Toward a Sociology of the Trace

Herman Gray is professor of sociology and communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz.Macarena Gómez-Barris is assistant professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

Using culture as an entry point, and informed by the work of contemporary social theorists, the essays in this volume identify and challenge sites where the representational dimension of social life produces national identity through scripts of belonging, or traces.The contributors utilize empirically based studies of social policy, political economy, and social institutions to offer a new way of looking at the creation of meaning, representation, and memory. They scrutinize subjects such as narratives in the U.S. coal industry's change from digging mines to removing mountaintops; war-related redress policies in post-World War II Japan; views of masculinity linked to tequila, Pancho Villa, and the Mexican Revolution; and the politics of subjectivity in 1970s political violence in Thailand.Contributors: Sarah Banet-Weiser, U of Southern California; Barbara A. Barnes, U of California, Berkeley; Marie Sarita Gaytán; Avery F. Gordon, U of California, Santa Barbara; Tanya McNeill, U of California, Santa Cruz; Sudarat Musikawong, Willamette U; Akiko Naono, U of Kyushu; Rebecca R. Scott, U of Missouri.

ContentsPrologue: Traces in the Social WorldMacarena Gómez-Barris and Herman Gray1. Toward a Sociology of the TraceMacarena Gómez-Barris and Herman GrayPart I. Cartographies of Belonging2. The Prisoner's CurseAvery F. Gordon3. A Nation of Families: The Codification and (Be)longings of HeteropatriarchyTanya McNeill4. Culture, Masculinity, and the Time after RaceHerman Gray5. Producing Sacrificial Subjects for the Nation: Japan's War-related Redress Policy and the Endurance DoctrineAkiko NaonoPart II. Spectacles of Consumption6. Coal Heritage/Coal History: Progress, Tourism, and Mountaintop RemovalRebecca R. Scott7. Ecoadventures in the American West: Innocence, Conflict, and Nation Making in Emptied LandscapesBarbara A. BarnesPart III. Managing and Reconciling Memory8. Drinking the Nation and Making Masculinity: Tequila, the Revolution, and Mexican IdentityMarie Sarita Gaytán9. Reinscribing Memory through the Other 9/11Macarena Gómez-Barris10. Between Celebration and Mourning: Political Violence in Thailand in the 1970sSudarat MusikawongAfterword: Traces in Social WorldsSarah Banet-WeiserContributorsIndex