in the later chapters. While providing an overview of
caste as a concept in various discourses the author not only narrates what happened in the
intellectual world of the post-colonial period but also finds space to record her own critique. This
evinces perceptive acumen; to quote:‘if colonial rule did not actually invent caste then it certainly
ensured its continued existence and exerted a powerful influence upon its modern form’ (p. 9).
Sharma discusses the writings of Max Weber and Celestin Bouglé, for they held diametrically
opposite views on caste.‘The one provides a theory of caste, the other a theory of the caste system’
(p. 14).
The author has noted that caste and race have been addressed as the typology of inequality.
Comparing caste in India to race in the United States gives race a ‘glamour’ which covers up the
596 Books Reviewed

violence and injustice in its functioning. The author hints at it subtly. The comparative
sociologists either criticised or were puzzled over the peculiarity of the Indian caste system in
securing the compliance of those whom it oppressed, but Sharma points out a greater peculiarity
of the Indian caste system which continues despite social reforms.
In the later chapters of the book she examines selected situations to decide how far caste as a
concept is applicable within India for various cultural communities and outside India without
overstretching it. She first focuses on the Indian communities, especially Muslims and Christians,
and finds that though they profess to be egalitarian, they still have castes in an embryonic stage.
Unable to secure a respectable status within the caste system, they have espoused a religion which
has no caste (p. 50). The practice and the ideology, therefore, differ. The writer concludes that in all
three communities – Hindu, Muslim and Christian – in India, there are groups which have a
common identity and keep a degree of endogamy, but despite religious differences caste is still
practised ‘patchily’. To sum up,‘caste’ is a variant present in the non-Hindus as much as in the
Hindus of India. Therefore, the author poses a question as to whether comparative sociologists
still need to refer to caste or whether a general term like ethnic group would be better for
comparative purposes. While examining cases of the application of the caste concept outside
India, the author notes that caste-like structures are found among African (especially Christian)
and Asian settlers abroad, as well as in Burukamin in Japan. Social scientists have used caste for
social stratification purposes – for example, to distinguish blacks from other groups in the United
States, as opposed to the class concept or even to find a solution to the cultural ambiguity of blacks.
Can caste apply to ethnic relations? The writer holds that ethnicity and racialisation are quite
sufficient to delineate differences in Western societies. Theorists of ethnic relations have probably
dropped caste from their tool kit.
The eclectic approach of the author to a subject rife with controversies is reflected well in her
frequent references to the limits she sets for her discussion. The conflation of contradictory views
on caste is in itself interesting no doubt, but the question of the validity of its application outside
its birthplace renders the issue much more absorbing. The manner of its discussion is such that the
presentation is provocative.

University of Warwick vinod chandra

Solution Centered Sociology: Addressing Problems Through

Applied Sociology
Stephen F. Steele, AnneMarie Scarisbrick-Hauser and
William J. Hauser
London: Sage, 1998, £41.00 (£18.99 paperback’, xiii224 pp. (ISBN 0-7619-1352-1)

There is still some daring involved in declaring sociology to be a form of practice. The advocates of
a radical version have been quiet for a long time. There are few open advocates of the social
engineering version either. As for teaching sociology as a practical problem-solving subject, to
European ears this sounds like New World Innocence. Certainly the authors of this book are
unashamed society builders. With an all-American optimism they seek to translate years of
professional experience into an introductory text. Within two chapters they ask their students to
design new social structures; by the end of the third, they are encouraging them to recommend the
introduction of new processes in organisations.
 Books Reviewed 597

