102 Practice Oral Exam

What is the “Panopticon”?

an architectural mechanism and power relation that induces a state of conscious and permanent visibility in individuals, ensuring the automatic functioning of power without the need for constant physical intervention

Define “Habitus”

a system of durable, transposable dispositions that function as the basis for an agent’s practices and perceptions; it is the incorporated” half of social institutions that meets with objectified things to make them live

What does Patterson mean by “Social Death”?

the condition of a person who has been socially alienated from all natal ties across generations, rendering them a perpetual outsider without honor or natal rights

Define “Indexicality” in Ethnomethodology

the property of expressions and actions where their meaning is relative to the specific speaker, time, place, and local context of the conversation

What is “Reification”?

the apprehension of human products as if they were non-human “things”, such as facts of nature or manifestations of divine will, leading individuals to forget their own authorship of the social world

What are “institutional logics”?

socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices (market logic, religious logic) by which individuals and organizations provide meaning to their daily activity

Who said this:

“Visibility is a trap.”

Foucault

Who said this:

“Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product.”

Berger and Luckmann

Who said this:

“Think of culture less as a great stream in which we are all immersed, and more as a bag of tricks or an oddly assorted tool kit…”

Swidler

Who said this:

“Any institution then starts to control the memory of its members; it causes them to forget experiences incompatible with its righteous image…”

Dougls

Who said this:

“In every sport the players claim a special place for what they call a ‘feel for the game’…”

Bourdieu

Who said this:

“Institutional scholars stress the importance of constitutive rules: They ask what types of actors are present, how their interests are shaped by these definitions…”

Scott

The “Judgmental Dope” vs. the “Agent”: Contrast Garfinkel’s critique of the judgmental dope with Bourdieu’s concept of the “agent” having a “feel for the game”. How does each other view human autonomy within social structures?

Harold Garfinkel uses the term "judgmental dope" to describe a common flaw in social science theory where individuals are treated as if they mindlessly follow pre-established cultural rules without active reasoning. He argues instead for ethnomethodology, the study of the "artful practices" through which members of society actively manage and make their daily affairs sensible and "accountable". For Garfinkel, human autonomy is found in the practical sociological reasoning individuals use to navigate the "essential incompleteness" of any set of social instructions.

Pierre Bourdieu also rejects the idea of humans as "actors" following a pre-written script or computer program. He proposes the concept of the "agent" who possesses a habitus (a system of durable dispositions) and a "feel for the game". This "feel" is a form of practical knowledge that is synoptic and immediate, rather than theoretical or consciously calculated. Within a field, autonomy exists as the ability of an agent to "play with the rules" in a playful, virtuoso manner, adapting spontaneously to objective structures because their own internalized history (habitus) matches the history objectified in the social field.

The construction of legitimacy: Compare Scott’s three pillars with Douglas’s argument that institutions must be founded in nature to survive. How do institutions move from fragile conventions to stable realities?

W. Richard Scott identifies three "pillars" that provide stability to social life: the Regulative (rules, monitoring, and sanctions), the Normative (values and social obligations), and the Cultural-Cognitive (shared conceptions and frames of meaning). In this framework, legitimacy moves from being legally sanctioned to being morally governed, and finally to being culturally supported and "taken for granted". Institutions move toward stability when these pillars are aligned, creating a "formidable" social framework.

Mary Douglas argues that for a convention to transform into a stable institution, it must be "founded in nature" and reason. She asserts that conventions are fragile and likely to be challenged unless they are naturalized through an analogy—for instance, justifying a division of labor by comparing it to the natural complementarity of the right and left hands. Stability is achieved when an institution starts to control the memory of its members and provides the very categories of thought they use for self-knowledge, effectively making the social order appear as an immutable fixture of nature.

Power as productive vs. Power as domination: Use Foucault to explain how discipline “produces” reality and individuals and contrasts this with Patterson’s description of slavery as total relation of domination based on the master’s absolute power.

Michel Foucault argues that we must stop describing power only in negative terms like "represses" or "excludes"; instead, power produces reality. Through technologies of discipline, such as those seen in the Panopticon, power constitutes individuals as "docile bodies" that are analysable and useful. This form of power is "productive" because it fabricates individuality by combining hierarchical surveillance with "normalizing judgement," creating a "carceral texture" of society where the power to punish becomes accepted as natural and legitimate.

Orlando Patterson describes slavery as the most extreme form of domination, characterized by the total power of the master and the total powerlessness of the slave. This is not a "productive" relationship in the Foucaultian sense but one of "social death" and "natal alienation", where the slave is stripped of natal ties and rendered a perpetual outsider. While Foucault focuses on power that "makes" individuals, Patterson emphasizes power as a totalizing relation that achieves its goals through the dishonoring of the slave and the translation of the master's naked force into prestige and "honor". However, he also notes a dialectical struggle: the master’s need for recognition ultimately makes him dependent on the slave, creating a "life-and-death struggle" for identity.

