Articles

  • Jia-Jun Li, Toby, Yuwen Lu, Jaylexia Clark, Meng Chen, Victor Cox, Meng Jiang, Yang Yang, Tamara Kay, Danielle Wood, and Jay Brockman. 2022. “A Bottom-Up End-User Intelligent Assistant Approach to Empower Gig Workers against AI Inequality.” Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work (CHIWORK 2022). https://doi.org/10.1145/3533406.3533418

    • The growing inequality in gig work between workers and platforms has become a critical social issue as gig work plays an increasingly prominent role in the future of work. The AI inequality is caused by (1) the technology divide in who has access to AI technologies in gig work; and (2) the data divide in who owns the data in gig work leads to unfair working conditions, growing pay gap, neglect of workers’ diverse preferences, and workers’ lack of trust in the platforms. In this position paper, we argue that a bottom-up approach that empowers individual workers to access AI-enabled work planning support and share data among a group of workers through a network of end-user-programmable intelligent assistants is a practical way to bridge AI inequality in gig work under the current paradigm of privately owned platforms. This position paper articulates a set of research challenges, potential approaches, and community engagement opportunities, seeking to start a dialogue on this important research topic in the interdisciplinary CHIWORK community.

  • Kay, Tamara. 2022. “Culture in Transnational Interaction: How Organizational Partners Coproduce Sesame Street.” Theory and Society. Published online July 22, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-022-09484-2

    • Given the extraordinary politicization of culture in an era of globalization, it is surprising that Sesame Street has gained acceptance and legitimacy in more than fifty countries during the last five decades. Sesame Street’s ubiquity around the world presents us with the question I address in this article: how do partner organizations work together, on the ground, to locally adapt a hybrid cultural product? Using data from real-time interactions between NY staff and partners, I show how teams from different cultures who do not share collective representations are able to create them through transnational interaction by: (1) constructing value to align their interests (2) exchanging complex cultural knowledge to customize and build alliances together. The Sesame Street case, then, allows us to grapple with “culture in interaction” at the transnational level, shedding light on culture in transnational interaction.

  • Spicer, Jason and Tamara Kay. 2022. “Another Organization is Possible: New Directions in Research on Alternative Enterprise." Sociology Compass.

    • Interest in alternative enterprises is again high, yielding a wave of popular experimentation with alternative organizational models, and new scholarship. From an organizational studies perspective, what have we learned about alternative enterprises since the last prior round of such experimentation in the 1970s, and what questions remain unanswered? Reflecting historical research legacies, scholarship often remains focused on micro-aspects of internal organizational dynamics, but recent research at the meso scale has advanced our understanding of alternatives’ field-level construction, and their relationship to external forces and other organizational forms. Less is known, however, at the macro scale about how or why these enterprises develop and are sustained in certain contexts, although work on this front is emerging. Meanwhile, many new alternative organizational forms/practices have not been well-studied. Future research can remedy this oversight, while also seeking to improve our understanding of the effect of external, macro and meso-scaled dynamics of alternative enterprises. It can also seek to better explain variations in alternatives’ institutional development and effectiveness in different sectoral contexts and domains, most notably across today’s crisis-related fronts of climate change, housing precarity, and technological change. In so doing, it could more directly speak to a rising generation’s concerns, and better enable their effective deployment of alternatives in practice.

  • Kay, Tamara and Jason Spicer. Winter 2021. "A Nonprofit Networked Platform for Global Health." Stanford Social Innovation Review. Volume 19, Number 1.

    • Project ECHO developed a revolutionary model for helping doctors and clinicians in New Mexico to treat hepatitis C. It spread around the world to address numerous chronic diseases. With the COVID-19 pandemic, it found its moment.

  • Spicer, Jason, Robert Manduca and Tamara Kay. 2020. "National Living Wage Movements in a Regional World: The Fight for $15 in the United States." Labor and Employment Relations Association Annual Research Volume. Chapter 2, pp. 41-67.

  • Spicer, Jason, Tamara Kay and Marshall Ganz. 2019. “Social Entrepreneurship as Field Encroachment: How a Neoliberal Social Movement Constructed a New Field.” Socio-Economic Review. 17(1): 195-227.

