Of yarmulkes and categories: Delegating boundaries and the phenomenology of interactional expectation

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this article delineates a process through which members of an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles unintentionally delegate boundary work and membership-identification to anonymous others in everyday life. Living in the midst of a non-Jewish world, orthodox men are often approached by others, both Jews and non-Jews, who categorize them as “religious Jews” based on external marks such as the yarmulke and attire. These interactions, varying from mundane interactions to anti-Semitic incidents, are then tacitly anticipated by members even when they are not attending to their “Jewishness”—when being a “Jew” is interactionally invisible. Through this case, I argue that, in addition to conceptualizing boundaries and identifications as either emerging in performance or institutionally given and stable, the study of boundaries should also chart the sites in which members anticipate categorization and the way these anticipations play out in everyday life

Vers une sociologie de la convocation : Ethnographier un quartier juif orthodoxe de Los Angeles

La communauté juive orthodoxe du quartier de Beverly-La Brea s’épanouit à quelques pâtés de maisons de la vie nocturne de West Hollywood (Los Angeles, Californie, États-Unis), à côté des images, des sons et des odeurs « impurs » qu’elle rencontre chaque jour. Mais le maintien de cette forme de vie ne repose pas seulement sur les décisions morales des acteurs sociaux : être orthodoxe, c’est se voir constamment convoqué à un type d’existence. Cette convocation transite par les sollicitations incessantes des organisations, des invitations à la prière collective, des hochements de tête d’étrangers, des bouffées de nourriture non casher flottant dans la rue ou, plus rarement, des remarques antisémites. Cette ethnographie restitue comment ces acteurs se retrouvent sans cesse convoqués dans leur vie sociale en tant que juifs orthodoxes, l’épaisseur de cet engagement communautaire pouvant aussi être vécue comme un fardeau. Cette plongée au sein d’une communauté particulière est l’occasion de développer une théorie de la convocation, offrant une meilleure compréhension de la dynamique des mondes sociaux, de l’identité, de l’interaction et du soi, non seulement à Beverly-La Brea, mais dans la société en général

Thank You, Reviewer 2: Revising as an Underappreciated Process of Data Analysis

Qualitative data-analysis is considered finished after the researcher writes up the analysis for publication. However, if we compare the text as initially submitted to a journal with what has been published, we often find great discrepancies because of the way reviewers push authors to revise their article during the review process. We show how reviewers may initiate a new round of data analysis by focusing their comments on three areas: the fit between observations and theoretical claims, the plausibility of the theoretical framing or explanation compared to other possible explanations, and the issue or relevance or the contribution to scholarships. The result is that reviewers as representatives of a community of inquiry help shape data analysis