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71 books match the query 'Social networks' and 5 start with w

cover of Walking Together: Central Americans and Transit Migration Through Mexico

Walking Together

Central Americans and Transit Migration Through Mexico

Alejandra Díaz de León

University of Arizona Press, 2023

Migration through Mexico is violent and uncertain, yet in Walking Together we see how this experience bonds some people together like family even though they may not have started that way before the journey.

Migrants in transit form several types of social networks, develop trust, and engage in acts of solidarity. The need to be recognized and grieved, compounded by the practical use of pooling information and resources, leads migrants to form small, strong groups called road families. Through the generalized sharing of information and small items such as food and blankets, migrants also form a transient community that includes everyone on the road at the same time. Sociologist Alejandra Díaz de León shows the trajectories of families that left together, showing, surprisingly, that families might not be the best social arrangement in transit.

Drawing on multisited research, this work contributes to debates on the role of social networks in clandestine migration processes and to discussions on how people create social networks and trust under violent and stressful situations. The detailed ethnographic narratives and accessible writing weave together theory with empirical observations to highlight and humanize the migrant experience.

Sitting at the intersection of border studies, immigration studies, and Latinx studies, this concise volume shows how Central American migrants in transit through Mexico survive the precarious and unpredictable road by forming different types of social ties.
 
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cover of We Gon’ Be Alright: Resistance and Healing in Black Movement Spaces, 2012­–2021

We Gon’ Be Alright

Resistance and Healing in Black Movement Spaces, 2012­–2021

Stephanie M. Crumpton

University of Arizona Press, 2025

We Gon’ Be Alright: Resistance and Healing in Black Movement Spaces, 2012–2021 is a profound exploration of Black activism and organizing during a pivotal decade in American history. Rev. Dr. Stephanie M. Crumpton explores the practices of care, reflection, and creativity that Black activists employed to heal and resist amidst the sociopolitical turbulence from the Obama era through the first Trump presidency. This period, marked by the myth of a “post-racial” America, saw a resurgence in racial violence and hate crimes, culminating in the 2021 Capitol insurrection. Against this backdrop, Crumpton captures the resilience and ingenuity of Black movement workers as they navigated these challenges.

Drawing on oral histories and personal narratives, Crumpton provides an intimate look at the lived experiences of thirty-seven full-time community organizers. These activists and organizers share their strategies for maintaining an ethic of care that sustains them while fighting against both external oppression and internal community struggles. The book highlights how contemporary Black resisters have leveraged a growing understanding of trauma and healing to enhance their activism. This blend of historical knowledge and modern therapeutic practices has equipped them with a broader array of tools to support their communities.

Rooted in womanist practical theology, We Gon’ Be Alright emphasizes the interconnectedness of white supremacy with other forms of oppression such as sexism, homophobia, and classism. Crumpton’s work underscores the necessity of “deep, deep healing” to address these multifaceted threats to Black life. This book is an essential resource for scholars, activists, and anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of Black resistance and healing in contemporary America. Through its detailed examination of the past decade, it offers valuable insights into the ongoing struggle for Black humanity, dignity, and a thriving future.
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cover of Who Cares About Parents?: Temporary Alliances, Exclusionary Practices, and the Strategic Possibilities of Parenting Groups

Who Cares About Parents?

Temporary Alliances, Exclusionary Practices, and the Strategic Possibilities of Parenting Groups

Kim Price-Glynn

Rutgers University Press, 2026

Who cares for parental caregivers? The short answer is, parenting groups do. Who Cares for Parents examines how parenting groups collectively build and contribute significant resources to form a broader care infrastructure for adult family caregivers with children. This book looks at the content of care parenting groups provide for parents, through comparative research including mothers, fathers, and nonbinary parents. Cases include some of the most recognizable parenting groups in the United States, some with vast networks of parent members numbering in the thousands or even millions, like the Parent Teacher Association, La Leche League, and MOMS Club International. The book also examines newer and, perhaps, less well known groups like the City Dads Group, the Upper East Side (UES) Mommas, as well as smaller sets of local dads’ groups and a babysitting co-op.

