Kill Floor

This detailed study of the relationship between race relations and unionization in Chicago's meatpacking industry draws on traditional primary and secondary materials and on an extensive set of interviews conducted in the mid-1980s that explore subjective dimensions of the workers' experience. "An ideal case study to analyze one of the central problems in American labor history--the relation ship between racial identity and working class formation and organization." -- James R. Barrett, author of Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894-1922 "Meticulously researched, grounded firmly in extensive oral history and archival sources, and carefully argued, Down on the Killing Floor will be indispensable reading for everyone interested in race and labor." -- Eric Arnesen, author of Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class and Politics, 1863-1923 A volume in the series The Working Class in American History, edited by David Brody, Alice Kessler-Harris, David Montgomery, and Sean Wilentz

The author relates his experiences working five months undercover at a slaughterhouse, and explores why society encourages this violent labor yet keeps the details of the work hidden.

See in my opinion there are two types of people in the world. There are people who actually do something with their lives? Who have some kind of values or something? And then there are people like you. A small town. Today. Following a long incarceration, Andy returns to her hometown to restart her life. After securing a job at the local slaughterhouse, the challenges of reentry unfold as she reconnects with her teenage son, B, a staunch vegetarian with a life he's unwilling to share with his mother. Writer Abe Koogler has written a funny, surprising and moving search for connection in modern America. Kill Floor received its world premiere at New York's LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater in October 2015 and played at American Theatre Company, Chicago, from March 2016.

Scholars of politics have sought in recent years to make the discipline more hospitable to qualitative methods of research. Lauding the results of this effort and highlighting its potential for the future, Political Ethnography makes a compelling case for one such method in particular. Ethnography, the contributors amply demonstrate in a wide range of original essays, is uniquely suited for illuminating the study of politics. Situating these pieces within the context of developments in political science, Edward Schatz provides an overarching introduction and substantive prefaces to each of the volume’s four sections. The first of these parts addresses the central ontological and epistemological issues raised by ethnographic work, while the second grapples with the reality that all research is conducted from a first-person perspective. The third section goes on to explore how ethnographic research can provide fresh perspectives on such perennial topics as opinion, causality, and power. Concluding that political ethnography can and should play a central role in the field as a whole, the final chapters illuminate the many ways in which ethnographic approaches can enhance, improve, and, in some areas, transform the study of politics.

Questioning Gender: A Sociological Exploration serves as a point-of-departure for productive conversations and questions about gender and as a resource for exploring answers to many of those questions. Rather than providing definitive answers, this book takes a global approach and aims to challenge students’ preconceptions about gender and to demonstrate how gender as a system creates and reinforces inequality. Author Robyn Ryle uses both historical and cross-cultural approaches to help students understand the socially constructed nature of gender. With a focus on contemporary topics, including the #MeToo movement, sexual harassment in the workplace, and the gender wage gap, students will be prompted to think critically about past, present, and future gender-related issues. Included with this title: The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as SAGE Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides.