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The production of an ethnographic film offers a ‘way of seeing’ for researchers exploring the lives of others, and one that remains open to further interpretation. The film Home, directed by Jeff Togman, documents a momentous 10 weeks in the lives of Sheree Farmer and Mary Abernathy, as they participate in a project designed to move selected families out of the Newark slums to new houses in a ‘better area’. Home also includes interviews with others concerned in the project, and images of the local area where the old and the new houses are located. What the film reveals is the complexity of the emotional and social, rather than simply the legal and economic, decision-making process surrounding the proposed move. It also shows how two people, depending on whether or not they are part of the dominant social group, can perceive an apparently golden and life-changing opportunity very differently. Ultimately, Home gives an insight into the lived experience of a lone mother's participation in a neighbourhood regeneration project, and powerfully calls into question the values that underpin much of our thinking about how problems of poverty and neighbourhood could, and should, be resolved.

In this chapter, Jeffrey Togman recounts how Home, an ethnographic film, which he directed, came to be made. While directing the film, Togman fluctuated between the various classical roles of the participant observer – complete observer, observer as participant, participant as observer, and complete participant. The camera and the microphone allow the researcher to record information in quantities and at speeds than are exponentially larger and faster than what can be accomplished by conventional note-taking, but the equipment is also more obtrusive and disruptive. The tyranny of the camera demands that the director puts it in a “real” place, and thus, it is the nature of ethnographic films to challenge generalizing, predictive theories of human behavior. Togman also presents the findings of his filmic project, stripped of its visual elements. The film's main character, Sheree Farmer, a single mother of six children, tries to get her family out of public housing in Newark, New Jersey. With the help of Mary Abernathy, a former fashion executive turned community activist, Sheree endeavors to purchase her own home. As Sheree struggles to clear her credit and qualify for a mortgage, it becomes clear that she faces more than material obstacles to becoming a homeowner.

I am pleased to introduce the second issue in Studies in Symbolic Interaction's “Blue Ribbon Paper” series. In contrast to the chapters in the first issue that focused exclusively on theoretical matters, the chapters in this one are focused on empirical problems. In John Johnson's and Andrew Melnikov's provocative article, “The Wisdom of Distrust: Reflections on Ukrainian Society and Sociology,” they examine the results of a nation-wide poll that shows among other things that Ukrainian citizenry paradoxically displays little faith in any of the branches of their democratically elected government. On the one hand, this finding is paradoxical because democracy is a relatively new experience for present day Ukrainians. Since their country had been for years a puppet state of the former Soviet Union, one would think that they now would be elated by the opportunity to elect their leaders. On the other hand, the founding fathers of our nation also displayed considerable distrust in government, including democratically elected ones, such as our own. In fact, their distrust was so great that it led them to build into our constitution an intricate system of checks and balances of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government. Although conventional psychological wisdom is that distrust of others is a sign of paranoia, Johnson and Melinkov conclude that being wary of governmental institutions and politicians may be a healthy state of affairs for a country's citizens.

Despite the burgeoning research on mass incarceration, women are rarely its focus. Racialised women, whose rates of incarceration have increased more rapidly than other groups, are at the best marginal within much of this literature. Within juvenile justice systems, racialised girls and young women are also disproportionately criminalised and remain markedly over-represented but are often overlooked. The absence of racialised women and girls from dominant accounts of punishment and incarceration is a matter of epistemological, ethical and political concern. Intersectionality offers one means to treat racialised women and girls as focal points for research and advocacy directed towards a reduction in criminalisation and incarceration. While intersectionality does not determine how the knowledge produced is deployed, recognising those who have been unrecognised is a necessary first step in striving to bring about positive change through praxis. Flawed mainstream accounts are unlikely to generate strategies that are well-aligned with the needs and interests of those who remain largely invisible.

Although this chapter situates all violence against women as a human rights issue, it emphasises ‘culturalised’ forms of this violence, such as honour-based violence/abuse, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. The authors draw upon their respective research to highlight how these forms of gendered violence have been subjected to a process of culturalisation. The chapter shows that while this process has raised awareness of previously under-researched forms of abuse and highlighted some of the contextual differences between women’s experiences of violence more broadly, its overemphasis on culture and cultural pathology has resulted in policy and legislative responses that do not always benefit victims. Ultimately, this chapter aims to problematise ‘culturalised’ understandings of violence in diverse communities and to show how current policy, legislative and support responses fail to adequately address the intersectional needs of black and minority ethnic victims/survivors.¹

This chapter aims to identify the impact of misbelief and heuristics on the engagement of giggers and customers with gigging organisations. This is of value due to the plethora of gigging opportunities and our lack of knowledge about how and why people choose to take up these opportunities. In addition, the gigs may frequently go unrecorded with payments made through systems such as PayPal which can allow international payments to be made without remittances. This chapter utilises some of the primary evolutionary theories to explore the efficacy and conflict in communications between gigging organisations, their customers and providers (giggers). Those selected are: misbelief in the conscious mind; and heuristics, such as the availability and confirmatory heuristics in the unconscious mind. Misbelief is addressed as a spandrel, and heuristics are discussed through the lens of fast and frugal approaches. Through a text analysis of 77 international gigging organisations, the messages conveyed are assessed against both evolutionary theory and prior research into the gig economy. The findings are that evolutionary psychology provides a useful framework for analysing these messages, as well as aiding understanding of gigging behaviours. HRM practitioners could make use of this form of analysis to support their design of interactions with giggers to ensure clarity on both sides.