Power and Inequality Final PDF

RACE, ETHNICITY AND RACISM Basics - Minority group - A group of people in a Society who, due to their physical, ethnic or cultural characteristics, are in a position of disadvantage and inequity in relation to the dominant group of that Society...

RACE, ETHNICITY AND RACISM Basics - Minority group - A group of people in a Society who, due to their physical, ethnic or cultural characteristics, are in a position of disadvantage and inequity in relation to the dominant group of that Society - Race - category rooted in the belief that there are fundamental differences between human beings associated with ancestral elements - Black, white, asian, hispanic - Ethnicity - A type of social identity related to ancestral and cultural elements. (Deeper than Race) - Cultural valuesand norms that distinguish members of a group from others - Language, History, Religion, Clothing... - Mayan, Aztec, Caucasian, Hutu, Tutsi Americanity as a concept - What is americanity - Concept which implies a new world system based on a “new world” as different from the old european world - Newness” - Coloniality - Ethnicity - Racism - The concept of newness itself Coloniality - State hierarchies or ranks (traditional colonialism) - Top = world leaders, empires - Bottom = colonies - Does the end of traditional colonialism end these hierarchies? - They continue in the form of a socio-cultural hierarchy of European and non-European. - Coloniality: A subordination mindset based on stigmas and stereotypes that has been perpetuated over time and that we aren’t usually aware of. - Subordination mindset most of us have usually people from countries who were ex-colonies suffer from coloniality  Residue of Colonialism. - Do independences end coloniality? - Discourses perpetuate this stigma. - Franz Fanon - Popular misconceptions of ourselves. Why does the effort to move from the “bottom rank” can leave states behind? ○ Bottom countries must compete to move up the hierarchy Independence transform coloniality’s outer form. Ethnicity - The set of communal boundaries into which in part we are put by others, in part we impose on ourselves, serving to locate our identity and our rank within the state Collective identity? - A way in which we can identify with other people who have the same identity - Imposes categorization - Contributes to preserve ranks - In conflicts has been used to reduce numbers - In expansion, its used to fit different groups into a more elaborate division - Is ethnicity the “inevitable consequence of colonilaity - Does it create social boundaries - Doest it justify categorization of labor control - Slavery for balck africans - Crop labor for native americans - White to factories - Impact on socialization Could ethnicity maintain the categorical structure? - More of a cosnequence of colonialism Racism - Not new, was implicit in ethnicity - What is new about this racism forged in the construction of Americanity? - (Americanity is the new world after colonization) - It will be theorized, justified and therefore more explicit - Institutionalized - Post ww2 - The USA as a superpower cannot arguably be racist after ww2  - They cannot be a model of the world if they still used segregation/were racist - How to prevent upward mobility of non white ethnicity - Meritocracy - means the best person for the job - How do you feel about meritocracy - Is it fair/just Decoloniality - Coloniality: promotes hierarchies and ranks. Mindset - When extrapolated to other areas such as knowledge, political economics etcetera, it subordinates the “less ranked” states. It therefore discriminates and imposes the values of the “better ranked states”, usually European - Decoloniality: wants to break with traditional coloniality - Analytical and practical perspectives that confronts and disengage from the traditional colonial matrix, empowering “less ranked sates” and their societies. - Recognizes and therefore stands against: - That the structure of power was and even continues to be organized around a colonial axis. - Decolonization did not eliminate coloniality, it just transformed its outer shape. - That the shape of reason forged by the colonial matrix of power produced distorted paradigms of knowledge and spoiled the liberating promises of modernity. Ses 18 Patriarchy Gerda Lener (Women and History) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_PJwMpAgtQ - Exotic Field - Effects of omission (women, men) - What female figures do you know of? - How can women be compared to other subordinated groups? - Why would you say it was taken for granted by the western idea systems? "Patriarchal culture condemns women to the cyclical immanence of the “natural order” and reserves for men the historicity and the access to “being” as a project of what is authentically human.” - Simone de Beauvoir  Patriarchy: ○ A society controlled by men. How? Why? A society where the oldest male is the leader. Dominion of men over women (and everything else). ○ What else? ○ Economy ○ Production ○ Earth and environment Basic concepts Intersectionality: ○ Sociological perspective that holds that our multiple group memberships affect our lives in ways that are distinct from single group memberships. Sex: ○ The biological and anatomical differences distinguishing males and females. Gender: ○ Social expectations about behavior, characteristics, and Attributes assigned Or Regarded As appropriate for each biological sex Sexuality: ○ Sexual behaviors, attraction, sexual relationships, and how we choose to relate to others … Gender discrimiantion ○ Discrimination based on gender or sex. Gender role socialization: ○ (Already discussed in class)– The learning of gender roles through social factors such as schooling, the media and family. Social role construction: ○ Design of gender roles. ○ Makes way with socialization. ○ Designed by the moral standards of whoever is in a position of power. ○ Examples?  