Thousands led by Native Americans from across the country have converged on rural North Dakota over the past month to stop construction of the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Opponents say the pipeline is a threat to culturally and spiritually sacred sites as well as vital drinking water sources. Protesters have erected an encampment and are leading daily marches to the construction site demanding that the company and federal government halt construction in order to protect water and adhere to treaties with Native American tribes.

The protest over the Dakota Access pipeline reflects the social and political tensions that often emerge around resource extraction projects and potentially hazardous infrastructure, and sociologists have been at the forefront of research and analysis. Mining development led by large multinational companies often brings social dislocation, environmental problems, and a loss of livelihoods for native communities. Yet, indigenous communities have had some success in preventing development and maintaining control over land and natural resources partially through direct action, transnational coalitions, and public campaigns against corporations.

• Alex Golub. 2014. Leviathans at the Gold Mine: Creating Indigenous and Corporate Actors in Papua New Guinea. Raleigh, NC: Duke University Press.
• Gavin Hilson. 2014. Natural Resource Extraction and Indigenous Livelihoods: Development Challenges in an Era of Globalization. Farnham, GB: Routledge.
• Fabiana Li. 2015. Unearthing Conflict: Corporate Mining, Activism, and Expertise in Peru. Raleigh, NC: Duke University Press.

In the U.S., Native American reservations have often been used as sites for hazardous mining and disposal of toxic waste – what scholars call “national sacrifice zones” and environmental racism. Hooks and Smith find that Native Americans struggle with environmental injustices and are more likely to live near toxic waste sites, largely because the U.S. military has used reservations and nearby land for testing and disposing of weapons.

• Robert D. Bullard. 1994. Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
• Gregory Hooks and Chad L. Smith. 2004. “The Treadmill of Destruction: National Sacrifice Areas and Native Americans.” American Sociological Review 69(4):558–75.
• Traci Brynne Voyles. 2015. Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Protest is also driven by group identities and culture. Mobilization against industrial development is shaped by historical and social differences in how people relate to the land. Indigenous philosophy, spirituality, and land claims can provide legitimacy to environmental opposition and are a source of inspiration and motivation for movement participants. This highlights the role of culture, place-based identity, and values in motivating people to participate in protest.

• William Freudenburg and Robert Gramling. 1993. “Socioenvironmental Factors and Development Policy: Understanding Opposition and Support for Offshore Oil.” Sociological Forum 8(3):341–64.
• Francesca Polletta. 1998. “‘It Was like a Fever …’ Narrative and Identity in Social Protest.” Social Problems 45(2):137–59.
• Rachel A. Wright and Hilary Schaffer Boudet. 2012. “To Act or Not to Act: Context, Capability, and Community Response to Environmental Risk.” American Journal of Sociology 118(3):728–77.

Environmentalists have joined the effort to stop the pipeline as part of a wider movement against fossil fuel extraction and climate change mobilization. Coalitions of environmentalists and indigenous peoples often develop in response to environmentally harmful projects, such as dams or pipelines, which have been important for generating public attention to issues of Native American rights while also building environmental movements. Protests over particular local industrial development can be used strategically by social movements to attract new participants and link people’s immediate concerns about health and safety to broader environmental issues.

• Mik Moore. 1998. “Coalition Building between Native American and Environmental Organizations in Opposition to Development: The Case of the New Los Padres Dam Project.” Organization & Environment 11(3):287–313.
• Joanna L. Robinson. 2013. Contested Water: The Struggle Against Water Privatization in the United States and Canada. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Kate J. Neville and Erika Weinthal. 2016. “Scaling up Site Disputes: Strategies to Redefine ‘local’ in the Fight against Fracking.” Environmental Politics 25(4):569–92.

From Brooklyn to Brazil, Pokémon Go has taken the world by storm. And with its popularity has come a media frenzy — Thieves are luring defenseless children! Those troublesome millennials are playing while driving! The game is even banned in Iran.

Popular games have long sparked moral panics and public anxiety about the well-being of our youth and their distinctive cultural tastes and subcultural practices. But we shouldn’t be so quick to panic. In an overview of the game over at Cyborgology, Marley-Vincent Lindsey argues that casting the game as “good” or “bad” ignores important social context. He explains,

“Èmile Durkheim would have called it the collective effervescence of the 1990s: an activity as much about the affect and socialization produced as it was about the game. Nintendo may have designed it, but people made it real.”

And in fact, social science research gives us a more measured perspective on the good, the bad, and the Poké. Games create powerful social spaces where people can share a common emotional focus. This draws us in, and it is a foundation for all kinds of human social behavior. Rituals lived out through interactions create powerful shared social experiences that bring people together; we see this in everything from smoking to social media.

