Moral Life on the Cultural Frontier: Evidence from the Experience of Immigrants in Modern America

British Journal of Sociology

2009

Despite growing awareness of the limitations of group-level analyses in ethnic studies, research on ethnic conflict has paid virtually no systematic attention to variation at the individual or micro level. Addressing that gap, the present paper draws upon data from interviews conducted with members of two broadly-defined categories recently arrived in the Republic of Ireland, Muslims and Nigerians. Results indicate that while members of both immigrant categories experience a good deal of ethnic conflict or hostility, such conflict is rarely collective and invariably varies across individuals. The research data are consistent with Donald Black's theory of moralism. Black's theory, based on his theoretical system known as pure sociology, predicts that ethnic hostility increases with the social inferiority and cultural distance of the immigrant, and that higher status immigrants are more assertive in responding to hostility, though they experience less of it (the status paradox).

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Ethnic Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ethnic Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Ethnic conflict without ethnic groups: a study in pure sociology¹

British Journal of Sociology

2009

“…Subsequently, Black and others extended geometric theory beyond law to explain a wide variety of conflict management patterns (Black 1993;see also Campbell 2011;Cooney 2009b). Forms of conflict management addressed include avoidance, criticism, apology, and therapy (Baumgartner 1988(Baumgartner , 1998Cooney and Phillips 2012;Hoffmann 2006;Horwitz 1982). Also theorized has been the handling of conflict in a variety of settings, including drug markets, public places, flat corporations, executive offices, and suburbia (Baumgartner 1988;Cooney 2009a;Jacques and Wright 2008;Morrill 1991Morrill , 1995Tucker 1999).…”

Section: Blackian Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

When Will Academics Contest Intellectual Conflict?

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

Phillips

2017

Academics have conflicts over ideas with some regularity, yet they contest only some of them. When will they do so? We draw on a theory of conflict management developed by Donald Black and others to explain the response to intellectual conflict. Drawing on interviews with 70 professors at two universities, we find that the contestation of intellectual conflicts is predicted by their social geometry. Academics are more likely to contest conflicts over the validity, ownership, and production of ideas when the conflict spans greater distances in relational and functional space, originates from a lower elevation in vertical space, and is a larger actual or potential change in vertical space.

“…A recent addition with much to offer the field is pure sociology. Pure sociology was invented by Donald Black in The Behavior of Law [8], elaborated by him in subsequent publications, and has been applied to a variety of subjects by scholars such as Baumgartner [3][4][5], Borg [21], Campbell [22], Hoffmann [41], Horwitz [42, 43], Phillips [54] (see also Phillips & Cooney [55]), Michalski [49, 50], Morrill [51], Mullis [52], Senechal de la Roche [58, 59], Tucker [67, 68], and myself [28,31]. Since pure sociology represents a new way of explaining social life its application to criminology is not wholly straightforward.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The criminological potential of pure sociology

2006

Crime Law Soc Change

The pure sociology perspective invented by Donald Black, a general theoretical framework for the prediction and explanation of social reality, has considerable potential for the scientific understanding of criminal behavior. Several scholars have profitably drawn upon Black's proposal that a significant amount of crime is a form of disputing or social control, especially to explain violent conflict. However, pure sociology has not yet been extended and applied to criminal behavior more broadly. A pure sociology of predatory behavior, for instance, would address the location and direction in social space of predators, prey, and third parties. In expanding criminological thought, however, pure sociology also challenges it. Pure sociology explanations are not restricted by time or place, a feature not easily realized with a concept so closely tied to a relatively recent social invention: the state. Additionally, the supra-psychological, -anthropocentric, and -teleological nature of pure sociology generates explanations of behavior that are at odds with many of the assumptions of traditional criminology. Ultimately, then, pure sociology yields a new paradigm for the explanation of behavior the state defines as criminal. Criminology has long been hospitable to a diversity of theoretical perspectives. Phenomenology, rational choice theory, Marxism, evolutionary psychology, and a clutch of social psychological explanations have all contributed to a significant growth in our understanding of criminal behavior. Yet gaps undoubtedly remain. A recent addition with much to offer the field is pure sociology. Pure sociology was invented by Donald Black in The Behavior of Law [8], elaborated by him in subsequent publications, and has been applied to a variety of subjects by scholars such as Baumgartner [3][4][5], Borg [21], Campbell [22], Hoffmann [41], Horwitz [42, 43], Phillips [54] (see also Phillips & Cooney [55]), Michalski [49, 50], Morrill [51], Mullis [52], Senechal de la Roche [58, 59], Tucker [67, 68], and myself [28,31]. Since pure sociology represents a new way of explaining social life its application to criminology is not wholly straightforward. The present analysis is divided into two halves, the first addressing how pure sociology differs from