We examine shop signs in Brooklyn, New York, as sociolinguistic technologies of place-making that operate through specific language ideologies which represent class struggles for material wealth. We find two salient types of signs which we call Old School Vernacular and Distinction-making signage. The first indexes multiple inclusions in the neighborhood economy before gentrification and thus suggests a capitalism without distinction. These signs also challenge linguistic and literacy prescriptivism. In contrast, Distinction-making signs signal an exclusivity that for some readers also represents exclusion. We discuss how these data can reveal and disguise rent gap opportunities as both old and new signs co-inhabit the same space in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn.Examinamos los letreros de las tiendas de Brooklyn, New York como tecnolog ıas socioling€ u ısticas de place-making (producci on de lugares) que operan a trav es de ideolog ıas espec ıficas del lenguaje, las cuales representan las luchas de clase por el bienestar y la riqueza material. Identificamos dos tipos sobresalientes de letreros a los cuales hemos llamado Old School Vernacular [vern aculo de vieja escuela] y Distinction-making signage [productor de distincci on]. El primero enumera ideas de inclusiones m ultiples en la econom ıa vecinal antes de la gentrificaci on y por lo tanto sugiere un capitalismo sin distinci on. Estos letreros, que tienden a ser evaluados negativamente por algunos pr osperos reci en llegados, tambi en cuestionan las ideas del prescriptivismo ling€ u ıstico y del c odigo letrado. Por el contrario, los letrerosproductores de distinci on señalan una exclusividad que, para algunos lectores, tambi en representa exclusi on. Discutimos c omo estos datos pueden revelar y ocultar oportunidades de inversi on, porque ambos letreros, viejos y nuevos, cohabitan en el mismo espacio en una Brooklyn que se gentrifica con rapidez. [Spanish]
This paper explores the disconnections between anti-trafficking discourse and the local experience of responding to human trafficking as indicated in ethnographic data from Bosnia and Kazakhstan. Using the concept of ''uptake,'' I examine how anti-trafficking discourse operates as a master narrative, drawing on techniques of emotion and logic, as well as a specific type of victim story. I also consider how, despite an emerging counter discourse that questions the data and challenges current policy, human trafficking discourse continues to be retold in media and reproduced in popular culture, often in ways that actually diverge from the current version of the grand narrative. In contrast to these uncritical representations, ethnographic data from Bosnia suggest that the master narrative is selective in how it represents the history of the problem and that it does not ''take up'' important details about the context that fosters sexual exploitation, despite Bosnia's compliance with US policy. Conversely, Kazakhstan suffers a liminal status regardless of local efforts to prevent the problem from happening within its borders as well as evidence that the crime is not widespread. While perhaps not mythical, I suggest that the master narrative contains the stuff of legend as it occupies the critical spaces of policy, activism and development, leaving open the question of how to address the nuances and needs of responding to victims of gender violence.
This article examines how people understand domestic violence through primordialist notions of ethnicity in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Drawing on fieldwork among police, victim advocates, and Muslim activists, I examine how these groups ethnically frame, or 'ethnicize', the topic of domestic violence, its victims and perpetrators, as well as its root causes and possible remedies. From explaining away ineffective policing to blaming past imperialism, I show how ethnicizing violence has political significance for these different stakeholders, whose assertions about gender behaviour and the function of the law compete with one another in a multi-ethnic state's transition from communism. I also discuss not only how these disparate identity positionings serve as local explanations and/or solutions, but also how they may inevitably contribute to concealing the problem.
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