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Harvey Luskin Molotch (born January 3, 1940) is an American sociologist known for studies that have reconceptualized power relations in interaction, the mass media, and the city. He helped create the field of
environmental sociology Environmental sociology is the study of interactions between societies and their natural environment. The field emphasizes the social factors that influence environmental resource management and cause environmental issues, the processes by whic ...
and has advanced
qualitative methods Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This ...
in the
social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
. In recent years, Molotch helped develop a new field—the sociology of objects. He is currently a professor of
Sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
and of Metropolitan Studies at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
. His ''Introduction to Sociology'' is featured as one of NYU Open Education's courses available to stream freely. Other courses that he teaches include ''Approaches to Metropolitan Studies'' and ''Urban Objects''. He is also affiliated with the graduate program in Humanities and Social Thought.


Biography

Molotch was born Harvey Luskin in
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, where his family was in the retail car business on one side and the
Luskin's Luskin's was an electronics chain based in Baltimore, Maryland, that was founded in 1948 and ceased operation in October 1996. Beginnings Luskin's began as an ice supply company founded by Jack Luskin and his brother Joe in 1948, growing into ...
home appliance business on the other. His father, Paul Luskin, died in the
Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...
in 1944 during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. His mother remarried to Nathan Molotch. He received a BA in philosophy from the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
(1963), with a thesis on
John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...
. He received an MA (1966) and PhD (1968) in sociology from the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
. He served in the
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
, stationed in
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
and
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
, 1961-62. He taught at the
University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...
from 1967 to 2003. He has also been a visiting professor at
Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...
, the
University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...
, and
Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...
. In 1998-99 he was Centennial Professor at the
London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...
.


Ideas


Racial Segregation: Rethinking “White Flight”

Molotch's early work on race criticized mainstream strategies then underway to achieve residential integration. To stem transition from all-white to all-black (a major concern at the time), such efforts were curtailing black people's access to housing, and ironically, increasing rather than lessening racial segregation. Molotch presented data to back up his critique, documenting why whites left in the first place and why blacks moved into the vacancies they left behind. Rather than "white flight" and "block busting," racial succession occurred through normal rates of whites moving into the suburbs and blacks, otherwise hindered by racist practice, utilizing opportunities thus provided.


The Santa Barbara Oil Spill and Environmental Sociology

On January 28, 1969, there was a massive eruption of crude oil from Union Oil's Platform A in the
Santa Barbara Channel The Santa Barbara Channel is a portion of the Southern California Bight and separates the mainland of California from the northern Channel Islands. It is generally south of the city of Santa Barbara, and west of the Oxnard Plain in Ventura Count ...
—an eruption which was to cover much of the coast line of two counties with oil. Molotch saw in this disaster a research opportunity. His article "Oil in Santa Barbara and Power in America" became a founding document of the new field of
environmental sociology Environmental sociology is the study of interactions between societies and their natural environment. The field emphasizes the social factors that influence environmental resource management and cause environmental issues, the processes by whic ...
, and a key contribution to
political sociology Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how ...
. Molotch argued that accident research at the local level might be capable of revealing what political scientists called the "second face of power." This is a dimension of power ordinarily ignored by traditional community studies which fail to concern themselves with the processes by which bias is mobilized and thus how issues rise and fall. Molotch's findings highlighted the extraordinary intransigence of national institutions in the face of local dissent, but more importantly, pointed out the processes and tactics which undermine that dissent and frustrate and radicalize the dissenters. Molotch called for comparable studies of the agriculture industry, the banking industry, and for more accident research at the local level, which might bring to light the larger social arrangements which structure the parameters of such local debate. In this way, research at the local level might serve as an avenue to knowledge about ''national'' power. Molotch ended, "Sociologists should be ready when an accident hits in their neighborhood, and then go to work."


The Mass Media and the Social Construction Framework

Molotch helped introduce the
social construction Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
framework to the study of news media. Whereas news accounts had been treated, however critically, as "failed" representations of a presumed reality, Molotch and Marilyn Lester held that every account is a product of the social organization that goes into its production. In founding papers in the sociology of the mass media, Molotch and Lester applied the insights of ethnomethodology to the Santa Barbara oil spill and the way it was covered. They argued for an approach to the mass media which does not look for reality, but for practices of those having the power to determine the experience of others. In addition, Molotch and Lester recognized that this social construction of the news had a crucial political component, a perspective later endorsed by such media sociologists as W. Lance Bennett. In normal times, Molotch and Lester said, the news is merely the ritualized presentation of the stories of powerful corporate and governmental organizations. Only in certain contexts does the veil of this ruling elite consensus get pushed aside to reveal other possible constructions of the facts. Molotch and Lester pointed to such disruptive contexts as scandals and accidents like the Santa Barbara Oil Spill, while Bennett pointed to significant social issues that break through the normally ritualized conflicts of the two political parties. Molotch's work has inspired studies of the social construction of news, of the particular ways that the content of presentation is contingent on the social setting of its production, including the occupational workplace of news professionals as well as the larger societal setting. His more recent work on mass media has included studies of war protest and the stock market.


