Topics on Contemporary Social Theory Final

Bonilla-Silva: Type of Injustice

Structural racial inequality embedded in institutions that systematically distribute material resources, opportunities, and power along racial lines.

Bonilla-Silva: Material Inequality

Unequal access to wealth, housing, education, jobs, and income produced by racialized social structures.

Bonilla-Silva: Symbolic Inequality

Racial ideologies (e.g. color-blind racism) that legitimize and naturalize material racial inequality.

Bonilla-Silva: Political Inequality

Racial minorities are structurally excluded from shaping institutions that govern social life.

Bonilla-Silva: Ground of Justice

Structural/relational: a society is unjust when race systematically organizes access to resources and rewards regardless of individual intent.

Bonilla-Silva: Forms of Address

Primarily material solutions—redistribution and structural reform

Bonilla-Silva: Key Limitation

Cultural or attitudinal approaches risk depoliticizing racism by ignoring structural foundations.

Bourdieu: Type of Injustice

Symbolic domination reproduced through material structures and misrecognized as natural or deserved.

Bourdieu: Material Inequality

Unequal distribution of economic capital within fields.

Bourdieu: Symbolic Inequality

Misrecognition: arbitrary hierarchies appear legitimate through taste, merit, credentials, and prestige.

Bourdieu: Political Inequality

Unequal power to define classifications, norms, and what counts as value.

Bourdieu: Multidimensional Social Space

A relational space structured by the volume and composition of different forms of capital, not income alone.

Bourdieu: Grounds of Critique

Structural and relational—domination is unjust when it is misrecognized as natural.

Bourdieu: Forms of Address

Denaturalization of classifications + structural change to how capital is distributed and valued.

Bourdieu: Key Limitation

Largely diagnostic

Fraser: Type of Injustice

Bivalent injustice combining material (economic) and symbolic (status) inequalities.

Fraser: Material Inequality

Exploitation, deprivation, and marginalization requiring redistribution.

Fraser: Symbolic Inequality

Misrecognition and stigma that deny groups equal social status.

Fraser: Political Inequality

Denial of participatory parity—people cannot interact as peers in social life.

Fraser: Ground of Justice

Participatory parity: justice requires social arrangements that enable equal participation.

Fraser: Affirmative vs Transformative

Affirmative remedies correct outcomes without changing structures

Fraser: Forms of Address

Integrated symbolic (recognition) and material (redistribution) solutions.

Fraser: Key Limitation

Recognition without redistribution legitimizes inequality

Nussbaum: Type of Injustice

Capability deprivation—people lack real opportunities to live a life with dignity.

Nussbaum: Material Inequality

Failures in health, education, shelter, bodily safety, and economic security.

Nussbaum: Symbolic Inequality

Humiliation and denial of dignity undermine affiliation and self-respect.

Nussbaum: Political Inequality

Inability to participate politically or exercise agency over one’s life.

Nussbaum: Ground of Justice

Capabilities standard: injustice exists when people fall below a minimum threshold of central capabilities.

Nussbaum: Capabilities vs Resources

Resources are insufficient

Nussbaum: Forms of Address

State responsibility to secure a threshold of capabilities through material provision and legal protections.

Nussbaum: Key Limitation

Criticized for universalism and potential paternalism

Spivak: Type of Injustice

Epistemic and representational injustice that renders subaltern speech unintelligible.

Spivak: Material Context

Colonialism and global capitalism form the background conditions of subalternity.

Spivak: Symbolic Inequality

Epistemic violence—knowledge systems overwrite subaltern meanings.

Spivak: Political Inequality

Structural exclusion from institutions of representation

Spivak: Subaltern Definition

Those structurally excluded from hegemonic circuits of representation

Spivak: Vertreten

Political representation—speaking for or acting on behalf of others.

Spivak: Darstellen

Discursive re-presentation—portraying or describing others in knowledge and discourse.

Spivak: Central Critique

Collapsing Vertreten and Darstellen allows intellectuals to mistake description for political voice.

Spivak: Forms of Address

No simple symbolic or material fix

Spivak: Key Limitation Identified

Justice claims risk epistemic violence due to positionality and universalism.

Bonilla-Silva: Example of a Racialized Social System

U.S. housing markets, where redlining and segregation historically structured access to homeownership, producing durable racial wealth gaps even without explicit discrimination today.

Bonilla-Silva: Example of Symbolic Ideology

Color-blind racism, which frames racial inequality as the result of individual choices or merit rather than structural disadvantage.

