ABSTRACT Most popular theories of violence focus on the role of social structure, resistance, and culture to explain why it occurs. Because of this, we often center on violence in impoverished areas, where mostly minorities use it to assert their manhood, defend their honor, or resist systemic oppression. Randall Collins challenges those theories by focusing on the micro‐interactions between opponents regardless of their social background. He argues that the social properties of face‐to‐face conflicts are universal in producing violence. At the core is emotion, specifically the tension and fear opponents must overcome to do violence. In this paper, I describe Collins' theory of violence and build on it by providing cases where race, ethnicity, and space cannot be divorced from emotion.
ABSTRACT Colonial policing has been typically conceptualized through a narrative that represents the colonial police as a militarized entity counterposed to the civilian model of the metropole. Rendering the colonial police as a distinct type not only reinscribes the epistemic categories of empire, but also overshadows the routinized, inter‐connected use of violence in policing across the metropole and colonies. This article examines sociological and related scholarship on colonial policing, critiquing studies that draw on these reifications, and highlights critical scholarship that instead approaches policing through the punitive networks and relational encounters of policing in empire. Drawing on abolitionist critiques of policing and Azoulay's call to “unlearn imperialism” and archival violence, we propose policing encounters as key sites of critical sociological inquiry. Through a case study of the report of a 1981 Commission of Inquiry into the death of a police inspector in colonial Hong Kong, we demonstrate how centering policing encounters reveals the relational dynamics that constituted colonial power—dynamics obscured by typological frameworks.
ABSTRACT Sociologists of inequality can improve their research by including age relations. We demonstrate that age—like other inequalities—structures access to resources and status to the advantage of those not deemed to be old. Drawing on Crenshaw's conceptualization of intersectionality and using the paid workplace as a case, we show how age intersects with gender to produce distinctive patterns of disadvantage among those who are employed or who wish to be: while both older men and women face ageism in employment, older women experience its onset earlier and more intensely, shaped by gendered expectations surrounding appearance, sexuality, and caregiving. We further show how employment laws, including the ADEA and Title VII, fail to protect older women because they do not recognize intersecting forms of discrimination. Our analysis underscores the organizational logics that privilege youth, productivity ideals, and uninterrupted employment histories. We argue that ignoring age as an intersecting inequality runs the risk of reinforcing the very exclusions we seek to critique.
ABSTRACT The struggle against anti‐Roma racism has become a stated priority for European institutions; however, the lack of empirically grounded research continues to limit both its understanding and eradication. In a field dominated by depoliticized and individualistic psychological approaches, advancing racism research requires a critical reassessment of its prevailing frameworks, assumptions, and methodological practices. Drawing on a scoping review of 65 empirical studies published between 2005 and 2025, this article maps the dominant paradigms shaping the conceptualization, operationalization, measurement, and intersectional framing of anti‐Roma racism. We identify four interrelated tensions: (1) substantial terminological and definitional fragmentation; (2) a persistent gap between structural rhetoric and predominantly individual‐level analyses centered on majority attitudes and representations; (3) a tendency towards methodological individualism and limited use of reflexive, participatory, and mixed‐methods approaches; and (4) minimal engagement with intersectionality as a transversal framework. We argue that future research must adopt conceptually rigorous, structurally informed, multilevel, and intersectional approaches that integrate mixed, reflexive, and co‐research methods centering Roma standpoints. Such a shift is essential for understanding anti‐Roma racism as an embedded system of power and for informing policies that move beyond individual bias toward structural eradication and reparation. Beyond synthesizing findings, this review interrogates the epistemological and methodological assumptions currently shaping anti‐Roma racism research, highlighting the implications for both scholarship and policy.
ABSTRACT While heterosexual relationships once followed a relatively linear path from courtship to marriage, contemporary relationship pathways have become less standardized and more ambiguous over time. This shift has contributed to the emergence of “situationships,” a liminal relational form in which partners are neither fully committed nor entirely casual. Although situationships have quickly become part of the popular lexicon, there has been little sociological synthesis of this emerging relationship type. This review seeks to explain why, and under what conditions, relationship ambiguity has emerged, with a particular focus on situationships. We argue that situationships reflect broader transformations in the social, cultural, and technological landscape of young adulthood. By tracing intimate relationships from courtship to situationship, we show how situationships emerge as a distinct relational form and consider what this shift means for today's young adults. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research and highlighting important data and methodological opportunities.
