Dum’s scholarly apparatus is on full display, which will please specialists but should not deter general readers. His...
Dum (Sociology/Kent State Univ.) debuts with an ethnographic study of a year in the life of a residential motel.
In this revealing, rigorously academic work, the author tells the stories of “social refugees”—marginalized people including the mentally ill, disabled individuals, addicts, and registered sex offenders—living in the Boardwalk Motel, a squalid two-story building located in pseudonymous Dutchland, an affluent white suburban community. Some townspeople call Boardwalk “the pedophile motel.” For residents, arriving from prisons, shelters, and the back seats of cars, it is “a location of last resort for poor individuals in search of affordable housing.” With great courage and empathy, Dum rented a room, hung out in this “dumping ground for those deemed socially unacceptable,” and befriended many residents, observing their daily struggles to survive in a culture centered on substance abuse. He takes pains to describe the stigma and stereotype facing residents; local critics ultimately succeeded in “sanitizing,” or closing, the motel over code violations. “The stigma of the motel was so blinding that they were unable to see residents as human beings,” writes Dum. By giving voice to the residents, the author allows readers to understand their humanity and their surprisingly vibrant culture, with its many moments of sharing, caring, and community. Dum describes the motel’s underground economy, the sometimes strained relations between residents, and how some individuals created unique identities: one man, working on scrap metal in his room, considered himself an entrepreneur; a couple referred to their room as a studio apartment. The author places the painful experiences of these residents in the larger societal context: rising rates of incarceration, foreclosures, evictions, and homelessness have in recent years turned many nonchain motels into shelters for the marginalized.
Dum’s scholarly apparatus is on full display, which will please specialists but should not deter general readers. His exceptional view of what’s happening to the weakest among us deserves a place on the same shelf with Matthew Desmond’s groundbreaking book Evicted (2016).Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-231-17642-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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