Events

 

All ISSI events are free and open to the public. (There is a fee for some workshops as noted below).

For more information, please contact us at issi(at)berkeley(dot)edu or (510) 642-0813.

For wheelchair access to the Duster Conference Room (2420 Bowditch Street) or Wildavsky Conference Room (2538 Channing Way), please call (510) 642-0813 one day before the scheduled event.

Many of our events are video-recorded. You can see a list of available videos on our website. If you subscribe to our YouTube channel, you will be notified when new videos are available.

---

FALL 2018

---

September

---

Wednesday, September 12 I 4:00-5:30pm

ISSI Fall Colloquia Series:

The Effect of Age at Migration on Poverty among Immigrants: Differences by Country of Origin

Alisa C. Lewin, University of Haifa, Israel Institute Visiting Faculty, Stanford University Visiting Associate Professor

Determinants of Poverty among Post-1990 Immigrants in Israel: Does Age at Migration Matter? 

This study examines the effect of age at migration on poverty among immigrants to Israel. Migrants arriving as children are less likely to experience poverty as adults because they acquired their education in the host country. Working-aged immigrants typically interrupt their employment, and are likely to encounter some economic hardship. Immigrants arriving at older ages may encounter severe difficulties in finding employment and they have fewer years to accrue pension benefits, thus they are the most vulnerable. Those arriving after age fifty have higher odds of being in poverty than those migrating at younger ages.

Wildavsky Conference Room, 2538 Channing Way

---

Tuesday, September 25 I 12:00-1:30pm

The Invisible Reality of ‘Chinthat Roge’ (A Life of Chronic Worry): The Illness of Poverty in Dhaka's Urban Slum Settlements 

Sabina Rashid, Professor and Dean, BRAC University School of Public Health

The biomedical ‘disease’ model that dominates much of public health theory and practice is missing the important connection people make between their bodies and their everyday life worlds. In many parts of the world, health is experienced and embodied in the emotional, mental, spiritual, physical and social, and political-economic worlds people inhabit. Chinthar roge (“worry illness”) as expressed by the impoverished living in Dhaka slum settlements, humanises the medical domain by paying attention to people, not just disease specific worlds to which human beings peripherally belong. For residents, life is one of exhausting and relentless uncertainty, dealing with endemic poverty, erratic jobs, insecurity and crime, precarious living conditions, unstable relationships and networks. Basic services, such as water, education and electricity services remain limited or inaccessible, or they pay high costs for access. Housing is insecure and evictions are routine in the lives of informal settlers. Their very existence is one of continual stress and fragility. Chinthar roge clearly highlights the limits of medicine as most residents’ lives are situated between hope, fear, anxiety and chronic deprivations. Chinthar roge is not an illness borne per say, but to them akin to a ‘way of life’ illness, it is their core being which embodies this everyday pain, worry and suffering and the body then becomes a form of truth telling, and the medicalisation of this illness speaks of the unspeakable of their existence. We need to recognise that health is as much mental, emotional, spiritual as it is physical, and directly impacted by the social, economic and political conditions that people inhabit. Unless we own up to the fundamental reality of the illness of poverty, we will continue to produce short-term band-aid solutions, with little improvement in the lives of the most disadvantaged. 

Stephens Hall, 10 (ISAS Conf. Room)

Sponsored by The Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, Institute for South Asia Studies

Co-sponsored by Berkeley Center for Social Medicine

Center for Research on Social Change Colloquia Series:

Moving Beyond Recruitment: Supporting and Retaining Black Male Teachers

Travis J. Bristol, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education, UC Berkeley

While policy makers and practitioners call for increasing the number of Black male teachers, researchers find that this subgroup has the highest rate of turnover. Despite ongoing local and state teacher diversity recruitment efforts, there is a paucity of research that examines Black male teachers’ school-based experiences and decisions to stay or leave their schools. To fill this gap in the literature, this talk will examine Black male teachers’ experiences in organizations.

Wildavsky Conference Room, 2538 Channing Way

Co-sponsored by the Center for Race and Gender.

---

October

---

Thursday, October 4 I 4:00-5:30pm

Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies Colloquia Series:

Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America

Kathleen Belew, Assistant Professor of History and the College, University of Chicago

The white power movement in America wants a revolution. It has declared all-out war against the federal government and its agents, and has carried out—with military precision—an escalating campaign of terror against the American public. Its soldiers are not lone wolves but are highly organized cadres motivated by a coherent and deeply troubling worldview of white supremacy, anticommunism, and apocalypse. In this talk, based on her new book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, Kathleen Belew presents a history of the movement that consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s around a potent sense of betrayal in the Vietnam War and made tragic headlines in the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City.

