Berkeley Journal of Sociology

If #BlackLivesMatter matters, it will partly be due to its disruptive tactics.

Hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy are categorized as natural disasters, yet the disparate impacts of these catastrophic events on vulnerable populations suggest that social disasters may be a more accurate descriptor. Rebecca Rasch investigates the interplay between natural disasters and social structures in Brazil.

Consensus decision-making’s little-known religious origins shed light on why this activist practice has persisted so long despite being unwieldy, off-putting, and ineffective. L.A. Kauffman traces its troubled history and calls for its demise.

Occupy Central is a milestone in relations between Hong Kong and mainland China. For the first time since the return to sovereignty in 1997, the guiding principle of “One Country, Two Systems” is in real jeopardy.

Eric Giannella recently argued in the BJS that Silicon Valley’s faith in progress has led to an ‘amorality problem’: We are being sold an overly simplistic world of rational progress. But a more fundamental issue is at stake: we don’t know what we are being sold at all.

In collaboration with Debt and Society, the Berkeley Journal of Sociology is seeking submissions about student debt. Submissions will be considered for the 2015 print edition of the BJS as well as an online series that will launch in September 2015. In addition to short essays (less than 3,500 words), we are also seeking photo essays, […]

The political revolution in Tunisia that erupted suddenly in December 2010 was followed by sweeping cultural changes, which have received little attention. Muneer Saidani examines the metamorphoses of the national cultural field—and the contests of power therein—in revolutionary Tunisia.

The Berkeley Journal of Sociology is seeking submissions for its 2015 print issue (Volume 59). Submissions are due by June 1, 2015. Please circulate this call.

While some borders are porous, others separate much more than mere territory. Annelise Hagar documents life and resistance behind and alongside the wall that divides Israel and the West Bank.

How do incarcerated young people experience the ultimate exclusion from society? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the juvenile prison system, Danish sociologist Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson and graphic artist Sara Busch tell a fictional story about life behind bars.

Increasingly, the success of BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movements in the United States is shifting the terms of the debate on Israel and Palestine. In 2014, UAW 2865 became the first major US labor union to pass a resolution urging divestment from companies involved in the Israeli occupation.

Silicon Valley’s amorality problem arises from the blind faith many place in progress. The narrative of progress provides moral cover to the tech industry and lulls people into thinking they no longer need to exercise moral judgment.