Diversity Reading List

Abstract: In this essay, I defend an account of trans oppression and resistance that departs from the prevailing transgender model. While I show why both the “trapped in the wrong body” model and the transgender model are problematic, I also illuminate how the former can be seen as a resistant narrative. The new account has two key ideas. First, I draw from María Lugones’s work to defend a model of multiple meanings, arguing that the traditional accounts assume dominant meanings while foreclosing resistant ones. Second, I draw from the recent literature on the transphobic representation of trans people as deceivers to argue that reality enforcement is an important consequence of dominant ways of doing gender. The traditional wrong-body narrative can be seen as resisting reality enforcement.

Publisher's Note: In The Grammar of Society, first published in 2006, Cristina Bicchieri examines social norms, such as fairness, cooperation, and reciprocity, in an effort to understand their nature and dynamics, the expectations that they generate, and how they evolve and change. Drawing on several intellectual traditions and methods, including those of social psychology, experimental economics and evolutionary game theory, Bicchieri provides an integrated account of how social norms emerge, why and when we follow them, and the situations where we are most likely to focus on relevant norms. Examining the existence and survival of inefficient norms, she demonstrates how norms evolve in ways that depend upon the psychological dispositions of the individual and how such dispositions may impair social efficiency. By contrast, she also shows how certain psychological propensities may naturally lead individuals to evolve fairness norms that closely resemble those we follow in most modern societies.

Publisher's Note: Norms in the Wild takes a unique look at social norms, answering questions about diagnosis (how can we tell that a shared practice is a social norm?), measurement (how do we measure expectations and preferences?), and change (which tools can we adopt to effect norm change?). The theories developed in the book are brought to life by examining real-life cases of norm creation and abandonment, the rationale behind policy interventions, and how change can be spearheaded by various types of trendsetters, be they individuals, groups, or the media. By exploring how a range of problems, from poor sanitation to child marriage, can be addressed, the book shows how social norms can have a causal impact on collective behavior, and which interventions may succeed in creating new norms or abandoning harmful ones. In laying the theoretical groundwork for implementing social changes in a contextually sensitive and empirically based way, it also diagnoses why some less culturally attuned attempts to eliminate negative practices have failed.

Abstract: Individuals who would blow the whistle by making public disclosure of impropriety in their own organizations face choices of public v private good. These dilemmas, along with institutional and professional standards that might ease the way of whistleblowers, are explored.

Abstract: A thoughtful addition to the growing debate over public and private morality. Looks at lying and deception in law, family, medicine, government.

Introduction: Doctors, lawyers, and priests have traditionally recog nized the duty of professional secrecy regarding what individuals confide to them: personal matters such as alcoholism or depression, marital difficulties, corporate or political problems, and indeed most concerns that patients or clients want to share with someone, yet keep from all others.' Accountants, bankers, social workers, and growing numbers of professionals now invoke a similar duty to guard confidences. As codes of ethics take form in old and new professions, the duty of confidentiality serves in part to reinforce their claim to professional status, and in part to strengthen their capacity to offer help to clients.

Abstract:
African feminisms emerge out of a heterogeneous context. Because Africa's globalization has been ongoing for centuries now, African women pay a steep price for it, all while the patriarchal order remains firmly in place. The many African feminisms, however, cannot be boiled down to "gender" or a "gendered approach", since that word does not mean much if it is not being applied to a set of facts. Indeed, it seems that "gender" serves to unravel the causes of the inequalities, injustices and harms that women must face. While there is, among African women, a desire to throw off the colonial yoke by thinking of ourselves through the paradigms of a pre-colonial past, it is also worrisome that theoretical reflection is often too far away from the situations in which most African women find themselves. A language barrier separates African feminists from one another.

Abstract:
This paper explores the mutations of the domestic bonds in contemporary Africa. Tanella Boni argues that the economic and social globalization led to a transformation of familial relations. These changes have forced a redefinition of the nature of positions and relationships within families. The desire to cope with these changes has led to the implementation of adaptive strategies, producing familial entities characterized by more complex relationships but still retaining their hierarchical structures and inequalities.

Abstract:
This is how one Native American presents her interpretation of the indigenous understanding of nature. As we will see in this article, many Native Americans present similar understandings. Their reciprocal relationships with nature permeated every aspect of life from spirituality to making a living and led to a different way of seeing the world, what they might call a more “environmental” way of seeing the world. But is this a true picture? Increasingly there has been debate over the nature of the Native American’s relationship to the land, both past and present. This article will examine this debate and the way in which Native Americans view nature.

Abstract: Suppose that you are soon to be a parent and you learn that there are some simple measures that you can take to make sure that your child will be healthy. In particular, suppose that by following the doctor’s advice, you can prevent your child from having a disability, you can make your child immune from a number of dangerous diseases and you can even enhance its future intelligence. All that is required for this to happen is that you (or your partner) comply with lifestyle and dietary requirements. Do you and your partner have any moral reasons (or moral obligations) to follow the doctor’s advice? Would it make a difference if, instead of following some simple dietary requirements, you consented to genetic engineering to make sure that your child was free from disabilities, healthy and with above average intelligence? In this paper we develop a framework for dealing with these questions and we suggest some directions the answers might take.