Studied by 25 people
key terms + notes 23-24 ethnographies ISOR= In search of respect WTNS= working the night shift ffbb= fresh fruit broken bodies
cultural relativism (f boas)
there is no universal standard to measure cultures by; all cultural values and beliefs must be understood relative to their cultural context, and not judged based on outside norms and values
kinship (b malinowski)
kinship is who is related to who and how, theory was that kinship is driving force of bonding between people
etic
more OBJECTIVE view, perspective of an outsider of the culture, use of scientific terms categories to describe it
emic
more SUBJECTIVE view, perspective of people inside the culture, their ideas, categories, explanations of the people themselves
cultural capital (p bourdieu)
social assets of a person that promote social mobility in a stratified society, usually money, but also dialect, credentials, signaling of material wealth thru jewelry or clothing
P. Bourdieu: habitus
physical manifestation of cultural capital, the way that people perceive and respond to the social world they exist in
TASC for Privilege
Time: Early 2000s
Author: SOCIOLOGIST Shamus Rahman Khan
Society: Students and Faculty at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire.
Context: One of the most “prestigious” boarding schools in the United States, prides itself on creating new gen of elite, but now has mix of high-income students, as well as students from lower-income backgrounds, but with the same education
Alexis de Tocqueville: Equality of feeling
Used to back the ways in which privilege is changing, which Tocqueville says simply just masks the fact that there is still no true meritocracy, as time goes on, and everyone is able to aquire the knowledge and status of the elite, they will continue to find ways to differentiate themselves.
Pierre Bourdieu: Cultural Capital
Assets acquired (art, music, skills, tastes, clothing, mannerisms, credentials, etc), that the elite recognize as legitimate, and thus prompt social and economic mobility.
How does cultural capital (Bourdieu) relate to Privilege?
Backs up the idea Khan speaks on regarding ease, and how cultural capital allowed the elite to “stay elite” but also how today it allows the privileged to be open and comfortable in many situations, a necessity for the new elite. The more cultural capital one possesses, the more powerful you are.
How does habitus (Bourdieu) relate to Privilege?
Khan relates this to the way SPS teaches students to “negotiate” the social hierarchies through learning how to behave in situations like a formal dinner and interact with advisors and professors in certain ways. This is an example of the ways in which norms and social cues shape our behavior.
V. Turner: The ritual proccess
Rites of passage follow a recognizable pattern of
a beginning phase
a liminal or transition period
a period of reincorporation into the group with a new social status.
What are examples of the ritual process (Turner) in Privilege?
SPS student life is built around rituals as a way to integrate into the new social structure, as they build the students into true “Paulies” by doing the same activities generations of students have participated in.
This includes the formal group dinners, the chapel ceremonies, taking one’s seat on the couch as upperclassmen, all shape the way student carry themselves and see their progress into transformation of the “elite.”
R Peterson: Omnivorousness/Omnivorous Consumption
Increasing breadth and depth of consumption (media, music, culture), including both “low” and “highbrow” tastes
T Veblen: Conspicuous Consumption
Buying things to overtly displaying one's wealth, to show their social status, especially when the goods are above their social status
Conspicuous Consumption (T Veblen) vs Omnivorous Consumption (R Peterson) in Privilege
Students who buy designer clothes and shirts to show off their wealth are looked down upon, “It’s the man who makes the shirt, not the shirt that makes the man”. The new elite must prove themselves rather than relying on material means to show off.
Pop culture has become integral to being a Paulie, just as being educated has. Black and brown students are seen as purveyors of authentic popular culture, and students listen to new pop and rap music to show the breadth of their taste, even if they don’t particularly like the genre.
M. Weber: class, status, party
Power can take a variety of forms including wealth, prestige, and authority. Individuals can use one form of power to compete for another.
E Goffman: Dramaturgy
The idea that actions are dependent on the time, place and audience. We assume roles in our daily interactions with others, in a performative way
What AOI should you use for Privilege?