• Gary Alan Fine. 2002. Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds. University of Chicago Press.
• Randall Collins. 2005. Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton University Press.

And if previous sociological research suggests concerns about games like Pokémon Go, they have more to do with inequality and social control than moral chaos. Too often, we assume everyone can approach public space in the same way, which can blind us to the ways in which patterns of play mirror and reproduce residential segregation. Research also shows how legal systems work to “banish” certain people from public spaces. On this front, it is useful to think critically about who the police allow at the Pokéstop next to that park fountain just after dusk.  

• Katherine Beckett and Steve Herbert. 2009. Banished: The New Social Control in Urban America. Oxford University Press.

As a woman, summer means more than just bike rides and swimming at the lake. It also means deciding whether or not to shave my body hair. In 2014, some declared that “the bush was back,” and in 2015 armpit hair had its moment in the spotlight as women sported photos of their hair on Twitter and Instagram. While the stigma of being a hairy lady does not seem to be waxing, it is certainly far from over.

In the U.S., mass armpit hair removal began only after the introduction of the first women’s body razor in 1915, and shaving pubic hair took off after the bikini was popularized in the late 1940s. Since the 1960s, women’s body hair has come in and out of fashion. For many women in countries like the US and the UK, removal of leg, underarm, and pubic hair is an everyday practice. A recent US survey shows that 84% of women surveyed engaged in some form of pubic hair removal. Women who choose not to shave these areas often face policing from family and friends that reinforces heterosexuality and homophobia. For instance, family and friends promote heteronormativity when they voice concerns over whether potential male partners would find unshaved women attractive.

• Breanne Fahs. 2011. “Dreaded ‘Otherness’: Heteronormative Patrolling of Women’s Body Hair Rebellions,” Gender & Society 25(4):451-472.
• Merran Toerien, Sue Wilkinson, and Precilla Y.L. Choi. 2005. “Body Hair Removal: The “Mundane” Production of Normative Femininity,” Sex Roles 52(5-6): 399-406.

While people often view men’s body hair as more natural than body hair for women, they also express disgust for “gorilla like” male body hair. Many men–both gay and straight–report removing body hair, citing appearance and attractiveness as primary motivations. Media outlets like men’s lifestyle magazines promote body hair removal as a way to increase sexual appeal, appear healthy, and control nature by controlling the body. Thus, for both men and women, constructions of acceptable and unacceptable body hair are closely linked to cultural norms surrounding sexuality.

• Gareth Terry and Virginia Braun. 2016. “‘I Think Gorilla-Like Back Effusions of Hair are Rather a Turn-Off’: ‘Excessive Hair’ and Male Body Hair (Removal) Discourse,” Body Image 17:14-24.
• Elena Frank. 2014. “Groomers and Consumers: The Meaning of Male Body Depilation to a Modern Masculinity Body Project,” Men and Masculinities 17(3):278-298.
• Yolanda Martins, Marika Tiggemann, and Libby Churchett. 2008. “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: A Comparison of Body Hair Removal Practices in Gay and Heterosexual Men,” Body Image 5(3):312-316.   

At this week’s Republican National Convention, Donald Trump will accept the party’s nomination for president. Social scientists explain Trump’s primary success by looking at his supporters, especially at their racial biases and class grievances. The nomination is still surprising, though, because Trump has managed to win reluctant support from party leaders, influence the GOP platform, and gain traction among Evangelical Christians (despite not seeming all that pious himself). Sociological research on political parties and organizing show how an unlikely leader can win institutional favor even when they seem to clash with the individuals who run the show.

How is Trump winning over party elites? We often think about political parties as groups of savvy leaders who design the system to keep themselves in office (and challengers out). A longstanding sociological take, however, shows how parties represent deep divisions in the public along race, class, and ideology. This means that emerging public interest groups can and do swing party politics, such as the Democrats’ shift toward a civil rights agenda or the rise of the Tea Party coalition among Republicans.

• Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York/London: Free Press/Collier-MacMillan
• Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks. 1999. Social Cleavages and Political Change: Voter Alignments and US Party Coalitions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Stephanie L. Mudge and Anthony S. Chen. 2014. “Political Parties and the Sociological Imagination: Past, Present, and Future Directions,” Annual Review of Sociology 40(1):305–30

And how did a man quoting “Two Corinthians” win over leaders in the Religious Right? This group’s political influence doesn’t just come from the pulpit. Instead, shared beliefs allow lay leaders to build networks among influential people in government, business, and entertainment. Much of their success comes from “unobtrusive organizing”—the way the networks, in turn, work within existing power structures to acquire political influence. Thus, the Religious Right can fall in line with a candidate who does not seem to fit their public agenda if it means even more power and access behind the scenes.

