K Sobering
Biographic Data
| ID | 21996 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Sobering |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Sobering |
| SIGNATURE | SOBERING K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Texas |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7505-9483 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 55 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Why Ethnography
What kind of knowledge does ethnography afford? Why do we need such knowledge? This paper draws upon the authors’ individual work to reflect on the ongoing necessity of good enough ethnographic fieldwork in sociology. Alongside presenting moving stories, unearthing rules of behavior, interpreting meanings through thick description, obtaining fine-grained insight into the working of organizations, revealing the complex interplay of informal and fo…
The Relative Contributions of Changes in Vertical and Horizontal Mechanisms to Overall Changes in Occupational Gender Segregation in the United States, 2006–2019
Objective In this article, we examine how the expansion of feminized industries impacted horizontal and vertical patterns of occupational gender segregation. Methods We apply Thiel's H to data drawn from the American Community Survey (2006–2019) and run regression and counterfactual analyses. Results Horizontal shifts accounted for 74% of the decline in occupational gender segregation during the study period, while changes to vertical patterns ac…
Collusion and Violence in Underground Drug Markets
Poor urban neighborhoods throughout the Americas are marked by high rates of interpersonal violence, much of which is associated with the underground drug trade. Scholars have examined the social dynamics that produce and shape violence among neighborhood residents and the state agents who police them. But less is known about the clandestine collaborations between residents and agents of the state and how those collaborations might contribute to …
Gendered Employment Precarity and Refugee Resettlement in the United States
This article examines experiences of workplace precarity and employment vulnerability among resettled refugees in the United States. This study, which draws on eight months of participant observation at a refugee resettlement agency and in-depth interviews with refugees, provides important insights into the ways that refugees navigate (un)employment after initial resettlement and the precarities they encounter while on the job
The Clandestine Hands of the State
Police collusion with drug market organizations is widespread around the world, but the nature of this collaboration remains poorly understood. This article draws on a unique data source to dissect the inner workings of police collusion: transcripts of wiretapped conversations, embedded in thousands of pages of court cases in which state agents have been prosecuted for collaborating with drug market groups. We catalogue and analyze the wide range…
Introduction
The costs of occupational gender segregation in high-tech growth and productivity across US local labor markets
Theories of endogenous economic growth propose that the exchange of information between workers with different knowledge facilitates innovation. In this study, we explore whether occupational gender segregation poses a barrier to endogenous growth by limiting the extent to which women and men workers exchange information, ideas and perspectives. Focusing on technology industries as a sector where information exchange plays a large role, we use er…
The Persistent Influence of December 2001
The protests of December 2001 in Argentina were the most visible manifestation of a larger cycle of contention, which continues to have a substantial influence on the forms, tactics and goals of social movements throughout the country. This paper provides a critical overview of these lasting effects. In particular, we focus on three areas where the consequences of the crisis for collective action have been particularly strong: performative politi…
Alternative Organizational Survival
It is widely accepted that economic indicators like efficiency, productivity, and profitability are key to explaining why some businesses survive and others do not. Yet not all work organizations ascribe to capitalist assumptions about ownership, authority, and even what constitutes success itself. Worker-recuperated businesses (WRBs) in Argentina-organizations closed by their private owners, occupied by their workers, and restarted as worker coo…
Collusion and Cynicism at the Urban Margins
This article examines the clandestine connections between participants in the illicit drug trade and members of state security forces to understand how they impact everyday understandings of the law. Drawing on a unique combination of long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a poor, high-crime district in Argentina and wiretapped conversations drawn from a court case involving a drug trafficking group active in the same area, we find that traffickers …
Working for Justice in Argentina
Worker-recuperated businesses, like the Hotel Bauen highlighted in this essay, are organizations that were closed by their private owners, occupied by their workers, and restarted as cooperatives. As the author learned over the course of her fieldwork, many were established not only to save jobs, but also to create better jobs. Studies of workplaces in the Global North often detail how workplace policies can lessen the degree or severity of unequ…
Workers’ Self-Management in Argentina
Survival finance and the politics of equal pay
