Josh Harold | Humber College (original) (raw)

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Publications by Josh Harold

In Robert Brym and Randal Schnoor, eds., The Ever Dying People? Canada’s Jews in Comparative Perspective (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 2023

In chapter 6 of this volume, Brym and Hou show that strength of Jewish identity is associated wit... more In chapter 6 of this volume, Brym and Hou show that strength of Jewish identity is associated with the social locations individuals occupy. After predicting variation in strength of Jewish identity using occupational, educational, residential, and other indicators of social location, they conclude with a theoretical statement. They propose that people choose to enter one social location or another depending on how power relations structure their opportunities, with cultural preferences leading them to favour particular social locations (see figure 6.2). Brym and Hou do not, however, examine empirically how either of these factors impact the decision to enter one social location or another. In this chapter, I add empirical substance to their theoretical claim by examining how cultural preferences influence whether individuals choose to reside in a Jewish neighbourhood. Specifically, using data from the 2018 Survey of Jews in Canada and the 2011 National Household Survey, I measure the effect of a series of variables on residential choice. These variables tap the cultural heritage that Canadian Jews learn as they proceed through the life course. The decision to reside in one neighbourhood or another is influenced by many social forces other than those I examine here, among them affordability of housing, quality and type of schools and natural environment, and proximity to work, relatives, shopping, and recreational facilities. Given the myriad factors that come into play, I do not expect to be able to explain a high percentage of the variation in choice of neighbourhood. But that is not my aim. Here, I seek only to identify some of the social sources of the cultural preference to reside in a Jewish neighbourhood and then assess the strength of their effects.

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2018

This paper examines how collective memory informs residential choices by analysing the residentia... more This paper examines how collective memory informs residential choices by analysing the residential patterns of Jews in Toronto. Our study extends the literature on collective memory and ethnic boundaries to include understandings about how our socio-historical and cultural worlds shape our environment and give it meaning. We argue that collective memory functions symbolically within Jewish neighbourhoods to reproduce meanings about group status and belonging as well as to direct association patterns that manifest as durable residential enclaves. Our findings show how residential clustering patterns reflect the behavioural consequences of the group’s collective memory. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis, we identify four collective memory schemas for ethnic residential clustering which serve as prominent scripts that shape the Jewish residential landscape in Toronto.

Canadian Review of Sociology, 2018

In this paper, we envisage how the sociohistorical experiences of groups are related to their res... more In this paper, we envisage how the sociohistorical experiences of groups are related to their residential patterns. We posit that the residential clustering of a group can be strongly related to the group's mnemonic institutions, which are organizational symbols of collective identity that link the present to the past. We present the case of Jewish residential clustering patterns in Toronto to demonstrate our arguments. We employ 2001 Canadian Census tract‐level data to show Jewish residential clustering patterns in relation to the presence of a synagogue or Jewish community center, the mnemonic institutions of Jews.

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2015

This article examines ethnic boundary formation by analyzing how former participants in a liminal... more This article examines ethnic boundary formation by analyzing how former participants in a liminal organization mobilize organizational schemas of identity and practice. I envisage Jewish summer camps as liminal organizations that provide an undifferentiated setup for immersive ethnic engagement within a clearly defined temporal period. I posit that the liminality of camp helps participants overlook the complexities of identity by transmitting organizational schemas without the constraint of structural pressures. I argue the concept of liminality makes visible structural pressures that stimulate deliberate cognition over organizational schemas. Using qualitative interviews with former camp participants, this article attends to the cognitive boundary work that underlies organizational participation. It contributes to understandings of how identity practices are shaped by institutional discourses and extends ethnic boundary theory to include liminal organizational types. I show that the structure of camp activities organizes liminality into three predominant schemas. I then show how, in the context of structural shifting, campers mobilize these schemas as salient ethnic boundaries. The results demonstrate that structural pressures encourage deliberate cognition over organizational schemas, thereby complicating projects of boundary work that structure groupness.

Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2018

Scholarly inquiry into ethnic and racial boundaries has occupied a prominent place in social scie... more Scholarly inquiry into ethnic and racial boundaries has occupied a prominent place in social science research. Its intellectual roots can be traced largely to Fredrik Barth, who argued that understanding the construction and maintenance of ethnic groups should be accomplished by looking at the boundaries between groups. His insights have since been developed in the literature, with particular attention to institutional dynamics and cognitive processes in ethnic boundary development.

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies, 2019