    • In explaining the emergence of new strategic action fields, in which social movements’ and organizations’ logic, rules and strategies are forged, inter-field dynamics remain under-explored. The case of Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (SEE) shows how new fields can emerge through field encroachment, whereby shifts among overlapping fields create structural opportunities for the ascendency of new fields, which may adapt logics borrowed from adjacent fields to construct legitimacy. SEE leveraged the 1980s’ shift between first-order market and state fields to encroach on the political strategies of community organizing, birthing a neoliberal social movement to create a new field addressing social problems using market-based, profit-motivated approaches. With its borrowed veneer of justice, SEE rapidly developed a high academic and public profile over just three decades, despite little evidence its approach to solving social problems works. In encroaching on proven political strategies for solving social problems, it may further undermine democratic practices.

    • Named Editor’s Choice by Socio-Economic Review

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  • Ganz, Marshall, Tamara Kay and Jason Spicer. Spring 2018. “Social Enterprise is Not Social Change: Solving Systemic Social Problems Takes People, Politics, and Power -- Not More Social Entrepreneurship.” Stanford Social Innovation Review. Volume 16, Number 2.

    • Solving systemic social problems takes people, politics, and power—not more social entrepreneurship. Harvard Kennedy School’s Marshall Ganz, University of Notre Dame’s Tamara Kay, and MIT’s Jason Spicer argue that social entrepreneurship has done little to impact the problems it aspires to solve and has risen to popularity despite a lack of evidence for its effectiveness.

  • Asad, Asad L. and Tamara Kay. 2015. “Toward A Multidimensional Understanding of Culture for Health Interventions.” Social Science & Medicine. 144:79-87.

    • Although a substantial literature examines the relationship between culture and health in myriad individual contexts, a lack of comparative data across settings has resulted in disparate and imprecise conceptualizations of the concept for scholars and practitioners alike. This article examines scholars and practitioners' understandings of culture in relation to health interventions. Drawing on 169 interviews with officials from three different nongovernmental organizations working on health issues in multiple countries -- Partners in Health, Oxfam America, and Sesame Workshop -- we examine how these respondents' interpretations of culture converge or diverge with recent developments in the study of the concept, as well as how these understandings influence health interventions at three different stages -- design, implementation, and evaluation -- of a project. Based on these analyses, a tripartite definition of culture is built -- as knowledge, practice, and change -- and these distinct conceptualizations are linked to the success or failure of a project at each stage of an intervention. In so doing, the study provides a descriptive and analytical starting point for scholars interested in understanding the theoretical and empirical relevance of culture for health interventions, and sets forth concrete recommendations for practitioners working to achieve robust improvements in health outcomes

  • Kay, Tamara. 2015. “New Challenges, New Alliances: The Politicization of Unions in a Post-NAFTA Era.” Labor History. 56(3): 246-269.

    • The ascendency of neoliberalism, anti-state ideologies, and increased corporate power has taken its toll on labor movements around the globe. Today, the proportion of unionized workers in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries is half what it was in the 1970s. I argue that unions are dealing with the crises presented by neoliberal economic integration by entering new political coalitions and nontraditional advocacy areas – particularly relating to immigration, environment, and trade – in an effort to increase their relevance, influence, and allies. I examine how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) helped politicize unions to move beyond traditional workplace-centered struggles and engage in broader and more diverse political struggles linked at the domestic and the transnational level. Union positions vis-a`-vis immigrants have shifted dramatically from supporting draconian legislation to leading a broad-based movement for immigrants’ rights. Key unions joined with environmental organizations to advocate for environmental and worker protections through a green economy and green jobs; unions continue their fair trade advocacy, fighting the Tran-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreements (TTIP) and investor–state enforcement mechanisms. In an interesting and important twist, unions’ foray into these new arenas in part results directly from the privatization of governance practices, which has undermined democratic processes across the continent.

  • Asad, Asad L. and Tamara Kay. 2014. “Theorizing the Relationship Between NGOs and the State in Medical Humanitarian Development Projects.” Social Science & Medicine. 120:325-333.

    • Social scientists have fiercely debated the relationship between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the state in NGO-led development projects. However, this research often carries an implicit, and often explicit, anti-state bias, suggesting that when NGOs collaborate with states, they cease to be a progressive force. This literature thus fails to recognize the state as a complex, heterogeneous, and fragmented entity. In particular, the unique political context within which an NGO operates is likely to influence how it carries out its work. In this article, we ask: how do NGOs work and build relationships with different types of states and — of particular relevance to practitioners —what kinds of relationship building lead to more successful development outcomes on the ground? Drawing on 29 in-depth interviews with members of Partners in Health and Oxfam America conducted between September 2010 and February 2014, we argue that NGOs and their medical humanitarian projects are more likely to succeed when they adjust how they interact with different types of states through processes of interest harmonization and negotiation. We offer a theoretical model for understanding how these processes occur across organizational fields. Specifically, we utilize field overlap theory to illuminate how successful outcomes depend on NGOs’ ability to leverage resources e alliances and networks; political, financial, and cultural resources; and frames e across state and non-state fields. By identifying how NGOs can increase the likelihood of project success, our research should be of interest to activists, practitioners, and scholars.