The City as a Growth Machine

Molotch is probably best known for his book ''Urban Fortunes'' (1987, with John Logan), which won him the Award for Distinguished Contribution to Sociological Scholarship by the
American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
in 1990. Urban Fortunes builds on Molotch's 1976 classic paper, "The City as a Growth Machine." In this body of work, Molotch took the dominant convention of studying urban land use and turned it on its head. The field of
urban sociology Urban sociology is the sociological study of life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, environmental processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doing ...
(as well as urban geography, planning, and economics) was dominated by the idea that cities were basically containers for human action, in which actors competed among themselves for the most strategic parcels of land, and the real estate market reflected the state of that competition. Out of this competition were thought to come the shape of the city and the distribution of social types within it (e.g. banks in the center, affluent residents in the suburbs). Long established notions such as central place theory and the sectoral hypothesis were claims that are more or less "natural" spatial geography evolved from competitive market activity. Molotch helped reverse the course of
urban theory Urban theory describes the economic, political and social processes which affect the formation and development of cities. Overview Theoretical discourse has often polarized between economic determinismMarx, K. (1976) Capital Vol 1Harmondsworth: ...
by pointing out that land parcels were not empty fields awaiting human action, but were associated with specific interests—commercial, sentimental, and psychological. Especially important in shaping cities were the real estate interests of those whose properties gain value when growth takes place. These actors make up what Molotch termed "the local growth machine"—a term now standard in the urban studies lexicon. From this perspective, cities need to be studied (and compared) in terms of the organization, lobbying, manipulating, and structuring carried out by these actors. The outcome—the shape of cities and the distribution of their peoples—is thus not due to an interpersonal market or geographic necessities, but to social actions, including opportunistic dealing. ''Urban Fortunes'' has influenced hundreds of national and international studies. A twentieth anniversary edition was issued by the University of California Press in 2007 with a new preface.


Other work

Molotch has also conducted a series of studies in
conversation analysis Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction, embracing both verbal and non-verbal conduct, in situations of everyday life. CA originated as a sociological method, but has since spread to other fields. CA began with ...
on mechanisms such as gaps and silences in human conversation that reveal the way power operates at the micro-interactional level. This work includes a notable collaboration with Mitchell Duneier on talk between men on the street and women passersby. His research builds on writings of Don Zimmerman,
Harvey Sacks Harvey Sacks (July 19, 1935 – November 14, 1975) was an American sociologist influenced by the ethnomethodology tradition. He pioneered extremely detailed studies of the way people use language in everyday life. Despite his early death in ...
,
Gail Jefferson Gail Jefferson (22 April 1938 – 21 February 2008) was an American sociologist with an emphasis in sociolinguistics. She was, along with Harvey Sacks and Emanuel Schegloff, one of the founders of the area of research known as conversation analysi ...
, and
Emanuel Schegloff Emanuel Abraham Schegloff (born 1937 in New York) is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles. Along with his collaborators Harvey Sacks and Gail Jefferson, Schegloff is regarded as the creator of the f ...
. Molotch was among the first to utilize ethnomethodology and conversation analysis in the study of traditional sociological topics, bridging what had been regarded as a highly esoteric and specialized approach to micro-sociology with mainstream, macro-level sociological issues such as hegemony and power. He has also written on product design and consumption. His book, ''Where Stuff Comes From'', builds on the work of
Howard S. Becker Howard Saul Becker (born 1928) is an American sociologist who teaches at Northwestern University. Becker has made contributions to the sociology of deviance, sociology of art, and sociology of music. Becker also wrote extensively on sociologic ...
and
Bruno Latour Bruno Latour (; 22 June 1947 – 9 October 2022) was a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist.Wheeler, Will. ''Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations'' Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Libraries ...
, to show how objects and physical artifacts are joint result of various types of actors, most particularly product designers operating within frameworks of technology, regulation, mass tastes, and corporate profits. While neo-Marxists and others have treated "
commodity fetishism In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things (money and merchandise) and not as relationships that exist among people ...
" as a signal of oppression, repression, and delusion, he uses goods to understand, in a more comprehensive way, just what makes production happen and how artifacts reveal larger social and cultural forces. Still more recently, he turned to analyses of rising cities of the Gulf in the volume ''The New Arab Urban''.


Honors and awards

* W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, American Sociological Association (2019) * Fred Buttel Distinguished Contribution Award, Section on Environment and Technology, American Sociological Association (2009) * Lifetime Career Achievement in Urban and Community Scholarship,
American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
Urban and Community Studies Section (2003) * ASA Journal Article of the Year in Political Sociology (2001) * Robert E. Park Award of the American Sociological Association (1988) (Urban Fortunes) * Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award of the American Sociological Association (1990) (Urban Fortunes) * Scholar in Residence, Russell Sage Foundation, 2008-2009. * Fellow,
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social a ...
, Stanford, CA (2000) * Resident Fellow,
Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...
, Bellagio Center, Como Italy (1999) * Stice Lecturer in the Social Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (1996) * Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Lund, Sweden (1995)


Selected publications

* ''The New Arab Urban: Cities of Wealth, Ambition, and Distress'' (co-edited with Davide Ponzini) New York University Press (2019) * ''Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger.'' Princeton University Press (2012) * ''Toilet: The Public Restroom and the Politics of Sharing.'' o-edited with Laura Noren New York: New York University Press (2010). * ''Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come to Be as They Are.'' New York and London: Routledge (2003). * ''Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place.'' (With John Logan.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1987. * "The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place." The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Sep., 1976), pp. 309–332. * "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review, Vol 39, No. 1 (Feb., 1974), pp. 101–112. * ''Managed Integration: Dilemmas of Doing Good in the City.'' Berkeley: University of California Press (1972).


References


External links


Arts & Sciences faculty
at NYU {{DEFAULTSORT:Molotch, Harvey 1940 births American sociologists Environmental sociologists Social constructionism Academics of the London School of Economics People from Baltimore New York University faculty Living people University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni Urban sociologists