• Michael Lindsay. 2008. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Jaime Kucinskas. 2014. “,The Unobtrusive Tactics of Religious Movements,” Sociology of Religion 75(4):537–50.
• Lydia Bean. 2014. The Politics of Evangelical Identity: Local Churches and Partisan Divides in the United States and Canada. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans… to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less­ advanced school… a slower-track school where they do well.

During oral arguments for Fisher v. University of Texas-Austin (in which the Supreme Court just upheld UT Austin’s use of race in their admissions policies), Justice Antonin Scalia’s comments caused quite an uproar. Did a member of the Supreme Court actually say that African Americans aren’t capable of success at competitive colleges? He was drawing from the so-called “mismatch hypothesis,” which suggests that affirmative action places people into positions they can’t handle—that is, that affirmative action could hurt African Americans by placing them in schools where they may not succeed or from which they may not graduate.

A significant amount of academic work debunks “mismatch theory,” deeming it both wrong and “paternalistic.”

Fischer and Massey use the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshman to analyze college outcomes and test the mismatch hypothesis; they find no evidence in its favor. Alon and Tienda use two different longitudinal datasets to run similar analyses, again finding no proof that ethnic minority students fare badly in advanced institutions. Replication results have been consistent over time; Kurlaender and Grodsky piece, for instance, find that students placed in programs considered “out of their league” performed just as well as those in less demanding programs.

• Mary J. Fischer and Douglas S. Massey. 2007. “The Effects of Affirmative Action in Higher Education,” Social Science Research 36(2):531-549.
• Sigal Alon and Marta Tienda. 2005. “Assessing the ‘Mismatch’ Hypothesis: Differences in College Graduation Rates by Institutional Selectivity,” Sociology of Education 78(4):294-315.
• Michal Kurlaender and Eric Grodsky. 2013. “Mismatch and the Paternalistic Justification for Selective College Admissions,” Sociology of Education 86(4):294-310.

In a twist, scholars find that affirmative action may place a different group of people in schools for which they are not equipped. In many schools, particularly prestigious ones, “legacy” students—whose family members graduated from the same school—benefit from affirmative action in admissions. Bowen and Bok show this has disproportionately affected white students, and Massey and Mooney show that legacy students earn lower grades than their peers and have lower graduation rates. If affirmative action is doing a disservice to some students, it is not in the way Justice Scalia suggested.

• William G. Bowen and Derek Bok. 1998, 2000. The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Douglas S. Massey and Margarita Mooney. 2007. “The Effects of America’s Three Affirmative Action Programs on Academic Performance,” Social Problems 54(1):99-117

In case you missed it, new fossil evidence suggests that a creature known as the “Siberian Unicorn” may have lived alongside humans some 29,000 years ago. Perhaps that eccentric fellow you’ve seen in the aluminum-foil hat wasn’t so eccentric. In fact, research suggests an openness to phenomena like UFOs, unicorns, and elves is downright normal.

Consider how Scott Draper and Joseph O. Baker describe a wide variety of people across different religious subgroups who all believe in angels. Folklore-phenomena can provide people with emotional comfort and compelling stories.

• Scott Draper and Joseph O. Baker (2011), “Angelic Belief as American Folk Religion.” Sociological Forum 26(3), 623-643.

Such narratives can be transposed across many belief systems and subcultures. Quite a few people believe chasing spirits is a spiritual experience, as discussed by Marc Eaton in his examination of ghost hunters and “paranormal investigators.” Other research looks at the popular pursuits of Bigfoot and alien crash sites.

• Christopher Bader, F. Carson Mencken & Joseph O. Baker (2011). Paranormal America: Ghost encounters, UFO sightings, Bigfoot hunts, and other curiosities in religion and culture. NYU Press.
• Marc A. Eaton (2015). ““Give us a Sign of Your Presence”: Paranormal Investigation as a Spiritual Practice.” Sociology of Religion.

Sociology has always shown how belief in the paranormal, the fantastical, or the spiritual is a social process (consider founding father Durkheim’s pivotal Elementary Forms of Religious Life). Influential scholars, such as Percy Cohen, who tackled the sociology of myth from a functionalist view, and Richard C. Crepeau, who describes how sport myths and “heroes” help sharpen a society’s moral and aesthetic values, show that the paranormal isn’t losing popularity.

