Leaving Spain

Since the beginning of the economic crisis of 2008, Spain, like other Southern European countries, has witnessed a mass departure of mostly young people looking for opportunities abroad. Leaving Spain is based on 58 autobiographical narrative interviews with recent Spanish migrants who went to the UK and Germany, and sometimes returned. By presenting a combination of in-depth case studies and comparative analyses, the author demonstrates the potential of biographical research and narrative analysis in studying contemporary Europe, including its overlapping crises. The scope of the sociological study is not limited to examining how those who left Spain experienced single phases of their migration. Instead, it focuses on the significance of migration projects in the context of their life histories and how they make sense of these experiences in retrospect. This book will not only be of great interest to social scientists and students in different disciplines and interdisciplinary studies such as sociology, anthropology, human geography, European studies, education, and social work, but also to professionals, European and national policy makers, and those interested in learning more about migrants’ experiences, perspectives, and (often invisible) contributions.

An Improved Method of Automated Nonparametric Content Analysis for Social Science

Some scholars build models to classify documents into chosen categories. Others, especially social scientists who tend to focus on population characteristics, instead usually estimate the proportion of documents in each category—using either parametric “classify-and-count” methods or “direct” nonparametric estimation of proportions without individual classification. Unfortunately, classify-and-count methods can be highly model-dependent or generate more bias in the proportions even as the percent of documents correctly classified increases. Direct estimation avoids these problems, but can suffer when the meaning of language changes between training and test sets or is too similar across categories. We develop an improved direct estimation approach without these issues by including and optimizing continuous text features, along with a form of matching adapted from the causal inference literature. Our approach substantially improves performance in a diverse collection of 73 datasets. We also offer easy-to-use software that implements all ideas discussed herein.

Análisis de la dinámica, la estructura y el contenido de los mensajes de Twitter: violencia sexual en #Cuéntalo

Las redes sociales online se han ido convirtiendo en uno de los principales vehículos de comunicación y una de las mayores fuentes de información de actualidad. Esta creciente popularidad deja en evidencia la importancia de que los científicos sociales seamos capaces de analizar, interpretar y comprender en profundidad este nuevo tipo de herramientas. Este artículo tiene como objetivo mostrar los diversos métodos de análisis de la información pública obtenida a partir de una de estas redes, Twitter. Para ello tomamos como ejemplificación explicativa el caso #Cuéntalo, un episodio de narrativa compartida iniciado en esta red entre los días 26 y 28 de abril de 2018 tras la conocida sentencia de “La Manada”. A través de este caso se presentan aquí distintas metodologías para el estudio de los contenidos transmitidos, que van desde los análisis descriptivos más elementales hasta los análisis de contenido, pasando por la clasificación de actores relevantes y el descubrimiento de la estructura de las relaciones entre los protagonistas y sus mensajes. Los resultados muestran cómo esta polémica sentencia derivó en una conversación digital viral donde distintas usuarias (en especial periodistas, escritoras y activistas feministas) comenzaron a compartir sus relatos de situaciones de violencia sexual vividas por las participantes o sus conocidas usando esta etiqueta, siendo capaces de identificar a las principales protagonistas, las distintas relaciones que establecieron entre ellas y sus mensajes y los principales temas que se conformaron en torno a ellos. Online social networks have become one of the main communication vehicles and one of the greatest sources of current information. This growing popularity shows the importance of social scientists being able to analyze, interpret and understand in depth this new type of tools. This article aims to show the diverse methods of analysis of public information obtained from one of these networks, Twitter. To do this, we take as an explanatory example the case of #Cuéntalo, an episode of shared narrative that began on this network between April 26 and 28, 2018 after the well-known sentence of “La Manada”. Through this case, we present different methodologies for the study of broadcasted content, ranging from the most elementary descriptive tools to content analysis, passing through the classification of relevant actors and the discovery of the structure of the relationships amongst their protagonists and their messages. The results show how this controversial sentence led to a viral digital conversation where different users (especially journalists, writers, feminists and influencers) began to share their stories of situations of sexual violence experienced by the participants or their acquaintances using this label. Through this analysis, it was possible to identify the main protagonists, the different relationships that they established between them and their messages and the main themes that were formed around them.