Belonging
Examples of AOI Belonging in Privilege
Mary who doesn’t fit in or “belong” because she shows a certain frantic and high-strung emotion towards her work. She doesn’t fit the mold of the attitude of a typical SPS student, and is seen as different because of it.
Carla sees the learning at SPS as just a different type of “bullshit,” not necesarily a better, more prestigous way. She sees assimilation as necessary to do well in the school, and ultimately at life
Hazing, especially degrading, sexual hazing, was the subject of numerous incidents at SPS dorms, illustrating the lengths younger students will go to connect and “belong” to their cohort and dorm with the older, more knowledgeable students
Belief and Knowledge
Set of values, beliefs and convictions seen as the “truth” by a group, collectively underpinned by cultural experience.
Change
Alteration and/or modification of elements (cultural and social) within a society.
Culture
Organized system of ideas, values, objects, symbols, and explanations humans create and handle. This definition is highly contentious
Identity
One’s own personal view of the self or the view of the self by others in a social group (could also be some type of group identity, like religion or ethnicity)
Materiality
Objects, resources, and belongings have cultural meaning.
Power
A person or group’s ability to manipulate, influence, or control others and resources. Also involves distinctions and inequalities between individuals in a social group.
Social relations
Relationship between any two or more individuals in a social network. They involve both individual agency and group expectations, setting the basis for social structure.
Society
The ways humans organize themselves into groups and networks. Also can be used to signify a group that shows some coherence and distinguishes itself from others. Society is sustained by social relationships and institutions.
Symbolism
Study of the significance that humans attach to objects, processes, and actions creating a network of symbols aiding in the construction of a cultural web of meaning.
Age
chronological measure of ones experience, physical development, and existence
Agency
Capacity of humans to act in meaningful ways
Class
Societal division rooted in socioeconomic status.
Community
A group of people who share a certain commonality (such as context, ethnicity, location and more), often the group being studied.
Comparative
Studying the diverse ways people understand the world in order to understand culture.
Cultural Relativism
Being able to understand another culture in its own context, without standards or judgment rooted in one’s cultural beliefs
Ethnicity
Group connected by cultural identity and understanding.
Ethnocentrism
Evaluating another culture using the standards and preconceptions of one’s own culture, the opposite of cultural relativism.
Gender
Culturally supported differences and distinctions between males and females.
Status
Position in a social system. This can either be ascribed or achieved, and comes with duties within the system. (Ie, an ascribed ___ would be being born as the king, whereas an acheived ___ would be president)
Role
Dynamic status: behavior within status’ context. (The duties in which status prescribes) (Ie, if you are born with the ascribed status of king, your role is to lead the country and king stuff idk what a king does ngl)
Self
The product of social interaction and identity. The human’s own person and identity.
Personhood
Culturally constructed concept of the self.
Other
How the dominant group constructs a subordinate group as “different.”
Sexuality
Sexual feelings, thoughts or preferences which are a component of one’s own identity
How do the Tanaka farm employees justify Triqui workers doing the worst, most backbreaking jobs (symbolic violence)?
Oaxacans like to work bent over
Oaxacans are too short to reach the apples
Mexicans are "built lower to the ground
Triqui people are "tough brutes, raring to go to work"
What is hybridization?
When the practices of immigrants are simultaneously maintained and transformed through ongoing contact with other people and places
According to M. Douglas, what is dirt?
Matter out of place
Bourdieu: Symbolic violence
Misrecognization of oppression as the natural order of things because it fits our mental and bodily schemata (predetermined idea of reality); (mis)recognizing inequalities inherent to the world as natural
M. Foucault: The medical gaze
A dehumanizing medical separation of the patient's body from the patient's person; electing the biomedical elements of patients’ problems only, filtering out all other elements of a person’s life story
Examples of the medical gaze and cultural hegemony in FFBB
Dentists blaming Mexicans poor dental hygiene on waiting too long to see a dentist and having “large jaws”, rather than recognizing the structural and financial inequalities that make seeking help difficult
Ignoring perspective and usefulness of traditional Triqui healers
Doctor categorizing Cresencio as an alchoholic wifebeater, rather than recognizing the psychosomatic issues at play + helplessness to remove stressors of migraines from his life
Local American hospitals misunderstanding traditional Triqui marriage practices, which typically involves teenage marriage and dowry
What are structural barriers to healthcare migrants face in FFBB?
