The oeuvre of Charles Tilly provides a helpful model of how to conduct social science. Nevertheless, most readers are familiar only with a subset of his works. Consequently, Tilly’s contributions are ...often understood as being limited to a few hypotheses or statements, often cited out of context or in an over-simplified manner. This article aims to provide a more extensive overview of Tilly’s work and its continued relevance. It introduces some of his key concepts, such as state formation, superior stories, relational realism, trust networks, categorical inequality, contentious politics, and democratization. This article makes a case for a broader application of these concepts in social sciences research, theorizing, and contemporary political analyses.
Faced with an economic crisis, people took to the streets and camped in urban plazas throughout Spain in May 2011. Many people were successfully mobilized by a generalized sense of frustration, ...indignation and impotency in the face of coming elections where many citizens felt there were no real alternative economic and social policies offered, nor the possibility to vote for government programmes that would deal with the crisis in a way that prioritized the concerns of the population. In online discussions, concerned proactive participants called for 'A Real Democracy Now' that represented the concerns and priorities of regular Spanish citizens. In order to make their discontent visible, they called for people to camp and 'occupy' public spaces together in order to force politicians and elites to face the generalized discontent with the dire economic prospects. This paper builds on non-participant observation of the Indignados movement in Barcelona, Spain, conducted in the summer of 2011. It looks at the consolidation of the 'occupy' contentious performance to protest income inequality and economic policy. It argues that this movement is a direct precedent to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the USA. The 15 May movement showed that not only people in North Africa had reasons to take the streets and engage in collective action, but many citizens in the developed world also had reasons to take public squares and show their dissatisfaction with the economic and political status quo.
This article compares immigrant and ethnic organizations in four major immigrant-receiving cities and reveals substantial variation across these immigrant gateway cities. Using data from ethnographic ...fieldwork and an original database of relevant organizations in New York City; El Paso, Texas; Paris; and Barcelona, I find differences in organizational type and density, as well as in their legitimacy and funding. This article contributes to a growing literature on immigrant organizations. Although immigrant organizations have a long history in some cities, they may not always operate in ways that enhance refugee and migrant integration. Comparing immigrant organizations is fruitful because it tells us more about city and national political systems and why distinct localities deal with cultural minorities differently. These comparisons can help the readers to understand the barriers and ladders that immigrants encounter in different cities and inform policy-makers in designing better approaches to incorporate immigrants.
This article looks at the aftermath of riots in a suburban area of Paris to make a larger argument about what produces riots, the role of police violence, the activation of social boundaries, and the ...implied set of demands during and after riots. It uses the methods of visual sociology to show how youth often target symbols of the state to respond to state violence in an asymmetrical confrontation when they feel they do not have a political voice or representation. It also presents original survey data about what non-riot participants think causes these riots. Finally, it shows images from campaigns to ban chokeholds in France, which recent protests have achieved.
As immigrants settle in new places, they are faced with endless uncertainties that prevent them from feeling that they belong. From language barriers, to differing social norms, to legal boundaries ...separating them from established residents, they are constantly navigating shifting and contradictory expectations both to assimilate to their new culture and to honor their native one. In A Place to Call Home, Ernesto Castañeda offers a uniquely comparative portrait of immigrant expectations and experiences. Drawing on fourteen years of ethnographic observation and hundreds of interviews with documented and undocumented immigrants and their children, Castañeda sets out to determine how different locations can aid or disrupt the process of immigrant integration. Focusing on New York City, Paris, and Barcelona—immigration hubs in their respective countries—he compares the experiences of both Latino and North African migrants, and finds that subjective understandings, local contexts, national and regional history, and religious institutions are all factors that profoundly impact the personal journey to belonging.
In recent years, the reception of remittances by migrant‐sending countries has been quantified and well advertised. Many have predicted economic development based on the magnitude of these aggregate ...figures, leaving aside the fact that new family arrangements, emigration expectations, consumption patterns and demographic changes impact the prospects for development. This paper shows how remittances link distant locations economically, socially and culturally creating unique transnational dynamics that shape development at both ends. I use multi‐sited ethnographic work conducted over seven years in different places of migrant origin and destination. The paper challenges common assumptions regarding the developmental effect of remittances, by contrasting the hyper‐rational, atomistic and perfectly informed theoretical actors of the neoclassical account with the complex actors who make their decisions on the basis of imperfect information, and the values and meanings constructed within a transnational web of family and community ties.