Wage gaps constitute a major component of workplace inequality. While scholars have explored the causes and consequences of differences in pay, very few question the basic presumption that workers are paid differently in the first place. Drawing on ethnographic research in a worker cooperative with a policy of equal pay, this article analyses how the organization compensated its members in the context of low wages, economic uncertainty, and insuf…
Dust and Dignity
The Ambivalent State
Over the past few decades, debates about policing in poor urban areas have shifted from analyzing the state’s neglect and abandonment to documenting its harsh interventions and punishing presence. Most of this research has focused on the overt actions and inactions of the state. Yet we know very little about the covert world of state action that is hidden from public view. The Ambivalent State offers an unprecedented look into the clandestine rel…
The Relational Production of Workplace Equality
Watercooler Democracy
This article examines how rumors impact democracy and transparency in a cooperative workplace. Although literature on rumors generally analyzes them as negative to workplace culture, the author argues that rumors constitute a critical aspect of democratic participation. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a worker-recuperated business in Argentina, the author shows how members use rumors to incite deliberation, participate in decision-…
Violence, the State, and the Poor
What are the basic contours of a political sociology of violence at the urban margins? Drawing on past and current ethnographic research in a poor area of Buenos Aires, this article calls for systematic research of the points of contact (overt and covert) between agents of the state and the poor. We argue that as part and parcel of the illicit drug trade, clandestine interventions of the state intensify interpersonal violence
Teaching and Learning Guide for “Gender In/equality in Worker‐owned Businesses”
This teaching and learning guide accompanies the article, “Gender In/equality in Worker‐owned Businesses,” which reviews existing literature on gender in businesses with employee stock ownership plans, worker cooperatives, and communes. Worker ownership has attracted renewed interest as a possible solution to the social and economic problems confronting our society. In worker‐owned businesses, workers have greater control over what they produce, …
Producing and Reducing Gender Inequality in a Worker-Recovered Cooperative
Decades of feminist scholarship documents the persistence of gender inequality in work organizations. Yet few studies explicitly examine gender inequality in collectivist organizations like worker cooperatives. This article draws on the “theory of gendered organizations” to consider how gender operates in a worker-recovered cooperative in contemporary Argentina. Based on ethnographic and archival research in Hotel B.A.U.E.N., this article finds t…
Gender In/equality in Worker‐owned Businesses
Gender scholars have developed a significant body of scholarship on the reproduction of gender inequality in work organizations. However, the vast majority of that research has been conducted in non‐profit organizations or in employer‐owned businesses. In this article, we review the existing literature on gender in worker‐owned businesses. We begin by defining three distinctly different types of worker‐owned businesses: companies with employee st…
The Relational Production of Workplace Equality
Producing and Reducing Gender Inequality in a Worker-Recovered Cooperative
Decades of feminist scholarship documents the persistence of gender inequality in work organizations. Yet few studies explicitly examine gender inequality in collectivist organizations like worker cooperatives. This article draws on the “theory of gendered organizations” to consider how gender operates in a worker-recovered cooperative in contemporary Argentina. Based on ethnographic and archival research in Hotel B.A.U.E.N., this article finds t…
Violence, the State, and the Poor
What are the basic contours of a political sociology of violence at the urban margins? Drawing on past and current ethnographic research in a poor area of Buenos Aires, this article calls for systematic research of the points of contact (overt and covert) between agents of the state and the poor. We argue that as part and parcel of the illicit drug trade, clandestine interventions of the state intensify interpersonal violence
Watercooler Democracy
This article examines how rumors impact democracy and transparency in a cooperative workplace. Although literature on rumors generally analyzes them as negative to workplace culture, the author argues that rumors constitute a critical aspect of democratic participation. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a worker-recuperated business in Argentina, the author shows how members use rumors to incite deliberation, participate in decision-…
Gender In/equality in Worker‐owned Businesses
Gender scholars have developed a significant body of scholarship on the reproduction of gender inequality in work organizations. However, the vast majority of that research has been conducted in non‐profit organizations or in employer‐owned businesses. In this article, we review the existing literature on gender in worker‐owned businesses. We begin by defining three distinctly different types of worker‐owned businesses: companies with employee st…
The Persistent Influence of December 2001
