Perpetration of intimate partner violence among men in methadone treatment programs

This study examined the prevalence of perpetration of intimate partner violence among 356 men recruited from methadone maintenance treatment programs. We used logistic regression with covariance adjustment to examine the associations between intimate partner violence and illicit drug use by the participants, their female partners, or both. We found a high prevalence of intimate partner violence among the men in our sample. Significant associations between intimate partner violence and illicit drug use varied by types of drugs and whether the female partner or both partners were using drugs

Power from Switching across Netdoms through Reflexive and Indexical Language

Abstract In differentiated societies with far-reaching yet fragmented social networks, the ability to manage pervasive ambiguity is crucial to navigate domination orders. In this paper we contend that identities, to enhance their control through switchings across networks and domains (netdoms), manage growing ambiguity via language's reflexive and indexical features. We elaborate on several features-metapragmatics, heteroglossia, and poetics-and assert that they are seldom innocent performances to build consensus in the reproduction of social orders. On the contrary, language is inherently implicated in relations of domination. We then argue that metapragmatic control of stories acquired in countless netdom switchings leads to strong footings that secure resources and opportunity; that rhetorics that include rich heteroglossic voicing via structural holes generate stories that can be reflexively transposed to other institutional arenas; and that poetic control of speech styles may transform identities into power-law constellations with robust footing that decouple into prisms to preserve quality. Our goal is to twofold: First, to show that the reflexivity and indexicality of language emerges from myriad switchings across netdoms; and second, to demonstrate that reflexive and indexical language is critical to identities' struggles for control-of footing and domination-via their switchings across rapidly polymerizing netdoms. Key words: Identity, Social Network, Indexicality, Power, Language. Resumen En sociedades diferenciadas con redes sociales de largo alcance pero fragmentadas, la habilidad de manejar la ambigüedad es crucial para navegar órdenes dominantes. En este artículo sostenemos que las identidades, para aumentar su control a través de cambios de redes y dominios (netdoms), manejan una ambigüedad creciente a través de las propiedades indéxicas y reflexivas del lenguaje. Explicamos varias propiedades-metapragmática, heteroglosia, y poética-y afirmamos que éstas rara vez constituyen actuaciones inocentes de creación de consenso en la reproducción de los órdenes sociales. Al contrario, el lenguaje está inherentemente implicado en relaciones de dominación. Así, argumentamos que el control metapragmático de historias adquiridas en incontables cambios de netdoms conduce a posiciones firmes que aseguran recursos y oportunidades; que las retóricas que incluyen fértiles voces heteroglósicas a través de agujeros estructurales generan historias que se pueden transponer reflexivamente a otras arenas institucionales; y que el control poético de estilos lingüísticos puede transformar identidades en leyes potenciales con posiciones que se desacoplan en prismas para preservar su calidad. Nuestra meta es doble: Primero, mostrar que la reflexividad e indexicalidad del lenguaje emergen en multitud de cambios a través de netdoms; y segundo, demostrar que el lenguaje 1 Enviar correspondencia a: Jorge Fontdevila ([email protected]). REDES-Revista hispana para el análisis de redes sociales Vol. 18,#13, Junio 2010 http://revista-redes.rediris.es 327 indéxico y reflexivo es crítico en las luchas de las identidades por el control-de posiciones y dominación-a través de cambios de netdoms que se polimerizan rápidamente

Thinking Complexity with Harrison White: Towards Social Emergence via Indexical Language

Harrison C. White, a founding giant of the relational turn in Sociology, has left us a monumental model of social emergence based on the interplay of three primitives (identity, control, switching) and two principles (self-similarity, dispersion) of social organization. In this essay honoring his extraordinary legacy, I reflect on the significance of White’s theoretical model for future thinking on complexity in the social sciences. After the relational and cultural turns, I propose that Sociology take a complexity turn, in light of recent developments across the sciences. In this respect, White’s model provides sharp insights consistent with complex systems ontologies far from equilibrium, exhibiting path dependence and nonlinear phase transitions. His model radically breaks with cybernetic or autopoietic systems models, and recognizes the ambiguity of network ties not as measurement error, but as integral to social systems. Moreover, White’s later turn to sociolinguistics to theorize context-making and meaning in networks is pathbreaking. His incorporation of linguistic indexicality and reflexive metapragmatics to explain shifting network configurations refines our understanding of complexity specific to human life, where systems boundaries are seldom physical but primarily semiotic. My goal is to stimulate complexity thinking in Sociology by foregrounding White’s innovative analytical tools, including polymer netdoms, scale-invariance and nonlinearities, phenomenologies of ties and stories, boundaries enabling multiple contingencies, resilient footings sustaining ambiguity, meaning and context-making via indexical switching, and speech registers indexing subsystems differentiation but also interpenetration, among others. I conclude by positioning White’s model in complexity debates on restricted versus general emergence, and claim his model contains a theory of general emergence based on irreducible path dependence and historical contingency

