This article develops the concept of temporal total institutions to describe how and why individuals voluntarily submit to highly-controlled and often dehumanizing environments. We focus empirically on Phase I clinical trials, which offer compensation to healthy people in exchange for testing investigational pharmaceuticals. Analyzing the experiences of 67 U.S. healthy volunteers, we illustrate how comparisons between Phase I trials and prison are salient to participants as they reflect on their confinement in research facilities and their interactions with other participants and research staff. We argue that conditions of contemporary economic insecurity and/or poverty facilitate the existence of coercive temporal total institutions by undermining voluntariness. Phase I clinics take advantage of the steady supply of individuals who will submit to the organization’s demands out of hope that the income gained will be transformative for their lives.
The show Black-ish (2014-) is a satirical depiction of a middle-class black father's attempt to teach his children to take pride in their heritage. The main characters of the show are the nuclear family members: father Dre (Anthony Anderson), mother Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross), daughters Zoey (Yara Shahidi) and Diane (Marsia Martin), sons Andre Jr. (Marcus Scribner) and Jack (Miles Brown), and grandfather Pops (Laurence Fishburne). Each episode provides Dre opportunities to discover ''teachable moments'' for his children to learn their heritage. This was exemplified in the episode, ''The Nod'' (1.03) as Andre Jr. fails to acknowledge another black student attending his school. As Dre and Andre Jr. walk to the tune of Jay-Z's ''Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)'' Andre Jr. fails to give ''the nod'' to another black student. In shock, Dre pauses and asks Andre Jr. why he did not give the nod. Andre Jr., clearly confused, asked, ''The nod? I don't even know him.'' When Dre exclaims, ''You don't even know what you two have in common, do you?'' Andre Jr. stares into space. For the rest of the episode Dre is on a mission to help his son see the ''struggle'' and his racial identity. This ''mission'' of Dre is caricatured throughout the show. However, despite its comedic undertones, what does this popular network television show say about contemporary understandings of race in America? Blackish forces viewers to engage with black families' upward mobility and their encounters in an inaccurately perceived post-racial culture. The exchange between Dre and his son presents the ideological framework for the show: black transitioning middle-class Americans struggle to remain true to preconceived conceptions of blackness despite their financial gains. Black-ish's use of satirical material to confront issues of race is problematic in that it approaches it through a color-blind framework. This framework ignores the ways that racism works in our culture. The show presents Andre Jr. as part of a
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