The protests of December 2001 in Argentina were the most visible manifestation of a larger cycle of contention, which continues to have a substantial influence on the forms, tactics and goals of social movements throughout the country. This paper provides a critical overview of these lasting effects. In particular, we focus on three areas where the consequences of the crisis for collective action have been particularly strong: performative politi…
Gendered Employment Precarity and Refugee Resettlement in the United States
This article examines experiences of workplace precarity and employment vulnerability among resettled refugees in the United States. This study, which draws on eight months of participant observation at a refugee resettlement agency and in-depth interviews with refugees, provides important insights into the ways that refugees navigate (un)employment after initial resettlement and the precarities they encounter while on the job
The Clandestine Hands of the State
Police collusion with drug market organizations is widespread around the world, but the nature of this collaboration remains poorly understood. This article draws on a unique data source to dissect the inner workings of police collusion: transcripts of wiretapped conversations, embedded in thousands of pages of court cases in which state agents have been prosecuted for collaborating with drug market groups. We catalogue and analyze the wide range…
Alternative Organizational Survival
It is widely accepted that economic indicators like efficiency, productivity, and profitability are key to explaining why some businesses survive and others do not. Yet not all work organizations ascribe to capitalist assumptions about ownership, authority, and even what constitutes success itself. Worker-recuperated businesses (WRBs) in Argentina-organizations closed by their private owners, occupied by their workers, and restarted as worker coo…
Survival finance and the politics of equal pay
Wage gaps constitute a major component of workplace inequality. While scholars have explored the causes and consequences of differences in pay, very few question the basic presumption that workers are paid differently in the first place. Drawing on ethnographic research in a worker cooperative with a policy of equal pay, this article analyses how the organization compensated its members in the context of low wages, economic uncertainty, and insuf…
Dust and Dignity
Gender In/equality in Worker‐owned Businesses
Gender scholars have developed a significant body of scholarship on the reproduction of gender inequality in work organizations. However, the vast majority of that research has been conducted in non‐profit organizations or in employer‐owned businesses. In this article, we review the existing literature on gender in worker‐owned businesses. We begin by defining three distinctly different types of worker‐owned businesses: companies with employee st…
Teaching and Learning Guide for “Gender In/equality in Worker‐owned Businesses”
This teaching and learning guide accompanies the article, “Gender In/equality in Worker‐owned Businesses,” which reviews existing literature on gender in businesses with employee stock ownership plans, worker cooperatives, and communes. Worker ownership has attracted renewed interest as a possible solution to the social and economic problems confronting our society. In worker‐owned businesses, workers have greater control over what they produce, …
Producing and Reducing Gender Inequality in a Worker-Recovered Cooperative
Decades of feminist scholarship documents the persistence of gender inequality in work organizations. Yet few studies explicitly examine gender inequality in collectivist organizations like worker cooperatives. This article draws on the “theory of gendered organizations” to consider how gender operates in a worker-recovered cooperative in contemporary Argentina. Based on ethnographic and archival research in Hotel B.A.U.E.N., this article finds t…
Violence, the State, and the Poor
What are the basic contours of a political sociology of violence at the urban margins? Drawing on past and current ethnographic research in a poor area of Buenos Aires, this article calls for systematic research of the points of contact (overt and covert) between agents of the state and the poor. We argue that as part and parcel of the illicit drug trade, clandestine interventions of the state intensify interpersonal violence
The Ambivalent State
Over the past few decades, debates about policing in poor urban areas have shifted from analyzing the state’s neglect and abandonment to documenting its harsh interventions and punishing presence. Most of this research has focused on the overt actions and inactions of the state. Yet we know very little about the covert world of state action that is hidden from public view. The Ambivalent State offers an unprecedented look into the clandestine rel…
The Relational Production of Workplace Equality
Watercooler Democracy
This article examines how rumors impact democracy and transparency in a cooperative workplace. Although literature on rumors generally analyzes them as negative to workplace culture, the author argues that rumors constitute a critical aspect of democratic participation. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a worker-recuperated business in Argentina, the author shows how members use rumors to incite deliberation, participate in decision-…
Working for Justice in Argentina
Worker-recuperated businesses, like the Hotel Bauen highlighted in this essay, are organizations that were closed by their private owners, occupied by their workers, and restarted as cooperatives. As the author learned over the course of her fieldwork, many were established not only to save jobs, but also to create better jobs. Studies of workplaces in the Global North often detail how workplace policies can lessen the degree or severity of unequ…