Productive pleasures across binary regimes: Phenomenologies of bisexual desires among Latino men

Modern orders were founded on the repudiation of sexual ambiguity and the confinement of desire within discursive classifications of man/woman and hetero/homosexual binaries. However, the persistence of bisexual practices reveals the unstable nature of these modern binary regimes, which require the “erasure” of bisexuality to perpetuate their status quo. Yet some men negotiate their bisexual desires in productive ways without undermining their sense of masculinity and sexual agency. Based on qualitative interviews I explore the sexualities of a group of these men—Latino men who have sex with men and women in southern California. I find that sex with women involves interactional work that is more demanding on impression management and moral grounds. Sex with men is rougher, adventurous, and less restrained. I conclude that sex with men opens liminal spaces that resist binary definition and are less discursively regulated—relative “anti-structures” à la Victor Turner that decouple agency from (hetero)structure. This transgressive liminality is key to understanding these same-sex spaces' recurrent attraction and productive pleasure. The study challenges monolithic understandings of migrant sexualities by finding great diversity among non-gay identified men, including homoerotic practices combined with strong desire for women. </jats:p

Border crossings and shifting sexualities among Mexican gay immigrant men: Beyond monolithic conceptions

This article describes patterns of interpretation and practice of same-sex desires pre- and post-migration among self-identified gay and bisexual Mexican immigrant men to the USA. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 80 such men, we argue that, contrary to stereotypes, their pre-migration interpretations and practices are considerably diverse and not solely informed by highly gendered understandings and styles of sexual interaction between men. After migration, some shift their interpretations and practices considerably, while others retain those that informed their sexualities pre-migration, either adapting them to their new sexual contexts or resisting any changes. These findings, which reveal the complexity and diversity of sexual interpretations among immigrant gay and bisexual men, pose a challenge to proposed systems of classifying same-sex desires as well as to conventional understandings of the impact of international migration on gay sexuality. </jats:p

Power from Switching across Netdoms through Reflexive and Indexical Language

In differentiated societies with far-reaching yet fragmented social networks, the ability to manage pervasive ambiguity is crucial to navigate domination orders. In this paper we contend that identities, to enhance their control through switchings across networks and domains (netdoms), manage growing ambiguity via language's reflexive and indexical features. We elaborate on several features-metapragmatics, heteroglossia, and poetics-and assert that they are seldom innocent performances to build consensus in the reproduction of social orders. On the contrary, language is inherently implicated in relations of domination. We then argue that metapragmatic control of stories acquired in countless netdom switchings leads to strong footings that secure resources and opportunity; that rhetorics that include rich heteroglossic voicing via structural holes generate stories that can be reflexively transposed to other institutional arenas; and that poetic control of speech styles may transform identities into power-law constellations with robust footing that decouple into prisms to preserve quality. Our goal is to twofold: First, to show that the reflexivity and indexicality of language emerges from myriad switchings across netdoms; and second, to demonstrate that reflexive and indexical language is critical to identities' struggles for control-of footing and domination-via their switchings across rapidly polymerizing netdoms.En sociedades diferenciadas con redes sociales de largo alcance pero fragmentadas, la habilidad de manejar la ambigüedad es crucial para navegar órdenes dominantes. En este artículo sostenemos que las identidades, para aumentar su control a través de cambios de redes y dominios (netdoms), manejan una ambigüedad creciente a través de las propiedades indéxicas y reflexivas del lenguaje. Explicamos varias propiedades-metapragmática, heteroglosia, y poética-y afirmamos que éstas rara vez constituyen actuaciones inocentes de creación de consenso en la reproducción de los órdenes sociales. Al contrario, el lenguaje está inherentemente implicado en relaciones de dominación. Así, argumentamos que el control metapragmático de historias adquiridas en incontables cambios de netdoms conduce a posiciones firmes que aseguran recursos y oportunidades; que las retóricas que incluyen fértiles voces heteroglósicas a través de agujeros estructurales generan historias que se pueden transponer reflexivamente a otras arenas institucionales; y que el control poético de estilos lingüísticos puede transformar identidades en leyes potenciales con posiciones que se desacoplan en prismas para preservar su calidad. Nuestra meta es doble: Primero, mostrar que la reflexividad e indexicalidad del lenguaje emergen en multitud de cambios a través de netdoms; y segundo, demostrar que el lenguajeindéxico y reflexivo es crítico en las luchas de las identidades por el control-de posiciones y dominación-a través de cambios de netdoms que se polimerizan rápidamente