The events of January 6th were a clear example of threats to American democracy. De-democratization is a process that preceded Trump’s election and that can still be seen in the United States and ...around the world. Social theorist Charles Tilly wrote about how becoming a democracy is not a unidirectional, one-time event or goal, but a non-linear process. This paper analyzes developments in the United States that signal rises and falls in the level of democracy over the last several decades. It discusses Donald Trump’s rise to power, the insurrection on January 6th, 2021, and the state of inclusion of ethnoracial minorities in the United States. It uses Tilly’s proposed processes of democratization and de-democratization. This more nuanced understanding of democracy and state–society relations helps avoid celebratory stances about the promise of electoral politics as well as pessimistic assessments about the imminent arrival of fascism and authoritarianism.
Many think that immigration is something caused by globalization, and some subsequently blame immigrants for the increased inequalities produced by economic globalization. Xenophobic nationalism has ...gained popularity around the world, further increasing racial tensions but without addressing the underlying causes of growing socioeconomic inequality, which this paper strives to show is caused by economic policies, not immigration. This paper argues that the apparent retreat from globalization arises from the flawed conceptualization of “globalization” as a bundle of different processes. This study analyzes early framings of economic globalization and shows how it has been linked, for political reasons, to increased migration, diversity, and open borders. Coining the term ”globalization” was not just naming ongoing social change, but it became part of the branding of an elite ideological policy project. The popular framing of globalization purposely entangled independent phenomena such as free trade policies, the expansion of the internet, cosmopolitan identities, and international migration. These couplings brought together neoliberal conservatives and liberal cosmopolitans. Given the current backlash, it is essential to distinguish migration from policies favoring trade and capital movement across borders. It is noteworthy to remember that immigration is something that preceded globalization. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how migration became entangled with globalization in the popular imagination.
This paper measures mental illness among individuals experiencing homelessness in a border city and compares it to the general housed population. We use original data from a homeless survey conducted ...in El Paso, Texas. Respondents self-reported any possible mental illness or related symptoms. We find that mental illness is not disproportionally common among the homeless, yet this is something that is often claimed by laypersons, some social service workers, and some researchers that limit sampling to institutionalized settings where formal mental illness is often among the prerequisites for admission. We find that “severe mental illness” among homeless persons is 6.2% (only around 2–3% higher than the general population), and “any mental illness” is 20.8% (only 1–3% higher than in the general population). Our results are consistent with other research focusing on street samples.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Latinos have suffered from disproportionately high rates of hospitalization and death related to the virus. Health disparities based ...on race and ethnicity are directly associated with heightened mortality and burden of illness and act as underlying causes for the staggering impacts of COVID-19 in Latin communities in the United States. This is especially true in the city of El Paso, Texas, where over 82% of the population is Hispanic. To ascertain the level of danger that COVID-19 poses in El Paso, we constructed a point-in-time risk assessment of its Latin population and assessed a Latin individual's likelihood of hospitalization or death related to COVID-19 by comparing relevant health profiles with high-risk co-morbidities that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) identified in 2020. Data for this risk assessment come from 1152 surveys conducted in El Paso. The assessment included comprehensive demographic, socioeconomic, and health data to analyze disparities across Hispanic sub-populations in the city. Results revealed that around 49.3% of Hispanics in the study had been previously diagnosed with a high-risk co-morbidity and therefore have an increased likelihood of hospitalization or death related to COVID-19. Additional factors that led to increased risk included low income, homelessness, lack of U.S. citizenship, and being insured. The findings from this study additionally demonstrate that structural inequality in the U.S. must be addressed, and preventive measures must be taken at local and state levels to decrease the mortality of pandemics. Baseline population health data can help with both of these goals.
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