The Stranger Next Door

Description

In The Stranger Next Door, Alrene Stein explores how a small community with a declining industrial economy became the site of a bitter battle over gay rights. Fearing job loss and a feeling of being left behind, one Oregon town’s working-class residents allied with religious conservatives to deny the civil liberties of queer men and women. In a book that combines strong on-the-ground research and lucid analysis with a novelist’s imaginative sympathy, Stein’s exploration of how fear and uncertainty can cause citizens to shift blame onto “strangers” provides insight into the challenges the country faces in the age of Trump.
Winner of the 2001 Ruth Benedict Award Preface to the New Edition
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
CHAPTER 2
The Personal Is Political
CHAPTER 3
Resentment’s Roots
CHAPTER 4
Community Reimagined
CHAPTER 5
Decorating for Jesus
CHAPTER 6
Angry White Men and Women
CHAPTER 7
We Are All Queer—Or Are We?
CHAPTER 8
I Shout, Therefore I Am
CHAPTER 9
Whose Side Are You On?
CHAPTER 10
Living with Strangers
Acknowledgments
APPENDIX A
Methodological Notes
APPENDIX B
Text of Ballot Measures
Notes
Index “Subtle, textured, and urgent . . . This crucial history of right-wing resentments speaks across recent decades of US politics.”
—Judith Butler
“The second edition of The Stranger Next Door could not be more relevant to the current backlash of homophobia and transphobia in the United States. This book is brimming with insights on how personal anxieties about the ‘other’ can turn into ugly political campaigns and how concerns about economic and social precarity can fuel, often indirectly, bigotry and exclusion.”
—Alexandra Minna Stern, author of Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate“By combining the meticulousness of an ethnographer with a writer’s commitment to storytelling, Stein has written a book that’s surprisingly compelling-or, better, compelling because it’s surprising.” —David L. Kirp, The Nation“A fascinating look at the psychology of fear and persuasion.”—Monica Drake, The Oregonian“Every liberal ought to read this. . . . Arlene Stein provides an important depiction of life in a town which became a vortex of national and local issues.”—Tex Sample, Christian Century “What’s especially valuable about Stein’s book is her detailed look at each individual’s take on the meaning of the campaign and her patient exploration of the wide variety of forces shifting the ground of these people’s lives.”—E. J. Graff, American Prospect“This book displays interpretive sociology at its best.”—Robert N. Bellah, coauthor of Habits of the Heart and The Good Society“In her cogent analysis of just how sickeningly simple it is to create an ‘other,’ a ‘stranger’ upon whom blame for our problems may be shifted, Stein has touched to the very heart of the social upheaval in America today.”—Dan Hays, Salem (Oreg.) Statesman-Journal Arlene Stein is associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University. She has written for The Nation, The Oregonian, and Newsday, among other publications, and is the author of Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Generation and editor of Sisters, Sexperts, Queers.  US