What is “natal alienation”?

the defining feature of “social death” in slavery where an individual is stripped of all claims and obligations of birth, effectively cut off from both ascending and descending generations and a social heritage

What is “primary socialization”?

the first socialization an individual undergoes in childhood, through which they become a member of society by internalizing the world of “significant others” as the only conceivable world (Berger and Luckmann)

What is an “institutional logic”?

socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices (market, family, religion) that provide meaning to daily activity and organize time and space

Define “breaching experiment”

a research method in ethnomethodology to reveal the “seen but unnoticed” background assumptions of social life by deliberately violating them to observe the resulting bewilderment and efforts to restore order

Define “constitutive rules”

deep-level institutional rules that do not just regulate behavior but create the very possibility of certain activities by defining categories of social reality

What is “feel for the game”?

a form of practical sense or knowledge where an agent’s habitus (internalized history) matches the field (objective history), allowing for spontaneous, “virtuoso” action without conscious calculation

What is “thought collective”?

a social group defined by its distinctive thought style, which sets the preconditions for cognition, leads perception, and establishes the limits of what is considered a reasonable question

Define “Strategy of Action”

a persistent way of ordering action over time to reach goals, constructed from a cultural “tool kit” of habits, skills, and styles rather than determined by ultimate values

Who said this:

“Slavery is the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons.”

Patterson

Who said this:

“The unit [of discipline] is, therefore, neither the territory (unit of domination), nor the place (unit of residence), but the rank: the place one occupied in a classification…”

Foucault

Who said this:

“Knowledge about society is thus a realization in the double sense of the word, in the sense of apprehending the objectivated social reality, and in the sense of ongoingly producing this reality.”

Berger and Luckmann

Who said this:

“Culture influences action in both settled and unsettled situations, but its influence is of a very different sort…In unsettled lives, culture is more visible—indeed, there appears to be ‘more’ culture…”

Swidler

Who said this:

“The individual within the collective is never, or hardly ever, conscious of the prevailing thought style which almost always exerts an absolutely compulsive force upon his thinking…”

Douglas

Who said this:

“The central idea…is that there may be knowledge and meaning without consciousness.”

Bourdieu

The Construction of the Self: Contrast Berger and Luckmann’s account of how the self is formed through primary socialization (the "reflected entity" of significant others) with Foucault’s account of how discipline "individualizes" bodies by making them "cases" through surveillance and examination.

B+L argue that the self is a reflective entity, formed through a dialectic between identification by others and self-identification. In primary socialization, children internalize the attitudes and roles of significant others (like parents), eventually abstracting these into a generalized other that represents society as a whole. To the child, this world is not just one possible reality; it is the only conceivable world. In contrast, Foucault views the self not as an internal reflection of relationships but as a reality fabricated by technologies of discipline. He describes a "descending individualization" where individuals are constituted as "cases" through hierarchical surveillance and the examination. While Berger and Luckmann see the self as an internal realization of the social world, Foucault sees the individual as an effect and object of power.

Institutional Stability vs. Disruption: Using Scott’s Three Pillars (Regulative, Normative, Cultural-Cognitive) and Mary Douglas’s view on how institutions "naturalize" themselves, discuss what makes a social order appear inevitable and how "alternation" or "unsettled lives" might disrupt that stability.

W. Richard Scott explains institutional stability through Three Pillars: the Regulative (rules and sanctions), the Normative (values and obligations), and the Cultural-Cognitive (shared frames of meaning). When aligned, these pillars make the social order appear taken-for-granted. Mary Douglas adds that stability is achieved when institutions are "founded in nature" through analogy; they become legitimate by appearing as part of the natural order of the universe. Disruption occurs during "alternation," which Berger and Luckmann describe as a radical re-socialization that requires a new plausibility structure and affective identification with new significant others to dismantle the old reality. Similarly, Ann Swidler notes that in "unsettled lives," established strategies of action fail, making ideologies highly visible and active as people learn new ways of being.

The Role of Knowledge in Social Life: Compare Garfinkel’s argument that common-sense knowledge is a managed achievement used by all members to make life "accountable" with Bourdieu’s critique of "scholarly ethnocentrism," which warns that a researcher's theoretical gaze often fails to understand the logic of practice.

Harold Garfinkel argues that common-sense knowledge is not a mindless trait but an ongoing, organized achievement of "artful practices". Members of society use this knowledge to make their daily affairs "accountable"—observable and reportable to others. This knowledge functions as a moral order of enforceable expectancies. Pierre Bourdieu however, warns against "scholarly ethnocentrism," the error of projecting a researcher's theoretical gaze into the minds of actors. He argues for a logic of practice defined as "sense without consciousness," where an agent’s habitus gives them a "feel for the game". While Garfinkel focuses on how members actively and reflexively manage order, Bourdieu emphasizes that the most effective social action is often spontaneous and non-theoretical.

Power as Authority vs. Power as Domination: Discuss Patterson’s definition of slavery as a total relation of domination where the master mediates the slave's existence and compare it to Scott’s description of the Regulative Pillar, where power is institutionalized through rules, monitoring, and sanctions.

Orlando Patterson defines slavery as the most extreme form of domination, characterized as a "permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons". In this state of social death, the slave has no independent existence and is socialized only through the master, who mediates the slave's entire reality. This is a totalizing, personalistic power relation. W. Richard Scott describes power differently through the Regulative Pillar, where it is institutionalized as authority when supported and constrained by formal rules. This form of power relies on rule-setting, monitoring, and sanctions. While Patterson focuses on a total personal dependence based on the threat of violence, Scott focuses on how power is regularized into impersonal systems that actors follow for expedience or to avoid punishment.