This rush to action in the early chapters is likely to put many instructors off before they get to
valuable ideas for teaching in the remaining two-thirds. There are separate chapters on changing
organisational strategy, leadership development, multicultural awareness, analysing trends,
deviance, emergencies, demography. Taken together they make up an impressive repertoire for a
teacher who shares the authors’ enthusiasm for the idea that there are no real-life problems to
which sociology cannot be applied. The weakness of the first part of the book arises because the
converse is not true. There are themes in sociology which are fundamental and pervasive but do
not convert easily into widely acceptable practical lessons. Recall Garfinkel’s trust-breaching
exercises, or Gouldner’s theoretical communities. For basic ideas of structure, culture and process
the authors might have been better advised to adopt an observational or learn-through experience
model rather than repair and deliver.
It is not always obvious what previous level of knowledge of sociology the authors require.
They are experienced in research, management and consultancy. Hauser and Steele have been
presidents of the American Society for Applied Sociology. They exude confidence that there is no
trade secret that cannot be conveyed in elementary terms. But one chapter on demography can
scarcely bring the kind of student the authors address (‘Yes, we are talking about math, but not
difficult math’) to the point of being able to supply a marketable skill. Nor are many executives
going to be impressed with the scenario they have commissioned if it declares, as the book does,
‘Another macroscopic trend is economics’. Since all real-life problem solving in which sociologists
are going to be employed will involve other professionals too, the authors definitely need to
address relations with other disciplines much more extensively.
Notwithstanding these criticisms, the authors deserve enormous credit for putting sociology’s
claims to be a practical discipline in the forefront of their concerns. Our subject has a pervasive
influence as a cultural precondition and as a contribution to public discourse. This has not
happened without the input of practising sociologists, but too often they have been content to let
this happen by osmosis rather than with the explicit identification and advertisement of the skills
they employ. Often, as the authors say, they ‘disappear’ as sociologists, not acknowledging the
identity any more. The result is craft rather than professionalism. Sociology becomes
subterranean mystery, with an occasional notoriety represented symbolically through the
Introducing Sociology textbook, the only legible title on the shelf of the student hooker to whom
Tom Cruse is drawn in the film Eyes Wide Shut.
In fact a vast amount of the reporting of current events in the United States could hardly begin
without a sophisticated knowledge of social structure. Reporting the Columbine massacre has
displayed the understanding of the peer-group process for which the authors’ chapter on deviance
would make an admirable introduction and which indeed, in its examples, almost anticipates that
terrible event. Hardly a day passes without a sociologist being cited in a quality paper like the New
York Times. Sociology is out in the open, but the codification of its core competencies has scarcely
begun and in this respect the authors are pioneers and deserve our gratitude. The fact that Bill
Hauser has combined a successful career in a corporation ranked by Fortune 500 as most admired
in the United States (Rubbermaid Inc.) with this disciplinary commitment to sociology should
serve as an example and encouragement to those who faintheartedly have never seen an alternative
to the sell-out or opt-out dilemma. For British sociologists in particular, it can make a very useful
contribution to the discussion of core competencies, which is a necessary part of Chris
Middleton’s curriculum project.

Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington martin albrow

598 Books Reviewed

Crime in Context: A Critical Criminology of Market Societies

Ian Taylor
Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999, £49.50 (£14.99 paperback), i304 pp. (ISBN 7456-0667-9)

The fashion for purely descriptive commentaries on social life within the academy, along with
managerial and administrative prescriptions for massaging contemporary social ills, has marked a
shift from critical scholarship that seeks to investigate social problems within deeper
transformations in the material rationale and organisation of contemporary societies. This shift is
particularly acute in approaches to understanding crime – the return to a concern with the
‘individual’ and his/her ‘motivation’, socio-biological make-up and/or culpability heralds the rise
of a populist common-sense criminology abstracted from historical, political and social processes.
A ‘critical criminology’, in Taylor’s sense, must redress this by investigating etiological links
between crime and contemporary social relations, increasingly characterised as market relations.
In questioning these new orthodoxies Taylor’s agenda is more sociological and seeks to
contextualise our understanding of the vexed issues thrown up by the contemporary ‘problem of
crime’ – its representation; the fears, panics and anxieties it provokes; its changing character and
form; its seemingly inexorable rise; the crisis in responsibility for crime control – within an
analysis of the material and political changes that have restructured labour markets, family
structures and gender relations, the nation state and the increasing gulf between rich and poor.
More specifically, Taylor seeks to argue ‘that the transformations in economic life in the last two
decades have produced a new social reality, with specific and analysable implications for the “life
chances’ and opportunities for individuals situated at different points in the new social reality’
(p. 224). Taylor’s comparative analysis marshals evidence from across Europe and North America,
where this new social reality is structured through a series of transitions discussed in terms of the
job crisis (creating new forms of inclusive social structure); the crisis of material poverty and
social inequality; the fear of falling and fear of the other; the crisis of the nation state (fiscal
constraints and a crisis in competence to address a range of social problems); the crisis of inclusion
and exclusion; the crisis of culture; the crisis of masculinity and the gender order; and, lastly, the
crisis of the family and parenting. These series of perplexing changes are not always mutually
exclusive and will inform patterns of criminal activity and victimisation. This is evidenced in
Taylor’s discussion of young black men in the United States (and to some extent Britain) who have
been disproportionately affected by ‘deindustrialisation’ alongside patterned discrimination,
racialisation and poverty. The turn to informal economies of crime, underpinned by a
reaffirmation of a ‘muscular masculinity’, contextualises the high crime rates and patterns of
victimisation within black communities (pp. 30–1).
Alongside these developments is the ninth and over-arching transformation – the shift to the
‘post-Fordist market society’. Taylor’s thesis is that the marketisation of social relations with its
culture of competition, initiative and accumulation has been central to the production of crime
regarding its incidence, form and patterns of victimisation within different locales in the new
market order. Thus, individuals may ‘drift into crime’ within the changing configurations of
market opportunity. For example, the range of frauds committed by professionals in the City of
London encouraged in the name of ‘flexible accumulation’ has taken place in an increasingly
internationalised market place characterised ‘by an endless war of “enterprising individuals”and
corporations for financial position and return’ (p. 227). At the same time new patterns of social
marginalisation have encouraged different ‘local economies of crime’ as the most publicly visible
material adaptations for survival within local markets (see Chapter 5).
The rise of insecure,‘flexibilised’ labour markets, the ‘new’ class struggles over housing, the
 Books Reviewed 599