Hegemonic masculinity: aka toxic masculinity ○ Social norms dictating that men have to be strong, self reliant and unemotional. If not, you are not a man. ○ Also known as “toxic masculinity”. Biological essentialism - gender constructions based on biological differences ○ The view that gender differences between men and women are natural and inevitable consequences of the intrinsic biological nature of men and women. ○ They have to be different based on biological reasons How does this influence inequality? Is a transformation in traditional perspectives possible? Feminism Sociological perspective that emphasizes the centrality of gender in analyzing the social world and particularly the uniqueness of the experience of women. refreshing gender: - Social expectations about behavior, characteristics and attributes assigned or regarded as appropriate for each biological sex Variations Liberal Feminism: ○ Gender inequality is produced by unequal access to civil rights and certain social resources. ○ Liberal feminists tend to seek solutions through changes in legislation that ensure that the rights of individuals are protected. Radical Feminism: ○ Gender inequality is produced by male domination. ○ They seek solutions throughout radical actions. Unresolved issues To this day, there are multiple unresolved debates. Not only because of the divergences within feminism, but also in strategies and struggle targets. For instance: - For some feminist groups, women is only focus of attention. - For other groups, the full range of gender-subordinate variants is included.  What can/should we do? Global inequality - Systematic differences in wealth and power among countries - Micro: within - Macro: global - Even the wealthiest countries have growing numbers of poor people How to compare World bank - Wealth produced by each country for its average citizen - Ussign GDP - Measurement mostly used for countries - Measure the income earned and the total amount spent - Classification (on average citizen) - High income - Upper middle - Lower middle - Low income HIGH INCOME Annual $12,476 or more per person - Generally those countries that industrialized first, process that began in england 250 years ago - It later spread through europe, usa and canada - Japan in the 1960’s - Singapore, taiwan and hongkong within the last decades - Composed of approximately 16% of the world MIDDLE INCOME Upper middle: annual $4036 - $12475 Lower middle: annual $1026 - $4035 - Primarily found in eat and southeast asia - Also oil rich countries in middle east and north africa - A few countries in the americas - Composed of 75% of the world population - Although many of its residents are better off that those from lowincome countries, many dont enjoy anything resembling the standards of high income countries LOW INCOME Annual $1025 or less per person - Mostly agricultural economies - Mostly in africa - Also caribbean, eastern and southern asia - Composed of 9% of the worlds population THEORIES Market-oriented theory - States that the best economic consequence will result if individual are free to make their own economic decision - Free from governmental constrain - Laisez faire - hands off economy - Govt should only be there to guarantee peace. - Any country can make it if it does it our way - Modernization theory - Low-income societies can develop economically only if they adopt modern economic institutions, technologies, and cultural values that emphasize savings and productive investment - 4 economic growth stages (viewed as the journey of an airplane) - Traditional stage: low rate of savings, lack of work ethic, fatalistic value system - Takeoff to economic growth: countries begin to change their values and institutions and start to save and invest money for the future. Wealthy countries facilitate by financing birth control programs, low-cost loans for electrification, roads, construction, new industries - Drive to economic maturity: with the help of money and advice, the economic airplane” will pick up speed and become airborne. Technological maturity is accomplished - High mass consumption: new people can enjoy higher standards of living - DEPENDENCY THEORY - Poverty in low-income countries stems from their exploitation by wealthy countries and their multinational corporation - How? - Explotations became a major force with colonialism. Powerful nations colonized others to produce raw materials for their factories - Dependant development - States that poor countries can still develop economically but only in ways shaped by their reliance on wealthier countries  - Is this possible - The world structure is solid and change seems impossible - Wealthy countries are not likely to share wealth WORLD SYSTEM THEORY (Wallerstein) - The world system is not a collection of independent countries, but rather a single-unit system - One global economic system (capitalist) since the extension of market and trade in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries (20th-century socialism didn't affect this) - 4 overlapping elements shape the system - The world market for good - Division of population into different economic classes - The international system of political relationship - Division of the world in 3 unequal economic zones, with wealthier countries exploiting the poor UNEQUAL ECONOMIC ZONES - Core - Most advanced industrialized countries - Take the greatest profits from the other two zones - Semiperiphery: - Semi-industrialized, middle-income countries that extract profit from peripheral countries and yield profits to core countries - Await similar development as a core - Periphery: - Low income largely agricultural countries often manipulated by core countries - Natural resources flow from peripheral to core countries (as do profits). Then core sells finished goods to peripheral (also at profit) CONCLUSIONS - World systems change very slowly - It is a more multipolar world today - Multipolar- more countries with power than there were before - Even though hunger and starvation are still a problem, numbers have actually gone down - There is still so much to do