Drawing on lengthy ethnographic fieldwork with ethnic performers in South-West China, this article seeks to explore the multi-layered ethnic scripts in contemporary China. Ethnic performers are people who perform ethnic songs and dances in restaurants or tourist sites, most of whom are rural–urban migrants from ethnic minority backgrounds. Ethnic performers’ ambivalences regarding whether they are “authentic minorities” points to the inadequacy of attempting to understand ethnicity in an essentialized way. Understanding ethnicity as something people do rather than who they are, the concept of “ethnic scripts” is proposed as a conceptual tool to illuminate the cultural and social repertoires which deeply shape people's understanding of and ways of doing ethnicity. By exploring the multi-layered meaning of ethnic scripts in contemporary China, this article highlights the ways that ethnic scripts are closely related to migrant performers’ emotions and sense of self, and addresses the fact that ethnic scripts are inherently gendered.

Two of Donald Trump administration’s most salient legacies are the high level of crime victimization and low popularity ratings among groups likely to be targeted by crime, such as females and race and ethnic minorities. To explore crime victimization and public opinion towards the president, the article tests whether gender and race determinants among crime victims were associated with trust in the president and job performance approval. Results indicated that females and female victims of crime were less likely to reward presidential performance and trust Trump. Blacks and Latinos were less likely to trust Trump and less likely to reward his job performance; however, there was no effect when moderating by whether they reported being victims of crime. Victims of crime in unsafe neighbourhoods were less likely to trust and reward presidential performance. More surprisingly, being a crime victim was a significant and positive predictor of trusting Trump and rewarding his job performance. The results tell us about the need to continue studying the public’s wishes for the authorities to respond to the problem of victimization, oftentimes rewarding populist approaches to punitive justice, incarceration and overall tougher criminal policies.

Traditionally, women have been perceived as the fairer sex with a moral compass and with less inclination towards gaining wealth and taking risks. Past research has posited that women consider crime due to need. Recently one piece of research has considered greed due to the development and empowerment of women, the opportunities and power accorded to them in line with governance frameworks, policies and regulations that cover crimes, penalties and punishments, and cultural and social norms. Social perspectives influence the moral values passed down within social and family units. A pilot survey of female participants exposed to investigation and law and from two age groups of 18–39 years and 40–61 years reflected a significant change in culture and values. The older group was critical of corrupt behaviour and that the choices were the “right thing to do”. The younger participants were selective in their choices, choosing to deny or be silent if there was insufficient evidence and protection or where there was the involvement of someone dear. This reflects the power of knowledge, empowerment and education. The author discusses case studies of women exposed to crime, including organized crime, via their family or social networks to assess abuse of power and trust.

This paper uses the perspective of “state-led neoliberal modernization” to explore the collusion of the state and the market in the construction of scientific motherhood and its effect on rural nannies in China. It claims that the state and the market work together to shape rural nannies’ modern subjectivity in the neoliberal economy through the commercial training programme of scientific motherhood. Based on a case study in Shanghai, this paper argues that the training for scientific motherhood attempts to transform rural women into modern care workers through two mechanisms: reconstructing recognition and mobilizing emotion. Rather than passively receiving the training, nannies use their agency to adjust the knowledge and practice of scientific motherhood to suit their complicated working situation. Their strategies include deploying scientific knowledge flexibly and instrumentally, practising self-restraint in limited intimacy, and paying attention to their own familial investment.

Increasing female involvement in violent crime is a concern in Nigeria; still, it is unclear what informs this sudden surge in a society that supposedly socializes feminine gender to be soft, caring, and compassionate. This article explores the sociological profiles of women involved in armed robbery, drawing case examples from 32 convicts in a Nigerian female penitentiary. It was found that women were made susceptible to deviance by some social factors such as familial variables, neighborhood characteristics, gender discrimination, neglect, and violence. Both primary and secondary social groups were found to be major facilitators in the initiation into crime, development of criminal career, entry into armed robbery, and maintenance of life as a robber. This article concludes that gender-based inequality in all social facets and the unfavorable socio-economic conditions in Nigeria increase the vulnerability of women to be recruited into criminality. A revival of the family institution, gender-neutral parenting, government’s intervention for improvement of socio-economic wellbeing, and gender education are suggested.

This article employs a feminist political economy perspective to explore the connection between e-commerce, entrepreneurship and gender in rural China. It discusses gendered engagement with, and discourses of, the new digital economy represented by Taobao villages, and asks: how has the success of rural e-commerce impacted the evolving gender mandate and hierarchy in a competitive market economy in rural China? Has rural women's participation in digital economic activities changed their gendered roles and the patriarchal structure in their family and village? This article argues that women's socioeconomic enablement does not necessarily translate into cultural and political empowerment. The enabling potential of female entrepreneurship is tempered by traditional constraints on women and digital capitalist exploitation of their cheap, flexible and docile labour.

This paper explores the motivations of Western women who traveled to Syria/Iraq to support the Islamic State (IS) or Daesh. It draws on previous studies of the phenomenon, insights from practitioners and informal interviews with an individual with first-hand insights. The different motivations are categorized into three levels: macro, meso and micro. The author rebukes the intractable stereotype of the “jihadi bride” that (inadvertently) suggests that women are driven mainly by personal motivations or the prospect of marriage, and demonstrates that female Western supporters of IS/Daesh are motivated by various factors. These include ideological or religious motivations, the pull of the cause, frustration and anger over the perceived worldwide oppression of Muslims, but also the search for a purpose in life and for a sense of belonging. Women have been affected by group dynamics and experiences in their past (including sexual abuse). Some women were attracted by the prospect of a clean slate, adventure or a (religious) husband. The author underscores that, in order to tackle the phenomenon of women supporting IS/Daesh, it is essential to deepen our understanding of its appeal on women, which requires acknowledging the diversity of women who joined IS/Daesh and recognizing the complexity and multitude of their motivations.

After decades of rapid economic development, China is facing severe environmental problems. In particular, smog in urban areas has recently attracted a great deal of scientific and media attention both domestically and internationally. Our focus in this article is on public perceptions of smog in the northern city of Tangshan, which is routinely ranked as one of the urban areas with the worst air quality in the nation. In this article, we present the results of qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys with 341 urban residents. We examine how these residents perceive and weigh the importance of various aspects related to quality of life, including their experience with air pollution. Study participants considered environmental quality an issue of lower priority than many others; however, they surprisingly ranked it over economic concerns such as jobs and income. Their responses suggest that, for many urban residents, environmental problems like smog are fundamentally linked to basic quality of life concerns such as physical health and family well-being. We interpret our findings in the context of literature on the rise of China's middle class, the rise of environmental consciousness, and the role of gender in mediating perceptions of pollution and family health. We also consider the implications of these findings for the control and remediation of air pollution in China today.

This article examines the parent–child relations within rural-to-urban migrant households to explore the continuations and changes in the patrilineal family system under the forces of migration and urbanization in late-socialist China. Based on ethnographic data collected between 2008 and 2015 in Shanghai, it takes a processual approach to understand son preference as a contextualized family practice and examines four aspects of parent–child relations in migrant households: reproductive strategy, childrearing practices, educational investment, and parental expectation of adult children. Through exploring intimate negotiations between migrant parents and their children over material and emotional resources at different life stages, this article demonstrates how the gendered parent–child relations in migrant households in Shanghai have been shifting away from the traditional focus on sons and gradually giving way to pragmatic adjustments and emotional redefinition under the forces of socialist institutions and capitalist markets.