Workers’ Self-Management in Argentina
Survival finance and the politics of equal pay
Wage gaps constitute a major component of workplace inequality. While scholars have explored the causes and consequences of differences in pay, very few question the basic presumption that workers are paid differently in the first place. Drawing on ethnographic research in a worker cooperative with a policy of equal pay, this article analyses how the organization compensated its members in the context of low wages, economic uncertainty, and insuf…
Dust and Dignity
Collusion and Cynicism at the Urban Margins
This article examines the clandestine connections between participants in the illicit drug trade and members of state security forces to understand how they impact everyday understandings of the law. Drawing on a unique combination of long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a poor, high-crime district in Argentina and wiretapped conversations drawn from a court case involving a drug trafficking group active in the same area, we find that traffickers …
Introduction
The costs of occupational gender segregation in high-tech growth and productivity across US local labor markets
Theories of endogenous economic growth propose that the exchange of information between workers with different knowledge facilitates innovation. In this study, we explore whether occupational gender segregation poses a barrier to endogenous growth by limiting the extent to which women and men workers exchange information, ideas and perspectives. Focusing on technology industries as a sector where information exchange plays a large role, we use er…
The Persistent Influence of December 2001
The protests of December 2001 in Argentina were the most visible manifestation of a larger cycle of contention, which continues to have a substantial influence on the forms, tactics and goals of social movements throughout the country. This paper provides a critical overview of these lasting effects. In particular, we focus on three areas where the consequences of the crisis for collective action have been particularly strong: performative politi…
Alternative Organizational Survival
It is widely accepted that economic indicators like efficiency, productivity, and profitability are key to explaining why some businesses survive and others do not. Yet not all work organizations ascribe to capitalist assumptions about ownership, authority, and even what constitutes success itself. Worker-recuperated businesses (WRBs) in Argentina-organizations closed by their private owners, occupied by their workers, and restarted as worker coo…
The Clandestine Hands of the State
Police collusion with drug market organizations is widespread around the world, but the nature of this collaboration remains poorly understood. This article draws on a unique data source to dissect the inner workings of police collusion: transcripts of wiretapped conversations, embedded in thousands of pages of court cases in which state agents have been prosecuted for collaborating with drug market groups. We catalogue and analyze the wide range…
The Relative Contributions of Changes in Vertical and Horizontal Mechanisms to Overall Changes in Occupational Gender Segregation in the United States, 2006–2019
Objective In this article, we examine how the expansion of feminized industries impacted horizontal and vertical patterns of occupational gender segregation. Methods We apply Thiel's H to data drawn from the American Community Survey (2006–2019) and run regression and counterfactual analyses. Results Horizontal shifts accounted for 74% of the decline in occupational gender segregation during the study period, while changes to vertical patterns ac…
Collusion and Violence in Underground Drug Markets
Poor urban neighborhoods throughout the Americas are marked by high rates of interpersonal violence, much of which is associated with the underground drug trade. Scholars have examined the social dynamics that produce and shape violence among neighborhood residents and the state agents who police them. But less is known about the clandestine collaborations between residents and agents of the state and how those collaborations might contribute to …
Gendered Employment Precarity and Refugee Resettlement in the United States
This article examines experiences of workplace precarity and employment vulnerability among resettled refugees in the United States. This study, which draws on eight months of participant observation at a refugee resettlement agency and in-depth interviews with refugees, provides important insights into the ways that refugees navigate (un)employment after initial resettlement and the precarities they encounter while on the job
Why Ethnography
What kind of knowledge does ethnography afford? Why do we need such knowledge? This paper draws upon the authors’ individual work to reflect on the ongoing necessity of good enough ethnographic fieldwork in sociology. Alongside presenting moving stories, unearthing rules of behavior, interpreting meanings through thick description, obtaining fine-grained insight into the working of organizations, revealing the complex interplay of informal and fo…
Political science (18 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Business (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Public relations (8 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Ethnography (6 works)