Not having access to sick leave as farmworkers
Incomplete medical records due to their migrant work
Language barriers (not having translators who speak Triqui or Spanish)
According to Holmes, knee, back, and hip pains are examples of ____________ violence of social hierarchies becoming embodied in the form of suffering and sickness.
structural
What did Holmes learn over the course of his experiences researching for FFBB?
the experience of prejudice and hierarchy
the impossibility of separating research from relationships
the living and working conditions of migrants
the intimate connection between migrant farmworkers and the rest of the American public
P. Bourgoise: Conjugated opression
How ethnicity and class operate in conjunction to produce oppression that is materially and experientially different than that produced by either operating alone
TASC for Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies
Time: 2000s
Author: Anthtropologist AND PHYSICIAN Seth Holmes
Society: Migrant farmworkers of the Triqui indigenous group, hailing from the state Oaxaca, in Mexico.
Context: Location: the border to the Southern US, Skagit Valley Washington Farmland, and San Miguel, Oaxaca, Mexico. This group is unique for two significant reasons: Their indigenous descent, which is different compared to the other groups of Latino immigrants crossing the border, providing further barriers in their work; and their role as migrant farmworkers, one of the most difficult and financially marginalised jobs in the US, despite their vital role in the societal food chain and food production in the US.
Globalization
the increasing connectedness and interdependence of world cultures and economies
How is Globalization present in FFBB?
Created the need for migrant farmwork, for cheap prices, which creates the commodification of the bodies of the workers.
How is ethnicity present in FFBB?
Hand in hand with Symbolic violence, the Triqui identity (in comparison to white people, or other Mexican people) creates a whole unique set of barriers for the Triqui people.
P. Bourdieu: Symbolic violence
The dominating class’ ability to oppress and maintain the status quo via racial stereotypes and prejudice.
Examples of symbolic violence in FFBB
Crescencio’s headaches are triggered by being called racial slurs and when he made to feel lesser because of his ethnicity. This gives his White overseers power over his body (hey hey hey AOI)
Samantha, the receptionist, says that many Triqui do not have bank accounts because they “don’t know anything, like children”, and says they are “dirtier than regular Mexicans”. By sterreotyping them as simple and stupid, she ignores the structural inequalities that cause these issues (ie, language barrier, inability to gain better housing), and maintains a justification for her prejudice
Highschoolers at the local school denote a difference between being Mexican (derogatory, dirty) and Hispanic (neutral, respectful). The categorization of Mexican as offensive and rude adds a racial prejudice to those who do not conform to the idea of a “Good Hispanic”
How does structural violence relate to FFBB?
the appraisal and consequences of the appraisal of the term “illegal” to Latino migrants
economic issues which Holmes called “neoliberal market policies,”
the modern world and the injuries of his friends
Abelino (Physical suffering of segregated labor)
Crescencio (Racism)
Bernardo (Militant and political violence/oppression).
inability to climb from social class due to lack of care, language barrier, racists in bureucracy and government
M. Burawoy: Systems of migrant labor
Systems, which normalize the status quo and benefit the dominant class, are built on the systems of migrant labor.
It allows agriculture or any other sector to benefit at the expense of the morality and humanity of another
How do systems of migrant labor (M. Burawoy) relate to FFBB?
The Triqui worker is the victim. Instead of worrying about a regenerative work force, those who no longer can work are conveniently deported or return back to the rural areas they arrived from. It displaces responsibility, allowing farms to continuously mistreat and underpay the workforce while feeding the US population. The farm owners can blame the market for poor wages, and the market can blame the customers for the demand.
How does Douglas’ concept of “dirt” refer to FFBB?