Testing Causal Theories with Learned Proxies

Social scientists commonly use computational models to estimate proxies of unobserved concepts, then incorporate these proxies into subsequent tests of their theories. The consequences of this practice, which occurs in over two-thirds of recent computational work in political science, are underappreciated. Imperfect proxies can reflect noise and contamination from other concepts, producing biased point estimates and standard errors. We demonstrate how analysts can use causal diagrams to articulate theoretical concepts and their relationships to estimated proxies, then apply straightforward rules to assess which conclusions are rigorously supportable. We formalize and extend common heuristics for “signing the bias”—a technique for reasoning about unobserved confounding—to scenarios with imperfect proxies. Using these tools, we demonstrate how, in often-encountered research settings, proxy-based analyses allow for valid tests for the existence and direction of theorized effects. We conclude with best-practice recommendations for the rapidly growing literature using learned proxies to test causal theories. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 25 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

The use of bibliometrics in assessments of social scientists

The paper is focused on practical advice for the use of bibliometrics in research assessment in the social sciences. Guidelines are presented from three official sources of advice with a particular focus on individual-level assessments of applications for positions, promotions, and external funding. General problems with applying bibliometrics in evaluations of the social sciences are also discussed, as well as the specific problems with using the Journal Impact Factor and the H-Index. The conclusion is not that bibliometrics should be avoided in research assessment of social scientists. Used with care and competence, bibliometrics can be a valuable extra source of information, but not replace judgement in research evaluation.

Insights from social sciences can help build an eco-surplus culture for conservation policymaking

In line with conservation social scientists, I contend that understanding how people adapt and change their attitudes and behaviors towards biodiversity concepts is crucial for tackling biodiversity loss through building an eco-surplus culture in urban areas. My argument can be defended by various studies that have confirmed the positive relationships between interactions with nature and attitudes towards biodiversity and the biophilia hypothesis.

The Walkthrough Method

Nowadays the social scientists are called to integrate within their studies new tools that modify and innovate the scientist's typical toolbox. Digital platforms, media, and especially apps pose further challenges to social scientists today, as they are an important place of significant socio-cultural, economic, health, relationships, and entertainment transformations. When studying digital technologies, in fact, it's important to pay attention to both their socio-cultural representations and technological aspects – since even design and data outputs have social and cultural influences. In this context, new research questions arise; among all the possible tools in the digital method toolbox, the walkthrough method is a noteworthy way to answer them. Starting from these considerations, this chapter aims to analyze, through a review of the literature, the birth and development of the walkthrough method in its various meanings to identify the innovative aspects and fields of application.

The Foundational Lawlessness of the Law Itself: Racial Criminalization & the Punitive Roots of Punishment in America

Empirical researchers and criminal justice practitioners have generally set aside history in exchange for behavioral models and methodologies that focus primarily on crime itself as the most measurable and verifiable driver of American punitiveness. There are innumerable legal and political questions that have arisen out of these approaches. Everything from the social construction of illegality to the politicization of punishment to the stigmatization of physical identities and social statuses have long called into question the legal structures that underpin what counts as crime and how punishment is distributed. And yet, until quite recently, the question of what history has to offer has mostly been left to historians, historically minded social scientists, critical race and ethnic studies scholars, community and prison-based activists, investigative journalists, and rights advocates. What is at stake is precisely the foundational lawlessness of the law itself. At all times, a White outlaw culture that rewarded brute force and strength of arms against racialized others unsettles basic assumptions about how we are to understand criminalization and punitiveness over time: that is, who has counted as a criminal and to what end has the state used violence or punishment?

The International Childbirth Initiative: An Applied Anthropologist’s Account of Developing Global Guidelines

This chapter describes my personal experiences as an applied anthropologist serving as the lead editor in the development of a set of international guidelines focused on improving quality of maternity care: the International Childbirth Initiative (ICI): 12 Steps to Safe and Respectful MotherBaby-Family Maternity Care (2018). The ICI’s purpose is to encourage global awareness and local implementation of the MotherBaby-Family Model of Care. This is a model based on women’s rights and humane, respectful, family-centered care. The ICI’s creation story is continuous with global movements to improve the quality of maternity care and with a deep history of birth activism by practitioners, public health advocates, and social scientists aimed at decreasing unnecessary medical intervention in childbirth. This narrative is widely relevant for understanding how to develop and implement global guidelines that can flexibly adapt to local contexts. The ICI was developed by the merging of the 2015 FIGO Guidelines to Mother-Baby Friendly Birthing Facilities with the pre-existing International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI) in an intense and rewarding group process. The chapter discusses factors that contributed to the successful development of clear global guidelines for high-quality maternity care. These include attention to process, alignment with key values of the women’s health and midwifery movements, multilevel collaboration and networking around a clear vision, garnering input from many people with diverse voices and perspectives, and patience with and commitment to the tasks at hand.