crisis of masculinity encouraged by the decline of discipline and male bonding found in the
factory are some of the areas discussed as representative of the decline of the old certainties
associated with ‘Fordist societies’. Taylor documents change in these areas with cogency, linking
them to the contemporary contours of crime, in its real and imaginary forms (for example, the
strife for dominance in public space of ‘angry young men’), and responses to crime (as displayed in
the ‘turn towards a private or tribal form of self-protection’ (p. 26)). The ‘condition of youth’ in
market society is dealt with in Chapter 3 and covers the risks faced by young people (withdrawal of
benefits, insecure work, the increasing use of illegal and legal drugs, intensified policing in schools
and public space) and the risks they are perceived to pose to others (most usually in the form ‘the
aggressive colonisation of street space by young men’ (p. 77)). The sense of ‘losing out’ is felt
particularly acutely amongst ‘the young’ in market society who may be more likely to enter
alternative criminal careers.
Chapter 4 charts the segregation and policing of the industrial/Fordist city which has been
placed alongside the Utopian sensibilities of planners that came to prominence in the post-war
period. The development of the post-Fordist city, with its emphasis on a business-led
repositioning and re-imaging of the urban centre in line with global competition for inward
investment, has heightened concerns to do with the lack of a governing custodial authority over
space, particularly in the light of the visibility of homeless people, gangs of young men and other
dangerous categories set at unnerving the pleasures of consumption (p. 129). Taylor (in Chapter 7)
describes how market society is transforming the delivery and practice of social control away from
state-sponsored, more or less coherent strategies of order, towards privatisation, which is gaining
particular purchase within the public spaces of residence and consumption. The involvement of
private interests in the business of policing and punishment (indeed justice) provokes one of
Taylor’s central concerns – the possibilities for the identification and defence of a ‘public interest’.
In this his latest work, Taylor is less concerned with a critique of market society ‘in which there
is a self-evident alternative’ (p. 64) and more with situating the analysis of crime within the reality
of market society. The book is therefore not so much about ‘what can be done?’ but how we can
adequately theorise crime. Disappointingly, Taylor, in his final chapter, calls for a reworking of
Merton’s theory of conformity and deviance within the new market situation that has posed the
problem once again of what counts as a ‘legitimate’ opportunity structure and, therefore, crime.
There are other fruitful ways, which this book does not emphasise, in which links between the
market and crime can be explored. First, it can be noted that market society puts forth no
‘opportunities’ regarding the possibility of alternative ways of defining crime. Some of the new
and not so new forces and technologies of regulation and policing in market society are aimed at
some fairly old ‘Fordist’ enemies, albeit reconstituted under market conditions. The over-
emphasis on the de-centring of policing agencies misses the ideological congruence with
established and ‘older’ practices regarding the targets of surveillance and criminalisation
associated with the penal-welfare state. The re-scaling of the state needs to be explored with
respect to the opportunities for powerful interests discursively and materially to attempt a
normative re-ordering of ‘public’ space – using as one component arguments around ‘crime’ – in
line with market rationale. Secondly, the problem of power and domination in contemporary
societies still needs to be articulated and where necessary challenged, for example, in investigating
the strategies of local growth coalitions who, as a set of ‘new primary definers’, are concerned
hegemonically to construct a ‘public interest’, usually around common enemies to do with
highlighting particular forms of crime. Like Taylor’s ‘angry young men’, the colonising impulse of
these partnerships for growth upon public space are beginning to be a focus of concern for
communities concerned not just about ‘crime’ but the implications for social justice that flow from
local entrepreneurial strategies.
600 Books Reviewed