Embodies the reason Mexicans are referred to as “dirty,” among other immigrant groups throughout history, which is often used to maintain the status quo, in a form of symbolic violence. Holmes also notes the difference in description/treatment between mestizo and indigenous Mexicans, with mestizo Mexicans treated more adjacently to “whiteness”
What AOI is used for FFBB?
The body
TASC for Working the Night Shift
Time: 2006
Author: FEMINIST GEOGRAPHER Reena Patel (not real)
Society: Women in India (across various cities) working the night shift at corporate call centers.
Context: Women lack independent economic opportunities in the Indian social and economic systems. Working at call centers is a rare opportunity for Indian women to foray into a new part of society, but working at night brings about a multitude of issues and considerations, especially when traditional values clash with modern life
What is belonging? (AOI)
how individuals form communities and identities within social groups
encompasses traditional areas like kinship and ethnicity, as well as modern concerns such as globalization and technology's impact
shaped by factors like citizenship, religion, and social class, individual choices and societal values
dichotomy between societal constraints and personal agency.
What is the body (AOI)?
How individuals experience/interpret the world through their bodies, examining cultural and social practices that shape bodily experiences.
The body is viewed as more than a natural object; it's integral to everyday cultural and social practices.
Important scholars: Maus, Foucault, Csordas, and Bourdieu
A. Appadurai: Flows and scapes
These can categorize changes in the modern world post-industrialization through their interaction
What are the flows and scapes (Appadurai)?
FIT’EM: Financescapes Ideoscapes Technoscapes’ Ethnoscapes Mediascapes.
Spike Peterson on WTNS
The traditional “private space = female” and “public space = male” dichotomy has evolved to be “private space = state government” and “public space = business”.
What AOI is WTNS?
Production, exchange, and consumption
How do anthropologists understand the relationship between culture and economy? (WTNS)
Varies between social status and cultural values.
Often cultural focus overshadows economic priorities, but culture often also adjusts when economic neccesities are considered.
Can shift human roles in society
How do anthropologists explain poverty and inequality? (WTNS)
Poverty and inequality are explained through the ways in which the context of society (cast, hierarchy, social class, gender, race roles) interact with economic systems to create cycles and circumstances such as poverty and class struggle.
What do anthropologists say about work and labor? (WTNS)
Work and labor are fundamental parts of societies since the beginning of time, but the ways in which these ideas are exemplified
For example the Yanomamo, work and labor is much different than the way call centers do work and labor, and thus vary drastically through space and time.
In Search of Respect TASC
Time: 1980s and 1990s
Author: Phillipe Bourgois
Society: Underprivileged Nuyorican community of Spanish/East Harlem, Specifically those in the “Underground Economy.” (Crack Dealers)
Context: In New York City, one of the most expensive and crowded cities, Nuyorican immigrants find themselves struggling to find sufficient work in low-level “legal” jobs in a white-dominated corporate world. This leads often to the rise of the “underground economy.”
M. Foucault: Power and resistance
Where there is power, there is resistance, often interpersonal
What is production, exchange and consumption (AOI)?
How societies produce, exchange, and consume goods within cultural and social contexts.
Concepts: reciprocity, commodification capitalist expansion, labor, poverty, and the meaning of consumption
Global phenomena like capitalism's expansion and its impact on local cultures and economies.
Scholars: Malinowski, Mauss, Marx, and Wolf
How is Foucalt’s power and resistance found in ISOR?
Bourgois asserts that Tito’s participation in a “boot camp” training created a normalization of power, which in turn encouraged people to accept and search out jobs, though often low-level and unenthusiastic.
This is increasingly difficult because creates a feeling of powerlessness and is a long-term solution but one that is often ineffective and the idea of “hard work” as a way towards upward economic mobility is often untrue.
F. Barth: Boundary Maintenance
reinforcing an ethnic group's unity and distinctness by emphasizing the traits that set its members apart from others, rather than what they share in common with them.
How is Barth’s Boundary Maintenance found in ISOR?