• Percy S. Cohen (1969). “Theories of Myth.” Man. 4(3): 337-353
• Richard C. Crepeau (1981). “Sport, Heroes and Myth.” Journal of Sport & Social Issues. 5(1). 23-31

Pregnant women are under attack—or so it seems. Actually, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), all women who might become pregnant ever are at risk. In February, the CDC released a report estimating that around 3 million women “are at risk of exposing their developing baby to alcohol because they are drinking, sexually active and not using birth control to prevent pregnancy.” Since then, many have bashed the CDC for advising women to live as though they are “pre-pregnant,” abstaining from drinking if they are not on birth control or if they are even considering getting pregnant. Coupled with growing threat of the Zika virus and its links to birth defects, such suggestions have propelled discussions of women’s roles in preventing catastrophic disability. Sociologists suggest that perceptions of women’s behavior are closely tied to ideas about the morality of motherhood. In particular, women who appear to resist common conceptions of what it means to be a “good” mother are subject to greater social control.Women who appear to resist common conceptions of what it means to be a “good” mother are subject to greater social control.

In American culture, motherhood is inextricably tied to morality. Moral arguments against abortion often rely on particular conceptions of sexual behavior, family life, and care for children. The ideology of “intensive mothering” demands that women be self-sacrificing and devote extensive time and energy to their children’s wants and needs — time and energy that many working women cannot afford.

• Sharon Hays. 1996. The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Kristin Luker. 1984. Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press.

This emphasis on mothers’ devotion to their children places them under considerable scrutiny, not only while raising children, but also during pregnancy. For instance, the “discovery” of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome heightened concerns over drinking during pregnancy. This made pregnant women the individual bearers of responsibility for the well-being of future children, and made them susceptible to moral outrage for behaviors like drinking. (Bucking the trend, the New York City Human Rights Commission has just recommended that visibly pregnant women cannot be discriminated against if, for instance, they order a glass of wine in a bar.)

• Elizabeth Armstrong. 2008. Conceiving Risk, Bearing Responsibility: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Diagnosis of Moral Disorder.

Poor women, especially poor women of color, face a greater burden under dealized conceptions about what it means to be a “good” or “fit” mother. Not only are they regularly depicted as immoral or unfit, they are also criminalized and sanctioned at higher rates. Historical analyses show pregnant women are arrested for stillbirths, miscarriages, using drugs while pregnant, as well as incarcerated to prevent abortion. Poor women labeled “high risk” are prosecuted for failing to comply with medical advice when their fetus or baby dies, thus they are ironically discouraged from seeking care during pregnancy. Just as the “crack baby” became a symbol of the irresponsibility of poor, black women in the 1980s and ‘90s, Zika exposure and alcohol use are invoked today to place mothers and potential mothers under continued scrutiny.

• Lisa Handwerker. 1994. “Medical Risk: Implicating Poor Pregnant Women.” Social Science and Medicine 38(5):665-675.
• Enid Logan. 1999. “The Wrong Race, Committing Crime, Doing Drugs, and Maladjusted for Motherhood: The Nation’s Fury over ‘Crack Babies’.” Social Justice 26(1):115-138.
• Jeanne Flavin. 2009. Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America. New York: New York University Press.

When music icon Prince died on April 21^st, it affected millions of fans around the world. Famous and non-famous alike flooded social media, expressing their shock at the tragic loss of a superstar, while thousands gathered at the gates of Prince’s home and recording studio, Paisley Park, in suburban Minneapolis and in front of First Avenue in downtown, where many memorable scenes in “Purple Rain” were filmed. Some left purple flowers, letters, and stuffed animals, while others danced and sang. Similar worldwide rituals followed the passings of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and David Bowie, despite most celebrants never having known them personally.Death and grief are private events as well as social rituals.

Death and loss are difficult experiences for the loved ones of the deceased. These losses may be compounded by ambiguous losses—those without closure—thought to delay the grieving process and strain the everyday lives of loved ones. Mourning, however, is not restricted to those we know personally. Masses mourned England’s Princess Diana, because they felt they knew her on a personal level, writing condolences such as “I feel as though I’ve lost a dear sister.” People also mourn the death of celebrities who hold connections to emotional events; that is, people do not solely grieve the loss of that celebrity, but also the loss of the memories associated with that celebrity.

• Pauline Boss. 1999. Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Mark Brennan. 2008. “Condolence Books: Language and Meaning in the Mourning for Hillsborough and Diana,” Death Studies 32(4): 326-351.
• Graeme Turner. 2000. Fame Games. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Death and grief are private events as well as social rituals. Mass media and technology have helped increase such public mourning: many first hear about the death of celebrities via television, the Internet, and social media, and they often respond with online tributes. Not all celebrity deaths are equal, however: the extent to which the public mourns is an indication celebrity’s status.

