Workable Sisterhood

Workable Sisterhood is an empirical look at sixteen HIV-positive women who have a history of drug use, conflict with the law, or a history of working in the sex trade. What makes their experience with the HIV/AIDS virus and their political participation different from their counterparts of people with HIV? Michele Tracy Berger argues that it is the influence of a phenomenon she labels "intersectional stigma," a complex process by which women of color, already experiencing race, class, and gender oppression, are also labeled, judged, and given inferior treatment because of their status as drug users, sex workers, and HIV-positive women. The work explores the barriers of stigma in relation to political participation, and demonstrates how stigma can be effectively challenged and redirected. The majority of the women in Berger's book are women of color, in particular African Americans and Latinas. The study elaborates the process by which these women have become conscious of their social position as HIV-positive and politically active as activists, advocates, or helpers. She builds a picture of community-based political participation that challenges popular, medical, and scholarly representations of "crack addicted prostitutes" and HIV-positive women as social problems or victims, rather than as agents of social change. Berger argues that the women's development of a political identity is directly related to a process called "life reconstruction." This process includes substance- abuse treatment, the recognition of gender as a salient factor in their lives, and the use of nontraditional political resources.

Most people may think of ranchers and cowboys as men. But although they are under-chronicled, ranch women work from dark to dark, keeping step with hired hands, brothers, fathers and husbands. They blaze trails through unforgiving scrub. They cook supper and feed bulls. At any given time, they wear the hats--and the gloves--of geologist, veterinarian, lawyer and mechanic. They are fierce and feminine and powerful. Photojournalist and writer Alyssa Banta spent over a year following more than a dozen Texas women through their grueling daily routines, from the messy confines of the working chute to the sprawling reaches of the back pasture. The result of this unprecedented access is an intimate portrait of the challenges and achievements of the ranch women of the Lone Star State, along with the land and livestock that sustain them.

Descriptive studies of women in office have well documented the ways in which the gender and race of legislators affects policy preferences. However, descriptive studies of female legislators tend to treat identity as constant over time and context and so fail to account for the substantive work of legislators. As Sisters in the Statehouse shows, it is not enough to disaggregate "women" from "Blacks." While scholars have long advanced the notion that African American women as a group exhibit specificities informed by the intersection of race and gender that provide them with a unique worldview, it is necessary to further explore differences among Black women. This book addresses this gap by utilizing humanistic inquiry to examine the connection between descriptive and substantive representation in the case of Black women legislators. This link hinges on how such legislators see the effects of their own race-gender identity on their legislative work. By combining humanistic and social science techniques, including feminist life histories, elite interviews, and participant observation in conjunction with legislative case studies and bill sponsorship data, Nadia E. Brown presents a fuller description of how identity informs Black women state legislators' descriptive and substantive representation. Linking personal narratives to political behavior, Brown elicits the feminist life histories of African American women legislators to understand how their experiences with racism and sexism have influenced their legislative decision-making and policy preferences. Sisters in the Statehouse is a groundbreaking inquiry into how an intersectional approach can enhance our understanding of political representation.

Feminist Measures in Survey Research book offers a new approach for doing quantitative feminist research, demonstrating how a feminist perspective can inform virtually every aspect of the research process, from survey design, to statistical modeling, to the theoretical frameworks used to interpret results. Catherine E. Harnois makes feminist theory, particularly multiracial feminist theory, accessible and relevant to survey researchers. She assists students and researchers in incorporating these theories into survey design and analysis and shows how they this can offer substantive insights into the social world that have been underutilized to date by survey researchers.

Illuminates the contradictions that emerge within conscious capitalism initiatives that are designed to empower women. Winner of the 2018 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize presented by the National Women’s Studies Association Winner of the 2018 Global Development Studies Book Award presented by the Global Development Studies Section of the International Studies Association Everyday Sustainability takes readers to ground zero of market-based sustainability initiatives—Darjeeling, India—where Fair Trade ostensibly promises gender justice to minority Nepali women engaged in organic tea production. These women tea farmers and plantation workers have distinct entrepreneurial strategies and everyday practices of social justice that at times dovetail with and at other times rub against the tenets of the emerging global morality market. The author questions why women beneficiaries of transnational justice-making projects remain skeptical about the potential for economic and social empowerment through Fair Trade while simultaneously seeking to use the movement to give voice to their situated demands for mobility, economic advancement, and community level social justice. Debarati Sen is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University.

Broadening the Contours in the Study of Black Politics, volume 17 of the National Political Science Review (NPSR), is divided thematically into two books, available separately or as a set. The first concentrates on the institutional aspects of Black politics. The second book addresses various dimensions of social capital that constitute the fundamental building blocks of Black politics. Each contains peer-reviewed articles, a symposium section, and book reviews, as well as other featured sections. Together, these books build on the previous NPSR volume, Black Women in Politics. The symposium in Volume 17:1 examines the struggle of Black women, both in the political science discipline and in getting their work published. In the symposium section of Volume 17:2, members of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists carry on a revealing conversation about the dilemmas of professional life for Black women in political science. The set also contains a section called “Trends," which offers data to use as starting points for discussions in teaching, on professional panels, or in the mass media, regarding the new versions of the Voting Rights Act after the Shelby County v. Holder decision of 2013. Both volumes 17:1 and 17:2 contain rigorously vetted articles on significant themes in the study of Black politics. This set represents the most recent offering in the distinguished National Political Science Review series.

Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City explores the survival strategies of poor, HIV-positive Puerto Rican women by asking four key questions: Given their limited resources, how did they manage an illness as serious as HIV/AIDS? Did they look for alternatives to conventional medical treatment? Did the challenges they faced deprive them of self-determination, or could they help themselves and each other? What can we learn from these resourceful women? Based on her work with minority women living in Newark, New Jersey, Sabrina Marie Chase illuminates the hidden traps and land mines burdening our current health care system as a whole. For the women she studied, alliances with doctors, nurses, and social workers could literally mean the difference between life and death. By applying the theories of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to the day-to-day experiences of HIV-positive Latinas, Chase explains why some struggled and even died while others flourished and thrived under difficult conditions. These gripping, true-life stories advocate for those living with chronic illness who depend on the health care "safety net." Through her exploration of life and death among Newark's resourceful women, Chase provides the groundwork for inciting positive change in the U.S. health care system.