Sociological Theory 34, no. 3 (2016): 196-219

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Abstract: Field theory has largely treated the cultural dimensions of social fields as an emergent property of their objective structures. This article reconsiders the role of culture in fields by examining the development of the logics that govern new social fields. As a study case, it focuses on the genesis of the logics underpinning the field of transnational humanitarianism, focusing on the International Committee of the Red Cross (established 1863). The article shows that the Calvinist doctrine to which the early Red Cross activists subscribed motivated and shaped the genesis of the humanitarian field, especially through its convictions about the nature of war, state and society relations, and charity. Activists drew on this doctrine to justify and advocate the establishment of a permanent, independent, and neutral humanitarian field. Based on this evidence, the article argues that preexistent belief systems have a key role in establishing the logics of new social fields.

The Sociological Review 64S, no. 2 (2016): 79–97

Winner of the Global and Transnational Sociology Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the American Sociological Association

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Despite the growing interest in transnational fields and their influence on national-level dynamics, existing literature has not yet addressed the processes involved in creating such fields in the first place. This article provides insight into the complexities involved in national-transnational interactions amidst national and transnational field formation. It examines the nascent transnational humanitarian field of the late nineteenth-century through the work of the emerging Red Cross Movement in the 1860s-1890s, drawing primarily on the archive of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The findings show that National Red Cross (NRC) societies employed a discourse drawn from a transnational cultural arena in order to gain central positioning in their national fields and to convince other parties of their necessity. Conversely, NRCs used nationalism as a form of symbolic capital in establishing themselves in their national fields, seemingly at odds with their cosmopolitan aspirations. Thus, by contrast to the ideal-typical representation of global humanitarianism as non-national, these findings suggest that nationalism and impartial humanitarianism are historically intertwined. More broadly, the article argues that national-level field dynamics as well as nationalism play important roles in the creation of transnational fields, even when field actors present themselves as acting for universal causes.

Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, forthcoming

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Abstract: Recent literature has highlighted the central role donor identity, one's perception of oneself as a giving person, plays in fundraising. In this, nonprofit organizations develop strategies to encourage a generous self-perception among potential donors and volunteers in order to elicit donations. However, existing literature has not yet examined the cultural repertoires organizations develop to portray convincing representations of donor identity to their donor- and volunteer-base. This article argues that nonprofit organizations draw on broad, culturally-defined notions of the moral good in order to create idealized depictions of a donor identity. To demonstrate, the article looks at the early decades of the Red Cross movement. It shows that the movement developed four different logics in order to depict romanticized notions of donors and volunteers, each of which based on a different idea of the social good. The article argues that such meaning making is a key aspect of nonprofit organizations’ work. 

*Sociological Forum* 27, no. 4 (2012): 847-871

An open access version of the article is available on the publisher's website. A downloadable pre-print is available at  this link.

Urban sociology has tended to study interactions between passersby and “street persons” with an emphasis on the ways street persons become bothersome, harassing, or dangerous. This article moves away from the focus on the ways interactions in public go awry and focuses on how individuals account for the mundane, everyday exchanges they have with strangers who seek their help. Based on interview data and qualitative analysis of data from an Internet survey, this article suggests that the presence of beggars does not inherently symbolize urban decay to passersby and does not necessarily elicit anxiety, but instead provides a valuable texture of urban life. Further, the article argues that individuals, when justifying their responses to requests for help from needy persons (beggars) in urban spaces, use a variety of cultural strategies to maintain their perception of themselves as moral persons, both when they choose to help and when they refuse. Drawing from these findings, the article suggests that urban sociology and the sociology of risk would benefit from sensitizing their studies of public interactions to the diverse meanings individuals assign to them, rather than presupposing annoyance, anxiety, or fear as their predominant characteristic.

Policy memo

"How Passers-By and Policymakers View Beggars in American Communities", SSN Key Findings, April 2014.

*New Literary History* 41, no. 2 (2010): 351-369

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The disciplines of sociology and literary studies have seen a renewed interest in morality and in ethics in recent decades, but there has been little dialogue between the two. Recognizing that literary works, both classical and popular, can serve as moral critiques and that readers, of all types and classes, can and often do serve as moral critics, this paper seeks to apply some insights of pragmatic sociology to the field of literature by exploring the ways in which moral claims are expressed, evaluated, and negotiated by texts and through texts by readers. Drawing on the new French pragmatic sociology, represented by sociologists such as Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, this paper claims that fiction has a twofold role in civil society. Firstly, novels serve as critiques in their ability to formalize and dramatize generalizable logics of evaluation and to elicit debates by pointing to the inadequacies of, and clashes between, such evaluative logics in the lives of their characters. Secondly, the reading public is often moved to form its own critiques of a novel, in praise or in denunciation of its content, its form, or its perceived intent, and in doing so exercises its moral capacity in the public sphere.

Translations

An abridged translation to Russian appeared in Social Sciences and Humanities: Domestic and International Literature, series 7: Literary Criticism18, no. 1 (2012): 13-19.

A translation to Polish appeared in Second Texts, no. 6 (2012): 167-187. 

Sociology Compass 14, no. 2 (2020)

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Abstract: Although the study of institutions is one of the longest standing sociological topics, numerous recent studies have revisited questions about the genesis of new institutions and institutional domains. In this review, I argue for increased attention to the role cultural beliefs play in the emergence of new institutions. I highlight three substantive research areas where sociologists have demonstrated a relatively independent causal effect of beliefs on the genesis of new institutions: (a) studies of states and state institutions; (b) studies of emergent markets; and (c) studies of the charitable aid sector. I conclude by highlighting promising avenues for future research on beliefs and institutional emergence.