• Margaret Gibson. 2007. “Death and Mourning in Technologically Mediated Culture.” Health Sociology Review 16(5): 415-424.
• William A. Faunce and Robert L. Fulton. 1958. “The Sociology of Death: A Neglected Area of Research.” Social Forces. 36(3):205-209

In April, HBO premiered “Confirmation,” the story of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings. In those hearings, a former colleague, lawyer Anita Hill, testified about the ongoing sexual harassment she endured while working for Thomas. HBO’s film, some 25 years after the hearings that Thomas famously called a “high-tech lynching,” reminds us of the murky waters women must drudge through when facing and reporting sexual harassment—as well as how complicated the intersections of race, gender, law, and work can be.

Hill testified that Thomas sexually harassed her as her supervisor at the Department of Education and the EEOC. Various studies find that at least 40% of all women report experiencing sexual harassment at work during some point of their lives. Women of color experience higher rates of both sexual and ethnic workplace harassment.

• Aniruddha Das. 2009. “Sexual Harassment at Work in the United States.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 38: 909-921.
• Jennifer L. Berdahl and Celia Moore. 2006. “Workplace Harassment: Double Jeopardy for Minority Women.” Journal of Applied Psychology 91(2): 426-436.

Hill testified that she continued working for Thomas despite the ongoing harassment because she had no other job alternatives. This is unsurprising given that women in law professions encounter a glass ceiling that limits upward mobility, often pushing women to pursue a limited track of jobs when seeking promotions. Further, women in law professions report hearing sexist jokes, having their authority questioned, and being complimented on looks rather than achievements—all at higher rates than their male colleagues.

• Elizabeth H. Gorman and Julie A. Kmec. 2009. “Hierarchical Rank and Women’s Organizational Mobility: Glass Ceilings in Corporate Law Firms,” American Journal of Sociology 114(5): 1428–74.
• Patricia MacCorquodale and Gary Jensen. 1993. “Women in the Law: Partners or Tokens?” Gender and Society 7(4): 582–93.

Even women in power are subject to sexual harassment. One study finds that sexual harassment can actually increase when some women occupy supervisory positions. Sexual harassment has much more to do with power than simple workplace hierarchies.

• Heather McLaughlin, Christopher Uggen, and Amy Blackstone. 2012. “Sexual Harassment, Workplace Authority, and the Paradox of Power,” American Sociological Review 77(4): 625-647.

The issue of police brutality has long been a problem in U.S. criminal justice. Police-worn body cameras are one potential “remedy” to these violent encounters, but they have both benefits and drawbacks.

The cameras may increase transparency and improve police legitimacy, promote legally compliant behavior among both police officers and citizens, enhance evidence quality that can improve resulting legal proceedings, and deter officers’ use-of-force. Conversely, body-worn cameras could create privacy concerns for the officer and the citizenry and place a large logistical and financial burden on already cash-strapped law enforcement agencies.

• Michael D. White. 2014. “Police Officer Body-Worn Cameras: Assessing the Evidence.” Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

This issue is so timely that research is only now starting to see publication, but we do have some early insights. The first observational studies examining the use of police-worn body cameras were carried out in England and Scotland. They found rates of citizen complaints dropped after body cameras were introduced. Preliminary results from an experimental study in Phoenix, Arizona also suggest that the use of body cameras reduces both self-reported and official records of citizen complaints.

• Martin Goodall. 2007. Guidance for the Police Use of Body-Worn Video Devices. London: Home Office.
• ODS Consulting. 2011. Body Worn Video Projects in Paisley and Aberdeen, Self Evaluation. Glasgow: ODS Consulting.
• Charles M. Katz and Mike Kurtenbach. 2015. “Evaluating the Impact of Officer Worn Body Cameras in the Phoenix Police Department,” Center for Violence Prevention & Community Safety, Arizona State University.

The first experimental evidence concerning use-of-force comes from a large study in the Rialto, California Police Department, and the results should encourage advocates of body cameras. The study randomly assigned particular police shifts to wear body cameras (the “treatment”). Police shifts in the treatment condition are associated with reduced use-of-force: shifts in the control condition saw roughly twice as much use-of-force as the treatment condition and citizen complaints against the police were significantly reduced in the treatment condition.

• Ariel, Barak, William A. Farrar, and Alex Sutherland. 2015. “The Effect of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Use of Force and Citizens’ Complaints Against the Police: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 31(3): 509-535.