Citation

Woo D. Int. J. Sociol. Law 2004; 32(4): 279-302.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijsl.2003.12.001

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The increasing diversity of the US population is a phenomenon which has reshaped the social landscape in many parts of the country, reverberating into our institutions. Thus, for example, the legal and health professions have, respectively, struggled with concepts such as "cultural defense" and "cultural competence" in response to issues raised by cultural diversity. Whether such professionals engage such issues gingerly or wholeheartedly will depend partly on the extent to which social scientists can provide relevant empirical data to inform institutional decisions. In the present article, I follow sociologist Michael Burawoy's call to utilize "anomalies" as a stimulus for reconstructing theory, and in doing so focus on the sociological insights to be gained from an integrated analysis of suicide and homicide among Asian immigrants or Asian Americans. The cases in question all involve a "structural" strain in the marital (or quasi-marital) bond. The criminal offenses are in and themselves exceptional given the relatively rare appearance of Asians as defendants. Yet it is in the ways that these defendants-both male and female-depart from what structural theory predicts that is the impetus for reassessing the relationship between structure and culture. As such, what on the surface are anomalous findings become signposts calling for a more integrated theory. Apart from its contribution to theory, culture also has implications for mitigating "criminal intent". In contrast to other discussions of the "cultural defense", the present analysis looks at how both structural and cultural factors impinge upon intent or motivation (via the direction of aggression), how culture is unevenly accommodated by pre-existing "state of mind" defenses, and how it is the combination of structural and cultural factors that promises to contribute most to our theoretical and empirical understanding. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en