Applied as interviewees struggled to adjust to the corporate “above-ground” jobs and bosses. The boundaries that were built, were built on the ideas of differences in ethnicity, as many had struggles with the interactional and political differences of their white coworkers and bosses, which made relations difficult for them. This leads to a loss of jobs and a willingness to turn to the underground economy.
R. Merton’s Deviance Typology
How is agency found in ISOR?
Interviewees often show agency, but the context in which the agency is shown is often in an attempt to achieve economic goals in the underground economy.
Also, the perception to how much agency the interviewees have to “make it out,” through things like Tito’s job training, is much less than perceived.
Similar to Merton’s deviance typology, many individuals cannot conform to the societally approved means for acheiving success (working your way up from a low paying job) due to cultural constraints (machismo, wont listen to female bosses, it’s demeaning to work for others), so they choose innovation, but accepting the cultural goals but rejecting the means in favor of the underground economy.
How is Cultural Capital found in ISOR?
Bourgois shows how interviewees lack the ____ to enable upward mobility, and the idea of building it up, which often requires further education, and learning mannerisms/interactive norms that aren’t necessarily culturally understood, is very difficult and often unappealing in comparison to the “benefits” of the underground economy.
What AOI is ISOR?
Conflict
What are the key concepts of Privilege?
Social Class
Meritocracy & equality
Cultural Capital
Social Reproduction
Ritual
Gender
Ease
Omnivorous consumption
What are the key concepts of In Search of Respect?
Stratification
Migration
Ethnicity
Work
Identity
Resistance
Agency
What are the key concepts of Working the Night Shift?
Work
Identity
Nationalism
Gender
Kinship
Agency
Temporal Imperialism
What are the key concepts of Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies?
Globalization
Ethnicity
Gender
The body
Symbolic violence
Structural violence
Work
Migration
TASC for Global Maya
Time: 1990 - 2000
Author: Liliana Goldin, Professor of Anthropology, PhD
Society: Central Highlands of Guatemala
Context: The ways in which the mostly indigenous Maya populations of the western and central highlands of Guatemala cope with poverty and marginality and make sense of the changes they have been experiencing in the context of national and global transformations.
What are the key concepts of Global Maya?
Work
Identity
Nationalism
Gender
Kinship
What are the key concepts of McDonaldization of Hong Kong?
Globalization
Americanization
Cultural Imperialism
Localization
Hybridity
Creolization
TASC for McDonaldization of Hong Kong
Time: 1990’s
Author: James L. Watson, anthropologist
Society: Hong Kong
Context: Analyses the role of McDonald’s in Hong Kong as a consumption-oriented place where the production of social space happens under the constraints of the market’s spectacle and speculations.
M. Harris: cultural materialism
The idea that human social life is a response to the practical problems of earthly existence. Therefore, cultural phenomena can be explained as adaptations to an environment.
B. Anderson: Imagined Communities
A sense of broad horizontal kinship with an ethnic or national group, developed through a shared experience of history and shared rituals, in spite of a lack of face-to-face interactions.
DIASPORA studies — useful in cross cultural comparisons
Erving Goffman: impression management
people manage impressions of themselves strategically, based on cultural values.
Erving Goffman: stigma
negative label based on categorical identity or physical mark, that an individual must adjust to.
Robert Merton: social structure and anomie/modes of adaptation
Anomie (normlessness) occurs when there is a disjuncture between the values of a society and the capacity of individuals to act in accordance with those values. The result can be a range of adaptations including conformity, innovation or rebellion.
Emile Durkheim: the division of labor
Modern economic specialization creates interdependence and a sense of social solidarity. In primitive societies, a lack of specialization creates common experiences on which social solidarity is based.
Immanuel Wallerstein: World System, Core and Periphery
The core has a level of dominance over the periphery which is reflected in trade. Most of high level economic activities are located at the core, with the periphery subjugated and exploited resulting in underdevelopment. This pattern was prevalent in the colonial era but can also be seen today.
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