Belew’s disturbing history reveals how, returning to an America ripped apart by a war which, in their view, they were not allowed to win, a small but driven group of veterans, active-duty personnel, and civilian supporters concluded that waging war on their own country was justified. They unified people from a variety of militant groups, including Klansmen, neo-Nazis, skinheads, radical tax protestors, and white separatists. Belew shows how the white power movement operated with discipline and clarity, undertaking assassinations, mercenary soldiering, armed robbery, counterfeiting, and weapons trafficking. Her analysis argues for awareness of the heightened potential for paramilitarism in a present defined by ongoing war.

Wildavsky Conference Room, 2538 Channing Way

Co-sponsored by the History Department and the Sociology Department.

---

Tuesday, October 9 I 4:00-5:30pm

Center for Ethnographic Research Colloquia Series:

The Biopolitics of Beauty: Cosmetic Citizenship and Affective Capital in Brazil

Alvaro Jarrín, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, College of the Holy Cross

Beauty is considered a basic health right in Brazil, and plastic surgery is offered to working-class patients in public hospitals in exchange for becoming experimental subjects. This talk will trace the biopolitical concern with beauty to Brazilian eugenics, and will explore the raciology of beauty that allowed plastic surgeons to gain the backing of the State. For patients, on the other hand, beauty has become affectively linked to citizenship and national belonging, and becomes a form of capital that maps onto and intensifies the race, class and gender hierarchies of Brazilian society. It is by examining the interplay between biopolitics and affect, therefore, that one can understand how beauty becomes a visceral reaction to oneself and others.

Wildavsky Conference Room, 2538 Channing Way

Co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies.

ISSI Fall Colloquia Series:

DUE TO THE AFSCME STRIKE THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED.

IT WILL BE RESCHEDULED FOR EARLY IN THE SPRING SEMESTER

The Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption

Nikki Jones, Associate Professor of African American Studies, UC Berkeley

with respondent:

Clarence Ford, MPP, Policy Research Associate

117 Dwinelle Hall, Academic Innovation Studio

Co-sponsored by: Center for the Study of Law and Society, American Cultures Center, and the Berkeley Underground Scholars

---

Thursday, October 25 I 12:00-1:30pm

Crossing Paths: Graduate and Undergraduate Exchanges of Indigenous Research

Speakers: Yesenia Treviño and Ronald Spencer

554 Barrows Hall

Co-sponsored by: American Indian Graduate Program, Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American Issues, Native American Student Development, Native American Studies

---

Friday, October 26 I 12:00-1:30pm

Family Separations: Beyond Violence Histories to Build Belonging

Heide Castañeda, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida; Ericka Huggins, Human Rights Activist, Poet, Educator, Former Black Panther Party Leader and Political Prisoner; Angie Junck, Supervising Attorney, Immigration Legal Resource Center

Moderator: Seth Holmes, Co-Chair, Berkeley Center for Social Medicine

Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall

Sponsored by Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society

Co-sponsored by Berkeley Center for Social Medicine

A resource guide related to this event is available for download here.

---

November

---

Thursday, November 1 I 4:00-5:30pm

Center for Ethnographic Research Colloquia Series:

Dangerous Research: Reflections on fieldwork in an insecure context, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Ann A. Laudati, Ciriacy-Wanthrup Research Fellow, Department of Geography, UC Berkeley

Just as new forms of war and non-state armed actors have blurred the lines of the battlefield, researchers - whether they like it or not - have become part of the social, political, and economic equations that shape life in conflict zones. In many cases, they have little control over those equations. However, descriptions of scholarly findings often leave out these details, intentionally or unintentionally portraying the researcher as independent and in control. Drawing on over 16 months of qualitative fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this talk aims to re-center discussions of “doing dangerous fieldwork”. It considers not only methodology as a practical consideration, but also the fact that who we are, how we are seen, with whom we interact and how we respond matter and, ultimately, play a considerable role in shaping the field, both for the researcher and the researched, in which we work in and after we’ve left.