  • Kay, Tamara. 2011. “Legal Transnationalism: The Relationship Between Transnational Social Movement Building and International Law.” Law & Social Inquiry. 36(2): 419-454.

    • This article examines the compelling enigma of how the introduction of a new international law, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), which is NAFTA's labor side agreement, helped stimulate labor cooperation and collaboration in the 1990s. It offers a theory of legal transnationalism—defined as processes by which international laws and legal mechanisms facilitate social movement building at the transnational level—that explains how nascent international legal institutions and mechanisms can help develop collective interests, build social movements, and, ultimately, stimulate cross-border collaboration and cooperation. It identifies three primary dimensions of legal transnationalism that explain how international laws stimulate and constrain movement building through: (1) formation of collective identity and interests (constitutive effects), (2) facilitation of collective action (mobilization effects), and (3) adjudication and enforcement (redress effects).

  • Kay, Tamara. 2011. “Building Solidarity with Subjects and Audience in Sociology and Documentary Photography.” Sociological Forum. 26(2): 424-430.

    • This article is part of a panel discussion addressing the sociological relevance of Sebastião Salgado's work as well as documentary photography in general.

  • Evans, Rhonda and Tamara Kay. 2008. “How Environmentalists "Greened" Trade Policy: Strategic Action and the Architecture of Field Overlap.” American Sociological Review. 73(6): 970-991.

    • This article examines why and how environmental activists, despite considerable political weakness and disproportionally few resources, won substantive negotiating concessions that far outstripped labor achievements during NAFTA’s negotiation. Despite a trade policy arena hostile to their demands, environmentalists gained official recognition for the legitimacy of their claims, obtained a seat at the negotiating table, turned a previously technocratic concern into a highly visible populist issue, and won an environmental side agreement stronger than its labor counterpart. We argue that this unexpected outcome is best explained by environmentalists’ strategic use of mechanisms available at the intersection of multiple fields. While field theory mainly focuses on interactions within a particular field, we suggest that the structure of overlap between fields—the architecture of field overlap—creates unique points of leverage that render particular targets more vulnerable and certain strategies more effective for activists. We outline the mechanisms associated with the structure of field overlap -- alliance brokerage, rulemaking, resource brokerage, and frame adaptation -- that enable activists to strategically leverage advantages across fields to transform the political landscape.

  • Kay, Tamara. 2005. “Labor Transnationalism and Global Governance: The Impact of NAFTA on Transnational Labor Relationships in North America.” American Journal of Sociology. 111(3): 715-756.

    • This article examines how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) catalyzed cross-border labor cooperation and collaboration (i.e., labor transnationalism), by creating a new political opportunity structure at the transnational level. Because there are differences in the way power is constituted at the transnational and national levels, theories of national political opportunity structures cannot be directly mapped onto the transnational level. The author describes three primary dimensions of political opportunity structure at the transnational level that explain how power is established: (1) the constitution of transnational actors and interests, (2) the definition and recognition of transnational rights, and (3) adjudication at the transnational level. The case of NAFTA suggests that while the emergence of national social movements requires nation-states, global governance institutions can play a pivotal role in the development of transnational social movements.

  • Beisel, Nicola and Tamara Kay. 2004. “Abortion, Race, and Gender in Nineteenth-Century America.” American Sociological Review. 69(4): 498-518.

    • Many sociologists have considered the intersection of race and gender in the production of social life, but while works on “intersectionality” have offered a useful paradigm for
      analyzing the experience of individual persons, a model for understanding how structures interact remains unclear. Appropriating Sewell’s (1992) argument that structures consist of cultural schemas applied to resources, this article develops a more nuanced approach to intersectionality. It presents the argument that because the basis of race and gender as social structures is the inscription of cultural schemas on bodies, and because racial reproduction is predicated on the continued creation of these culturally inscribed bodies, race and gender as social structures necessarily intersect at the level of biological reproduction. The study uses this theoretical insight to analyze how physicians and suffragists contested the meaning of, and policy regarding, abortion in nineteenth century America. While most histories of abortion argue that nineteenth-century abortion politics concerned gender relations, this article argues that what was at stake was Anglo- Saxon control of the state and dominance of society. Abortion politics contested the proper use of a valuable social resource, the reproductive capacity of Anglo-Saxon women.