Bonilla-Silva: Example of Material Inequality

Racial wealth gaps that persist even when income and education are held constant, showing inequality is structurally produced.

Bonilla-Silva: Example of Political Exclusion

Communities of color disproportionately impacted by zoning, policing, or school funding decisions without equal influence over policy-making.

Bourdieu: Example of Misrecognition

Educational credentials are treated as proof of intelligence rather than as cultural capital unevenly distributed by class background.

Bourdieu: Example of Multidimensional Social Space

A tenured professor and a corporate executive may have similar overall power but different capital compositions (cultural vs economic), placing them in different positions in social space.

Bourdieu: Example of Symbolic Capital

Elite accents or styles of speech are recognized as intelligence or professionalism, while other ways of speaking are devalued.

Bourdieu: Example of Structural Contradiction

Adjunct faculty possess high cultural capital but low economic and symbolic capital, producing insecurity and ambivalence toward dominant institutions.

Fraser: Example of Redistribution Without Recognition

Means-tested welfare programs that provide material aid while stigmatizing recipients as dependent or morally deficient.

Fraser: Example of Recognition Without Redistribution

Corporate diversity initiatives that promote inclusion and representation without changing wage structures or job security.

Fraser: Example of Bivalent Injustice

Race, where economic disadvantage and cultural misrecognition reinforce each other through class stratification and racial stigma.

Fraser: Example of Participatory Parity Failure

Low-wage workers formally allowed to vote but lacking time, resources, or social standing to participate equally in public life.

Nussbaum: Example of Capability Deprivation

A woman with legal voting rights who cannot safely leave her home due to domestic violence lacks the capability for political participation.

Nussbaum: Example of Why GDP Is Insufficient

A country’s GDP rises while large portions of the population still lack healthcare, education, and bodily security.

Nussbaum: Example of Adaptive Preferences

Girls who report that they do not want education because social norms have shaped their expectations downward.

Nussbaum: Example of Threshold Justice

Justice requires that everyone reach a minimum level of health, education, and bodily integrity, not that everyone have equal outcomes.

Spivak: Example of the Subaltern

Colonized rural women in India whose actions are interpreted through colonial or patriarchal narratives rather than recognized as authoritative speech.

Spivak: Example of Epistemic Violence

British colonial discourse framing sati as either barbaric tradition or voluntary sacrifice, erasing women’s own meanings.

Spivak: Example of Collapsing Vertreten and Darstellen

NGOs describing migrant suffering (Darstellen) while claiming to speak on migrants’ behalf politically (Vertreten) without accountability.

Spivak: Example of Speech Without Intelligibility

Undocumented workers speak about exploitation, but their testimony is treated as anecdotal evidence rather than political claims.

Bonilla-Silva vs Bourdieu: Structure vs Symbolic Power

Bonilla-Silva emphasizes how racial inequality is produced through material institutions, while Bourdieu explains how those inequalities are reproduced through symbolic power and misrecognition.

Bourdieu vs Fraser: Misrecognition

For Bourdieu, misrecognition is a mechanism that naturalizes domination, whereas for Fraser it is a form of injustice that denies groups equal social status and participatory parity.

Fraser vs Nussbaum: Standards of Justice

Fraser evaluates justice through participatory parity in social interaction, while Nussbaum evaluates justice through a minimum threshold of human capabilities grounded in dignity.

Nussbaum vs Bonilla-Silva: Equality vs Dignity

Bonilla-Silva critiques formal equality for ignoring racialized structures, while Nussbaum focuses on whether individuals have real freedoms to live with dignity.

Spivak vs Fraser: Recognition

Fraser sees recognition as necessary for justice when combined with redistribution, while Spivak warns that recognition can reproduce epistemic violence by assimilating subaltern voices.

Spivak vs Bourdieu: Misrecognition

Bourdieu’s misrecognition explains how domination is accepted as legitimate, while Spivak shows how domination can erase the very intelligibility of subaltern speech.

Structural Accounts vs Cultural Accounts

Structural accounts focus on material relations like labor and capital, while cultural accounts focus on meaning and identity

Main Risk of Recognition-Only Politics

Recognition without redistribution can legitimate inequality by celebrating diversity while leaving exploitative economic structures intact.

Main Risk of Structure-Only Accounts

Purely economic accounts may overlook gendered, cultural, or epistemic violence that affects people outside formal labor systems.