Wildavsky Conference Room, 2538 Channing Way

---

Friday, November 2 I 12:00-1:30pm

Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research presents:

2018 Midterm Election: Blue Wave or Red Wall? A Pre-Election Panel Discussion

Featured Speakers: Mark DiCamillo, Director, Berkeley IGS Poll; Samantha Luks, Managing Director, Scientific Research, San, Francisco, YouGov; Eric McGhee, Research Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California; Laura Stoker, Associate Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

Moderator: Jack Citrin, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

Social Science Matrix, 820 Barrows Hall

Co-sponsors: Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, Public Law and Policy Center, Social Science Matrix

---

Thursday, November 8 I 4:00-5:30pm

ISSI Fall Colloquia Series:

Public Opinion on Policy Solutions—the Role of Equivalence Frames, Policy Scope, and Party Cues 

Laura Stoker, Associate Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

Our research brings together insights from three disparate literatures—on equivalence framing, scope sensitivity, and party cue-taking—to study public opinion on policies designed to ameliorate problems facing the nation, including the opioid crisis, gun violence, identity theft, failing infrastructure, domestic violence, pollution, teenage bullying, and access to health care.  With respect to equivalency framing, we ask whether problems are judged more serious if facts concerning their prevalence are described in terms of the incidence of bad outcomes (e.g., percent dropping out of high school) or of good outcomes (e.g., percent graduating), and if policies receive more support if their objective is to reduce the incidence of bads or to increase the incidence of goods.  With respect to scope sensitivity, the question is whether public opinion is sensitive to the scope or ambition of a policy solution, with approval increasing with the policy’s expected achievements, all else held constant. Finally, we extend the party cue-taking literature into the realm of valence politics, examining the extent to which partisans extend or withhold support for a proposed policy solution depending on the initiative’s party sponsor.  Answers to these novel questions have important micro- and macro-political implications.

Wildavsky Conference Room, 2538 Channing Way

---

Thursday, November 15 I 4:00-5:30pm

Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American Issues Colloquia Series:

On Indian Ground: California. A Return to Indigenous Knowledge: Generating Hope, Leadership, and Sovereignty Through Education

Joely Proudfit, Chair and Professor of American Indian Studies; Director of California Indian Culture & Sovereignty Center, CSU San Marcos

and

Nicole Lim, Executive Director, California Indian Museum and Cultural Center

Joely Proudfit and Nicole Myers-Lim, authors and editors of On Indian Ground: California will discuss issues related to Native American education reform. They will address the impacts of genocide, colonization, racism and historical bias upon curriculum and student achievement. Additionally, they will present holistic indigenous perspectives that can be integrated into systems of education to foster equity, success and social justice.

117 Dwinelle Hall, Academic Innovation Studio

Co-sponsored by: American Indian Graduate Program, Native American Student Development, American Indian Graduate Student Association, Native American Studies, Indigenous Language Revitalization DE, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education.

---

Thursday, November 15 I 3:00-4:30pm

Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research presents:

Winners and Losers in the 2018 Midterm Elections: Why it Happened and What it Means  

Featured Speakers: Robert Van Houweling, Associate Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley; Thomas Mann, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, Resident Scholar, IGS, UC Berkeley; Bill Whalen, Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Fellow in Journalism at Hoover Institution

Moderator: Jack Citrin, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

Please join us for a panel reviewing the outcomes of the 2018 midterm elections, with an account of the factors producing this result. The discussion will provide competing perspectives on the implications of the elections for governance in the upcoming years—and for the shape of the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. The participants are leading scholars on Congress, public opinion, and voting behavior.

Social Science Matrix, 820 Barrows Hall

Co-sponsors:  Jack Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research, Public Law and Policy @ Berkeley Law, Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, and Social Science Matrix.

---

Wednesday, November 28 | 6:00 – 7:30 PM

Department of City and Regional Planning and Institute for the Study of Societal Issues present:

Researching Segregation/Reporting Segregation: Panel Discussion and Book Launch

Alex Schafran, University of Leeds, author of The Road to Resegregation: Northern California and the Failure of Politics

Devin Katayama and Sandhya Dirks, KQED, creators of the American Suburb podcast

Rachel Brahinsky, Director of Urban and Public Affairs Program, University of San Francisco

Sasha Khokha (Moderator), KQED, host of the California Report

Karen Frick (Chair), Department of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley

112 Wurster Hall

Followed by a reception in the Wurster Gallery to celebrate the launching of the book The Road to Resegregation: Northern California and the Failure of Politics

---

December

---

Tuesday, December 4 I 5:30-7:00pm

Berkeley Center for Social Medicine Colloquia Series:

Health Care Under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health

Howard Waitzkin, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of New Mexico

These days, our health and well-being are sorted through a profit-seeking financial complex that monitors and commodifies our lives. Our access to competent, affordable health care grows more precarious every day. We need a deeper understanding of the changing structural conditions that link capitalism, health care, and health. From a recognition that such linkages deserve closer study and that this analytic work will assist in real-world struggles for change, Howard Waitzkin, in collaboration with the medical professionals, scholars, and activists who comprise the Working Group on Health Beyond Capitalism, wrote Health Care Under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health. Waitzkin will discuss just what's wrong with our medical system, how it got this way, and how this book contributes to a winning strategy in moving toward a post-capitalist health-care system.

Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall

Co-sponsored by National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association