Can parents in the contemporary United States secure some of the necessary resources to provide care, not only for their children but also for themselves, through parenting groups? The evidence from this research suggests they can. Parenting groups have a long history of organizing membership, meetings, education, material resources, and advocacy to provide for parents’ needs. Parenting groups’ ideologies and practices often seek broad goals, and sometimes include far reaching advocacy, innovative solutions, and possibilities for what Price-Glynn calls strategic parenting and social change. Alongside their successes, however, parenting groups also face challenges of producing narrow and temporary alliances, exclusion, and exacerbating inequalities. Despite their many challenges, Price-Glynn remains hopeful about the possibilities for non-familial and collective care infrastructure like that performed by parent groups.
 

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cover of Whom Can We Trust?: How Groups, Networks, and Institutions Make Trust Possible

Whom Can We Trust?

How Groups, Networks, and Institutions Make Trust Possible

Karen S. Cook

Russell Sage Foundation, 2009

Conventional wisdom holds that trust is essential for cooperation between individuals and institutions—such as community organizations, banks, and local governments. Not necessarily so, according to editors Karen Cook, Margaret Levi, and Russell Hardin. Cooperation thrives under a variety of circum-stances. Whom Can We Trust? examines the conditions that promote or constrain trust and advances our understanding of how cooperation really works. From interpersonal and intergroup relations to large-scale organizations, Whom Can We Trust? uses empirical research to show that the need for trust and trustworthiness as prerequisites to cooperation varies widely. Part I addresses the sources of group-based trust. One chapter focuses on the assumption—versus the reality—of trust among coethnics in Uganda. Another examines the effects of social-network position on trust and trustworthiness in urban Ghana and rural Kenya. And a third demonstrates how cooperation evolves in groups where reciprocity is the social norm. Part II asks whether there is a causal relationship between institutions and feelings of trust in individuals. What does—and doesn't—promote trust between doctors and patients in a managed-care setting? How do poverty and mistrust figure into the relations between inner city residents and their local leaders? Part III reveals how institutions and networks create environments for trust and cooperation. Chapters in this section look at trust as credit-worthiness and the history of borrowing and lending in the Anglo-American commercial world; the influence of the perceived legitimacy of local courts in the Philippines on the trust relations between citizens and the government; and the key role of skepticism, not necessarily trust, in a well-developed democratic society. Whom Can We Trust? unravels the intertwined functions of trust and cooperation in diverse cultural, economic, and social settings. The book provides a bold new way of thinking about how trust develops, the real limitations of trust, and when trust may not even be necessary for forging cooperation. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust
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cover of Women and Networks in Nineteenth-Century Japan

Women and Networks in Nineteenth-Century Japan

Edited by Bettina GRAMLICH-OKA, Anne WALTHALL, MIYAZAKI Fumiko, and SUGANO Noriko

University of Michigan Press, 2020

Although scholars have emphasized the importance of women’s networks for civil society in twentieth-century Japan, Women and Networks in Nineteenth-Century Japan is the first book to tackle the subject for the contentious and consequential nineteenth century. The essays traverse the divide when Japan started transforming itself from a decentralized to a centralized government, from legally imposed restrictions on movement to the breakdown of travel barriers, and from ad hoc schooling to compulsory elementary school education. As these essays suggest, such changes had a profound impact on women and their roles in networks. Rather than pursue a common methodology, the authors take diverse approaches to this topic that open up fruitful avenues for further exploration.

Most of the essays in this volume are by Japanese scholars; their inclusion here provides either an introduction to their work or the opportunity to explore their scholarship further. Because women are often invisible in historical documentation, the authors use a range of sources (such as diaries, letters, and legal documents) to reconstruct the familial, neighborhood, religious, political, work, and travel networks that women maintained, constructed, or found themselves in, sometimes against their will. In so doing, most but not all of the authors try to decenter historical narratives built on men’s activities and men’s occupational and status-based networks, and instead recover women’s activities in more localized groupings and personal associations.
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