In a book that – for me – captures so well a sense of entrapment and even despair, particularly
concerning young people, within the realities of the market, is there not a role for positing
alternative visions of social order? Or is there really no alternative to the market? Any arguments
for a just set of social arrangements (even arguments for ‘socialism’) need not shy away from ideals
of equitable forms of social solidarity, justice and human rights. In this sense the call for a defence
of ‘some notion of a public interest’ (p. 234) (on which the author is vague in this book), if taken
seriously, must take us beyond criminal acts – and more critically problematise the category of
‘crime’ – and into a concern with social justice.

Liverpool John Moores University roy coleman

Transforming Managers: Gendering Change in the Public Sector

Stephen Whitehead and Roy Moodley (eds.)
London: UCL Press, 1999, £16.99 paperback, vii239 pp. (ISBN 1-85728-876-9)

The public sector has undergone considerable transformation over recent years as attempts have
been made to replace the old ethos of public service with a more ‘business-focused’ approach. This
shift has had a profound effect on the character of employment in the sector. Importantly, there is
evidence that gender relations are in the process of being redefined. The representation of women
in managerial positions has increased, and it has been suggested that the new management
practices being adopted are more ‘feminine’ in style. However, despite these transformations, the
gender implications of restructuring in the public sector have been neglected by academics.
In this context, Transforming Managers: Gendering Change in the Public Sector is a timely
publication, and one which addresses an important research gap. The book is an edited collection
of thirteen chapters written by academics from a range of backgrounds including education,
organisational analysis and sociology. The volume is split into two sections, reflecting the authors’
shared belief that a focus on ‘gender’ should involve the study of both men and women. Part I,
‘Women in the management arena’ consists of six chapters concerned with the responses of
women managers to recent transformations in public sector management. Part II,‘Unmasking
men and management’ turns to explore men’s experiences of organisational restructuring.
The contributors to this book are united by an interest in exploring the ways in which gender
identities are socially constructed in the workplace. Rather than viewing gender as a fixed set of
characteristics, the authors emphasise that gender identities are continually reshaped. A common
thread running through each of the chapters is a concern with how individuals experience these
gender transformations. As Whitehead and Moodley observe, the book engages with an
interesting debate centring on gender, change, dominance, resistance and management, with the
contemporary public sector the specific research focus.
The editors claim that a key aim of this collection is to examine critically the ‘often random,
generally unpredictable, yet political (gender) transformations that occur in public-sector
management’ (p. 2). However, it is the view of this reader that this claim is not fully justified by the
contents of this book. The main problem is that the collection is rather unbalanced. This is largely
because the book emerged from a conference entitled ‘Men in Management: Changing Cultures of
Education’, and as a consequence, eight of its thirteen chapters focus on the education sector. The
only other organisations examined in any detail are the House of Commons (Whitehead) and a
local authority (Maile). A further chapter bundles together the diverse experiences of women
 Books Reviewed 601

managers working in higher education, the social services, local government, the National Health
Service and the Probation Service in order to discuss how women managers in the public sector
‘experience their bodies at work’ (Brewis).
As an outcome of the restricted range of organisations studied, this book does not capture the
complexity of the gender transformations at work in the public sector. However, the eight chapters
on education do provide a wealth of rich information on the gender implications of current
changes taking place in secondary, further and higher education. The chapters by Meehan, Thom,
and Ozga and Walker, for example, together successfully demonstrate how the masculinist culture
of managerialism has put new obstacles in the way of women managers, and discuss how these
might be challenged. A further strength of the book lies in the authors’ emphasis on their personal
experiences of employment in the education sector. None of the contributors to this volume
attempts to write from a detached position, and some explicitly ‘write themselves into’ their stories
of organisational change.
There is undoubtedly much in this book for those with interest in, or experience of,
management in the education sector. The book will also be of relevance to those readers interested
in feminist theory and Foucauldian organisational analysis. However, despite the title of this book,
there is less for readers seeking a more general text examining the complex changes currently
taking place in the public sector. After reading this book I was convinced of the need for an edited
volume examining the gender transformations now occurring in a broader range of public sector
organisations.

University of Newcastle vicki belt